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Wednesday, November 16

Mickey Kaus explains the Bob Woodward angle in the Plame affair.

HH: Joined now by Mickey Kaus, he of Slate and Kausfiles.com, one of the country's preeminent authorities on the mess known at Plamegate. Mickey, what was your reaction when you heard Bob Woodward's admission today?

MK: My reaction was this has so many ramifications, I can't possibly track them all down.

HH: Let's start, though, with the fact that he kept this from his editor. What do you, as a longtime Washington journalist, think about that?

MK: That doesn't bother me at all. It's the same charge that was made against Judith Miller, and I thought it was bogus with respect to her. I don't tell my editor everything. And if you want to keep it secret, you make a practice of not telling people, even people you trust. Why worry that they'll somehow accidentally leak it?

HH: Even when people are going to the grand jury, and being accused of committing crimes, and this investigation is far-ranging, and you know for a fact that a month before Bob's column came out, you already knew? Doesn't that endanger people of wrongful prosecution, Mickey Kaus?

MK: I don't think it was endangered. I mean, it would have been a crime for Scooter Libby or anybody to disclose Plame's status, even if Woodward already knew. Woodward hadn't published it. He was a dead end.

HH: Okay.

MK: So Fitzgerald's investigating crimes. So presumably we find out the truth, and indict people. And if somebody's wrongfully indicted, then you can step in.

HH: Well, that's what somebody did at this point. They consider this leak to be so significant. Who do you think talked to Woodward?

MK: Powell. That's who I think, if I had to bet.

HH: Oh, that's interesting.

MK: I mean, he's buddies with Powell. He's apparently hinted that it was an ex-official.

HH: Yes, he did.

MK: And Powell is the logical ex-official. Other speculation focuses on Cheney, just because he's the bogeyman of the hour. And also Bush himself. The only evidence of Bush himself would be that there was...remember there was that mysterious meeting between Fitzgerald and Bush's lawyer right before the indictment. You know, why was that going on? One explanation might be that they were talking about this.

HH: Now tell me a little bit more about the significance for the Rove, get Rove movement. This blows that up, doesn't it?

MK: The get Rove movement was sort of running out of steam anyway. The charges against Rove are focused entirely, as far as I can see, on perjury. Keep in mind the basic thing is disclosing this woman's identity does not appear to have been a crime, because there was a source for the Novak article that eventually made public her name. Fitzgerald knows who that source was. We don't know who the source was, but we know it wasn't Rove or Libby. And Fitzgerald has not indicted that person, so obviously, he feels that just merely leaking the name to a reporter was not a crime. So they're focusing on perjury, and did the people try to cover up this non-crime.

HH: Now Mickey Kaus, step back for a second. We are now way into the deep grass, and people are listening on the radio, and they're saying what is this all about.

MK: There's a lot more grass to go.

HH: I know, but what is it all about? It's not Watergate.

MK: It's all about that in the course of discrediting, quite understandably discrediting an administration critic, it came out that the critic's wife worked for the CIA, and it turns out that she was a semi-undercover agent. So all the CIA people are rightly annoyed that this leak occurred. The left has accused the Bush administration of maliciously leaking her name to punish the critic. And there is a law against leaking the names of covert CIA agents. And so, a special prosecutor was called in to see if anybody in the administration violated the law by leaking her name.

HH: And that's all blown to sky high at this point.

MK: Not blown sky high, but it's been pretty much discredited. Certainly the idea that they maliciously outed her, in order to punish Wilson, doesn't seem to be true. And it does seem to be true that they were treating the information very gingerly, and yet Libby decided to go ahead and leak it to Judith Miller. So, he had some consciousness that it wasn't just like harmless information.

HH: But it was out there in the ether. I mean, it was out there for thirty days, and if Woodward, who else? Now let me ask you, if Powell is a possible, does that tell us something about why Larry Wilkinson, his former chief of staff, has been out blasting at the cabal in the White House?

MK: Explain that to me. I mean, a preemptive offensive?

HH: Yes, yes. Going out there and just throwing more dust in the air, and talking about the cabal in the White House, and trying to get a thousand knives unsheathed in ten different directions.

MK: There's so many other explanations for that. This was time for the realists to come out of the woodwork and trash the Iraq war. That's why we had Brent Scowcroft come out in the New Yorker and trash the war. And you know, if you're somewhat cowardly, you would wait until the war was unpopular before you trashed it definitively. So now Scowcroft, to his credit, did write an op-ed before the war started. So he's much less pusillanimous than...

HH: Yes, he's been against it...he's been a realist since 1991. Now Woodward is quoted today by Howard Kurtz. Have you read the Howard Kurtz piece yet?

MK: I haven't, no.

HH: Let me tell you what he told Howard. "I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed." You know, that could be a direct quote from Richard Nixon in 1974. It's Woodward is Nixon. And now, Rather and Woodward have both become their prey from thirty years ago. It's just odd.

MK: Well, yeah, except I would do the same thing. And I would venture to say that you would, too. The problem with Nixon is that if you listen to the tapes, he was running an incredibly corrupt, sleazy administration. Woodward isn't doing that.

HH: Well, I don't know. I have to disagree with you about that. You know, I let you off the first time, but let's come back around. Woodward is sitting there aware that Bob Novak is not the source for this, that someone else has put that out there. And he lets Fitzgerald go down...

MK: By Bob Novak, you mean Libby?

HH: Novak's column comes out, and it starts this witch hunt for who leaked to Novak...

MK: Right.

HH: But Woodward knew thirty days before Novak printed his column from a source other than Scooter Libby and Karl Rove, and he sat there and did nothing. I think that's profoundly indifferent to justice.

MK: It is, if Woodward knows that...maybe if Woodward knows that his source is also Novak's source. But I think that Woodward doesn't know that. I don't think Woodward knows who Novak's source is. I think somebody told him something and he didn't do anything with it. And it doesn't affect the prosecution one way or the other.

HH: Oh, but it has to affect the prosecution, otherwise Fitzgerald would not have talked to him today, or on Monday. It has to matter a great deal, or why put him under oath and take his deposition?

MK: I don't know. I have a little bit of evidence that it's relevant to the case, Hugh. And I'm not shouting...I haven't put it on my blog that I have this evidence.

HH: Uh-oh. Let's call Fitzgerald...

MK: Hey, prosecutor. Subpoena me.

HH: I think we should. I think we should get word to him and the transcript of this conversation.

MK: I mean, that's a ten thousand dollar lawyer bill right off the...

HH: Well, that is true, but would you let someone go to jail, or get tried. I mean, it's ruined Libby already.

MK: That would explain why Woodward has been so against the prosecution.

HH: Yes.

MK: And he has had some residual guilt that he let it go forward, so he was trying to speak out against it.

HH: But he wasn't telling the truth as he spoke out, because he wasn't revealing his motive. I mean, I think it deeply tarnishes him.

MK: I think he had both motives. I think he genuinely thinks it's a misguided prosecution, as I assume you do also.

HH: Yes, yes. I think it's...

MK: So why can't he go on national television and say that?

HH: Because he could have ended it. He could have put a knife in it a long time ago. Mickey Kaus, I will read your analysis at Kausfiles.com later tonight. Thank you, Mickey.

End of interview.

South Dakota Senator John Thune hints that there might be a tinge of regret among the Senate GOP over yesterday's Warner-Frist vote.

HH: I am now joined by Senator John Thune of South Dakota...We've got to throw hammers at your colleagues today, John Thune. What happened yesterday? You were on the right side of that vote, as were a lot of the freshmen. Richard Burr joined us yesterday, Tom Coburn joined us yesterday. You guys got it right. What happened to your colleagues?

JT: You know, I really think, Hugh, there is so much concern about public opinion polls, and that sort of thing, around here now, that people just got sort of hoodwinked into going along with that. And it essentially was a Democrat amendment that we modified a little bit, and watered down a little bit. But essentially, it said the same thing. And I think it was just absolutely the wrong message to send to our troops, and to the people who are trying to win the War On Terror, that we've got deployed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. And also the wrong message to send to the people that we're trying to libertate, the Iraqis, and clearly the wrong message to send to the terrorists, because essentially what we said was that our resolve is weakening and softening. And if you mess around with us long enough, we're going to go away. And that is not what we have to convey. The only way that we will win this War On Terror is to project strength, and that's what we should have been doing.

HH: It seems very clear to me that the reaction has been overwhelmingly, even brutally negative on your colleagues who voted, in effect, to undercut the war effort. Have they been hearing from people today?

JT: They have, and I've got to tell you, I've talked to a number of Senators today, Hugh, who were on the other side of that vote yesterday, who if they had a do-over, would have changed. I mean, I don't think anybody anticipated the blowback that they would get. And I don't know why, because you know that was the way the media was going to spin it. But there's been a tremendous, I think, amount of resistance coming in from people around the country, who see this as a signal and a sign of weakness, which again, you can argue that it was a sense of the Senate resolution, which may be meaningless and non-binding, but nevertheless, it is symbolic, and it makes a statement about where the United States is, puts us on the record of where the Senate is, with respect to the War On Terror. And I think it sends entirely the wrong message, and I think there are a lot of people who given another chance, would vote differently.

HH: Are your colleagues listening? Will there be another chance to vote differently?

JT: I hope so. This will get discussed again when the Defense Bill gets into conference with the House. My sense is that this is...I would hope this is the kind of thing, although it's been now such a...there's been such a public view of this, in terms of the visibility that it had when the story came out this morning, it may be hard to reverse course. But I think when it goes into conference, I hope that the House insists on striking that provision, and I hope that our Senators will realize they made a mistake, and let's knock that thing out of there, and again, do what we should have been doing in the first place. And that is expressing support for the hard working men and women who are fighting freedom's cause over there in Iraq.

HH: Senator Thune, just a suggestion. Why is it impossible to go to the floor with a resolution that says we know what we did, and we made a mistake, and we wish to correct it on behalf of the men and women in the American military, our Iraqi allies, in order not to send the wrong message. Why not own the mistake like New Coke, and just get it out of the record?

JT: That's...there's been some discussion about that, frankly, Hugh, and I've been...and even suggested that that might be something we should do, just to get people on the record. Now maybe that sends a mixed signal or a mixed message, based on the vote yesterday, but I do think that people really underestimated, miscalculated the effect that this would have on the American people. And again, this is the trap you fall into when you start paying attention to public opinion polls and the leftist media, because there is absolutely no reason we should have taken that step yesterday. And I think people now realize it. So you may see something along the lines of what you're suggesting. That at least is being discussed and kicked around right now.

HH: Now clearly, the leader has taken a big blow, especially if he does intend to run for president. He is taking most of the harpoons, but walk us through where this came from. Was this John Warner's idea? Or was it Bill Frist's idea?

JT: I think what they were trying to do was give Republicans in the Senate something to vote for, that wasn't the Democrat approach, which was essentially a timetable for withdrawal. And so, they struck a few lines, and finessed and massaged a little bit of the language. But with the exception of the specific timeline language on the end, it was still very much the same resolution. And if you went back and read it, and a lot of us did, it still did...there were intimations in there about '06, and I think it just did do exactly what we shouldn't be doing right now, and that is telegraphing to the terrorists that if you mess with us long enough, that we're going to go away. And right now, the message we need to be sending to the terrorists is we are here to win. And that is where our troops are. That is where our commanders are. That is where the young men and women in uniform, when you talk to them, they believe in this. And what this did, I think, is just undermine their morale, and give more boldness to the enemies. So it was the wrong step to take, but I think when you ask what was the origin of this, I think it clearly was an attempt by our side to give Republicans something to vote for that...so they could feel comfortable voting against a timeline, which, frankly again, I don't know why we had to do that. We could have cast a no vote on the timeline and moved on.

HH: You know, Senator Thune, we don't want cover, we want victory, and I'm wondering if, in fact, there is concerns about morale, why we didn't get it done today. But I'll leave that to you to persuade your colleagues. I'd like to ask you, though, Richard Burr yesterday, your colleague from North Carolina, said that you and he and the other freshmen got this right, because you were closer to the people on the war, and that...I mean, you went toe to toe with Tom Daschle and the entire noise machine of the left, day after day, for two years. You know what people think about this war, and I don't think the American people are where the polls suggest they are. What say you?

JT: I agree. I think that people in this country understand whether they agree with our going there in the first place or not, is irrelevant at this point. At this point, we have to win. Not finishing the job, and not prevailing, is just not an option. And that's why the vote yesterday in the Senate was so disconcerting, and I do think that the freshmen, as well as some members of the Armed Services Committee, of which I'm also a member, saw this for what it was. And I remember we were having this discussion on the floor, and I think that you did. You saw a very strong vote from the Republican freshmen, suggesting that this is not the message we want to send to our troops, and it's not the message we want to send to the terrorists. And I wish that...frankly, there were others I talked to. There was one member I talked to today, a Senator friend of mine who voted the other way, and we had this discussion before the vote yesterday, and he said I wish I had listened to you. That was the right vote. But you know, I think there's a lot of that going on now. Unfortunately, that vote's been put up there, and the interpretation has been attached to it. It's exactly what the Democrats wanted to see happen, and now we have to live with the consequences of that. But you're right. It's not too late for us to send a much clearer message, and I hope we'll be able to do that.

