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February 08, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - February 8

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: I've never asked for a larger plane. This is a myth that they're talking about on the floor. They have nothing to say to the American people about the war, about the economy, about global warming and the rest, so they have this -- this game they're playing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That's House speaker Nancy Pelosi describing what she believes are the motives of those who question her use of a larger military airplane to fly home to California.

And now some comments from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard; Mort Kondracke executive editor of Roll Call; and Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief of Fortune Magazine -- FOX NEWS contributors all.

So Fred, all this talk about Speaker Pelosi and the military jet, much ado about nothing or much ado about something?

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: I'd say mainly nothing and you know, I mean, look, she deserves a plane that can fly there nonstop if we've decided that the number two person in line, the speaker of the House, needs this kind of security which was given to Denny Hastert after 9/11, and she lives farther away than Denny Hastert. He'd fly to Chicago.

WALLACE: He lives in Illinois, she lives on the West Coast.

BARNES: If you have the same plane, my understanding there'd have to be a fueling stop. And look, she deserves a nonstop flight, there, and that going to be fine, and that means a larger plane, then maybe she should get it. This is what the White House has said too.

She's handled this very, very poorly. I mean, she suggested for one that she's being discriminated against because she's a woman. She suggested that Donald Rumsfeld still has a desk at the Pentagon and he's getting retribution. And then, really very crudely, having Jack Murtha, the congressman and her pal, call the Pentagon and lean on the Pentagon to get her this plane, and then Murtha suggests that maybe the Pentagon shouldn't do it because she has such control over Pentagon spending that they shouldn't be rejecting her request.

Look, in the end she's going to get a nonstop plane to take her out to San Francisco.

WALLACE: And we all are going to breathe easier about that.

Mort, do you think it's outside the realm of possibility that the Pentagon leaked some of this stuff because they did want to stick it to Nancy Pelosi?

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: Well, somebody, for sure, leaked it first to the Washington Times then Roll Call had a story about it and all that, then the Republicans picked it up and ran with it and inflated the story to make it out to seem that she wanted Air Force Two or the plane that cabinet officers ride on, which is a 737.

WALLACE: I think, incidentally, while you are talking, I'm paying rapt attention, but let's put up a picture first of all of the plane that Denny Hastert used to fly. This is a C-20, and this is the kind of plane - - and it looks pretty big there, but in fact, as you see it from the side it really isn't and it can only go a range about as far as Illinois, and there you see a C-32, which is a converted 757, and that's the kind of plane that Speaker Pelosi wants. Go ahead.

KONDRACKE: Well, that's not -- that's what the Republicans say she wants. That's the one that's got, you know, showers and bedrooms and all this kind of stuff...

WALLACE: Why do we have -- and it has game rooms. Why do we have military planes that have game rooms in the first place? I'd like to know that.

KONDRACKE: Well, that's Air Force Two. That's what the -- vice president flies around in. There's another plane that cabinet officers and the joint chiefs of staff can use. Now, there is a plane called a C-37, which is a Gulf Stream-5, which is just the right plane and that's the plane, presumably, she ought to get. It's a small plane, holds 12 people, can fly to California...

WALLACE: That's the Goldilocks plane. Not too big, not to small.

KONDRACKE: Definitely. Right. So, that's presumably what she'll get, eventually.

NINA EASTON, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: Well, I think the White House is very smart to dismiss this whole episode as silly. And this is a matter -- it's a matter between the sergeant of arms and the Pentagon, and particularly since 9/11 the sergeant of arms has assigned a security retinue to the leadership, by the way -- they all walk around with security people. They're also -- they also have security SUVs that they drive, which she's also been harassed for this week as part of all this.

WALLACE: Because she went to some global warming meeting in an SUV. But it's an SUV, like the president's limousine that is specially outfitted.

EASTON: That's right. That's right.

WALLACE: It is funny.

BARNES: She wanted to get just -- I mean there are plenty of things in the government's motor pool, if she wanted to have something that's not an SUV I'm sure she could get it.

KONDRACKE: A Prius.

WALLACE: An honorary Prius.

KONDRACKE: Yeah of course.

WALLACE: Clearly one of the things the Republicans are trying to do is to paint Nancy Pelosi as the imperial speaker, right?

BARNES: Right.

WALLACE: Is that something that can stick?

KONDRACKE: You know, she foolishly...

BARNES: The answer is yes, Mort doesn't want to answer that.

KONDRACKE: She foolishly asked for an Air Force plane to fly her down to Williamsburg, for heavens sakes to this Democratic...

WALLACE: Which is like two hours away.

KONDRACKE: Yeah and she, I mean, Fred is right, she has handled this absolutely miserably and on top of this, payback time, the Democrats, you know, agreed to open rules on the floor that a full debate, you have lots of amendments. What did the Republicans do? They used the first opportunity for an open rule too have an amendment that they could tack on 2-1/2 hours of speeches attacking Nancy Pelosi about this airplane with it. I mean, this is -- it's fun and games and hilarity and it's stupid, is what it is.

WALLACE: Fred, is there an imperial speakership, here?

BARNES: Not yet, but there could be and Republicans are going to certainly talk about it in the same way Democrats would as well. Look, Nancy Pelosi's going to get off a lot easier than, say, Newt Gingrich would have in this same situation.

WALLACE: Remember Newt Gingrich when he flew on a plane with...

BARNES: All he did was complain about having to go off the back rather than come out the main side entrance.

KONDRACKE: That shut down the government on account of it.

BARNES: He was pilloried. He was pilloried for it.

