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June 19, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - June 19

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: What would be a very serious matter and indeed, a provocative act should North Korea decide to launch that missile, we will obviously consult on next steps, but I can assure everyone that it will be taken with utmost seriousness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: What she's talking about is word from intelligence sources that North Korea may be on the verge of test-launching a missile that would be -- ICBM, that would be long enough to reach the United States. It's not clear whether the little chappy who runs the country would be willing to do that, but you heard the reaction. Some 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. All are FOX News contributors.

Mara, what are we to make of this?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Well, the North Koreans seem to be moving ahead with their plans to perhaps have nuclear warheads so they could put on such a missile, same thing with Iran, and the United States doesn't have a whole lot of good options. I mean, Secretary Rice doesn't think she would consider this an act of war, but by calling it a privative act, it means the United States would have to respond. Right now the U.S. is working in the Security Council with the U.N., but the package that it's offered North Korea is not unlike the package that the Clinton administration offered North Korea, thought it had the problem solved and it didn't.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know why North Korea is doing this, whether this is axis envy with Iran, where Iran is getting all it's -- all this attention and everybody's offering things or whether they're looking for a better deal or whether there's some sort of internal factor where the military is saying we've got this missile, it's never been tested, you know, let's let it roll. But the -- I mean, this is -- sort of reminds you, welcome to the 21st century. I mean it'll be a miracle if we get out of -- our heirs get out of this century without another nuclear blast at the rate bad guys are developing weapons. Now, I don't think the likelihood is that this test is not going to involve a nuclear warhead, god forbid.

LIASSON: Or test warhead, yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: It is just that the -- it's just if the missile will carry that far, right?

KONDRACKE: .now. My guess is that as we look at this, this kind of development that suddenly SDI missile defense is going to get a lot more attractive to a lot of people who have been opposing it for a long time. I mean, John Kerry famously said that he was against the whole program in 2004, but this becomes a lot more attractive. We do have 11 interceptors that have been installed in California and Alaska, and if one of these missiles approaches the West coast of the United States, maybe we should test our SDI against this missile.

FRED BARNES, "DAILY STANDARD": That would be a good idea. The problem with opponents of SDI is their opposition is theological, it's not practical. So they'll oppose it even if a missile lands near L.A. We really are in a bad situation. The alliance is weak. China and South Korea doesn't want to do anything, South Korea has peacenik (ph) government, and the Chinese don't want to do anything to the North Koreans that might make the government fall. The biggest Chinese fear is not nuclear weapons in North Korea, it's a unified capitalist pro-Western Korea on that peninsula.

You can't isolate North Korea. I mean, how can North Korea be any more isolated than it is? Sanctions probably won't work because you already have a leader here, you know, this little chappy you talked about, who has already proved he is willing to starve millions of his own peel. And even if you get an agreement, as the Clinton administration learned, they won't necessarily comply with it, even if they agree to it in the first place. And that leads to the military option, which, how can you pursue a military option if the Chinese and the South Koreans are against it? It looks bad.

HUME: What to make, then, of the call last week from a group of noble laureates who said that we ought to lift the sanctions, as they called them, on North Korea and invite them back to the table. What about that idea?

BARNES: That we haven't been nice enough to them? That's the problem? Well, come on.

KONDRACKE: I mean, it was a package deal. It's sort of like the grand bargain with Iran, you know, that if they agree to stand down from nuclear weapons and open themselves to full inspections and stuff like that, then we would do light water reactors and maybe even uranium enrichment, stuff like that. The problem is in the verification. And every time anybody's reached a deal with the North Koreans, they cheated on it. I mean, they've had this moratorium on missile tests since 1999, now they're getting ready to break it unilaterally. So, I mean, I -- Diplomatically I would say that the opportunity here lies with the Chinese. I meant the Chinese have got to decide whether they are a modern power that wants to have peace in Asia or they want to keep things stirring because if they keep things stirring, what's going to happen is they're going to get a nuclear Japan. And I don't think they want that.

BARNES: But China -- it's always been a Chinese court.

HUME: That's an interesting question. That's often been referred to as the Japan card that we would furnish nuclear weapons to Japan. Do you see any indication, Mara, that anybody in the administration is prepared to do that? Or even urging that it be done?

LIASSON: Well. No, not now. I mean, we're talking about North Korea demonstrates that it does have a nuclear weapon, maybe it would change. I don't know if that's the answer either. I think that the two countries that the president designated as in the axis of evil, other than Iraq, seem to be moving inexorably towards making nuclear weapons and we don't seem to have a way to stop them.

BARNES: China is the way, but the Chinese -- China's always been the way, and they refuse to act aggressively because of this fear of a collapse of the North Korean government...

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: .are there any options?

BARNES: And we can't give a nuclear weapon to Japan, unless the Japanese decide that they want one. You have to go through this huge political debate there, which may not wind up with Japan wanting a nuclear weapon.

KONDRACKE: Well, yeah, the Japanese would have to play the Japan card and, you know, if looking at a nuclear-armed North Korea, they might want to play it. They're already into big missile defense. I mean, we are cooperating extensively with them on missile defense.

