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

---

August 02, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - Aug 2

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(PORTION OF NEWS CONFERENCE WITH HENNEPIN COUNTY SHERIFF RICH STANEK)

HUME: You get a sense from this of what Sheriff Stanek and all of those working with him on the recovery operations out there in Minnesota are up against. It's very difficult for them to operate in those waters, partly because of currents and partly because, as you heard him describe, there's still debris that's falling from the wrecked bridges into the water. And they have to be very mindful of the divers' safety.

As you could see, he had very little to add to the sum of our knowledge about the number of people who may have died in this incident as a result. The death count, as of earlier, stood at four. They expect it to go higher, but they really can't get a bead on that. As you heard him say, they found one vehicle, no one in it. So they've got lots of work left to do, and it's taking them some time to figure out how to do it.

This issue, of course, is reverberated with all the news coverage across the country. It certainly found its way into the White House briefing room today, where Tony Snow's briefing was consumed, in part at least, with questions about this issue. Let's look at a sample of what he was up against today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No, we're not pointing the -- no, we're not pointing the finger at anybody, April.

JOURNALIST: You're basically saying that they're supposed to investigate, and they're supposed to investigate, and they're supposed to - - so are you...

SNOW: No, April, this is the classic mistake at a time like this. This is not a time for finger-pointing at all. This is a time for dealing with those in grief and also working to assist the state in getting that artery put together as quickly as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Some thoughts on all this 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.

Well, what can we draw from what we know, what we've seen, and the way this is sort of being handled, not least by the news media, Mort?

MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "ROLL CALL": Well, hooray for Tony. I mean, there's a culture of blame that goes on all the time. I mean, something horrible happens, and this was horrible, and immediately everybody wants to find somebody to put in the jailhouse or something, when we don't even know what caused it, we don't know if it was a structural flaw, we know whether it was river currents, or what it was.

I mean, I think what we do know, I mean, what it does focus everybody on is that we have lots of infrastructure problems in this country, and we need to spend a lot more money than we're spending on it on everything, not only bridges, but highways, to deal with congestion, with airports that are delayed, with all that stuff, water. I mean, there was a steam pipe that blew in New York City just the other day. I mean, all that stuff, it's going to be very expensive.

Now, to play my little bit of blame myself, I mean, in 2003 -- wait, in 2003 -- it has nothing to do with this specifically -- but in 2003, Congress wanted to spend $350-some billion on infrastructure, and the Bush administration insisted on, oh, no, only $287 billion, obviously, to help protect their tax cuts.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Well, look, what I think the American people expect from Washington at a time like this is some partisan restraint. And, you know, that's hard to do.

HUME: No, no, no, it's not so hard for the politicians to do. What it seems so hard to do, it's hard for the news media to be restrained.

LIASSON: Well, yes, but, also, look, you know, we've already heard, you know, the president kind of taking this as an opportunity to say, hey, the Congress hasn't sent me the spending bills, including the Department of Transportation bill, which wouldn't necessarily provide money for bridges to specifically aid this situation. Then you've got Democrats saying, "This shows that the Bush administration hasn't spent enough money on infrastructure."

There's going to be an investigation of why this happened. If the Congress does pass the transportation spending bill tonight, it might include a waiver so that Minnesota can get more money than it otherwise could. But beyond that, there's nothing that Congress is talking about doing right this minute that would solve this problem.

HUME: We're going to take a break right here to let our sponsors have a word. But, Fred, I want to get your thoughts and any further thoughts from the panel on this issue and perhaps others, when we come back. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MORE OF NEWS CONFERENCE WITH SHERIFF STANEK)

HUME: That is Sheriff Stanek still continuing to field reporters question.

He doesn't really have much to tell them, as you can tell from the answer you were getting, which was, essentially, something he had said earlier about there are going to try to get back in and dive, and so on.

He did say one thing interesting. He said the number of people said to be missing, he said, had dropped from about 20--we were hearing as many as 30 earlier--to something like 8 now. So it's just possible, I suppose, that the death count out of this will be less than we had all feared, and that would be, obviously. very encouraging news indeed.

Back with our panel, and we were discussing the reactions to all of this before we cut away. Fred Barnes, you had not had a say, I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: Look, I will say that if it's only a dozen deaths or so with this collapse at rush hour on a major interstate in an urban area, that would be quite amazing, to have so few fatalities. I hope that turns out to be correct.

Mort said there's a culture of blame that the press indulges in. I think that's right, and then they turn it into an orgy of blame. They did that in Katrina to a great extent.

The press pictures can be really extraordinary, though. But I think sometimes you need to--if you are watching a story like this, you need to do it like I do with sports. You have the TV on but the sound off. And you can be better off doing that.

But, look, one thing is absolutely true. You don't know whether it affects this bridge or not. We won't know for month what's the cause was. But we have in America one of the great wonders of the world, the Interstate Highway System, and it is crumbling everywhere.

And the amount of money, even though it's in the billions of dollars, that have been spent on repairing it are nowhere near enough.

HUME: It sounds like a lot of money. Mort said $350 billion reduced to $287 billion, that sounds like a awful lot of money.

BARNES: It is an awful lot of money. But here's system that was laid out in the middle 1950's. We need new interstates, and the ones that are crumbling--think of the traffic jams that everybody experiences everyday--

HUME: Everywhere, it seems.

BARNES: Everywhere on interstate highways.

HUME: Right.

BARNES: There aren't enough lanes. They aren't in the right repair, and it's great national treasure that's deteriorating.

HUME: And Mort, who will be the proponents and who will be the opponents if a truly ambitious major spending plan comes forward to modernize the national structure?

MORT KONDRAKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: I actually think you could have a bipartisan agreement. This idea in 2003 of spending, it was $375 billion, was a bipartisan idea. It was Democrats, and Don Young was the chairman of the Infrastructure Committee in the House, he was a Republican.

It was President Bush who didn't want to spend all that money, and ultimately they made a deal

HUME: But everybody at this desk seems to be saying it wasn't that much money anyway.

KONDRAKE: Well, there needs to be a lot more, and there should be a bipartisan agreement to do it.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It would be bizarre to think that it would take about a trillion dollars to correct what needs to be corrected in the Interstate Highway System. You can't have tax cuts and do that. And if the Democrats want to stick to their pay as you go system, they're going to have to cut spending somewhere to pay for it.

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