HH: First rule of holes...stop digging. John Thune, thank you for making time for us. Go back and call your colleagues, and get them to undo the damage significant that they did yesterday. Always a pleasure.

End of interview.

Wednesday, November 16

Bush's Inferno?

HH: (reacting to bumper music) This is a little hell music, because I'm joined now by Dr. David Allen White, professor extraordinaire at the United States Naval Academy, to answer a question for me. We're talking about the betrayal of George W. Bush by the Senate majority he put into power today, undercutting him at the knees, weakening the war effort, sending the wrong message to Zarqawi and our Iraqi allies. And I was wondering, David Allen White, where does that rank in Dante's seven circles of hell...betrayal?

DAW: Well, let's go into the pit, Hugh.

HH: All right.

DAW: Let's go all the way to the bottom. In fact, here we are, at the last canto of the Inferno, Canto 34. And Dante the pilgrim, and his guide Virgil, get down to the absolute pit of hell. And what do they find? The king of the vast kingdom of all grief, stuck out with half his chest above the ice. The first thing to notice, the pit of hell is not fire. And there aren't demons with little pitchforks. We've seen them up above. We get to the pit of hell, and it's cold. Why? Because all charity is gone. Charity grown cold has lost warmth, all connection between human beings. Lucifer is there. He's got three faces, a parody of the Trinity. And in each of his three faces, he is chewing on an ultimate sinner. That soul up there who suffers most of all is Judas Iscariot, says Virgil, the one with head inside and legs out kicking. The other two whose heads stick out, the one who hangs from that black face is Brutus. See how he squirms in silent desperation. The other one is Cassius. He still looks sturdy. But soon it will be night. Now is the time to leave this place, for we have seen it all. The ultimate sin is the betrayal of benefactors and friends.

HH: Wow.

DAW: And what we see in the pit of hell, charity grown cold, and the face of the devil himself, who of course, was the first one to betray his great benefactor, his closest friend, God Himself. And now in each of his three mouths, he crunches on one of three sinners: Judas, who betrayed Christ, and Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Caesar. The other interesting thing, Hugh, not one of those three traitors dared to approach and make clear to the opponent what he was about to do. Did it suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning. Now you and I have some disagreements about this, as you well know.

HH: About the war itself.

DAW: Yup. But the interesting thing is, we're friends. We can discuss it.

HH: Yup.

DAW: There is a dividing line that has been lost in this country, between public and private. As a private citizen, you and I can debate these issues. As a public servant, when I go into the classroom at the United States Naval Academy, I would not attack my Commander-In-Chief. I would not dare to take those young souls that I am forming, those young minds, and begin to turn them against that mission. That would be betrayal. It would be a betrayal of duty, a betrayal of the man who saw to it that I'm in that classroom. And if the Senate doesn't understand that, they better grow up and get a clue.

HH: Now David Allen White, it's interesting. There have been lot of betrayers in history. But he took...both Cassius and Brutus had been made by Caesar.

DAW: Absolutely.

HH: And they owed everything to him.

DAW: This is the point. Where would any of those people be without the leader not just of the country, but the leader of their party. He made them. If they have disagreements, they go to the White House privately, express them, try to work them out. What went on, Hugh, I agree with you, is appalling, even though we disagree on the basic issue.

HH: Now we are not saying, I don't think we're saying. I want to make sure you agree with me on this, that it is wrong to disagree publicly with the president after you've gone through different steps. If you have conscience, and you have to vote against something, you can. But you don't do it when he's out of the country, and you don't do it in a sudden attack.

DAW: You don't do it when he's out of the country, and you don't do it without consulting with him.

HH: Yup.

DAW: You go...you spend time talking. You explain your position. You don't cut him off at the knees. That's what went on today.

HH: So it's Cassius, Brutus, and Judas Iscariot.

DAW: You got it. The lowest pit of hell.

HH: And it's cold. David Allen White, we have to do a segment sometime on the other six, because they're not pleasant places, either.

DAW: Well, but then we need to ascend upward, Hugh. There's Purgatorio and the Paradiso as well.

HH: Ahh, David Allen White, always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you. That's why you listen to this show, America, because you need to know what's going on, and the classical background for understanding it from Dante.

End of interview.

Tuesday, November 15

Former assistant secretary of defense Frank Gaffney on the Senate vote today to hose the president.

HH: Joined now by Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org. We drag Frank out of wherever he was today, because today, November 15th, 2005, is a turning point in the Global War On Terror. Hopefully, it's one from which we can walk backwards, but I think it's a disastrous vote in the Senate today, to reprimand the Bush administration on its conduct of the war, though they're spinning it differently. Frank, do you read this, the vote today, 79-19, led by John Warner, as other than a rebuke of the administration?

FG: I read it in a different way. I read it as creeping defeatism.

HH: That's what I'm saying.

FG: It may be the same thing, I don't know. But it's not just a rebuke of the administration. It's a signal to our enemies that their strategy is working. And while I think it is fair to say that it is not as direct an affirmation as it would have been had the Democratic version passed, it's still...as they say, good enough for government work. It will communicate unmistakably, to the people trying to kill our forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, that if they just redouble their effort, we'll be even closer to the Democratic position than we are today. And either way, it's now just a matter of time before the sort of Vietnam cut and run syndrome, the Beirut cut and run syndrom, the Somalia cut and run syndrome, that has been very much a point of conviction for the Islamo-Fascists we confront, will be again affirmed. And nothing could be more counter-productive in this war for the free world.

HH: Now Frank Gaffney, where did this come from? I woke up this morning, went online, saw that Bill Frist was announcing this on the Today show. I have never gotten wind of it before, and there was no time to marshall common sense or an appeal to reason. It seems like they caved, because John Warner got a burr up his saddle. And in the middle of a war, it's astonishing.

FG: Well, I can tell you from personal experience, having worked at one time with Senator Warner in the United States Senate, that this is very much the man's modus operandi. And I say that with affection for him, but he took the Senate Democrats' bill, he struck some of its more objectionable provisions, and added, I guess, a few...to gloss some of the thrust of what was left. And once you had him and presumably some of the other Republicans breaking ranks with the president over this version of the Democratic legislation, I guess the Senate leadership decided that they couldn't stop it, and they might as well join it, and make it look less bad by so doing. I think it was a mistake, as I have often thought such initiatives by Senator Warner have been mistakes.

HH: Now again, Frank Gaffney, any doubt in your mind...well, they defeated the Democratic version, calling for a timetable, 58-40. Any doubt in your mind if they had just done that, and engaged in the debate toe to toe, that it would have been a day for celebrating resolve as opposed to a day for mourning defeat?

FG: I think it would have been a lot better all the way around if they had stopped there. You know, unfortunately, this is so short-sided, because not only is it going to have, I think, these sort of untoward, or worse, strategic repercussions, but it isn't going to serve the Republicans well tactically.

HH: Oh, it's a disaster. I mean, that's what I do. I do politics. I think Frist's campaign for presidency is over. I think George Allen hurt himself badly today. I think Republicans and independents, and even Democrats who are serious about the war, watched this today in horror and shock, that the president, while abroad, Frank, he's not in the country, gets dealt a Vietnam-like defeat by his own party.

FG: Well, look. I think it may be a slight overstatement, Hugh, to say this is like the Fulbright initiatives of the past, or the Mansfield amendments, and their ilk. But you certainly are right that it communicates all the wrong messages. And that's what ought to be a matter of real, real soul searching, and I think, some holding to account by Republicans, and as you say, independents and Democrats who are serious about the war. And most especially, Hugh, as we've talked about many times, the subject of our new book, War Footing: Ten Steps American Must Take To Prevail In The War For The Free World. This is so much bigger than Iraq, and this communicates to the American people, and to our allies, and of course, to our enemies, that we're sort of thinking no, it's just all about Iraq.

HH: When we come back, Frank Gaffney's going to stick with me, because I'm going to try and...this is an odd position for me to be in. Frank's too soft on these guys, and I don't want to let them off the hook. This is, I think, a political catastrophe that needs to be stricken from the bill immediately, repudiated. People need to change their votes, and they need to hear from you on that subject.

---

HH: The serious people know what happened today, and Frank, I think you may be sugar coating it, and let me explain to you why. In part of this resolution, the Senate today demanded, or requested, they watered it down, requested additional reports from the Pentagon on the conduct of the war, to which Secretary Rumsfeld went out and said Department of Defense and Department of State...literally dozens of Iraqi-related reports to Congress each year already are being sent. And the Pentagon alone sends Congress I don't know, said Rumsfeld, it's something over 900 reports total every year. I hope someone reads them, the secretary of defense said. The Senate resolution bought into this sort of hard left theory or mythology about Halliburton and Cheney. It's really quite rancid what they did today in building into their tapestry of a resolution the embroidery of the left. I think it's disgusting.

FG: Well, I don't want to be misunderstood here, Hugh. I think it's disgusting, too. I just wanted to be clear with you that when Senator Warner pocketed much of the Democrat rhetoric, I think he made a mistake. It's a mistake, as I said, I think he's made before, and it's a classic politicians, you know, let's find some common ground here. The only thing I was quibbling about, and maybe it's a quibble. Maybe it's a serious point, is this is not the same thing as cutting off the funds to prosecute the war, which we did in Vietnam.

HH: Agreed.

FG: But, where I think we are also agreed is, this is how this thing starts. You get somebody doing this today, and maybe six months, maybe a year from now, somebody says well, that's what we did then, and now, based on this report, it's time to cut off the funds, bring the troops home. It's the wrong message to send, especially since at the time we thought, I think it was wrong, but we nonetheless thought we could safely cut and run from Vietnam. I think it had long-term strategic, and adverse repercussions. But nothing like what you get when you're dealing with a global, totalitarian, Islamo-fascist operation, that will simply respond to this kind of behavior, by redoubling its effort to kill as many Americans there, and elsewhere, and here, as they can.

HH: Frank, to me, it is a strategic win for them. If they popped champagne, they'd be doing it tonight in their caves or wherever they are, because they realize that this Senate, which is run by Republicans A) may not be run by Republicans in fifteen months, I think, given the reaction to this kind of round-heeled resolve. But also, that it doesn't matter. They will prevail if they just keep fighting and keep the pipeline of Islamo-fascists as you call them, streaming into the western part of the country to fight our Marines.

FG: Yeah. But again, Hugh, you understand this very well. We're watching similar kinds of behavior. We can argue about whether it was their idea or whether they're simply capitalizing on it. But make no mistake about it. Similar kinds of ideological violence is being wrought in France, not just in Iraq, not just in Jordan, in France. It was narrowly averted, it appears, in Australia. We had the new Folsom State Prison, out in your neck of the woods, that narrowly averted a bunch of Islamists blowing up three National Guard facilities, and some synagogues, and the Israeli consulate in L.A. I mean, this is not a war that is isolated to Iraq. It didn't happen because of Iraq. It hasn't been made worse, in my estimation, by Iraq, but it will be made worse by our failure in Iraq, if that is what we're now about to have dealt to us, as we did in Vietnam at the political level, not at the military.

HH: Yes. Now let's talk very practically. If you're an Iraqi politician tonight, and you were thinking about running on a slate on December 15th, or in fact you are running on the slate of December 15th, what do you read into the Senate resolution today, Frank?

FG: Well, this is the really frightening thing. In War Footing, we talk a lot about the psychology of people who have lived under terror. And I don't think any American can comprehend what that's like. But one thing that you do when you do live under terror, is you are highly attuned to changes in the political correlation of forces. And if the Iraqi people, and most especially their leaders, take away from this episode that the United States is going to do to them again what it has done repeatedly in the past, which is to sell them out, you'll hear them all heading for the tall grass. And whether that means the Baathist tall grass, or the Zarqawi tall grass, or the Iranian-backed Shiite tall grass, I don't know. But it isn't going to be good for them, and it sure as heck isn't going to be good for us.

HH: I have here an e-mail from a Marine from 1968-70, who is just disgusted today, says he's feeling what he felt then, when he was off fighting in Vietnam, and saw the political will behind the war collapse. If you're a Marine out in the western desert...there's a huge offensive underway on the Syrian border right now.

FG: Yeah.

HH: And you see this on CNN tonight, what are you thinking, Frank Gaffney?

FG: I think you're thinking that you hope that common sense will prevail. You're hoping that people like Hugh Hewitt, and a lot of other folks around the country, are talking the truth to the American people, and encouraging them to do just what you did a moment ago, which is to raise hell about this with their elected officials, and demand that that vote be recast, and that votes be changed. And I think that's what you hope will happen, because, like that Marine who wrote that incredibly powerful letter that the New York Times couldn't bring itself to report fully...

HH: Yeah, that they scandalously censored. Right.

FG: ...which talked about going back, because it was so important, because it was his duty. He knew he might not come back from it, but he felt for the third tour it was important for his country, and for his loved ones that he do it. That's what they're feeling right now. And to think that they are being undercut at best, and at worst, they're being put at greater risk as a result of this kind of pusillanimous behavior, is sickening, to say the least.

HH: Frank Gaffney, as always, a pleasure.

End of interview.

Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn putting today's Senate vote into historical perspective.

