Transcript & Video of State of the Union with John King - April 26, 2009

John King intervews Valerie Jarrett, Lindsey Graham, Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman

Transcript of State of the Union with John King:

JOHN KING, HOST: I'm John King, and this is our STATE OF THE UNION report for this Sunday, April 26th. Today, a special look at President Obama's first 100 days in the White House, including unique behind- the-scenes accounts and images.

One of the president's closest aides and friends, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, joins us for an exclusive look at both the policy and the personal challenges.

The release of top secret memos on CIA interrogations is fueling one of the most sensitive debates of Barack Obama's presidency. Three key senators, Lindsey Graham, Dianne Feinstein, and Joe Lieberman, on whether making the documents public undermines national security and what happens next.

Plus, strides and missteps. Two of the best political strategists assess the first 100 days, appearing together only on STATE OF THE UNION, James Carville and Mary Matalin on the first chapter of a historic presidency.

That's all ahead in this hour of STATE OF THE UNION.

A live picture there of the White House on day 97, day 97 of the Obama presidency. I asked the president about our first guest, and he'll tell you he doesn't like to make any major decisions without consulting her. A woman who has earned several nicknames like "first friend" and "the other side of Obama's brain." So who better to talk about it as we approach that important benchmark, the 100 days of the Obama presidency, than Valerie Jarrett. Valerie Jarrett, thanks for joining us on STATE OF THE UNION.

JARRETT: Thank you, John. And good morning and congratulations on your 100th day as well.

KING: Thank you. Yours is a bit more important than ours, but thank you very much. I want to start -- I want to get to some of your personal reflections on history. But I want to start with the news dominating the headlines this morning. This is The San Diego Union- Tribune. "Swine flu outbreak gets more worrisome."

The San Antonio Express-News, "In Texas flu fears shut down a high school." The administration has been aware of this since late last week, had a number of meetings and will have a briefing later today. What do we expect from the White House? Will it include, say, travel restrictions on going to Mexico? JARRETT: Well, I don't want to prejudge what the officials are going to say later today. But let's just put it this way, the president is taking this very seriously. He has assembled his teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Homeland Security. He has been briefed regularly. And he has asked them to speak to the American people and give the appropriate counsel later today.

So I'll let the experts speak to that.

KING: An interesting circumstance in that he and a number of senior officials had just been to Mexico. I understand he has been tested and he's in the clear?

JARRETT: He's fine. He is just fine. Thank you for asking, though.

KING: Let's move on to this momentous decision he has made in the past week, which was to release the CIA documents, the internal legal documents about the CIA interrogations. And I want to get your sense. You have watched him make hard decisions.

And I'm told by senior officials that this one weighs right up there with the decision to send more troops into Afghanistan as the toughest he has had to make in his first 100 days in office, in part, because only 44 men have been president of the United States, and in making this decision, he did something no president before him has done, put out former top secret memos on the previous administration so soon after taking office. Why?

JARRETT: Well, look, first of all, we are a nation of laws and the law requires us to release the documents unless there's some national security interest that would make it more important to keep them secret.

But the fact of the matter is there is nothing in the documents that the American people hadn't already seen all over the news. The techniques that were being used by the prior administration were well- known. When the president came in office, he said, we're not going to use those techniques anymore. That's not who we are as a country. In fact, Denny Blair, his intelligence adviser, has said in fact using those techniques makes us less safe. So the president said, let's release them and then let's move forward.

KING: In the context of let's move forward, there is a question about should there be a truth commission, should there be investigations, should there be prosecutions? And there is a big policy debate, but there's also a political debate that some say has been intensified by what they see as mixed messages from the White House.

If you turn over your right shoulder, I want to you take through some of the timeline. When the president released the memos on April 16th, he said, this is a time for reflection, not retribution. Three days later, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, echoed the president, saying, the president believes those who devised the policy should not be prosecuted. But then on April 23rd, just a few days after the chief of staff was out, the president seemed to give a different message. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Why did the president change his mind? He seems open now to possible prosecution.

JARRETT: No. Let me be clear where the president stands on this. What he has said is that anyone who followed the advice of the Justice Department and did any kind of acts that were within the confines of that advice, he doesn't think we should prosecute.

The rest of it, he leaves up to the U.S. Attorney General. That is who is supposed to make decisions about prosecution. So I think the president has been very clear and what he said is, we need to be a nation of laws, we need to be consistent, and he leaves it to the attorney general to figure out who should be prosecuted for what.

KING: Who should be prosecuted for what. If it's not those who acted on the advice they were given, who were told it was legal, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about the attorney general in the previous administration, the CIA director, Secretary Rumsfeld?

JARRETT: You and I aren't talking about anything. We are going to leave that all up to the attorney general. As you know, the Senate Intelligence Committee is having hearings as well. That is the appropriate place I think for any further investigation. And then the rest we leave to the attorney general. KING: You have a fascinating job because you have the trust of the president and you have become his conduit to many of the CEOs around America right now. He is dealing with the auto bailout. He is dealing with the financial institutions and the banks. He is in negotiations now over credit card reforms.

And you are the person who is often in touch with these CEOs, getting their advice and telling the administration things, seeking their input. One of the questions on the table is these stress test for all of the banks.

JARRETT: Yes.

KING: And without naming names, are there banks out there that are in deep trouble, and, if so, will the president and the White House, as in the case of General Motors, say, you know what, you're in trouble, you're not doing this as fast or as aggressively we thought you should do, if you want more money from us, the CEO has to go? JARRETT: Let's not leap forward. Let's look at where we are. The stress test results are just now being shared with the banks. We're going to have an announcement, I believe it's May 4th, coming from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.

They've been going through an in-depth analysis of those top largest 19 banks over the course of the last several months. Let's see where we are and let's not prejudge the outcome. I think what the president's direction has been very clearly is we want to help the economy.

In order to have a healthy economy, we need to have strong banks. They need to be well-capitalized. They need to be able to lend dollars and help support our economy. And so at the end of the stress test, we want to make sure that those are -- that the banks are in a position to do that.

And so whether management changes occur, whether banks are asked to raise more capital, all of that is going to come forth in the coming week.

KING: You helped the president in the campaign. You were one of his a big fundraisers, one of his top advisers. One of the messages he gave to the American people in the campaign is, elect me and I will change the way that crazy town of Washington works, I'm not afraid to deal with Republicans, I will be bipartisan, will change the partisan, nasty tone in Washington.

I want you to listen something he said just after the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I know we will succeed, once again, if we put aside partisanship and politics and work together. That's exactly what I intend to do as president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And, yet, in the first 100 days, only three Republican votes on the stimulus plan, no Republican votes on the Obama budget, and now the White House has pressured Democrats in Congress to use their power in the rules so, that if necessary, you can pass health care reform with 51 votes, a majority, not 60 votes.

Has the president decided that because of the mood in this town and because of the unwillingness of this town and both sides to perhaps change, that it is more important to get things done, like health care reform, like climate change, like education policy, than to make friends with the Republicans right off the bat?

JARRETT: Look, what the president has said throughout, he said in the campaign, he said it in his address the night of his election, and the way he has behaved since he took office is one of reaching out to both sides.

He includes everybody in the dialogue. He has reached out more aggressively, I think, to the Republican Party than I've ever imagined a president could possibly do. So I think the burden is on him to reach out his hand and that is what he has done. And that is what he is going to continue to do throughout this administration.

He has not changed tactics whatsoever. That is who he is as a person.

KING: Let's close -- sorry, go ahead.

JARRETT: But let me -- on the issue of health care, health care is extraordinarily important. I think there is bipartisan support for pushing health care forward. It's good for our country. It's good for our economy. And the president is determined to get it done this year.

KING: Let's close with a bit of history. I want to ask you to get up and walk over here with me as we walk over to the wall. This is a diagram of the West Wing of the White House. And you see the Oval Office here, the president's study, some of the cabinet rooms and the Roosevelt rooms, some of these offices, this is the second floor here, I believe this is Valerie Jarrett's office up here, they are highlighted for a reason.

I was a reporter at the White House for almost nine years. I walked those halls every day and never did you see this, an African- American first lady, an African-American senior adviser, an African- American deputy chief of staff, an African-American woman as the domestic policy adviser, as the deputy legal counsel, as the White House social secretary.

Barack Obama has made history. What is it like to work in a White House like this, African-American women in such positions of power?

JARRETT: Well, it's terrific. You are seeing very strong, I hope smart, intelligent African-American women. But I think have to round it out and look at the whole diversity of team. And I think what has been so extraordinary about President Obama is he appreciates diversity and he thinks it will make him think harder.

We push him to make sure that he has had a wide range of ideas as he makes decisions. And so as you fill out the rest of the team, it's extraordinary as well. But these are some pretty terrific women.

KING: And I want you to look over here at this picture. This has never been released before. We're going to have Pete Souza in here at the end of the program today to talk about looking at history through the lens of his camera.

This is a picture of the president and the first lady dancing. I believe that is the East Room of the White House right there. Take us inside and what is it like from a personal standpoint to see your two close friends in this position now? Can you believe it yet?

JARRETT: I still pinch myself every day. It's a terrific picture. It was the night of the Governors Ball, our first state dinner. And I think the president left right before they broke out into a conga line. And I think all of the folks who were there said they never had a conga line in the White House before. So it makes me happy. I'm so just extraordinarily proud of both of them. And I know that they wake up every day and they think about the American people.

And there so many people out there who are suffering and they need our help here in government. And it's his job to make sure that he delivers on the promises he made to the American people.

KING: Valerie Jarrett, here to mark the 100 days. A lot of challenges will be dealt in the second 100 days. We'll have you right back here to assess them at the end of that.

JARRETT: Look forward to it. I look forward to it.

KING: Thank you so much.

JARRETT: Thank you for having me.

KING: Thank you so much.

KING: Now we just heard Team Obama's position on the release of the so-called torture memos. What happens next? We ask three key senators about calls for investigations and prosecutions just ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: If can you think about what Washington, D.C. was like 50 years ago or 60 years ago. And the notion that I now will be standing there and sworn in as the 44th president, I think, is something that hopefully our children take for granted, but our grandparents, I think, are still stunned by it and it's a remarkable moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Do you believe the president of the United States has made Americans less safe?

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: I do. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Vice President Dick Cheney there on this program just about a month ago. President Obama's election mandate was to fix a struggling U.S. economy but as he starts his 97th day in office today national security challenges are front and center. A debate whether releasing Bush administration terror policies was a blunder and over whether some of the Bush officials should be prosecuted and fresh violence in both Iraq and Pakistan will test the new administration's military and diplomatic strategies. Joining us to talk about this and assess the president's first 100 days, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the independent, former Democrat and from South Carolina, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

Chairwoman, I want to start with you. On the vice president's point, you heard the vice president say there he thinks the new administration is making the American people less safe. He also says that there are other memos not released into the public that prove his point that these controversial interrogation tactics used in limited circumstances actually produced intelligence that saved U.S. lives, including preventing an attack in your home State of California, the City of Los Angeles. Is he right?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I've received those memos. I asked him for them and he sent them to me. They are classified memos so I won't go into them. That's the reason why I believe the Intelligence Committee is the oversight agency for 16 intelligence agencies, including the CIA. It is our responsibility to do oversight. We have access to the classified information. And we have set upon a course, a bipartisan course with a program scope, approved by the committee, to review the conditions of detention and the techniques of interrogation of each of the high value detainees. We estimate that will take six to eight months. My hope is that the public debate quells, that we have an opportunity to do our work. The committee will consider it and then we will release, most likely, findings and recommendations.

KING: Findings and recommendations. I want to get to the other senators but to the vice president's point he believes the documents would show that the tactics worked, saved lives.

FEINSTEIN: It's very hard to tell on the face, because you have to go into who learned what at the time. Now I can go into one, at least one specific case, and it's very uncertain. So we need to find these things out and we need to do it in a way that's calm and deliberative and professional, because I think all of this, on the front burner, before the public, does harm our intelligence gathering, it does harm America's position in the world. And President Obama has worked so hard now to open a new page, to go to so many countries, to say that America is now on a different course. Let us do our work and let us do it the way it should be done.

