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CNN Crossfire
Bush, Blair and Iraq
Aired April 16, 2004 - 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: united they stand, the target of blistering attacks over continued deadly fighting in Iraq.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we're seeing in Iraq is an attempted power grab by extremists and terrorists. They will fail.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It was never going to be easy and it isn't now.
ANNOUNCER: Can these allies under fire rally support for their cause?
And she was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest critics. Now look who else she's taking on -- today on CROSSFIRE.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Robert Novak.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to CROSSFIRE.
With British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side, the president of the United States today finally acknowledged that it's time for the United Nations to have what he called a central role in Iraq, this, of course, after the president turned his back on the U.N. for more than a year and as Iraqi insurgents continue to kill American troops.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: The president's plan for Iraq is the best one for bringing lasting peace to Iraq. It looks so good, because it's a lot better than getting no plan at all from John Kerry.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Tony Blair, President Bush is staying the course. We'll debate the Bush-Blair alliance on Iraq in a moment. Now the best little political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
The anti-Bush activists who feel no day is complete unless George W. Bush suffers some calamity were badly disappointed today. President Bush met with his staunchest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Would Blair move away from the American president in the face of the heavy fighting in Iraq and in the face of Bush's total support for Israeli Prime Minister Sharon? It did not happen, even though Blair faces even more political flak at home than Bush does here. Will the Bush bashers now become Blair bashers as well?
BEGALA: No, I'm a great fan and admirer of Tony Blair. I had the privilege of getting to know him long before he was prime minister. It was interesting.
It's a rare thing to see at the White House a world leader who actually speaks English. That helped. To begin with, Tony Blair, it's actually his first language. Mr. Bush sometimes could maybe use a translator to try to help him through that hurdle.
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: Well, you know, that's a smarmy little statement, Paul.
BEGALA: It's not smarmy. It's true. He speaks gibberish.
(BELL RINGING)
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: Maybe if you got to know George Bush as well as you do Tony, Blair, you'd feel differently. But you didn't answer my question.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Yes, I did. I knew Bush, actually, about 10 years ago. He's a lovely man. He doesn't speak English.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, even in the middle of the war against Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan, President Bush distracted his top military commanders with his obsession for invading Iraq. He even ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to prepare an invasion plan for Iraq in the middle of the war in Afghanistan.
This distraction reportedly sent General Tommy Franks into an obscenity-laced rage. Of course, we don't have to worry about who Mr. Woodward's deep throat source is on this news item. President Bush himself confessed it to Bob Woodward.
Now, I wonder, Bob, is the White House going to unleash their attack dogs on the president himself? Because he's the source of this terrible
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: I wonder if you ever get tired of attacking George W. Bush. But I don't ask you that, because I know you don't ever get tired of it.
BEGALA: No. No.
NOVAK: If you would read a little of Winston Churchill's memoirs, you would find that he was always concocting new plans in new theaters of operations and the generals were going into tantrums. Generals do not like to be disturbed by the elected leaders of the people.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: They were conducting a war. He was distracting them with his obsession with Iraq.
NOVAK: John Kerry buys into the Richard Nixon mold, turn to the center for the election after you've clinched the nomination.
He's not a redistribution Democrat, Kerry told fat-cat Republicans who paid $25,000 each to hear him at Manhattan's 21 Club. Kerry says he wants to reach out to Republicans, saying he doesn't want to go back to that nasty old Democratic liberal party of 25 years ago, claiming that Washington doesn't have all the answers.
Senator, if you don't want to redistribute income, why are you rolling back the upper-bracket tax cut?
BEGALA: Because we need the money because Bush ran up the deficit. Somebody's going to have to pay it off, either middle-class or rich people.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Why not? They have the most. Look, it's not John Kerry. It's Jesus Christ who said, from those to whom much has been given, much will be expected. You've been given a lot. Pay your damn taxes and quit whining.
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: I wish you would pay -- if you like to pay taxes so much, you can pay mine.
BEGALA: You should pay them and quite whining. This country's been good to you.
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: Let me ask you -- let me ask you -- let me ask you the question, Paul. Why does he go out -- you can be objective once in a while and say...
(BELL RINGING)
NOVAK: ... I don't want to redistribute income. If you increase taxes on the upper income, you do redistribute it.
BEGALA: When you cut them, you redistribute them, too. That's what Mr. Bush did.
Well, you may recall that our president recently said that Iraqi attacks on American troops were a sign of the success, yes, the success of his Iraq policy. Bush supporters understandably cringed. Opponents obviously jumped on it. But one man apparently took it seriously. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, repeated Mr. Bush's unique analysis yesterday, telling reports the insurgency in Iraq is -- quote -- "a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq" -- unquote.
Of course, by Mr. Bush's logic, if Iraq were at peace and if Iraqis were welcoming our soldiers as liberators and throwing flowers, instead of mortars, I suppose that would be a sign that we were failing.
NOVAK: Now, let me try to explain it to you. There's going to be a handover. The insurgents, the terrorists are trying to prevent the handover. They're trying to -- that's why they are worried. So there is an element of truth to that.