HH: Joined now, as promised, by Larry Arnn, president of this fine institution, and Churchill historian extraordinaire. Before we go to Churchill, and what happened in the Senate today, Dr. Arnn, you have a wonderful place here. This is really beautiful. I'm back in the Mid-west, and I'm happy as can be.

LA: Thank you very much.

HH: I drove south out of town tonight, went down to the Ohio Turnpike, turned right, went over one exit to the end of Indiana, turned right again, came up and turned right again, did this big...this is just beautiful country. That's why it's called the bounty lands.

LA: There you go. We're in the hills of southern Michigan. There's not a lovelier place on the face of the Earth, and remember, we're in the middle of a college that doesn't take any money from the government.

HH: 1844, this institution was founded. By whom and why?

LA: Well, Ransom Dunn, Austin Blair and Edmund Fairfield are the main people. Daniel McBride Graham, two of those people would be friends of Abraham Lincoln. It was built to support the cause of civil and religious freedom, and intelligent piety, through sound learning.

HH: Yeah, you know, Arnn, you and I have been pals a long time, and you've got quite an institution here. Why is Hillsdale so famous? Explain to people...they get Imprimus, obviously, and I'm sure they can sign up for it right now, if they want Imprimus, the free newsletter with tremendous stuff to write down, and we'll give you the ID of that in just a second. But why has Hillsdale cut such a figure in higher ed?

LA: Well, we were famous early, and then about 1959, the federal government started giving money unconstitutionally, we're going to talk about that in a minute, to higher education, and they started regulating it. We were famous from the first day. We've never had a day in our history where we didn't take people of any color, and both sexes. And we've never counted. We don't believe in that. So we found ourselves in a scrap, because they demand that you count and admit and hire by color. And we wouldn't do it. And so, finally, in '77, it came to a head, because the Carter Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Joe Califano, wrote us a letter and said you've got this indirect student aid. The GI Bill is an example. And that's a Constitutional example. Some of it is not Constitutional. And so you've got to start counting that stuff. And we said no. So we had to get rid of it all. And so now, we do all of our need-based aid, all of our financial aid of every kind, by private resources alone.

HH: And it's a classic education. It's also devoted to the old approach to what matters in the teaching of someone.

LA: Well, it turns out...I think we probably didn't understand it fully, but it liberates you to pay attention to what the college is for. And you know, colleges, by the way, are not for diversity. They're for truth. Now the pursuit of the truth is controversial. So there has to be room for argument. But what there's not argument about is what you're trying to do. Liberal education means education in the highest things, the things for the sake of which other things are done. So you do begin with a dogma that there are high things. And so, right now, what most colleges are organized to say and to believe is your perspective, my perspective, aany perspective, any subject matter, whatever you want. And that's one reason, by the way, why they can't get students to read really good books. Really good books are hard to read. And so you have to train yourself to read them. And you're not going to go through that effort if you don't have a reason.

HH: Now President Larry Arnn, I said...I've devoted the first two hours today to what is a fundamental turning point, I think, in the War On Terror. And it can be reversed, it's got to be reversed. And you bring to the table knowledge of Washington, knowledge of Lincoln, and knowledge of Churchill. Each of those men were deserted by their allies at crucial moments in their career. Today, though they're attempting to spin it, Republicans in the Senate voted 79-19 to demand from the Bush administration, although they watered it down a bit, reports, and demand a transition next year. A political defeat for the president while abroad, that's unprecedented since he took office. And at the same time, not unprecedented in the lives of leaders who have to do difficult things. How did that happen to Washington, Lincoln and Churchill?

LA: Well, you know, by the way, I can't really quite think of...it's actually hard to think of a time when they did that to Churchill, except in the 1930's...

HH: In the 30's, when he was cut.

LA: Churchill gets into a fight with the government in 1929-30 over Egypt and India. He doesn't want to give them up. Hitler comes to power in January, 1933, and that becomes the third reason why he fights with the conservative government. And the official policy of the Tory Party at that time is disarmament. And Churchill started saying that's a mistake. And so from 1933, until 1936, he more or less was alone. Beginning in about 1935-6, they began to admit that re-armament would be their policy, but it was very slow. Now during this time, which is called the wilderness years in his time, and it's certainly one of the two greatest periods in his life, and maybe the greatest, he is alone. I mean, you can go to the Roman Catholic Cathedral in London, which still stands...all the buildings around it are new, because it was bombed out everywhere near it, except the building, the string of buildings, where Churchill had his London place. And overlooking a playground up there in this London flat, he and about eight people would get together and write the speeches with which he would argue, and finally argue down, the conservative government. It's the reason why they built most of the air force they had in place for the Battle of Britain in 1940. Well that's true, he was very lonely. And their deal there was that they weren't seeing things through. You know, they went to see Hitler, over what were the steps in Hitler's conquest. He occupied the Rhineland, having a treaty committment not to do it.

HH: Right.

LA: At that point, he was very weak. All they would have had to have done was to oppose him, and he thought they would. And then, he would have backed up, and then maybe forces hostile to him would have been strengthened.

HH: Then the Wehrmacht might have thrown him out of bounds. They might have just tossed him overboard, because they were nervous at that point.

LA: Certainly forces that wanted to do that. And then, you get the Anschluss, the taking of Austria by plebiscite, and then military occupation. And then in 1938, begins the pressure on Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakis is already flanked on the south by the taking of Austria, but Czechoslovakia has a very fine army, many divisions, and an excellent munitions industry. And they begin this fight, and the fight is over the land where the Czech fortresses are, and over the land where the munitions factories are. And Neville Chamberlain goes to see Hitler to make a deal with him, and they make that deal on October of 1938. And then in March of 1939, he breaks the deal, and takes the rest of Czechoslovakia. And then curiously, by the way, and this is maybe what you're looking for, and I think it's true, there are these places to fight along the way where it's favorable to fight. And then when they do fight, they give a guarantee to Poland, which no one can reach. France nor England, and Hitler, his arch-enemy, the Soviet Union, and by the way, he has played off British and French opinion beautifully. Well what he does is he makes a deal with the Soviet Union over Poland. And so they attack Poland together. Britain comes into the war, but they've got no means to reach the front where the war's actually going on, and so nothing...that's in September, 1939, when that happens, September 3rd, and there's no real fighting in France and Britain until May the 10th, 1940, which also happens to be the day that Winston Churchill comes to power. So I mean, what's fearsome about this thing is I can think of a variety of policies that we might have followed toward Iraq. We might have followed the policy we had, which was we're going to stop them flying, we're going to deploy the military for the better part of a decade...

HH: We're going to rely on the U.N...

LA: Yeah, the U.N., and we're going to do those things that we were doing. And the trouble with that is, this is a very hostile guy, and he's rich, as we now know, and there were signs of it back then that he's corrupted parts of the U.N., and he's corrupted several countries and leaders in it. And so, Bush thinks to himself, this guy has broken a treaty with us, which by the way, he did. He attacked Kuwait, we went to help Kuwait. He signed agreements with us so that we would stop attacking him. He's broken those agreements. So that comes to the second kind of policy we might have followed, which is we could have gone in there and said we're going to kill him. We're going to go get him. And we're going to find him, and we're going to kill him, and we're going to give them a shot at freedom. And if it doesn't work afer a while, we're going to get out. That seems to me, by the way, an option we might have followed. We followed something grander and more difficult...

HH: Hold that thought.

---

HH: President Arnn, as we went to break, you were explaining what George Bush actually did, the third course, and the one he adopted.

LA: He did something, and I'm going to confess something here. I was skeptical at the time...

HH: I remember this.

LA: He said he's going to build a democracy in Iraq. And all the training that I've got makes me think that's going to be really hard to do. And I will confess something else. I'm surprised at how well it's gone. I don't know at this moment myself how successful it's going to be. But first of all, it's touching that the Iraqi people are so interested in their freedom. And if they were to get it, as the Japanese for example, or the South Koreans got it before, that would be good for us. And so, what I think is the case now, I mean, I would have gone there with more limited objectives, were it me. But having gone there, and having it go the way it's going, and winning the battles that we're winning, and having a constitution in place, and soon a fully elected government, to give them a sign that you're going to leave...and remember, they're going to be watching for that over there.

HH: Zarqawi is making notes. Larry Arnn, let me ask you this. You teach a seminar on statesmanship which I would dearly love to take, actually. And Bill Frist wants to be a statesman. I like Senator Frist a lot. It's hard not to like him. But...and it's hard not to like the people running the House. But what do they not get about statesmanship, that they have to understand at this perilous moment?

LA: Well, there are two things, and one is, they are not...I mean, the foreign policy thing is simple, and I'll state it in a minute. But remember this problem, and this problem is profound, and it plagues us all, and we have to fix this as Americans. There is no talk of the Constitution of the United States as a limiting factor on the authority of the government today. They do every subject matter, and they are not, by the Constitution, empowered to do it. And so, their counterparts, two generations ago, or three or four or five, I mean, the founders of our country loved education. They gave it a massive subsidy in the form of land, given through state governments. They found a Constitutional way to do it. Since September 11th, 2001, defense spending is up 60%. Higher education spending, which is unconstitutional and wrong-headed, is up 250%. Since September 11th, 2001. So first of all, they are not what they must be, which is the party of the Constitution.

HH: And that diverts them from their appropriate Constitutional job, which is the foreign affairs. And they do have the right to overlook what the president does, but they've got to do that the right way, and they have to do it correctly.

LA: If you are in a fight with a bad man, and you know, I just told you, I'm not sure I would have chosen this ground exactly for the fight. But we're in a fight with the worst people in the world. Do not show them weakness. And by the way, every party loses elections. There are two ways to lose them: nobly or ignobly. And I'm afraid they forget the distinction.

HH: That's very profound, because what you're saying is they're so desperate...I mean, they are acting desperate. In the House, they're voting against exploring ANWAR. They can't cut the budget in the Senate. They're cutting the knees out from underneath Bush. They're panicking, and statesmen don't panic. They take setbacks if they have to.

LA: There's a memo written in 1929, by Winston Churchill, who says to Stanley Baldwin, maybe it's time to let them come in. Now by the way, he's speaking of the conservatives, and talking about the liberal socialists, liberal pack, maybe, or labour alone, coming in.

HH: And we have to tell our audience, Dr. Larry Arnn, who Stanley Baldwin is. He was the head of the conservative party, but he was a time-serving, status seeking, power aggrandizing, cypher.

LA: Very shrewd, very political, and you know, his strategy, by the way, that led to the second World War, was I'm going to pick the Bolsheviks off agains the Nazis, to which Churchill replied, too easy to be good. And so, at some point, people have to know of you, that there are important things for which you will lose an election. And these people have lost any sense of that.

HH: How do you assess, in our short time left, President Arnn, George W. Bush as a leader?

LA: Courageous, good, decent, high-minded, fine, a spendthrift...important categories of Constitutionalism, unknown to him. The story of Iraq is still to be written, and if he builds a democracy in Iraq, then I'm going to say that he's a better and more foresightful man that I was on that point, and hug him in delight, in his victory.

HH: Of course, Lincoln was a spendthrift as well, and somewhat indifferent to the Constitution when required to save the Union.

LA: That would be false.

HH: What about habeus corpus, Dr. Arnn?

LA: The Constitution says that in an emergency, the government may suspend the writ of habeus corpus...

HH: Is that not with the consent of Congress...

LA: And when Congress was called back into session, he got them to authorize what he had done.

HH: But he had...but as I would like to just close this segment with a nodding appreciation for the fact that Lincoln did what Lincoln had to do at the moment.

LA: So he did.

HH: So he did. And Washington did what Washington had to do, despite written instructions from Philadelphia to the contrary, correct?

LA: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are both very great Americans, and we would have no country without the both of them.

HH: Larry Arnn, it's a pleasure to be on your campus of this wonderful institution. Thanks for having me. I look forward to having you back again many times.

End of interview.

Jed Babbin on the poor decision by the Republican Senate today.

HH: We're joined by Jed Babbin, guest host extraordinaire, former assistant secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, and keen commentator on matters relating to the Global War On Terror. I've asked him to join me today. I'm just so amazed and disgusted by what the Senate did today, and I'm calling all my heavyweight friends. Jed Babbin, 79-19, what happened to the Republicans? Where did their round heels come from?

JB: Well, I think they've been building for quite a while. People have been chipping away at those heels ever since we landed in Baghdad, in April of '03. And these guys, Hugh, I have rarely...I've been watching politics for almost forty years now. I have never seen such political cowardice as the Republicans displayed today. This is the cheapest of cheap shots, and if I were the president, I'd be just absolutely appalled. I'd be right on the phone to say Bill Frist,...well, I'd say a lot of things to him on the phone that I can't say to you over the air.

HH: Well, now Jed Babbin, as former assistant secretary of defense, you must have watched with keen interest as the secretary of defense went out today and slapped them back, saying what do you mean more information? I send you 900 reports a year. I hope somebody reads them. Can this be interpreted other than a slap at the president and the administration?

