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March 11, 2007

Fred Thompson, Maxine Waters, Roundtable

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace. President Bush sends still more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, next on "Fox News Sunday."

You Decide '08. With many conservatives unhappy with the current Republican field, some are pushing for a new candidate. Is Fred Thompson the next Ronald Reagan? We'll talk with the former senator, now an actor, about taking on a new role.

With opposition to the Iraq war growing in Congress, some liberal members are upset not only with the president but their own leaders. We'll sit down with the chair of the Out of Iraq Caucus in the House, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Plus, former top adviser to the vice president Scooter Libby is convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. We'll review his case and a possible presidential pardon with our Sunday gang, Brit Hume, Nina Easton, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.

And our Power Player of the Week, America's ambassador of jazz, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And good morning again from Fox News in Washington. Here's a quick check of the latest headlines. President Bush has approved sending 8,200 more U.S. troops to war zones. He's sending 4,700 to Iraq to support the surge he ordered in January, and he's sending a brigade of 3,500 troops to Afghanistan, bringing U.S. force levels there to an all-time high.

And Iranian president Ahmadinejad wants to attend a U.N. Security Council meeting to defend his country's nuclear program. On Saturday, Iran and the U.S. both attended a regional conference in Baghdad on ways to end the violence in Iraq.

Well, chances are you've never heard of U.S. President Charles Ross, but in the movies a couple of years ago, there was Fred Thompson playing the role. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRED THOMPSON, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: Watch this. I don't want us sitting on our butts if something's about to happen.

(UNKNOWN): Absolutely, sir.

THOMPSON: Anything else I should know?

(UNKNOWN): I'll keep you posted, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Joining us now amid talk of a real-life run for president is actor and former senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson.

And, Senator, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

THOMPSON: Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you.

WALLACE: There's been a lot of buzz, as we said, in Republican circles that there's no true conservative in the GOP presidential field. Now some top Republicans, including your friend former Tennessee senator Howard Baker, are putting out trial balloons about you possibly entering the race.

Question: Are you considering running for president in 2008?

THOMPSON: I'm giving some thought to it. Going to leave the door open.

WALLACE: Well, you say leaving the door open. What's going to go into your decision-making process, what factors? Why would you do it? And what do you see -- do you see some holes in the current Republican field?

THOMPSON: It's not really a reflection on the current field at all. As you know, some of them are very good friends of mine. I'm going to wait and see how it pans out, see how they do, how it develops.

A lot of people think it's late already. I don't really think it is, although the rules of the game have changed somewhat.

Part of it is internal, a little self-examination on my part. Adlai Stevenson, I guess it was, said, you know, the trick is to do what's necessary to be president and become president and still deserve to be president. And that's serious consideration.

I'm concerned about what's going on in the country, in our world, always have been. Just the fact that I left the Senate did not negate that in any way. I've been involved in national security issues and things of that nature since I've been out of the Senate.

I think we're going into one of the most perilous times that our country has been in. I think that there are great opportunities out there.

But it's not preordained that we're going to remain the strongest and freest nation in the history of the world. We've got to do some things well. We've got to do some things differently.

WALLACE: As you point out, by historical standards, it's still very early, March of 2007. But your potential rivals are out there already building organizations, raising tens of millions of dollars. Don't you, if you're going to get into this...

THOMPSON: Spending tens of millions of dollars.

WALLACE: That's true, too. Don't you have to get into this pretty quickly if you're going to do it? THOMPSON: I don't think so. I don't think so. I could be wrong, but I don't. You know, historically, as you say, people have gotten in in October, in that time frame. I don't think you can wait that long anymore.

But you know, times are different in another respect, too. They're different from a political standpoint, but they're different in the country, too. I think people are somewhat disillusioned. I think a lot of people are cynical out there. I think they're looking for something different.

They're not necessarily willing to abide by the same rules politically as to their own behavior as voters. And I think that they're going to be open to different things.

It will be interesting to me as I listen to people and learn and watch what's going on and what's the reaction, and the poll numbers and so forth, as to whether or not my instinct on that is right.

But whatever the case, the lay of the land will be different in a few months than it is today one way or the other, and...

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you...

THOMPSON: ... one advantage you have in not, you know, having this as lifelong ambition is that if it turns out that your calculation is wrong, it's not the end of the world.

WALLACE: I read one article that said that the timetable was you would make a decision by May.

THOMPSON: I don't know where that came from. I've never said that.

WALLACE: Do you have any kind of a deadline?

THOMPSON: No.

WALLACE: Could you go into the summer? Could you go into...

