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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With David Frum, Paul Glastris
Aired January 26, 2003 - 10:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is spending time this weekend rehearsing for his annual State of The Union Address on Tuesday. The carefully crafted report not only addresses the condition of the nation, as the president sees it, but it is a stage for the president to rally the country behind his agenda, domestic and international, and to remember the famous words from last year's speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world by seeking weapons of mass destruction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: The man who helped write last year's address is David Frum. He also has written a book called "The Right Man: The Surprise President of George W. Bush." And Paul Glastris wrote speeches for former President Bill Clinton and is now at "Washington Monthly." David Frum is in Toronto and Paul Glastris is in Washington.
Good to see both of you.
DAVID FRUM, FORMER BUSH SPEECHWRITER: Good morning.
PAUL GLASTRIS, FORMER CLINTON SPEECHWRITER: Hello.
WHITFIELD: All right, well, let's begin, David, with you, since you can either be credited with or blamed in part for helping to construct this axis of evil labeling. You started out by labeling it axis of hatred. Do you believe President Bush can afford to come up with yet another fiery coined phrase during this address?
FRUM: President Bush speaks in a very pithy and direct way. That's why he's been able to rally the country. Winston Churchill didn't promise to negotiate on the beaches. Presidents move the country with words, but the words only have power if they're matched by action. And that's the reason we'll all be listening so closely on Tuesday, because the president's laid out the case magnificently for the case to do something big about the Middle East. Now the question is what will that something big be?
WHITFIELD: And it almost seems like there's an awful lot of pressure on President Bush to now kind of back up that labeling of axis of evil, particularly as it pertains to North Korea and Iraq. Are we going to see those kinds of details, you suppose, or is it going to be very generic and diplomatic still?
FRUM: I think he's going to make a very clear and powerful case about what he is going to do next.
You know one of the things people often complain about this White House is it doesn't leak that much and that's true. But it doesn't need to leak because the president, in his speeches, is very explicit about what he's going to do. If you want to understand the mind of this president, listen to his speeches. It's all there. He's told the world he is not going to allow Iraq, Iran and other terrorist organizations to threaten the peace of the world with these deadly weapons. They're threatening the peace of the world with these deadly weapons, and he's going to stop it. That's what he's told us.
WHITFIELD: All right, Paul. A lot of pressure is on the president to not only give the American public more details about war or what could be war, but also about domestic policies. A lot of promises have been made and Americans feel like they really want to see the product. What kind of order of importance are you seeing in his State of The Union Address?
GLASTRIS: Well, I imagine it will be a lot like last year's State of The Union Address, with the overwhelming focus on Iraq, which is what he's focused on and a kind of very short laundry list, literally a list of some of the other things he wants to do real quickly, but then going right back to Iran, to Iraq and to the Middle East.
WHITFIELD: Other things that he wants to do quickly, such as, like Medicare, are you talking, the economy, jobs creation, economic stimulus package?
GLASTRIS: Yes. Well, I think he'll probably devote some significant time to his tax cut, that is 90 percent of his domestic agenda. It's a very hard sell. It's sort of unwinding right now. But he needs to shore up that. But there's not a heck of a lot else on the agenda that he's going to want to talk about.
He likes to keep these states of the union relatively short. And I just think if we look at his past State of The Union Addresses, he doesn't do a lot of unpacking of his domestic agenda. He sort of states them and then moves on. And he -- I think the focus is really going to be on Iraq.
WHITFIELD: Well, Paul, is this an opportunity for the president to reveal to the American public what intelligence the U.S. has on Iraq, intelligence that still has not been shared with the U.N.?
GLASTRIS: It's possible that he'll do that. I think it's unlikely. The intelligence that he seems to have, that we seem to have, is a lot of data pointing in the general direction. I don't think there's a lot of pithy, easily deliverable intelligence that he can provide the American people. And I think there's a lot that they don't want to provide, for the simple reason that, A, we may know less than he thinks and -- that he's letting on and, B, there's a compromising of sources and methods problem. So I don't think that -- my guess is that he will not try to hang the speech on burst of new, important information.
