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CNN Crossfire

Year in Review of 2002

Aired December 31, 2002 - 19:00   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.


ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE.
On the left, James Carville and Paul Begala. On the Right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.

In the CROSSFIRE tonight, it's our year in review of 2002.

There were lots of controversies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R), MISSISSIPPI: We voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country would have followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The Democrats got Bushed. But they won't get Gored. So, what's ahead for 2003, and 2004?

Tonight on CROSSFIRE. From the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.

PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Good evening. Happy New Year's Eve. Welcome to the last CROSSFIRE of 2002. What a year it's been. My Democrats lost control of the Senate. The Republicans lost control of their Senate leader. President Bush took us to the verge of war with Iraq, coincidentally on the verge of the November elections. And Al Gore looked but he didn't leap.

TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Tonight we're looking back at the top political stories of 2002, starting with the juiciest scandals and most unexpected controversies.

In the CROSSFIRE tonight two of our favorite political professionals. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, former Congresswoman Susan Molinari.

BEGALA: It's awfully good of you to join us. I know you're going to big fanny parties.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: But let me start, Susan, I won't dwell on this for too long but it was one of the few bright moments for a bad year for my Democrats. If 2002 had been a fish I would have thrown it back. But there was a bright moment at the end of my year when your party's Senate leader self-destructed.

I won't drag you through all of that. But what I think was lasting was the impression that our president gave. Here's what his spokesman said on his behalf about Trent Lott several days after Lott pined for the days of segregation and Strom Thurmond. Here's what Ari Fleisher the press secretary said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI FLEISHER, PRESS SECRETARY: The president has confidence in him as Republican leader unquestionably.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEGALA: Has confidence in him unquestionably. Why did it take bush a week to screw up any moral courage against a racist statement?

SUSAN MOLINARI, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Listen, obviously this is an issue that just won't die as far as Democrats are concerned. Because it was the only spot of hope that they had politically in this year, and it certainly was a turnaround where Senator Lott did the right thing and gave up his status as majority leader and allowed Bill Frist to take the reins.

If anybody thinks -- let me put it to you this way, Paul. You've been in this town a long time. And John, you're a White House chief of staff. Do you really think the president of the United States didn't have anything to do with Trent Lott resigning?

CARLSON: Of course he did.

MOLINARI: Thank you.

CARLSON: John Podesta, isn't that the story here? That Republicans attacked almost from day one the sentiment behind Trent Lott's remarks. If not the man himself, then the idea. They made it really clear we're not going to put up with it.

MOLINARI: And can contrast this the Democratic response...

(CROSSTALK)

MOLINARI: ... philanthropy of Osama bin Laden and not a Democrat...

JOHN PEDESTA, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF: Hold on.

MOLINARI: Sorry.

CARLSON: Thank you Congresswoman.

PEDESTA: Are we talking about the white house? I think they dispatched Senator Lott in a way that was, you know you have to remark on their deafness, and you have to think that when Senator Lott comes back as part of the singing senators, he'll be singing alto this -- in 2003. Because, I mean, they really did carve him up with off-the- record comments. Even as Ari Fleisher was out there saying that they supported him and want to keep him in office.

BEGALA: It is stunning, though, let me come back to this question. It took him a week...

MOLINARI: You lost round one.

BEGALA: This a man. George W. Bush is, I believe, a man of strong moral convictions. I believe he's a man without a racist bone in his body. But I also know that it took him a week to find that moral courage. I suspect he was polling that week instead of searching his conscience, wasn't he?

MOLINARI: That's absolutely ridiculous.

BEGALA: Why didn't he speak out on day one?

MOLINARI: Because there was a lot that was going on. Because, first of all, I'm not -- do we even know that he knew what Trent Lott said? because the media took awhile to really report that and bring it to all of our consciousness.

PEDESTA: Ari Fleisher supported him for three or four or five days.

MOLINARI: And so did Tom Daschle and so did an awful lot of other Democrats who first said wait, let's listen to what he meant. I mean, let's go back again to the fact that this was a comment that was made at a birthday party, no one knew the context of it. No one went into the background.

I'm defending the president saying, you know, in light of the war with Iraq, in light of all the things that are going on smallpox vaccinators, let's put it in context with what the president had to do with other than trying to feed the press.

CARLSON: John Podesta, in the end Senator Lott was kicked out of leadership by his own party. Contrast this to what happened to Senator Robert Torricelli. For a year "The New York Times" documented pretty precisely how he took payoffs from a convicted felon, how he was concerting with members of the Mafia, it was reall a sort of an amazing case against him.

I want to read you what Tom Daschle said in response to that case, quote, "Senator Torricelli is an extraordinary senator and candidate, and I have no doubts that he will rebound and will continue to lead in the polls, as he is this morning. Senator Torricelli has worked hard, and I believe that at the end of the day the people of New Jersey recognize the tremendous leadership he's provided and the issues upon which he's worked and will reelected him to another term." Not a single word about the despicable acts that Senator Torricelli apparently committed.

PEDESTA: Of course in a couple of days Senator Lautenberg will be sworn in as the senator from New Jersey.

CARLSON: But where is the moral courage here.

PEDESTA: Senator Daschle did what he needed to do. And Senator Torricelli moved out. And senator Lautenberg ran in New Jersey. He ran a good race, and just in a few weeks was able to best the Republican candidate there. And we're going to have a Democrat coming back to the Senate from New Jersey.

CARLSON: So the ends justify the means. I understand exactly what you're saying.

MOLINARI: When it comes to racism, I didn't hear Democrats saying anything when it came to Robert Byrd's comments.

PEDESTA: This was -- Torricelli wasn't about -- was about personal conduct. It wasn't about the same kinds of things that Senator Lott was engaged in. And frankly, that the Republican party was engaged in...

CARLSON: They're not personal when they pertain to a public servant.

BEGALA: And remember the Justice Department dropped those charges.

Another big controversy here which does involve allegations of financial wrongdoing swirled around President Bush. Now the Democrats never picked up on it. I think wrongly. This was a year of corporate scandals. "TIME" magazine recently named the whistleblowers, two of whom came out of corporate America as the persons of the year.

Came out this year, "Boston Globe" did some reporting on then citizen George W. Bush when he ran a company called Harkin Energy. Allegedly committing insider trading.

This is what the "Globe" reported. "One week before George W. Bush's now famous sell of stock in Harkin Energy Corperation in 199, Harkin was warned by it's lawers that Bush and other members of the trouble oil companies board faced possible insiders tradering risk if they unloaded their shares. The warning from Harken's lawyers came in a legal memorandum whose exsistence has been little noted until now, despite the many years of scrutiny of the Bush transaction. The memo was not received by the Securities and Exchange Commission until the day after the agency dcided not to bring insider-trading charges against Bush, documents show."

Now, Susan, shouldn't Bush release all the documents so we can know if our president, frankly, is an insider trader?

MOLINARI: I think it's pretty sad that at the end of 2002 that you're grasping on that one straw that you've been continuing to use, despite all the success and the popularity of Bush, whether it's at the polls in November, or in the U.N., or fighting the war on terrorism. I think it's time we close the chapter and start a new year where you give the president the benefit of the doubt of leading this country.

CARLSON: And isn't just tactically -- this is Whitewater, basically. This is an effort to score political points on a scandal rather than giving a real critique of the president's policies, say in Iraq or the economy which you haven't done.

PODESTA: Well, Tucker, look. This was the dog that did bite in 2002. Neither Halliburton nor Harkin did we learn anything about, certainly not from Mr. Pitt at the SEC.

But I kind of hear those teeth grinding beneath the muzzles. Maybe we'll find out something about it in this new year and find out at least, I think you'll agree with this, we'll find out at least who bought the stock from President Bush.

CARLSON: So that is your new year's wish, John Podesta. I'm not sure how wholesome it is, but I appreciate you admitting it on the air.

Thank you, Susan Molinari, thank you. We appreciate it.

Coming up, there's much more ahead in our year in review, including trashing the Democrats. James Carville joins our show as we look at what put George W. Bush and the Republicans on top. And a trash can on Mr. Carville's head. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST: Welcome back to our year in review edition of CROSSFIRE. We're looking back on the political highlights and lowlights of 2002. And we can sum most of them up in just two words. Election day. The day that my Democratic Party got bushed. We're talking politics with Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum.

CARLSON: Now, Bob, I know there's no disagreement around this table that the Democratic Party got spanked like the bad girl it is during the midterms.

But I want you to take a look at two different reactions to that reality. The first comes from your party chair, Terry McAuliffe. His line was to "The New York Times" on November 7, the day after, "I could clearly make the argument that George Bush should have done a lot better last night." Meaning election night.

BOB SHRUM, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Glad he didn't.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: And I want to show you what a more honest, if slightly more demented ordinary Democrat did to celebrate the loss of your party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: James Carville feels the same way.

CARVILLE: Well, I'm not saying anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's succinct, and mostly, it's true.

CARVILLE: And Bob Novak interviewed the trash can.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: That's exactly right.

SHRUM: He thought you'd finally gotten a toupee.

CARLSON: And he ought to.

My point is not that you want to make James your party chair, though that would be amusing, but you need to get a new party chair one way or the other. Don't you think?.

SHRUM: No, I don't think we need to get a new party chair at all. I think we obviously in the election didn't have a very effective message, didn't deliver it very well.

