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July 09, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - July 9

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: More than 8,500 pages of documents, we have pointed out, have been produced. And we have also offered for extensive interviews of the key players people want to hear from. So the question is, do you want the information.

SEN PATRICK LEAHY, CHAIRMAN, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, (D) VERMONT: Why is it the White House is so intent on hiding? What is it they are so afraid of becoming public? They can't even identify the documents or the dates, the authors, or recipients.

HUME: Well, people who have been around Washington a while may feel like they have seen this movie before, but, at this point, we are not sure how it is going to come out this time.

The issue, of course, is whether Congress, or other branches of government, can force White Housed advisors to the president to testify under oath, in some other forum, or some congressional forum, about the advise they gave the president, or the issues that they were involved with, with him.

Some thoughts on this issue now from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor for The Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent for National Public Radio: , and the syndicated columnists Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

Well, we've been through this exercise a number of times with presidents of both parties. Richard Nixon, I think, by his assertion of Executive Privilege of Watergate, and an assertion that was, ultimately, ruled against by the Supreme Court, has made Executive Privilege something that is somewhat notorious.

But what about in this case, Fred, and how is this likely to come out?

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, it ain't Watergate, that's for sure.

I think it is likely to some out in favor of president, because, from just looking at the cases that have ruled on Executive Privilege, Supreme Court cases, you can see the president--it does involve a core privilege of the president, and that is to choose U.S. attorneys.

And the Democrats in the House an Senate are trying to get testimony from people who are close to the president. In other words--

HUME: Working in the White House.

BARNES: Yes, working in the White House.

H is not trying to use Executive Privilege to block the testimony of somebody who he never sees, who is distant from him, has nothing to do with real decision-making at the White House.

So I think they are going to win. And the other thing is--this has been obvious all along--these Democrats don't have anything here. It is a fishing expedition on their part. Everybody knows that. They know that.

They talk about corruption that they were looking into. They have never found any. They have had dozens of witnesses, and so on. Now they are using the word "well, it's an abuse."

I'm not sure what that that means, but that is not going to get them testimony from the White House officials.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't know which way any kind of a court case would come out, but which ever way it comes out, it will be many, many years after Bush leaves office, probably, because it takes awhile to adjudicate these things.

HUME: So you think these people will end up not testifying?

LIASSON: Yes, unless the White House can come to some kind of an agreement.

Now, Senator Specter, over the weekend, seemed to be amenable to taking some of the White House terms--letting them speak without the transcript and without being under oath--I don't know if that is acceptable to Democrats.

But in the past, White Houses and Congress have been able to negotiate some terms for testimony. That would be the other alternative here.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, the president offered conciliatory terms that the Democrat have turn down. But the best part of this, I think, is the letter from Fred Fielding, the White House Council, to Congress. It was subtle, but really sharp and devastating. And he is--

HUME: What was sharp and devastating about it?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, the subtitle of this letter should have been, "Who the hell do you think you are?"

It was a letter to Congress, and said who are you to direct the president to compile a log of privileged documents? Who are you to establish a deadline of 10:00 a.m. on Monday for these people to show up and give evidence to your committee? And who are you to write a letter to the president about all of this, last week, which begins with an assertion that the president is acting not in good faith?

He said, I think you may want to withdraw that assertion upon reflection. And he makes the case that Fred had made, that the president's claim meets the requirements that James Rosen outlined in his earlier report--A, the prerogative of the president is absolute in the hiring and firing of attorneys. And, also, the proximity of these two witnesses to the president.

He is not a cousin of a--

HUME: One was the White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, the other was a political director in the White House at the time.

KRAUTHAMMER: Unlike the claims of President Clinton, it is not the friend of an uncle of a cousin of an advisor in the White House.

HUME: Or the Second Assistant Secretary of Agriculture.

KRAUTHAMMER: Right. I mean who is way out there in Omaha. It is somebody in the White House, and who is extremely important.

I think the president wins on this, not because the clock runs out, but because no court will support the Congress on this.

HUME: OK, so he wins legally. But is the president is in a fight with Congress over information Congress wants--asserting Executive Privilege. is that a winner politically, Fred?

BARNES: Well, it depends on what, in the prior investigation, that has gone on--we have had lots of hearings in the whole U.S. attorney case-- whether there has been some glaring evidence of wrongdoing, or malfeasance, or something that the White House has done wrong.

I was struck yesterday on FOX News Sunday, when you questioned Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Republican Congressman Chris Cannon. Now, Van Hollen did a very good job, actually, in attacking the pardon of Scooter Libby.

When it got to the U.S. attorneys, the worst thing, the worst abuse he could show, or allege, was that, well, there had been a couple of phone calls by Republican elected officials to the U.S. Attorney asking why a voter fraud case had not been pushed harder.

And, I mean, there was nothing wrong with that. The U.S. Attorney was not swayed by it at all. (Inaudible) But, it was like--

HUME: Cannon said the guy was fired because he was an idiot.

BARNES: So if that is the best they can come with, they don't have much of a case.

LIASSON: If you fire them for political reasons, that certainly isn't illegal. And I don't know where else it goes beyond that.

But I think this is the kind of clash that heartens people who are anti-Bush, and they suspect the White House of impure motives--

HUME: Is the president's firm assertion of the Executive Privilege and the refusal to give ground hearten his supporters, do you think?

LIASSON: You know, maybe a little.

But I think he is more defending a privilege, something that he has been very consistent on all alone. I think, at this point, when you are below 30 percent approval rating, it almost doesn't matter.

KRAUTHAMMER: The Fielding letter will give comfort to supporters of this administration that there is at leave some starch left in the White House.

