Political Quotes

“I rise today to seek unanimous consent for eight to nine nominees to critical State Department posts. Each of them moved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with bipartisan support, and the only reason the Senate has not confirmed them is due to the political obstinacy of a couple of my Republican colleagues. And the evidence of that is that when we have a vote, as we had earlier today for the Assistant Administrator of AID, it passed 59 to 40--59 to 40. We have heard many complaints about the management of the State Department and the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in recent months. And while the State Department is not a perfect institution--for that fact, no institution is--its leadership was decimated by the prior administration. The assistant secretaries and ambassadors who should be participating in the rebuilding of the institution and the development and implementation of U.S. foreign policy are instead languishing on the Senate floor--dozens, dozens. Nominees who should be the face of the United States at international organizations--like the United Nations, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe--are instead waiting for the Senate to act. The government of the People's Republic of China is watching. Even though the majority of this body has recognized that the Government of China represents the greatest geopolitical challenge to the United States, we are letting China eat our lunch on the world stage.…”