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Parker Spitzer
Interview With Ken Cuccinelli; What Makes a Great Teacher?
Aired November 17, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATHLEEN PARKER, HOST: Good evening. I'm Kathleen Parker.
ELIOT SPITZER, HOST: I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program. Another great program tonight. Coming up, a conservative who is making waves, Ken Cuccinelli, the attorney general of Virginia, going to court to enforce a very conservative agenda.
PARKER: Plus, Eliot, what makes a great teacher? What better way to demonstrate what's a good teacher than to show you one of mine. I'm going to introduce you to a teacher that I had in high school.
SPITZER: I cannot wait. I cannot wait.
But first, as always, our opening arguments. The Republicans in Washington playing a dangerous game of politics. The Senate, Jon Kyl, the senator from Arizona, saying the Senate will not consider a critically important arms control treaty that would limit the number of nuclear warheads that Russia could have pointing at us.
Third time he has done this. He's wrong over and over. Republicans, Democrats alike, saying this is a critically important treaty. And for partisan reasons, he's not letting the Senate vote. The bipartisan support for this treaty goes on and on and on. This is the first time I can remember that a treaty of this magnitude was being held up for partisan purposes. This treaty supported by both sides of the aisle. I just don't get what's going on.
PARKER: He's holding out for an appropriation. He asked for more money and Obama said OK and then he asked for more money. So this is going back and forth. So certainly it does look like it's strictly partisan haggling over something that's awfully important.
SPITZER: And here's the fundamental point, this treaty is an extension of the treaties that were negotiated beginning with President Reagan, the Start Treaties. It limits the amount of warheads that Soviets have. Permits us to inspect them. It's just incredible to me. I think Senator Reid should demand that there be a vote. They need 67 votes to pass this treaty, two-thirds. Democrats of course have 59. He would need eight Republicans. I bet he would get it. I think the president should make an appeal to the nation, saying as president, I am telling you this is for our safety. Let's get this vote.
PARKER: Senator Reid does - certainly have the power to do that. And you know, this would not be the first time that a large important issue has been passed during a lame-duck session.
SPITZER: That's true.
PARKER: Because the 2002 Homeland Security Act was passed under such circumstances so we'll see. Nuclear arms treaties not so much but it could happen.
SPITZER: It used to be foreign policy stopped, debates stopped at the borders. You know, you don't let partisan stuff interfere when we're talking about the rest of the world.
PARKER: That's right.
SPITZER: Not so much anymore, which is a real loss. Anyway.
PARKER: I agree with you on that. Eliot, we agree.
SPITZER: I don't know if that's good or bad. But you know what, we will continue this -
PARKER: It's good for the nation.
SPITZER: There you go. We will this conversation in "The Arena."
Joining us now, CNN political analyst Paul Begala and James Traub from "The New York Times." Welcome. Thanks for joining us.
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.
PARKER: James, let's start with you. Arms treaties with Russia have always had bipartisan support. And now Senator Kyl is coming out and putting the skids on this. What is going on here? And by the way, most foreign policy experts support this. So why is he suddenly saying no?
JAMES TRAUB, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, what's even more amazing is it's not the Soviet Union. You know, sometimes when you talk to these guys, and I've talked to Kyl, you have to say, "do you think that the Russians are going to launch an attack against us? It's not the Soviet Union anymore." At least -Kyl doesn't say this, Jim DeMint, a very conservative Republican, has I guess accidentally referred to Russia as the Soviet Union on occasion. So -
PARKER: Well, he's older, so we remember.
TRAUB: He remembers. I remember it too, but I noticed when it ended. So I would say two things, one, there is a - obviously, this is a very conservative Republican caucus and these people really think arms control is just bad. Two, it's a profoundly partisan one. And so the point you made, that until now, arms control treaties have passed by a bipartisan majority, is because there was the thought that when we are facing the supremely important global issues, we have to put partisan issues to one side. That feeling isn't there anymore. And so when you think about the Republicans who are blocking us and above all Kyl, and you ask yourself, what's his calculation, I would guess it is, in part, genuine conviction. You can't trust those Russians. And the thought, "I'm not going to give this victory, this all-important victory to Obama."
SPITZER: Can we talk about this treaty in more than just abstract terms? What this treaty is going to do is cap the number of deployed nuclear warheads, cap the number of launchers and put in place a system to inspect and verify, all of which is enormously important for our security. This is not a giveaway. This is not something we're doing as a favor to Russia. This is something that George Shultz supports, the secretary of state, under a Republican administration.
The roster of Republicans who support this is as long as my arm. The entire foreign policy establishment. This is the third time Senator Kyl has blocked it. Now it is clear to me this is almost specious. It is politics. And I think it's an outrage. I really think it is getting to the point where it's outrageous.
TRAUB: I think Kyl's position has been - well, let me go back one second. Kyl's position, in my conversations with him, has been there are all these terrible things these guys want to do, like a comprehensive test ban treaty, deep cuts and so forth. I'll never permit that. The Start Treaty has been, well, "I'm very suspicious" but if they'll do this and that, this and that, then maybe I'll think it's OK. The big "this" is what's called modernization. Spend lots money on our nuclear infrastructure. The Obama administration said "fine, we're going to spend a ridiculous amount of money."
SPITZER: $80 billion.
TRAUB: An insane amount of money and not necessary.
