MTP Transcript for Dec. 17

MR. RUSSERT: Tom, the--71 percent of the American people do not approve of the president’s handling of the war. Can you have a new commitment of more troops to Baghdad, a surge if you will, two years as defined by David Brooks? Will the American people accept that?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I don’t think for very long. I mean, I’m sure the president can try something for a while, but I don’t—I don’t think for very long. You know, the vision David sketched out in his column I think has, has a real plausibility to it. We’re seeing a civil war in Iraq, and in that part of the world, Tim, you know, if you step back, look at what’s been going on there for the last year. In Iran, they just had a conference on why the Holocaust didn’t happen. In Iraq, you have people fighting over who is the proper heir to the prophet Mohammed. And in Syria, the—basically, the government of Syria killed the prime minister next door, and wants to get off with a parking ticket. This is a freak show, OK? There’s no other part of the world that’s behaving like this.

And it gets back to something, you know, I, I argued, you know, before the war, which is that some things are true, even if George Bush believes them, and one of them is that this part of the world is really falling off, all right, in a dangerous way. As David alluded to, that if this cracks up, you know, what you get, they actually need a civil war.

We had a civil war in our country. We had a civil war because we thought some people in our country believed really bad things. Really bad things about human dignity and equality, about, you know, the right of one people to enslave another. They’re having a civil war in Iraq, only it’s not about ideas, it’s about tribal issues. There is no Abe Lincoln there. It’s the South vs. the South, that’s the problem with the fight right now.

And so, you know what? When I—when I think of the president, he’s met with all of these people from Iraq in, in the last, you know, few months, I think of a rule I learned, and maybe forgot the past few years, as a reporter in Beirut. And that—it goes like this, Tim: What people in the Middle East tell you in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their language. So they come over here and say, “Mr. President, we’re really with you. We’re for a democ”—but then they go back there, it’s what they say in public. You know, in Washington, Tim, people tell the truth off the record and lie on the record. In the Middle East, they lie off the record and tell the truth on the record.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s been an interesting week in terms of the media and our coverage of Iraq. Both the first lady and the secretary of defense made suggestions as to what we should be doing. Let’s watch the first lady first on MSNBC.

(Videotape, December 14, 1006):

MRS. LAURA BUSH: I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’t covered, and I think the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what’s happening, unless they happen to have a loved one deployed there, is discouraging.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The drum beat that is discouraging. Here’s the secretary of defense on Friday.

(Videotape, December 8, 2006):

SEC’Y DONALD RUMSFELD: I mean, if you, if you just watched what’s happening every time there’s a bomb going off in Baghdad, you’d think the whole country’s aflame. But you fly over it, and that’s just simply not the case. There are people out in the fields working, and there’s cars in the gas lines waiting to get fuel.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: What do you think?

MR. BROOKS: Get off of it. I mean, we’ve got a hero in our newspaper, John Burns. Another hero, Dexter Filkins, there’s a whole series of heroes over there. They’re not biased about this. They want the best for the Iraqi people, they want democracy. Listen to what they’re reporting, they’re reporting chaos. You have 100--I don’t know what it is, 1.6 million people leaving Iraq. You’ve got 9,000 Iraqis every week who are moving to their Shia homeland, or to their Sunni homeland. This is a country—it’s not civil war, it’s just disintegration. So the idea that this is some media concoction, you—I said that a year ago, two years ago. But at some point, face reality.

MR. RUSSERT: Face reality?

MR. FRIEDMAN: You know, Tim, if I can share with you another rule I had about the Middle East, it was that any general going to the Middle East—or reporter—should have to take a test, and it would consist of one question:

Do you believe the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? If you answer yes to that question, you can’t go to Iraq. You can go to Korea, you can go to Germany, you can go to Japan. You can’t go to Iraq.

And the problem is, when you hear the first lady, when I think of the way Bush is running this war, he thinks that in the Middle East the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. It’s all straight, it’s a matter of just add a little more force here, and a little more, you know, give another speech there. It’s insane. I wanted this to succeed, you know, as much as anybody, all right, because I thought it was really important. But I thought it was really important and really hard. And to me, what history will damn these people for is they thought it was really important and really easy.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the 2008 presidential race, because it is upon us, and Iraq is going to be a big issue. David Brooks, you wrote back in October about Barack Obama, and you said: “Coming from my own perspective, I should note that I disagree with many of Obama’s notions and could well end up agreeing more with one of his opponents. But anyone who’s observed him closely can see that Obama is a new kind of politician. ...

“It may not be personally convenient for him, but the times will never again so completely require the gifts that he possesses. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, you should hope Barack Obama runs for president.” Still feel that way?

MR. BROOKS: Even more so. You know, I looked at some of the coverage of his, his New Hampshire trip and you look at the crowd and they’re leaning forward toward him. It’s like they’re thirsty and they’re drinking for water. And he’s offering that. And what he’s offering is the ability to see all sides of an issue. And I disagree with him. And we’ve had many conversations, and he sees the best side of my argument and then he reflects it back.