Now, I would say one other thing. If you want the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get out there and say, woe is me, woe is me, I believe in John Kerry...
(BELL RINGING)
NOVAK: ... he's not going to do it.
BEGALA: No, how about give us a plan, instead of repeating the moronic statements of the president, who says it's success when they kill us. No, success when they don't, when we win. That's what I want.
Anyway, it's a lonely job, of course, being an ally of President George W. Bush's. Next, with American casualties outnumbering British casualties by 10-1 in Iraq, is anybody in America impressed that George Bush has earned the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair?
And later, Arianna Huffington's new book says -- get this -- that being compared to a jellyfish would be a step up for some people in Washington. We'll talk about her who she's talking about later on CROSSFIRE.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
President Bush today sat down with his biggest supporter on Iraq. That, of course, would be British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has seen his once indomitable political support erode to the low 30s as a result of his support for Mr. Bush's war in Iraq. Of course, our president himself has seen his poll numbers fall as the casualty numbers rise. In the CROSSFIRE to debate all of this, Ken Adelman. He's the host of DefenseCentral.com and a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. And Kerry campaign adviser Jamie Rubin, who served as assistant secretary of state under the greatest president in my lifetime, Bill Clinton.
(LAUGHTER)
Thanks, both of you, for joining us.
(APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: Mr. Rubin, I'd like you to listen to something that Prime Minister Blair said after his meeting with the president today. Let's listen to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLAIR: What you're hearing from myself and the president of the United States is, we will stay there and we will get the job done because that's what we promised to do, and we will continue until it's finished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOVAK: Now, Mr. Rubin, I used to consider you a serious student of foreign policy when you're at the White House. I thought -- I mean, at the State Department. You were measured, objective. Try to get out of this campaign Begala type mode for a moment...
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: ... and tell me, what's wrong with what the prime minister said?
JAMIE RUBIN, ADVISER TO SENATOR JOHN KERRY: Well, nothing.
All Americans, all the people of the world I would hope at this point want America and Britain and the other countries to succeed in Iraq. We can't have a failed state in Iraq. We can't let it become a place where Osama bin Laden and the extremists take over. The question is not whether we want to succeed. All Americans want to succeed.
The question is how we do it. And the president has driven us down a dangerous course. He has not been able to attract international support. He hasn't had a plan. Time after time, again, they're revising their options. Senator Kerry has an approach to Iraq that I think will succeed. Everybody wants to succeed.
NOVAK: I wish you people would reveal it sometime. I would really like to hear it sometime.
RUBIN: I'll be happy to tell it to you. Are you ready for me to tell you right now?
(CROSSTALK) (APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: Well, you know, there's nothing different. Go ahead.
BEGALA: In fact, in an essay in "The Washington Post," I think it was this week, Senator Kerry laid out what he would do. His plan may be a good plan, may not be. You're more expert in these things than I am, Ken, but at least it's a plan.
And we've had -- casualties are mounting. This horrific video that's come in today of an American soldier being held hostage. I understand that POWs are a part of war and I understand the president will not waver. I salute that. I'm not worried about him wavering. I'm worried that he doesn't have a plan. Why does he continue to give these cheerleading speeches about how we're good and they're evil, which even I know that? Instead, give us a plan. Where is his plan?
KEN ADELMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR, U.S. ARMS CONTROL & DISARMAMENT AGENCY: Well, first of all, any plan has to have some resources to pay for our soldiers in Iraq.
It seems to me incoherent that Kerry says, I am for supporting our soldiers in Iraq, I am for supporting our soldiers in Afghanistan, I am for seeing it out and seeing Iraq succeed, as Jamie says right here, but then voting against the $87 billion that would go for that. You just can't say...
BEGALA: A fair point.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: ... zero money is going to point that effort. That doesn't make any sense. Otherwise
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: That's a fair point. It's actually not what I asked you, though, Ken. What is the president's...
ADELMAN: Otherwise, the plan is just a piece of paper on an op- ed page.
BEGALA: I understand that. I even agree.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: But what the hell is the president going to do?
ADELMAN: The president's plan is very clear, No. 1, turn over sovereignty on July 1 to Iraqis.
BEGALA: To whom?
ADELMAN: To Iraqis. You want me to go louder? Iraqis.
BEGALA: Anyone in particular? ADELMAN: Those who are put together...
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: There's 27 million of them.
(APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: Those who are put together by either an expanded Iraqi council or what the U.N. is doing right now, the U.N. representative, cobbling together some from each representative, which is fine with me. I don't care how they do that. And that's going to be an interim until there is elections next year. I think that's a very good plan.
NOVAK: Mr. Rubin, I want -- a lot of people are debating on the pages of "The Washington Post" today, which I think is a good idea. And former Senator Fred Thompson, with all due respect, I thought made a lot more sense than Kerry. He had a piece in it the .
And he said -- quote -- "The president's critics cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be in favor of winning the war and also oppose fighting it, funding it and offering any coherent strategy for succeeding at it."
