Transcript of Hardball with Chris Matthews, April 30, 2007

Guests John Harris, Lois Romano, Tony Blankley, Howard Fineman, Ron Reagan, and Russell Simmons join host Chris Matthews

Transcript:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: The countdown. Three days from now, the Republican presidential candidates meet to debate. The setting couldn‘t be better, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. Let‘s get our scorecards ready. Let‘s get ready for the Republicans to play HARDBALL.

Good evening. I‘m Chris Matthews. Welcome to HARDBALL. The man trusted with keeping the country‘s secrets is now spilling them in a revealing memoir. Former CIA director George Tenet, who was a Bush loyalist, is now lashing out at his administration, saying that Iraq was on the White House‘s agenda from the start and that no one at the White House ever asked him, George Tenet, the CIA director, if we should go to war with Iraq.

Why didn‘t Tenet speak out when he was at the CIA? Is this another case of, Don‘t blame me for the war? Is he trying to absolve himself from the war in Iraq? In a minute, NBC‘s Tom Brokaw‘s interview with George Tenet on the “Today” show this morning.

Plus, this Thursday is the MSNBC/Politico.com Reagan Library GOP presidential debate. I‘ll be moderating it, and MSNBC will broadcast it live beginning at 8:00 PM Eastern. That‘s this Thursday.

Let‘s take a look at Tom Brokaw‘s interview now with former CIA director George Tenet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM BROKAW, FORMER NBC ANCHOR: You had Condi Rice ignoring your warnings, Vice President Cheney exaggerating the threats repeatedly, Don Rumsfeld and the Pentagon running what effectively was a rogue CIA, his own intelligence operation. And you didn‘t threaten to resign then.

GEORGE TENET, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Well, Tom, I don‘t know that I agree with the premise of everything in your question, but let me say this.

I had a job to do. We had a war on terrorism. We had conflict in Iraq. I

I thought I could best serve my country by continuing to do my job every day. A director of central intelligence is agnostic on policy because we have to become objective and give them the best data possible, and I thought it was best to serve my country by staying in my job.

BROKAW: But if the country was not getting the true story, which it‘s fairly clear from your book that it was not, that the vice president had one clear view of what was necessary in Iraq, that the Defense Department had its own intelligence operation going on, and Condoleezza Rice was not responding with alacrity to your warnings, very clear warnings in July of 2001 that an attack was imminent, doesn‘t the country deserve to know that?

TENET: Well, Tom, I chose to do my job in a way where you stay inside the system, you do your best, you push your objective analysis, you make people aware of what you believe to be true. While people think, Well, why are you talking now? Why have you been silent so long? I certainly wasn‘t silent within the purview of my job and in the councils of the administration in terms of what we said and how we said it.

BROKAW: There‘s an anecdote in your book. In August, 2001, just before 9/11, you went out to Crawford, Texas, to make sure the president was seeing all that he should be seeing, given the warnings and the briefings that had been coming from the CIA. You ride around the ranch in his pickup and talk, as you describe it, about the flora and the fauna. Did he ever stop the pickup and turn to you and say, Mr. Director, what is going on here? What do we have to worry about?

TENET: Well, Tom, throughout that summer, we had those kinds of conversations with the president. The irony is, is that by the end of July, the intelligence went fairly silent. We weren‘t seeing the same kind of eruptive threat reporting we had been seeing May, June, July, August. So in that time period, we were in a quiescent time period.

The president is the one, in concert with our own work, when he was apprised of the imminence of what we were predicting, asked a very important question. Is it possible that they‘re coming here? That was the result of an August 6 President‘s Daily Brief that said he is determined to strike inside the United States, a strategic warning, not a tactical warning. So August was a quiet period.

BROKAW: But at the end of July, one of your very best people within the agency has said they are coming here.

TENET: Tom, it was eerily quiet that day, as we had just exhausted the list of threats we were dealing with, and I suspect he was ruminating and said, They‘re coming here, and he turns out to be quite prescient.

BROKAW: You were with Colin Powell when he went to the United Nations, the centerpiece of the administration‘s attempt to sell this country on the war. You were sitting behind him when he made that presentation. Was there ever a moment that day when you thought to yourself, We‘re way out on a limb here?

TENET: No, there wasn‘t. Subsequently, of course, we learned that much of what we gave the secretary to say had turned out not to be accurate. And I‘ll say it‘s an awful thing to reflect on. The secretary of state represents the United States of America, and we did not help him and we did not help ourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, that was Tom Brokaw, of course, interviewing former CIA director George Tenet this morning.

HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster is here with me right now. You know, the latest—let‘s put this interview in perspective. The latest NBC/”Wall Street Journal” poll showed that 55 percent, a clear majority, don‘t think victory is achievable in Iraq. Is this all covering their butts? Is this—everybody‘s got a book out now saying, I didn‘t do it.

DAVID SHUSTER, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, you‘ve got George Tenet has already been asked by six former CIA officials to return the Medal of Freedom that he was given. He‘s been asked to take his $4 million that he got in advance for a book deal and give it to Iraqi veterans who‘ve been wounded. I mean, this is an administration...

MATTHEWS: Are we going to hear from Cheney next? Is Cheney going to say, I wasn‘t part of this thing? Let‘s take a look at—here‘s Rumsfeld. This is an interesting pattern, how these people are peeling off right now. Three years ago, I asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if he ever advised President Bush to go war in Iraq. A fascinating exchange followed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Did you advise the president to go to war?

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: He did not ask me the question.

And to my knowledge, there are any number of people he did not ask...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Did that surprise you, as secretary of defense?

RUMSFELD: Well, I thought it was interesting. He clearly asked us, Could we win? And I said, obviously, that the military are sure that they can prevail in that conflict in terms of the—changing the regime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Tenet was asked—George Tenet—last night on CBS‘s “60 Minutes” if the White House ever asked him on whether or not we should go to war in Iraq. Let‘s take a look at that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did anyone at the White House, did anyone in the Defense Department ever ask you whether we should go to war in Iraq?

TENET: The discussions that are ongoing in 2002, in the spring and summer of 2002, are how you might do this, not whether you should do this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody asks?

TENET: Well, I don‘t remember sitting down at a principals committee meeting and everybody saying, OK, there‘s a deep concern about Iraq. Is this the right thing to do? What are the implications? I don‘t ever remember that galvanizing moment when people sit around and honestly say, Is this the right thing to do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: So here we are with history being made, or at least being reported from the people inside for the first time. Rumsfeld said he was never asked. Tenet now says he was never asked if we should go to war. But Tenet also says in this book, which I think is the big story, that Cheney came to office determined to attack Iraq. It had nothing to do with 9/11. He was going to do—nothing to do with WMD, nuclear, all that stuff. That just came out later to make the case.

So that gets Tenet off the hook, in a sense. But it‘s also making the case against Cheney, that Cheney came out and said there was a nuclear reasoning to and all these other reasons, when, in fact, he already had his reason. Cheney wasn‘t telling us that it was on his agenda, at least according to Tenet here.

SHUSTER: Right. And one of the things that‘s so intriguing about this book, Chris, is in it, Tenet talks about how—that the weapons of mass destruction case—that was just the public face of the war. He suggested that everybody within the administration seemed to know that the largely unarticulated view about spreading democracy in the Middle East, that was what was driving Vice President Cheney.

MATTHEWS: Right. That‘s the neoconservative point of view. It wasn‘t what they sold to the public, in fact, if you listened very attentively during this case for the war. And by the way, the American people were very hard to sell on this. About half the people went along with it eventually. But they went along with it, smart people, because they feared that this guy had a nuclear weapon he could use against us. It wasn‘t about Middle East politics. And that was what Cheney sold so successfully on programs like “Meet the Press.”

SHUSTER: Right. And that‘s where the controversy comes in because as Tenet is suggesting, look, it wasn‘t the weapons of mass destruction case that was the reason for the war. He was out there allowing Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby, the president, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser, to talk about the mushroom cloud. And the criticism now of Tenet is that by his silence, by his working within the channels, within the administration...

MATTHEWS: The guy‘s sitting behind Colin Powell at the U.N. while a lot of the middle-of-the-road people who decide everything in this country the middle road decides it—the middle road said, You know, if Colin Powell, who we trust, one of the great men of our time, believes in the WMD case, and there‘s George Tenet, the CIA director, sitting right behind him, backing him up, there must be a WMD case. The vice president of the United States, who has an avuncular style, he comes on and says, “Meet the Press,” they got a nuclear weapon they‘re working on. We say—the middle-of-the-road people—not me, of course, but the middle-of-the-road people said—because I was always skeptical of this crowd. But let‘s go on.

SHUSTER: Well, and the language was always one of certainty. You always had Vice President Cheney saying “we know.” You have Donald Rumsfeld saying “we know.” You have the president saying the evidence is clear, “we know.”

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I wish somebody would write a book and tell me when President Bush, who‘s not an ideologue, why he went along with this war, with the neocons, with Tenet, with all the rest of them. I‘ve never heard that really good account. Have you?

SHUSTER: No, but...

MATTHEWS: We don‘t know why he took us to war. We know Cheney wanted to go from day one, according to Tenet.

SHUSTER: No, but what you pick up, Chris, especially with Tenet, is you pick up that there were series of people like George Tenet who were enablers. For whatever reason, the president wanted to go to war, there was George Tenet, the head of the CIA, providing information, allowing the president to make his case and saying, You know what? I‘m going to be the team player. Even though he now says he personally felt that the wrong case was being made, that the evidence didn‘t support what the administration was saying, he enabled the president through his silence, and that‘s where the criticism is coming in.

MATTHEWS: You know, I‘m skeptical of ideology all the time. Anyway, thank you, David Shuster. Thank you. George Tenet will be our guest next Monday on HARDBALL.

Coming up: Tony Snow returns to work at the White House. David Gregory interviewed him today, and he‘s going to join us to give us that interview.