WHITFIELD: All right, David. You know the president well enough in that you helped write his first State of The Union Address. About now, as we are two days out from the State of The Union Address being delivered from Washington. What kind of fine-tuning is taking place, and how involved is the president on this?
FRUM: I would be surprised, astonished if there were any fine- tuning taking place right now. I think the speech would have been wrapped up by Thursday, at the absolute latest. Bush likes things done, finished early. He is very hostile to people who try to reopen things.
WHITFIELD: So you think at this point it's a matter of rehearsing.
FRUM: He's rehearsing. He's rehearsing. He has a very tidy mind. He likes to run a very tidy White House, so he'll be rehearsing very carefully. Remember, he would have begun this speech in early December. That's when he would begin asking people, what, you know, -- what are you doing? What are you doing?
The president is very involved with major speeches, with all his speeches. Two-thirds of his speeches he delivers off the cuff anyway. The major speeches then begin with the direction from him to the writers, to think about -- to go out and get the following pieces of information. He wants to say this. He does not want to say that. And then he will read intermediate drafts very carefully. He always marks them up with a big fat black marking pen. And what he likes is underscored and what he doesn't like is slashed through with sarcastic comments sometimes written in the side.
WHITFIELD: Well, David, that's his past strategy. But I wonder, Paul, given that tomorrow is a pretty remarkable day involving the U.N. weapons report, President Bush is obviously going to be weighing in on that and maybe even tweaking his speech based on what information does come or doesn't come from tomorrow's developments. Wouldn't you think?
GLASTRIS: Well, I would think, but David knows better than I. If it were Bill Clinton, he would be editing the speech as he's practicing it and trying to unpack some of the subtleties of the policy. I think this White House is not so concerned about explaining the policies as sort of using lofty and stirring language to rally people to the agenda they've had all along. So it's very possible that there will be little, if any, change between now and Tuesday.
WHITFIELD: Now, David, President Bush has kind of been criticized in the past as lacking real specifics. You said that -- you kind of gave us an order of importance. He's obviously going to be speaking a lot about Iraq and domestic issues. But when it comes to do domestic issues, do you suppose that American people are going to hear some more specifics that they've kind of been waiting with baited breath from the president.
FRUM: President Bush does not like, in these big states of the union when he has the public's attention, he does not like to turn them into lists. What he likes to do is have a strong narrative line. The reason the speeches have worked so well as speeches is because they've had the order and logic of a speech, not a memo, but a speech.
And what a speech is supposed to do is give what the broad direction of what you're going to do and then the reasons for doing it. The details follow from that. This is the point where you introduce -- you introduce your big ideas. I'm with Paul to this extent. I think one of the interesting questions about this speech will be we know he's going to talk about the world and we know he's going to talk about his tax plan. How much does he say about the rest of his domestic agenda because he does have a big one? And will it be this speech or the next speech where he goes into -- where he tries to summon the country of his vision of what he wants to do about social security and Medicare?
I think that's actually the single most interesting question that we know of. We have pretty good idea about all the rest. Will he do that? I think he may surprise us. One of the things I've always noticed with President Bush is given the choice between the bold solution or the cautious one; he likes to go for the bold one.
WHITFIELD: And Paul, how might this State of The Union Address impact his popularity? He's a very popular president, but his rating has slipped just a little bit over the past year, actually.
GLASTRIS: Well, whenever the president has an hour, an hour and a half of uninterrupted chance to talk to the American people and able people around him to help him do so, his approval ratings will go up and his agenda will be forwarded.
It's -- you realize that the president's very seldom has a chance to talk directly to the American public. Their words are filtered through the media. The media picks out one or two sentences and sound bits. Here the public gets a chance to see the whole of it. And it should -- as all presidential states of the union, especially this president and President Clinton, have been able to do, they should see a bump in his popularity.
WHITFIELD: All right, Paul Glastris and David Frum, thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us.
FRUM: Thank you.
