James M. Talent: “I will make a comment or two on the bill as a whole. I will not hold the Senate up a long time. We are trying to get…”

“I will make a comment or two on the bill as a whole. I will not hold the Senate up a long time. We are trying to get this bill done, and I fully support that. There is an area of the bill I would like to register, for the record, concern on the part of this Senator. Probably the bill's managers will recognize the legitimacy of that concern. First, I want to say how much I have appreciated the work by the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Connecticut on this bill. I have enjoyed this debate and enjoyed the part that I played in it--not that it has been significant but just attending the briefings, visiting with the Senators on and off the Senate floor. In my work on the Armed Services Committee, we have had hearings on this subject. This has been handled in the way the American people like to see the Senate handle things. It has been bipartisan in the best sense of that word--not that we have tried to conceal legitimate differences of opinion that sometimes separate the two parties, but because we have understood that the right way to deal with those differences is to reconcile them where we can, to have them out without being personal or political about it, and understand we are all working for the good of the American people and the security of the country. We can all agree, having been here now through almost this entire Congress, that unfortunately, the Senate does not always operate in that ideal fashion.”