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Parker Spitzer

Elizabeth Edwards Dies; Democrats React to Deal on Bush Tax Cuts

Aired December 07, 2010 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KATHLEEN PARKER, CO-HOST, "PARKER SPITZER": Good evening. I'm Kathleen Parker.

ELIOT SPITZER, CO-HOST, "PARKER SPITZER": And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program.

Coming up, President Obama playing defense once again. After coming under assault from fellow Democrats, the president defends his tax cuts compromise. We'll talk with one Democratic senator who calls it a "moral outrage."

PARKER: Plus WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested on allegations of sexual crimes. But are the charges just a political stunt? That's what his lawyer claims. We'll have the latest on this developing story.

SPITZER: But first we start tonight with tragic news from North Carolina. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, has passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 61 years old.

PARKER: She talked about one encounter with a fellow cancer survivor last year to CNN. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH EDWARDS: A lot of people who have breast cancer come up to me. And one of the people who came up to me in Cleveland in 2007 was a working mother who said she was afraid for her children because she couldn't go to the doctor despite the fact she felt a lump in her breast.

And she was whispering in my ear because she hoped that in America you still had the power to whisper in the right person's ear and get the kind of changes you needed. It is unconscionable that in a country of this wealth a working method cannot afford to buy the health insurance that will protect her and allow her to continue to be a good mother to her children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: Many also credit Edwards as being the driving force behind her husband's political career. Joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina, to talk more about the life and death of Elizabeth Edwards is David "Mudcat" Saunders, a close personal friend of the Edwards family and a senior adviser for the Edwards 2008 presidential campaign.

PARKER: Mudcat, everybody knows Elizabeth's public profile -- and I should have started this by saying I'm sorry for your personal loss because you did know her very well and were close. Tell us about Elizabeth Edwards.

DAVID "MUDCAT" SAUNDERS, SENIOR ADVISOR, EDWARDS 2009 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Kathleen, I do have a heavy heart tonight. To be honest, I've never done a TV program when I'm in shock, and right now I think I'm like just about everybody else who loved Elizabeth. This thing came on so quick, and she turned south in a hurry.

And, I, for one, you know, I just didn't think she would die. She would tell me that she was dying, but I never could grasp it. And so, you know, right now, like everybody else, I have a very heavy heart.

PARKER: She seemed so vital for so long. Even when she was sick, she always seems to have so much strength and energy. And we just, of course, learned that she was, you know, not doing well. But I think this took everybody by surprise. It did happen rather quickly.

SAUNDERS: Well, I got a call yesterday morning from John. Of course, he and Kate have been with -- Kate being the oldest daughter. They've been with Elizabeth 24/7 for the last two weeks. And of course, they had hospice there.

But Elizabeth, you know, kept her good attitude until the end. In fact, yesterday, John said that little jack came and hopped up and said "I love you mommy," and said that Elizabeth looked up at him and smiled and said "I love you, too."

SPITZER: You know, I had the pleasure of knowing her only through meeting both John and Elizabeth over the years and through their involvement in politics. She was always so energetic and affirmative and upbeat and passionate about what she cared in, which were really the engines, it seemed of John's political career, caring about the poor, those who needed help.

And she was the one who seemed to carry that energy and flame for really the people in need.

SAUNDERS: Well, there's no question about it that, you know, working America, middle class America, small business America, has lost a great advocate.

You know, what I will always remember about Elizabeth, and fortunately I was not there when she passed. I was, you know, at the house and the family was in there and I was not in the room when she passed. And I am sort of grateful for that, because, you know, I have the memories of her alive and chirpy.

But everybody wants to use the word "resilience" with Elizabeth. And I'm going to poke a little fun at her now. She used to jump on me for saying something about a chick. She didn't like to use that word "chick." But Elizabeth's resilience doesn't cover her. She was a full tailed boogie, straight ahead, never look backwards chick. And everybody around her was pumped up.

And I remember in some dark times you know, and any time you are in a presidential campaign, as you are well aware, you know, there are tough times. And I can't name the number of times that Elizabeth picked me up and, I mean, just a wonderful lady.

SPITZER: Right.

PARKER: How involved was she in John Edwards' political career? Do you think he would have run for president had it not been for her?

SAUNDERS: Elizabeth was totally involved in John Edwards' political career. Elizabeth was brilliant. And she had a great political mind. She was great on her feet. She was great meeting with people.

And Elizabeth had a lot of teddy Kennedy in her. She never met a stranger. She'd stop on the streets and talk to people and she loved it. She loved engaging people. And she loved hearing the thoughts of people. And, you know, she knew that the things were upside down and in the country, that, you know, the regular people weren't getting a fair shake.

And then she pushed forward John's populist agenda. There's no question about it. And they were a team. And there were no, zero political decisions made as far as the campaign was concerned that she was not directly involved in.

PARKER: Where did that come from with her, because we all heard the John Edwards story about how he grew up and his family's involvement in the textile mills and all of that, but not so much Elizabeth? Where did she get that deep concern for people?

