Brit Hume: Dems 'think War on Terror is political scam' RAW STORY

Published: Sunday July 29, 2007





Print This Email This Enjoy this video? Get the Raw Story feed to get vids as they break . Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Mara Liasson, Juan Williams and Fred Barnes faced off on Fox News Sunday and a question from Wallace to Hume about warrantless wiretapping by the Bush Administration spun into an indictment of Sen. Feingold and Democrats for what Hume saw as their not taking the "War on Terror" seriously. Williams comes to the Democrats' defense but is quickly hollered down by an emphatic Mr. Barnes, who implies that Democrats are supporting suspected terrorists while wasting time on other issues, such as "holding all-night Senate sessions" on the Iraq war. Barnes speaks highly of "interrogation techniques," but not of habeas corpus. Ms. Liasson, while seated at the table, gives up on trying to make a contribution. The following video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast on July 29. # TRANSCRIPT: WALLACE: --Director of National Intelligence said: At this point, we have great difficulties intercepting conversations between a foreign terrorist in one foreign country and another foreign terrorist in another foreign country because of the fact that it might go in a fiber optic cable through this country. Democrats, including Feingold, say this is a power grab, that in fact it's like the PATRIOT Act; they want to have a wholesale rewriting of our civil liberties. Brit? HUME: Well, first of all, the question that Sen. Feingold didn't answer was the one you put to him, and that is if they don't like the "kitchen sink" as they call it, that the administration is offering, along with this proposal to fix this particular problem, then all they need to do is just pass the simple fix. There's been no good answer as to why that hasn't happened. My guess is that it will, but the answer from Anna Eschew in that hearing was instructive as well. In other words, not "Oh my God, we really do need to fix this;" no, she was lamenting the fact that she thought the administration was trying to scare the American people, which is--make no mistake about it--this is what a lot of Democrats and those who support them think. They think the war on terror is some kind of a political scam which the administration is using to try to undermine civil liberties and expand the power of the executive branch of the government. They do not treat it particularly seriously. WALLACE: Juan? WILLIAMS: This is unbelievable to me. Wait a minute. When you say it's likely to be passed, why doesn't the administration therefore then suggest "Let's just fix exactly this issue. Let's not put--addition?" (Crosstalk) And let me just say one other thing-- HUME: --Excuse me, Juan, that's exactly what McConnell was proposing. WILLIAMS: No. McConnell and the administration have a great deal more to say, Brit, and they're interested in advancing the idea that you don't have to go before the FISA court in order to get the warrant; that you can do things and get retroactive approval. But here's the larger point about being scared: Who is it, you know, Republicans or Democrats, that didn't properly arm this force to go out and fight this war? That didn't put enough boots on the ground to get the job done early? Who is it that confused the mission? Then you say, "Oh no, it's somehow Democrats who are running scared." To the contrary, Democrats this week put in place money to protect the homeland and make it tougher for terrorists to crack our defenses here at home. I don't see how you can say it's anything but scaremongering and puppeting propaganda to say "Oh no, it's the Democrats, those bad guys." BARNES: Well, they are in charge, you know, now, they are in charge. I mean, they can do whatever--they can write whatever bill they want. They don't have to listen to Mike McConnell or President Bush on this question of this wireless surveillance. They can do this FISA thing. And when you look at the more recent record it may be true, although I didn't realize you were one, back when the war started, who was calling for more troops. I thought you were against the war, now you say there were more troops, but look--(Crosstalk)--Here's what Democrats want: 1) They've sat on this request by the administration for six months while they were spending a lot of time holding all-night Senate sessions and and going after [Attorney General] Gonzales and all this stuff. They want to ban a lot of this wireless surveillance--I mean, certainly Sen. Feingold does, because he's called it unconstitutional and using it "impeachable" and so on. They want to shut down Guantanamo. They want to give all those terrorists the rights that a guy arrested for drunken driving in the United States would have, including habeas corpus. You know, thirty of them from Guantanamo have been released, gone back into terrorism, been arrested or killed again, and they want to soften all the interrogation techniques, particularly the ones that have worked so well... #



