‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Sept. 2, 2007

MR. MURPHY:  But the Leno thing will be good from a voter contact point of view.  It’s big, it’s flashy...

MR. SHRUM:  Right.

MR. MURPHY:  ...and there’ll always be another New Hampshire debate.  The question will be can he go into the real media grinder and impress some people with some depth?  That, I think, is what he has at stake, and we’ll see.

MS. MATALIN:  Well, he spent two terms in the Senate, come on.  Look...

MR. MURPHY:  No, I think he has the potential to, but he hasn’t done it yet.

MS. MATALIN:  ...he has very high expectations and there’s land mines out there, millions of dollars...

MR. RUSSERT:  Before we take a break—before we take a break and talk about the Democrats, I do want to talk about Iraq because a Government Accountability Office draft report came out this week.  General Petraeus will be coming back from Iraq within 10 days with another report.  Here’s the way The Washington Post described the most recent draft report from the GAO. Support—“Report finds little progress in Iraq goals,” “draft at odds with White House.  Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally-mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to the draft GAO report.  The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

“The strikingly negative GAO” report “comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own benchmark report the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Amy General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.” They’re “expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.”

Mary Matalin, if the war in Iraq is going on in November of ‘08, the way it is today, can the Republicans win?

MS. MATALIN:  Yes, because what we’re seeing for the first time last week, is a majority of people now support and believe that the war can be won.  This leaked negative aspect of the GAO report, which in no way measured the progress on the things that really matter:  Are the Iraqis making a difference?  Did not report on the Sunni split thing, did not report on the provincial progress, did not report on the political reconciliation, did not report on the religious reconciliation.  It does not comport with the critics of the president who say progress is being made, including front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and, and Barack Obama.  So people are very nuanced about this.  They understand not only that it can be won, but that it must be one.  They understand the consequences of defeat.  Further, two thirds of them trust—and nobody more than the generals—when Petraeus and Crocker come and give their report, that will be the positive time.

MR. SHRUM:  I hope, I hope the Republican hires you to make that argument in November of 2008.

MS. MATALIN:  I’ll make that happily.

MR. SHRUM:  Because let me tell, let me tell you something, this Petraeus report is going to be the eighth, ninth or 10^th iteration of mission semi-accomplished.  It’s going to be the same thing General Westmoreland did just before the Tet Offensive when he came back and said there was light at the end of the tunnel.  We are bogged down in a civil war in Iraq, the country wants to get out.  I think you should run a Republican candidate who says, “Let’s stay indefinitely.”

MS. MATALIN:  Hillary doesn’t think that.  Obama doesn’t think that.

MR. SHRUM:  No, Hillary says we need to get out—wait a minute!

MS. MATALIN:  Baird doesn’t think that.

MR. SHRUM:  No, no, Hillary says we need to get out—wait a minute.  Hillary says we ought to get out of Iraq.

MR. MURPHY:  No, she doesn’t.

MR. SHRUM:  She ways we ought to get out of Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT:  Bob Shrum, will the election of November ‘08, presidential election, be a referendum on Iraq?

MR. SHRUM:  If, if the war is anywhere near what it is now, if Bush doesn’t come to his senses and begin to withdraw troops, I think it will be a referendum on Iraq, and I don’t think the Republicans have a chance.

MR. MURPHY:  I think far less than the Democrats suspect, which is the biggest error they’re making, politics is always changing, next week will be different.  There will be fewer troops there, and if the success in the Sunni areas continue, that’s a game-changer in Iraq.

MR. CARVILLE:  Sure.  Iraq is going to be a huge presence there.  General Petraeus told—himself told congressional people that he expected we’d be there for another nine or 10 years.  I don’t think anybody in the United States bargained for a 15-year war in Iraq, and that’s what they’re being told.

Now, there’s no way that you’re going to have that and not—and have a war for being the sixth year of this war come March 17^th of 2008.  Sure it’s going to be a big thing.  This is going to be a big deal when, when the—on September the 10^th or the 15^th there’s going to be a huge civics lesson for the nation, and this is thanks to a Democratic Congress that forced these benchmarks and forced this discussion.  I think that’s one of the many—one of the enormous accomplishments of this Democratic Congress is to force this discussion that we’re going to have in the, in the United States, and we need to have it.

MS. MATALIN:  These benchmarks were designed to produce a negative report. They do not measure progress, and they measure apples and oranges.  The congressionally mandated progress report for the president is to show progress and the, and the GAO is to show completion.  So if an element of the benchmark has three parts to it and they’ve completed two, the president says they’ve made progress, and the GAO says “No, they’ve not made any progress whatsoever,” despite the fact that they’ve completed two thirds of what it requires to do that benchmark.  It’s all—this is all—and people know this out there.

MR. SHRUM:  No, they don’t.  No, they don’t.

MS. MATALIN:  They are sick of it.

MR. SHRUM:  No, they don’t.

MS. MATALIN:  Yes, they do.

MR. SHRUM:  No, they don’t.  They want us to withdraw from Iraq.  This is...

MS. MATALIN:  No.

MR. SHRUM:  ...the relentless rhetoric of redemption that started after mission accomplished turned out not to be true.

MS. MATALIN:  No.  Even twenty...

MR. SHRUM:  And General Petraeus...

MS. MATALIN:  Bob, read your own polls.

MR. SHRUM:  ...may be an excellent general, but we all know—we all know the administration’s going to put tremendous pressure...

MS. MATALIN:  There...

MR. SHRUM:  ...on him.  He’s going to come in there and the odds are overwhelming he’s going to say, “The surge is working.  I need more time.” And James is right.  They’re talking about having to be there for nine or 10 years.

MS. MATALIN:  They’re talking about a presence...

MR. SHRUM:  This country is not going to vote for a president—Petraeus has said nine or 10 years.  Country is not going to vote for a president who’s going to keep us there for nine or 10 years.

MS. MATALIN:  I—you keep talking like this, because even, even...

MR. SHRUM:  I will, Mary, I promise you.

MS. MATALIN:  ...there’s only 25 percent of the Democrats think that...

MR. SHRUM:  I will.

MS. MATALIN:  ...we should immediately withdraw.

MR. SHRUM:  I didn’t say immediately withdraw.

MS. MATALIN:  We have, but we have...

MR. SHRUM:  That’s another, now that’s another, now that’s a perfect Cheneyism.

MS. MATALIN:  We have presence, we have troop presence in the world.

MR. SHRUM:  I didn’t say immediately withdraw.  I just said they thought we should withdraw.

MR. MURPHY:  Luckily for the country...

MR. SHRUM:  Over a year to a year and a half.

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