MTP Transcript for April 22, 2007

MR. GREGORY: It’s not clear whether—I think goals, benchmarks, more pressure on the Maliki government, I think he would accept that. I also think you saw Friday, it got overshadowed by the other news. The president for the first time gave an update to the American people that he really hasn’t done before, using slides, maps, and a more detailed and very sober analysis of how things are going. They say they want to do more of that. A lot of critics will say it’s way too late for that.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn again, return to the Virginia Tech situation. Pete Williams, NBC received the manifesto from the shooter, and here it is, all gruesome pages of it. When you first saw this and read this, what was your first reaction?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, I think the first thing that comes through is that this was obviously a very disturbed young man. He—I think that’s thing one. Thing two is, you know, people sometimes say, “Well, he just snapped.” This is clearly not a person who just snapped. He started buying his first weapon in February. He bought the next one in March. He was practicing at a firing range near the campus. And you clearly see a lifetime of rage, resentment. And, and the other thing that comes through is he specifically refers to the two students who shot their fellow classmates at Columbine. I understand now why the profilers said that he reminded them so much of, of them. He’s someone who felt picked on, abused. It was him against the world.

MR. RUSSERT: Doris Kearns Goodwin, I had an opportunity to visit the campus recently, and I know you went there and addressed the students as well. Tell us about your memories of Virginia Tech.

MS. GOODWIN: You know, I think the thing that’s not been talked about enough is that it’s also a military preparatory school. I mean, I spoke to thousands of cadets down there, and there’s such a proud tradition in that school, beyond the liberal arts part of the school, of having sent more people who actually go into the Army or the Navy or the Marines, percentagewise, than a lot of the other academies. More Medal of Honor winners there, except for the two major academies. And there’s a sense in which there’s a sense of service in that school, which is why I think when they pulled together in the end in that extraordinary memorial that they were able to do, they really do have a sense of camaraderie. Somebody had mentioned that they were surprised that they got an e-mail from somebody in Iraq who was writing to one of the kids saying, “How—is everything all right there?” What was he doing being upset about this when he was in worse situation? Well, he was probably a student from there who had gone to Iraq, and they know that service to the country. It was a great place.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s—yeah.

MS. GOODWIN: It will be again.

MR. RUSSERT: Though it’s extraordinary just talking to those students, we’ve had many correspondents down there. And the reaction overwhelmingly is, “We’re Virginia Tech. We’re Hokies. We’re—we’re going to get through this. We’re going to stay together as a family.”

MR. MEACHAM: One, one of the things I found so striking was the diversity of the victims. As you mentioned, the Holocaust survivor, professor who tried to—tried help and save people, the, the number of international students there in the middle of Virginia. It’s, it’s a snapshot of what the country is. And it’s, it’s a diverse country and it’s a good country.

MR. RUSSERT: And it gave us all time to pause. I don’t know anybody who didn’t just grab a phone and want to call their own child or their own parent just to hear their voice. Because when something like this happens to Virginia Tech, it happens to all of us. Pete Williams, David Gregory, Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, thank you. We’ll be right back.

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