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CNN Crossfire
Democratic Memo Starts Political War
Aired November 06, 2003 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE. On the left, James Carville and Paul Begala; on the right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.
In the CROSSFIRE: A Democratic memo starts a political war.
SEN. JON KYL (R), ARIZONA: I'm appalled at reading this memorandum.
ANNOUNCER: Just who's playing politics with intelligence?
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: If the other side refuses to look at the activities of the White House or the executive branch of government, then we have to explore our options.
ANNOUNCER: Today on CROSSFIRE.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(APPLAUSE)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.
(APPLAUSE)
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Welcome to CROSSFIRE.
Well, in case you hadn't heard, the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be investigating possible intelligence failures before the Iraq war. But thanks to a leaked memo, we now know that the Democrats are subverting that investigation -- surprise, surprise -- to score political points.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Political point, Tucker?
What could be more political than Republican committee members conducting a supposed investigation that may be more of a whitewash for the White House?
We'll debate all of that right after the best political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
"The New York Times" reports today that President Bush's new lax pro-pollution environmental rules will require the EPA to abandon investigations into 50 alleged polluters accused of violating the Clean Air Act. The move has sparked protests from a vicious special interest group, people who like to breathe. They are whining about having to breathe tons of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. They're complaining about their precious lungs and their wimpy children saying they can't handle a little thick and scuzzy air from a couple dozen smokestacks.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, fortunately, dirtbags, polluters and undertakers have saluted the development. And thank goodness we finally have a president with the courage to stand up for air pollution. After all, if our kids can't stand a little sulfur dioxide in the air, how are they going to handle the arsenic in the water?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: So, I say, toughen up, America.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: If I can just make one correction, Paul, no one in America is complaining about breathing nitrous oxide. People like it.
But I will say, nuclear power is an answer to a lot of these problems. First of all, they are, as you said, alleged polluters. There's no evidence they really are polluters. Second, nuclear power actually answers all these questions, but the religious nuts on the environmental left are against it on religious grounds.
BEGALA: Well, we could do a debate about nuclear power another time.
CARLSON: It's a really interesting subject
(CROSSTALK)
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: But what's not debatable is, the president is shelving our Clean Air Act of 30 years standing to help his corporate polluter friends.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: You know that's a complete crock talking point and dumb bumper sticker.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: It's a very smart bumper sticker.
CARLSON: But on to the truth.
Well, with the exception of Howard Dean, every Democrat running for president this year supports further restrictions on your constitutional right to own firearms. These candidates will not be getting the vote of one Lester Campbell (ph). Campbell is an 80-year- old retired security guard who lives in New York City. On Monday, Mr. Campbell was returning home after cashing his $262 Social Security check when he was mugged.
An attacker followed him into the elevator, knocked him down and beat him the elderly man in the face. Had he been unarmed, Campbell might have been beaten to death. But instead, he pulled out a handgun and the mugger fled. For the honorable act of defending himself, Lester Campbell was promptly arrested. He had violated New York's authoritarian, left-wing gun control laws.
His mugger, meanwhile, remains free. Surprise, surprise. It was the perfect example of liberal social policy in action. So, the next time you hear a Democrat talk about the need for more gun control, think of Lester Campbell.
BEGALA: No, think of the 80,000 cops who are being let go under President Bush who got hired under President Clinton. I have this odd idea...
CARLSON: That's a completely different topic.
BEGALA: ... that, instead of everybody walking around with their own guns, shooting people at will, why don't we have a trained group called police officers, which President Clinton had and President Bush defunded?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Having a lot of experience in this, I can tell you, because the police aren't always there to protect yourself.
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: You have the right to protect yourself. I don't care what liberals say. It's your inalienable right and you're allowed to exercise it.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: It's moronic for this president to be laying off cops.
CARLSON: That's not true.
BEGALA: That's why crime is going up.
Well, the journalist David Corn of the magazine "The Nation" is the author of a hot new book called "The Lies of George W. Bush." I'd personally highly recommend it to you. But, apparently, keeping up with the Bush administration's falsehoods, fibs and fabrications is a full-time job. Mr. Corn has now launched a Web site with the perhaps over the top name of www.bushlies.com, which seeks to pick up where his book left off.
For example, Mr. Corn has analyzed President Bush's most recent press conference. And he alleges numerous fibs, including the president's claim that he's the first president to advocate a Palestinian state. No, that would be President Clinton. And Mr. Bush's claim that oil revenues can make up for gaps in funding of the rebuilding of Iraq. No, even Paul Bremer says that's not so.
In fact, the president's press conference contained so many inaccuracies, they're moving the next one to Showtime.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: I think, Paul -- that's a good line. I think the entire "Political Alert" needs to be moved to Showtime.
