Will Bush's Energy Plan Ease the Power Crunch?; Should Kid Criminals Face Adult Sentences?
JAKE TAPPER, CO-HOST: Good evening. There is no truth to the rumor that the Bush administration plans to start drilling for oil right here on the set. So join us and TAKE 5 with Jay Carney, "TIME" magazine White House correspondent; Felix Sanchez, who heads up a government and public relations firm, Terracom; our regular panelist Robert George of "The New York Post"; and my delectable co-host Michelle Cottle of "The New Republic." I'm Jake Tapper from Salon.com. A prayer that millions think can make you rich; kid criminals -- should they do adult time? The Rudy-Donna-Judi show beating anything on Broadway; plus our takes on the week, all straight ahead. But first: Californians, crank up the emergency generators, get out your Jimmy Carter cardigans and top off the tank; it's back, the energy crisis, and how to drill for a solution.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It goes to show that economic growth and a good environmental policy do not have to be zero-sum. It doesn't have to be either-or.</s>GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: I fault the president for not providing California with any immediate relief. California is the only state in America that's faced blackouts and astronomical electricity prices.</s>TAPPER: Jay Carney, "TIME" has a big story out on its online this week about the tensions within the White House as the energy plan was rolled out. Tell us about that.</s>JAY CARNEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, Jake, as people probably remember, Vice President Dick Cheney, who drew up this energy plan for the president, delivered a speech at the end of April in which he basically mocked conservation as a means of dealing with energy shortages. That led to a lot of bad press and created a lot of bad blood between the vice president's staff and the president's staff. Now, this is the famously collegial Bush White House, but there's a lot of finger-pointing in the White House right now -- a lot of blame being placed on Cheney's staff for the sort of rocky roll-out the energy plan has gotten.</s>MICHELLE COTTLE, CO-HOST: But nobody's really going to take him to the woodshed. I mean, who's going to take Dick Cheney out...</s>CARNEY: Well, he's still in charge, but I'll tell you the lovely detail that we found out about is that, when the plan was in its final stages and circulating among a handful of people in the administration, it had that blue cover on it, but the blue cover had the vice presidential seal. When it came out last week it had the presidential seal.</s>ROBERT GEORGE, "THE NEW YORK POST": I guess the Bush White House should be happy that Los Angeles doesn't have tabloid newspapers like, say, "The New York Post" or "The New York Daily News" because we might have seen the headline" "Bush to California: Drop Dead." You've got this kind of situation where Gray Davis, who is in serious political constraints because of the energy crisis there, he's pointing the finger at the White House for not doing more and he wants them to cap energy prices and so forth. But the fact is it was capping energy prices on a regulatory level in California that helped create this energy crisis there already. So, I mean -- so I think Bush's proposal, in terms of the long-term, is good for energy; but in terms of short-term, it's not going to do anything in California.</s>COTTLE: Well, Robert, we're going from power politics to a high- voltage standoff here in Washington. This week Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee stood together and brought to a halt the nomination of Ted Olson to be solicitor general. Olson is the Republican hero who won the Supreme Court case that clinched the Bush presidency. Hey Robert, back to you: legitimate concerns or just more whining from the left?</s>GEORGE: Well, what do you think? It's more -- it's definitely more whining from the left. I mean, it's definitely payback for Florida, and it's also a warning shot -- first of all, A, Ted Olson, if you were thinking of becoming Supreme Court justice sometime in the future, forget about that. The only thing that they have on Olson has to do with his involvement in this thing called the Arkansas Project.</s>TAPPER: No, no Robert; that's not true at all. What they have on Olson is that he hasn't been forthcoming at all in his answers before the Senate Judiciary Committee.</s>GEORGE: He has been forthcoming. The only person who disagrees with his version of the events having to do with "The American Spectator" is David Brock, formerly a conservative writer, now...</s>TAPPER: No, you know who disagrees with him, is Olson in earlier answers. He disagrees with himself. He gives...</s>CARNEY: Robert, do you think it's appropriate for somebody who would be representing the United States before the Supreme Court to have been paid money -- his law firm, and he did the work -- to look into the possibility of criminal conduct by a sitting president based on articles from an advocacy magazine? I mean, it seems a little bit -- I mean, not even a little bit partisan to me.</s>FELIX SANCHEZ, PUBLIC RELATIONS CONSULTANT: And I want to add to that, Robert -- that, you know, Democrats should have gone more aggressive on this nomination earlier on. And it just shows that they're a bit rusty at learning how to pick a fight against the current administration.</s>GEORGE: Well, I would say to Jay's point. Was it a partisan motion from a lawyer representing conservatives? Yes, certainly. But it has nothing to do with his qualifications for solicitor general right now.</s>COTTLE: Well, it depends on how you look at the job, though. I mean, there are two ways that it's been looked at over the years: one is as a partisan advocate for the administration, and the other is kind of the secondary role, where it's looking out for the best interests of the entire United States. And if we're looking at that, then we want somebody a little bit less rabidly partisan.</s>GEORGE: Well, I don't think he's going to be necessarily rabidly partisan in his job. Everybody says that he's acted professionally when he's work for the government before.</s>TAPPER: What are you talking about? There was an independent counsel investigation of him when he was at the Justice Department...</s>GEORGE: And What happened?</s>TAPPER: He was exonerated...</s>GEORGE: Exonerated. Thank you very much.</s>TAPPER: He was exonerated, but they said that he gave misleading testimony to the House.</s>COTTLE: It was exactly like the Bill Clinton -- it gave misleading testimony, but it's not specific enough that we can bust him on perjury. He was, by no means...</s>GEORGE: ... and these things were not raised in his initial hearings.</s>CARNEY: But he has every right to appoint Ted Olson. I think the Democrats should probably let him go. But I would say that he is easily the most partisan person ever to hold the job.</s>TAPPER: Well, moving on: changing the tone, shmanging the tone. The TAKE 5 Award for wretched excess goes to the anonymous White House sources, who pumped up the story about the vandalizing of the White House by departing Clinton staffers. Huge play in January, but the story turns out to be false. The General Services Administration investigated; the report issued this week: oops, never happened.</s>CARNEY: You'll love this Jake: They're still doing it. The White House says that -- I mean, not on the record, of course -- but people in the White House say, oh, we actually told the GSA that nothing happened because we didn't want to look at the past anymore. But they're saying -- they're still saying the Clintonites vandalized the White House.</s>TAPPER: ... they didn't have to make that stuff up.</s>COTTLE: See, they are trying to change the tone.</s>GEORGE: His legacy is trash, I guess.</s>COTTLE: Well, just ahead we have the prosperity prayer; kids who kill: How young is too young to do to time, and our takes. Stay with us.