Political Quotes

“I rise this morning in continuation of the debate which occurred last night. What has just occurred on the floor of the United States Senate is troubling. An attempt was made by the Senator from Vermont in which I joined to make it clear that no nominee of a President who appears before a committee of the Senate would ever be asked questions related to his or her religious affiliation. This clear statement of constitutional principle was just rejected by the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I don't understand that. If we truly want to take religion out of this debate, if we want the debate to be confined to political beliefs and not a person's creed, why does the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee object? I think the answer is obvious. What we have seen in the William Pryor nomination is an attempt to use religion as a defense. It is almost part of the art of magic. How do you pull off a magic trick? You divert the attention of the audience to something else while you move your hand in another direction. In this case, what the Republicans are trying to do is to divert our attention from the radical political beliefs of William Pryor by saying that the real issue isn't politics; it is his Catholic faith. Frankly, that is not only an unfair argument. It is inaccurate.”