My theory is, the people who defended Clinton have an emotional need to portray George W. Bush as a liar. There are some things wrong with George W. Bush. I don't always defend him. But he's not ultimately much of a liar, I have to say. The lies in the book...
BEGALA: You sell him short. He's a colossal liar. He's a gifted liar. He's an enormous liar.
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: I know that makes you feel better. It's an effective talking point. But the lies enumerated in the book are, like, he claimed to be a uniter, rather than a divider. And he's not. I mean, come on, Paul. That's ridiculous.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: He claimed we had a threat from Iraq. The other guy claimed he didn't have a girlfriend. Which is more important to you?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Everybody agreed that Iraq was a threat, even Democrats, even those who voted for it.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Well, not every successful presidential candidate in American history has had extensive foreign policy experience. Bill Clinton didn't. Neither did George W. Bush. It didn't seem to matter at the time.
This year, though, with a war against terrorism under way, it does matter, which may explain why Democratic front-runner Howard Dean has spent so much time recently trying to convince voters that he knows something about the rest of the world. This morning, for example, Dean participated in an online chat with Washington Post.com.
Asked how he'd repair relations with Canada and the rest of the world, Dean replied this way -- and, keep in mind, this is a verbatim quote -- "I have a long-standing relationship with Canada, both because my kids have spent numerous weekends playing hockey there and because I have appeared on Canadian talk shows many times" -- end quote.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: It's the old-fashioned talk show diplomacy defense. And by those standards, the next time Howard Dean appears on "Oprah," he'll be qualified to be mayor of Chicago.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: I love this! As Zell Miller said, Howard Dean is not a deep pool. He's a shallow pond.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, as George W. Bush was a candidate and a governor with no foreign policy experience, as you noted in that commentary, he was asked what he thought about his endorsement for Mr. Poutine of Canada, the prime minister, he was told. Poutine apparently is a Canadian cheese fry dish, some cheesy potato dish. He thought a bowl of potatoes was the prime minister of Canada.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: It don't get dumber than that, Tucker.
CARLSON: No, no, no. He's actually not far off in that regard. I think he was sending an important message to our neighbors to the north.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, by now, it's clear that the Bush administration oversold the threat posed to America by Iraq and underestimated the difficulty of rebuilding that country.
Next: Why are the Republicans then so reluctant to investigate whether the White House knowingly misled us into war? We'll debate that next.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
Senate Republicans are up in arms over the appearance of a memo apparently written by a Democratic staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The memo lists options for exposing what the writer of the memo calls quotes -- "the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war" -- end quote -- against Iraq. Stepping into the CROSSFIRE from Capitol Hill is Democratic Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, whose name is actually mentioned in that memo, along with his Republican colleague Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
CARLSON: Senator Corzine, thanks a lot for joining us.
You've read this memo. You're aware of how cynical and low it is. Not all our viewers are. I want to put part of...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I want to put part of it up on the screen to make that point.
I'm quoting now. "Once we identify solid leads," writes the unnamed Democrat, "the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled, but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence."
In other words, we could go principled. Let's go newsworthy instead. It's more politically effective. There's no defending that, is there?
SEN. JON CORZINE (D), NEW JERSEY: No, I think that's where you've got -- you've got that backwards.
What they said was, we're going to stay within the committee and try to work within the processes. And if we won't get to full look at the use of the intelligence, as well as the creation of it, then we can go back and reexamine what I have thought we should have done right from the start, which is have an independent bipartisan commission look at this, so that we don't have this sort of diversionary smokescreen debate about politics that seems to be pervading this process.
CARLSON: Wait. So, Senator, what you're saying is, what the Democratic staffer, unnamed, here has done is so partisan and low, it's more evidence that we need a bipartisan commission? Is that's what you're
(CROSSTALK)
CORZINE: I didn't say that.
I said, I think that the whole view of talking about this memo diverts us away from the fundamental need to protect our men and women in uniform, protect the people of the United States by having an understanding of what the problems were in the creation of the intelligence and, certainly, the use of it. The fact is that there was this bogus 16-word piece put into the State of the Union message on Niger and uranium that nobody agrees with. There was bogus information about aluminum tubes, about mobile transport systems to produce chemical weapons.
There haven't been any chemical weapons, connections to terrorist groups -- that I think the American people have a reason to want to understand how that intelligence got used in getting us into the conflict in Iraq. And I think that's important to protect themselves.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Sorry to cut you off, Senator Corzine, but I'm going to bring your colleague, Senator Bond, into this.
First, it's good to see you again. Thank you for taking time off the Senate floor to join us, Senator.
