Ups and Downs for the Week of July 1 - 5

This is a partial transcript from The Beltway Boys, July 6, that has been edited for clarity. Click here to order the complete transcript.

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MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: OK. Let's go to the Ups and Downs.

DOWN: The International Criminal Court

President Bush vows that the United States will not take part in the ICC, which could threaten U.S. participation in any and all peacekeeping missions. Here's the president at an event in Milwaukee discussing the dangers of the U.N. court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We'll try to work out the impasse at the United Nations. But one thing we're not going to do is sign on to the International Criminal Court. As the United States works to bring peace around the world, our diplomats and our soldiers could be drug into this court. And that's a very troubling, very troubling to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: Very troubling to me too, you know, in this — I mean, look, look, for one thing this court, the U.S. is not a member of it, but lots of other countries aren't either, Brazil's not, Russia, China, Australia, Mexico, and a lot more I can't remember right now are not members of this court.

And the fear is that the judges that will be on the court will be left-wing Europeans who would like nothing better than to indict Americans for something, say, like the incident last week in Afghanistan, where American airplanes were wrongly bombed some Afghan civilians and killed up to 40 of them. Indict them, haul them before this court, from which there is no appeal, there are no juries. I mean, it — and the court is accountable to no one.

This is a good court for the U.S. not to be under the jurisdiction of.

KONDRACKE: And in addition to the countries you named, our favorite country — not — France...

BARNES: Right.

KONDRACKE: ... has opted out for 10 years.  So, you know, it, it obviously is not going to cover the world as it claims.

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: And, you know, the worry would be the Bush administration keeps saying that it doesn't want our peacekeepers to be indicted. But the greater worry would be that they would go after higher-ranking people like even the president himself or Ariel Sharon or Henry Kissinger or Don Rumsfeld.

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: In some case like this...

BARNES: Right.

KONDRACKE: ... that you can be sure they will not go after Yasser Arafat or Fidel Castro.

BARNES: Yes, of that I am sure.

DOWN: Environmentalists

BARNES: Wildfire season isn't even midway, and already damage is at a record high. Environmentalists attempting to protect the forest from thinning have actually blocked the steps necessary to prevent the fires.

Now, Mort, you used to have a house out in the suburbs up until a couple years ago. Didn't you thin your trees and shrubs and so on and clean up all the, all the stray wood and debris and knock down trees? Well, I know, but look, it's, it did — it's what you do to keep a healthy environment there.

Now, this is what the environmentalists have blocked in the national forests. They want all that debris to be down there, and you can't thin out the forests, and it, it produces just this kindling there that starts these fires.

Now, they're not saying it now, but these environmental groups have all said in the past, fires are good. Well, they aren't so good, as it turns out.

KONDRACKE: Well, I'm, I'm frankly surprised that the environmentalists haven't said that global warming is responsible for these, for these fires. And, you know, there may be something to it.

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: But, but the — it's not only the environmentalists who, who have been against thinning, the...

BARNES: Really? Who else?

KONDRACKE: ... especially by the National...

BARNES: I'm for thinning.

KONDRACKE: ... the National Fire Plan for 100 years has caused — has called for fighting every forest fire, and some of the forest fires are necessary in order to clear out this, this scrub from, from underneath, and so it, you know, Smoky the Bear is all about...

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: ... preventing all forest fires.

BARNES: Yes, they're about preventing none of the forest fires, the environmentalists, though.

UP: First Lady Laura Bush

KONDRACKE: The first lady scores high approval ratings, a whopping 69 percent approve of her job, compared to last year's 58 percent. And Mrs. Bush, a former librarian, is not afraid to challenge the Amer — the Library Association of America. She says it's OK for the FBI to look through library records, and see what potentials suspects are up to.

Well, in, in fact, you know, Laura Bush's popularity rating, approval rating, 69 percent, is not quite to the level that Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, and Nancy Reagan achieved at their peak. They all got into the 70s.  I suspect that she will too, eventually. She is a class act.

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: And she's going to help herself even more by resisting the Library Association...

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: ... which, you know, doesn't want anybody — the FBI to go looking into records, even though a lot of the 9/11 terrorists actually...

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: ... you know, used computers at public libraries.

BARNES: Yes, now, let me make sure I got this right, that librarians, their, their position is that it's OK for pedophiles and sex addicts to come in and look at porn on the computers in the library, but the FBI agents have to stay outside. Right?

KONDRACKE: I think you have it right, yes.

BARNES: That's basically the position. All right.

DOWN: Filmmaker Spike Lee

BARNES: Lee's latest film, a 10-minute documentary for Showtime, titled "We Was Robbed," revisits the 2000 presidential election and declares George W. Bush stole the presidency from Al Gore.

KONDRACKE: I acknowledge I have not seen this film, but from everything I've read about it, it is pure raw, unadulterated one-sided propaganda. But what it does show is that the Democrats still plan to wave the bloody shirt about Florida in order to bring out the base for...

BARNES: Yes, that's what I think.

KONDRACKE: ... for the elections.

BARNES: That's pathetic. There've been all these media recounts instead, and, and, and, and clearly some big recounts in Florida, and they've all come to the conclusion that Bush won. And I say to Spike Lee, get over it.

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