"... General Petraeus recognized the sacrifice made by two soldiers who had planned to become naturalized citizens at the ceremony, and were now repr… - John McCain

I have been in the Senate and the House for a long time. I have never seen an act of blatant partisanship with disregard for the men and women who are serving in the military than what the President is doing as we speak. For 53 years, Congress has fulfilled its constitutional duty to provide for the common defense by passing the National Defense Authorization Act. For 53 consecutive years, both bodies have passed, and the President has signed into law, the National Defense Authorization Act. In all my years, I have never witnessed anything so misguided, cynical, and downright dangerous as vetoing the Defense authorization for reasons that have nothing to do with defense--nothing to do with defense. Presidents throughout history--Republicans and Democrats alike--have recognized the importance of this bill to our national defense. In the more than 50 years since Congress has passed an NDAA, a National Defense Authorization Act, the President of the United States has only vetoed the act four times. In each case, the President objected to an actual provision in the bill, and each time the Congress was able to find a compromise that earned the President's signature.

But, as Winston Churchill observed, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

By the way, during these debates, I will comment a little bit on it--that those who are against any intervention cite Libya as the case for not going in. Facts are a stubborn thing. The fact is, Muammer Qadhafi was at the gates of Benghazi and was going to slaughter thousands of people. We brought about his downfall and walked away. If we had walked away from Japan and Germany after World War II, it would have collapsed. If we had walked away from Korea, where we still have 38,000 troops, it would have collapsed. If we had walked away from Bosnia, it would have collapsed. I am telling you, my colleagues, we walked away. This President and this administration did not do the things necessary after the fall of Qadhafi to build a democracy, and the people of Libya wanted it, and I can tell you that for sure because I was there. One of the great tragedies of the 21st century is our failure to act in a way to help the Libyan people transition from all of those years of being under a brutal leader.