MTP Transcript for April 8, 2007

MR. GREGORY:  It tells us that something very unusual has happened in Bush world, which is to have somebody who was—who was part of the inner circle speak out in this way.  The White House is stunned by this.  They also think it’s a pretty shocking act of disloyalty, many of them.  That’s unusual.  But it speaks to something that Republicans feel more widely, and certainly opponents of the president feel, and that is that he has lost his way, that he’s in denial about the war, and even, as he expresses it, that people don’t know whether the war can succeed.  The truth is, the president doesn’t know. And a lot of people who even support the surge don’t know if it can really work, whether, even if you stabilize Baghdad, a political solution will ensue. This is very much out of control, out of the White House’s control.  That’s the reality right now of this war, and it’s difficult for them.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  I...

MR. RUSSERT:  Do—go ahead.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  I think there might be a larger, more generic lesson about Matthew Dowd, as we head into the next campaign season.  Put not your faith in princes, the biblical admonition.  He fell in love with a candidate.  He’s a Democrat.  There weren’t too many Democrats who fell in love with George Bush in 2000, certainly even fewer in 2004.  You know, lying with a candidate takes a, I think, cold-hearted, clear-eyed disposition.  Half of all marriages fail, so falling in love with a candidate, I said—I think is a risky business, and this Democrat fell in love with a candidate and is now disillusioned.

MR. RUSSERT:  Judy Woodruff...

MS. O’BEIRNE:  There’s a lesson there.

MR. RUSSERT:  Judy Woodruff, I’m told that the White House chief of staff Josh Bolten in—throughout November and December, compiled news clips and editorials and television clips to show the president, to show him that it just wasn’t his critics or political enemies that were concerned about the war, but that very thoughtful Americans also had raised concerns.  Do you sense there’s a recognition by the president of legitimate concerns about the war?

MS. WOODRUFF:  That’s a—that’s a very hard question for anybody to answer outside that inner circle.  What I can say is that the, broadly, Republicans, Tim, are worried that this president is just not listened to by the American people any more, that he’s not—that, that no matter how much he now takes—now acknowledges his role in the war, he accepts the reality of the war, the people have just tuned him out, that they look at this White House and they think it’s going in a direction—and there are—that, that is the past, and that the public is now focused on the future and what’s coming next. Having said all that, this president, and we know it at this table, can still make a difference on domestic issues like immigration, certainly on foreign policy.  He can set the agenda.  He can determine the outcome.  He still has power.

MR. RUSSERT:  Robert Novak, conservative columnist wrote this, Chuck Todd. “With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, Bush is alone.  In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congresss, not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.” And yet the president has held his party in Congress on the war in Iraq.

MR. TODD:  Well, this is the box they’re in.  The, the Republicans have to support Bush on this, because they—if there is a divide between the Republican nominee in 2008.  Don’t forget we’re going to have nine months of what I call three presidents.  The one in office, and two nominees.  And if there is a divide, a real huge divide between the Republican Party’s nominee and the president, it’s going to destroy the entire Republican Party.  So I think that that’s why congressional Republicans are sticking with him because they have to.  Because if Bush doesn’t lead them out of Iraq and doesn’t at least sort of make progress and, and, and get the—get something to make it look like things are wrapping up, then it’s going to be—it’s going to be a horrible thing for the Republican Party.  It’s going to put them potentially in a wilderness of 25 years on national security issues the way the Democrats were, were put in the wilderness after Vietnam.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me show you a poll number, David Gregory and Kate O’Beirne. George Bush has same priorities for the country as you do.  Now 29 percent say yes; 66 percent say no.  Look at a month before the war began, four years ago in February of ‘03, it was 54-39.  Quite telling that there’s a disconnect now in terms of people’s attitudes towards their president whether he shares their goals.

MR. GREGORY:  And everything is seen through the prism of Iraq.  The president had admitted that.  And this is really a commentary about his view of the world and a view of the threats in the world, that even as he has campaigned on fighting the war on terror, the American people have, have really come to see Iraq as a separate entity, a separate problem and, in large measure, a war that was not worth it, which is such a departure from his resolve and his continued belief that this is the right war at the right time.

