"UNPRECEDENTED"

Gore first demanded to be granted an unprecedented 30 minute opening statement to the Senate EPW Committee for Wednesday's (March 21) global warming hearing scheduled for 2:30 pm ET....

The GOP minority on the EPW committee agreed to the 30 minute opening statement.

--from the blog of Republican senator James Inhofe, linked today at the Drudge Report

Increasing his carbon footprint, Gore brings more greenhouse gas to Hill today. Demands and gets 30 minute opening statement

--Lucianne.com

****

Independent Counsel Ken Starr defended his five-year investigation of President Clinton Wednesday but told a Senate committee that the law that gave him his current job is "structurally unsound," "constitutionally dubious" and should not be reauthorized....

In his nearly 30-minute opening statement, Starr laid out his constitutional objections in scholarly and legalistic tone....

--CNN, April 14, 1999

After a 30-minute opening statement that didn't mention him much, [Condoleezza] Rice took issue with allegations made by former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke, who charged -- among other things -- that the Bush administration saw al-Qaida as merely an important threat -- not an "urgent one."

--KSAT, San Antonio, April 8, 2004