The Democrats, Episode 11
Due to various unpleasant tasks that needed attending to, the Mystery Debate Theater team did not convene at Beachwood HQ to observe the Democratic debate in Las Vegas last night, but team members Steve Rhodes and Tim Willette corresponded via e-mail during the proceedings to bring what is surely one of our best episodes – it gets better as it goes along, so stick with it. The transcript, as always, is edited for space, clarity and sanity.
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BRIAN WILLIAMS: As we sit here this, as you may you may know, is the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. Race was one of the issues we expected to discuss here tonight. Our sponsors expected it of us. No one, however, expected it to be quite so prominent in this race as it has been over the last 10 days.
We needn’t go back over all that has happened, except to say that this discussion, before it was over, involved Dr. King, President Johnson, even Sidney Poitier, several members of Congress and a prominent African-American businessman, supporting Senator Clinton, who made what seemed to be a reference to a part of Senator Obama’s teenage past that the senator himself has written about in his autobiography.
The question to begin with here tonight, Senator Clinton, is, how did we get here?
CLINTON: Well, I think that what’s most important is that Senator Obama and I agree completely that, you know, neither race nor gender should be a part of this campaign.
STEVE: Therefore, we’re endorsing John Edwards. It’s a unity ticket.
WILLIAMS: Senator Obama, same question.
OBAMA: Well, I think Hillary said it well.
STEVE: No she didn’t! Stop lying about her record!
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TIM RUSSERT: In terms of accountability, Senator Obama, Senator Clinton on Sunday told me that the Obama campaign had been pushing this storyline. And true enough, your press secretary in South Carolina – four pages of alleged comments made by the Clinton people about the issue of race. In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?
OBAMA: Well, not only in hindsight but going forward.
I think that as Hillary said, our supporters, our staff get overzealous. They start saying things that I would not say.
STEVE: He did say it!
RUSSERT: Do you believe this is a deliberate attempt to marginalize you as the black candidate?
OBAMA: No.
RUSSERT: In New Hampshire your polling was much higher than the actual vote result. Do you believe in the privacy of the voting booth that people used race as an issue?
OBAMA: No. I think what happened was that Senator Clinton ran a good campaign up in New Hampshire.
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, in terms of accountability, you told me on Sunday morning, “Any time anyone has said anything that I thought was out of bounds, they’re gone. I’ve gotten rid of them.” Shortly thereafter, that same afternoon, Robert Johnson, at your event, said, quote, “When Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that – I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book” – widely viewed as a reference to Senator Obama’s Dreams from My Father, from 1995, where he talked about his drug use as a teenager. Will you now not allow Robert Johnson to participate in any of your campaign events because of that conduct?
CLINTON: Well, Bob has put out a statement saying what he was trying to say and what he thought he had said. We accept him on his word on that.
STEVE: Because he’s really, really rich.
RUSSERT: Were his comments out of bounds?
CLINTON: Yes, they were, and he has said that.
STEVE: Which means I just contradicted myself. Because he’s really, really rich.
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NATALIE MORALES: This is a question for Senator Edwards. It comes to us from Margaret Wells from San Diego, California.
Senator, she’s asking, the policy differences among the remaining candidates is so slight that we appear to be choosing on the basis of personality and life story. That being said, why should I, as a progressive woman, not resent being forced to choose between the first viable female candidate and the first viable African American candidate?
STEVE: Choose the first viable plaintiff’s lawyer!
MORALES: And Senator Edwards, as a follow-up to Margaret Wells’ question, what is a white male to do running against these historic candidacies?
STEVE: Suck up to the black guy. It’s still a man’s world, baby!
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WILLIAMS: A question for Senator Obama. You won the women’s vote in Iowa, but Senator Clinton won the women’s vote in New Hampshire; and there probably isn’t an American alive today who hasn’t heard the post-game analysis of New Hampshire, all the reasons the analysts give for Senator Clinton’s victory. Senator Clinton had a moment where she became briefly emotional at a campaign appearance. But another given was at the last televised debate when you, in a comment directed to Senator Clinton, looked down and said, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”
That caused Frank Rich to write, on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, that it was your most inhuman moment to date, and it clearly was a factor and added up. Senator Obama, do you regret the comment and comments like that today?
