Friday, July 3, 2009

Ms. IFILL: The pullback in Iraq, The White House and the Congress, the new senator from Minnesota and the Supreme Court term ends, tonight on “Washington Week.”

GEN. RAY ODIERNO: I think from a military and security standpoint it’s time for us to move out of the cities.

MS. IFILL: The deadline arrived and U.S. troops left town, but 130,000 service members remain. And the violence continues. Where do we stand in Iraq?

At home, President Obama tackles other ups and downs, a win last week on climate change and uncertain path ahead on health care.

In Minnesota, an election decided eight months after the voting ended.

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D-MN): Well, it was close, but we won. (Applause.)

MS. IFILL: While winners and losers are still sorting out this year’s Supreme Court term.

MR. : It was worthy every minute of it, right guys?

MS. IFILL: Covering the week: Martha Raddatz of ABC News, Dan Balz of the “Washington Post,” Naftali Bendavid of the “Wall Street” Journal, and Joan Biskupic of “USA Today”.

ANNOUNCER: Celebrating 40 years of journalistic excellence, live from our nation’s capital, this is “Washington Week” with Gwen Ifill, produced in association with “National Journal.”

(Station announcements.)

ANNOUNCER: Once again, from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill.

MS. IFILL: Good evening. You’ll recall that during the presidential campaign much of the debate over the future of Iraq centered on one question: when will U.S. troops leave? The first shoe fell on that this week as ceremonial keys were handed over and U.S. troops left Iraqi cities. There was literally dancing in the streets, but not because the war is over – far from it. So how significant then was this pullback this week, Martha?

MS. RADDATZ: It’s significant that U.S. forces are out of those cities. It is indeed significant. They pulled out the combat outposts, but most of those combat outposts and some of those bases were built up during the surge. And during the surge you added all kinds of combat outposts. So those are now gone. There were about 100 since January that we pulled out of, but it is less significant in the sense – exactly what you said at the beginning there – there are still more than 130,000 troops. To give you a little context here, there were 165,000 when U.S. forces invaded Iraq. So we’re only down to 130,000. And they will definitely be doing something. I know the Obama administration likes to say, we’re pulling out combat troops. They’re all combat troops. And if they get in a firefight, it is going to feel an awful lot like combat. They will still be with Iraqi forces. They’ll be trainers and advisors. But I think that’s a little bit of a mushy definition.

MS. IFILL: And where will they be?

MS. RADDATZ: Well, in the suburbs. You have – like Abu Ghraib, for instance, one of the suburbs; they’ll still be patrolling those areas. They definitely will be. They’ll have Iraqis with them in some places, but U.S. forces are still really on the move there, although those bases are outside of the city and they will not be patrolling alone.

MS. BISKUPIC: Are they – is it more dangerous out there, outside the city? Is this safer for U.S. troops, or actually could it be more perilous given the locale?

MS. RADDATZ: Well, I actually think that’s a really good point because now U.S. forces are further outside the cities and it’s what they call force protection. Before, you had forces right next to the people who were advisors and trainers and they’re with them all the time. And now there is that distance you have to travel. There were many troops injured this week and several killed. And they were travelling between the cities and those more outer bases. So they are still very much in danger, and that force protection, in some ways, is a little bit lower.

MR. BENDAVID: Do you think they’re going to stick to the schedule that they’ve had for withdrawing? Is there any chance they’ll slow down this pullout there?

MS. RADDATZ: Boy, you heard General Odierno – and I think he thinks really they’re on track. Now, by next summer, the end of next summer, the end of August, we’re supposed to be down to 50,000 troops. That means they’re going to be pulling out very rapidly after the January elections. I don’t think you’ll see much more of a drawdown this year, maybe to 125,000, General Odierno plans on after that. And then, at the end of 2011, we’re all supposed to be out of there. I really have doubts that’s going to happen.

Now, the Iraqis would have to say, oh, please, stay maybe just a little longer, but when I think about it, I think they don’t really have an air force. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them fly a helicopter – the Iraqis. They don’t really have sophisticated intelligence. They don’t have medevac for their own forces. So they are so dependant on U.S. forces for these things.

MS. RADDATZ: I think what they’re really trying to do is exactly that. They’re trying to push the Iraqi government to make sure they involve the Sunnis, to make sure they involve everyone. And I don’t think the administration is confident that is what’s happening. And that is absolutely key here still – that they have to bring together that population in some way and make everybody feel part of that government or this really could fall apart.