PARKER: (INAUDIBLE) $10 billion more on top of that so -
TRAUB: But the point is it's like, you know, they called his bluff, then he said, I got a new one.
PARKER: Right.
TRAUB: It strikes me as being extremely cynical on his part.
SPITZER: Which is why the question that I am now brought to is what happens if Harry Reid says, you know what, I'm bringing this thing to the floor? I think he should do that. I think he should say, you know what, we're not going to let our foreign policy be held hostage by one or two renegade Republican senators when there is indeed a consensus among the foreign policy establishment. I think he gets the votes.
PARKER: Well, it is a lame duck session.
(INAUDIBLE) SPITZER: Really?
PARKER: Is it likely that they could push something through in the lame duck session?
BEGALA: Well, (INAUDIBLE) bring it to the floor.
PARKER: Sure.
BEGALA: I'm with James, I don't think - I think if Senator Kyl -
(CROSSTALK)
PARKER: Well, we put Homeland Security through in a lame duck session in 2002 -
BEGALA: - president of the United States in the lame duck session. The lame duck Congress is a full-on, completely constitutional congress. There's this kind of nonsense out there that somehow they shouldn't do important things.
PARKER: Yes.
BEGALA: They must do important things. That's why we pay them all the money.
This is very important.
SPITZER: The sarcasm wasn't sufficiently -
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Right. Seriously, this is the only opportunity, the power we have to inspect the Russian nuclear arsenal.
SPITZER: Right.
BEGALA: That's a profoundly conservative argument about taking on or challenging a potential adversary and understanding what they're doing, to keep them from becoming an enemy and more importantly, keep them from proliferating -
TRAUB: Letting these loose nukes go.
If you treat this as domestic politics, you win, you lose. But it's not domestic politics, it's our relations with Russia. It's a history of arms control. So, if it fails, it's very, very bad. And we need Russia for a lot of things. We need them for Iran. We need them for Afghanistan. Because our troops go through there.
And so if it fails, these people who I agree with you are playing politics with it, will have done something far more grave and consequential that they themselves seem to be recognizing.
PARKER: Also what effect does it have on President Obama's profile elsewhere? I mean, it's already in that weakened position. TRAUB: Terrible.
PARKER: He's already in a weakened position. Terrible in Asia. So here we are undermining him yet again. Is that the perception?
BEGALA: He had a terrible trip to Asia, bad G-20 summit. He's not going to get any Korean trade. Even if he gets a deal with the South Koreans, he's never going to pass it through the Senate. He has to have this. Not just for domestic politics because I don't think people are going to vote based on this domestically, but for America's standing abroad. To be seen as a strong president who can make deals with the Russians and then deliver.
SPITZER: I want to come back to your South Korea reference. You've been in the White House. I was amazed when President Obama went there and didn't close that deal. I said, wasn't that deal done before he got on the airplane and the rest was formalities? How could this happen?
BEGALA: I don't know. The phrase they use on these foreign trips is deliverables.
SPITZER: Right.
BEGALA: You don't ever put your president in the room unless there's a deliverable coming out. Once in a while, it's a high wire act. President Reagan - sometimes it's only the president who can make the deal or choose to not take the deal. But in this case, this should have been pre-cooked and done and it should have been all wrapped up for the president and the South Korean president and it wasn't. I honestly don't know why.
SPITZER: I've had people come up to me and say to me, "wait a minute, you're telling me the president of the United States, when we have American troops still there, how many decades later, couldn't look at the president of South Korea in the eye and say, by the way, you know what, you don't sign on this dotted line, our troops are coming home tomorrow, how do you feel?" I mean -
TRAUB: Well, I'm not sure that's what I want to hear him say -
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Well, troops there are for our interest -
TRAUB: You know what, I don't think he wants to use that because we want to have those troops there too and all of Asia wants -
SPITZER: They care more than we do and that's why you're getting a trade deal so we can sell a few cars. That was outrageous. Can we come totally local? Nancy Pelosi?
PARKER: No pause here at all for K.P. to interject.
SPITZER: Go for it, go for it.
PARKER: I'm just teasing you. But that was my next question.
SPITZER: Go for it.
PARKER: Nancy Pelosi is back in the leadership position in the House for the Democrats. Is that a wise move?
BEGALA: Well, first off, politicians don't do things unless it's in their interest, right? And three to one -
SPITZER: Well that is -
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: At least the perceived interest, right? I've been really lucky to have seen Nancy Pelosi behind the scenes. I don't think she's probably the best public performer on television. But I've worked on the Hill. I've never seen anybody this effective in closed doors. She delivered that health care bill. It wasn't President Obama, it wasn't anybody else, it was Nancy Pelosi.
By the way, her colleagues also - she gets the blame, I don't think she should, for the 60 seats my party just lost. She certainly should get credit for the 55 that they won under her. In so in that sense, it's a bit of a wash. I think that they believe that the president is the face of the party, not Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader to be of the Democratic Party of the House.
The Party is going to be defined by how the president performs in public and they're going to need her negotiating and fighting with John Boehner behind the scenes and they can't do without her. I mean, she's that effective behind the scenes.