Your colleague on the committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, is the lead Democrat. He's the vice chairman of the committee, but Republicans are the majority. But he's the lead Democrat on that committee. And here's what he said about this controversy this morning. I want to ask you to respond to colleague, Senator Rockefeller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROCKEFELLER: What this really is about, in my judgment, is that the committee is not undertaking a full investigation. We're taking half of an investigation, only prewar intelligence about WMD, weapons of mass destruction. We're not looking at the use of intelligence, which is what involves the entire executive branch. And I don't think that Republicans want to go there. And that's the plain truth of it. I think it's as simple as that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEGALA: Senator Bond, why don't Republicans want to investigate allegations that the White House misled us?
SEN. KIT BOND (R), MISSOURI: Well, frankly, the job of the Intelligence Committee has always been, on a bipartisan, nonpartisan basis, to explore the intelligence that's developed, find out if we're getting the best intelligence, and what are the problems with the intelligence.
Frankly, that, until this purely partisan political memo came out of the Intelligence Committee outlining a plan, which has not been disavowed -- nobody's paid any consequences. Nobody's been fired for putting forward this blatant political effort. And this undermines the ability of us to do our job on a bipartisan basis to make sure we get the best intelligence available.
BEGALA: Yes, sir, but the question is not so much about the development. You mentioned the development of intelligence, which is brought by some very heroic men and women in our intelligence community.
The allegation is not about how that was developed, but, rather, how it was allegedly misused and abused and twisted for a particular political end -- that is, to lead us into a war. And it seems to me, if you don't investigate the latter, you're missing the point, aren't you?
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Let's let Senator Bond respond to this, sir. I'm sorry.
Senator Bond, go ahead, sir.
BOND: OK, well, listen, here's a quote from the president. "Heavy as they are, the cost of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we'll face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And, mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them and he will use them."
Now, is that misleading? Is that what you're saying is misleading?
BEGALA: No, sir, that was from President Clinton. If you want to investigate him, you will have my full support. But I want to see an investigation of whether George W. Bush misled us.
(CROSSTALK)
BOND: And that was how information was used in the Clinton administration in similar statements relayed by
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: He didn't declare war.
CARLSON: Wait. OK, I'm sorry. Before we make this into a referendum yet again on whether we ought to have gone to war, can we, Senator Corzine, very quickly get back to the question of this memo, which, I think you will admit, is interesting?
Here's the response of your Democratic colleague Zell Miller of Georgia. Here's what he said to the "Washington Times" -- quote -- "If this is not treasonous, it's the first cousin of treason. This is one of those committees the you should never, ever have anything politicized, because you're dealing with the lives of our soldiers and our citizens. Heads ought to roll."
A, do you agree? B, who wrote this? C, why has he not yet been fired?
CORZINE: Well, as I was trying to say, the mission in the original act that empowered or put -- constituted the intelligence commission -- or the Intelligence Committee -- was to look at both the development, the creation of intelligence, and the use of intelligence.
And the people who put this memo together are only expressing that we need to make sure that we get to looking at the use of the intelligence that was created, or the misuse, if that is the case at hand, because that's the mission of the Intelligence Committee.
And, by the way, everybody can pick up quotes. I could pick up Chuck Hagel's quote on July 14: "There's a cloud hanging over this administration. Listen, it wasn't just the CIA involved here. We had a vice president and his office involved, Secretary Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Secretary Powell's people. This wasn't just a one-man show. And this is too serious here for this country to not know what happened."
CARLSON: You have a Democratic senator accusing Democrats of treason or something close to it. I think that's a little more forthright and heavy than anything Senator Hagel has said.
CORZINE: Well, I think that's a little out of bounds.
I think what is treasonous is the criminal release of the name of a covert intelligence agent by senior administration officials, which is far, far more serious in any kind of scope than what we're talking about here with this memo. This is an
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Yes, sir.
Senator Bond, let me bring you back into this by asking you to respond to a comment from your colleague John McCain. I want to broaden the discussion a little bit off of just whether this memo was partisan or why it's from some staff member and talk about the comments from one of the president's strongest supporters of this war, John McCain, himself a decorated war hero. This is what he had to say yesterday.
Let me play this piece of videotape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: There does not appear to be a strategy behind our current force levels in Iraq, other than to preserve the illusion that we have sufficient forces in place to meet our objectives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEGALA: Senator McCain says the president is misleading us. He's perpetuating an illusion. Isn't that worth investigating?
BOND: Well, the general, General Abizaid, who is responsible for our troops over there, says that we have enough troops. He is going to be bringing up more Guard and reserves. We are actively pursuing other countries to come in.
And right now, we have 100,000 Iraqis trained for security activities. That's a totally different area than what we are addressing. The important thing is to get back, No. 1, to examining the intelligence and making sure we get the best intelligence available. We have to do that without the partisan politics that the memo that we just discussed brings involves -- brings into the Intelligence Committee.
