Online NewsHour: Shields & O'Beirne -- July 19, 1996

SHIELDS & O'BEIRNE

JULY 19, 1996

TRANSCRIPT

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and National Review Washington editor Kate O’Beirne discuss the week in politics. Topics the two cover: Colin Powell and moderate Susan Molinari as key speakers at next month's Republican National Convention, the President's testimony before a second Whitewater trial, the politics of welfare reform and "Anonymous" revealed.

The NewsHour's recent coverage of the election.
May 21, 1996:
Wisconsin Works, the proposed overhaul of that state's welfare program, reflects the politics of reforming the system.
Feb. 6, 1996:
Jim Lehrer and essayist Roger Rosenblatt discuss the mystery surrounding Primary Colors.

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, our weekly political analysis. Paul Gigot is on vacation. Joining syndicated columnist Mark Shields tonight is Kate O’Beirne, Washington editor of the National Review. Mark, Bob Dole chose Colin Powell to make the opening speech, Congresswoman Molinari to be the keynoter. What message should we read from these selections?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Bob Dole is going to disappoint Democrats. Democrats were hoping that there would be a real sort of a political circus, and I think that sends a message, quite frankly, of Bob Dole of inclusiveness. Susan Molinari, new mother, a New York Republican, married to another House member.
JIM LEHRER: Pro-choice.
MARK SHIELDS: Pro-choice. Colin Powell, Colin Powell. I mean, with all--from affirmative action to pro-choice, to everything else, but he’s Colin Powell. And he is the most conspicuous black Republican in--probably in the century and with all due respect to Sen. Brook and people like that, I mean, he is, he is the most conspicuous convert, so it’s a message of inclusiveness, and it’s upsetting and unnerving to many Democrats.
JIM LEHRER: Is it upsetting and unnerving to some Republicans as well?
KATE O’BEIRNE, National Review: I think, Jim, it really shorts those Republicans who are anxious that Bob Dole pick a pro-life conservative vice president because it probably raises the stakes there. If it’s an attempt to show his inclusiveness, which seems to be something he feels important, and how large the party is, you might notice a muffled response on the part of some pro-life Republicans because they figure, heck, if Colin Powell is speaking to the convention, and if Susan Molinari is speaking to the convention, he’s certainly not going to have the nerve to put a pro-choice Republican as vice president. So I think it actually reassures them that the VP selection is a pro-life social conservative.
JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Do you read it that way too?
MARK SHIELDS: I don’t know how to read it. I mean, if you look at the list and everybody’s got a list, it seems, the hot item this week was, was Tom, Tom Ridge, the governor--everybody’s mentioning.
JIM LEHRER: That’s right.
MARK SHIELDS: Fifty years old, 12 years in the House, Harvard College Vietnam veteran, combat veteran. Now there’s--there’s--two sorts of exclusive resume items--Catholic pro-choice, and I think Kate’s right. I mean, he took a lot of heat this week and a lot of attacks from several pro-life quarters within the party and sending Sen. Dole the message that he should not be picked.
JIM LEHRER: Kate O’Beirne, what does Bob Dole do with Pat Buchanan in this context? Pat Buchanan, we should refresh people’s memories, he made a speech on the first night of the convention in Houston, which caused a lot of problems, some people said, other people said otherwise, but he’s not on any list thus far. What’s going to happen?
KATE O'BEIRNE: He’s not. In fact, it appeared this week that the current intention is to not permit Pat to speak from the podium to the convention. I think that’s a problem. He ran. He got a lot of support, not enough obviously, and many of them don’t wind up giving the primary rules on the floor of the convention in San Diego, but, in fact, he speaks for a large number of enthusiastic Republicans. I don’t see how the Dole people can explain how this freshly minted Republican, Colin Powell, gets to speak on Presidents’ night with Gerry Ford, George Bush, and a loyal Republican--of course, they’d question the loyal part because Pat Buchanan has not yet endorsed Bob Dole--
JIM LEHRER: And refused to go to the luncheon on Monday, right?
KATE O'BEIRNE: But he will endorse Bob Dole--
JIM LEHRER: Okay.
KATE O'BEIRNE: I think that’s safe to say, and they run the risk, if they force Pat Buchanan out on the sidewalk, they run the risk of Colin Powell, front and center, with his new Republican family in the course of his speech maybe giving the back of his hand to some of the conservatives in the audience. His speech promises to be more popular in the media sky boxes than it does on the floor of the convention--with Pat Buchanan giving the reserve speech out on the sidewalk, criticizing the Republican establishment and egging on the conservatives. I think they ought to give Pat Buchanan a chance to speak along with everybody else briefly, albeit briefly, who, who contested in the primaries.
