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Did Bush Make His Case to the U.N. to Attack Iraq?; Will Clinton or McKinney Make a Run for the White House in 2004?
Aired September 12, 2002 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville.
Listen, President Bush laid out his case against Iraq's Saddam Hussein before the United Nations and the world this morning. Was he convincing? We're going to explore that today.
And then stay tuned for deja vu. The vote in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Florida is so messed up, Janet Reno could take it to court.
And Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney loses her district, but could she ride a green horse all the way to the White House? You'll have to stick around to find out why that horse would be green.
In the meantime, others think Senator Clinton is up for the race. That's Hillary we are talking about.
And is it too soon for these two women?
Let's start by meeting our panel, everybody.
Sue Ellicott is a commentator for National Public Radio -- NPR.
Hello, Sue. Nice to see you on TALKBACK again.
SUE ELLICOTT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Hello. Thank you.
NEVILLE: And Terry Jeffrey is editor of "Human Events" -- hello, Terry.
TERRY JEFFREY, EDITOR, "HUMAN EVENTS": Hello.
NEVILLE: Joe Conason is a columnist and political editor at "The New York Observer" and Salon.com. He is the author of "The Hunting of the President." And he is on his way in New York City.
And Cliff May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. It's a think tank on terrorism.
Hey, Cliff.
CLIFF MAY, PRESIDENT, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Hi, Arthel. Nice to see you. NEVILLE: Good. Thank you. Nice for you to be here again today.
Listen, I want to welcome all of you.
And, of course, we are going to begin at the United Nations, where President Bush presented a long list of indictments against Iraq's Saddam Hussein. He said Saddam has been thumbing his nose at the world for years without consequence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance.
All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: OK, I understand Joe Conason is with us now.
Joe, are you there? All right, welcome to you as well.
Listen, he is nodding his head. We are going to get this together.
Listen, everybody, everybody has a different take on the president's speech. I want to give each of you one minute to tell you what you heard.
Sue Ellicott, you are up first.
ELLICOTT: Well, first of all, I think his speech was very powerful. It was very well put together. There was some fantastic sound bites. And he did a very good job.
It was a bit like a college essay, where he ran through all of the things that Iraq has not done and should have done, all the grievances that the international community has against Iraq. And was it was quite prosecutorial in nature. He's a bit like a lawyer building his case. And I think he makes a good case.
The thing that bothers me about it was the omission. At no point did he say the United States will not ever act unilaterally and will only take action under the umbrella of the United Nations. He did seek United Nations approval, but it still left open to me the question that the U.S. basically does think it still can act on its own if the United Nations Security Council is not on board.
NEVILLE: OK.
And, listen, Jenny here from California, you were nodding your head. Why?
JENNY: Yes. Absolutely.
President Bush did an amazing job of commanding a very large space of world leaders. He is just representing one country, though. We got to have the backup of the rest of the world. We do.
NEVILLE: OK.
All right, Terry Jeffrey, tell me what your take is.
JEFFREY: Well, first of all, the president did not just neglect to say that we might go without the support of the U.N. unilaterally.
I think he very clearly indicated that he is going to move forward aggressively to defend our interests, as he understands them, in this crisis, with or without the United Nations. I think he gave an ultimatum to the United Nations just as much as he did to Saddam Hussein.
But here is what I believe was the most significant thing about the president's speech today. Heretofore, almost everybody making the case for a war against Iraq within and outside the administration has based their argument on foundations that are ultimately speculative, primarily the idea that Saddam Hussein might be expected, some time down the road, to preemptively use a weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even a nuclear weapon.
That can be debated. And I think I doubt that premise myself. However, what the president based his argument on today was the indisputable fact that Saddam Hussein has violated each and every one of the U.N. resolutions he agreed to secure a cease-fire at the end of Desert Storm in 1991. That cannot be debated.
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Joe Conason, your take.
JOE CONASON, "NEW YORK OBSERVER": Well, I thought the president threaded a middle path between the debaters in his own administration.
On the one hand, much of that speech could have been written by Colin Powell, in its appeal to, as Terry just said, the U.N. to enforce its own mandates, its own resolutions, and the agreements that Iraq made. On the other hand, he did seem to warn that the U.S. will eventually act on its own if it does not receive satisfactory support from the United Nations and that he believes that this must be done right away or within a reasonable amount of time.
But what was also interesting about his speech was that he set forth some conditions that Iraq could meet that would forestall military action. There were five or six different conditions that he laid down, none of which the Iraqis were happy to hear about. But they could present a basis of discussion, mediated by the U.N., possibly by the secretary-general, who has been talking to the Iraqis, for a way to have Iraq reopen itself to inspection. NEVILLE: Joe, I am going to go in there and I'm going to jump in and let Dean, I think, who is calling in from Florida.