And we have to -- we have to make sure that our intelligence gets better. It's not as good as it could be. It's better than it was. We need to make sure we have the right intelligence.
CARLSON: Senator Bond, Senator Corzine, if you can just hold on one moment, we'll be right back. We're going to take a quick break.
When our guests return in "Rapid Fire," we'll ask them, should Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resign?
And right after the break, Wolf Blitzer has the latest on the horrifying ordeal revealed in the new book about Private Jessica Lynch.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
It's time for "Rapid Fire," where no one has to leak a memo exposing our strategy: short questions, crisp answers.
Joining us this afternoon from Capitol Hill, Democratic Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
BEGALA: Senator Bond, you think a Democratic staffer ought to be fired for writing a partisan memo. Who should be fired for misleading us about this war, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney, the president?
BOND: Frankly, I think, if you ask military men and women who are on the ground and have seen the mass graves, the torture chambers and the efforts that have gone on to maintain weapons of mass destruction, that President Clinton's administration agrees, nobody should be fired.
CARLSON: Senator Corzine, Charlie Rangel of New York says that Donald Rumsfeld ought to be canned. Do you agree?
CORZINE: I think Charlie is on to something, if the secretary is responsible for the exaggeration and the misuse of intelligence. On the other hand, I think he's done the nation a great service by actually telling the truth for a change. This is going to be a long, hard slog and we got a lot of problems in Iraq.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Senator Bond, the torture chambers and mass graves that you mentioned no doubt prove that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator. So is Fidel Castro. So are the dictators in China. The president said he was an imminent threat to America. He talked about a mushroom cloud. He was misleading us, wasn't he?
BOND: No. He was acting on the same intelligence that President Clinton acted on, that the United States Senate acted on when we authorized the first Gulf War, when we went in and -- with the U.N. inspectors, and then when the Senate voted, with 77 members, to say it was time to go forward with the war. We had access to the same intelligence, through our classified briefings, that the president had. Overwhelmingly, we said, we should go to war.
CARLSON: And, quickly, Senator Corzine...
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: ... which of the nine Democrats running for president do you think has the most serious foreign policy prescription so far?
CORZINE: Well, I think there are three or four that are speaking very straightforwardly about this. I -- certainly, Joe Lieberman has a strong view. I think John Kerry has.
I think all of the folks in the front half of that field, in my view, are speaking very clearly about this subject, a little bit of different perspectives, but I think they're doing a good job of contrasting with what the president allowed us to get into and the basis on which we entered into this conflict.
BEGALA: All right, Senator Jon Corzine, Democrat of New Jersey, Senator Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri, gentlemen, thank you both very much for doing a fine job on this
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Thank you for your time.
(APPLAUSE)
BOND: Thank you.
CORZINE: Thank you.
BEGALA: Now, there is our ask the audience trivia question of the day: What event helped lead to the creation of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Was it spying on Vietnam protesters? Was it Iran-Contra? Or was it Watergate?
And watch out for the blue lights. The fashion police are firing back at my friend Tucker Carlson again.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
Time for "Fireback," but first, the results of our audience quiz/history lesson, in which we asked: What event led up to cause the creation of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Was it, A, spying on Vietnam War protesters, B, Iran-Contra, C, Watergate? Well, it turned out to be the first; 14 percent of the audience guessed it.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Usually, they do better than that, Paul.
BEGALA: Yes. Well, before the show, I was cracking jokes about the Senate Intelligence Committee being an oxymoron. These senators were great. They were very intelligent. They did a good job.
Don Kiel of San Diego writes: "Why do Democratic presidential candidates have to come up with a plan to solve the Iraq problem, as the right keeps insisting? Did candidate Bush have plans for solving problems when he was a candidate? Oh, I guess he did: a humble foreign policy, no nation building, no military action without an exit strategy, etcetera, etcetera."
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: OK.
Kevin Good of Virginia writes: "I don't think that Howard Dean realizes that a pickup truck with a Confederate flag more than likely has a sticker that says, 'God bless George Bush.' It makes me think he never heard the phrase, 'looking for love in all the wrong places.'"
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Good point, Kevin.
BEGALA: Zula Hyatt in La Porte, Texas, not very far from where I grew up -- well, Zula: "I can't believe that Tucker Carlson had the audacity to say one word about the turtlenecks that Wesley Clark wore, since Tucker's wardrobe is a nightmare. He wears bow ties that went out of style in the '40s and pink trousers. I think he is the one who needs fashion police."
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: It's amazing to me that a Democrat is attacking me for pink trousers, when the Supreme Court says that's OK.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: From the left, I'm Paul Begala. That's it for CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: And from the right, I'm Tucker Carlson.
