Political Quotes

“Shortly after the tragic events of September 11, with Senator Feinstein, I introduced legislation to establish such an office of terrorism within the White House in order to create a focal point for decisionmaking and informing the President and the Congress of a national strategy on how to combat what clearly was emerging as the major challenge to America's national security. My good friend, Senator Thompson, has just suggested that events that have occurred since that time, particularly the event of the President deciding, after a long period of consideration, to support a statutorily created Department of Homeland Security, had rendered irrelevant or, maybe even worse, redundant the idea of an office to combat terrorism within the Presidency. I disagree with that analysis and look forward to the debate which will lay out the case of why these two agencies--a Department of Homeland Security and an office within the Office of the President--are, in fact, reinforcing in the same way that, in 1947, Congress found it appropriate to reorganize the previously distributed military, distributed by the various services, Army, Navy, a newly emerging Air Force, into a single Department of Defense.”