What do you say, Dean?
CALLER: Yes.
I think he made a good speech. And I think the U.N. is something that we could definitely have as someone to back us. But he won't get the same support his father will. We all know he needs to clean up the mess from 10 years ago. And I think we will be in there within the next month.
The question I have for your panel is: how do you think a country like Israel will respond, because they sat out the last time? But this time, they are saying, if it actually comes down to where we might actually take Saddam Hussein out, they might actually take them out, because Iraq actually might want to take Israel out. So how do you see Israel's response to this?
NEVILLE: OK, Dean, thanks for calling.
Who wants to address that? Tell me on the panel.
MAY: I will address that. But, if I may, let me just address the larger question first about what really happened in this speech.
It was a challenge to the United Nations: "Do your job or we will have to do it for you." That is what he was saying. He was not looking for approval, but he was saying, "You have now published any number of resolutions" -- about 16, I think Bush said. "These resolutions have not been enforced. If resolutions of the U.N. are not enforced, you are no more than an editorial board. You either make sure that Saddam Hussein does what he has committed to do or we are going to do it."
This set up two things, by the way, for Bush. One: others can come into this coalition more easily, because they can say to their people: "Look, Bush tried to get the U.N. to act. The U.N. is totally feckless. We have to stand with Bush now and get rid of this danger to the Iraqi people, to the Middle East and to the world."
Secondly, he has told the U.N., "If you want to be involved in this, if you don't want to be irrelevant" -- that's the word he used -- "you better give me a resolution with a timetable in it that says that force can be used if Saddam Hussein doesn't meet these conditions," which, by the way, he could have met any time over the past 11 years. He didn't believe he had to.
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Hang on, guys.
Cliff, you wanted to address the caller. Go ahead and address Dean from Florida. MAY: I would just say this: Israel is America's most reliable ally in the world. They are going to, at the end of the day, do pretty much what the United States asks.
But it is going to be very difficult to stay out of a war if Saddam Hussein is lofting missiles at them at any time. I think the U.S. understands that.
And, at the end of the day, what you are going to have is a coalition that at least involves the United States, Great Britain for sure, Turkey for sure, and Kuwait and Israel. And that is the way it is going to be.
Others will come in. Australia will come in. We'll have others at the end of the day. And Bush helped himself in that area with his speech today.
ELLICOTT: But, Dean, the caller did make a good point when he talked about the number of conditions that Bush added on at the end of his speech, which did read a bit like a laundry list.
And for those who adhere to the conventional wisdom that there's going to be a war come what may, those were somewhat dispiriting, because one assumes that maybe Saddam Hussein is not going to tick them all off. He is not going to do decent things for the Kurds. He is not going to do all of the number of things that were at the end of the speech. And so that sets certainly the United States or Bush up for a war.
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Do you have a problem with that?
ELLICOTT: Well, I think what is interesting is that there are increasingly commentators, certainly in Europe, saying that they believe that there is an option for a deal and that they don't believe that war is inevitable and that Saddam Hussein might actually comply with some of these things.
MAY: In 1998, this is precisely what happened.
President Clinton at that point said it was absolutely necessary that something be done about Saddam Hussein, because he was developing weapons of mass destruction, an arsenal that he would use or give to terrorists to use. Kofi Annan of the U.N. talked him out of taking any action, even though there was, at that point, passed in the Congress the Iraq Liberation Act. And then everybody got distracted for the next few years.
We don't want to make a deal with Saddam Hussein. We don't want to be involved in negotiations. We want him to do what he committed to doing.
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Sue, please. Michael, please, quickly.
MICHAEL: Well, I think one of the other considerations needs to be not just the Israelis, but everybody else who is in that region. If we go in, we don't have too many friends out there. The general populations of a lot of the countries don't like us. The governments may support us, but the populations aren't going to be happy that we are going to Iraq and we're having military action. It may destabilize Syria and Egypt and some of our other key allies there.
ELLICOTT: You're absolutely right, which is why it was very good, after the Camp David talks between Tony Blair and George Bush last weekend, that Blair did convince him to go through the U.N. channels. And I think that if there ends up being a war, it is far more likely to be successful if the U.N. is involved, because, as your member of the audience just said...
NEVILLE: Sue, excuse me, I have to take a break here.
Cliff, I see you shaking your head. I want to talk to you when we come back.
And, also, I want to hear from you on this, so go ahead and give me a call at 1-800-310-4CNN or, of course, you can e-mail me at talkback@cnn.com.
And how did the president's speech play in Iraq? We all want to know that as well. So we're going to go live to Baghdad after this break.