OBAMA: Well, I absolutely regret it, because that wasn’t how it was intended. I mean, what – folks were giving Hillary a hard time about likability, and my intention was to say, I think you’re plenty likable. And it did not come out the way it was supposed to.
STEVE: Oh, that’s such a lie. Robert Johnson, you’re back in!
WILLIAMS: And one more question about that last televised debate, Senator Edwards. Afterwards Senator Clinton said it was as if you and Senator Obama had formed a buddy system against her. Senator Clinton put out an Internet ad that was entitled “Piling On.” Looking back on it, the campaign for New Hampshire, in total, do you admit that it might have looked that way?
EDWARDS: Might have looked that way or actually was that way? I don’t think it was that way . . . It’s why I’ve never, the whole time I’ve been in public life, taken a dime from a Washington lobbyist or special-interest PAC . . .
STEVE: You know, during my single Senate term financed by my personal wealth.
EDWARDS: We are in Nevada tonight, a place that people come to in the thousands every day to find the promise of America because they believe in it.
STEVE: And they end up losing their nest egg, and that’s what I’m fighting for – looser slots!
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AUDIENCE MEMBER: . . . race-based questions coming from you two? These are race-based questions . . . race-based . . .
STEVE: You can hear some guy yelling from the sportsbook.
TIM: Maybe it’s Kucinich! “Stop the anti-Croatian bias!”
STEVE: Maybe someone finally won at Keno.
TIM: Maybe it’s Gravel: “Stop the robot-based questions!”
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RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, your husband said that Senator Obama very well could be the nominee; he could win. With that in mind, when you say that Senator Obama is raising false hopes and you refuse to say whether he’s ready to be president, what are the consequences of those comments in the fall against the Republican?
CLINTON: Well, Tim, we’re in a hard-fought primary season. I think each of us recognize that.
You know, we’re the survivors of what has been a yearlong campaign, but I certainly have the highest regard for both Senator Obama and Senator Edwards. I’ve worked with them. I have, you know, supported them in their previous runs for office. There’s no doubt that when we have a nominee, we’re going to have a totally unified Democratic Party.
The issue for the voters here in Nevada, South Carolina and then all of the states to come is who is ready on day one to walk into that Oval Office knowing the problems that are going to be there waiting for our next president: a war to end in Iraq; a war to resolve in Afghanistan; an economy that I believe is slipping toward a recession, with the results already being felt here in Nevada with the highest home foreclosure rate in the entire country; 47 million Americans uninsured; an energy policy that is totally wrong for America, for our future.
You know, President Bush is over in Gulf now begging the Saudis and others to drop the price of oil. How pathetic! We should have an energy policy right now putting people to work in green-collar jobs as a way to stave off the recession, moving us toward energy independence.
STEVE: Green-collar jobs?
RUSSERT: You may think you are the best prepared, but would you acknowledge that Senator Obama and Senator Edwards are both prepared to be president?
CLINTON: Well, I think that that’s up to the voters to decide.
STEVE: Actually, I don’t think either of them is prepared to be president but I can’t come out and just say that because I will mindlessly support my party’s nominee even if it’s Stewie Griffin.
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RUSSERT: Senator Obama, you gave an interview to The Reno Gazette-Journal, and you said we all have strengths and weaknesses. You said one of your weaknesses is, quote, “I’m not an operating officer.” Do the American people want someone in the Oval Office who is an operating officer?
OBAMA: Well, I think what I was describing was how I view the presidency.
Now, being president is not making sure that schedules are being run properly or the paperwork is being shuffled effectively. It involves having a vision for where the country needs to go.
STEVE: No it’s not. It’s about being effective. Anyone can have a vision. Hell, I have a vision, and it’s way better than his, I can assure you.
OBAMA: It involves having the capacity to bring together the best people and being able to spark the kind of debate about how we’re going to solve health care, how we’re going to solve energy, how we are going to deliver good jobs with good wages, how we’re going to keep people in their homes here in Nevada, and then being able to mobilize and inspire the American people to get behind that agenda for change.