MS. IFILL: Can I ask you something? I don’t know if it matters or not, but Vice President Cheney was out critical again this week about this handover, even though it was his administration that created and signed onto this Status of Forces Agreement. Is that just what we’re going to get from now on, or is there a reason –

MS. RADDATZ: I thought that was a very stunning statement that the vice president said he was worried that enemy might be waiting with the sort of timetable. And I thought, but wait a minute, the Bush administration was the one that negotiated that timetable. I think you’re just going to hear that kind of rhetoric. And again, I thought it was rather – rather stunning.

MS. IFILL: And I want to ask you about something else that happened this week, which reminded everybody of how dangerous things still are in Afghanistan, even as there was the dancing in the streets in Iraq, there is an escalation of violence and peril for U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

MS. RADDATZ: There is and you’ve got 4,000 Marines now involved in an operation in Helmand Province, going after the Taliban there, trying to wipe out some of the financing for – through the opium crop for the Taliban there. Marines have already been wounded and killed in that operation. The one thing that strikes me about that operation is they keep talking about the civilian surge and that they’re going to bring in civilians to follow on these troops. And that’s so important. It’s a lesson we learned in Iraq.

But one of the things that I thought was interesting is they talked about bringing two civilians to help follow on and maybe for after that – as one of my producers pointed out to me, you can’t build the barn with five people. I don’t think you can actually bring in humanitarian agents to settle the civilian problems.

MS. IFILL: Okay, so we’ll be watching that, of course, as always. Thank you.

Back here at home, we’re beginning to see the outlines of how the White House plans to win battles of a different sort on domestic policy. Having scored a narrow House victory last week on a climate bill, the president turned back again this week to health care. And he took stock of the mountains ahead.

PRES. BARACK OBAMA: The hardest part is yet to come because everybody here knows that the easiest thing to do when you’re looking at big policy questions like health care is just to be to (cynical ?) – it can’t be done.

MS. IFILL: The president says they’re all just naysayers, but how is coping with the naysayers and even with his own supporters, Dan?

MR. BALZ: Well, he’s not doing a lot with the actual naysayers, but particularly the Republican naysayers. So he’s trying to do this mostly with the Democrats. And they have had a reasonable amount of success so far this year and I think that the Climate Change Bill that passed a week ago is indicative of that. This was a big victory, but I think it not only shows the strengths of what they have done in terms of their legislative strategy, it also points out the limitations.

The challenge is obvious. They have a huge agenda that they’re trying to get through. This was an agenda that enlarges the role of the federal government in a lot of different ways, whether it’s through the stimulus package, climate change, or health care. They are trying to do this with Democratic majorities that are bigger than they used to be after 2006 and 2008, but they are more diverse. There are more members from marginal districts, and so the challenge is obvious. If you go for the moderates, you lose the liberals. So that’s the game they’ve got to play.

MS. IFILL: If I were a Blue Dog Democrat, would my arm be sore now from all the twisting going on?

MS. IFILL: They got a lot of changes, for instance, in the climate bill.

MR. BALZ: In the Climate Change Bill there were a tremendous number of changes to the point that there was some concern and a lot of squawking at least toward the end by some of the liberals that they had given away too much, that they’d given away too much to the agricultural industry. They’d given much too much to the utilities. That they’ve backed off on some of the ultimate mechanisms. But this is what they’ve had to do to get that through. There were 44 Democrats who defected on that bill and they had a very narrow margin in getting it through. So they had to make those deals. But that’s the nature of the jockeying that they face.

MS. RADDATZ: And who’s the team who will actually take this on?

MR. BALZ: Well, it’s interesting, Martha, because this White House has quite a depth of talent of people who know the Hill, starting with the president and the vice president, both who came out of the United States Senate. In addition to that, the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a former House member, a former House leader who clearly knows the rhythms of the Hill and who also helped to elect a lot of these 2006 and 2008 people. Phil Schiliro, who’s in charge of the Congressional Liaison Office, spent decades as a prominent staffer on Capitol Hill. Pete Rouse, who’s a senior advisor, was chief of staff to former Senate Leader Tom Daschle. Peter Orszag at the OMB was Congressional Budget Office before he came. So they have a lot of people who know what they’re doing and it’s paid some dividends.