What's your response to that?
RUBIN: Well, Senator Kerry wants to win the war, wants us to succeed, and he's got a very coherent plan.
No. 1, first, the president has to be honest with the American people. This is a dangerous and difficult situation. No. 2, we need to send in additional troops. It's obvious that we need more forces there. No. 3, we need a real involvement of the international community, a political involvement. This Iraqi interim government may be put together, but who's going to run the place? Who's going to do the ministries? Who's going to run the reconstruction? Who's going to provide security? Who's going to provide the police?
Senator Kerry would bring the international community in to help us do that. And the reason is
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: In other words, the French and the Germans are going to run
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIN: If we bring the rest of the world in with us, if we share responsibility, then we can do something extremely important. We can share the risk and share the burden and get others involved. Those four points constitute a lot more coherence than we've seen out of the Bush administration.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
ADELMAN: Let me ask you, Jamie, how can you do that -- how can you do that with zero funds? How can you do that without supporting the $87 billion for our troops in Iraq, for our troops in Afghanistan, for reconstruction? It doesn't make any sense. Otherwise, it's all a lot of paper.
RUBIN: Bob said that he thought I was a serious person. You're a serious person, too, Ken.
You know full well that John Kerry supports our troops and voted in favor of our troops with $87 billion, but he wanted that money to come from the...
ADELMAN: I thought he voted against it.
RUBIN: From the richest Americans. And this was politics.
President Bush said he would veto that bill if he didn't get everything he wanted. Is he against our troops? This is a phony canard. Everybody knows John Kerry is for these troops. This is political baloney.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: I don't know that.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
ADELMAN: I don't know it until just now. I don't know why he is for -- Jamie, I just don't understand why he's for it and votes against it. It doesn't make any sense.
RUBIN: This is political baloney. I expect more from you.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: He voted against it. I don't understand it.
BEGALA: Let me take you back a couple days.
ADELMAN: He supports the bill and he votes against it.
BEGALA: The president in his press conference was asked a question where he made a mistake. He fumbled it so badly that, today, the Democratic Party is running a rather lengthy unedited excerpt of the president's news conference in an ad. Let me play it.
NOVAK: No, no, no, it's on -- it's a Web site. It's not...
BEGALA: It's an ad on their Web site, but it's an advertisement that they placed on their Web site. It's a partisan ad by the Democrats using the president's own words. And I want to thank him publicly for helping my party.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Here's a piece of that ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)
BUSH: John.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
What would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?
BUSH: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEGALA: Now, let me contrast that with the president you served, Ronald Reagan.
When Shiite terrorists far away blew up the Marine barracks that killed 241 Marines, this is what Ronald Reagan said. He didn't puff out his cheeks and say he never made a mistake.
He walked into the press room. He said this: "I do not believe that the local commanders on the ground, men who have already suffered quite enough, should be punished for not fully comprehending the nature of today's terrorist threat. If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office and with this president. And I accept responsibility for the bad, as well as the good."
Why doesn't George Bush have the character of Ronald Reagan?
ADELMAN: Well, because I think it's clear that there were going to be casualties in Iraq. And I think the president was very honest about that. I think the fact is that the slog in Iraq is harder a year out than it was -- than we expected before. And I think that that is quite clear. And if there was a mistake to be made
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: We've got to take a break.
ADELMAN: The estimate was that, by now, it would be a lot more peaceful. I grant you that.
NOVAK: We've got to take a break.
Next, our guests will enter the "Rapid Fire," and I'll ask whether there's any chance other countries will be sending troops to help out in Iraq.
And, right after the break, Wolf Blitzer has the latest on a disturbing video that reportedly shows a U.S. soldier being held hostage in Iraq by the terrorists.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.
Coming up at the top of the hour, breaking news out of Iraq, the Al-Jazeera network airing videotape of a man in a U.S. military uniform apparently held by Iraqi insurgents. We'll go live to the Pentagon.
And the compelling story of an Iraqi boy caught up in some of the war's worst fighting.
Also, John Kerry fights to stay in the headlines and the surprising take on the media's role in this year's election. You'll want to catch our segment "The Inside Edge With Carlos Watson" -- all that coming up, much more only minutes away on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS."
Now back to CROSSFIRE.
NOVAK: It's time for "Rapid Fire," where we ask questions even faster than John Kerry flip-flops on the issues.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: Our guests, Kerry campaign adviser Jamie Rubin and Ken Adelman, host of DefenseCentral.com, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board.
BEGALA: Ken, our vice president famously predicted to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" that we would be greeted as liberators. Was he hopelessly naive or intentionally misleading us?
ADELMAN: No, he was premature on that. I think it's clear that the Iraqis feel that their future is a lot brighter than it was under Saddam Hussein. And every year that goes buy, it's going to be brighter and brighter.
NOVAK: Jamie Rubin, as a student of foreign policy, do you think under any conditions you're going to see French, German or Russian troops in Iraq?
