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May 15, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - May 15

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROVE: Most people don't understand that we are doing a heck of a lot better job of getting control of the border. This year the average day, this year we have apprehended and returned over 4,200 people each and every day this year. There have been 6 million people who have been apprehended and removed from the country since 2001. This year it is 4,200 a day, that is 1,000 people a day more this year than last year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: That's Karl Rove out around town today ahead of the president's address tonight to the nation over the television networks on immigration. Some analytical observations now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of "The Weekly Standard," Mort Kondracke, executive editor of "Roll Call" and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, Fox News contributors all three.

Well, what about it, we now have a sense from what the White House has put out ahead of time sort of where the president is going tonight. What about it? Mara? Your thoughts.

MARA LIASSON, NPR: Well, he talks about what he is going to do with the National Guard, that it's not a militarization of the border. They're going to be there to assist. He did talk about the other aspects of his plan. The guest worker program. He talked -- I think it is cast in the compassionate conservative mode which is where Bush originally started to come at this issue at least from the excerpts that we've seen.

And I think this is what he needs to do if he is going to get the House to go along with the Senate bill which is a lot closer to his vision which includes path to legalization, guest worker program and tougher enforcement.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": He's got a long road to hoe with the House Republicans. In hindsight, what President Bush should have used his reelection capital to do would get the immigration problem under control and the energy problem under control because those are the things that are haunting him now as we're going into this election instead of the Social Security reform.

But it's a big deal. The president makes a speech to the nation in prime time. This is clearly -- He is doing everything he can to get over this hurdle and it is a big hurdle. I think he's going get probably .

HUME: What about the border enforcement stuff he's doing, Mort? What is it and is it likely to be seen by people who are worried that he's too soft on this issue? People in his base as enough, or is it? What is it?

KONDRACKE: It doesn't look - to start with - what it is is he is going to put 6,000 national guardsmen in backup. He's not going to be militarizing the border in the sense they're going to be there with guns. What they're going to do is back up the Border Patrol .

HUME: Free border patrolmen up.

KONDRACKE: And there's going to be a lot more detention facilities built. So that they don't release people into the country. They're going to build a lot of electronic fences and stuff and real fences and he's going to emphasize tonight border enforcement and internal enforcement against employers.

But you just look at the instant reaction from people like Tom Tancredo who is the arch foe of immigration. He says that Bush is still for the Senate bill, that's amnesty. The Minutemen all say this is just P.R. and they're being taken for fools.

LIASSON: I don't think he needs to convince them and he won't convinces then he might be able to convince .

KONDRACKE: What are the radio talk show hosts going to say? That's the question.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": That's not the question at all. I think look, in hindsight if Bush and I think they believe this at the White House, two years ago, January 2004 when Bush really first started talking about immigration and was talking about a guest worker program and particularly earned citizenship of some kind. Then, back then he should have talk about border enforcement. That should have been his first priority in this but it wasn't.

Three months ago he should have announcing tonight. We're really going to beef up the border, we're going to do it right now. I'm really serious about border enforcement. He didn't do it but he is doing it tonight. And that will help. And Mort and Mara are right. It is going to hard to win over these House Republicans. But I think he will win over enough of them. Look, he could have just stayed on the sidelines and done nothing and let Congress handled and that would have been the cowardly position.

He could have said, now look, all we can get is enforcement now. Maybe I should have gone for that two years ago. Let's do that now and put off a guest worker program and earned citizenship until later. Put that off until later and a lot of smart people think that would have been a good thing to do.

Or what he has done stick with what he has initially proposed, a comprehensive program with all these things border enforcement, earned citizenship and push for that. And I think the shock of sending actually the military to the border will help him in the House of Representatives. I think we're going to have a bill that is going to do all these things. It's going to pass, he is going to sign it and I think it will probably help Republicans in the fall though a lot of them don't know it yet.

LIASSON: Some Republicans truly believe short of sending them all home amnesty. You're probably not going to get those. But there are other Republicans who just want to say to their constituents who are up in arms about this, look, here is what we're doing. The president is doing. Something that they can show that is tough on the boarder and this might do the trick for enough of them.

KONDRACKE: The question is whether the hostile Republicans will introduce killer amendments that will drive the democrat's way from the bill. The AFL-CIO -- in the Senate .

HUME: They have to get the amendments passed though.

