is clearly trying to distance himself from an unpopular president and an unpopular agenda.

The President was considering doing something presidential to try to focus attention away from — his own personal problems.

There’s a very decisive bipartisan flavor to this vote,

I think it would have been smarter had the attorney general, looking at the many years of Starr’s involvement and the public perception, which is adverse to Starr … let someone else come in, …...

You don’t have the votes in the House of Representatives to overcome a presidential veto.

[The Supreme Court’s 5 to 4 decision rejected Congress’s findings and its] method of reasoning, … Is there any real justification for the court’s denigrating Congress’s ‘method of reasoning’?

I want to accommodate people as best as I could.

[Noting that Bush said during the third campaign debate that he would] not impose a litmus test … would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations I’ve mentioned.

It would be quite a sacrifice for her, but she’s prepared to do it if she is asked, … By next June we’ll know a lot more about Judge Roberts … than we do today.

She’s intelligent, she’s hard-working, unquestioned integrity. She fought her way up, couldn’t get a job when she graduated from law school because she was a woman.

The majority leader has committed to bringing it up as one of the first items next year,

There likely will be a national debate about whether the president really has the kind of power he’s been using.