KING: Senator Graham, you and Senator Lieberman opposed relieving these documents even though you were critics of the interrogation tactics, you thought it would undermine the mission of the united states and the CIA and now that some are out does the former vice president have a point? If some are out, should all be out?

GRAHAM: Well, here is my concern, is that, one, I think it was a mistake to release the techniques that we're talking about and inform our enemy as to what may come their way. I like what Senator Feinstein said, to go through it. And there's no doubt in my mind you may have gotten some useful information out of these techniques but the other side of the story is very real. The more than America embraces these techniques like waterboarding that comes from the Inquisition, the harder to get allies to go with us into the Mid East to fight the insurgents. You inflame the opposition. Our energy uses these images against us.

To say these techniques have brought about no good or no information is wrong, but also to say that it's been a net positive is wrong. There's a way to get good information in an aggressive manner to protect this nation without having to go into the Inquisition era. I believe you can do both. KING: And what about going forward, Senator Lieberman? The president, in relieving these memos, you didn't like that he did, but the president's message let's look forward, not look back but then the president said I'll leave this up to my attorney general who should be prosecuted. Let's listen to Mr. Holder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: I will not permit the criminalization of policy differences. However, it is my responsibility, as the attorney general, to enforce the law. It is my duty to enforce the law. If I see evidence of wrongdoing, I will pursue it to the full extent of the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Are you comfortable with that? Do you think this should be pursued and if you rule out the interrogators saying they were told, they were following orders and acting on legal advice what they were doing was right, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about the CIA director, are we talking about the attorney general in the previous administration, Secretary Rumsfeld, somebody in the White House?

LIEBERMAN: Yeah, no, it is not clear who we are talking about. And I think it is a mistake. I go back to what the president said at the beginning, it is time to look forward. These are top secret documents. These were lawyers, you could disagree with them but in my opinion they were trying to do what they thought would protect our country.

And here is the most important point. This whole debate is moot. President Obama has prohibited these tactics from being used in interrogation, so what do we gain -- well, what do we gain, first, by releasing the memos, but, secondly, what do we gain from indicting lawyers for their opinions, if that is a possibility here, or holding a so-called Truth Commission that the reality is, it will poison the water here in Washington. It will achieve nothing.

LIEBERMAN: It will make it harder for the president to do some of the big things he wants to do for the country -- not just get the economy going, but get some Republican support for health care reform, energy independence and education reform.

So let the Intelligence Committee do its work. That should be the end of it. KING: And one of the questions in the political debate, as you well know, there are people out there saying, wait a minute. You have all these politicians -- and largely Democrats, now -- saying, you know, investigate; truth commission; investigate; we had no idea.

A timeline released by your committee, Senator Feinstein, says -- and this is backed up the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- and then-CIA Director Porter Goss -- Pete Hoekstra -- you know, select members of Congress were briefed -- were briefed, way back at the beginning, including now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

And the timeline by your committee says that they were briefed on the use of waterboarding on three detainees, Abu Zubaydah, Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

The now-Speaker Pelosi says, no way; she was told there were legal -- there were -- legal opinions were written but not that the tactics had been used. Is she telling the truth?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I can't comment on that. I wasn't there. Just four people were briefed. The full committee, including myself, were briefed in September of '06. Now, that's four years later or so. So there is a big gap.

I am really strongly opposed to just certain members being briefed on something this seriously. It seems to me the whole committee should be briefed at a given time. We've been very good at retaining security, and I think it's a real disadvantage to the system just to have a few people briefed.

Because it really is a notification; there is no real discussion. When you deal with the whole committee, everybody fires back questions; there's a discussion; there's a dialogue. And I think a point of view emerges.

KING: Well, if -- to Senator Feinstein's point, Senator Graham, if the committee, the Intelligence Committee is going to look into this, and you all think that's the more responsible, measured way to do it, should the committee also look into whether Porter Goss or Nancy Pelosi is telling the truth about what came up at those briefings?

GRAHAM: Well, I'll leave that up to the committee. But the point is, if a member of Congress was read into this program, does it matter?

Yes, I think it matters. It's clear to me that the people who were devising these interrogation techniques were not trying to commit a crime against an individual person. They were trying to create tools for our intelligence community to get information to prevent what we all thought was going to be an imminent attack.

The Geneva Convention did not apply, until 2005, to the war on terror. So I can't conceive of a statute that you could prosecute anyone under because their endeavor was not to commit a crime but to look at the law and come up with aggressive interrogation techniques to get information from an enemy that we all thought was coming after us again.

So, however, if you think what they did was a crime, and you read someone into it, they're part of the crime.

So I think it's ridiculous to say the lawyers were trying to break the law. They were trying to interpret the law to protect the nation. And any member of Congress that was read into the program, I don't think they have any culpability either, because what we were trying to do is defend the nation, not conspire to hurt somebody individually, but techniques to protect us all.

KING: I want to move on to other big challenges facing the country right now.

But, before we do that and before we take a quick break, early in the Bush administration, the criticism in Congress was they never pick up the phone; they never consult us; you know, we've got some pretty smart people up here; we can help you.

I'm told that this decision was anguished; the president came in inclined to release them, changed his mind a couple times during the debate and then came back in the end and decided to release them.

At any point in that process -- I'll start with you, Senator Lieberman -- anybody from the White House pick up the phone and say, "What do you think?"

LIEBERMAN: They did not. And I can tell you, listening to what Lindsey said about looking at these decisions that were made early in the Bush administration, remembering that it was immediately after 9/11/01 there was worry about another attack imminently -- I'm proud to be the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Our enemies are out there planning and plotting to attack us every day.

So, as we think about what we want to release, how much information we want to make public, what kind of mud fight we want to get into about something that happened seven years ago, we better remember that and focus on our security today, not back-biting and vendettas from a time passed.

KING: Quickly to you, you're the chairwoman of the committee. You're investigating these matters, anyway. Do they pick up the phone and call you?

FEINSTEIN: No. They did not.

KING: Is that a mistake?

FEINSTEIN: Well, if they had, I probably would have said, as I said, let us do our work first. Since the first two cases have already been done, let us do the rest of it before anything is released, so that at least the Intelligence Committee can see everything in context and make some decisions.

KING: All right. Much more with our Senate guests in just a moment. We ask them to lay out the stakes in the tough choices facing the United States in three major hot spots, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. "State of the Union" will be right back.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: On a scale of 1 to 10, sir, how confident are you, 10 being fully confident, that you will meet that deadline, that all U.S. troops will be gone at the end of 2011?

GENERAL RAY ODIERNO (USA), COMMANDER, MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ: As you ask me today, I believe it's a 10 that we will be gone by 2011.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We're back with our three senators, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, Independent Joe Lieberman and Republican Lindsey Graham.

That was General Odierno on this program, Easter Sunday morning. Since then, as you're all aware, there has been an uptick, as the military would call it, in violence across Iraq, Mosul, Baqubah, including in Baghdad.

And on the front page of the New York Times today, "Iraq Resists Pleas by U.S. to Placate Hussein's Party."

Essentially, Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, has not, at least if you believe U.S. officials, reached out to former Baath Party members and said, it's time to move on; it's time to reconcile.

Senator Lieberman, to you first, are you worried at all about the combination of those things, more violence and the slower pace of political reconciliation will knock the U.S. timetable off track?

LIEBERMAN: Sure, I am. I'm concerned about it. And incidentally, it's part of why I'm so grateful that President Obama did not yield to the calls for a precipitous rapid withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. He's got us on a timeline. It's based on conditions on the ground. And what's happening now shows that all that we've sacrificed so much and worked so hard to gain is not quite set. So we need to be careful here.

LIEBERMAN: But I think Prime Minister Maliki has really done a pretty good job at reconciling a lot of the divisions in Iraqi politics. The Sunnis are much more involved than they used to be. I know that there's some problems with former leaders what was basically Saddam Hussein's party. We ought to encourage Prime Minister Maliki to try to bring them in as well so they all could be united at what seems to be remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq that are carrying out these brutal bombings against Shia, this an attempt by al Qaeda to try to stimulate sectarian conflict again in Iraq and neither Prime Minister Maliki or the American forces or the Iraqi forces can let that happen.

KING: And if that challenge were not great enough for the military to deal with and the president to deal with, Senator Graham, you also have this expansion of the Taliban influence inside Pakistan. And ... GRAHAM: Right.

KING: ... Admiral Mullen was just there, the is due back for a White House meeting on Monday, administration officials say they have some big decisions to make based on what Admiral Mullen tells them. There are now more U.S. troops heading into Afghanistan and the question to you is if Pakistan is in such trouble and you have the Taliban on the move inside Pakistan, is it time for the president to slow down the deployment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan? Will they be at risk on the other side of the border or will we need perhaps more troops because of the uncertainty in Pakistan?

GRAHAM: I would counsel the president to do what General Petraeus and others in the region tell him about troops. There is a provision in the supplemental that is coming up in about a month that provides economic aid to Pakistan and $400 million to help them create a counterinsurgency program. I've been talking with administration officials, Republican Party leaders, to see if we can break some of that money out and pass it as a standalone provision soon to show the Pakistani people and government that we're with you, to give them some money to accelerate their counterinsurgency program and give them some money to provide economic aid to their people, the people do not want the Taliban to run Pakistan, but the economy in Pakistan is on its knees and we've got to get the Pakistani Army focused on the insurgency, as well as the government.

The threat the Pakistan is not an invasion by India. It's insurgents, the Taliban and others destabilizing the country and I think we need to be all in in helping Pakistan As to Iraq in 2011, I hope we will have a strong contingent of Americans there training their Air Force, their Navy. It is in our long-term best interest to have an enduring relationship with the people of Iraq, militarily and otherwise.

KING: Admiral Mullen says Pakistan could be at a tipping point. You see the intelligence. Is the Taliban, Senator Feinstein, a threat to the government, the central government of Pakistan?

FEINSTEIN: Oh, in my opinion, yes. I also think that these bombings, the size of the bombings in Iraq are a real danger signal. And I think that Mr. Maliki has to step up to the plate on this. And it's going to be very interesting in the next few weeks to see how he handles this. If these bombings continue and there is an escalation of violence, I think it jeopardizes everything the united states is trying to do.

With respect to the Taliban and particularly in both Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan, I think the takeover of the Swat Valley, the movement up north is a very serious thing. The fact that, despite the fact that we provide money for the Pakistani military, they have done nothing to stop this Taliban advance, I think, causes me great concern that Pakistan may be in very deep trouble. And I would think that -- and most of us, I think, do agree that Pakistan is sort of Ground Zero for terror today and that this thing has to get sorted out and sorted out quickly or you could lose the government of Pakistan and Pakistan is a in nuclear power and that concerns me deeply. KING: A grave issue there. I want to close on a lighter note.

And that is, as we approach the 100 day note we are in a political environment where people are making assessments.

I want to take you, Senator Lieberman back to something you said when you were campaigning for John McCain at the Republican National Convention. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMAN: Senator Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who I think can do great things for our country in the years ahead, but, my friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record. Not in these tough times for America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We've been discussing a number of tough issues and there are many more, senator, has he proven you wrong, Barack Obama, in his first 100 days.

LIEBERMAN: First, John, let me thank you for running that tape.

KING: Tape is a dangerous thing.

LIEBERMAN: I have no regrets about supporting John McCain and really what I said then, I meant. Barack Obama is extremely gifted. Coming in at a very difficult time. I was thinking particularly about Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terror. And McCain, of course, great experience, bipartisan record. Once the election was over, I said I would do everything to support Barack Obama as president. He is our president. I have, but I'll say this. I've been impressed by what he has done. He is a young man but he is extremely gifted. He has acted with strength, I think, and purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan, rebuilt some of our relations around the world and acted very boldly here at home on the economy where we needed him to particularly with the stimulus package.

But it's early but I would say he is off to a very good start. Maybe the most important thing he's done overall is that he has restored the confidence of the American people in the American presidency and he has raised their hopes about the future of our country. That is critically important.