SAUNDERS: Well, Elizabeth, and of course Jay and Nancy are at the house now. When I leave here, I'm going back over and see them. They came from a naval family. Of course, you know, her husband was a naval officer, a great -- her father was a naval officer, a great man.

And she had the military spirit of involvement, of service. It's just who she was. And her and John made a great team working together, whether it was through their law practice, through the campaign cycle, whatever. I mean she was just -- she jus just an incredible person.

PARKER: Well, I think everybody watching tonight wants to know how John Edwards is doing. Can you tell us about him?

SAUNDERS: Well, when I talked to John yesterday, I mean, he's crushed. There's no question about it. You know, people -- I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, but people, you know, look at the last couple of years of their marriage and don't get the full story. I mean, they were married for 36 years and together for 36 years. And they had some wonderful years together. And they climbed a lot of mountains together. They went through a lot together, especially, you know, with the loss of Wade. And, you know, that was my first thought tonight was that, you know, at least Elizabeth, you know, is getting to see Wade now, and that's my spiritual belief.

But John is crushed. Yesterday when I talked to him, I mean, I felt a deep, deep, you know, sense of pity for him. He was, quite frankly, he was pitiful when I talked to him.

PARKER: Well, we wish you and all the family well. Thank you "Mudcat" Saunders for joining us on such a difficult night.

SAUNDERS: Kathleen, I wish I could have talked to you under better circumstances.

PARKER: Me, too. I look forward to another time.

SPITZER: Thank you for joining us.

SAUNDERS: Thank you, thank you, Eliot.

SPITZER: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Washington at its worst, that's how a lot of people, including me, view the president's view on the tax cuts. The president doing exactly what he said he would not do, extending the cuts not just to the middle class but also to the wealthiest Americans.

PARKER: And exactly what the Republicans wanted, which is of course why Democrats are so angry with the president. At a press conference this afternoon the president explained why he felt he had to strike the deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And I don't think there's a single Democrat out there who if they looked at where we started when I came into office and look at where we are now would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised.

Take a tally. Look at what I promised during the campaign. There's not a single thing that I've said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do. And if I haven't gotten it done yet, I'm still trying to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: Of course, this agreement to extend all the cuts stands in strong contrast to what the president has been saying for two years. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I'm going to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans.

And it means letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire.

And rolling back the Bush tax cuts to the top one percent.

Is true that I want to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the very wealthiest Americans and go back to the rate that they paid under Bill Clinton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: So Democrats are furious at the president while Republicans are heaping praise. Up first tonight, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, who, like many of his colleagues, is among the angry. Welcome Senator Harkin.

SEN. TOM HARKIN, (D) IOWA: Good to be with you both.

SPITZER: Let me ask you this, senator. You are firmly opposed to this deal. Are there enough Democrats opposed to it to organize a filibuster or some other Senate procedure to stop this from going through so we can reopen this negotiation?

HARKIN: Well, I don't know about that yet because this whole thing is not over with yet. They are still patching and fixing on this thing. But I tell you, it looks like the skids are greased. It looks like they'll get enough Republican votes and democratic votes to get it through.

But it really is outrageous what we're doing here. The idea that we're holding hostage by the Republicans, these people millions of people who are unemployed and need help over the holidays, hold them hostage so they can get tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires is just an outrage.

SPITZER: I want to pick up on the word you used, because that is in fact how people have characterized what the Republicans have done since Senator McConnell sent that letter up to the Democratic side with al 42 signatures from the Republicans saying unless you extend all the tax cuts, nothing happens.

Why can't the Democrats show a little backbone? We are letting the Republican Party dictate the agenda and the outcome. Why do we have to cave in every circumstance?

HARKIN: Well, we shouldn't have caved on this. And quite frankly I think the president made a deal too soon.

You know, the president in his press conference this afternoon was talking about he didn't want to have a protracted political fight. Well, quite frankly, Eliot and Kathleen, this is not a political fight. This is a fight about justice and fairness and what kind an economy we're going to have, what kind of a country we're going to have.

What the president has basically done is bought in to the Bush- era trickle down tax philosophy.

PARKER: Senator, your colleague Bernie Sanders has threatened to filibuster the bill. Would you be willing to join a filibuster if that transpires?

HARKIN: Well, as you know, I'm basically philosophically opposed to any filibusters. I've been trying to end the filibusters for almost 20 years now. I think they are anti -- I think they are unconstitutional for one thing. And I think it destroys getting legislation through the Senate. So I'm not really in favor any of kind of filibusters.

SPITZER: Senator, I agree with you precisely as you said it. This is not about politics. This is about our economy. It's about our future. And the only time we see passion from this president is after he has caved when he's trying to justify the concessions he's made.

Why doesn't he understand that the fight needs to be before you negotiate and not after you negotiate?