RUBIN: Absolutely, if we share the responsibility, share the decision-making, and don't try to own this. We have 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of the burden. But we have to share the responsibility and decision-making. We have to be tough on the terrorists, tough on the extremists, but smart enough to bring other countries in. And we can share the burden and share the risk. Absolutely, it can be done.
BEGALA: Ken, General Anthony Zinni, President Bush's former envoy to the Middle East, the CENTCOM commander, a Marine general, retired, says -- and I'm quoting him -- "Heads should roll in the Bush administration over Iraq." Whose heads should roll? Who should get fired?
ADELMAN: Yes, Zinni has been against the war from the start. He warned it -- I think he was on this show a few times, anyway. So that was his view. So let him have his view.
NOVAK: Some of the best troops in the world are anxious to go in there and help us. And they would cut down the Iraqis. The government wants to send them, the Turks. Would you send the Turks in?
RUBIN: Well, right now, we can't have the Turks in there because of the political mess that's been made of Iraq.
NOVAK: That's a no.
RUBIN: The Iraqi interim government has not supported it.
(BELL RINGING)
RUBIN: And the liberation wasn't the only mistake. Remember when Paul Wolfowitz said that -- this is my personal favorite -- that can oil would make the reconstruction of Iraq self-financing? And $200 billion later...
BEGALA: That's going to have to be -- that's going to have to be the last word.
Jamie Rubin, adviser to John Kerry, former Assistant Secretary of State Ken Adelman, former head of the Arms Control Disarmament Agency under President Reagan.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Thank you both for a good debate.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Still ahead, what do CROSSFIRE, Wayne Newton and Las Vegas have in common with each other? Stick around and find out.
Plus, she was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most vocal opponents. Next, find out who else Arianna Huffington is taking on in her new book, "Fanatics and Fools." I know which on I am.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOVAK: Out with a new book, this time she takes aim at her new friends in the Democratic Party, as well as her old friends in the GOP. Nothing modest about her aims described in the title of the new book, "Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America." And she's here to tell us about it.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Thanks for coming. I hope everybody buys it.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, AUTHOR, "FANATICS & FOOLS": Thank you.
BEGALA: Congratulations on the book.
Let me read you one excerpt from it which I particularly love: "The only explanation for the growing gap" -- you're right -- "between the Bush administration's delusional rhetoric and our not so rosy reality is that we are being governed by a gang of out-and-out fanatics." Do you really believe that?
HUFFINGTON: I really do.
Both on Iraq and on domestic policy, these are out-and-out fanatics. What is the essence of fanatics? They ignore the evidence. They ignore the facts. Remember, the president promised us millions of jobs because of his tax cuts. And he promised us a free and liberated Iraq that loves us when we invaded it. Both have been proven completely false. I explain the essence of fanaticism here so we can understand the headlines.
NOVAK: Arianna, I've got a question I've been dying to ask you for years. When I first met you, you were a right-wing extremist.
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Like you, Bob?
NOVAK: Well, I'm a right-wing extremist. I admit it.
And then the next thing I knew, overnight, you were a left-wing extremist. Was it like Paul on the road to Damascus?
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: Did you get something coming down from heaven? How did you change so completely so quickly?
HUFFINGTON: You know, Bob, I left the Republican Party in 1996. There has to be a statute of limitations. When I was a Republican, Dennis Miller was still a liberal and still funny.
(LAUGHTER)
HUFFINGTON: And Michael Jackson...
NOVAK: Do you think you changed souls with Dennis Miller?
HUFFINGTON: And Michael Jackson was still black.
(LAUGHTER)
HUFFINGTON: The bottom line is that I changed with the evidence.
The worst thing that you can have is somebody like George Bush, who never changes, because he says that he's never going to course- correct. That is the worst thing. And that's why right now I'm so absolutely adamant that we all have to do everything we can to send him back to Crawford, Texas, where he seems to be happiest anyway, right?
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Let me also, though, ask you. You are a Californian. You did run for governor. First off, what did you learn from that experience?
HUFFINGTON: Well, what I learned is the second part of the book. The first is the critique, fanatics and fools. The second is the game plan for winning back America.
What I learned is that John Kerry will not win in a landslide, which is what we want, right? We will not win in a landslide without an overarching moral vision against what the Republicans are putting forward. And here, I propose this vision. I call it the vision for a new responsibility and a contract. I have a contract for a better America, a 10-point plan that can actually get us on a new course.
Already, 56 percent of Americans believe we are on the wrong track.
NOVAK: Arianna, who are the jellyfish in the Democratic Party you're talking about?
HUFFINGTON: The jellyfish were Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, that went along with invading Iraq and the tax cuts. Thank God there was an uprising in the Democratic Party. The Deaniacs won the agenda, even though Howard Dean lost.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Arianna Huffington is the author. The book is "Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan For Winning Back America." I hope everybody buys it.
From the left, I am Paul Begala.
And join Tucker and me on Monday live from Las Vegas as we talk politics and hang out with Wayne Newton.
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: From the right, I'm Robert Novak.
"WOLF BLITZER REPORTS" starts right now.