JB: No, it can't be possibly anything else. I mean, everybody knows these guys get all the reports, all the information they need, and what they don't get, they can just pick up the phone and get. The point of the matter is, Hugh, these guys don't want those reports. What these Republicans are doing, and this is the really despicable part, is they're distancing themselves from the president. They're looking towards next year, and they're saying if things aren't going just real perfectly in Baghdad come '06, maybe we'll agree to the next Levin amendment. Maybe we'll put a schedule on for the withdrawal of troops. They want...the Democrats want to make this Vietnam. These guys, these Republicans, are just so cowardly, they won't even say it.

HH: Well, they want it to be a slow-motion version of Vietnam. It's not even the courage to demand withdrawal or a timetable. Let me read you the good guys list, Jed. These are the fellows who voted against the amendment on the Republican side. Bunning, Chambliss, Coburn, Cornyn, DeMint, Graham, Inhofe, Isaakson, Kyl, McCain, Sessions & Vitter. What do they know that Senator Frist and his colleagues don't?

JB: Well, probably, those are the guys who are not up for re-election next year, and they know what...the fact is, that we're in a war. I mean, these guys, the rest of these people, and I'm trying to struggle to not use an expletive on your show. What these clowns are doing is basically saying hey. We want to get ourselves out from under blame for the war. We want to be able to run away from it, and we want to be able to go to the American people next year and say oh, yeah, I voted to make them tell us more about what they're doing. These guys...again, it's just cheap political cowardice. That's all this is.

HH: Jed Babbin, I'm trying to find some way to acquit some of my friends in this body. Not Senators Frist and McConnell, who are leadership, or Warner who sponsored this, but some of the ones who just arrived there. Is it possible they just thought oh, it's a go along to get along moment with John Warner, one of the old bulls of the Senate?

JB: It may very well...could be, but if they really had paid attention since they got there, they'd know that John Warner is not really one of the old bulls. Now, you know, we've talked about it on your show before, you don't want to cross somebody like Ted Stevens. Ted Stevens plays hardball. But anybody...any freshman can roll John Warner. So I don't know why these guys need...

HH: Unpack for us, would you? That's a little inside baseball that's very interesting to my audience. Why is that true?

JB: Well, because Mr. Warner is a very gentlemanly gentleman, but he is not a very effective leader. He's not a very strong personality, and unless you're talking about a military appropriation that's going to the state of Virginia, he'll compromise pretty much anything. I mean, I like the guy...

HH: Then why didn't Bill Frist stop this?

JB: Well, Bill Frist was starting it. Bill Frist is another one of these guys...Bill Frist is running for president, Hugh. And the problem we've got with pretty much all of these clowns is that they look in the mirror, and they see a president of the United States. That's what we have with McCain, and his amendment to this thing on so-called torture amendment. It's an absolute fraud. The fact of the matter is...well, actually, the amendment is not a fraud, but the debate about it is. But he, and all the rest of these guys are running for president, and that's all they're worried about.

HH: It's like picking up a spare if you're Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani. John McCain, Bill Frist, George Allen all knocked themselves down today, because they all voted one...McCain voted against the Warner amendment, but he voted for his own handcuffs on the president when it comes to interrogation. He says it's about torture, but it's not. Jed, what about that vote?

JB: Well, that's really a big, big problem. The debate on the McCain amendment is as dishonest as anything I've seen in a long time, and Hugh, I've been in Washington darn near thirty years. I've seen an awful lot of dishonest things.

HH: You got there when you were five.

JB: Let me just set this out for your listeners, because I think it's really important for people to understand. Torture is against the law. Whether you're an American soldier, whether you're working for the CIA, it doesn't matter whether the McCain amendment passes or fails. Torture is illegal, period. It's a felony, and nothing in the McCain amendment's going to change that. What McCain does is he puts in place a lot of different terms, which are undefined, and you're a much better lawyer than I am. I'm just a recovering lawyer. You're a real lawyer. You know, when you have an undefined term in the law, it's a license for prosecutors and everybody else to question what's going on. He's putting these terms in with respect to interrogation of terrorist prisoners, that's going to make everybody in that business at risk. And it's not going to help. It's not going to be about torture. It's about making the law vague, when it's pretty solid right now.

HH: Jed Babbin, can the House leadership be bucked up to strike both of these measures from the defense appropriations bill?

JB: I don't think so.

HH: Ugh.

JB: I think they're going to try. I just don't think they're strong enough. The overwhelming votes like on the McCain amendment, 90-9 in the Senate. That's going to be real hard to knock down. The president needs to get up the gumption to veto this thing. He's never vetoed anything. This is a really good place to start.

HH: Jed Babbin, I began my career, post-college, in the study of the Western White House with Richard Nixon, writing a book called The Real War. And a lot of that time was devoted to the dissection of what happened in Vietnam. I have the sickest feeling today that we're in a bad movie replayed. Your assessment?

JB: Well, Hugh, I wish I could disagree. I really do, because the Democrats want this to be another Vietnam. They don't care if we lose. They want America to be defeated, because in defeat is the only way they can regain power. That's the only path to success for them, and they're perfectly willing to push America down it.

HH: Jed, I don't agree with that, but I will say this. Political opportunism...they believe they're political opportunism will not lead to defeat. But they are unaware of its consequences. Republicans should know better. Jed Babbin, always a pleasure. What's the website? What's the blog over at American Spectator, Jed?

JB: Well, it's www.spectator.org, and then just click on Amspecblog.

HH: Go. There's lots of great stuff there breaking this afternoon.

End of interview.

Oklahoma Senator, Dr. Tom Coburn, on the Republicans in the Senate going south today.

HH: I'm joined now by the third Senator of the day, another Senator who got it right today. Tom Coburn is a Senator from Oklahoma. He's also a doctor. Dr. Coburn, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show, and thanks for your vote against the Warner amendment today. What happened to the Republican caucus?

TC: Well, you know, a little inside baseball, they were trying to run side-by-side to defeat the Democratic altermative. And of course, when you practice that kind of legislation, you're going to get poor results. You can't have a committee run a war, the war...we have to win this war. This is a real war, and what they did is damage the American people today, because together, we can win this war. If we divide ourselves, we'll lose the war, and most Americans don't understand that if we lose this war, it's not like walking home from Vietnam with our head down. It is we lose our way of life. And they will pick off the Europeans, one at a time, we will not have allies, we will not have the trade, the standard of living that we have today, and we will be vulnerable evermore.

HH: Now Senator Coburn, Doc Coburn, Republicans know this, generally. Was there no debate in the caucus? Didn't anyone stand up and say are you people crazy? This will encourage Zarqawi, discourage our Marines and soldiers, absolutely devastate Iraqis who are risking their lives running for office with bombs going off. I mean, didn't anyone bring this up?

TC: This didn't come before the caucus, and it was made as a defensive move against what the Democrats were doing, and it just shows you when you legislate that way, not on the basis of principle, not on the basis of what is right and virtuous, but on the basis of fear that you may have something worse, then you lose. And you lose trying to negate a worse, but nevertheless, you lose. And Hugh, the important thing is Americans have to understand. We had a hearing today on Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The president of Iran has said he wants to use nuclear weapons to eliminate Israel, and eliminate all Anglo-Saxons. People need to understand...if you don't believe what radical Islam believes, then you should die. And that's the rule we're fighting. And they want to rewrite history on how we got in the war. The fact is, is four commissions have already looked at that. There was no manipulation of the intelligence date. But the point is, is you have career, professional politicians who are more interested in their career, than they are in doing what's best for this country. And that's why you get the kind of votes you get.

HH: Now Senator Coburn, Dr. Coburn, I know a lot of my audience understands the stakes, but they are mystified when they see the president who is traveling abroad, get blindsided by a Senator majority, he actually more than any other individual, put into place. How do we change this?

TC: Well, I think we have to go on the offensive, and talk to America. I gave a speech this morning, and as a matter of fact, if all your readers...you ought to put this on your website, is a commentary be retired Major General Vernon Chong, retired from the U.S. Air Force. He wrote a wonderful commentary about this is a real war. And you ought to get that commentary and put it on there. People need to understand this is a real war. And if we lose it, and we can lose it if the American people are divided, then what will happen is the very thing that we went to war to prevent, will come about.

HH: Okay, given that, and I will find that, Vernon Chong, and I'll post it over at Hughhewitt.com. Do you foresee...have you heard from your constituents today, Dr. Coburn? Is the Senate kind of looking over their shoulder and saying what did we do? Have you seen any of your colleagues regretting what they did?

TC: No, actually I haven't, but I've been in a hearing all day on Iran, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons. So I haven't.

HH: And so, if this goes to the conference, and there is an outcry from Republicans and independents, and even Democrats who understand what a disaster this is, will it make it out of the conference? Can it be stripped out, this Warner amendment?

TC: Oh, this isn't going to come out at conference. I can assure you, it's not going to come out of conference. But the point is, the game playing needs to stop. And we're all Americans, we're not Republicans and Democrats, we're all Americans first. And we have to suck it up, and start thinking about our long-term future, and quit playing the political game, which says how do we nail somebody to make ourselves look good. And that's what the Americans are counting on us to do. And this is one of the unfortunate side effects of weak leadership, and a pursuit of power, instead of pursuit of principle.

HH: And so, how does that get through to Republicans, because again, I'm focused like a laser tonight on your colleagues in the Senate? You only had 13 who stood with you and voted against the Warner amendment. That means we've got 42 Republicans who got this wrong. That's a lot of trouble.

TC: Well, I think you've got to look at the 13 Republicans who voted with you, and say do they really represent the Republican Party? And that's true. And you know, if you talk about this, or you talk about spending, or anything else, just go correlate the votes on spending with the votes on people who got this right. They'll be the same people.

HH: Is the piece by Chong that you're referring to, where he walks through this war is for real?

TC: Oh yeah.

HH: Okay. I've got that underneath...

TC: You know, he outlines exactly what's going on. He outlines all the events that the radical Islamo-Fascists have done since the bombings in Lebanon some twenty-some years ago. And he outlines the 7,000 terrorist events that they've carried out since 1981. And he outlines what the battle is, and how we lose the war, and the political correctness that's killing us, like not profiling those people who are most at risk to hurt us.

HH: And Dr. Coburn, how do you think today's vote is perceived by Zarqawi and his terrorist minions?

TC: Oh, you know, it emboldens them. It emboldens them. There's no question about it. And we need...it underlines the president, number one. Number two, it undermines our troops. Number three, it says the Congress knows how to run a war better than the Defense Department? Give me a break.

HH: Yup. So now, given...if you see John Warner in the hall tonight, Dr. Coburn, what are you going to say to him?

TC: It's really Frist. It's not John Warner. It's really Frist.

HH: Explain.

TC: This is a leadership thing that was put forward to counter the amendment by the Democrats. And it's one of those unfortunate things when you say well, we'll take the lesser of two evils, when you should have stood up and said we're not offering an alternative. We think this is wrong. We should have stood up and spoke on it. But that wasn't the case.

HH: All right. You know what? I've got to correct the record. John Thune voted against this, too. I misread that, and I'm so glad to hear that. Why is it only the freshmen are getting this? Not only, but mostly. It was you and DeMint and Burr...

TC: Because we're connected to the American people.

HH: That's interesting. Explain that.

TC: And the longer you're in Washington, the less connected you are.

HH: That's very important. Now are the caucus of the freshmen going to get together on this stuff, Dr. Coburn?

TC: Well, we're getting together on a lot of things. And so, I would assume that most of us will be together on this as well.

HH: All right. Now, a quick question before I let you go. Do you see any trouble with Justice Alito's confirmation?

TC: Oh, I think it'll get filibustered, ultimately. And I think we'll have the Constitutional option, and I think it'll pass, and he will become the Supreme Court justice.

HH: I appreciate your confidence, I appreciate your strong voice, I really appreciate your vote today, to try to stop the undercutting of the war effort, Senator Coburn from Oklahoma. Thank you, Doctor.

End of interview.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint on the same stupid Warner amendment vote.

HH: I'm not joined from Washington, D.C., by Senator Jim DeMint of the great state of South Carolina. Senator DeMint, thank you for being on the show. It's good to talk to you. Congratulations on voting the right way, which was against the Warner amendment today. What happened to the Republican caucus?

JD: ...I don't know, Hugh. I think it was clear to me that a lot of members, Republicans and Democrats, felt like they needed to show the American people that we wanted to get out of Iraq at some point. I think the president has met every deadline he set for himself, and I've been to Iraq twice. The generals are very focused on the understanding that the more they turn over to the Iraqis, the sooner we can get out, and I was obviously disappointed in either bill. I just don't think we need to be telling our commander in chief how to conduct a war when he's set his milestones, and he's made them. And I think we'll get out of Iraq when the right time is to get out of Iraq. But this is a war we've got to win, Hugh. I'm afraid people are just treating it like a political game here in Washington. We're in a war. We have been for a couple of decades or more, and we need to be serious about it, so I mean, I appreciate you talking it up. I just wasn't going to vote for either bill.

HH: I've got to tell you, Senator DeMint, the lines, the e-mails, the blogosphere, the general public reaction among supporters of the war is white hot rage at the Republican caucus. I can't put it any other way. I think it hurt the NRSC's fundraising. I think it hurt Bill Frist. I think it hurt George Allen. Are they aware of how this is perceived, and how it has been widely celebrated on the left side of the political aisle, among the fever swamp, the Michael Moore crowd, as being a capitulation?