Join us again tomorrow -- that will be Friday -- for yet more CROSSFIRE.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 6, 2003 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE. On the left, James Carville and Paul Begala; on the right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.
In the CROSSFIRE: A Democratic memo starts a political war.
SEN. JON KYL (R), ARIZONA: I'm appalled at reading this memorandum.
ANNOUNCER: Just who's playing politics with intelligence?
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: If the other side refuses to look at the activities of the White House or the executive branch of government, then we have to explore our options.
ANNOUNCER: Today on CROSSFIRE.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(APPLAUSE)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.
(APPLAUSE)
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Welcome to CROSSFIRE.
Well, in case you hadn't heard, the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be investigating possible intelligence failures before the Iraq war. But thanks to a leaked memo, we now know that the Democrats are subverting that investigation -- surprise, surprise -- to score political points.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Political point, Tucker?
What could be more political than Republican committee members conducting a supposed investigation that may be more of a whitewash for the White House?
We'll debate all of that right after the best political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
"The New York Times" reports today that President Bush's new lax pro-pollution environmental rules will require the EPA to abandon investigations into 50 alleged polluters accused of violating the Clean Air Act. The move has sparked protests from a vicious special interest group, people who like to breathe. They are whining about having to breathe tons of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. They're complaining about their precious lungs and their wimpy children saying they can't handle a little thick and scuzzy air from a couple dozen smokestacks.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, fortunately, dirtbags, polluters and undertakers have saluted the development. And thank goodness we finally have a president with the courage to stand up for air pollution. After all, if our kids can't stand a little sulfur dioxide in the air, how are they going to handle the arsenic in the water?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: So, I say, toughen up, America.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: If I can just make one correction, Paul, no one in America is complaining about breathing nitrous oxide. People like it.
But I will say, nuclear power is an answer to a lot of these problems. First of all, they are, as you said, alleged polluters. There's no evidence they really are polluters. Second, nuclear power actually answers all these questions, but the religious nuts on the environmental left are against it on religious grounds.
BEGALA: Well, we could do a debate about nuclear power another time.
CARLSON: It's a really interesting subject
(CROSSTALK)
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: But what's not debatable is, the president is shelving our Clean Air Act of 30 years standing to help his corporate polluter friends.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: You know that's a complete crock talking point and dumb bumper sticker.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: It's a very smart bumper sticker.
CARLSON: But on to the truth.
Well, with the exception of Howard Dean, every Democrat running for president this year supports further restrictions on your constitutional right to own firearms. These candidates will not be getting the vote of one Lester Campbell (ph). Campbell is an 80-year- old retired security guard who lives in New York City. On Monday, Mr. Campbell was returning home after cashing his $262 Social Security check when he was mugged.
An attacker followed him into the elevator, knocked him down and beat him the elderly man in the face. Had he been unarmed, Campbell might have been beaten to death. But instead, he pulled out a handgun and the mugger fled. For the honorable act of defending himself, Lester Campbell was promptly arrested. He had violated New York's authoritarian, left-wing gun control laws.
His mugger, meanwhile, remains free. Surprise, surprise. It was the perfect example of liberal social policy in action. So, the next time you hear a Democrat talk about the need for more gun control, think of Lester Campbell.
BEGALA: No, think of the 80,000 cops who are being let go under President Bush who got hired under President Clinton. I have this odd idea...
CARLSON: That's a completely different topic.
BEGALA: ... that, instead of everybody walking around with their own guns, shooting people at will, why don't we have a trained group called police officers, which President Clinton had and President Bush defunded?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Having a lot of experience in this, I can tell you, because the police aren't always there to protect yourself.
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: You have the right to protect yourself. I don't care what liberals say. It's your inalienable right and you're allowed to exercise it.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: It's moronic for this president to be laying off cops.
CARLSON: That's not true.
BEGALA: That's why crime is going up.
Well, the journalist David Corn of the magazine "The Nation" is the author of a hot new book called "The Lies of George W. Bush." I'd personally highly recommend it to you. But, apparently, keeping up with the Bush administration's falsehoods, fibs and fabrications is a full-time job. Mr. Corn has now launched a Web site with the perhaps over the top name of www.bushlies.com, which seeks to pick up where his book left off.
For example, Mr. Corn has analyzed President Bush's most recent press conference. And he alleges numerous fibs, including the president's claim that he's the first president to advocate a Palestinian state. No, that would be President Clinton. And Mr. Bush's claim that oil revenues can make up for gaps in funding of the rebuilding of Iraq. No, even Paul Bremer says that's not so.
In fact, the president's press conference contained so many inaccuracies, they're moving the next one to Showtime.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: I think, Paul -- that's a good line. I think the entire "Political Alert" needs to be moved to Showtime.
