This is a partial transcript from "The Beltway Boys," February 25, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.
Watch "The Beltway Boys" Saturday at 6 p.m. ET and Sunday at 1 and 6 a.m. EST.
FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: Let’s check out our up and downs this week.
DOWN: rarely, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I think she’s been up always. Anyway, she ran into resistance from even moderate Arab leaders, on one of her chief goals this week, convincing Arab governments to isolate Hamas by cutting off funding.
MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: Just because a government gets elected democratically does not mean that we, the United States, are obligated to supply it with aid and political support. If what we’re in favor of between the Arabs and the Israelis is a peace settlement, and if a government gets elected democratically that’s against peace, then we are not obligated to support it, and, in fact, we have every justification for not supporting it and withholding support from it.
BARNES: You know, Condi Rice was particularly rebuffed in Egypt. Now, we give a lot of aid to Egypt, what is it, $2 or $3 billion a year, and have for decades, offer them that aid. Well, I think what we can do now is reduce our aid by exactly the amount of money that they pay to Hamas in the Palestinian territories. And if that doesn’t restrain them, I think it would at least concentrate their minds.
Anyway, and remember, look, if they’re giving money to Hamas, that means they’re violating the Bush doctrine by aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, which is exactly what Hamas is. What do you think of that?
KONDRACKE: That’s fine, except you can’t cut the Saudis off, because we don’t give them any aid.
(LAUGHTER)
KONDRACKE: OK. UP: Hollywood money, especially in the 2006 cycle. The usual suspects like Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy are getting lots of celebrity dough this year. But one of those House races is getting a lot of attention. That’s the race between ousted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Democrat Nick Lampson in Texas’s 22nd Congressional District.
Among those giving money to the Democrat, Nick Lampson, are producers Norman Lear and Rob Reiner, who sent in $4,200, and Barbra Streisand, who kicked in $1,000.
BARNES: Yes, do you know any of these people?
(LAUGHTER)
KONDRACKE: Personally?
BARNES: Yes.
KONDRACKE: No, I mean, I know them by name. I’ve met Rob Reiner. Nice guy, actually.
BARNES: OK, that’s fine. Anyway, if I were Tom DeLay I’d use this against Nick Lampson, who should be his Democratic opponent, although Tom DeLay does have a primary challenger. I mean, Hollywood values are not exactly the values of Texas. They are not exactly conservative values.They’re not even moderate values: these are very, very liberal values.
And besides, these Hollywood types are your typical liberal elitists. You know, they know better and they want, and they’re perfectly happy not only to try to impose these values on people in their propaganda movies, but now they want to impose these values through giving money to a Texas race.
I mean, they’re the kind of people who want to raise taxes on everybody. They can pay them easily because they’re rich, but it’s going to be pain for the poor middle-class people who have to pay the bulk of the taxes.
So liberals are like that, Mort.
KONDRACKE: Yes, well, you know what I like? I like raising taxes on rich people, and rich people only. Let’s do that.
BARNES: That destroys the economy.
KONDRACKE: Republicans don’t like to do that.
Look, what I was amazed to discover is that if you include cable television executives, I guess they’re included, in the entertainment industry, the division on money is for a 53 percent to Democrats and 47 percent to Republicans. I was quite astounded by that.
BARNES: Well, no, but we were talking about people on the creative side, so-called.
KONDRACKE: Yes, so-called.
BARNES: Actors, producers.
KONDRACKE: But, you know, the other point about this is that Jane Fonda and Robert DeNiro and Chevy Chase and Edie Falco and Barbra Streisand are giving tons of money to Hillary Clinton.
BARNES: Yes.
KONDRACKE: She doesn’t need that money.
BARNES: Of course not.
KONDRACKE: What do you suppose that’s all about? They want to be invited to the White House.
BARNES: Yes, you’re right about that. All right.
DOWN: Harvard University. The liberal elites takeover of that storied university is complete with the resignation of embattled president Larry Summers, who, by the way, was Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary. Here’s Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: This is the hard left flexing their muscles and saying, "We don’t like the way Larry Summers thinks, we don’t like what he says, we don’t like what he does, and we’re going to get rid of him."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KONDRACKE: Well, I mean, Larry Summers is undiplomatic, often blunt. And he gave his enemies a lot of ammunition by raising questions publicly about women, whether women are less qualified in math and science than men are genetically or something like that. He later apologized.
But the fundamental bottom line here is that he insisted that African-American professor Cornell West do scholarship instead of, you know, doing jazz reviews and stuff like that. And he defended Israel against the disinvestment movement and defended the military and, and its place on college campuses, which the left did not like.
BARNES: Yes, now look, but let’s be clear about what’s going on here. This is a left-wing faculty, mainly the arts and science faculty, tossing out or driving out a college president who is just slightly left of center on most things. I mean, he was in the Clinton administration, for heaven’s sakes.
And, you know, Larry, I think Larry Summers raised questions that every college president ought to raise. He raised the question of, should we have ROTC again on the campus? And things like that. And the truth is the faculty doesn’t want those things discussed. Talk about stifling dissent.
KONDRACKE: Yes.
DOWN: NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. The ho-hum American team, tape delays, and poor programming decisions drag the “Peacock” network’s ratings to historic lows for Olympic coverage.
(LAUGHTER)
BARNES: “Peacock” network. Now, look, I’m part of the problem here because I didn’t watch any of the Winter Olympics. I’m not that crazy about those sports, although the American hockey team, men’s and women’s, have been interesting at times.
But, you know, why didn’t I listen, or watch, rather? Because I kept hearing from people that NBC did this dastardly thing of keeping delaying until the end of their broadcast at the end of the evening the things you might be interested in, like I don’t know, whatever...
KONDRACKE: Figure skating.
(CROSSTALK)
KONDRACKE: Yes, the most popular single event, women’s figure skating finals, ended up at 11:00 at night. You already knew that Sasha Cohen finished second and in addition to that, you had Dick Button, you know, commentating all the time and sounding like one of those terrible judges on "American Idol."
(LAUGHTER)
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