JD: I don't think they were when they brought it up. I think they were trying to...basically, the strategy was to beat the Democratic amendment, with a subsitute, without the deadline in it. And so I think the strategy, the legislative strategy was just to beat the Democrats. But I think in the process, it looked like capitulation, and it looked like the hammering by the Democrats had softened us up to the point where we halfway agreed with them. And so, I know that wasn't the heart of the Republicans, and I know that wasn't the intent of the leadership, but I voted against it, because that was the way it felt to me.

HH: Now I have some experts on later in the program, Senator DeMint, and I know what they're going to say, which is this is exactly the wrong message to send to terrorists like Zarqawi, to dead-enders from the Baath Party, and even to Iraqis who are now going to second guess whether the United States Senate's got staying power. Did that come up in the floor debate?

JD: No, it didn't, and it should have. I mean, I think when the Iraqis start to wonder if we're going to stay the course, then it becomes increasingly dangerous for them to step forward and run for office, and to keep rebuilding the way they're doing. And again, I don't think it was the intent of any of the Republicans, but I just think we are not as sensitive as we should be of what signals we're sending to other parts of the world, and particularly to the terrorists. And I think all the demagoguery from the Democrats are empowering the terrorists and endangering our troops. And I think the bills today were unnecessary, and sent the wrong suggestions.

HH: Well Senator Jim DeMint, thanks for joining us on short notice from the floor. I hope you go back in and see either the majority leader or the whip this afternoon or evening, and just pound on the table if you have to. This is a disaster, and there's no covering up, there's no sugar coating it. And I think they buckled, and they've got to get off the floor. Senator DeMint, thank you.

End of interview.

North Carolina Senator Richard Burr on the very ill-timed and ill-considered vote today by the Senate Republicans to cave on the Global War On Terror.

HH: On a very sad day for America, a day of decisive rebuke in the United States Senate of George Bush, Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon, and the war effort, an astonishing vote to demand regular updates from the president. It's called a rebuke by the Washington Post. It is nothing but that, and to explain how the Senate Republicans went so wrong today, I'm joined from Washington, D.C., by United States Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who voted the right way, which was against the Warner amendment today. Senator Burr, thanks for joining us on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

RB: Hugh, good evening. Greetings from Washington, and it is a sad day. We got a defense authorization bill finished this afternoon, but at a significant cost. You know, Hugh, I said to my staff when I came back in, I can't envision any point where I would encourage Congress to vote on something like this when a president, regardless of what party they're in, is out of the country. And clearly, today's vote, I think there were a lot of people that weren't paying attention to what it was that we were voting on. Congress has the oversight authority already. We continually get updates from not only the generals in the field, but from the folks on the ground here in Washington. Members actively go to Iraq and to Afghanistan, and see first-hand the war. To set this artificial timeline, to do it when the president's out of the country, it provides nothing new to Congress.

HH: Now Senator Burr, there's a lot of ground to cover here. I want to start with the facts, so my audience understands what happened. Let's being with...the Senate Democrats wanted to embarrass the president and demand a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That was defeated handily, 58-40. Why did Senator Warner and Senator Frist then co-sponsor this amendment? What were they thinking?

RB: Well, Hugh, I think that Senator Bingaman's amendment that was basically this language but with a date certain for the removal of troops, they felt that Republicans needed to show that they were anxious and observant to everything that was going on in Iraq, and that to ask for this 90 day update was a prudent thing. I think they forgot that we get an update even more often than that. It comes in the Armed Services Committee, it comes in the Intelligence Committee, it comes for the general membership of the Senate, probably more often than 90 days now.

HH: Now Senator Burr, I'll be asking defense experts throughout this program, which I'm devoting to this subject, who the winner is today. And I'm going to ask them how Zarqawi reads this. And I don't think a terrorist would be wrong to read this as an initial crack in what has hitherto been a solid political support for the war, no matter how long it took, because we have no choice but to win it. And I mean, is there any other way to interpret this as exactly what our enemies would love to see, a weakening of political will?

RB: Hugh, I think that the insurgents will always see an opportunity and seize it, and I'm sure that they will in this particular case. I believe today in Iraq, and tonight in Iraq, there are probably Iraqis that are scratching their head, wondering are we going to leave them again, or are we going to go before, in fact, they're ready to take their own security over. I think more importantly, we've got some troops that are in the field, some that I've sat and had dinner with in Baghdad, who see the hope in the eyes of the Iraqis every day that they go out on patrol. And the Iraqis now see them as their pathway to democracy. As long as they're there, they know they have hope of their own security. And they may perceive this as a premature departure on the part of the American troops.

HH: The United States Senate voted today overwhelmingly to rebuke the Bush administration on its conduct of the war, to demand more information. A vote of 79-19. Only thirteen or fourteen Republicans opposed this, Senator Burr. Why did it come up so quickly? There's a sense about this that majority leader Frist, and Senator Warner, chair of the Armed Services Committee, rushed this through before the Republican and the independent, and even some Democratic support for the war could make their voice known, and rebuke their rebuke.

RB: Well, clearly the leadership wanted to get defense authorization done today. It was our intentions to finish it last week, and we couldn't quite wrap it up. I think there were some dicey issues, there were some things that were worked out over the weekend, as it related to the Graham amendment, that removes habeus corpus for detainees, and some agreements that were met with Senator Levin. But Hugh, I'm sort of getting used to being in the single digit number of a vote lately, after some of the battles we've had on appropriations issues as well.

HH: Well, I appreciate your standing tall on this. I'm sure there was enormous pressure. What are you hearing from callers to your office and e-mailers? Are they supportive of your vote standing with the president and with the war effort?

RB: Hugh, I think it'll be tomorrow before we really get a sense of where people are, just simply because this has all happened this afternoon. Once again, you're right on top of things, and that says a lot about the content of your show. It's up to date. But I think as people begin to watch the news tonight, as they begin to ask questions, as they begin to look at what actually was passed, they'll find that this really went a lot further than the authors of this amendment led people to believe.

HH: Now let me ask you again, Senator Burr, this has to go to the conference now. Any chance of stripping it from the bill in the Senate passing, you know, having a moment to draw its breath? I just can't...George Allen, I'm stunned, voted for this. And I just don't know what to say.

RB: Hugh, I think the answer is yes, we're going to do everything we can to strip it from the bill. But I've got to go back to something I think you and I even talked about before the last election cycle, and that is that conference is not for the purposes of getting rid of the stuff that you didn't have the guts enough to keep out in the first place. And I think where we are now is conferences should be there to perfect a bill, and to work out the differences, not to fix the things we knew we didn't want in the bill. We've got to stand up and speak out against them, and vote against them.

HH: Now Senator Richard Burr, there is also...we're coming off a week where your counterparts in the House, with whom you served this past January, fumbled the ball on ANWAR exploration, couldn't even get a budget deficit passed. Now we have this shipwreck in the United States Senate cutting out the legs of the Bush administration on the war. What's happened to Republican leadership on the Hill?

RB: Well, clearly they are down to one leader in the House, in Speaker Hastert. Factions have gone in two different directions. It makes it almost impossible to believe a scenario where they can get budget reconciliation this week, and that's even with ANWAR out of it. You know, I think, Hugh, I've voted and passed ANWAR six times while I was in the House over ten years. So it's incredible to me that they can't move it. But certainly, ANWAR will go back in, in the conference report of reconciliation. But we're going to be here a lot further into December than I think members had planned.

HH: And generally speaking, the collapse began with the Katrina blowback from the base. But do you see any effort by leadership in both houses to kind of get together and say what is going on here, and try and re-establish some defensible ground? Because I think Democrats must be the happiest they've been in five years.

RB: Hugh, I do. the House and Senate leadership meet daily now. The level of cooperation is great, and I think the plan really is focused on next year, and how we come out with an agenda that one speaks to the majority of the American people, really does embrace the issues that are conservative in every realm. And I think that has to dovetail with the message that the president comes with in the State of the Union. We've got to quick being risk averse up here. We've got to be bold, we've got to come out with solutions to our problems, and not just excuses. And I think it was a dark day for all of us when we saw government's response, both federal, state and local, to Katrina. But we can't let that get us down. We've got to come up with a solution to not only that, but we've got to end this spending spree that Congress has been on.

HH: We've got a minute left, Senator. You are the chair of the sub-committee on bio-terrorism, public health preparedness. That puts you in the middle of Avian flu preparedness. Are we up to speed on that potential epidemic?

RB: Well, once again, we're trying to catch up, and we're probably better off than anybody around the world. But Hugh, the ability to meet a health disaster like Katrina, potentially in every state around this country, we've got a lot of work to do before we can do that. And I think that there are a lot of great minds working on it. But this will involve state, local and federal officials coordinating a plan that is a workable plan.

HH: Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, I really appreciate your coming to the phone today and talk with us after a long day on the Senate floor. Good luck in fighting the good fight, getting your Senate colleagues, especially the Republicans, to rethink this disastrous move today, and get back on track.

End of interview.

Monday, November 14

The Smart Guys on the Alito documents, and the opening rounds of the abortion debate to follow.

HH: I'm joined now by the Smart Guys. They are two Con-law professors who join me whever Con-law is in the news. Erwin Chemerinsky from the left, and from Duke University Law School. John Eastman from the right, and my colleague at Chapman University Law School. And you need to listen to this, because...not just the huge Alito story today, but perhaps one of the most significant decisions for anyone who has a kid in any public school, or going to have one in any public school. Not just special ed kids, but everyone affected by today's decision impacting what special education kids may get from their school districts...John, have you heard about it?

JE: Yeah, I have heard about it. This is an opinion by Justice O'Connor, two dissents and Chief Justice Roberts not participating, held that the burden of proof in having an individualized education plan for disabled children is, by the preponderance of the evidence, on the person seeking to challenge the status quo. So the parents that want more services provided have the burden of proof, rather than the government or the public school having the burden of proof to demonstrate that what they're providing is adequate.

HH: Now the reason I believe this is so hugely significant is that school districts across the United States have typically refused to engage parents in any kind of litigation over this, because they've been afraid they were going to lost. Erwin, I don't know if you can now hear me, that was generally the way that school districts...they just fold when parents, unsatisfied with special ed developed needs assessments, objected.

EC: I think your description is absolutely right, and I'm trying very quickly as we're talking to learn about it. I understand it was a 6-2 decision, holding that parents, not school officials, have a burden of proving that a parent's claim that an educational plan for disable children does not satisfy the child's needs. So I think this is a big victory for schools, and makes it much more difficult for parents.

HH: John Eastman, do you agree with this assessment, that it will probably change...I think it gets to funding right away.

JE: I do, and look. Let's be very clear what the Court did here. It basically followed the traditional rule, that if you sue the government, you have the burden of proof of showing that your claim is correct. And here, the suits were saying what the government is providing doesn't meet the statutory obligation. The parents have the burden of proving that that's correct, rather than the defendant having the burden of proving that what they are providing meets the statutory definition.

HH: Well, we will follow the repercussions of this over the days and weeks ahead. Now let's turn to the Alito memo. Erwin, you must have been shocked to read what Judge Alito wrote twenty years ago in his job application to the Meese Justice Department.

EC: I don't think any of us were shocked to read it. I think all of us thought that's exactly what Samuel Alito believed. This was an article in today's Washington Times, and it said that twenty years ago when applying for a position in the Justice Department, then-non-judge, Samuel Alito, now Judge Samuel Alito, expressed a strong belief that the Supreme Court was wrong in protecting abortion rights, and praised the efforts of the Reagan administration to get Roe V. Wade overturned. I think what this means is it's not going to be a question of what Samuel Alito believes on abortion. I think the question is going to be, should someone with those beliefs be confirmed to the United States Supreme Court?

HH: John Eastman, your response to that question framing by Erwin?

JE: Well, I actually agree with that. I mean, I think Judge Alito's position here was clear. It was the Reagan administration position. It's a position shared by roughly half of the country, and you know, we've been ducking this fight and this debate, as if it's some kind of fringe thing. It's not. What the Supreme Court did in 1973, was take a hot political issue, with competing rights on both sides, and take it out of the hands of the political process, as if to say, you citizens of the country have nothing to say about that. And for thirty years, there has been a sustained political campaign to try and revisit that decision. And quite frankly, I think the time is long overdue that we have that debate in the United States Senate, and I hope Judge Alito will articulate...re-articulate his view that most people in the country agree with, that the decision in Roe V. Wade is one of the most poorly reasoned decisions in the country, and let's get a serious, honest debate about this.

HH: But we already know that, because the Casey majority rejected the Roe reasoning as silly, and threw it overboard. But Erwin, let's get some factual issues down first, and we might have to go two segments here. Just because he said that in 1985, does not mean that he would vote to overrule Casey, does it?

EC: It doesn't necessarily mean that, but of course, there's no way we will know until he's on the Supreme Court and casts a vote what it would be. All we can do is look for evidence. John Roberts could disavow a brief that he signed in the Justice Department, urging the overruling of Roe V. Wade, by saying I was just taking the position of my client. Samuel Alito in the strongest possible language, said that he believes that abortion should not be protected as a right in the Constitution. I can't let John's statements go unchallenged. I think Roe V. Wade was exactly right in its conclusion and in its reasoning. I think the Supreme Court was right to say that privacy is protected by the Constitution, and a fundamental aspect of a woman's privacy is to decide for herself whether to terminate her pregnancy. I think Casey reaffirmed Roe, did not reject its reasoning in any way.