THOMPSON: I think so.

WALLACE: As we said, perhaps the main reason that people are talking about you is this uneasy feeling among conservatives that there is not one of their own, a true conservative, in the field.

So let's do a lightning round -- quick questions, quick answers, a variety of issues -- to see where Fred Thompson stands.

THOMPSON: Um hmm.

WALLACE: Abortion.

THOMPSON: Pro-life.

WALLACE: Would you like to overturn Roe... THOMPSON: You said lightning round, now. If you want...

WALLACE: Well, let's go.

THOMPSON: ... more, give me another question. I'll work through it.

WALLACE: Do you want to overturn Roe vs. Wade?

THOMPSON: I think Roe vs. Wade was bad law and bad medical science. And the way to address that is through good judges. I don't think the court ought to wake up one day and make new social policy for the country. It's contrary to what it's been the past 200 years.

We have a process in this country to do that. Judges shouldn't be doing that. That's what happened in that case. I think it was wrong.

WALLACE: Gay rights.

THOMPSON: Gay rights? I think that we ought to be a tolerant nation. I think we ought to be tolerant people. But we shouldn't set up special categories for anybody.

And I'm for the rights of everybody, including gays, but not any special rights.

WALLACE: So, gay marriage? You're against.

THOMPSON: Yes. You know, marriage is between a man and a woman, and I don't believe judges ought to come along and change that.

WALLACE: What about civil unions?

THOMPSON: I think that that ought to be left up to the states. I personally do not think that that is a good idea, but I believe in many of these cases where there's real dispute in the country, these things are not going to be ever resolved.

People are going to have different ideas. That's why we have states. We ought to give great leeway to states and not have the federal government and not have the Supreme Court of the United States making social policy that's contrary to the traditions of this country and changing that overnight. And that's what's happened in a lot of these areas.

WALLACE: Gun control.

THOMPSON: Well, I'm against gun control generally. You know, you check my record. You'll find I'm pretty consistent on that issue.

WALLACE: So this federal court -- appeals court ruling this last week, I guess Friday, in the case of D.C. -- you'd be perfectly happy to have people have handguns in their homes?

THOMPSON: Yes. Absolutely. The court basically said the Constitution means what it says, and I agree with that.

WALLACE: On the other hand, you have taken some stands that conservatives may not like. For instance, you voted for John McCain's campaign finance reform.

THOMPSON: I came from the outside to Congress. And it always seemed strange to me. We've got a situation where people could give politicians huge sums of money, which is the soft money situation at that time, and then come before those same politicians and ask them to pass legislation for them.

I mean, you get thrown in jail for stuff like that in the real world. And so I always thought that there was some reasonable limitation that ought to be put on that, and you know, looking back on history, Barry Goldwater in his heyday felt the same thing.

So that's not a non-conservative position, although I agree that a lot of people have interpreted it that way.

WALLACE: You also favor comprehensive immigration reform. I want to...

THOMPSON: No, no, no, no.

WALLACE: Well, let me put up on the screen something that you said last year about illegals, and let's take a look at it. "You're going to have to, in some way, work out a deal where they can have some aspirations of citizenship but not make it so easy that it's unfair to the people waiting in line and abiding by the law."

Now, you said, "Look, it's just not realistic that we're going to round up 12 million people and ship them all out of the country."

THOMPSON: Well, that's true, as a general statement. We woke up one day after years of neglect and apparently discovered that we have somewhere between 12 million and 20 million illegal aliens in this country. So it became an impossible situation to deal with.

I mean, there's really no good solution. So what do you do? You have to start over. Well, I'm concerned about the next 12 million or 20 million. So that's why enforcement, and enforcement at the border, has to be primary.

I think most people feel disillusioned after 1986 when we had this deal offered to them before, and now we're insisting that, you know, we solve the security problem first, and then we'll talk about what to do with regard to other things -- certainly no amnesty or nothing blanket like that.

But figure out some way to make some differentiation between the kind of people that we have here.

You know, if you have the right kind of policies, and you're not encouraging people to come here and encouraging them to stay once they're here, they'll go back, many of them, of their own volition, instead of having to, you know, load up moving vans and rounding people up. That's not going to happen.

WALLACE: What would you do now in Iraq?

THOMPSON: I would do essentially what the president's doing. I know it's not popular right now, but I think we have to look down the road and consider the consequences of where we are.

We're the leader of the free world whether we like it or not. People are looking to us to test our resolve and see what we're willing to do in resolving the situation that we have there. People think that if we hadn't gone down there, things would have been lovely.