My theory is, the people who defended Clinton have an emotional need to portray George W. Bush as a liar. There are some things wrong with George W. Bush. I don't always defend him. But he's not ultimately much of a liar, I have to say. The lies in the book...
BEGALA: You sell him short. He's a colossal liar. He's a gifted liar. He's an enormous liar.
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: I know that makes you feel better. It's an effective talking point. But the lies enumerated in the book are, like, he claimed to be a uniter, rather than a divider. And he's not. I mean, come on, Paul. That's ridiculous.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: He claimed we had a threat from Iraq. The other guy claimed he didn't have a girlfriend. Which is more important to you?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Everybody agreed that Iraq was a threat, even Democrats, even those who voted for it.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Well, not every successful presidential candidate in American history has had extensive foreign policy experience. Bill Clinton didn't. Neither did George W. Bush. It didn't seem to matter at the time.
This year, though, with a war against terrorism under way, it does matter, which may explain why Democratic front-runner Howard Dean has spent so much time recently trying to convince voters that he knows something about the rest of the world. This morning, for example, Dean participated in an online chat with Washington Post.com.
Asked how he'd repair relations with Canada and the rest of the world, Dean replied this way -- and, keep in mind, this is a verbatim quote -- "I have a long-standing relationship with Canada, both because my kids have spent numerous weekends playing hockey there and because I have appeared on Canadian talk shows many times" -- end quote.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: It's the old-fashioned talk show diplomacy defense. And by those standards, the next time Howard Dean appears on "Oprah," he'll be qualified to be mayor of Chicago.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: I love this! As Zell Miller said, Howard Dean is not a deep pool. He's a shallow pond.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, as George W. Bush was a candidate and a governor with no foreign policy experience, as you noted in that commentary, he was asked what he thought about his endorsement for Mr. Poutine of Canada, the prime minister, he was told. Poutine apparently is a Canadian cheese fry dish, some cheesy potato dish. He thought a bowl of potatoes was the prime minister of Canada.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: It don't get dumber than that, Tucker.
CARLSON: No, no, no. He's actually not far off in that regard. I think he was sending an important message to our neighbors to the north.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, by now, it's clear that the Bush administration oversold the threat posed to America by Iraq and underestimated the difficulty of rebuilding that country.
Next: Why are the Republicans then so reluctant to investigate whether the White House knowingly misled us into war? We'll debate that next.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
Senate Republicans are up in arms over the appearance of a memo apparently written by a Democratic staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The memo lists options for exposing what the writer of the memo calls quotes -- "the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war" -- end quote -- against Iraq. Stepping into the CROSSFIRE from Capitol Hill is Democratic Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, whose name is actually mentioned in that memo, along with his Republican colleague Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
CARLSON: Senator Corzine, thanks a lot for joining us.
You've read this memo. You're aware of how cynical and low it is. Not all our viewers are. I want to put part of...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I want to put part of it up on the screen to make that point.
I'm quoting now. "Once we identify solid leads," writes the unnamed Democrat, "the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled, but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence."
In other words, we could go principled. Let's go newsworthy instead. It's more politically effective. There's no defending that, is there?
SEN. JON CORZINE (D), NEW JERSEY: No, I think that's where you've got -- you've got that backwards.
What they said was, we're going to stay within the committee and try to work within the processes. And if we won't get to full look at the use of the intelligence, as well as the creation of it, then we can go back and reexamine what I have thought we should have done right from the start, which is have an independent bipartisan commission look at this, so that we don't have this sort of diversionary smokescreen debate about politics that seems to be pervading this process.
CARLSON: Wait. So, Senator, what you're saying is, what the Democratic staffer, unnamed, here has done is so partisan and low, it's more evidence that we need a bipartisan commission? Is that's what you're
(CROSSTALK)
CORZINE: I didn't say that.
I said, I think that the whole view of talking about this memo diverts us away from the fundamental need to protect our men and women in uniform, protect the people of the United States by having an understanding of what the problems were in the creation of the intelligence and, certainly, the use of it. The fact is that there was this bogus 16-word piece put into the State of the Union message on Niger and uranium that nobody agrees with. There was bogus information about aluminum tubes, about mobile transport systems to produce chemical weapons.
There haven't been any chemical weapons, connections to terrorist groups -- that I think the American people have a reason to want to understand how that intelligence got used in getting us into the conflict in Iraq. And I think that's important to protect themselves.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Sorry to cut you off, Senator Corzine, but I'm going to bring your colleague, Senator Bond, into this.
First, it's good to see you again. Thank you for taking time off the Senate floor to join us, Senator.