MS. BISKUPIC: Gwen asked about the Blue Dog Democrats and their arms being twisted and I was thinking about the left and having – being somewhat muzzled in some ways. How long will this hold? And do you envision for health care especially that it’s going to – he’ll be able to keep walking through the center and have them joining on like this?

MR. BALZ: Well, that’s the $64 million question and it’s the biggest and toughest battle of all. Part of what they have done is that they have preached the message of in unity there is strength and in division there is nothing but trouble. And I know the White House officials have pointed many times back to the experience during 1993 and ’94 on health care, Hillary care, when Democrats were divided and that bill collapsed and never came to a vote. And Democrats paid a huge price not just for that bill, but because of that bill in large part.

So the point that’s being made, I think both through the White House and through Hill leaders – Democratic leaders – is we’ve got to prove we can govern. So you’re going to have to swallow some things. We’re going to have to accommodate everybody, but the key is stick together. And they’ve shown so far an ability to do that.

MR. BENDAVID: Is there any chance of bringing the Republicans on board in any significant way or do you think that the rest of this term is just going to be almost all Democrats voting for all the major initiatives?

MR. BALZ: Well, I think on these big fights this year we’re looking primarily at an all Democratic vote. Now, there were eight Republicans in the House who voted for the climate bill. There is a possibility in the Senate. They’re working very hard to keep Senator Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, on board. They would dearly love to have is support. But there’re some Democrats you talk to who say that support’s not worth everything – that the key is to get the right kind of bill.

MS. IFILL: Bipartisanship being overrated, is that –

MR. BALZ: Well, I think they concluded fairly quickly after the stimulus that the most important thing is to get through the set of policies that they think will work, rather than have seven or 10 or 15 extra Republicans who’d have to make compromises that they think are bad.

MS. IFILL: And is the president rethinking what he’s so far been in lots of cases had his hands-off approach. We saw the – he’d meet with his gay and lesbian supporters at the White House who had been unhappy with him. He’s been pretty much hands-off on things that they want.

MR. BALZ: Well, their strategy on the Hill is to shower these people with attention in terms of invitations and if they want to meet with a cabinet officer, they can do that in an instant. But they let the legislative process work. They’ve been – you can either call it respectful or deferential to letting the lawmakers work. There’s some risk to that, as they ran into in the stimulus package, when they had to undo some things that the House did and they had to fix it in the Senate. But that’s been their strategy and they still think that’s the best way to go.

MS. IFILL: Okay, well, this was the week when the United States Senate got 100 members again. It only took 238 days – pardon me – but the Minnesota State Supreme Court decided that Democrat Al Franken did indeed win last year’s disputed election. Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman formally bowed out. So there are now 60 Democrats in the Senate, technically a filibuster-proof majority – technically. But there’s a catch, isn’t there, Naftali?

MR. BENDAVID: Yes, there’s actually a pretty big catch and in fact several catches. One of them is that a couple of the senior Democrats, Ted Kennedy and Bob Byrd, both of them are ailing and they’ve rarely been to the Hill for votes in recent weeks. And Ted Kennedy’s in Massachusetts convalescing. It’s just not clear when he’s going to come back. He may come back for some of the major votes. But beyond that, a handful of Democrats tend to defect on almost every issue, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s health care, whatever it is. So the idea that now they’re going to have 60 votes and they’re going to be able to run through every Republican filibuster, that’s just illusory. It has to be said. Hitting 60 – that’s an important psychological and symbolic point not to be underestimated. The last time any party had that was 30 years ago. But again, the idea that now they have a lock on the Senate and can just ignore the Republicans – that’s not going to be that way.

MS. IFILL: Is that why Al Franken came out during his victory, claiming and said, “I’m not going to be the 60th senator. I’m going to be the best senator from Minnesota.”

MR. BENDAVID: Yes, he was very careful to sort of observe the proprieties. A lot of people have been wondering what kind of senator he’s going to be. He has a history as sort of an edgy comedian. He has a history as kind of a – (laughter) – harsh, critic of –

MS. IFILL: Sort of edgy, yes.

MS. BISKUPIC: Well, I’m wondering about that, though. What would be his model be? Is it going to be somebody like Sonny Bono, who was in the House or will be like Bill Bradley, the star basketball player?