If Saddam Hussein was still around today with his sons looking at Iran developing a nuclear capability, he undoubtedly would have reconstituted his nuclear capability. Things would be worse than what they are today.

We've got to rectify the mistakes that we've made. We went in there too light, wrong rules of engagement, wrong strategy, placed too much emphasis on just holding things in place while we built up the Iraqi army, took longer than we figured.

Wars are full of mistakes. You rectify things. I think we're doing that now. We're coming in with good people. We're coming in with a lot of different people. I know General Petraeus from when he was in Tennessee at Fort Campbell. He believes in the plan. He's convinced me that they can do the job.

Why would we not take any chance, even though there's certainly no guarantees, to not be run out of that place? I mean, we've got to take that opportunity and give it a chance to work.

WALLACE: One area where you have been critical of President Bush is that you say that he never spread the burden, he never made all Americans share in the sacrifice.

And you have talked about the fact that we need to end our dependence on foreign oil. Would you impose a gas tax to push us in that direction?

THOMPSON: Well, you're getting a little bit further down in the weeds than I want to go right now. I don't know. I'm studying it. I don't know the answer to that question.

We're going to have to do some things differently. We're going to have to think differently about solutions.

You know, it's a price matter more than anything else. You know, gas is -- I mean, oil is fungible. And there's going to be oil in different parts of the world having a price set, you know, that we're going to have to live with one way or another.

We can't ever be totally independent of it, but we can do some things to make it a lot better. We're going to have to look at fuel emission standards and things of that nature, things that we don't like to look at.

And things have got to be on the table, because we can't keep funding a part of the world that's causing us so much problems.

WALLACE: You are on the steering committee of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund.

THOMPSON: That's right.

WALLACE: And you helped raise millions of dollars for his extraordinary legal expenses. Would President Thompson -- you like the sound of that probably. Would President Thompson pardon Libby now or would you wait until all of his legal appeals are exhausted?

THOMPSON: I'd do it now.

WALLACE: Because?

THOMPSON: I'd do it now. This is a trial that never would have been brought in any other part of the world. This is a miscarriage of justice.

One man and his wife and 14-year-old and 10-year-old children are bearing the brunt of a political maelstrom here that produced something that never should have come about.

These people knew in the very beginning -- the Justice Department, this Justice Department and the special counsel knew in the very beginning that the thing that was creating the controversy, who leaked Valerie Plame's name, did not constitute a violation of the law.

And then they knew that it -- someone did leak the name. And it was Mr. Armitage. It wasn't Scooter Libby.

But he evidently wasn't a designated bad guy, so they passed over that and spent the next year drilling in a dry well and finally got some inconsistencies or some failure to remember out of Mr. Libby and made a prosecution out of it and went to trial on a he-said, she-said perjury case and faulty memory, when practically every witness in the trial either had inconsistent statements, told the FBI one thing, told the grand jury something else, inconsistent between the witnesses that were presented at the case, and sometimes both.

And yet at the end of the day, the only person that the jury got an opportunity to pass judgment on was Scooter Libby. It's not fair. And I would do anything that I could to alleviate that.

WALLACE: We've got a couple of minutes left. I'm sure some people are listening to you and saying, "You know what, I like this guy. I would like him to be my presidential candidate."

You talked about it in terms of the process -- you're going to think about it and decide in your own gut. But there's got to be more than that. I mean, how do you figure out whether or not there's interest out there, whether there is support? How are you going to test the waters?

THOMPSON: This day and time, it doesn't take long to learn what people think. I have never beaten down a lot of doors in my life, but occasionally doors have opened to me, and I had sense enough to see that they were opening, and I would walk through them, and they've always turned out well for me.

I'm just going to wait and see what happens, as I say. I'm going to have my own thoughts about what's necessary to get the job done, be successful in doing it.

I want to see how my colleagues who are on the campaign trail do now, what they say, what they emphasize, what they're addressing, and how successful they are in doing that, and whether or not they can carry the ball in next November, and mainly whether or not they can reach the American people, inspire the American people to do the tough things that we're going to need to do.

We've got an entitlement program that's bankrupting us. We've got things going on in Thailand, in Indonesia, in places that nobody ever talks about anymore that could impact on us.

We've got Chinese government who we're mutually economically dependent upon right now. But you know, they're still a totalitarian government that is building up their military tremendously and has 200 missiles pointed toward Taiwan.

Those are all things that are going to have to be dealt with. And the American people, we've learned, are going to have to be brought along with the process and with what's going on -- be honest with them and inspire them to do the right thing.