HARKIN: Well, there's an old saying in legal terms. A good lawyer doesn't compromise until you get to the courthouse steps. You know, we never even got out of the conference room with this one. I mean, this should have been something where we went toy in American people with a bully pulpit of the president talking about our deficit, talking about how much the millionaires and billionaires are making in this country, and to tell the American people that we're going to help the solid middle class.

And really the middle class in America isn't even $250,000. It's people that are making less than $100,000 a year.

SPITZER: Senator, I could not agree with you more. I'm frustrated beyond words that in the weeks that have transpired since the midterm elections the president has not stood up and used his capacity to speak to the public to explain what these choices are about.

And it just seems last week the Republican party it was all talking about deficits and how we had to cut and cut and cut. They just gave away hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes to the rich which we can't afford, dollars that could have been used, as you point out, to rebuild our economy.

Why doesn't the president speak to the public about those issues?

HARKIN: I keep hoping that he will. And you know, I think that the president said we'll extend them for two years and two years from now we'll have that fight about whether we'll extend them.

If I'm not mistaken President Obama when he was in Iowa and was campaigning for president was drawing the line at $250,000. It's going to be very hard for him to make that case again two years from now. Plus, Eliot, the unemployment -- get this -- the unemployment benefits are extended only for one year but the tax breaks for the wealthiest are extended two years.

SPITZER: Correct.

HARKIN: What's fair about that?

SPITZER: That was the first thing I focused on when I saw the terms of this so-called deal. I said, wait a minute, why did you not at least get parity in terms of the extension of the unemployment benefits. That just seems like a gross inequity. It strikes me, I hate to say this is the deal that would have been cut if President Bush had been in the White House.

PARKER: OK, you guys are filibustering.

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, why, senator, can't -- is there nothing good about this? The truth is that a lot of people see this as a compromise. The president tried to meet the Republicans halfway and come up with some kind of agreement that advanced what he thought was most important, extending the benefits to the unemployed. Isn't there anything positive to say about that?

HARKIN: Of course that's good to extend the benefits. But I believe we could have gotten those anyway. As I said, they were just being held hostage by the Republicans. But if we stayed in session until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or maybe even beyond that, I think our position would have been greatly strengthened.

PARKER: All right. Senator Tom Harkin, thank you very much for being with us.

HARKIN: Thank you both.

SPITZER: Just ahead on "Parker/Spitzer," if you want to hear from someone who is really mad about these tax cuts, don't go away. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: So who is happy about the president's tax deal? Not who you might expect. It's the conservatives.

And joining us now for that perspective, here's CNN contributor and Republican strategist Mary Matalin. I take it you are pretty happy with all of this?

MARY MATALIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, well, as Keith Olbermann, whom I never quote, said last night on the eve of this that this president and this congress, which is currently controlled by Democrats, ratified the single defining domestic policy issue of W. And today not only did the president ratify that he spoke to the rational of it, the very good rational. It's good for families, tax cuts. It's good for the economy. It's a growth agenda. It's bad to raise taxes. And he tried to keep it in the -- in this time zone, but the recession that we're still in or the --

SPITZER: Mary, I got to say --

MATALIN: Eliot, I know you are a psycho on this. I know you'll start making up numbers.

SPITZER: I want to agree with you. You are so right, because when the president was speaking at his press conference today, I thought he was morphing into W. I thought I was listening to George W. Bush. I said this is exactly the proposal we would have gotten if George W. Bush was still the president.

And you know what, it reminded me of all the reasons we voted him out of office. We don't need tax cuts for the rich. We need investment in this country. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I am with all the democratic loyalists, the people who understand economics and politics who are saying this is insane. I can't believe we've seen this betrayal of core Democratic values, and I'm telling you this is a requiem for a presidency.

MATALIN: You know, Eliot, I think Eliot would know that it was -- if it were George W. Bush, he never would have called loyal Democrats "sanctimonious."

SPITZER: You're right.

MATALIN: What Eliot should be upset that the attack on his own liberal base, which is already sort of stirred up. He called them "purists," "sanctimonious." But again, it isn't that he just --

SPITZER: You know, can I ask you this serious question.

MATALIN: -- compromised. He made all the arguments. Well, this is serious policy.

SPITZER: Here's what I want to ask you, because here's what I actually don't understand. I want to now fast forward two years, because this was a two-year deal on the tax cuts for the wealthy, right? Two years from now is there going to be any difference in the negotiating leverage? In other words, why does the president think two years from now he's going to be able to get probably a more powerful Republican Senate block, meaning the number of Republican senators there, to back off?

MATALIN: That's a very, very smart, strategic, political question. He'll be running in two years. This has been a two-year issue. He ran on this in the first place. And for two years he ran on I'm not going to raise taxes for anybody over $250,000, and then they kept moving the goal post. Your own Senator Schumer, or maybe it's over $1 million. Maybe it's over $2 million, whatever it is.