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Aired April 16, 2004 - 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: united they stand, the target of blistering attacks over continued deadly fighting in Iraq.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we're seeing in Iraq is an attempted power grab by extremists and terrorists. They will fail.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It was never going to be easy and it isn't now.
ANNOUNCER: Can these allies under fire rally support for their cause?
And she was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest critics. Now look who else she's taking on -- today on CROSSFIRE.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Robert Novak.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to CROSSFIRE.
With British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side, the president of the United States today finally acknowledged that it's time for the United Nations to have what he called a central role in Iraq, this, of course, after the president turned his back on the U.N. for more than a year and as Iraqi insurgents continue to kill American troops.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: The president's plan for Iraq is the best one for bringing lasting peace to Iraq. It looks so good, because it's a lot better than getting no plan at all from John Kerry.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Tony Blair, President Bush is staying the course. We'll debate the Bush-Blair alliance on Iraq in a moment. Now the best little political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
The anti-Bush activists who feel no day is complete unless George W. Bush suffers some calamity were badly disappointed today. President Bush met with his staunchest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Would Blair move away from the American president in the face of the heavy fighting in Iraq and in the face of Bush's total support for Israeli Prime Minister Sharon? It did not happen, even though Blair faces even more political flak at home than Bush does here. Will the Bush bashers now become Blair bashers as well?
BEGALA: No, I'm a great fan and admirer of Tony Blair. I had the privilege of getting to know him long before he was prime minister. It was interesting.
It's a rare thing to see at the White House a world leader who actually speaks English. That helped. To begin with, Tony Blair, it's actually his first language. Mr. Bush sometimes could maybe use a translator to try to help him through that hurdle.
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: Well, you know, that's a smarmy little statement, Paul.
BEGALA: It's not smarmy. It's true. He speaks gibberish.
(BELL RINGING)
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: Maybe if you got to know George Bush as well as you do Tony, Blair, you'd feel differently. But you didn't answer my question.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Yes, I did. I knew Bush, actually, about 10 years ago. He's a lovely man. He doesn't speak English.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Well, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, even in the middle of the war against Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan, President Bush distracted his top military commanders with his obsession for invading Iraq. He even ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to prepare an invasion plan for Iraq in the middle of the war in Afghanistan.
This distraction reportedly sent General Tommy Franks into an obscenity-laced rage. Of course, we don't have to worry about who Mr. Woodward's deep throat source is on this news item. President Bush himself confessed it to Bob Woodward.
Now, I wonder, Bob, is the White House going to unleash their attack dogs on the president himself? Because he's the source of this terrible
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: I wonder if you ever get tired of attacking George W. Bush. But I don't ask you that, because I know you don't ever get tired of it.
BEGALA: No. No.
NOVAK: If you would read a little of Winston Churchill's memoirs, you would find that he was always concocting new plans in new theaters of operations and the generals were going into tantrums. Generals do not like to be disturbed by the elected leaders of the people.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: They were conducting a war. He was distracting them with his obsession with Iraq.
NOVAK: John Kerry buys into the Richard Nixon mold, turn to the center for the election after you've clinched the nomination.
He's not a redistribution Democrat, Kerry told fat-cat Republicans who paid $25,000 each to hear him at Manhattan's 21 Club. Kerry says he wants to reach out to Republicans, saying he doesn't want to go back to that nasty old Democratic liberal party of 25 years ago, claiming that Washington doesn't have all the answers.
Senator, if you don't want to redistribute income, why are you rolling back the upper-bracket tax cut?
BEGALA: Because we need the money because Bush ran up the deficit. Somebody's going to have to pay it off, either middle-class or rich people.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Why not? They have the most. Look, it's not John Kerry. It's Jesus Christ who said, from those to whom much has been given, much will be expected. You've been given a lot. Pay your damn taxes and quit whining.
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: I wish you would pay -- if you like to pay taxes so much, you can pay mine.
BEGALA: You should pay them and quite whining. This country's been good to you.
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: Let me ask you -- let me ask you -- let me ask you the question, Paul. Why does he go out -- you can be objective once in a while and say...
(BELL RINGING)
NOVAK: ... I don't want to redistribute income. If you increase taxes on the upper income, you do redistribute it.
BEGALA: When you cut them, you redistribute them, too. That's what Mr. Bush did.
Well, you may recall that our president recently said that Iraqi attacks on American troops were a sign of the success, yes, the success of his Iraq policy. Bush supporters understandably cringed. Opponents obviously jumped on it. But one man apparently took it seriously. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, repeated Mr. Bush's unique analysis yesterday, telling reports the insurgency in Iraq is -- quote -- "a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq" -- unquote.
Of course, by Mr. Bush's logic, if Iraq were at peace and if Iraqis were welcoming our soldiers as liberators and throwing flowers, instead of mortars, I suppose that would be a sign that we were failing.
NOVAK: Now, let me try to explain it to you. There's going to be a handover. The insurgents, the terrorists are trying to prevent the handover. They're trying to -- that's why they are worried. So there is an element of truth to that.
