Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, H.L. Mencken once said that for every human problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. I have a lot of sympathy for Mr. Thornberry's amendment and for what is behind it. He talks about micromanagement. Micromanagement goes back to the very founding of the National Security Council. You think that Richard Nixon's Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense didn't think Henry Kissinger micromanaged when he was the National Security Adviser? He surreptitiously altered the U.S. policy to China, on his own, with his staff at NSC. There is a long tradition of micromanagement and interference, and I have no doubt that Mr. Thornberry is right. Every Secretary of Defense and every Secretary of State would have a similar complaint. Of course they would, and they might be right. To elevate this job over 100 people, to Senate confirmation, actually aggravates the problem. Now you are going to codify the micromanagement. You are actually going to make this a policymaking apparatus, in direct competition with the very department you are trying to help, the Department of Defense and the Department of State. It is the wrong answer to the growing size of an NSC. I don't remember Republican complaints about the growth of the NSC under the previous administration, and maybe we can work together in the future to try to make sure that we have a more manageable size. I applaud, certainly, the fact that the current NSC administrator has reduced the NSC by 12 percent.…”