This is a rush transcript of "Special Report With Bret Baier" from November 27, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
R.P. EDDY, SECURITY EXPERT: People will be reprimanded, but I doubt that these people who broke in have any idea of the jobs that will be lost and actually the careers that will be shattered by this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILSON, GUEST HOST: Trouble for the Secret Service and questions about the credentials of one of the party crasher who we see on the White House photo greeting the president in the receiving line.
Michaele Salahi has implied that she was a cheerleader for the Washington Redskins. This is the first time, by the way, we have seen this White House photo. But the team has no record of that.
She also claims to have modeled for top magazines, including Victoria's Secret, but a company spokeswoman says she did not work for them.
On those exciting details we bring in our panel: Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard; Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief of Fortune magazine, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Good to have you all here.
Well, this story just gets more and more interesting. First of all, they show up. They're not on the list. They bluff their way past the Secret Service and get into the party. We see pictures of them with Biden. We see pictures of them with Rahm Emanuel, and now pictures of them with the president of the United States.
Fred Barnes?
FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: What a great story. Henry Kissinger said "power is the greatest aphrodisiac." Well, fame, even fleeting fame is a pretty good aphrodisiac too. It's amazing what people will do in order to get a little fame, and they pulled off this stunt in public -- which is quite a stunt -- and it worked.
Look, they wouldn't have gotten quite the fame if one of the people involved wasn't a pretty blonde. Television is always a sucker for putting a blonde, a pretty blonde on.
But, they will have some fame for a while, and I don't think much more will come of it. The Secret Service will investigate this thing, but, look, the answer is very simple: Check the people's I.D. against the invitation list. That's all you have to do.
And as I recall from going to a state dinner, your I.D. is checked twice to see if you're on the invitation list, once when you're standing outside in line and once later. But that's all you have to do is check the I.D. against the invitation list. If they had done that, this wouldn't have happened.
WILSON: Nina, we know that they weren't on the list and yet they were given admission. They were introduced as they walked down the red carpet passed the press and apparently introduced to the president and first lady. What happened there? Do you have any ideas?
NINA EASTON, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: I don't think we know yet, because they are investigating. And as Fred said, yes, I have been to state dinner too, and you name, you are introduced into each room in a state dinner.
So the fact that they were able to not only get past that checkpoint, but their names got into circulation through the event was pretty amazing. But the -- and I think there was obviously going to be consequences for whoever was involved in the Secret Service. But I hope there is consequences for them, because the troubling thing of all of this is this culture of easy celebrity with no consequences.
So you've got the mother of octuplets who suddenly has the "Good Morning America" cameras in her house, and she gets to preen before the cameras where she has these poor eight babies there.
And then you've got the parents of that boy, the balloon boy, that hoax that was perpetrated that had every cable station fixated for, you know, a day-and-a-half, had law enforcement shut down for a day and a half.
And what was the consequence? The consequence is that the guy is maybe going to go to jail for a couple of months but most likely get probation. What we're seeing with this couple right now, what's the consequence right now is a Larry King interview.
(LAUGHTER)
WILSON: That could be kind of painful!
EASTON: That's tough. And their publicist put out something like "We will be answering these questions in various interview venues." I mean, let's hope there is some consequences for them.
WILSON: Charles Krauthammer?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Brian, I dissent.
WILSON: You dissent.
KRAUTHAMMER: I dissent. In the year where the news has been bad or worse, I think this is one of the more uplifting stories to come out of the White House.
What you have here is a harmless little con job pulled off by a middling, fairly shady, social-climbing set of publicity hounds, not very different from your average invitee to a White House state dinner. They pull it off, a nice little Thanksgiving story.
I can't get terribly excited about the security aspect. The real security threat to a president is anytime he steps out of the White House when he is in a helicopter, a motorcade. And it's not just Obama, but a Clinton or a Bush, are out there in the stadium waving to a crowd, I'm scared to death. But come on in the White House.
There is one other aspect here -- at a time where to get real notoriety in our culture you have to put a crucifix in a jar of urine and call it art or if you are a male singer, you grab one of your male dancers crawling around on the stage and shove his face into your crotch, it's nice to see a couple pull off a fairly classical old-fashioned gate-crashing.
(LAUGHTER)
After all, every couple of months somebody jumps over the fence at Buckingham Palace.
WILSON: They just did it with a bit more style.
CHETRY: Absolutely.
And as far as I can tell, nobody here was hurt. A good time was had by all, including us in the press. We have gotten three days of stories out of this on a very slow and sleepy holiday weekend.
(LAUGHTER)
WILSON: What about this idea that I have heard some people look at this and say, OK, look, it was all in good fun, no harm was caused, no harm, no foul. But there is a larger issue here, that maybe somebody with bad intent to could do the same thing, walk in, and maybe they have got Anthrax. Maybe they have something else.
Could this be perceived as a serious threat to security at the White House?
BARNES: This wasn't, no... look, the Secret Service is going to learn something they should have learned before, they should have known, and that is you always have to check out to make sure the people are invited.
I don't think -- look, these people, they were dressed for the role. You know, they looked like a couple -- the woman was in, I gather, an Indian dress, and the guy had a tux on. They looked like they were ready to go to a state dinner and the White House Secret Service fell for that.
I'm not sure that there is any larger lesson other than that the Secret Service has to be more careful. That's all.
WILSON: Is the Secret Service -- I mean, you have been there at these events where you are lined up. The weather apparently was a little wet and rainy. Were they going to try to solve the problem on the stop?
EASTON: I think what probably happened at that first check point, it was a rainy night. There was a crowd of people gathered. There is sort of a crush of people.
