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April 11, 2008

Carpenter and Wehner on "Hannity & Colmes"

Hannity & Colmes

COLMES: This is a FOX News alert. We're following a developing story on the campaign trail this evening. Critics are once again pouncing on the words of Barack Obama speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco on Sunday. Obama was attempting to explain small-town resentment in Pennsylvania when he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way explain their frustrations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLMES: Hillary Clinton fired back at Obama's words during a campaign event in Philadelphia early today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I saw in the media, it's being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter. Well, that's not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLMES: With us now Democratic strategist, Julia Piscitelli, Townhall.com's columnist Amanda Carpenter, and from the Ethics and Public Policy Center Pete Wehner.

So I want to hear all the concerns has now jumped to Hillary's side now. They say that Hillary Clinton, Amanda, is right on this. Correct? Is that what you're going to say?

AMANDA CARPENTER, TOWNHALL.COM COLUMNIST: She makes an excellent point that this is a very elitist statement coming from Barack Obama. So good job, Hillary.

COLMES: All right. And Julia, is this trouble for Barack Obama?

JULIA PISCITELLI, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, I'm hoping it's not his Macaca moment but I really think that...

COLMES: I don't think it quite falls into that category.

PISCITELLI: I don't think so either. But I think that he really -- you know, he's being judged on his words because he doesn't have as much experience and needs to be careful in the YouTube age and the age of.

COLMES: Yes.

PISCITELLI: You know everything is going to come back and bite you so you've got to be careful about what you're saying.

COLMES: Pete, does he deserve the opportunity to fully more explain his comments to give us a better understanding of the context of what he actually meant? Or should we just forever and ever, as we did with the Reverend Wright, endless loop, play that over and over again, beat him up over those comments, say he hates small-town America? Or should he have the opportunity to explain it in fuller context?

PISCITELLI: If he would like to the opportunity to explain it, I mean, I think that would be fine. But you know the numbers -- sorry.

COLMES: It's all right. That's all right. Let's get Pete a chance to get in here.

PISCITELLI: Go ahead.

COLMES: Go ahead, Pete.

PISCITELLI: Sorry.

PETE WEHNER, ETHICS & PUBLIC POLICY CENTER: Yes, sure, he should have the opportunity to explain it and I'm sure he's going to take that opportunity. But the question is whether the context helps him at all. And I suspect not. That.

COLMES: But do you think, Pete, there are people who are bitter and resentful because they don't feel they're getting a fair shake? Do you think there are people who fall into the categories of what he was talking about?

WEHNER: Sure, there are bitter people and there are all sorts of people in America. But the deeper point here, I think, is this reflects the kind of elitist and arrogant attitude. And it's particularly harmful for Obama for two reasons. One is it plays into a kind of liberal stereotype, which is that they are.

HANNITY: Hey, hey.

WEHNER: That they -- let me just finish, sure, they are condescending toward people in small-town America. And second thing is, that he is a kind of fresh face on the national scene. We don't know a lot about him. And this is another brush stroke on the canvas and it's a portrait that I think is beginning to trouble people and people are having question marks about him.

HANNITY: Hey, Amanda, Sean, you know -- all right. So he'll have a big speech written by a bunch of speechwriters, you know, with every line, you know, perfectly calculated, which will absolutely be meaningless. This is why this is important. This is a putdown. This is a smear. This is a slander of hard-working Americans. It's a stereotype of hard-working Americans and there's nothing, as far as I'm concerned, that can he stay that is going to take back his real attitudes.

CARPENTER: Yes.

HANNITY: And we've have now seen this with the Obamas on a number of occasions. "I've never been proud of my country. America is a mean country in 2008." Jeremiah Wright. I think America is getting a very differential impression of him as time goes on. Don't you?

CARPENTER: Yes, well, the thing that, you know, people are saying should he be allowed more time to explain this and I think, no, absolutely not, because if you look at what he said, it's actually pretty thoughtful. He has sort of formulated this theory whereas if these people had a higher paying job they would have, like, evolved past this position away from religion and, you know, going to the gun range on weekends.

HANNITY: Yes.

CARPENTER: So you know, I think he's put a lot of thought into that.

HANNITY: Julia, you know, first of all, how can he be a uniter here and do you agree with me that maybe this fills in some of the gaps? We didn't understand why Michelle Obama said America is a mean country in 2008, why she'd never been proud of her country in her adult lifetime. We never under stood how you could be in Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years without leaving that church. How could he be a uniter with all of this? And I haven't even mentioned Bill Ayers yet tonight.

PISCITELLI: Right. Well, thank you for the opportunity to agree with you, but I'm going to have to say that, you know, Jeremiah Wright, when you look at it strategically, did not end up being as big of a hit as we expected it to be if you're looking at it from...

HANNITY: Oh yes, it was according to polls. Absolutely.

PISCITELLI: But polls went down just a little bit but then they rebounded. It was actually -- has been sort of not as bad as we thought it was going to be.

HANNITY: That's not -- that's actually not true. The polls showed that 56 percent of Americans reconsidered voting for him and were less likely to vote for him as a result of that. But we'll pick it up right there when we get back.

PISCITELLI: OK.

HANNITY: Also, coming up, Cindy McCain opens up about her husband's alleged affair, that vicious attack by the "New York Times." The Arizona senator's wife unloads on the "Times." And in a tape you don't want to miss, that's coming up straight ahead.