Your colleague on the committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, is the lead Democrat. He's the vice chairman of the committee, but Republicans are the majority. But he's the lead Democrat on that committee. And here's what he said about this controversy this morning. I want to ask you to respond to colleague, Senator Rockefeller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROCKEFELLER: What this really is about, in my judgment, is that the committee is not undertaking a full investigation. We're taking half of an investigation, only prewar intelligence about WMD, weapons of mass destruction. We're not looking at the use of intelligence, which is what involves the entire executive branch. And I don't think that Republicans want to go there. And that's the plain truth of it. I think it's as simple as that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEGALA: Senator Bond, why don't Republicans want to investigate allegations that the White House misled us?
SEN. KIT BOND (R), MISSOURI: Well, frankly, the job of the Intelligence Committee has always been, on a bipartisan, nonpartisan basis, to explore the intelligence that's developed, find out if we're getting the best intelligence, and what are the problems with the intelligence.
Frankly, that, until this purely partisan political memo came out of the Intelligence Committee outlining a plan, which has not been disavowed -- nobody's paid any consequences. Nobody's been fired for putting forward this blatant political effort. And this undermines the ability of us to do our job on a bipartisan basis to make sure we get the best intelligence available.
BEGALA: Yes, sir, but the question is not so much about the development. You mentioned the development of intelligence, which is brought by some very heroic men and women in our intelligence community.
The allegation is not about how that was developed, but, rather, how it was allegedly misused and abused and twisted for a particular political end -- that is, to lead us into a war. And it seems to me, if you don't investigate the latter, you're missing the point, aren't you?
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Let's let Senator Bond respond to this, sir. I'm sorry.
Senator Bond, go ahead, sir.
BOND: OK, well, listen, here's a quote from the president. "Heavy as they are, the cost of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we'll face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And, mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them and he will use them."
Now, is that misleading? Is that what you're saying is misleading?
BEGALA: No, sir, that was from President Clinton. If you want to investigate him, you will have my full support. But I want to see an investigation of whether George W. Bush misled us.
(CROSSTALK)
BOND: And that was how information was used in the Clinton administration in similar statements relayed by
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: He didn't declare war.
CARLSON: Wait. OK, I'm sorry. Before we make this into a referendum yet again on whether we ought to have gone to war, can we, Senator Corzine, very quickly get back to the question of this memo, which, I think you will admit, is interesting?
Here's the response of your Democratic colleague Zell Miller of Georgia. Here's what he said to the "Washington Times" -- quote -- "If this is not treasonous, it's the first cousin of treason. This is one of those committees the you should never, ever have anything politicized, because you're dealing with the lives of our soldiers and our citizens. Heads ought to roll."
A, do you agree? B, who wrote this? C, why has he not yet been fired?
CORZINE: Well, as I was trying to say, the mission in the original act that empowered or put -- constituted the intelligence commission -- or the Intelligence Committee -- was to look at both the development, the creation of intelligence, and the use of intelligence.
And the people who put this memo together are only expressing that we need to make sure that we get to looking at the use of the intelligence that was created, or the misuse, if that is the case at hand, because that's the mission of the Intelligence Committee.
And, by the way, everybody can pick up quotes. I could pick up Chuck Hagel's quote on July 14: "There's a cloud hanging over this administration. Listen, it wasn't just the CIA involved here. We had a vice president and his office involved, Secretary Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Secretary Powell's people. This wasn't just a one-man show. And this is too serious here for this country to not know what happened."
CARLSON: You have a Democratic senator accusing Democrats of treason or something close to it. I think that's a little more forthright and heavy than anything Senator Hagel has said.
CORZINE: Well, I think that's a little out of bounds.
I think what is treasonous is the criminal release of the name of a covert intelligence agent by senior administration officials, which is far, far more serious in any kind of scope than what we're talking about here with this memo. This is an
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Yes, sir.
Senator Bond, let me bring you back into this by asking you to respond to a comment from your colleague John McCain. I want to broaden the discussion a little bit off of just whether this memo was partisan or why it's from some staff member and talk about the comments from one of the president's strongest supporters of this war, John McCain, himself a decorated war hero. This is what he had to say yesterday.
Let me play this piece of videotape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: There does not appear to be a strategy behind our current force levels in Iraq, other than to preserve the illusion that we have sufficient forces in place to meet our objectives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEGALA: Senator McCain says the president is misleading us. He's perpetuating an illusion. Isn't that worth investigating?
BOND: Well, the general, General Abizaid, who is responsible for our troops over there, says that we have enough troops. He is going to be bringing up more Guard and reserves. We are actively pursuing other countries to come in.
And right now, we have 100,000 Iraqis trained for security activities. That's a totally different area than what we are addressing. The important thing is to get back, No. 1, to examining the intelligence and making sure we get the best intelligence available. We have to do that without the partisan politics that the memo that we just discussed brings involves -- brings into the Intelligence Committee.