Nobody was standing there, I guess, from the Social Office with a guest list. There was a list. They weren't on it. They could have even taken their driver's licenses and checked them and no alarms came off, so they let them through. That's possible, too. But anyways, it is also interesting that there was a reality show crew in tow and it goes back to this question of reality shows and the desire of people to get more celebrity through the reality shows.
WILSON: Charles?
KRAUTHAMMER: I bet it was a young agent and he said you weren't on the list and she cried a little bit, and she batted her eyes and said I drove 100 miles and he said OK.
WILSON: All right, we'll move on.
The Friday Lightning Round is next. There is new information about Tiger Woods. We will talk about that and a whole lot of other things. Back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILSON: We are back with our panel and we want to talk about this Tiger Woods story. It is not a political story but, my gosh, is it fascinating.
There is new information according to the Associated Press. A local police chief in Florida said Tiger Wood's wife used a golf club to smash out the back window and help get the golfer out of the car after this accident.
Windemere Police Chief Daniel Sailor told the Associated Press that Elin Nordagren told officers she was in the house, she heard the accident, came outside. Sailor says officers found Woods laying in the street with his wife hovering over him.
Charles, what is this story all about? What happened at 2:25 outside Tiger's house?
KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I'm going to say what you aren't supposed to ever say it on television: I have no idea.
(LAUGHTER)
However, it's never going to stop me because that never does on this or any other show.
Look, since everything turned out OK, I think you can be a little bit lighthearted about this. A, I'm glad he was in an American car, and B, I imagine when she approached the car with a club, he said no-no, don't use a wood, use a nine-iron.
(LAUGHTER)
EASTON: Yes, it's a slow news day.
I would say that he was driving an American car. It was a Cadillac SUV. No one stopped to calculate the carbon footprint as he was blowing through the mailbox and the tree. He had, quote, "serious injuries." It turns out he's out of the hospital and fine.
WILSON: Any thoughts on this, Fred?
BARNES: It's 2:30 a.m. and the police said that alcohol was not involved. I would say that the chances of that just in general, not specifically about Tiger, but in general, the chances of an accident at 2:30 a.m. not involving alcohol are very slim.
WILSON: I think we're going to find out that eventually Tiger Woods is going to claim a mulligan on this particular drive. And I stole that from Steve Brown. I want to give full credit to him. That was his line.
Let's move to more serious topics in the lightning round. The IAEA report, 25 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to censure Iran for continuing to enrich uranium. Charles?
KRAUTHAMMER: Look, this is the emperor's new clothes. The scandal is that it took them six years -- the world's experts on this -- six years to arrive at a collusion that a nine-year-old would have seen early on. Of course Iran is developing nukes. The evidence has been everywhere.
The real issue here is that international institutions on which Obama -- he praises them, he relies on them for international peace and peacekeeping -- they are not only worthless, they are worse than useless because they give the illusion of handling an issue. You say, oh, the IAEA is in charge of that, and you lose six years.
WILSON: Nina?
EASTON: We might have lost six years but they did it. They censured Iran with China and Russia onboard.
And this is one of those moments where the White House deserves some credit, because top officials went over to China to pressure them before the president visited and to raise the prospect that Israel was going to take action and that that could set off events in the Middle East that nobody wants to think about, including China, who has oil supplies coming from the Middle East.
So I think this is a case where the White House behind the scenes is doing some good work.
BARNES: Let's see, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and President Obama has gotten the Chinese to sign some meaningless censure by the IAEA. I'm surprised you would even say that, Nina. What is that, a strong letter to follow? It's pathetic. They said in the resolution "Our patience is limited." No, it's not. It's unlimited.
And what is going to happen as a result is that the Iranians will end up with a nuclear weapon.
WILSON: Let's pick up the pace. I want to get a couple more in. Afghanistan speech coming up Tuesday -- Fred?
BARNES: I think what Obama needs to do -- remember now, he comes from that wing of the part, it is the antiwar wing of the party. And look, if he were still a senator and it was a Republican president doing this, he would be against it, you know, sending more troops. So he has to convince people, including me, that he is really for this effort in Iran and not just to finish the job, but to win the war.
He has to convince the American people. The anti-war wing, he is never going to convince them. But he has to convince the people that he is committed to this.
WILSON: Nina?
EASTON: If he really is doubling down and making this -- taking steps to make this war end -- and he's standing up to the left wing of his party, I think he deserves credit. And I think Republicans and conservatives need to point this out as the most important foreign policy point in this administration so far.
WILSON: Charles?
KRAUTHAMMER: The most important element of this speech is not the troop level or even the strategy he is going to announce. It is going to be whether his heart is in it.
He is going to have to make a speech in which he convinces the world, especially our allies -- NATO allies and Afghans on the ground -- that his heart is in a war which in August he declared as a war of necessity but from which he has been shying away and denigrating and agonizing over for the last three months.
The real question is, is this his war, did he take possession of it, and will he insist on completion of the job?
WILSON: Let's see if we can get a couple more in. Bring your own topic. Charles, department store Santas want the H1N1 vaccine.
KRAUTHAMMER: I stand with the department store Santas. These people are about to be attacked by an army of smiley, sneezing, snot-dripping little kids.
(LAUGHTER)
If we don't do something for the Santas today, in January they will be dropping like flies.
WILSON: Fred, he we will get to you because we're running out of time.
BARNES: President Obama will do a Christmas television special with Oprah. Doesn't he know he is already overexposed? The ubiquity of being in front of everybody all the time is not the same as leadership.
WILSON: All right, we're going to leave it right there. Nina, I'm sorry you got cut short in the last round.
Content and Programming Copyright 2009 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, LLC'S and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox