Given the protracted contest to determine the presidential victor, it is critical we move expeditiously and be prepared to confirm the new cabinet on January 20 after the president has been sworn into office,

The conditions on the IMF are still not adequate to me, ... But we had to move the bill.

[But the effectiveness of the response to Katrina appears to diminish the higher you move up the chain of command. By Sept. 7, Lott concluded that FEMA and its Mississippi arm were overwhelmed and understaffed, and he went straight to circumvention mode.] We're just going around them, ... We talk to people on the ground, and they tell us what they need.

this is not a dictatorship. The president is not a dictator, and neither am I.

I am not swayed one way or the other on that,

There is not that kind of urgency on China PNTR, ... It could be done earlier or later.