Why he thinks class warfare will be any more potent politically in two years when he's running is anybody's idea. But there's no polls pre and post this election that show anything other than people are now -- Americans have connected tax cuts to job growth. They make that connection because they can -- they're not buying class warfare anymore. Nobody ever got a job from a poor person. You know all this stuff.

And they say keep taxes low on everybody, will which will create jobs for everybody. And he -- I don't know how he makes this any stronger argument two years. I guess you don't want to be on his campaign in two years then.

PARKER: Mary, the Republican Party has become this well-oiled, disciplined, you know, organization. They are unstoppable. I mean, are they just better at this now than the Democrats? What's happened to these people?

MATALIN: Oh, I wish that were true, Miss Parker.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't think that -- what is true about the Republican Party is that we really learned our lesson in 2006 when we lost the majority, and we lost the majority because we were insufficiently fiduciarily (ph) responsible with tax dollars and we became not the party that was voted in.

And we will not make that same mistake. Starting with cutting spending, freezing it, rolling it back, the earmark moratorium is symbolic, more than real. But all these things add up, and then there has to be a reform of health care reform. We have to repeal. We have to replace. We have to have an energy plan. There are lots of places to come together.

But pulling back to what are the core competencies of government is what the Republicans had to be for. And I am one. I'm an establishment Republican but I'm a constitutional conservative, and if Republicans don't behave as constitutional conservatives, then we'll have another volatile election in 2012.

You've got to deliver here. It's a philosophy that is conservatism, not party identification.

SPITZER: Can I push on that just a little bit, because one of the things that does strike me, last week we had the focus day in and day out on the bipartisan deficit commission, and everybody was saying we've got this deficit crisis, and the bipartisan commission came up after enormous excruciating pain. They were going to talk about $4 trillion in cuts.

Then this week, must have been a nice weekend for folks, suddenly putting in place tax cuts that will add $4 trillion to the deficits, and the Republican party saying rah, rah, rah. So what happened to the concern of the deficit over the weekend?

MATALIN: Eliot, this is where you and I just to have to arm wrestle this out some day in person.

SPITZER: OK, I'm ready. MATALIN: Tax cuts -- every time since 1913, the 16th amendment, legalization of the income tax, every time there's been a cut, the four major cuts, it has produced an increase in revenues, including in the Bush year. Every year after --

SPITZER: No, no.

MATALIN: You just make up numbers. I've heard you make them up before.

(LAUGHTER)

Yes, you have to detach revenues, tax cuts and revenues created by them and what the deficit has created by explosive spending, and in this case the lack of entitlement reform.

And that commission came out a lot stronger than anybody on any side thought it was going to be. And Republicans are going to have to step up, too. Defense has to be on the table. Serious entitlement reform means testing all kinds of things that they previously would not discuss have to be on the table. They did a great job, better than anybody expected.

SPITZER: All the economists have factored in the Bush tax cuts and said that it leads to an increase in the deficit of $4 trillion. Put that debate aside. We'll have that debate and it will be a fun one. Here's the question, though. Will you sign on --

MATALIN: That's not even what the president said today, Eliot. The president said all the economists -- I love the way you quote all these economists. The president said economists have told him to not raise taxes now.

SPITZER: Mary Matalin, thank you for your time tonight. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: The man behind the leaking of classified documents remains in jail tonight, but not for dumping secret diplomatic cables. Julian Assange will be held in a London jail for a week. He surrendered to police after Sweden issued a warrant for his arrest over allegations of sex crimes. The detention of Assange buys the U.S. Justice Department a little time as it scrambles to find a crime to charge him on.

It was a mob scene outside of the London court. Several celebrities came forward on Assange's behalf today, and his attorney issued this blunt warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK STEPHENS, JULIAN ASSANGE ATTORNEY: A number of people are prepared to stand up on behalf of Mr. Assange and prepare his innocence. In those circumstances, I think we will see another bail application and they were about the tip of an iceberg. This is going to go viral. Many people will come forward to stand assurances for Mr. Assange. Many believe Mr. Assange to be innocent, myself included, and many people believe that this prosecution is politically motivated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATHLEEN PARKER, HOST: Meanwhile, WikiLeaks say it's operating as usual and that it plans to release even more documents on schedule. The company posted a massive encrypted file that Assange's lawyer called a thermonuclear device. He says it will be activated if WikiLeaks is shut down.

SPITZER: Joining us tonight to discuss WikiLeaks and Assange are Naomi Wolf, who is concerned about the dangers to democracy by manipulating the law and the detainment of Assange. And Clay Shirky is an expert on social networking and admittedly conflicted about how to handle Assange and WikiLeaks in this circumstance. And for the legal perspective, we've asked CNN's Jeff Toobin to join us.

Welcome to you all.

NAOMI WOLF, AUTHOR, "THE END OF AMERICA": Thank you.