KING: We're out of time. I want to give Senators Graham and Feinstein one sentence each. Senator Graham, to you the question is what does the Republican Party need to do in the second 100 days?

GRAHAM: To stand up for fiscal responsibility, work with the president and to make sure that we end Iraq right, win in Afghanistan and stabilize Pakistan, be a partner where we can and loyal opposition where we need to.

KING: There is a question as to whether you want to be the next governor of California. FEINSTEIN: Well, let me answer the prior question. No. You said in a sentence so give me an opportunity.

KING: All right.

FEINSTEIN: I think the Republican Party should stop being the party of no. This is a president well elected by a large number of people. He has had a very strong first 100 days. He has traveled to countries abroad, he has turned the page, he has opened a new day, he has taken strong executive actions, he has put together programs. He has delved into the economy. And I would hope that the second 100 days would find more Republican cooperation.

KING: When do we get the answer to that other question?

FEINSTEIN: Oh, you'll see.

KING: We'll see. Great. We're out of time. Senators Feinstein and Lieberman and Graham, thanks so much for coming.


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Up next, Mary Matalin and James Carville have both counseled presidents in crisis. Their take on the challenges and the 100 day mark, something you will see only right here on STATE OF THE UNION. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We've added a sharp and occasionally spicy political team to our "State of the Union" report. The only place you'll see these tested strategists together on TV is right here.

And joining us now from New Orleans, our newest CNN political contributor, Republican Mary Matalin, alongside our longtime contributor Democrat James Carville.

I want to get, from both of you -- good morning from Jackson Square. It looks beautiful there, this morning -- a little breezy.

I want to get, from both of you, your 100-day headline, your assessment. But first, I want to share with you the assessment of somebody we got to know in the last campaign; that is the Alaska governor, Sarah Palin.

She says this of the first 100 days, the former vice presidential nominee, "For now, Obama's back-peddle on the bipartisanship promise just makes him look insincere. At some point, Obama will need Republicans on his side. He'd be smart to spend his second 100 days making up for the serious snubs of his first."

James Carville, does Sarah Palin have a point?

CARVILLE: Well, you know, I'd rather go with Senator Lieberman's point, who supported Senator McCain, and I completely agree with him -- without going through a recital of all the accomplishments, the signature accomplishment of this president is we have a restoration of confidence in this country. People are feeling better about the country. And that's a magnificent achievement.

And I thought that Senator Lieberman did a very good job of bringing that out. And I would prefer to go with his definition of the first 100 days than Governor Palin's.

KING: And what does Mary Matalin think, at this point?

If you look at the numbers, Mary, this president does have -- about two-thirds of the American people approve of his job. Even a higher number like him as a person and like the imagery of this presidency.

What do you think? MATALIN: Yes, he's maintained his personal popularity, but -- which is on par with his predecessors, but what he's lost, after starting out with record-setting approval ratings which included a goodly amount of Republicans, a lot of independents, he has lost that support, because what he is not is what he was perceived to be in the campaign, a centrist.

He's spent more than all of his predecessors since the beginning of this country. He's expanded government, the greatest in two generations. So he's not a centrist. He's also not post-partisan.

It's not just that he demonizes his opponents, which is old politics. He'd knee-cap his own guys. He's got Valerie Jarrett, who's the liaison -- your former guest is the liaison to MoveOn.org, who is running ads against moderate Democrats. He's not a centrist. He's not post-partisan. But he is -- elections have consequences. We lost, fair and square, and let's -- that's what this debate is about. I hope Republicans can rise to the challenge and oppose him and stop some of this expansion.

KING: Well, I want to talk about some terror policy in a minute. But since you raised that point, Mary, that you lost and you hope Republicans rise to the challenge, I want you to listen to something that your friend and your former colleague in the Bush White House, Steve Schmidt, said the other day about the decline of the Republican Party. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE SCHMIDT, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It is near-extinct, in many ways, in the Northeast. It is extinct, in many ways, on the West Coast. And it is endangered in the Mountain West, increasingly endangered in the Southwest, particularly with Hispanic demographics. And if you look at the state of the party, it is a shrinking entity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Mary, Steve Schmidt says the leadership vacuum has him thinking you're in the "Lord of the Flies" phase of the Republican Party.

What's the road back?

MATALIN: You know, one of the advantages of age -- I didn't think I'd ever brag about this, but I'm much older than Steve and I've been through this before. And we will come back.

The Republican Party brand is irrefutably ruined, but that's because they lost their connection to conviction conservatism, common- sense conservatism. We've been here before and we've come back, not only strong but to ascend to the majority.

And there are many -- and there's a good nucleus of smart fiscal conservatives, strong defense, back to basics, personal liberty Republicans who will restore the brand and reassociate it with conservatism as we know it: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan. You know who they are.

So the advantage of being aged is that you've been through it a couple, two or three times.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: James, I want to ask you, on this...

MATALIN: You went down, honey. You've been down.

CARVILLE: Yes, if age confers any wisdom, then you're looking at -- our combined age would make us very wise.

(LAUGHTER)

But, look, I think Steve is a very bright guy. He came down to my class at Tulane, and of course, as you know, Speaker Gingrich did, too.

But I think there's a lot of people who are trying to get under the hood of the Republican Party because, as Ross Perot said, it really needs some fixing. And there's a lot of different voices, here, and we're going to have to see what emerges.

But while all of that is going on, it's indisputable this president's enjoying a 69 percent approval rating. He's getting things done, left and right. He's got any number of things to deal with. And I think he's off to one heck of a start here. And it's understandable because the Republicans are all -- have a cacophony (ph) because they're not doing very well right now.

It's not...

KING: Mary...

MATALIN: It's not a -- it's not a cacophony (ph).

You know, John, can I just add to that?

We keep looking -- and all the pundits like to look at his top number, which is high, but as I said earlier, comparable to his predecessors. The danger spots for this president -- I'm just looking at all the polls, and they're 100 percent consistent on this. It's an 80 percent issue that people of all stripes, across the aisle, are concerned about the rapid and expansive growth of government that this president has ushered in.

That's not an old idea; it's not a stale idea; it's not Republican obstructionism. People just do not like how fast and how far this president has gone. That's an 80 percent issue.

So he's at -- he may be at 60 percent, but concerns over the things that he's done so far -- and that doesn't even include his foreign policy problems, you know -- he's got some undercurrents of issues, here, in this first 100 days. KING: Let me -- let me close on a lighter note, and that is, to James, you are a friend of now-Secretary of State Clinton. You were trying to help her retire her campaign debt when she was Senator Clinton...

(LAUGHTER)

... running against now-President Obama. And the Clinton campaign organization, trying to reduce its debt, has put out a letter offering people who contribute three potential prizes.

One is a day with former President Clinton in New York City. One is tickets to the "American Idol" season finale. And the third is, spend a weekend in Washington, D.C. with James Carville and Paul Begala.

(LAUGHTER)

Mary, you've got the checkbook there?

(LAUGHTER)

MATALIN: Oh, well, as you can see, I'd rather be here at Jazz Fest and the Zurich Classic and the Bubba Gump Run. And good luck in Washington with your crazy, loony lefties.

(LAUGHTER)

CARVILLE: I don't know.

MATALIN: That's a prize. What's the second prize, James?

CARVILLE: I always insist, the last two words, with Secretary of State Clinton and any conversation we have -- and they have always been, "Yes, ma'am."

(LAUGHTER)

So, whatever she wants, I'm delighted to do.

KING: James Carville and Mary Matalin, we are -- we are thrilled to have you back with us, together. We will see you again on "State of the Union" in the near future. Enjoy what looks like a beautiful morning, there in New Orleans.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Take care, guys.





KING: During President Obama's time in office, we've traveled to 17 different states to hear your concerns and opinions. A unique perspective on the first 100 days from people we've been lucky to meet all across the country, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We launched STATE OF THE UNION the weekend of the Obama inauguration, promising to chronicle the big issues here in Washington and also to come see how the debates affect you. Our first of 17 states in these 100 days was Ohio, where on a factory floor, we asked the man about to make history to assess the many challenges and the moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You took your family to the Lincoln Memorial.

OBAMA: Now, this is a good story. I love the Lincoln Memorial at night. We go and look at the Lincoln Second Inaugural, Sasha looks up and she says that's a long speech. Do you have to give one of those? I said, actually, that one's pretty short. Mine may even be longer. At which point, the Malia turns to me and says, first African American president. Better be good.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time, but know this, America, they will be met.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A hundred days, of course, is far too soon to judge whether this new president will get his way and whether his way will work. But in our travels to 17 states in those 100 days, from Vermont and New York in the Northeast to Nevada and Arizona out in the Southwest, a fascinating look through your eyes of the many challenges, the uncertainty, and right here early on in Peoria, Illinois, of the pain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): I don't want to be on unemployment. I have never been on unemployment before.

KING (voice-over): For John and Mary Beth Fagan (ph), a double whammy. Both worked at Caterpillar, both out of work effective Friday. Three children, two cars and a mortgage.

(UNKNOWN): If things really got that bad, I would probably volunteer to go back overseas, and that's pretty bad to say.

KING: You would volunteer to go to Iraq or Afghanistan?

(UNKNOWN): For my family, I would, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: One swift achievement in the first 100 days was passage of a $787 billion economic stimulus. The president signed it into law less than one month into his administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Just a few weeks later, a $75 billion administration plan to help millions of homeowners make their mortgage payments.

Another bold and controversial White House move, forcing the CEO of General Motors to step down as a condition for more government bailout money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: This restructuring, as painful as it will be in the short-term, will mark not an end, but a new beginning for a great American industry, an auto industry that is once more out-competing the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Speaking of the auto industry, we have visited a handful of states with auto plants over the past hundred days, including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and down here in Springhill, Tennessee, many union autoworkers told us they believe the president is overreaching.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Yeah, we need help, but to say that the president tells a company's CEO that he has to leave, I just don't believe that should happen.

KING: Make no mistake, Brenda Carter says she loves President Obama, but her concerns, a proof of the risks Mr. Obama faces as he takes an aggressive role in the restructuring of GM and Chrysler. The Lansing Grand River assembly line. Modern, clean and efficient. These Cadillacs among GM's best-selling models. And yet, this plant is down from two shifts to one. New cars just aren't selling.

(UNKNOWN): It's scary times right now for a lot of people.

KING: To listen, to look around is to hear and see a way of life fading. Generous Motors was the nickname when Brad Fredline was growing up. Both grandfathers retired from GM. His father, too. (UNKNOWN): You graduated on a Friday and by Monday you were working at the factory, you knew you had a rock solid job for 30 years, you buy a little place up north and you retire. Those days are gone, I'm afraid.

(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I'm John King and this is what's coming up this next hour of our STATE OF THE UNION report for this Sunday, April 26th, 2009.

Did the United States use torture to get information from suspected terrorists? The story is being covered by virtually every media outlet, but is it being done right? Howie Kurtz will grill a panel of top Washington journalists.

A pair of new movies with journalists as the stars. No problem. Just play ourselves, right? Wrong. Ahead, the real life newspaper man who helped turn Russell Crowe and Robert Downey Jr. into convincing reporters.

And as we continue CNN's special coverage of Barack Obama's first 100 days, we'll get real-world perspective from three former White House staffers who know just how tough things can get inside the Oval Office. That's all ahead this hour on STATE OF THE UNION.

New York Times' Public Editor Weighs In On Kristol

He May Be Unwelcome, but We’ll Survive", says Clark Hoyt, New York Times' public editor:

In 1972, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was looking for a conservative columnist for his left-leaning Op-Ed page.

At a charity dinner, he wound up sitting next to William Safire, the Nixon White House speechwriter who coined Spiro Agnew’s famous denunciation of the press as “nattering nabobs of negativism.” They soon had a deal.

But, as described in “The Trust,” the authoritative history of the family that has controlled The Times for more than a century, Sulzberger neglected to involve John Oakes, his cousin and the editor of the editorial page, in the decision. Oakes was appalled when he heard about the negotiations, and not realizing it was too late, offered alternatives. How about Irving Kristol, he suggested.

