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Lou Dobbs This Week
Iraq War Standoff; Chinese Food Exports; Illegal Immigration
Aired May 05, 2007 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN NEWS ANCHOR, CNN CENTER ATLANTA: We're getting updated information on last night's deadly tornado touchdown in south Kansas, where the town of Greensburg is no more.
The National Weather Service now says winds as strong as 165 miles per hour hit the area. Most, if not all, of Greensburg's homes and buildings are destroyed.
Nine people statewide are dead, 63 are hurt.
White House officials confirm they've talked with the Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius, who is expected to ask federal authorities for disaster assistance.
Now, unless you have lived through one, the incredibly destructive power of a tornado is almost unimaginable.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN NEWS ANCHOR, CNN CENTER, ATLANTA: But in order to give you a better idea, here are some of the sights, sounds and thoughts from survivors of the Greensburg tornado.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no! Those are structures! Oh, no.
No! Wow!
I got it!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We came around that curve right there, and our pickup wasn't even on the ground. It was like - it felt to us like it was spinning.
We could see everything just flying. It sounded like diesel engines, jet engines, you know. It was horrible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our sirens went off a good 20 minutes before the electricity went out. And we heard it coming, so we were in the basement under the pool table.
It sounded just like they tell you. It sounds like loud, like (UNINTELLIGIBLE), glass popping.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your ears. You had ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, yes. We heard (UNINTELLIGIBLE). The walls shake. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After it was over, we just tried ...
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
DE LA CRUZ: Unbelievable.
MARCIANO: We'll get more of that as we go through the evening. It's definitely tough to hear.
This is where you want to be for the latest on the developing storms and any other breaking news.
DE LA CRUZ: Is China also deliberately mislabeling the contents of the food it exports? That's coming up next on LOU DOBBS THIS WEEK. And it starts right now.
LOU DOBBS, HOST, LOU DOBBS THIS WEEK: Tonight, the political showdown between Democrats and the White House over the conduct of the war reignite.
Will there be a compromise? We'll have complete coverage.
And the Bush administration, top Democrats determined their push their amnesty agenda for illegal aliens through Congress.
Will the illegal alien lobby succeed in imposing amnesty and open borders on American citizens? We'll have that report - all of that and a great deal more straight ahead, here tonight.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS THIS WEEK - news, debate and opinion for Saturday, May 5th.
Here now, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening, everyone.
Congressional Democrats and the White House tonight are facing off again over the conduct of the war. The new showdown comes after President Bush vetoed the war funding bill that included a timetable for withdrawal of our troops.
Two leading Democratic lawmakers - Senator Robert Byrd and Senator Hillary Clinton - trying to nullify the legislation that authorized the president's going to war.
Meanwhile, the White House says it hopes it can still reach a compromise with the Democratic leadership on a war funding bill.
Elaine Quijano reports from the White House - Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE WHITE HOUSE: Lou, with negotiations ongoing over a war funding bill, one possible compromise might be a short-term supplemental, but the White House is insisting that is not a "workable idea."
Now, after vetoing legislation this week that included timetables for troop withdrawals in Iraq, President Bush dispatched his chief of staff, Josh Bolten, to Capitol Hill to sit down with Senate leaders to try to find some common ground.
There has been talk of legislation, including benchmarks, as a way that the two sides can come together. But the president is not budging on that major point of contention - timetables.
Now, as this political debate plays out in Washington, the violence in Iraq continues. And this past week, President Bush tried to ratchet down expectations with a shift in the definition of success in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Slowly but surely, the truth will be known. Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed.
And the definition of success, as I described, is, you know, sectarian violence down. Success is not no violence.
There are parts of our own country that, you know, have got, you know, a certain level of violence to it.
But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, later, the White House had difficulty explaining what exactly President Bush meant by that, and how an acceptable level of violence might be defined.
A year ago, President Bush defined success in Iraq as an Iraq that can govern, sustain itself and defend itself. The White House still insists that is the case.
Now meantime, the Bush administration is pushing back against Senator Hillary Clinton, who along with Senator Robert Byrd, is calling for a vote to sunset the 2002 war authorization.
A White House spokesman characterized that as putting a surrender date on the operations, calling it reckless and not reflective of conditions on the ground. Another spokesperson suggesting that the move by Senator Clinton is being driven by presidential politics - Lou.
DOBBS: Elaine Quijano reporting from the White House.
Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, said the proposal by both Senator Byrd and Senator Clinton deserve serious consideration, as he put it.
Senator Reid also said there should be a vote on the legislation. Senator Reid and other Democratic leaders still continue to negotiate with the White House over a possible compromise. Dana Bash has the story from Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CAPITOL HILL (voice- over): It was the first bargaining session, the president's chief of staff and the Senate's top Republican meeting with the Senate majority leader in his office.
Afterwards, Harry Reid called the meeting "constructive," telling reporters the White House offered some ideas for compromise.
