Special Report Roundtable - Aug 3

REP NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE SPEAKER, (D) CALIFORNIA: I am very, very proud that in the new direction that we promised, a number of promises that have been kept, and a great deal of them happened in the 100 hours of this week.

SEN MITCH MCCONNELL, SENATE MINORITY LEADER, (R) KENTUCKY: They have managed to achieve an astonishing thing, which is to have the lowest approval ratings anyone can find for Congress in history, and have done it in a record short period of time of about seven months.

BAIER: This was supposed to be the last day before the August recess, but Congress is still in session, still stalled. What can they get done before they do leave for the summer vacation?

Some analytical observations from Mort Kondracke, Executive Editor of Roll Call, Jeff Birnbaum, columnist for The Washington Post, and the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, Fox News contributors all.

More, there you saw the two sides reacting to was has been done and what can be done. They are still, obviously, working, and FISA is a big part of this, fixing that law.

MORT KONDRAKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: They have gotten some stuff done. They did not do anything in a long time. They got the minimum wage raise only, and then there was a big hiatus while they kept trying to stop the Iraq war, and they started beating up on Alberto Gonzales, and they were fighting with the president, and stuff like that.

But in the last 100 days, as Nancy Pelosi said, both houses have passed the children's health initiative. They have worked on energy. The passed an ethics and lobbying bill.

So they will take some things home. But the president has asked, and the Director of National Intelligence has asked, on an urgent basis, that they fixed the FISA law, the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act, and they cannot bring themselves to agree to give the administration what it wants even though we are under terrorist threat.

That is disgusting. And the whole year has been consumed with partisanship and rancor, and it is disgusting that they cannot get this FISA bill done.

BAIER: And to that end, the poisonous atmosphere. Last night on the House floor, let's just take a listen for a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: --the nays are 214. The motion is not agreed to.

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That was Republicans shouting "shame" after that vote. Charles, tell us about this vote and what it really meant, and what it says about the rancor on Capitol Hill right now?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: It was a quite cinematic moment. It looked like what we would see from the Taiwanese or South Korean parliament, where you get fist fights. It did not quite come to that, but it was a remarkable development in which the Democrats, apparently, reversed a vote after it had been closed.

Now, Republicans had been highhanded when they were in the majority. In 2003, they held open a vote for three hours, which was way beyond tradition, but it is not a violation of the rules. This one was a world- class--what the Democrats did last night was a world-class tour de France type cheating event.

And what is so interesting is not just that it was a reversal of a vote, but it was over a provision in the pork barrel for farm legislation, which would have provided illegal immigrants with rental and employment assistance. And this is what Democrats want to stand up for? Republicans tried to eliminate it. The vote was reversed.

I think Republicans ought to talk about the process here, and the content of the vote.

BAIER: We are getting word now that the House Minority Leader, Baner, is on the floor now, saying that last night's vote should stand, as it was before it was overturned.

Jeff, this is a lot of inside baseball, but it is kind of a poisonous atmosphere.

JEFF BIRNBAUM, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: Yes, I think that vote was a sideshow, but emblematic of the bigger problem, which has held down a lot of accomplishment this year. There has been very little, as Mort pointed out, and it was just in the last 100 hours that anything passed, including the 9-11 bill, which was, I think, a noteworthy accomplishment, which the president signed, because he didn't have enough votes to sustain a veto, which he would have preferred to do.

But all of this is just a warm up for what is likely to be an even more contentious autumn. As loud as those shouts of "shame" were, the president is going to be batting back to Congress, perhaps, eight appropriations bills, and many of the other pieces of legislation that Mort talked-about--the expansion of the children's health care program, the Farm Bill, perhaps, almost anything he can get his hands on will be rejected as being fiscally irresponsible or having a tax increase, which he will oppose.

And so if we think this kind of last-minute explosion of disagreement is a big deal, wait until September. That is what the real fight begins.

KRAUTHAMMER: I would not think that the reversal of a vote on the floor of the House is a trivial event, and, also, Democrats subsidizing illegal immigrants is a trivial measure.

BAIER: Quickly Mort--FISA, there is still disagreement. Are they going to work this out over the weekend?

KONDRAKE: They have to work it out over the weekend. And the president will veto something that is not an acceptable. If they go home without a FISA law, without a FISA change, they are risking--suppose there is a terrorist attack--responsibility for it. They cannot do that. They have got to pass something.