And this Thursday, by the way, again, the first-in-the-country Republican debate. The 10 GOP presidential candidates meet at the Reagan Presidential Library in California. I‘ll moderate live at 8:00 PM Eastern. And you can see it right here only on MSNBC and our on-line partner, Politico.com.

You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Today was Tony Snow‘s first day back at work at the White House as press secretary to the president after recovering from cancer surgery. And with a veto showdown looming over the Iraq war spending bill, he‘s returning to a full workload, obviously.

NBC White House correspondent David Gregory interviewed Snow upon his return today—David.

DAVID GREGORY, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Chris, interesting day here, an emotional one at the White House. You‘re right, Tony Snow‘s return got a full round of applause in the press room, an unusual reaction for a press secretary, especially when times are as intense as they are. But it got one because Tony Snow has gone through a lot and faces an uncertain future. He‘s back before his chemotherapy starts for his new bout with colon cancer, cancer cells also attached to his liver. So the future is uncertain. The treatment starts, but he got a good reception today.

We did have a chance to talk a little bit later in the day, and I started by asking him what I think is an awkward question for people when they encounter somebody with cancer, and that‘s the very simple question of, “How are you?”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I‘m doing fine. You know, it‘s funny, it shouldn‘t be that awkward. One of the things I‘ve learned the last couple years is people get so scared when they hear the word cancer that they immediately let fears dominate them and they let their imaginations run wild.

You know, as you know, I lost my mom to cancer when I was a kid. She didn‘t really stand a chance, but now you‘ve got amazing research that is moving at incredible speed. So a lot of conditions that weren‘t treatable years ago are now curable, or people are racing toward cures. So you see more and more people—Elizabeth Edwards is one of them, who‘s out leading a full life while getting cancer treatment. And it‘s possible now to do that sort of thing.

GREGORY: I remember talking to you before you took this job. And one of the things that you really hit home was, Look, I‘m going to get a clean bill of health...

SNOW: Yes.

GREGORY: ... before I take this job at the White House.

SNOW: Yes.

GREGORY: And you got that.

SNOW: Yes. You know, it‘s interesting that—I did. And even before I went in for this surgery five weeks ago, it was pretty much anticipated that I was clean. The problem you have is that some of the very best diagnostic stuff you have is still fairly imprecise, so there are some things that you can‘t see. I mean, my PET scan was clean. My CAT scan was clean. My blood work was good. And I‘m really glad that we decided to go ahead and be aggressive. We had what we thought might have been an enlarged lymph node, and lo and behold, it was a cancer.

Having said that, you go back now and ask, OK, so what‘s a clean bill of health? Are you going to be able to do your job? And the answer is yes. One of the interesting things I‘ve learned just in the last five weeks is how many people are walking around now who have cancer, who are getting regular treatments, and who are doing what I‘m hoping we‘re going to be able to do, which is to knock this into remission and then basically do regular treatment to make sure we keep it there.

GREGORY: It‘s a pretty intense time for this administration. What was it like sitting on the sidelines with all this going on?

SNOW: I was spending more of my time—I was watching, but I was sort of distanced from it in the sense that I would (INAUDIBLE) my Blackberry and read the news every day. But for me, the last four weeks, really, since I came back from the hospital, I‘ve been driving the kids to school, picking them up from school. And it‘s been, in many senses, a wonderful time. I‘ve written a magazine article. Somebody asked me to write one about my faith, and I did that. I‘ll be doing a commencement address coming up, and I‘ve worked on that a little bit.

You know, it‘s a time to think about the things that are really important for you. And in some ways, it was stimulating to do that.

The other thing is, I was really proud of the staff. I mean, Dana Perino is just great, and so were all the other people in the press office. And they all pulled together and they didn‘t miss a beat. They didn‘t need me. I think I need them more than they need me.

GREGORY: What was the president‘s reaction like, and what kind of communication did you have with him over the last...

SNOW: He—at the very—I mean, he called right away. And for the first couple of days, was calling and wanted—he encouraged me to call him as often as possible. But on the other hand, I thought, you know, You‘re busy. And so it was really nice. It‘s the kind of—he knows how to handle these things. He was very friendly. He wanted to know how I was doing, offered any support, said, you know, If you want to be phone buddies, we‘ll be phone buddies. And that‘s all I needed. I didn‘t need to take his time, but it was wonderful and nice.

And again, people may not realize, it doesn‘t take much just to give somebody that little extra bit of strength and happiness, a little phone call, an e-mail. And people did that. So it was nice hearing from him.

GREGORY: What matters to you most now?

SNOW: Same things that always have, my family and my faith, you know, trying to live—what I‘ve always told my kids is, I want you to be good. And I think, ultimately—well, no, something has changed a little bit in that there‘s more of a determination on my part to do things of service. I mean, I‘m really lucky. I‘ve got a platform. I‘ve got some experience, so I can help people. And so that is something—I talked to people before about doing that after I left the White House. It‘s even stronger. I don‘t know what I‘m going to do. I don‘t know quite how to do it. But you got a chance to do something that‘s good for people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: I was struck today, Chris, talking to Tony—obviously, a lot of people focus on reporters like me, who have tough exchanges with him in the briefing room, but this is really a day to step back and focus on some bigger issues that he‘s got to deal with. He‘s got three young kids, oldest of which is 14. And he‘s in a mode now, day in and day out, with his wife, leveling with these kids about what he‘s going through, the ups and the downs. And they are at an age where, you know, they‘re really going to conflicted by it. And so no follow-up necessary on all of that, just a lot of support for him.

MATTHEWS: Isn‘t it amazing, David, how the cynicism of our lives slips away...

GREGORY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: ... and we all sound like cornballs when we‘re telling the truth about life.

(LAUGHTER)

GREGORY: Right.

MATTHEWS: I mean, the best of life is corny in a way, to use an old expression, and he talks like that.

Let me ask you about the big story developing. Is there a chance for the Democrats who run the Congress now, our legislature, who‘ve declared they want to end this war, and the president—can they reach an agreement on this war?

GREGORY: Well, you hear within the White House and talking to Republicans outside, as well, that there is a bit of theater that has to play out here. They have to pass this supplemental with the deadline. The president feels he has to veto it. And certainly, Democrats need this for their own party‘s base. The president has his base of support behind him for the veto. And then they get down to any kind of real negotiation.

The president is not going to give in, in the sense that he is not going to allow a deadline for troop withdrawal. But he has said all along privately that the kind of pressure the Democrats are putting on, in some way, helps him...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

GREGORY: ... because it helps him keep the pressure on the Maliki government to do more. Now, whether that bears fruit is anyone‘s guess at this point. And there‘s a lot of pessimists out there.

My sense is that they want to get to a place where there can at least be the articulation of some goals for the withdrawal of troops, or benchmarks, which has become the new kind of term that‘s been coined here...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I like goals better.

GREGORY: Right.

MATTHEWS: I think goals is great, because, if this country can reach a consensus on how many years we are going to put into that war...

GREGORY: Right.

MATTHEWS: ... what we are going to really try to achieve before we leave, I think the country could get united again, if—if they all agree to something, it seems to me.

GREGORY: Right.

And I think—I think there—there is room for that. But, obviously, things have gotten bad enough publicly, that that‘s going to be a difficult goal to meet, just in terms of getting that deal. But I think that that‘s where the—that‘s where the room is on the White House side.

MATTHEWS: Hey, thank you very much, David Gregory.

GREGORY: Sure.

MATTHEWS: Great interview.

Up next: The Republican presidential candidates debate this Thursday. We‘re three days and counting here. And, when we return, how can you get involved in this debate? This is going to be interactive.

You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

This Thursday, the Republican presidential candidates will join MSNBC and Politico.com for the first GOP presidential debate of 2008. You‘re going to get to see them answer important questions, the candidates, and you will get to gauge for themselves what you think of these people.

Here now to talk about the big debate, John Harris, editor of ThePolitico.com.

John, I keep looking at the polls. I am always impressed by the fact that Rudy Giuliani keeps doing well in the polls. Everybody says, oh, Bernie Kerik is going to kill him, that suggestion to make him Homeland Security—or the fact that he‘s been married three times is going to kill him, or that he is pro-choice is going to kill him.

And, the more people say, that is going to kill him, this is going to kill him, his numbers keep going up. How do you figure this race?

JOHN HARRIS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, POLITICO.COM: That‘s right. It‘s been going on...

MATTHEWS: Hmm?

HARRIS: Look, it‘s been going on for three, four months now. The conventional wisdom is saying, look, this—these numbers aren‘t real, as you point out. But they stay pretty high.

The gap has narrowed a little bit in some of these polls. But, unambiguously, in the polls, he is the front-runner. I imagine, on Thursday, at the—at this Reagan Library debate, we are going to see the other candidates treating him like a front-runner. That means they are going to be taking shots.

MATTHEWS: Do you think that John McCain—well, I like to ask questions I think I know the answer to—is John McCain, who has been slipping a bit, but has come back roaring hard last week, taking shots already at—at Mitt Romney, on the—bin Laden, the importance of catching bin Laden, taking shots of Rudy Giuliani on the New York police and firemen not being on the same frequency, do you expect him to do a little free-firing on Thursday night?

HARRIS: I think he wants to show that, look, he is the most commanding figure in this race. He wants to prove that he is now what we all thought he was three, four months ago, sort of the almost prohibitive favorite in this race, by saying: Look, I had a bad spring—or bad winter, but now here is the spring. And I‘m ready to show that I‘m the class of this field.

MATTHEWS: How do people get involved in this? This debate, I think, will be the first time that, in real time, someone watching MSNBC or plugged into the computer and watching Politico—how do they get into this, and say, if they have got a brilliant question—let‘s assume they got the perfect question. How do they get that to you and to us?

HARRIS: Yes, what a softball question, Chris. This is not HARDBALL with this question.

MATTHEWS: I know. I—but somebody just asked me...

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Thank you for asking. Thank you for asking, Mr. Matthews.