TRAUB: Although I have to say when I heard her response to the deficit commission, which basically is not just no but hell no, I thought, if this is what Nancy Pelosi is here to represent, the absolute unwillingness to give any ground on a kind of classical liberal vision of what the economy should be in the aftermath of this election, is that the face that the Democrats do want to have on their legislative party? I don't know it is. I found that really troubling. I thought that was politically maladroit but more importantly I though was substantively -
PARKER: No but hell no seems to be the football that they keep passing back and forth to each other. Anyway, Paul Begala, James Traub, thank you so much for joining us.
Coming up later in the program, a question we will ask a lot, what makes a great teacher? We'll meet one, stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The federal government has never before, ever, ordered Americans to buy a product under the guise of regulating commerce. If they can do this, they can order you what car to buy, to buy asparagus, to sign up for a gym.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: These days, an increasing number of state attorneys general are being called activist AGs, their chief law enforcers at the state level who are taking on issues that used to be strictly federal.
Our next guest is perhaps leading that crusade. He is an unusual mix of ultraconservative and idealistic. In fact, you would probably call him the conservative Eliot Spitzer.
SPITZER: I feel sorry for that guy.
Ken Cuccinelli was sworn in less than a year ago as Virginia's AG, already he is suing the federal government over health care. He says forcing Americans to have government-approved health insurance is unconstitutional. He's also suing the Environmental Protection Agency because he doesn't believe that carbon dioxide is contributing to massive global warming.
PARKER: Truth be know, attorneys general like Ken Cuccinelli, didn't exist before you, Eliot, you sort of paved the road for AGs who take the law into their own hands. There's even a term for it, Spitzerism.
SPITZER: You know, Kathleen, I want to get to our guest. We didn't quite take the law into our own hands, we enforced the law. But that's all right. We'll have that conversation anyway. But anyway, Ken is a Tea Party darling and he joins us tonight from Washington, D.C.. Welcome, attorney general Ken Cuccinelli.
KEN CUCCINELLI, ATTORNEY GENERAL, VIRGINIA: Good to be with you all.
PARKER: All right. Mr. Attorney General, you're challenging the federal health care law as unconstitutional.
CUCCINELLI: Yes.
PARKER: And I think it's pretty safe to say that the case will end up at the Supreme Court. Explain briefly your case, please.
CUCCINELLI: Sure, what's happening in this bill, particularly with the individual mandate, and that is a dictate to every American that they have to buy the government approved health insurance or pay a fine is unconstitutional. That has never happened before. When people say that this legislation is unconstitutional, that's what they're referring to.
The federal government has never before, ever, ordered Americans to buy a product under the guise of regulating commerce. If they can do this, they can order you what car to buy, to buy asparagus, to sign up for a gym, which are the examples the judge in our case used during the last hearing in the case. That's an incredible power that has never been exercised before, and it is being exercised in this bill.
SPITZER: OK. Let me just state up at the top, I obviously applaud your use of your office to sort of enforce the law as you see it, as you understand it. I've just got to say though virtually every constitutional scholar, author, disagrees with your position, and feels at the end of the day based on existing constitutional interpretations the commerce clause since the new deal has been interpreted to permit federal regulation of broad pieces of the economy such as health care -
CUCCINELLI: Eliot, you're just wrong - You're just wrong.
SPITZER: Ken, Ken -
CUCCINELLI: Every single judge has said it's totally unprecedented. Every single judge. I'm not just talking about the cases with the states. Every single one of them has said this exercise of power is completely unprecedented.
SPITZER: You don't have a problem, I presume, with Medicare, the Medicare structure is something you deem constitutional.
CUCCINELLI: Tax - as they do, taxing to spend on health care is perfectly constitutional.
SPITZER: OK. So now, imagine if the Medicare system, as many conservatives have proposed, in fact, they're trying to do something similar with social security said, we got the Medicare system and either you play in our system or, in which case you pay us the money and we provide you health care when you get to a certain age, or you can buy private system. You're saying that's unconstitutional?
CUCCINELLI: No, you're sort of moving to the discussion that's a lot like a hybrid privatization of social security -
SPITZER: Right.
CUCCINELLI: You got to do one or the other.
SPITZER: But you're not saying that would be unconstitutional, are you?
CUCCINELLI: If what they're doing is taxing your work, which is what they do with social security, and then giving you some choice over where some of that money goes because it's being used under the taxing power, whether we like it or not, and frankly that would be an improvement on social security, it is constitutional.
SPITZER: (INAUDIBLE)
CUCCINELLI: But that is not what is happening.
SPITZER: That is exactly what is happening.
CUCCINELLI: No, it isn't, Eliot. It absolutely is not. SPITZER: That's exactly what's going on here. The dollars they're being taxed - and this is a tax imposition by Congress are being used -
CUCCINELLI: What's the tax? If I buy the health insurance, I don't pay a penny.
SPITZER: Ken, what's being taxed is that individuals are being said, told you must contribute to cover the cost of the $40 billion of health care that right now is not paid for, because individuals are uninsured. This is exactly the logic that Mitt Romney, the conservative Republican, embraced when he put his health care system in place in Massachusetts. You're not saying that was unconstitutional, are you?
CUCCINELLI: Oh, come on, Eliot. Your viewers need to know, every state in the country could enact this federal health care bill in their state and it's perfectly constitutional for a state to do it. It is the federal government that the Constitution restrains and limits the powers of, not the states.
