in a gesture of bipartisanship reminiscent of arthur vandenberg crossing the aisle to work with harry truman on securing the passage of the marshall plan in the late 1940's, bill cohen stepped into the pentagon during a very challenging period for the united states. his three goals for his tenure were succeeding in the modernization of the military, and maintaining its readiness to fight. his successors at the pentagon inherited a military that was ready to go, dealing straightforward with recruiting and retention problems, making sure we were bringing in the most capable people, taking care of their quality of life, and making sure that they had a first-class housing to live in and then strengthening security relationships with countries around the world. i was honored to be part of their leadership team, both as undersecretary for personnel and readiness, and later, deputy secretary of defense, but it was clear that secretary bill cohen was engaged, made some of the most important missions to the middle east, the most senior official of the u.s. government to meet with young assad a

former senator carl levin, a democrat of michigan, to say at the time, quoting former senator arthur vandenberg of michigan that a majority of the senate can change its rules at any time, there are no rules. we are the nation's rule-making body mr. president. and if we can't follow our own rules, how can we expect the american people to show respect for and follow the rules that we help to create? the proposal that senator lee and i have made will be considered according to the senator from missouri, the chairman of the rules committee senator blunt by the senate committee on rules administration, it would ultimately require a two-thirds vote by the senate, the entire senate, to change the senate rules. this all has to do with the so-called nuclear option. if i might say an additional word about the so-called nuclear option, i came to the senate in 2003, which is when our democratic friends decided that they would use the cloture vote which requires 60 votes to cut off debate as a way of denying a presidential nomination on a federal circuit judge. it had never in the history of the senate been