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June 03, 2006

Hot Stories: Immigration, Marriage, Haditha

Beltway Boys

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Coming up on "The Beltway Boys":

Congress gets ready to take up issues that stir political passions, especially among conservatives. We'll preview next week's gay-marriage vote.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": Disturbing allegations against the U.S. military in Iraq. We'll have the fallout.

BARNES: It's decision time for Iran. We'll tell you how the diplomatic noose is tightening.

KONDRACKE: And GOP candidates run away from President Bush at their own peril. We'll explain.

BARNES: Don't move a muscle; "The Beltway Boys" are next, right after the headlines.

(NEWSBREAK)

BARNES: I'm Fred Barnes.

KONDRACKE: And I'm More Kondracke. We're "The Beltway Boys."

BARNES: "Hot Story" number one, Mort: "Hot Button." Congress next week is going to come back from its recess and have four - four big issues in front of it. Two of them are issues that I think are domestic issues, and I think are the most important domestic issues of the decade. That's immigration and marriage. The other two, abortion and the flag burning amendment are - are - are ones that are not as big.

But let's go down these one by one, and talk about them. These are issues that stir great passion, particularly immigration reform - a passion on both sides.

You know, I think this coming week, the conferees at this conference to work out a compromise bill between the House and the Senate - the confirmees (ph) are - the conferees on each side will be named. But, you know, in the last couple of weeks, I - I don't know whether you agree with this or not - I think support for a comprehensive bill - you know, one with border enforcement and earned citizenship and a temporary worker plan - has really lost ground. You particularly see it when - with the - well, opposition to any kind of earned citizenship by Jim Sensenbrenner of the House, who - the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. I mean, he seems he's going to be impossible to break and support that issue.

You know, I've also come to see this immigration issue in - in a very different way, a very simple way. I think people's view is shaped by whether they're pro-immigrant or not. It's as simple as that. Whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, if they - if they think having more immigrants is good for America - well, then they're for a comprehensive bill. If they think more immigrants are bad for America, well, then all they want to do is build a wall across our southern border.

Now I'm pro-immigrant. But I understand why people may not feel that way. People on the other side - it's certainly a defensible position.

Anyway, finally President Bush has gotten heavily involved in this whole issue. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I appreciate that are acting on deep - deeply felt principles. I understand that. Yet I also believe that the approach they suggest is wrong and unrealistic. There's a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant, and a program that requires every illegal immigrant to leave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KONDRACKE: Boy, you know, both people on the pro-immigration side and the anti-immigration side - not - not President Bush - are beginning to talk in terms of they - how they'd rather have no bill at all than - than pass a bad bill. And they're afraid that the conference committee might produce a bad bill in compromise.

And what you're also hearing now is that maybe what Congress will do is pass a bill after the - the election, in the lame-duck session, although that will not help Republicans in November.

What's happening next week is that the House is going to name its conferees. Now the big question is, are Denny Hastert and - and John Boehner, the two top leaders, willing to appoint conferees like Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe, who are moderates from Arizona, to balance off the hard- liners like - like Jim Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I don't know the answer to that.

BARNES: Yes, I was going to ask you that.

All right. Next item: coming up next week, a vote on the Protection of Marriage Amendment, also known as the Marriage Protection Amendment.

You know, this is not a Republican wedge issue, as its been called. This is an issue that Republican senators didn't want to bring up at all, except for Bill Frist, the majority leader, who was - who did this at the request of Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Republicans are scared of this issue; they just want to say, I'm against gay marriage and leave it at that. They don't want to do anything about the issue.

But it's backed now by this huge religious coalition of every Catholic cardinal, of Mormons, of evangelical Protestant groups and churches, of black and white Christian organizations. It is a very, very large coalition. And they all believe in protecting marriage as a man and a woman, and not having any slippage from that, because that's what civilizations all over the world have had for thousands and thousands of years.

Now in 2004, this amendment got 48 votes. That's not very good. I mean, it needs 67 - it needs two-thirds to pass the Senate, where the vote will be on Tuesday. But I - I think it's going to do a lot better, and we'll get something like 52 to 58 votes. Still way short, but moving in the right direction.

KONDRACKE: Look, I - I question whether this is one of the great issues of the - of the decade.

Now.

BARNES: Of course it is, Mort. Marriage?

KONDRACKE: Oh come on.

BARNES: Gay marriage and all that? Of course it is.

KONDRACKE: It can be - it can be manufactured into being one of the - one of the hot-button issues of the decade.

BARNES: It already is.

KONDRACKE: Just a minute. It's not.

With the - with the population of the country, is it not a - it is not a burning issue. It is being made a burning issue in the same way that the immigration issue was made a burning issue by the - by these right-wing talk show hosts. Your religious coalition has tried to elevate this into - into something that dominates discussion. Now it - and I - I submit to you that what this group is, is a fear lobby.

