January 13, 2009 CNN

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Carly Fiorina on Late Edition Nov. 21, 2008. Too bad she didn't apply some of these same standards to herself when she headed HP.

BLITZER: Carly, what's the most important lesson people out there, around the world, right now, should learn from this Bernard Madoff scandal, this alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme -- not only wealthy people losing everything but a lot of charities losing everything as well?

What happened here? What's the most important thing we have to learn from it, to make sure it could never happen again?

FIORINA: Well, I think two things. And I recently wrote an op- ed in The Wall Street Journal, saying this. First, every financial instrument and all financial institutions, regardless of their nature or their type, need to be visible and transparent to appropriate regulators, period.

We cannot have huge pools of capital that are simply opaque to regulation.

BLITZER: So much more regulation?

FIORINA: We need a strong and sensible regulatory framework that doesn't choke capitalism but that can see and act on what it sees. But, secondly -- and this is my message to business people all over the world -- there is no substitute for ethics. Yes, people need to be responsible about their investing, but dishonest business people need to go to jail. They need to have the full extent of the burden of the law brought to bear.

This is a terrible blotch on the credibility of business, just as, by the way, so many failed companies are, right now, because it is not true to say that only a credit crisis has caused these companies, whether they're automobile companies or banks, to fail. They are failing because management and boards have taken unwise decisions.

I'm not saying everybody was dishonest. But there's a level of responsibility, here, that business leaders, I believe, must step up to. At a minimum, let's be ethical. And at a maximum, let's be responsible to something more than the short-term stock crisis.

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From Late Edition Dec. 21, 2008. Ed Rollins slaps Bush pretty hard for the damage he's already done to our economy.

BLITZER: David Gergen, did President Bush do the right thing by bailing out Chrysler and GM?

GERGEN: Yes. He had backed himself into a corner and had to act and I think Dick Cheney put it well when he said had Bush had not done this, he would have been remembered as the Herbert Hoover of his era.

And it was unfortunate they had to come to this thing. But the real point is here, he's not only been forced to do that, but he has punted this to Barack Obama. Obama now faces a ton of huge decisions in the first 90 days of his presidency. BLITZER: There's no doubt, James, that he did punt in effect because by March 31st, if it doesn't look like it's working out, it is all going to be up to the president-elect and the new Congress to decide what to do.

CARVILLE: They're going to run out of money before March 31st. And right now, auto sales, everybody, doesn't matter, not just American carmakers, Japanese or European carmakers also are down 35, 40 percent. I don't think anybody thinks that is going to change between now and March and David is right, they have the ball and they're going to have to figure out what to do with this and it's going to be quick, very quick.

BLITZER: So Ed Rollins, the $14 or $17 billion in this initial bridge loan as it's called, that could escalate. That could go up to a lot more money given the overall state of the economy and the low demand for new cars right now.

ROLLINS: I think there's no question if you're going to try to save this industry, which is an industry in real problems, you are going to have a lot more money that is going to be thrown at him. I think that's a lot of the objections of the Republicans.

I think the problem the president made here is he let it go to Congress. The Congress, his own party, basically, didn't want it. There's a few weeks before the new president comes in and this president is trying to be relevant. He doesn't want to be Herbert Hoover, he is going to be Herbert Hoover. I don't care what he says, or what Dick Cheney says, this president has damaged this economy and is going to go out with a tarnished record. I think the critical thing here is let the new Congress take charge and let the new president take charge and move it forward. Unfortunately, it is on their watch and it is a mess.

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A telling segment from Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition, although his motivations are a little murky for me. Inviting on House Minority Whip Eric Cantor to be the GOP balance to discuss the auto bailout, Blitzer actually gives Cantor a second chance to distance himself away from George Bush's bridge loan and then reiterates later in the segment that the Democrats are siding with Bush and the GOP are not. THAT's the fact that Wolfie wants all his viewers to be clear on...not the half dozen "Everybody knows" made-up facts that Cantor is left to spew without interruption.

Curious, isn't it, that Blitzer doesn't ask why Cantor suddenly has interest in accountability for a successful business model for the taxpayers' sakes? After all, when AIG and BearStearns got their money, no one asked their CEOs which mode of transportation they took, nor whether they would cut salaries, and their loss was due to unregulated credit swaps--basically a new turn on junk bonds.

