Political Quotes

“Madam President, may I say that it is a pleasure to speak to the Senate with the new Senator from Georgia presiding for the first time, at least, that I have had this occasion. Well, here we are. The impeachment outcome is settled, as it was from day one. In my view, the facts are clear, the conduct impeachable, and the obstruction unprecedented. In my view, this impeachment process ran into a partisan wall, and the Senate's part was to deny the American people the most basic elements of a fair trial: witnesses and evidence. Alexander Hamilton, years ago, warned us of what he called the ``greatest danger'' in impeachments, ``that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.'' In my view, that danger has met us. As a boy I often sang a hymn with the stanza that ``to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.'' In my view, the Senate chose the wrong side. We are obviously going to disagree about a lot here, so let me focus on two thoughts that perhaps we can agree on. One is that what we have done here should carry little weight as precedent. Politics cast very long shadows over this proceeding. This was not our finest hour, by any stretch, and much of what was said and done here should not be repeated, let alone treated as precedent. I hope history treats this episode as an aberration, not a precedent.…”