Special Report Roundtable - March 20

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GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: If we were not fighting this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and trying to kill Americans across the world and within our own borders. So we will fight them in Iraq, we will fight them across the world, we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) DE: So the question is are we going to trade a dictator for a stable nation or are we going to trade a dictator for chaos and a civil war?

The outcome as to what we're trading for looks increasingly dismal in my view, based on what I would characterize a dangerous incompetence of this administration.

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HUME: Dangerous incompetence of this administration. A new phrase on the lips of many Democrats. Some analytical observations now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the "Weekly Standard," Mort Kondracke of "Roll Call" and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, Fox News contributors all.

Well, Mara here we are. Three years in, president is saying things that he said before, and a few perhaps that he hasn't. Democrats are saying some things they have before, but perhaps in new ways. What are we?

MARA LIASSON, NPR: Well, I think you've summed it up. We're not that much different than we used to be. Although you had the president today acknowledging some people look at me and say how can he be so optimistic. The president now acknowledges that there's a lot of pessimism out there.

I think that Biden basically laid out the relevant question which is, are we going to get a stable nation or are we going to have chaos and civil war? I think that's what it's about. I don't think it's about whether the insurgents are going to win or not. I think the president is on pretty firm grounds there, that this is not a conflict that's about to tip in favor of the enemy. I think there is progress that he can point to on that front and he cited some examples today.

But I do think the question of sectarian violence and civil war is why Americans are pessimistic. You still don't see a tipping point. In other words, you don't see majorities for immediate pullout. People are ambivalent about this.

HUME: Or pluralities.

LIASSON: Or pluralities. You see numbers either in the teens or 20s for that. So I think this - we've said this before, but this is all dependent on what images people see on television at a given point and especially what the conflict looks like in the fall. That's what matters politically.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": Look, I think three years in, the answer is what it was in the beginning by different means and that is perseverance. You cannot -- we cannot pull out. The only -- the only grounds for pulling out would be utter failure, because we can't do anything else. An all-out civil war that we can't control might justify a pullout.

But otherwise we have got to stay, we have got to improve what we're doing, the president made this -- in the speech the main body of the speech about what we learned about Tal Afar. We made a horrible mistake in Tal Afar in September of 2004. We cleared the terrorists out. Then we let them back in basically and they beheaded lots of people who had been our allies, then we had to do it all over again. We have learned something in Tal Afar, and it's largely a peaceful place.

HUME: You mean, because we went in with Iraqi forces and left them behind to tend the place. Iraqi forces that were not available the first time around .

KONDRACKE: There were Iraqi forces, but they did a lousy job. The police never went out of their stations to protect the population. So we have learned things and it would be horrific for to us give up, and bug out or leave, which -- and Bush is arguing against that impulse in the political class, if not the population of the country.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Yeah. That's the worry. At least to me, not what's going on in Iraq, because they -- the tyranny was overthrown. You have a free country. Iraq's a free country. It's not a peaceful country. You want to start a newspaper, you can start a newspaper. You want to start a political party, you can start a political party. That's a pretty free country. I think.

And you know, if you want to -- if you live in Baghdad but would rather live in Basra, you can move down to Basra. You can move around the country. You may not be entirely safe driving down the highway or somewhere, but it is a free country. I don't think there's any chance of a civil war. Nobody wants a civil war, except for the terrorists.

But what you have to worry about is the same thing that did happen in Vietnam. And that is the loss of nerve by the political elite in the United States. Now, President Bush certainly hasn't lost his nerve. I don't think Secretary of State Rumsfeld (sic) has or others in the Bush administration but a lot of other people in this country have and to tell you the truth, I don't know what the Democrats' position is.

I mean, now, as Mort was just telling me Durbin and Kennedy, they are for success in Iraq, but John Murtha, who was on earlier in this show, he's for immediate withdrawal. And, I mean, are all over the lot. I'm not sure where they stand.

HUME: Well, what about politically, then in terms of the upcoming election? How does the war cut then? If the Democrats have no unified position, but the war is, as the polls show, quite unpopular, which way does it break?

BARNES: Right now it breaks against Bush and the Republicans, it will help if they get a permanent government that can function effectively. I think they are on the verge of that, but it isn't enough to be on the verge of it. But it isn't enough to be on the verge of that. You have to get it.

LIASSON: You have to get it and also there has to be some diminishing of this sectarian violence. Now, you have Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister stating pretty flatly this weekend that there is a civil war already. Other people are saying, no, we have a lot of sectarian violence, but I think there has to be progress in that area too.

HUME: Hold it a second. Let me ask this question about a civil war. I mean, if there were a civil war, don't you think we would all know it? When there was a civil war, in this country, we all knew it. We had armies and they were fighting .