While the Senate's top leaders directly negotiate a new war funding bill with the White House, in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi delegated that task to her Appropriations chairman, David Obey. Some Republicans found that odd.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OHIO, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: That was her decision to appoint Mr. Obey as her point person. I'm not quite sure I understand how well this will work.
BASH: Pelosi's decision to keep some distance from White House talks - perhaps a telling illustration of her precarious position.
As CNN reported Wednesday, Democrats have privately acknowledged they will have to drop a timeline for troop withdrawal to get the president's signature. They also know that will mean angering anti- war voters and defections by Democrats.
Minnesota's Keith Ellison may be one of them.
REP. KEITH ELLISON, D-MINNESOTA: It would be tremendously difficult. I don't know - I don't think I can do it.
BASH: Ellison was elected in November on a wave of anti-war sentiment.
ELLISON: We must have a withdrawal date. And I'm going to be arguing that point.
BASH: Democrats running for president are under intense pressure to vote against any Iraq bill that doesn't bring troops home and are looking for other ways to show their opposition.
Hillary Clinton getting hammered for voting to authorize war in 2002, announced she's backing a bill to revoke that authority.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, D-NEW YORK, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is time to sunset the authorization for the war in Iraq. If the president will not bring himself to accept reality, it is time for Congress to bring reality to him.
BASH (on camera): Revoking the president's authority for war is not a new idea, but bringing it up now gives Democrats like Hillary Clinton a new vehicle to express opposition to Iraq, as their leaders negotiate a compromise to give the president the money to keep the war going.
Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEO)
DOBBS: Members of Congress and top military commanders are simply furious with the Iraqi parliament. The Iraqi parliament is considering taking a two-month-long vacation this summer. That vacation would come at what is a critical time for Iraq.
The Iraqi lawmakers failed to agree to a series of reforms regarded as essential for political reconciliation and stability in Iraq.
Jamie McIntyre has the report from the Pentagon - Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT, THE PENTAGON: Lou, Admiral William Fallon, the U.S. Central Commander, said to Congress this week that his top concern about Iraq is not the violence, not al Qaeda; it's the political will of Iraq's leaders.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): As 3,700 additional U.S. troops arrive in Baghdad - part of the strategy to buy more time for the Iraqi government - the parliament is still talking about taking time off - two months for summer vacation.
A top American commander told Congress this week, that's unacceptable.
ADMIRAL WILLIAM FALLON, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We're going to get them to work, which is clearly necessary. How can we have our people out there fighting and dying, if they're off on vacation?
MCINTYRE: Senators are outraged that while the U.S. military is committing maximum effort to bringing the violence down, the government of Nouri al-Maliki is making minimal progress on the crucial goal of political reconciliation.
SEN. CARL LEVIN, D-OHIO, CHAIRMAN, SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I think you also let them off the hook when you say that - you used the words "expecting them to cut a political deal tomorrow is unrealistic."
And I think that's not what anybody expects. I think we expect them to make political compromises, as they have promised to make them.
MCINTYRE: Levin and other Democrats argue that benchmarks, coupled with the threat of a U.S. troop withdrawal, would give Iraqi politicians the incentive they need to put aside their differences.
(END VIDEO) MCINTYRE (on camera): When pressed, Admiral Fallon said he hadn't even prepared any contingency plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. He said, right now the entire focus of the U.S. military is getting the Baghdad security strategy to work - Lou.
DOBBS: Well, Jamie, it has to be deeply troubling to the Pentagon and to the military leadership that there's a question of will on the part of the Iraqi government at precisely the same time that polling here shows that the political will to support this war is evaporating rather quickly.
MCINTYRE: Well, there are real questions about whether Nouri al- Maliki has the political chops to get the job done there.
In fact, without any sort of ruling majority, any sort of coalition and with no sign that the Iraqi parliament is going to get down to the important business at hand, there's a lot of concern here at the Pentagon.
DOBBS: Jamie, thank you very much. Jamie McIntyre from the Pentagon.
The additional combat brigade that has just arrived in Baghdad is equipped with the latest version of the Stryker armored vehicle. That new Stryker features a much larger gun, a 105-millimeter cannon. Soldiers say the new cannon helps troops blast through walls, destroy enemy sniper positions and is more helpful in clearing streets of insurgents.
Still ahead, troubling new concerns about food safety in this nation, and dangerous imports from communist China has even the FDA at least slightly concerned.
Has China been lying about the safety of its food exports to the United States? The short answer is, you bet. We'll have the report.
And shock and outrage over the selection of an artist from communist China to build the monument to Martin Luther King - in Chinese, not American granite. That story is next. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Vinyl baby bibs manufactured in communist China and sold at Wal-Mart are being voluntarily recalled. Those bibs were examined by the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, California. And they found high levels of lead in those baby bibs.
