Political Quotes

“I want to make two closing points really quickly to my colleague from Ohio, if I can: one is I don't come to this amendment lightly. The Vice President's unprecedented act of declaring that he was not in the executive branch is the reason I submitted this. To the second point, you had said, we may have a Vice President. Having worked in the executive branch, Vice President Cheney is the Vice President of all of us. He is not yours. He is all of ours. That is why all of us were outraged by the position that he took that he was not part of the executive branch so he can avoid accountability. He is the Vice President of all of us. We ask him to abide by the law, to understand that when there is a rule in place that he is accountable and responsible to that, both for the historical purposes and when it relates to national security matters. That is why all of us were outraged when he made the decision to keep his meetings with oil executives secret. At every step of the way, he has chosen secrecy over sunshine; obstruction over accountability. We would ask seriously that the Vice President operate with that seriousness. We didn't come to this lightly. He took an unprecedented step. It is not one we would have done gingerly, messing with his office. But I want to remind everyone here, the reason we are speaking up is because he is our Vice President. We would like him to act accordingly, in the office that he has and the responsibilities that come with the office.”