Sylvester Turner: “Today, Speaker Pelosi has continued with what is called a debate on the Iraq war, but this is not a debate. The floor…”

“Today, Speaker Pelosi has continued with what is called a debate on the Iraq war, but this is not a debate. The floor here is empty, except for the Members scheduled to come to the floor for the record and comment on the failures or success of the war on terror, the conflict in Iraq, prewar intelligence, the search for weapons of mass destruction, reconstruction efforts, al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and, yes, George Bush. No real debate. School children across America who are schooled in debate would not recognize what has happened here today, which should be the intellectual process of argument, because to call these series of speeches a debate is fiction, just as to call the nonbinding resolution proposed by the Speaker as congressional action is fiction. This resolution has no binding effect on the administration, and it does not even have any binding effect on this body of Congress. This resolution is not a document from which decisions will be made or any action taken. This is not policy. This is not governance. It is, at best, a press conference. It is just talk. The travesty of this fiction of a debate on the House floor is that there is no plan debated or alternatives for us to consider, only opposition.”