SPITZER: Ken, the fallacy is that this is a tax, it is recognized as a tax, it is enforced by the IRS, it is imposed upon you as many taxes are, if you do not do something else. You're trying to slip this in, call it a penalty. Frankly, I think it's a distinction without a difference -
CUCCINELLI: Me, Congress called it a penalty in the bill.
SPITZER: When the Supreme Court looks at this, it will view this as a tax and say because this is a tax, Congress has the right to impose it, based upon certain triggers, triggers of things that people either do or don't do.
PARKER: All right. Ken, I've interviewed several legal scholars who think you may have a winnable case but it's very, very complicated and you people have argued at a level that most people can't relate to. But they can relate to, what does it mean when you say if they expand the commerce clause to govern - to regulate inactivity, that means that they can then tell you to do anything, they can regulate anything, from what kind of car to buy, et cetera, et cetera?
CUCCINELLI: Sure.
PARKER: Can you give me a concrete example of what you mean?
CUCCINELLI: The first question, if I remember it correctly, the first question the judge asked in our case when the lawyer for the federal government got up was, if this is constitutional, what boundary is there to federal power? There's nothing they can't order you to buy. They can order you to buy a car because Detroit needs the jobs. That's a rationale.
They can compel you into commerce. Make you buy one every three years. The price is about the same as health insurance anyway. There is no limit to that power. If all they have to do is order you to buy something and penalize you financially, if you don't, and that's constitutional, health insurance is no different from anything else.
And the federal government got up there and said no, it's unique. They didn't describe how. Well, what about food? What about transportation? What about housing? What about clothing? What about medicine?
I guess medicine could fall under health care. But you can't quarantine that. I was on a panel with former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger who served in the Clinton administration. He's the only person who, in my view, has fully answered that question. When the question was put to him in our panel, he said the limits are political. What that means is that it's a majority vote of the Congress.
And if we're going to decide everything by majority vote of the Congress, why do we have a Constitution to protect the rights and the freedom of Americans and to protect the prerogatives of states like Massachusetts, as was used earlier as an example? They want to do this. They've gone down this path. It is not working very well for them. Nonetheless, they have the authority to do that as a state. The federal government cannot compel us to do this.
SPITZER: Ken, I want to come back to Walter Dellinger's says which you tried to - Walter Dellinger being one of the leading constitutional scholars in the nation. And what he said was exactly correct. Because what he said was when the political framework of this nation, meaning Congress, passes a Medicare system, a Medicaid system, the entirety of the health care regulatory structure that the Congress says this is how we will regulate 17 percent of our gross domestic product, that is interstate commerce, and that is what Congress and the act you're challenging is, in fact, participating in, the coherent regulation of commerce in that way, that is why Walter, I am sure, would agree with me, that this statute will be deemed constitutional.
CUCCINELLI: Certainly he would agree with that.
SPITZER: And that's what -
CUCCINELLI: And we'll find out.
SPITZER: Precisely. We will find out. Look, it's going to be a good case. Thank you for a fascinating conversation. Look forward to having you come back.
CUCCINELLI: Thank you all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said what I thought was completely logically obvious that health care's not a right. It was like I farted in church. I mean I was greeted with -
SPITZER: That's not the thing to do, I gather?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's bad, Eliot. Blanked, shock stares. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Time for the culture of politics. The health care debate rages on long after the passage of Obama care and the divisiveness of the issue during midterms. Our guest says Americans don't necessarily have a right to health care.
PARKER: Will Cain is a regular here on "Parker Spitzer." He's the host of "Off The Page" at the nationalreview.com. And we don't often mention this, he's also a licensed attorney in the state of Texas.
WILL CAIN, "OFF THE PAGE" HOST: That gives credibility to whatever I say.
SPITZER: Making it more important.
CAIN: Right.
PARKER: Absolutely. Welcome, Will. I guess as a Texan and a lawyer, you're probably looking forward to seceding from the union.
CAIN: I wish it happened yesterday.
SPITZER: Rick Perry's kind of backing off a little from that. But you can see he's kind of anxious to do it.
CAIN: Yes, as many of us Texans are.
PARKER: All right. You say that you brought up the subject of - that health care is not a right on election night.
CAIN: Right.
PARKER: And you got a strange reaction. Tell us about that.
CAIN: I said it on a post-election panel on CNN. I said what I thought was completely logically obvious that health care is not a right. And it was like I farted in church. I mean I was greeted with -
SPITZER: I've never done that. Not a good thing to do, I gather?
CAIN: It's bad, Eliot. I dealt with blanked, shock stares. And if it's true that we're potentially looking at the repeal of Obama care, we need to rewind to this very basic but important question, is health care a right?
SPITZER: OK. You've said 18 things that we got to push on. What do you mean by a right? Do you mean by a right something that's in the Constitution or do you mean something that is part of the social contract we have that defies our society? CAIN: That's a great question. We need to back the truck up to that basic level, the philosophical level, of what is a right. And basically, Eliot, there is are two kinds of rights. There are negative rights and positive rights. You have to distinguish between these two (INAUDIBLE).
SPITZER: Help us out here.
CAIN: Yes, negative rights revolve around inaction.
SPITZER: Right.
CAIN: They solidify our freedoms. Freedom of speech, freedom from violent crime, freedom from slavery. That's a negative right.
SPITZER: Things that protect our capacity to do what we want as individuals.
CAIN: That's right.
SPITZER: Government can't do things to us and that other people can't do things to us. It protects our individuality.