EASTON: And he was pilloried as a crybaby for it. But I think, I think, I think the Republicans -- the Republicans on the Hill are in danger of having this backfire on them and...

BARNES: I don't.

KONDRACKE: I don't.

WALLACE: We have to take a break here, enough about Pelosi One. It's the kind of thing that is going to stick for a while, it's just, the headline writers are going to love it.

But when we come back, is a Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney starting to convince Evangelicals to give him a chance? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe that if people want to understand the nature of my faith, they can look at my wife and me and our family. They can see that our faith has made us better people, better Americans, and we share the values of the other citizens of this great land.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: So is America ready for a Mormon president? And how big an issue is Mitt Romney's faith in the 2008 race for the Republican presidential nomination? All questions for Fred, Mort and Nina.

There was a very interesting article on the front page of the New York Times today, and let's put it up if we get a chance. There you see it -- on whether governor Romney will be hurt by the fact he's a Mormon, and Nina, this clearly seemed to be an effort by the Romney campaign to take on the issue before he announces next week. Was it an effective preemptive strike?

EASTON: Well, he's been making a lot of preemptive strikes. His big problem, of course, is with Christian conservatives because the LDS Church, the Mormon Church...

WALLACE: Church of Latter Day Saints.

EASTON: Of Latter Day Saints, considers the first 200 years of Christianity basically an apostasy and they -- and the Southern Baptist consider the Mormons a cult. If you go on their website they're listed as a cult, so this is a hard row to hoe for Mitt Romney with Christian conservatives, which he needs in the primaries.

And right now, what he's doing is studying how John F. Kennedy dealt with the religion issue when he ran as a Catholic, and I think there's some differences here. Kennedy went before the nation and tried to -- and said, "Look, you know, the pope's not going to control the country if I'm elected, A. B, I believe in separation between church and state," a very kind of intellectual look at, you know, electing a Catholic. The problem for Romney, I think, is not just with Christian conservatives but, in this day and age, it becomes part of your personality. It's a personality issue. And it happens to be a latter-day religion that a lot of, you know, South Park made fun of it, for example, recently, the cartoon.

WALLACE: Well, there you go, now they're in trouble.

EASTON: In sort of, no...

WALLACE: (INAUDIBLE)

EASTON: But it can get in that sort of underground, you know, stream and make it hard to...

WALLACE: Listen, it's a big issue. Let's take a look, if we can, at a Newsweek poll from December. There you see it, the question: Do you think America is ready to elect a Mormon president -- 34 percent said yes, 48 percent said no. By contrast, majorities, 56 percent - 55 percent said the country is ready to elect a black and woman president.

Mort, how big a problem is the Mormon faith for Mitt Romney?

KONDRACKE: Well, it's going to require some work on Romney's part -- speeches, Kennedy-style speeches and -- and lots of contact with Evangelicals to demonstrate that he's their kind of guy and that his Mormonism is not weird, that he -- you know, that he's not going to govern -- he's not going to take orders from Utah and stuff like that, and I think he can do it.

I mean, you can imagine November, here we are in November, 38 percent of the people say -- 48 percent of the people say they won't vote for a Mormon. Well, there are polls that show that 45 percent of the people will never vote for Hillary Clinton. That would suggest that there are a lot of people that would be awfully conflicted in a race like that.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: Seven percent of America will vote.

KONDRACKE: Exactly, so somehow this will all get resolved, I think.

BARNES: Mort and Nina have this exactly wrong. Look, Christian conservatives are not much of a problem at all for Romney. I mean, look at this, for instance. the Weekly Standard, in a story written by Terry Eastland, who's an Evangelical Christian, very favorable to Romney.

The New Republic, on the other hand, really a secular liberal magazine attacking him for his faith, saying people who have qualms about him being president because he's a Mormon, they're entirely justified and at one point in this article said that it's -- "Mormonism will remain a theologically unstable and thus politically perilous religion." This is the liberal New Republic.

Everywhere that Romney has gone, when he's talked to Christian conservatives, they've always reacted favorably to him, and so I don't think they're going to be a problem. He has other problems, being from Massachusetts and flip-flopping on issues. Those are problems for him. I don't think this is going to be a problem at all in the primary.

WALLACE: Let's talk about that. I mean, what is a bigger problem for Romney, his religion? Or the fact of these alleged flip-flops, that going back to 1994, and as recently as 2002, he expressed a pro-gay rights position and also defended a woman's right to choose?

EASTON: And I think those are key questions, the abortion issue in particular, and actually -- and gay marriage -- when I have talked to Christian conservative leaders, and going back to Fred's point, he has made a lot of inroads with them so that a lot of key leaders now see this less as a flip-flop than as an evolution. Well, everybody has a right to evolve and change their minds. He's got to keep making that kind of progress. But yes, he will be attacked by competitors as a flip-flopper on this.

KONDRACKE: Well, and it's interesting that the Democrats are already attacking him as a flip-flopper, I mean, they're getting way ahead of his nomination -- actually, they're attacking McCain, they attacked Giuliani, they attack any Republican who has a chance to...

EASTON: Daily.

KONDRACKE: But flip-flopping is a big issue. He, at one point, refused to sign the no-tax pledge, the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge, now he's signed it. You know, there's just all kinds of changes from Massachusetts to running for national office as a conservative.

(CROSSTALK)

BARNES: But going back to the Mormon question, his problem is Liberal intolerance which has a great deal in this country. It's not bigotry on the part of conservatives.

KONDRACKE: There are Christian conservatives who think that Mormonism is a cult, there are.

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