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CNN Crossfire

Have Democrats Singled Out Ted Olson for Political Payback?

Aired May 18, 2001 - 19:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Olson, Bush's pick to be solicitor general, opposed by Democrats for his possible role in anti-Clinton dirt digging. But it was personal matters that dominated the week. Drowning in rumors, Florida Governor Jeb Bush denied an extramarital affair. Fighting off criticism, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift gave birth to twins and continued running the Bay State.

Playing for sympathy, Rudy Giuliani and wife Donna Hanover fought over their divorce in the tabloids, and it wasn't pretty. Add them up. At the end of the week, who came out on top? Who sank beneath the waves? That's tonight's political potpourri. With Kate O'Beirne of the National Review and CNN's "CAPITAL GANG" sitting in on the right tonight.

Hi, Kate. Take it away.

KATE O'BEIRNE, GUEST HOST: Thank you, Bill. Thank you. First, Vic Kamber about Ted Olson, this phony dispute the Democrats have dreamed up.

VIC KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ... phony in person, but go ahead.

O'BEIRNE: Even "The Washington Post" this morning, as I'm sure you saw, said the only test should be whether or not Ted Olson would do a good job. "The Washington Post," not a friendly newspaper to Ted Olson, concluded that he would. "The Washington Post" concluded in its editorial there's no evidence to the contrary that Ted Olson testified fully and completely. That being the case, even in their judgment, isn't this just payback because Ted Olson represented George Bush in that Supreme Court case?

KAMBER: Well, I don't think so. I think, first of all, Ted Olson is not a god, he's a lawyer, he's an attorney. He is looking to be No. 3 in the Justice Department. I think Democrats, Republicans have a right -- they demand it and they have a right to find out as much about what he's saying.

And if his veracity is in question, which I think it is here, his fully coming forward with all the information, they have an obligation to vote against him. I don't know if he's been truthful or not about what he has said. I do know, as I say, he's not a god, that we've built him up to be. He's an attorney, and obviously a competent attorney.

"The Washington Post," I'm glad you cite them. I wish we could cite them on a whole lot of other things when they do editorials. This one, I happen to disagree with him.

CLIFF MAY, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I love -- I love the Democrats are using the word veracity again, because I haven't heard that in eight years.

O'BEIRNE: There's a whole new candor -- there's a whole new candor being adopted by Democrats.

KAMBER: Well, you gave us the standard we have to follow. You're the ones that demanded it.

O'BEIRNE: Except Vic did make clear that he doesn't know what the facts are in dispute here, and if he did he would conclude, as "The Washington Post" did there's no there there.

KAMBER: No, no. I know what the facts are. I don't know the truth of those facts.

O'BEIRNE: If we can't agree on whether or not it was payback, although even "The New York Times" cited a Democratic staffer saying, this really felt good getting Ted Olson, but if we can't agree on there, surely we probably can agree what the Democrats are also doing is sending a warning to President Bush. If we're willing to trump up charges and do this to your solicitor general, just wait and see what your judges have in store for...

KAMBER: I think it's a fair analysis of what you said without the trumped-up charges. I think it is a clear message by the Democrats to the president and to this administration, you put up right-wingers, you put up people that are not in the mainstream to be judges in this country and we're not going to stand and vote for them. I think that's very clear.

PRESS: Cliff May, let's you and I have some exchange here about Mr. Olson, too. And I have to disagree with Kate. This issue is not whatever he did in Florida. The issue is whether or not he lied to Congress.

Now Mr. Olson is on the board of "The American Spectator," which had this project looking into Clinton's stuff in Arkansas, and they called it the Arkansas project. He told Congress, under oath, he was not involved in that.

David Brock, a writer at the time for "The American Spectator," told -- has said rather, and is quoted in this morning's "Hotline," that that's not the true. Here's what Mr. Brock says, quote: "There's no question that he did not tell the truth before the committee. I consulted with Mr. Olson specifically about one particular article dealing with the Vincent Foster matter. He gave me advice about what to do with that article."

Now who's telling the truth, I don't know either, but my question to you is, if he lied to Congress, Mr. Olson lied to Congress, he should be turned down for solicitor general, and we have to know whether he lied before the vote, correct?

MAY: Again, this emphasis on telling the truth before Congress from Democrats is most refreshing and I welcome it from you. But there...