More than 35 years later, Sulzberger’s son, Arthur Jr. — this time in full partnership with his editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal — has hired another conservative columnist for their left-leaning Op-Ed page: Irving Kristol’s son, William.

The choice of Safire, who retired in 2005, set off a storm of protest. “The Times could have saved themselves about 50 grand a year if they just sent an office boy over to the White House to pick up the press releases,” fumed Nicholas von Hoffman of The Washington Post. Kristol’s appointment has not fared any better. “Pretty much the worst idea ever,” grumped Gawker, the New York media gossip Web site.

Of the nearly 700 messages I have received since Kristol’s selection was announced — more than half of them before he ever wrote a word for The Times — exactly one praised the choice.

Rosenthal’s mail has been particularly rough. “That rotten, traiterous [sic] piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,” said one message. “You should be ashamed. Apparently you are only out for money and therefore an equally traiterous [sic] whore deserving the same treatment.”

Kristol would not have been my choice to join David Brooks as a second conservative voice in the mix of Times columnists, but the reaction is beyond reason. Hiring Kristol the worst idea ever? I can think of many worse. Hanging someone from a lamppost to be beaten by a mob because of his ideas? And that is from a liberal, defined by Webster as “one who is open-minded.” What have we come to?

Sulzberger told me he was surprised by the vehemence of the reaction. But Kristol is a particularly polarizing figure in a polarized age. While he holds the full range of conservative Republican views on economic and social issues, he is most identified today with ardently pushing for the war in Iraq, a war sold to the American people on the basis of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, though a fair reading of Kristol’s statements includes broader arguments. Today, the public widely sees the war as a mistake, but Kristol remains its aggressive, unapologetic champion. In his first column last Monday, he warned against electing a Democratic president who would “snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.”

Rosenthal said: “Some people have said we shouldn’t have hired him because he supports the war in Iraq. That’s absurd.”

That is not why I think Sulzberger and Rosenthal made a mistake, and I agree with their effort to address an Op-Ed lineup that, until Kristol came aboard, was at least six liberals against one conservative who isn’t always all that conservative. I’ve heard all the arguments against Kristol — he is “wrong” on Iraq, he is overexposed as editor of The Weekly Standard and a regular commentator on Fox News with nothing new to say, he is an activist with the potential to embarrass The Times with his outside involvements — and one of them sticks with me:

On Fox News Sunday on June 25, 2006, Kristol said, “I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution” of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists.

Publication of the article was controversial — my predecessor as public editor first supported it and then changed his mind — but Kristol’s leap to prosecution smacked of intimidation and disregard for both the First Amendment and the role of a free press in monitoring a government that has a long history of throwing the cloak of national security and classification over its activities. This is not a person I would have rewarded with a regular spot in front of arguably the most elite audience in the nation.

Kristol refused to talk with me about this issue, or an earlier statement that The Times was “irredeemable,” or the reaction to his appointment — an odd stance for someone who presumably will want others to talk to him for his column.

Rosenthal said Kristol’s comment about prosecution bothered him. It was, Rosenthal said, “a heavy accusation that put him in a category other than a journalist.” But he said that Op-Ed columnists are not necessarily traditional journalists, and he did not think that “holding one opinion” should be the basis for selecting or rejecting a columnist.

Sulzberger said The Times wanted “a columnist who brought to our pages a deeply held and well articulated point of view in line with what you might call the conservative Republican movement. ... Our Op-Ed page is a marketplace of ideas. He’ll strengthen the discussion.”

That may be, but Kristol’s first column joined the pack in its first paragraph and wrote off Hillary Clinton with finality the day before she won the New Hampshire primary. He also misattributed a quotation that had to be corrected.

This is a decision I would not have made. But it is not the end of the world. Everyone should take a deep breath and calm down. Safire was greeted with jeers and got off to a rocky start, calling Watergate “a tempest in a Teapot Dome” before eventually acknowledging that he had been “grandly, gloriously, egregiously wrong.” He went on to a distinguished, 32-year career at The Times and, agree or disagree with him, he was a compelling presence on the Op-Ed page. (He still writes a column on language in the Sunday magazine.)

Kristol was hired on a one-year contract for what amounts to a mutual tryout. He will continue as editor of The Weekly Standard and on Fox, but Rosenthal said Kristol would not advise candidates or take any other active part in the presidential campaign. If Kristol is another Safire, he has the chance to prove it. If not, he and the newspaper will move on, and the search will resume.

Clark Hoyt
E-mail: public@nytimes.com
Phone: (212) 556-7652
Address: Public Editor
The New York Times
620 Eight Avenue.
New York, NY 10018

The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section.

The New York Times Adds An Op-Ed Columnist

The NYT reports:

William Kristol, one of the nation’s leading conservative writers and a vigorous supporter of the Iraq war, will become an Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times, the newspaper announced Saturday.

Mr. Kristol will write a weekly column for The Times beginning Jan. 7, the newspaper said. He is editor and co-founder of The Weekly Standard, an influential conservative political magazine, and appears regularly on Fox News Sunday and the Fox News Channel. He was a columnist for Time magazine until that relationship was severed this month.

Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of The Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting The Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions.

In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not “a first-rate newspaper of record,” adding, “The Times is irredeemable.”

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, an influential policy study group. Before that, he was chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle.

A native of New York City, he holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from Harvard.

His father is Irving Kristol, one of the founding intellectual forces behind modern conservatism.

New York Times Explains Hiring New 'Op-Ed' Wag

Editors and Publishers report:

A day after the Huffington Post first reported it, The New York Times has announced that it has indeed hired conservative pundit, and Fox News analyst, Bill Kristol, as a new regular op-ed columnist.

Liberal bloggers had been up in arms over the move. Kristol said, in an interview with Politico.com, it gave him some pleasure to see their "heads explode." Kristol was perhaps the most influential pundit of all in promoting the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has strongly defended the move ever since.

Times' editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal defended the move. Rosenthal told Politico.com shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views....We have views on our op-ed page that are as hawkish or more so than Bill....

“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Unlike The Times’ other regulars, Kristol will write only once a week, with his first column set for Jan. 7, and he has just a one-year contract. The paper noted in its own announcement: "In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not 'a first-rate newspaper of record,' adding, 'The Times is irredeemable.'”

Kristol, on Fox News in 2006, suggested that the paper should face charges after its big banking records scoop: "I think it is an open question whether the Times itself should be prosecuted for this totally gratuitous revealing of an ongoing secret classified program that is part of the war on terror.”

In 2003, on NPR's "Fresh Air" show, he said, "There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni....Iraq's always been very secular."

In the July 14, 2006 issue of The Weekly Standard, which he edits, Kristol called for a "military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."

Kristol, in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, argues that Gen. David Petraeus should have been picked as Time's person of the year, but "Our liberal elites are so invested in a narrative of defeat and disaster in Iraq that to acknowledge the prospect of victory would be too head-wrenching and heart-rending." In the Dec. 17 issue he argued, "Resisting the temptation to throw away success in Iraq by drawing down too fast or too deep is the greatest service this president can render his successor."

Daniel Ellsberg Says Sibel Edmonds Case 'Far More Explosive Than Pentagon Papers'

'Gagged' FBI Whistleblower, Risking Jail, Says American Media Has Refused Her Offer to Disclose Classified Information, Including Criminal Allegations, Information Concerning 'Security of Americans'

Charges Several Mainstream Publications Have Been Informed of 'Full Story' by Other FBI Leakers Nearly a Year Ago, Have Remained Mum...

-- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," Daniel Ellsberg told us in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

"From what I understand, from what she has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses," Ellsberg explained. "And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. And she says similar about Congress."

The BRAD BLOG reports:

The BRAD BLOG spoke recently with the legendary 1970's-era whistleblower in the wake of our recent exclusive, detailing Edmonds' announcement that she was prepared to risk prosecution to expose the entirety of the still-classified information that the Bush Administration has "gagged" her from revealing for the past five years under claims of the arcane "State Secrets Privilege".

Ellsberg, the former defense analyst and one-time State Department official, knows well the plight of whistleblowers. He himself was prepared to spend his life in prison for the exposure of some 7,000 pages of classified Department of Defense documents, concerning Executive Branch manipulation of facts and outright lies leading the country into an extended war in Vietnam.

Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today's American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations.

As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who "sat on the NSA spying story for over a year" when they "could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome."

"There will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,'" he told us.

"I have been receiving calls from the mainstream media all day," Edmonds recounted the day after we ran the story announcing that she was prepared to violate her gag-order to disclose all of the national security-related criminal allegations she has been kept from disclosing for the past five years.

"The media called from Japan and France and Belgium and Germany and Canada and from all over the world," she told The BRAD BLOG.

"But not from here?," we asked incredulously.

"I'm getting contact from all over the world, but not from here. Isn't that disgusting?," she shot back.

An Iranian-born American citizen, the linguistics expert Edmonds has been described by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as "the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America" since filing her original complaints at the FBI, where she had been hired in late 2001 to translate a backlog of pre-9/11 wiretaps.

She has previously indicated a litany of criminal corruption, malfeasance, and cover-ups concerning the penetration of the FBI and Departments of State and Defense by foreign agents in senior positions; influence-peddling and bribery by shadowy Turkish interests throughout the U.S. government over several administrations; undisclosed information related to 9/11; including alleged illegal activities of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and, most recently, two other "well-known" members of Congress who she will now name to the mainstream media.

Edmonds has taken her whistleblower case all the way to the Supreme Court. She, and her allegations, have been confirmed as both serious and extremely credible by the FBI Inspector General, several sitting Senators, both Republican and Democratic, several senior FBI agents, the 9/11 Commission, and dozens of national security and whistleblower advocacy groups. She was even offered the possibility of public hearings on these matters by the Chairman of the U.S. House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee, after briefing his staff in a special high-security area of the U.S. Capitol reserved for the exchange of classified information.

Her extraordinary story was first aired by CBS' 60 Minutes in 2002 (and re-run twice thereafter), and via a detailed 2005 exposé in Vanity Fair.

All while she was unable to violate the yoke of the unprecedented use of the arcane "States Secrets Privilege", invoked by the DoJ in such a draconian fashion that she is still "gagged" from disclosing even innocuous personal details such as her date of birth.

After five years of being vetted and investigated, with a great deal of her allegations having leaked out via others sources and confirmed by myriad sources, her publicly undisclosed claims would appear to be as credible --- and as critically serious to national security --- as any whistleblower in the history of the nation.

After bringing her charges to the FBI, Congress and the nation's highest court --- all of whom failed to take action or legitimately pursue her claims --- she now feels "obligated" to share the information with the American public. But the American Mainstream Media are apparently unwilling to air it.

Three weeks ago, she told The BRAD BLOG she had "exhausted every channel" and was prepared to "let them see how far they're going to get [by bringing] criminal charges against someone who divulges criminal activity." She was ready to disclose all.

Her "promise to the American public" at the time: "If anyone of the major networks --- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX --- promise to air the entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything that I know."

"I don't think any of the mainstream media are going to have the guts to do it," she told us. We didn't believe that could be the case. Surely, we thought, loads of folks in the mainstream broadcast media would jump at the chance for such an explosive exclusive. 60 Minutes, after all, had re-run their initial story on her, including interviews with her, Senators Grassley and Leahy, and several FBI agents, not once, but twice!

It turns out, however, that she was correct. So far.

"How Do We Deal With Sibel?"

"I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to 'How do we deal with Sibel?'" contends Ellsberg. "The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn't get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told 'don't touch this, it's communications intelligence.'"

Edmonds, who founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), contends that she's very sensitive to matters of national security and would never reveal information that could put the country at risk.

"I am not about to expose any methods of intelligence gathering. I am not going to expose any ongoing investigations, or even any investigations that may be ongoing," she told us, explaining that all relevant investigations about which she has information were long ago shut down by the government.

"I am not going to name any informant's name. I am not going to jeopardize any ongoing intelligence. Anything I'm going to be talking about, I know they are investigations that have been shut down by January and February of 2002."