STEVE: The job isn’t debate-sparker-in-chief.
OBAMA: That’s the kind of a leadership that I’ve shown in the past.
STEVE: Like in Illinois. We all remember that, don’t we?
RUSSERT: You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.
OBAMA: My greatest strength, I think, is . . .
STEVE: . . . my forehand. And, um, my greatest weakness is that I didn’t know how to buy a house without Tony Rezko.
RUSSERT: Senator Edwards?
EDWARDS: I think my greatest strength is that . . .
STEVE: . . . I was born in a mill. And my accent.
EDWARDS: I think weakness – I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me.
STEVE: I feel too deeply!
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton?
STEVE: My greatest weakness is baking cookies.
CLINTON: You know, I do think that being president is the chief executive officer, and I respect what Barack said about setting the vision, setting the tone, bringing people together. But I think you have to be able to manage and run the bureaucracy.
STEVE: Bureaucrat-in-chief is not a winning theme.
OBAMA: [Bush] was very efficient. He was on time all the time and, you know, had – (laughter) – you know, I – I’m sure he never lost a paper. I’m sure he knows where it is. (Laughter.)
What he could not do is to listen to perspectives that didn’t agree with his ideological predispositions. What he could not do is to bring in different people with different perspectives and get them to work together. What he could not do is to manage the effort to make sure that the American people understood that if we’re going to go into war, that there are going to be consequences and there are going to be costs.
I mean, those are – those are the kinds of failures that have to do with judgment, they have to do with vision, the capacity to inspire people. They don’t have to do with whether or not he was managing the bureaucracy properly. That’s not to deny that there has to be strong management skills in the presidency. It is to say that what has been missing is the ability to bring people together, to mobilize the country to move us in a better direction, and to be straight with the American people.
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WILLIAMS: Senator Obama, a fresh question here. It may not come as news to you that there is a lot of false information about you circulating on the Internet. We receive one e-mail in particular usually once several weeks. We’ve received three of them this week. This particular one alleges, among other things, that you are trying to hide the fact that you are Muslim; that you took the oath of office on the Koran and not the Bible; that you will not pledge allegiance to the flag or generally respect it . . .
STEVE: . . . that you endorsed Todd Stroger.
OBAMA: Let’s make clear what the facts are. I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible.
STEVE: Isn’t America great? Any Christian can grow up to be president.
WILLIAMS: At this point, we are going to take the first of exactly three breaks in the two-hour broadcast tonight.
STEVE: Remember to tip your waitresses. And when we come back, we’ll saw each candidate in half.
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“When it’s people who do the right thing, they call it being responsible. When it’s an insurance company that does the right thing, they call it a miracle. Liberty Mutual. Making the fine print bigger – that’s responsible lending.”
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WILLIAMS: Senator Clinton, this evening on NBC Nightly News, our lead story was about the fact that Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have both gone overseas, as some put it hat in hand, looking for $20 billion in investment to stay afloat from, among other things, the government of Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the Saudi Prince al-Waleed, the man – Rudolph Giuliani turned his money back after 9/11.
This strikes a lot of Americans as just plain wrong. At the end of our report, we said this may end up in Congress. What can be done? And does this strike you as fundamentally wrong, that much foreign ownership of these American flagship brands?
TIM: Citigroup – shouldn’t Americans bail them out?
STEVE: Sen. Clinton, you have a checking account with Citigroup. Will you pledge to shut it down and move it to WaMu?
TIM: I’m investing in gold now – the dollar’s a disaster.
CLINTON: You know, about a month and a half or so ago, I raised this concern because these are called sovereign wealth funds. They are huge pools of money, largely because of oil and economic growth in Asia. And these funds are controlled often by governmental entities or individuals who are closely connected to the governments in these countries.
I think we’ve got to know more about them. They need to be more transparent. We need to have a lot more control over what they do and how they do it. I’d like to see the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund begin to impose these rules. And I want the United States Congress and the Federal Reserve Board to ask these tough questions.
