Political Quotes

“I really want to follow up on the committee chairman's remarks. He is absolutely right. In 2011 and 2012, I was actually very intimately involved in the process of trying to update the AUMF, and I have all the bruises and scars to show for it. It is a very difficult process. The main thing I want to accomplish in my 2 minutes here is to explain to everybody why we haven't updated it, because there are actually very clear reasons. I am not sure they are good reasons, but they are very clear. Everyone sort of acts like: Well, we just haven't done it. Why are we twiddling our thumbs? The reason is because, well, lawyers and how words are interpreted. As we went through and tried to word it exactly correctly, and as we negotiated with the Senate, we discovered that basically no matter how you word it, two groups are going to oppose it for diametrically opposite reasons. One side is going to say that it is too broad; it gives the President way too much power for too long a period of time and gives him too open a hand. Other groups will look at that exact same language and say that this unfairly restricts the President; it is going to make it more difficult. You have these conversations those of us on the committee have with the Pentagon as they are trying to figure out--I haven't had as many conversations with the current administration as with the previous, but I talked at length with the Obama folks about deciding what could they do?…”