PRESS: All right, now answer the question, please.

MAY: There are two points to make here. One: as a recovering journalist who worked for a lot of magazines, I can tell you that lawyers are consulted but they're not part of the investigative journalism process. So I doubt very much it's true. And as we know, David Brock is -- he's now a liberal who used to be a conservative. He was against Hillary, for Hillary. Who knows?

Second, what if he actually was part of an investigative journalism project? Is it now illegal, immoral or just terrible for people to be involved in investigative journalism?

KAMBER: The issue is lying, the issue is lying.

MAY: Again, for you guys to say...

KAMBER: Don't say "you guys" because we're...

MAY: For Democrats to say that you're so worried about somebody not telling the truth...

KAMBER: You raised the standard, Clifford.

MAY: There is not a shred of evidence other than some testimony from David Brock that should not be credited that he told anything except the truth, which makes sense if you know how a magazine works with its lawyers.

PRESS: Pardon me. I have to challenge your statement. So what if he was involved. If he was involved he lied to Congress. If he lied to Congress under oath, he broke the law. He should not be solicitor general. Why do you defend a lie when you were so hot against a lie a couple of years ago?

MAY: I might turn it around. Why do you think that for a president lying that's OK, because there's a reason. But there's not a shred of evidence that he told anything but the truth about his relationship with an investigative journalism project. He was the attorney for the magazine.

PRESS: My quick question, which is really a yes-or-no answer, which you just dance around is if it's proven that he lied he should be turned down, yes?

O'BEIRNE: The Democrats aren't even accusing him of lying. Let me...

PRESS: Do you have answer? MAY: I -- there is not a shred of evidence that he did not tell the truth in terms of his relations with this project.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BEIRNE: Let me ask Vic about another trumped-up controversy from this week. Democrats claim now to be upset -- I hope you're not among them -- that John Ashcroft, our attorney general, begins his morning by having, saying prayers, reading the Bible with some colleagues who freely join him. You don't have a problem with that, do you, Vic?

KAMBER: Nobody objects to John Ashcroft praying, reading prayers, or talking to his God. I certainly object wholeheartedly with the concept of the attorney general of the United States in government chambers would hold a session like that and invite people who obviously are going to feel pressured to be there for their boss, whether they believe in it or not.

I'm a boss. I have 70, 75 people that work for me. I know if I say, I like pizza, five will say, oh, I like that pizza, too, just to please me. And what I'm saying to you, that with the attorney general of the United States, I'm delighted he's practicing his religion. I hope he's saved again.

If he wants to be a missionary, go in the mission field. If he wants to be attorney general, let's divide the two.

O'BEIRNE: First of all, would you agree that the one workplace in the entire world where employees know how to vindicate their right, it's the Justice Department?

KAMBER: Not true, Kate.

O'BEIRNE: Do you really think these lawyers are being accused by an ayatollah?

KAMBER: We're not talking about just -- we're talking about people who have careers at stake. They could be at any level. He invites anybody in.

O'BEIRNE: Let me give you a fact you might not be aware of and see if this doesn't change your mind. It turns out that some of John Ashcroft, because this practice is longstanding -- he did this as senator -- some of John Ashcroft's longest-serving, most loyal, closest aides have never joined in any of these sessions, and yet they all get promoted and they remain around him.

KAMBER: No, you're missing my point. I am not suggesting he is putting pressure on them. I'm not even suggesting that he -- I think he's probably a very fair -- I think he's a very fair and decent man in that respect. I'm saying it is improper because of the -- of the -- if you're working there and you don't know any better, you're going to try to please the boss.

O'BEIRNE: Could they get together to meditate of levitate in the morning?

KAMBER: Why not do it outside? Why do it there? Give me a reason why.

MAY: I wanted to jump in and say, first of all, if administration officials are going to go down on their knees, what a relief that they're doing it to pray for a change. I'm in favor of that. Second, we know a few things about John Ashcroft. We know that he's had at least one Orthodox Jew work for him, and he was also tremendously tolerant when she wanted to leave a meeting on a Friday night...

KAMBER: He's had one Jew work for him on all his jobs. Let's applaud him.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: You know better. I said one Orthodox Jew. How many Orthodox Jews work for you?

