Political Quotes

“Madam President and fellow Senators, I bring you what I believe to be the first amendment to the resolution of ratification. We have had a number of amendments that have been to the actual treaty itself. We have listened to objection after objection that: Oh, my gosh, we can't possibly amend the treaty because if we do, we are going to have to sit down and talk to the Russians again. We don't have to worry about that with this amendment. This is an amendment to the resolution of ratification. It will not require that we sit down with the Russians and negotiate. Frankly, I don't know what is wrong with that. Frankly, I think it is a good idea after all the problems that have been raised with the treaty. But, nonetheless, if that is an overriding concern, you can set that aside and listen to the merits of the amendment. I have to tell my colleagues that part of this I bring as a matter of frustration. I have been involved with this for months, and I am so tired of hearing about accommodation after accommodation after accommodation to the Russians. It appears, before we even started with this, the Russians said: Well, we are going to have to have in the preamble language that says missile defense is related to this, and we said no. We have to have the ability to protect our country and build missile defense. The Russians said it has to be in there. It is in there.…”