Wal-Mart, in agreements with the attorneys general of both Illinois and New York, then removed the bibs from store shelves in those states. Wal-Mart told us that they have now removed those baby bibs from stores nationwide.
The Food and Drug Administration says communist China has been intentionally disguising the contents of some of the food it's exporting to the United States. Those products most likely to be mislabeled - foods that contain toxic chemicals, including melamine.
As Kitty Pilgrim reports, communist China's practice of intentionally mislabeling products sold in the United States could be very dangerous for American consumers.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Don't bother looking at labels. No food product has to list where it comes from.
The FDA Web site will tell you just how many products from China are rejected each month - routinely, more than any other country. While most countries have only a handful of rejected shipments per month, China rejections often run in the triple digits. Last month, 215 Chinese products were rejected.
REP. JOHN DUNCAN, R-TENNESSEE: The Chinese are really ripping us off in what they're doing, adding all these adulterated products and dangerous items and products and chemicals to some of the food, just so they can make more money.
PILGRIM: Some small food producers in China have gone after easy profits by adding cheaper ingredients to undercut their competitors. The FDA Web site often reads such reasons as unsafe additives for their rejection of a shipment.
REP. TOM DAVIS, R-VIRGINIA: Even when you write rules, whether it's over intellectual property or whether it's under food safety provisions, or whatever, you have to watch these people very, very carefully, because they tend to circumvent and will do anything they can get away with.
PILGRIM: In 2000, Chinese producers were cheating on trade laws, shipping their honey through Thailand to avoid anti-dumping penalties. U.S. authorities, testing honey for anti-dumping enforcement, found Chinese honey had the antibiotic chloramphenicol, which can cause cancer.
That mirrors the recent case of melamine.
WILLIAM HUBBARD, FORMER FDA OFFICIAL: I would hope that this time this is a wakeup call, that this could have been human food, and so, people could have died from this.
(END VIDEO)
PILGRIM (on camera): Even the FDA Web site shows how few products the agency tests. Now, China had a startlingly high rejection rate. And that begs the question, when faced with such high food and safety rejection rates from China, didn't officials see the warning signs well before the melamine contamination, Lou?
DOBBS: And as you say, I mean, that is the question.
And testing so few products and so many from communist China being rejected, what in the world would happen if they expanded that inspection list to, say, a responsible level of inspection? It's ridiculous.
PILGRIM: China was averaging 200 a month in recent months, and that just shows that there may be many, many more out there.
DOBBS: And this wonderful bureaucrat heading up the food inspection part of this FDA, he thinks everything's just hunky-dory.
You've got to love it. You've got to not love it.
Thanks very much, Kitty. Kitty Pilgrim.
Two more companies expanding their recall of pet food, because the products contain melamine from communist China. Menu Foods has now recalled a total of 131 brands, up from the original 90. SmartPac recalling its Live Smart Adult Lamb and Brown Rice pet food.
Those companies say the products have been contaminated at manufacturing plants where the same equipment is used in China to make many varieties of foods. Imagine.
There's rising outrage now, also, over a monument in Washington, D.C., that's being built in communist China. And the granite is also from communist China. It'll all be exported to this country, all to honor the legacy of an American hero and icon.
He is civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King. The memorial - the first specifically honoring an African American. But an American won't create the memorial, and it won't be carved from American stone.
Bill Tucker has more on the controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Martin Luther King was a man who rose from the red clay of Georgia to profoundly shape his country.
REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER: Now is the time ...
TUCKER: His legacy is now being honored on the Washington National Mall with a monument. The memorial, known as the Stone of Hope, will be the first honoring an African-American, and it will be carved by a Chinese sculptor using Chinese stone in communist China.
GILBERT YOUNG, WWW.KINGISOURS.COM: We have a moral right and obligation to create this memorial from a black perspective, so the world can see our artistry and what Dr. King really fought for.
TUCKER: So far, the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial Project Foundation has raised $78 million of the needed $100 million to complete the project. Ten million of those are taxpayer funds.
The foundation's board, which is 90 percent African-American, declined our request for an interview, but did give us this statement. "Those who built America's Mall drew on the talents of the world. Dr. King would be pleased that the memorial project is holding truth to his words that we are judging people not by the color of their skin but the content of their character."
Yes, but ...
BARBARA ANDREWS, NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM: While pleased about the larger world situation in which a Chinese artist could, in fact, sculpt Martin Luther King, I think he would be disappointed to know that an African-American artist and/or an American was not chosen.
REV. JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: Each time I see another event honoring Dr. King by those who did not know him or walk with him, they get further and further away from the authentic or from the original. We must fight for the authenticity of the Martin Luther King that lived and that we knew.
TUCKER: Construction is scheduled to begin late this year.
(END VIDEO)
TUCKER (on camera): The irony is inescapable. The contract for the stone and the statue of the man who led the civil rights movement here in America, Lou, goes to one of the world's more repressive regimes, where he could have never led the civil rights movement.