KAMBER: I have no idea. I don't check their religion...

MAY: You have no idea.

KAMBER: ... when we hire them. See, that's the difference.

MAY: No, no, you're the ones who want to bean count on ethnicities. We don't. But she wrote an article about how he was the one boss she had ever had who was totally tolerant of Orthodox Jewish practices.

KAMBER: That's wonderful of him. I'm not suggesting he's anything...

MAY: If there were a boss who wanted to wear a yarmulke, would you object to that?

KAMBER: Of course not.

MAY: Well, it's the same thing.

PRESS: All right, gentlemen, I'm going to move on, because there's a lot of stuff to cover on a Friday night. The year began with charges from the new Bush team coming into the White House that the Clinton people left the White House in a shambles. They totally trashed it, and of course, whatever they said, Bob Barr believed them, the perennial Clinton hater, and ordered the General Services Administration to do a report on whether it was true or not.

The GSA report came out today. I'd like you to read their conclusion. Quote: "The condition of real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy."

No trashing of the White House, Cliff May, and even the president said there was no trashing or stealing of articles from Air Force One. So I guess my question, first question to you is, when a team starts out, just with a pack of lies, why should we believe anything they say after that?

MAY: Again, this is so refreshing to hear. I don't even want to comment.

KAMBER: It's a good question.

MAY: It's a good question. Let me...

PRESS: Why don't you just answer the question?

MAY: Let me respond. If that did not happen, then anybody who said it did and scored them for it owes them an apology. But by the way, no one is saying that the Clintons didn't take furnishings and other things from the White House that didn't belong to them. No one's saying he didn't give a pardon to Marc Rich, which he never should have done -- a terrible thing -- or they didn't pass a whole bunch of executive orders meant only to trip up his successor, President Bush.

So I'll say, if that's not true that the White House was trashed, then those who said it was should say they're sorry. But that doesn't get them off the hook for everything else they did ...

PRESS: Well, I will -- I just want to assure you that I'm going to hold my breath until they do apologize. Now, moving on, this months's issue of "Rolling Stone" has an interesting profile of John McCain. The headline is "John McCain's War on the White House."

It points out, as we all know, that John McCain has sided against this president on campaign reform, against him on patients' bill of rights, against him on gun shows, and against him on global warming.

One Republican insider is quoted here in the article as saying: "If the Bush people had worked harder at salvaging the relationship with him, we wouldn't be in the position we are now. That was poor political strategy to treat John McCain they the way they did, and to let him become a political enemy." Do you agree?

MAY: I sure hope that John McCain is not taking the positions he's taking on these issues out of pique. I hope he's taking them out of conviction, even though I probably disagree with him on most of those things.

PRESS: But don't you think the White House -- I mean, they won. Isn't it up to them to bring John McCain in and to put an end to this war?

MAY: I think it's a good thing for Republican leaders to embrace all Republicans. That's important to do. And I think it may be challenging where John McCain concerned. There was no question it was a lively competition between the two of them.

PRESS: All right, we're going to take a break, gentlemen. When we come back, that's enough policy, let's get personal. And we will on CROSSFIRE when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BEIRNE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. I'm Kate O'Beirne of "National Review" and "CAPITAL GANG," sitting in on the right.

Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift welcomes twin daughters, but there's no welcome mat at Gracie Mansion for Rudy's Judi, and Governor Jeb Bush shoots down unwelcome rumors in Florida.

Joining us to sort through this tough week for family values: Democratic strategist Victor Kamber, and Republican strategist Cliff May -- Bill.

PRESS: "People Magazine: just out on the stands has the bold headline, "The Mayor, the Wife, the Mistress." For those of our audience who don't know all the details -- maybe I don't want to give you all details -- but the mayor is divorcing his wife. He's living with his girlfriend. He brings his girlfriend into the home where his wife and kids are living for social affairs.

Over this week, the mayor's lawyer called Donna Hanover, the mayor's wife, "an uncaring mother howling like a stuck pig," and says, "They're going to have to drag her out of Gracie Mansion from the chain of the chandeliers."

I guess my question to you, is the what Republicans mean by family values?

MAY: This is a hard one for me to respond to. You know, it's a political soap opera.

PRESS: You look uncomfortable. I hope you are.