LIASSON: When you talk to experts about this, they say a definition of civil war is when one side or the other hold some kind of territory and there's some kind of lines and you understand that there's actually a true war happening. I would say there's definitely a lot of sectarian violence, there are worries, including, among the American military, it could turn into that it's not there yet. But I do think the other thing you hear from people who have been over there recently is finally we seem to be learning the lessons of how you actually fight this thing, but the question is whether it's too late or not.

HUME: When we come back with our panel, does President Bush need to shake up his administration. One of the All-Stars has an idea on how to rejuvenate second, or shall we call it third term. That next.

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HUME: Across the top of the editorial page of the "Wall Street Journal" today, an article by our colleague Fred Barnes, suggesting what he called a third term for President Bush. And he described a shakeup within the administration, he even had some names and places, adding, quote, "It would give him a chance to escape the political doldrums that may otherwise doom his presidency through its final 34 months."

Well, Fred, what do you got in mind here? Who would go where? Who would do what?

BARNES: Well, in the first place, the president is in the second-term doldrums and he wants to get out of it. Republicans are all over the place up here. Capitol Hill, criticizing the president.

HUME: We got all that.

BARNES: That's the situation. So, how does he get out of it? What he is does is surprise the press, shock the political community, change the face of his entire administration, which will do the one thing that a president has the power to do. You know what that is? Change the subject, and the subject will then be his new administration, the confirmation hearings, the new policies, the new people.

HUME: Who?

BARNES: Well, for instance, you could remove the first -- the most serious thing would be to anoint a successor, the obvious one is Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, move her to vice president and Dick Cheney would be out of a job, so he might move to the pentagon and be defense secretary, he has been before.

Now, I suggested as the new white house chief of staff, Al Hubbard, who is the new economic advisor and slightly miscast in that but Don Rumsfeld has been White House chief of staff before and Mort and I remembered he was a very good one. He could move back to that.

HUME: Who else?

BARNES: And Karl Rove could move to the Republican National Committee, the greatest political strategist of his generation. He was the architect as Bush said of the 204 victory. Let's see what he can do in 2006.

HUME: The graphic there says Mehlman out, Rove in.

BARNES: Mehlman could go to the White House.

HUME: As?

BARNES: He could be communications director, he's an enormously talented guy. Look, the idea -- there is smoke and mirrors in this. But that works in politics.

HUME: Wouldn't this be belittled as a musical chairs thing. All the same .

BARNES: They're all significant people, though. The press might like to do that. But there would be so much to cover. It would be such a big deal. Besides, the press always falls for surprises.

LIASSON: Not if you told them about it first.

BARNES: Elephant in town .

LIASSON: Wait, Fred. What -- you mean smoke and mirrors because there wouldn't really be any changes to policy?

BARNES: The president is not going to change his Iraq policy, he is not going to change his policy on abortion or taxes or anything. There are new things he can do I think pursuing this mega strategic alliance.

HUME: One question. One job you haven't mentioned. Who would fill the job of Condoleezza Rice now holds as secretary of state?

BARNES: I think there is an obvious person. Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman.

HUME: Would he do it?

BARNES: I have no idea. He's an outcast among Democrats, he would be a very good secretary of state.

HUME: Seems to me those two changes, Rice to vice president and she could be confirmed, requires confirmation, and Lieberman to -- Lieberman would undoubtedly be confirmed. What about it, Mort? Do you like this scheme?

KONDRACKE: It's a massive turn about for Fred Barnes.

BARNES: No.

KONDRACKE: Oh, yes.

Who had been poo-pooing the whole Ken Duberstein, the former White House chief of staff had been saying, Bush needs to shake up. Fred has been poo-pooing that idea. Now, indicates how desperate the Bushies have become. One of their most supportive members of the press says that they really need to shake things up and that the administration is flagging, when the Ford administration did this, it was called the Halloween Massacre. So I guess this would be the Lenten Massacre?

LIASSON: Not massacre. They all get different jobs. Nobody is actually fired. That's kind of interesting.

KONDRACKE: There are two problems with this. One is that Cheney's confirmation hearings for secretary of defense would be a circus.

HUME: I have to interject this question, that is this. Fred, have you this reputation as being an insider with the Bushies, you wrote this book with the president, got an interview with him that a lot of reporters might not have gotten and so forth. Does this mean you have inside knowledge that something like this might be afoot or not?

BARNES: Not.

HUME: OK. Let's get that established.

LIASSON: Rate on a scale of one to 10, how likely is this to happen?

HUME: That's for a different group. I don't do one to 10 here. The truth is we know President Bush is a rebel, likes to roll the dice. I think it's time to do it again.

LIASSON: One question, though. If Condoleezza Rice becomes the vice president, and you think he needs an heir apparent, will she actually have to do something about running for president?

HUME: Will she run? Quickly.

BARNES: Yes, she'll run.

HUME: That's it for the panel. Stay tuned to see how interested Condi Rice may be in becoming vice president. That's next.