Special Report Roundtable - July 19

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: We all want a cessation of violence. We all want a protection of -- the protection of civilians. We have to make certain that anything that we do is going to be a lasting value.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: That is Condoleezza Rice -- was Condoleezza Rice discussing the subject of a possible ceasefire. It is known she is going to the Middle East, the question is when -- when she will go. It is not yet clear when, it is thought that it would be sometime late this weekend, but nobody knows for sure. And the administration says it doesn't know for sure because this is conditions driven. Some analytical observations on this whole issue of U.S. diplomacy now from We have Fred Barnes, executive editor of the "Weekly Standard"; Mort Kondracke executive editor of "Roll Call"; and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, FOX News contributors all.

Mara, this is something different, in the past there's been a rush to send people in and so forth we're not seeing that this time.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Yeah, this is something different. The president has said, in not so many words, that he believes Israel has a right to self defense and that we have to get at the root causes and he seems like he is giving a green light to Israel to go after the root causes, which he has defined as Hezbollah. Eventually, I think there will have to be some kind of diplomatic effort to get a ceasefire. It's -- there's some window of time that Israel has before the world community will demand that the conflict stops. That hasn't happened yet. Israeli generals were saying they needed several weeks to finish the operation and to degrade Hezbollah sufficiently. I don't think they're going to get that, but certainly the Bush administration seems like it's giving Israel as much room as it can.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": You know, what the administration doesn't want to do is return to the status quo anti-ads (ph) that say where Hezbollah.

HUME: Returns the prisoners.

KONDRACKE: Yeah, well, even -- well, they have return -- the Israeli conditions are to return the prisoners, but the United States conditions.

HUME: But aren't the Israelis have more conditions than that?

KONDRACKE: Yeah, but, but, but, the United States is joining in those conditions and what it wants is a permanent, or as permanent as possible, protection for the Israelis and neutralization of the Hezbollah military operation in southern Lebanon. And they also want the Lebanese government and the army, if it's capable of doing so, to occupy that territory in southern Lebanon to prevent the Hezbollah from launching raids, and also to try to get the Arab countries together to pressure Syria to restrain Hezbollah. And all of those things, I think, would be part of the package that the administration would try to put into place, if and when Condi Rice goes out to the region.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Yeah, I don't know when she's going to go. There is a big problem here though, and that is the unwillingness of the Israelis to wage a ground war against Hezbollah. There's only so much they can do from the air. Hezbollah will still be there with some of -- a good bit of its assets a week or two weeks from now. And the question is whether the Israelis -- whether the United States and others in the international and the Arab communities can get in the right -- come together on some plan so the Israelis can stop and they can get -- strip -- somehow strip Hezbollah of its assets, meaning weapons and rockets and missiles, and get them out of that area along the northern border of Israel. Short of Israel, however, destroying or crippling Hezbollah with a ground attack, it's hard for me to understand how they're going to get there.

LIASSON: But look, and a ground attack raises incredible complications. I mean, Hezbollah is completely interwoven with the civilian population there. People keep missiles in their homes. There's no difference between the military and civilian population in that part of Lebanon.

HUME: It's not like they don't wear uniforms.

LIASSON: No. And it would be a very, very high civilian toll, I think, for Israel to do that.

HUME: Or toll of apparent civilians.

LIASSON: Well, yeah. I mean, of course, yes, yes, but still, the Lebanese infrastructure also is taking a big beating, because, I guess, the Israelis feel that the Lebanese infrastructure, airports, roads, et cetera, facilitate the weapons for Hezbollah...

HUME: Or the transporting of their prisoners out.

LIASSON: Right, or the transporting of their prisoners out. And, you know, there aren't good options here at all.

KONDRACKE: Well, well.

BARNES: It's an option, but it's an option that -- the only one that can work. I mean, you can't -- unless Hezbollah is destroyed or crippled, we are going to be back where we were before the war. Look, all these countries can come together in a week or two, and say Hezbollah, you're weakened, you have to get out there. But they're not going to do it. Why would they pull out of there? Why would they hand over their missiles? Why would they demilitarize? Why should the Resolution 1559 of the U.N. actually come to pass and be implemented? Certainly Hezbollah isn't going to help. I think they need to be beaten a heck of a lot more than they have been now and probably will be in a couple weeks.

KONDRACKE: Well, it does not look as though the Israelis are going to conduct any kind of a sizeable ground invasion. They've done that before, they got kicked out by...

HUME: Well, they had an occupation, though.

KONDRACKE: They had an occupation, but nonetheless they suffered a lot of casualties. And I think that they seem dedicated, right now, to this air option, which they can repeat. I mean, if this doesn't work and, you know, there's a ceasefire called eventually, the Israelis can go back in and bomb some more if rockets start flying.

HUME: Let's -- let me just ask one question for everybody to take a crack at, and that is: How long can the U.S. and these other countries that have so far been pretty tough on Hezbollah, hold out against the kinds of pictures we're beginning to see -- they didn't look so dramatic tonight, from Lebanon, but you did see people housingless (ph) -- you know, living in the streets and so on. You're going to see more pictures of damage. I'm sure the scene of the bunker bombing is going to be available for the world pretty soon. How long can we -- can the rest of the world hold out against those kinds of pictures?

