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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Was White House Involved in Enron Scandal?; Interview With Ted Kennedy; Can Robert Reich Become Massachusetts' Next Governor?
Aired January 19, 2002 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, THE CAPITAL GANG.
MARK SHIELDS, HOST: Welcome to THE CAPITAL GANG. I'm Mark Shields with the full CAPITAL GANG. Al Hunt, Robert Novak, Kate O'Beirne and Margaret Carlson.
The White House was pressed to reveal all Bush administration contacts with the bankrupt Enron Corporation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: If Washington goes down the usual path of partisan fishing expeditions, I think they're going to lose the support of the public. The public wants to know that people here in this town are focused on the wrongdoing where the wrongdoing occurs and not engaging in wasteful fishing expeditions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: The leading House Democratic investigator, Congressman Henry Waxman of California, in a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney said: "Numerous policies in the White House energy plan are virtually identical to the positions Enron advocated. In total, there were at least 17 policies in the White House energy plan that were advocated by Enron or benefited Enron."
Meanwhile, the former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission confirmed that Enron's CEO, Kenneth Lay, had asked for rulings to benefit his company.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CURTIS HEBERT, FORMER FERC CHMN.: When I told him that I didn't think it was the right thing to do, and also that there was no legal basis for it under the Federal Power Act, he told me that he and his company, Enron, could no long support me as chairman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: Curtis Hebert was replaced as chairman by President Bush. Bob Novak, is it beginning to look just a little bit like the Bush administration has something to hide in the Enron scandal? ROBERT NOVAK, "CHICAGO SUN-TIMES": A little bit, because they're so stupid, particularly Vice President Cheney with this, "Oh, we can't tell you thing. There's secrecy and confidentiality problem." But there's nothing -- I don't think there's anything to hide. I think these accusations are typically ridiculous by Congressman Waxman that they agreed with Enron in the Bush administration policy. The big thing that Enron wanted was support for global warming in the Kyoto Treaty. If it did that, Enron could have made a lot of money off that.
And this business about changing the head of the Energy Regulatory Commission, that was a mistake by President Bush, but there is no evidence that because Enron did it or that it had even any interjection with -- intervention with the president on that.
So I think this is all a lot of nonsense. And I think the president and the White House are handling very badly. They ought to put all the information out. And I don't there's anything to hide.
SHIELDS: Al Hunt, the allegation about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is -- starts to rise to a certain serious level though, if it in fact, it's joined as a cause of this man, Curtis Hebert, who is a Republican, is pushed aside after Ken Lay said he's...
AL HUNT, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Right.
SHIELDS: ...doesn't mean the stamp of Enron. And that Enron was, in fact, interviewing prospective appointees to that commission.
HUNT: Well, it wouldn't, Mark. Look, this is humongous scandal, at least in the private sector. We know that. I think there are going to be indictments. I think some of those ill-begotten gains of those greedy executives, they'll be forced to give some of them back. They will catalyst for some reform. The accounting industry, which has relied on campaign contributions rather than integrity, may have to clean up its ethical act.
And Lord knows it may be the House who even have to adopt campaign finance reform. They've been a wholly owned subsidiary, some of them have, with Enron. Whether it touches Bush or not, I don't think we really yet.
Bob, I'm not sure what happened with this Hebert and Ken Lay thing. Joe Lieberman ought to put them under oath. We'll put them both under oath and see.
I don't know if Dick Cheney, if there was any connection or not between Enron's influence or not. He ought to release the stuff. If not, we suspect he's hiding. And he actually didn't say there was a connection. He said there's 17 areas. Now you could -- if you put the stuff out, you then can decide was there or was there not? You know, the suspicions are serious. There's no evidence yet, but they are stonewalling.
SHIELDS: Kate O'Beirne, sunshine is the best disinfectant. You have been -- and what Enron did, they did in the shadows and they did in the shade, in the dark. You've been arguing that Dick Cheney should come clean. What is holding back? Is this just political ineptitude? Is it arrogance? Is it abstinence?
KATE O'BEIRNE, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Had the White House released all of those contacts last fall, it would've been done in the name of good government. When they eventually released them, under pressure from the GAO and media pressure, and pressure from Capitol Hill, which I predict ultimately they will, it'll be in the context of a criminal investigation, even though I predict they're going to be pretty darn boring.
Of course, it should be ought there. I also don't understand -- I don't think there's any specific allegation of wrongdoing on the part of the Bush administration. What was in his energy plan would have been in there without Enron, just as what was in Bill Clinton's would've been there as a liberal without Enron.
I don't understand the test though that Ari Fleischer's laying down. He says we're not going to disclose any other White House contacts in the absence of specific allegations of wrongdoing. Well, there are no such specific allegations. And yet, Secretary O'Neill came forward and Secretary Evans came forward, and Mitch Daniels and a few others.
It seems to me that they ought to not create the appearance that there's something they're hiding. At a minimum, if they don't start handling this a little better, they're going to be embarrassed by this scandal, which is pretty much what most responsible Democrats are only hoping for, sort of a guilt by association embarrassment factor, aside from Chairman Waxman, who of course, wants -- Congressman Waxman will...
