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CNN Crossfire
Bush-Kerry Record Wars
Aired April 22, 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: the record wars. The latest skirmish, Kerry's war records and his wife's tax records. The next battle, a secret White House task force. Who's coming clean and who isn't?
Today on CROSSFIRE.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to CROSSFIRE.
War records, tax records, meeting records. Who's coming clean in the race for the White House and what are the candidates doing to avoid a disclosure gap?
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Well, in just a moment, we'll ask those questions of Tad Devine of the Kerry campaign and Republican strategist Charlie Black.
Now the best political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
Well, throughout the 1990s, the people of Iraq suffered terribly under U.N. sanctions. Untold thousands of the weak, the elderly and the very young died of disease and hunger, as the civilized world tried to check Saddam Hussein's power. We've known this for years. What we didn't know was that Iraqi civilians were dying.
Meanwhile, senior U.N. officials may have been growing rich from the arrangement under something called the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was supposed to provide sustenance to the country's poor. Instead, it looks like greedy U.N. bureaucrats took kickbacks from Saddam's government, thereby subverting the program. The charges appear to be true. We'll know for sure very soon.
Meanwhile, keep this in mind the next time John Kerry demands as he does nearly every day that we turn all the authority in Iraq to this very same United Nations.
BEGALA: So are you equally incensed that, say, Halliburton is alleged to have taken kickbacks in the current context
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Oh, this is -- that is so stupid. I can't believe you would say that.
BEGALA: That's an important criminal investigation that's going on.
CARLSON: First of all, 30 Halliburton employees have just died. If they're overcharging the federal government for goods and services, let's have an investigation into it.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But to compare what the U.N. is
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: So who is going to investigate it? John Ashcroft? Is he going to investigate Halliburton?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Compared to what the U.N. is accused of doing, where thousands upon thousands of Iraqis died, the United Nations is not supposed to do that.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: That is a good point.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Paul Volcker is investigating that for the U.N. Who's investigating Halliburton for our government? John Ashcroft?
CARLSON: Who cares? It's such a nonstory.
BEGALA: Yes. Well, to you.
Well, today, as of course you all know, is Earth Day. The National Council of Churches today sent a scathing letter to President Bush expressing -- quote -- "grave moral concern" -- unquote -- about President Bush's plan to weaken clean air standards. Now, so what if the Council of Churches represents 50 million or so people of faith across America? I'm with our president with this one.
If God didn't want more arsenic in the water, more mercury in the air, more toxic waste in the ground, why did he create Republicans in the first place?
(APPLAUSE) BEGALA: Now, look, I thank God that our president has the courage to stand against these faith-based extremists. George W. Bush stands for a strong America. And if pregnant women aren't strong enough to withstand a little mercury, well, then, so be it.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: And if our kids aren't strong enough to take a 500 percent arsenic in their water, how the hell are they going to be able to handle a strong glass of bourbon?
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: This is important. Tucker, the president is right about this.
CARLSON: You know what?
BEGALA: We need more arsenic.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: I'm not going to disagree with your bourbon comment. I think it's a fine American drink.
But I will say, to cite the National Council of Churches as a moral authority is comic. This is a group that supports Fidel Castro. They supported the civil unions.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: So, what, Bob Jones University
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Bob Jones University has much more moral authority than the National Council of Churches ever thought of having.
BEGALA: Bob Jones University is racist.
(BELL RINGING)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: I don't care. They're still, they're still morally -- they're morally superior to the National Council of Churches. That's a joke. Come on.
BEGALA: Bob Jones University.
CARLSON: Well, speaking of someone who's not a joke, Ralph Nader, he's just begun his latest run for president and already he has raised enough money to qualify for federal matching funds. Nader has brought in about $600,000 in the very first two months of his campaign. That's far more than he raised at the same time four years ago when he ran last time.
Ralph Nader is on a roll. He has genuine support from ordinary liberals. He is indisputably a legitimate voice of dissent on the left. And, boy, do they need it. You'd never know any of this, though, from listening to the Democratic Party hacks who crowd the airwaves. They describe Nader as selfish, isolated, even deranged. They attack him relentlessly.
But that's not why they really hate him. They hate Ralph Nader because he's inconvenient. And that's the ultimate sin in a party that believes in nothing. Well, tough luck.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Ralph Nader is here. He's well-funded. Get used to it.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Ralph Nader is selfish, isolated and deranged, to quote you.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Why are you attacking the guy personally? Believe who people in things support him.
BEGALA: Do you mind if I respond?
CARLSON: Just why attack the guy?
BEGALA: Why are you talking when I'm...
CARLSON: Because he's a great American and you're beating him up.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Ralph Nader helped to allow the Supreme Court to steal the election for George Bush. If he believes in the things he says he believes in, he should help the Democrats.
CARLSON: Oh, he's inconvenient. So you shouldn't vote for him even if you agree with him, because he's somehow getting in the way of the party machinery? Is that what you're saying?
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: If you vote for Ralph Nader, you're voting for George W. Bush.
CARLSON: Really? Actually, no.
(APPLAUSE) BEGALA: Which is why you are trying to get people to support
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: People are supporting him because they believe what he says.
BEGALA: No, because they're trying to help Bush.
CARLSON: Because they believe in him.
BEGALA: A lot of his money, by the way, has come from Republicans.
CARLSON: That's not true.
BEGALA: Yes, it is.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: On a sadder note today, Washington is dreary and dull and dark on this spring afternoon. Mary McGrory, for 50 years, the lilting, laughing voice of reason in Washington journalism, died last night at George Washington Hospital.
Mary McGrory was the single finest writer of her day or any other day that I can think of, a liberal lioness whose pride included the sharpest minds and strongest souls of several generations. Mary lampooned Joe McCarthy, loved John F. Kennedy, loathed Richard Nixon, and lavished time and affection on the orphans at Saint Ann's Infant and Maternity Home here in Washington.