And the, the point he makes, and I think it’s a good point, it goes right to his age, which is his weakness. He says, “You know, these boomers have been running the country and, you know, maybe in 1968 a lot of baby boomers started hating each other and they never stopped. But I’m not of that generation. I’m not of the culture war ‘60s generation. I am willing to respect the other side.” And he brings that talent to listening. And so I think his talent is that he multiplies the knowledge he has by being able to understand both sides. And the weakness may be is that he’s the kind of guy who goes to a restaurant and says, “Well, there are 16 reasons to order the fish, but 19 to order the meat.” And maybe he thinks a little too much. But, but, you know, this is what the times would require.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s an interesting time, Tom Friedman, and we have a lot of candidates out there. Barack Obama in 2002 came out against the war in Iraq. Said if he was a senator, he wouldn’t vote for it. John McCain, on the other hand, saying we need more troops and has been saying that for years. How big of an issue is Iraq going to be in this 2008 campaign? And do you need national security experience to play on that presidential stage? Beyond what Mr. Obama has?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I think you need judgment more than experience. I think, if anything, the experience of the last six years has proven that, Tim. But I want to pick up on, on David’s point, because I think Obama is such a powerful candidate for, for a couple of reasons. David and I were talking about them earlier. One is that I believe Democrats voted in the last two elections like this, Tim. (Plugs nose) Al Gore. (Plugs nose) John Kerry. They voted with their nose plugged, basically. Democrats are starved, just as David said, to vote for someone they’re excited about.

But the second thing, and I so agree with David, is just that Barama’s—Barack Obama’s great strength right now is the country is so tired of being divided. Deliberately divided, OK, by Karl Rove. They are so tired of that. They want to be unified. They understand the need—the problems we face now, from Social Security to Iraq, can’t be solved without some kind of national unity. And I think his strongest case, basically, is that he really presents himself as a unifier and not a divider.

MR. RUSSERT: And Hillary Clinton, because of her experiences as a first lady, the Clinton administration, you just heard Newt Gingrich, has very high negatives going into the race, David.

MR. BROOKS: Yeah, I would love to know what’s going on in Clinton-land right now. Believe me, they are smart, aggressive people in that world. And they are looking at this guy and they’re not going to sit still for this. And listen, there’s, it would be completely wrong, as Gingrich said, to underestimate Hillary Clinton. I think there are two tendencies. People are going to take a look at Washington and they’re going to say, “I want something new. I want something fresh. I want Barack.” Then they’re going to take a look at the world and say, “I want somebody experienced. I want somebody who’s been around.” And that’s Hillary. So they both have strong momentum behind them and it would just be foolish to count her out.

MR. RUSSERT: How about the Republican side? John McCain; Rudy Giuliani;

Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts; Newt Gingrich, who was just seated here. What do you think?

MR. BROOKS: Well, I think they’re, they’re—the first three in particular are, are strong. And I, I just look at what the world’s going to look like in 2008. I personally think it’s more likely than not that Iraq will be a complete mess, that Iran will be very close to nuclear weapons, that a government like Jordan or Syria or Lebanon could be falling. It’s going to look pretty nasty, I think. And I think that really raises Rudy Giuliani and John McCain’s record. I think Mitt Romney’s been running a brilliant campaign, but I think when the world is looking tough, Republican voters in particular are going to want a tough guy. And the evangelical Christians are going to overlook Rudy Giuliani’s personal views and personal life and I think he is going to be formidable, as will McCain, obviously.

MR. RUSSERT: What’s your sense?

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, I think that one thing Republican voters will want, Tim, if I, if I’m right, and Americans in general, is something that the Baker-Hamilton commission gave us, which is at least an honest diagnosis of where we are. You can agree or disagree with their recommendations, but people wanted an honest bipartisan diagnosis. Not Rumsfeld’s nonsense about flying over Iraq at 30,000 feet and see, see people farming.

Think of what happened this week. OK, Dick Cheney, the vice president, stood up at a massive farewell ceremony for, for Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and said he was the greatest secretary of defense in American history. Now, if that is true, either George Bush is a fool or Dick Cheney is a liar, all right? Because either George Bush just fired at the height of a war, at the greatest national security threat of our country’s current era, the greatest secretary of defense in history, or Dick Cheney thinks we’re all walking around with a sign that says “Stupid” on it.

But I can stand up and say this: After this incredible fiasco—you know, just to go back to David’s point—and tell people that this guy was the greatest secretary of defense in history—people are tired of that, Tim. Too much is at stake now. The first lady says, you know, “Things are going well in Iraq.” If things are going so well in Iraq, why are there a million Iraqi refugees in Jordan now, and 600,000 in Syria? Because we misreported it? They’re not reading The New York Times.

MR. BROOKS: If I could say something about internal Republican politics and about this show. I hope Josh Bolten, the White House chief of staff, was watching Gingrich this first half of this show. Gingrich said, “Unless we fundamentally restructure what we’re doing in Iraq, we will not win.” He is not far off from where a lot of Republicans are. Probably where most elite Washington Republicans are.

So what’s going to happen? These Republicans do not want to run in 2008 with Iraq hanging over. They never want to face another election like that. So at some point, six months, eight months, there’s going to be men in gray suits. There’s going to be a delegation going into that White House saying to President Bush, “You are not destroying our party over this.” And Bush will push back. But that’s going to be the, the tension. Talk about world—American support for the war, it’s Republican support in Washington for the war that the president needs to worry about.

MR. RUSSERT: We have to leave it there. David Brooks, Tom Friedman, thank you.

MR. BROOKS: Thank you.

MR. FRIEDMAN: Fine.

MR. RUSSERT: And we’ll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: That’s all for today. We’ll be back next week on Christmas Eve morning, a special holiday edition with Pastor Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book “The Purpose-Driven Life,” and Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek magazine. Warren and Meacham on “Faith in America,” right here next Sunday on MEET THE PRESS. And for those observing, happy Hanukkah. If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS.

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