But let’s look at how we got here. We got here because, as I said on Wall Street on December 5th, a lot of our big financial institutions, you know, made these bets on these subprime mortgages. They helped to create this meltdown that is happening, that is costing millions of people who live in homes that are being foreclosed on or could be in the very near future because the interest rates are going up. And what they did was to take all these subprime mortgages and conventional mortgages, bundle them up and sell them overseas to big investors. So we’re getting the worst of both worlds.
WILLIAMS: Senator Edwards, I neglected to point out that one of the companies keeping these giant American banks afloat is Kuwait – a nation, an economy arguably afloat itself today, as you know, thanks to the blood, sweat, and tears of American soldiers. What would you do as a remedy?
STEVE: Well, at the hedge fund I worked at . . .
EDWARDS: Well, the things that Senator Clinton just spoke about are correct. We need more transparency; we need to know what’s actually happening. But the fundamental problem is what’s happening at the core of the American economy.
What’s happening to the economy in America, if you look at it from – distance, is we have economic growth in America; we still do. But almost the entirety of that economic growth is with the very wealthiest Americans and the biggest multinational corporations. You ask any middle class family in America, and they will tell you they do not feel financially secure . . .
STEVE: In other words, I have no idea what the senator is talking about so I’m going to pivot to my stump speech.
OBAMA: Number one, part of the reason that Kuwait and others are able to come in and purchase, or at least bail out, some of our financial institutions is because we don’t have an energy policy. And we are sending close to a billion dollars a day.
STEVE: At least that’s what my hedge fund contributors tell me . . .
RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, poor folk, middle-class folks, really feeling the pinch.
Bankruptcies are up 40 percent in one year. Five percent of credit card debts are now delinquent. In 2001 you voted for a bankruptcy bill which was the precursor to the 2005 bankruptcy bill that became law, which made it much tougher for middle-class folks, particularly women, when they became bankrupt. Do you regret that vote?
EDWARDS: I absolutely do. I should not have voted for that bankruptcy law.
STEVE: I absolutely do regret it. Just like my war vote. I regret my whole Senate record. I don’t know what I was thinking.
TIM: The bankruptcy law, the Iraq thing – I was a disaster!
STEVE: Ask him why he voted for the bankruptcy bill. They never ask why.
TIM: I wish I never left the mill.
STEVE: I regret the mill.
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, you voted for the same 2001 bankruptcy bill that Senator Edwards just said he was wrong about. After you did that, the Consumer Federation of America said that your reversal on that bill, voting for it, was the death knell for the opponents of the bill. Do you regret that vote?
CLINTON: Sure, I do. It never became law, as you know. It got tied up. It was a bill that had some things I agreed with and other things I didn’t agree with, and I was happy that it never became law. And I opposed the 2005 bill as well.
But let’s talk about where we are now with bankruptcy.
STEVE: This is about the future, not my past.
CLINTON: We need urgently to have bankruptcy reform in order to get the kind of options available for homeowners
STEVE: They should have Gravel up there. He filed for bankruptcy, he knows what it’s like!
TIM: Russert: “I’m emotionally bankrupt – any ideas?”
RUSSERT: Senator Obama, the 2001 bankruptcy bill, the 2005 bankruptcy bill.
OBAMA: I opposed them both. I think they were bad ideas, because they were pushed by the credit card companies, they were pushed by the mortgage companies, and they put the interests of those banks and financial institutions ahead of the interests of the American people.
STEVE: He left out the part where he voted against the provision that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.
WILLIAMS: We’re going to get some more e-mail questions from Natalie Morales.
STEVE: Here’s one from Countrywide.
TIM: This question comes from a Mr. Size Matters: Is your penis small?
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WILLIAMS: We asked the candidates and their campaigns to come here tonight prepared with two questions, one for each of their opposition candidates. Senator Edwards, I would like to start with you. A question for Senator Obama and a question for Senator Clinton.
EDWARDS: What we know is that all three of us want to do something about health care in this country. We also know that until recently, Senator Clinton had raised more money from drug companies and insurance companies than any candidate, Democrat or Republican, until you passed her, Senator Obama, recently to go to number one.
