---

March 28, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - March 28

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The next three years will demand much of those who serve our country. We have a global war to fight and win. We have great opportunities to expand the prosperity and compassion of America. We've come far as a nation, yet there's a lot on the road ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: And on that road ahead, the president will have a new chief of staff to help him after Andy Card resigned today to be replaced by Josh Bolten.

Now some analytical observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of the "Weekly Standard;" Mort Kondracke, Executive Editor of "Roll Call" and Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent for National Public Radio. Fox News contributors all.

So, months of people, friends and enemies, Fred, saying the president has to change his staff. He's got to get rid of some of these people. Finally does it. The first thing out of the critic's mouths was, not Andy Card, not him, he was fine, he was great. How come you're getting rid of him? You're throwing the wrong guy overboard.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": He didn't throw him overboard. Yes, they've got the White House. I talked to a number of people there today, and they said Andy Card, who -- you know, this guy who the chief of staff from the beginning of the Bush administration, put in his resignation, the president finally accepted it.

I think this is a real plus for the administration, and, I would add, just the beginning. I think there are going to be any number of other changes at the White House and probably outside the White House in the administration as well.

ANGLE: You know anyone who has been suggesting that?

BARNES: Well, I've certainly suggested it.

ANGLE: Yes, that's who he was talking about.

BARNES: Yes, I kind of caught on to that. But not that the president is following my advice. I've never found presidents willing to do that. I'm willing to give the advice, but they're not willing to take it.

ANGLE: Perish the thought, right.

BARNES: Yes, but the fact is, the president can do a lot with a face- lift on his administration. I think he can help rejuvenate it. It can certainly change the story in Washington, as it did today. What was the big story in Washington today? It was this shift in the chief of staff and other changes, confirmation hearings. You can really -- that I think he can really lift this administration out of the rut.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well...

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: And if it's going to be confirmation hearings, that means he has to make some Cabinet changes and the kind of sweeping distracting changes that Fred outlined in his op-ed piece the other week, this doesn't rise to that level.

BARNES: No, of course not.

LIASSON: But it is a change. We do believe there will be more changes to come. Although if there hadn't been this chorus of people saying that you need fresh blood, I think the departure of Andy Card after all this time would have been kind of so what else is new? Of course he deserves to go after all this time.

ANGLE: After five-and-a-half years, I mean he's second only...

LIASSON: Yes. No, I think he's the longest tenure to Sherman Adams.

ANGLE: ... to Sherman Adams. And let's face it, during those (INAUDIBLE) the Eisenhower years, things were not quite as tough as they are today.

LIASSON: That's right.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": Right. Well -- and but people at the White House do say that this was not, you know, exhaustion on Andy -- for - - of Andy Card. That they meant to send a signal that they were going to change things and Josh Bolten does have a free hand to reshape at least the White House staff.

There are two vacancies that we know about, obviously Bolten's own job at OMB, the domestic counsel's job. And there's another one, as I understand it, a senior staffer, I don't know what job it is, has already tendered his resignation. It's been accepted, but it hasn't been announced yet.

In addition to which, I mean, there has been a lot of shifting around, not personnel, but changes in policy since the president got down into the 30s again. I mean they have been doing a lot of outreach to members of Congress. I mean they have had endless numbers of small groups in there for briefings on one thing and another, energy, Iraq.

There were three groups of congressional delegations back from Iraq that were there today talking to the president about Iraq. And so on. They've had off-the-record briefings with various news organizations, you know, something new. A lot of background briefings for -- Fred and I went to one today over there. I mean they didn't used to do that. So they clearly understand they need to do outreach.

ANGLE: Yes, -- Fred.

BARNES: You know when Mort and I came out of that briefing, and we were down there on the lawn there where all the TV cameras are and so on, and guess who was there for a briefing with the president? It was none other than Senator Edward Kennedy. He wasn't with -- he hadn't been to Iraq, but he had been -- he came down there to talk about the competitive initiative that the president has.

And the other thing that's happening is a whole new offensive by the president on Iraq. You know the president gives speeches on this and that has been the sum total of their efforts on Iraq, to promote support for the war in Iraq.

Now he's assigned his whole Cabinet to go out and do that and to pick out young people and to get volunteers from their agencies to go over to Iraq and help the agencies in Iraq. As the president told Cabinet members, you know they're probably, get them out of their boring jobs in your casting agency and get them over to Iraq where they can really do some good.

KONDRACKE: Yes.

ANGLE: Well now, obviously, one of the targets of all this sudden love in Congress where the president has had his problems, and of course this an election year, and there was some reaction from members of Congress to Josh Bolten's appointment and Andy Card's resignation today.

Let's listen to a couple.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic by replacing one person with another isn't enough. The administration has to understand that its policies are out of sync with the American people and it is a change in policy that is really needed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: If the president has confidence in Josh Bolten, then I think that's enough said for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: Now I thought if we listen to Senator Schumer, I thought the Democrats were insisting, like Senator Schumer insisting, that personnel changes be made.

LIASSON: No, come on.

ANGLE: But now...

LIASSON: Democrats would like to have every personnel, including the president, changed. I mean, come on, you know.

ANGLE: And every policy.

LIASSON: Yes, and every policy.

BARNES: I was wondering who would be the first outside the White House to use that cliche about rearranging the deckchairs of the Titanic. Sure enough, it was Senator Schumer.

LIASSON: He hopes it's like the Titanic.

BARNES: Yes.

LIASSON: The Democrats certainly hope it's like the Titanic. Look,...