MATTHEWS: Do you want—you want to know the honest answer, in the interest of candor?

HARRIS: Oh, we...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Somebody just told me to ask that question in my ear, OK?

It wouldn‘t naturally come to mind. Go ahead, John.

HARRIS: I knew this did not sound like you. This does not sound like a classic Matthews question.

MATTHEWS: I know.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: I appreciate your asking it.

If people go to Politico.com, www.Politico.com, they can send us suggested questions. We are going to let audience—the audience vote on these questions. And we‘re committed, in our interactive round on this debate on Thursday, to asking the questions that viewers want us to ask in three distinct segments within that 90-minute debate.

MATTHEWS: How many do you expect to get through by the end of the hour-and-a-half? How many live questions from live audience people do you expect they will get on the table? Ten? Five?

HARRIS: Well, the—yes. No, I think we will get—we will get 20 30, we hope, by the end of it.

MATTHEWS: Really?

HARRIS: These will be quick questions, no filibusters in these questions. This is—some people call it the lightning round, 30 seconds to answer. So, these are going to be quick questions. We‘re going to try to get as much in as we can.

MATTHEWS: Who is your momma, that kind of question?

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: Exactly so.

MATTHEWS: I‘m waiting to see what the censure board is going to come up with, because...

HARRIS: Specificity.

MATTHEWS: ... it‘s interesting. A lot of people who are partisan, as you know, John, will be calling in...

HARRIS: Right.

MATTHEWS: ... hot questions for their rivals, the candidate they don‘t want to see do well. So, it will be interesting to see how this gets competitive from the various candidates‘ corners, don‘t you think?

HARRIS: I suppose, yes. And—but the—it‘s not just who sends the questions. It‘s who votes on them, because we will—are going to be tallying the response to these.

We have had several thousand questions so far, and they are quite good. Some of these—these reader questions, whether they are from ordinary folks or maybe from the opposition research teams with the candidates, they are—they are dead on, some very good questions waiting for us on Thursday.

MATTHEWS: How are we going to know who won this debate? Do we wait to read the AP, “The New York Times” the next day?

Jack Germond is in semi-retirement. How do we...

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: And David Broder might tell us. How do we know—does the great mentioner have to tell us who won, or what?

HARRIS: You know, what I have noticed in these debates is, there is almost immediately kind of a vague, tentative sense that somebody did not so well, somebody did—did a little better.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

HARRIS: And, then, within 24 hours, that gets amplified.

So, it was a knockout for...

MATTHEWS: Right.

HARRIS: ... for Smith, and Jones flopped.

We see the—these early very sort of slight judgments...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

HARRIS: ... become really dramatic in the space of a couple of news cycles.

MATTHEWS: I have always figured the safe way to do this, as a journalist—or a pundit—is to go walking through the—in front of the print people, the newspaper people, and just sort of walk around there right afterwards, and listen very intently...

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: ... to the huddles, and see if you can get the word on who won.

Hillary Clinton, I guess, won the Democrats.

We will be right back with John Harris. He is staying with us.

And, when we return, we will talk about which of the Republican candidates will make the biggest splash Thursday night. There‘s a prediction. Will there be a splash?

You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TRISH REGAN, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: Hello. I‘m Trish Regan with your CNBC “Market Wrap.”

And three straight days of record closings end on Wall Street—the Dow losing 58 points today, to close at 13062. Analysts say investors sold off stocks for profit-taking. For the month of April, the blue chips index gained a healthy 708 points. The S&P 500 today lost nearly 12 points, to close at 1482. And the Nasdaq ended the day off 32 points lower, to the 2525 level.

Well, American workers racked up a seventh straight month of income growth in the month of March, income up seven-tenths-of-a-percent. However, consumer spending did slow.

Delta Air Lines comes out of bankruptcy after 19 months. Delta eliminated 6,000 jobs during the $3 billion restructuring.

And it may be finger-licking good, but it‘s healthier, too. Yum!

Brands-owned KFC says it‘s no longer using trans fats to cook its chicken. Yum!‘s Taco Bell chain has also gone mostly trans fat-free—now back to HARDBALL.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

This Thursday, the Republican candidates for president will debate each other, all together for the first time, 10 of them. I will be moderating the big debate at the Reagan Library, beautiful place. You are going to see it Thursday night out in California at Simi Valley.

Here now to size up the field, it‘s very—very—we should be wearing blazers here...

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: ... the challenges, the expectations, are John Harris of “The Politico.” He‘s just been with us. Our debate partners, Lois Romano, of course, of “The Washington Post,” is joining us, and Howard Fineman, of course, of “Newsweek” and our own effort here.

Let me ask you, Howard, do you think—this is the question. Will they embrace the president? Will the people who seek to succeed him as president, the Republicans, will they be Bush supporters, or will they begin to what we call in politics become trimmers?

HOWARD FINEMAN, NBC CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, embrace might be a little strong, because, if the numbers are like they were for the Democratic debate, there are going to be lots of people watching, not all of them dyed-in-the-wool, hard-core base Republicans.

MATTHEWS: So, they will be looking for the general election independent?

FINEMAN: They are going to be looking for the general election independent.

This is not the place—your debate will not be the place to speak only or solely to a room of 50 hard-core Republican base supporters.

MATTHEWS: Lois, do you think they will all be trooping in line, trying to show their party loyalty by showing Bush loyalty? Or how do you think they are going to nuance this thing?

LOIS ROMANO, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: I—I—well, I think, obviously, they—they have to play a little bit to the base, because they need to win the nomination first.

But they are facing an extremely unpopular war. So, they have to thread a very narrow needle on how they want to deal with the war, and still, you know, basically embrace Bush a little bit. I mean, I think what you‘re going to hear them saying is, we don‘t think this is a good war, but we don‘t think we should surrender.

MATTHEWS: John, what‘s your thinking? Are they going to hew to the Bush line, or are they going to try to show some distance, in a way, say, for example, without being cruel about it, George Bush Sr., the first President Bush, was able to run in 1988 and win sort of as a Reagan third term. But, also, he said, I‘m going to be kinder and gentler, a little nuance from the hard line of Reagan.

Do you think that they will try something like that, along that line?

HARRIS: You know, I‘m guessing what they will say is: Look, I don‘t want to get in an argument about the last eight years. I‘m talking about the next four years, the next eight years. So, it is going to really be up to—to us to frame questions that don‘t allow them to hedge like that.

Where do they stand on many of the key Bush issues and key Bush decisions?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

HARRIS: Do they agree, or would they do things differently?

MATTHEWS: Well, that won‘t be so hard, it seems, with some of the outlying candidates.

Let‘s talk about some of the candidates, Lois, who may not be in the top of the list right now: Ron Paul, a libertarian U.S. congressman from Texas for years now who has been involved in Republican politics and sometimes in independent politics. You have got Tom Tancredo, very tough on the border, very anti-illegal immigration.

Some of these people—Brownback—have their own approaches to the war in Iraq that aren‘t necessarily the party line so far. Will they be the ones taking shots at the front-runners?

ROMANO: I think so. I think you will see Ron Paul develop as the Kucinich of this group. He is very anti-war. And—and he will do that.

And then you will see Tom—you know, from Colorado...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Tancredo, yes.

ROMANO: Tancredo, right.

ROMANO: He is going to after them on immigration. I mean, that‘s his

his big thing, border control. He is probably going to go after McCain for flip-flopping a little bit or hark back to McCain‘s alliance with Ted Kennedy. We probably will hear the big Kennedy name there.

So, I think—I think—yes, I think they will try to show that—and Brownback also—that they are individuals; they are different. And I think, for Brownback, he is going to basically try to carve out a little bit of the base for himself. I mean, he believes that there is still some room in this whole big group of 10 for somebody with really core conservative values.

MATTHEWS: Yes, well, I think that‘s very true, because there isn‘t really a—quote—“easy conservative sell” out there. A lot of these people have mixed records.

Let me go to Howard.

It seems to me that there are some opening here for these folks. You can go after Giuliani, because he is pro-choice, and says so. He is for funding of abortion for poor people. I mean, they could go after him on that, right?

They could go after—they could go after Mitt Romney for his record as a more moderate, or more liberal, even more tolerant, governor of Massachusetts than most conservatives are on issues like gay rights and abortion rights.

FINEMAN: Well, I think they could, and—but I‘m not sure that they will, unless you ask them the questions that require them to.

The reason is that nobody is so far ahead in this...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You mean I have to play hardball?

FINEMAN: Yes, you have to play hardball.

MATTHEWS: OK. I‘m just asking.

FINEMAN: But nobody is so far ahead in this race that the others on the Republican side, that the Republicans have to gang up on them and drag them down be—lest—lest they run away with it.

MATTHEWS: OK. Let me challenge you, Howard.

FINEMAN: OK.

MATTHEWS: Let‘s have a debate here.

FINEMAN: OK.

MATTHEWS: Giuliani is at 39 percent in our poll, the NBC poll, which is godlike here.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: OK? We—we like that...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: ... “The Wall Street Journal” poll.

McCain is at 24.

FINEMAN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: He slipped a bit, but he is still way ahead of—Romney is at 12. Now, he has broken into double digits. That‘s interesting.

The people who say none of the above or haven‘t figured out are only 11 percent.

FINEMAN: Mm-hmm.

MATTHEWS: A lot of these people—John Harris, you pick up—these people have become committed already. It seems like, even though it‘s way early, there are not that many undecideds floating out there.

HARRIS: Well, I would guess that some of that support is fluid. And, so, there are going to be people watching this debate. These are tentative judgments that people have made, getting behind these candidates.

MATTHEWS: Right.

HARRIS: They are not final judgments. But that‘s why events like this are important.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I just wonder whether we‘re going to see a real fight between the backbenchers and the leaders tomorrow—Thursday night.

FINEMAN: Well, it‘s—you know, the 39 percent for Rudy is impressive in such a large field—large field. I grant you that.