My question is, do you think these people expect something for this money?
STEVE: Is he referring to his past drug use?
OBAMA: What happens is, if you’ve got a mid-level executive at a drug company or insurance company who is inspired by my message of change, and they send me money, then that’s recorded as money from the drug or the insurance industry, even though it’s not organized, coordinated or in any way subject to the problems that you see when lobbyists are given money.
STEVE: He’s using our material.
CLINTON: I want to ask, Senator Obama, if you will co-sponsor my legislation to try to rein in President Bush so that he doesn’t commit this country to his policy in Iraq, which both of us are committed to end.
OBAMA: Well, I think, you know, we – we can work on this, Hillary, because I – I don’t think – (laughter) – you know, the – we got unity in the Democratic Party, I hope, on this . . .
STEVE: Who’s name goes on the bill first?
TIM: Biden’s.
OBAMA: . . . My first job as president of the United States is going to be to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff . . .
STEVE: And introduce myself.
TIM: Hillary, I ask if you’d co-sponsor a resolution acknowledging that America wants change.
STEVE: I want to ask if either of them grew up in a mill.
TIM: I ask the senators to support a resolution that acknowledges how sorry I am about the bankruptcy bill, the war, etc.
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WILLIAMS: Let’s talk for a moment about Yucca Mountain.
As sure as there’s somebody at a roulette table not far from here convinced that they’re one bet away from winning it all back, every person who comes here running for president promises to end the notion of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
And the people of Nevada have found it’s easier to promise to end it than it is to end it.
Anyone willing to pledge here tonight, beginning with you Senator Obama, to kill the notion of Yucca Mountain?
OBAMA: I will end the notion of Yucca Mountain because it has not been based on the sort of sound science that can assure the people in Nevada that they’re going to be safe.
CLINTON: Well, I voted against Yucca Mountain in 2001. I have been consistently against Yucca Mountain. I held a hearing in the Environment Committee, the first that we’ve had in some time, looking at all the reasons why Yucca Mountain is not workable. The science does not support it. We do have to figure out what to do with nuclear waste.
You know, Barack has one of his biggest supporters in terms of funding, the Exelon Corporation, which has spent millions of dollars trying to make Yucca Mountain the waste depository. John was in favor of it twice when he voted to override President Clinton’s veto and then voted for it again.
I have consistently and persistently been against Yucca Mountain, and I will make sure it does not come into effect when I’m president.
EDWARDS: Well, I’m opposed to Yucca Mountain.
STEVE: I regret those votes!
EDWARDS: I will end it for all the reasons that have already been discussed, because of the science that’s been discovered, because apparently some forgery of documents that’s also been discovered – all of which has happened in recent years.
But I want to go to one other subject . . .
STEVE: Because I’m so cooked on this one.
EDWARDS: . . . on which the three of us differ. And that is the issue of nuclear power.
I’ve heard Senator Obama say he’s open to the possibility of additional nuclear power plants. Senator Clinton said at a debate earlier, standing beside me, that she was agnostic on the subject.
I am not for it or agnostic. I am against building more nuclear power plants, because I do not think we have a safe way to dispose of the waste.
CLINTON: Well, John, you did vote for Yucca Mountain twice, and you didn’t respond to that part of the question.
EDWARDS: I did respond to it. I said the science that has been revealed since that time and the forged documents that have been revealed since that time have made it very – this has been for years, Hillary. This didn’t start last year or three years ago. I’ve said this for years now – have revealed that this thing does not make sense, is not good for the people of Nevada, and it’s not good for America.
Which, by the way, is also why I am opposed to building more nuclear power plants.
RUSSERT: Senator Obama, a difference in this campaign: You voted for the energy bill in July of 2005; Senator Clinton voted against it.
That energy bill was described by numerous publications, quote, “The big winner: nuclear power.” The secretary of energy said this would begin a nuclear renaissance.
