Crossfire

BEGALA: Good to see you both.

BUCHANAN: Gentlemen, thank you.

CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you.

BEGALA: Welcome back.

BUCHANAN: Appreciate you being with us.

BEGALA: Cliff, let’s start with this national security declassified — this is in the public domain. Nobody leaked it. It’s been declassified, this memo.

Well, no, actually, let me first start with something that Condoleezza Rice told the American people. She wrote an op-ed article for “The Washington Post,” not misquoted, not taken out of context. Here’s what she wrote in defense of the Bush administration in “The Washington Post.”

“No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration,” a short declarative sentence, a lie. Here’s what the memo that was released says. “Attached is” — a memo to Dr. Rice from her counterterrorism chief Richard Clark. “Attached is the year-end 2000 strategy on al Qaeda developed by the last administration to give to you.”

And that strategy has been released. It is a 13-page document, the title of which is, “Strategy For Eliminating the Threat From the Jihadist Networks of al Qaeda, Status and Prospects.” She lied.

MAY: Two — I don’t think so. First of all, I encourage… BEGALA: She said there was no plan. Now here’s the plan.

MAY: First of all, I encourage everybody to read what’s out here. I hope you have it on your Web site. If not, I’ll put it up on mine.

BEGALA: Please do.

MAY: And this is not a three-alarm fire here. Let me give you just one quote.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: She said there was no plan, Clifford. And here’s a plan.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: How do you reconcile that?

MAY: Two things. “Issues awaiting address now are” — and it’s No. 2. “Do we propose significant growth in the F.Y. ’02 budget for anti-al Qaeda operations by CIA and counterterrorism training and assistance by state and CIA?” Does that sound like an alarm to you?

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: He says, we urgently, underline, urgently need work on al Qaeda.

MAY: Let me ask you this.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: Let me ask you this.

BEGALA: No, sir. My question is, was Dr. Rice telling the truth when she told the American people there was no plan turned over to their administration on al Qaeda, when I hold the plan in my hands?

MAY: The plan, as I understand it, it was one written by Sandy Berger, which has not been released, and which he may have stuffed into his underpants. I would say that that plan should be released.

BEGALA: I am holding it, Cliff.

MAY: What Sandy Berger had?

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: No. I’m hold the plan that Dr. Rice says does not exist.

MAY: Sandy Berger’s plan should be released, so we see what the Clinton administration has, because let me tell you this.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: Let me agree with you on this.

BEGALA: Did she tell the truth?

MAY: Let me agree with — yes, stop with this stuff. Every time you disagree with somebody, they’re not lying.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: She said there was no plan, Clifford. Here is the plan.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: One more sentence. And that is that, before 9/11, everyone, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, the prior administrations, dropped the ball on terrorism going back to 1979, which is when radical Islamism raised its ugly head.

(CROSSTALK)

JULIAN EPSTEIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think Cliff’s answer is, it depends on what your definition of a plan is.

(LAUGHTER)

EPSTEIN: To paraphrase.

(CROSSTALK)

(APPLAUSE)

MAY: That’s a good point.

BUCHANAN: You Democrats want to spend all your time talking about what happened four, five, three years ago, whatever. Let’s bring it up today.

Today, we have in Iraq traditional government elections, very successful by most everybody’s count. And we have a body that’s being put together that is going to write a constitution. And, as we hear from Rumsfeld recently, he’s been over there. They’re really building and developing a real strong Iraqi army and military. All right?

So, what is the Democrats’ position today with Iraq? Do you support us staying there, staying the course, as does Bush? Or do you all have another position?

EPSTEIN: My own personal view is that we should stay the course. I think the elections were very, very important, both for the spread of democracy in that region. They were important for our own security, important for the Iraqi people.

I think that was one day in perhaps two years of good news and perhaps two years of bad news. But I think the Republicans make the big mistake by pointing to the success of that day — and there’s no question the elections were successful — to say that means that everything that we’ve done has been right. And, in fact, that’s not true. Donald Rumsfeld and this administration has ignored repeated expert advice that we did not have enough troops in Iraq to secure the police.

The situation was a lot more stable. We were a lot less insecure than we would have been if the Bush administration had listened to people that weren’t the ideologues running the show.

BUCHANAN: You’re going to the back again. Let me ask you, so then do you suggest that the Democrats today should support the president’s budget when it comes to Iraq in the future in the next few years?