Look, how can - gays constitute less than 10 percent of the population. How can their joining the institute of marriage ruin the institute of marriage. I mean, what - what they ought to be concentrating on is getting the 50 percent of people who enter the institution and then divorce out of it to stop getting divorced, and to strengthen the - now look.

BARNES: I think they do work on that.

KONDRACKE: The Christian and compassionate conservative thing to do is to find a way to be in favor of the rights of marriage - that is to say, you know, civil unions, instead of, you know, using the word marriage itself. Extend the human ability of people to - to have legal - legal rights as in marriage, without the institution of marriage.

Furthermore.

BARNES: Uh oh.

KONDRACKE: Furthermore - furthermore, the public is not as hot about this issue as you think it is. A recent Gallup poll shows that a majority, 54 percent, say that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. That's up four points since 1999, and up 16 points since the early 1990s.

BARNES: Yes, well that's irrelevant to the whole marriage issue though, that poll. It was - it was nice to hear it, however.

I think you're completely wrong about how big an issue this is. Marriage is a fundamental institution, and we'll argue you about this in the future, I'm sure.

Item three: look for action on the flag-burning amendment.

You know, it's been around a long time. It needs a two-thirds vote too in the Senate. It's going to pass one of these years; maybe this year.

KONDRACKE: Yes, it's too trivial for - for a constitutional amendment, for heaven's sakes. I mean, if you can - you could burn a copy of the Constitution legally, you can burn a flag. It's not going to ruin the country.

BARNES: Oh good. I don't think so, either.

OK. And lastly, number four: look for legislation to clamp down on adults who transport minors across stateliness for abortions.

Look, this makes perfect sense, and it may well pass, and should.

KONDRACKE: Yes, I have no objection to parental-consent laws, as long as you protect minors against people who commit incest who are going to do violence to them.

BARNES: Right.

KONDRACKE: Coming up, President Bush vows to get to the button of what happened in Haditha.

And later on, it's put up or shut up time for Iran. We'll tell you what could be next in the standoff.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, we know that 99.9 percent of our forces conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. And we also know that - that in conflicts, things that shouldn't happen, do happen. In this instance, there's an investigation with what respect to what took place. And we'll soon know the answers. There's an investigation to - with respect to what took place thereafter. And we'll soon know the answers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KONDRACKE: Welcome back to "The Beltway Boys."

Well, "Hot Story" number two is, "Say It Isn't So." Things are not going well in Iraq at the moment. We got a new government, but the - the government has had difficulty finding a defense minister and an interior minister. There's lots of civil strife going on; the number of attacks have increased. President Bush's polls indicate that the public is still sour on the war, and now we have this; these reports of not one, but three possible U.S. atrocities there. We don't know all the facts - let's stipulate that. But it looks as though 24 civilians, including little kids, got killed at Haditha. There's another allegation of killing of little kids, and one of systematic murder on the part of four Marines by - three Marines I guess it was - at another place in Iraq. I mean, there are investigations not only of the offenses themselves, but of possible, you know, misreporting of the event and some say - some say cover-up.

But the problem is, is that this is divisive, as between the U.S. and the Iraqi government, where the prime minister, Maliki, is forced to say that atrocities are being committed by the U.S. everyday. I think he's got to say that to satisfy his own - his own people. And you've got - and it just encourages the bug-out brigade in the United States. I mean, the United States has tried to answer this by having a standown in Iraq, and, you know, training on so-called ethics of war. But what we really need, according to the general whose been overseeing this investigation, is better systematic training for counterinsurgency operations, where the objection is to win the hearts and minds of the people, as much as it is to kill the enemy.

BARNES: You know, Mort, I - this issue is just, I think, incredibly depression. And its depressing to me not because I don't think justice is going to be done - of course it will be. If they - if there were any unprovoked murders in Iraq of civilians by American troops, they're going to be found - they're going to be charged, they're going to be put on trial, and they'll be held - found guilty if they're guilty.

So I - it's not that. What - what really depresses me is what I think the media is going to do when - and - and - and - and the backdrop of this is the Abu Ghraib prison thing, where there were hijinks by a small number of National Guardsmen who shouldn't have been prison guards in the first place. And they turned it into something that was - to symbolize the whole war effort. Total lack of perspective.

I think it's going to be 10 times worse with this whole new - these things about civilians being killed there. I think Donald Rumsfeld is right; I mean, this - this is what happens in war. It's terrible, but we're fighting a war. It was going to happen sometime, and I just think the coverage - not what the left-wing in America does, but the media coverage is going to be ruinous and depressing, and actually will drive down TV ratings.

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