Election 2008 Democratics | Republicans | General Election: Heads-to-Heads | Latest Polls

---

June 14, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - June 14

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: Pace, as I said, you have to stand in line for people to criticize Pace, but Petraeus, I have told you how I feel about Petraeus.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

REID: Who?

QUESTION: General Petraeus?

REID: No, not as far as I'm concerned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, that was Harry Reid being asked questions about some things that he said to liberal bloggers this week in which it was reported that he had not only been critical of General Pace, which you saw him reflecting there, but also of General David Petraeus.

Now, the Reid people are saying tonight that the question he was asked, and you could kind of hear it that way, was whether Petraeus was incompetent. And Reid said, not as far as he was concerned. He was however, nonetheless, critical of Petraeus on some counts and then indeed did not even argue that he hadn't also been critical in his interview with these bloggers.

Some thoughts on Harry Reid and these comments and much else now from Fred Barnes, the 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.

So what about -- first of all, what about all this with Reid, and is there kind of a pattern here? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he said in this Q&A exchange today that he said that Petraeus was not incompetent as far as he was concerned.

MORT KONDRACKE, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, well, there is a pattern here, clearly. Reid is known for over the top outbursts. He once said that Alan Greenspan was one of the biggest hacks ever in Washington. Called President Bush a liar at one point and a loser at another point. And said we lost the war right at the beginning of the...

HUME: Well, he said it again in a letter to Pelosi to the president that the surge has failed.

KONDRACKE: So what I conclude from all of this is, look, he was in a conversation with, as he described it, five of the most important bloggers in America the other day. And they were clearly beating him up about the fact that the Democrats had not stopped the war.

And he acknowledged that he understood that they were disappointed. And so he was riffing with them and used the word incompetent. And he never denied that he said that General Pace was incompetent.

HUME: Pace.

KONDRACKE: Pace. But he never -- he didn't say what -- nobody knows what he exactly said about Petraeus. But in this press conference today, he basically called Petraeus a liar, said he wasn't candid in representing the level of violence in Baghdad. In an interview with USA Today, Petraeus said that violence was down in Baghdad. It's true. Violence is down in Baghdad. However, violence is the same all over the country. So Reid is - - you know, Reid is declaring that Petraeus ain't telling the truth.

HUME: Now David Broder, who is regarded by many of us as kind of the dean of political correspondents in Washington, held in quite high regard, has become one of Harry Reid's toughest critics. What do we make of all this, Mara?

MARA LIASSON, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he has. He has gotten into kind of a shooting war with the bloggers over this because David Broder has written two pretty critical columns about Harry Reid. The first one said he was as big a problem for the Democrats as Gonzales was for the Republicans.

He equated the two of them, I think called them foolish. And this today, he wrote another column about how it's up to Harry Reid to bring the immigration bill back and it's his responsibility. And he gets tremendous amounts of mail and attacks from the blogosphere.

I think what this shows is how important the blogosphere is as now a true part of the Democratic kind of family of constituencies. I think that they are the engine that really drives the base at this point.

And they are very upset about the fact that Reid and Pelosi made a deal with the president to continued funding of the war, even though Pelosi voted against her own bill. And they are a force that has to be reckoned with. And Harry Reid, more than anyone else, I think has recognized this. He has gone out to their convention in Las Vegas.

HUME: You don't think he is overestimating their influence?

LIASSON: It's not clear yet.

HUME: Or is he simply an example of their influence?

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: No, I think it's -- we don't know yet what their influence is. We know they can raise tremendous amounts of money, $100 million perhaps in the last campaign. They were responsible for fueling the campaigns of people like Jim Webb, Jon Tester. I think they are a force.

HUME: Howard Dean?

LIASSON: Howard Dean for sure.

FRED BARNES, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I don't know about the Web, and I don't know about these bloggers, but I do know Harry Reid is a klutz. There is no question about that. He blurts out things, Mort recounted a bunch of them.

Remember when he said that Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice, was an embarrassment, that his opinions read like eighth grade dissertations. Well, of course, Senator Reid had not read any of them, but that didn't stop him.

But look, last Thursday when he called a cloture vote and took the immigration bill off the floor, he made a procedural error that he was urged not to do by Senator Kennedy and by Senator McConnell both, a Democrat and a Republican, that when he calls the bill up, and I believe Senator Reid.

HUME: Make it more difficult to get it back.

BARNES: It will make it more difficult. It will take two or three more days just because of this procedural problem that he created when he didn't have to and was warned against it. Therefore, I mean, it's on that basis more than anything else that I call him a klutz.

And he is losing the support of not just Democrats but of -- well, maybe not the support, but Democrats have to support him if they are in the Senate. But the respect, let me put it this way, of both Democratic and Republican senators.

