Sherrod Brown: “8 days ago at the Presidential news conference, only the third he had done in prime time since he has been President…”

“8 days ago at the Presidential news conference, only the third he had done in prime time since he has been President, the President was asked just sort of an obvious question that we all deal with from time to time in our lives, political or not, tell us about one of the biggest mistakes you have made. The President kind of looked a little deer-in-the-headlights and he said, ``I am sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, but with all of the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, it just hasn't yet.'' We would today like to try to help the President, not because we want to criticize President Bush, but because we want to help him learn from his mistakes. We see several of the mistakes here, from veterans cuts, to trickle-down tax cuts for the wealthy, to trade that the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) talked about, to helping keep our soldiers as safe as possible that the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) talked about. I want to talk for a bit about Medicare, not the fact that the bill, they told us it would cost $400 billion, it will cost $534 billion. That was sort of a purposeful mistake from the President. Not about Medicare privatization, that mistake. Not about the gap in coverage, that if you have $5,000 in drug costs, the government only pays $1,000 of it, you have to pay $4,000 out of pocket.”