There were people who did, for example, go out there, take some very tough positions. Tom Harkin who was on the vulnerable list at the beginning of the process won by the biggest margin he ever won by against the toughest opponent arguably he's run against while taking on the Bush tax cut, taking on some very big tough issues and saying we ought to repeal that tax cut so we can have prescription drugs.

CARLSON: I think that's a valid way to look at it.

But let's get back to Terry McAuliffe. He said the No. 1 goal of Democrats in this election is to win Florida. He had a relative, as you know, working for Jeb Bush's opponent. But don't you think...

SHRUM: A man by the name of Richard Swann (ph). A fine guy.

CARLSON: My point is, don't you think he put entirely too much emphasis on that campaign for emotional and other reasons to the detriment of others and it was a huge mistake?

SHRUM: No, I think all of us feel pretty emotional about Florida. I think the polling indicated that race could conceivably be very close. I think it was sensible to put money in there.

But I don't think the answer to the problems of the Democratic Party is going to be to replace the party chairman. It's going to be to take on the economic issues, to take on the tax cut issues, to take on, for example, the fact that the president promised in 2000 a prescription drug benefit. There was a kind of phony one that the Republicans had last year. And then "The Washington Post" a few days ago said well the one they may have next year would just help the poorest of the poor among senior citizens.

I think we ought to take up those issues. I think we ought to take up health care and put forward a plan to help the uninsured and to make sure people in this country have access to affordable, quality health care. And I think if we do that we'll do very well in 2004.

CARVILLE: Well, Ed, we've gone to the trash can. Let's go to the Sugar Bowl here and talk about a real sugar, senator from my native state Louisiana, Senator Mary Landrieu and show you a spot that she ran, and I think to the surprise of a lot of us here in Washington she ran and won. Take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: As Louisiana jobs were sold out, Suzy Terrell was silent. The president came to campaign for Terrell. She didn't say a word. Terrell put her party and campaign ahead of our state. Louisiana doesn't need a rubber stamp. We need a senator who will put Louisiana first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Showed that you can run against this president, as Tom Harkin did, as Mary Landrieu did when she changed her strategy, she (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and won. That's a real lesson to Democrats. They want you to stand for something, man. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) stand for nothing.

EDWARD GILLESPIE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know what I don't necessarily disagree with you on that, James. I think Mary Landrieu in the end ran a good campaign. I think that she had historic trends going her way. You know Louisiana a heck of a lot better than I do. You know that they don't turn out incumbent senators. You know that a Republican hasn't been elected statewide to the Senate since reconstruction.

Those trends were going against her, you know -- Suzy Terrell did very well to get it into a runoff. Frankly Landrieu never should have been in that vote, but once she got in it she was going to get home safe. I think that was a...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: I'll be honest with you, I talked to a lot of people in Washington, myself included, that were surprised by that. If you were not surprised, then...

GILLESPIE: Why did you guys spend all that money down there?

CARVILLE: It was all a hopeless cause.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: Mr. Carlson predicted must have been about seven times...

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: And I believe it was the one error of the season for me, not to brag.

Now, Mr. Shrum, I want you to take, I want to meet James' ad and raise you an ad. I want you to look at one of the most amusing but troubling spots of the season. This is an ad against Mike Taylor in Montana, put up by the forces allied with Senator Max Baucus. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: State Senator Mike Taylor once ran a beauty salon and a hair care school. Until the Department of Education uncovered Taylor's hair care scam for abusing the student loan program, and diverting money to himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now, Democrats say well this is all about the student loan scam. But you know that's not true. And gay groups in Montana knew it wasn't true. This is calling Mike Taylor gay and it's using that for political points. I thought Democrats didn't do that.

SHRUM: I don't like that ad at all. And I don't like it for several reasons. One, because it implies that he's gay. Two, it implies that there's something wrong with being gay, and somehow or other would seem to, you know, try to use a charge against him to appeal to parts of people's feelings that I think are unworthy in this country and that we ought to get rid of. The same way we're getting rid of Trent Lott is a good idea.

CARLSON: We're agreeing too much, Bob Shrum. You're scaring me.

SHRUM: You could have run that ad. And done the student loan scam, and made the exact same case, without using any of that footage. That footage shouldn't have been used.

CARVILLE: I think bob makes a good point. I think I defended that ad once before and now that you said that, Bob, you know what? You're right, and I'm wrong.

CARLSON: It's nice to see you apologize, James.

CARVILLE: I think there was a way to do that, and I think it could have been more about the student loan and less about the hairdressing.

SHRUM: And we were winning the race by a huge margin in even event.

CARVILLE: Let's go, and watch another one.

CARLSON: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Ever think about your retirement? George W. Bush has. He's been pushing a plan to put your Social Security savings in the stock market. But Bush and the Republicans still want to push their privatization plan through Congress. And they will, if you let them. Trust me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: What does the sound effect there remind you of? It sounded like somebody sat on a whoopee cushion.

GILLESPIE: The best thing about that kind of tactic, James, is that it completely backfired on Democrats in this election. I think that people were tired of, first of all, of attacking the president personally like that. I mean, the notion that the president of the United States would push an elderly woman in a wheelchair after the cliff is ridiculous.

SHRUM: Come on, nobody thought that.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLESPIE: The candidates who ran on social security modernization won.

(CROSSTALK)

SHRUM: The guy who ran your commission called it privatization.

GILLESPIE: Right.

SHRUM: And then you guys found out it was a bad word so you looked for an euphemism.

CARVILLE: ...people putting on TV spots or whatever that sound was, when is this legislation going to come up? To -- to let people put part of their Social Security in the stock market? And where is the trillion dollars going to come from to fund it?

GILLESPIE: Well, a couple things, James. First of all if you're going to do legislation to move Social Security it's got to be bipartisan.

CARVILLE: Why? You have control of the House and the Senate. Why does it have to be bipartisan?

GILLESPIE: It's the kind of thing that requires developing a consensus with the public.

CARVILLE: Why? You didn't need a consensus with the public to put arsenic in the water. You didn't need a consensus to blow $5.6 trillion in savings. What the hell you talking about?

CARLSON: Bob, unfortunately we're almost out of time for this segment. But I just want you to agree with me for the third time tonight that the grotesque political display at Paul Wellstone's memorial service did play a role in the crushing defeat of your party in the midterms.

SHRUM: I want to say two things. First I want to welcome your conversion, if it is a conversion -- I want to welcome your conversion on some of these issues. For example, I hope you'll speak up for gay rights in all the other contexts.

CARLSON: I hope your party will stop attacking people...

(CROSSTALK)

SHRUM: ...in all the other contexts in which it comes up.

Secondly, I think the Wellstone memorial service clearly did hurt. I think that it was with the best of intentions in the world. I don't think that someone like Rick Kahn, who was a very close friend of Paul Wellstone's wanted to do anything bad but I think it had a bad affect.

CARVILLE: I'll say one thing. It was about 1/100th as egregious as what Trent Lott said at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday.

CARLSON: Keep talking, James.

Just ahead the race for president. We'll look at who's already out, who's going to get in and then ask if anyone has a chance of beating the current president. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARVILLE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're coming to you from the George Washington University in downtown Washington, D.C. It's New Year's Eve and we're talking about the ghost of elections past. And the already under way presidential campaign of 2004.

Still with us are Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, two of the best and brightest strategists in both political parties today.

CARLSON: Bob, I want you to take a look at a -- actually, no, I just want to get right to the question because we're short on time.

One of the leading candidates among the Democrats 2004, John Edwards. Smart guy, decent guy, articulate guy, doesn't have the resume in the current environment, but in politics four years before that he was a personal injury lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases. That's not going to cut it in this environment, is it?

SHRUM: Well, first of all, he never did a case like that. And if you, by Jacuzzi, mean that a young woman who had her baby -- who had her insides sucked out by a defective pool drain who has to for the rest of her life receive 24-hour a day care, and that he took that case and won that case if that's what you're referring to, I think people in this country would like that.

CARLSON: And so you're saying so that is -- just to make sure I understand you -- that is the resume that he's going to run on as the commander-in-chief in 2004.

SHRUM: No, of course not. No, I just have to correct the outrageous misstatement that you just made.

First of all, he hasn't decided whether he's running or not, No. 1. No. 2, the fact that he went out and defended -- didn't do class action cases -- defended very, very powerless people against very powerful interests for 20 years...

CARLSON: And made millions.

SHRUM: ...is a lot better qualification than somebody handing you a baseball team for almost no money called the Texas Rangers and then your name is George W. Bush and you get rich.

CARVILLE: Let me ask you something -- it is kind of funny. What foreign policy experience did George W. Bush possess in the year 2000 that John Edwards doesn't? How much -- give us his extensive foreign policy credentials coming in other than getting a drunk driving ticket?

GILLESPIE: The fact is, that the governor had executive experience coming in. And that's what people, then-Governor Bush had executive experience going toward...

CARVILLE: John Edwards has Washington experience. What foreign policy -- wait -- Tucker's attacked this man. I want the two of you to tell me what foreign policy experience that George W. Bush had going into 2000 that John Edwards doesn't?

CARLSON: Was he a personal injury lawyer -- no, that was John Edwards. Sorry.

CARVILLE: You know what he was? He was an insider trader. And I'd rather be a personal injury lawyer than an insider trader.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLESPIE: You know what he was? He was an effective governor of a very big state. And he's a very effective president of a very big state and a very big country.

CARLSON: Now hold on.

CARVILLE: What experience did he have, Tucker, that John Edwards didn't? You've attacked John Edwards viciously. Tell us what he had.

