Political Quotes

“I think you have given us an ideal way to wrap up our half hour. I want to tick off yet another area where we have outlined an opportunity for an alternative path. We have spent our half hour describing a way in Florida and Oregon where you can deal with judges in a bipartisan fashion. We have talked about health care issues. Orrin Hatch and others have helped me, as have other Democrats. I think that has been constructive and a real path to try to deal with what is coming in 2010 and 2011. Senator Allen was here and we talked about technology and the fact that the Senate got 80 votes a few days ago for forestry legislation-- an unprecedented bipartisan vote. Finally, the Senator from Florida puts us on this question of fiscal responsibility, another avenue for cooperation between the parties. I think about the outstanding work done by the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, who chairs the committee overseeing the operations of Government. She and I have been very concerned about the lack of openness in competition in the contracting process for these reconstruction contracts. It looks, given the events of this week, as though you are going to get more information out of Baghdad than you are going to get out of Government agencies in Washington, DC. There wasn't a shred of partisanship with respect to how we tackle this issue.”