Mary McGrory used the English language the way Jacques Cousteau used the aqualung, to show us hidden depths, strange creatures and startling beauty in scenes the rest of us would have passed over without a second glance.
Just one example of thousands, one of my favorites, Mary called the choice between Al Gore and George W. Bush -- quote -- "the battle between the unlikable and the unprepared."
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Mary McGrory was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. And today, we mourn the first lady of American journalism.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well, that was lovely, I have to say. And you wrote that only because you're faster than I. I hope to write something like that. I wouldn't have done as nice a job as you did.
I loved Mary McGrory, never agreed with a single word she said. I knew her the entire time I've here lived in Washington. She was the least uptight liberal I've ever met. She told me once that the one thing she was sad about in journalism was that people don't drink as much in newsrooms as they used to.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: She was a complete riot and a lovely person.
BEGALA: You're right. Those of us on the left could learn from her. She knew how to have a good time. And she loved a good laugh and got along with conservatives like you, who have a sense of humor, just as well as she got along with her liberal friends.
CARLSON: She was fantastic.
BEGALA: She was great. She will be missed.
CARLSON: Mary McGrory, RIP.
Well, for military records to records of closed door-White House meetings, the presidential campaign is turning into a question of what to reveal and when. So just who is winning the record war and what is going to be revealed next?
And later, it was anything but a garden party when a senator's wife tried to pick up mulch at a nursery here in Washington. We'll get to the root of the story later on CROSSFIRE.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
The record wars. Kerry is now out with his military records. President Bush under pressure released his National Guard records, such as they were, even though they failed to prove that he fulfilled all of his Guard requirements. But the White House refuses to release records of its energy task force. It's fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, which will hear the case next week.
So who's coming clean here and who isn't? In the CROSSFIRE today, Republican strategist Charlie Black and Tad Devine. He is a senior adviser for the Kerry campaign.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Thanks for joining us.
I've got nothing against Mrs. Kerry personally. In fact, I like her. But it's pretty hard to argue that we shouldn't see her tax returns considering she has helped financing your campaign.
TAD DEVINE, SENIOR JOHN KERRY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: I don't think it's hard to argue at all.
CARLSON: Here's what "The Philadelphia Inquirer," hardly a right-wing newspaper, editorialized yesterday -- quote -- "Kerry's defenders argue that his wife's finances are -- quote -- 'not relevant.' Hardly. Heinz-Kerry, the heiress to the ketchup fortune of her late, Senator John Heinz, is worth at least $500 million. She and Kerry have five homes, with property taxes totally more than his annual Senate income. She obviously helps to support his lifestyle. How is that irrelevant?"
When are you going to release her tax return?
DEVINE: Tucker, because she's married to a United States senator, she has disclosed enormous amounts of her financial data, her personal financial personal data. It's public record. It's available.
There's a mountain of documents that people can look at. So, you know, in terms of disclosure, John Kerry and his campaign have disclosed more information about more things than anyone in the course of presidential history. OK?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I'll give you that, absolutely. Absolutely.
DEVINE: I appreciate that.
CARLSON: You still haven't answered my question, though.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Hold on. Let me finish.
Considering that he would not be the presumptive nominee right now if it weren't for her -- of course, she kept his campaign afloat with a $6 million mortgage. You know it's true.
DEVINE: He borrowed his own equity in his own home.
CARLSON: OK.
DEVINE: That's what happened.
CARLSON: But if you're willing to disclose everything, why not disclose her tax return? Simple question. Why not?
DEVINE: As he said on "Meet the Press," listen, they've disclosed an enormous amount of information.
CARLSON: Well, why not those?
DEVINE: Why should she? She's not running for president.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: And, listen, if, as John Kerry said, as John Kerry said, listen, after people look at the mountain of information that's publicly available, if someone's got a legitimate question, sure, he would look at it, OK? But there's no need to, because there's so much out there already.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Charlie, let's take a look. I wanted you to introduce you to Adam Abrams. Adam is a young man who works for the Kerry campaign. He's got this mountain of documents here. Take a look at this.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Hi, Adam. Say hi to your mom.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Have a seat, Adam.
BEGALA: This is -- this stack, Charlie Black, over a foot high, financial disclosures from John and Teresa Heinz Kerry since the day that they were married. These are publicly available to any right- wing kook or hack who wants to go through them.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Why don't you all feast on that and then tell me what is missing?
CHARLIE BLACK, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, you shouldn't be calling "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" right-wing kooks and hacks, Paul, to start with.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: I'm talking about the right-wingers who are beating up on this woman for no good reason.
CARLSON: Nobody is beating up on a woman.
BEGALA: Sure you are.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: There's a very simple reason she needs to release her tax returns.
BEGALA: What's wrong with what is in here?
BLACK: In these documents, Senator Kerry reported to the Senate for several years his net worth of several hundred thousand dollars. Yet he put $6 million into his campaign. Therefore, it came from her funds. Every spouse of a presidential candidate for 30 years has released their tax returns. She will, too. It's just a matter of time.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: But what has she not disclosed? What is missing from this mountain of documentation?
BLACK: I don't know, but "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" will figure it out.
BEGALA: So you can't name a single thing you actually want to know. You just want to snoop in a lady's underwear drawer.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: God almighty, Charlie. Have some decency here.
(APPLAUSE)
BLACK: Paul, it turned out there was nothing missing from the president's military records either, but you
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Except a year of duty. Yes, that was missing.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BLACK: But he did serve. It proved that he did serve.
CARLSON: Charlie does raise a fascinating question, which is, where did John Kerry get that $6 million? What's the answer to that? Maybe you could look through those records and give it me.
