Political Quotes

“even on its own terms I think the variants of this resolution are kind of silly. As I understand it, what they say is we will decertify Mexico but we will immediately then waive the decertification so it will have no tangible effect. This is a new policy. It is called substituting insult for injury. We will not deny anything substantive to Mexico, we will just call them some names. People seem to think somehow that this will help. I do not understand how they think it will. It may help some people politically. It clearly will not help promote cooperation with Mexico. What it says is, we will decertify you and immediately thereafter make sure the decertification has no effect except to hurt your feelings and make you angry. We spent all last week congratulating, this is our first step on the way to legislate, and as of now I would say that my colleagues seem to be better congratulators rather than legislators because I do not understand what this does, except make it worse. Second, it is fundamentally flawed. The notion, and my friends have forgotten, particularly on the other side, what they, I thought, knew about a free market. The notion that in a free society, where tens of millions of people come and go on a regular basis monthly, where goods come and go, the notion that you can physically keep something in great demand out as your main strategy is seriously flawed.”