DOBBS: And you know, Bill, I mean, it is a remarkable story. And we also asked a number of people for their reaction. Here's what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It should be done by an American artist with American stone in America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Martin Luther King is American, so it should be here, not in China.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What he did helped the entire world. So, it doesn't matter where it comes from.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Martin Luther King was here. He wasn't in China. It should be built here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm all in favor of a statue of Martin Luther King, but I think it ought to be made by an American artist.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Martin Luther King did things here in America, but it's affected everyone worldwide. So, if it's done in China, I don't think that's a problem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It should be done by an American artist.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Importing something all the way from China what is an American monument, it doesn't make any sense.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
DOBBS: And up next, Senator Jim Webb says it's time to get out of Iraq. He joins us here.
And later, supporters of amnesty for illegal aliens demonstrating this week. The protests weren't very big. Were they very helpful?
And outspoken author Christopher Hitchens doesn't shy away from controversy. His latest topic, his latest book, "God Isn't Great." He joins me next to talk about this important new book.
Stay with us. We're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Senator Jim Webb says the United States won the war in Iraq and won it four years ago. The senator says the question now is when to end the occupation.
Senator Webb, highly decorated, was a Marine in Vietnam, also former secretary of the Navy - and his son serving with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq.
This is where he says we're headed now that the president's vetoed legislation that would have withdrawn our troops, and some members of Congress talking about revoking authorization for the war.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
SEN. JIM WEBB, D-VIRGINIA: We have heard very strongly from the people in this country in poll after poll, that they want to see something different in Iraq. And we need - we have an obligation to try to do something different.
And I think the connection between this appropriations measure and what you saw with Senator Clinton and Senator Byrd is some effort to get the message through to the administration that they have to do something different on the military side.
You know, they started off on the political justification for this war, saying it was Saddam Hussein and WMD. And then we were going to remake the democratic institutions all across that region.
And as - we'd (ph) reached the point where the president was simply talking about al Qaeda, who wasn't even in Iraq operationally when we started.
So, we need to have the kind of focus on the military side, where we can reduce our footprint and increase the diplomatic efforts, as people have wanted.
DOBBS: Senator, let me throw something at you - and forgive me. It seems to me the charges of the Democrats in Congress wanting to micromanage the war is less on point. And it seems the Democrats in the Senate and the Congress are trying to manage the president.
Which would you say is a reasonably apt description?
WEBB: Well, I would have to agree with you on that. I mean, there are things in this supplemental that I didn't particularly like, but we have to come to some sort of an agreement where we can stand up to an administration that has not listened to the American people, and has been single-minded in the way that it's used the military.
One of my great concerns - and there's a provision in this appropriations bill that reflected it - is what we're doing to the Army and the Marine Corps people on the ground over there by continuing to deploy them over and over again without the proper amount of time back here in the States.
And so, we're going to the well on the military side. They haven't geared up strongly enough on the diplomatic side. And that's the only way we're going to get out of this.
DOBBS: Getting of this looks like it's going to be not quite as certain as some of the date (ph) would suggest, at least it seems to me.
But is there, in your mind, a reasonable concern on the parts of everyone about what will transpire in Iraq should the United States withdraw its combat forces by March of next year?
WEBB: If we were to withdraw precipitously, there is a concern. And that really was not a hard-and-fast provision in the legislation. The hard-and-fast provision was that we would begin to do something within four months after the enactment; in other words, we would start turning this around.
There was a goal in there about next year. I don't think that's a realistic goal, personally. And I've said over and over again, that the way to do this is to get the right sort of diplomatic framework in place, so that we can then move our troops out.
And the one ray of hope there has been, Secretary of State Rice, really, I think has returned somewhat to the realist fold her. Her beginning was over on that side. And what's going on in Egypt right now is the way we need to start approaching that.
DOBBS: Senator Jim Webb, we thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
WEBB: Nice to be with you.
(END VIDEO)
DOBBS: Coming up next, tens of thousands of people take part in pro-amnesty marches, but the number of protestors far fewer than a year ago. We'll have a special report.
And the Bush White House and leading Democrats trying to impose amnesty on American citizens for illegal aliens. And I'll be joined by one of the country's most provocative, intelligent and colorful authors, Christopher Hitchens.
Are your ready? The name of his new book - "God Is Not Great."
We're coming right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The pro-illegal alien lobby this past Tuesday mobilized tens of thousands of protestors demanding amnesty and a lot of other things, for as many as 20 million illegal aliens in this country.
Casey Wian reports on those protests and demonstrations coast to coast.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, LOS ANGELES (voice-over): They draped themselves in the American flag, demanding amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who broke American law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm an immigrant. I'm not legal. I'm in the process. But united we can do something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just want to have an amnesty.