DEVINE: Well, you can see the mountain that's already available.
CARLSON: But where did he get the six million bucks?
DEVINE: Tucker, the only reason this is being raised because George Bush, his campaign, don't want to talk about real issues, like jobs, health care, the environment.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Here's my question. Here's my question.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: You crack me up, Tad. I'm asking you a simple question. Maybe you give me an answer.
DEVINE: Sure. Sure. CARLSON: Where did he get the $6 million that he put into his campaign, which was out of money? And that money helped him become the front-runner. Where did that money come from?
(APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: Are you ready for the answer?
CARLSON: Yes, I am.
DEVINE: It came from the equity in his home.
CARLSON: Did he buy that house? Did he buy that house? Did he buy that house?
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: It's worth a lot more today than it was the day he bought it.
CARLSON: Did he buy that house?
BLACK: She bought the house with cash, with cash. She didn't even mortgage it, 100 percent her money. So cough up the tax return.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Charlie, I have a disclosure to our audience. I like you. I know you're real gentleman.
BLACK: I like you, too. You know that.
BEGALA: I think the world of you.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: You're about to be called a sexist, I think.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: I am troubled -- I am troubled by some of our friends on the right who have -- I'm noticing a trend here. Bill Clinton becomes the leading Democrat. They attack his wife, Hillary. Joseph Wilson blows the whistle on an obvious misstatement that the president makes about the threat from nuclear arms in Iraq. They attack his wife.
Somebody leaks to our Bob Novak the fact that she's a CIA agent, ruins her career. Now, John Kerry, leading Democrat, going to beat George Bush, and the right is attacking his wife.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Why do you all -- why does your party attack wives? It's just like some.... BLACK: First, first of all, we've just proven the point that it's her money that is funding his campaign. For 30 years
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Attack him. He's got a 30-year record. He must have made some mistakes.
BLACK: For 30 years, since it became fashionable for candidates to release tax returns, every single spouse has released them. And I predict that she will, too. Now, if any candidate's spouse, male or female, hooked up a deal like the Whitewater thing down there, you would want
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: So we attack her Hillary some more? Let the record show, no Democrat has ever attacked Laura Bush, because she is a delight.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: Laura Bush never cooked up a Whitewater deal. I guarantee you that.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Let me get in here. You're not going to call anybody a sexist, are you? Just so we an move forward, you're not accusing anybody of hating women just for asking questions about tax returns, are you?
BEGALA: No, they just beat them. They beat on them.
CARLSON: You know, that's disgusting. You know, that's disgusting.
Now, John Kerry was asked
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Excuse me. Was asked
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Will you reveal all the lobbyists who you've met with? John Kerry was asked, will you reveal lobbyists you've met with? He said, absolutely.
DEVINE: Which is he did yesterday.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Really? Did he really? Because here's what "The Washington Post" said.
DEVINE: Yes, he did. OK.
CARLSON: "The Kerry list appears to be incomplete of lobbyists he met with. Several lobbyists contacted, say they had additional encounters with the Massachusetts Democrat over the years that are not listed on the report. For instance, Robert E. Juliano, a Democratic lobbyist, says he remembers dining with Kerry more than once between 1989 and October 2003. He's listed as having dinner with Kerry only once, on July 21, 1999."
Is Robert E. Juliano lying or is the Kerry campaign just not being....
DEVINE: Tucker, yesterday, John Kerry in an unprecedented fashion, released every one, lobbyists, he met with that he had records of for the last 15 years.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: But the president and his vice president refuse to tell us who he met with to develop the energy policy, the oil companies he met with for the oil policy of this country. It is unbelievable.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: He's putting arsenic in the water, but I'm not here to represent the Bush campaign. I'm here to ask you a very simple question about a Democratic lobbyist.
DEVINE: Who knows. Maybe they had dinner more than once.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: So the details don't matter? Is that what you're saying?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Because John Kerry said the details do matter.
DEVINE: Let me tell you something, Tucker. It is unbelievable that John Kerry would do what he did yesterday, disclose every lobbyist he met with.
CARLSON: But he apparently didn't.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Which he promised to do, which he promised to do.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: ... dinner with Charlie Black one night. (CROSSTALK)
BLACK: ... 200 lobbyists over 15 years. That's about one a month. He's not working very hard as a senator if he only meets once a month with a lobbyist.
(APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: The lobbyist has spoken, all right?
BEGALA: You would know.
Democrats actually meet with people, not just lobbyists. But the vice president of the United States, he works for me, he works for you, he works for everybody in this audience. We pay his salary and we give him a nice home to live in. What on earth is he doing meeting in secret with Enron lobbyists and not telling us who he met with and what they talked about?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BLACK: Well, you know...
BEGALA: He's not someone's spouse. He's not a woman, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Shouldn't he have to disclose that?
BLACK: You don't know if he met with Enron lobbyists because they have kept it secret.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Some of the Enron lobbyists have admitted in.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Ken Lay admitted on the record he met with him. So we know that.
BLACK: His task force met with hundreds of people from all parts of the energy industry.
BEGALA: Why is he ashamed of it?
BLACK: Well, it's not a matter of that. It's a matter of the constitutional prerogatives of presidents and vice presidents to get private advice.
BEGALA: From lobbyists.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Where is that in the Constitution?
BLACK: Let's talk about -- let's talk about the end product. That task force produced an energy bill which would....