Don't go away. TALKBACK LIVE continues in a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale. In one place, in one regime, we find all of these dangers in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: Today on TALKBACK LIVE: Can't Florida get it right? Elections officials try to sort out another voting mess.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: They should be embarrassed. And they better fix it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: Also: woman to woman. Is lame-duck Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney looking for greener pastures and a run at the presidency? What about Senator Hillary Clinton?
It's all ahead as TALKBACK LIVE continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMAD AL-DOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I would have been pleased if the U.S. president would have talked about his true motives behind his speech: revenge, oil, political ambitions, and also the security of Israel, and targeting every independent state that would refuse to adhere to the American policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: And, Moses, you were saying this very thing in the break. What do you think of this?
MOSES: I think he is absolutely right about the oil. It is about the oil. It is not about nothing else. Why do we have go in and take this man out again? It's about control. I think that the United States is about control, controlling the oil, controlling the global world.
NEVILLE: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir.
OK, listen, I want to welcome everybody back to the program.
Of course we're talking about the president's case against Saddam Hussein. And right now, we're going to go and find out how his speech to the U.N. is playing in Baghdad.
CNN correspondent Rula Amin is following the reaction there -- Rula.
RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Arthel.
You know what? The reaction that we have from here so far has been very little. We have one political commentator coming on Iraqi television, saying that President Bush has failed to present evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, although he had been promising to do so for weeks.
Iraq's main news bulletin on Iraq's television, owned by the government, didn't even mention the speech. They started with Kofi Annan's remarks. They spoke about European comments on a possible attack on Baghdad.
But they never mentioned the speech and they did not show any pictures. The only official comment we had was from the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, which you had just listened to.
The Iraqis have maintained a line that is, they don't have weapons of mass destruction; they have destroyed every weapon that they had before; and that the U.S. is using this issue of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext, as an excuse to control the region and its oil -- Arthel.
NEVILLE: Rula, earlier this week, the vice president of Iraq said that, if in fact the U.S. invades Iraq, he calls on all Arabs to strike U.S. assets in the Middle East. And I want to know if you have heard much about that.
AMIN: We did hear.
Iraq has been making a lot of strong rhetoric recently. The president himself said that Iraqis don't want to have a war. They don't wish to fight the U.S., but, if they are attacked, they will put up a very strong fight.
And Iraq has always and has always been playing on the Arab element. They are always trying to make that very strong, that argument that, if they are attacked, they are not alone, that they hope their Arab brothers will help.
We have been hearing statements from different Arab leaders from neighboring countries, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, who have been making their voices heard, saying that they oppose a military strike against Baghdad and they see no justification. They prefer if there was dialogue. They want Iraq and they urge Iraq to allow the inspectors back in. But, so far, we did not hear any government, any Arab government promising to actually lend a hand to Iraq in case there is a war -- Arthel.
NEVILLE: Rula Amin, thank you very much for that update from Baghdad.
And right now, I'm going to go to Connecticut, where Carlos is standing by live on the phone -- go ahead, Carlos.
CALLER: Yes, hi. Good afternoon.
Yes, my opinion is, I think we should go after Saddam Hussein. He keeps building these nuclear weapons and these biological weapons. We need to secure our kids' future because it does not look very bright. And if we really want to get to the source of the terrorism, we can't just clean the surface. We have to get to the source.
And I think the source is Saudi Arabia, because all these terrorists were national Saudis. They came from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden is Saudi. So we really should go after the source. And, to me, the source is Saudi Arabia.
NEVILLE: Carlos, thank you very much for calling.
Paul in Montana, I know you are standing by, but I have to take a break right now. Hang on for me.
Up next: former President Bill Clinton speaks up on Iraq. We'll tell you what he said last night after this break.
Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: Here's your chance, Paul.
CALLER: Yes.
One statement that has been proven true time and time again is that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. That's proven itself true more consistently than anything else. If we had taken out Hitler in the '30s, like we should have, millions of people would have been saved. If we had dealt differently with the empire of Japan, they wouldn't have killed 2,400 people in Pearl Harbor.
The same applies to Saddam Hussein here. These people that disagree with our president and our philosophy are the first to call us for help when help is needed. I think people need to step back and take a common-sense, realistic view of what is happening here.
NEVILLE: Paul, thank you very much for calling in and expressing your view.
Panel, anybody want to jump in on that before we move on?
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: You know, I could not see you guys, so let me see. I am going to let -- that's Joe.
Go ahead, Joe.
CONASON: Yes.
I think it's important for people to understand that, number one, Saddam Hussein does not have nuclear weapons. Nobody believes that he has one nuclear weapon.
Number two...
NEVILLE: Do you believe he has the infrastructure to build nuclear weapons?
