Political Quotes

“in this job, all of us are used to misinformation, lies and distortions and manipulation by the media. We refer to that as spin; but, Mr. Speaker, I never expected such spin to come from the no-spin zone of Bill O'Reilly. Mr. Speaker, on Friday my staff confirmed that I was to do a television show with Mr. O'Reilly last evening. It was initially scheduled to be seven o'clock. I had a 5:15 meeting scheduled with the Secretary of Energy. At some point in time yesterday morning, the O'Reilly show changed that appointment to 5:50. My 5:15 meeting was still in place. My staff was fully in touch with the O'Reilly show. We gave them the information, and I attended a very important meeting with Secretary of Energy Bodman in his office, a classified meeting, on the specific problems with the threats of the nuclear program and capabilities of the former Soviet states. That meeting ran over, partly because the meeting was interrupted several times by important phone calls the Secretary had to make. Following that meeting, which ended somewhere around 6:15, as my colleagues know, we had a series of six votes on the House floor. Mr. O'Reilly proceeded to tell his national audience last night that I ``snubbed'' him; that I failed to call him; that I was inconsiderate; that I was rude. Talk about spin, Mr. Speaker. So today, I sent a memo to Mr. O'Reilly explaining the facts, and I would remind Mr.…”