(CROSSTALK)

SHRUM: You took what was a really terrible tragedy, in which he did exactly the right thing and tried to turn it into a joke. And you out to be spanked for that.

CARVILLE: They don't believe that babies sucked into swimming pools ought to have lawyers. That's the difference.

CARLSON: James, lighten up. Lighten up.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: You can defend the trial lawyers all you want. Here's -0- really quickly, here's my question.

Al Gore dropping out of the race helps above all Al Sharpton, doesn't it? I don't think he's going to win necessarily the nomination, though he should. But the person who does is going to have to get his blessing. Isn't that true?

SHRUM: I think Democratic primary voters are going to decide who wins the nomination. I don't think anybody's going to have to get anybody's blessing. And as Bill Clinton demonstrated in 1992, you can stand up, you can stand up against almost anybody in the party, if you've got the support in the party, and I think we will have a very strong candidate, and you guys will have a very weak economy and you're going to be in trouble again in '04.

CARVILLE: You're a bright strategist. Let's try to just be a strategist. Who do you think -- Gore dropping out. Who do you think in a Democratic field is helped?

GILLESPIE: You know, I think it just tips the table over, James. And I think the party needs the table tipped over. I think you got -- the Democratic now has an opportunity to recast itself. Just like the Republican Party -- George W. Bush recast the Republican Party in a very positive manner. Somebody's going to come along and recast the Democratic party and put their stamp on it. I don't know who it is right now.

CARVILLE: All right, you heard it right here.

CARLSON: It's Al Sharpton.

CARVILLE: Happy new year.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Bob Shrum, Mr. Gillespie, thank you very much.

Straight ahead the latest headlines in a CNN "News Alert." And then we'll talk regime change. That of course will mean Iraq. Whether it will be a war and is it even the right war. We'll debate that.

Plus, what could James Carville and I possibly improve on next year? We'll suggest resolutions for one another.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

CARLSON: Coming up in our year in review, your best "Fireback's" of 2002, plus our resolutions for 2003. Next we'll debate the war on terrorism and a possible war with Iraq. How did the president do and what more can he do. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

We're looking back at the year 2002. In his state of the union speech last January President Bush outlined three great goals for America. Winning the war on terrorism, protecting the homeland, and Conquering the current recession. As the year went along a fourth great goal emerged, dealing with Saddam Hussein's Iraq once and for all.

Here to debate this year of conflict are former National Security Council Spokesman and former Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs P.J. Crowley. He joins us from New York, along with Cliff May of the Foundation For The Defense Of Democracies.

CARVILLE: We're at war, no question about that. We've been at war this entire year. For a nation of people that are willing to do anything necessary to make any sacrifice. Name me, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked senator John McCain. Name me any sacrifice that this president has called on us as Americans to do to combat this war on terror. What's one thing he's asked us to do.

CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: He's asked us to live with a great measure uncertainty.

CARVILLE: What's he called on us as a nation? How's he brought us as a nation and said, this is what you need to do?

MAY: You know what, we don't want to sacrifice just for the sake of sacrifice. Although believe me we're going to make sacrifices. Every time you go to the airport we get our shoes checked.

CARVILLE: You know what Senator John McCain said? Do you know what Senator John McCain said?

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: We're going to have deficits and that's going to be a sacrifice for all of us. Remember the peace dividend? There is no peace dividend anymore we have to give that up. We're giving up a lot. But let's not just give up things to give them up.

CARVILLE: Senator McCain said and it's true, the only thing he asked us to do as a country is to go shop. He has squandered world opinion. He has squandered a country that was willing to sacrifice and do something. My father -- my grandmother was a five star mom in World War II. They rationed sugar, they rationed gasoline. There were no tax cuts.

MAY: You can ration gas if you want to. If that will make you happy let's ration sugar.

CARVILLE: I don't want to do it.

MAY: Let's get rid of the cookies in the green room. First thing off. No more cookies for me.

CARVILLE: But I'm telling you this president has squandered it. He's given his contributors everything, take any tax cut you want, pollute anything you want to, nothing on energy. Nothing on conservation. It's been a shame.

MAY: You want to fight President Bush that's the difference here.

CARLSON: P.J. Crowley, thanks for joining us.

P.J. CROWLEY, FORMER SPOKESMAN, NATL SECURITY COUNCIL: Pleasure.

CARLSON: I'm not going to call for sugar rationing. I hope you won't either. But I do want to show you the most interesting poll, I think, of the year. It speaks to a lot of things. It's a CNN/"USA TODAY"/Gallup poll from November after election midterms.

Tough enough on terrorism yes or no? Republicans 64 percent of Americans think Republicans yes, tough enough. Only 34 percent of Americans think the Democrats are tough enough on terrorism. 30 point spread. And in an era that is bound to be defined by terrorism this is politically problematic if not fatal, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Well I don't think so, Tucker.

Actually the president followed the advice of Senator Lieberman when he proposed and ultimately supported the Department of Homeland Security. He then politicized the issue after not supporting it for several months. But I think as you look back on the year, any time we, the United States, go through a year where there's not an attack on our homeland, we have to acknowledge that we've had a successful year in the war on terrorism.

At the same time, when you look at a country like Afghanistan, I know the president doesn't like nation building, but ultimately, if we're going to reduce the ability of terrorists to operate around the world we're going to have to help rebuild Afghanistan and the president is in danger of taking his eye off that prize.

CARLSON: But P.J., with all due respect, this poll didn't ask which party has succeeded in fighting terrorism. It asked, instead, is the party tough enough to take on terrorism.

Now your argument may be the American people are so dumb that they bought whatever line it is you think the president is selling them. But let's give them some credit here. They recognized the Democratic party doesn't have a plan to fight terrorism and that's a problem for Democrats, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Well, I don't think so, Tucker.

I mean, give the president credit. We were successful in removing the Taliban from Afghanistan. But ultimately the war on terrorism is going to be won by a number of factors. And as we go forward if the president is willing to support the less sexy things that actually make us more safe, such as port security, such as modernizing government computers, such as real intelligence sharing, these are things that Democrats support, and there's no real indication yet whether the president has been more successful during the year and actually making us safer.

MAY: Can I ask you this, P.J., very quickly, isn't it fair to say that Democrats right now are of many different minds in the war on terrorism? On the one hand you have people like Zell Miller who I think is tough on terrorism. He's a Democrat from Georgia. On the other hand you have people like Jim McDermott who I think is soft on Saddam Hussein. That's just true, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Wait a second. I think, Cliff, we have to separate Saddam Hussein and the war on terrorism. I'm afraid that we're going to divert our attention from the war on terrorism.

MAY: That's one of the things Democrats think.

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: Democrats support the president. We want to win the war on terrorism. But it's going to take more than...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: I appreciate you asking the questions for me, here, Cliff, but somehow or another I thought that was my job. That's OK. That's all right.

CARLSON: He asks them a lot better.

CARVILLE: Because you all like polls and the American people are smart, right?

MAY: Yes.

CARVILLE: And we would never say they're not smart. This president for a long time is trying to build a case for war with Iraq. So let's see what the American people think about it.

"Los Angeles Times" poll, 72 percent of respondents, including 6 percent of Republicans, said the president has not provided enough evidence to justify starting a war. So he's failed on the economy. He's failed to justify how we start a war. He's failed on health care. He's failed on the deficit. Could you please tell me other than beating the Taliban something this guy is succeeding at?

MAY: Beating the Democrats might start.

CARVILLE: That's fine. He did that. He did that. But is Americans better off? The Democrats have lost and health care goes up 14 percent and that's your idea of a stronger country. The Democrats have lost and the deficit is squandered $5.6 trillion. Give me a success.

MAY: First of all, I hope you're not saying the Democratic party is against doing something serious to prevent Saddam Hussein from getting weapons of mass destruction.

CARVILLE: Again, if, in fact, going to war --

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: Answer the question. Why has the president -- why has the president -- let me ask you the question. Not hey don't. There's 72 percent of the respondents...

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: Seventy-two percent -- 72 percent -- would you read what you just said?

CARVILLE: Has not provided enough evidence.

MAY: No, they're not saying they're against the war. They're saying they would like more from him on -- on this war...

CARVILLE: Why don't you read what the poll says?

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: The majority of Americans are not against the war in Iraq.

CARVILLE: Let me read what they said. I didn't say they're against the war. They just said...

MAY: I know, and you're confusing the audience. A majority of Americans are not against the war in Iraq. They're in favor of it and I want you to understand...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: If he hadn't made the case to us, how can you make it to the world? I might be for it if he told me why.

MAY: Most people get it without a whole lot of explanation? You know why they get it? Because Saddam Hussein is a serial murderer, more than 180,000 Kurds. He tortures his opponents. He has killed -- he has tried to kill an American president and he has invaded Kuwait, killed Saudis and Israelis.

CARVILLE: I don't doubt any of that. Why can't the president make the case?

MAY: He should make a better case, you're right. He should continue to make the case.

CARLSON: P.j., I want to bring it back to the politics of this since we are, after all, a political show. We all agree that one of the reasons Democrats got so thoroughly thrashed in the midterms is they didn't provide a vision really of anything.

So after the midterms, former President Clinton, still the leader of the Democrats by default, if nothing else, comes out and gives his advice for what Democrats ought to say about foreign policy. Since they have had nothing to say, here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody that's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now, we can analyze this in a million different ways. It's obvious grotesquely Machevellian qualities, just saying anything as long as it's loud. But the point is, as political advice this is wrong, right?