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: Well, the president’s budget, when it comes to Iraq, is phony. The president’s budget…

BUCHANAN: So, they should not?

EPSTEIN: No. No.

BEGALA: He doesn’t fund Iraq in the budget.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: The president doesn’t have…

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: The president — the biggest lie about the budget, which is a deficit-exploding budget, as opposed to when Clinton was in office and we had surpluses, the biggest lie is that the budget does not include sufficient funds for the long-term security of Iraq.

And this is exactly the point. The election was good, but other than that, this administration’s policy has been set by just nothing but a series of failures and mismanagement.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: I’m sorry to interrupt, Julian.

Let me ask you to respond to that point. The president’s budget, just released last week, has no funding for military operations in Iraq after September 30 of this year. Clearly, he’s not going to pull out.

MAY: Well, I hope not.

BEGALA: Isn’t it irresponsible for him not to budget money for any more effort in Iraq?

MAY: I think it has to be budgeted separately, because we really can’t… BEGALA: Why?

MAY: Because we can’t — we don’t know in one year, two years, three years or how long this is going to take.

BEGALA: How about September? How about six months?

MAY: And that’s pretty — and that’s pretty reasonable.

Well, I think this should be something that should be negotiated with Congress.

BEGALA: It’s fraudulent that he didn’t put any money for Iraq in his budget, isn’t it, Cliff?

MAY: No, no, no. The military probably should be — we do agree, and I’m glad we agree.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: Let’s be honest.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: I’m willing to say, look, I think it was a great success, the day of the election.

BUCHANAN: All right.

EPSTEIN: But the Bush administration ought to be honest enough to tell the American people what it is going to cost.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: If you are asking people to support this for the long term, despite the repeated mismanagement of the occupation — the invasion was successful. The occupation was badly mismanaged. If you’re now asking us to go the distance — and I’m willing to say I think the Democratic Party ought to do that.

BUCHANAN: You know, Julian…

EPSTEIN: Then at least put up the figures and tell the people what it is going to cost and stop this — the smoke and mirrors.

(APPLAUSE)

BUCHANAN: You say we’ve done so many things poorly, all right? You comment on all of this and yet you have to agree, where we are today is excellent. Where we are today in Iraq is where we should be.

EPSTEIN: No. Where we are today is not — where we are today is not excellent. The number of troops I died — that died, I think, at the hands of the terrorists, I didn’t think that many had to die. I think if we had had more security forces in there, the issue would have been… BUCHANAN: Oh, that’s pie in the sky. You don’t know that one way or the other.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: I think that most of the experts, independent of this administration, said, we sorely had a deficiency in terms of the troops there. The situation in North Korea has deteriorated. The situation in Iran has deteriorated.

So, for you, Bay, to keep saying, well, we had one good day out of two years and that means everything the administration has done should then be ratified, is silly.

BUCHANAN: North Korea, what makes it change — anything changed? North Korea said they have a nuclear plan now. They said that. However, we have known that for four years. We’ve been mentioning it. We knew that under Clinton.

EPSTEIN: No. There’s a lot of things that have changed in North Korea.

(CROSSTALK)

BUCHANAN: Likewise, they haven’t been to a meeting in nine months.

EPSTEIN: Under Clinton — Clinton had the where — the diplomatic wherewithal to prevent the North Koreans from developing bombs.

(CROSSTALK)

BUCHANAN: They did not. They developed it..

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: They developed it during the Clinton years.

EPSTEIN: I don’t know that…

(CROSSTALK)

BUCHANAN: Oh, it is absolutely true.

MAY: We know that’s true.

EPSTEIN: No, no, no.

Secondly, now that — under the Bush administration, where we’ve seen nothing — we’ve basically seen a diplomatic standstill. North Korea is coming out declaring they have six to a dozen nuclear bombs.

There’s a real opportunity now with this — with this swaggering on the president art of North Koreans. The Bush administration position has been, we’re not going to have bilateral negotiations because we think that the North Koreans will play both ends against the middle. They will play the Europeans…

(CROSSTALK)

BUCHANAN: Which they did with Clinton.

EPSTEIN: Which they made — they won’t do that now. Now with North Korea out there saying, we have got six to a dozen bombs, the United States and the group of six are one in the same. We can’t split the two at this point.

