Chuck Schumer: “This President, in my judgment, to his credit, has made it a point that we have to do everything we can to defend our…”

“This President, in my judgment, to his credit, has made it a point that we have to do everything we can to defend our soldiers on the front lines. Whatever one's opinion of the war in Iraq, whatever one's opinion of our actions in Afghanistan and Kosovo and everywhere else--Korea, where we have soldiers--this President has made it a hallmark of defending those troops and doing everything to defend those troops. In fact, we are here in the Chamber defending, of the $87 billion, the vast majority, I guess--over $60 billion--to help defend them in Iraq, something that most of us, myself included, support. Yet when it comes to defending an agent who was on the front lines and has been betrayed by, in the words of President George H. W. Bush, a traitor, we get nonchalance, a joke here and there, ``What's the bother? What's the fuss?'' Excuses--``This wasn't an agent, it was an analyst.'' Or, ``This wasn't done by malice''--the effect still being the same. That is serious.”