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June 29, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - June 29

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

PETER CLARKE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER: The investigation is moving ahead. The discovery of what appears to be a second bomb is obviously troubling, and reinforces the need for the public to be alert.

ANGLE: OK, there you have British officials talking the about the discovery of two cars loaded with nails and gas canisters, and so forth. Here with have the panel to talk about that and, in a moment, about Guantanamo Bay. Some observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of the Weekly standard, Mort Kondrake, Executive Editor of "Roll Call," and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, Fox News contributors all.

Gentlemen, you look at this thing today, and it is a miracle that we are not counting casualties tonight in London.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYCDICATED COLUMNIST: And it looks like it is the signature of al-Quida, it was meant to have a political impact. It's no accident that this all was going to go of on the day that you have a change of government in Britain with a new prime minister.

Remember that the Islamists exploded a bomb in Spain at election time as a way to help change the government. This would have been a goodbye to Blair and a wakeup to the new prime minister, and a warning, if you don't pull out of Iraq or surrender or appease us, we are going to really make life hard in Britain.

KONDRAKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: I mean, it is weird that you have two bombs, and neither one of them went off. I mean, al-Quida has managed successful operations all over the place. You know, at first this was described as a crude device. I mean, Al Qaeda is not famous for crude devices when it doesn't want them to be.

But the timing certainly has to have something to do with the Brown government. And what I would be worried about is the next president of the United States isn't greeted by such an attempt.

ANGLE: Yes.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EIDTOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: No that's a worry, I agree.

Look, one thing this shows, once again, is that being deferential to Muslims--there are two million Muslim in England--as the British have been, to cater to them, to make English cultural adjust to these immigrants rather than to have those immigrants adjust to England, that spares you nothing.

I mean, the bombs went off last summer in the subways, or was that the year before? Whenever it was, you had the subway bombing with about 50 people killed, and now these two that attempted bombings. So there is really no way out if you are part of western civilization.

ANGLE: Now we are have our own problems with al-Quida and with enemy combatants, people who were picked up on the battlefield. There is talk now of closing Guantanamo Bay, of how to deal with these people. And there was a debate and a congressional hearing this week. I wand to play one quick bite from that from a former member of the Bush legal staff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD BERENSON, FORMER ASSOCIATE WHITE HOUSE COUNCELOR: No nation at war, ever, has afforded access to its domestic court system to people fighting against it militarily. No contrary authority has ever been cited in the Supreme Court or elsewhere that I am aware of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: Now there you have the Brad Berenson(ph), a former member of the White House Council's Office. There is now an issue, Charles, and the Supreme Court has agreed now to review whether or not detainees in Guantanamo Bay can have access to the civilian courts. That is a big change, is it not, from going through a separate court system, military commissions, and so forth?

KRAUTHAMMER: It is a huge change, and it's rather ominous. Look, we had hundreds of thousands of Germans and Japanese interned into the United States, not in Guantanamo, or Cuba. And none of them had a lawyer in the second world war, none of them had habeas corpus. And there was not even a thought of having that.

Why it is happening here is because it looks as if the detention is indefinite. But that is because al-Quida has decided that it would have a war to the end. A war declared on us, we did not declare it on them in 1996, a war on terror on lawful combatants, and a war to the end. And that is why it has been six years and people are antsy about that.

But it isn't our doing. The idea of them having the rights of civilians in courts, I think is insane, only in America. But I think it might actually happen with the switch of these two justices on the Supreme Court. And I think as a result of this--the hearings will be in October, but between now and ok, I will predict that government, the Bush administration, will shut Guantanamo as a way to preempt these new hearing.

ANGLE: Now, Mort, the interesting thing here is that people who would make this argument would actually afford more rights to illegal combatants than they would to traditional POW's who we regard as honorable people who were simply combatants for an army.

KONDRAKE: That's true. But look, there has got to be a middle ground somewhere between Gerald Naddler(ph), who was arguing that Mohammed Atta could not be questioned before 9/11 had we gotten him, and he had to be read his rights, and all that stuff, and could not be interrogated, and that these detainees deserve full legal protection. And Dick Cheney, whose original position was lock them up, kill them if necessary, no appeal, no nothing, all in secret, forget it.

There is a middle ground here and I, frankly, trust Sam Alito, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, these conservatives. Now, I don't particularly trust Scalia and Thomas--because they would go out and shoot them themselves, probably--but to figure out some middle ground solution that comports with the constitution.

ANGLE: Fred?