Now, I would say one other thing. If you want the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get out there and say, woe is me, woe is me, I believe in John Kerry...
(BELL RINGING)
NOVAK: ... he's not going to do it.
BEGALA: No, how about give us a plan, instead of repeating the moronic statements of the president, who says it's success when they kill us. No, success when they don't, when we win. That's what I want.
Anyway, it's a lonely job, of course, being an ally of President George W. Bush's. Next, with American casualties outnumbering British casualties by 10-1 in Iraq, is anybody in America impressed that George Bush has earned the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair?
And later, Arianna Huffington's new book says -- get this -- that being compared to a jellyfish would be a step up for some people in Washington. We'll talk about her who she's talking about later on CROSSFIRE.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
President Bush today sat down with his biggest supporter on Iraq. That, of course, would be British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has seen his once indomitable political support erode to the low 30s as a result of his support for Mr. Bush's war in Iraq. Of course, our president himself has seen his poll numbers fall as the casualty numbers rise. In the CROSSFIRE to debate all of this, Ken Adelman. He's the host of DefenseCentral.com and a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. And Kerry campaign adviser Jamie Rubin, who served as assistant secretary of state under the greatest president in my lifetime, Bill Clinton.
(LAUGHTER)
Thanks, both of you, for joining us.
(APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: Mr. Rubin, I'd like you to listen to something that Prime Minister Blair said after his meeting with the president today. Let's listen to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLAIR: What you're hearing from myself and the president of the United States is, we will stay there and we will get the job done because that's what we promised to do, and we will continue until it's finished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOVAK: Now, Mr. Rubin, I used to consider you a serious student of foreign policy when you're at the White House. I thought -- I mean, at the State Department. You were measured, objective. Try to get out of this campaign Begala type mode for a moment...
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: ... and tell me, what's wrong with what the prime minister said?
JAMIE RUBIN, ADVISER TO SENATOR JOHN KERRY: Well, nothing.
All Americans, all the people of the world I would hope at this point want America and Britain and the other countries to succeed in Iraq. We can't have a failed state in Iraq. We can't let it become a place where Osama bin Laden and the extremists take over. The question is not whether we want to succeed. All Americans want to succeed.
The question is how we do it. And the president has driven us down a dangerous course. He has not been able to attract international support. He hasn't had a plan. Time after time, again, they're revising their options. Senator Kerry has an approach to Iraq that I think will succeed. Everybody wants to succeed.
NOVAK: I wish you people would reveal it sometime. I would really like to hear it sometime.
RUBIN: I'll be happy to tell it to you. Are you ready for me to tell you right now?
(CROSSTALK) (APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: Well, you know, there's nothing different. Go ahead.
BEGALA: In fact, in an essay in "The Washington Post," I think it was this week, Senator Kerry laid out what he would do. His plan may be a good plan, may not be. You're more expert in these things than I am, Ken, but at least it's a plan.
And we've had -- casualties are mounting. This horrific video that's come in today of an American soldier being held hostage. I understand that POWs are a part of war and I understand the president will not waver. I salute that. I'm not worried about him wavering. I'm worried that he doesn't have a plan. Why does he continue to give these cheerleading speeches about how we're good and they're evil, which even I know that? Instead, give us a plan. Where is his plan?
KEN ADELMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR, U.S. ARMS CONTROL & DISARMAMENT AGENCY: Well, first of all, any plan has to have some resources to pay for our soldiers in Iraq.
It seems to me incoherent that Kerry says, I am for supporting our soldiers in Iraq, I am for supporting our soldiers in Afghanistan, I am for seeing it out and seeing Iraq succeed, as Jamie says right here, but then voting against the $87 billion that would go for that. You just can't say...
BEGALA: A fair point.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: ... zero money is going to point that effort. That doesn't make any sense. Otherwise
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: That's a fair point. It's actually not what I asked you, though, Ken. What is the president's...
ADELMAN: Otherwise, the plan is just a piece of paper on an op- ed page.
BEGALA: I understand that. I even agree.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: But what the hell is the president going to do?
ADELMAN: The president's plan is very clear, No. 1, turn over sovereignty on July 1 to Iraqis.
BEGALA: To whom?
ADELMAN: To Iraqis. You want me to go louder? Iraqis.
BEGALA: Anyone in particular? ADELMAN: Those who are put together...
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: There's 27 million of them.
(APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: Those who are put together by either an expanded Iraqi council or what the U.N. is doing right now, the U.N. representative, cobbling together some from each representative, which is fine with me. I don't care how they do that. And that's going to be an interim until there is elections next year. I think that's a very good plan.
NOVAK: Mr. Rubin, I want -- a lot of people are debating on the pages of "The Washington Post" today, which I think is a good idea. And former Senator Fred Thompson, with all due respect, I thought made a lot more sense than Kerry. He had a piece in it the .
And he said -- quote -- "The president's critics cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be in favor of winning the war and also oppose fighting it, funding it and offering any coherent strategy for succeeding at it."
