Political Quotes

“I do want to bring people up to date--and I will be brief--on where we are with the Senate intelligence reform initiatives in light of the 9/11 Commission. Over the next several days, we will have a very busy week. It is cut a little bit short by the Jewish holidays. I believe our central focus in this body, given the fact we have so few legislative days, must be on the security of the American people, and that means the bill that is currently on the floor that we are turning to and will be voting on one of the amendments at 5:30 p.m. today, the Homeland Security appropriations bill. It says 'Homeland Security' appropriations. We have had good debate. We all hope to pass that bill late tomorrow night or Wednesday morning for sure. Second, we need to focus on reforming our intelligence community, something people do understand--broadly the American people understand--that is reflected in the 9/11 Commission recommendations, the update of that report, the discussion of that report, and we have responded aggressively in terms of hearings, recognizing that reform should be done now, not knee-jerk but deliberate reform, and begin it in a way that will have an impact to make our intelligence better, to make our intelligence sharing among our various entities better, that makes our oversight better.”