WALLACE: And if you search your soul and if you listen to what they're all saying and it doesn't seem to you that they're catching on, making sense -- whatever -- then what?

THOMPSON: Well, I'm going to give it serious consideration.

WALLACE: Now, I know you anchor "The Paul Harvey Show" sometimes. Will you come back here and give us the rest of the story?

THOMPSON: That's kind of like pinch-hitting for Babe Ruth.

WALLACE: Or Lou Gehrig.

THOMPSON: That's kind of like being compared to Ronald Reagan. You know, I'm getting into some no-win situations here.

WALLACE: Will you come back and tell us the rest of the story?

THOMPSON: Absolutely.

WALLACE: Senator Thompson, we want to thank you so much for coming in today.

THOMPSON: Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

WALLACE: Up next, House Democrats announce a timetable for bringing our troops home from Iraq, but some in the party say it's too little, too late. Divisions among the Democrats, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: This week, the House Democratic leadership announced a timetable to bring U.S. combat troops home from Iraq by September 2008. But many of the 75 members of the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus say that's not soon enough.

Joining us now from her home state of California, the chair of that caucus, Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Congresswoman, the bill being offered by House Democratic leaders continues funding our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it sets some conditions.

If the president doesn't certify that the Iraqi politicians are making progress, they can start to bring the troops home and, in any case, all combat troops would be out by September of 2008. Why isn't that soon enough for you?

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, there are a lot of bells and whistles in this bill. And they ask the president to not only certify, but begin in July by telling us whether or not progress has been made.

We have been listening to this president tell us about what he's doing and what's going on. We've been misled.

We were told that there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. We were told that we would be welcome with open arms. That's not the case.

We were told that we would get revenues from the oil fields that would help to repair the bombings that we had done in Iraq and in Baghdad in particular. That's not true.

So first of all, there's not a lot of trust. Secondly, we just voted a non-binding resolution that said we do not support the surge or the expansion, and now we're going to fund it?

We believe that we should use funding to safely exit our soldiers from Iraq with a well-thought-out exit plan. We believe that that can be done. We are not talking about doing it overnight.

We think a reasonable timetable would perhaps be by the end of the year, and we want to see a clean, straightforward bill.

WALLACE: Congresswoman, is the Democratic leadership -- Speaker Pelosi and the other Democratic leaders -- are they being too timid?

WATERS: Oh, I don't know if that's the way to describe it. You know, this is the kind of process where you have a lot of people who think differently about the issues.

And for those of us who feel that we should be out of Iraq, we have a responsibility to the people, and particularly since we know that the people want us out of Iraq. Not only do all the polls show it, this last election in November was an election to send people to Washington to help get us out of Iraq.

So those of us who feel strongly about it -- we have to be good advocates. We have to speak for the people, and that's what we're doing.

WALLACE: Congresswoman, this week the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey, was confronted by an antiwar protester who wanted him to vote against this spending bill that we're talking about here, which led to this exchange. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAVID R. OBEY, D-WIS.: It's time these idiot liberals understand that there's a hell of a difference between defunding the troops and ending the war. I'm not going to deny body armor. I'm not going to deny funding for veterans hospitals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Respectfully, Congresswoman, are you one of those -- what Congresswoman Obey would call idiot liberals who would vote against this spending bill and thereby deny our troops body armor and medical care?

WATERS: I don't know. I think his language was quite unfortunate. That was a mother whose son has done two tours of duty in Iraq. He's apologized for having used that kind of language, and I would hope that he does not do that again.

I don't know what he thinks about my position and whether he would characterize me that way, but I would hope not.

WALLACE: But by voting against the spending bill, you would be voting against giving the troops body armor, against more funding for veterans and military hospitals.

WATERS: That's not true. That's absolutely not true. What you have in this bill is a requirement that the soldiers would be properly trained, they would have the proper equipment, and it basically backs the president up against the wall, and it dares him to use his waiver authority they give him.

Even though the bill says that's what we need, that's what we should have, then they say but, Mr. President, you can waive all of that if you want to. And of course, if he waives that, he has to go before the American people. It will make him look bad. That's one of the bells or the whistles in the bill.

I think we need a straight bill, vote up or down on the supplemental, and the only thing that I would say is use money in that supplemental to safely exit the soldiers out of Iraq.

WALLACE: Congresswoman -- and I want to make it clear that you want to get all troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, but you also make it clear you want to fund it, as you say, to make it safe, to make it thoughtful.