We haven’t built a nuclear power plant in this country for 30 years. There are now 17 companies that are planning to build 29 plants based on many of the protections that were provided in that bill, and incentives for licensee construction operating cost.
Did you realize, when you were voting for that energy bill, that it was going to create such a renaissance of nuclear power?
OBAMA: Well, the reason I voted for it was because it was the single largest investment in clean energy – solar, wind, biodiesel – that we had ever seen.
Now, with respect to nuclear energy, what I have said is that if we could figure out a way to provide a cost-efficient, safe way to produce nuclear energy, and we knew how to store it effectively, then we should pursue it because what we don’t want is to produce more greenhouse gases.
STEVE: Well duh! If we could figure out a way to make strychnine safe and cost-efficient we’d all be in favor of that too.
CLINTON: Well, Tim, I think it’s well accepted that the 2005 energy bill was the Dick Cheney lobbyist energy bill. It was written by lobbyists. It was championed by Dick Cheney. It wasn’t just the green light that it gave to more nuclear power. It had enormous giveaways to the oil and gas industries. It was so heavily tilted toward the special interests that many of us, at the time, said, you know, that’s not going to move us on the path we need, which is toward clean, renewable green energy.
So that 2005 energy bill was big step backwards on the path to clean, renewable energy. That’s why I voted against it. That’s why I’m standing for the proposition – let’s take away the giveaways that were given to gas and oil, put them to work on solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels and all the rest that we need for a new energy future.
RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, you say you’re against nuclear power.
But a reality check: I talked to the folks at the MIT Energy Initiative, and they put it this way, that in 2050, the world’s population is going to go from six billion to nine billion, that CO2 is going to double, that you could build a nuclear power plant one per week and it wouldn’t meet the world’s needs.
Something must be done, and it cannot be done just with wind or solar.
EDWARDS: Well, yes, there are a lot of things that need to be done.
STEVE: For example, I need to dodge your question again.
EDWARDS: I agree with her and Senator Obama that it’s very important to break this iron grip that the gas and oil industry has on our energy policy in this country.
But I believe, Senator Clinton, you’ve raised more money from those people than any candidate, Democrat or Republican. I think we have to be able to take those people on if we’re going to actually change our policy.
STEVE: She took their money and voted against them, he voted for them and didn’t take their money! Who’s the idiot?
CLINTON: Well, I have a comprehensive energy plan that I have put forth. It does not rely on nuclear power for all of the reasons that we’ve discussed. I have said we should not be siting any more coal-powered plants unless they can have the most modern, clean technology. And I want big demonstration projects to figure out how we would capture and sequester carbon.
But you know, this is going to take a massive effort. This should be our Apollo moon shot.
WILLIAMS: Senator Obama?
OBAMA: Well, I think that one thing that we haven’t talked as much about that we need to is reducing the consumption of energy. We are inefficient, and oftentimes during the presidential campaign, people have asked, what do we expect out of the American people in bringing about real change.
This is an example of where ordinary citizens have to make a change. We are going to have to make our buildings more efficient. We’re going to have to make our lighting more efficient.
TIM: Yeah, we need flourescent lighting in the home – that way, we’ll hate ourselves like we do in the workplace.
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OBAMA: Sometimes this doesn’t get talked enough about. We have to have our parents take their jobs seriously, and particularly African-American fathers who all too often are absent from the home, have not encouraged the kind of, you know, nurturing of our children that they need.
STEVE: For example, according to his own book his wife once told him, “You only think about yourself . . . I never thought I’d have to raise a family alone.”
OBAMA: And as somebody who grew up without a father, I know how important that is. That is something that, as president, I intend to talk about.
STEVE: There’s talk . . .
CLINTON: I want to commend the 100 Black Men, because I worked with the 100 Black Men in New York to help create the Eagle Academy, a high school for young African-American and Latino men. And the 100 Black Men in New York said they would mentor these young men.
STEVE: . . . and there’s action.
EDWARDS: We need universal pre-K. Barack spoke about early childhood education. We need universal pre-K for every 4-year-old in America. And we ought to go earlier than that with child care, nutrition needs, health care needs.
