Sound Off: Grading the President
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Our "Sound Off" this morning, grading the president. After 100 days since the terrorist acts, the president is not resting. He is in the process of freezing the assets of two more groups launched a preemptive strike, freezing the assets of two groups suspected of terror links. Since September 11th, he's gotten rid of the Taliban, put Al Qaeda on the run, and has Osama bin Laden in hiding.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm optimistic about the future of our struggle against terror. I know we've accomplished a lot so far. We've got a lot more to do.</s>ZAHN: But some say more work needs to be done here at home.</s>SEN. THOMAS DASCHLE (D-SD),  MAJORITY LEADER: We must recapture the spirit of bipartisanship that allowed us to accomplish so much together in the fist weeks and months after the attacks. The rescue workers did their job. The firefighters continue to do their job. We must put aside partisanship to do ours as well.</s>ZAHN: So has the president's success abroad masked some shortcomings at home? Joining us now to "Sound Off," from Washington, syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux, and from New York this morning, constitutional law attorney Ann Coulter. Good morning to you as well, Ann. Welcome. All right. Let's start off this morning with what we know is a plan hatched by the Democrats to call the recession the Bush recession, and to try to bring as much attention to America about domestic issues. Ann, is it going to work?</s>ANN COULTER, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: I don't think so. I note that the president is the commander in chief, whereas Congress has control of the purse. And as you said, everything the commander and chief is in charge of seems to be going swimmingly, whereas Congress -- I mean, for one thing, the stimulus bill -- I kind of resent the name of it. Why are the American people kept in the dark about this? I mean, they're just debating greater or lesser degrees of socialism. Are they going to redistribute income. or are they going to cut taxes? Why can't they just tell us?</s>JULIANNE MALVEAUX, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Ann. You are so far off the reservation it's even not funny. I mean, when you have a so- called stimulus package, 92 percent of which gives money back to corporations, when you have a recession with hundreds of thousands of unemployed people and you can't even get yourselves together to give them some relief, this is a Bush recession.</s>COULTER: It's a Democratic Congress.</s>MALVEAUX: And the house said even the secretary of treasury called show business it was so absurdly ridiculous. The fact is that Mr. Bush was behind this, his fingerprints were all over it, and it's his failure, and you know it.</s>COULTER: Even if you like it, it's Congress that's holding it up, and the Senate, and the Dukakis of the Dakotas, that Tom Daschle.</s>MALVEAUX: Oh, please, Tom Daschle deserves a medal. If you all want to call him an obstructionist, he can obstruct for me anytime.</s>ZAHN: Wait, wait, wait, what does he deserve a medal for, Julianne? Where were you going with that?</s>COULTER: For protecting the economy from the corporate vultures that would literally strip any money out there to give back to corporations, repealing the alternative minimum tax, you know, doing major tax cuts for corporations, but nothing for individuals. Paula, where do you have the pain right now, is the people who have been laid off, who have lost their jobs. They don't have health insurance, and it's just to me galling that the Congress would adjourn without providing it with some relief. Republicans refusing to do so, because the only way they would if corporations got a break. That's ridiculous.</s>ZAHN: Ann, let me ask you this, you think it's Congress's fault this plan didn't pass, but was there anything else the president could have done to ensure the passage of this plan, so something would have been passed -- Ann?</s>COULTER: The president doesn't pass bills; Congress does that.</s>ZAHN: I know that, but the president can massage things and he can push things.</s>MALVEAUX: He can take things off the table, and you know it.</s>COULTER: No, he can't. Daschle is responsible for this. I happen to not like the stimulus bill, but apparently you do.</s>MALVEAUX: I don't like the stimulus bill; I like provisions of it.</s>COULTER: If you like it...</s>ZAHN: Julianne, hang on. Ann, finish your thought.</s>COULTER: If you like it, the person who is responsible for not letting it through is Tom Daschle, and as for people suffering, it's seems to me this always happens, whether it's a recession, or an earthquake or some sort of, you know, horrible storm, the Congress' decision is always to suck up more money from the people and redistribute income. How about something like giving people who are subject to some sort of natural disaster or a recession. How about saying they don't have to be taxes for the next five years. I think most people prefer that than getting these handouts from the government that's a stimulus.</s>ZAHN: Julianne, are you telling us this morning that Congress bares no responsibility for going home without a stimulus package passed?</s>MALVEAUX: Let me say a couple of thing.</s>ZAHN: No, no, answer the question, Julianne.</s>MALVEAUX: You know what, the stimulus package, I was not in favor of it as it was written, because as it was written, it was a corporate giveaway package; it was not a stimulus package. What I was in favor was relief for the unemployed, access to health insurance for the unemployed, extension of unemployment benefits. That's what I was in favor of. All those corporate giveaways, no, I was absolutely opposed to. Here's who is at fault here. The House of Representatives has this -- it's like the Christmas present to corporations, and they could have taken some of the off the table. How come we couldn't have passed something minimalist to help the people at the bottom? Ann's idea of tax relief for those who have been affected, I might go along with something like that. But the fact is that the House Republicans were adamant, Tom Daschle held the line, and he should have. We're better off with no stimulus package than that Republican stimulus package which was instigated by President Bush and he could have blinked and said, let's take it off the table.</s>ZAHN: Ann, did you hear that? She supported one of the very minor policies you mentioned.</s>COULTER: That's a big policy issue for me.</s>ZAHN: Let's come back to issue of a grade for the president, which is hard thing to do, because the issues are so broad. But we know that there is an internal debate within the administration right now about what percentage of time the president should spend on the war effort versus domestic problems. Ann, just great among the balance he's striking right now, and we'll let Julianne have the last word.</s>COULTER: No, I think he's doing a great job on that. I mean, there are domestic issues, as for example the threat of another attack. And as many people have noted recently. It is fairly stunning that with only 6,000 people being detained, there hasn't been another attack. We're on warnings. We're all on alert. The country is nervous, but there has not been another attack. When a few bombs went off in Paris in 1995, the French Jeandarms (ph) questioned everyone on the streets and ended up detaining 70,000 people. In this whole country, Attorney General Ashcroft has only detained about 6,000 people. And I think we have seen the results of that.</s>ZAHN: Julianne?</s>MALVEAUX: I'll give the president a C on the balance. I think we do need to spend more attention on the domestic situation, especially the economy. You opened by asking if we learned from his father. No, it's always the economy, stupid. And there are increasing number of people who are being affected by the economic downturn. We all care about the terrorism. I think he's done a reasonable job of -- you know, I would say a reasonable job as commander in chief. But commander in chief also has to work at home, and at home I think the Senate, the Democratic-led Senate, has been the one that have kept their eyes on the prize in terms of the unemployed, in terms of the recession and in terms of where economic stimulation really needs to take place. Again, I say give Tom Daschle a medal for keeping us focused on the domestic situation while...</s>ZAHN: Whoa, whoa, look at Ann's face when you said that, give him a medal.</s>MALVEAUX: Give him a medal. He's my hero of the week.</s>COULTER: I hope you speak for Democratic Party, because I really do think you have another wiring technocrat Dukakis on your hands.</s>ZAHN: We're going to let our audience mush the grades together. Ann presumably gave the president an A on the balance. You heard Julianne give him a C, and it's really up to all of you out there to decide how the president is doing. Thank you both for sounding off this morning.</s>MALVEAUX: Thank you, Paula. Happy holidays.</s>COULTER: Thank you. Merry Christmas.</s>ZAHN: Thanks. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com