But let's talk about your policy and what would happen if all U.S. troops are out of Iraq by the end of 2007. Don't you worry about a possible -- it's been called genocidal blood bath between the Sunnis and the Shia once we're out of there?

WATERS: Well, let me just say this. And I don't think there's any problem with leaving some of our soldiers what we call over the horizon, in Kuwait someplace, to help respond to a major catastrophe of some kind.

But don't forget, the Sunnis and the Shiites were getting along before we went in with our occupation, and I don't think that we can use the argument that if we're not there, it's going to be a bloodbath, or they can't manage to do what they were doing prior to our being there.

Much of what is happening...

WALLACE: Well, but, Congresswoman, prior to our being there, Saddam Hussein was in charge. So that was what was keeping the Sunnis and Shia away from each other.

I mean, once we're out, we're not going to come back if the Sunni and the Shia start fighting with each other.

WATERS: Well, I don't think we can say the only way that Iraq can be stabilized is if Saddam Hussein was there. I think that they're developing new leadership. We have given support to new leadership.

And they have to find a way to get along. I don't think that we can say that in order for us to leave, we've got to somehow make sure that history -- years of history of not getting along all of a sudden is changed and that we're going to have to stay there until it happens.

They are going to have to figure that out. We can support them, but we cannot stay there forever in the middle of this civil war.

WALLACE: Congresswoman, let's talk about another issue if we pull out by the end of this year. What about the danger that Al Qaida and other insurgent groups will set up terrorist havens in western Iraq? WATERS: Well, the first place, we should have been more focused on Al Qaida in Afghanistan. We took our eye off the ball.

And we went after Saddam Hussein, a convenient target, because this president wanted to make sure that people understood he was fighting a war on terrorism and that was the best way to do it.

They knew that Saddam Hussein had a reputation for being a villain because he had invaded Kuwait before.

WALLACE: But Congresswoman, forgive me...

WATERS: But we should have been concentrating on Afghanistan.

WALLACE: Congresswoman, forgive me, though. I don't think you're -- I understand that and that's a legitimate criticism, but it doesn't answer my question, which is we pull all our troops out of Iraq, as you would have under your measure, by December 2007 -- what happens to Al Qaida setting up terrorist safe havens in Anbar province?

WATERS: What happens if Al Qaida decides to set up safe havens anywhere? Don't forget, there are cells in different places in the world. We have not done the job that we should be doing to find Osama bin Laden and to deal with Al Qaida.

If we concentrate first on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, up around Tora Bora, where we know that we have a big concentration of activity of Al Qaida, I think we'd do a much better job than concentrating all of our energy and our resources in Iraq.

WALLACE: Finally, we've got about -- actually, less than a minute left.

What message do you think it would send to the terrorists around the world, to Iran, with its expansionist policies, if the U.S. showed that after a certain amount of time, a certain amount of loss of troops, that we were going to cut and run, that we were going to leave?

WATERS: Well, I think cut and run is a kind of language that has been used by this administration and others to intimidate those of us who are responding to the American people's desire to get our soldiers out of Iraq.

Our soldiers are dying every day. Civilians are dying by the thousands in Iraq. I just don't want to wake up one morning and find that they have bombed one of our compounds and hundreds of our soldiers had been killed.

We just saw a few weeks ago where they had a convoy that went past several checkpoints and went in to one of our areas and killed our soldiers. We don't have the cooperation there from the Iraqis.

Sunnis and Shiites alike that are in the military are all against us. They undermine us. They are not sticking with us during times of confrontation.

We don't need to have our soldiers in the middle of this civil war. It can't get any worse than this. And we need to get out before we have something of a major catastrophe happen to our soldiers.

WALLACE: Congresswoman Waters, we're going to have to leave it there. We want to thank you so much for coming in early today out on the west coast to talk with us. We appreciate it.

WATERS: Well, you're certainly welcome. Thank you.

WALLACE: Up next, our Sunday gang on the conviction of former vice presidential adviser Scooter Libby. Was justice served? Will the president pardon him? Some answers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK FITZGERALD, SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official, a person who worked in the Office of the Vice President, obstructed justice and lied under oath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED WELLS, ATTORNEY FOR LEWIS "SCOOTER" LIBBY: We have every confidence that ultimately Mr. Libby will be vindicated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Those were special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and defense lawyer Ted Wells commenting on the guilty verdict in the Scooter Libby trial.

And it's time now for our Sunday gang, Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News, and Fox News contributors Nina Easton of Fortune magazine, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams from National Public Radio.

