Political Quotes

“Absolutely, totally correct. Nothing else can be inferred from what we are doing. No one should raise the issue of armchair secretaries of State because that is not what we are about. If we reach a conclusion in our discussions over the weekend with our Russian colleagues that they feel Milosevic will accept, we then have to come back and convince our Government that this is, in fact, something that they too can live with. That is not our call as to whether or not they will accept it. That is up to our Government to decide the ultimate position of the U.S. But we do have the right as parliamentarians to negotiate with our counterparts along the lines of what we think will work but also what we think our administration would accept. If they do not accept it, that is their choice. If they do, all of us are better. In fact, when I had originally planned to go over there, I had offered to take an employee of the State Department with me. Andre Lewis works with Steve Sestanovich and he was going to go with us so we would have a State Department spokesperson there. I even went as far to say this to Strobe Talbott. I said, ``If we go ahead with this, you script out what you want us to say and we will read your words.'' There was never an attempt to try to usurp the authority of the executive branch to do its job. We are simply using contacts that we have to go a different route.”