Political Quotes

“I will say that is absolutely, totally wrong. There are some within the State Department who take offense to the fact that Members of Congress will travel to countries like this. Let me say to my colleagues in this body, many of you will be here for 10 years or 20 years. If you focus on one country or a group of countries, you will have far more opportunities to specialize in that country than a State Department official who spends 3 years in one post and moves on someplace else. There is a very real and substantive role for Members of Congress to play, and we must play it. This is not a case where the executive branch controls everything and we are just subservient to them. We are an equal part of the Federal Government, and we have the responsibility because we appropriate the dollars, we levy the taxes, and we oversee the way the money is spent, to travel to these countries, to open doors, to look for new ways to establish relationships, and to support the administration, which we did on this trip as we have on every major trip. But there is a role for the Congress to play. I am convinced that Members of Congress can play an extremely constructive role because we do not have to act as diplomats.”