"I am Obligated"

When it comes to the sort of Executive Branch classification of information that's been used to stop Edmonds from revealing alleged criminal culpability, she contends it is the government, not she, who is violating the law.

Legally and constitutionally, she asserts, such classification "may not be used to cover up illegal criminal activities with consequences to public health, security, safety and welfare. It cannot be used to cover up illegal activities."

"The reason I went to Congress, the reason I went to the IG, all of this, is that I was obligated to do so. Because they are covering up illegal activities that effect the public health, security and welfare."

"I am obligated," she repeated again.

Ellsberg agrees. "What is involved in protecting Executive Branch crimes, the duty is to protect the law and to uphold and defend the Constitution. Though most don't understand that and they see loyalty to their boss and their party and their secrecy agreement as more important."

"They'll never get in trouble for that," he emphasized. "But they'll get in a lot of trouble if they are truthful to their oath to defend the Constitution."

Whether Edmonds will ever get that opportunity remains unclear.

Why Not YouTube It?

"When you have a publication like Vanity Fair, running a piece and naming someone like Dennis Hastert [as being allegedly involved in bribery by shadowy Turkish interests involved in narcotics trafficking] and nothing happens with it, you think they are going to pay attention to YouTube?" Edmonds explained when we asked why she didn't release the information herself as a video on the Internet.

Readers around the web have asked the same question in the wake of our previous story, which climbed to the top ranks of most linked and recommended at a number of Internet sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, DailyKos and others.

"Listen, I'm willing to have these people come after me with a prosecution --- they [the media] should be willing to do their part."

"This is the biggest risk that a citizen has ever taken...I guess, after Ellsberg...And I know why he did that with the New York Times," she explained referring to his giving thousands of pages of documents to the paper, who, at the time, went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for their right to publish them, as they eventually did.

"What about the BBC? Would you do that?," we asked.

"Why am I going on BBC? This is about this country! This is about this country, and more of America needs to know the true face of the mainstream media," she exclaimed.

"The only way they got away with it was because of the mainstream media. They are the biggest culprit for the state of our country. Whether it's Iraq, or torture or the NSA wiretapping --- which the New York Times sat on for over a year! --- these people are the real culprit."

"Nibbles"

There were some "nibbles," as she called them. A producer from CBS Evening News had contacted The BRAD BLOG within hours of publishing our previous story, asking for Edmonds' contact information to forward to 60 Minutes producers. Nothing has come of it so far.

ABC News also inquired. Despite allowing Presidents and other officials to make previously undisclosed claims on live programs such as This Week and others, they declined to extend the same opportunity to Edmonds. That, despite dozens of high-ranking officials, elected and otherwise, who have heard her claims over the years and repeatedly declared them to be exceedingly credible and meriting serious investigation.

What about Keith Olbermann? Surely he'd pick up this story! A producer at MSNBC's Countdown --- perhaps the outlet most often suggested to us as likely willing to interview her --- expressed interest during multiple inquiries we'd made to them. Each time, the promise was made to call us back with on the record information on whether they would do the interview, and if not, why not. They never called us back.

Edmonds' phone was "ringing off the hook" for requests for interviews from independent radio shows. Ours was too, and our email inbox yielded dozens of similar requests.

But Edmonds has been clear: "I'm gonna do one major interview" to tell all of the 'states secret' information. "Afterwards, I'll do the others. But this is gonna be one round, give it all and say 'here it is.'"

The ground rules seem fair enough. She is risking being rushed off to prison after all.

"Setting Records for Shamelessness"

The mainstream media is "shameless", Ellsberg says, so is Congress, so is Bush.

"He's setting records for shamelessness. He should probably be in the Guinness Book of Records. He doesn't care what he says. And the media is shameless as well, as they'll run anything he says. And Congress is pretty shameless as well. You can't really shame these people."

Without mainstream corporate media attention, Ellsberg contends, Edmonds' story will stay off the radar, and her damaging contentions will do no harm to the powers that be.

"She's not going to shame the media, unless the public are aware that there is a conflict going on. And only the blog-reading public is aware of that. It's a fairly large audience, but it's a small segment of the populace at large."

Unless her claims reach the mainstream, he says, "they don't suffer any risk of being shamed. As long as they hold a united front on this, they don't run the risk of being shamed."

They Already Know

Edmonds revealed an additional tasty morsel while wrapping up one of our recent conversations. One that might help explain the American media's reluctance to jump at the chance for a scoop: apparently many of them already know the story.

"I will name the name of major publications who know the story, and have been sitting on it --- almost a year and a half."

"How do you know they have the story?," we asked.

"I know they have it because people from the FBI have come in and given it to them. They've given them the documents and specific case-numbers on my case."

"These are agents that have said to me, 'if you can get Congress to subpoena me I'll come in and tell it under oath.'"

Yet, despite promises she says she had received from staffers in Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office to hold hearings once he became chairman of the House Oversight Committee, they no longer respond to her. "The only reason they couldn't hold hearings [previously]," they'd told her, "was because the Republicans were blocking it."

They're not blocking it anymore. Ever since the Democrats have taken control of the House. Nonetheless, there are still no plans for hearings. Even with more than 30,000 people having signed her petition, calling on Waxman to do so.

A spokesperson from his office finally replied to our repeated requests for comment on why they had not yet held hearings on Edmonds' case.

We were told only that there are no hearings currently scheduled on her case. Repeated attempts to gather a more specific explanation or confirmation that the office had previously promised hearings yielded the same answer, and nothing more. No hearing is presently scheduled on the matter.

"It's disgusting," Edmonds said about the broken promises. "They won't do it anymore. It's disgusting."

"This is criminal activity. That's why I went to Congress, to the Courts, to the [FBI] IG. I am obligated to do so. And that's what I've been doing since 2002."

"By not doing so, someone should charge me for not coming forward to say something about this," she continued.

"If they come after me...when they come after me --- to indict me, to bring charges --- it's going to be up to the American public to see it's not about some bogeyman in some Afghanistan cave. It's about an American citizen coming forward to expose information that concerns the security of Americans."

"An American citizen is coming forward to say that, no, they are depriving you of your security."

Ellsberg says there's a reason that the Government, and both political parties, would rather not deal with something as explosive as Sibel's charges. Much like his own case, when the Republican Nixon administration fought against publication of the Pentagon Papers even though they were bound to embarrass the Democratic Johnson administration far more than Nixon's.

"It involves our allies in various places in the Middle East. It involves our allies in Turkey and in Afghanistan and involves people in our Congress and our State Department," he says.

Yes, Israel and the extremely powerful AIPAC lobby which supports both parties, is said to be involved as well.

"There's no way that the President and Vice-President can escape culpability in this case," Ellsberg charges. "If they claim they don't know about it, then they are culpable in not knowing about it, and that's impeachable right there."

Just as Ellsberg had hoped in 1971, and later encouraged others over the years, Edmonds remains hopeful that somehow, in telling her story --- if she will be allowed tell her story --- it will help others to step forward and do the same.

"Maybe it'll cause other whistleblowers at NSA, FBI...to see that they should come forward and tell what they know," she said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We haven't been seeing them come forward. Maybe it takes just one person to see what's going to happen."

"For now, as you can see," she added, "the fear tactics have worked."

Newsweek & Most Media Embraces Karl Rove, After TIME Takes a Pass

At Radar Online, Charles Kaiser writes:

When Newsweek made Karl Rove one of its columnists last week (along with Markos (Daily Kos) Moulitsas for balance), there was one big question: Could the number of new readers attracted by this fancy new hire possibly exceed the hordes of freshly canceled subscriptions?
The early betting was heavily against any circulation increase. And the odds didn't get better with Rove's first column. His biggest scoop was about the "full-length vanity mirror" found in the West Wing office he inherited from Hillary—and the fact that she had denied putting the mirror there (twice). This, you see, is Rove's idea of "a small but telling story: She is tough, persistent, and forgets nothing." Rove's hiring (which the New York Times didn't even bother to report) makes him the latest in a long and distinguished line of politicos turned pundits who owe their big journalism careers almost entirely to the flowery rhetoric of Spiro T. Agnew.

For latecomers to this never-ending melodrama, Agnew was Richard Nixon's first vice president—the one whose main qualification for the job was this: "No assassin in his right mind would kill me,'' Nixon explained. ''They know if they did that they would wind up with Agnew!" Once Agnew started his blistering attacks on the commie-pinko-liberal press, he became a celebrity in his own right. He called reporters "an effete corps of impudent snobs" and television commentators ''a tiny fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by the government.''

Since almost all of these haikus were written by conservative White House speechwriters Bill Safire and Pat Buchanan, it was only fitting that they would be among the first to benefit from them.

After a brief push back from shocked newspaper big shots, opposition to Agnew's slanted-media thesis crumbled. In 1973, Nixon alum Bill Safire landed on the op-ed page of the New York Times. (Agnew was actually forced to resign later that same year, after being caught up in a kickback scandal that dated from his tenure as governor of Maryland, but conservatives have continued their nonstop anti-press campaign ever since.) Around the same time, George Will began appearing more regularly in the Washington Post (while still moonlighting as a speechwriter for Jesse Helms). And then came the ubiquitous Pat Buchanan.

The success of Safire, Will, and Buchanan is a good barometer of just how far right you can go in Washington and still remain an honored member of the old boys' club. In his new book about the 1960s, Tom Brokaw explains that Buchanan's "good humor" has made him "enduringly popular even with liberal observers."

That's the genius of Washington—just because you've written that Adolf Hitler was "an individual of great courage" (Google "anti-Semitism of Pat Buchanan" and you get 231,000 hits), dismissed the idea that "white rule of a black majority is inherently wrong" in South Africa, or shown your lavender-friendly side by pointing out that "homosexuality involves sexual acts most men consider not only immoral, but filthy," none of that will prevent you from continuing as a regular on Meet the Press. (And you're surprised that Tim Russert was never offended by Imus?)

For its part, Time magazine said nothing publicly about Rove's arrival at Newsweek, but a well-placed source told me that Bob Barnett (every Washington literati's favorite lawyer, including Bill Clinton) had traveled to the Time-Life building on Sixth Avenue to offer Rove's services before Newsweek snared them. Time's editors apparently felt the cost/benefit analysis wouldn't be in their favor if they embraced the man who has done more than anyone to keep the spirit of Joe McCarthy alive and well in American politics. (Read Joshua Green's definitive profile from the Atlantic in 2004.) "Time thought this wouldn't be like hiring George Stephanopoulos," my source explained. "They think Karl is essentially like an unindicted coconspirator in a whole string of felonies."

Besides the obvious shock value, there was another reason Rove's arrival in the fourth estate was inevitable. In public, Rove is one of dozens of conservatives who assiduously bash the press. Last summer, channeling Agnew, Rove told Rush Limbaugh that "the people I see criticizing [Bush] are sort of elite effete snobs." But at the same time, Rove was constantly massaging big-time Washington journalists over long lunches at the Hay Adams Hotel.

The result of this continuous media handling was a mostly kid-glove treatment of Rove by great Washington political reporters like Anne Kornblut. The day after Rove dodged an indictment by the special prosecutor, this is how Kornblut appraised him in the New York Times: "a cheerful, sharp-witted operative fond of sparring with reporters off the record." It's that kind of hard-hitting approach that got Kornblut stolen away by the Washington Post—but also makes it possible for Jon Stewart to provide an essential reality check on our nation's capital. At the moment, the Daily Show is condemned to reruns for the length of the writers' strike, but last week there was a magnificent moment of serendipity. The same day Newsweek announced its new hire, the show rebroadcast a feature on Rove from the week after he left the White House.

"Washington was very shaken last week," Stewart intoned, "with news that Karl Rove, whose bountiful advisory teats had fed so many Beltway insiders for lo these six and a half years, was capping the spigot and moving on." Then Chris Wallace was shown offering up a list of "Karl Rove's greatest hits." Cut to Stewart:

"I just bought those: John McCain's black baby; Max Cleland, the one-limb pussy; The Queers are coming!; and, of course, Schiavo-a-go-go. No need to call now—your phones have already been tapped.