MR. BENDAVID: The fact is there have not been a lot of stars from areas outside politics who have come to the Senate. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were both stars when they came, but they were from the political world. And perhaps the last best example is Bill Bradley, who was a hall of famer for the Knicks when he came to the Senate. And I know from talking to his friends that he’s studied Hillary Clinton’s approach. He’s studies Bill Bradley’s approach. And he’s concluded that he can go in and try to be a star, try to be a big speech-maker. He’s got to keep his head low, be boring essentially for a while, be deferential to all the senior senators –

MS. BISKUPIC: Can he be boring?

MR. BENDAVID: (Laughs) – I actually think –

MS. IFILL: He was for the last 238 days.

MR. BENDAVID: – and before that. People who followed his campaign noticed that he ran a very serious, almost aggressively dull campaign to show the people of Minnesota that he wasn’t just a funny man, that he wasn’t just a celebrity. And I think he’s going to take very much the same approach, at least early on in the Senate.

MR. BALZ: But how –

MS. RADDATZ: I’m sorry – what does he do about the Republicans? He has been so insulting to the Republicans, kind of insulting, okay? (Laughter.) We’re not going to give you too bad a job about that, but kind of edgy, kind of insulting. So what does he do about –

MS. IFILL: Title of his bestseller, “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.” That’s kind of edgy.

MS. RADDATZ: – kind of edgy.

MR. BENDAVID: And his other book, “Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them),” which is a reference to conservatives. So yes, most Democrats, most Republicans come to Congress having said critical things about the other party, but this is sort of an another category. There’ve been insults. There’ve been best selling books. He’s gotten in shouting matches with Bill O’Reilly. And my guess is that a lot of – in fact, I know that a lot of Republicans are going to approach him very carefully and warily. Having said that – if at all, yes – having said that, the Senate’s a club. It’s collegial. And if he observes the proprieties, if he’s courteous to his Republican colleagues, if he’s deferential to Senate leaders, my sense is he can probably win them over. And I’m also guessing that he’s smart enough that he knows that he’s going to do that.

MS. IFILL: He’s smart enough. He’s good enough. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

MR. BALZ: This victory was fairly long anticipated just the way that court cases were going, but nonetheless for the Republicans it’s a big loss. It’s a symbolic loss to be down to where they are in terms of numbers. How do they respond to the fact that they are now deeply in the minority in the Senate? And is there any strategy they have for coping with that?

MR. BENDAVID: Well, I think there’s sort of an inside and an outside strategy. I think the inside strategy is, as we discussed earlier, there are plenty of Democrats that are moderates, that are conservatives and they can be attracted over to the Republican side. But from an outside point of view, they’ve already put out the message that anything that happens in Washington is the Democrats’ fault. You can’t blame us anymore. You can’t say we’re obstructionists. You guys have the White House. You run the House. And now you have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. So one message that they put out instantly, within hours after this court decision came down, was, hey, Democrats can’t blame us for anything anymore. Everything that happens it’s their fault.

MS. IFILL: What happens to Norm Coleman, who hung in there for so long and even long after it became clear to a lot of people that maybe he wasn’t going to win this one?

MR. BENDAVID: Well, that’s a good question. He’s widely thought to be a potential candidate for governor. And he was involved in this tension over the last few weeks about whether or not he should stay in the race, which was starting to really anger and frustrate a lot of Minnesota voters. Even those who voted for him just wanted it to be over. Or whether he should withdraw and perhaps salvage his political future. And his concession speech, I think everybody agreed, was very gracious. He said all the right things. He certainly left the door open to a possible political run in the future. And my own guess is we haven’t heard the last of him.

MS. IFILL: And they don’t get irritated in Minnesota the same way they get irritated in other parts of the country, very nice people. Well, once he arrives in Washington, Al Franken will apparently be joining the Senate Judiciary Committee, where one of his first tasks will be to vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The court ended its term this week with the departure of New Hampshire’s David Souter and a narrow, but significant employment discrimination ruling. So what did this and the court’s other issues tell us about the court this term, Joan?

MS. BISKUPIC: Well, definitely this term, Gwen, the court continued to tack to the right. It made it harder to bring lawsuits for job discrimination and traditional civil rights claims. It rejected environmentalists in a series of cases. And then of course we have the momentous decision on the last day of the term, which sets a hurdle for employers who try to – who are rethinking tests and other criteria that might appear to be neutral, but have a disproportionate effect on blacks and Hispanics, or conversely a disproportionate effect on women. As you know from the New Hampshire firefighter –

MS. IFILL: New Haven, yes.