Busy Friday news day on HANNITY & COLMES.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Campaign two months ago, there were these scandalous allegations of an affair with a lobbyist. Both your husband and the lobbyist came out, said that there was no truth to it. You haven't spoken publicly about this, but what was your first reaction when you heard about the story breaking?

MCCAIN: I knew the truth. I was angry at the newspaper, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What was the first thing that you said to your husband?

MCCAIN: I love you. I know this isn't true.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What did he say to you?

MCCAIN: Same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: That was Cindy McCain talking openly about the true love her and Senator McCain share and for the first time she addressed the "New York Times" story that alleged that her husband had had an affair with lobbyist Vickie Iseman.

We continue now with our panel.

Julia, I got to tell you that was a vicious, horrible -- that was worst than you'd read in "The Enquirer" for crying out loud. And you notice they haven't brought it up since.

PISCITELLI: Right, and the answer is on "Access Hollywood" with his wife. You know? It's a -- it turned out to be not much more than a chink in the armor and he handled it -- I mean, he handled it beautifully.

HANNITY: Yes.

PISCITELLI: And I really -- I can't say anything bad about Cindy McCain. I mean she's the perfect political wife. She's beautiful. She looks like Miss America. She knows a lot of rich people. She's standing by her husband. She believes what he says. He's convinced me, he's convinced a lot of America that it's absolutely not true. And I think.

HANNITY: I think knowing a lot of rich people is important in life. No, I'm teasing but -- Pete, I want to go back to this, I think this is just going to be very damaging to Barack Obama's campaign and I want to dissect it with you because I know you've got this great mind of yours. And I want to get your thoughts on this.

But when he said that they get bitter, they cling to their guns or they cling to religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti- immigrant sentiment, you know, as a way to explain away their frustrations, it tells me this is not the America I know, Pete. The American people are not bitter, the people of Pennsylvania are not bitter. It seems like he doesn't understand the American people.

WEHNER: Yes, I think that's right. It's interesting if you examine the rhetoric of Obama, and he's an eloquent man. But the portrait of America that he paints is unremittingly bleak. So that's one point. The other thing is it really comes across in a very arrogant way. And I think that that is potentially an Achilles' heel for Obama. He's speaking about.

COLMES: First, he wasn't talking about all Americans or all Pennsylvanians.

I want to get back to the McCain thing for an issue and I -- for a moment. And Amanda.

WEHNER: I can understand that.

COLMES: Obviously, the alleged -- allegations of an affair, I don't think anybody really cared about and I think they did handle it very well. But what the media really missed, what the real story was about the lobbyist.

CARPENTER: Yes.

COLMES: .that John McCain has lobbyists working on his -- in his office, running his campaign.

CARPENTER: Work on the bus.

COLMES: Riding on the so-called Straight Talk Express, which has gone through a few curves in the road lately, and that's the real story and he's spending time with this woman, probably not romantically, but that she is a lobbyist and that's who he is hanging out with.

CARPENTER: I think.

COLMES: I mean that's a story, Amanda -- that's the real issue here about John McCain.

CARPENTER: All right. The real story that -- the only real story that came out in the "New York Times" piece said it was largely in sources seen as a hit piece that was completely unsubstantiated. And I think it's good that Cindy McCain is talking about it. It's pretty clear that John McCain and Cindy are the clear...

COLMES: You're ignoring my lobbyist issue. That's the real issue about John McCain. And you don't want to talk about that part of the story.

CARPENTER: No, no, no. I'm not ignoring it.

PISCITELLI: Good point.

CARPENTER: You want to talk about the politics of this. What they're trying to do right now is probably clear the air on these issues. Last week McCain admitted that he had a temper problem. Right now Cindy McCain is very openly talking about the affair and past addiction to painkillers.

COLMES: Yes.

CARPENTER: And so if you want to talk about the story, that's the story to talk about.

COLMES: Well, I'm not that interested in painkillers. I'm not interested in allegations of an affair. I'm interested in real issues and whether there's lobbyist connections and this is a guy that Straight Talk Express, Julia, the person who wanted campaign finance reform and has all these associations.

PISCITELLI: Absolutely.

COLLINS: That is the real issue about John McCain.

PISCITELLI: I totally agree with you, I mean -- and I agree with Amanda that the story was a blip. But the real story here is his relationship with lobbyists that they are, you know, his primary campaign -- one of his primary campaign advisors was on the Straight Talk express actually still working with his clients lobbying. It's kind of hypocritical.

CARPENTER: I mean -- I really think there's a bad issue being confused here. I mean this is probably one of the -- and I'm not a defender of John McCain, this is one of the cleanest guys.

COLMES: You're not? Could have fooled me.

CARPENTER: .running right now when it comes to spending and pork. I mean the one thing you can applaud McCain on right now is that he's very much against, you know, reducing the corruption in Washington.

COLMES: Right.

CARPENTER: I mean he did he go after Abramoff at the time. So, I mean.

COLMES: You know, he.

CARPENTER: .I think you should give him credit for that kind of stuff.

COLMES: When we get in the general election the real issue will be the flip flops of John McCain, the real issues, is it really the Straight Talk Express? Why did he change on immigration? Why did he change on the border issue? Why did he change on tax cuts? And why did he change on torture? These are the issues.

I have got about 10 seconds, Pete, for you to respond.

WEHNER: Look, in a character contest, John McCain is not going to lose it and a lot of the facts that you said just aren't true. He didn't flip on torture. The thing to keep in mind as the big story today is the Obama story. And when you combine that with Wright and the other ones, it's not going to go away.

COLMES: You want to combine them. But look, we've got to run. We thank you all very much for being with us.

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