(CROSSTALK)
SHIELDS: ... I'll accept that.
O'BEIRNE: Well now, that's one quick point. On balance, barring new revelations, people who are going to benefit from this are House Republicans. And I say that because they've been nervous that in November, maybe George Bush is going to want to remain above things, not really help campaign for them, like he did last November in the elections.
Two words, Chairman Waxman will get George Bush on the campaign trail and raising a lot of money to keep the House in Republican hands.
SHIELDS: And Chairman Dingell, too. Neither one is a happy prospect...
O'BEIRNE: Right.
SHIELDS: ...for the White House. Margaret Carlson?
MARGARET CARLSON, "TIME" MAGAZINE: You know, what isn't boring, Kate, is that found out this week that Vice President Cheney carried water for Enron on their power plant in India. It dribbled out. If he had told us, I think it would've been less interesting, in fact, perhaps, but it was quite interesting.
And the Bush administration is acting like it has something to hide with, perhaps, not having that much to hide.
What the Bush administration gave Enron was a world view and access. So that Enron getting the things that have come out, it's not that they got something that the Bush administration...
O'BEIRNE: Right.
CARLSON: ...wouldn't have -- this is how they think. I mean, they have oil stained fingerprints on everything. They are congruent. But the access they got to cabinet members, they -- Ari Fleischer talks about as if that's nothing. And it's not the White House. Well, it's the White House's cabinet.
NOVAK: Let me just say that the question of Vice President Cheney's contact with the Indian government, he made on contact it turns out, on behalf of Enron trying to get paid for something, that is the kind of things that government officials do for American corporations all the time. That Ron Brown and Bill Bailey used to take people on airliners all over the country and try to make deals for them and try to get payment for them.
And I just think there's a hysteria going on here of trying to find anything with the word "Enron" in it, and saying, boy, this is really (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
SHIELDS: Well, let me just say on Enron itself, I've just never seen a Vice President of the United States act as a repo man or a collection agent before, as Dick Cheney did with the Indians. I mean that -- I mean, and then to have it reported in the memo, could deal -- he asked for them to pay on the Enron.
But you see that this thing is really, Bob, become a major political event. There's no question, and I don't think anybody, serious political observers mind that privatization of Social Security is dead, that the anti-deregulation fever is over, that Kay Bailey Hutchison, senator from Texas, the biggest recipient, has returned her money of contributions. There's a stamped of $280,000 from Republican committees to be returned. There's no question that they are seeing something here politically, Bob, that you're missing.
CARLSON: Mark, you said something. You said deregulation is over. Because you know, when you look at this, it is not as much what government did, as what it didn't do. Enron operated in a way -- like this just wild West corporation.
O'BEIRNE: Well, Margaret, if government watchdogs were asleep at the switch, that didn't begin January 20, 2001.
CARLSON: No, this began in the last Congress. O'BEIRNE: The government watchdogs would've been in the Clinton administration and maybe bipartisan on Capitol Hill or should've been keeping a closer watch on them. That's why I don't think Congress is going to be as aggressive as you might like, in going after the White House.
CARLSON: It was Republicans that passed those bills that allowed them not to be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
O'BEIRNE: With overwhelming votes of both Houses.
NOVAK: That's right. Mark said some things that are very valuable, because they really crystallize what's going on. You see, a lot of people, Mark, maybe you're one of them, look upon Enron as the silver bullet. It is the magic elixir. It creates everything. It kills privatization of Social Security. It kills are market enterprise and schemes. It kills capitals gains cuts. It kills everything in the world, the scandal. And it might even elect a Democratic Congress. So let's really, really get hysterical about Enron.
SHIELDS: Let me just say one thing here. I don't call Kay Bailey Hutchison hysterical. I'm sorry, I think you don't intend that.
HUNT: First of all, I think there's massive corruption here. Almost anyone who looks at it says there's massive corruption. Just where was it? It wasn't just Enron. It was the accounting firm. And Kate, going to your point, Arthur Levitt, the SEC chairman in a previous administration, tried to crack down on this scam these accounting firms engage in. And because they're campaign contributions, they were blocked on Capitol Hill.
I agree, there's plenty of Democratic blame to go around, but to say there's an equivalency here with Enron is like saying the Duke/Maryland game was tied because they scored over 75 points. Sorry, Duke scored a lot more points.
NOVAK: I resent...
HUNT: And Enron...
NOVAK: ...I really resent...
HUNT: Enron gave a lot more money to Republicans.
NOVAK: That's a...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: What those committees have to do is freeze Ken Lay's assets, just the way they're freezing Osama bin Laden's...
NOVAK: Oh, come on.
CARLSON: ...so that restitution goes to those former employees. SHIELDS: Let me just say...
NOVAK: No problem.
SHIELDS: Let me just say in one word in closing. And that's all. Let us not forget that 20 -- as Kate O'Beirne pointed out so well in this show, this is a story of the powerful and the greedy and the cheating.
NOVAK: Oh, come on.
SHIELDS: Taking advantage and abusing people who weren't wired politically, who didn't have big pockets and didn't have powerful friends.