And maybe one way that you impress the base is by attacking Rudy on some of those issues. So, that could happen. I agree with you that could happen.

But it‘s not like he is running away with the thing right now. The feel of it out there is that he is dropping back into the pack just a little bit, and there is plenty of time to take him down.

MATTHEWS: Who would you bet now?

FINEMAN: Plenty of time to take him down.

MATTHEWS: Who can you bet on now that might come from the back, somebody who is a—a comer? Who can come from the back and break into the top three, make it a top four?

FINEMAN: Well, I hate to mention any of the people who aren‘t going to be on the stage on Thursday night, but you still have at least three more candidates who could get in this thing—Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, and I still think Chuck Hagel, who is the really anti-war candidate.

MATTHEWS: He would shake things up.

FINEMAN: He would shake things up enormously. It‘s only May of the year before.

MATTHEWS: Let me give you a reason. Not that I want to bring an extra added attraction beyond what we can present Thursday night. But the latest polling in Iowa, the first in the nation test, says that 50 some percent of Republicans, who are going to vote in that caucus, think we should be out of Iraq in six months. They are more in tune with Hagel than the others.

FINEMAN: There has to be somebody other than Ron Paul, with all due respect to Ron Paul, to pick up that standard.

MATTHEWS: As they once said in an old Walt Disney movie, it‘s what you do with what you got that counts. Anyway, thank you John Harris. Thank you Lois Romano. Thank you Howard Fineman. Remember that one; what you do with what you got that counts.

Anyway, up next, which Republican candidate best carries the mantle of President Ronald Reagan? That‘s a question for us this Thursday night. HARDBALLers Tony Blankley and Ron Reagan join us next. This is HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. The president is digging in, saying he will veto a war funding bill with a timetable for getting U.S. troops out of Iraq. How will the 10 Republicans who want to be the next president deal with an unpopular war as they debate each other for the first time this Thursday here on MSNBC? And how much distance will they put between themselves and the president, if any?

For a preview, let‘s go to HARDBALLers MSNBC political analyst Ron Reagan and Tony Blankley of the “Washington Times.” Ron, we‘re going out west. Your mother is going to be there. It will be an interesting home game for the Reagans. What‘s your view of this as a television drama this Thursday night?

RON REAGAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it should be very dramatic. Of course we have a very dramatic moderator for the event. That will help a little bit. It‘s going to be interesting to watch if any of the second or third tier candidates can actually make a move on the top three, the Romney, Giuliani, and McCain group, and whether any of those top three stumble a bit. I think McCain has the most to lose here, but that might be just my opinion.

MATTHEWS: Tony, I think he also has the most to want the same thing as Ron just said. I think he really wants to turn it on. My hunch is the last week or so he has been revving up.

TONY BLANKLEY, “THE WASHINGTON TIMES”: I have no idea what McCain is

planning to do. I take these early primaries -

MATTHEWS: That‘s no reason why you can‘t speculate. That‘s no excuse.

BLANKLEY: I think these early primary debates are sort of like the opening of a chess game. It‘s not like a general election debate in September, where 50 million people are watching, and you either make a huge mistake or you confirm a trend. Here, it‘s less the big mistake that any of us are going to comment on in the first weeks, an opening that you may provide another opponent. Little statements that may not seem like a big deal to any of us, but the clever opponent—

MATTHEWS: Rate the last week of Democrats. Did somebody do something that was lethal?

BLANKLEY: Not lethal, but Obama opened up a little opportunity, which Hillary quickly got into on toughness, on—

MATTHEWS: He didn‘t say retaliate fast enough.

BLANKLEY: And you saw Hillary then go out and saw people putting out a message on that. You saw John Edwards show an absence of moral certainty.

MATTHEWS: So well said. Tony, so well said. If you are asked who your moral advisor is or leader, you should have an answer.

BLANKLEY: You should. That‘s going to be exploited in many little ways. So it‘s more a question of did you give little openings. This is not going to be a decisive debate. They never are decisive at this point. And you can write off—I mean, Tancredo is going to obviously hit the immigration issue on polls, libertarian isolationists. He will hit no spending and no foreign policy.

That won‘t matter. It will be interesting, I think, to see how they try to, as you were discussing in the previous segment, separate themselves a little bit from Bush. The problem is that 2/3 of Republicans support the president, support the war, and 2/3 of the country don‘t support the president and don‘t support the war. So they can‘t show much separation. They can sort of confess that mistakes have been made. I don‘t think you‘re going to see a whole lot of separation going on.

MATTHEWS: It‘s interesting, Ron, that this test of mettle is a TV test. Your father was an expert on television. He really was. I grew up with him in the 1950‘s, watching “G.E. Theater.” Just apart from ideology, this medium was his medium, his ability to communicate by the millions. Do you sense any of these candidates, if you want to stick your neck out, who has anything like the power of the Great Communicator?

REAGAN: Well, Rudy Giuliani is probably the most charismatic of them, but you mentioned it before the break, that the Republicans have been looking for a new Ronald Reagan. The problem for them is there just isn‘t one out there. Yes, Rudy Giuliani is somewhat charismatic. He is a good speaker. But he has got a lot of problems with his candidacy.

McCain, he‘s hot and cold. You never know quite which John McCain is going to show up. This is why people are excited about Fred Thompson. There are Republicans who think that Fred Thompson, maybe because he works in television, can be a guy who can come in and seal the deal for them. He has to get in the race first, of course.

MATTHEWS: And we have to see whether he can turn a crowd on or not.

REAGAN: That‘s right. I don‘t think Fred Thompson is another Ronald Reagan either, to tell you the truth.

MATTHEWS: I wonder whether—let me ask you this, because you lived with your dad. This is again apart from politics. Don‘t you have to have the bug? Don‘t you have to really want to run for president? Your dad ran in, I believe, 1968 and lost to Nixon. He was kind of a long shot. Then he ran again in 1976 against a sitting Republican, Gerry Ford. Then he finally won on the third try. You have to really want it enough to keep going for it. To have to be talked into it the way Fred Thompson is, I have never seen that before. Maybe Adlai Stevenson was talked into it. That didn‘t work.

REAGAN: You have to be ready and eager to give up any semblance of a normal life forever, because if you win, that‘s it. Your regular life is over. You really have to embrace that.

MATTHEWS: Your campaign slogan can‘t be get my slippers.

BLANKLEY: You know, there is an interesting—there is an interesting aspect of this field of Republicans. We all observed there is no other Reagan out there, and clearly there isn‘t. In an odd way, this gives the Republican party an opportunity, because this is not 1980 or 1984. I wish it was. It‘s not. The issues set that could win then can‘t be replicated now.

MATTHEWS: Here‘s the question, why aren‘t they looking for another George W. Bush? Isn‘t that a problem. No, I‘m being serious. Isn‘t that part of our conversation that‘s a problem. They don‘t really want to emulate entirely or in large part—

BLANKLEY: Other than an FDR or Reagan, you don‘t usually—the country is tired of the president. They were tired of Truman.

MATTHEWS: So well said. They were tired of Truman. They were tired of Ike even. And Ike was immensely popular. Anyway, thank you. Tony, you get wiser every time I get older. Any way, thank you Ron Reagan. Great report tonight. Thank you Tony Blankley.

When we return, race in America. How much has the Don Imus incident changed what we can and cannot say, if anything? Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons has a new book out. That‘s a heck of a book, by the way, he has come out with. It‘s not an ethnic thing. It‘s for everybody, this book, from what I can tell. You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Russell Simmons is a music mogul, is one of the most influential figures in hip hop music and in our economy. His book is called “Do You, Twelve Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success.” First of all I love the concept. This should be a gradation speech, to tell the kids who graduate to do you.

RUSSELL SIMMONS, HIP HOP MOGUL: It is meant to inspire you to look inside. The truth is, when you look inside, there is a piece of god in you. If you can access that, anything you can imagine is yours. There is no secret without god. And the idea is that all the scriptures tell you the same thing. This book is based mostly on the Yoga Sutras, but all the scriptures run parallel.

And the real truth is when you look inside any business idea or anything you want to imagine, you can create. The book is about that. The title is a very funny story, because it was the 12 laws of success and I gave the book to Oprah. She read the book and it was the funniest thing. She called me and told me I had a corny title. So she tells me I have a corny title, and then she told me the name, which is the title of the second chapter. The book is about the inner voice.

MATTHEWS: She thought this was corny?

SIMMONS: No the 12 laws of success was corny. She renamed the book.

MATTHEWS: To?

SIMMONS: To “Do You.”

MATTHEWS: Oh, she did that.

SIMMONS: Yes, it‘s kind of funny. But I would have thought that her naming my book would be out of the question.

MATTHEWS: Are you giving her a cut?

SIMMONS: No, she doesn‘t need it, I don‘t think.

MATTHEWS: This is graduation time, and I think one message to kids graduating—I always say to them, I hung out with a kid who knew all about music. Today he‘s Curt Loder. I hung out with another guy in college. He‘s from Buffalo. That all he did was talk about sports. Now he is a sports reporter for the “Buffalo News.” People do end up doing well what they had a hunch about.

SIMMONS: Every success I‘ve had—my first rap record was made before there were rap records. The Def Comedy Jam was a joke for HBO. The Def Poetry Jam is the longest running show they have, and that was a favor. The Reverend Run TV Show, for instance, is a show about a reverend and five kids. It‘s not popular at MTV, but now it‘s the number on show there.

So, my success has come from listening to my voice and having the courage to live up to what it promises me. And I think that it‘s a very obvious formula and it make you happy. And the idea that you want to connect to that thing that makes you happy, the thing that is the unity in all of us. And that is what the book is about.

MATTHEWS: OK, let me go into a problem area. I was writing a while ago, and I was going to put it into a book, but I decided not to for the following reason: it seemed to me that the guys in this business of talk, like Limbaugh and O‘Reilly and Imus took years to get their act right. For years they tried to be something else and they finally became themselves and they got good at it. Limbaugh couldn‘t get guests up in Sacramento, so he did the show without guests. O‘Reilly, people could stand, but he said, fine, a lot of people will like me, even though I‘m a little bit difficult to deal with. They‘re going to like me. You know, a couple million people is all it takes.