BEGALA: Was written by lobbyists. I want to know which ones and what they gave
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
BLACK: What the bill will do is provide more energy, more clean energy and more renewable energy sources. And John Kerry and Tom Daschle are blocking it in the Senate. If you're so concerned about the task force, get Kerry to go show up one day and pass the energy bill.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: I'll tell you why they're blocking it. It's Earth Day. They care about the environment, OK, something that doesn't happen in the Republican Party very often.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: What did Kerry and Bill Clinton do about mercury?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Here's the irony in all this, is that John Kerry spent a lot of the primary pounding on noble little Howard Dean for not releasing 45 boxes of material that he -- 145 boxes that he didn't want to release.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Here's Stephanie Cutter, the spokeswoman: "There's one person who could open these records to public inspection. And that's Howard Dean. Dean says voters have the power. If Dean really means what he says, he should trust voters with that information."
DEVINE: And we say the same thing about Bush now with the energy records.
CARLSON: But you don't apply the same standards to yourselves. And I wonder why.
DEVINE: Are you kidding? The disclosure of lobbyist meetings was the first time in history that it has ever been done by anyone.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Not just running for president and a United States senator.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But it falls short of his own standard.
DEVINE: He disclosed earlier this week all of his military records. And we're grateful that there are friends, Republican friends, who want to see his military records, so we can see how he earned the Silver Star, how he earned the Bronze Star and all three Purple Hearts, too.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Wow.
DEVINE: So let's get it out there.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: OK. You're winning me over, Tad Devine. Whew, what a candidate.
OK, when we return, our guest face the "Rapid Fire." And we'll ask whether John Kerry is violating what said would be a hallmark of his campaign. Did you believe him the first time?
And right after the break, the U.S. government has a new message for former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Wolf Blitzer will tell us what it is.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.
Coming up at the top of the hour, enemies turned allies? A potentially significant shift in policy by the U.S.-led coalition, now tapping into the ranks of Saddam's former regime.
A controversy that John Kerry cannot shake, his Vietnam service under hot debate. I'll speak live to a fellow veteran, a fellow Democrat, the former candidate General Wesley Clark.
Critical components missing from a Vermont nuclear power plant. Officials there face some tough questions. And I have some for a key company executive who joins me live.
Those stories, much more only minutes away on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS."
Now back to CROSSFIRE.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. Time for "Rapid Fire."
Dry topic, but we're making it fun.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: We're talking about the Bush-Kerry record wars, who is coming clean and who is not.
In the CROSSFIRE today, Tad Devine. He's the senior adviser to the John Kerry for president campaign. And Republican strategist Charlie Black.
BEGALA: Charlie, in one of my few moments I ever defended George W. Bush, he was running for president in 2000 and refused to answer the question, have you ever used illegal drugs? I thought it was an unfair question. Bush was right to refuse to answer, because there should be some small zone of privacy. Why can't you give a candidate's wife some small zone of privacy? Isn't it kind of hypocritical?
BLACK: I'll commit that we will not ask John Kerry if he ever used illegal drugs. How about that?
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: I just don't care about that. It's his wife.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: It's his wife's money. His wife's money got him the nomination. And, for all know, there may be more
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Now, Tad, you know as well as I do that at some point these tax returns are going to come out. It's not an attack on Mrs. Kerry. It's just a fact. When you think they're going to come out?
DEVINE: Tucker, listen, wait for the mountain first, as he said on "Meet the Press."
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Right. But, at some point, they're going to come out. Do you think in the next two months, six months?
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: I think she has a right to privacy. And if she decides not to put them out, I think that's fine. Listen, most of her -- the things she's involved in are very transparent anyway. And, listen, I think for 10 years filing these public records, that is more than enough for someone to do, more than enough.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Charlie, the conservatives asked for the release of Senator Kerry's war records and they got them, three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star. He's described in his performance evaluation as one of the most heroic officers in the Navy.
Let me read from President Bush's: "Lieutenant Bush has not been observed at this unit during this period of this report." (LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: After all of the digging and moaning and groaning, the net effect of his records was that he did in fact serve and was discharged honorably. Senator Kerry is a hero. He served very honorably and bravely. And nobody's taking that away from him. We will never criticize his military service.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: All right.
CARLSON: Tad Devine, I want to read you a quote from Senator Kerry that sounds a little comic now -- quote -- "As president, openness will be the hallmark of my administration, not some talking point."
You kind of wince when you hear that now, don't you?
DEVINE: No, I don't, especially not after this week, when he released all his military records and made unprecedented disclosure in respect to lobbyists. I'll tell you, he's setting new ground. He's breaking new ground in this, Tucker.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Right, but he's not living up to this at all.
(CROSSTALK)
(BELL RINGING)
DEVINE: Tucker, this White House has been the most secretive White House since Richard Nixon, OK? That's what's going on in America today.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: That will be the last word.
Tad Devine from the Kerry campaign, Charlie Black, my friend from the Republican Party, the ace strategist over there, thank you both.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: When we come back, you're not going to quite believe this. A senator's wife is arrested for fighting over a dirt bag. Is this the quintessential Washington story or what?
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Stay with us. (APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Digging into the CROSSFIRE police blotter, if you thought gardening was just a peaceful and pastoral exercise, you weren't at Johnson's Flower and Garden Center here in Washington earlier this week. That's where a woman claims she was attacked by Wanda Baucus, the wife of Montana Senator Max Baucus.
An employee of the flower shop tells CNN the two women got into an argument while waiting for bags of mulch to be loaded into their cars.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Words were exchange and Mrs. Baucus allegedly struck the woman. "The Washington Post" reports she's pleading not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.
CARLSON: In her defense, Paul, the retail experience for many people is a very stressful one.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: It was mulch rage.
CARLSON: Yes, mulch rage.
BEGALA: Mulch rage. Rose rage.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: From the left, I am Paul Begala. That's it for CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: From the right, I'm Tucker Carlson.
Join us again tomorrow for yet more CROSSFIRE. Have a great night.
(APPLAUSE)
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Aired April 22, 2004 - 16:30 ET
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE. On the left, James Carville and Paul Begala; on the right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.
