Barney Frank: “first let's note what a degradation of democracy is taking place here. The majority party has put forward a resolution…”

“first let's note what a degradation of democracy is taking place here. The majority party has put forward a resolution that allows no amendment. There will be a debate in which those of us who think some things are good and some are bad, contrary to every reasonable democratic procedure, will have no opportunity to say so. Here is the tactic that is being used: they take a number of things that people agree with, they mix in with them things which are quite controversial. They treat them as if they were not separable. Let me say what I have said again before. The majority party thinks the way to legislate is the way you feed a pill to a dog: you take the unpalatable with the popular. Now I will have to say this: one of the things we are trying to do is to persuade the people in Iraq to be able to work together and make democracy work. We are trying to persuade, we are told, the Shiia and the Sunni to work together. We are trying to tell the majority Shiia to share power. Mr. Speaker, how can you and your party believe that we inspire people to share power by giving the example of its monopolization in an abusive fashion? I just hope that the members of parliament in Iraq who may hear about this will remember a very important point: please do not try this at home. Now let's get to the substance. This war in Iraq came after September 11. It was not the response to terrorism the war in Afghanistan was.…”