David Thomas: “I know it has been a busy day and we are very much involved, of course, in moving forward with the judge arrangement, as…”

“I know it has been a busy day and we are very much involved, of course, in moving forward with the judge arrangement, as we should be. I spent a week in my home State. I guess we always come back with different ideas. I spent the whole time talking with people and having town meetings and those kinds of things, and in certainly a little different atmosphere. People see a great deal in the news media about what is happening here, but, of course, what they get is what the media is intending for them to get, and somehow it is a little bit different. So frankly, people are a little impatient that we are not moving forward as much as we might. Certainly, we are working hard here, but the fact is, we have not moved to many different issues. I believe many of us want to do so. I think we have spent an awful lot of time on internal kinds of issues that do not mean a lot to people out in the country. I understand that. I realize the way things are done here is important to us, such as changing procedures and all those things. But folks are talking about energy, folks are interested in a highway bill, people are interested in health and the cost of health care, such as what you do in rural areas with health care. There are a lot of these things that are so very important to people on the ground, and here we are continuing to talk about how we are going to vote on judges. So they get a little impatient. I understand that.…”