Well, the verdict was barely out in the Libby case and various people were drawing all sorts of lessons about Libby, and Vice President Cheney, and former Ambassador Joe Wilson and a bunch of other -- the cast of characters in this case.

Brit, what do you think is the key message, the key lesson, that comes out of this whole episode?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS WASHINGTON MANAGING EDITOR: I think the two jurors who spoke out afterwards told you all you needed to know about this case. One of them, who was a Washington Post reporter in his day, said that dealing with this case and adjudicating this man's fate sucked, and the other one said that while she found it necessary to find him guilty that she thought he ought to be pardoned.

The sense that the jurors clearly had was that this was a small fish at best and a small matter at best wrapped within what was supposed to be a much larger case, a much larger case that the facts did not allow the prosecutor to make. This just didn't amount to much.

WALLACE: Nina, what do you draw from the Libby case?

NINA EASTON, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: Well, I draw the lesson that you appoint a special prosecutor at your own risk. A prosecutor is going to find something, and in this case, as we all know, there was no underlying crime.

He's being convicted of obstructing justice in an investigation of a crime that didn't exist. That said, you know, now the White House is facing this pressure about whether to pardon him, whether he deserves a presidential pardon.

And you've got, on one hand, doubts about the case, but on the other hand, you have the special prosecutor standing up there calling a top White House official, former White House official, a liar. And that provides a very difficult political situation for the White House.

And I also think what we're going to see now is pressure on the White House as the case progresses -- if there's sentencing, for example -- to pardon.

WALLACE: Well, Bill, you have an answer to that in your editorial in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard. You said not only should the president pardon Scooter Libby, he should do it now.

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: Yes, absolutely, both because it's the right thing to do, but also it's in the president's interest, and here's why. The special prosecutor said in his closing statement that there's a cloud over the vice presidency, a cloud over the White House.

If this appeal drags on with motions, and Fitzgerald responding to motions, and we have a year of back and forth, every time something like that is in the press, that cloud will be there, and it's unresponded to.

The president has taken the position that well, he can't deal with this. There's a trial going on. So someone has been convicted, I think unfortunately and unfairly, but nonetheless. Fitzgerald will keep repeating that there's a cloud over the White House, and Bush will be passive, and it will demoralize his supporters.

He needs to pardon Libby now. I think that would actually reinvigorate his supporters and show that he's willing to fight to defend his people and defend the war that he led us into.

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: Well, it would certainly be a demonstration of loyalty, but do you think that it would also be a demonstration of a lack of fealty to the idea of law under a Constitution when you obstruct justice and lie under oath?

I mean, it reminds me of giving Medals of Freedom to George Tenet and Paul Bremer after the fiasco in Iraq. You just say to your friends, "It's OK, you get a get-out-of-jail free card." I don't think that's the way you should run a country.

WALLACE: Brit, let me bring up something that I hear from some Democrats. They say the Republicans had no problem impeaching Bill Clinton for lying in a judicial proceeding about sex, and yet somehow it's an outrage to prosecute and convict Scooter Libby for lying to a grand jury and FBI agents about the cover of the CIA agent. And they say, "Double standard."

HUME: Maybe. Maybe it was a double standard. But I am disinclined to think so in the case of the president. That man was the president of the United States. He lied to the country. And he also lied to the grand jury about that whole matter. And that was in an important respect central to the case.

The case that was under investigation here involving Libby was one in which nothing was really found. A lot of people went to jail, you may recall, in that Whitewater investigation. Several people went to jail. You had the governor of...

WALLACE: Well, this is Paula Jones.

HUME: Right. I understand. But the whole broad scandal around Clinton, it seems to me, was a much larger matter and it directly engaged the president of the United States.

EASTON: But it raised the question of should an independent counsel in that case or a special prosecutor in this case be investigating these matters, and what comes of that.

And you heard the same thing during the Clinton years -- criminalization of politics. It's being applied to this case right now.

KRISTOL: Impeachment was not criminalization. In fact, President Clinton could have been prosecuted after he left office for lying to a grand jury, and he cut a deal with a U.S. attorney who correctly decided that this would be kind of crazy to go through a criminal trial now.

This trial shouldn't have been brought. The president should pardon Libby. And I think not doing so -- he will pay a big price over the next year. I really believe that.

I mean, it's going to be hanging out there. Not to pardon him and to go into a defensive crouch, which is where the White House is now, is to leave that cloud hanging over his White House and over the war.

And even if things get better in Iraq, as I suspect they are thanks to the surge, there will be a sense of illegitimacy in the president's effort to make the case for the war at the beginning and to respond to critics of the war like Joe Wilson, which his White House did entirely legitimately.