And on that salary question...out of curiosity, while GM CEO Rick Wagoner agreed to a token $1 salary as part of his bailout, his salary rose in 2007 by 64% to $15.7 million, significantly higher than his Toyota counterpart. I'd hazard a guess that the rest of GM's officers are similarly compensated, but Cantor is more worried about the guys on the line making $30/hour.

Hey Wolf, I hate having to do your job for you, but let's do some basic math, shall we? Rick Wagoner's salary is FOURTEEN times more than his Toyota counterpart. $30 an hour equates to roughly $62,400 a year. That means that the CEO of GM earned the equivalent of more than 251 employees last year. Is it really so hard for you to bring up these facts, Wolf? C'mon, I dare you to ask Cantor where's his concern for the taxpayers when it comes to executive compensation.

If you do that, maybe I'll forgive you for forgetting that none of this concern even crossed through Cantor's mind when he happily handed out no-strings-attached money to financial industries. Maybe.

Transcripts below the fold

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She just had to go there. During an exchange on Late Edition Oct. 26, 2008, Heather Wilson could just not resist taking a cheap shot at Biden for his hair transplants and compares the money spent by the RNC on Palin's clothing to what Obama spends on his ties as well. Since the Republicans have tried to paint Palin as a Washington outsider, a maverick and reformer---this clothing spree certainly shattered that image.

Let us remember how the Republicans went wild over John Edwards 400.00 hair cut. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee used it as laugh lines at one of the Republican Primary debates.

CNN:

BLITZER: Heather Wilson, are you embarrassed that the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 buying designer outfits for Sarah Palin at Saks and Neiman-Marcus, another $20,000 for make-up in the first two weeks of October alone, $10,000 for hair? Is this what a hockey mom should be getting?

WILSON: Well, that sounds like there are some staffers at the RNC who need a little education on how to shop at Wal-Mart and Ross Direct. But it does concern me in the last 10 days of an election campaign we're talking about those things.

WILSON: And we could talk about Barack Obama's ties or the vice president's hair transplants or something like that.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Barack Obama doesn't spend that kind of money on ties. He buys them himself.

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From Late Edition Oct. 26, 2008. After discussing whether Jon Kyl was comfortable with McCain trying to separate himself from Bush, the conversation between Evan Bayh and Jon Kyl moves here.

Bayh: Well we can all cite our studies but I think the American people understand Wolf that when, the price that John McCain had to pay, and I like John McCain, but the price he had to pay to win his party's nomination was to embrace the Bush policies, back when he was running for the nomination....

Kly: What policies!

Bayh: Back when he was running for the nomination he said he agreed with President Bush on virtually every major issue. That's a direct quote. He voted with him 90% of the time, so (crosstalk). Excuse me that's just a fact. So if you like the way things are. If you think the economy is going well. If you think the policies of President Bush have succeeded you should vote for John McCain. (crosstalk).. we need a change you should support Barack Obama.

Kyl: What policies of the Bush administration created the problem that we're in today? The problem started with the fact that we didn't have enough regulation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Something Republicans and the Bush administration were pushing for and your Democratic colleagues opposed. That was the beginning of the problem of the housing bubble. George Bush doesn’t run the economy. He didn’t create this problem. His tax rates being lower actually helped for six years to create the second largest economic growth that we’ve had in the history of the country in recent years. So uh...

Bayh: It sounds like you're agreeing that uh, with John McCain when he says that economics and running the economy is not his strong suit. Apparently it wasn't George Bush's strong suit either Jon because according to you the President doesn't have much to do with the economy. So we shouldn't even be talking about taxes and spending and jobs because according to you the chief executive of the country doesn't have much to do with that. We have a different point of view. We think the President should lead on economic policy. You create jobs, foster investment and business expansion. The policies of the last eight years have not done very well.

Kyl: The Bush tax cuts created this growth coming out of a recession. Creating six years of economic growth. Do you want those tax rates which have been responsible for this economic growth and job creation to go back up?

Bayh: Wolf there in lies the fundamental difference. John McCain says he thinks the fundamentals of the economy are sound. That we've made "great progress" these last eight years. My friend Jon Kyl apparently believes that as well. I think we can do better. And I think the American people believe we can do better and that's what Barack Obama stands for.

Blitzer: Alright Sen. Kyl very quickly I'll give you the last word.

Kly: Not by raising taxes. Particularly not in a time of recession. Don't raise taxes on the small businesses because that create 80% of the jobs in the country. Keep taxes where they are.

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From Late Edition Oct. 19, 2008 David Gergen gives the Democrats some advice on how they should respond to being called socialists.