CONASON: Well, it is not whether I believe it. The latest study by the International Institute of Strategic Studies says he does not have what he needs to build a nuclear weapon, that he may someday have it. He has no fissile material to put one together. And it's not clear that he has the other
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Arthel, it's very important to make this point about that study. Let's just stay on that for one second, because what they said is, if he gets the fissile material he needs from the black market -- and we are talking about a softball-sized quantity of it -- then, within six months, he could have a nuclear weapon.
CONASON: Well, what else did it say, Cliff?
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: It also said he is trying to get -- he is also trying to get the material to make
(CROSSTALK)
CONASON: He is trying to. That doesn't mean he has it.
(CROSSTALK)
CONASON: And I just want to want to make sure people understand, he doesn't have it. He would like to have it. He does not have it now, OK? That's the point people need to understand.
MAY: And the point is, if we are going to challenge him, should we challenge him before or after he has nuclear weapons? That's the question.
CONASON: I don't have any problem with challenging him, as long as we do it in a multilateral fashion. That's what most Americans want. They want the world together to confront Saddam Hussein and force him to live up to the U.N. resolutions. And there's nothing wrong with that.
MAY: As the caller said, if, in 1938, Franklin Roosevelt had said, "We need to secure regime change in Germany," there is not a single nation that would have been with us. Winston Churchill would have been...
(CROSSTALK)
CONASON: I don't how much you actually know about the history preceding World War II.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Oh, insult my knowledge of history, Joe. Absolutely, that is a good
(CROSSTALK)
CONASON: Hitler had invaded several countries at that point. He had already taken over the Sudetenland. In other words, he was doing things, taking aggression against his neighbors, that clearly called for retaliation. And we didn't do it.
MAY: And we should have. This time...
CONASON: Well, and we should have, right. But at this time, Saddam Hussein's neighbors do not want us to take unilateral military action against him. They unanimously, in the Arab League, said last week not to.
MAY: In '38, Britain and France did not want action against Germany. You are taking the Neville Chamberlain point of view. And it is a very long-standing point of view. (CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: You know what? I heard Neville, so that's where I am going to jump in, guys.
(LAUGHTER)
NEVILLE: Cliff, did you appreciate that segue at all there?
MAY: That was a very good segue. I liked it very much.
NEVILLE: Thank you very much.
All right, listen, I have Theresa here in the audience.
What do you say, Theresa?
THERESA: I think the U.N. has had a chance to do something and has not done it over the last 11 years. And the U.S. has to do something to protect our own interests before he gets the nuclear weapons and can unleash them on American interests somewhere.
NEVILLE: Thank you very much.
ELLICOTT: I think that the point is, it's not just American interests that need to be protected here. They are international. They are regional interests, and that, if you try and go ahead and launch a unilateral war -- and I say unilateral even though I know that Tony Blair will have British troops be part of it. So it sort of is a freelance U.S.-British operation.
It does not stand that much chance of success. You already know -- and members of your audience and callers have pointed this out -- the American public knows that there is a significant Arab opposition and regional opposition to this war and that you really do need some sort of support from Saudi Arabia, from Egypt
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFREY: Arthel?
NEVILLE: Terry, I promise, you are up first after the break.
I have to take a break right now.
Pam from Texas, you are going to get a chance to jump in when we come back. And, also, we still want to hear what former President Bill Clinton has to say about all of this.
Don't go anywhere. TALKBACK LIVE continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: And welcome back everybody.
Before we move onto President Clinton, I want to go ahead and let Terry complete his thought that you had started before the break.
JEFFREY: Well, I just want to say, Arthel, that there's significant -- you know, serious talking about us not being unilateral. It's a matter of principle, if we need to act unilaterally to protect our vital interests, we need to do it.
But what she misses about the president's presentation today, as Cliff alluded to earlier, is that he creates a framework in which our allies can come with us, including friendly states in the Arab world that are obviously hesitant to back us in this. He has given them a rationale that makes sense. It's based on incontestable fact. It's based on their own involvement in Desert Storm in 1991.
And I think what you're going to see in the weeks ahead is a hard-core diplomatic push for Colin Powell to bring these people on board, and I predict he will be successful.
NEVILLE: OK, listen, I'm going to go to Texas, where Pam is standing by on the phone. Go ahead, Pam.
CALLER: Hi, Arthel, and guests.
We all know that Hussein is a dictator. However, I think that Mr. Bush has kind of turned into a paranoid cowboy dictator himself. I think it's wrong to go in unilaterally. Because we are a super power, it means we need to use our power wisely. There is no evidence that there are weapons to be used.
And as someone pointed out, he would be crazy-mad to use a weapon knowing it would be his last act. I think it's time we acted in the world's interest, not simply the narrow oil interest.
And Israel's perspective, we have long-since paid back the debts to the Jewish people for the Holocaust, and it's time for America to be just and fair, not...
NEVILLE: OK, Pam, thank you very much for calling in here.