George McGovern had very strong feelings about foreign policy but the American public didn't agree with those ideas and he lost in 1972. This is bad advice, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Well, I think that the Democrats support the war on terrorism. They support going in after Saddam Hussein, if we do it the right way. President Bush knows a lot about global power. He knows very little about global leadership.

We are in a good position on Iraq right now. However, with the way that the vice president came out early on about unilateralism, it has hurt us in terms of our long-term credibility. And that will hurt us if ultimately we have to go in and take out Saddam Hussein.

So how we do this matters. And bullying the rest of the world, rather than inspiring the rest of the world, is not the way to go.

CARLSON: But you just gave the analysis that most Democrats give. It's an analysis of the process. Democrats say Hey, you need to go to the U.N. Unilateralism doesn't work. We need our allies on board. Those are all valid points as far as they go, but they don't go far. That's not an analysis of the war himself, of Saddam Hussein himself. It's all about the process and that's not a foreign policy, is it?

CROWLEY: Well, but ultimately, Tucker, you know, we have to look at the national security policy in its entirety. The president, in my mind, gets a very strong grade on defense policy. He gets a lousy grade on foreign policy.

He's got no policy for dealing with North Korea. He's got no policy on the environment. He's got no policy on the economy. These are all dimensions of our national security. Ultimately, you have to ask the question that Ronald Reagan asked, which is, Are we better off? And right now, in many respects, we're not.

CARVILLE: I take issue with something you said. You said he has no policy on the environment. I take issue with that. He has a horrendous policy on the environment. It's awful.

Cliff, let me -- why, if we're doing so well, again, the war on terrorism, why did three days after the election, General Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff go and say we're losing ground on the war on terrorism? Is he not singing from the right hymnal?

MAY: I think you have to ask yourself a couple of questions about the war on terrorism.

I think -- look, we've made progress and the good news is al Qaeda no longer owns a country. The good news is al Qaeda now hits soft targets. A night club in Bali, a synagogue in Tunisia. They go to a hotel in Kenya.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: The bad news is that, yes, Osama bin Laden is still alive and al Qaeda is still operating. And we have to do some things to restructure our intelligence and our military in order to fight terrorism. Things we did not do at all over the past, particularly 10 years when we cut the military budget and we cut the ability of the CIA...

CARVILLE: What I'm asking you is why, after the election, does the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff tell us that we're losing this war? Why didn't we say that during the election? Why after the election we go to the U.N., when during the election we say the Democrats are weak because they want to go to the U.N.?

CARLSON: We're almost out of time. Will you answer that quickly and tell us when we're going to war in Iraq? Because we're almost out of time...

CARVILLE: Depends on what happens in the economy.

MAY: Oh, boy, this is not an issue you should partisanize. It really isn't.

CARVILLE: Well, if the economy goes bad we go to war soon.

MAY: Saddam Hussein has been put on notice. He either gives up his weapons of mass destruction, as he agreed, or we have to do it for him forcibly. And the Americans are going to be behind that.

CARLSON: P.J., we're out of time. Thirty --- three seconds -- when are we going to war in Iraq? Are we?

CROWLEY: I believe, because of how we've gotten to where we are, war in Iraq is inevitable.

CARLSON: OK. P.J. Crowley in New York. Cliff, thanks very much for joining us. We appreciate it. We'll see you back at any moment.

Coming up, no matter what we wore or what we said, throughout 2002, you were ready, willing and able to "Fireback." Next, the best e-mail of the year. You won't want to miss it. It's cruel, and often funny. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to new year's eve edition of CROSSFIRE. What would New Year's Eve be without new year's resolutions? I have a few modest suggestions. What James Carville can do to make himself an even better person and co-host in 2003.

James, I warn you these are mean but they're meant in the spirit of love.

CARVILLE: I know that you love me.

CARLSON: First I want to give you an example of what the problem is. I'll suggest a solution. Here we go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Let's you and I produce a show where we get one of these producers from Beverly Hills and stick his ass in a coal mine and make him earn an honest living and see how he does that and give him a house with a sagging porch and an outdoor appliance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: OK. I'm not going to challenge you to explain what you meant. But that obviously wasn't in the same language that we speak. And so, English, James, English. That's my resolution.

CARVILLE: I'm 58, I've not learned that language yet and I ain't going to take it up. I'm proud of the language I speak.

CARLSON: You're an honest man and I can understand that.

CARVILLE: You know, Tucker, two words, truce for Canada. Get off their backs.

CARLSON: It's not possible, James. As I told you before I'm doing it because I care so deeply about the Canadians, and also I think we need the parking. Let's take over Canada.

My next resolution has to do with, I hate to keep harping on your physical appearance, but your hair, James. I don't think that improves the appearance.

CARVILLE: You know what? I started a new fashion in head gear and I think I'll be considered one of the sort of cutting edge, au corant people you see in...

CARLSON: It really is, like so much on CROSSFIRE it is performance art. Isn't it?

CARVILLE: Tucker, this is mine. You want to talk about Democratic presidential nominees talk about those who have a chance to be elected president like Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, John Edwards. People of that ilk. Spend less time trying to promote Al Sharpton's candidacy, who is your favorite candidate.

CARLSON: Well first of all, I'm not an adviser to the other candidates, only Al Sharpton. But I also say Al Sharpton is the embodiment of the values of the Democratic Party so I don't have any problem promoting him for president. Al Gore 2004 -- I mean Al Sharpton 2004.

CARVILLE: Trent Lott's the embodiment of the Republican values.

CARLSON: And finally, James, the shades. May I suggest clear ones? That's you on the left. That is Tom Clancy on the right. But I want to show you what I see -- there he is. The Unabomber. Do you see? You see the similarity?

CARVILLE: And my final thing to you is, let's compare each other to something else besides murders. Like, you know, maybe pedophile priests.

CARLSON: You know, I tried to get that but I couldn't get Cardinal Law in shades unfortunately.

Those are our resolutions for 2003. You can see if we live up to them. Tomorrow night Robert Novak, Paul Begala share their new year's resolutions.

But just ahead, we've sifted through hundreds of thousands of e- mails and come up with this year's best "Firebacks." Oddly enough, many of them have to do our peculiarities. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. All year long you send us e-mails. Mostly hostile, sometimes clever sometimes both. We've culled through the stacks tonight to present some of the best "Firebacks" of the year.

Starting off, Laura Harrison of Richmond, Virginia writes, "Tucker, your hair is totally out of control. Have you ever considered borrowing some of Trent Lott's hairspray?" and there is a fairly upsetting graphic of what it might look like if I did. OK.

CARVILLE: You know, they had the Twinkie defense, remember that? I think Trent Lott should have employed the hairspray defense. The hairspray made him say stupid things.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: You know, it's got more harmful crap in it than Twinkies do.

"James, by the way, there's a plastic liner in a trash can for your protection or the trash can's?" Jim Humphrey, San Francisco, California.

Well, actually, both, Jim. I've had people tell me I never looked so good as I did with that trash can over my head.

CARLSON: As you pointed out, the little liner end...

CARVILLE: If I was single I'd go around with the thing and try to pick up girls.

CARLSON: How would you prove it was you?

CARVILLE: Everybody would know me as the trash can man.

CARLSON: I think they did anyway.

Carol Sullivan in Norwood, Missouri writes, "Please tell Tucker that in two years Barbra Streisand will be singing `Happy Days Are Here Again' in his key. I can't wait."

I'm not sure what my key is. But I doubt Barbra Streisand will be singing that again.

CARVILLE: Not only is she one of the smartest people I know, she's one of the most talented.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: And I cannot wait to hear -- she is very, very smart.

CARLSON: She needs a larger circle of friends, James.

CARVILLE: But here we go.

"James, as a long-term fan, I'm asking that you refrain from staring at the camera after your regular tirades on CROSSFIRE. Your frozen pose causes both of my children to become very upset. My oldest son refers to you as the `evil grasshopper man.' I love your style, but my kids are having nightmares."

CARLSON: You know, James. Let's take a look at that. Look at that.

CARVILLE: There he is. I tell you what. Is this great work or what?

CARLSON: That's actually giving me nightmares. Evil grasshopper man. EGM.

Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name's Todd Halloway (ph) from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. My question is for James. James, do you think the real reason Al Gore didn't run for president in 2004 is that he thought Democrats lost the midterm elections, and he realized that Bush was going to have a successful term as president with the Republican majority?

CARVILLE: Well, you know, I honestly can't tell you what I think about it. The reason I doubt that's it, because they got so many Democrats dying to run. If people thought that Bush was unbeatable you wouldn't have so many candidates rushing out to oppose him. I think there are probably other reasons.

But he'll know, his wife will know what the real reason is. I think what he said was part of it, it's about the past, not the future. CARLSON: Bush is not unbeatable but Gore couldn't beat him.

Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Trip Winslow (ph) from Hurdle's Mill (ph), North Carolina. My question is why would anyone even consider Edwards, a malpractice lawyer with almost no experience, presidential material?

CARLSON: Well, I don't think most people do. Which is why "The Washington Post" poll has him at 2 percent, while as Al Sharpton who is the standard bearer of the party at 7 percent.

CARVILLE: I think he has much more relevant experience than this George Bush had going into 2000.

CARLSON: Good luck.

CARVILLE: From the left I'm James Carville. Happy New Year's and good night for CROSSFIRE.

CARLSON: From the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Join us again tomorrow for yet more CROSSFIRE. But in the meantime, have a very happy new year.

"CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT" begins right now.

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Aired December 31, 2002 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE.
On the left, James Carville and Paul Begala. On the Right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.

In the CROSSFIRE tonight, it's our year in review of 2002.

There were lots of controversies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R), MISSISSIPPI: We voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country would have followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The Democrats got Bushed. But they won't get Gored. So, what's ahead for 2003, and 2004?

Tonight on CROSSFIRE. From the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.

PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Good evening. Happy New Year's Eve. Welcome to the last CROSSFIRE of 2002. What a year it's been. My Democrats lost control of the Senate. The Republicans lost control of their Senate leader. President Bush took us to the verge of war with Iraq, coincidentally on the verge of the November elections. And Al Gore looked but he didn't leap.

TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Tonight we're looking back at the top political stories of 2002, starting with the juiciest scandals and most unexpected controversies.

In the CROSSFIRE tonight two of our favorite political professionals. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, former Congresswoman Susan Molinari.

BEGALA: It's awfully good of you to join us. I know you're going to big fanny parties.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: But let me start, Susan, I won't dwell on this for too long but it was one of the few bright moments for a bad year for my Democrats. If 2002 had been a fish I would have thrown it back. But there was a bright moment at the end of my year when your party's Senate leader self-destructed.

I won't drag you through all of that. But what I think was lasting was the impression that our president gave. Here's what his spokesman said on his behalf about Trent Lott several days after Lott pined for the days of segregation and Strom Thurmond. Here's what Ari Fleisher the press secretary said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI FLEISHER, PRESS SECRETARY: The president has confidence in him as Republican leader unquestionably.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEGALA: Has confidence in him unquestionably. Why did it take bush a week to screw up any moral courage against a racist statement?

SUSAN MOLINARI, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Listen, obviously this is an issue that just won't die as far as Democrats are concerned. Because it was the only spot of hope that they had politically in this year, and it certainly was a turnaround where Senator Lott did the right thing and gave up his status as majority leader and allowed Bill Frist to take the reins.

If anybody thinks -- let me put it to you this way, Paul. You've been in this town a long time. And John, you're a White House chief of staff. Do you really think the president of the United States didn't have anything to do with Trent Lott resigning?

CARLSON: Of course he did.

MOLINARI: Thank you.

CARLSON: John Podesta, isn't that the story here? That Republicans attacked almost from day one the sentiment behind Trent Lott's remarks. If not the man himself, then the idea. They made it really clear we're not going to put up with it.

MOLINARI: And can contrast this the Democratic response...

(CROSSTALK)

MOLINARI: ... philanthropy of Osama bin Laden and not a Democrat...

JOHN PEDESTA, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF: Hold on.

MOLINARI: Sorry.

CARLSON: Thank you Congresswoman.

PEDESTA: Are we talking about the white house? I think they dispatched Senator Lott in a way that was, you know you have to remark on their deafness, and you have to think that when Senator Lott comes back as part of the singing senators, he'll be singing alto this -- in 2003. Because, I mean, they really did carve him up with off-the- record comments. Even as Ari Fleisher was out there saying that they supported him and want to keep him in office.

BEGALA: It is stunning, though, let me come back to this question. It took him a week...

MOLINARI: You lost round one.

BEGALA: This a man. George W. Bush is, I believe, a man of strong moral convictions. I believe he's a man without a racist bone in his body. But I also know that it took him a week to find that moral courage. I suspect he was polling that week instead of searching his conscience, wasn't he?

MOLINARI: That's absolutely ridiculous.

BEGALA: Why didn't he speak out on day one?

MOLINARI: Because there was a lot that was going on. Because, first of all, I'm not -- do we even know that he knew what Trent Lott said? because the media took awhile to really report that and bring it to all of our consciousness.

PEDESTA: Ari Fleisher supported him for three or four or five days.

MOLINARI: And so did Tom Daschle and so did an awful lot of other Democrats who first said wait, let's listen to what he meant. I mean, let's go back again to the fact that this was a comment that was made at a birthday party, no one knew the context of it. No one went into the background.

I'm defending the president saying, you know, in light of the war with Iraq, in light of all the things that are going on smallpox vaccinators, let's put it in context with what the president had to do with other than trying to feed the press.

CARLSON: John Podesta, in the end Senator Lott was kicked out of leadership by his own party. Contrast this to what happened to Senator Robert Torricelli. For a year "The New York Times" documented pretty precisely how he took payoffs from a convicted felon, how he was concerting with members of the Mafia, it was reall a sort of an amazing case against him.

I want to read you what Tom Daschle said in response to that case, quote, "Senator Torricelli is an extraordinary senator and candidate, and I have no doubts that he will rebound and will continue to lead in the polls, as he is this morning. Senator Torricelli has worked hard, and I believe that at the end of the day the people of New Jersey recognize the tremendous leadership he's provided and the issues upon which he's worked and will reelected him to another term." Not a single word about the despicable acts that Senator Torricelli apparently committed.

PEDESTA: Of course in a couple of days Senator Lautenberg will be sworn in as the senator from New Jersey.

CARLSON: But where is the moral courage here.

PEDESTA: Senator Daschle did what he needed to do. And Senator Torricelli moved out. And senator Lautenberg ran in New Jersey. He ran a good race, and just in a few weeks was able to best the Republican candidate there. And we're going to have a Democrat coming back to the Senate from New Jersey.

CARLSON: So the ends justify the means. I understand exactly what you're saying.

MOLINARI: When it comes to racism, I didn't hear Democrats saying anything when it came to Robert Byrd's comments.

PEDESTA: This was -- Torricelli wasn't about -- was about personal conduct. It wasn't about the same kinds of things that Senator Lott was engaged in. And frankly, that the Republican party was engaged in...

CARLSON: They're not personal when they pertain to a public servant.

BEGALA: And remember the Justice Department dropped those charges.

Another big controversy here which does involve allegations of financial wrongdoing swirled around President Bush. Now the Democrats never picked up on it. I think wrongly. This was a year of corporate scandals. "TIME" magazine recently named the whistleblowers, two of whom came out of corporate America as the persons of the year.

Came out this year, "Boston Globe" did some reporting on then citizen George W. Bush when he ran a company called Harkin Energy. Allegedly committing insider trading.

This is what the "Globe" reported. "One week before George W. Bush's now famous sell of stock in Harkin Energy Corperation in 199, Harkin was warned by it's lawers that Bush and other members of the trouble oil companies board faced possible insiders tradering risk if they unloaded their shares. The warning from Harken's lawyers came in a legal memorandum whose exsistence has been little noted until now, despite the many years of scrutiny of the Bush transaction. The memo was not received by the Securities and Exchange Commission until the day after the agency dcided not to bring insider-trading charges against Bush, documents show."

Now, Susan, shouldn't Bush release all the documents so we can know if our president, frankly, is an insider trader?

MOLINARI: I think it's pretty sad that at the end of 2002 that you're grasping on that one straw that you've been continuing to use, despite all the success and the popularity of Bush, whether it's at the polls in November, or in the U.N., or fighting the war on terrorism. I think it's time we close the chapter and start a new year where you give the president the benefit of the doubt of leading this country.

CARLSON: And isn't just tactically -- this is Whitewater, basically. This is an effort to score political points on a scandal rather than giving a real critique of the president's policies, say in Iraq or the economy which you haven't done.

PODESTA: Well, Tucker, look. This was the dog that did bite in 2002. Neither Halliburton nor Harkin did we learn anything about, certainly not from Mr. Pitt at the SEC.

But I kind of hear those teeth grinding beneath the muzzles. Maybe we'll find out something about it in this new year and find out at least, I think you'll agree with this, we'll find out at least who bought the stock from President Bush.

CARLSON: So that is your new year's wish, John Podesta. I'm not sure how wholesome it is, but I appreciate you admitting it on the air.

Thank you, Susan Molinari, thank you. We appreciate it.

Coming up, there's much more ahead in our year in review, including trashing the Democrats. James Carville joins our show as we look at what put George W. Bush and the Republicans on top. And a trash can on Mr. Carville's head. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST: Welcome back to our year in review edition of CROSSFIRE. We're looking back on the political highlights and lowlights of 2002. And we can sum most of them up in just two words. Election day. The day that my Democratic Party got bushed. We're talking politics with Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum.

CARLSON: Now, Bob, I know there's no disagreement around this table that the Democratic Party got spanked like the bad girl it is during the midterms.

But I want you to take a look at two different reactions to that reality. The first comes from your party chair, Terry McAuliffe. His line was to "The New York Times" on November 7, the day after, "I could clearly make the argument that George Bush should have done a lot better last night." Meaning election night.

BOB SHRUM, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Glad he didn't.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: And I want to show you what a more honest, if slightly more demented ordinary Democrat did to celebrate the loss of your party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: James Carville feels the same way.

CARVILLE: Well, I'm not saying anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's succinct, and mostly, it's true.

CARVILLE: And Bob Novak interviewed the trash can.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: That's exactly right.

SHRUM: He thought you'd finally gotten a toupee.

CARLSON: And he ought to.

My point is not that you want to make James your party chair, though that would be amusing, but you need to get a new party chair one way or the other. Don't you think?.

SHRUM: No, I don't think we need to get a new party chair at all. I think we obviously in the election didn't have a very effective message, didn't deliver it very well.

There were people who did, for example, go out there, take some very tough positions. Tom Harkin who was on the vulnerable list at the beginning of the process won by the biggest margin he ever won by against the toughest opponent arguably he's run against while taking on the Bush tax cut, taking on some very big tough issues and saying we ought to repeal that tax cut so we can have prescription drugs.