MR. RUSSERT:  Kate.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  I think he’s still obviously paying a price for how the White House appeared in the fall before the elections.  Are they not watching the same thing we are?  Now, with the president acknowledging that the public is weary and really does question whether things could be successful, it would have been better if that message were being delivered before the elections last year, where it seemed to me the public wanted his attention.  But Secretary Rumsfeld was let go, belatedly, which, of course, signaled a change in course, but it was post-election, and I think Judy’s right.  Now, when the president’s extremely challenging for him to make the case that progress is being made in Iraq, even though there are some early tentative signs that the surge could be working, because the public has heard so often about schools opening or a new ministry getting up and running or the state of Iraqi troops, and then still the violence was so ongoing.  It’s going to take a real change on the ground now, I think.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me turn to Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general of the United States, Judy Woodruff, a week from Tuesday goes before Congress under oath, make or break.  According to people in the White House, he has to explain to Congress why the inconsistency in his comments do not qualify him for removal.

MS. WOODRUFF:  We are told, Tim, that Alberto Gonzales is working around the clock on that testimony coming up nine days from now.  He’s canceled his vacation, he’s working.  You talk to Republicans, though, they’re already focused on who his replacement is going to be.  They’re not looking at that. Democrats, their target, many of them will now say is Karl Rove.  They’ve just—practically ignoring Alberto Gonzales, assuming he’s gone.  There’s no wrongdoing that’s been proven, Tim.  We don’t know whether anything happened, but the fact is, all these e-mails, certainly, are the kind of headache that this White House did not need right now.  Last weekend, Rahm Emanuel quipped, at the Gridiron dinner, he said—he said, “Who would have thought that the Republican Party would be—the White House would be remembering fondly Mark Foley’s e-mails of last fall right now.” But that’s pretty much the way it is.

MR. GREGORY:  And it’s so telling that, within the White House, in this White House, despite the fact that the president has come out and said that he still has confidence in his attorney general, inside, privately they say, “We, we don’t know whether he’s going to make it.” which in, in the world of this White House is so significant that there’s not even that kind of backing inside.  The question is can he go up and clean up the mess in the eyes of, particularly, Democratic senators.  It’s going to be difficult.

MR. RUSSERT:  Kate O’Beirne, the National Review has called for his resignation.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Well, as you watch—as you watch this latest—the U.S. attorney flap, it’s very difficult to defend the management of the Department of Justice.  And if you can’t defend the management of the Department of Justice, it’s difficult to defend Attorney General Gonzales.  What he has to say to the Senate, it seems to me, his defense is, “I was very detached from this decision, really wasn’t involved, therefore I should maintain my job running the Justice Department.” They could have, as you know, have fired every single U.S. attorney.  They could have picked names out of a hat to pick eight they wanted to fire.  When they didn’t do either one of those, they needed reasons for firing the eight.  I think the reasons are innocuous, completely defensible.  But it certainly seemed, when his chief of staff testified that it was a, at best, haphazard process, that the attorney general seems to have been very detached from, he’s got a big challenge on his hands.

MR. RUSSERT:  Bottom line, Chuck Todd?

MR. TODD:  It’s his incompetency.  This is what—it, it—it’s sort of a running theme now for the entire Bush second term, competency.  Competency. They couldn’t—they couldn’t figure out how to politically fire some U.S. attorneys?  I mean, this is political competency.  Forget whether it was illegal or unethical.  That’s what I think is frustrating Republicans the most about this entire scandal.

MR. RUSSERT:  Right, or to have a chief of staff saying, “I’m sorry, the boss didn’t tell it to you straight.”

MR. TODD:  Right, I mean, it’s just a basic—it’s just basic competency.

MR. RUSSERT:  And...

MR. TODD:  And, and it’s just...

MR. RUSSERT:  But in some of the districts there were really sensitive cases going on.

MR. TODD:  Look, it’s—that’s, that’s what made it politically incompetent. If that—that’s what they were going to do, then fire all of them.  Then go ahead and just replace all 93.  These are politically plum jobs.  It would have been accepted, and everybody would say, well, that’s, that’s what presidents can do.

MR. GREGORY:  And you’ve got a certain bottoming out in morale around the country in these U.S. attorneys office...

MR. TODD:  (Unintelligible)

MR. GREGORY:  ...people who don’t want to work for these political appointees.  You can’t have that at the Justice Department.

MR. RUSSERT:  Last week on this program, Senator Orrin Hatch made a mistake in describing the background of Carol Lam, a U.S. attorney in Southern California.  Senator Hatch has written a letter to MEET THE PRESS and to Carol Lam correcting the record.  It’s posted on our Web site, and our viewers should be aware of that.

Before we take a break, let me turn to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, traveling in the Middle East.  On Wednesday she met with the president of Syria and offered these comments to the press.

(Videotape, April 4, 2007)

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