GLASTRIS: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 26, 2003 - 10:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is spending time this weekend rehearsing for his annual State of The Union Address on Tuesday. The carefully crafted report not only addresses the condition of the nation, as the president sees it, but it is a stage for the president to rally the country behind his agenda, domestic and international, and to remember the famous words from last year's speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world by seeking weapons of mass destruction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: The man who helped write last year's address is David Frum. He also has written a book called "The Right Man: The Surprise President of George W. Bush." And Paul Glastris wrote speeches for former President Bill Clinton and is now at "Washington Monthly." David Frum is in Toronto and Paul Glastris is in Washington.
Good to see both of you.
DAVID FRUM, FORMER BUSH SPEECHWRITER: Good morning.
PAUL GLASTRIS, FORMER CLINTON SPEECHWRITER: Hello.
WHITFIELD: All right, well, let's begin, David, with you, since you can either be credited with or blamed in part for helping to construct this axis of evil labeling. You started out by labeling it axis of hatred. Do you believe President Bush can afford to come up with yet another fiery coined phrase during this address?
FRUM: President Bush speaks in a very pithy and direct way. That's why he's been able to rally the country. Winston Churchill didn't promise to negotiate on the beaches. Presidents move the country with words, but the words only have power if they're matched by action. And that's the reason we'll all be listening so closely on Tuesday, because the president's laid out the case magnificently for the case to do something big about the Middle East. Now the question is what will that something big be?
WHITFIELD: And it almost seems like there's an awful lot of pressure on President Bush to now kind of back up that labeling of axis of evil, particularly as it pertains to North Korea and Iraq. Are we going to see those kinds of details, you suppose, or is it going to be very generic and diplomatic still?
FRUM: I think he's going to make a very clear and powerful case about what he is going to do next.
You know one of the things people often complain about this White House is it doesn't leak that much and that's true. But it doesn't need to leak because the president, in his speeches, is very explicit about what he's going to do. If you want to understand the mind of this president, listen to his speeches. It's all there. He's told the world he is not going to allow Iraq, Iran and other terrorist organizations to threaten the peace of the world with these deadly weapons. They're threatening the peace of the world with these deadly weapons, and he's going to stop it. That's what he's told us.
WHITFIELD: All right, Paul. A lot of pressure is on the president to not only give the American public more details about war or what could be war, but also about domestic policies. A lot of promises have been made and Americans feel like they really want to see the product. What kind of order of importance are you seeing in his State of The Union Address?
GLASTRIS: Well, I imagine it will be a lot like last year's State of The Union Address, with the overwhelming focus on Iraq, which is what he's focused on and a kind of very short laundry list, literally a list of some of the other things he wants to do real quickly, but then going right back to Iran, to Iraq and to the Middle East.
WHITFIELD: Other things that he wants to do quickly, such as, like Medicare, are you talking, the economy, jobs creation, economic stimulus package?
GLASTRIS: Yes. Well, I think he'll probably devote some significant time to his tax cut, that is 90 percent of his domestic agenda. It's a very hard sell. It's sort of unwinding right now. But he needs to shore up that. But there's not a heck of a lot else on the agenda that he's going to want to talk about.
He likes to keep these states of the union relatively short. And I just think if we look at his past State of The Union Addresses, he doesn't do a lot of unpacking of his domestic agenda. He sort of states them and then moves on. And he -- I think the focus is really going to be on Iraq.
WHITFIELD: Well, Paul, is this an opportunity for the president to reveal to the American public what intelligence the U.S. has on Iraq, intelligence that still has not been shared with the U.N.?
GLASTRIS: It's possible that he'll do that. I think it's unlikely. The intelligence that he seems to have, that we seem to have, is a lot of data pointing in the general direction. I don't think there's a lot of pithy, easily deliverable intelligence that he can provide the American people. And I think there's a lot that they don't want to provide, for the simple reason that, A, we may know less than he thinks and -- that he's letting on and, B, there's a compromising of sources and methods problem. So I don't think that -- my guess is that he will not try to hang the speech on burst of new, important information.