BAIER: All right, that is the last word.

When we come back, did Barack Obama's get tough terrorism speech backfire? The all stars weigh in on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SEN BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS: If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets, and President Musharraf will not act, we will.

BAIER: That was Senator Obama in his terrorism speech Thursday. He was asked by the Associated Press whether he would use nuclear weapons to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance."

Then he paused, according to the AP, added "Involving civilians," and he paused again, and said "Let me scratch that, there has been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That is not on the table."

Well, Senator Clinton weighed in after that.

SEN HILLARY CLINTON, (D) NEW YORK: I do not believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.

BAIER: So the Obama-Clinton battle over experience and new ideas continues. We are back with our panel. Charles, how does this play? Is Obama making headway with the new ideas, kind of, phenomena?

KRAUTHAMMER: I think he tried to undo a mistake. His mistake was when he answered a question in the debate last week about meeting unconditionally with a clown like Hugo Chavez or Ahmadinejad. He said he would.

Even though the poles have shown that people like that, in the end, it is the wrong answer, and he knew it. He wanted to show here that he is a tough guy, and he would actually go into Pakistan if he had to.

I think, on the merits, he is right on that. However, it is not something that you talk about in public. You never announce that we are going to actually go into a sovereign country, a friend and an ally, and violate its sovereignty. You do not say that in public, and the Pakistanis were extremely upset, attacked Obama over this.

This is all about politics and positioning. He is trying to show that even though he is a rookie and makes rookie errors, he can think large. And I think on the substance he is right, but it is not stuff that you want to talk about in public, and it is going to hurt him in the end.

BAIER: You mentioned the polls. There is a poll for the battle for Iowa, and people were asked what is more important in presidential candidates? 49 percent said new direction and new ideas, 39 percent said strength and experience.

So, Jeff, is Obama tapping into to some polling here?

BIRNBAUM: I think there is another poll set from the same poll, that showed that Obama is having trouble persuading Iowa voters that he is the Democratic candidate with strength and experience.

BAIER: Both.

BAIER: Asked together. Senator Clinton, above all of the others, is the winner there. And I think Obama is trying to show that he can, even though he does not have a lot of experience, he has enough smarts to press a coherent foreign policy.

And in that foreign policy, he is trying to be very muscular. Maybe too muscular--I think it is quite clear--too emphatic, and he is making mistakes. But he is at least showing that he is on the screen on this issue, and I think he was not even a blip on that screen, and he needs to be.

The question is, is Charles right? That is Obama making these rookie mistakes from which he cannot recover, or, when the public here him talking about this, at least they are thinking, well, maybe he is strong enough. And even though he does not have experience, we will give him a pass.

I bet we will see him moving up and narrowing the gap between Senator Clinton, especially in Iowa, because of this week, even though some of his policy positions, I think, have been legitimately been challenged.

BAIER: I guess my question is, is the campaign spending a major mistake, or is this really a calculation that new ideas, talking about all of this stuff, is going to play well with Democratic voters?

KONDRAKE: Well, his strength is freshness and newness, and he is trying to identify her as being the old stuff, Bush-lite, and stuff like that. And she is trying to say--Ready to be President is her--

And the Democratic Party is split. They do not know which they want. Especially in Iowa, they seem to be all tied up.

BAIER: Certainly they don't want nuclear weapons.

KONDRAKE: Well, nobody wants nuclear weapons. But there is a long tradition of this, and it maybe something that Obama does not understand, that you just do not rule out or rule in nuclear weapons. You keep that open as a means of deterrence.

There was a lot of good stuff in that Obama speech. But the Pakistan stuff, as Charles says, is something, again, that you just do not tell an ally that you are going to invade his territory if he does not do what you want him to do. That is something that you negotiate about.

The logic of that is, which he would not follow through with, if you are going to attack Pakistan because you have actionable intelligence, what about attacking Iran, which is making super IEDs? Suppose you could find a super IED factory in Iran, would you bomb that? I do not think he would. Why? Because that would be in support of the Iraq war, which she does not lie.

Suppose there was a terrorist base in Syria. Would you attack that? I don't think so in his case. He is not willing to follow through the logic he is saying.

BAIER: All right, that is the last word.