In the CROSSFIRE: the record wars. The latest skirmish, Kerry's war records and his wife's tax records. The next battle, a secret White House task force. Who's coming clean and who isn't?
Today on CROSSFIRE.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to CROSSFIRE.
War records, tax records, meeting records. Who's coming clean in the race for the White House and what are the candidates doing to avoid a disclosure gap?
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Well, in just a moment, we'll ask those questions of Tad Devine of the Kerry campaign and Republican strategist Charlie Black.
Now the best political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
Well, throughout the 1990s, the people of Iraq suffered terribly under U.N. sanctions. Untold thousands of the weak, the elderly and the very young died of disease and hunger, as the civilized world tried to check Saddam Hussein's power. We've known this for years. What we didn't know was that Iraqi civilians were dying.
Meanwhile, senior U.N. officials may have been growing rich from the arrangement under something called the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was supposed to provide sustenance to the country's poor. Instead, it looks like greedy U.N. bureaucrats took kickbacks from Saddam's government, thereby subverting the program. The charges appear to be true. We'll know for sure very soon.
Meanwhile, keep this in mind the next time John Kerry demands as he does nearly every day that we turn all the authority in Iraq to this very same United Nations.
BEGALA: So are you equally incensed that, say, Halliburton is alleged to have taken kickbacks in the current context
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Oh, this is -- that is so stupid. I can't believe you would say that.
BEGALA: That's an important criminal investigation that's going on.
CARLSON: First of all, 30 Halliburton employees have just died. If they're overcharging the federal government for goods and services, let's have an investigation into it.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But to compare what the U.N. is
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: So who is going to investigate it? John Ashcroft? Is he going to investigate Halliburton?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Compared to what the U.N. is accused of doing, where thousands upon thousands of Iraqis died, the United Nations is not supposed to do that.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: That is a good point.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Paul Volcker is investigating that for the U.N. Who's investigating Halliburton for our government? John Ashcroft?
CARLSON: Who cares? It's such a nonstory.
BEGALA: Yes. Well, to you.
Well, today, as of course you all know, is Earth Day. The National Council of Churches today sent a scathing letter to President Bush expressing -- quote -- "grave moral concern" -- unquote -- about President Bush's plan to weaken clean air standards. Now, so what if the Council of Churches represents 50 million or so people of faith across America? I'm with our president with this one.
If God didn't want more arsenic in the water, more mercury in the air, more toxic waste in the ground, why did he create Republicans in the first place?
(APPLAUSE) BEGALA: Now, look, I thank God that our president has the courage to stand against these faith-based extremists. George W. Bush stands for a strong America. And if pregnant women aren't strong enough to withstand a little mercury, well, then, so be it.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: And if our kids aren't strong enough to take a 500 percent arsenic in their water, how the hell are they going to be able to handle a strong glass of bourbon?
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: This is important. Tucker, the president is right about this.
CARLSON: You know what?
BEGALA: We need more arsenic.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: I'm not going to disagree with your bourbon comment. I think it's a fine American drink.
But I will say, to cite the National Council of Churches as a moral authority is comic. This is a group that supports Fidel Castro. They supported the civil unions.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: So, what, Bob Jones University
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Bob Jones University has much more moral authority than the National Council of Churches ever thought of having.
BEGALA: Bob Jones University is racist.
(BELL RINGING)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: I don't care. They're still, they're still morally -- they're morally superior to the National Council of Churches. That's a joke. Come on.
BEGALA: Bob Jones University.
CARLSON: Well, speaking of someone who's not a joke, Ralph Nader, he's just begun his latest run for president and already he has raised enough money to qualify for federal matching funds. Nader has brought in about $600,000 in the very first two months of his campaign. That's far more than he raised at the same time four years ago when he ran last time.
Ralph Nader is on a roll. He has genuine support from ordinary liberals. He is indisputably a legitimate voice of dissent on the left. And, boy, do they need it. You'd never know any of this, though, from listening to the Democratic Party hacks who crowd the airwaves. They describe Nader as selfish, isolated, even deranged. They attack him relentlessly.
But that's not why they really hate him. They hate Ralph Nader because he's inconvenient. And that's the ultimate sin in a party that believes in nothing. Well, tough luck.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Ralph Nader is here. He's well-funded. Get used to it.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Ralph Nader is selfish, isolated and deranged, to quote you.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Why are you attacking the guy personally? Believe who people in things support him.
BEGALA: Do you mind if I respond?
CARLSON: Just why attack the guy?
BEGALA: Why are you talking when I'm...
CARLSON: Because he's a great American and you're beating him up.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Ralph Nader helped to allow the Supreme Court to steal the election for George Bush. If he believes in the things he says he believes in, he should help the Democrats.
CARLSON: Oh, he's inconvenient. So you shouldn't vote for him even if you agree with him, because he's somehow getting in the way of the party machinery? Is that what you're saying?
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: If you vote for Ralph Nader, you're voting for George W. Bush.
CARLSON: Really? Actually, no.
(APPLAUSE) BEGALA: Which is why you are trying to get people to support
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: People are supporting him because they believe what he says.
BEGALA: No, because they're trying to help Bush.
CARLSON: Because they believe in him.
BEGALA: A lot of his money, by the way, has come from Republicans.
CARLSON: That's not true.
BEGALA: Yes, it is.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: On a sadder note today, Washington is dreary and dull and dark on this spring afternoon. Mary McGrory, for 50 years, the lilting, laughing voice of reason in Washington journalism, died last night at George Washington Hospital.
Mary McGrory was the single finest writer of her day or any other day that I can think of, a liberal lioness whose pride included the sharpest minds and strongest souls of several generations. Mary lampooned Joe McCarthy, loved John F. Kennedy, loathed Richard Nixon, and lavished time and affection on the orphans at Saint Ann's Infant and Maternity Home here in Washington.
