Political Quotes

“It was not long after 9/11 that we held a conversation here in Washington, and the former Speaker was on a panel over in Rayburn, I think. We were discussing this, and he said, well, this is the situation that we find ourselves in after these attacks. And I asked Speaker Gingrich at the time, former Speaker, this notion of us being a nation of laws, what did that mean now. Because under former President Bush, the original President Bush, he had complained about the Chinese holding people without trial. We had issued a formal complaint that the Chinese were holding people without trial, using secret evidence and so forth and so on, and what did this mean now in the context of our own country's conduct. Speaker Gingrich said that, well, he wasn't really sure because we are at a difficult moment. So now we are here. We have had two Presidents who tried to close Guantanamo. President Bush who opened it, and his second administration wanted to end it, and then we had two Presidential elections in which the country voted for Barack Obama, who said he wanted to close this facility. We have a congressional majority that is not going to do it, that is going to put every impediment in the way of doing it. We have our national security enterprise that says that this is used as a recruitment tool against our interests, that this is working against the security of the United States.…”