ANGLE: Yes, they're shoving the iceberg out there now.

LIASSON: Yes. Yes.

ANGLE: Aren't they?

LIASSON: Yes.

ANGLE: Right.

LIASSON: And look, just like the president always says in Iraq, when we started out, some of our tactics weren't working and we learned and adjusted, and that's what he's doing here, too.

KONDRACKE: To...

LIASSON: It's not working and they're going to try some new things.

KONDRACKE: To show you just how far the outreach goes, one of the visitors today at the White House was none other than Senator Russ Feingold, back from Iraq, who wants to censure the president.

LIASSON: Yes.

KONDRACKE: You know that's something...

LIASSON: He needs to do outreach to Republican members of Congress. That's where his problems are, not with Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy.

KONDRACKE: Well he's doing that, too. He's doing that, too.

LIASSON: Yes.

BARNES: They didn't realize they have three problems, one is this competence issue, one is relations with Congress and the other is relations with Republicans and conservatives. And we're working on all three of them.

KONDRACKE: Right.

ANGLE: Well, and I think Tom Davis has said that this is the worst White House he's ever seen for talking to Republicans and letting them know what's going on.

LIASSON: Yes, and look, this is going to be -- this is an experiment. Can he dig himself out of the hole that he's pretty much dug himself into? I don't think everything was exempt beyond his control. A lot of these things were missteps, things that the White House mishandled, and we'll see.

ANGLE: I once asked a White House official if they were just waiting until they got down to the low 30s before they decided to do something. And it sort of went south.

When we come back with our panel, Senate leaders draw the battle lines on how to proceed with the debate over immigration reform. We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Well I hope we can move forward with it and then -- and pass it through the Senate. I am very pleased that the president has been very supportive of a humane approach to the issue and a viable guest worker program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: I think this guest worker program is not acceptable, because it really rewards the person who comes here illegally with everything they want. They are allowed to stay here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: So people, when they call it amnesty, and I'm looking at this, and I see a system where they've got to earn their way into citizenship.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: OK, there's a sense of three Republicans with slightly varying views on the immigration question and what to do about guest workers.

We're back with the panel.

Now we're to the Senate floor. Everybody, the battle lines are drawn, and of course the Senate will act. And then they have to go and deal with the House, which has a somewhat sharper approach to this issue.

Mara, where do you see this thing going? And even in the Senate, there seems to be growing support for a guest worker plan, as Senator McCain outlined. Even if they succeed, what are the chances of working that out with the House?

LIASSON: Well that's the big question. I mean, first of all, it has to get through the Senate, number one. And I guess the Frist bill, the border security-only bill, has to be amended by all -- by the McCain- Kennedy package of earned legalization steps.

ANGLE: Correct. Correct.

LIASSON: Then assuming that gets through, which certainly the tealeaves were suggesting is was gathering steam today, even Frist aides were reported to be saying, yes, we're probably going to lose this. And Frist is making a good stand for his presidential political ambitions, telling the base of the party he cares a lot about border security.

But if it does go to conference with the House, you have members of the House saying they'll never accept this. But then you have the business community and the president of the United States and the Democrats and all of these protestors who send one message, I think, to the Republican Party, which is all your progress that you've made with the Hispanic vote is now, perhaps, in jeopardy. So there are those political forces, too. And then we'll see what happens.

I think that the Republican Party feels there is a consensus that they need to do something. They can't go -- you know they can't have no bill. And if it's going to be a combination of the House and Senate, it probably will have a guest worker provision in it.

ANGLE: Now, Mort, the guest worker provisions they have, you basically qualify for citizenship after 11 years but you have to go through a number of phases before that. Some will clearly and some clearly do consider that amnesty.

KONDRACKE: Well, you know, I mean...

ANGLE: Which is, let's say, this is the one word you do not want to attach to any proposal...

KONDRACKE: Right. Right. Well...

ANGLE: ... you want to pass either House of Congress.

KONDRACKE: Exactly. I mean, look, it's not amnesty in the sense that you're here, OK, you're legal. I mean we had an amnesty plan back in the '80s sometime. I forget exactly what year it was.

ANGLE: It was '87, yes.

KONDRACKE: And you know, clearly that didn't work, because we didn't really enforce border security. This is a combination of things where you're going to try as much as possible to seal the border. You're going to have tight controls on who gets employed. And then you're going to have to have a worker permit in order to be able to work, if this whole things works out.

Under those circumstances, you could have people with worker permits. You'd know who they are. You could concentrate law enforcement resources on criminals and drug dealers and possible terrorists instead of chasing around after 12 million people who are here illegally and then you give them, as you say, an 11-year gate to citizenship. That's a long time to wait. That's not exactly amnesty.

ANGLE: Well, Fred, one Republican today, one supporter of this idea said this is different from what has been done in past years in that people, one, have to qualify for this at the same time that you set up a much stricter system so that you actually, hopefully, would know who is here and know what they're doing.

BARNES: Well I think it's a good idea. But look, the opponents are operating not from a level of practicality or pragmatism, or anything like that, they have a deep conviction on this issue. Mort thinks they're evil if they oppose this amnesty program.

KONDRACKE: Inhumane. Inhumane.

BARNES: Well, inhumane. Anyway, he calls them the bad guys. And the truth is, they think that the illegal immigrants want to come here for the -- not for the right reasons. They don't want to be Americans and they shouldn't be here.

---

Sponsored Links

About Us | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy         © RealClearPolitics 2006