Listen, I'm going to move on just for a second here, because we know that former President Bill Clinton might not be taking on his own talk show, right? But he's willing to be a guest. And last night, he told David Letterman it's time to turn up the heat on Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the president is doing the right thing to go to the United Nations, to ask them to do something. And I hope that whatever we do, I think we need to turn up the heat. I think it's just a mistake to walk away from this.
But I think that we should, if all possible, try to take an approach that has broad international support, because the precedent of our acting alone might some day come back to haunt us in something somebody else does.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: OK, President Clinton says President Bush should not consider going it alone with the invasion of Iraq, because it might backfire later.
Joe Conason, do you agree or disagree with that?
CONASON: Well, look, I think if we reach the point where we felt there were weapons of mass destruction that he was preparing to use, yes, the United States would have every reason, and in my view, every right to go it alone, if nobody else wanted to join us.
I think if you can make the case that this is a dangerous dictator who needs to be confronted over his failure to live up to past U.N. sanctions, then you will get people to go along with you, if you do it in a deliberate way and if you take every opportunity to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. And that's something that I think most Americans would support.
Look, people have to consider what it means to actually go to war in Iraq for a regime change. It means, as the former President Bush said in his memoir of the Gulf War, we would have to occupy Baghdad, we would have to occupy Iraq. And if we had to do all that by ourselves, it's a tremendous burden on this country and our young people who would have to pick up the guns to do it.
This is why it's wise, as Colin Powell believes as many people in this country believe, who have experience in the military and experience in diplomacy, that we should take every opportunity to try to get our allies behind us and as big a coalition as possible, before we take on this problem. That's all.
MAY: And that is precisely what George Bush...
CONASON: That's not appeasement. That's wisdom.
MAY: That's precisely what President Bush was doing today, but he was also saying...
CONASON: If that's what he's doing, that's good.
MAY: And you should be applauding him for it, because what he was saying is, we're going to do this. We want to do this through the United Nations. We don't want to see the United Nations become irrelevant. Putting out a resolution...
(CROSSTALK)
CONASON: If that's what he's doing, Cliff, that's good.
MAY: But if the U.N. does not act, and in the past the U.N. has not acted and didn't act Rwanda, didn't act in Kosovo, has acted in very few circumstances to solve crises.
CONASON: Look...
MAY: In fact, many times...
(CROSSTALK)
CONASON: ... a couple of weeks ago...
NEVILLE: OK...
CONASON: A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column...
NEVILLE: Gentlemen...
ELLICOTT: It is clear, though...
NEVILLE: Gentlemen...
ELLICOTT: It is clear, though, Arthel...
NEVILLE: Yes, go ahead, Sue.
ELLICOTT: It's clear in all of this, really, that however compelling and powerful and well-put together and professional President Bush's speech was this morning, it really hasn't changed anybody's minds. If you didn't think that the United States should be taking unilateral action before you heard President Bush speak this morning, you don't think it now. And if you thought it was OK for him to go ahead, if the United Nations doesn't measure up to his demands or his expectations, you would have the same opinion as you had on 9/11...
MAY: But, Sue...
ELLICOTT: ... 9/10, 9/7, 9/4.
MAY: Sue, I'm sure your mind hasn't...
ELLICOTT: It's just about case-building. It's not about...
MAY: Sue.
ELLICOTT: It's not about trying to influence you, me, or any of the viewers.
MAY: The point is not what...
ELLICOTT: It's about building a case.
MAY: The point is not...
NEVILLE: Hey, Sue, you know what?
Cliff, speaking of the viewers -- hang on for me guys, because I want to let a viewer speak out.
I'm going to go to Eduardo (ph), who is standing by in California. Go ahead, Eduardo.
CALLER: Hi. Eduardo calling from Sacramento.
And I'd like to see anti-war person up there. That would help the conversation a lot.
But the United States is de-legitimizing the United Nations. It used U.N. inspection teams to gather intelligence to bomb Iraq. Now, what could de-legitimize the U.N. more?
If we were interested, really, in resolution of conflict, the United States would promise not to use inspection teams to gather intelligence to bomb -- for bombing, not to block language that would clarify that if Iraq complies with the U.N., that sanctions would be lifted. You can't have a carrot-and-stick approach without any carrots.
NEVILLE: OK...
CALLER: And the U.N. should be the one who adjudicates conflicts.
JEFFREY: Let me respond to that.
NEVILLE: Yes, Terry...
JEFFREY: It's a good point.
NEVILLE: Terry, go ahead, Terry.
JEFFREY: I would say that the most beautiful thing about the president's speech today is he absolutely, completely eviscerated and de-legitimized the U.N., because the U.N. is an illegitimate institution...
ELLICOTT: I would disagree a bit on that.