Now Imus, what was your view on Imus, what happened?

SIMMONS: Well, the you I refer to is the higher self. It‘s that thing, that Christ consciousness, that Somati (ph) the Yogis refer to, Nirvana the Buddhists call, you know, the toxic life-style that the Jews refer to, that is the you I am referring to. When you are disconnected and you don‘t realize that you are a part of, you know, all of mother Earth and you are a part of all of those things, that is the you I refer to. Not the one‘s that separate or isolated.

MATTHEWS: It‘s not egotistical?

SIMMONS: No, it‘s not at all. It‘s about letting go of the ego and looking for the strength that comes when you are really connected. That is where even—people who you might think are not spiritual, not connected, that is where their strength comes from. That‘s the law. The cosmic laws are unbreakable. So if you want to promote happiness, then you can receive it. If you want to give something that‘s lasting and stable and good, then you get back a lasting and stable and good result. So that‘s what the book is about.

MATTHEWS: What about Imus? What happened there.

SIMMONS: The Imus story is—I am the chairman of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. And Rabbi Snyder, who is the chairman of the World Jewish Congress, is the president. And our first response was that is Imus and maybe there is something we can do, some dialogue behind the scenes, that would promote something better. But America‘s response to him was good. It gave us a chance to talk more about race. It was very good. I was happy with not so much what happened to him, but the fact that we are discussing this now in such a meaningful way.

MATTHEWS: One candidate for reelection in Virginia, George Allen, was coasting to reelection as a senator until he called a kid Macaca, which is a North African reference to a black kid. Do you think we‘re changing, that we‘re getting more sensitive, or are we just being politically correct? Are we getting better or just more careful?

SIMMONS: You know, rappers talk often about things that bring up things in us, the misogyny—I wouldn‘t say racism, but homophobia, the violence, the truth. The truth about us is that we like to sweep things under the rug. And the lack of consciousness on the part of all the smart people, the sophisticates, is everywhere.

MATTHEWS: Was it good to put it out?

SIMMONS: I think it was good that they discussed it publicly.

MATTHEWS: Yes, but he got fired for it. Rap singers don‘t get fired for incitive language.

SIMMONS: They have a certain poetic license that they should enjoy.

I think we have to protect that.

MATTHEWS: But not talk show hosts?

SIMMONS: I don‘t think so. I think those words should be removed from mainstream television and radio.

MATTHEWS: The words he used?

SIMMONS: Yes.

MATTHEWS: I think they have been removed, Mr. Simmons. There‘s nothing like a noise like that to get fired. Anyway, thank you. I do like the title. Oprah, as always, is a genius. “Do You,” it‘s a great book. It‘s going to be high on the Amazon list tomorrow morning. Thank you very much Mr. Simmons. The name of the book is “Do You.”

SIMMONS: It already is.

MATTHEWS: Sorry, it will be higher. Tomorrow on HARDBALL, Bill Maher. And don‘t forget, the first Republican presidential candidates‘ debate coming up this Thursday. The countdown is on. Three days to go. Right night it‘s time for Tucker.

On Hardball with Chris Matthews, April 9, 2007

Guests: Phil Gingrey, Chris Van Hollen, Eugene Robinson, Tony Blankley, Howard Fineman talk with Hardball with guest host David Gregory.
Transcript for Hardball, Monday, April 9, 2007:

GREGORY: Good evening. I’m David Gregory, in tonight for Chris. And welcome to HARDBALL.

Late today, breaking news, NBC News President Steve Capus has announced that Don Imus will be suspended from MSNBC for two weeks for his comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. In a statement, News President Capus said the following: “Don Imus has expressed profound regret and embarrassment and has made a commitment to listen to all of those who have raised legitimate expressions of outrage. In addition, his dedication—in his words—to change the discourse on his program moving forward, has confirmed for us that this action is appropriate.”

(I) should clarify that, of course, Imus’s program, which originates out of WFAN in New York, is simulcast on MSNBC. And again, the decision by Steve Capus, the president of the News division here at NBC News, is that he will be suspended for two weeks.

We want to talk about this today, including Imus’s appearance on the Reverend Al Sharpton’s radio program, his apologies and where it all goes from here.

We’re joined by Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, from the Washington Post, who will be writing about this in tomorrow morning’s edition, as well as MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle.

And Mike, I think I speak for both of us, we are both, as the audience may know, frequent guests on the Imus program. You have known him and been on the program even longer than I have. And this is a difficult time, not just because of the hurt that he has inflicted and what he said, as he tries to deal with it, but for all of us who are on the program and certainly don’t want to be associated with this kind of thing that he’s done, as all of this plays out.

So, first, your reaction to this as we go forward.

BARNICLE: David, you’re right, it is a difficult thing to endure, it’s a difficult thing to hear for any of us, no matter whether you’re on the program or not. I’ve known Don a long time. I can tell you, as he has indicated several times today and last week, he is a good man, he is not a racist. I mean, it sounds pitiful to have to say something like that, but he’s a good man.

I would hope that if there is anything positive to come out of this, it might be that we continue, or have a discussion about race in this country, something that we sometimes willfully ignore in the media. Gene Robinson is sitting there with you. I think both Gene and myself—I can’t speak for Gene, obviously—will in a couple of minutes—but in the print media, writing newspaper columns, you see it much more often evidenced than you do in the electronic media, the fact that there is a double standard when it comes to dealing with race in this country.

A young white woman can get killed in the inner city and it’s on page one, young black men get killed—fifteen, sixteen years of age—on a Thursday night or a Friday night, go find it in the news. The status of public schools in this country, many of them largely black, urban, poor, of no—they don’t have a constituency of clout, their parents cannot call superintendents of schools to complain. We ought to discuss race in this country. We’ve neglected it for too long.

GREGORY: Let me bring in Gene Robinson, here. First of all, again, the decision by NBC News is to suspend, simulcast of the IMUS IN THE MORNING on MSNBC, starting April 16.

First, your reaction to that.

ROBINSON: Since we’re into full disclosure here, I don’t know Don Imus and I’ve never been on his program. So I’m completely detached here.

It is what you do, if you’re not going to fire somebody, you suspend them for a grave violation. So in that sense, I think it’s an appropriate step. I do not think it ends the controversy, I do not think it will be satisfactory to people who have been calling for him to be fired, to be banished from the airwaves, or whatever.

GREGORY: What is not in dispute—whether you know him or not—no matter where you come from, this was racist, abhorrent language no matter where it is said, on the radio or otherwise. It is magnified that this is a program that is listened to by millions of people. What is the appropriate response here, in your judgment?

ROBINSON: You know, I don’t know. I think every—individuals and companies will make the response that they deem appropriate. People who might have listened to Don Imus may not listen to him anymore. And they’ll to have make that decision. Some people who might have gone on his program in the past will not go on it now, perhaps. Or perhaps they will go on the show.

But I think—I believe in free speech. I don’t believe in censoring people’s speech. But speech does have consequences. And while I’ve heard

I know a lot of people who know Don Imus and think a lot of him, what he said—the ‘nappy headed hos,’ let’s kind of just get it out there—

GREGORY: He was talking about the Rutgers basketball team and said those words and they had tattoos. These are some mean looking girls, he said.

ROBINSON: ‘Mean looking girls,’ and then the producer went on to ‘jiggaboos’ and the whole thing. That came from someplace. He may be even know where it came from. It may have been someplace buried, that is inaccessible to him. But it came out and that is something he will have to deal with, going forward.

GREGORY: Mike Barnicle, I want to ask you a question about whether you think Imus gets it on this one.

But before I do that, let me just bring the audience into some other thing that happened today. Imus apologized on the program this morning.

We might have some tape of that. We’ll be looking for that. And maybe we have a couple of clips, as well, from him speaking on Al Sharpton’s program this afternoon, where he spent about an hour, took some calls and there were some other guests who were on the program as well.

And again, the message throughout, Imus apologized, said he does understand the depth of the hurt, wants to make it right. What he wants to do is meet, he has said, with the women on the Rutgers basketball team, wants to meet with them, wants to apologize to them, meet with their families as well. He’s been in contact with the athletic department at Rutgers, Governor Corzine has met with the basketball team as well and talked about the champions that they are and what remarkable young women that they are as well.

So all of that is going on. We don’t know where it’s going to play and where it’s going to go.

Mike Barnicle, one of the things that Sharpton said, who has called for him to be fired, is that he wants to see how Rutgers and these teammates respond to him as well. So with all of that background, do you think that Imus gets it?

GREGORY: Oh, David, he absolutely gets it. He, more than any of us, more than you, more than Gene, more than myself, more than a lot of people realizes that word are weapons, that the hurt that these words inflicted are deep, lasting, historical in some sense. The historical pain is resurrected here. He certainly understands that. He also knows that something the two of you just alluded to, this is not over, that we live in a nation, given the power of the Internet and bloggers, that we are a nation of 300 million newspaper columnists today and everyone will weigh in on this, from coast to coast. And at some point, some blogger in Pocatello, Idaho, carries somewhat equal weight to, like, George Will.

That’s the country and the culture we’re a part of. He gets all of that.

GREGORY: We’re also joined by Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, who was on the program today, meaning the Imus program, and is also a frequent guest.

Howard, your thoughts tonight as you see the response from NBC News, and just the way the day has unfolded today?

FINEMAN: I think it has been pretty remarkable, David. I think it shows you the power of this issue, and it shows you that Imus was so far over the line that it has caused a shudder throughout the establishment media and throughout the country, especially in the African American community.