What's your response to that?
RUBIN: Well, Senator Kerry wants to win the war, wants us to succeed, and he's got a very coherent plan.
No. 1, first, the president has to be honest with the American people. This is a dangerous and difficult situation. No. 2, we need to send in additional troops. It's obvious that we need more forces there. No. 3, we need a real involvement of the international community, a political involvement. This Iraqi interim government may be put together, but who's going to run the place? Who's going to do the ministries? Who's going to run the reconstruction? Who's going to provide security? Who's going to provide the police?
Senator Kerry would bring the international community in to help us do that. And the reason is
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: In other words, the French and the Germans are going to run
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIN: If we bring the rest of the world in with us, if we share responsibility, then we can do something extremely important. We can share the risk and share the burden and get others involved. Those four points constitute a lot more coherence than we've seen out of the Bush administration.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
ADELMAN: Let me ask you, Jamie, how can you do that -- how can you do that with zero funds? How can you do that without supporting the $87 billion for our troops in Iraq, for our troops in Afghanistan, for reconstruction? It doesn't make any sense. Otherwise, it's all a lot of paper.
RUBIN: Bob said that he thought I was a serious person. You're a serious person, too, Ken.
You know full well that John Kerry supports our troops and voted in favor of our troops with $87 billion, but he wanted that money to come from the...
ADELMAN: I thought he voted against it.
RUBIN: From the richest Americans. And this was politics.
President Bush said he would veto that bill if he didn't get everything he wanted. Is he against our troops? This is a phony canard. Everybody knows John Kerry is for these troops. This is political baloney.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: I don't know that.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
ADELMAN: I don't know it until just now. I don't know why he is for -- Jamie, I just don't understand why he's for it and votes against it. It doesn't make any sense.
RUBIN: This is political baloney. I expect more from you.
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: He voted against it. I don't understand it.
BEGALA: Let me take you back a couple days.
ADELMAN: He supports the bill and he votes against it.
BEGALA: The president in his press conference was asked a question where he made a mistake. He fumbled it so badly that, today, the Democratic Party is running a rather lengthy unedited excerpt of the president's news conference in an ad. Let me play it.
NOVAK: No, no, no, it's on -- it's a Web site. It's not...
BEGALA: It's an ad on their Web site, but it's an advertisement that they placed on their Web site. It's a partisan ad by the Democrats using the president's own words. And I want to thank him publicly for helping my party.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Here's a piece of that ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)
BUSH: John.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
What would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?
BUSH: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEGALA: Now, let me contrast that with the president you served, Ronald Reagan.
When Shiite terrorists far away blew up the Marine barracks that killed 241 Marines, this is what Ronald Reagan said. He didn't puff out his cheeks and say he never made a mistake.
He walked into the press room. He said this: "I do not believe that the local commanders on the ground, men who have already suffered quite enough, should be punished for not fully comprehending the nature of today's terrorist threat. If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office and with this president. And I accept responsibility for the bad, as well as the good."
Why doesn't George Bush have the character of Ronald Reagan?
ADELMAN: Well, because I think it's clear that there were going to be casualties in Iraq. And I think the president was very honest about that. I think the fact is that the slog in Iraq is harder a year out than it was -- than we expected before. And I think that that is quite clear. And if there was a mistake to be made
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: We've got to take a break.
ADELMAN: The estimate was that, by now, it would be a lot more peaceful. I grant you that.
NOVAK: We've got to take a break.
Next, our guests will enter the "Rapid Fire," and I'll ask whether there's any chance other countries will be sending troops to help out in Iraq.
And, right after the break, Wolf Blitzer has the latest on a disturbing video that reportedly shows a U.S. soldier being held hostage in Iraq by the terrorists.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.
Coming up at the top of the hour, breaking news out of Iraq, the Al-Jazeera network airing videotape of a man in a U.S. military uniform apparently held by Iraqi insurgents. We'll go live to the Pentagon.
And the compelling story of an Iraqi boy caught up in some of the war's worst fighting.
Also, John Kerry fights to stay in the headlines and the surprising take on the media's role in this year's election. You'll want to catch our segment "The Inside Edge With Carlos Watson" -- all that coming up, much more only minutes away on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS."
Now back to CROSSFIRE.
NOVAK: It's time for "Rapid Fire," where we ask questions even faster than John Kerry flip-flops on the issues.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
NOVAK: Our guests, Kerry campaign adviser Jamie Rubin and Ken Adelman, host of DefenseCentral.com, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board.
BEGALA: Ken, our vice president famously predicted to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" that we would be greeted as liberators. Was he hopelessly naive or intentionally misleading us?
ADELMAN: No, he was premature on that. I think it's clear that the Iraqis feel that their future is a lot brighter than it was under Saddam Hussein. And every year that goes buy, it's going to be brighter and brighter.
NOVAK: Jamie Rubin, as a student of foreign policy, do you think under any conditions you're going to see French, German or Russian troops in Iraq?