(CROSSTALK)
SHIELDS: The gang of five will be back.
NOVAK: Hang the capitalists.
SHIELDS: They did a disservice to the markets.
HUNT: They used the market system.
SHIELDS: We'll be back with the fate of the American Taliban. He's not on my left.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: Welcome back. The U.S. government brought three criminal charges against American Taliban John Walker, but treason was not among them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have not foreclosed charging other crime against this individual, should other evidence be developed or other evidence be made available, but these crimes, which -- that are charge, they fit the evidence which we now have. And death -- they are not death eligible crimes. The maximum penalty if penalty of life imprisonment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: Meanwhile, U.S. treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners transported to Guantanamo Bay was criticized by human rights advocates, including the United Nations high commissioner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARY ROBERTSON, U.N. HIGH COMMAND.: These were people arrested in the context of the international armed conflict in Afghanistan. Therefore, the presumption is that they are prisoners of war.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: There's no question. There are a number down at Guantanamo Bay, who every time anyone walks by, threaten to kill Americans the first chance they get.
These are quite dangerous people. They may just be kept in detention for a period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: Kate, first, about John Walker, why no charge of treason?
O'BEIRNE: Well, the attorney general explained -- he cited the high evidentiary rules for treason actually detailed in the constitution. And he explained for now, based on what we know now, they couldn't make such a case.
But I think the serious charges they have brought, short of capital offenses, seem fitting in this case. The defendant's bar is having fit that John Walker spoke so freely with the FBI people who interviewed him, but I don't think they appreciate. He is a true believer. I mean, he does not seem remorseful for what he's done. He felt Yemen was too moderate. He wanted a more pure form of Islam. That's why headed to where the Taliban was.
So we'll be able to watch now. While he's treated completely fairly by the system that he betrayed and condemned. And maybe at some point it'll occur to him that had he gotten on the wrong side of the Taliban, he'd be beheaded in a soccer stadium in Afghanistan.
SHIELDS: Margaret Carlson, do we risk losing the high moral ground with the criticism of our treatment of these prisoners in Guantanamo by the human rights community?
CARLSON: Well, they're not prisoners of war. And so they don't get the treatment of a prisoner of war, which is, I guess somewhat better than they're being treated now. But these men have nothing to lose. They're like prisoners on death row, where you know, they killed the guards the first chance they get.
So it has to be as repressive as possible. And I read last week that they were having bagels and peanuts. So it's not as if they're being starved. But no, it is not -- it's no day at the beach.
On John Walker, I think we're focusing on him in part because we can't get Mullah Omar. So we really want to have a focus for our revenge. And yeah, I think he should, you know, have the book thrown at him. His lawyer's already saying that they're going to try to suppress that confession, because there was no lawyer present. But you're right, he's a true believer.
He basically confessed on CNN. And you can't suppress that interview.
SHIELDS: Robert, you would confess on CNN.
NOVAK: I confess every Saturday night. As a matter of fact, I think Attorney General Ashcroft saying that with more evidence may be coming in -- what is he waiting for? Maybe John Ashcroft is being politically correct for not going to treason.
This is not the Rosenbergs. It's not Alger Hiss, where you've got to get secret conspiratorial evidence. There's a bundle of witnesses, more than the two needed in the constitution. Professor Mueller of the University North Carolina Chapel Hill Law School says he has never seen a case, such an open and shut case with treason. Why don't they just go after it? I think the American people think that he ought to.
CARLSON: Are you going to get al Qaeda witnesses? Where are the witnesses going to come from?
NOVAK: Sure, there are probably witnesses who saw the events there.
CARLSON: I don't think they're going to testify.
O'BEIRNE: Maybe he'll confess treason in open court. He's so proud of it, in which case he would meet the test.
SHIELDS: Al Hunt?
HUNT: I don't know if professor Mueller, but I think that this might be a harder case than has been suggested. There is the first the question of the admissibility. If it's not admissible, the case is gone. But assuming it is, even then, it may be a little bit harder.
This guy's deranged and he's, you know, a dreadful young man. But I tell you this, Mark, as a general rule, it's hard to convict foot soldiers. Whether it was the Cosa Nostra or Ku Klux Klan, you convict perpetrators, but foot soldiers are much harder to get a tough conviction of. And when this guy joined that bunch of bandits over there, it was about the time the U.S. was talking about sending funds for the poppy opium cessation. So I'm not sure this is an open and shut case.
SHIELDS: Just one thing on the prisoners. And that is, we are signatories of the Geneva Convention. I mean not that it makes any difference whether the Taliban wasn't and Afghanistan was. And that guarantees a hearing by a tribunal to determine whether they aren't prisoners of war.
I mean, I just think that it's in our national interest to maintain the coalition, to retain the position, which I think has been legitimately the United States, to go that extra mile and to have those tribunals.
NOVAK: Well, these were illegal combatants. I think everybody, all the legal authorities say they're illegal combatants. They're not prisoners of war. You don't need a hearing. You've got a lot of left wing people in Britain who wringing their hands about it. And they try to get me to go on British television at 1:30 in the morning to beat me up on it.