MARK SHIELDS: I think they’re making a mistake. Pat’s going to be covered wherever he speaks. Pat Buchanan is going to speak. He’s going to speak inside the hall or outside the hall. And Lyndon Johnson had an aphorism on that subject about where the one--outside the hall coming in or inside the hall going out--and I just think that in this case that they’d be better off to bring Pat Buchanan in.
KATE O'BEIRNE: I agree.
MARK SHIELDS: But he, he is going--Pat Buchanan is already--in fact, his organization sent out press credential applications. They’re going to have a big event Sunday evening, so if Pat is not there, you can look for that to be his valedictory.
JIM LEHRER: The--President Clinton’s taped testimony for the second time to a second trial, a Whitewater trial in Little Rock, what’s the--what are the politics of that, the fallout from that? Is there any to be measured at this point?
KATE O'BEIRNE: Specifically this week, Jim, the spectacle of the President testifying in a trial in Arkansas I don’t think really captures the public’s attention. He did it once before. I think the key thing in this instance is whether or not convictions--there are convictions in this second trial in Arkansas. I think the convictions last time were a problem for Bill Clinton. I’m not saying--
JIM LEHRER: More so than his testimony, you mean?
KATE O'BEIRNE: Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. I think the convictions last time helped vindicate Ken Starr, made--if an Arkansas jury actually convicts these people--
JIM LEHRER: The Watergate prosecutor.
KATE O'BEIRNE: That’s right. It does not really look like a partisan attack on the part of Ken Starr. I would anticipate that if there are convictions again, uh, they might--may be followed by an indictment of Bruce Lindsey or somebody close to the President. That would be the time the public might pay--sit up and pay a little more attention again.
JIM LEHRER: Mark.
MARK SHIELDS: The White House was lucky. Kate’s right. I mean, the TWA tragedy just eclipsed coverage of it, news of it. This is a lot more immediate to the President than was the Whitewater land deal, which is in the mid 80's and kind of confusing. This is the 1990 campaign. This is one of his closest aides. Bruce Lindsey is an undicted co-conspirator, although I think it’s unfair. But still the President, if the President testifies and a guilty plea comes in, then I think it hurts politically.
JIM LEHRER: Okay. Welfare reform. The House passed a version. The Senate is about to as well. The President will again have an opportunity to, to sign it or veto it. He vetoed two earlier versions. What politics of this, Kate?
KATE O'BEIRNE: Very complicated, and they’ve changed enormously in the course of a few months, and they have a lot to do with Bob Dole’s kind fortunes. The welfare issue is critically important, I think, to Bill Clinton. I don’t think there was another issue in 1992 that better served to define Bill Clinton as a new Democrat than his tough talk on welfare. I do think it was important for Bill Clinton to deliver on that, yet, he vetoed two welfare reform bills.
The Republicans were not going to give him an opportunity to veto another one. They figure they have two vetoes, and there’s an outside chance he signs it and we don’t want to give up the welfare reform issue. Well, then Bob Dole starts sinking in the polls. Republicans are nervous about going home empty-handed. They also, the policy welfare people will say if we don’t get this signed this year in his second term, Bill Clinton is certainly not going to do anything as good as this bill. So I think it marks two things--a big retreat on Bill Clinton’s part, because in fairness, the bill he’s prepared to sign is nowhere near the kind of bill he introduced two years ago--but it’s also a mutiny on the Dole side of the aisle, despite the fact that "giving this issue" to Bill Clinton by letting him sign a welfare reform bill hurts Bob Dole, there’s an every man for himself feeling on Capitol Hill, and the congressional Republicans think that they need this vote.
JIM LEHRER: Mark.
MARK SHIELDS: I think--I see the politics differently. I mean, the President has vetoed, Kate’s absolutely right, two welfare reform bills. And he’s now anywhere from twenty-four to eighteen points ahead. Certainly it does not hurt him politically, if he’s ever been in the position where he could do it. I think the argument in Congress, Jim, is false. I think that they’re arguing two--the Congress that supports this is arguing two mutually exclusive assertions. One is this is going to do something really serious about the pathologies, economic and social, that affect America’s welfare class, and second, it’s going to save money. I mean, the reality of it is, it’s a budget bill. It saves 48 billion dollars. It takes $28 billion out of food stamps, one half of which comes from families making 50 percent or less than the poverty level. I mean, that’s what we’re talking about. You know, we’re not--we’re not kidding anybody. We’re taking $20 billion out of legal aliens, people who come here, become Americans, go to work, and get hurt in an accident, and they’re left--they can’t get any benefits, even though they’ve paid taxes--