JEFFREY: ... has demonstrated by the litany the president laid out of resolutions these guys passed year after year after year, demanding that Saddam Hussein live up to his commitments, and then doing absolutely nothing about it.
CONASON: Terry, if the U.N. is illegitimate...
ELLICOTT: I would like to add something on that note.
CONASON: If the U.N. is illegitimate, why do you go there?
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Hang on, guys -- one at a time. Right now, Tommy is going to be that one voice.
TOMMY: OK, listen, it seems like the president is looking for allies. I think we are doing the same thing we did in World War I, World War II, in Vietnam. I was around during that war. And it seems like we want to -- that he is still doing the whole thing with the Soviet Union that we still have -- I think we still have that same mentality.
NEVILLE: Which is what?
TOMMY: Which just, you know, going to take them out, just take them out. That's what we did in Vietnam. We got trapped...
NEVILLE: I'm running out of time, Tommy. Thank you, first of all, for standing up.
ELLICOTT: Let me say really quickly, if there is time to say...
NEVILLE: And, Sue, hang on.
ELLICOTT: That...
NEVILLE: Yes, Sue, I'm going to give you 15 seconds before my break.
ELLICOTT: ... that instead of -- he wasn't simply de- legitimizing the United Nations. He was issuing a challenge, and this could end up being very pivotal and an aggrandizing moment in George Bush's presidency if the United Nations takes up that challenge.
NEVILLE: Thanks, Sue, for getting that in there in 15 seconds.
ELLICOTT: It was remarkable, wasn't it?
NEVILLE: It was remarkable, absolutely. Listen, I do have to take another break right now.
Up next: a primary election that is so messed up, the outcome might have to be decided in court. Can you guess the state where it's happening?
I'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE (voice-over): Still to come on TALKBACK LIVE, what do Senator Hillary Clinton and Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney have in common? Could it be their dreamhouse is the White House?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: And welcome back everybody. I'm Arthel Neville.
All right, right now, we're going to review some words we knew so well a couple of years ago, words like recount and hanging chad. Well, they're at it again in Florida, where efforts to simpilfy -- simplify -- that would be -- the vote after the last presidential election seemed to have backfired. Well, now, the Democratic gubernatorial primary between former Attorney General Janet Reno and Tampa attorney Bill McBride could be in doubt. Problems with election delays and new voting machines in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties have state officials shaking their heads.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two counties, you know, get, you know, F minus, minus, minus -- totally unacceptable.
J. BUSH: It is just unconscionable that two of the most prosperous counties in this state seem not to be able to run an election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: OK, yes, the audience here is chuckling. I don't know if you can hear that at home.
But, listen, right now, we're going to get more on this from CNN Miami bureau chief, John Zarrella.
John, are they laying out in the sun too much in Florida? What's going on? I mean, do we have a clear winner yet?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: No. We have no clear winner yet, and we don't know when we're going to have a clear winner. At 4:00 this afternoon -- another about 20 minutes, 15 minutes -- they were supposed to have certified this election.
But in Miami-Dade County, there are still four precincts that have not been counted, and that is a Janet Reno stronghold, as was Broward County.
And those, of course, are the two counties that had the majority of the problems: election workers not showing up to open the polls, couldn't get the new touch-screen machines operating, and on and on and on.
And you're right. It was just like two years ago during the presidential election. It was just frightening the similarities that existed between then and now -- Arthel.
NEVILLE: I mean, I can't believe, how can somebody show up late to the polls to open the polls? Lunch time in one area?
ZARRELLA: Lunch time would have been good. In some areas in Dade County, one poll didn't open until 4:00 in the afternoon. Then, the governor extended the polling hours in Florida until 9:00 p.m., and some of the poll workers in some of the places, particularly in Miami-Dade and Broward again, closed at 7:00, because they said they never got the word to stay open until 9:00.
And of course, everybody is blaming everybody. The governor and the secretary of state are blaming the supervisors of elections in Dade and Broward County. And just a few minutes ago, the supervisor in Broward County and one of the commissioners there blamed the poll workers -- four volunteers.
NEVILLE: No way. Hey, listen, John, hang on for me. I have another question for you.
But before that, I want to get a comment from one of our audience members, Linda, here from Virginia.
LINDA: Well, my comment is, why didn't someone go in there and start up those machine two hours or three hours before the polls opened to guarantee that they were working?
Another question is, is: why were they late? Did anyone ever find out? Do we need to set alarm clocks down in the state of Florida?
(APPLAUSE)
ZARRELLA: Mine was working. I had to get up and go...
NEVILLE: What did you say, John?
ZARRELLA: I said, well, my alarm clock worked. I assumed everybody -- I went and voted first thing in the morning. And in fact, my polling place is a car dealership now. So, things are crazy down here.
NEVILLE: Wow! OK...
