Political Quotes

“I do not believe that there has been any more successful and imaginative policy with respect to our military preparedness than the three base-closing rounds that were created by a law imagined by the now majority leader of the House of Representatives, a major contribution to a rational system--at least, Mr. President, a rational system until the last base closure round when, in spite of the fact that everyone felt that this issue had been taken out of politics, the President of the United States poisoned the well by totally politicizing the base-closure process. The Senator from Virginia, I think, wisely voted against another base-closure process presided over by this President. I agreed with that proposition on the basis that once again it would become a part of the Presidential campaign in the year 2000, and I will not vote for another such process until we can be guaranteed that we will take it out of politics. I am going to vote for the amendment from the Senator from Oklahoma perhaps for the same reason that the Senator from Virginia is going to vote against it. I am going to vote to emphasize even more forcefully that he has my bitter disappointment in the way in which this important process was politicized. And I think we need to send a message, yes, even to the Department of Defense that we will not permit that kind of thing to happen in the future. And this, it seems to me, is a pretty good way to send that message.”