MAY: Let me sat that if we're going to dig into the dirt of someone's love life, I'd rather it be Nicole Kidman's than Rudy Giuliani's. It's more than I want to know about his life.

PRESS: Yes, speaking of more than we want to know, he also said that Judi cannot be his girlfriend in the terms of a sex partner because he's incapable of having sex with her because of the cancer drug that he's taking. Isn't that more than we want to know? And why doesn't somebody just tell him -- he is a leading Republican -- just to shut up?

MAY: Maybe he thinks that his next career could be as a Viagra spokesman.

KAMBER: Well, he's already said that that won't work either.

MAY: That won't work either?

KAMBER: I guess he's tried it.

PRESS: Don't you think he just ought to zip it?

MAY: I think I'd like to know less about his love life and his personal life.

O'BEIRNE: How about a more pleasant subject, Vic? There was a lot of Democratic criticism of Governor Jane Swift, who had twins this week, with members of your party dumping on a woman about to deliver twins.

KAMBER: Well, I think it's outrageous. Any Democrat that did it, any Republican that did it. I mean, I'm a big believer in equal rights. I'm a big believer in women's rights. The fact that a woman is able to reproduce and have babies and work I think is wonderful. The fact that she had twins and work -- I would disagree with her as a governor. As a Republican, I have possibly policy issues.

But as a mother, this is the old, you know, problem of woman running. I mean, if they had kids and they didn't stay home, we accuse them of being not good mothers. If they were single, we always said they were lesbians.

I mean, we don't do this to men, and I think it's outrageous that anybody -- Democrat, Republican or anybody -- attacks a woman for being a mother.

O'BEIRNE: Vic, I figured a fellow like you would probably be embarrassed by those Democrats up in Massachusetts. But the fact that your Massachusetts branch was willing to do it, isn't it just the latest evidence of Democrats willing to do anything and say anything about a Republican in order to score some points?

KAMBER: See, now, that's what Republicans have done. I think the Democrats -- you can't brand the whole party. You're not telling me that John Kerry or Barney Frank or Ted Kennedy or any of these people attacked Jane Swift for being a mother. I don't know, there may have been a Democrat up there that said something. I have no idea who and what. And again, there's no excuse for it.

O'BEIRNE: Do you think with her delivering twins, that the Democrats just resent her producing Republicans so efficiently?

(LAUGHTER)

KAMBER: Are you guaranteeing me that they're voting Republican?

O'BEIRNE: So efficiently, Vic?

PRESS: Don't count on those girls being necessarily Republicans.

Speaking of governors, Cliff May, another governor in the news this week, a governor close to the man in the White House, because he happens to be his brother, Jeb Bush, stood up, strongly denied -- no reason not to take him at his word -- that rumors of an extramarital affair were true. I don't want to get into that. I take him at his word.

But the question is that politically, a lot of people are asking why did he make such a thing of this, why did he go out of his way to shoot this down. Does it indicate that he may be in political trouble in Florida because of the shenanigans over the recount?

MAY: No, I think it says more about bad journalism than anything else. You know, there used to be a standard when I was a journalist, when you were younger, that you didn't talk about this stuff unless you had evidence and unless it had some bearing on how that person performed in office. And that's gone out the window. There is not a shred of evidence that he's had any kind of an affair. It was going around. People were writing about it, talking about it.

He felt -- and it's a perfectly normal thing for him to be advised by communications people -- go out there once, say it isn't true, clamp down the rumors and then don't talk about it again. That's all he was doing,

PRESS: He's running for re-election. This wire was just handed to us before the show, as you know, dateline Miami, a CNN wire, that former Attorney General Janet Reno told a talk radio station today that she's considering running for governor in 2002. Assuming she wins the primary, she could knock Jeb Bush right out of the governors mansion.

MAY: Vic Kamber -- Vic Kamber is going to make a fortune advising her on her first speech to the Cuban community of Florida. Don't you want to see that?

KAMBER: That Cuban community is voting Republican, no matter what. It doesn't really matter. The question is who can turn out the most people of the party. And I think, frankly, Reno -- I mean, there's any number of people, Butterworth, several congressmen. I think what it says, speaks to is that Jeb Bush is in trouble. The reason five, six, seven people want to run is they think they can win.

