Bob Kerrey: “2 years ago Senator Shelby, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, and I were managing the Treasury- Postal…”

“2 years ago Senator Shelby, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, and I were managing the Treasury- Postal appropriations bill on the floor at about this time of the year, I believe. And one of the actions that we had taken in our bill was to zero out the drug czar's office. And the reason that we had done that was that we were quite unhappy with the progress and the performance and, especially, the effort made to interdict and the effort here at home to try to get young people to quit consuming drugs. We were persuaded at the end of the day, Senator Hatch, Senator Biden, and the President himself, saying that they were going to make some substantial changes. Change No. 1 that they made was to bring on Barry McCaffrey, a retired Army general. I do not know how they talked him into it. Somehow they managed to talk him into coming back and being the drug czar. Yesterday, Mr. President, Barry McCaffrey sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense. Among other things he has done over the past couple years, this justifies both the President's confidence in him and Senator Shelby's and my confidence that action would occur.”