CARLSON: I think that's a valid way to look at it.

But let's get back to Terry McAuliffe. He said the No. 1 goal of Democrats in this election is to win Florida. He had a relative, as you know, working for Jeb Bush's opponent. But don't you think...

SHRUM: A man by the name of Richard Swann (ph). A fine guy.

CARLSON: My point is, don't you think he put entirely too much emphasis on that campaign for emotional and other reasons to the detriment of others and it was a huge mistake?

SHRUM: No, I think all of us feel pretty emotional about Florida. I think the polling indicated that race could conceivably be very close. I think it was sensible to put money in there.

But I don't think the answer to the problems of the Democratic Party is going to be to replace the party chairman. It's going to be to take on the economic issues, to take on the tax cut issues, to take on, for example, the fact that the president promised in 2000 a prescription drug benefit. There was a kind of phony one that the Republicans had last year. And then "The Washington Post" a few days ago said well the one they may have next year would just help the poorest of the poor among senior citizens.

I think we ought to take up those issues. I think we ought to take up health care and put forward a plan to help the uninsured and to make sure people in this country have access to affordable, quality health care. And I think if we do that we'll do very well in 2004.

CARVILLE: Well, Ed, we've gone to the trash can. Let's go to the Sugar Bowl here and talk about a real sugar, senator from my native state Louisiana, Senator Mary Landrieu and show you a spot that she ran, and I think to the surprise of a lot of us here in Washington she ran and won. Take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: As Louisiana jobs were sold out, Suzy Terrell was silent. The president came to campaign for Terrell. She didn't say a word. Terrell put her party and campaign ahead of our state. Louisiana doesn't need a rubber stamp. We need a senator who will put Louisiana first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Showed that you can run against this president, as Tom Harkin did, as Mary Landrieu did when she changed her strategy, she (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and won. That's a real lesson to Democrats. They want you to stand for something, man. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) stand for nothing.

EDWARD GILLESPIE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know what I don't necessarily disagree with you on that, James. I think Mary Landrieu in the end ran a good campaign. I think that she had historic trends going her way. You know Louisiana a heck of a lot better than I do. You know that they don't turn out incumbent senators. You know that a Republican hasn't been elected statewide to the Senate since reconstruction.

Those trends were going against her, you know -- Suzy Terrell did very well to get it into a runoff. Frankly Landrieu never should have been in that vote, but once she got in it she was going to get home safe. I think that was a...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: I'll be honest with you, I talked to a lot of people in Washington, myself included, that were surprised by that. If you were not surprised, then...

GILLESPIE: Why did you guys spend all that money down there?

CARVILLE: It was all a hopeless cause.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: Mr. Carlson predicted must have been about seven times...

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: And I believe it was the one error of the season for me, not to brag.

Now, Mr. Shrum, I want you to take, I want to meet James' ad and raise you an ad. I want you to look at one of the most amusing but troubling spots of the season. This is an ad against Mike Taylor in Montana, put up by the forces allied with Senator Max Baucus. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: State Senator Mike Taylor once ran a beauty salon and a hair care school. Until the Department of Education uncovered Taylor's hair care scam for abusing the student loan program, and diverting money to himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now, Democrats say well this is all about the student loan scam. But you know that's not true. And gay groups in Montana knew it wasn't true. This is calling Mike Taylor gay and it's using that for political points. I thought Democrats didn't do that.

SHRUM: I don't like that ad at all. And I don't like it for several reasons. One, because it implies that he's gay. Two, it implies that there's something wrong with being gay, and somehow or other would seem to, you know, try to use a charge against him to appeal to parts of people's feelings that I think are unworthy in this country and that we ought to get rid of. The same way we're getting rid of Trent Lott is a good idea.

CARLSON: We're agreeing too much, Bob Shrum. You're scaring me.

SHRUM: You could have run that ad. And done the student loan scam, and made the exact same case, without using any of that footage. That footage shouldn't have been used.

CARVILLE: I think bob makes a good point. I think I defended that ad once before and now that you said that, Bob, you know what? You're right, and I'm wrong.

CARLSON: It's nice to see you apologize, James.

CARVILLE: I think there was a way to do that, and I think it could have been more about the student loan and less about the hairdressing.

SHRUM: And we were winning the race by a huge margin in even event.

CARVILLE: Let's go, and watch another one.

CARLSON: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Ever think about your retirement? George W. Bush has. He's been pushing a plan to put your Social Security savings in the stock market. But Bush and the Republicans still want to push their privatization plan through Congress. And they will, if you let them. Trust me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: What does the sound effect there remind you of? It sounded like somebody sat on a whoopee cushion.

GILLESPIE: The best thing about that kind of tactic, James, is that it completely backfired on Democrats in this election. I think that people were tired of, first of all, of attacking the president personally like that. I mean, the notion that the president of the United States would push an elderly woman in a wheelchair after the cliff is ridiculous.

SHRUM: Come on, nobody thought that.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLESPIE: The candidates who ran on social security modernization won.

(CROSSTALK)

SHRUM: The guy who ran your commission called it privatization.

GILLESPIE: Right.

SHRUM: And then you guys found out it was a bad word so you looked for an euphemism.

CARVILLE: ...people putting on TV spots or whatever that sound was, when is this legislation going to come up? To -- to let people put part of their Social Security in the stock market? And where is the trillion dollars going to come from to fund it?

GILLESPIE: Well, a couple things, James. First of all if you're going to do legislation to move Social Security it's got to be bipartisan.

CARVILLE: Why? You have control of the House and the Senate. Why does it have to be bipartisan?

GILLESPIE: It's the kind of thing that requires developing a consensus with the public.

CARVILLE: Why? You didn't need a consensus with the public to put arsenic in the water. You didn't need a consensus to blow $5.6 trillion in savings. What the hell you talking about?

CARLSON: Bob, unfortunately we're almost out of time for this segment. But I just want you to agree with me for the third time tonight that the grotesque political display at Paul Wellstone's memorial service did play a role in the crushing defeat of your party in the midterms.

SHRUM: I want to say two things. First I want to welcome your conversion, if it is a conversion -- I want to welcome your conversion on some of these issues. For example, I hope you'll speak up for gay rights in all the other contexts.

CARLSON: I hope your party will stop attacking people...

(CROSSTALK)

SHRUM: ...in all the other contexts in which it comes up.

Secondly, I think the Wellstone memorial service clearly did hurt. I think that it was with the best of intentions in the world. I don't think that someone like Rick Kahn, who was a very close friend of Paul Wellstone's wanted to do anything bad but I think it had a bad affect.

CARVILLE: I'll say one thing. It was about 1/100th as egregious as what Trent Lott said at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday.

CARLSON: Keep talking, James.

Just ahead the race for president. We'll look at who's already out, who's going to get in and then ask if anyone has a chance of beating the current president. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARVILLE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're coming to you from the George Washington University in downtown Washington, D.C. It's New Year's Eve and we're talking about the ghost of elections past. And the already under way presidential campaign of 2004.

Still with us are Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, two of the best and brightest strategists in both political parties today.

CARLSON: Bob, I want you to take a look at a -- actually, no, I just want to get right to the question because we're short on time.

One of the leading candidates among the Democrats 2004, John Edwards. Smart guy, decent guy, articulate guy, doesn't have the resume in the current environment, but in politics four years before that he was a personal injury lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases. That's not going to cut it in this environment, is it?

SHRUM: Well, first of all, he never did a case like that. And if you, by Jacuzzi, mean that a young woman who had her baby -- who had her insides sucked out by a defective pool drain who has to for the rest of her life receive 24-hour a day care, and that he took that case and won that case if that's what you're referring to, I think people in this country would like that.

CARLSON: And so you're saying so that is -- just to make sure I understand you -- that is the resume that he's going to run on as the commander-in-chief in 2004.

SHRUM: No, of course not. No, I just have to correct the outrageous misstatement that you just made.

First of all, he hasn't decided whether he's running or not, No. 1. No. 2, the fact that he went out and defended -- didn't do class action cases -- defended very, very powerless people against very powerful interests for 20 years...

CARLSON: And made millions.

SHRUM: ...is a lot better qualification than somebody handing you a baseball team for almost no money called the Texas Rangers and then your name is George W. Bush and you get rich.

CARVILLE: Let me ask you something -- it is kind of funny. What foreign policy experience did George W. Bush possess in the year 2000 that John Edwards doesn't? How much -- give us his extensive foreign policy credentials coming in other than getting a drunk driving ticket?

GILLESPIE: The fact is, that the governor had executive experience coming in. And that's what people, then-Governor Bush had executive experience going toward...

CARVILLE: John Edwards has Washington experience. What foreign policy -- wait -- Tucker's attacked this man. I want the two of you to tell me what foreign policy experience that George W. Bush had going into 2000 that John Edwards doesn't?

CARLSON: Was he a personal injury lawyer -- no, that was John Edwards. Sorry.

CARVILLE: You know what he was? He was an insider trader. And I'd rather be a personal injury lawyer than an insider trader.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLESPIE: You know what he was? He was an effective governor of a very big state. And he's a very effective president of a very big state and a very big country.

CARLSON: Now hold on.

CARVILLE: What experience did he have, Tucker, that John Edwards didn't? You've attacked John Edwards viciously. Tell us what he had.

