[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 66 (Tuesday, April 24, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4868-S4869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    BIPARTISANSHIP STARTS AT THE TOP

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I say to my good personal 
friend and colleague from Florida, if we want to solve this and other 
problems, we have to have some genuine bipartisanship, and that 
bipartisanship has to start at the top. There has to be an atmosphere 
of mutual respect and willingness to work together, and it has to start 
in the White House.
  I have shared these comments publicly and privately. Whenever you 
face something as contentious as the matters we face--matters of war 
and peace, the making of Medicare financially solvent, the question of 
prescription drugs and their cost--you simply can't do it by taking a 
unilateral position over and over on either side of this aisle; it has 
to be that people have to come together and work it out. There also has 
to be a sense of mutual trust, of people telling the truth to each 
other, of doing what the standards were in the old days where a man's 
word was his bond. Until we get that, we are going to continue to have 
difficulty.
  We see the problems right now in a war that is certainly a difficult 
one. We all share the same goal: that the interests of America are 
furthered if we can stabilize Iraq. How do we get there? There has been 
so much mistrust and suspicion that has been bred because of all the 
inconsistencies and lack of information and misinformation and massaged 
information. But that is then; now is now. What do we do? Thus far, it 
looks as though the White House and the leadership in Congress can't 
come together. There is too much distrust.
  I have said before and I will say again, thank goodness the Secretary 
of State is out on a new diplomatic initiative. It is not catty to say 
it is about time, because there certainly have been those forces within 
the administration that have wanted this much more in the past, but I 
think the Secretary of State is making a very valiant effort now, 
because you are not going to solve the problem in Iraq unless you can 
get all the neighbors in the region involved to make a political 
solution stick.

  Is a political solution viable? This Senator cannot say at this point 
that it is a viable prospect because of the sectarian hatred we have 
seen play out over these last several months. But this hasn't just been 
going on for months; this has been going on for 1,327 years, ever since 
the Battle of Karbala. I say to my colleague, who is my friend, and the 
two of us work together very well all the time, that a lot less 
rhetoric coming from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue would help this

[[Page S4869]]

problem, but I don't see it changing right now. I think that is a sad 
commentary on the state of affairs.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Will the Senator yield for a moment?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Certainly.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. I appreciate the Senator's comments, and I so much 
value our relationship and our ability to work across the aisle, 
because we seem to get a lot done when we do that. It is an encouraging 
sign on one of the very difficult issues of our day, which is 
immigration, that we do seem to be working in a bipartisan way, and it 
is amazing what can be accomplished when we do work bipartisanly.
  I can't help but be shaped by my own life experience, and I remember 
as I came to America and was learning the ways of this country, and I 
admired so much this new land of mine, that I would marvel at the 
phrase: ``Politics ends at the water's edge.'' That used to be the 
standard. There were these towering giants of another day who occupied 
these very desks we now use as ours who seemed to find it within 
themselves to reach a little higher to work across party lines in those 
postwar years, in the Cold War years when it was so essential.
  I think what we need to adopt as a country is the understanding that 
this struggle against this enemy is long term, that we are going to be 
in this fight for a long time, probably the time of your service and 
mine. I hope not, but perhaps. If we are going to be successful in that 
endeavor, we have to set politics aside. We have to find a way that we 
can think of America first and whatever label we wear in a secondary 
way. I am not preaching to my colleague from Florida or anyone in 
particular. Frankly, the blame lies on both sides of the aisle, with 
Republicans as well as Democrats. We have to find a way we can move 
beyond the momentary gain we might make over a 24-hour news cycle for 
the longer term good of the Nation and the longer term good of what 
America stands for to the world.
  Anyway, maybe the Senator and I began a rare moment here this morning 
in talking about Iraq where we are not yelling at each other and we are 
actually talking about how we can bridge our differences and find 
consensus as something that will help the American people.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I say to my colleague, work in 
your sphere of influence and this Senator will try to do the same. What 
we have is an approaching train wreck, because if the Congress passes 
this emergency funding bill for the war that has this language in it, 
if that passes this week, then the President is going to veto it next 
week and that is going to leave us right back where we are, with both 
sides making a lot of noise and a lot of rhetoric, but that doesn't get 
us any closer to where we are going. So I say to my colleague, look 
over the horizon beyond this week and see where we can come together.
  I thought the most promising prospect was when Jim Baker and Lee 
Hamilton came down with the Iraq Study Commission report. They showed, 
in a bipartisan way among very prominent people of both parties, how 
you should approach this Iraq situation, and yet, that was last 
November or December when it came out, and here we are 4 months later 
and still we have not come together in common ground. So I would 
encourage my colleague to keep working.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. I thank the Senator.

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