Gergen: If you go back to the distribution of wealth in 1979, thirty years ago versus today the people in the bottom eighty percent are losing compared to back then six hundred billion dollars a year. The top one percent of the population is gaining six hundred billion dollars a year compared to back then. We have had a redistribution of wealth in this country, up, and that has been aided by government policies.

Blitzer: But what the McCain people are suggesting and even Sen. McCain yesterday in his radio address suggested this is almost socialism.

Gergen: We just had a Republican government that has put a hundred and fifty billion dollars in the banks. They have injected the government more fully into the banking system, the financial system than any time in history. And so it's a hollow argument. (crosstalk) It's a hollow argument. I mean, I think the Republicans, the Democrats, if they want to join this argument they can. This is, there are very strong arguments to say "You guys are accusing us of socialism when you've just spent a hundred and fifty billion dollars as a down payment on a seven hundred billion dollar bailout."

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Bless my soul, they actually talked about the Georgian/Russian conflict on Late Edition this morning!  ** Nobody can claim that CNN is not on top of the issues of the day.  As Jerome a Paris, who wrote this great article, put it in an email to me:

Neocons are people that see danger everywhere and seem to crave military solutions in all cases. They endlessly blather about how we need to stand firm against bullies or other threats (Russia being near the top of the list), and protect our brave allies on the front lines, and along with them, democracy, freedom and our honor. They mock cowardly Europeans who think appeasement (read - any diplomacy) might have a chance. They fuel conflicts and perpetually tout military options.

And yet, whenever given the opportunity to stand up to their words (and sent other people to fight, of course, they don't do that themselves), the results are surprisingly poor.

Case in point, Sen John Cornyn, who had to wrestle with some serious pretzel logic on McCain's position to kick Russia out of the G8.

BLITZER: Do you agree with Sen. McCain, Sen. Cornyn, that Russia should be kicked out of the G8?

CORNYN: Well, I think, you know, we're not at that point, uh, yet. I think certainly - not over this incident, but I do think we need to recognize Russia for what it is and of course it was the Soviet Union that invaded Afghanistan back in the late 70s that has created so much hardship for the Afghan people, so much lack of stability in that area, so I think, you know, Russia is a superpower. They have the responsibilities of a superpower and they cannot claim that they are on any kind of equal basis or really legitimately threatened by Georgia from a military standpoint. But we do need to...we do need a resolution here, and lest this thing spin out of control.

Um, Sen. Cornyn? Have you heard of Iraq?   I hate to be pedantic about this, but by your standards, the US should be kicked out of the G8.   You really want to go down this road?

For more about the Georgian/Russian conflict, see this article: The warmongers have lost yet another war.

** Correction: I initially lambasted CNN for their coverage of the conflict, but it has been brought to my attention that they did spend a significant portion of their program on it this morning.  My apologies to CNN for the incorrect characterization.

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You gotta love the predictability of the framing from McCain's Media.  John McCain challenges Barack Obama to go to Iraq, and so he goes.  Then he makes the exact same courtesy calls with other heads of state with whom he would be in close contact should he win the presidency that John McCain made just a couple of months ago, but according to Suzanne Malveaux on CNN's Late Edition, "some people" are worried that Obama is just a little audacious for making this trip.  Riiiiigggghhhhttt.  Just who would be these people, Malveaux?  Would they be those same GOP/RNC types that have been whispering these ridiculous slurs because Obama's trip was so successful and made their candidate look like an intemperate, ill-prepared and out of touch amateur?

Senator, I want to use a word that you love to use, "audacity." A lot of people looked at the trip and they saw the palaces, the world leaders, the 200,000 that were gathered in Berlin, and they said, "The audacity of this trip, it looks like he is running for president of the world."

Are we quoting Krauthammer and Brooks again on another media outlet?  It appears so.  The question goes out to McCain's Media yet again: by what standard have these two chuckleheads--who have yet to be right on anything, mind you--earned the privilege of framing the debate of this race?

Kudos to Obama for responding the only way you should to these intelligence-insulting media narratives.

OBAMA: Well, let me make a couple points. First of all, I basically met with the same folks that John McCain met with after he won the nomination. He met with all these leaders. He also added a trip to Mexico, a trip to Canada, a trip to Colombia, and nobody suggested that that was "audacious."

I think people assumed that what he was doing was to talk to world leaders who we may have deal with should we become president. That's part of the job that I'm applying for.

