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June 12, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - June 12

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), MAJORITY LEADER: Now we have appropriations bills coming to the floor with the secret David Obey slush funds, where they are not going to disclose where these earmarks are going to go.

REP. DAVID OBEY (D-WI), CHAIR, HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: What we are proposing will guarantee that every single project that we intend to put in our bills eventually will on record in the public just as soon as we can get them there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, somebody's right and somebody's wrong in this, and the Fox all stars are here to sort that out. Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, and Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, Fox News contributors all.

All right, so Mort, help me out here. What I understand happened is that David Obey, the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee decided that instead of having these individual spending items called earmarks which are inserted into bill, usually by a single member to help his state or district, would not be dealt with in the normal process of creating the bill, debating it, and voting it through.

That would be slipped into the bill or put into the bill later when the House and Senate are working out differences between their two versions of the bill.

Republicans screamed that that makes the whole process very much more secret, that it took it out of the realm of debate and made it harder to blow the whistle on them, and so forth. Obey now says I've come forward with a plan, we're going to publicize them not during the early stages but later. What does he mean?

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: What is going to happen is that before the July 4th recess, they are going to--

HUME: After the bills have been voted on, the bills passed.

KONDRACKE: You will not be able to challenge a bill on the floor, an earmark on the floor, and have a vote on it. And--

HUME: So where is the money going to come from? Is that what Obey is talking about when he claims there's a slush fund?

KONDRACKE: Well, there are plugs in the bill to cover a certain amount of money for earmarks, unspecified funds that are in the bill to be allocated later. Exactly.

HUME: But we don't know what the earmarks are going to be.

KONDRACKE: We don't know, so, over the August recess, people will have an opportunity to look at these bills, supposedly--

HUME: Look at the earmarks.

KONDRACKE: --look at the earmarks, and if they don't like them, they can file a challenge with the House Appropriations Committee which will then decide, Obey will then decide which earmarks go into the conference report, and which don't.

He will be in charge.

HUME: The sole arbiter?

KONDRACKE: He will be the sole arbiter. But there will never be an opportunity on the floor to vote.

HUME: To vote on it, all right.

MARA LIASSON, NPR: You know, earmarks--the shoe is on the other foot now. I mean, earmarks are one of the main reasons that the Republicans got tagged with the corruption label because there was Duke Cunningham who abused the earmark process. And now they have a minority leader, John Boehner, who actually has a distinction of having a policy of not asking for earmarks himself so he is on the firm footing on that one politically.

But David Obey used to be an earmark reformer when he was in the minority. Now he feels that the appropriators, but he will have some kind of earmark reform--not the kind that people were looking for which is literally having them being able to be voted on on the floor.

HUME: And being exposed to the public like before the bills were voted on.

LIASSON: So this is a halfway measure, and Republicans are going to make a big muck of it.

HUME: Is this an issue, Fred, that has enough energy, enough public interest in it that it could be a good issue for the Republicans or not?

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, it has enough energy in it that John Boehner, who was going to meet with me at 2:00 today, cancelled the appointment to whoop up on Dave Obey, and he's certainly done that.

Can I get Mort to run through again exactly Dave Obey's plan for earmarks?

HUME: I asked him, he did a good job.

KONDRACKE: I did do a good job.

BARNES: But it's got about nine or 10 moving parts.

Look, there's only one way to handle earmarks. They are disgrace, they're an invitation to corruption, you got to get rid of them. And David Obey, he said as a threat, look if they don't go along with me, we will have to get rid of earmarks.

Unfortunately that scared a lot of members of Congress. I think it was John McCain at the last Republican debate said if he is president, he will not sign a single bill with earmarks in it. That is what we mean, somebody just to take them out. They have never gone through the normal process, whether or not it has a name on it or not.

HUME: Haven't you heard, we are not using right word here. Nancy Pelosi please said today this word "earmarks" has got to go, and that we in the press should refer to them as legislative directed spending. Are you ready for that?

KONDRACKE: I thought all spending was legislative directed spending.

LIASSON: Earmarks was a sanitized word. They used to be called pork barrel projects.

KONDRACKE: From the beginning of the Republic there have been roads, bridges, court houses, post offices--

LIASSON: Bridges to nowhere.

KONDRACKE: . bridges to nowhere, and what you have to do is have maximum sunlight on this stuff. You have to know early what is in the bill. You can have a challenge on the floor, have a debate about it, have all the watch dog groups, the press, and everybody else looking over this stuff, and exposing it. And if--

BARNES: Why? Why do that? Why not take the easy approach and get rid of them? They're not authorized, they don't go through the normal process- -

HUME: The go through the normal process Fred. I mean if somebody wants to propose that somebody asks for a bridge be built in his district and it's going to be voted on by House, there's nothing wrong with that.

BARNES: Now you think, remember the Republicans in there last year had 13,000 earmarks. Now do you think they proposed an amendment and argued about every one?