To answer your earlier question about whether Imus gets it, I think he does get it. But he said what he said, and there will be consequences for what he said. And NBC made it clear tonight what those consequences are. And I think NBC is hoping, as I do, when I spoke with Imus this morning on the radio, that he uses this as what I call the teachable moment, that he learn from this. And as I think he said at one point this morning when I was talking to him, he said, I need to grow up, at least a little. And that’s a humorous way of saying the obvious truth here, that he does. He’s 66 years old. People learn.

I think the form of humor that he was using is not only risky but has probably outlived its usefulness. I think times have changed, things have changed. But in any era, at any time, to say what he said about those women was, as I think Steve Capus of NBC News said tonight, just reprehensible and outrageous and completely unacceptable in any framework.

So these are the consequences of it. I think NBC is right. And I think, if I understand what Steve Capus says correctly, here, Imus is on notice that he has got to change the tenor, the tone and the content of the show. He has got to think up a new schtick if he is going to continue doing what he’s doing and having us participate. That’s just the way it is.

GREGORY: Let me do a couple things here—I’m going to ask our producers to get a clip from Imus from his apology this morning. But while we’re waiting for that, I want to play a portion of his interview on the Reverend Al Sharpton’s radio program today.

(VIDEO CLIP IS PLAYED)

GREGORY: I also want to play—we’ve got the Reverend Jesse Jackson on the phone, and let’s speak to him first, and then I want to play a little bit of the tape from Imus, from his morning program this morning.

First, let me speak to Reverend Jackson.

Thank you for being with us. First, your reaction to the statement and the action that NBC News and MSNBC have taken, with regard to Don Imus.

JACKSON: Well, two weeks does not correspond to the depth of the infraction, but a pattern of racial infractions and bigotted statements.

This is a kind of cooling-off period. Not only did they refer to these young ladies as hard-core hos and nappy-headed hos, and then a conversation comparing them to the Toronto Raptors men, or even the Memphis Grizzlies, the Bears—that was a very in-depth conversation, but not too different from when Venus and Serena Williams were in Playboy, saying that they should have been in National Geographic, kind of animalizing them. Or when Hillary Clinton spoke in Selma, about three weeks ago, to blacks, and next she’ll be wearing corn rows, with gold teeth and giving Crip or gang signs.

So here’s a rather in-depth pattern of bigotry that puts a tremendous burden on NBC and CBS as to what will be the character of the expectations of the on-air talent.

GREGORY: Reverend, do you think that NBC and others—NBC in this case

-- effectively lets Imus get away with it, as some have said, because he’s part of the establishment? And again, I appear on his program—you know that—there’s many people at NBC who do, and I certainly know that our audience understands that as well.

JACKSON: Well, yes, number one, his show is no longer a shock jock show.

It is a very political show. He said, even today, he would not let Clinton be a guest on his show. When he has people like you on his show, and people like Tim Russert and Harold Ford and Joe Lieberman, it is a political show with a point of view.

The other side of it, there is not one black or Latino host of a show on MSNBC. So there is no sense of balance, no sense of diversity in the programming options. So we cannot settle just for the two-week cooling-off period. We must now look at MSNBC’s hosts and writers and producers and the breadth of its news coverage.

GREGORY: You say that there isn’t any diversity at MSNBC. I don’t know that’s quite a fair charge. There certainly—in other words, there is not somebody who has a program like his—

JACKSON: Is there a show on MSNBC hosted by a black?

GREGORY: Alison Stewart is one of our hosts during the day, yes.

JACKSON: Name one. There’s Scarborough and there is you and there is Chris and there is not a single show on any network, I might add. MSNBC, CNN—all day, all night, all white. It is not fair. We deserve more access to broaden and diversify, more points of view.

So beyond the Imus pattern of rather bigoted statements, there’s the issue of fair access. That’s for all people.

GREGORY: All right. I just want to point out that Alison Stewart is an African American anchor at MSNBC TV. I don’t want that to be overlooked by you or anybody else. But nevertheless, I think you’re trying to make a different point about the overall diversity at MSNBC.

JACKSON: I am. She hosts a show. A show host has writers, producers, guests, content. We had Arsenio Hall on night time comedy show 15 years ago. We had Max Robinson, the anchor for NBC News 25 years ago. That doesn’t exist today. So it really is a cry out, really, for participation and for diversity which represents America, a very diverse population.

GREGORY: Let me ask you this, Reverend: is there an opportunity for somebody like Don Imus, who has the sort of huge platform, as you know and you’ve talked about, who has thrown himself behind causes like his ranch in New Mexico for kids with cancer, like autism, like the fallen heroes fund for Iraqi war vets. Is there an opportunity for him to change the structure of his show, to work this problem, to try to heal this wound by using that platform in a way that you could support?

JACKSON: Well, yes. The question is how long does it take and how many chances does one need for rehabilitation? I mean, for all the good work he does. this bigotry appears to be the fly in his ointment. He makes his money kind of peddling fear and bigotry. And then he does some good things with the money he makes.

We must, in fact, take the prosperity out of bigotry and make it more expensive, so others who are in this lineage (ph) will not ever again use degradation as a way of appealing to people. We must use dignity, not degradation, to appeal to people.

GREGORY: Eugene Robinson, who is also with us here, you’ve heard some of what Imus has discussed today in his apologies, his appearance on the Sharpton program. Do you agree with Reverend Jackson, that he is bigoted and that he doesn’t really understand the attack on the dignity of these young women that he has committed?

ROBINSON: Well, you know, I think he understands, but this is not a first offense. Reverend Jackson is right. There have been previous statements and incidents. And look, lets face it—Don Imus, you know, was one of the original shock jocks. And this is his schtick. By being outrageous, by being politically incorrect, he became a big star.

He went way over the line and over the cliff this time, and you know, is facing the consequences, which I think are, you know, are justified in this case, and are not over.

GREGORY: Reverend Jackson, I just want to be very clear on your point of view on this. You believe that he should be fired?

JACKSON: Absolutely. And I think that there must be some punishment that corresponds to the infraction. And we must have it extended (ph) that all of us can live with. Now the burdens is upon NBC, how it handles this, and upon CBS radio, how it handles this. It says something about the character and the expectations of the networks that are his foundation. He is not just playing shock jock now. He is, in fact, represent a political point of view that has influence, and there is no corresponding balance in programming and hosts on that show. And that offends me as much as his right to say what he said, even though I disagree with what he did say.

GREGORY: You’re saying there is no balance on his program.

JACKSON: On MSNBC’s programming. There is Chris Matthews and there is Scarborough and there is name it—there is no African American host that can operate with a point of view and have guests that represents a broader point of view. That’s important, too.

GREGORY: All right. Reverend Jackson, I know you have a flight to catch.

I do appreciate you taking a few moments to share your views with us.

We are going to continue here on MSNBC with Eugene Robinson and Mike Barnicle. We’ll get the latest from our WNBC reporter outside the Rutgers Athletic Center, where I mentioned there are some meetings going on tonight with the athletic department and with the young women, the national champions from Rutgers University, the women’s basketball team, who of course were the victim of these remarks, after all. And we’ll have the very latest on that and continue our conversation.

Again, MSNBC suspending Don Imus, the simulcast of his morning program on MSNBC, effective April 16th.

You’re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC. Don’t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: We’re back on HARDBALL, covering the news today by NBC News that it has suspended the simulcast of IMUS IN THE MORNING here on MSNBC, effective April 16th, for two weeks. The reaction to his racist comments last week referring to the Rutgers lady basketball team.

We’re joined now by Michael Gardiulo, of WNBC, who has been outside Rutgers, where there has been a meeting taking place with Governor Corzine and members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

Michael, what can you tell us about what Governor Corzine has said? And we know that Imus wants to meet with the team. Any news on that?

GARDIULO: He does. As a matter of fact, David, we were able to see some members of the team leaving what they call the RAC, here, the Rutgers Athletic Center. They had no comment today. They said they may be making some comments tomorrow. So no word as to whether they’re accepting his apology or will plan to meet with him. Governor Corzine, left with a statement for members of news organizations. And in the statement, he said—this is quoting the governor, here—“I strongly I condemn his words”—Don Imus’s words—“There is absolutely no excuse for his conduct and he is right to apologize.” The governor goes on to say, “Only the Rutgers women’s basketball team, however, can decide whether or not to accept his apology.”

So the governor is saying, really, it is up to members of the team—member of the team saying that they may let us know, in the coming hours, whether or not they are willing to accept his apology.

GREGORY: All right, Michael. Thank you very much.

Eugene Robinson also with us, from the Washington Post.

This was a key part of his conversation with Reverend Sharpton today.

And Reverend Sharpton, who has called for him to be fired, also wants to see whether the team will accept his apology, and whether that is a starting point for Imus to do something on the program to keep his job and to be able to have some kind of conversation to heal this wound.

ROBINSON: Yes. As everyone said, that is a decision that is up to the team. I can tell you if it was me, I would see this as a step in Imus’s, perhaps, in his own self-healing, but certainly in his public rehabilitation. And I would not be inclined to participate in it. I would say no.

GREGORY: Because you think it’s not worth it, because you think it’s not going to happen? You think there’s posturing on his part? What?

ROBINSON: Well, my attitude would be, well, he has already said what he feels about me. And you know, to the extent that my appearing with him or my meeting with him would help kind of paper it over, I would not be inclined to participate. But again, the members of the team will have to make their decision.

GREGORY: I’m asking our producers as well—Nightly News tonight aired a piece about this, including a sound bite from Clarence Page, who some years back, actually made Imus, on the air, pledge that he would never use any racist language again. And he had a reaction to this today, which we will try to show you in just a moment.

For now, however, I want to turn to Armstrong Williams, who is a radio talk show host and syndicated columnist who joins us now.

Armstrong, thank you. Give us your reaction to the decision by our company here, NBC News and MSNBC, to suspend Imus for two weeks, the simulcast of his show here on MSNBC, effective April 16.

WILLIAMS: Obviously, David—thank you for having me—NBC did not see a need to suspend or fire Imus until there was a public outcry, and they realized they could not bring this under control. So they felt they did the best thing, was to suspend him. I think what he said is outrageous.