WILLIAMS: But don't you think -- I mean, look. The cloud exists. And if he were to pardon, he would exacerbate all those tensions. In fact, I think he would -- it would be more than a cloud.

It would be a veil at that point, because people would say there is no accountability in this administration for their actions and they excuse their friends.

HUME: The only thing I'd say about those observations is I don't think that the back and forth of pleadings in the appeal of this case is going to generate the kind of attention and news coverage that you imagine.

It will be occasional. It will be probably not long-lasting, and it's probably -- there's a significant possibility that the Libby conviction will be tossed out and perhaps a new trial ordered, which would have the opposite effect of what I think you're contemplating.

I think the president would be spending an awful lot of political capital to do this now.

WALLACE: Nina, I want to move to another subject because we've got a couple of minutes left here.

Iraq -- because the Democrats in the House and Senate have both come out with still new resolutions or measures to try to get the president out. They're almost impossibly complicated, but basically they would say that at least by September of 2008, all combat troops are out. Who's winning this argument?

EASTON: I think that remains to be seen. I mean, it's going to be a big test of Nancy Pelosi's leadership. It's going to be a big test of whether she can keep together the liberal left of the party.

I think David Obey's comment -- the chair of the House Appropriations Committee's comment about, quote, "idiot liberals" and his frustration with attempts to curtail the commander in chief's conduct of a war, which is shared by other Democrats -- and on the other hand, you've got liberals who want out.

She's got to hold this coalition together. And if she can do that, then she can affect the debate more than if she can't, obviously.

WALLACE: Bill, you get the last word here.

KRISTOL: The Democrats are losing this argument because their position is irresponsible. No serious person thinks it is the right thing to do when you're in the middle of a war that you have a chance to win, to pull the plug, and leave, and give a victory to the most brutal terrorists in the world who want to weaken and destroy the United States.

WALLACE: All right.

WILLIAMS: I'm not allowed to answer this one.

WALLACE: Real quickly. I know we almost ran out the clock. Real quickly.

WILLIAMS: But real quickly, I mean, the fact is the Iraq study group says March '08 is a reasonable time. Democrats are saying that in the House and they're giving the opportunity for the waiver, as we just heard Maxine Waters say.

And in the Senate, they're talking about even August of '08. And most Americans now say there should be a deadline. I don't see how that's irresponsible.

WALLACE: There you go. Was I fair and balanced there?

WILLIAMS: Hey, Fox News.

WALLACE: All right. We have to take a quick break here. But coming up, our Sunday political round-up. Nevada Democrats pull out of a debate hosted by Fox News Channel. And the road gets tougher for some leading Republican presidential candidates. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev at age 54 became the youngest leader ever of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev launched major reforms that led to the collapse of communism and the end of the cold war.

Stay tuned for more panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER AILES, FOX NEWS: Any candidate for high office of either party who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake about journalists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was the chairman of Fox News Channel, Roger Ailes, responding after former Senator John Edwards announced he would not participate in a debate this summer being sponsored by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party.

And we're back now with Brit, Nina, Bill and Juan. And let me just say right at the outset what a great speech Roger Ailes gave. I want to go firmly on record about that.

But this episode raises an interesting question, because Edwards dropped out after getting pressure from left-wing blogs and groups about the fact that he should have nothing to do with Fox.

Then after Roger's speech, the Nevada State Democratic Party wrote a letter canceling the entire debate. Let's put up what they had to say. "Comments made last night by Fox News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too far. We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments."

So what did Roger Ales say that was so objectionable? Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AILES: And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said why can't we catch this guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Brit, what's going on here?

HUME: Well, that was obviously a joke on the president, the idea being he didn't know the difference between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden. I think everybody in the room got it.

I don't think the Nevada Democratic Party was the least bit offended by that comment. I think the Nevada Democratic Party wanted to pull the plug on this debate because it, like the Edwards campaign, was under intense pressure from the bloggers and other leftist elements within the party to which the party is at times remarkably responsive. But Edwards is really the key player in this. And you know, when you think about it for a minute, in the short term, this is probably a shrewd political move by him on a couple of counts.

One is that it separates him from the other candidates, at least briefly. It pleases the wing of the party which is active and important in the nominating process. And what Edwards knows is that while he may be at war against Fox News, Fox News is not and cannot be at war with him.

He knows and his people know that Carl Cameron and Jim Angle and Major Garrett and you, Chris, in interviews, and I as a news anchor on a nightly program are going to continue to treat him in the same fair way that we've always treated him. And we must do that.