And so -- so I was puzzled by this notion that somehow what we were doing was in any way different from what Senator McCain or a lot of presidential candidates have done in the past.

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On Sunday's Late Edition Rep, Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee who reliably votes in favor of the Oil & Gas industry and against renewable energy bills and has been rewarded in return, joined the month-long chorus of Republicans including McCain that have been making the demonstrably false claim that there weren’t any major spills caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

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Blunt: If there was ever a test of this system it's in the one place that we do drill which is the gulf - 4,000 platforms in the gulf - thank God we've got them. 238 of them were injured by either Katrina or Rita. There was really no oil loss of any appreciable kind at any of those. Less oil was lost than used to seep up out of the gulf floor."

In fact, as we continue to note each time a new version of this claim has been made, there were at least 124 oil spills as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The website Skytruth.org even has posted satellite images of the spills as seen from space. Blunt added to his false assertion a repeat of what must be the new talking point on this issue that was offered on Thursday by McCain’s policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer (an energy lobbyist) after she was called out by MSNBC's David Schuster after trying to claim that "hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop” of oil, a downplaying of the spills by comparing them to the amount of oil that naturally seeps into the ocean floor.

As ThinkProgress notes, “the effects of seeps and spills differ hugely” in their environmental impact. It's an apples and oranges comparison, as seeps are natural, thus not preventable, and they have very little adverse ecological impact due to the fact that they result in a much lower rate of release over time over a larger area, while the effects of spills on the surface can be devastating.

Rep. Blunt also attacked Speaker Pelosi's calling for a release of 10% of the oil in the strategic oil reserve and her pointing out many of the same facts I had written about a month ago that the oil industry has yet drilled in just 19 percent of the more than 40 million acres they already can that are not covered by the current ban — 40 million acres that represent 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves. Using generous estimates from the latest analysis from Bush’s own Department of Energy, allowing for unlimited drilling both offshore and in ANWR “would lower the price at the pump by less than 6 cents" a gal. by 2025.

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  Who knew Nancy Pelosi was such a straight-shooter? When Wolf Blitzer tries to pin part of the blame for the current energy crisis on the Democratic Congress, Pelosi shoots back by saying her House did everything it could to institute a sensible energy policy, only to have "run into a brick wall" in the form of Senate Republicans -- you know, the ones who broke the filibuster record for a full term last year.

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"The price of oil is... is attributed to two oil men in the White House and their protectors in the United States Senate."

While it might be easy (and typically accurate) to blame everything on President Bush and Vice President Cheney, I don't think it's unreasonable to lay the current crisis at the White House's doorstep. Sure, there are some uncontrollable market forces at work, but both Cheney and Bush are oil patch guys; it would be the height of naivete to assume that they would have an energy policy that didn't benefit Big Oil.

From Day One, Dick Cheney was plotting how to take over Iraq oil fields. Before the war, it was obvious to everyone that the invasion or Iraq, and the instability it would caused in the region, would only drive prices up further. For all the lip service President Bush pays to his commitment to renewable energy, the fact is spending has been on the stagnant since the mid-1990's.

What we really need is a leader with the wisdom to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem and the courage to tackle it head on. "Green Screen" John McCain is clearly not that leader.

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It's actually amazing in the divisive political climate in which we live that we can find consensus on subjects. Maybe it's a testament to exactly how bad the housing market is that there is no attempt at spin by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) to dismiss or diminish how bad it is and to congratulate Chris Dodd on his legislation to get things on track. But that's not to say there isn't hackery afoot. Kyl says that the Bush administration is not to blame for the crisis, but it's Congress' fault for not taking a tighter leash in regulations to the mortgage industry.

BLITZER:(H)ow much of the blame does the Bush administration deserve for allowing this kind of situation to deteriorate, as it has?

KYL: Virtually none.

BLITZER: Why?

KYL: We've been predicting for years that this problem would come along. When I was chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, we wrote papers on it.

BLITZER: But isn't the federal government responsible for making sure this kind of situation doesn't happen?

KYL: The problem is, there is very little regulatory authority. That's why this legislation that Senator Dodd has been working on, the one good feature of it is additional regulation. But we should have had that regulation four years ago.

Um, who was in charge of Congress four years ago? Oh that's right, the Republicans. Can you imagine Tom Delay 'hammering' tighter mortage regulations through the House four years ago? Me neither. But Kyl claims they were predicting it would happen. Hmmmm....