MS. BISKUPIC: – New Haven. I know.

MS. IFILL: I did that too.

MS. BISKUPIC: New Hampshire – David Souter’s from New Hampshire. The case was from New Haven. And what happened there, as you know, is that the city of New Haven threw out the results of a promotional test for firefighters because the whites scored disproportionately higher. And the city said it feared lawsuits from the minority applicants. And they thought maybe the test was actually flawed. The white firefighters who had spent a lot of time and money studying for the test sued, saying that it violated their right under Title VII, which protects people from disparate treatment based on race. What the city said was, we were trying to fight any kind of lawsuit based on a disparate impact based on race. These were kind of competing parts of major civil rights law. What the Supreme Court ruled five to four, the same ideological split we usually see with the conservatives controlling, was that New Haven really turned a blind eye to the validity of these tests, had no reason to believe that they were truly vulnerable to lawsuits based on the disproportionate result here. A big deal, big deal for employers and big deal for this court because, again, it’s another case where it’s essentially saying the old kind of idea of protection for civil rights is fading away.

MS. RADDATZ: Can you talk a little bit about Justice Souter’s legacy because he leaves the court and obviously it changes a lot when he leaves, but talk about what he’s left behind.

MS. IFILL: The courts quietest member, I think you can easily say.

MS. BISKUPIC: But he was seen as a very quiet member, but I have to say in – and also within the marble setting he was quite active from the bench. He was a buttoned-down New Hampshire guy who couldn’t wait to get back to his Yankee home, beat a path out of town, and he’s probably there right now as we speak happily saying goodbye. But he’s a man that was put on the bench in 1990 by the first President Bush. He was supposedly going to be a homerun for conservatives in the famous expression of John Sununu, chief of staff to George Bush, turned out to support abortion rights very vigorously, turned out to support affirmative action, turned out to support gay rights, has quite a legacy in that area as another liberal.

MR. BENDAVID: The justice that I’m really curious about these days is Ruth Bader Ginsburg because she seems to be much more out there. She seems to be talking more and expressing herself, both inside the court and outside.

MS. BISKUPIC: You should have heard her from the bench on Monday, when she dissented aloud in the New Haven’s firefighters’ case. She actually did a nice little jab towards conservatives. She said, “I can understand why the conservative majority might feel some empathy for the white firefighters.” That’s right. But no, she’s been much more outspoken. She’s been outspoken about what has been like to be the only female justice there. I think she really had an impact on her colleagues in the strip search case, where during oral arguments it looked like they were going to rule that the strip search of this 13 year old student was – could be constitutional. In the end, they ruled eight to one that it was not. So I think – she’s quite a force.

MR. BALZ: Since we’re talking about individual justices, let’s talk about the chief justice for a minute. What has this term told us about how he is trying to guide the court?

MS. BISKUPIC: I think he’s still very much in control and he moves the court much more to the right than his predecessor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist. I think that he’s moving both boldly and incrementally, depending on the cases. We saw just a few terms ago, in 2007, pushing much harder in the so-called partial birth abortion case, upholding that kind of a ban, and also to say that we couldn’t have school integration plans nationwide. This time it was much more incremental, but because he needs the five votes. Justice Kennedy didn’t want to go as far this time. But I think Chief Justice John Roberts should be quite pleased with what he’s getting so far.

MS. IFILL: And he’s got a long time to have impact because he is as – the people who agree with him are basically younger than the folks who disagree with him.

MS. BISKUPIC: That’s exactly right, Gwen. He’s only 54, which in Supreme Court years is a very spring chicken. You’ve got at the other end the senior –

MS. IFILL: In the Senate too, actually.

MS. BISKUPIC: – yes, right, right – the senior liberal, John Paul Stevens, is 89.

MS. IFILL: Okay, well, thank you very much. It was a good term. You hung in there. Now you can take a deep breath and get ready for the Sonia Sotomayor hearings.

MS. BISKUPIC: That’s right.

MS. IFILL: Thank you everyone. We have to go now, but the conversation will continue online in the “Washington Week Q&A Webcast.” We have your questions. We’ll give you our answers. You can find us at pbs.org/washingtonweek. On Monday, the president is off again. He’s traveling to Russia, to Italy, and to Ghana. We’ll be keeping track of his travels and other developments on the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” And then, we’ll boil it all down right here next week on “Washington Week.” Have a wonderful Independence Day. Goodnight.

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