SHIELDS: Did you pass up the chance? NOVAK: I really did.
CARLSON: His first time.
O'BEIRNE: Bob, in addition to the British, there are apparently a couple of British subjects being held in Cuba. So they're all concerned about how they might be treated. The British are very good allies, but boy can they be insufferable.
One of their swell British boys, of course, is Richard Reid, who tried to bring down a plane with 197 passengers. The Saudis, of all people, are wondering and asking us questions about how these prisoners are being treated. I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BEIRNE: They're being treated humanely.
SHIELDS: Just in closing, that this -- whether they're prisoners of war, there's a legal question, because we're not at war. I think you'd have a tough time arguing that Afghanistan has not been the scene of war since October 7.
(CROSSTALK)
SHIELDS: Well, I mean, if you were getting bombs in your backyard, you'd think it was war.
O'BEIRNE: POWs wear uniforms, insignia, and abide by rules of law. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE) al Qaeda.
SHIELDS: Next on CAPITAL GANG, Congress returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: With Congress reconvening Wednesday, a leading Democratic senator, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, proposed more federal spending for prescription drugs and other health and education programs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We can and should postpone a portion of the future tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers.
SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: That's not news when Ted Kennedy says what we need is more federal government spending and tax increases to pay for it.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think raising taxes in the midst of a recession is wrong economic policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: The Senate's top Democratic, majority leader Tom Daschle, who earlier proposed more spending and targeted tax cuts said, "My plan did call for either the suspension or delay of the tax cut passed last spring."
The Democratic controlled Senate's unfinished business includes eight major bills passed by the Republican controlled House, economic stimulus, insurance, trade, farm aid, faith-based initiative, energy, cloning and election law revision.
Senate passed bills pending in the House include campaign finance reform and HMO regulation.
Al Hunt, what actually got through this divided Congress in its second year?
HUNT: They'll be a few things, Mark. Tom Daschle's going to bring up a trade bill, as promised. That'll pass. I think Bush will get pretty much anything he wants on terrorism or national security. I will assure you there will be as many nominees confirmed -- more nominees confirmed than Clinton got from a Republican Congress. I think the Enron scandal may force the House to address the issue of legalized bribery of campaign financing.
On the big economic issues, though, I think they're only going to get done if you have an agreement with the White House and a majority of the Democrats, like the education bill. You're not going to pass the stimulus bill that's a giveaway to the rich and to corporations the way the House passed. And you can get an energy bill, but not -- I doubt they're going to get ANWR drilling because Joe Lieberman and John Kerry will either filibuster. They don't have 60 votes for that.
SHIELDS: Bob Novak?
NOVAK: That's a whole question. You have to have 60 votes. So there's going to be obstruction. Mark and I, on "NOVAK HUNT AND SHIELDS" earlier today interviewed Trent Lott. And he said that Tom Daschle is an obstructionist. He is holding stuff up.
Of course, Al -- the question of not getting as many confirmed -- getting more confirmed than you've got from the Republican Senate with President Clinton, that doesn't compute, because this is the beginning of an administration where there's a lot more nominees not in the middle of the first term.
I would say that the biggest break the Republicans got was when Teddy Kennedy came out for a tax increase. That is an increase. If you have a certain rate set for a certain year, and you say it's going to be higher, that's an increase. And that is something that the Democrats I talked to think was a tremendous mistake by Senator Teddy. And they're not conservative Democrats who said that.
SHIELDS: Margaret Carlson?
CARLSON: Such a semantic trick to call that a tax increase. Bush is fond of saying that in the middle of a recession you need a tax cut, but he never addresses, well, what about in the middle of a war? You know, things have changed since that bill was passed. And they're not recognizing that. What's going to happen first thing is that campaign finance reform will be voted on. They're down to needing two more signatures, instead of the three lastly...
SHIELDS: They're 218, that's right.
CARLSON: Right? And it is the way they'll get out of Enron, which is they're racing to give that money back. Honk if you haven't been given money by Enron. Get it out of there. And campaign finance will clothe them in respectability. And so, it will pass.
SHIELDS: Kate O'Beirne, respectability?
O'BEIRNE: Margaret might well be right because it seems to me that what politicians might want to do is blame the so-called system of campaign finance for the Enron, as opposed to the system of corporate welfare we have, which is something they'd rather not tackle.
I think that the president's budget is going to put Democrats in sort of a bind. He's going to, apparently, be asking for increased money to fight what they're not -- what they're calling the two front war. Military spending and spending on homeland security, that's going to eat up the kind of money Teddy Kennedy would like to be spending on lots of other things.
So the Democrats are either going to have to argue to raise taxes, which is hopefully a non-starter, should be a non-starter and is a political problem for them, spend less on defense and homeland security, which I think is going to be a big problem, or be in favor of a bigger deficit. And given Tom Daschle's deficit phobia speeches, that's going to be sort of hard.
They have to do welfare reform, too. There could be some fights there, if some Democrats cooperate with Republicans to the extent that they want to loosen the kind of welfare reform that was so successful in '96.
