Quote of the Day

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

The failure of the United States Senate to ratify the START treaty immediately is going to pose a danger to the United States and its security.

And let me give a historical analogy. It wasn't that long ago that a Republican president appealed to Congress on a bipartisan basis--it was President George W. Bush after 9/11--to rewrite the architecture of our intelligence agencies with a new Department of Homeland Security.

Senator Susan Collins, the chairman of the committee at that time and a Republican, Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, got together and did it. They constructed this new scenario that has made us safer as a nation and they did it during a lame duck session.

There is no excuse for us to, to ignore this responsibility and to say we'll wait several months.

UPDATE: It doesn't change the underlying point. But Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) was actually still the committee chairman during the 2002 lame duck session, when the Department of Homeland Security was created. Collins took over a few weeks later.