O'BEIRNE: I think it's certainly true, as Cliff reminded us, the media's only too happy to serve scandal to the public. But somebody has to dish it up. And in the case of these rumors about Jeb Bush, they were common fare on a Democrat-run Web site, and in fact run by senior Democrats in good standing.

KAMBER: Kate, that's unfair. That's unfair. You know -- I mean, the fact is there's no -- there's no Democrat of any creditable source that has accused Jeb Bush -- that I'm aware of -- that has accused him of having an affair...

O'BEIRNE: On their Web site -- I...

KAMBER: Who? Let's name names. Who?

O'BEIRNE: Well, I don't want to advertise their Web site, but it is, dare I say, a "D-word" dot-com by people who as recently as four months ago worked for the Clinton administration. Now these Democrats, of course, thought personal lives were behind a wall of privacy for all the Clinton years, and now it's Democrats serving up this stuff for the media.

KAMBER: First of all -- first of all, the public are voyeurs. They love it. Let's not kid ourselves. The journalists only respond to what the public loves. The public wants...

O'BEIRNE: Stop talking about journalists now. I'm talking about political enemies.

KAMBER: No, I understand. But let's -- but why do journalists fill up and write the stuff? The enemies you're talking about -- you know, I could name enemies of Jeb Bush and the president. I don't know that they're looking into the personal lives of these people.

PRESS: We just have about a minute left, Cliff. At the risk of getting back to policy, we cannot ignore the whole energy issue this week. And just a quick question on that. There is an energy problem now. There are high gas prices now. There are high electricity prices, especially in California, now. The American people are looking for some relief now. And George Bush comes out with an energy plan, 105 recommendations, and no answers now.

Isn't that political suicide to say, wait for 10 years and we'll maybe bring you big oil from Alaska if we can get it through Congress?

MAY: Well, if there's more supply than demand, there's really not a whole lot you can do right now. We needed an energy policy over the past eight years, we haven't had one, and now the country is suffering for it, most especially your home state of California.

He's going to do everything he can, both conservation and new supply, but the problem is you can't just create new gas supplies overnight. They're not there. You can't create new refineries overnight to process the oil.

PRESS: Nothing to do right now -- gee, last year the Republicans were suggesting cutting the gas tax. They were suggesting calling OPEC, and also Bill Clinton released oil from the strategic reserve. Those are three things you could do right now, Bush does none of them.

MAY: Do you want to do that again? Would you agree you should release oil from the strategic reserve now? It's that a good idea? It wasn't a good idea last time, it's not a good idea now.

PRESS: Why wasn't it? Why wasn't it? It's going to bring some relief.

MAY: It's strategic reserve, is the name of it. It's not meant just to bring the price of gas down a quarter. It's meant, when you have an emergency. It's not meant for politics. It's meant for national security.

O'BEIRNE: Well said, Cliff.

KAMBER: Well, the president's energy policy pleases a certain segment of corporate America and that's all it's about. It's not taking care of America.

PRESS: That's all the time we have, Cliff May, Vic Kamber. Thank you very much for coming back. Out of time with them, but not for Kate O'Beirne and me. We'll be back with our caustic closing comments to wrap up the political week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BEIRNE: Bill, let me first set the record straight. I was at the Judiciary Committee session yesterday on Ted Olson. No one is accusing Ted Olson of lying. Even the partisan Democrats on the committee are not accusing him of lying. They have this fuzzy discrepancy thing in his testimony, which no objective person sees.

But Senator Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, today said he's going to vote for Ted Olson. Of course, it's a partisan payback. Senator Miller sees it as such. And he thinks it's more important to get along than to be fighting these old battles, and he's right.

PRESS: Let me just tell you something, I have no problem with partisan payback. When you play political hardball, you've got to understand that once in a while you're going to get beaned. And if Ted Olson gets beaned, then that's the ballgame.

But I just want to congratulate you. I didn't think anybody could outdo Bill and Hillary in the soap opera field, but I think Rudy and Donna have done it.

O'BEIRNE: It is a show. It is a show.

PRESS: From the left, I'm Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE. I'll see you later tonight for the last session of "THE SPIN ROOM," at 10:30.

O'BEIRNE: And from the right, I'm Kate O'Beirne. Join us again next week for another edition of CROSSFIRE.

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