KONDRACKE: I was talking to Lamar Alexander, Republican senator, who said that Harry Reid makes the much maligned Bill Frist look terribly competent. I mean, Bill Frist got through an immigration bill. Bill Frist got through an energy bill. And Harry Reid is in danger of doing neither.

HUME: My final thought on all of this, Mara, is that -- and when I die, I want to come back as a liberal blogger, a good business to be in at the moment. When we come back with the panel, we'll talk about whether President Bush's loyalty to some of his long time friends has hurt him. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm fortunate that Ed Gillespie has agreed to join the administration. He is a seasoned hand. He has got excellent judgment. He is a good, strategic thinker that I know will do a fine job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Ed Gillespie, of course the former Republican National Chairman and a long-time figure here in Washington, was in the room with the president. We didn't show a picture of him, but there he was. And he is now filling the shoes that were occupied by Dan Bartlett.

A younger man, Dan Bartlett, who has been with the president since maybe both were a boy but certainly since Dan Bartlett was quite a young man. Ed Bartlett is now gone. Now that brings to an end the president's association with one of a number of people who he brought with him from Texas.

Let's take a look at who some of them are. Of course, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was certainly one of the Texans. Karl Rove has been with the president for a long time. Harriet Miers whom he not only made White House counsel, but nominated for at least a time to the Supreme Court, is among that group as well.

Karen Hughes, who now serves in a senior position at the State Department, was with him for a long time. Scott McClellan, who was -- took an awful mauling from the pres when he was press secretary was. And as we mentioned Dan Bartlett.

Now the question arises -- has arisen in the minds of a number of conservatives in Washington whether the president has been well served to keep this particular circle of people around him as long as he has. I don't suppose very many people among Republicans would argue that Rove hasn't done a good job, but what about the others?

KONDRACKE: Well, Fred, in his book, "Rebel-in-Chief" writes about the disdain that President Bush had for the Washington establishment. He's now in trouble and who is he going to? Fred Fielding as White House counsel, Washington establishment. Ed Gillespie is not exactly old Washington establishment, is certainly a Washington establishment figure.

HUME: But he's certainly current member of the establishment.

KONDRACKE: I mean, you wouldn't -- Tony Snow is not exactly Washington establishment, but he's certainly Washington.

BARNES: He has been there a long time.

KONDRACKE: And you know, he should have done this a long time ago. The idea of relying only on this tight little group of Texans that he brought up, especially in the communications area, was just a mistake. He did not reach out to talented people who are also loyal to him until very late.

They have done a great job for him. Tony Snow has taken up the communications function superbly, and communications is where they basically fell down. I mean, Scott McClellan was just a disaster. And even Karen Hughes had this attitude of don't tell him anything except, you know, fictions like he's a compassionate conservative.

HUME: Of course, we heard her rather sharply criticized this week by a prominent conservative, that being Ken Tomlinson, who had been head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors who felt that his efforts to keep Alhurra, that is the U.S. -financed station in the Arab world, focused on its mission instead of presenting propaganda from the radicals had been undermined by Karen Hughes.

LIASSON: Look, I think that you cannot lay all the problems that George Bush has right now on this coterie of Texas advisers. I mean, I think a lot of.

HUME: Oh, of course not.

LIASSON: . these things, he got into trouble all by his very own self. But I think it's very common for a president to come in with people that they trusted for years and years, and the state where they were from.

HUME: Who got him elected to whatever they job they had and helped him get elected president.

LIASSON: I mean, President Clinton did the same thing. He brought in David Gergen, which I'm sure, Brit, you remember well, to get him out of some trouble. This is not uncommon. But what's unusual.

HUME: One remembers Jimmy Carter and Bob Strauss.

LIASSON: Yes, sure, sure. What is unusual, I guess.

HUME: Ronald Reagan and Howard Baker.

LIASSON: What's unusual about this is that it lasted this long. This is a very long tenure for these Texas insiders.

BARNES: You mentioned the wrong Ronald Reagan appointment. One of the most brilliant appointments any president has ever made was Jim Baker as chief of staff for Reagan. Obviously, Baker didn't agree that much with Reagan's conservatism, but he certainly knew how to push it and broker it on Capitol Hill. He was a brilliant choice. He had run the campaign of Bush's (sic) opponent, George Bush in the primaries. You know the guy who.

HUME: You mean, Reagan's opponent.

BARNES: Right. Reagan's opponent. The guy who is responsible for all of these appointments is a single person, Josh Bolten, the chief of staff. You know, he brought in Hank Paulson, a very impressive guy, from Wall Street to be the treasury secretary. He has brought in the ones -- you know, Tony Snow, now Ed Gillespie. He put Ben Bernanke on the Fed, as the chairman there. And Fred Fielding is obviously an improvement over Harriet Miers. So a lot of credit goes to Josh Bolten.

---

Sponsored Links

About Us | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy         © RealClearPolitics 2006