Political Quotes

“I do want to say this, Mr. President. A number of compliments have been made about the way in which Members deal with issues that are highly controversial and on which they have great differences of opinion. I say, with respect to every one of those who have spoken here today, that I have gotten from each of them the greatest consideration, even when they have disagreed with me. Each of them holds his views as firmly as I do and as significantly as I do. The chairman of the committee has agreed, and will speak to that later, to dealing with a specific bill on the other subject. I haven't asked him to deal with this subject in his committee, but I rather suspect that he is going to wish to do so in order to be able to deal rationally and intelligently with this issue as well. So I have not gained the goal that I have set for myself when I was writing this bill to make substantive changes, but we are going to be able to vote these issues intelligently in the course of the next year in a way that has not been done in this Congress, certainly since I first arrived here in 1981 and probably for some time before that. I believe the debate on this issue is long overdue, Mr. President. I am persuaded, quite persuaded, that we can't engage in it in its full substantive fashion at the present time, for lack of information, and that what we are doing here is going to give us a greater ability to make our points at some time in the future.”