ZARRELLA: But...
NEVILLE: John, let me ask you this before you go. I do want to know, though, because can't Janet Reno call for a recount based on voting irregularities?
ZARRELLA: Well, she may well do that. But what she would like to do is to avoid any kinds of problems for the Democrats. They have been unified up until this point, and for the good the party, she probably will not do that unless she clearly believes that she could win it in a recount.
NEVILLE: All right, John Zarrella, thank you very much for that update.
All right, listen, I want to give the panel each 20 seconds to go ahead and comment on this, and I'm going to let the lovely Sue Ellicott go first.
ELLICOTT: Well, I would say if you want your vote to count, you should probably move from Florida, or at least move from those two counties. I mean, it is rather tragic, isn't it, for the reputation of Florida that this should happen so soon after the last screw-up. I mean, there is no real reason -- it's a different screw-up. They are quite inventive. NEVILLE: And Cliff May, what's going to happen to Jeb Bush because of this? I mean, he took a strong stance, I will not let this happen again. I'm going to fix this problem. The problem is not fixed.
MAY: Well, I think it's a far reach to blame it on Jeb Bush. You're talking about two counties. You have election supervisors. They're elected. At least one of the counties, it's a Democrats and the other one I think it's an Independent. He offered a lot of help to the county supervisors and the election officials. They turned him down. They didn't want help from a Republican governor.
So, I think the Democrats need to sort this out, and it's not Jeb Bush's fault.
NEVILLE: Terry Jeffrey?
JEFFREY: Well, look, ultimately in a republic, all elections are local. These were local elections. And another thing, maybe it's a downside of even of democracies, ultimately, we are reliant on public officials and politicians to give us the ability to vote. And here, they failed amazingly for the second election in a row.
NEVILLE: Joe Conason?
CONASON: Well, I think this will probably be over in a short amount of time. I think Janet Reno will probably concede to Bill McBride, and I think that's what Jeb Bush is worried about. He ran $1 million worth of ads to try to stop McBride, and now, this election is probably going to turn out in a way that worries the Republican Party in Florida.
So, they will laugh for a few days at Broward County, and justifiably so, but when it's over, I think we'll have a real race down there.
NEVILLE: F minus, minus, minus, minus. Anybody here ever got that grade in school? Let me see a show of hands.
ELLICOTT: Not that we'd admit to.
NEVILLE: OK, that's a good point. OK, we're going to take a break right now, and when we come back, we're going to talk about two women who could be eying the White House. You can decide which one stands the better chance. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: Excuse me. I'm taking an aspirin.
Cliff May, you had my head spinning from that last segment. You actually said that the mess in Florida was due to the Democrats. Man, you spun that one. You gave me a headache.
MAY: I said -- I said...
NEVILLE: OK, now, moving on now.
MAY: I didn't quite say that. I said as a Democratic primary with Democratic election supervisors to blame Jeb Bush seems like a little bit of a stretch. That's all.
NEVILLE: All right, because I think my head was spinning, Cliff. I had to take an aspirin during the break.
MAY: I apologize.
NEVILLE: Anyway, welcome back everybody.
Will Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney dump the Democrats for a chance for the Green Party's presidential ticket? That's the question here. Some Green members say her views are a perfect fit to either lead the party ticket or be Ralph Nader's V.P. McKinney hasn't confirmed or denied the reports.
And hers isn't the only woman's name being tossed around the presidential ring. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has consistently denied she has presidential ambitions in 2004, but that hasn't stopped the speculation, of course. She's got the name, the money and organization. Will she run?
Sue Ellicott, will Hillary run? Should Hillary run?
ELLICOTT: Who knows whether she really will run? I'm sure she'll keep us on tenterhooks until the last possible minute. But I mean, why not? It doesn't show that it's going to be rather (UNINTELLIGIBLE) get excited about the prospects of the upcoming election.
And we'll have Gore back and Bush. And throw her head in the ring. It's fine with me.
NEVILLE: Hey, and by the way, Terry, when you answer, this is about Ms. Clinton and Ms. McKinney, so go ahead and tell me your thoughts.
ELLICOTT: Oh, but as for Ms. McKinney...
JEFFREY: Well, first of all I would say...
ELLICOTT: I'm sorry.
JEFFREY: I would say that Hillary Clinton is far too smart to run for president in 2004. I think she looks out there and sees the same thing I do, that it's going to be very difficult for any Democrat to derail George Bush. You have to bet he's going to get reelected unless there is something significant that changes in the trends between now and then.
Cynthia McKinney is completely inconsequential. Ralph Nader actually damaged Al Gore as the Green Party candidate in the last election. Cynthia McKinney would have absolutely no effect, it would be no problem. I'm sure the Democrats would be glad to get rid of her, quite frankly.
NEVILLE: Joe?