WIAN: From Los Angeles to Orlando, from Denver to Detroit, tens of thousands marched.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We definitely want to have a better treatment, and we want to find a way to legalize our situation.
WIAN: Though American flags dominated, others were plentiful, as were signs like this one, proclaiming a world without borders.
Turnout was sharply lower than last year when protesters were trying to defeat the Sensenbrenner border security bill. This year, marchers want Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop raiding workplaces and deporting fugitive illegal aliens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here to say that the raids and the deportations that have been escalated over the last year are wrong and unjust, and that immigrants are here to work, and they're not criminals. And that we think that the best solution to this problem is legalization with full (ph) rights for all the undocumented.
WIAN: A solution the Heritage Foundation says would cost U.S. taxpayers more than $50 billion a year.
But marchers were not focused on costs, only entitlement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's everyone's country. It's not just my country or a Mexican's country or any country. It's everyone's.
WIAN: Not everyone attending the marches agreed. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We close the borders and make sure that Americans don't have to foot the bill for the illegal immigration situation.
WIAN: The message from march organizers: any enforcement of immigration law is inhumane.
JAVIER RODRIGUEZ, MARCH ORGANIZER: We want a stop to the campaign of terror that has been implemented by the Bush administration.
WIAN: Rodriguez even claimed the boycott shut down the Port of Los Angeles, the nation's largest. A port spokeswoman denied that, saying cargo continued to move through and operations were normal.
Casey Wian, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEO)
DOBBS: The FBI joins the investigation into that violence in Los Angeles. And the city's mayor is cutting short a trip to Mexico to deal with the political fallout of the event.
Police officers firing rubber bullets and swinging batons, trying to disperse some of the crowd at MacArthur Park. Some officers said they were pelted with stones and other debris. Rally organizers called the police actions brutal. Others said that was not, by the way, representatives of the pro-amnesty demonstration, but rather what were styled as "anarchists."
A number of people were injured, none seriously. Claims by both sides, some of the organizers and the police saying that anarchists were involved with no connection whatsoever to that pro-amnesty rally.
Illegal aliens and their supporters also marching in Washington, D.C. this week, where the battle over granting amnesty to as many as 20 million illegal aliens divides both Republicans and Democrats.
Lisa Sylvester now reports on the state of the amnesty agenda on Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON, D.C. (voice-over): In Washington, protestors marched from the Democratic National Headquarters to the GOP headquarters. At a city park, another rally. Demonstrators voiced their demands of Congress.
MARCO DEL FUEGO, PROTESTOR: A general amnesty for all those that qualify - without costs, without charges, without people having to be removed back to their countries in order to reapply. Without conditions. General amnesty, just like it was done in 1986.
SYLVESTER: Blanket amnesty is opposed by many lawmakers and the majority of the public. On Capitol Hill, a group of Democrats is meeting with conservative Republicans, they're searching for a compromise that will bridge the two political sides. Senator Kennedy is spearheading that effort.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, D-MASSACHUSETTS: We face a critical choice, between a future as a nation of immigrants or a future measured by higher walls and longer fences.
SYLVESTER: Among the proposals, a merit point system based on an illegal alien's work history, English proficiency and education level.
Another option, a trigger plan. That calls for a guest worker program and citizenship for illegal aliens, but only after enforcement measures are in place.
SEN. JOHNNY ISAKSON, R-GEORGIA: It can't just be a promise. We have got to obligate the Congress of the United States to appropriate the money to build the barriers, put in the employment verification system.
SYLVESTER: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has set aside the last two weeks of May for the immigration debate. But compromise legislation that has reached in the Senate could hit a dead end in the House.
ROSEMARY JENKS, NUMBERSUSA: The basic problem is that the Senate is starting its negotiations from amnesty as a foregone conclusion. The House is saying very clearly, we can't vote for amnesty.
(END VIDEO)
SYLVESTER (on camera): This week, demonstrators marched demanding amnesty without any conditions. But lawmakers appear to be moving in just the opposite direction in an effort to forge a compromise. They're now discussing stepped up enforcement - Lou.
DOBBS: Lisa, thank you. Lisa Sylvester from Washington.
Mexico is losing more of its population to immigration to the United States - both legal and illegal - than it loses to death. That according to a new Mexican government report.
That report says, in 2006 an average of almost 600,000 Mexican citizens entered the United States. During the same period, there were only 501,000 deaths.
The study also said 78 percent of Mexicans entering the United States between 2001 and 2006 entered illegally.
Up next, one of the hottest issues in the country. Where do those presidential candidates stand on illegal immigration and amnesty? We'll have that report.
And author Christopher Hitchens takes on God. His new book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." He joins us. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: This past Thursday was National Prayer Day, a day when many people like to sit down and think about reflecting on God's forgiveness and religion itself.
Author Christopher Hitchens had quite a different approach to God and religion over this past week, releasing his new book entitled "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."