Mary McGrory used the English language the way Jacques Cousteau used the aqualung, to show us hidden depths, strange creatures and startling beauty in scenes the rest of us would have passed over without a second glance.
Just one example of thousands, one of my favorites, Mary called the choice between Al Gore and George W. Bush -- quote -- "the battle between the unlikable and the unprepared."
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Mary McGrory was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. And today, we mourn the first lady of American journalism.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well, that was lovely, I have to say. And you wrote that only because you're faster than I. I hope to write something like that. I wouldn't have done as nice a job as you did.
I loved Mary McGrory, never agreed with a single word she said. I knew her the entire time I've here lived in Washington. She was the least uptight liberal I've ever met. She told me once that the one thing she was sad about in journalism was that people don't drink as much in newsrooms as they used to.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: She was a complete riot and a lovely person.
BEGALA: You're right. Those of us on the left could learn from her. She knew how to have a good time. And she loved a good laugh and got along with conservatives like you, who have a sense of humor, just as well as she got along with her liberal friends.
CARLSON: She was fantastic.
BEGALA: She was great. She will be missed.
CARLSON: Mary McGrory, RIP.
Well, for military records to records of closed door-White House meetings, the presidential campaign is turning into a question of what to reveal and when. So just who is winning the record war and what is going to be revealed next?
And later, it was anything but a garden party when a senator's wife tried to pick up mulch at a nursery here in Washington. We'll get to the root of the story later on CROSSFIRE.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.
The record wars. Kerry is now out with his military records. President Bush under pressure released his National Guard records, such as they were, even though they failed to prove that he fulfilled all of his Guard requirements. But the White House refuses to release records of its energy task force. It's fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, which will hear the case next week.
So who's coming clean here and who isn't? In the CROSSFIRE today, Republican strategist Charlie Black and Tad Devine. He is a senior adviser for the Kerry campaign.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Thanks for joining us.
I've got nothing against Mrs. Kerry personally. In fact, I like her. But it's pretty hard to argue that we shouldn't see her tax returns considering she has helped financing your campaign.
TAD DEVINE, SENIOR JOHN KERRY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: I don't think it's hard to argue at all.
CARLSON: Here's what "The Philadelphia Inquirer," hardly a right-wing newspaper, editorialized yesterday -- quote -- "Kerry's defenders argue that his wife's finances are -- quote -- 'not relevant.' Hardly. Heinz-Kerry, the heiress to the ketchup fortune of her late, Senator John Heinz, is worth at least $500 million. She and Kerry have five homes, with property taxes totally more than his annual Senate income. She obviously helps to support his lifestyle. How is that irrelevant?"
When are you going to release her tax return?
DEVINE: Tucker, because she's married to a United States senator, she has disclosed enormous amounts of her financial data, her personal financial personal data. It's public record. It's available.
There's a mountain of documents that people can look at. So, you know, in terms of disclosure, John Kerry and his campaign have disclosed more information about more things than anyone in the course of presidential history. OK?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I'll give you that, absolutely. Absolutely.
DEVINE: I appreciate that.
CARLSON: You still haven't answered my question, though.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Hold on. Let me finish.
Considering that he would not be the presumptive nominee right now if it weren't for her -- of course, she kept his campaign afloat with a $6 million mortgage. You know it's true.
DEVINE: He borrowed his own equity in his own home.
CARLSON: OK.
DEVINE: That's what happened.
CARLSON: But if you're willing to disclose everything, why not disclose her tax return? Simple question. Why not?
DEVINE: As he said on "Meet the Press," listen, they've disclosed an enormous amount of information.
CARLSON: Well, why not those?
DEVINE: Why should she? She's not running for president.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: And, listen, if, as John Kerry said, as John Kerry said, listen, after people look at the mountain of information that's publicly available, if someone's got a legitimate question, sure, he would look at it, OK? But there's no need to, because there's so much out there already.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Charlie, let's take a look. I wanted you to introduce you to Adam Abrams. Adam is a young man who works for the Kerry campaign. He's got this mountain of documents here. Take a look at this.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Hi, Adam. Say hi to your mom.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Have a seat, Adam.
BEGALA: This is -- this stack, Charlie Black, over a foot high, financial disclosures from John and Teresa Heinz Kerry since the day that they were married. These are publicly available to any right- wing kook or hack who wants to go through them.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Why don't you all feast on that and then tell me what is missing?
CHARLIE BLACK, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, you shouldn't be calling "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" right-wing kooks and hacks, Paul, to start with.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: I'm talking about the right-wingers who are beating up on this woman for no good reason.
CARLSON: Nobody is beating up on a woman.
BEGALA: Sure you are.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: There's a very simple reason she needs to release her tax returns.
BEGALA: What's wrong with what is in here?
BLACK: In these documents, Senator Kerry reported to the Senate for several years his net worth of several hundred thousand dollars. Yet he put $6 million into his campaign. Therefore, it came from her funds. Every spouse of a presidential candidate for 30 years has released their tax returns. She will, too. It's just a matter of time.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: But what has she not disclosed? What is missing from this mountain of documentation?
BLACK: I don't know, but "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" will figure it out.
BEGALA: So you can't name a single thing you actually want to know. You just want to snoop in a lady's underwear drawer.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: God almighty, Charlie. Have some decency here.
(APPLAUSE)
BLACK: Paul, it turned out there was nothing missing from the president's military records either, but you
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Except a year of duty. Yes, that was missing.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BLACK: But he did serve. It proved that he did serve.
CARLSON: Charlie does raise a fascinating question, which is, where did John Kerry get that $6 million? What's the answer to that? Maybe you could look through those records and give it me.
