David Obey: “I won't take the time, let me just simply sum up very briefly. As the Chair knows, we've gone through the last 30…”

“I won't take the time, let me just simply sum up very briefly. As the Chair knows, we've gone through the last 30 minutes debating a nonissue. The amendment has already been accepted by the committee. And I would expect that there will be an overwhelmingly vote for it because there is no prospect of any serious effort to revive the Fairness Doctrine, either legislatively or legally. And so, this has really been another political exercise. I've almost given up expecting that substance will dominate legislative debate. We had a State senator by the name of Lynn Stalbaum, who served in Wisconsin many years ago. And the legislature was covered by a man by the name Aldric Revell. Aldric was an acerbic reporter who had the temperament of H.L. Menkin and a pen to match. And he wrote this about Stalbaum one day, he said, "Stalbaum is a superb legislator, but he has the maddening tendency to expect reason to dominate legislative debate." I don't really expect, on issues like this, to have much common sense in the House. You get six like-minded people in this institution, they talk to each other in the cloakroom and they think they've conducted a public opinion poll. So all I would say is, I fundamentally disagree with the gentleman who indicated that this is a highly important vote. I think, as another famous author once said, this is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.”