SPITZER: All right, Jeff, let me ask you this question. Two discreet legal issues to be confronted. First his potential exposure in Sweden or I guess in London for the events in Sweden about sexual assaults that are alleged. Second, the events relating to the leaking and the publication of the diplomatic documents. How do you assess his legal exposure?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think he is in big trouble in both realms. The Swedish government has now filed formal charges against him and are seeking his extradition. Most of the time, extradition is successful. And it is likely, I think, that he will go back into Sweden sooner or later. Delay, of course, is always possible.

In terms of the WikiLeaks case, the case about disclosure of classified information, there have been no charges yet. But when you have the attorney general of the United States hold a press conference, the sole purpose of which is to say we are investigating this guy and his group for criminal activity, it's a safe bet the charges will be filed soon, and I think they will be.

PARKER: What's so hard about just charging him with receiving stolen government documents?

TOOBIN: Because you have to put the pieces together for a criminal case. Who actually just got these documents? How did they get on to WikiLeaks, on to the Web site? Who physically put them there? What was Assange's role in getting -- was it a thumb drive from point A to point B? All of that may be known to the U.S. government. It's certainly not known to the public now, and you can't bring a criminal case unless you can actually connect the evidentiary dots. WOLF: I can't believe we're having this conversation in a way because Assange isn't the guy who got the classified information. Some unknown person did that. He's not Daniel Ellsberg. He's "The New York Times." And I'm shocked that we're sitting around saying there's, you know, there's a criminal discussion about a criminal investigation of someone who is a publisher. No different from us sitting here. No different from me putting things on my own Facebook page or Web site. No different from "the New York Times." And what does it come to in the United States that there's been this mission creed that the people who are actually publishing what was classified information are the ones being scrutinized when that's something --

PARKER: He's a delivery point.

WOLF: And they decided in the Ellsberg case that "The New York Times" was right to publish. That the benefit to all of us as citizens outweighed the national security alert that the government then declared. And they always declare a national security alert when they don't want the citizens to know something embarrassing to them.

PARKER: All right. Clay, you said you have -- you're very confused about, on the one hand, you're for total transparency but not absolute.

CLAY SHIRKY, SOCIAL NETWORKING EXPERT: No, on the contrary, I said I'm not for total transparency. If, for example, there was a leak of all the information from all the teenage girls on Facebook --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

SHIRKY: But I think we would regard that with horror. So there is -- there is I think not a case to be made for total transparency and the way democracies deal with that is we say we have a system of checks and balances. There are some kinds of things that can be punished, other kinds of things that can't be published. I think we would have no trouble saying of "The New York Times" were they to publish such a hypothetical data file, you know, the -- something, private material from Facebook, that this would be problematic.

WOLF: What if it's in the public interest?

PARKER: But it may not be in the public interest.

SHIRKY: This is the question.

WOLF: But that's what the courts decide, not legislators.

SHIRKY: And this is what I come down to, which is whatever the -- whatever the long haul decision of a democracy is, if Assange is brought to trial and the trial goes forward or if, as Senator Lieberman wants to, do the laws are rewritten and the new laws take place, that at least will have been part of the Democratic process. The only truly catastrophic mistake I think we could make right now is to opt out of democracy because it's too slow.

WOLF: Thank you. SHIRKY: And just run WikiLeaks off the net because we don't like it.

WOLF: Thank you.

SHIRKY: Both because in the short term it doesn't live up to Democratic ideals. And because in the long term, actually in the medium term, we hand the rhetorical advantage to every autocratic government in the world.

SPITZER: Can I ask a question? Because I want to parse this a little bit more finely. Don't we have to when you begin to do this, distinguish between the person who took or stole the information and somebody who merely publishes it?

WOLF: Absolutely.

SPITZER: And so let's look at those in two entirely different circumstances, Jeff, as well as a matter of law.

WOLF: It's not our opinion. It's not what we're sitting around thinking this is right or this is wrong, or I don't want my daughter's secrets from Facebook published by "The New York Times." It's a matters of law. There is such a thing as classified information. It is illegal to release it, if it's classified if you're the one who took it. So the person that they're right to investigate is whoever took it. I think that's what happened. And if, by the way, if they're investigating him, where is Cheney and where is, you know, Scooter Libby who also released classified information in outing Valerie Plame.

TOOBIN: Dick Cheney was the vice president of the United States who has authority to declassify anything he wants. But putting that aside, since when is Julian Assange in charge of deciding what should be public and what's in the public interest? We have a process --

WOLF: If that's why there was a court case and Daniel Ellsberg was facing 120 years and that judge said this is in the interest of the American people to know that we are engaged in a secret war. And that's what this leak also shows. We're engaged in secretly bombing Yemen, secretly bombing Pakistan and that is in the national interest.

SPITZER: Jeff, I want to ask you a question. You would agree there's a distinction between this person who took it and stole it off the government computer and if it came in the mail as just a thumb drive, as you said, if Assange just put it on a Web site, that would be a different set of issues.

TOOBIN: That would be a different set of issues.

SPITZER: So we need to answer that factual question.

TOOBIN: But you have to also -- there's also an issue of intent.