HUME: When we come back with our panel, are some Republican Senators really defecting over the war this Iraq or just complaining? Can Congress be preparing to change the deadline? Well, we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SEN CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: I think the dam is about to burst. Republican Senators who have been holding up a reasonable change in policy on this war are going home and getting hammered by their constituents. And they are beginning to change.

SEN JOHN WARNER, (R) VIRGINIA: I don't view it as erosion. These are colleague that are speaking from their own conscience, and I don't look upon the word "erosion" or "defection." There are contributions to this debate, and I think those contributions are in play.

HUME: Well, whether they are contributions or defections, there were four of them in the last week, to include Republican Senators Gregg of New Hampshire, Snow of Maine, Domenici of New Mexico, and Alexander of Tennessee. All of then have said that the policy toward Iraq must change.

Most of them did most of their complaining about the Iraqi government, not General Petraeus and his efforts there. But, nonetheless, there it is.

The suggestion is, of course, that more could follow, and petty soon the Democrats might find themselves nearer a number that would allow them to truly interfere with the president's ability to prosecute this war.

Is that where this is going, Charles?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, it looks as if there is a collapse on the part of Republicans. There certainly isn't on the part of president. There are some murmurings in the White House, but he doesn't want to lose this war, and he thinks it can be won.

What is really tragic about all of this is after three years of searching for a policy that would work, we have a general and a policy that appears to be helping.

We have a report in The New York Times yesterday of what it calls the astonishing turn around in Anbar, a province which was lost a year ago, and which, essentially, is now ours, because Sunnis have come on our side. There were 35 attacks a day last year, there are one or zero today. Ramadi is about one of the safest cities in Iraq.

Now, what Petraeus is trying to do is to apply that lesson in Baghdad. It is working in some of the Sunni neighborhoods, and in the belt around it. And that is what is in play. That is what is in question. And that is what we are at the beginning of.

And to run away now, and to say it is not working, I think, is a disservice to the country, and politically insane. I don't see how the Republicans are going to gain by running away. If the war is lost, and we collapse next year, all of these guys are going to be lost.

It's not going to help if you stand up and say I turned against the war two years after my Democratic opponent, elect me.

LIASSON: Look, I think this is definitely an erosion of support. Whether it is an actual defection, it depends on whether these Republicans start voting with the Democrats on some of these withdrawal date proposals.

Now, some of them say what they want to do is enshrine the Iraq study group's recommendations in law. Maybe that will become the kind of consensus--

HUME: They seem unaware that the Iraq Study Group actually contemplated a troop surge, spoke approvingly of such a thing, and said it might be necessary for a period of time.

LIASSON: They contemplated a drawdown, but not a precipitous withdrawal.

I think we are heading in the direction of talking about what kind of withdrawal, or what kind of diminishment of forces, we want. Even, look, Gates has talked about this, Karl Rove said something about this at the Aspen Institute meeting this weekend, and I think that there is a consensus forming that at some point early next year you want to have fewer troops.

KRAUTHAMMER: I think what Rove said was is that if the surge is working palpably, and they are taking Baghdad and pacifying it, and so on, then we can begin to bring back troops, or pull back troops.

Look, I don't think this is erosion, or defection. It is panic. These guys--

HUME: It is worse.

BARNES: It's worse than that. They're panicky, but they are not in a total panic yet, because I don't think anyone--but, there are only going to be, maybe, three or four who will vote with the Democrats on some timetable.

And, look, even if the--the thing about this, this must drive the anti-war people completely nuts. But think about this--even if their timetable thing passes for withdrawing troops, the Democrats, and the president signs it, it would mean we get to the end the year, say December 1, and there would be more American troops in Iraq then than there were when Democrats took over at the first of January this year.

So, look, the White House has been pretty good, the Republican Senators have been good despite this chatter, now, about the pullback. I mean, the thing that is the worst about when they talk about a pullback of troops out of combat is, they want to return to the policy of a small footprint, and training the Iraqi troops, that clearly failed over the last to two or three years.

HUME: Let me put this question though. Isn't the problem for the administration not that general Petreaus and his team and the troops will not do a good job. They are showing signs of that already, most people agree to that. But that, so far, the Iraqi government really hasn't done anything on the list of things that was expected of it.

And as long as that is the case, can this policy succeed?

BARNES: That is a problem. But one of things we do see, and Charles mentioned it, is we do see a bottom up political movement--the Sunnis deciding they want to get with the Americans and the Iraqis against al- Quida. It is not just in Anbar, it is other areas as well.

LIASSON: That is not a political movement, that is just security assistance.

BARNES: No, no, that is a political movement.

HUME: It is political, but it is just not national.

LIASSON: It is not national, but the problem is that the president agreed to put in some benchmarks. None of those benchmarks have been met, and it is going to be very hard for him to justify that.

KRAUTHAMMER: Change on the ground is taking away the sea in which the terrorists are operating. It is extremely important, and more important that any piece of paper in the Parliament of Iraq, much more important.

HUME: But will it be seen that way here?

KRAUTHAMMER: It is not. Unfortunately it is misunderstood what is important on the ground, and that is who supports us, who will operate against the terrorists. And that is happening on the ground, and that is what we ought to keep our eye on.

HUME: Do you agree with that?

BARNES: It would be nice. You know, the cabinet, again, approved the new oil law, and sharing the oil revenue. It would be nice to have that. But you know what? That is not going to affect the outcome in Iraq over the next year.

Militarily, Baghdad has to be secured, and the area around it. That is much more important.

LIASSON: The point of surge was to get enough security so you made a political space and reconciliation could happen, and that has not happened.

BARNES: Well, not yet. The surge has been fully manned about two weeks.

HUME: OK, got to go.

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