Political Quotes

“I rise today to address the nomination of Cornelia Pillard for the DC Circuit. My colleagues, I have enjoyed my time in the Senate very much, although we live in a very difficult time. Politically, there are a lot of influences on individual Senators and parties and the body as a whole, so these are very difficult times. I can only imagine writing the Constitution today. I always thought that would be a good ``Saturday Night Live'' skit: Go back to Philadelphia hall and have all the satellite trucks parked outside and the bloggers and talk radio, moveon.org--fill in the blank--all putting pressure on our Founding Fathers not to do this or that. We live in different times. It is absolutely good that people have a voice and influence and create organizations to advocate their cause. There seems to be an organization for almost every aspect of the economy. So lobbying the government, having a say about legislation, trying to push your representatives to do something you think is good for the country is very much a part of democracy, but eventually we have to govern. Democracy is a journey, sort of like when you are on vacation or you are driving to a place with your kids and they always ask: Are we there yet? But democracy is not an end state, it is a process. Democracy is really about protecting losers, not so much winners. Winners tend to do well in any system.…”