SHIELDS: Of course, there were Republicans in that stimulus package that wanted to give away the story, including the House Republicans wanted to give $242 billion to Enron, as a tax cut.
HUNT: I think million.
SHIELDS: $200, I'm sorry, million. I think that's probably a non-starter.
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: It's in the House passed bill.
NOVAK: It's not in the House passed bill.
HUNT: It was in the House bill that passed.
CARLSON: Yes, it was in the House bill.
(CROSSTALK)
SHIELDS: During the last recession.
NOVAK: Right.
SHIELDS: Was to get rid of that one.
(CROSSTALK)
SHIELDS: That's right. A word in defense of Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy, nobody under Senator Kennedy's plan, nobody will pay any higher taxes than they pay now. So tax increase is not an accurate description.
Second, it doesn't begin 2004. So they start tracking, Republicans do, the president by cutting taxes in the middle of a recession. I don't think the president here's going to be a recession in 2004, which is when Senator Kennedy's would kick in.
But third, and most important is, Senator Kennedy forced government to do something to make choices. I talked to govern was to choose. And Ted Kennedy said look, if you want to have a tax cut for the wealthiest 4.4 percent of Americans, you want them to have the biggest tax cut, then you're not going to have patient -- you're not going to have prescription drugs. You're not going to have Medicare reform.
O'BEIRNE: Not true.
SHIELDS: It's absolutely true.
NOVAK: That's right.
SHIELDS: It's absolutely true. And that's the choices. And I think if you confront that choice, he wins politically.
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: The point of the matter is, when people make plans, they make plans for estate tax planning. They make plans for their business.
O'BEIRNE: The top rate applies to small business.
NOVAK: That's right. Please? It applies to small businesses. And you make your plans for the future. So you're talking about 2004 and you increases the taxes. It has an immediate impact now.
But I want to -- you're a historian of sorts. You know Democratic politics. Have you ever seen a rebuff of the king of the liberals, Ted Kennedy, by the Democratic majority leader, Tom Daschle, with the back of his hand?
SHIELDS: I think this that if Bob Dole's tax increase in 1982, signed by Ronald Reagan, was a 30 percent repeal of Reagan's 1981 tax cut.
NOVAK: Wait, wait.
SHIELDS: This is only a 20 percent.
NOVAK: Just answer my question.
SHIELDS: I'm just saying that there's been a loss, there's no question of loss in there. As far as this small business smoke screen, 8 percent of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), a grand total of 8 percent of the people who would be affected, own small businesses. What they call...
(CROSSTALK)
NOVAK: ... a small business.
SHIELDS: Yes, because you have business income.
HUNT: And Mark, even with that, you understate the case, because basically every single American under Senator Kennedy's plan would continue to get a tax cut; 95 percent wouldn't be affected at all. And the person who makes $1 million a year -- and I know that's not much to you, Bob -- but the person who makes $1 million a year in 2006 will get a $9,000 tax cut rather than a $31,000 tax cut.
NOVAK: What about the people who are doing their estate planning now, and suddenly you say, we're not going to let you do that? You realize the...
HUNT: Estate planning?
NOVAK: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
SHIELDS: We're all going to die! We're all going to die!
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: In 2012, the estate tax goes right back to where it was under the...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Something that wasn't noted on this panel that's going to matter in Congress next session is that Karl Rove introduced the war as a partisan matter this week at the RNC meeting in Austin, saying, you know, we should go and crow over how well Republicans are running this war.
NOVAK: There are things you say in private, but not public.
CARLSON: Exactly, Bob. Right as usual.
SHIELDS: We'll be back for the second half of CAPITAL GANG with our "Newsmaker of the Week," Senator Ted Kennedy. "Beyond the Beltway" looks at the contest for the governor of Massachusetts. And our "Outrage of the Week." That's all after the latest news following these messages.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
SHIELDS: Welcome back to the second half of CAPITAL GANG. I'm Mark Shields with Al Hunt, Robert Novak, Kate O'Beirne, and Margaret Carlson.
Our "Newsmaker of the Week" is Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Edward M. Kennedy. Age: 69. Residence: Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Religion: Roman Catholic. Undergraduate degree from Harvard, law degree from the University of Virginia. Elected to the Senate in 1962 at the age of 30. Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980. Currently chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee in the Senate.
Margaret Carlson sat down with Senator Kennedy after his speech this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARLSON: The speech is week had a headline, Senator Kennedy calls for deferring the Bush tax cuts, which is further than the leader of the Senate went, Senator Daschle. Did you discuss that portion of your speech with him ahead of time?
KENNEDY: Well, he was aware of it. Our offices have talked. I talked to Tom Daschle after he made his speech, which I thought was excellent, but I also called on postponing tax cuts.
CARLSON: You were locked in the president's embrace last week in your kind of unity tour. Those of us who don't get that close wonder what's he really like to hang out with and be called a good man by?
KENNEDY: First of all, he's committed on the policy of education. He's personable. He's likable. He's got a good sense of humor. We had some fun, as well as others will look forward to trying to find common ground when we can.
CARLSON: Right. He had your over for a movie, named a building after your brother. Does he have a nickname for you?