STEVE: I’m just going to repeat a bunch of pablum here so I can get back into the discussion.
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RUSSERT: The leading cause for death among young black men is guns – death, homicide. Mayor Bloomberg of New York, you all know him, he and 250 mayors have started the campaign, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Senator Clinton, when you ran for the Senate in 2000, you said that everyone who wishes to purchase a gun should have a license, and that every handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry. Will you try to implement such a plan?
CLINTON: Well, I am against illegal guns, and illegal guns are the cause of so much death and injury in our country. I also am a political realist and I understand that the political winds are very powerful against doing enough to try to get guns off the street, get them out of the hands of young people.
I don’t want the federal government preempting states and cities like New York that have very specific problems.
You know, I believe in the Second Amendment. People have a right to bear arms. But I also believe that we can common-sensically approach this.
RUSSERT: But you’ve backed off a national licensing registration plan?
CLINTON: Yes.
STEVE: She said that as if she knows she’s going to be pilloried for it.
RUSSERT: Senator Obama, when you were in the state senate, you talked about licensing and registering gun owners. Would you do that as president?
OBAMA: I don’t think that we can get that done.
STEVE: He just gave her cover.
OBAMA: It is very important for many Americans to be able to hunt, fish, take their kids out, teach them how to shoot.
And then you’ve got the reality of 34 Chicago public school students who get shot down on the streets of Chicago.
We can reconcile those two realities by making sure the Second Amendment is respected and that people are able to lawfully own guns, but that we also start cracking down on the kinds of abuses of firearms that we see on the streets.
STEVE: He just described the status quo.
TIM: The Framers didn’t write that amendment to protect hunters. Either you think firearms ownership is a check against tyranny or you don’t.
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RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, on the conduct of foreign policy, after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, you made a phone call to General Musharraf in Pakistan. He called you back quickly.
Close to half the people in Pakistan believe the government of Musharraf or allies were involved in the assassination of Miss Bhutto.
EDWARDS: Yes.
RUSSERT: Was it appropriate for you to talk to Musharraf at that time, perhaps give him cover at a time when he needed legitimacy?
STEVE: Edwards called Musharraf? What business does he have doing that – he’s a private citizen! What a grandstander.
EDWARDS: It was absolutely appropriate, and I didn’t actually speak – place a call to President Musharraf. I placed a call to the Pakistani ambassador in the United States and told him that I knew Musharraf, we had met in Islamabad years ago and talked about some of the problems in Pakistan at that time and that I had some things I wanted to say to him.
Now, the things I had to say to him were tough. And they were exactly the things that the president of the United States should say to a President Musharraf under these circumstances.
STEVE: So he read some ambassador the riot act? So he could tell us about it on the campaign trail?
EDWARDS: First, I said to him, you have to continue on the march to democratization in South Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, who I was with in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East just a few years ago, I heard her talk about the path to democratization being baptized in blood in Pakistan. She put her life at risk for that path to democratization.
What I said to Musharraf is: You have to stay on that path . . .
STEVE: Wait, so he did talk to Musharraf? And that was the best he could come up with?
EDWARDS: . . . And those are the points I wanted to make to him. And those are exactly the points I would make to him as president of the United States.
STEVE: And I regret that call.
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Beachwood Analysis For the first time, Obama won a debate – though his performance should also reinforce doubts by even his supporters that he is well-prepared to be president and that he has a firm agenda. The substance, as usual, went to Hillary, but she also appeared shifty and petty at times. She clearly has a far more detailed grasp of a wide range of issues, and has a clearer-eyed agenda for what she would do in office and how she would do it, but tonight, perhaps because they were sitting around a table, Obama demonstrated a statesmanlike persona and a more likable style.
John Edwards, on the other hand, should go away now. He has no Senate record to run on, only to repudiate. His rhetoric can be attractive, but offering up chunks of stump speech in a setting like this in place of real answers shows a certain vapidness to his routine.
Dennis Kucinich, sitting at home, had a good night because we wished he was there.
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Catch up on the complete Mystery Debate series, soon out on DVD!
Posted on January 16, 2008