Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, what we are confronted with today is not primarily a question of foreign policy or even of war policy. We are presented with a question of constitutional law and of the prerogatives of the United States Congress. Shall the President, like the King of England, be a dictator in foreign policy? Shall the President have the unfettered right to take this country to war without so much as a ``by your leave'' from Congress as the King of England could do without authorization from Parliament? The authors of our Constitution answered that question in the negative. They said, ``No, we don't trust kings, we don't trust executives to make a decision to go to war. We want that to be the prerogative of the people as represented by the Congress.'' {time} 0930 A whole series of Presidents since World War II have forgotten that, starting with Harry Truman in the Korean War and Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War right up to the present. Now, there are reasons for this, and I will go into that when I speak on the Kucinich resolution a little later. I would simply observe now I am going to vote for the Boehner resolution, but I am also going to vote for the Kucinich resolution. The Boehner resolution is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't deal with the basic problem. The Boehner resolution says the President has failed to provide Congress with a compelling rationale based upon U.S.…”