Mainstream Media Unites Behind Mukasey for Attorney General

The Christian Science Monitor reports:


Michael Mukasey, President George Bush's choice to replace Alberto Gonzalez, whose office was criticized for its support of what the CIA has called "enhanced interrogation" techniques and opponents called torture, appeared to repudiate the use of such measures at the start of his confirmation hearings at which he also promised independence from the White House.

The apparent relaxing of US standards governing the treatment of prisoners since Sept. 11 has damaged America's standing around the world, and the issue is being closely watched abroad.

While Democrats in Congress expressed disappointment at some of Mr. Mukasey's answers, The New York Times reports that he did a good enough job to virtually guarantee his confirmation.

Democratic senators welcomed Mr. Mukasey's promise that he would impose new rules to limit contacts between political figures and the Justice Department. He also said ... the department's hiring [should] be done "on the basis of competence and ability and dedication and not based on whether somebody's got an 'R' or a 'D' next to their names."

Those remarks were clearly meant to distance Mr. Mukasey from the political scandals that engulfed the department during the tenure of Mr. Gonzales, who dismissed several United States attorneys around the country last year for what appeared to be political reasons.

Mr. Mukasey also pleased the Democrats who control the Judiciary Committee by saying that he considered torture of terrorist suspects to be illegal under American and international law and that the president did not have the authority to order it under any circumstances.

The Chicago Tribune says Mukasey "explicitly disavowed" the relaxation of standards regarding interrogation and detainees under Mr. Gonzalez.

He also quickly distanced himself from Gonzales by explicitly disavowing two Justice Department memos that authorized use of abusive tactics to interrogate suspected terrorists. Mukasey said that policy "was worse than a sin. It was a mistake."

Mukasey noted that the United States is bound by its own laws and treaty obligations to prohibit torture, but he went further, saying, "We don't torture, not simply because it's against this or that law or this or that treaty. Soldiers of this country liberated concentration camps and photographed what they saw there as a record of the barbarism they opposed."

Though Mukasey did not ever say so, some commentators believe he is signaling a new direction for the government.

Andrew Sullivan, a conservative columnist and blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, who has strongly opposed abusive interrogation methods, is hopeful about Mukasey, comparing his comments, particularly his remark that the US didn't record what went on in concentration camps so we could "duplicate what we opposed," to the position on the issue by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.

"Duplicate what we opposed"? Nazi concentration camps? Does that remind you of anyone?

"In a Senate floor speech Tuesday, [Senator Dick] Durbin cited an FBI report describing Guantanamo Bay prisoners chained to the floor in the fetal position without food or water and sometimes in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control," he said, "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime."

Is it not clear that Mukasey's and Durbin's point is exactly the same?

Other bloggers also believe Mukasey is committed to limiting executive power. Spencer Ackerman in a post at the Talking Points Memo blog, praised Mukasey's testimony.

Most significantly, Mukasey said that he is unaware of any inherent commander in chief authority to override legal restrictions on torture – a huge repudiation of Dick Cheney, David Addington and John Yoo's perspective on broad constitutional powers possessed by the president in wartime – or to immunize practitioners of torture from prosecution. That answer is sure to create anxiety inside the CIA, where many interrogators fear that they will be brought up on charges for carrying out interrogation methods earlier approved by the administration.

The right-leaning New York Sun agrees with the assessment that Mukasey is a shoo-in for confirmation,but that once in office he could leave the Bush administration's legal strategy for the war on terror "badly bruised."

The risks the pick carries for the Bush administration were also on display. In addition to denouncing in blunt terms the so-called torture memo, which was later revoked, Judge Mukasey heartily endorsed the withering critique a former Justice Department official, Jack Goldsmith, has made of the administration's attempts to assert executive power without involving Congress.

Asked by Senator Schumer about Mr. Goldsmith's recently published book, "The Terror Presidency," Judge Mukasey replied, "I thought it was superb. ... I couldn't put it down. In a way, I was sorry when I finished."

The judge went on to make clear that he endorses Mr. Goldsmith's central thesis that the Bush administration's embrace of what Mr. Schumer called "unilateralism" was a mistake. "I would certainly suggest that we go to Congress whenever we can. It always strengthens the hand of the president to do that," Judge Mukasey said.

To be sure, senators still have questions about how far Mukasey would go in restraining the White House, particularly when it comes to assertions of "executive privilege," the Associated Press reports.

Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he would query the former federal judge on his views of the administration's position on executive privilege. The issue arose when presidential counsel Fred Fielding declared certain White House documents and information off-limits under the privilege.

Mukasey on Wednesday gave a hint of his posture on the issue. While he sees valid reasons for declaring executive privilege, his reaction to some of the White House's rationale was, "Huh?"

Ranking Republican Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he also would have questions about whether Mukasey believes the Justice Department can live with a legal shield for reporters against being forced to reveal sources in federal court. Again, Mukasey gave a glimpse of his opinion a day earlier, saying he had significant concerns about the legislation pending in the Senate. But he did not endorse or reject the proposal.

Going After Gore

Al Gore couldn't believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes ("I invented the Internet"), distortions (that he lied about being the inspiration for Love Story), and strangely off-the-mark needling, while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush. For the first time, Gore and his family talk about the effect of the press attacks on his campaign—and about his future plans—to the author, who finds that many in the media are re-assessing their 2000 coverage.

From Vanity Fair:

As he was running for president, Al Gore said he'd invented the Internet; announced that he had personally discovered Love Canal, the most infamous toxic-waste site in the country; and bragged that he and Tipper had been the sole inspiration for the golden couple in Erich Segal's best-selling novel Love Story (made into a hit movie with Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal). He also invented the dog, joked David Letterman, and gave mankind fire.

Could such an obviously intelligent man have been so megalomaniacal and self-deluded to have actually said such things? Well, that's what the news media told us, anyway. And on top of his supposed pomposity and elitism, he was a calculating dork: unable to get dressed in the morning without the advice of a prominent feminist (Naomi Wolf).

Today, by contrast, Gore is "the Goreacle," the elder statesman of global activism, and something of a media darling. He is the Bono of the environment, the Cassandra of Iraq, the star of an Oscar-winning film, and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. To the amusement of his kids, some people now actually consider him cool. "If you had told me 10 years ago that people were going to be appealing to me for tickets to a hot rock concert through my parents, I would have fallen over," says his daughter Karenna Gore Schiff, 34, referring to the Live Earth 24-hour extravaganza in July.

What happened to Gore? The story promoted by much of the media today is that we're looking at a "new Gore," who has undergone a radical transformation since 2000—he is now passionate and honest and devoted to issues he actually cares about. If only the old Gore could have been the new Gore, the pundits say, history might have been different.

But is it really possible for a person—even a Goreacle—to transform himself so radically? There's no doubt that some things have changed about Al Gore since 2000. He has demonstrated inner strength, rising from an excruciating defeat that would have crushed many men. Beyond that, what has changed is that he now speaks directly to the public; he has neither the patience nor the need to go through the media.
Eight years ago, in the bastions of the "liberal media" that were supposed to love Gore—The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, CNN—he was variously described as "repellent," "delusional," a vote-rigger, a man who "lies like a rug," "Pinocchio." Eric Pooley, who covered him for Time magazine, says, "He brought out the creative-writing student in so many reporters.… Everybody kind of let loose on the guy."

How did this happen? Was the right-wing attack machine so effective that it overwhelmed all competing messages? Was Gore's communications team outrageously inept? Were the liberal elite bending over backward to prove they weren't so liberal?
Eight years later, journalists, at the prompting of Vanity Fair, are engaging in some self-examination over how they treated Gore. As for Gore himself, for the first time, in this article, he talks about the 2000 campaign and the effect the press had on him and the election. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that my father, Martin Peretz, was his teacher at Harvard and is an ardent, vocal Gore backer. I contributed to his campaign in February 1999. Before reporting this article, however, I'd had maybe two passing exchanges with Gore in my life.) Gore wasn't eager to talk about this. He doesn't blame the media for his loss in 2000. Yet he does believe that his words were distorted and that certain major reporters and outlets were often unfair.

How does he feel about it all? "I feel fine," he says, "but, when I say that, I'm reminded of a story that Cousin Minnie Pearl used to tell about a farmer who was involved in an accident and sued for damages." To paraphrase, at the trial the lawyer for the driver of the other car cross-examined the farmer, saying, "Isn't it true that right after the accident, you said, 'I feel fine'?" The farmer said, "Well, it's not the simple," before going on to explain that the other car rammed into him, throwing both him and his cow from his car. When a highway patrolman came by and saw the cow struggling, he shot him between the eyes. The farmer continued, "The patrolman then came to my side and said, 'How do you feel?'… so I said, 'I feel fine.'"

The Wonk Versus the Frat Boy

The media began the coverage of the 2000 election with an inclination not so different from that demonstrated in other recent elections—they were eager for simple, character-driven narratives that would sell papers and get ratings. "Particularly in presidential elections … we in the press tend to deal in caricatures," says Dan Rather, who was then anchoring for CBS. "Someone draws a caricature, and it's funny and at least whimsical. And at first you sort of say, 'Aw shucks, that's too simple.' In the course of the campaign, that becomes accepted wisdom." He notes, "I do not except myself from this criticism."

In 2000, the media seemed to focus on a personality contest between Bush, the folksy Texas rogue, and, as The New York Times referred to Gore, "Eddie Haskell," the insincere brownnoser from Leave It to Beaver. ABC anchor Claire Shipman, who covered the 2000 campaign for NBC, says, "It was almost a drama that was cast before anyone even took a good look at who the candidates were."

George Bush made it easy—he handed them a character on a plate. He had one slogan—compassionate conservatism—and one promise aimed squarely at denigrating Bill Clinton: to restore honor and integrity to the White House. He was also perceived to be fun to be with. For 18 months, he pinched cheeks, bowled with oranges in the aisles of his campaign plane, and playacted flight attendant. Frank Bruni, now the restaurant critic for The New York Times but then a novice national political-beat reporter for the same newspaper, wrote affectionately of Bush's "folksy affability," "distinctive charm," "effortless banter," and the feather pillow that he traveled with.

But Gore couldn't turn on such charm on cue. "He doesn't pinch cheeks," says Tipper. "Al's not that kind of guy." With Gore still vice president, there was a certain built-in formality and distance that reporters had to endure. Having served the public for nearly 25 years in different roles—from congressman legislating the toxic-waste Superfund to vice president leading the charge to go into Bosnia—Gore could not be reduced to a sound bite. As one reporter put it, they were stuck with "the government nerd." "The reality is," says Eli Attie, who was Gore's chief speechwriter and traveled with him, "very few reporters covering the 2000 campaign had much interest in what really motivated Gore and the way he spent most of his time as vice president: the complexities of government and policy, and not just the raw calculus of the campaign trail."

Muddying the waters further was the fact that the Gore campaign early on was in a state of disarray—with a revolving door of staffers who didn't particularly see the value in happy chitchat. "We basically treated the press with a whip and a chair … and made no real effort to schmooze at all," says Gore strategist Carter Eskew. "I fault myself." It was plain to the reporters that this was not the tight ship of Bush's campaign, led by the "iron triangle" of Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and Joe Allbaugh.

"The campaign went through several official slogans," says The New York Times's Katharine Seelye, who would become one of the more critical reporters who covered Gore. "They had a hard time latching onto a clear idea of what the campaign was about. [Democratic strategist] James Carville once said to me that if you want reporters to write about hamburger, you give them hamburger. You don't give them French fries and ice cream."

Gore needed to give them hamburger, as Carville put it—a simple, dramatic character; a simple, dramatic story line; a 10-word slogan. If Gore couldn't provide it, the press would. As the campaign wore on, the media found a groove they could settle into: wonk so desperate to become president he'll do or say anything, even make stuff up. It complemented perfectly the other son of a politician running for president: irresistible frat boy who, when it came to the presidency, could take it or leave it.

