‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Aug. 12, 2007

REP. FORD:  And it will take both sides...

MR. GREGORY:  For, for either of you.

REP. FORD:  ...to do this, in addition to independents and Republicans...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

REP. FORD:  ...which is why I think—I don’t mean to cut you off—but which is why I believe it’s so important that we not lose sight of the fact that this is a moment that the country’s waiting to hear where Democrats stand on these big, important issues going forward.

MR. GREGORY:  For either of you, is fighting and winning the war on terror in the top three priorities?

REP. FORD:  Oh absolutely.

MR. MOULITSAS:  Well, there’s just no doubt about that.  I mean, there’s a real disagreement about how to best do that obviously.  I mean, this all sounds great and, and, and wonderful, and obviously we can all get to—you know, we can all come around inequalities and opportunity and, and energy independence and that sort of thing.  The problem we have, though, is we’ve, we’ve had a, a, an organization that, one, has, has been on the wrong side of a lot of ideas.  We’re talking John Breaux, Senator John Breaux, who’s an architect of George Bush’s tax cuts, which have led our nation to record deficits, record debt, and a crumbling infrastructure, as we’ve seen in Katrina and as we’ve seen in, in Minnesota.  I mean, crazy thing, but the American people want their bridges to stay in one piece.  So we, we have a situation like that.

On Social Security...

REP. FORD:  You can’t blame the—Markos, I got great respect for you, but I’m not going to let you get away with blaming the Democratic Leadership Council or anything that we support, sir, for, for anything...

MR. MOULITSAS:  Senator John Breaux, who was the chairman of the DLC...

REP. FORD:  Right.

MR. MOULITSAS:  ...was the chief architect.  This is something you put...

REP. FORD:  But not of crumbling—not of crumbling infrastructure.

MR. MOULITSAS:  Well, what do you think, you’re going to cut taxes and not pay for the priorities in our nation.  I mean, obviously, there has to be a way to pay for these things.  And to come out and say, “Well we’re going to cut taxes, and we’re going to let these deficits run up, and we’re going to let our infrastructure crumble,” clearly it’s the wrong way to go.

On health care, on the war in Iraq, which you still refuse to say is a big mistake.

REP. FORD:  It’s, it’s...

MR. MOULITSAS:  You, you were on just on Fox News.  So, clearly, we have a situation where you have an organization that’s been on the wrong side of the issues and has failed to really build a movement, has failed to really draw popular support.  And it’s telling that five years ago, when I first came on the scene, I used to attack many organizations—organized labor.  I used to attack a lot of the issue groups and—because I saw them all as part of this failed Democratic Party establishment.  We were losing elections.  At YearlyKos, we had all these organizations at the same table—labor, the issue groups.  The one organization that was still missing was the DLC.  That’s the one organization that refuses to acknowledge...(unintelligible)...with me.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me just—before I let you respond...

REP. FORD:  Sure.

MR. GREGORY:  ...I want to set this up this way, because this, I think, goes to Markos’ point.  If you look at where the party is today and where the Democratic field is spending a lot of its energy, this is how McClatchy Newspapers reported it this year.  “The Democratic Party is growing more liberal.  It’s more antiwar than at any time since 1972.  Support is growing for such traditionally liberal values as using the federal government to help the poor.  And 40 percent of Democrats now call themselves liberal, the highest in more than three decades.”

This, this past week from the online newsletter the Hotline about what the Democratic field has been up to, calling it Leftward Ho.  “First,” it said, “if you want a spot-on gauge of Dems’ ‘08 confidence, check out the crowds before whom they are pandering, er, appearing.  Just this week, it’s antiwar bloggers, labor (for the 3^rd time) and gay-rights activists.  Last month, they answered questions posed by Planned Parenthood, the NAACP and a snowman,” referring to the YouTube debates.

Congressman, does this not tell you that, in fact, maybe the left wing of the party is the new center?

REP. FORD:  No.  What it suggests is that we need each side of this party and every side of this party to be a part of helping to win.  Let, let me just step back just to respond to one or two things my friend said.

The DLC—there are a lot of things we have in common, which, which...

MR. MOULITSAS:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.