I remember when they said, a couple years ago, referring to Venus and Serena Williams as apes, I remember what they said about Gwen Ifill and others. But you know, he also uses the same derogatory remarks and says things about Jews and others. This is his shtick. He also talks about his bosses, the people who write his pay checks, and he has gotten away with it.

I believe in freedom of speech, and I think it is outrageous. I’m offended, but I don’t think a person should be fired or suspended. I think the marketplace should decide; if people don’t want to listen to Imus anymore, there’s 24 hour programming, people can always turn to somewhere else. I just believe in the ultimate in freedom of speech and for people to express themselves.

And my outrage would be, that I would never want to listen to him again.

Of course, you guys are his bosses, you have the right to make that decision. But I never would advocate firing someone or suspending someone because they were exercising their freedom.

GREGORY: Do you think there is an opportunity here, Armstrong, for Imus to take on this issue of his hurtful words, to make it a part of his radio program—what I mean, by making the healing a part of his radio program, and throwing himself, whether it is the issue of race relations or racist speech, in the way that he has thrown himself behind his camp for kids with cancer or autism or the treatment of Iraqi veterans and so forth?

WILLIAMS: You know, I tell you what, look, I think sometimes, you have to take the whole of a person. I will never forget during Hurricane Katrina, Don Imus was one of the few people in the country with a national audience to talk about the fact that a lot of these people were neglected because they were black and it was unfair, it was an outrage.

He repeatedly said this on the airwaves. So many people’s hearts were warmed by his comments about Hurricane Katrina. So as we condemn him and criticize him about his racist and bigotted and divisive remarks, let’s also remember the good that he has done when those people were affected by Hurricane Katrina.

I believe that Imus is sincere. I think, for the first time in his career, he has realized that he has, at age 65, to change his rhetoric on the air waves because words can be very painful. They can hurt people in ways that he could never imagine. But I also believe, from the things that he’s said in the past, if you look at his entire history, that he’s deserving of forgiveness, he’s deserving of another chance. And I sincerely believe that he can use the airwaves to uplift people and find more socially redeeming value in this issue on race, and say, I’ve been reformed, I’ve made mistakes, I’ve been punished by the public. And there is nothing like being punished by the public. And I think he can learn and do a lot of good on this issue.

GREGORY: Eugene, I know firsthand that Imus is a good man. I know the good work he does. I have a relationship with him. I’ve been on his program now for six years. But Reverend Sharpton said, this is not a debate about whether as he good man. It is a debate about the words that he used, the way he expressed himself, the hurt that he cause, and what the consequence of that should be.

Should you evaluate Don Imus as the whole guy? Can we make a judgment about whether he is a racist in this case?

ROBINSON: We can’t look into somebody else’s soul. We don’t know. I know you know him. But where did that come from? Where did that eruption come from? It came from someplace. It was in there. And we don’t know where it came from. He may not know exactly where it came from.

But just, one thing that Armstrong said, I believe in freedom of speech, too. But MSNBC’s product is words. And its medium is words and pictures.

And so there is a corporate responsibility here to react to something that was really, really beyond the pale. And I think CBS radio has a similar responsibility to react in some way, and we’ll see what they do.

GREGORY: Final comment, Armstrong, before a break.

WILLIAMS: I think it is always best for the marketplace to decide on issues like this. We don’t need to start citing precedents, in terms of censoring people, no matter what they say. This is a country that we separate ourselves from everybody else by the freedom of speech.

I think Don Imus deserves another chance. I’m offended, I found it just to be incredible, what he said. But I also believe that he can learn from this. He can grow from it. And I remind people about his remarks, about Hurricane Katrina. He was one of the few people out there saying, this is a racist situation. America is better than this. Where is America? Where are the people while these people are suffering? I can’t forget that also.

GREGORY: We’ll leave it there.

Mike Barnicle, on the phone, Eugene Robinson, and Armstrong Williams, thank you to all of you for appearing.

We’re going to take a break here. More HARDBALL right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRZEZINSKI: I’m Mika Brzezinski with breaking news.

NBC News announced tonight, radio host Don Imus is being suspended. His national radio program won’t be simulcast on MSNBC for two weeks—hat begins next Monday—because of comments he made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. NBC News called his remarks racist and abhorrent and said Imus has promised to change the discourse on his program. Imus has apologized repeatedly for his comments, and expressed his embarrassment.

(NEWSBREAK)

GREGORY: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

As we enter the fifth year of the American occupation of Baghdad in Iraq, Congress is still debating how to bring our troops home.

Congressman Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat of Maryland, is the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and sits on the Ways and Means Committee as well. And Congressman Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Georgia, who is a member of the member of the Armed Services Committee.

Welcome to you both.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Good to be with you, David.

REP. PHIL GINGREY ®, GEORGIA: Thank you, David.

GREGORY: This is another somber milestone in the war in Iraq. And I want to start off your debate with a simple question.

And, Congressman Van Hollen, I will pose it to you first.

Is the war in Iraq salvageable?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think it is potentially salvageable, but only if we learn the mistakes of the past four years and begin to hold the Bush administration accountable.

And, as you know, salvageable is a quite—is an issue that has many interpretations.

GREGORY: So, how you hold them accountable?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think by doing something like the Congress has done.

Both the House and the Senate, they have slightly different version, but what we have said is, for the first time in four years, we are going to give the president the money he has asked for, but, this time, we are going to ask him to hold the Iraqi government accountable for meeting the benchmarks that the administration and the Iraqi government themselves have said are absolutely necessary if you are going to achieve any kind of political reconciliation in Iraq.

That is a starting point. When you have failure for four years, and you ignore failure, you are going to get more failure. We think it is time to hold the administration and the Iraqi government accountable for the progress that they themselves have said is necessary, if we‘re going to achieve some kind of stability in Iraq.

GREGORY: Congressman Gingrey, respond to that. And you weigh in on whether the war is salvageable.

GINGREY: Well, look, David, it‘s not just the money with strings attached. It‘s the money with a rope tied around General Petraeus‘ hands and his hands handcuffed behind his back. This is no way to conduct a war.

And what the House and the Senate have done is atrocious, to say that, no matter what, March of ‘08 in the Senate bill, that we got to come home—in the House bill, August of ‘08 -- no matter what, no matter whether we have got the bad guys on the run, that we have to pull our troops out.

That makes no sense. We need to give this new way forward a chance, victory a chance. And I think that‘s the bottom line.

And I think, frankly, I don‘t know what we‘re doing back home here in the District right now. Chris could drive to Washington in 45 minutes from his district. I could be on a plane from Atlanta in two hours. And the whole House could be in Washington tomorrow to let Ms. Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi, go ahead and appoint a conference committee, send this bill to the president, let him veto it, as he darn well will and must.

GREGORY: All right.

Let me ask you this, though, Congressman...

GINGREY: And, then, as Senator Levin said, let‘s go ahead and be responsible about this.

GREGORY: All right.

But, Congressman Gingrey, what Senator Levin wants is also more leverage on the Maliki government.

Tell me why—justify your position. Why doesn‘t it make sense for Commander Petraeus to say to the Iraqi leadership: “Look, I‘m getting a lot of pressure here from a Democratic Congress in Washington to hold you accountable, to get together with Sunnis, to get together with Kurds and to make this idea of a national government work. If you can‘t do this, if you can‘t shut down the militias, if you can‘t end the sectarian violence, America is going to pull out here. Get your act together”?

GINGREY: Well...

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: Why doesn‘t that make sense at any level to you?

GINGREY: Well, David, that does make sense. And, actually, if you look at the new way forward...

GREGORY: But that‘s—well, that‘s what—that‘s what the intent of these bills is.

GINGREY: This is—this is just—this is not just a surge of troops.

Now, let me make this point.

The Dems want to say that this is just surging troops forward. It‘s bringing Iraqis into the fight. It‘s making sure that the Iraq government and Maliki puts up $10 billion for infrastructure repair. It‘s making sure they have provincial elections with a date—a date certain.

So, this is all part—these are benchmarks. And they‘re in this new way forward. I don‘t think we need to further tie the president‘s hands or General Petraeus‘ hands.

GREGORY: Congressman Van Hollen?

VAN HOLLEN: Look, this is just more happy talk. And the president‘s had his way with Congress for four years. And now he‘s got a Congress that is beginning to hold him accountable.

You had the president go aboard the Abraham Lincoln back in 2003 with the “Mission Accomplished” banner. You had Vice President Cheney say, in 2005, that the insurgency was in its—quote—“final throes.” You had the president‘s so-called plan for victory in November 2005.

The administration has lost credibility. The only way to regain credibility and provide some accountability is for us to say to the Iraqi government, “You have said that you need to do certain things in order to achieve political stability and reconciliation.”

We didn‘t pick these accountability benchmarks out of a hat. These are the issues that the Iraqis themselves, as well as the Bush administration, have said are absolutely necessary.

GREGORY: But are you...

VAN HOLLEN: And...

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: But, Congressman, are you prepared—by that date certain of next March, if Iraq is no better, if Baghdad is no more secure, you‘re prepared to pull American forces out? And then, what about the consequences of that?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, under the House bill, you are talking about August, 2008. And at that point, you would still have American forces there to continue the training of Iraqi forces. After all, the president has said the strategy from the beginning is as they stand up, we stand down. And it would leave forces in Iraq for anti-terrorism activities, to go after al-Qaeda type threats. Those are the sort of missions that the Baker/Hamilton report said would be important to continue.

But we do think that if you continue to ignore the failure of the Iraqis to meet the objectives, which we and they have said are necessary, you are simply rewarding failure, and looking the away, and that‘s been a failed policy.

GREGORY Take about 15 seconds for the final word.

GINGREY: Well, they want to bring that same old rhetoric, talking about what the president said, mission accomplished, and all of that, that we‘ve got them on the run. The point is we have a new secretary of defense. We have General Petraeus, who was confirmed by the Senate unanimously. And we have a new plan, and it makes no sense not to give victory a chance. We owe that to the American troops, to those who have given their lives, to their families and their loved ones.