SPITZER: Correct. TOOBIN: If you intend to simply blow out 250,000 documents that are at tremendous -- putting individuals at risk, the United States government employees at risk, people who cooperate with the United States government at risk, that is not up to Julian Assange. That is up to the United States government.

WOLF: Scooter Libby did that.

SHIRKY: But Assange went with -- went with "Guardian," went through "Spiegel." In this case, the "Times" by proxy and they redacted some of the documents and held some of the documents back.

TOOBIN: Some of it. They redacted some of it.

WOLF: He asked the Pentagon to work with him on redacting what was sensitive and they would not do so. So who's responsible?

TOOBIN: Who's in charge? Julian Assange is not in charge

WOLF: And let's also notice something else.

TOOBIN: No, actually, Julian Assange is not how democracy works in my opinion.

WOLF: But to ask the Pentagon to redact the sensitive information so that he can release what the rest of us deserve to know and the Pentagon --

SHIRKY: The Congressional Research Service produced a document in October looking back at the August release of the Afghani documents and they said basically what this conversation has come down to which is, a, there may be some -- there is some rationale for charging Assange under the Espionage Act and, b, it's never been tried up against First Amendment, strong First Amendment principles since "New York Times" versus the United States -- the Pentagon papers case.

SPITZER: Which decided what?

SHIRKY: Which decided that "The New York Times" could publish the documents.

SPITZER: Right.

SHIRKY: It's illegal to leak secrets but it's not illegal to publish leaks.

WOLF: Exactly right. Look, we also have to notice something else which is the chilling effect. If you can close down PayPal, intimidate Amazon, if you can drive someone off the Internet then tomorrow it's going to be us. And tomorrow it's going to be you people watching because --

TOOBIN: Slippery slope arguments are almost always bogus. And, you know, the fact that --

(CROSSTALK) SPITZER: One at a time.

WOLF: Exactly how you close down an open society.

TOOBIN: WikiLeaks is not the only evidence of an open society. The Internet is alive and well. It will be alive and well if we --

WOLF: I can't access WikiLeaks anymore.

TOOBIN: Good. Because WikiLeaks --

WOLF: Oh, really?

TOOBIN: Absolutely. Because WikiLeaks is jeopardizing many lives by doing what --

WOLF: You don't know that.

PARKER: No, it absolutely is.

WOLF: And WikiLeaks where someone's life is jeopardized. If that's indeed the case --

PARKER: I spoke to an ambassador this morning who said horror stories are going to emerge. I'm not going to tell you which one I spoke to because he needs to be protected. And he says you have to read these things as people in other countries do. They're not democracies. They're not the American people. They are other regimes.

WOLF: I keep saying this because sometimes when democracies --

PARKER: And nobody wants to talk.

WOLF: The courts decide that.

PARKER: Hold it right there. We've got to take a quick break. But we're going to come back with more of this fascinating conversation. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: We're back with more discussion on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Naomi Wolf, Clay Shirky and Jeff Toobin are here. I want to raise the privacy concern in a minute. But first, Eliot, you go.

SPITZER: Yes, I want to come back, Clay. You were asking about Bob Woodward. We're raising the issue of his book where he relied upon conversations, documents that came out of "The Situation Room" in the White House. In what way is that different, Clay? How would you analyze that? Is that same thing?

SHIRKY: So here's the thing. I know Julian slightly. Not well enough to characterize his motivations, but I can say that he is one of the fastest learners I know. And one of the things he seems to have done is changed his selectivity bias. As we're talking about before the break, what he said now was when I did document dumps it actually wasn't -- it wasn't the right thing to do. Wasn't the right way to run the service. And so now his selectivity is the "Guardian" selectivity, "The New York Times" selectivity. He's not just dumping a quarter of a million cables. He's relying on the existing publishing establishment. So I don't see how he is not himself a publisher.

You said something interesting, Eliot, right at the beginning. You said the man behind the leaked documents. From my point of view, he's the man in the middle of the leaked documents. PFC Bradley Manning has been accused of being the man behind the leaked documents. And when you look at everything from, you know, CIA general counsel's testimony on this, you know, 30 years ago, to the report last August from Congressional Research Service, it all says the obvious crime is removing classified information from a classified system. It is not at all clear that you can prosecute publishers for publishing leaked documents.

SPITZER: Back to Woodward, where does Woodward fit in to this?

SHIRKY: So I think that Woodward is not a criminal for publishing leaked documents but I also think that Assange is not a criminal for publishing leaked documents. However, I also, also think that if I'm wrong about that, that the way in which I would be wrong is going through the court system. Not through an extra legal running of WikiLeaks off the network. The damage to me -- Jeffrey to your earlier point about the slippery slope, the non-slippery slope argument is the State Department has currently committed itself to making it very difficult for autocratic governments to force information off the Internet. And we're suddenly providing not just a recipe but a rationale that's making everyone from Lubchenko (ph) to Kim Jong-il laugh.

TOOBIN: But see, you know, again, this is a slippery slope argument.

SHIRKY: No.

