This partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, November 3, 2001 was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to order the complete transcript.
MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: Let's go to the ups and downs.
Up, President Bush
He gets the aviation bill he wanted out of the House of Representatives, that is, one that puts the federal government in charge of airport security without turning some 30,000 baggage and passenger screeners into federal workers.
Now...
FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: Now, wait a minute, look, I want to say something about Bush, because this plays on this idea of Bush as a bipartisan president. Now, he obviously lobbied heavily for the Republican bill, the one where the screeners are not automatically government employees. That doesn't mean he's not bipartisan. Bipartisan -- two -- it means sometimes you're with Republicans, sometimes you're with Democrats.
His lobbying was critical. It would not have passed, his bill wouldn't have passed the House if he hadn't lobbied.
On the other hand, he announced that if the Democratic bill had passed, he would sign it. So he's still pretty bipartisan.
KONDRACKE: Yes, but, you know, he delayed too long. When the bill was in the Senate, he should have made his position clear, and lobbied, done his lobbying then. But the bill passed 100 to nothing...
BARNES: Yes.
KONDRACKE: ... with the workers federalized, I mean, federal employees. The Bush's later position about the House position is exactly right. Anybody who knows about civil servants, you know, knows that they can't be fired no matter how incompetent they are. And, you know, you want to be able to fire these people...
BARNES: Well, yes...
KONDRACKE: So now you've got two different bills in a conference committee that's going to delay this from happening...
BARNES: Not necessarily.
KONDRACKE: ... at a time -- well...
BARNES: Not necessarily.
KONDRACKE: ... it -- well, I would predict delay. And I don't think that we can, that we can afford delay in making the skies safe.
BARNES: Mort, you're blaming Bush. But, you know, he does have a lot of things on the -- on his plate. You know, there's this war in Afghanistan, and so on, there's a lot -- there's a lot going on. OK.
Up, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
With Congress still haggling over an economic stimulus package, O'Neill comes up with a plan to boost the economy right now, stop selling 30-year Treasury bonds, further lowering interest rates and giving homeowners a golden opportunity to refinance.
You love this thing.
KONDRACKE: I do. And, you know, O'Neill has taken a lot of guff from your pals, the House conservatives, for saying correctly that their economic stimulus package was just show business for the corporate lobbyists, which it exactly was. But this is an act of sheer genius.
And it's a stimulus package unto itself. I mean, what's happened is that O'Neill automatically, unilaterally lowered long-term interest rates. It's not -- you can now get a mortgage for 6.5 percent, lowest in years. And that's money in people's pockets.
BARNES: Yes, look, the effect of whatever O'Neill has done in the 30-year bonds hasn't been felt yet. Interest rates have come down for other reasons. And you know what? He'll -- I'd like to have been a fly on the wall in the Oval Office when O'Neill explained to the president why he was trashing that House-passed economic stimulus package, which the president had endorsed and backed and lobbied for, Mort.
KONDRACKE: The president, everybody knows that the president, that the president didn't really...
(CROSSTALK)
BARNES: ... he loved it.
KONDRACKE: OK.
Down, Imam Mohammed Asi
The embattled former member of the Washington Islamic Center fans the flames of religious and racial intolerance in remarks this week to the National Press Club. Listen to this hateful speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IMAM MOHAMMED ASI, FORMER MEMBER, ISLAMIC CENTER: If you want to come and say to us that Muslims are responsible for ramming a few planes into vital American interests, the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon here in Washington, we tell you, we have enough reason to believe that those who were macromanaging these events are the Israeli Zionist Jews.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARNES: Amazing stuff. You know, haters like that just cannot be reached, you know, you're not going to -- the president saying, I'm not at war with Islam and so on, that's not going to reach guys like that, and there are a lot of them. But they're not the ones I worry about. I worry about the so-called moderate Islamic imams like this fellow in New York. You know, you had a very respected imam at the big temple, rather, mosque in New York. He said he'd been attacked and he fled to Egypt and then he blamed the Jews for everything, as this fellow did.
Replaced by a new imam whose name is Imam Omar Soleem Abunamus (ph), and what does he say? He says, Well, gee, I can't make a judgment, because I haven't seen the proof of, of who actually caused the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He wants to see the proof? Doesn't he read the newspaper? No, look, to have that position, and this is supposedly a moderate, to have that position is morally and factually indefensible.
KONDRACKE: Well, you know, the Muslim community in the United States and obviously overseas is split. I think that most of the Muslims in America don't like Usama bin Laden and support the United States. But, I -- it would be helpful if they said so loud and clear, and it would be even more helpful if major Muslim figures in the United States joined up with President Bush's PR campaign to broadcast to the Islamic world that Muslims in the United States are supporting the United States.
BARNES: Mort, well said.
Down, Arizona Diamondback pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim.
The 22-year-old blows two opportunities for late-game saves, giving up nearly identical game-tying two-out home runs in the bottom of the ninth against the Yankees in games four and five.
Now, Mort, when you see him there on the mound, and I think we're going to see him here in just a sec, after he gave up that second home run, I mean, he is the perfect embodiment of what George Allen, the famous football coach, once said about sports. He said, "Winning is life, losing is death."
You're going to see Kim here in a minute, and he's going to be -- and, and you'll see what I'm talking about there. There he is, he can't believe it, he can't raise -- he's being -- he was down on his knees at one point. He can't believe the -- what's happened here.
KONDRACKE: He later got down on his haunches. You know, I discovered what the difference is between a conservative and me, right? I wanted to go out and hug the poor guy, Kim, and, and prevent him from committing hara-kiri. I know Koreans don't commit hara-kiri, Japanese do. But nonetheless, the guy had to be devastated by these two mistakes, night after night -- one night after the other.
My favorite conservative just said, "Loser!" That was you.
BARNES: Winning and losing matters in these things.
KONDRACKE: I know. I...
BARNES: It's not ballet.
KONDRACKE: Compassion, Fred, compassion.
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