HH: John Eastman?

JE: Well, look. We all have a right to privacy, and we all have the right to do what we want with our own body. It's when you start implicating other people, other human beings, and let's be very clear here. You know, a human fetus is a human fetus. It's not an animal fetus, and it's not a bundle of asparagus. It is a human being, and the notion that it's not, or that it's entirely up to an individual to decide who other human beings are and who not, is a throwback to a day when a slave owner got to decide that his own slaves were not human beings. I mean, it is preposterous, and for thirty years, we have been slaughtering 1.6 million people a year. That's three per minute, Erwin. And the fact that we have not had this debate in the courts, because of Roe V. Wade, doesn't mean we haven't been having it in the political process. And the only way open to people has been through the political process, to change the courts. And it's time to have that discussion on the floor of the United States Senate.

HH: Erwin Chemerinsky?

EC: John, you totally beg the question of whether a fetus should be regarded as a human being. I understand you regard the fetus as a child. I don't. But the question shouldn't be for you or for me. It should be for each woman to decide for herself whether to continue or terminate her pregnancy. And that was what was right in Roe V. Wade. 68% of the American people in a recent CNN opinion poll, said that they believe that Roe was rightly decided. Over 50% of the American people in a poll said that anybody who doesn't believe in Roe shouldn't be confirmed for the Supreme Court. So I think you're right. This is the battle. But I totally disagree with the way you beg the question here.

---

HH: John Eastman, let's not pass over the quotas issue, either, but I want to give the floor back to you.

JE: Well, sure. I mean, Erwin says that he doesn't believe in an unborn child as a human being, and that I do, and therefore, it ought to be up to each individual person. He doesn't take up the direct analogy, southern slave owners, at some point during the course of the ante-bellum south, started arguing that black slaves were not human beings, and that therefore, they could treat them as property, and the Constitution required that they protect their propery interests, which is uncannily like the woman's claim to protect her liberty interest, because she alone gets to determine whether this is another human being or not. The analogy is direct, and the Supreme Court weighing in on it has not only Constitutionalized abortion, to take it out of the hands of the political debate where it belongs, on how great a penalty, if any, we're going to apply for performing abortions, but has led the Court to uphold partial birth abortions, which are abortions where the baby is already delivered, all but intact, almost entire outside of the mother's womb, and then killed in some of the most heinous surgical operations you can even describe. This is what Roe V. Wade has wrought, and I'll tell you. You ask most American people, and the polling data's pretty clear here, 70-80%, when you say would you allow for abortion on gender selection? Would you allow for abortion, because we've discovered a gene we don't like? Would you allow for abortion because of the inconvenience to the mother? Would you allow for abortion in the third trimester, or at partial birth? Overwhelming majorities say no to each of those, and yet the Supreme Court's Constitutionalization of this issue has prevented any political judgment on those questions.

HH: Erwin Chemerinsky?

EC: I think the analogy to slavery is offensive. We all agree that slavery was an abhorrent practice. But there is not now, nor will there ever be any consensus on the question of when somebody becomes a human being. I do not believe that a fetus before viability is a human being. You do. But the question is who should decide that? Should it be for the state to force women into unwanted pregnancies? Or should it be for each woman to decide for herself? It's not a question on how the matter is phrased in an opinion poll. 68% of the American people believe Roe V. Wade should be affirmed, and should continue. And John, you raise red herrings when you talk about post-viability killing of children. 99% of abortions are performed before viability. And what procedure is used is between a woman and her doctor. And again, this is the question. Who should be making this choice? Should it be the woman and her doctor? Or should it be you and the state? I think that your position would mean that abortion should be unconsitutional, should never be allowed. And I hope I never live in a country that has that.

HH: John Eastman?

JE: You know, if we're talking about abortions in the third trimester, you're talking about the closest thing to infanticide that has ever been upheld in any civilized country in the world. And for the American people not be able to have a say in that, politically, because the Court has taken it off the table, and let's be very clear. When American people are asked should Roe V. Wade be affirmed, they don't understand that it means abortion on demand, up until the 9th month of pregnancy, because of the health of the mother exception, and the way it's been interpreted. Don't be dishonest, Erwin. And the comparison with slavery is exactly right. There were people at the time who said slavery is a positive good. And it's entirely up to me, the slave owner, to decide whether these people are human beings or not, or whether they're going to be treated as my property. It is a question you cannot leave...have decided, as if there are not two lives at stake here. I mean, this is preposterous to say that it's not a human being. What else is it?

HH: Erwin, I have a question for you. Does this constitute special circumstances, extraordinary circumstances, in the view of the Senate, do you think?

EC: Well, of course, the 14 Senators who came to the agreement to preserve the filibuster said it could be used in extraordinary circumstances. But no one knows quite what that means. The Democrats who are part of that, like Lieberman, have said extraordinary circumstances includes ideology. The Republicans who were a part of the group, like Lindsey Graham, say extraordinary circumstances doesn't include ideology. Now my guess is, I mean, we can go on with the abortion debate at length, and I can call John's position preposterous, just like he called me preposterous. But if I can go beyond the abortion issue to what it's going to mean politically, I think this increases the pressure on the few moderate Republicans, and the relatively few moderate Democrats, because there are a few pro-choice Republicans, like Snowe and Collins and Chafee. This makes it much harder for them to vote in favor of Alito. It increases the pressure on the moderate Democrats. If it comes to a filibuster, will they filibuster. And then my guess is what it's always going to depend on here is, if the Democrats filibuster, will moderate Republicans vote to eliminate the filibuster, even if they're willing to vote for Alito.

HH: You get the last word this week, Erwin Chemerinsky.

End of interview.

Bill Sammon on the Alito document he broke today, and the impact of it on the nomination.

HH: Bill Sammon of the Washington Times presented last night (Hillsdale College's new media conference), and then this morning, I arise to find he's got the scoop of the week in the Washington Times. Alito rejected abortion as a right. Bill Sammon, good to have you on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

BS: Thanks for having me, Hugh.

HH: Now you didn't breathe a word of this to me last night, so I could have had a blogger scoop. We were up there clinking glasses and getting along very nice, and you're sitting on a big, huge story. When did it come to you?

BS: It came to be...I was actually here at Hillsdale to enjoy myself and kind of relax for a couple of days, brought my sons here to look at the school as well. And I got a call in my room yesterday from a real good source of mine, who said look. Doing a document dump tomorrow, but there's a radioactive single document that you're going to want to see, and we're going to send it to you right now. So, I took a look at it. I made some calls, did some research, and we put it out there in the Washington Times this morning. I was nervous about posting it...you know, a lot of times, we'll slip it to Drudge or something like that. But we were just worried that the Post would come back and match us, or the New York Times would match us, so we really wanted to get a clean hit, so we kept it pretty quiet until after midnight.

HH: Let me read the first three graphs of Bill Sammon's story from this morning. Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," in a 1985 document obtained by the Washington Times. "I personally believe very strongly in this legal position," Mr. Alito wrote in his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. Meese, III. The document, which is likely to inflame liberals who oppose Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, is among many that the White House will release today from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. So congrats, Bill, on a scoop which has enormous implications. Did, in fact, it inflame the liberals that you talked to today?

BS: Oh, absolutely. You know, you had everybody from People For The American Way, to the Nan Aron's of the world, saying basically that the document proves that he is likely to overturn Roe V. Wade. And of course, the White House pushback on that is wait a minute. The guy has jurisprudence, fifteen years of ruling from the federal Appeals court, and he also has his personal politics, which we are seeing in this twenty year old document. At no point in his fifteen years of rulings from the bench do those politics manifest themselves. So in other words, he is able to separate the two. And they use the analogy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Here's a woman who is arguably, and I think it's probably true, that she's more liberal than Alito is conservative. She's an ACLU lawyer, she thought that we all have the right to polygamy and prostitution and the age of consent should be 12. And there's some pretty way out things that she stood for. And yet, she had a judicial temperament, and the Republicans in the Senate were willing to judge her on that. And that's what they're asking Alito to be judged on.

HH: But now surely, the left has at least this much right. If he can get confirmed with this kind of a paper trail, it really clears a huge hurdle on the road for future nominees, because this has always been the bright red line which no one can get around. Bork couldn't get around it. I don't believe Edith Jones was nominated because of this. Maybe Michael Luttig fell prey to this as well. It really would change the dymanic if someone who has written this explicity, I do not believe it's there, can get onto the Supreme Court. Do you agree or disagree with that?

BS: I agree, and here's why. The difference between this guy's writing in this document and Roberts, you know, because the White House is now saying they were both young attorneys in the Reagen administration, and they're both the same, and you guys confirmed Roberts, so you've got to confirm Alito. Well guess what? It's not the same. Alito says I personally, strongly believe that the Constitution doesn't provide the right to an abortion. And Roberts didn't. Roberts kept leaving some wiggle room. And all those paper we went through, it was always like well, I'm arguing for the administration. I'm their advocate. And it's an important distinction, because there's no escaping that this guy feels deep down in his bones, not only does the Constitution not provide a right to abortion, but he went on to say nor does it provide a right to affirmative action. And he really...and you've got to remember. He was applying for his first political appointment job. He was a career lawyer switching over to the political track, and so he was trying to establish his conservative credentials. And so, he went into this remarkable litany of here's where I started becoming a conservative, listening to Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr., reading National Review. And then he talks about certain law professors, here's where I went to Yale, because this guy preached judicial restraint. And it's really a windo into what this guy is made of, and it's in very direct, unambiguous language. And that's the kind of thing that does inflame the left, but it also rallies the right. The right is saying hey, the guy may not go wobbly after all on abortion. Maybe he's one of us.

HH: I'm talking with Bill Sammon, chief White House correspondent for the Washington Times. That's your official title, by the way, Bill?

BS: Yes it is.

HH: What do we call you? Chief political poobah at the Washington Times?

BS: No, I think senior White House correspondent...I've been called worse.

HH: Okay. Now...in the off-the-record conversations, was Roberts just smarter than Alito? Now I worked with John, I shared an office with him. I never knew what he believed, because I think he had his eye on the big game the whole time.

BS: Right.

HH: Did Alito just show us too much leg?

BS: Maybe so. That's the feeling I got when...and of course, you're looking at the thing twenty years later. And you're thinking now the guy's up...he has to go face the Senate Judiciary Committee in six weeks, or whatever. And it's easy to sort of Monday morning quarterback. But then you look at Roberts, and you've got to feel like that's a guy who knew all along, I better watch my step. You never know where I might be down the road. It's kind of like...you know, there's guys like Al Gore that are born and want to be president their entire life, and they structure their lives around it. And then there's guys like George W. Bush, who kind of say yeah, maybe I'll be president, halfway through his life. I'm not saying that's a perfect analogy to Alito, but I do think that Alito was maybe less carefull than Roberts.

HH: By the way of background, America, I learned last night for the first time Bill, who has been on this program many times, you see him often on Fox News, is actually a native of Cleveland. Roots for the Browns, and this explains his great common good sense, and why he understands politics, as only a Buckeye can. And in fact, your beat for the Plain Dealer was the Cuyahoga election commission, which really called the shot in 2004. That's very funny.

BS: I told my editors, just half-jokingly before the election, the day before the election in November, that it was going to come down to Cuyahoga county, because they're just as corrupt as can be. I mean, there was just everybody...I found a cat that was registered to vote there when I covered it for the Plain Dealer. And sure enough, the night of the election, it all came down to Ohio, and then within Ohio, it came down to my old stomping ground, Cuyahoga County. And I thought it was...

HH: And that cat voted three times, probably.

BS: Exactly.

HH: Bill Sammon, let's go back to the big story that you broke today, though. Did you hear anyone today say springing extraordinary circumstance? You know, last week, the Gang of 14 said everything's fine, not to worry. Did any of them come forward today and say oops?

BS: Well, I saw that in the blogs. I saw that in the blogs. And that, sometimes, is a harbinger of what is then...Senators are going to say. I went to Free Republic, for example, and there were people saying I wonder if this is going to constitute extraordinary circumstances. I wonder if they're going to unsheath the filibuster tiger. So there's a lot of talk out there, and it's maybe a foreshadowing of what we're...I think this hasn't really registered with everybody yet. It's going to take a day or two to kind of settle out.

HH: How satisfactory is it to steal a march on the Washington Post and the New York Times like you did? I mean, we were talking about it last night. You lectured on how wonderful it is to get a scoop in the age of new media, that old media used to be able to bury. But this one's a big deal. You must have gone to bed smiling last night.

BS: Oh, yeah. Actually, I couldn't go to sleep, because you get excited. I've been in this business a long time, but there's nothing that beats the thrill of the scoop. And you know, I get scooped just as often as I scoop the other guys, and so you've got to wake up a lot of days and look at the Washington Post and the New York Times kicking your butt. So the day you get them feels really good.

