SHIELDS & GIGOT DECEMBER 13, 1996 TRANSCRIPT

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President Clinton has announced more members of the cabinet for his second term. Prominent choices include Chicago lawyer Bill Daley as Secretary of Commerce and Rep. Bill Richardson (D-NM) as UN Ambassador. He also asked Attorney General Janet Reno and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to stay on. To discuss the President's choices and other recent politcal matters, Jim Lehrer is joined by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot.

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A RealAudio version of this NewsHour segment is available. December 12, 1996 Congressman Bill Richardson talks about his successful negotiations for the release of three hostages in the Sudan. December 5, 1996 President Clinton announces his choice of Madeleine Albright to be the next Secretary of State. December 5, 1996 Jim Lehrer leads a discussion about President Clinton's choices for his national security team is available. December 4, 1996 A panel of historians looks at Presidential second terms. Browse past segments of Shields & Gigot.

JIM LEHRER: Now some analysis of today’s choices and other recent matters by Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. And by choices, we mean to the President’s team. Is there an overall phrase that fits what he’s done so far, do you think, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: The world that comes to my mind is continuity. A lot of the choices are staying put, some of the bigger choices. Robert Rubin at the Treasury, Janet Reno as attorney general, those are two big positions that are staying put. Some of the other people are moving around a little bit. I don’t see a dramatic shift. The other thing I’d say--and I’ve been talking--asking some Republicans about this, and they seem to agree--is the President is off to a better start this time in terms of personnel than he was four years ago. He’s not--

JIM LEHRER: In what way?

PAUL GIGOT: He’s not getting tangled up as much, at least not in public, with the diversity problem, for example, having had one from column A and one from column B, and this special interest group. There’s been a little bit of that, but much less obviously. And he’s handling it better. He seems to be balancing some of the ethics difficulties, at least at this stage, better. He’s not on his third attorney general nominee, for example. So I think so far he’s actually doing pretty well.

JIM LEHRER: Overview?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Overview. Certainly today’s appointments were revealing, I thought, especially, first of all, Gene Sperling, who doesn’t get mentioned, the National Economic Council. I think Paul and I would probably both agree if there was a deserving promotion and appointment, and there’s nobody who’s worked harder, longer, and probably more effectively for Bill Clinton than Gene Sperling.

JIM LEHRER: The President said that he was going to introduce a whole new concept to Sperling, which was "sleep," you know. He types around the clock and all of that.

MARK SHIELDS: But in both Bill Daley and Bill Richardson, he chose national Democrats who were not Clinton people. In other words, they didn’t come to national prominence just in Bill Clinton’s candidacy or his career. Bill Daley of Chicago, the brother of the mayor, the son of the late mayor, a formidable political presence in himself, was passed over, and Paul mentioned the diversity criteria in 1993. He was going to be the Secretary of Transportation. And he got passed over, Jim, because he didn’t meet the diversity criteria. And the President wanted the presence of Denver--former Denver Mayor Federico Pena as secretary of transportation. At that point, a verb grew up. The verb was to be Daleyed. To be Daleyed was to be passed over for an appointment, a presidential appointment, when you didn’t meet the diversity criteria they were seeking. And he didn’t sulk.

JIM LEHRER: --why he didn’t sulk--non-political people would say, you know, enough of these people. They did this to me once--

PAUL GIGOT: If you’re Richard Daley, you don’t sulk.

MARK SHIELDS: You don’t get mad; you get even. But, you know, at some point, you say, you know, sure they wanted Chicago to have the convention, and that was important.

JIM LEHRER: Daley was very much involved in that--both Daleys. But Bill Daley was--

MARK SHIELDS: Absolutely. General chair and all the rest of it, and he was the dominant presence. But David Gergen, then the presidential counselor, and then a very, very strong advocate and champion of NAFTA within the White House, where there was division in the White House, said publicly that the only reason the NAFTA Act passed the Congress was because of Bill Daley. Bill Daley came in, summoned in as the relief pitcher at a critical moment, organized, pushed, implemented, went to the Hill, himself, to counter strategy.

JIM LEHRER: Well, how would you define what his job was? It was kind of an off-government position to push NAFTA, right?

MARK SHIELDS: That’s right.

JIM LEHRER: A public lobby in a way.

MARK SHIELDS: He was. He was almost a one-man war room is what it turns out to be. So I think that--and Bill Richardson, again, nine terms in the House. Both of them are politicians, and I--I have a bias in favor of politicians.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Richardson--we’ll talk about Richardson in a minute, but, first, on Daley, Paul, President Clinton--other presidents have appointed big business types to this Commerce job. Ron Brown is not a big business type, Mickey Kantor was not, and now Bill Daley is not.