Why would he take on God?
(BEGIN VIDEO)
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, AUTHOR, "GOD IS NOT GREAT: HOW RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING": There's no bigger subject. That doesn't elevate me, of course. But it's ...
DOBBS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) would not expect ...
HITCHENS: It's an inescapable one. Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins, and astrology ends and astronomy begins.
I think you would be surprised, in turn, actually, to find out how many people don't believe and are annoyed by religious bullying and theocratic bullying and intimidation, not just in this country but around the world - everywhere from Iraq to Afghanistan to Somalia to the settlers on the West Bank to the people who want to teach nonsense to our children in schools.
The evidence is, when Americans are spoken to seriously about this, that they're not completely credulous. They don't take everything on faith.
DOBBS: And not taking things on faith, it's stunning as we look at the number of issues which you point out in the book and which you write brilliantly about - whether we're looking at the Middle East, whether we're looking within this country - what is, it seems to me, a resurgence of religion and an empowerment for religious leaders to drive politics and certainly to attempt to drive policy.
HITCHENS: Worse than that, I mean, we are looking at a theocratic dictatorship in Iran, for example, that, A, believes that the 12th imam - their version of the Messiah - is about to come back and redeem the whole world, and, B, thinks, as an insurance, they should have a nuclear weapon.
It's as if the Inquisition had a thermonuclear capacity. It's a very serious thing. They won't (ph) (UNINTELLIGIBLE) about it.
The settlers in Israel hope to create chaos and Armageddon and bring on their own Messiah. There are people in America who think that would be a great idea, and we could use taxpayers' money to help them.
There are people in Denmark who - Denmark, a tiny, democratic Scandinavian country - who are afraid to publish a cartoon. It wasn't a single American paper that was brave to print the cartoons in solidarity with them.
DOBBS: Christopher Hitchens writes in his book and points out - and it came back to me with some embarrassment, I have to tell you - media, the national media in this country talking about the Danish cartoon controversy, in which all sorts of threats were being made. And the national media in this country afraid to put forward those cartoons, for fear of offending someone.
HITCHENS: In a completely pictorial culture. Actually, it was on this network, where I was debating with a Muslim spokesman. And CNN put the page from the Danish press up, but they pixilated the cartoon so you couldn't see it.
I said, look, you've done that out of fear, haven't you? The lady interviewer said yes. And I said to the Muslim spokesman, is that the relationship you want with the media, to get yourself on this show by trying to frighten people? Because is so, this idea that faith is better than no faith will need to be revised (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
And the little magazine I write for, "Skeptic Magazine," did print the cartoons. And one of the main book chains ripped our magazine from the magazine racks of all the bookstores in the country.
DOBBS: It is a disturbing time in many respects, whether one looks at the warnings of Orwell, or whether one looks at just the present squarely in the face.
The efforts from so many quarters to constrain thought, independence, individuality, originality.
HITCHENS: And we have so much a better tradition.
For example, the Founding Fathers wrote into our Constitution the First Amendment, based on Mr. Jefferson's statute from Virginia, separating the church from the state. It was the only constitution in the world that's ever done that.
We have Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Thomas Paine. We have Spinoza. We have Albert Einstein. We have a wonderful tradition of philosophy and science and the beauty of reason to set against these prophets and these ranters (ph).
And we still have the assumption that to say someone is a person of faith - i.e., they'll believe any without evidence - is a good thing.
DOBBS: I want to put up, if we may, for our viewers to look, just in case. Anyone who knows the work of Christopher Hitchens knows he does not play at the margin intellectually.
And he - when he goes after the subject of God, he's direct and comprehensive.
But let's put up the Jesus, a virgin birth. And Christopher Hitchens in the book, "God Is Not Great," puts it in historical context.
These are the figures, gods, deities and revered figures who have virgin births in one form or another throughout history. You say that - what's new about Jesus?
HITCHENS: Can they see the list?
DOBBS: They can.
HITCHENS: I can't.
DOBBS: It's right here. I'm sorry.
HITCHENS: Well, then, while we're looking at that, I mean, I think I mention that Buddha is born through a slit in his mother's side.
And there's something to me creepy, as someone who quite likes his mother and is very grateful for her efforts ...
DOBBS: Right.
HITCHENS: ... in a religion that so hates the idea of the female birth canal. It seems to think of it as something filthy, rather as people go for the genital mutilation - not just little girls, but also of little boys.
As if - but they say God's plan is perfect and he designed us wonderfully, except now we just want to hack away at your genitals to improve the picture.
What exactly is this? Why are we so deferential to it?
DOBBS: You refer to the birth canal in those instances, some with a preference for a one-way street, I believe, as you put it.
HITCHENS: Well, yes. I do say that. I know this is a family show.
DOBBS: It is, indeed, and it's a family world.
The idea that you also call for a new Enlightenment is also critically important as you conclude the book.