HH: Now Bill, you've got a new book coming out called Strategery, following up on Misunderestimated. You were with President Bush in the Oval Office for an hour, you were retelling last night, just what? Eleven days ago?

BS: Yeah.

HH: Did he bring up this phase 2, second offensive on his weapons of mass destruction with you? Did you talk about the attempt by Democrats to rewrite history?

BS: No, we didn't, because, and this is going to sound funny, but it's actually true. Because this book is trying to take a long view, and it's not going to come out for a couple of months, I'm trying to stay away from sort of the skirmish of the week in these kinds of interviews. I'm trying to get like where are we going with Mideast democratization. What's the next big domino to fall. That kind of stuff. So we didn't get into that much, although I have talked to him quite a bit about that in the past. It's interesting to see him fighting back, and finally saying okay, I'm going to take this fight to the Democrats, because I'm just getting my head caved in here. And you know what's interesting? It's a year now since he had an opponent, the personification of somebody that he could rail against every day. And that got his base excited every day. And now, for a year, he's been taking the high road, and he doesn't really have anybody to rail against. And that's part of the disillusionment of the conservative base. So now he's saying okay, now Democrats, you're distorting my record. That's getting everybody excited.

HH: Bill Sammon, let me close on this. We've got about a minute left. You've been covering the White House since '98...'97. So you've been there with Bush from day one. You've spent a lot of time with him, more than any other correspondent. Has he aged in your view? Has he got the same energy level, the same love of the job, as that first year, even after 9/11?

BS: I think he has aged a little bit. You know, when I sat there in the Oval Office with him last week for an hour, I don't think his spirit is flagging, but he seemed tired, a little bit tired. And in fact, a couple of times, he talked about being tired, you know, this is tiring, or the election is tiring, or that's tiring. And I hadn't really heard that kind of language seeping into his vernacular very often in the past. So yeah, gosh, five years into this job's got to take a toll, and every day, they're caving your head in. So, I think he's holding up pretty well on balance.

HH: Bill Sammon from the Washington Times, congratulations on a big scoop. Thanks for stopping by the Hugh Hewitt Show this afternoon. Great to be on the same program as you, Bill Sammon.

End of interview.

Blog of the week.

The A-Team gets the Crosley Solo for their visual of where Ted Koppel's victory gardens are. Congrats, A-Team. Don't you love it when a plan comes together? For the rest of you, it's a new week, and a new Solo awaits you, if you blog on something you hear from Hugh or one of his guests. Send me your entry at generalissimo@hughhewitt.com. If it's good enough, it'll qualify for the poll on Friday, and then the rest is up to the blogosphere.

Sunday, November 13

Give me a war.

Or so goes the line from the movie Kingdom of Heaven. As a result of what Bill Sammon reports in Monday's Washington Times, the left now has their ammunition to try a filibuster stunt on the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court. In part of a document dump from the Reagan library expected to be made public later on Monday, Sammon got hold of a 1985 document in which it's pretty clear where Judge Alito stands on the abortion issue, as it pertains to the right to privacy.

Regardless of what he did or did not mean in this document, the end result is that there's going to be a fight now. President Bush tried to go stealth with Harriet Miers, and got beat by his own base.

Now, he's got a credentialed conservative out there, and the public debate the right has dreamed about for years is now going to happen. Barbara Boxer, dimwit Senator from California, is going to seize on this like you wouldn't believe. It is now up to the same base that was AWOL a month ago to now show up and start taking up rhetorical arms, because it's going to take a conservative village to raise a Supreme Court justice.

Saturday, November 12

Beltway Boys preview.

HH: I'm joined by Morton Kondracke, he of the Fox News Beltway Boys. Fred is not available this afternoon, but he will be there on the set tomorrow afternoon at 6PM in the East, and 3:00PM in the West, when Morton and Fred talk about the week's events in the Beltway. Morton, there's a lot of cover. I want to start with John McCain's speech last night to the American Enterprise Institute where he blasted...

MK: I was there.

HH: He blasted Pentagon policy in Iraq. Did you find it persuasive?

MK: Well, now wait a minute. The first thing he did was to counteract the suggestion of John Kerry that we begin pulling out 20,000 troops, and then leave by the end of next year.

HH: Yeah, he wants to add troops.

MK: Huh?

HH: He wants to add troops.

MK: McCain wants to add troops. I mean, he's criticizing the Bush policy as well. And you know something? It's interesting. I think that the Pentagon actually...and the military commanders in the field, actually want to have a withdrawal policy next year. And I've talked to people who think that that may be the White House policy as well. I don't find it in Bush speeches, but there are people around who...and especially Republican Congressmen, who would love to have a withdrawal sometime next year, a substantial withdrawal, in order to help them out politically. And McCain is saying we need more troops. We need 10,000 more troops than we've got already, because the implication is that the Iraqi security forces aren't ready.

HH: He also blasted war doctrine, though. Quote, our forces cannot hold the ground indefinitely. When they move on to fight other battles, the insurgent ranks replenish and the strongholds fill again. Our troops must then re-enter the same area and refight the same battle. And he called for a holding pattern...

MK: Right, right.

HH: You know, secure the cities and let the country...you know what? I know he served his country. I respect him for that, especially on Veteran's Day, and especially his record. He doesn't know squat about running a war.

MK: Well, look...

HH: He never was a general.

MK: Now wait a minute. It is a fact, and I've seen this cited elsewhere, that in towns like Talafar, we go in, we sweep out the enemy, we kick them all out of town, and then we leave. And as soon as we leave, the enemy comes back and kills all the people who've cooperated with us. And somebody's got to hold that kind of territory. And when the Iraqis are ready and capable of doing it, then it's their job to do. But there are a lot of places where it doesn't look like they're ready.

HH: Yeah, but they're up to 220,000. But I'm more going to the point of...I don't know how to fight a war, Morton. You don't know how to fight a war, and McCain doesn't know how to fight a war. I think...

MK: Well, what makes you think McCain doesn't know how to fight a war? He's a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee...

HH: Because he's a fine pilot. He spent seven years in a prison camp, for which we honor him, and he's been a United States Senator, and they don't know diddly about fighting a war.

MK: Look, there's a lot of people who agree with John McCain about how you fight this war.

HH: Agreed. I know there are. But not Republicans.

MK: Oh, yeah. They're Republicans.

HH: Chuck Hagel.

MK: No, no, no, no, no, no. There are a lot of people who...I mean, that I've talked to military people, I've talked to people who have served in civilian capacities in Iraq, and they agree with him. And they're hawks. They're hawks who think exactly the same thing. And as a matter of fact, this whole gang at AEI, which is Republican, basically agrees with him.

HH: Well of course, the AEI is the center...the Weekly Standard is, as well. I wish Fred were here, because he's kind of the dissenter on this.

MK: Fred agrees with that. Fred agrees with McCain.

HH: He does not.

MK: He does.

HH: He does not.

MK: He absolutely agrees with McCain. I'm telling you, he does.

HH: Well, we'll find out next week.

MK: Watch the Beltway Boys tomorrow, and you'll see. He does.

HH: Well, that's a good tease, Morton. You're getting the hang of this tease business. The American Enterprise online today has the Maverick is back by David White, and it's full of praise for John McCain. I want to contrast his speech attacking Don Rumsfeld and the Pentagon policy, and he attacked Don Rumsfeld on the Today show this week as well, with Mitt Romney, who came into town, to the Federalist Society, to attack judges, and specifically, the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Morton, which is better politics? To attack the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and Bush? Or to attack judges?

MK: I don't think John McCain is playing politics. I think John McCain is saying what John McCain thinks. Now, he might be wrong. For all...you know, I'm not a military expert. He might be wrong. But I think that it's evidence of his independent thinking, that he has a theory about how you win this war, and he's going to enunciate it. And look, Rumsfeld has made a lot of mistakes. I mean every...it is now almost universally acknowledged that we were too optimistic about what the aftermath was going to be like, that we didn't have enough troops at the time, we didn't secure all kinds of strategic points, we let ammunition dumps get away. We should have at least retained some of the Iraqi army intact, and tried to turn them around and have them fighting insurgents, and stuff like that, try to win them over. No, a lot of mistakes were made, and I don't see any reason not to say so, as long as what your end is, is that we win.

HH: Or, as long as what your end is, is self-glorification, and the advancement of your political candidacy, so you'll say and do whatever you have to do.

MK: Now look. I don't think...

HH: And with three years left in the administration, Morton...

MK: Yeah, but John McCain is not Chuck Hagel. I mean, Chuck Hagel is a defeatest. John McCain is not a defeatist.

HH: No, he can't run for president as a defeatist, but he's trying to run as a super-hawk. And the only way to do that, given that we have super-hawks running the country, is to criticize them for a mythical strategy they haven't deployed. I actually find it appalling that not only on the left is the president being attacked, and he swung back today, but that McCain and Hagel and these other people, who very well ought to know not how to run a war...

MK: Hagel is not attacking him from the right. Hagel's attacking from the left. He's a crypto-Democrat out there.

HH: I agree with that, but he's a member of the Republican Party, so I'm saying on that side of the aisle. Let me turn to Mitt Romney's speech, though. Mitt Romney comes into town, goes to the Federalist Society, and blasts away at the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and other ideologically driven...

MK: That's a fish in a barrel.

HH: Yeah, it's a fish in a barrel, but what works better in the GOP primary?

MK: Well, of course. So, is Mitt Romney not playing politics? Of course he is.

HH: No, but he happens to be right. They're both playing politics, but he happens to be right.

MK: Okay.

HH: What about ANWAR. Do the Republicans get this back? I just had David Dreier on, and we were throwing hammers at each other, because I think this...they ought to read some of these people right out of the their chairmanships, and out of the party, like Castle and Bass and Reichert up in Washington state, on ANWAR.

MK: Well, look. I think that the moderates are absolutely wrong on ANWAR. How are you ever going to get energy independence and reduce oil prices, unless you have more supply?

HH: Agreed.

MK: So, and ANWAR's a place to get it. Furthermore, I'm mad at the moderates for a reason that you won't agree with, and that is that they used whatever power they had, their leverage here, to save the caribou, as they see it, in Alaska, instead of fighting for a better deal for poor children, and Medicaid, and...

HH: They don't care about the caribou.

MK: Well, what do they care about?

HH: They care about environmentalist whackos who vote because they care about the caribou.

MK: Yeah. You're probably right.

HH: Do you actually think anyone in the Congress cares about the caribou?

MK: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I mean, ANWAR is holy ground.

HH: Oh, they might care how they taste.

MK: Huh?

HH: They might care about how they taste. They don't...they're not environmentalists.

MK: Well, listen. There is a holy aura about ANWAR. You would think that it was the locusts of God, instead of caribou. All there is is caribou up there.

HH: Mort, you're a realist. We're in the middle of a war. France is on fire. I read the Washington Post story on the Netherlands assassination squads today. Amman's been blown to pieces. We've got Australia on a terror alert.

MK: Yes.

HH: Two attacks in Britain. And they're worried about the caribou?

MK: Well, yes. I think it's stupid, too. I'm conflating a lot of things, but basically, in the end, what they care about is wild animals maintaining their pristine state, undisturbed for the rest of time.

HH: Would we ever have bombed like the caucuses, when we were at war with Hitler, with these people in charge? I mean, they had animals there, too. Morton, let's talk about Arnold. I would appreciate your perspective from far outside of California. What do you see happening out here?

MK: What I see happening out there is that Arnold got a rebuke, partly because I don't think Californians really wanted all these special referenda, and they're mad at him for putting all this stuff on the ballot. But you know, the polls that I've seen indicate that people don't want to re-elect him. On the other hand, when he's matched against his two presumptive opponents, he does okay. He's within range.

HH: Yeah, but if Reiner gets in, that's going to get ugly in a hurry.

MK: Huh?

HH: Rob Reiner. I mean not Beatty. Beatty's a fool. But if Rob Reiner gets in...

MK: Oh, Beatty's not going to get in. Do you think Reiner's going to get in?

HH: Yes, I do. Reiner, actually, has got a lot of ambition. Let me ask you about the desire of some not to focus on France. Has the interest in France evaporated quickly in Washington, D.C?

MK: No. Everybody's looking at it. I mean, everbody's sort of enjoying it, actually. No, really.

HH: It's too serious to enjoy.

MK: Huh?

HH: It's too serious to enjoy.

MK: Well, I know. But it is...well, it is serious in the long run. Right now, it's just...basically, I think one person has dies, isn't that right?

HH: Yeah.

MK: And a lot of cars have gotten burned.

HH: Ten thousand cars.

MK: Yeah. So, so far, it's fun and games, and it shows us how feckless the French are, both socially and economically.

HH: And finally, the Cisneros probe is on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today. It's been ten years they've been probing Henry Cisneros.

MK: I know. What a waste.

HH: You know, you live in the weirdest city in the world. I used to live there, too, but I still laugh about it. Morton Kondracke, we'll watch tomorrow night at 6:00PM with Fred Barnes on the Beltway Boys.

MK: Bye, Hugh.

End of interview.

Friday, November 11

Congressman David Dreier on the House decision to pull ANWAR out of the deficit reduction bill.