PAUL GIGOT: Well, in this instance, I think that’s absolutely right. Republicans have tended to put big business people in that job, or business people, businessmen and women. The--Frank--

JIM LEHRER: No, Brady’s the other job--sorry.

PAUL GIGOT: And the President very pointedly picked two politicians in the first term, Ron Brown and Mickey Kantor, to succeed him. And I think in that sense Bill Daley is probably doing the President a second favor. The first is NAFTA. The second has taken its job, because Commerce is probably, in my mind, the least desirable job in this administration, because what happened in the campaign. I mean, it’s pretty clear--

JIM LEHRER: The Huang Indonesian connection, et cetera.

PAUL GIGOT: The Commerce Department was used as a way to raise money for the Democratic Party. There’s no question about it. John Huang had his headquarters, if you will, set right up there. And Ron Brown was a very effective political advocate using business levers and so on to get business support. So I think it’s going to be scrutinized by the Republicans. That whole thing is going to be scrutinized. And there’s a lot of Republicans who still think if there’s one cabinet department we can get rid of, it’s this one.

JIM LEHRER: And they probably won’t now that--they’ll have trouble now that Bill Daley has got the job, you mean?

PAUL GIGOT: It’ll be more difficult.

JIM LEHRER: More difficult.

MARK SHIELDS: But Bill Daley, I mean, had been mentioned, most of the speculation had focused on transportation. Transportation’s a great job. You’ve got the Coast Guard, planes, and trains, and buses, and trucks. And Paul is right, Jim. He’s going to be playing defense over at Commerce. I mean, even though it didn’t happen on his watch, it’s going to take the time, effort, and energy of his people to answer all those inquiries, to testify on the Hill, and to fight the rear guard action against those who say doesn’t this prove that it was just a place to load up the airplanes with businessmen for trips abroad, at special appointment, and they then, in turn, supported the party.

JIM LEHRER: Let’s talk about Richardson. He was on this program the other night talking about his Sudan thing. And he had been here before two or three times talking about the other rescue missions. And he said today, I’m a public official and a politician, and I’m proud of it. People don’t say that very often.

MARK SHIELDS: No. And Bill Richardson, Bill Richardson is. I mean, nine terms in the House--

JIM LEHRER: From New Mexico.

MARK SHIELDS: From New Mexico. Hispanic. The President mentioned that in introducing him today.

JIM LEHRER: Hispanic mother, Anglo father.

MARK SHIELDS: That’s right. But the President mentioned that he was proud of his Spanish tradition but, again, NAFTA is central. There was probably the biggest domestic triumph of Bill Clinton’s first two years with the passage of NAFTA and alone in the Democratic House leadership, as chief deputy whip, one of the four chief deputy whips; he was the only one supporting NAFTA, Bill Richardson was. He was up--above board about it. Dick Gephardt, Dave Bonior, and the others were on the other side. But he was very, very effective and formidable, and then he became, as he talked in that interview with Margaret the other night, this remarkable sort of extra legal--the best sense of it--or, you know, ambassador without portfolio but with a real mandate. I mean, his achievements are singular.

JIM LEHRER: How do you think that’s going to translate into being the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: My only concern for him would be whether or not he thinks this is a demotion because he’s already been, more or less, acting secretary of state. I think he’s closed more deals than Warren Christopher did, just. I mean, I think it’s a job he’s going to like. It’s a job he’s going to like because he’s been moving around the world. He knows these people, and I think he’s going to find that dealing with diplomacy is something that suits his temperament, and I think he’s going to be pretty good--he could do this job very effectively.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. He was quoted today, or people were talking about him today in all the profiles that the wires moved and all of that about how when he sits down with one of these folks to negotiate, he doesn’t leave until he’s got what he came for. And he has just ways of just saying in there, hanging in there, hanging in there.

PAUL GIGOT: They should send him to see President Assad, you know, for one of those legendary 24-hour--

MARK SHIELDS: They tried to get him out of North Korea. Remember that? He wouldn’t go until he left with the assurance the pilot was going to follow him with the remains of the American airman who had been killed there.

JIM LEHRER: Well, the same way with Sudan. He sat under this tree with this guy for four hours. You know, the guy harangued about the United States, and he finally found this deal, et cetera. Okay now, Janet Reno stays as attorney general. Big deal, big surprise?

