Political Quotes

“let me just say to the distinguished gentleman, I went out of my way in my opening remarks to praise the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, because he certainly does believe in free and open debate on this floor. I praised him for it in the past. Our frustration comes from a year ago, when we had this same bill on the floor, when we made the same arguments, because we wanted to talk about lifting the embargo on Bosnia. We wanted to talk about Haiti. We wanted to talk about the unfair credit arrangement that we have in being reimbursed by the United Nations. One solid year has gone by, and that debate has never taken place. So the gentleman is absolutely correct. Everything that he has just said is correct. We need to have the debate here, though. This rule, the reason I am supporting the rule and helped the gentleman bring it to the floor, because I want him to have this bill considered this week. Otherwise, he will lose it, and he will be back here 3 or 4 weeks from now still trying to pass the most important bill to come before this House in any given year. We are going to have that debate, because the gentleman did go along with us on these important peacekeeping issues. I admire and respect him for it, even though it is out of his jurisdiction, for bending over backwards to allow us this opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.”