Political Quotes

“Well, Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague from Illinois [Mr. Hastert], and I want to comment briefly, piggybacking on some of my predecessors speaking here today, principally those from Illinois, but also the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sessions] and agree with them that we need to urge the negotiators from the White House to try to do what they can to free up our skies and make our skies more available for American carriers to fly to Asia. Closed skies are not friendly skies, they are unfriendly skies. It is probably not realistic to think we are going to have completely open skies, but it is important to realize we need to make an incremental approach and to gradually open the skies and increase routes to Asia from the United States. Now, much has been said about the 1952 agreement that governs the present rules that decide aircraft flights from the United States to Asia. Let me put that in perspective, if I may. Back in 1952, there was no rock and roll. That is how long ago this was. We were operating under an agreement that is so dated rock and roll had not even existed yet. Elvis was only a junior in high school when this was entered into. Nobody in the NBA dunked back in 1952. Virtually everybody in the NBA dunks. These are changing times. We live in a changing world. The Baltimore Orioles did not exist in 1952. I think my other colleague from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski] is an expert on this. They were the St. Louis Browns, am I right?”