REP. FORD:  ...you may not know, we may not know.  This organization started out really as a, a—still remains a reform movement.  We have been anti-establishment.  We took on big money in politics long before I got the—long before I got in politics.  I was 15 years old.  We took on lobbying reform long before it was popular to do.  We took on corporate subsidies and even huge farm subsidies when it was unpopular to do.  As you look forward today and you look at some of the accomplishments, remember, the last president—Democratic president to win two terms was Bill Clinton.  Whether we like him or not, when you’re liberal or conservative, you have to agree that balancing the budget, producing surpluses, the biggest land set aside since Teddy Roosevelt, reductions in abortion, reductions in crime, increases in child enforcement, increases in trade enforcement actions.  It’s hard to deny, when 43 million more Americans have health insurance, more kids are in college, that’s a legacy that I think we can all not only be proud of as liberal, conservative, whatever the case, but Americans can be proud of.  And finally, I think going forward we’re not going to win if you and I are arguing against one another.  The truth of the matter is our challenge and our challenger are those who want to move the country backwards, who want to rescind some of the great investments we’ve made in this country toward making America stronger, brighter and more whole.  I happen to think that blaming John Breaux, the DLC, for crumbling bridges or even this war is unfair.  Had America and had the Congress known what we know today about Iraq, there’s no way I would’ve voted for it or anyone.  The truth of the matter is we face a different moment now in how we move the country forward with regard to this war.  And my clear energy point, David, is about fighting terrorism.  I think it has to be a central part and a nucleus of not only taking on terrorists anywhere on the globe where they may pose a threat to us, improving and strengthening—and Markos is a veteran, and I applaud him for that—strengthening our military and respecting our military differently, but we’ve got to find ways to re-establish our marker in the world.

MR. GREGORY:  Let, let, let me pick up on this—the war on terror, particularly the, the war in Iraq, which a lot of people believe is, is a distinct—there’s a distinction between the two.  So let me focus on Iraq because you talked about the DLC not apologizing for support of the war, and yet, there is division within the Democratic Party on that particular point.

REP. FORD:  Even the Republican Party.

MR. GREGORY:  And the Republican Party.  The Washington Post reported it this way, “According to a ...  Washington Post-ABC News poll ...  even among Democrats, there is no consensus about the timing of any troop withdrawal. While three-quarters want to decrease the number of troops in Iraq, only a third advocate a complete, immediate withdrawal.” Another issue important to the base and, and, by extension, the Net roots has to do with gay marriage. This is a Pew poll in January of this year.  Look at the division allowing legal gay marriage, among Democrats, 49 percent in favor, 43 percent oppose.

Markos, does that make the point to you or at least raise the argument that some of what you’re arguing is not in the mainstream of the Democratic Party?

MR. MOULITSAS:  Absolutely not.  I mean...

MR. GREGORY:  There’s more division.

MR. MOULITSAS:  ...on the, on the Iraq issue, this is semantics.  Whether we get out in three months, six months or a year, there is a strong consensus, almost universal in our party, and vast majorities among the American public that people want out.  People want this war to end.  They want our troops home.

MR. GREGORY:  Right, but, but, but...

MR. MOULITSAS:  They want to bring our troops home to be with their families.

MR. GREGORY:  But how you get out is not just semantics, it’s a very important point.

MR. MOULITSAS:  Of course it’s—well, when you ask a poll question, though, and you say, “Do you want to get out immediately or do you want to get out in six months or a year?” We’re talking semantics.  The bottom line is that the vast majority...

MR. GREGORY:  Yeah, but doesn’t that speak to the issue of, of how you form an exit strategy?

MR. MOULITSAS:  Not, not at all.  Because we’re not going to get out while we have George Bush as president.  I mean, so if we say we want to be out in three months, clearly we could be out yesterday, I’d want to be out yesterday. I also understand, as a veteran who worked in logistics, that you can’t pull out 150,000 troops overnight or even in three months.  So, yes, there’s an ideal situation, which is let’s get them out as quickly as possible, so that the poll questions in that regard I think are very much moving in semantics. But I do agree with Harold the, that we, we do need to work together, and I hope you’ll be at next year’s YearlyKos conference...

REP. FORD:  I hope you’ll come to ours, too.

MR. MOULITSAS:  ...nicknamed—it’s going to be called Net Roots Nation, but, but what we need...

MR. GREGORY:  Would either of you go...

MR. MOULITSAS:  Yeah.

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