Harry Reid: “I was in the Chamber this morning when the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, the majority leader, complained about…”

“I was in the Chamber this morning when the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, the majority leader, complained about our holding up--the Democrats, the minority--appointments to our ambassadorial corps. I thought that doesn't sound right, but I wanted to make sure I had my facts right, even though I had a tremendous impulse to say: Mr. Leader, you are just wrong. After having looked at the facts, I can say now: Mr. Leader, you were wrong this morning. This is an important issue. I have been fortunate to have started off in the House of Representatives, and being on the Foreign Affairs Committee, one of my assignments was to travel. I have had the good fortune of being able to travel, in the more than two decades I have been in Congress, all over the world. I am tremendously impressed with the places I go, where we have young men and women who serve, as Senator Dodd did. We have had other examples, but that is the only one I know of people who served in the Peace Corps. This is a wonderful organization. They do wonderful things for the country. I admire so much what they do. But there is no one I admire as much as our career Foreign Service officers, our diplomatic corps. They do such wonderful work, without any notoriety at all. So any time we talk about our State Department, our diplomatic corps, I want to defend them.”