Byron Dorgan: “Let me ask a question in the largely empty Senate on a Thursday afternoon. It is now 4:05. We came to the Senate this…”

“Let me ask a question in the largely empty Senate on a Thursday afternoon. It is now 4:05. We came to the Senate this week dealing with Defense authorization at a time when defense is critically important to this country. This country was attacked. Thousands of Americans tragically were killed by mass murderers who committed the most heinous crime that any of us have ever seen. The issue of defense at a moment when we are sending American men and women who wear our country's uniform into harm's way is a very important issue. Our first order of business in dealing with the Defense authorization bill in the Senate was to have to vote on cloture to shut off debate so we could complete this bill. What does that say about our priorities? We had a cloture vote, we got through that, we finished that bill, finally, and now it is Thursday at 4:05 in the afternoon, and the subject is airport security. When those commercial airliners hit the Trade Towers in New York, and that commercial airliner hit the Pentagon, it is something that none of us will ever forget--the image of the airplanes hitting the Trade Towers in New York, seeing the fire at the Pentagon, seeing the crater dug into the ground in Pennsylvania by the United Airlines jet. When all of that happened, immediately the FAA shut down all air service in the United States. Every single airplane was ordered grounded.”