Political Quotes

“I urge defeat of the rule. One, the need to dispense with the normal procedures is another example of rewarding one's own incompetence. The bill should have come out in time. The notion that we are ready to leave cuts no ice, because there is no reason why the bill could not have been out before. But I also have serious substantive problems with the bill. Indeed, I have always believed that self-denial was an important thing for leaders to show. But I think my Republican friends have gotten confused. Instead of self-denial, they have used this bill for self-repudiation. First we have the Speaker of the House who talked very loudly about how he was opposed to censorship. He was going to keep our electronic communications free of censorship. Despite that, we now have a bill which is heavily weighted with censorship. We have a bill which will interfere with free expression through the Internet and elsewhere. But there is another example of self-repudiation that troubles me deeply, and that is the decision by the majority leader of the Senate to abandon his very brief crusade on behalf of the taxpayers.”