CAIN: Negative right.
SPITZER: OK. Conceptually we're (INAUDIBLE) together here.
CAIN: On the other hand, you have positive rights. Now positive rights depend upon action. They have to be created. It obliges other people to create a situation that you have a claim to. This is what the concept of I have a right to health care revolves around, positive rights.
SPITZER: It's a nice theoretical distinction. But I think what we got to do is step back. That's an abstract distinction that I think everybody will agree with. But look, we're not living at a point in modern society where wealthy nations are saying society provides certain benefits to our kids, to our seniors. Among those benefits are a guaranteed education for kids because we know that is the essence of progress. And we guarantee people access to health care. That is something that everybody agrees is fundamental to our community.
CAIN: All fine and good as long as we term those as privileges. Now the semantics are important here. OK. If it's true that what you just said, that as societies advance, you accumulate rights. You get like merit badges like a boy scout. You accumulate rights. What does that say to all the people who live in less advanced societies? People live in authoritative (INAUDIBLE), they don't have a right to free speech.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: No, no. What it means, Will is there's progress and that we as a nation are demonstrating the progress of our amazing society based on tolerance, democracy and capitalism, three things I think you agree with.
CAIN: Yes.
SPITZER: One of the attributes and things we can now afford and we provide to our citizens is health care and education.
CAIN: Look.
PARKER: Doesn't saying you have a right to health care imply that you have a right to health? And if you have a right to health, then don't I have a right to insist that you behave a certain way in order to guarantee that?
SPITZER: No.
CAIN: Yes. By the way, Eliot, it implies much more than that. Think about the message it sends to doctors - do you have right to healthcare? Doctors who spend countless hours perfecting their craft, spent countless hours accumulating knowledge and education. It says to them, by virtue of being born in the United States, you have a claim to all that.
SPITZER: Well, let me break a fact to you though. You practiced law for a while. 1986, the Congress passed a law, the president signed it, that gives people the right to health care. When they go to an emergency room and they need care, they get it. Hospitals are not permitted to deny them that care. That's a different thing than saying you get cradle to grave health care of a certain caliber. You get the MRI whenever you want it. But our society has said people in need care, we are wealthy enough. We believe in taking care of each other enough so they get it. You're not disagreeing with that.
CAIN: You're using the emergency room argument to define a right. And what I'm telling you the emergency room argument is a privilege that we've agreed upon as a society. Rights exist on their own. They are, as we say, inalienable.
PARKER: I want to interrupt you two, just one second, because otherwise I'm never get a word in. But if you say you have a right to health care and therefore a right to good health, that means you also have the right to the best possible medical care and that is fundamentally not affordable.
SPITZER: No, no -
PARKER: Wait a minute -
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: One has nothing to do with the other. To say you have a right to certain health care does not mean you're entitled to the best or the optimal. The right to an attorney in a criminal case does not mean you're entitled to any lawyer you want. It means the state will guarantee you get a lawyer.
CAIN: If you have a right to health care, it's a basic human right. Do you have a right to food? You have a basic human right to shelter? Those are basic items. And by the way, if I have a right to shelter, can I destroy my house and demand another? I have a right.
SPITZER: No, no, no. This is where the responsibilities come into play and where every thing is a matter of balance. To day their absolutes, even the First Amendment and I am pretty close to being an absolutist on it, but, of course, it is balanced against you can't scream fire in a crowded theater, the easiest classic example. Health care, the right to health care doesn't mean you can act in a way that is so injurious to yourself and then say now give me health care --
PARKER: OK, wait a minute. What does that mean, Eliot? If you say that, then you can't act in a way that's injurious to yourself and therefore demand the right to health case.
SPITZER: No, no.
PARKER: Doesn't that mean that the government can then say, OK, you're overweight, you don't get to eat cheeseburgers anymore? Seriously, why not?
SPITZER: What it means -- what it means is we can say, you can't sell cigarettes to people under 18 or 21. There are certain --
PARKER: And you can't sell doughnuts to fat people.
CAIN: Look, the problem is, you can't even go to Obamacare because we keep going right past, blowing past go on the difference between a right and a privilege. Let me just say, these words matter. These semantical (ph) matters are important. Here's why?
SPITZER: Every word matters.
CAIN: When a college kid goes around and says, I believe there's a right to health care. He says it unthinkingly, self-righteously, the argument stops there, Eliot. Everything is obvious from that point forward. Cost? There's no point in talking about cost. Feasibility? There's no point because you have a right.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: You're setting the straw man of the college kid who says it self-righteously without thinking. Let's deal with someone who actually thinks about it and isn't self righteous.
I wish I were still in college. I wish I were still a college kid. Let's shift to a little bit -- education. Is there a right to education?
CAIN: Great example. No.
SPITZER: Well, here's the interesting thing. In many, if not most constitutions that the states have in the United States of America, there is. New York State. And that one I'm more familiar with. There is a right to an education.
CAIN: You're playing legalese.
SPITZER: No, no, no, no. This is the social contract. It's in the constitution because we believe it as the framework for our society.
CAIN: The social contract you keep invoking, by the way, is a very deep philosophical difference between conservatives and liberals.
SPITZER: Sure.
CAIN: I remember signing it, by the way.
