Arlen Specter President Quotations

I've not said that the vice president has done anything wrong, ... What I have said is there is a basis for (an) independent counsel.

My thinking is that the president really has to voluntarily appear,

But I don't believe in a quota system, and it may be that at this particular time, President Bush would like to have someone other than a woman, and I don't think his hands ought to be tied.

The president was noncommittal. The body language was not very positive.

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

We are proceeding in a matter of the utmost, utmost gravity -- the potential for impeachment of the president of the United States -- and I think American people will demand and are entitled to that kind of bipartisanship,

Getting $400,000 on a contingency basis for success is startling, to say the least, ... We need to hear from Roger Clinton, and basically, I still think we need to hear from the president as to what consideration he gave to Hugh Rodham and to his brother Roger Clinton.

An imperial president has become more imperial, simply because the Congress has not taken steps to secure its power of the purse.

And that's why I believe -- and I have seen with my experience in the Senate the value of public hearings -- when FBI Director Mueller has to answer these questions, when CIA Director Tenet has to answer why the president wasn't warned in the August 6 briefing about the tall buildings being in jeopardy, the White House and the CIA headquarters.

Voting in favor would put senators in a better position to oppose later or a vote in opposition would put the president on notice that he better put somebody up who was acceptable to a broad spectrum of senators.

I've been searching for a way that we might have President Clinton's side of the matter in a professional way, and I'm continuing to explore that. The committee is not disposed to inviting him because of the sensitivity of inviting a former president and the potential for a circus-like atmosphere,

Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy's statement that sometimes party asks too much.

Neither this nation nor this party can afford a candidate so captive to the demands of the intolerant right that we end up re-electing a president of the incompetent left.

Look, the president can discharge all 93 U.S. attorneys for no reason at all, but not for a bad reason.

We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional.

I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider. The decider is a shared and joint responsibility.

If we had pursued the war on cancer which President Nixon declared in 1970, Jack Kemp might be alive today.

When the president acts in absence of a congressional grant of authority, he can rely only upon his own independent powers. When the president takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb.

What assurances can you give the Senate and the American people that you will be independent, if confirmed, and not give President Bush any special deference on any matter involving him which might come before the court?

I know that the president will listen to what Senator Frist has to say. I'm not saying he's going to agree with it. But what Senator Frist has had to say is weighty, and I think may bring us all together on this issue.

Senator Reid is entitled to his opinion, but he's not the president of the United States, and he doesn't administer justice in this country,

As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush's nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice (William) Rehnquist, Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor, and Justice (Anthony) Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice (Clarence) Thomas.

As the president ponders the nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, it is my hope that there will be a balance maintained on the court.

There are some losses that the president has sustained, but by and large, I think that the president has won.

I think that it would be very, very difficult for the president to explain that, in the context of information leading up to why that would be so,

It is my hope that the president will now send us a nominee for Justice O'Connor's spot in the mold of Judge Roberts,

The president of the United States has the fundamental responsibility to protect the country. The president does not have a blank check.

A key statement by the president related to 60 stem cell lines, now expanded to 64, ... But in the intervening several weeks, it has become apparent that many of those are not really viable or robust or usable.

I made the point that the president doesn't have a blank check. He didn't choose to engage me on that point.

Look, the president can discharge all 93 U.S. attorneys for no reason at all, but not for a bad reason.

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

If the president can find someone in Judge Roberts' mold, I think by putting up that nominee, he disarmed his opponents,

He might wait until the following Monday, but seeing how President Bush operates, I think it will be sooner rather than later.

When the attorney general says the force resolution gives the president the power to conduct these surveillances, I have grave doubts about that.

Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the president about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges,

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

I'm not going to be a party to spending more than the president asked for,

There could be a real tough battle here and a real tough fight, depending on whom the president puts up,

These tapes, which the committee will put on display, really nail down the case, ... It comes out of President Clinton's mouth that these funds, this soft money, was used to promote his candidacy. He says that. And now we know positively there's been a violation of the federal election code.

especially in light of your close relationship with the president and the key positions you have held in the White House.