Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wanted to come down and join Senator Kerry and again recognize his leadership, along with Senator Lugar's, on moving the treaty ratification through the Senate. I wish to address some of the objections and concerns that are being raised by the critics of the treaty this evening. First, I want to point out that if the Senate were to approve the amendment that Senator McCain and Senator Barrasso are proposing, that effectively kills the treaty. I think those people who support that amendment understand that. So that is No. 1. Secondly, one of the issues that has been raised in a number of the statements this evening has had to do with the concern about dual track. Can the Senate deal with this issue while we have so much other business to deal with? Well, I happen to think that in the Senate we can deal with more than one issue at a time. I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact, during consideration of the original START treaty back in 1992, a treaty that was much more complicated than the one that is pending before us, at the first time the Senate was considering the START nuclear disarmament agreement, the Senate, on the same day we debated the treaty back in 1992, passed an Interior appropriations bill, a DC appropriations bill, and we debated and held two rollcall votes on the Foreign Operations bill. So the concern that we cannot deal with this while we are dealing with other issues is not borne out by the historic precedent.…”