TOOBIN: It is, it is. Because the fact that someone takes United States government documents, secret no, foreign distribution, and says that shouldn't be on the Internet. To say that North Korea shouldn't have a free press, to say that Russia shouldn't allow journalists to -- I mean, I think it is easy to draw a distinction between the two.

WOLF: Jeff, can I talk about the Espionage Act because that's really what's at stake now that they've invoked it. I predicted in my book "The End of America" that sooner or later, journalists would be targeted with the Espionage Act in an effort to close down free speech and (INAUDIBLE) of government. And we have a president for that. In 1917, the Espionage Act was invoked to go after people like us who are criticizing the first World War. Publishers, educators, editors. Wait, and people were put in prison. They were beaten. One guy got a 10-year sentence for reading the First Amendment. And that intimidation effectively closed down dissent for a decade in the United States of America. The Espionage Act has a very dark and dirty history. And when you start to use the Espionage Act, to criminalize what I'm sure you've handled classified documents in your time as a serious journalist, you know perfectly well that every serious journalist has seen or heard about classified information and repeated it. When you start to use the Espionage Act to say reporting is treachery, reporting is spying, it's espionage, you criminalize journalism. And that's the history that our country has shown.

TOOBIN: I recognize there is that history. And I'm familiar with the red scare, too. America is different now.

WOLF: Oh, it's worse in some ways.

TOOBIN: Well, I would disagree.

SPITZER: I want to ask Jeff a question. Because I want to come back to this Woodward distinction. You would agree with Clay and Naomi, I think, that Julian Assange would be precisely Bob Woodward if he had been the recipient of these documents, is that correct?

TOOBIN: I'd have to know a lot more.

SPITZER: But it might be the case.

TOOBIN: It well might be the case.

SPITZER: So you're sort of clear articulation of the beginning that he clearly violated something maybe not so much.

TOOBIN: I'm not sure. Certainly the attorney general of the United States seems to think criminal -- criminal activity was involved here. But I think the wholesale taking of enormous quantities of classified information and putting it on the Internet, even if you don't put all 250,000 documents on, I think that is a meaningful distinction from what Bob Woodward does.

SPITZER: It seems to be that Bob Woodward arguably did something much more egregious. He took real-time decisions about why we were going to war in Afghanistan, the discussions are rationale, where we would go spoke to the most senior political and military officials in the nation and blasted that out in the book. A clear distinction.

TOOBIN: Well, again, there is a distinction in part because the president of the United States and the vice president are allowed to declassify anything they want at any time for any reason. So if the president declassified --

SPITZER: A lot of people who didn't have that power were sourced in that book. Seemed to be speaking in clear violation -- they should be subject to criminal investigations.

TOOBIN: I always wondered why -- why Woodward gets away with it.

(CROSSTALK) PARKER: It's a fascinating conversation. I have mostly listened as a non-lawyer to these arguments. And I never want to make a case against due process because that seems always the right thing to do.

WOLF: Thank you.

PARKER: And yet I also want to say the government should be able to shut down people who are giving away secrets that are going to cause people to lose their lives and put in, you know, and cause our own people abroad not to be able to do their work in safety.

All right then. Naomi Wolf, Clay Shirky and Jeffrey Toobin, fabulous conversation. Thank you.

SHIRKY: Thanks so much.

PARKER: And you, too, Eliot Spitzer. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Elizabeth Edwards had strong political instincts and many believe she was the engine behind her husband's political ambitions. She played a powerful role in his campaigns something akin to his campaign manager.

PARKER: "Huffington Post" founder and editor Arianna Huffington knew Elizabeth Edwards, and she joins us now to talk about Mrs. Edwards' life and her death.

Welcome, Arianna.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, "THE HUFFINGTON POST": Thank you.

PARKER: Sad day for Elizabeth Edwards' family and for you. I understand you knew her. And, of course, Elizabeth Edwards was more than just a political wife. She was a very accomplished attorney and she was a force behind John Edwards' political life as well. What role do you think she played in his pursuit of the presidency?

HUFFINGTON: Well, obviously, she played a very central role. But as we remember her today, my first thoughts go to her children because she has a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old, as well as an adult daughter. And, of course, there can be nothing more crashing than losing your mother. And these children became part of our lives during the presidential campaigns, especially when he was running with John Kerry in 2004. And she is a woman who suffered multiple setbacks with so much grace. You know, starting with the death of her son, her 16-year-old son in a car accident. Going on to the discovery of her cancer and then the progression of the disease and finally, of course, John Edwards' very public affair which produced a child. And my other thought, as we heard the news was how good that he was there at her bedside because they had shared 33 years of marriage and they had shared so much. And how important that there was a reconciliation at the end, as it appears from those of us looking in from the outside there was. SPITZER: You know, Arianna, she is somebody who turned tragedy into strength over and over again as you said from the loss of their son in a tragic car accident that then led to sort of their renewed passion for fighting for so many causes. Her passion for health care reform, she was really one of the driving engines behind that effort in Washington and likewise, the John Edwards' effort on behalf of the poor. Many people think really the engine there was from Elizabeth as well. So she was a tower of strength over and over and the way she handled her own cancer. She really always drew power from these tragedies. Really a remarkable lesson for all of us.

