Special Report Roundtable - September 13

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LINCOLN CHAFEE (R-RI), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: We thank Rhode Island's Republican's independence and disaffiliate Democrats who did turn out in record numbers to say "yes" to thoughtfulness.

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"Yes," to honesty.

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And "yes" to independence.

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HUME: Independence, in deed. And much of that independence to which incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee refers is independence from the Bush White House and much of the Republican Party, which nonetheless, ardently supported him in his quest to become a nominee again over a more conservative opponent, the mayor of Cranston, a man named Laffey. What was his first name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Steve.

HUME: Steve Laffey. All right, so, that and other results now in. Ben Cardin, the veteran House member Democratic won the Maryland Democratic nominee for the Senate, the open seat being vacated by the departure of Paul Sarbanes. Bunch of house results, what's the picture that emerges? Does the -- do the nominations, last night, increase the Democrats chances to get control of either body or not?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: No. Decrease.

HUME: Decrease. Why?

LIASSON: Because -- well, Rhode Island alone -- I mean, if Chafe had lost, the Republican Party had stated flatly it was going to in effect concede the race.

HUME: The Democrat would have won.

LIASSON: That's right, the Democrat.

HUME: The Democrat can't beat Chafee?

LIASSON: Oh no, no, no is this is race is going to be very, very close, and hard fought. The Democrat might be able to beat Chafe, but if Chafee had lost the primary, the Republican Party had already said it wasn't even going to contest the race. The Democrats could have put one in their pickup column already, which would have really helped them, now they're back to needing six to take control of Senate. What I think was interesting.

HUME: And their chances were never as good as their chances in the House.

LIASSON: Correct. Correct. Although -- yeah, I think that they'll pick up seats in both bodies. The question is will they get the number they need to take control?

I think the question for me about Rhode Island is, what happened in Rhode Island was unprecedented, I don't think ever before has a national party run the kind of blistering -- you say they ardently supported Chafe, the did more than that. They run an incredibly blistering attack against his opponent and I don't know if a party has ever intervened in quite that way in a primary to protect one of its own. And my question is, what kind of lingering resentments are there potent part of Republican consecutives in Rhode Island who witnessed that and will they turn out for Chafe in the general election in the numbers that he needs?

KONDRACKE: I suspect that the argument will be that Sheldon Whitehouse, is a Democratic -- he could put the Democrats over the top, so consecutive, you got to turn out even though Chafee doesn't follow the part line and even though we were hard on him. The Republican national chairman, Ken Mehlman was touting today the "Get Out the Vote" effort that it took to get Chafee over the line, 198,000 voter contacts in the last 11 days of campaign. Phenomenal.

HUME: Tiny state.

KONDRACKE: Yes, motorcycle -- micro-targeting and all that kind of stuff, all the scientific stuff that Mehlman has build up as Republican national chairman. I think the message of this is we can do this elsewhere, too. And, you know, so that it is -- the publicity about this was designed to buck up everybody's spirits. If they could pull Chafee out, they can pull over people out as well. I don't know whether that is the case or not. It's interesting that Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democrat, had practically no opposition yet he actually pulled more votes than the two candidates in the Republican primaries.

LIASSON: Well, there are many more Democrats in Rhode Island...

KONDRACKE: Well, they still turned out whether it was no real race.

BARNES: I'm not disputing what he said about the efforts that the Republican National Committee put in for Chafee. But they came close to that or Arlen Specter a couple years ago when the president went up there. Were -- Rick Santorum, the other, you know, brought out consecutives for Specter who just barely won over Pat Toomey and ultimately became the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But they've done it before because they support incumbents. And it's true, they supported Chafee like crazy. And without that, he might not have won. I'm not so sure...

HUME: Other than the fact that Chafee will be a stronger candidate for one of the seats that is up for...

BARNES: Yeah, presumably. I mean, they concluded the Republican National Committee, at the White House, Karl Rove, President Rush, everybody, that Steve Laffey couldn't win, he was too conservative for Rhode Island, but that Chafee could win and hold the seat.

HUME: I understand, I understand. But what do yesterday's results, apart from improving Republican chances in Rhode Island tell us about the overall picture? What about house races?

BARNES: Well, the party tried to support a candidate in the eighth district of Arizona which is right on the border, with Mexico and he lost to a very strongly anti-immigrant candidate. And we are going to find out if in a kind of a candidate, Randy Graf, who watches to lack down the border, the way I understand it, but strongly held that position, if that can attract voters Independent and Democratic voters, we will see. The White House and the Republican National Committee figured a moderate would be better. But, in the primary down there, Republican voters didn't buy it.

HUME: When we come back, columnist Robert Novak cast serious doubt on Richard Armitage says he came inadvertently to out Valerie Plame. Don't miss that, it's next.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would have taken a lot of wind out of this whole feeding frenzy if you had come forward.

RICHARD ARMITAGE, FMR. DEP. SEC OF STATE: The special counsel, once appointed, asked me not to discuss this and I honored his request.

ROBERT NOVAK, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Patrick Fitzgerald was not named as special prosecutor until December 30 of 2003, so, I think that just really hits at Secretary Armitage's credibility and the fact that he could well in that period have identified himself, caused a lot of pain, a lot of speculation, and a lot of demagogy pointed at Karl Rove as the source of -- as my source.

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HUME: And so says Bob Novak of the man who was his source for the identity of Valerie Plame, the CIA Employee who's identification by Novak in his column, courtesy of Armitage, confirmed by Rove, caused a fuffle (ph), a lawsuit, a long investigation. What about what Novak is now saying about what Armitage said in the course of fessing up to what he had done?

BARNES: Well, he disputes what he says, what Armitage had said in public. And I think this is real problem for Armitage. Because what Novak says is this was a purposeful leak. He leaked her name, Joe Wilson's wife's name as a CIA agent and said that she had been the one who picked him out to go to Niger to check out the rumors about whether Saddam was seeking uranium there. The story that Armitage is telling now is that this was something that was inadvertent, it just slipped out, it was vague, he thought maybe she worked there. Look, this is a difference in -- if Bob defend testified before the Grand Jury to what he says now and wrote in his column that comes out tomorrow, it is an and Armitage testified that it wasn't a planned leak or anything, I mean, that's a big division. And that's trouble for Armitage. This is how...

HUME: Armitage is not going to be indicted, is he?

BARNES: Well, I done know what Patrick Fitzgerald is thinking of the he knew all this stuff beforehand. He knew the leaker and you know, but this also, let me say one more thing about Armitage, I think this undermines his whole other, that he deny know he was the leaker until a second Novak column came out two months later and said if wasn't a partisan gunslinger -- a political gunslinger who linked it to him. And but look, if Novak is correct in what he says now and there's every reason to believe he is, then obviously Armitage knew immediately when the column came out in July that he'd been the leaker.

HUME: Indeed may have intended it. It does raise this question, and I think fairly sharply more that this is that Armitage says the reason he never came forward even while Karl Rove was taking a hit for this and others, is that Fitzgerald told him not to, but there was this three or four month window in there when the column was out, Fitzgerald hasn't been appointed, Rove was taking the heat and Armitage was quiet.

KONDRACKE: I think Armitage was scared to death.

HUME: Of?

KONDRACKE: Of being exposed in the first instance and maybe even being prosecuted in the second instance...

HUME: Or fired.

KONDRACKE: Or fired for being the leaker. And he kept quiet and now he's saying afterwards that Fitzgerald told him not to when as you pointed out, there was this gap.

LIASSON: But once he did go forward, he went forward to all the appropriate people.

HUME: No, no, he had gone forward to the prosecutors. No that. The question is in addition to the prosecutor's investigation, there was also a public scandal fired by charges from Joe Wilson and others that, you know, he said Carl Rove should be frog-marched out the White House and all that. All of that was going on, Rove was taking tremendous heat for this was accused all kinds of places of being the leaker. Armitage knew better. There was no Fitzgerald at the time investigating anything in those months. Why didn't he come forward then is the question?

LIASSON: Well, I think that Mort's explanation is about as good as any. You know, he has nervous about what he might have done. It's also unclear that even though he told Novak what department she worked in, Novak never says that he says that she was undercover and that's one of the key elements of whether...

HUME: That goes to the question that was a threshold question, of whether there was ever a crime here worthy of investigation by an independent counsel, or a special prosecutor.

KONDRACKE: Don't forget that what seems to have really scared Armitage was the referral by the CIA Of the Justice Department of the potential...

HUME: But he went right to the department and told what he had done.

KONDRACKE: Yes, he did. But the idea so they did the minimum but did not do the maximum at the State Department which was to go to the White House and say when this whole big scandal -- alleged scandal arose that we were responsible for this or to put the word out or something. And just think that they were afraid of whole State Department apparatus was afraid of being embarrassed.

BARNES: Remember when Scooter Libby...

HUME: And they put that and the secretary of state was in on this, knew about it, he put that ahead of any loyalty to the president and president's men is that a fair statement?

KONDRACKE: Well look, I don't know what Colin Powell's motives were...

HUME: Yes or no.

KONDRACKE: In this -- I don't know what...

HUME: OK, you don't know. Fred, what do you think?

BARNES: Look, yeah, of course.

HUME: we got to go.

BARNES: Look, Scooter Libby was indicted for his testimony differed from Tim Russert's...