And we have to -- we have to make sure that our intelligence gets better. It's not as good as it could be. It's better than it was. We need to make sure we have the right intelligence.
CARLSON: Senator Bond, Senator Corzine, if you can just hold on one moment, we'll be right back. We're going to take a quick break.
When our guests return in "Rapid Fire," we'll ask them, should Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resign?
And right after the break, Wolf Blitzer has the latest on the horrifying ordeal revealed in the new book about Private Jessica Lynch.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
It's time for "Rapid Fire," where no one has to leak a memo exposing our strategy: short questions, crisp answers.
Joining us this afternoon from Capitol Hill, Democratic Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
BEGALA: Senator Bond, you think a Democratic staffer ought to be fired for writing a partisan memo. Who should be fired for misleading us about this war, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney, the president?
BOND: Frankly, I think, if you ask military men and women who are on the ground and have seen the mass graves, the torture chambers and the efforts that have gone on to maintain weapons of mass destruction, that President Clinton's administration agrees, nobody should be fired.
CARLSON: Senator Corzine, Charlie Rangel of New York says that Donald Rumsfeld ought to be canned. Do you agree?
CORZINE: I think Charlie is on to something, if the secretary is responsible for the exaggeration and the misuse of intelligence. On the other hand, I think he's done the nation a great service by actually telling the truth for a change. This is going to be a long, hard slog and we got a lot of problems in Iraq.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Senator Bond, the torture chambers and mass graves that you mentioned no doubt prove that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator. So is Fidel Castro. So are the dictators in China. The president said he was an imminent threat to America. He talked about a mushroom cloud. He was misleading us, wasn't he?
BOND: No. He was acting on the same intelligence that President Clinton acted on, that the United States Senate acted on when we authorized the first Gulf War, when we went in and -- with the U.N. inspectors, and then when the Senate voted, with 77 members, to say it was time to go forward with the war. We had access to the same intelligence, through our classified briefings, that the president had. Overwhelmingly, we said, we should go to war.
CARLSON: And, quickly, Senator Corzine...
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: ... which of the nine Democrats running for president do you think has the most serious foreign policy prescription so far?
CORZINE: Well, I think there are three or four that are speaking very straightforwardly about this. I -- certainly, Joe Lieberman has a strong view. I think John Kerry has.
I think all of the folks in the front half of that field, in my view, are speaking very clearly about this subject, a little bit of different perspectives, but I think they're doing a good job of contrasting with what the president allowed us to get into and the basis on which we entered into this conflict.
BEGALA: All right, Senator Jon Corzine, Democrat of New Jersey, Senator Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri, gentlemen, thank you both very much for doing a fine job on this
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Thank you for your time.
(APPLAUSE)
BOND: Thank you.
CORZINE: Thank you.
BEGALA: Now, there is our ask the audience trivia question of the day: What event helped lead to the creation of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Was it spying on Vietnam protesters? Was it Iran-Contra? Or was it Watergate?
And watch out for the blue lights. The fashion police are firing back at my friend Tucker Carlson again.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
Time for "Fireback," but first, the results of our audience quiz/history lesson, in which we asked: What event led up to cause the creation of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Was it, A, spying on Vietnam War protesters, B, Iran-Contra, C, Watergate? Well, it turned out to be the first; 14 percent of the audience guessed it.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Usually, they do better than that, Paul.
BEGALA: Yes. Well, before the show, I was cracking jokes about the Senate Intelligence Committee being an oxymoron. These senators were great. They were very intelligent. They did a good job.
Don Kiel of San Diego writes: "Why do Democratic presidential candidates have to come up with a plan to solve the Iraq problem, as the right keeps insisting? Did candidate Bush have plans for solving problems when he was a candidate? Oh, I guess he did: a humble foreign policy, no nation building, no military action without an exit strategy, etcetera, etcetera."
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: OK.
Kevin Good of Virginia writes: "I don't think that Howard Dean realizes that a pickup truck with a Confederate flag more than likely has a sticker that says, 'God bless George Bush.' It makes me think he never heard the phrase, 'looking for love in all the wrong places.'"
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Good point, Kevin.
BEGALA: Zula Hyatt in La Porte, Texas, not very far from where I grew up -- well, Zula: "I can't believe that Tucker Carlson had the audacity to say one word about the turtlenecks that Wesley Clark wore, since Tucker's wardrobe is a nightmare. He wears bow ties that went out of style in the '40s and pink trousers. I think he is the one who needs fashion police."
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: It's amazing to me that a Democrat is attacking me for pink trousers, when the Supreme Court says that's OK.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: From the left, I'm Paul Begala. That's it for CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: And from the right, I'm Tucker Carlson.
Join us again tomorrow -- that will be Friday -- for yet more CROSSFIRE.
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