HH: Joined now by Congressman David Dreier, chairman of the House Rules Committee, number three in the House leadership, and maybe he can explain how the sheriff of Kings County, former sheriff, Dave Reichert, and Charlie Bass, and Michael Castle, and all these other Republicans went south on a national security issue. David, welcome back, but boy, what a disappointing week in your colleagues back there.

DD: Happy Veteran's Day.

HH: And to you.

DD: Hey listen. Let me say that obviously, it was a bump in the road. But you know, on the issue of ANWAR, you know, exploration in that tiny little area that's the size of Dulles International Airport, using 21st Century technology, which will not devastate the environment, we have not had every Republican. We have had 30 Democrats in the House of Representatives who voted with us. You know, you point the finger of blame at Republicans, and I would love to have these Republicans with us. But they've consistently opposed it. The real problem has been the fact that Nancy Pelosi has prevailed on every single Democrat, even if they believe it's absolutely essential that we explore in ANWAR, to vote no. And so, that's something that we've been unable to count on. What our decision was, as you know, and if we did end up taking it from this bill, for the vote that we would have had yesterday, what we wanted to do was recognize that it's in the Senate bill, and we would have fought very hard to have it as part of the conference agreement. It was the only choice that we had, Hugh. I mean, it's very clear that was what we were trying to do...

HH: Congressman, you know, we go back a long time. There is a different choice. There's a choice about having a vote so that we can know who not to support. I mean, I'm going to campaign against Sheriff Reichert. I'm going to...if Mark Kennedy voted to get ANWAR out of this, or was one of the problems, I'm taking him off the website, he can't be on the show. This is a national security issue.

DD: And obviously, I agree with you, because I've been a proponent since the whole notion of it began. So I hope you don't campaign against me.

HH: No. I know you're right on this. We've got to get rid of these people without spines.

DD: Well listen. I mean, Hugh, again, these are members who have been on record...and let me tell you what they're up against. They're up against multi-million dollar campaigns spent against them in tough districts. I'm not apologizing for them, because I believe that it's the right thing for us to do to pursue it. But they are demonized regularly by many in the mainstream media, and by their Democratic opponents. And so, they have not supported it traditionally. Again, I would focus on those 30 Democrats. And I'd be happy to get that list for you. It's those 30 Democrats who have a record of supporting ANWAR. They have a record of having done that, and now, simply joining Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi. What is it they've chosen to do? To ignore their committment to national security on this, and vote to try and prevent us from being able to pursue it.

HH: David, not in a hundred years. I have very little influence, if any, over Democrats. But there are a lot of Republicans and centrists who listen to this show, and they want to know...you know, they don't want to give money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, because it might end up in Lincoln Chafee's pockets. They're not going to give money to the National Republican Congressional Committee. You guys could lose the majority over ANWAR. I firmly believe that.

DD: And you know what? We're fighting as hard as we can to make sure we get ANWAR. And I'm determined to do that. We're working through this weekend. We're going to be seeing the chairman of the Budget Committee convene the caucus to try and put together a package. The other thing that's in this, of course, is...you know, you take...it's solely ANWAR. What we've got is that we've got people on the...I was just on with Robert Reich on Larry Kudlow's show. And here they are saying we're balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. And these people are taking that beating as well. So this is not ANWAR alone.

HH: But Congressman, all due respect, ANWAR represents a tax hike on every American at the...you know this. We've agreed on this. Because we have no marginal supply, prices go to $3 dollars a gallon. That's a massive tax hike on the people who are least able to pay it. And if Democrats want to use garbage rhetoric, we need to go back and hit them, not surrender. And you guys...you didn't, but these liberal Republican moderates, Sheriff Reichert, Charlie Bass, Michael Castle, they surrendered. They were like the French this week.

DD: You know, I will tell you something, Hugh. I mean, I've got to say that people who've been on record having not supported ANWAR, juxtaposed to those who were on record in support of ANWAR, and are now opposing it for pure political reasons, are the people we should target. I blame Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean much more than I do any of these Republicans. That doesn't mean that we're not striving to get every single Republican on board in support of this. But this is a challenge with which we've contended for many, many years. And I believe that now is the best time that we've ever had to try and get this through. It's in the so-called reconciliation package, which means that they can't filibuster it in the Senate. It's included in the Senate bill. 51 votes will put it over the top, and I think we can do it. And what we want to do is we want to put together a package that will allow us to get it through the final conference agreement at least. We have to take it one vote at a time, and so we're regrouping right now, and trying to figure out how we can make this...

HH: Well David, why doesn't the conference take away leadership positions, like from Castle and Charlie Bass. Castle has been around, screwing things up, for I don't know how long. What's he been in the Congress for? Since '93?

DD: Yeah, he was the governor of Delaware. And then he ran for Congress. And you know, I would say...I would encourage people in your audience to call every single member of Congress they know, Democrat and Republican. And encourage them to support this package, because it's a responsible package. It's one which is not going to be gutting programs for the poor, but it's going to be trying to cut $50 billion dollars in so-called mandatory spending, slowing the rate of growth of spending. We need to be able to rein this in. Now remember, that's what this bill is all about.

HH: No, no. No, it's...David...

DD: This is about trying to cut mandatory spending.

HH: That's fine. $50 billion here, $50 billion there. We're below 4% GDP deficit. It's not that big of a deal. But ANWAR is. ANWAR is national security. I mean, I think you guys did not understand where the base was on this, fundamentally. They don't care about the spending.

DD: Let me just tell you something.

HH: They care about the security.

DD: Let me just say something. You're wrong. The people I talk to care about spending. And in fact, it's not just below 4%. It's 2.6 percent of GDP, and that is a very low figure...

HH: Yes.

DD: ...and so that's why...you're right. Economic growth needs to be pursued. But that doesn't mean that we...and remember, this is welfare reform. This is Medicaid reform. These are critically important things for our base as well. And I think...

HH: They're not as important as ANWAR, David. I really believe that.

DD: Of course. And you know what? We're going to fight as hard as we can to make sure that we pursue exploration in ANWAR.

HH: All right. And so, you're back...so, they're calling in the reprobates this weekend, and beating them up with hammers?

DD: Let me just tell you, conversations are being held. I'm actually out here in California, right now. I flew in late last night. I had two Veteran's Day speeches that I gave today out here, and thanks to all the veterans in the audience, by the way...

HH: Absolutely.

DD: ...for giving us an opportunity to have this exchange that Hugh and I just had. And I will tell you that we've got a lot of work to do. We know it. But we need to hang together, so everyone in your audience should call every...

HH: Well, I think we ought to hang a couple of liberal Republicans first. But David Dreier, thanks for coming out and doing the best to explain that sorry situation.

End of interview.

John Podhoretz on the supposed trouble the conservatives are in.

HH: Joined now by John Podhoretz, a frequent guest here on the Hugh Hewitt Show. He's a columnist for the New York Post, a wonderful author, and a frequent talking head, and also just a generally nice guy. John, welcome back.

JP: Thanks, Hugh.

HH: John, I am dismayed at the House Republicans, at Senator Olympia Snowe. So much so that I'm not worried about the president or the war. As he demonstrated today, he'll swing back. But I don't know what you do when you've got people like Dave Reichert, a freshman in Washington state, who votes against ANWAR in a time of $3 buck oil, $3 dollar a gallon gasoline, what are your thoughts?

JP: Well, I think it's all connected. I think the fact that the president fought back today is a necessary element in getting the Republican Party in Congress under control. I think that they have the feeling that he's...that they've taken a lot of heat from him, and are suffering from his declining poll numbers. And if he isn't willing to fight back and try to seize the initiative, they're going to go off on their own, and just try to protect their own hides. So I think what happened today is very important.

HH: I agree. But what's interesting is that they feel like they've suffered. Of course, no one suffers in an off-year. You can't suffer in an off-year. There's no elections.

JP: No, but they're worried. Look, it is the nature of Republican politicians, particularly ones in sort of swing states, to assume that bad news, any form of news that does not instantly go their way, threatens them bodily. And they are very much affected by the ebb and flow of daily flow, as opposed to people who live in very solid red states.

HH: How long does it take to get the message across, though, that the easiest way to get wiped out politically, is to be nervous, and to be indecisive, especially on something like exploration for oil, and $3 dollar a gallon era.

JP: Okay, but you're talking about the party as a whole.

HH: Right.

JP: And I'm talking about individual politicians who are in a time when some of the glue that has held the party together, between the White House and the Hill, is coming loose. You have Tom Delay, who is no longer the majority leader. We see the costs of the loss of Tom Delay in what's gone on in the House this week. I find it very difficult to believe, for example, that a vote would have been scheduled on a bill that they were going to lose, if Delay wasn't sure that they weren't going to win it in the first place.

HH: Right.

JP: I mean, that's just incompetence.

HH: Yup.

JP: You are not supposed to sort of get yourself into a position where you lose something at the last minute. And if you think about Delay, who was a kind of managerial genius of a sort that we actually haven't seen in the House in many decades, you know, he would not have let that happen. And I think that this is a wake-up call to the House...to the leadership, to Denny Hastert and others, that they need to get themselves in line and on track. As for Olympia Snowe in the Senate, I think what we have there is people who think that the president is weakened. And when he was strong, they were too chicken to go against him on things like extending the tax cuts. But when he is...when they feel he is weakened, they can sort of do whatever they want. And he needs...therefore, it is a kind of battle that the president needs to take on. So it's extremely encouraging news that he has decided to fight back today. I mean, that speech was very important, as long as he doesn't drop it. You know, he's got to keep doing it.

HH: Yup.

JP: He has got to keep the pointed attack up. He has spent nine months...the administration has spent more than a year since the election, sort of with its dukes down, letting itself get beat up. And it can't allow it anymore.

HH: Now John Podhoretz, from your perspective as a New York Post columnist, I know you're watching what's going on in France, because New York being almost an international capitol as well as an American center of business. And today in the Wall Street Journal, Dan Henninger writes about the French economic collapse. And Mark Steyn in the Spectator last week wrote about their demographic collapse. These are serious issue. I mean, these are very big deals, especially when you've also got the Amman bombing, et cetera, and yet you have Democrats who are making stuff up, who are just not serious people.

JP: Well, I think what you have here, and I described this in my book, Bush Country, are people who think that...who understand that what 9/11 represented was the degree to which the world has altered itself, and the degree to which an ideological enemy as the president outlined in his speech today, has now...is now facing us down. And people who think that 9/11 was a kind of a fluke, it was a lucky shot, a bunch of freaks, you know, grabbed some airplanes and got us. And since we haven't been hit again...

HH: Fifty months today. It's been fifty months.

JP: ...since we have not been hit again, they want to go back into a bubble, and they're bubble is, we're not at risk, we're only at risk because of what we do, because of the divisions in our own politics, we're at risk because of what George W. Bush does. We're at risk because of what Republicans do. And aside from whether or not it's crude, it's wrong, it's everything, it has this quality of kind of ostrich sticking your head in the sand, refusing to accept the reality that's in front of you. You know, 14 days of rioting in France, tens of thousands of cars destroyed, people walking into weddings and blowing themselves up in inflict the maximum number of casualties...

HH: Yeah. Islamist groups in Australia trying to blow people up, assassination squads in the Netherlands...

JP: Everywhere. And you know, we saw London...London only happened three months ago. So this is the reality, and the fact is that one half of the political system has decided that it does not want to deal with the reality. It wants to live as though the reality does not exist. And the president called them irresponsible, and I think that's true. But I think that something else is going on. I think there's a kind of pathological refusal to face reality.

HH: That pathological refusal on display at Hofstra yesterday, where they had a reunion of the Clinton administration, including Bill Clinton. And I just want to read a paragraph, get your comment. Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright talked about how satisfying it was to work for a president who was so knowledgeable, so hard-working. And she said her colleagues made foreign policy recommendations to him quote through consensus, not cabals. Judging by applause and laughter, the audience caught the reference to a recent speech by a former Bush official complaining that Iraq policy is dictated by a Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal. Madeleine Albright was the most irresponsible, greatest failure as a secretary of state since World War II, and she gets laugh lines at this, John?

JP: Well, but wait. First of all, let's recharacterize a couple of things. Lawrence Wilkerson, the guy who referred to the...

HH: Cabal.

JP: ...Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal, was not a Bush administration official. He is a Powell administration official.

HH: Right.

JP: He is Powell's personal aide of twenty years. If Powell was working for Clinton, he worked for Powell. If Powell's working for Bush, he worked for Powell. And Wilkerson, who described this war as a result of a cabal, also in a wild contradiction, said things like there was no disagreement that Saddam possessed...we all agreed that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. We all agreed that the only thing there was some disagreement on was whether he had nuclear weapons now. And yet, if that was the case, what was wrong...what could be wrong with declaring war?

HH: I don't know, but it is astonishing to me that they report these symposium as though they're serious. John Podhoretz from the New York Post, thank you.

Blog of the Week.

The entries, week by week, are getting stronger and stronger. Thanks to all who participated. The voting, legal and otherwise, goes on for the five at the top of the page until noonish, Monday. Vote early and often. Next week's Crosley Solo winner might be you, if you pick something said on Hugh's show, blog about it, and send the link to generalissimo@hughhewitt.com. The radio is way cool, and all it takes is a little brain power, and a little typing. Good luck.

 

 

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