American Morning

Time for Kamber and May on a Tuesday morning.

Democratic Strategist Victor Kamber in D.C. with us. Victor, good morning to you. Welcome back.

VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good morning, Bill. How are you?

HEMMER: I’m doing just fine. Thank you much.

Former RNC communications director Cliff May, still hanging out in the American West, live in Denver, Colorado.

Cliff, good morning as well.

CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMM. DIR.: Good morning to you.

HEMMER: We are getting an overwhelming response online in our e- mail with Jack, listening to our viewers talk about the comments from Senator Kerry yesterday, essentially saying Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam.

Victor, are these comments necessary at this point? What’s your take on it?

KAMBER: Well, I think that we know Senator Kennedy has been a very dedicated, committed and purposeful leader against this effort. He believes that the president lied. He believes the president does not have a plan to get us out of Iraq, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that we haven’t put any ties with al Qaeda, and he’s saying that if anyone remembers, and I lived through those Vietnam War years, that it was very similar, where we would go — the leadership of this country would go to the American public every day and say it’s almost over, it is over, our boys are safe, we’re coming home, and all we kept doing was losing lives. That’s what seems to be here, we’re lying and losing lives.

HEMMER: Cliff, what about it?

MAY: You know, some of us older guys have what’s called Vietnam syndrome. It means that any conflict the U.S. is involved in we see through the lens of Vietnam, and that seems to be the case with Senator Kennedy and with my friend Vic. We could lose the war in Vietnam. We did. And we could retreat, and we did. And it was all right over time, but even Ho Chi Minh, bad as he was, was not like Saddam Hussein. He wasn’t genocidal as Saddam Hussein has been. He wasn’t a terrorist master, as Saddam Hussein has been.

We can’t afford to see what’s going on in Iraq as a war we can lose and retreat from. We know the cost of retreat. We retreated from Beirut in ’83 after Hezbollah bombed us. We retreated from Somalia in ’93 after we were attacked. If we retreat now, they will follow us as they have in the past, and that’s what 9/11 was all about.

KAMBER: No one is advocating we follow Vietnam’s policies of retreat and loss. What the senator said, is this is Bush’s policy, we’re emulating it, we’re not advocating it; we’re emulating it. There’s a big difference here.

MAY: I don’t understand the difference. I think we should agree, you, and me, and Senator Kennedy and President Bush, that we have to fight this war to win against the terrorists in Iraq. And when you talk about Vietnam, you mean you’re going to lose.

KAMBER: While we didn’t agree to go in necessarily as parties, I think 90 percent of the political elected leadership says we’re there and we have to come out and save as many lives as we can, both Iraqi and American lives.

What they are talking about Vietnam is this is an administration that is lying to the American public. It’s that simple about what’s going on.

MAY: Victor, I know you keep going on about the lies. And what you’re saying is just not true. But the point of the matter is, we have a war we have to win. If somebody said to FDR, what is your exit strategy from Germany, he would have said victory and the defeat of the Nazis.

KAMBER: What is winning, Cliff?

MAY: Winning is helping the Iraqi people who want freedom and democracy to set up a decent society and decent government for the first time in generations.

KAMBER: And that will not happen by June 30th. That’s another lie.

MAY: Now that’s a good point, Vic, and I agree. On June 30th, we should symbolically hand over sovereignty, but we should not cut and run. We need to be there to help the Iraqis to create that decent society. You’re right. It’s a symbolic handing over of sovereignty, very important, but we should not be retreating.

HEMMER: Gentlemen, I appreciate this discussion. I want to move on to another topic here. Condoleezza Rice testifies on Thursday morning. You’ll see it live here on AMERICAN MORNING when it happens. Where are we on this issue come Friday morning? Cliff, start off.

MAY: Well, I don’t know, I’m a little concerned about the commission, partly where it’s going, and partly the way it’s being portrayed. The exercise of this commission, the goal of this commission, is not to find somebody to blame, somebody to bring on the carpet. We know that we failed fighting terrorism for 20 years, and 9/11 was a result of that failure. We now need to learn from those failures so that we can go forward and win this war. 9/11 was not a natural catastrophe like an earthquake, it was not a power blackout. This was one battle in a war that continues. Let’s learn from it, let’s not try to use this for partisan purposes, or to sell books or for entertainment.

HEMMER: Victor, final word.

KAMBER: I would agree with Cliff, except I’m not sure the commission is doing anything except what Cliff is advocating. The president appointed the chair. The Congress appointed the commission. These are Republican-dominated Congresses and a presidency. This commission isn’t out to get anybody. They’re out to get the truth. Richard Clarke has offered some evidence and information. Now Condoleezza Rice has the responsibility to respond to that. Hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of what is true and isn’t true and how to move forward.

HEMMER: Thanks to both of you. Victor Kamber, Cliff May, thank you gentlemen. See you next week — Heidi.