The seeds of Gore's caricature had been planted in 1997 when he, the presumptive candidate for 2000, made a passing comment about Erich Segal's Love Story, over the course of a two-hour interview with Time's Karen Tumulty and The New York Times's Richard Berke, for profiles they were writing. Tumulty recounts today that, while casually reminiscing about his days at Harvard and his roommate, the future actor Tommy Lee Jones, Gore said, It's funny—he and Tipper had been models for the couple in his friend Erich Segal's Love Story, which was Jones's first film. Tumulty followed up, "Love Story was based on you and Tipper?" Gore responded, "Well, that's what Erich Segal told reporters down in Tennessee."

As it turned out, The Nashville Tennessean, the paper Gore was referring to, had said Gore was the model for the character of Oliver Barrett. But the paper made a small mistake. There was some Tommy Lee Jones thrown in, too. "The Tennessean reporter just exaggerated," Segal has said. And Tipper was not the model for Jenny.

In her story, Tumulty and co-author Eric Pooley treated the anecdote as an offhand comment. But political opinion writers at The New York Times, it seems, interpreted the remark as a calculated political move on Gore's part. "It's somewhat suspicious that Mr. Gore has chosen this moment to drop the news—unknown even to many close friends and aides," wrote Times columnist Maureen Dowd. "Does he think, going into 2000, that this will give him a romantic glow, or a romantic afterglow?" Times columnist Frank Rich followed it up. "What's bizarre," he wrote, "if all too revealing … is not that he inflated his past but that he would think that being likened to the insufferable preppy Harvard hockey player Oliver Barrett 4th was something to brag about in the first place."

Tumulty says she was stunned at seeing Gore's remark being turned into a "window onto his soul" in the pages of The New York Times and elsewhere: "I'm in the middle of this gigantic media frenzy. It had truly, truly been an offhanded comment by Gore. And it suddenly turns into this big thing that probably continues to dog him for the rest of the campaign."

Caught in the Web

The Love Story distortion set the stage for the "I Invented the Internet" distortion, a devastating piece of propaganda that damaged Gore at the starting gate of his run. On March 9, 1999, CNN's Wolf Blitzer conducted an interview with Gore shortly before he officially announced his candidacy. In answer to a question about why Democrats should support him, Gore spoke about his record. "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative"—politico-speak for leadership—"in creating the Internet," he said, before going on to describe other accomplishments. It was true. In the 1970s, the Internet was a limited tool used by the Pentagon and universities for research. As a senator in the 80s, Gore sponsored two bills that turned this government program into an "information superhighway," a term Gore popularized, and made it accessible to all. Vinton Cerf, often called the father of the Internet, has claimed that the Internet would not be where it was without Gore's leadership on the issue. Even former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich has said that "Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet."

The press didn't object to Gore's statement until Texas Republican congressman Dick Armey led the charge, saying, "If the vice president created the Internet, then I created the interstate highway system." Republican congressman James Sensenbrenner released a statement with the headline, delusions of grandeur: vice president gore takes credit for creating the internet. CNN's Lou Dobbs was soon calling Gore's remark "a case study … in delusions of grandeur." A few days later the word "invented" entered the narrative. On March 15, a USA Today headline about Gore read, inventing the internet; March 16 on Hardball, Chris Matthews derided Gore for his claim that he "invented the Internet." Soon the distorted assertion was in the pages of the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe, and on the A.P. wire service. By early June, the word "invented" was actually being put in quotation marks, as though that were Gore's word of choice. Here's how Mimi Hall put it in USA Today: "A couple of Gore gaffes, including his assertion that he 'invented' the Internet, didn't help." And Newsday's Elaine Povich ridiculed "Gore's widely mocked assertion that he 'invented' the Internet." (Thanks to the Web site the Daily Howler, the creation of Bob Somerby, a college roommate of Gore's, we have a chronicle of how the Internet story spiraled out of control.)

Belatedly attempting to defuse the situation, Gore joked about it on Imus in the Morning, saying that he "was up late the night before … inventing the camcorder." But it was too late—the damage had been done.

The Beat Goes On

As with all campaigns, the coverage of the 2000 election would be driven by a small number of beat reporters. In this case, two women at the most influential newspapers in the country: Seelye from The New York Times and Ceci Connolly from The Washington Post.

A prominent Washington journalist describes them as "edgy, competitive, wanting to make their mark," and adds that they "reinforced each other's prejudices."
"It was like they'd been locked in a room, and they were just pumping each other up," says Gore strategist Carter Eskew.

"They just wanted to tear Gore apart," says a major network correspondent on the trail. (Both refute such characterizations of themselves. "Why would reporters [from] major news organizations confer with the competition on such a fiercely competitive story?" asks Connolly.)

Building on the narrative established by the Love Story and Internet episodes, Seelye, her critics charge, repeatedly tinged what should have been straight reporting with attitude or hints at Gore's insincerity. Describing a stump speech in Tennessee, she wrote, "He also made an appeal based on what he described as his hard work for the state—as if a debt were owed in return for years of service." Writing how he encouraged an audience to get out and vote at the primary, she said, "Vice President Al Gore may have questioned the effects of the internal combustion engine, but not when it comes to transportation to the polls. Today he exhorted a union audience in Knoxville, Iowa, to pile into vans—not cars, but gas-guzzling vans—and haul friends to the Iowa caucuses on January 24." She would not just say that he was simply fund-raising. "Vice President Al Gore was back to business as usual today—trolling for money," she wrote. In another piece, he was "ever on the prowl for money."

The disparity between her reporting and Bruni's coverage of Bush for the Times was particularly galling to the Gore camp. "It's one thing if the coverage is equal—equally tough or equally soft," says Gore press secretary Chris Lehane. "In 2000, we would get stories where if Gore walked in and said the room was gray we'd be beaten up because in fact the room was an off-white. They would get stories about how George Bush's wing tips looked as he strode across the stage." Melinda Henneberger, then a political writer at the Times, says that such attitudes went all the way up to the top of the newspaper. "Some of it was a self-loathing liberal thing," she says, "disdaining the candidate who would have fit right into the newsroom, and giving all sorts of extra time on tests to the conservative from Texas. Al Gore was a laughline at the paper, while where Bush was concerned we seemed to suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations." (Seelye's and Bruni's then editors declined to be interviewed for this article.)

Connolly, too, at The Washington Post, wrote about Gore's "grubbing for dollars inside a monastery," and "stretching the [fund-raising] rules as far as he can." Her stories about the distortions extended the life of the distortions themselves. In one article, she knocked Gore for "the hullabaloo over the Internet—from [his] inflated claim to his slowness to tamp out the publicity brush fire." In another, co-written with David Von Drehle, she claimed, "From conservative talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh and the New York Post (headline: 'Liar, Liar') to neutral papers across the country, the attack on Gore's credibility is resonating."

When Lehane and his communications partner, Mark Fabiani, selectively granted access, Connolly, for reasons Gore staffers say are obvious, was rarely favored and experienced it as an attack. "The 'Masters of Disaster,' as [Lehane and Fabiani] like to be called, spent an inordinate amount of time attacking various reporters and pitting journalists against each other and generally trying to steer the subject away from a troubled campaign," Connolly says today. (Lehane had no comment.)

But eventually, Gore staffers came to feel that if Connolly was denied the access or information she wanted there would be a price to pay in terms of her coverage. In one of her pieces Carter Eskew, a former tobacco-industry adviser, was described in a quote as being "single-handedly accountable for addicting another whole generation of American kids" to smoking. When asked about the article, Eskew recalls how Connolly had called him the day before for a comment about an environmental group's endorsement of Bill Bradley. After he gave her something perfunctory, he says, she went after him. "She goes, 'That's all you're going to say?'" recalls Eskew. "And I said, 'Yeah, that's all we're going to say.' And she goes, 'Do you know how stupid that is, Carter?' And then she threatened me, 'Well, if that's the kind of relationship you want to have with me, then you'll find out the kind of relationship we're going to have'—something to that effect." ("I never threatened Carter Eskew," says Connolly. "It's possible I pressed him for something more than a 'perfunctory' answer.… It's odd that he would think my story was journalistically out of bounds or retribution for something as trivial as a mediocre quote.")

Toxic Coverage

On December 1, 1999, Connolly—and Seelye—misquoted Gore in a damning way. Their error was picked up elsewhere and repeated, and snowballed into a political nightmare. Gore was speaking to a group of students at Concord High School, in New Hampshire, about how young people could effect change. He described a letter he had received as a congressman in 1978 from a girl in Toone, Tennessee, about how her father and grandfather had gotten mysteriously ill. He had looked into the matter and found that the town was a toxic-waste site. He went on:

"I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the first hearing on that issue and Toone, Tennessee. That was the one you didn't hear of, but that was the one that started it all.… We passed a major national law to clean up hazardous dumpsites, and we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around the country.… It all happened because one high-school student got involved."

Jill Hoffman, a high-school senior in the audience who was helping to film the event, says, "I remember thinking, I really, really like what he has to say." But what Seelye and Connolly zeroed in on was Gore yet again claiming credit for something he didn't do—"discovering" Love Canal (which was, in fact, discovered by the people who lived there). In addition to mischaracterizing his somewhat ambiguous statement, they misquoted him, claiming he said, "I was the one that started it all," instead of "that was the one that started it all." The next day, Seelye offered a friendlier account of Gore's visit to the school. Connolly repeated the misquote. In an article titled "First 'Love Story,' Now Love Canal," she wrote:

The man who mistakenly claimed to have inspired the movie "Love Story" and to have invented the Internet says he didn't quite mean to say he discovered a toxic waste site when he said at a high school forum Tuesday in New Hampshire: "I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal." Gore went on to brag about holding the "first hearing on that issue" and said "I was the one that started it all."

The story picked up steam. "I was the one that started it all" became a quote featured in U.S. News & World Report and was repeated on the chat shows. On ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos said, "Gore, again, revealed his Pinocchio problem. Says he was the model for Love Story, created the Internet. And this time he sort of discovered Love Canal." On two consecutive nights of Hardball, Chris Matthews brought up this same trio as examples of Gore's "delusionary" thinking. "What is it, the Zelig guy who keeps saying, 'I was the main character in Love Story. I invented the Internet. I invented Love Canal.…' It reminds me of Snoopy thinking he's the Red Baron." "It became part of the vocabulary," Matthews says today. "I don't think it had a thunderous impact on the voters." He concedes, however, that such stories were repeated too many times in the media.

Seelye would later write a story with John Broder under the headline questions of veracity have long dogged gore and provided "familiar and fairly trivial examples," including his "taking credit for inventing the Internet or being the model for … Love Story." Asked today why those discredited allegations of misstatements were included, Seelye says, "Probably because they were ones that everyone had heard of. We did write that they were 'trivial,' but if that was the case, we should have left them out or debunked them."

Perhaps reporting in this vein was just too gratifying to the press for it to stop. As Time magazine's Margaret Carlson admitted to Don Imus at the time, "You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get into the weeds and get out your calculator, or look at his record in Texas. But it's really easy, and it's fun to disprove Al Gore. As sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us."

A study conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that 76 percent of stories about Gore in early 2000 focused on either the theme of his alleged lying or that he was marred by scandal, while the most common theme about Bush was that he was "a different kind of Republican."

At the time, the only people seeming to notice the media's missteps were journalists at the fringes or out of the mainstream, including Somerby of the Daily Howler, Robert Parry on consortiumnews.com, and Eric Boehlert on Salon, as well as mere citizens who had no outlet but the telephone. These last included the Concord High students, who were trying to correct the record on Love Canal. The footage was reviewed by a teacher, Joanne McGlynn, the day after the initial Love Canal stories ran. McGlynn spotted the discrepancy between Gore's actual words and what was being reported, and phoned the relevant news outlets to alert them. The Times and the Post printed the correction … about a week later. But by that time the story had been echoed widely and was accepted as fact.

Connolly contends that the misquote "did not dramatically change the point he was trying to make" and that "the Love Canal reference was near the end of a story that ran deep inside the paper." (Page A-10.)