HUME: When we come back with our panel, is the immigration bill dead? We'll find out what the all-stars have to say on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: Back with our panel. The question is the immigration bill. And last week, as reported y our FOX News colleague, Bob Novak in his column, the House majority leader, John Boehner, who has a lot to say about such things, had something interesting to say about the immigration bill. "At a closed luncheon Wednesday.Boehner declared that the immigration bill was all but dead. That change followed Boehner's conversation late Tuesday with," that was with House Speaker Dennis, "Hastert, who made clear that he did not want to pursue the issue that splits the Republican Party."

Added to that is, just to give you a sense of the political atmosphere in Washington, there's a letter to President Bush signed by some 41 prominent conservatives who say this. "First border and interior enforcement must be funded, operational, implemented, and proven successful and only then can we debate the status of current illegal immigrants, or the need for new guest worker programs."

That in a nutshell is an argument for the House bill. So where does this matter now stand, Fred? You have been optimistic.

BARNES: I have.

HUME: That a bill would be forthcoming from Congress this year. Do our still feel that way? And if not, why not?

BARNES: Well, certainly Boehner has changed hs mind. I think his -- what he says now is significant, because he had thought earlier, a week or two before, that there was about a 50/50 chance of getting a bill through. If he thinks it's dead now, it may be dead. This letter was -- the headline in the "Washington Times" were a story appeared on it, was that this was the republican base. This wasn't the republican base, this was a republican conservative brain trust with people like Bill Bennett and William Buckley and Tom Solo (ph) and Shelby Steele and Mort Connelly.

HUME: Newt Gingrich.

BARNES: And Newt Gingrich, good example, of another, Robert Bourque. It was a pretty impressive list, I'll have to say. Now, I don't personally agree with the letter, but it hurts. It really gives some -- it gives some conservative heft -- conservative intellectual heft to an idea, meaning border enforcement only, that had really been a talk radio phenomenon as much as anything else. So, it's important.

HUME: Go ahead, Mara.

LIASSON: Yeah, it wasn't just a talk radio -- I think this is the issue that has split the Republican Party in a deeper and more profound way than any other since Bush came into office. I mean, he believes as a matter of principle and politics that his way to go, which is some kind of a path to legalization, plus border security, is the best path. The House republicans are absolutely convinced that the best thing politically and also as matter of principle is to just do border security and to wait until that is proven successful before you even discuss anything else. And they feel from their constituents, it's not just talk radio. You know, I was up in the House today. They get letters, calls. I mean, they say this issue is not going away. Look what happened to Brian Bilbray, he's kind of saved his race by using this issue in the California.

HUME: He's been able to hold Duke Cunningham's in California.

LIASSON: By being very tough on immigration. And I think that there is a big difference between the short-term politics and getting elected in November in a lot of these districts and long-term politics for the party.

HUME: Good point, Mara. But does this not now come own to a question of now whether you're going to have the House bill or the Senate bill.

LIASSON: Or any bill.

HUME: It's a question of whether you have a compromise bill or no bill. Neither the Senate bill -- the Senate bill can't pass the House and the House bill can't pass the Senate.

KONDRACKE: Look, the game plan in the House looks like they're going to have these hearings that Hastert was talking about in the Judiciary Committee, the Homeland Security Committee and maybe the Ways and Means Committee to examine various aspects of the Senate bill and expose the flaws, I'm sure. And the forecast is that they are not going to even appoint conferees in the House until after Labor Day, which leaves no time for developing a bill. I think this thing is dead. And the House -- I think that this idea of sequencing is never going to work. The idea that you're going to close the border, enforce the employer of sanctions now and somehow get enough.

LIASSON: Get enough future to come back, yeah.

KONDRACKE: But what are we going to do for the jobs that need to be filled, picking all that fruit and building buildings and stuff like that?

LIASSON: Well, (INAUDIBLE) he says the prisoners can pick the fruit. I mean it's ridiculous. Look.

KONDRACKE: What are they going to do with 11 million people? Are you going to sort of watch them all sort of starve to death or scuttle out of the country or bring their kids into emergency rooms? It's going to be a mess.

HUME: Mort, you'd better be careful what you're saying I have a sense from the weather outside that the Almighty's paying attention and you may get struck down...

KONDRACKE: The Almighty's underlying -- underlining what I'm saying.

BARNES: You know, one thing about this is the polls are misleading, as they can often be. Polls show that the America people favor a path to citizenship, and I think they do. But the intensity is all on the border enforcement only and that's what the conservative intellectuals have backed, that's what most conservatives in the House of Representatives, most republicanism the House back. And.

(CROSSTALK)

KONDRACKE: Intellectuals are supposed to think more deeply than these passionate hot-dogs on the radio. But they're not.

In a year when the conservative base is demoralized and disheartened, here is an issue that gets them fired up and possibly to the polls. And that's what these House republicans are looking at. But the White House is convinced it's going to hurt their party in the end.

HUME: For the record, I don't think those people on the radio are passionate hot-dogs at all.

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