(CROSSTALK)

SHRUM: You took what was a really terrible tragedy, in which he did exactly the right thing and tried to turn it into a joke. And you out to be spanked for that.

CARVILLE: They don't believe that babies sucked into swimming pools ought to have lawyers. That's the difference.

CARLSON: James, lighten up. Lighten up.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: You can defend the trial lawyers all you want. Here's -0- really quickly, here's my question.

Al Gore dropping out of the race helps above all Al Sharpton, doesn't it? I don't think he's going to win necessarily the nomination, though he should. But the person who does is going to have to get his blessing. Isn't that true?

SHRUM: I think Democratic primary voters are going to decide who wins the nomination. I don't think anybody's going to have to get anybody's blessing. And as Bill Clinton demonstrated in 1992, you can stand up, you can stand up against almost anybody in the party, if you've got the support in the party, and I think we will have a very strong candidate, and you guys will have a very weak economy and you're going to be in trouble again in '04.

CARVILLE: You're a bright strategist. Let's try to just be a strategist. Who do you think -- Gore dropping out. Who do you think in a Democratic field is helped?

GILLESPIE: You know, I think it just tips the table over, James. And I think the party needs the table tipped over. I think you got -- the Democratic now has an opportunity to recast itself. Just like the Republican Party -- George W. Bush recast the Republican Party in a very positive manner. Somebody's going to come along and recast the Democratic party and put their stamp on it. I don't know who it is right now.

CARVILLE: All right, you heard it right here.

CARLSON: It's Al Sharpton.

CARVILLE: Happy new year.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Bob Shrum, Mr. Gillespie, thank you very much.

Straight ahead the latest headlines in a CNN "News Alert." And then we'll talk regime change. That of course will mean Iraq. Whether it will be a war and is it even the right war. We'll debate that.

Plus, what could James Carville and I possibly improve on next year? We'll suggest resolutions for one another.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

CARLSON: Coming up in our year in review, your best "Fireback's" of 2002, plus our resolutions for 2003. Next we'll debate the war on terrorism and a possible war with Iraq. How did the president do and what more can he do. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

We're looking back at the year 2002. In his state of the union speech last January President Bush outlined three great goals for America. Winning the war on terrorism, protecting the homeland, and Conquering the current recession. As the year went along a fourth great goal emerged, dealing with Saddam Hussein's Iraq once and for all.

Here to debate this year of conflict are former National Security Council Spokesman and former Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs P.J. Crowley. He joins us from New York, along with Cliff May of the Foundation For The Defense Of Democracies.

CARVILLE: We're at war, no question about that. We've been at war this entire year. For a nation of people that are willing to do anything necessary to make any sacrifice. Name me, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked senator John McCain. Name me any sacrifice that this president has called on us as Americans to do to combat this war on terror. What's one thing he's asked us to do.

CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: He's asked us to live with a great measure uncertainty.

CARVILLE: What's he called on us as a nation? How's he brought us as a nation and said, this is what you need to do?

MAY: You know what, we don't want to sacrifice just for the sake of sacrifice. Although believe me we're going to make sacrifices. Every time you go to the airport we get our shoes checked.

CARVILLE: You know what Senator John McCain said? Do you know what Senator John McCain said?

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: We're going to have deficits and that's going to be a sacrifice for all of us. Remember the peace dividend? There is no peace dividend anymore we have to give that up. We're giving up a lot. But let's not just give up things to give them up.

CARVILLE: Senator McCain said and it's true, the only thing he asked us to do as a country is to go shop. He has squandered world opinion. He has squandered a country that was willing to sacrifice and do something. My father -- my grandmother was a five star mom in World War II. They rationed sugar, they rationed gasoline. There were no tax cuts.

MAY: You can ration gas if you want to. If that will make you happy let's ration sugar.

CARVILLE: I don't want to do it.

MAY: Let's get rid of the cookies in the green room. First thing off. No more cookies for me.

CARVILLE: But I'm telling you this president has squandered it. He's given his contributors everything, take any tax cut you want, pollute anything you want to, nothing on energy. Nothing on conservation. It's been a shame.

MAY: You want to fight President Bush that's the difference here.

CARLSON: P.J. Crowley, thanks for joining us.

P.J. CROWLEY, FORMER SPOKESMAN, NATL SECURITY COUNCIL: Pleasure.

CARLSON: I'm not going to call for sugar rationing. I hope you won't either. But I do want to show you the most interesting poll, I think, of the year. It speaks to a lot of things. It's a CNN/"USA TODAY"/Gallup poll from November after election midterms.

Tough enough on terrorism yes or no? Republicans 64 percent of Americans think Republicans yes, tough enough. Only 34 percent of Americans think the Democrats are tough enough on terrorism. 30 point spread. And in an era that is bound to be defined by terrorism this is politically problematic if not fatal, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Well I don't think so, Tucker.

Actually the president followed the advice of Senator Lieberman when he proposed and ultimately supported the Department of Homeland Security. He then politicized the issue after not supporting it for several months. But I think as you look back on the year, any time we, the United States, go through a year where there's not an attack on our homeland, we have to acknowledge that we've had a successful year in the war on terrorism.

At the same time, when you look at a country like Afghanistan, I know the president doesn't like nation building, but ultimately, if we're going to reduce the ability of terrorists to operate around the world we're going to have to help rebuild Afghanistan and the president is in danger of taking his eye off that prize.

CARLSON: But P.J., with all due respect, this poll didn't ask which party has succeeded in fighting terrorism. It asked, instead, is the party tough enough to take on terrorism.

Now your argument may be the American people are so dumb that they bought whatever line it is you think the president is selling them. But let's give them some credit here. They recognized the Democratic party doesn't have a plan to fight terrorism and that's a problem for Democrats, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Well, I don't think so, Tucker.

I mean, give the president credit. We were successful in removing the Taliban from Afghanistan. But ultimately the war on terrorism is going to be won by a number of factors. And as we go forward if the president is willing to support the less sexy things that actually make us more safe, such as port security, such as modernizing government computers, such as real intelligence sharing, these are things that Democrats support, and there's no real indication yet whether the president has been more successful during the year and actually making us safer.

MAY: Can I ask you this, P.J., very quickly, isn't it fair to say that Democrats right now are of many different minds in the war on terrorism? On the one hand you have people like Zell Miller who I think is tough on terrorism. He's a Democrat from Georgia. On the other hand you have people like Jim McDermott who I think is soft on Saddam Hussein. That's just true, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Wait a second. I think, Cliff, we have to separate Saddam Hussein and the war on terrorism. I'm afraid that we're going to divert our attention from the war on terrorism.

MAY: That's one of the things Democrats think.

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: Democrats support the president. We want to win the war on terrorism. But it's going to take more than...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: I appreciate you asking the questions for me, here, Cliff, but somehow or another I thought that was my job. That's OK. That's all right.

CARLSON: He asks them a lot better.

CARVILLE: Because you all like polls and the American people are smart, right?

MAY: Yes.

CARVILLE: And we would never say they're not smart. This president for a long time is trying to build a case for war with Iraq. So let's see what the American people think about it.

"Los Angeles Times" poll, 72 percent of respondents, including 6 percent of Republicans, said the president has not provided enough evidence to justify starting a war. So he's failed on the economy. He's failed to justify how we start a war. He's failed on health care. He's failed on the deficit. Could you please tell me other than beating the Taliban something this guy is succeeding at?

MAY: Beating the Democrats might start.

CARVILLE: That's fine. He did that. He did that. But is Americans better off? The Democrats have lost and health care goes up 14 percent and that's your idea of a stronger country. The Democrats have lost and the deficit is squandered $5.6 trillion. Give me a success.

MAY: First of all, I hope you're not saying the Democratic party is against doing something serious to prevent Saddam Hussein from getting weapons of mass destruction.

CARVILLE: Again, if, in fact, going to war --

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: Answer the question. Why has the president -- why has the president -- let me ask you the question. Not hey don't. There's 72 percent of the respondents...

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: Seventy-two percent -- 72 percent -- would you read what you just said?

CARVILLE: Has not provided enough evidence.

MAY: No, they're not saying they're against the war. They're saying they would like more from him on -- on this war...

CARVILLE: Why don't you read what the poll says?

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: The majority of Americans are not against the war in Iraq.

CARVILLE: Let me read what they said. I didn't say they're against the war. They just said...

MAY: I know, and you're confusing the audience. A majority of Americans are not against the war in Iraq. They're in favor of it and I want you to understand...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: If he hadn't made the case to us, how can you make it to the world? I might be for it if he told me why.

MAY: Most people get it without a whole lot of explanation? You know why they get it? Because Saddam Hussein is a serial murderer, more than 180,000 Kurds. He tortures his opponents. He has killed -- he has tried to kill an American president and he has invaded Kuwait, killed Saudis and Israelis.

CARVILLE: I don't doubt any of that. Why can't the president make the case?

MAY: He should make a better case, you're right. He should continue to make the case.

CARLSON: P.j., I want to bring it back to the politics of this since we are, after all, a political show. We all agree that one of the reasons Democrats got so thoroughly thrashed in the midterms is they didn't provide a vision really of anything.

So after the midterms, former President Clinton, still the leader of the Democrats by default, if nothing else, comes out and gives his advice for what Democrats ought to say about foreign policy. Since they have had nothing to say, here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody that's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now, we can analyze this in a million different ways. It's obvious grotesquely Machevellian qualities, just saying anything as long as it's loud. But the point is, as political advice this is wrong, right?