At least one reporter who either made or repeated the misquote was not thrilled to have been corrected by high-school students and their teacher. Sometime after the Love Canal stories came out, Hoffman, the high-school senior, went to see Gore speak again at an event in New Hampshire. There she was introduced to one of the reporters who'd gotten it wrong. The reporter, Hoffman said, made it clear her help in fixing the misquote was not appreciated, and said that the article was written very fast, while riding in a van. "It's amazing what one word can do to a person's integrity," says Hoffman today.

Gore responded to episodes like these by distancing himself from the beat reporters, which puzzled them. "Some of these reporters would write ruthlessly unfair pieces about him and then come complain to me in private, 'Gore could've been friendlier to me at that cocktail party,'" recalls Gore speechwriter Eli Attie. To this day, Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, who spent time traveling with both candidates, wonders why Gore remained "secluded in the front cabin [of the plane]" and didn't engage in chitchat. "Everything is fair game in a presidential campaign," says Kurtz, "and part of the test of any candidate is how he deals with an often skeptical press corps.… The press sets up a series of obstacle courses … and if you are Al Gore and considered to be super-smart, yet not particularly gregarious, it's the moments of awkwardness or misstatements that are going to get media attention. If Gore had had a lighter touch, he probably could have overcome that."

Running the Gauntlet

One obstacle course the press set up was which candidate would lure voters to have a beer with them at the local bar. "Journalists made it seem like that was a legitimate way of choosing a president," says Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter. "They also wrongly presumed, based on nothing, that somehow Bush was more likable." Chris Matthews contends that "the likability issue was something decided by the viewers of the debates, not by the commentators," but adds, "The last six years have been a powerful bit of evidence that we have to judge candidates for president on their preparation for the office with the same relish that we assess their personalities."

Maureen Dowd boiled the choice between Gore and Bush down to that between the "pious smarty-pants" and the "amiable idler," and made it perfectly clear which of the presidential candidates had a better chance of getting a date. "Al Gore is desperate to get chicks," she said in her column. "Married chicks. Single chicks. Old chicks. Young chicks. If he doesn't stop turning off women, he'll never be president."
"I bet he is in a room somewhere right now playing Barry White CDs and struggling to get mellow," she wrote in another.

Meanwhile, though Dowd certainly questioned Bush's intellect in some columns, she seemed to be charmed by him—one of the "bad boys," "rascals," and a "rapscallion." She shared with the world a charged moment between them. "'You're so much more mature now,' I remarked to the Texas Governor. 'So are you,' he replied saucily." And in another column: "You don't often get to see a Presidential candidate bloom right before your eyes."

As the Daily Howler noted, MSNBC anchor Brian Williams went after Gore's clothes at least five times in one week. "Here is a guy taking off his suits.… This is the casual sweater look—what's going on here?" … "He would have been in a suit a month ago." … "He's wearing these polo shirts that don't always look natural on him." Williams's frequent guest Newsweek's Howard Fineman later chimed in: "I covered his last presidential campaign, in 1988. One day he was in the conservative blue suit, the next he was playing lumberjack at the V.F.W. hall in New Hampshire."

Maureen Dowd's June 16, 1999, New York Times column.

And Gore just kept going on about issues. Alluding to five speeches he made in two months on education, crime, the economy, faith-based organizations, and cancer research, Seelye wrote, "Mr. Gore becomes almost indignant when asked if his avalanche of positions might overwhelm voters." The Washington Post's David Broder later found Gore too focused in his convention speech on what he'd do as president. "But, my, how he went on about what he wants to do as president," wrote Broder. "I almost nodded off." As for the environment, while Gore was persuaded by his consultants not to talk about it as much as he would have liked, whenever he did, many in the media ignored it or treated it as comedy. Dowd wrote in one column that "Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating." In another, referring to his consideration of putting a Webcam in the Oval Office, she wrote, "I have zero desire to see President Gore round the clock, putting comely interns to sleep with charts and lectures on gaseous reduction."

The trivial continued to dominate during the postmortem following Gore and Bush's first debate, on October 3, 2000. The television media were sure Gore won—at first. But then Republican operatives promptly spliced together a reel of Gore sighing, which was then sent to right-wing radio outlets. Eighteen hours later, the pundits could talk of little else. "They could hear you audibly sighing or sounding exasperated as Governor Bush was answering questions," Katie Couric scolded him the next day on the Today show. "Do you think that's presidential behavior?" For the Times's Frank Bruni, the sighs weren't as galling as Gore's familiarity with the names of foreign leaders. "It was not enough for Vice President Al Gore to venture a crisp pronunciation of Milosevic, as in Slobodan," he wrote. "Mr. Gore had to go a step further, volunteering the name of Mr. Milosevic's challenger Vojislav Kostunica."

As Jonathan Alter points out, "Overall, the press was harder on Gore than it was on Bush.… The consequences of [that] in such a close election were terrifying."
Gore couldn't believe his eyes when he read distortions about him printed in the country's most respected newspapers, say those in his inner circle. "It stung to have the political media, the elite political media, buy into this crap," says Roy Neel, his close friend and adviser of 30 years, about the press coverage. "But I don't recall him ever blaming the media for the problems he was having."

Indeed, Gore accepts responsibility for not being able to communicate more clearly with the public. He admits, however, that the tendency of the press to twist his words encumbered his ability to speak freely. "I tried not to let it [affect my behavior]," Gore says. "But if you know that day after day the filter is going to be so distorted, inevitably that has an impact on the kinds of messages that you try and force through the filter. Anything that involves subtlety or involves trusting the reporters in their good sense and sense of fairness in interpretation, you're just not going to take a risk with something that could be easily distorted and used against you.… You're reduced to saying, 'Today, here's the message: reduce pollution,' and not necessarily by XYZ out of fear that it will be, well, 'Today he talked about belching cows!'"

According to Gore, bringing up the Internet again in public was like stepping on a verbal land mine. "If I had tried in the wake of that to put expressions about the Internet in campaign speeches, it would have been difficult," he says. "I did, of course, from time to time. But I remember many occasions where I would say something about the Internet, and as soon as the word 'Internet' came from my lips, the press would be snickering and relishing the mention. Not everybody in the press, but the Zeitgeist was polluted, and it never dissipated, because the stream of pollution coming into it was constant, constant."

The notion that he was prickly or unpleasant to reporters doesn't jibe with what Tipper witnessed. From her viewpoint, he remained gracious with the reporters—even at an event during the campaign, when Maureen Dowd sidled up in the middle of a conversation he was having with two other reporters. "He stood up and got her a chair and said, 'Please, join us.'" After Dowd had written about him "lactating," he agreed to an interview with her, answering questions about his favorite this, his favorite that. According to his staffers, she was a fact of life that would have to be endured.

The Gores, a famously close-knit family, could laugh at the coverage some. They joked around at the nonstop talk about which president you'd want to have a beer with. The Gore's middle daughter, Kristin, pointed out, "Gee, I want the designated driver as my president." But down deep they weren't laughing. "The sighs, the sighs, the sighs," says Gore, of the debate coverage. "Within 18 hours, they had turned perception around to where the entire story was about me sighing. And that's scary. That's scary."

The Comeback

After the election the Gores, heartbroken, traveled in Europe for two months. "We were roadkill," admits Tipper. "It took a long time to pick ourselves up from what happened." Gore grew a beard while he was there. After he stepped back onto U.S. soil, the press began knocking him around again for his latest "re-invention." Ceci Connolly, who had become a contributor on Fox News in 2000, said, "Looks like he's ready to go, but go where? Back to Europe with his backpack?" Later, in the Los Angeles Times, Jack Germond wrote, "He should have shed the beard before coming back. Instead, he continues to wear it in what is being interpreted as a signal of another 'new' Gore."

Over the course of Bush's early months in office, the Gores watched in profound disappointment as Bush rolled back many important environmental regulations of the Clinton-Gore years. But, as Karenna says, "my father set the tone for our whole family in not dwelling. The way he publicly put his weight behind George Bush in the beginning, did not fan the flames, did not cause division—and there was every opportunity to do that—sent a very strong message to all of us to not be dragged down into anger and sadness about it but just to try to make the best of it." After September 11, Gore stood by Bush, saying, "George Bush is my commander in chief."

By September 2002, the country was on the march to war. Against the advice of some confidants, who suggested he might turn out to be on the wrong side of history, Gore spoke out against the invasion—fervently. On September 23, 2002, he articulated all the dangers that have now come to pass. The Washington Post's Michael Kelly wrote about the speech, "It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible." (Kelly was killed on April 3, 2003, in Iraq when his Humvee crashed while trying to evade enemy fire.) Fineman didn't hold back in describing how the "Beltway/Broadway clan" now regarded Gore: "as an annoying and ungracious bore who should have the decency to get lost."

In order to diversify and open up the messages coming out of the news media, Gore helped launch Current TV, an alternative channel that features viewer-generated content, thereby providing a dialogue with the medium. He also taught journalism, began working with Apple, and co-founded a business called Generation Investment Management. And, with the encouragement of Tipper, he dusted off the global-warming slide show in the attic of their Arlington, Virginia, home, the one that he had been delivering for 25 years to audiences as small as 10 and as large as 10,000. The first time he showed it, at Middle Tennessee State University, the slides were in backward and upside down. It would be turned into An Inconvenient Truth, win an Oscar, and help wake up the world to a global crisis.

Over the years since 2000, some journalists have attempted to reach out to the Gores. At a pro-choice event a few years ago, Time's Karen Tumulty gave Tipper her card and asked her if she would ever want to talk. "When I saw her that night, she looked as though a gigantic weight had been lifted," recalls Tumulty, who'd recently seen the couple agonizing over Gore's political future. At the East Coast premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, the Gores bumped into Fineman, who recalls, "I said to [Gore], on a personal level, I want you to know that I admire you for the way you have stayed in the game and taken the mess of a few years ago and turned it around and become such a leader in this debate." At the time, Tipper just said thanks and moved on, thinking to herself, Too little, too late, buddy. In retrospect, she appreciates the gesture.

Katharine Seelye, who still writes about national politics for The New York Times, has had time to reflect on her work: "I'm sure there were times my phrasing could have been better—you're doing this on the fly. Sometimes you're just looking for a different way to describe something that you have to write about over and over again," she says. "But I think overall my coverage was tough-minded. A presidential campaign is for the most important, hardest job in the world. Shouldn't the coverage be tough?" Connolly, still a staff writer at the Post but on a leave of absence, maintains that "the Washington Post political team, myself and a dozen other journalists, approached the Gore campaign no differently than any other—with aggressive, thorough, objective reporting."

As for Dowd, a Democratic operative recalls running into her and having an argument with her about her columns on the 2000 debates, in which, he felt, she devoted as much attention to Gore's sighing as she did to Bush's not knowing that Social Security was a federal program. "I basically said, 'How could you equate the two?'" he recalls. "'How could Gore's personal tics deserve as many column inches as the other guy being an idiot?' And her defense was 'Well, I voted for Gore.' I thought, Well, that's great. But hundreds of thousands of people who read your column probably didn't." (A source close to Dowd says that she does not write a partisan column, keeps her votes private, and certainly would not have disclosed that information to a political aide.)

Thanks to his newfound status, speculation about Gore's entering the presidential race has refused to die down. Alas, he's not going to announce his candidacy in the last paragraphs of a Vanity Fair article. "Modern politics seems to require and reward some capacities that I don't think I have in abundance," says Gore, "such as a tolerance for … spin rather than an honest discussion of substance.… Apparently, it comes easily for some people, but not for me."

Tipper says he has made zero moves that would suggest a run for the presidency, but adds that if he turned to her one night and said he had to run, she'd get on board, and they'd discuss how to approach it this time around, given what they've learned.
The reporters and opinion-makers have eagerly chewed over the possibility. After all, he's now a star. In step with the new enthusiasm for Gore, Dowd, in a February 2007 column, described him as "a man who was prescient on climate change, the Internet, terrorism, and Iraq," a sentiment echoed by many. The pundits, however, invariably come around to the same question: "But if he ran, would he revert to the 'old Gore'?" Another question—in light of countless recent stories about John Edwards's haircut—might be: Would the media revert to the old media?