Let‘s give victory a chance. And then, in August of 2008, if it is not working, then, indeed, this president and the Republican majority from the last Congress, we do have a plan B. But we are not going to give it to the enemy.

GREGORY: And Congressman Gingrey, if by this fall there‘s no measurable progress, do you think that the president has to change course?

GINGREY: I think adjustments, absolutely, have to be made, depending on what‘s going on on the ground.

GREGORY All right, I‘m going to leave it there. Thank you to Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Congressman Phil Gingrey for your views.

Up next, with as many as 20 states moving their primaries up to February 5th of next, which presidential candidates benefit most from a mega-primary so early in the campaign? This is HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: Welcome back to HARDBALL. The early bird gets the worm. States are now competing hard with one another to have the earliest presidential primary. It is a scramble for power that could very well shake up the entire presidential nominating season as we know it. HARDBALL‘s Jeremy Bronson has some background.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE):

JEREMY BRONSON, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In an effort to boost their clout in picking the next president, as many as 20 states could move their primaries up to February 5th, essentially creating a mega-primary, with over half the country voting in a single day. In the past, primaries were spaced out through the summer. Candidates raced from state to state, winning one contest at a time.

Traditionally, early states, like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, attract the most campaign attention. Doing well there gets you major media attention, not to mention the deluge of campaign dough. But plenty of primaries occur after a candidate has already locked up the nomination. And voters in those states are tired of being an afterthought.

New York and New Jersey just passed bills to move their primaries up to February 5th. And last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger brought that same muscle to California.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER ®, CALIFORNIA: Up until now what has happened is that all those candidates came out here to do fund raising, collected millions and millions of dollars, and they left. And they could care less about what our important issues are in this state. Now they are concentrating on the issues.

BRONSON: The big question is: Which candidates stand to gain the most? Would New York‘s move from March to February 5th help New Yorkers Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani? Would an Illinois move boost Barack Obama? Kansas, Sam Brownback; North Carolina, John Edwards; New Mexico, Bill Richardson; Arizona, John McCain; and Utah, Mitt Romney.

The fight to be first is already changing the way candidates are campaigning. With the biggest media markets, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, holding early primaries, candidates need major, expensive advertising blitzes. They also need to build bigger campaign organizations in more states, and that means they need more cash.

It also means that doing well in Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire could be more important than ever. If a candidate places poorly in those states, there may not be enough time to bounce back before the mega-primary right around the corner. So is all of this good for democracy?

JENNY BACKUS, DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT: I think that a longer primary season makes candidates better candidates. For example, 2004, John Kerry would have been a much stronger candidate in the general election had he had a couple more weeks of fighting with Edwards.

ED ROGERS, REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST: We are going to have much more intensity. And I think that brings more people into the process, so probably a good thing.

BRONSON (on camera): The front loaded primary schedule also means that a candidates have time to introduce themselves door to door, living room to living room. And that could give an advantage to the better known candidates.

Jeremy Bronson, MSNBC, Washington.

GREGORY: Jeremy Bronson, thank you. Let us bring in Eugene Robinson of the “Washington Post” and Tony Blankley of the “Washington Times.” Welcome to you both.

Tony, let‘s pick up on this point. You‘re talking about this mega super Tuesday. It does place more importance on the early states. Is this just a matter of money though? In other words, you are going to need a lot of money, not only for the early states, but to spend your way out of a poor showing there?

TONY BLANKLEY, “THE WASHINGTON TIMES”: Well, it is never just a matter of money. I mean, money is necessary, but a lot of money does not guarantee that you can sell your product to the voters. I don‘t know how you play this game without having a whole lot of money, but having raised that money—There‘s also no chance for momentum to build and more money to be raised off of the increased momentum, because it is all so compacted that you can‘t sort march through over several weeks, and do well in one, get momentum, raise money, do well in the next one.

It‘s all compacted in. And, in and odd way, if somebody doesn‘t break out—if you have three—say on the Democratic side—three relatively strong candidates, in Edwards, Obama and Hillary, I mean, we always talk about it, but it is conceivable that with all those votes going in and being divided up evenly, you might get past that and not be decided yet.

GREGORY: Right, and Eugene, voters are not going to be have a real chance to digest everything. It is incumbent upon voters to start paying attention now and start forming their opinions.

EUGENE ROBINSON, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Yes, so, you know, we think of this as a tremendously early starting primary campaign process, but, in fact, it is time to start paying attention, because by the time we get to February 5th that could be the whole ball game. People need to start knowing what they think about Obama, knowing what they think about Hillary, knowing what they think about Edwards. And it definitely favors the candidates that have proven they can raise the money to compete in those big states.

BLANKLEY: I don‘t know what raising a lot of money means in this context. You have got to run a three-month media campaign in California. That alone could cost 40 million dollars. New York another 30 million. I mean, as much money as they are raising, you may not be able to run a full media campaign in these states that have five, six, seven, eight large media markets and the huge costs.

So, I don‘t know if we‘ve ever been here before.

GREGORY: Let me turn to a political question about Iraq, and something that‘s interesting, that we‘ve been talking about now for several days. We know about the impact of the Iraq war on Senator McCain, principally. And yet, if you look at all of the polling, despite the funk that Republicans are in, a Republican, in a head-to-head battle, in a lot of the polling, is still beating a top Democrat. Eugene, what does that say?

ROBINSON: I have no idea. I have no idea. I don‘t understand it, because everyone agrees the war is the big issue.

GREGORY: Is a matter that Democrats have not yet sold the deal with the American public about being able to take over the reigns of foreign policy or management of the war?

ROBINSON: It could be. It could be that voters are waiting to hear a Democrat, the Democrat, enunciate, to use President Bush‘s phrase, the way forward, and preferably, by the country‘s likes, the way out of Iraq. I think that voters probably have not heard that yet. I mean, the timetables, benchmarks, whatever you call them, there is a little vagueness there.

GREGORY: Tony, how do you explain this?

BLANKLEY: Well, I don‘t know, but I‘ll give it a shot. With McCain and Giuliani, who are the two Republican who can match or beat any Democrat in a nationally head to head, they have real resistance within the Republican ranks because they are to the left of the Republican party, and probably dead center in the broader American electorate.

The Democratic leaders are on the left side, not Hillary so much, although historically she seems to the left. So they are actually better positioned to win a general election, and arguably poorer position to win the Republican primary.

GREGORY: All right. We are going to take a break here. We are going to come back with Eugene Robinson and Tony Blankley, talk some politics, as well as some other issues of the day. You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: We are back with Eugene Robinson of the “Washington Post,” and Tony Blankley of the “Washington Times” to talk some more politics and also to take up this other hot issue of Don Imus as well.

Tony, let me start with you on the issue, on the Republican side, of Mitt Romney. There is a question about authenticity in this race, obviously, and a lot of questions about Romney‘s evolution as a conservative. And so he got in some trouble here recently talking about being a lifelong hunter, when, in fact, he had been just a couple of times in his life. including in Georgia, which was actually a fund-raising event for Republicans. A problem for him?

BLANKLEY: Can Mitt Romney mitigate his appearance in authenticity? Look, inauthenticity is not a monopoly of either party. Most candidates are relatively inauthentic. The ones who can fake authenticity get elected president. Yes, he has a problem because he has been all over the map over time, claiming things. So has Giuliani. So has Gore and Edwards on energy consumption, given their lifestyles.

It‘s a very tricky business to be able to live out your authentic personality as a presidential candidate, because you are pulled from so many different ways to respond to the different pieces of the American electorate, and very few politicians succeed at it. So far, I don‘t see many who are.

GREGORY: You saw John Kerry get caught in this a little bit back in 2004, as well. Does this start to fit a narrative, a pattern for Mitt Romney?

ROBINSON: I think Romney is writing his own narrative. I mean, he seems to be going out of his way to create this problem for himself. Why did he have to say he was a life-long hunter? Why didn‘t he, kind of, dial that down a little bit?

BLANKLEY: He just joined the NRA last year.

ROBINSON: Exactly, and he‘s been a couple of times, and he hunts, you know, small varmints, or whatever. So I think that‘s a real problem.

GREGORY: All right, let‘s talk about Don Imus and his comments on the air about the Rutgers Women‘s basketball team. He appeared on Al Sharpton‘s radio program apologizing today and is trying to meet with members of the team. Eugene, you are going to write about this, and say what?

ROBINSON: Well, you know, I—philosophically, I think people should—

I believe in free speech. People should be allowed to say what they want

to say. I think it was a terribly racists thing to say. And people will

have to make their decisions about whether to go on Imus‘ show, whether

to listen to Imus‘ show, whether to continue to broadcast Imus‘ show.

I mean, these are all decisions that people will make, as Imus tries to get back in the game.

GREGORY: The question is about sanctions though. Should he lose his job or should he do something else? What is the something else, if you think he should not be fired?

ROBINSON: Well, you know, I don‘t know what the something else is. He has lost me. And I suspect he lost a lot of people. To gain them back, you don‘t do that immediately. You do it over time. I‘ll tell you one thing, if I had a daughter on that team, and, you know, she was being approached by Imus‘ people for a meeting of some sort, I would say, you know, don‘t you dare go meet with them, and he has already said what he thinks of you.

BLANKLEY: I like the Imus show. I always have. I listen to it. This is what he does. He is outrageous regarding every ethnic group. I don‘t see how he can self-censor his show, and still have the show that get millions of listener and hundreds of thousands of viewers. So if he becomes a straight-forward, sincere lovely fellow, I think his audience leaves him.

GREGORY: All right, we‘re going to leave it there. My thanks to Eugene Robinson and Tony Blankley. Join us again tomorrow for more HARDBALL. Our guests include former CENTCOM Commander Anthony Zinni. Right now, time for “TUCKER.”