CONASON: Well, I think Terry is right about the Democrats being glad to get rid of McKinney and her father, by the way, who lost his primary against a white candidate in a 60 percent black district the other day. If they can't carry a state Senate district, I don't think they're going to be able to help the Green Party very much.
I also don't think that Hillary Clinton is going to run for president this time. She's a freshman senator, who has vowed to serve her term, and I think that's what she'll do.
And I have to say, I think -- to predict the results of the 2004 election now is kind of foolish.
JEFFREY: Is premature?
CONASON: At this time before the '96...
JEFFREY: You just did it, Joe.
CONASON: At this time before the '96 election...
ELLICOTT: Totally.
CONASON: ... people like Terry Jeffrey were saying that Bill Clinton...
NEVILLE: OK.
CONASON: ... would not be reelected, OK? So...
NEVILLE: I've got to...
JEFFREY: I didn't calculate the Chinese money, Joe.
NEVILLE: I've got to get Cliff on there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
NEVILLE: Hang on, guys. I've got to get Cliff in there.
MAY: I think that it's most likely that Hillary, who does want to be president, won't run in 2004, but will until 2008, although it's possible.
Don't forget. One of ways Bill Clinton became a candidate against George Bush 41 was to do that at a time when a lot of people thought you can't beat him. He was bold about it. And she may want to be bold as well.
As for Cynthia McKinney, I would say, it's good if she goes to the Green Party. The Green Party can take all of the looney votes. Somebody has got to do that.
NEVILLE: All right. Hey, Cliff, thank you, and my headache is gone now.
MAY: I'm going to send you some Advil or aspirin.
NEVILLE: Could you please?
MAY: My apologies, I'm so sorry.
NEVILLE: No...
(CROSSTALK)
ELLICOTT: Everybody thought after the Gulf War that George Bush was a shoo-in, and he absolutely wasn't. So, there's no way we can predict whether George Bush, Jr. will be reelected or not at this stage.
NEVILLE: All right...
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFREY: I just predicted it.
MAY: We can predict it, we just may be wrong. But let's take bets. That might make it fun.
NEVILLE: All right, well, listen, Sue, Terry, Joe...
ELLICOTT: I'll give you a quarter.
CONASON: What odds do you want to do?
NEVILLE: Yes, you guys -- Cliff, you guys can continue after this. But I have to go right now. Thank you so much for joining me.
And when we come back: who should represent Miss North Carolina in the Miss America Pageant? A federal judge, not a pageant judge, hmm, is going to decide. We'll tell you why when we come back.
But first, let's find out what Judy Woodruff has planned for "INSIDE POLITICS."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: Well, well, well, the battle rages in North Carolina in a courtroom over a crown -- well, a tiara to be exact. A judge could rule at anytime who should be the real Miss North Carolina.
Rebekah Revels was crowned, but says she was forced to resign after her ex-boyfriend threatened to reveal topless photos of her.
Runner-up Misty Clymer, was then named Miss North Carolina, and prepared to head off to the Miss America Pageant.
Well, now Miss Revels, as in Rebekah, she wants her crown back. And a federal judge will decide who the real queen is. On the phone now is Rommyn Skipper, city editor of the "Wilmington Star-News." And I want to find out where does this battle of the beauty stand now?
ROMMYN SKIPPER, "WILMINGTON STAR-NEWS": Well, right now, it is stands -- or sits in the judge's chambers. He said today that he would stand up until 3:30 hearing the closing arguments, and then he would take the remaining hour-and-a-half to try to come up with a decision.
NEVILLE: Yes, but, Rommyn, what are people of your city -- or North Carolina, what are they saying? Is anybody in North Carolina, the state of North Carolina, what are they saying about this?
SKIPPER: Well, to be honest, I haven't heard a lot of one way or the other. I think there's a lot of interest, just as there is nationally, just because this hasn't happened before.
But to be honest, I haven't heard a lot of people saying, well, I think, you know, either Miss Revels or Miss Clymer is the real queen. There's just a lot of interest in how this came to be and how it might get figured out.
NEVILLE: OK, hang on for me. I have a lady in the audience who wants to say something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I personally think that the judge -- the court should stay out of this. It should be up to the pageant and the pageant judges to make the decisions here, not the federal courts, not the local courts, not even the supreme court.
NEVILLE: OK, thank you. Hey, Rommyn, when will that decision come down, do you know?
SKIPPER: Well, if there is a decision today, and there's no guarantee that there would be, it would be at 5:00, because this judge ends his day 5:00 sharp regardless.
NEVILLE: Well, we will await the results. We are out of time. Thank you very much for joining us on the phone, Mr. Skipper.
And thanks to our studio audience here and to everybody watching. I will see you again tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern. I'm Arthel Neville.
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