Now, he may get roughed up by some conservative commentators on Fox, but he'll be defended by liberal commentators on Fox as well. So in the short term, this is probably good politics. In the long term, I have my doubts, but that remains to be seen.

EASTON: This is a bigger political story than just this debate or the Nevada Democratic Party. This is really about the power of the liberal left blogging community which I think we're going to see play out.

We've already seen bits and pieces of it. Keep in mind, it was the blogging community that very much put pressure on presidential candidates to renounce their vote about Iraq. And Hillary Clinton paid the price in that community for this. John Edwards did renounce his vote and it was part and parcel of that pressure coming.

And this is going to be something that the Democratic candidates are going to have to respond to all through the campaign. And Edwards, I think, is more aligned with that community than the other candidates. It's going to be a difficult road at points for them.

WALLACE: Bill, here's the question I have. What would the mainstream media say if a Republican candidate were to cave in to right-wing blogs and right-wing interest groups and say, "I'm not going to have anything to do with CBS News or the New York Times?"

KRISTOL: You know, I thought about that. Certainly, the right dislikes the New York Times as much as the left dislikes Fox News. And if a candidate refused to appear at a forum -- I don't think it ever happens, does it?

You know, one feels one should treat the media -- one has to be open to the media. Look, if the Democrats don't want Fox to sponsor a debate, I suppose that's their business. But what it tells me is, you know, that the Democratic Party has moved to the left.

John Edwards appeared on "Fox News Sunday", what, four times between late 2003 and late 2004. I remember chatting with him...

WALLACE: He came on regularly and, quite frankly, I hope he comes back. He's welcome anytime. He's an interesting political figure.

KRISTOL: Yes, and I noticed that his spokesman left open the possibility of appearing on Fox. They don't want to really close the door.

So it's just a pandering to the left wing of the party, which they're doing on trivial things, like who hosts a debate in Nevada, and serious things, like undercutting our attempt to win the war in Iraq.

WILLIAMS: Well, you know, there's just no question, we live in an era of niche journalism. And in niche journalism, Fox is more conservative. And so what you have is a situation here where Fox is the new guy on the block. We're 10 years old.

And you have people then coming along saying, "Well, Fox is practicing a kind of journalism that is preferential towards Republicans or the White House." And I think it's more conservative and contrarian than anything. But that's all true.

But then it comes to the point where -- so what are you going to do? You don't like the kind of broadcasting that Fox does, although it's quite successful, has a legitimate audience -- people are listening and being informed on the basis of Fox journalism, and then you're going to say, "We're not going to play ball with them."

To my mind, that is contrary to the principles that should be advocated by anybody who says they're liberal or progressive -- whatever kind of language they want -- in this country. You want open and full- fledged, full-throated debate. That's what you want.

And nobody said that this wasn't going to be a legitimate debate with real questions that would put candidates in a position to offer real answers. They would be given time.

WALLACE: You're fired up.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think it's crazy that you tell the people shut up. I mean, I sometimes have this argument with Brit Hume. I think he's trying to shut me up. But I think it should be liberals who are flying the flag for open and full-throated debate, you know?

HUME: Shut up, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, man.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: Now, before we end this segment, I don't want to let it to pass without one of the more interesting political developments this week.

Newt Gingrich went on a radio interview with Dr. James Dobson, the head of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. Here's a clip.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JAMES DOBSON, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: I asked you if the rumors were true that you were in an affair with a woman obviously who wasn't your wife at the same time that Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were having their escapade.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, the fact is that the honest answer is yes.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

WALLACE: Nina, if Gingrich is willing to subject himself to this kind of -- what I'm sure was a very uncomfortable moment, it would seem to indicate he's pretty serious about running for president.

EASTON: Yes, exactly. I mean, this is something that most of us who have written about Gingrich know. I mean, we know that this has happened. We've written it. His attorneys have admitted it. This is nothing new.

What was new was him admitting it himself and trying to put it behind him and trying to genuflect to the conservative religious community and Dobson in particular.

WALLACE: Do you think it will work? I mean, obviously, he's trying to inoculate on this issue.

EASTON: Well, given the field of candidates and all of their issues, the field of Republican candidates, you know, and all of their marital issues, you know, it could neutralize it.

Gingrich is sitting on the sidelines. He says he's building a movement. He's not running for president yet, but let me tell you, in September, I think we're going to see him jump in.

WALLACE: All right. We're going to have to -- and maybe Fred Thompson, too. The more the merrier, at least for us. Thank you all, panel. See you next week.

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