PARKER: But, you know, some constitutions in other [-parts of the world do actually guarantee certain things. Like you do have a right to food. You do have a right to this that, you know, as entitlements. And we don't have that. We have the right to pursue. We have the right to equal opportunity. And I think it gets very slippery when we say you have the right to health care, and then that devolves into, you have a right to all these other things.
SPITZER: Right.
PARKER: The responsibilities aspect of that argument, Eliot, is crucial.
CAIN: And I guess that I think there's no point in talking about the affordability of Obamacare.
PARKER: All right, Will. We've got to wrap. I bet you wish --
CAIN: There's more genius coming.
PARKER: I'm sure you thought you wish --
SPITZER: We'll give you another chance.
PARKER: All right, Will Cain, we'll invite you back again if you'll come. Thank you so much. And we'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PARKER: You were expressing your passion for this passage and you said, you know, I've always wanted to lean down from my back stoop and pluck a sprig of verbena and you took this imaginary sprig of verbena to your nose and you went -- and I was mesmerized in that moment. And I thought oh, my gosh, what is going on here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: We talk about education a lot on this program. And one thing we all agree on is that success and education requires great teachers. We can disagree about how to make one, but we all recognize what one looks like. I sat down recently with one of my high school English teachers, the greatest teacher I've ever met. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PARKER: He's my inspiration. Mr. James Gasgue.
JAMES GASQUE, KATHLEEN'S ENGLISH TEACHER: Hey, darling, how did you ever get me here? And I brought your courage with me.
PARKER: Oh, my goodness.
GASQUE: Oh.
PARKER: Well, thank you so much. And what is this? Oh, my goodness.
GASQUE: It's verbena. Smell it.
PARKER: It is verbena.
GASQUE: Stronger than courage.
PARKER: Goodness.
GASQUE: And this is some writing by some of my students at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School.
PARKER: Well, thank you so much. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have you here and how peculiar all these many, many decades later -- we won't say how many.
GASQUE: Oh, I tried to figure out you age.
PARKER: We're not telling.
GASQUE: I know I'm not.
PARKER: But I remember when I walked in your class, I thought you were old. And that was a long, long time ago. Now we're all a little bit older.
The sprig of verbena. I guess I may as well start with that story because it's kind of the essence of our relationship. I remember I was only in your class for three months. But I remember everything about it. I'm going to start crying.
We read William Faulkner's "The Unvanquished."
GASQUE: Right.
PARKER: And I remember it so well because I'd never met anyone like you before. I'd never seen anyone like you before. I never heard speak about literature or anything else for that matter the way you did. And, of course, the sprig of verbena -- verbena is a symbolic flower. You were expressing your passion for this passage. And you said, you know, I've always wanted to lean down from my back stoop and pluck a sprig of verbena. And you took this imaginary sprig of verbena to your nose and you went -- and I was mesmerized in that moment. And I thought, oh, my gosh, what is going on here? This is something I've never experienced before.
Anyway, it made a big impression on me. I remember everything from that year. I remember we also read John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." And there was a great moment in that classroom when I made apparently a terrible mistake. I'm going to let you talk in a minute. But I made -- you called on me to diagram a sentence. And I've been transferred to your classroom from a school in Florida. I've never diagramed a sentence before. I didn't know what that meant. But you called on me and I eventually guessed and the whole class erupted in laughter. And, of course, I wanted to crawl under my chair, into a fetal curl and never come back out. And you had your back to the class at the time. And you whirled around and you looked at that class and you said, don't you dare laugh at her. She can outwrite every single one of you any day of the week. Well, of course, you saved my life in that moment. And I didn't know I could write. But I knew from that moment on I wanted to be a writer. So I thank you for that. And for all the other gifts that you've given to all of your students through the years.
So what makes a good teacher? Is it something you're born to be or can it be taught?
GASQUE: I don't think it can be taught.
PARKER: You think it's just in you or it's not?
GASQUE: I think you have to have love and passion and just absolutely enjoy every second regardless of how frustrating it can be.
PARKER: Fifty years of teaching, how have students changed?
GASQUE: That's a real good question. Because of technology and computers and everything, I teach completely with technology.
PARKER: Oh, you do?
GASQUE: When they are ready for me to read their writing, I flash it up on the screen. I invade their computer for mine. And we talk about ways we can improve it. We move sentences around. We search for strong verbs that make powerful images. And I have seen tremendous change in the way they can write.
PARKER: So that helps. Technology helps a lot.
GASQUE: But I no longer go home with a red pen and an essay and start putting circles around it and end up with a grade on it. I just say, you've got to do it again and again and again, until you can tell and I can tell you've done your best and changed it.
PARKER: Well, so the secret to writing is always rewriting.
GASQUE: Right.
PARKER: I have a little cousin who was in your class and he had no idea that he had any writing ability whatsoever. And he left your class with a book of essays that he was very proud of. I think everyone in your class had a book at the end of the semester.
GASQUE: That's right.
PARKER: How do you help liberate a child's voice that way? How do you get them to do it?
GASQUE: They're various little tricks that I do. Sometimes they write about themselves. And I tell them it has to be something passionate, that they just really care for a person. Sometimes we go into a piece of art and they take on the persona of the person in the painting and create a human being that has never been alive.
PARKER: So that's -- and they get to experience the act of creation.
GASQUE: That's right.
PARKER: So how can we attract people to teaching? Since it is such a -- it's such an important profession. It's so important that we get people like you in the classroom. What can we do to get them? Get good people to teach?