HUME: No. They got slipped into the bill, and everybody--

BARNES: OK, good, let's get rid of them.

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: --and list them then they can be challenged.

HUME: Next up with the panel, President Bush, Senator Kennedy, and the immigration reform bill. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TRENT LOTT, (R), MISSISSIPPI: Senator Kennedy, I appreciate the legislative leadership you've been providing. I know it's now easy.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: To my friend Senator Kennedy, thank you for trying to find a way, as much as we're different, to make this country better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, what about that? Two prominent Republicans from the South singing the praises of Senator Kennedy, and you didn't think that was praise, listen to what Michael Chertoff, the head of the Department of Homeland Security said after dealing with Kennedy on the immigration bill, very short, "He's awesome."

What is going on folks?

LIASSON: All of a sudden Republicans have a big crush on Ted Kennedy.

Now look, they've been raising a lot of money off of Ted Kennedy, making him the poster boy for horrible liberal extremists. But the fact is that Ted Kennedy is a legislator, he wants to get things done. He cooperated with the president on No Child Left Behind, this isn't a brand new role for him.

But Republicans are shocked and pleasantly surprised to find this out. I mean, he wants to get things done, and he played a pivotal role in this, he was the center piece of this compromise, and he certainly hopes to revive it.

HUME: And if it fails, will it be seen as a defeat for him? If we have got Senator Kennedy, who is regarded as kind of a senator's senator, particularly by Democrats, and their elder leader, their statesman leader, what does it say that he has got Harry Reid pulling the bill off the floor?

LIASSON: Well, we have to wait and see. If he asks again for Harry Reid to put it back on, and says I have agreement from the Republicans, Harry Reid would have to have their agreement then it would be reviewed to him.

But I don't think this is seen as-

HUME: What further explains, if anything, the Kennedy mystique that seems to have captured Lindsey Graham, Trent Lott, and Michael Chertoff, among others?

BARNES: He makes a deal with you, and you can trust him. You know what a compromise is, he gets something, you get something. Republicans got a lot out of this immigration bill, things like a temporary worker program and the end of chain migration. Kennedy got the Z visas.

So what do you have to do to pass it when you have a compromise? You have to make sure poison pill legislation amendments, that you vote against them.

Now, there are all these liberal Democrats like Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer that say they are for immigration reform, but when there is a bill, an amendment that is a poison pill, like the one--

HUME: You mean one that would queer the deal.

BARNES: Yes, that would queer the deal, they vote for him, because the AFL-CIO is for it or somebody, they queer the deal. Teddy Kennedy takes the tough votes. That's what he said, that's what we're here for, to take the tough votes.

He wants legislation, he will make compromises, and you can trust him. He will be with you until end.

KONDRACKE: All of that is true. This is a man who is 75 years old, and he is there, he's been during the immigration debate on the floor, all the time managing his side of the issue, making bargains, passionately arguing, dogged, and as everybody has said, he is a legislator, he wants to get something done.

And it is admirable, and the Republicans when they are in agreement with him, appreciate it. When he is on the opposite side of them, then he is ultra liberal, which sometimes he is.

BARNES: There is one other thing. He's fun to watch. He yells at Democratic colleagues. He yells at Republicans. He knows how to manage a bill. He's got it all in his head.

I have never seen a floor man that is more fun to watch.

HUME: He has got a reputation of being kind of a public speaking bumbler, but he does get (inaudible) details of legislation.

BARNES: He does. He's a factor.

KONDRACKE: And there is always a moment in every hearing when he cares about something, when he delivers the sound bite peroration, usually passionately, quaking and shaking and all that, and it's wonderful to watch. You know it is coming, and you wait for it, and enjoy it. That's pure political theater, as well as substance.

LIASSON: People who play this role are always more appreciated by their former adversaries, just the way John McCain was appreciated by Democrats, and the way I think that Jon Kyl this time. Somebody who is this pretty staunch conservative who ahs also been in the middle of this.

HUME: Just a little prognosis here. Will Kennedy and his Republican allies ultimately be able to save this bill and get it passed, at least through the Senate?

KONDRACKE: I'm totally with them, so I am going to be an optimist and say yes.

HUME: So you are biased?

KONDRACKE: Yes, I'm biased, I confess my bias. It ought to pass for the sake of the country, and therefore I say it will pass.

HUME: Come on, Mara.

LIASSON: It's hard to tell now. I was very optimistic before it was pulled.

HUME: You are for it, then?

LIASSON: Well, I think it was a compromise that had a lot of reasons, you know, to be passed. I think that in the end this thing will pass the Senate.

BARNES: I'm pessimistic today, I don't think so.

HUME: Why?

BARNES: Well, because I think you see senators like Johnny Isakson of Georgia who says look, we have to pass a supplemental spending bill to start ahead of time on border security to convince people that we are serious. If we don't do that, then it's not likely. Then, he says, the bill won't go anywhere.

HUME: One more Republican vote peeled off, right?

BARNES: Yes, maybe two.

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