Trent Lott: “I have not had a whole lot to say in the Senate about the process, the various proposals, and even the substance of the…”

“I have not had a whole lot to say in the Senate about the process, the various proposals, and even the substance of the Iraq resolutions. But it obviously is a very troublesome issue for me. One of my concerns is the process. How bad could we possibly look as an institution? We can't come to an agreement on how to have a full debate and votes. Everybody says we will agree to this but not that, and it goes back and forth. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we cannot have some clear identification of some different approaches to this issue and have debate and vote on them. The majority leader has to understand he cannot dictate what amendments the Republicans are going to offer and the substance of those amendments or resolutions, if you will, any more than we can dictate that to the Democrats. It has to be a fair process. I think that can be worked out. I know our leaders are talking--and I wish them the best--so that we can have debate and a vote on different approaches and move on to other issues. My second problem is, how many iterations is this going to go through? I remind my colleagues that the election is over. It was last year. All we have been doing in the Senate is political partisan positioning, all sound and fury, achieving nothing. What is the score in the Senate? 0 to 0. Democrats haven't gotten anything done.…”