KONDRACKE: In the Senate and then when -- if it gets to a conference committee the conference committee looks pretty good but then you get to the House and it is going to take a bipartisan effort with the Democrats and presumably a minority of the Republicans voting in favor of it, are the Democrats going to hang in there. The AFL-CIO is against this bill because they're against the guest worker idea.

And some of the other unions are nervous.

HUME: When we come back with the panel a third Duke University student is indicted in that alleged rape case and issues a stout denial. We'll talk about politically charged case next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EVANS: I'm absolutely innocent of all the charges that have been brought against me today, that Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty are innocent of all the charges that were brought against them. These allegations are lies, fabricated -- fabricated and they will be proven wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: An unusually forthright statement from a young man accused in this politically charged case down in Durham, North Carolina, Duke University of rape and other crimes, he and two of his teammates you heard him mention there. Normally lawyers, as we noted earlier in the program, will have the defendant pipe down and let the lawyer do the talking. The lawyer did plenty of talking today but he had the client out first. Does that tell us anything about this case and the whole state of play now that a third person and apparently the last person has been indicted.

KONDRACKE: Well, I will state full disclosure upfront that I'm friends with David Evans - that was David Evans' parents, good friends of mine. And I've sort of watched them as they've gone through this ordeal.

HUME: Do you know him?

KONDRACKE: I don't know the son, no. But just on the basis of the evidence that's come out, this is the most outrageous case of prosecutorial misconduct that I can remember maybe since the Richard Jewel case .

HUME: How so?

KONDRACKE: The woman involved, who is the accuser had semen in her body which turns out to be not one of the lacrosse players but somebody else who has a criminal record, maybe her boyfriend or somebody else. Two of -- the two first accused, one of them for sure has an alibi and I think maybe both of them do. There's an ATM photograph that shows that he couldn't have been there at the time.

HUME: At least for much of the time.

KONDRACKE: She alleged that her attacker had a mustache. David Evans has never had a mustache and there are pictures of him that night showing that he had no mustache and on and on and on. This -- this is a reminder that whether you are from the right or the left you've got an interest in civil liberties, basic American civil liberties and your life can be ruined by prosecutorial misconduct which I think has occurred in this case. And I hope that the prosecutor gets his comeuppance at some stage.

LIASSON: Look, I think that the most important at this point is that the justice system takes its course and that whatever verdict comes out put an end to this in this community. You've now the prosecutor finally saying the indictments are finished. There's three of them and not going to be any more. I think the best thing that can happen is that this case gets tried as fast as possible and that we put an end to it because it's ripped this community apart.

BARNES: It has. Certainly the prosecutor has enflamed the entire Durham community, particularly the African American segment of that community and it is going to make it hard to turn back now.

But look at some of the other evidence in there. This woman, the alleged victim, has told different stories. At one point she said there were 15 or 20 assailants and now it is just three. She was drunk. The other woman who was there, remember they were hired as strippers says that the victims claim that racial slurs were thrown around were not true. She didn't hear any. Then we have the DNA tests. A couple rounds of DNA tests -- they are negative on all the Duke players.

HUME: Except stuff under the fingernail that came out of that clothes hamper.

BARNES: Not conclusive at all. It just shows -- it doesn't absolve David Evans. But it is not evidence that can get you anywhere in court. It is ridiculous. This case is one that -- and the prosecutor talked about this case all during his campaign for reelection. Unbelievably unprofessional. You don't do that. He could have said no. I can't talk about this. It's under investigation. He didn't do that.

HUME: Is there any danger here though that while you are right he did talk about this at first. Quite a lot. Is there any danger -- We've heard a stream of comments and assertions by the defense, many of them unchallenged by the prosecutor. Is there any danger that we're seeing this case as lining up overwhelmingly in favor of the defense because we are not simply hearing what the prosecutor has?

BARNES: What does he have? He doesn't have any DNA evidence. We know the history of the woman. Can you imagine what defense lawyers when she is on the stand with her record? That she has accused people before of raping her and then didn't testify in court. I mean, look, a prosecutor has to decide at some point is this a case that I can win a conviction on. I don't think there is a chance he can win a conviction on this.

KONDRACKE: But just consider the damage -- consider the damage that he's done. Every time kids are ever Googled their names are going to come up. Furthermore there are probably going to be civil trials and stuff and cost the families millions and millions of dollars which may be what is all about.

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