Jay Rockefeller: “my name has been invoked frequently here over the last several weeks as passing a bill which was not favored by the…”

“my name has been invoked frequently here over the last several weeks as passing a bill which was not favored by the majority of the people of my aisle, and the phrase actually was used by the majority leader, who is never wrong, that we did what the President wanted. I didn't do what the President wanted. I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I was joined by a variety of my colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, who reserved the right to have other views on the floor, which he did, but ended up voting for the bill. What absolutely baffles me is that we are literally--we can do this FISA bill. I am meeting tomorrow morning with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who may be the only House member in town--I have no idea, but I don't care because he is the chairman--on what we can do to save this. I am absolutely convinced that we can have--in the hearing this afternoon, the Presiding Officer heard me put this to the Director of National Intelligence, who couldn't answer it because it was not a policy question, but more of a political question. I said: You are going to get the majority of your information all the way through August. The President praised our bill and then came out the next day and said: Of course, if the House doesn't pass it, we are going to lose our intelligence and we will be vulnerable to the terrorists. That was a misstatement, I think an annoying misstatement. I don't understand.…”