GASQUE: You always have a family and you have so many friends that will thank you when you get as old as I am. And I don't have to say this, Kathy, people like you, I just let you do what you love. I don't know that I taught you all anything.
PARKER: Oh, no, no, no, you taught. Well, you -- I think your passion and -- in my case, the passion for the written word, the passion for the literature, was simply contagious. Mr. Gasque, I can't thank you enough.
GASQUE: I'm Jimmy.
PARKER: I can't call you Jimmy. You will always be Mr. Gasque to me.
GASQUE: Oh, bless your heart, darling.
PARKER: We'll be right back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: This simple mortgage gets passed around over and over, boxes, lines, more confusing than anything I've ever seen. It's like a hot potato.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Time for "Fun with Politics." And what, Kathleen, Kathleen could be more fun than the mortgage crisis?
PARKER: Eliot, only you could find foreclosures amusing. SPITZER: Trust me, Kathleen, this is going to be quite an adventure. A fellow named Dan Edstrom is a specialist in securitization. What does that mean? He does audits to track the long and winding road that a simple mortgage can take. He did that with his own. You know what? He tracked it. You're not going to believe what he came up with. This chart right here.
Simple enough, isn't it? My goodness. His simple mortgage gets passed around over and over, boxes, lines, more confusing than anything I've ever seen. It's like a hot potato.
PARKER: You know what that chart reminds me of, Eliot? It reminds me of a childhood game of my favorite, Candyland.
SPITZER: Candyland, I remember that one. You spin a wheel, you jump around from one color to another. But you know what? This is simple compared to the mortgage crisis. The amazing thing about this is this tells you how we got into the mess. A simple mortgage sliced and diced, passed around. Nobody understands who has it. And nobody knows who owns their home.
PARKER: How in the world did it get so complicated, Eliot? What happened to going to the bank and getting a mortgage and having your house financed?
SPITZER: Well, you know, Kathleen, part of it is the more times it is transferred, the more fees that are paid. The more fees that are paid, the more money the banks make. It's that simple.
PARKER: Well, back to my game. I just wish they could go directly to jail. No pass and go. No collecting $200 billion.
SPITZER: We are working on that, Kathleen.
PARKER: All right. We'll be back with "Our Political Party" and you're invited. So don't be late.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL CAIN, NATIONALREVIEW.COM: My vice presidential candidate, and I only say this slightly facetiously is Eliot Spitzer.
SPITZER: Oh, my goodness. All right.
CAIN: And here's why. Look --
SPITZER: Well, that's good. You know, you don't like debating me anymore. You're trying to get rid of me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: It's time for "Our Political Party" where we invite cool mix of people to speak their minds. We have Steve Kornacki. He's the news editor and columnist for Salon.com. Simon Doonan is the creative director of the store Barneys, New York and just did their Christmas windows.
SPITZER: Congratulations. Suchin Pak is a correspondent for MTV. And Will Cain is the host of NationalReview.com's "Off the Page.
So this just in, Sarah Palin seems to be inching closer and closer two announcing three years ahead of time that she's running for president of the United States, saying this afternoon that she thought she could beat him. She did that on the Barbara Walters show. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA WALTERS, HOST: If you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama.
SARAH PALIN, FMR. ALASKA GOVERNOR: I believe so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Wow.
PARKER: Believing is being.
SPITZER: Wow.
PARKER: What do you think?
STEVE KORNACKI, SALON.COM: That's the ultimate move. Maybe that's a sign she's not running. Because it seems to me that the move in politics that irritates me the most is when somebody gets out of the race and says I'm not going to run for office, that's when they always add. But you know if I run, I would have won. So here's somebody who started saying, I would have won. Maybe that's a preemptive way of saying I won't run.
SIMON DOONAN, BARNEYS CREATIVE DIRECTOR: This isn't her career trajectory. She is already booked. I happen to know, at that point, to do the "Real Housewives of Alaska." She's a cheesy television person. Speaking as one, it takes one to know one. Hello.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: What do you all think? Is she going to run or she's just teasing? I think she's just a big tease.
SUCHIN PAK, MTV CORRESPONDENT: She sounds even more skeptical of what she's saying than we all are.
PARKER: You think so?
PAK: Yes. She's like, question mark. So I'm not quite sure. I'm going to have to say --
PARKER: That's Alaskan for hell yes.
PAK: Yes. Little more subdued. WILL CAIN, NATIONALREVIEW.COM: You said the right answer. I don't know, you don't know, I don't know. Nobody knows. We don't have this crystal bowl.
PARKER: Oh, Will. No, no, no, you don't get to come on the party. You don't get to the party and say I don't know.
SPITZER: I'm tired of talking about Sarah Palin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SPITZER: You know what? She's dominated the national discussion too long. Let's move on.
Steve, you just wrote about other possible dark horse candidates. Michael Bloomberg. You know, Joe Scarborough, who has a morning show somewhere. What are the possible sort of dark horse candidates who might emerge to sort of challenge and shake-up a very boring political landscape?
KORNACKI: Well, I mean, one, on the Republican side that I keep talking about is Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. If you're looking for sort of a guy to really watch that side I think -- because I think for the first time really in memory, the conservative base is just adamant about finding sort of an anti-establishment candidate to rally around. But there's no real obvious choice out there. We talk about Palin. We talk about all her liabilities. And I look at a guy like Chris Christie. And I tell you what, whatever you say about his politics, he is one of the most effective communicators I've seen come along on the Republican side or Democratic side in a long time.
