Rising Hegemon
MR. RUSSERT: Is Iraq more dangerous now as a terrorist haven than it was under Saddam Hussein?
MR. BARTLETT: Well, I don't believe it's more dangerous now than it was under Saddam Hussein. It's--over the course of months and years, people forget about the type of brutal dictator he was in which he was killing people indiscriminately, men, women and children, at a whim. He invaded neighbors. He was a destabilizing force in a very critical part of the world. Our country, our world is safer without him. We now have a new challenge with defeating this insurgency. The numbers fluctuate, I know, the number of people we're tackling. But the way we're going to defeat them is to stand up a government by the people and for the people in which the American government and other allies around the world help give them the capabilities to protect their own people. And that's the mission and we will complete it.
Well, I hate to differ with the counselor but...is he nuts? Nah, he's just a liar.
MR. RUSSERT: But privatizing part accounts, partial accounts in Social Security won't solve that problem. There's going to have to be other changes, reduction of benefits, raising the income where people pay tax on Social Security. Simply privatizing accounts will not solve Social Security problems, correct?
MR. BARTLETT: President Bush has put on the table his ideas and principles that will guide a Social Security reform effort. First and foremost, benefits for those on retirement or near retirement will not change. He also said it's important that we don't raise taxes. It would be disastrous for our economy and it would be disastrous for American workers. He also believes that personal accounts are a part of the solution to the problem, to help give people a greater sense of return.
Lead? I thought he wasn't going to negotiate with himself. More to read, if you want to either bust a gut laughing or crying.
Here's the real shame, Tim tosses softballs to Bartlett then lets him off the hook on every point then Rahm Emanuel comes out and Lil' Russ grows huge cajones. He pushed Emanuel hard on several issues while treating the president's counselor like a nun from the local convent.
MR. RUSSERT: This is the way Democrats are talking in 2005. But back when they were voting for the war, and three-fourths of both houses of Congress voted to authorize the president to go to war, as a candidate you said you would. And in March of 2003, Congressman Emanuel, your tone was strikingly different. This is what you said.
"I had the fortunate experience of serving in the White House; I knew firsthand what a solitary and difficult decision it is for a President to send our Armed Forces into harm's way. I will remember some of the members of this body, in the midst of conflict, attacking the President--the commander-in-chief-- even even as he worked day-and-night to complete that mission and bring our servicemen and women home safely. It was wrong then. It would be wrong now. I, for one, will not do that to our President ... to our commander-in-chief. I want him to succeed. We should all want him to succeed. So as long as our troops [are] engaged, we should suspend the debate over how and why, focus on the mission, unite as a country, in prayer and resolve, hope for a speedy resolution of this war with a minimum of loss. God bless America."
That's far different than what you're saying today, criticizing the president.
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MR. RUSSERT: What should the president do? What would you do differently?
REP. EMANUEL: Well, first of all, I'm not the president, but what I would do is I would not have happy talk. Stop talking about how everything is just going swimmingly. Level with the American people. Level with the Congress. Tell us the truth of what we're going to do, what it's going to take to do that because the American people and the Congress will then support it.
MR. RUSSERT: What would you do?
REP. EMANUEL: On Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah.
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MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Social Security and put a quote up on the board.
"...the looming fiscal crisis in Social Security. ...If nothing is done by 2029, there will be a deficit in Social Security trust fund, which will either require...a huge tax increase in the payroll tax, or just about a 25 percent cut in Social Security benefits."
Do you agree with that?
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MR. RUSSERT: But do you believe there is a looming fiscal crisis in Social Security?
REP. EMANUEL: Looming--I think the crisis--if you want to use the word "crisis"--that we have today, it applies to the fact that people do not have retirement plans on top of Social Security. What crisis implies, Tim, is immediacy. OK? What we have today, 80 percent of the workers in small business have no employer-based retirement plan. Nearly 40 percent of the households have no type of savings plan outside of Social Security.
MR. RUSSERT: But I'm going to bring you back to that quote. Do you agree that if we do nothing, we'll have to either raise taxes or cut benefits?
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MR. RUSSERT: But the question--what that quote said...
REP. EMANUEL: Who's that quote--the quote is from?
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you.
REP. EMANUEL: No. Who's it from I asked.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you.
REP. EMANUEL: OK.
MR. RUSSERT: William Jefferson Clinton.
REP. EMANUEL: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: "There is a looming fiscal crisis. We either have to cut benefits or raise taxes."
Do you agree with your former employer?
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And on and on and on. Emanuel acquitted himself pitifully. If that is the best we can do, we are in real trouble. Even after the election and even after finding no WMD we have so-called smart Democrats out there still saying they would have gone to Iraq. And if there were any doubts about Lil' Russ's political leanings, they were on prominent display today.
Now I'm going to take my medicine.
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