PAUL GIGOT: I don’t think it’s a big surprise. I don’t think the President had much choice. I think with all of the problems that he is going to have to face on the ethics front. I think, but having somebody with a reputation for independence, having appointment four special counsels, even though she turned down the last one on campaign finance, I think if she wanted it, and she made a public display of saying she did--

JIM LEHRER: She wanted that job.

PAUL GIGOT: --she was going to get it. I don’t think the President had much choice there.

JIM LEHRER: And so her reputation for being a non-team player kind of works to the President’s advantage, does it not, in terms of credibility?

MARK SHIELDS: This is another politician. This is somebody who’s run for and won office in her own right, and I thought she was--

JIM LEHRER: She was prosecuting attorney at Dade County.

MARK SHIELDS: She was prosecuting attorney at Dade County. And she was adroit in hanging onto that job. I mean, there was no way in the world they were going to get her out of there with blasting powder, and I mean, she put them in a position, the White House in a position politically, they couldn’t move on her.

JIM LEHRER: I love what she said. She said, do you intend to stay? She said, ask the President.

MARK SHIELDS: That’s right.

JIM LEHRER: Most cabinet officers say, oh, well--and, of course, Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury, he’s a real star of this administration up till now, and there was never any question of his leaving, was there?

PAUL GIGOT: No. If the President wants him there, I think there’s no question. In the first, remember, he was the head of the National Economic Council, this operation in the White House. No disrespect to Gene Sperling, who I agree with, who’s now getting that job.

JIM LEHRER: Replacing Laura Tyson.

PAUL GIGOT: Replacing Laura Tyson.

JIM LEHRER: Going back to teaching in California.

PAUL GIGOT: Who works as hard as Mark says but he--but this is, I think there’s no question that the real heart of the President’s economic team has moved over to treasury. I mean, he is the big dog in this game, and the President relies on him a lot more than he does on some of the others.

MARK SHIELDS: Everybody who deals with Bob Rubin, whether with him or against him, on any particular controversial issue, says invariably the same thing, he’s a grown-up. He’s got his ego totally under control, in check, and he’s a real grown-up dealing with--

JIM LEHRER: The President made a speech earlier this week to the Democratic Leadership Council, which is the moderate centrist Democratic organization, that he said he wants to govern the second term in the strong center. Does his team reflect that?

MARK SHIELDS: I think his team does reflect it.

JIM LEHRER: Did I say that right? That’s what he said. Strong center.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, that’s right. Vital.

PAUL GIGOT: Vital.

JIM LEHRER: I knew I didn’t say it quite right.

MARK SHIELDS: Vital signs--

JIM LEHRER: Got you.

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I think the team does reflect it. It is not an ideological team, but I have to say, you know, the center is a derivative place. I mean, you take the center, you have to say where’s the left, where’s the right, and I’m going to get--and it shifts constantly. I mean, if you want to look at it, two years ago in this town, the balanced budget amendment was conservative dogma. Now it’s the center. Three years ago in this town the family and medical leave idea was a liberal, looney plan. Now I didn’t hear anybody in 1996 running on let’s repeal the family and medical leave. The same thing with minimum wage.

JIM LEHRER: Raising the minimum wage.

MARK SHIELDS: Raising the minimum wage. And that became consensus, so the problem is with saying I’m a centrist is you’re leaving your definition in a derivative, almost remainder--to those on either side.

PAUL GIGOT: Mark is describing the difficulty of governing from the center, but I--and I agree with the problems, and the President could get caught in-between, caught in the cross-fire, but I don’t think--I think that the vital center is just a political rhetoric which does really not do justice to what he is trying to do, which I think is to revitalize the Democratic Party, redefine the Democratic Party, in an area when voters seem to have put a lid on government. They put--the taxpayers are saying we’re not going to give government any more money, we’re not going to allow you to grow, and Bill Clinton has to take that tax-and-spend label which has been so debilitating for Democrats for so long and get rid of it. And that’s what the balanced budget pledge does. That’s the threshold issue.

JIM LEHRER: At the same time, not going to far the other way, which was the Gingrich revolution so the two together leaves him in the center, is that what you’re saying?

PAUL GIGOT: He’s carving out, trying to carve out that area.

MARK SHIELDS: Gingrich gave him the center. I mean, Gingrich gave him the center after 13 months. The center has been very good to Bill Clinton politically, all right? I mean, for 13 months because he was unchallenged for the Democratic nomination in 1996, he could run for the center while the Republicans were dancing over on the right.

JIM LEHRER: We have to run for the weekend. Thank you both very much.

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