KENNEDY: Not one that I've heard of. Maybe the answer to that...
CARLSON: What's he call you?
KENNEDY: ...this week, he might have a different one, but we've -- I've had a relationship with the family for a number of years. I knew or met briefly his grandfather, Prescott Bush...
CARLSON: The Bush dynasty knows the Kennedy dynasty. KENNEDY: Well, say that we are professional friends, I would say.
CARLSON: Yes. The Kennedy hair and the Kennedy teeth belie your age. You're 70 years old. You'll be 74 when you're up to run again. Do you expect that you'll run again?
KENNEDY: Well, I say I plan to stay here until I get the hang of it.
CARLSON: In the speech you had an echo of your brother when you said ask what you can do for your country. And I was wondering, have you made your peace about not being president?
KENNEDY: Oh, yes.
CARLSON: Yes? You're happy as can be?
KENNEDY: Well, I enjoy the work in the Senate. I share many of the frustrations that other members do in not being able to achieve more and accomplish more.
CARLSON: Do you think anything will come of the Enron catastrophe?
KENNEDY: Our committee, the Health and Human Resource and Pensions Committee in the United States Senate, will have a hearing in February on what happened to the workers. All these workers that have devoted their lives to this company had invested their life savings in this company. And while the executives were making millions, they were being effectively wiped out in terms of their lifetime savings. That's wrong.
CARLSON: How's the next generation of Kennedys doing?
KENNEDY: There were nine of us, as you may know. And then there's 30 in the next generation.
CARLSON: There are lots of them.
KENNEDY: There are lot of candidates.
CARLSON: You're never going away.
KENNEDY: That's right.
CARLSON: Right, they'll always be Kennedys, Shrivers, Schwarzeneggers. How is it having your son right there in the Congress with you?
KENNEDY: Very much.
CARLSON: Do you see much of him?
KENNEDY: It's a wonderful, wonderful experience. We try and have lunch on every Thursday. And it's really something that's unique, because he's dealing really effectively with his public policy issues, just as I am in voting on them. And it's a rare kind of a relationship. Where generally when you have a father and a son, the son is trying to work in some kind of situation in being brought along in terms of a father. In this area, we're really co-equals.
CARLSON: It's wonderful when your children grow up and kind of come home again?
KENNEDY: That's right.
CARLSON: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SHIELDS: Margaret Carlson, what do you think that Senator Ted Kennedy meant by professional friendship with President Bush?
CARLSON: Like most politicians, you know, these things are transactional. They don't -- they exist for that moment, but you know, it's not likely that these big egos are going to really embrace each other.
They have families. They have friends. They don't need to be friends with each other.
What's interesting is that Kennedy has become the go-to Democrat. Remember when Dan Quayle bragged in his vice presidential campaign about working with Kennedy? When you go see Senator Orrin Hatch, the first thing he does is show you his Kennedy memorabilia, the water color that Kennedy gave him. And now Bush calls him a good man all the time.
SHIELDS: Bob Novak, he didn't answer Margaret's question about whether he'd seek another term, but he says I'm going to stay until I get the hang of it. He is getting the hang of it, as much as -- he's a power, isn't he?
NOVAK: He's a power, but he's an ideological power. He's like my dear friend Jesse Helms. He stands for something on the edge of the party. And I think people like that are valuable.
You know, I've been wading through the Kennedy tapes, the transcripts of John F. Kennedy's secret tapes, which nobody reads very much because there's not -- there's no swear words in it and there's no funny stuff like in LBJ. But you know, John F. Kennedy was a complete pragmatist, as you read that. He really was a person who didn't have fixed views. And his brother is just diametrically opposed.
SHIELDS: Al Hunt, Jesse Helms and Ted Kennedy, is that a...
HUNT: Yes, I couldn't disagree with Bob more. This is a guy who has strong ideological views, but no one is more pragmatic in reaching across the aisle than the United States stands from Ted Kennedy. He's not only worked with the Orrin Hatches, he worked with Loch Faircloth on bills. This guy has become one of the 10 most influential senators in the history of the republic. And you don't do that by being an ideologue.
SHIELDS: Kate O'Beirne?
O'BEIRNE: I don't disagree with Al. I'm not a fan. Among the many things Teddy Kennedy has to answer for is the vicious, dishonest attack he launched on Judge Bork, but he is effective. He's learned to take half a loaf. He has a fabulous staff. He doesn't specialize. He engages on almost everything on the Senate agenda. I just have to hope the Rhode Island voters will not roll over on behalf of his son. He's in some political trouble in Rhode Island, like the Massachusetts voters have these many years. But I suppose that's too much to ask.
SHIELDS: As opposed to a North Carolina voters...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BEIRNE: ... on the merits now.
CARLSON: I think he has the most interesting piece of the Enron scandal, in that he's got the workers, the pensions.
SHIELDS: Right. And he knows how to hold a hearing, that's true.