JIM LEHRER: The President signs it?
MARK SHIELDS: Yeah. I mean, I think the President--I mean--put it this way--if the President signs it, it’s not a profile in courage.
KATE O'BEIRNE: The President is sending every signal though that he will sign this bill, although he’s hearing the objections that Mark’s stating--he’s hearing from his liberal base. You’re way ahead in the polls, why in the heck do you have to sign this bill--of course, even under this bill, welfare spending increases over the next seven years, overall federal welfare spending. I think it’s a mark of his wanting that insurance policy. He promised welfare--it’s a key issue. They haven’t started going after him yet on it, which they plan to in the fall, but he’s definitely hearing these arguments from his base.
JIM LEHRER: I want to move on to a key issue of our time. Joe Klein, political editor or writer for Newsweek Magazine confessed this week that he was, in fact, Anonymous and he wrote the book Primary Colors. There have been angry editorials in the New York Times and many other newspapers about this. Are you as outraged as others about Joe Klein?
MARK SHIELDS: I am--a personal note, I’ve known Joe Klein for 25 years. I think he’s a superb political reporter. He personally on the eve of the New Hampshire primary denied to me that he had written him when I asked him just one on one. That’s beside the point.
JIM LEHRER: You’re one of hundreds.
MARK SHIELDS: One of hundreds. I’m one of legion. I’d say this, Jim, he has discredited his profession. Newsweek has as well. You cannot--
JIM LEHRER: We ought to--people who followed this story as carefully--Maynard Parker, the editor of Newsweek, acknowledged that he knew and even ran a piece--let one of his other reporters--
MARK SHIELDS: Periscope item that Jonathan Alter put in--
JIM LEHRER: Right.
MARK SHIELDS: That someone else had written it.
JIM LEHRER: Yeah.
MARK SHIELDS: What--Joe Klein works for CBS News and writes for Newsweek, and he not only lied over CBS, to CBS on the air, denying it, that he had ever written it, but there’s something terrible here about the business. First of all, Jim, you can’t accuse Bill Clinton or Bob Dole or Ross Perot of fibbing and lying and be indifferent to lying in your own profession. I mean, that’s the minimum standard of what I see, of what political journalism ought to be. Secondly, the CBS executives were quoted in the New York Times as saying they will now wait and see if there is a backlash in this before--
JIM LEHRER: Yeah.
MARK SHIELDS: --they acted on it. I mean, talk about subcontracting out any sense of independent moral judgment.
JIM LEHRER: Kate.
KATE O'BEIRNE: I’ve got to say, Jim, I really don’t understand the all but hysterical reaction to the Joe Klein flap. No, I don’t put Mark in the hysterical camp. I put him in the thoughtful, reasoned camp. There’s a whole lot of the media self-absorption in this story. I don’t know that most Americans are--this is Washington’s favorite parlor game a number of months back. Everybody had to know that whoever wrote this book was well known to the Washington political community. You couldn’t have written the book without being a Washington veteran.
There’s no point in putting Anonymous on a title if the first time Mark Shields bumps into you, you’re going to say, yeah, okay, it was me. So you knew whoever did it, it was prepared to say it wasn’t me, and separate that from their truthfulness as a journalist, which I think is possible. Having said that, I think Joe Klein in some settings maybe went over the top. But I’ve got to tell you, the speculation about who wrote this book is far more damaging to the media than this ultimate story. In the course of speculating, it became apparent to the general public that a whole lot of people in the media have very cozy relationships with people in campaigns, and that bothers the media far more than the Joe Klein flap.
JIM LEHRER: Before we go, somebody mumbled something earlier in my ear that I didn’t catch about somebody misspoke. Would somebody quickly tell me what it was so I can correct it? Somebody said Watergate instead of Whitewater. I said that, is that right? I’m sorry. I misspoke. I didn’t understand the correction. Sorry. Thank you. Kate, good to see you again. Thank you.
KATE O'BEIRNE: Thanks, Jim.
MARK SHIELDS: You can misspeak anytime.
JIM LEHRER: Okay. Thank you.

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