Political Quotes

“I thought that I should go to Andrews Airport Air Force Base yesterday to welcome Jesse Jackson home. Reverend Jackson had helped raise the consciousness of the nation to freedom concerns in the District of Columbia when he was statehood senator and lived here a few years ago. I thought that I should be there to greet him for bringing a freedom message to President Slobodan Milosevic, who heard Jesse Jackson and freed the three American servicemen. I listened intently to Rev. Jackson's comments at the airport. He detailed how he had managed to free the three soldiers, and it was clear that he had done it with great care and skill without undermining U.S. foreign policy concerns and military aims. Reverend Jackson carried the NATO four conditions and urged them on Milosevic at the same time that he urged our country to look for diplomatic openings. Through the efforts of the former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who coincidently arrived at Andrews shortly after the Jackson delegation, these openings are beginning to appear now. Rev. Jackson's work has not hurt our goals, and may have helped in ways we cannot yet know. What we do know is what Jesse Jackson, through an act of will and skill, has produced the three young men before the war's end. Jesse Jackson deserves credit not only for what he did but for the way he did it. Today's special order is a well deserved tribute.”