Next on CAPITAL GANG, "Beyond the Beltway" looks at half a dozen Democrats trying to break a Republican winning streak in the nation's most Democratic state.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: Welcome back. "Beyond the Beltway" looks at this year's race for governor of Massachusetts. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, now a Brandeis University professor, announced his first attempt to an elective office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT REICH (D), MASSACHUSETTS GOV. CANDIDATE: I became secretary of labor to fight for the working women and working men of America. Now I'd like to take those same principles and values to the state house as your governor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: He faces a crowded Democratic field, including state Senate president Thomas Birmingham, Secretary of State William Galvin, State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, former state senator Warren Tolman, and former Democratic National Chairman Steve Grossman.
Republican acting governor Jane Swift is trying to make it four straight for the GOP in gubernatorial elections in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANE SWIFT (R), ACTING GOV., MASSACHUSETTS: The tax rollbacks, supported by an overwhelming number voters, must and will stand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SHIELDS: Joining us now is veteran political reporter David Nyhan, former columnist of "The Boston Globe." Thanks for coming in, David.
DAVID: OK.
SHIELDS: David, do the old paws (ph) in Massachusetts really think that Bob Reich is a serious candidate to be the next governor of Massachusetts?
NYHAN: Some of these so-called old paws (ph) don't think that he can qualify for the ballot. He'll have to win at least 15 percent of the state convention delegates on June 1. There's 5,000 people elected in caucuses on February 2. If Reich is just short of the 15 percent threshold, I think he might get some help from somebody like Ted Kennedy or Mayor Tom Manino, the mayor of Boston, who will control several hundred delegates himself.
SHIELDS: Now why would either Senator Kennedy or Mayor Manino be interested in a Reich candidacy?
NYHAN: Well, I think they want to avoid the perception of unfairness or insiders ganging up on an outsider. Reich is not well- known to the people of Massachusetts. He's better known inside the Beltway than he is in Boston or points west, I think.
SHIELDS: Bob Novak?
NOVAK: David, do you really think that this acting governor, Jane Swift, who seems to be always -- you read the papers, she's always in some kind of trouble somebody from this Massport appointment. Just resigned.
NYHAN: Got indicted.
NOVAK: Was indicted, yes. And she's in trouble with the conservatives, that there are some conservatives in Massachusetts for picking a homosexual as her running mate. I mean, do you really think that this -- that she can be, in this incredibly Democratic state, she could be a fourth straight Democratic -- Republican winner for governor?
NYHAN: Well, it is the strangest field within recent memory. She probably will be the favorite, because she is the incumbent. And she'll probably spend $10 million. And she can commandeer the airwaves now and then.
But some people call her calamity Jane. She's got three major scandals going. The big dig, $2 billion over cost. Massport from where two of the hijacked airliners sprang. And it turns out to be a patronage pit for Republican governors for over a decade. And she's trying to fire two of the three men who run the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and protect the bond rating.
So she just stumbles into one thing after another. It's like a sitcom. She's got two twins that are infants and a toddler. And she lives in the Western part of the state. She commutes five hours a day when she goes to the state house, 2.5 hours each way in an SUV driven by a state trooper.
CARLSON: So maybe a Democrat can win this time. David, we do know former Labor Secretary Reich better here inside the Beltway, but he didn't really create that much of a stir. Maybe he would if he crossed a picket line or something, but he wrote a book which made him somewhat famous here, which turned out to be fiction, more than non- fiction.
He put himself at the center of a number of incidents in which he looked good and the other people in it looked very bad. And then when these things were checked out, it turned out not to be true.
NYHAN: A temptation all of us professional writers try to stay away from.
CARLSON: Yes.
NYHAN: He has never been hit with a negative ad. He can get hit with that. He can get hit with some of his pronouncements and statements. He could get hit with having really turned on Bill Clinton and sort of stabbed him in the neck when Clinton was down. And he embraced Bill Bradley quite vociferously over Gore, who won the state primary of Massachusetts.
So Reich is -- we don't know yet whether he can take a punch. And he's an unusual guy. He's 4'10.5 inches tall. He is -- has a beard. And I used to see him in Cambridge as a -- you know, as a fellow at Harvard, riding his bicycle around Harvard Square. And I used to shout to him, "Hey Bob, if only George Wallace could see you now parking your bicycle."
By the way, Margaret, I wanted you to ask Teddy whether it was him who gave Bush the pretzel. That was the question.
(LAUGHTER)
SHIELDS: Kate O'Beirne?
O'BEIRNE: Good point, David, but that was not a hard hitting enough interview. I would've asked the pretzel question, David. You can count on that.
David, conservatives typically remain neutral when liberal Republicans run against Democrats statewide in Massachusetts. But Jane Swift is talking about defending the rollback in taxes. I don't anticipate another Boston tea party in Massachusetts. but are Massachusetts's voters finally up in arms enough about taxes, to have taxes being issued in November? NYHAN: I don't know if they're up in arms. They maybe up to their ankles or up to their knees. I think being for lower taxes is a good position, generally, even in so-called liberal Massachusetts. She is on the popular side of that issue, as well as on the so-called clean elections issue, which would put her on the left side in the Washington debate.
She's untested and a little bit shaky as a young woman whose new to the office and was an obscure state senator. Friends -- a friend of hers, a Boston lawyer, a prominent woman in politics, told me when I criticized her record as mediocre, she said, "Well, isn't it time for a mediocre woman, after we've had so many mediocre men?"