DEVINE: Well, you can see the mountain that's already available.
CARLSON: But where did he get the six million bucks?
DEVINE: Tucker, the only reason this is being raised because George Bush, his campaign, don't want to talk about real issues, like jobs, health care, the environment.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Here's my question. Here's my question.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: You crack me up, Tad. I'm asking you a simple question. Maybe you give me an answer.
DEVINE: Sure. Sure. CARLSON: Where did he get the $6 million that he put into his campaign, which was out of money? And that money helped him become the front-runner. Where did that money come from?
(APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: Are you ready for the answer?
CARLSON: Yes, I am.
DEVINE: It came from the equity in his home.
CARLSON: Did he buy that house? Did he buy that house? Did he buy that house?
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: It's worth a lot more today than it was the day he bought it.
CARLSON: Did he buy that house?
BLACK: She bought the house with cash, with cash. She didn't even mortgage it, 100 percent her money. So cough up the tax return.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Charlie, I have a disclosure to our audience. I like you. I know you're real gentleman.
BLACK: I like you, too. You know that.
BEGALA: I think the world of you.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: You're about to be called a sexist, I think.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: I am troubled -- I am troubled by some of our friends on the right who have -- I'm noticing a trend here. Bill Clinton becomes the leading Democrat. They attack his wife, Hillary. Joseph Wilson blows the whistle on an obvious misstatement that the president makes about the threat from nuclear arms in Iraq. They attack his wife.
Somebody leaks to our Bob Novak the fact that she's a CIA agent, ruins her career. Now, John Kerry, leading Democrat, going to beat George Bush, and the right is attacking his wife.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Why do you all -- why does your party attack wives? It's just like some.... BLACK: First, first of all, we've just proven the point that it's her money that is funding his campaign. For 30 years
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Attack him. He's got a 30-year record. He must have made some mistakes.
BLACK: For 30 years, since it became fashionable for candidates to release tax returns, every single spouse has released them. And I predict that she will, too. Now, if any candidate's spouse, male or female, hooked up a deal like the Whitewater thing down there, you would want
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: So we attack her Hillary some more? Let the record show, no Democrat has ever attacked Laura Bush, because she is a delight.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: Laura Bush never cooked up a Whitewater deal. I guarantee you that.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Let me get in here. You're not going to call anybody a sexist, are you? Just so we an move forward, you're not accusing anybody of hating women just for asking questions about tax returns, are you?
BEGALA: No, they just beat them. They beat on them.
CARLSON: You know, that's disgusting. You know, that's disgusting.
Now, John Kerry was asked
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Excuse me. Was asked
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Will you reveal all the lobbyists who you've met with? John Kerry was asked, will you reveal lobbyists you've met with? He said, absolutely.
DEVINE: Which is he did yesterday.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Really? Did he really? Because here's what "The Washington Post" said.
DEVINE: Yes, he did. OK.
CARLSON: "The Kerry list appears to be incomplete of lobbyists he met with. Several lobbyists contacted, say they had additional encounters with the Massachusetts Democrat over the years that are not listed on the report. For instance, Robert E. Juliano, a Democratic lobbyist, says he remembers dining with Kerry more than once between 1989 and October 2003. He's listed as having dinner with Kerry only once, on July 21, 1999."
Is Robert E. Juliano lying or is the Kerry campaign just not being....
DEVINE: Tucker, yesterday, John Kerry in an unprecedented fashion, released every one, lobbyists, he met with that he had records of for the last 15 years.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: But the president and his vice president refuse to tell us who he met with to develop the energy policy, the oil companies he met with for the oil policy of this country. It is unbelievable.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: He's putting arsenic in the water, but I'm not here to represent the Bush campaign. I'm here to ask you a very simple question about a Democratic lobbyist.
DEVINE: Who knows. Maybe they had dinner more than once.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: So the details don't matter? Is that what you're saying?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Because John Kerry said the details do matter.
DEVINE: Let me tell you something, Tucker. It is unbelievable that John Kerry would do what he did yesterday, disclose every lobbyist he met with.
CARLSON: But he apparently didn't.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Which he promised to do, which he promised to do.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: ... dinner with Charlie Black one night. (CROSSTALK)
BLACK: ... 200 lobbyists over 15 years. That's about one a month. He's not working very hard as a senator if he only meets once a month with a lobbyist.
(APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: The lobbyist has spoken, all right?
BEGALA: You would know.
Democrats actually meet with people, not just lobbyists. But the vice president of the United States, he works for me, he works for you, he works for everybody in this audience. We pay his salary and we give him a nice home to live in. What on earth is he doing meeting in secret with Enron lobbyists and not telling us who he met with and what they talked about?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BLACK: Well, you know...
BEGALA: He's not someone's spouse. He's not a woman, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Shouldn't he have to disclose that?
BLACK: You don't know if he met with Enron lobbyists because they have kept it secret.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Some of the Enron lobbyists have admitted in.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Ken Lay admitted on the record he met with him. So we know that.
BLACK: His task force met with hundreds of people from all parts of the energy industry.
BEGALA: Why is he ashamed of it?
BLACK: Well, it's not a matter of that. It's a matter of the constitutional prerogatives of presidents and vice presidents to get private advice.
BEGALA: From lobbyists.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Where is that in the Constitution?
BLACK: Let's talk about -- let's talk about the end product. That task force produced an energy bill which would....
