John McCain Battles Conservative Radio Talk Show Hosts
BROWN: New polls show John McCain would have an edge over either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton but even so, conservative radio talk show hosts are not easing up on McCain. Joining me again to talk about all this, Ari Fleischer, Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Gloria Borger, from Washington. Welcome back, everybody. Let's talk about the poll numbers. I know it's ridiculously early to be talking about general election poll numbers, but why not? This must be making you happy, Ari. Yes.</s>ARI FLEISCHER, FMR. WHITE HOUSE SECRETARY: Well, it is meaningful and that isn't bad in Republican environment. John McCain actually can do as well as he's doing, and it's really telling.</s>BROWN: Why?</s>FLEISCHER: Because of independents. The big problem John McCain has, he got through it. He couldn't win without conservatives. He got just enough to squeak through and win a primary, but he has an appeal across the center. Presidential elections, Campbell, are always determined by the center. They cast the tie-breaking votes.</s>KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR & PUBLISHER, THE NATION: I think it's way too early. If this election has shown us anything, do not trust polls. I think this country deserves a big debate on whether we want to be a democracy or an empire. That debate will be a sharp one between John McCain and Barack Obama. If it is Barack Obama, do we want a president, John McCain, who wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 years when at the end of this year we'll be $800 billion as we head into a recession, which John McCain doesn't care that much about? It is an opportunity to rethink what security means and to take on a media, by the way, which has been way, it seems to me too kind to John McCain as the maverick straight talker. That "New York Times" piece stripped out the sex was on to something.</s>FLEISCHER: Well, you know, one of Barack Obama's lessons is that polemics is important and the words you choose are important. The notion of an empire? We're always a democracy. It's our greatest strength. We have tested now and that --</s>VANDEN HEUVEL: We have 800 bases, 800 bases ringing the world.</s>BROWN: OK. Let me bring Gloria into this.</s>VANDEN HEUVEL: We need to reconstruct our country.</s>BROWN: Gloria, well, let me ask you to address the issue of Iraq, because we heard a moment ago, we played the sound that sort of battle war of words between Barack Obama and John McCain today, over the war in Iraq. Is John McCain staking his presidency, his candidacy or his candidacy rather?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely, Campbell. He's, in fact, already staked his entire political career in Iraq. Not only for his support for the war in Iraq, but don't forget he was for the surge in Iraq before George W. Bush was for the surge. And what you're going to hear from McCain is real lines of distinction here. No matter who is the Democratic nominee, he's going to say that the Democrats want to surrender. You heard that from him a little bit today. He's going to say that he believes the war was prosecuted badly. That he was the only Republican out there saying fire Donald Rumsfeld. However, he supported the surge. He supported the war, and he doesn't think we can leave too precipitously. And that's going to be the basis for this debate, particularly given what went on at the Democratic debate last night, which was, OK, how long do you stay? How do you withdraw?</s>BROWN: Right.</s>BORGER: Those are going to be the questions that McCain's going to want to handle and the Congress is going</s>BROWN: Is that to both of you -- is that a winning strategy, given the poll numbers, how people still feel about Iraq?</s>FLEISCHER: The issue is broader than that. It's not just Iraq or a surge. The issue is who do you trust to make America safe? That's what presidential elections often hinge on particularly in foreign policy errors like the one we're now back in. And that's a fair fight. Republicans have an uphill climb because of Iraq, but that's the broader issue. Barack Obama is wrong vulnerable on those issues.</s>VANDEN HEUVEL: I think -- I think the broader issue is this has been one of the greatest strategic blunders of U.S. foreign policy history. Who's going to repair U.S. interest and reputation in the world and define security as not only the military? We've seen the limits of military power in Iraq. Security means rebuilding our country and engaging in the world in new ways.</s>BROWN: OK. Let me change the subject here. I do want to ask you guys about this. This is the conservative talk radio war going on with John McCain. At a rally yesterday, radio host Bill Cunningham repeatedly referred to Barack Obama as a hack. He used his middle name Hussein. This is something that McCain quickly denounced in statements. But now, other talk radio hosts are coming to Cunningham's defense. Listen quickly to Rush Limbaugh.</s>RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Senator McCain should start pretending that liberal Democrats are conservative Republicans. And then he can cuss them out and throw them under his bus. If McCain was unhappy with what Cunningham said, there's a better way of dealing with this than to go out throw him under the bus this way. There's a better way of dealing with it.</s>BROWN: Does McCain still have a conservative problem?</s>FLEISCHER: Well, John McCain shouldn't have apologized. I don't think that was so outrageous. And after all -- after all how many --</s>BROWN: By using his middle name, I mean, why?</s>FLEISCHER: Did anybody criticize the Democrats when they called him George Herbert Walker Bush?</s>BROWN: Come on, Ari. Come on. Even I, I mean --</s>FLEISCHER: -- cut from a different cloth.</s>VANDEN HEUVEL: You know what's delicious (ph) --</s>FLEISCHER: But for John McCain to apologize for this?</s>VANDEN HEUVEL: What's delicious is to see Rush Limbaugh.</s>FLEISCHER: That's making politics too petty.</s>BROWN: That surprises me.</s>VANDEN HEUVEL: What's delicious to see Rush Limbaugh and his right wing talk radio hosts in a tizzy. This talk radio guy is very unstable. He went from supporting McCain to Hillary and then Ralph Nader in one minute. I think the key thing here is we're going to see a lot of surrogate smears in this campaign, and this is pre figure is one of the ugliest elections we may see. I would simply add "The Nation" reported last month that John McCain is now taking money from a group he denounced in last election's Swift Boat Veterans, and I think that's very sad because he was a maverick who stood up when they denounced John Kerry because he respected the military and now it's --</s>BROWN: Gloria -- Sorry, guys. I know Gloria -- I'm coming back to you on health care, I promise, but we're out of time...</s>BORGER: OK.</s>BROWN: ... on this topic.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.</s>BROWN: I appreciate you guys. Ari Fleischer...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.</s>BROWN: Katrina, good to see you. Clinton and Obama spent 16 minutes parsing health care during last night's debate, so we are going to talk about it. It was so confusing, though, we decided we did need to do a fact check and that is coming up next.