Christopher Hitchens - I've just got to tell you. Buy the book. This is a brilliant book, a brilliant read - "God Is Not Great."
HITCHENS: You're very kind.
DOBBS: Christopher Hitchens asked me to put his lapel pin on. Christopher Hitchens is now - congratulations and with gratitude. Thank you for being an American citizen, and I'll be delighted to put this lapel pin on, if you would wish.
And let me move over here very quickly.
HITCHENS: I've wanted to say this for a long time - I don't know if I'm looking in the right camera - my fellow Americans.
DOBBS: I love it.
HITCHENS: I did it on Jefferson's birthday - which is also mine; I'm his biographer - at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
And in the name of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the wall of separation, Mr. Jefferson, build up that wall.
DOBBS: And Mr. Hitchens, we thank you very much.
HITCHENS: Mr. Dobbs, it's an honor.
DOBBS: Again, congratulations. Thank you.
HITCHENS: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO)
DOBBS: Up next, amnesty for illegal aliens - Congress divided. Where do the presidential candidates stand? They don't like to talk about it a lot. But we'll have that report, and I'll be joined by three of the country's leading political analysts and strategists. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates notably absent from this week's illegal alien amnesty marches.
But as our Bill Schneider reports, immigration reform, so-called, or amnesty is an issue those candidates can't afford to ignore for very long.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, LOS ANGELES (voice- over): Some politicians look at immigration demonstrators and see future voters. Democrats see Latinos as the key to an emerging Democratic majority.
All the Democrats running for president favor immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, D-NEW YORK, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We do need to work together on comprehensive immigration reform.
JOHN EDWARDS, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We also need to combine that with comprehensive immigration reform.
SCHNEIDER: But they know there are voters on the other side outraged by the notion of amnesty. So, Democrats insist legalization must be earned.
CLINTON: ... and the giving them a chance to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English and stand in line ...
EDWARDS: I would have some requirements, which some people won't agree with.
SCHNEIDER: Republican candidates are divided. Four favor a legal path to citizenship, as does President Bush. Four oppose creating a path to citizenship.
Two candidates, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and one potential candidate, Fred Thompson, are willing to consider legalization, but insist that illegal immigrants should not be put ahead of those waiting for citizenship legally.
President Bush and his supporters don't want to see Republicans write off Latino voters. They face a torrent of criticism from conservatives and others, infuriated by the prospect of amnesty.
Polling indicates that Americans who oppose amnesty are more likely to consider the issue extremely important, and to vote the issue - right now - particularly in Republican primaries, which is why Republicans who support comprehensive reform have been sounding defensive.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZONA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We gave amnesty and we didn't secure the borders. Now we've got 12 million people who are here illegally. So, our first priority has to be to secure our borders.
RUDY GIULIANI, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They should have to pay a penalty, because there should not be amnesty.
SCHNEIDER: Immigration is a divisive issue. People feel intensely on both sides. A politician who takes either side risks losing votes.
So, what do most politicians want to do? Change the subject.
Bill Schneider, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEO)
DOBBS: I'm joined now by three of the best thinkers on politics in this country: Errol Louis, columnist, "New York Daily News"; Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf; and from Washington, D.C., Diana West, columnist, "Washington Time."
Thanks for being here, and it's great to see you all.
Hank, let's begin.
Senators Clinton and Byrd want to revoke the president's war authority. Make any sense? HANK SHEINKOPF, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, you know, it's kind of hard to stop the horse that's galloping away. And the question people ask is, where were they before, and why weren't they vocal way back then?
It's a way for her, certainly, to deal with problems that have come up on the left, people saying, you haven't been forceful enough, or you weren't in the right place when it was supposed to be the right place.
DOBBS: Are we back to better politics, a better policy? Or what is this?
SHEINKOPF: We're back to a mix of what should be better policy, but what is really politics.
DOBBS: Errol, your thoughts?
ERROL LOUIS, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK DAILY NEWS": Nothing but politics.
Look, they didn't need the authorization to actually start the war. It was intended as a symbol of national unity at a time of crisis.
What they're trying to do now is revoke that symbol and make clear the level of division in this country over the war. If it accomplishes nothing else, it will certainly do that.
DOBBS: The president and the Democratic leadership of both houses, Diana West, are saying that they are talking compromise.
Is this just a waste of everybody's time? Or is it simply time now to fund the war and get on with the business of finding out whether or not the president's new strategy will work or won't, and then take action?
DIANA WEST, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON TIMES": Well, I suppose that that would be a good procedure, Lou, but that's not what they're doing. And I agree with Errol on this point. This is politics.
But it is not politics that is contained within our continent. This sort of politics goes around the world.
And my great distress is that this kind of politicking shows our worst enemies that we have no resolve, no will to fight. And that's dangerous.