RUBIN: Absolutely, if we share the responsibility, share the decision-making, and don't try to own this. We have 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of the burden. But we have to share the responsibility and decision-making. We have to be tough on the terrorists, tough on the extremists, but smart enough to bring other countries in. And we can share the burden and share the risk. Absolutely, it can be done.
BEGALA: Ken, General Anthony Zinni, President Bush's former envoy to the Middle East, the CENTCOM commander, a Marine general, retired, says -- and I'm quoting him -- "Heads should roll in the Bush administration over Iraq." Whose heads should roll? Who should get fired?
ADELMAN: Yes, Zinni has been against the war from the start. He warned it -- I think he was on this show a few times, anyway. So that was his view. So let him have his view.
NOVAK: Some of the best troops in the world are anxious to go in there and help us. And they would cut down the Iraqis. The government wants to send them, the Turks. Would you send the Turks in?
RUBIN: Well, right now, we can't have the Turks in there because of the political mess that's been made of Iraq.
NOVAK: That's a no.
RUBIN: The Iraqi interim government has not supported it.
(BELL RINGING)
RUBIN: And the liberation wasn't the only mistake. Remember when Paul Wolfowitz said that -- this is my personal favorite -- that can oil would make the reconstruction of Iraq self-financing? And $200 billion later...
BEGALA: That's going to have to be -- that's going to have to be the last word.
Jamie Rubin, adviser to John Kerry, former Assistant Secretary of State Ken Adelman, former head of the Arms Control Disarmament Agency under President Reagan.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Thank you both for a good debate.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Still ahead, what do CROSSFIRE, Wayne Newton and Las Vegas have in common with each other? Stick around and find out.
Plus, she was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most vocal opponents. Next, find out who else Arianna Huffington is taking on in her new book, "Fanatics and Fools." I know which on I am.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOVAK: Out with a new book, this time she takes aim at her new friends in the Democratic Party, as well as her old friends in the GOP. Nothing modest about her aims described in the title of the new book, "Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America." And she's here to tell us about it.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Thanks for coming. I hope everybody buys it.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, AUTHOR, "FANATICS & FOOLS": Thank you.
BEGALA: Congratulations on the book.
Let me read you one excerpt from it which I particularly love: "The only explanation for the growing gap" -- you're right -- "between the Bush administration's delusional rhetoric and our not so rosy reality is that we are being governed by a gang of out-and-out fanatics." Do you really believe that?
HUFFINGTON: I really do.
Both on Iraq and on domestic policy, these are out-and-out fanatics. What is the essence of fanatics? They ignore the evidence. They ignore the facts. Remember, the president promised us millions of jobs because of his tax cuts. And he promised us a free and liberated Iraq that loves us when we invaded it. Both have been proven completely false. I explain the essence of fanaticism here so we can understand the headlines.
NOVAK: Arianna, I've got a question I've been dying to ask you for years. When I first met you, you were a right-wing extremist.
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Like you, Bob?
NOVAK: Well, I'm a right-wing extremist. I admit it.
And then the next thing I knew, overnight, you were a left-wing extremist. Was it like Paul on the road to Damascus?
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: Did you get something coming down from heaven? How did you change so completely so quickly?
HUFFINGTON: You know, Bob, I left the Republican Party in 1996. There has to be a statute of limitations. When I was a Republican, Dennis Miller was still a liberal and still funny.
(LAUGHTER)
HUFFINGTON: And Michael Jackson...
NOVAK: Do you think you changed souls with Dennis Miller?
HUFFINGTON: And Michael Jackson was still black.
(LAUGHTER)
HUFFINGTON: The bottom line is that I changed with the evidence.
The worst thing that you can have is somebody like George Bush, who never changes, because he says that he's never going to course- correct. That is the worst thing. And that's why right now I'm so absolutely adamant that we all have to do everything we can to send him back to Crawford, Texas, where he seems to be happiest anyway, right?
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Let me also, though, ask you. You are a Californian. You did run for governor. First off, what did you learn from that experience?
HUFFINGTON: Well, what I learned is the second part of the book. The first is the critique, fanatics and fools. The second is the game plan for winning back America.
What I learned is that John Kerry will not win in a landslide, which is what we want, right? We will not win in a landslide without an overarching moral vision against what the Republicans are putting forward. And here, I propose this vision. I call it the vision for a new responsibility and a contract. I have a contract for a better America, a 10-point plan that can actually get us on a new course.
Already, 56 percent of Americans believe we are on the wrong track.
NOVAK: Arianna, who are the jellyfish in the Democratic Party you're talking about?
HUFFINGTON: The jellyfish were Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, that went along with invading Iraq and the tax cuts. Thank God there was an uprising in the Democratic Party. The Deaniacs won the agenda, even though Howard Dean lost.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Arianna Huffington is the author. The book is "Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan For Winning Back America." I hope everybody buys it.
From the left, I am Paul Begala.
And join Tucker and me on Monday live from Las Vegas as we talk politics and hang out with Wayne Newton.
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: From the right, I'm Robert Novak.
"WOLF BLITZER REPORTS" starts right now.
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