George McGovern had very strong feelings about foreign policy but the American public didn't agree with those ideas and he lost in 1972. This is bad advice, isn't it?

CROWLEY: Well, I think that the Democrats support the war on terrorism. They support going in after Saddam Hussein, if we do it the right way. President Bush knows a lot about global power. He knows very little about global leadership.

We are in a good position on Iraq right now. However, with the way that the vice president came out early on about unilateralism, it has hurt us in terms of our long-term credibility. And that will hurt us if ultimately we have to go in and take out Saddam Hussein.

So how we do this matters. And bullying the rest of the world, rather than inspiring the rest of the world, is not the way to go.

CARLSON: But you just gave the analysis that most Democrats give. It's an analysis of the process. Democrats say Hey, you need to go to the U.N. Unilateralism doesn't work. We need our allies on board. Those are all valid points as far as they go, but they don't go far. That's not an analysis of the war himself, of Saddam Hussein himself. It's all about the process and that's not a foreign policy, is it?

CROWLEY: Well, but ultimately, Tucker, you know, we have to look at the national security policy in its entirety. The president, in my mind, gets a very strong grade on defense policy. He gets a lousy grade on foreign policy.

He's got no policy for dealing with North Korea. He's got no policy on the environment. He's got no policy on the economy. These are all dimensions of our national security. Ultimately, you have to ask the question that Ronald Reagan asked, which is, Are we better off? And right now, in many respects, we're not.

CARVILLE: I take issue with something you said. You said he has no policy on the environment. I take issue with that. He has a horrendous policy on the environment. It's awful.

Cliff, let me -- why, if we're doing so well, again, the war on terrorism, why did three days after the election, General Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff go and say we're losing ground on the war on terrorism? Is he not singing from the right hymnal?

MAY: I think you have to ask yourself a couple of questions about the war on terrorism.

I think -- look, we've made progress and the good news is al Qaeda no longer owns a country. The good news is al Qaeda now hits soft targets. A night club in Bali, a synagogue in Tunisia. They go to a hotel in Kenya.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: The bad news is that, yes, Osama bin Laden is still alive and al Qaeda is still operating. And we have to do some things to restructure our intelligence and our military in order to fight terrorism. Things we did not do at all over the past, particularly 10 years when we cut the military budget and we cut the ability of the CIA...

CARVILLE: What I'm asking you is why, after the election, does the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff tell us that we're losing this war? Why didn't we say that during the election? Why after the election we go to the U.N., when during the election we say the Democrats are weak because they want to go to the U.N.?

CARLSON: We're almost out of time. Will you answer that quickly and tell us when we're going to war in Iraq? Because we're almost out of time...

CARVILLE: Depends on what happens in the economy.

MAY: Oh, boy, this is not an issue you should partisanize. It really isn't.

CARVILLE: Well, if the economy goes bad we go to war soon.

MAY: Saddam Hussein has been put on notice. He either gives up his weapons of mass destruction, as he agreed, or we have to do it for him forcibly. And the Americans are going to be behind that.

CARLSON: P.J., we're out of time. Thirty --- three seconds -- when are we going to war in Iraq? Are we?

CROWLEY: I believe, because of how we've gotten to where we are, war in Iraq is inevitable.

CARLSON: OK. P.J. Crowley in New York. Cliff, thanks very much for joining us. We appreciate it. We'll see you back at any moment.

Coming up, no matter what we wore or what we said, throughout 2002, you were ready, willing and able to "Fireback." Next, the best e-mail of the year. You won't want to miss it. It's cruel, and often funny. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to new year's eve edition of CROSSFIRE. What would New Year's Eve be without new year's resolutions? I have a few modest suggestions. What James Carville can do to make himself an even better person and co-host in 2003.

James, I warn you these are mean but they're meant in the spirit of love.

CARVILLE: I know that you love me.

CARLSON: First I want to give you an example of what the problem is. I'll suggest a solution. Here we go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Let's you and I produce a show where we get one of these producers from Beverly Hills and stick his ass in a coal mine and make him earn an honest living and see how he does that and give him a house with a sagging porch and an outdoor appliance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: OK. I'm not going to challenge you to explain what you meant. But that obviously wasn't in the same language that we speak. And so, English, James, English. That's my resolution.

CARVILLE: I'm 58, I've not learned that language yet and I ain't going to take it up. I'm proud of the language I speak.

CARLSON: You're an honest man and I can understand that.

CARVILLE: You know, Tucker, two words, truce for Canada. Get off their backs.

CARLSON: It's not possible, James. As I told you before I'm doing it because I care so deeply about the Canadians, and also I think we need the parking. Let's take over Canada.

My next resolution has to do with, I hate to keep harping on your physical appearance, but your hair, James. I don't think that improves the appearance.

CARVILLE: You know what? I started a new fashion in head gear and I think I'll be considered one of the sort of cutting edge, au corant people you see in...

CARLSON: It really is, like so much on CROSSFIRE it is performance art. Isn't it?

CARVILLE: Tucker, this is mine. You want to talk about Democratic presidential nominees talk about those who have a chance to be elected president like Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, John Edwards. People of that ilk. Spend less time trying to promote Al Sharpton's candidacy, who is your favorite candidate.

CARLSON: Well first of all, I'm not an adviser to the other candidates, only Al Sharpton. But I also say Al Sharpton is the embodiment of the values of the Democratic Party so I don't have any problem promoting him for president. Al Gore 2004 -- I mean Al Sharpton 2004.

CARVILLE: Trent Lott's the embodiment of the Republican values.

CARLSON: And finally, James, the shades. May I suggest clear ones? That's you on the left. That is Tom Clancy on the right. But I want to show you what I see -- there he is. The Unabomber. Do you see? You see the similarity?

CARVILLE: And my final thing to you is, let's compare each other to something else besides murders. Like, you know, maybe pedophile priests.

CARLSON: You know, I tried to get that but I couldn't get Cardinal Law in shades unfortunately.

Those are our resolutions for 2003. You can see if we live up to them. Tomorrow night Robert Novak, Paul Begala share their new year's resolutions.

But just ahead, we've sifted through hundreds of thousands of e- mails and come up with this year's best "Firebacks." Oddly enough, many of them have to do our peculiarities. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. All year long you send us e-mails. Mostly hostile, sometimes clever sometimes both. We've culled through the stacks tonight to present some of the best "Firebacks" of the year.

Starting off, Laura Harrison of Richmond, Virginia writes, "Tucker, your hair is totally out of control. Have you ever considered borrowing some of Trent Lott's hairspray?" and there is a fairly upsetting graphic of what it might look like if I did. OK.

CARVILLE: You know, they had the Twinkie defense, remember that? I think Trent Lott should have employed the hairspray defense. The hairspray made him say stupid things.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: You know, it's got more harmful crap in it than Twinkies do.

"James, by the way, there's a plastic liner in a trash can for your protection or the trash can's?" Jim Humphrey, San Francisco, California.

Well, actually, both, Jim. I've had people tell me I never looked so good as I did with that trash can over my head.

CARLSON: As you pointed out, the little liner end...

CARVILLE: If I was single I'd go around with the thing and try to pick up girls.

CARLSON: How would you prove it was you?

CARVILLE: Everybody would know me as the trash can man.

CARLSON: I think they did anyway.

Carol Sullivan in Norwood, Missouri writes, "Please tell Tucker that in two years Barbra Streisand will be singing `Happy Days Are Here Again' in his key. I can't wait."

I'm not sure what my key is. But I doubt Barbra Streisand will be singing that again.

CARVILLE: Not only is she one of the smartest people I know, she's one of the most talented.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: And I cannot wait to hear -- she is very, very smart.

CARLSON: She needs a larger circle of friends, James.

CARVILLE: But here we go.

"James, as a long-term fan, I'm asking that you refrain from staring at the camera after your regular tirades on CROSSFIRE. Your frozen pose causes both of my children to become very upset. My oldest son refers to you as the `evil grasshopper man.' I love your style, but my kids are having nightmares."

CARLSON: You know, James. Let's take a look at that. Look at that.

CARVILLE: There he is. I tell you what. Is this great work or what?

CARLSON: That's actually giving me nightmares. Evil grasshopper man. EGM.

Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name's Todd Halloway (ph) from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. My question is for James. James, do you think the real reason Al Gore didn't run for president in 2004 is that he thought Democrats lost the midterm elections, and he realized that Bush was going to have a successful term as president with the Republican majority?

CARVILLE: Well, you know, I honestly can't tell you what I think about it. The reason I doubt that's it, because they got so many Democrats dying to run. If people thought that Bush was unbeatable you wouldn't have so many candidates rushing out to oppose him. I think there are probably other reasons.

But he'll know, his wife will know what the real reason is. I think what he said was part of it, it's about the past, not the future. CARLSON: Bush is not unbeatable but Gore couldn't beat him.

Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Trip Winslow (ph) from Hurdle's Mill (ph), North Carolina. My question is why would anyone even consider Edwards, a malpractice lawyer with almost no experience, presidential material?

CARLSON: Well, I don't think most people do. Which is why "The Washington Post" poll has him at 2 percent, while as Al Sharpton who is the standard bearer of the party at 7 percent.

CARVILLE: I think he has much more relevant experience than this George Bush had going into 2000.

CARLSON: Good luck.

CARVILLE: From the left I'm James Carville. Happy New Year's and good night for CROSSFIRE.

CARLSON: From the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Join us again tomorrow for yet more CROSSFIRE. But in the meantime, have a very happy new year.

"CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT" begins right now.

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