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Tavis: John Kerry may have the momentum after his second victory in as many weeks, but if we've learned anything so far in this unpredictable election season, class, we've learned that momentum can be stopped and even reversed on a dime. Joining us to discuss last night's results and to look ahead is 'Weekly Standard' editor and Fox News Channel contributor Bill Kristol. Despite the bad weather back East, he made it out of New Hampshire after a long night and joins us tonight from Washington, D.C. Bill Kristol, nice to see you, and thanks for coming in with that bad weather, man.

Bill Kristol: Glad to be with you, Tavis.

Tavis: Let me start with New Hampshire 'cause there's a lot of talk about New Hampshire and South Carolina. Some other big news today about a big endorsement of Mr. Kerry in the state of South Carolina. We'll get to that in a second here. But let me just run down the names and ask you to give me your top line vis-a-vis what happened in New Hampshire last night. John Kerry.

Bill: Well, obviously, an impressive win. You're absolutely right about the way which momentum has reversed itself in this race. 2 weeks ago, I happened to be looking at a 2-week old issue of the 'National Journal,' a very well-respected, kind of inside-the-Beltway magazine. They had been polling, as you know, 50 Democratic insiders about who would be the Democratic nominee, and I happened to have the 2-week-old issue on the plane up to New Hampshire. One of the 50 picked John Kerry. So, I mean, I don't think we've ever seen such a reversal. 2 weeks ago--literally, 2 weeks ago today--the absolute universal consensus was that Dean would run the table, and now Kerry's run the table with Iowa and New Hampshire. No one who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire has failed to win his party's nomination in modern times.

Tavis: Howard Dean.

Bill: A pretty good comeback, and I think he's underrated by the mainstream liberal media, if I can use that term. I found myself in the weird position as a conservative of defending Dean a little bit to a lot of my liberal friends. I think he has the best chance to beat Kerry still. He will fight for quite a while. He'll be able to raise money. He's got to win a couple of states in the next 10-11 days, maybe Michigan and Washington on February 7th. It would be helpful if he won a state on February 3rd. I don't underrate Dean. He's a tough, you know, competitive, combative candidate.

Tavis: I don't know that anybody would disagree with you that Dean, perhaps, presents the best challenge to John Kerry. But is he, as a conservative by your own admission, is he the best challenger against George Bush?

Bill: You know, the polls show that a lot of Democrats think not, and that Kerry benefited a lot from the sense that he'd be a stronger candidate against Bush. I don't know. What I've learned in my years in politics is that it's very hard to predict who's a stronger candidate. I think conventional wisdom, which is often right, would suggest that Kerry is a tougher match-up for Bush. But there's something about Dean. If I were in the Bush White House, I'd be worried about Dean as well. Just think of a debate between Bush and Dean. Dean is scrappy, tough. If the war in Iraq turns out to be going badly, I think Dean could be strong. But I do think most Democrats have decided that Kerry is a safer nominee, and a better chance to beat Bush.

Tavis: Let's stay in New Hampshire. General Wesley Clark.

Bill: Big disappointment. You know, he got in the race. He skipped Iowa. He put all the chips on the table for New Hampshire. I don't think you can do that, and then get 12-13% of the vote, and credibly say that was a good showing. I think he'll try to win a state on February 3rd. I suspect he won't, and I suspect he'll be out of the race.

Tavis: All right. John Edwards.

Bill: Very obviously, after a very impressive surge in Iowa, a lot of us up in New Hampshire, a lot of the media kept expecting an Edwards surge. It didn't really materialize. He's impressive. You go to an Edwards event, I think he connects with the audience better than any of the rest of them. But the message is a little bit thin, and I think it wore a little thin in that last week in New Hampshire. He'll try to go to South Carolina and snatch a state, but I don't think he's really a credible alternative either.

Tavis: You don't think that Edwards can win in South Carolina, the state he was born in?

Bill: No, I think he could win South Carolina, but I don't think it really takes him anywhere. I think he becomes one of those guys, and there usually are one or two every election cycle, who win 2 or 3 states, they're just not gonna be the nominee.

Tavis: Joe Lieberman. Is this guy done now?

Bill: He is, and I like Joe, and I wish, frankly, he had gotten out today. I don't quite see the point of staying in. You know, he honorably represented the views he has. They're views that I'm actually quite sympathetic to on foreign policy. But they're not the views of most Democrats, and he never really made--was able to get off the ground.

Tavis: I suspect this is a great deal of putting the cart before the horse, but a lot of talk inside the Beltway these days of what a Kerry/Edwards ticket would look like against Bush/Cheney. What do you make of that talk?

Bill: Well, I think if Edwards does well in South Carolina--if you ask me to bet incidentally, I'd bet that Kerry will beat Edwards in South Carolina next week.

Tavis: Wow! You think so?