LIASSON: I don't think very long.

HUME: Few days? Week?

LIASSON: Yeah, maybe, I don't.

KONDRACKE: About a week or a couple of weeks. I'm surprised that the world has been as patient as it is.

BARNES: Yeah, I agree with Mort. But if they mistakenly hit a hospital, a mosque, a church, a school, then it'll be -- there will be demands for a ceasefire.

HUME: When we come back with "The Panel," we'll review the outcome of yesterday's primary elections in Georgia. Stay tuned.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RALPH REED (R), FMR. GEORGIA LT. GOV. CANDIDATE: Tonight, my candidacy for lieutenant governor comes to an end, but the ideas for which I stood, the values for which you have fought, and the governing philosophy that we believe in will go on and it will going on to victory.

(APPLAUSE)

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HUME: So, Ralph Reed, a force in Georgia politics as state party chairman and before that, as well, goes down to defeat in the republican primary. What does this tell us? We all know, of course, that the issue that was used against him was his connection to the lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. What was the connection and what does it tells us about other candidates who may be similarly attacked?

LIASSON: I think it tells us that if you had some direct connection with Jack Abramoff, you might very well be in trouble. While we haven't seen some kind of general ability for the democrats to tar the republicans as a whole, but this culture of corruption charge in specific cases, I mean, you could say that the Abramoff connections was indirectly part of Tom Delay's -- his need to resign. This time what Ralph Reed did is he took money from Abramoff's clients in order to lobby against certain gambling casinos, which actually would be in perfect.

HUME: In other words, he shared -- he had the same -- some of the same clients that Abramoff did and he, like Abramoff, lobbied on their behalf.

LIASSON: Yes, but what he.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: Was he shown to have done anything corrupt?

LIASSON: But in fact -- no, but what -- in fact, is he's supposed to be against gambling and was arguing against some of these casinos, but in fact, what he was doing was helping Abramoff other clients...

HUME: Who also were casino operators.

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: Who would rather have gotten the gay -- rather get (INAUDIBLE) casino operator. It looked pretty sleazy. There were a lot of e-mails between him and Abramoff. It just was a taint he could not get over.

KONDRACKE: Look, this was a bilking operation where Abramoff was charging his Indian clients and then stirring up, through Ralph Reed, opposition to other gambling interests so that his clients could profit. And also, he was threatening his clients with the idea that these Christian groups that Ralph Reed was going to organize were going to defeat them and therefore, they had to spend more money, give more money to Abramoff. Now.

HUME: So he could call off the Christian dogs, so to speak?

(CROSSTALK)

KONDRACKE: Exactly. Now, there's no evidence -- yeah, there's no specific evidence that Ralph Reed knew that this was going on, but these e- mails are just devastating. And Ralph Reed did not fall off a hay wagon yesterday and, you know, it really raises questions about this guy's values -- these glorious values that he's talking about. I don't think they're very glorious. And the other -- the collateral damage in this case, which I don't think necessarily people have focused on is Rudy Giuliani went down there and campaigned for this guy, Ralph Reed and that ought raise questions about Rudy Giuliani's judgment. And Zell Miller, famous democratic senator who campaigned for George Bush, also campaigned for Ralph Reed. You know, not good judgment.

(CROSSTALK)

BARNES: You know how much damage that's going to do to Rudy Giuliani?

LIASSON: Zero.

BARNES: Zero.

LIASSON: Zero. I'll tell you why. Because Ralph Reed created the modern -- the current republican ascendancy in Georgia, that doesn't go away. He's still and incredibly skilled operative. He's not going to disappear from the face of the earth. He might not hold elective office, but if Rudy Giuliani wants to do something in Georgia, at some point, Ralph Reed certainly will be helpful.

BARNES: I think he give Ralph Reed a lot more credit than he deserves for creating the modern situation in Georgia. The whole South has gone -- has turned republican and Georgia was a little late and he helped, but he was not the guy who created it.

I would go farther than Mara did about Abramoff and Delay. Absent, his connection to Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay would still be in the House of Representatives a majority leader, I believe. The other stuff, I mean, these charges in Texas are frivolous, by that Austin prosecutor. So, the one thing I -- and again Mara said, the culture of corruption in general doesn't look like it's caught on as an issue, but if you had some -- doing some shenanigans with Jack Abramoff, you're in big trouble.

LIASSON: Yeah, I -- that's what I mean.

HUME: And quickly, Cynthia McKinney, of course, was forced into a runoff. Will she run the runoff? I mean, if she wins the runoff, she wins the election and they're not going to elect a republican in for that district, but she's got a runoff. She gets.

LIASSON: I don't know, I mean, there's a lot of discontent with her in her own district otherwise she wouldn't be in this situation.

KONDRACKE: One hopes that reason will prevail in that district.

HUME: And which is what, Mort?

KONDRACKE: Well, she's a whacko and she's, you know, got the idea that George Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand. I don't think so.

BARNES: I think she's going to lose. The history of runoffs where the second place candidate get the other people and wins and the second place person was only three was only three points behind, it was 47-44. I think she is losing.