HUFFINGTON: And there are many other lessons because, as she said, Eliot, herself in her last statement, you know, all our days are numbered. So as we're looking now to all the fights we are fighting every day, and that all that's happening to millions of people in this country, and what we need as well as everything else we need, politically and economically is the kind of value we set and reprioritizing what really matters in each of our lives and coming together from that place which will make us much more powerful.

PARKER: Well said, Arianna. And I think, you know, the fact that she and her husband, John, were able to reconcile at the end and that he was at her bedside is testament to that spirit. They had a long life together. They grew up together. They were friends, above all other things. But a lot of people along the way felt that Elizabeth Edwards would have made a pretty good candidate herself.

HUFFINGTON: Yes, I'm sure if she had been born later or had a different course of her life, that would have been absolutely possible and open to her. But she made a huge contribution. She kept on fighting for health care and long after it was clear that her husband wasn't going to be in politics, and that's because it was a true passion for her. And her grace through it all is another lesson that she's leaving us with.

PARKER: Arianna, why do you think people identified so strongly with her? There is almost a Princess Diana kind of attraction to Elizabeth Edwards, an identification with her?

HUFFINGTON: I think she was willing to be vulnerable which was also ironically one of the attractions of Princess Diana. Princess Diana was also wronged. She was vulnerable. And she cared. You know, I think that quality of empathy and for caring for others beyond your own life is incredibly appealing, especially when it's as authentic as it was in her case.

SPITZER: You know, the other thing about Elizabeth, she did love the politics. I remember when I first met John and Elizabeth years back in one of his campaigns and you met both of them, you really had the sense she was the one who really wanted to be out there day in, day out, shaking the hands, getting the names, making the phone calls. She loved it. She was just nonstop and she was awfully good at it. So whether or not she ever could have run or would have run, this was somebody who was very, very adept at playing the politics of the moment. HUFFINGTON: And she really embraced social media. You know, Facebook and all the new ways to communicate with each other. She embraced them as though she was a teenager.

PARKER: You know, Arianna, when her cancer came back and there was some discussion about whether John Edwards should withdraw from the presidential race, she urged him to stay in it. And I always -- this is just me a woman speaking here to another woman, but I always had a feeling that she wanted to see her husband and her children in place so that she could leave with a peaceful heart. Do you feel that way?

HUFFINGTON: Well, I feel that for -- first of all, as both you and Eliot said, her political objectives were very real for her. This was not just a woman, a wife adopting her husband's beliefs. These were very much her beliefs, too. So she wanted to fight. She wanted to fight for what she believed. And she wanted to end her life. She knew, I mean, I'm sure she knew it wasn't going to be long. She wanted to end it doing something that was beyond her own family and her own immediate preoccupations.

SPITZER: All right. Arianna, thank you so much. A tragic day, but we will all remember Elizabeth Edwards for what she did and her contributions at so many different levels.

HUFFINGTON: And our hearts go to her children.

SPITZER: Indeed.

PARKER: Absolutely.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hello. I'm Joe Johns. More of "PARKER SPITZER" in a moment. First, the latest.

The search goes on for an Illinois woman authorities believe walked away from a one-car accident that killed her husband. After three days, the only sign of Tanya Shannon are footprints in the snow. She and her husband Dale were last seen at a party Saturday. Tonight on "360," are lawmakers trying to run out the clock on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"? We're keeping them honest.

That's the latest. Now back to "PARKER SPITZER."

SPITZER: Tonight's postscript. You think we had money problems before. Well, now it's the money itself that's the problem. The officials at the bureau of engraving and printing, they're the folks who actually create and print the money. They discovered a glitch in the new $100 bill. And it's going to cost us -- listen to this -- $120 million to correct the problem. That's a lot of money to clean up the money.

PARKER: I wish we were making this up. Back in April, the Fed made a big deal about rolling out these new Benjamins. Take a look. They look more like euros or British pounds. Don't they? The color is supposed to help prevent counterfeiting and there's even a 3D security strip. Very, very high tech.

SPITZER: So high tech, it made production a nightmare and about 30 percent of the new bills came out with a crease and some blank spots.

PARKER: Well, here's a solution, Eliot.

SPITZER: Yes.

PARKER: You know, you're all about --

SPITZER: We like ideas.

PARKER: You're all about these big public works projects, right? So we could put America back to work the next few years sorting through all that money.

SPITZER: Good try. Republicans wouldn't go for it. They don't like public works any way, shape or form. Or we could outsource it to China. They could count it here. And you know what? That's where all the money ends up anyway. So maybe they just save the money, ship it over there in the postal service and we come out ahead.

PARKER: On that note, good night from New York. Larry King starts right now.