Frank Pallone: “let me start by saying how wrong it is to conduct this debate while our troops are in harm's way. Saddam Hussein will…”

“let me start by saying how wrong it is to conduct this debate while our troops are in harm's way. Saddam Hussein will surely be emboldened by the Republicans' comments and conduct today and that will undermine our policy toward Iraq and our national security interests. Since we have nonetheless decided to proceed, I want to take issue with the opening remarks of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Hyde. I deeply regret his effort to characterize the impeachment of the President as necessary to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. He is wrong, wrong, wrong. Equally offensive to me was Mr. Hyde's suggestion that the Radical Republicans who seek to impeach our President today are carrying out the legacy of Moses, ancient Greece and Rome, the Magna Carta and all the precursors of Democracy, which we hold so dear. The Radical Republicans who seek to impeach the President are, in fact, the heirs of those who would undermine our democracy--their precursors are those who would inspire a tyranny of the majority: Cromwell and his Puritans who sought to use the British Parliament to abolish freedom of religion, Robspierre and the French National Assembly who initiated the Reign of Terror, and most analogous--the Radical Republicans, who contrary to the wishes of the assassinated President Lincoln, salted the wounds of a divided America after the Civil War and unjustly impeached President Andrew Johnson.”