Political Quotes

“over the next few weeks, the Senate will be voting on both the Defense authorization and Defense appropriations bills, these two very important pieces of legislation. We need to take the time to understand them and, of course, to read these bills and make sure we are doing the right thing. Just reading the Defense authorization bill is not going to be an hour-long deal. It is not going to be done watching a ball game or watching television programs. Why? It is a very big piece of legislation. This is it. Try reading that between innings--1,664 pages. Chairman McCain may have read this. He may understand every line in it. He would have a better chance than most of us because he is the one who conducted the hearings behind closed doors--secret sessions. Few outside the committee probably know what is in this monstrous bill, this big bill. Even though the chairman came here on Monday and started complaining about this legislation, if you want to get an idea how the bill was hastily put together, consider this. The bill was put together behind closed doors. At 5 p.m. last night, Senator McCain's committee voted on the classified annex to the Defense authorization bill. He had been ranting and raving about Democrats holding up this bill. That is what the Republican leader did here today. He didn't rant and rave, but he did say we are holding it up. But the committee hadn't finished its work as of last night. The bill wasn't done.…”