I consider that, Kate, affirmative action.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BEIRNE: That's what we got out of it.
HUNT: David, I would just, to go back to Bob Novak's point, if you eliminate everyone in Massachusetts who's been associated with someone indicted, you might wipe out an entire political class in the state bar. That would be very, very dicey.
NYHAN: You're betraying your roots in the commonwealth, Al, when you say that.
HUNT: Dave, let me ask you this. This is sort of a generic question. The Democrats dominate Massachusetts when it comes to federal offices. Held both Senate seats since 1978, all the congressional seats. And yet, they really end up in -- they run clinkers for governor, I guess. The GOP has pretty much dominated the last 12 years. Why that dichotomy?
NYHAN: Well, Bill Weld became governor after Dukakis, by defeating John Silber, who was had an incendiary last couple of weeks in his campaign. And Weld told me later, he said if the election was five days earlier or five days later, I'm sure I would've lost. But Weld turned to be an immensely popular figure, who gave way to Paul Cellucci, who only won his re-election on his own by 3 percent over Scott Harshbarger, who's now head of Common Cause here in Washington.
But Swift is like the third generation. I mean, if Weld was the varsity and Cellucci was the junior varsity, you'd have to say Governor Swift is the freshman team.
SHIELDS: David Nyhan, thank you very much for being with us.
NYHAN: OK.
SHIELDS: The CAPITAL GANG will be back with the "Outrage of the Week."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: Now for the "Outrage of the Week." The case for the 26th amendment to the Constitution that lowered the voting age to 18 was "old enough to fight, old enough to vote." But what about the nearly 600,000 residents of Washington, D.C. who are deprived of voting for their members in the United States Congress?
In World War II, a higher percentage of eligible men from D.C. fought for their country than that in other state. In Vietnam, more men from Washington gave their lives than did men from 10 other states. How about this? Patriots enough to fight, and to die, patriots enough to vote. Justice demands voting for the District of Columbia.
NOVAK: As a D.C. voter, no thank you, Mark.
Many Republican National Committee members don't like former Montana governor Mark Racicot serving as a so-called volunteer national chairman, while drawing a big, unknown salary from Bracewell & Patterson, which has lobbied for Enron. But when a Republican president, the RNC, has as much independence as the old Soviet Politburo. And it rubber-stamped Racicot without a whimper.
The night before, however, Bracewell & Patterson threw a big cocktail party for Racicot, with lobbyists invited. Mark Racicot attended the party given by the people who pay his salary.
SHIELDS: Margaret Carlson?
CARLSON: Mark, boutique medicine is here, according to "The New York Times." For $20,000 extra a year over insurance premiums, the well heeled can get same-day appointments, their doctor's private cell phone number, house and gym calls. Instruments are as warm as the limo waiting curbside. Forget skimpy paper cover-ups, it's 100 percent all natural fluffy terry cloth robes.
The medicine is better as well, because doctors take fewer patients, like being paid not to grow soy beans. Mistakes, like last week's fatal dose of nitrous oxide instead of oxygen to a patient now dead, won't happen. The rich are different from you and me. The patients in steerage should be outraged.
SHIELDS: Kate O'Beirne.
O'BEIRNE: The humiliating treatment 75-year old Congressman John Dingell received when he had to disrobe to prove that his artificial hip wasn't an AK-47 isn't the limit of absurdity. Now former Marine General Joe Foss, the Corps' top ace from World War II, who is 86, was delayed for almost an hour when security ninkenpoops couldn't figure out whether the Medal of Honor he carried posed a threat. Couldn't the National Guardsmen on duty have spared one of our heroes this ordeal by identifying the medal? Or are they just military mannequins?
SHIELDS: Al Hunt?
HUNT: Mark, after September 11, we were told Osama was the aberration, the bad bin Laden. The rest of the wealthy Saudi family were good people, many doing business with fat cats in the United States. Well, it turns out that one of the, quote, "good," unquote, bin Laden's, Osama's brother Yeslem, wants to launch a new line of clothing named "Bin Laden" to market to Arab countries.
Now that might appear to be cashing in on the terrorist tragedy, except of course, this is one of the, quote, "good," end quote, bin Ladens.
SHIELDS: Bob Novak, I thought you were a devout advocate of taxation without representation being abominable, just unforgivable. That's what the people in Washington. D.C. They give their lives. They give their taxes. They obey the laws of this country. And you don't want to give them the right to vote?
NOVAK: Federal city in the District of Columbia was created to keep presidents away from a mob, like they used to have in Paris and London (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And I -- of course, I like the District of Columbia before home rule, when we had commissioners appointed by the president. We had an engineer commissioner who kept the streets. Too much democracy's not always good.
SHIELDS: Right.
O'BEIRNE: Your trash isn't going to be picked on Monday.
SHIELDS: That's right. This is Mark Shields saying good night for THE CAPITAL GANG. If you missed any part of this program, you have an opportunity. You can catch the replay at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, with our Margaret Carlson.
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