WHITFIELD: All right, David. You know the president well enough in that you helped write his first State of The Union Address. About now, as we are two days out from the State of The Union Address being delivered from Washington. What kind of fine-tuning is taking place, and how involved is the president on this?
FRUM: I would be surprised, astonished if there were any fine- tuning taking place right now. I think the speech would have been wrapped up by Thursday, at the absolute latest. Bush likes things done, finished early. He is very hostile to people who try to reopen things.
WHITFIELD: So you think at this point it's a matter of rehearsing.
FRUM: He's rehearsing. He's rehearsing. He has a very tidy mind. He likes to run a very tidy White House, so he'll be rehearsing very carefully. Remember, he would have begun this speech in early December. That's when he would begin asking people, what, you know, -- what are you doing? What are you doing?
The president is very involved with major speeches, with all his speeches. Two-thirds of his speeches he delivers off the cuff anyway. The major speeches then begin with the direction from him to the writers, to think about -- to go out and get the following pieces of information. He wants to say this. He does not want to say that. And then he will read intermediate drafts very carefully. He always marks them up with a big fat black marking pen. And what he likes is underscored and what he doesn't like is slashed through with sarcastic comments sometimes written in the side.
WHITFIELD: Well, David, that's his past strategy. But I wonder, Paul, given that tomorrow is a pretty remarkable day involving the U.N. weapons report, President Bush is obviously going to be weighing in on that and maybe even tweaking his speech based on what information does come or doesn't come from tomorrow's developments. Wouldn't you think?
GLASTRIS: Well, I would think, but David knows better than I. If it were Bill Clinton, he would be editing the speech as he's practicing it and trying to unpack some of the subtleties of the policy. I think this White House is not so concerned about explaining the policies as sort of using lofty and stirring language to rally people to the agenda they've had all along. So it's very possible that there will be little, if any, change between now and Tuesday.
WHITFIELD: Now, David, President Bush has kind of been criticized in the past as lacking real specifics. You said that -- you kind of gave us an order of importance. He's obviously going to be speaking a lot about Iraq and domestic issues. But when it comes to do domestic issues, do you suppose that American people are going to hear some more specifics that they've kind of been waiting with baited breath from the president.
FRUM: President Bush does not like, in these big states of the union when he has the public's attention, he does not like to turn them into lists. What he likes to do is have a strong narrative line. The reason the speeches have worked so well as speeches is because they've had the order and logic of a speech, not a memo, but a speech.
And what a speech is supposed to do is give what the broad direction of what you're going to do and then the reasons for doing it. The details follow from that. This is the point where you introduce -- you introduce your big ideas. I'm with Paul to this extent. I think one of the interesting questions about this speech will be we know he's going to talk about the world and we know he's going to talk about his tax plan. How much does he say about the rest of his domestic agenda because he does have a big one? And will it be this speech or the next speech where he goes into -- where he tries to summon the country of his vision of what he wants to do about social security and Medicare?
I think that's actually the single most interesting question that we know of. We have pretty good idea about all the rest. Will he do that? I think he may surprise us. One of the things I've always noticed with President Bush is given the choice between the bold solution or the cautious one; he likes to go for the bold one.
WHITFIELD: And Paul, how might this State of The Union Address impact his popularity? He's a very popular president, but his rating has slipped just a little bit over the past year, actually.
GLASTRIS: Well, whenever the president has an hour, an hour and a half of uninterrupted chance to talk to the American people and able people around him to help him do so, his approval ratings will go up and his agenda will be forwarded.
It's -- you realize that the president's very seldom has a chance to talk directly to the American public. Their words are filtered through the media. The media picks out one or two sentences and sound bits. Here the public gets a chance to see the whole of it. And it should -- as all presidential states of the union, especially this president and President Clinton, have been able to do, they should see a bump in his popularity.
WHITFIELD: All right, Paul Glastris and David Frum, thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us.
FRUM: Thank you.
GLASTRIS: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