DOBBS: Well, Diana, I've got to say, it seems to me that the greater fear we should all have is the number of lives lost, the number of our people wounded in Iraq, the immense financial cost of this war - without having achieved success.
Isn't that more emboldening of our enemies?
WEST: Possibly. I mean, they're both terribly emboldening of our enemies.
But the Democratic actions at this point, having seen these failures of our policy on the ground in Iraq, I find more frightening or more serious, because it is projecting not a will to fix these policies - get on with it and make it happen, make it work, do what's necessary for national security - but rather to show that we have no will to try anything new or better. We want to just go home.
SHEINKOPF: Will, schmill (ph). I mean, the real issue here is the conduct of this war is a disgrace. It's a disgrace across the world. And our enemies are the enemies of democracy.
And the enemies of the very things we are talking about and caring about are emboldened by our failure to perform appropriately, and by putting those extraordinary young men and women at risk by commanders who really don't know what they're doing.
WEST: Yes, but ...
DOBBS: We're going to be right back. I'm sorry, Diana. We're going to be right back. We're going to have to take a quick break.
We will begin with Diana's repost in just a moment. We're coming right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: We're back with Errol Lewis, Hank Sheinkopf and Diana West.
Diana, you were about to say quickly?
WEST: Well, I don't think it's ever a matter of "will, schmill (ph)," as Hank said. Will is key in any sort of a struggle like this.
And again, what the Democrats are showing is not a plan and not a way to win better, but ...
DOBBS: But let me ask you. Diana, I've to ...
WEST: ... but to do nothing, to not engage, to go off the offensive.
DOBBS: Well, let me ask you, Errol. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm a little tired of an administration who tells the Iraqi government we're running out of patience, of U.S. generals who tell the American people to have patience, and then the same Bush administration telling the North Koreans they're running out of patience.
And I'm getting a little impatient with all of this crying out loud stuff about patience.
LOUIS: Well, they're expressing impatience to an Iraqi government whose parliament is about to take a two-month vacation, go on hiatus ... DOBBS: Isn't that a beauty.
LOUIS: ... while American troops are in the field defending what's left of that country.
I mean, look. We have made a series of disastrous mistakes here. And if you go back - I've mentioned it before - you know, you go back 80 years and you look at the writings of the adventures of this British colonial minister named Winston Churchill, trying to make sense out of Iraq, calling it an expensive, ungrateful volcano that they were sitting on top of.
Well, we've replaced them, and we're sitting on top of it.
And the fact that most Americans want us out is something that we've all got to come to ...
DOBBS: And that was 80 years ago.
LOUIS: Yes. And not a whole lot of progress since, in a lot of ways.
DOBBS: And not a lot of improvement in attitude on the part of the Iraqis in any quarter.
Let's turn to another issue in which we were watching elites drive policy direction without regard to either seemingly consequence or to the will of the people, and that is on the issue of illegal immigration, as we just heard in Bill Schneider's report.
I mean, good grief! What does it take for this government and these elected officials in both the House and the Senate to understand that their elitist nonsense has to end. Someone has to get serious about border security and cut the nonsense.
SHEINKOPF: They're not going to stop the nonsense, particularly on the Democratic side as we get closer to 2008. The Democrats want to hold on to what they've got. The Republicans want to try to pick up something.
The only way anything will occur is if the so-called fringe candidates - who have talked about this openly, who have expressed an alarm - force this to the front of the discussion.
DOBBS: Diana?
WEST: Well, I don't think they're going to do anything, because the American people did not tell them to do anything. And they're not - it seems to be an issue that ...
DOBBS: What about their corporate masters? What about the socio-ethnic-centric special interest groups? What about all this nonsense?
WEST: Well, what we're getting, I mean, you saw the protests this past week were smaller - much smaller than last year. And I think that tells us that people who are concerned - the illegal alien proponents - understand that amnesty is coming their way, perhaps, or probably. And they just don't have that much to be worried about.
LOUIS: And the issue's pretty much done. I mean, those who are opposed to legalization in the Republican Party among the candidates are the fringe candidates, as Hank said.
I mean, it's Tancredo, it's Gilmore, it's Paul. It's Duncan Hunter. They're going nowhere. They have no support. They have very little money.
They're one-issue candidates in a lot of ways, whose issue is not taking hold, even with the Republican base.
DOBBS: But what people are missing is, this is one of the top three issues for American citizens. And there could be huge, huge implications for the presidential candidates in 2008.
And this game may not have a happy ending for some of those elites, if they try to pull this nonsense.
WEST: Well, I hope you're right.
DOBBS: You and me both. And millions and millions of other Americans, as well.
We thank three great Americans - Hank Sheinkopf, Errol Louis and Diana West - for being with us tonight. Thank you.
And thank you for being with us. Join us tomorrow for our special town hall meeting, "Broken Borders," from Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
For all of us, thanks for watching. Enjoy your weekend.
Good night from New York.
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