Bill: Yeah. People always underestimate the momentum of coming out of New Hampshire. I think in the polls tomorrow or Friday, Kerry will be ahead of Edwards. People will want to vote for someone who has a chance to become president, and I think really it's gonna become a Kerry/Dean race, and I just don't think anyone who gets 12% or 13% of the vote in New Hampshire really is gonna go on and win the nomination. I think voters sense that. Having said that, Kerry/Edwards is a strong ticket--an obvious ticket, but a strong ticket actually. Good mix of little bit older, little bit younger, North and South. Um, not a bad ticket. There are other possible running mates for Kerry as well, if Kerry's gonna be the nominee. I sort of like a Kerry/Kerry ticket.

Tavis: Ha ha ha!

Bill: Uh, mostly because it's very easy for people to remember, you know?

Tavis: Yes, that's true. There's a lot of talk, today at least, that one of the reasons John Kerry may in fact beat John Edwards in South Carolina, the state that Edwards was born in, is because a very, very respected politico in that state, James Clyburn, an African American, longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus, former head of the Congressional Black Caucus... We are hearing rumors that tomorrow, in fact, he is going to endorse publicly John Kerry. That has to be disappointing to Mr. Edwards. But I'm also hearing that Mr. Clyburn has called Mr. Edwards and told him that he's going to do this, unlike Al Gore, who straight dissed Joe Lieberman and didn't tell him about the Dean thing in advance.

Bill: Yeah, I think Jim Clyburn maybe has fewer, you know, psychological issues than Al Gore and will treat this in a more straightforward and maybe honorable way. Uh, no, this is what happens when you win Iowa and New Hampshire, though. Someone like Jim Clyburn who, as far as I know, has no personal special connection to either Kerry or Edwards. I'm sure he thinks they're both fine, basically. The incentive to endorse Edwards when Kerry looks like, you know, 80-90% chance that he'll be the nominee, that incentive diminishes. Not just 'cause you want to look like you're right or you want to side up to a frontrunner, but you want to have influence--on your own behalf, on the behalf of his constituents in South Carolina. In his case, he speaks for a broader audience, obviously, the Black Caucus, and to some degree for African American voters in the Democratic Party to the degree that he wants to influence John Kerry--influence the nominee. It makes sense for him to get on the Kerry bandwagon at what could be a key time for him if Kerry wins South Carolina. He knocks Edwards out. I'm also hearing that Dick Gephardt might endorse John Kerry later this week or over the weekend in Missouri. So if you have Kerry winning Iowa and New Hampshire and getting the Clyburn endorsement, getting the Gephardt endorsement, he looks awfully strong.

Tavis: My time is running, but there was another big story today, uh, as you well know, that of David Kay, the former weapons inspector testifying before Congress, said 2 things that didn't surprise me, actually. One, that he didn't find anyone being pressured to give bad information, bad evidence to the Bush White House but in fact that the Bush administration did in fact receive bad information, bad intelligence, about Iraq. What's the story mean to you, if anything?

Bill: Well, I was a strong supporter, and remain a strong supporter of removing Saddam, basically the Bush administration's decision to go to war. But I would, if I were to be critical of the administration, it would be that they need to acknowledge that we have a big intelligence problem. Uh, we've had bad intelligence for years, incidentally. We've underestimated some programs, like Libya and Iran; we've overestimated others, like Saddam's. I think we really need to shake up our intelligence gathering capabilities for this new dangerous world we live in, and I don't think--I'm a little surprised the president hasn't really addressed that. That should be a top priority.

Tavis: Let me ask you then right quick what he ought to say about that because it seems to me that with American bodies still coming home from Iraq, the American people deserve to be told something about what's gonna happen here. Some heads need to roll here, don't they?

Bill: I sort of agree. Maybe you don't blame individuals, but we certainly need to have a sense that something--we should have known more than we did know. I don't think it might have changed the decision to go to war, incidentally. But we certainly need to have the best intelligence we can for this dangerous world we live in, and I hope the president gets a little more, you know, serious about shaking up his own government there.

Tavis: How's the president keep telling us, Bill, how's he keep telling us that we're living in a safer world when he wants to spend even more money on homeland security? And that little chart we use, which I still don't get, about what color day it is, uh, got worse after--it was more threatening after we found Saddam than it was before we found him.

Bill: Well, look, terrorist groups can always threaten us and will, but I think I would defend the proposition that we've reacted pretty well to 9/11. We seem to have disrupted Al Qaeda. Getting rid of Saddam was a good thing. I think it helped Libya and Iran and other--persuade some of those nations to move towards at least thinking about not moving ahead with their programs of weapons of mass destruction. So I would defend the proposition that the world's safer. But I would also say the world remains a very dangerous place and we can't become complacent, and the mix of sort of, uh, not being panicked but being serious about the threats is what a president has to convey to the American people.

Tavis: About 15 seconds here. Uh, is George W. Bush vulnerable?

Bill: Yes. I mean, I think I would bet on Bush to win, but it will be a real race. There are a lot of events out there in the world that can go one way or the other. Very foolish for Republicans to be overconfident.

Tavis: The next time you come on, we gotta talk about what your Republican friends say when you criticize your own party. We'll talk about that next time, Bill.

Bill: OK, Tavis.

Tavis: Nice to see you.

Bill: Good to see you.

Tavis: Thanks for coming on. We'll be right back with actress Pam Grier. Don't you go anywhere.