CAIN: Let me build on that, Steve. I'm going to give you my dream ticket. OK? I got my top of line ticket revolves around people who do things and people who say things. Christie is in the obvious group of people who do things. He's run a state laboratory here of dealing with blood in government and economic problems. People that say things are Marco Rubio and maybe John Bolton, who says he's a very Goldwater conservatives. These are the ones I'm interested. My vice presidential candidate and I only say this slightly facetiously is Eliot Spitzer.
SPITZER: Oh, my goodness. All right.
CAIN: And here's why. Look --
SPITZER: Well, that's good. You know, you don't like debating me anymore. You're trying to get rid of me.
(CROSSTALK)
CAIN: I take Wall Street reform very seriously and I think Wall Street and banking need to be addressed. Republicans are logically inconsistent on this. They can (INAUDIBLE) free market principles with banking. And if somebody reins you in like Christie, put a little collar on you, I'd like of to have you -- PARKER: Who is your dream ticket?
DOONAN: Well, I'm very interested in this Scarborough-Bloomberg thing. But you know, in the quote that I read, he said, in the sphere that I'm living in and the sphere that he's living in, you know, it has been discussed. And I thought, oh, that's it. It's them. Because they're living in the special sphere.
SPITZER: You want a part of the sphere.
DOONAN: Yes, I wanted to know about it. It's interesting.
PARKER: Didn't Joe Scarborough running for something soonish?
KORNACKI: He's never been -- the man served in Congress for four terms. Eight years in Congress. And he never had the notoriety, he never had the name that he got from hosting a television show. So to go back into politics, I don't get it. He's got the perfect platform right now.
DOONAN: A platform and a sphere, I mean, you're in.
PARKER: All right. Suchin, who do you got on your mind?
PAK: Well, I -- you know, I was told this was a party, so I thought of something sexy and glamorous and outside of the political world. I thought, well, who better than Brad and Angelina. I thought that that would be a fantastic ticket. Humanitarians. There's rumors that Brad may in 2016 run for Senate or the presidential office.
CAIN: And I'm sure as Simon said there's people in their sphere who are encouraging them.
(LAUGHTER)
PAK: I think that sphere.
SPITZER: Where would he be a senator from?
PAK: Well, the world. I don't know if you know it, but the plane that hovers in their sphere above the world that's where he would, you know, rule from.
PARKER: I think that you all have all been Four Loko which Will, you recently tweeted, that the banning of this caffeinated, alcohol drink is caffeinated, alcoholic. What could be more perfect than that? It's going to be banned and you say that's just more nanny state.
CAIN: Yes. I mean, it's just another absurd attempt to legislate morality. If you're going to say if businesses can't sell caffeine-infused alcohol, what are you going to do about bars that pour Red Bull and vodka? How about Jack and Coke? That's got caffeine. The moving line is just full of absurdity. And what you do is you create this world where the government is in charge of your right decisions and you create illicit billion dollar mergers, industries and --
PARKER: Bloomberg people over here love that nanny state stuff.
DOONAN: You have to admit that all the most appalling things that you personally have ever done you've done when you're jacked up on caffeine.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: All right.
DOONAN: Me, too.
SPITZER: All right, folks. Hold it there. We'll have another question for you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hello, I'm Joe Johns. More of "PARKER SPITZER" in a moment. First, the latest.
The first Guantanamo detainees to be tried in a civilian court was acquitted on all counts except one. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was convicted of conspiracy to destroy U.S. government property for his role in the deadly bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1988.
A judge in Tennessee has ruled that a mosque can be built in Murfreesboro. Two months ago, someone torched the construction site.
And tonight on "360," why is Anderson wearing a bunny suit? It's part of our series, "Animal Intelligence, Smarter than You Think."
That's the latest. "PARKER SPITZER" back after this.
SPITZER: Welcome back to "Our Political Party." Hollywood just announced it's planning a remake of the "Wizard of Oz." So who are Dorothy, Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow of politics?
DOONAN: I don't really care. I'm just excited as a freakishly undersized person. Remember what happened to the first "Wizard of Oz"? It was incredible for all the little people. In America, they all got (INAUDIBLE). They all moved to Hollywood. So as a small person, I'm excited very excited about this. So which politicians are tiny? Because they should be the other ones that should be jumping up and down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The stimulus package.
CAIN: My other presidential favorite is Mitch Daniels.
SPITZER: That's right. That's right.
KORNACKI: Daniels-Dukakis cross party.
PARKER: It's only mid-November but Simon has already done the windows at Barneys and they're on the theme of food and fashion.
DOONAN: Food and fashion, you see, because here's food, here's fashion. People always think they're mutually exclusive. Well, at Barneys, we decided to bring them together, finally. And, you know, I can see they go --
PARKER: Are we talking spam dresses?
DOONAN: Pastrami skirts. No, it's very groovy, it's fun. All the celebrity chefs are depicted in the window, hurling food at each other. It's genius.
PARKER: All right. Well, Steve Kornacki, Suchin Pak, Simon Doonan and Will Cain, thank you all for coming. We appreciate your being here as always. And next time, bring the food and the fashion. All right.
SPITZER: "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