So, for the Bush administration to again stick to its position and say we won’t engage in bilateral negotiations is, again, it’s driven — it’s this blind kind of drive of ideology.

BEGALA: I’m sorry to cut you off, Julian. We are going to have to take a break.

EPSTEIN: OK.

BEGALA: Actually, we’re going to ask these guys about domestic politics — politics, that is — after foreign policy when we return.
BEGALA: Welcome back.

Former Vermont Howard Dean flamed out in the Democratic presidential race. But he is about to roar back and take control of the Democratic Party tomorrow night. What does his rise to power mean for Democrats and what does it mean for Republicans, for that matter?

Our guests today are former Republican Party communications director Cliff May, now the president of the Foundation For the Defense of Democracies, and Julian Epstein, a Democratic strategist.

BUCHANAN: All right, Julian, I guess it’s tomorrow that the big transfer of power occurs. Howard Dean is going to be your chairman.

Now, let me ask, what McAuliffe advises him is that he needs a message, an overall message. And what the congressional leaders say is they have to set the agenda on the issues. So this man is going to come up with an agenda. We know what the agenda of the congressional leaders are. It’s anything but Bush, block everything Bush tries. It’s even been verbalized.

And, second, Dean, here’s his quote in the last 10 days: “I hate Republicans. And I hate everything Republicans stand for.” Is there any hope that your party can come up with some kind of positive message? Because we know the hate has been what has been driving you all for the last four years.

EPSTEIN: I think actually, there…

(CROSSTALK)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

EPSTEIN: I’ll let that applause wind down.

(LAUGHTER)

EPSTEIN: You got me on that one, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

MAY: That was in anticipation of your answer.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: I actually think Dr. Dean…

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: … kind of likes you, Bay. So, in any case…

(LAUGHTER)

BUCHANAN: There’s a handful… EPSTEIN: There’s two questions — or there’s a bunch of questions in your series there.

I think, first of all, it’s not Dr. Dean’s role as the chairman of the party to come up with a new agenda. I think it is his role as a party chair to run the machinery. You and I both know lot of Republican operatives who were quite frightened about Dr. Dean’s capabilities with grassroots organizing when he was a presidential candidate. So I think many people in the other parry underestimate him.

I do agree the Democratic Party needs to brand itself better. I think that, rather than being Dr. No, I will be the first to admit we have too often been Dr. No. I think we have to have an affirmative, positive, optimistic message. I think we have to do a better job of communicating that we’ll do a — we’ll make this country more safe than the other side will. And I think that’s true.

I just think we have to communicate that better. I think we have to be more — we have to communicate more effectively that we are — we’ll do something about the upward mobility of the middle class. We have to be the party of reform. You know, the Republicans have three branches of government now, but you would almost think they are the party of reform. We have to be the party of reform.

And I think we have to find better ways of talking about values. And you have people like Senator Clinton who is looking — talking about common ground on issues of abortion. You have people like Governor Richardson, who are governors of red states who are doing a lot of things…

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: I think Julian should be chairman.

(LAUGHTER)

BUCHANAN: You would be more concerned.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: But Howard Dean is going to be chairman. And the rap from the right is that he’s too liberal.

But he is to the right on social issues of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani. Both of them supports gay rights, abortion rights and gun control. Howard Dean does not support gun control. In fact, can you name any social issue that Rudy and Schwarzenegger are to the right of Howard Dean on? Because I can’t.

MAY: This is going to be an interesting period, because Howard Dean is the most — will be the most famous chairman of the Democratic Party starting out that we have ever seen in our lifetime.

BEGALA: That’s a good point.

MAY: He will brand the Democratic Party with his image. His image is not what you describe.

BEGALA: Chris Dodd was pretty famous…

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: The challenge — and I — the challenge — and my guess is that you will help him with this challenge — is for the American people to see him as you’re describing him, not as they saw him during the campaign, which is as somebody who is slightly off-kilter and way to the left of the country. That’s the challenge.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: It’s a big challenge.

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: Cliff is going to have to have the last word.

Cliff May, former RNC spokesman, now with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

BUCHANAN: Thank you both.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSTEIN: Great to see you, Paul.

BEGALA: Thank you both very much.

MAY: Good to see you.

To view Richard Clarke’s memorandum to Condoleeza Rice, click here.