BARNES: I am just so glad to know which justices Mort trusts and which ones he doesn't. And I'm sure they're comforted as well, actually. What about the other four? Do you trust them? He trusts three out of nine, that's not a majority.

BARNES: The truth is David Ribcanyure(ph) said it right. Either we do it this way with these military commissions, where they do have appeals, although not to the federal court system, or they are going to get out, because in our federal court system you cannot prosecute them effectively. They'd have to be released.

ANGLE: OK.

Three quarters of the country disapproves of the way congress is doing it's job. What is the explanation from Congressional leaders? And how is congress doing? We get into all of that with the panel when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SEN HARRY REID, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, (D) NEVADA: People are down on government for a lot of reasons, but the big reason is the war in Iraq.

REP NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, D, CALIFORNIA: Congress comes in and it is Congress--it's an institution that has not been popular. I would say, in the first six months, gaining how things operate here, from the majority, that we had some important work to do. We had to drain the swamp.

ANGLE: OK, there is speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid. The swamp is Congress, and the two democratic leaders were trying to explain why ratings and public opinion polls for Congress are even lower in most cases than they are for the president, who is enjoying the lowest numbers of his presidency.

The explanations--that was about the clearest we could get out of that explanation, Charles--but, essentially, they were arguing that Congress doesn't get good ratings because there are Republicans who are blocking their efforts, and because the President is unpopular.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I think it starts with the fact that people look at the swamp and see today as many little critters running around as been before. They see a Congress which the Democrats were elected to change. They introduce major pieces of legislation in energy that is going nowhere. There is a spectacular explosion on immigration--the president as well, because he was packing it, but it was the Democrats who were supporting it as well.

They have achieved almost nothing at a time when they said they would charge into Washington and change things. Essentially, what has happened is the left is angry because they expected the Democrats to stop the war in Iraq, and that hasn't happened. And conservatives and people in the middle are angry over this attempt on immigration to ram a hugely bad and hugely unpopular bill down the throats of America. And they did not succeed in doing so.

ANGLE: I'm going to give you another chance to dance on the grave of the Immigration Bill. I know you are eager, but--

KRAUTHAMMER: Watching a stake being driven through the heart of that bill was a great pleasure.

KONDRAKE: Just to be clear, I have heard Charles say that if we can control the border, that he is in favor of amnesty. So that is a comprehensive solution, but it's just in a different order.

KRAUTHAMMER: Which nobody will do.

KONDRAKE: Well, in any event. Just to be clear about that. Anyway--

ANGLE: So, on the Democrats--

KONDRAKE: Look, at the beginning of this--right after the election-- everybody started promising we are going to work together. The message of the 2006 election was we are tired of this rancor, this polarization, and stuff like that.

And what have very delivered? Both sides have delivered nothing but rancor and fighting. And the Democrats, you know, have even been fighting within themselves over who was going to be the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, and stuff like that.

One bill, major bill of any size, and that's not too major, an increase in the minimum wage, is all that has been enacted, so far, and signed into law. And the rest of it has been a lot of back and forth. I mean, a lot of fighting over Iraq, a lot of time spent over Iraq. It's still the number one priority of the Democrats in Congress. They can't do it. There is no way they are going to stop this war. And they spent be an enormous amount of time trying to do it.

ANGLE: Fred has an enormous scowl on his face.

BARNES: Well, Mort seems to have forgotten who is in charge here. Democrats won that election in 2006, and they took control of the House and the Senate, so the responsibility is theirs to get things done.

Now they complain that Republicans are making it hard for them. I mean, that's like a hurdler saying I could run a lot faster except for the hurdles I have to jump off. That's a part of the turf, that's what you deal with. That's what they did when Republicans were in charge. They made life miserable for them, and they were obstructionists, and they objected, and so on.

And, look,, we will judge at the end of year where Democrats have gotten. But six months into it, they haven't done squat.

ANGLE: Now, Charles, would you like an opportunity, since you didn't gate chance yesterday, to dance on the grave of the Immigration Bill?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I mean, what was telling was how large a majority opposed it, and it was a reflection of what happened among the American people. Every time they learned of another provision in it, opposition increased. It ended up with an opposition against it of two to one.

And it was not a racist opposition, it was not a hostile opposition. It was one which said, there is no seriousness about ending the illegal immigration. Until you have seriousness, no amnesty.

ANGLE: OK.

BARNES: I want to object to what Charles said earlier, and that is they were trying to ram through this bill. They were trying to get a majority in the House and the Senate, and then the president would sign it. They weren't trying to ram it through, they were trying to get a majority. They failed to get one.

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