BEGALA: Was written by lobbyists. I want to know which ones and what they gave
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
BLACK: What the bill will do is provide more energy, more clean energy and more renewable energy sources. And John Kerry and Tom Daschle are blocking it in the Senate. If you're so concerned about the task force, get Kerry to go show up one day and pass the energy bill.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
DEVINE: I'll tell you why they're blocking it. It's Earth Day. They care about the environment, OK, something that doesn't happen in the Republican Party very often.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: What did Kerry and Bill Clinton do about mercury?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Here's the irony in all this, is that John Kerry spent a lot of the primary pounding on noble little Howard Dean for not releasing 45 boxes of material that he -- 145 boxes that he didn't want to release.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Here's Stephanie Cutter, the spokeswoman: "There's one person who could open these records to public inspection. And that's Howard Dean. Dean says voters have the power. If Dean really means what he says, he should trust voters with that information."
DEVINE: And we say the same thing about Bush now with the energy records.
CARLSON: But you don't apply the same standards to yourselves. And I wonder why.
DEVINE: Are you kidding? The disclosure of lobbyist meetings was the first time in history that it has ever been done by anyone.
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: Not just running for president and a United States senator.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But it falls short of his own standard.
DEVINE: He disclosed earlier this week all of his military records. And we're grateful that there are friends, Republican friends, who want to see his military records, so we can see how he earned the Silver Star, how he earned the Bronze Star and all three Purple Hearts, too.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Wow.
DEVINE: So let's get it out there.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: OK. You're winning me over, Tad Devine. Whew, what a candidate.
OK, when we return, our guest face the "Rapid Fire." And we'll ask whether John Kerry is violating what said would be a hallmark of his campaign. Did you believe him the first time?
And right after the break, the U.S. government has a new message for former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Wolf Blitzer will tell us what it is.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.
Coming up at the top of the hour, enemies turned allies? A potentially significant shift in policy by the U.S.-led coalition, now tapping into the ranks of Saddam's former regime.
A controversy that John Kerry cannot shake, his Vietnam service under hot debate. I'll speak live to a fellow veteran, a fellow Democrat, the former candidate General Wesley Clark.
Critical components missing from a Vermont nuclear power plant. Officials there face some tough questions. And I have some for a key company executive who joins me live.
Those stories, much more only minutes away on "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS."
Now back to CROSSFIRE.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. Time for "Rapid Fire."
Dry topic, but we're making it fun.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: We're talking about the Bush-Kerry record wars, who is coming clean and who is not.
In the CROSSFIRE today, Tad Devine. He's the senior adviser to the John Kerry for president campaign. And Republican strategist Charlie Black.
BEGALA: Charlie, in one of my few moments I ever defended George W. Bush, he was running for president in 2000 and refused to answer the question, have you ever used illegal drugs? I thought it was an unfair question. Bush was right to refuse to answer, because there should be some small zone of privacy. Why can't you give a candidate's wife some small zone of privacy? Isn't it kind of hypocritical?
BLACK: I'll commit that we will not ask John Kerry if he ever used illegal drugs. How about that?
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: I just don't care about that. It's his wife.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: It's his wife's money. His wife's money got him the nomination. And, for all know, there may be more
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Now, Tad, you know as well as I do that at some point these tax returns are going to come out. It's not an attack on Mrs. Kerry. It's just a fact. When you think they're going to come out?
DEVINE: Tucker, listen, wait for the mountain first, as he said on "Meet the Press."
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Right. But, at some point, they're going to come out. Do you think in the next two months, six months?
(CROSSTALK)
DEVINE: I think she has a right to privacy. And if she decides not to put them out, I think that's fine. Listen, most of her -- the things she's involved in are very transparent anyway. And, listen, I think for 10 years filing these public records, that is more than enough for someone to do, more than enough.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Charlie, the conservatives asked for the release of Senator Kerry's war records and they got them, three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star. He's described in his performance evaluation as one of the most heroic officers in the Navy.
Let me read from President Bush's: "Lieutenant Bush has not been observed at this unit during this period of this report." (LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
BLACK: After all of the digging and moaning and groaning, the net effect of his records was that he did in fact serve and was discharged honorably. Senator Kerry is a hero. He served very honorably and bravely. And nobody's taking that away from him. We will never criticize his military service.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: All right.
CARLSON: Tad Devine, I want to read you a quote from Senator Kerry that sounds a little comic now -- quote -- "As president, openness will be the hallmark of my administration, not some talking point."
You kind of wince when you hear that now, don't you?
DEVINE: No, I don't, especially not after this week, when he released all his military records and made unprecedented disclosure in respect to lobbyists. I'll tell you, he's setting new ground. He's breaking new ground in this, Tucker.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Right, but he's not living up to this at all.
(CROSSTALK)
(BELL RINGING)
DEVINE: Tucker, this White House has been the most secretive White House since Richard Nixon, OK? That's what's going on in America today.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: That will be the last word.
Tad Devine from the Kerry campaign, Charlie Black, my friend from the Republican Party, the ace strategist over there, thank you both.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: When we come back, you're not going to quite believe this. A senator's wife is arrested for fighting over a dirt bag. Is this the quintessential Washington story or what?
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Stay with us. (APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Digging into the CROSSFIRE police blotter, if you thought gardening was just a peaceful and pastoral exercise, you weren't at Johnson's Flower and Garden Center here in Washington earlier this week. That's where a woman claims she was attacked by Wanda Baucus, the wife of Montana Senator Max Baucus.
An employee of the flower shop tells CNN the two women got into an argument while waiting for bags of mulch to be loaded into their cars.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Words were exchange and Mrs. Baucus allegedly struck the woman. "The Washington Post" reports she's pleading not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.
CARLSON: In her defense, Paul, the retail experience for many people is a very stressful one.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: It was mulch rage.
CARLSON: Yes, mulch rage.
BEGALA: Mulch rage. Rose rage.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: From the left, I am Paul Begala. That's it for CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: From the right, I'm Tucker Carlson.
Join us again tomorrow for yet more CROSSFIRE. Have a great night.
(APPLAUSE)
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