Funnily enough, you know who was in office more than four years ago who did lay the foundation for this situation with the legislation he pushed through the Senate? Phil Gramm. Remind me again, what's he been up to lately? And before we absolve the Bush administration completely, it would be appropriate to remember that the watch-dogs to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen is the SEC. Who appoints the SEC panel? That would be the Failure in Chief. Just sayin'.

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  During a 10 year tribute to his show "Late Edition" this morning, Wolf Blitzer opened up the CNN vaults to revisit some of the most deceptive things Bush administration officials have said to him throughout the years about Iraq and the reasons for the invasion. Oh, memories...

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Cheney in Jan 2007: You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do.

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CNN's Late Edition dug from their archives this clip of John McCain in August of 1999:

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McCain: I think that we must go back to the party platform of 1980 and 1984 - we include people who have specific disagreements who share our same goals. Ultimately, I would like to see the repeal of Roe v. Wade, but to do it immediately, I think, would condemn young women to dangerous and illegal operations.

See, back in 1999, McCain was walking a tightrope by calling himself pro-life on a personal level while at the same time assuring pro-choice voters for pragmatic reasons that “in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade.” Yet, today, McCain says bluntly right on his website that "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned."

It's really hard to overstate the audacity of those in the media who tried to make Obama's recent decision to opt out of public campaign financing out to be some colossal flip-flop without even mentioning the fact that McCain has now flip-flopped a gazillion times on almost every issue under the sun. To summarize just a few of Steve Benen's list of McCain flip-flops:

• McCain was against the repeal of Roe v. Wade before he was for it.
• McCain was against torture before he was for it. Really for it.
• McCain was against crazy right-wing preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson before he was for them.
• McCain was against Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy before he was for them.
• McCain was against shady Bush "Pioneer" Texas billionaire swift-boat financiers before he was for them.
• McCain was for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law before he was against it and began breaking it.
• McCain was against Grover Norquist, whom he called "corrupt, a shill for dictators" before he was for him.
• McCain was against BJU because of its "hateful," "racist and cruel" policies before he was for it.
• McCain was against ethanol before he was for ethanol and then he was against it again.
• McCain was against a Martin Luther King holiday before he was for it. ...

And that's not all. There's many many more. In fact, here's an even longer list. McCain has reversed his former positions to fall more in line with the Bush administration so many times now it's really hard to tell Bush and McCain apart (can you beat my 3 out of 5 on the first try?). It might actually be easier to list the issue(s) McCain hasn't (yet) flip-flopped on, although I can't think of a single one right offhand.

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Seymour Hersh has been writing about the Bush administration's aggressive stance against Iran for years now.  His latest article for The New Yorker, "Preparing the Battlefield", Hersh claims that the Bush administration has been carrying out clandestine operations in Iran for some time now, with the funding and cooperation of the Democratic leadership in Congress. 

HERSH:  I think this is another example of putting an awful lot of pressure on the Iranian government. There's been a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos inside of Iran. Almost every other day, there's another story in the Iranian press -- I write about this in the article, too -- about things blowing up, et cetera, et cetera. It looks like things are falling apart, a little bit. And the central government certainly has more trouble.

And I think the goal of this operation, this incredible operation, with all this money -- and, by the way, it's the Democrats in Congress who basically looked the other way and said, take the money and run. They did not stop this money, the leadership that I'm talking about, the Democratic leadership.

So, basically, my guess is that -- I don't think we can safely say that any military action is off the table, no matter what happens. And that's -- as I say, I wish I'm going to be wrong about all that, but this is really, sort of, an amazing development.

CROWLEY: Absolutely. I want to read a graph out of your book because it goes to the oversight of the Democrats you just mentioned. [snip] "'The oversight process has not kept pace -- it's been co-opted by the administration,' the person familiar with the contents of the findings said. 'The process is broken and this is dangerous stuff we're authorizing.'"

Tell me, first, what your sources say is so dangerous about this?

HERSH: The president has to give a finding on covert action, any action that's covert. In other words, when CIA goes in some place, if they get caught, there could be spies.

So he has to tell the Congress about it. And the military simply is -- the president, since 9/11, has decided anything we do militarily, we don't have to tell anybody in Congress about.

Guest host Candy Crowley brings on Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker to officially deny that any cross border operations have taken place, but Hersh points out that Crocker may not be in the loop--plausible deniability being the operative word.

That is simply a reality, that when you run secret operations, if you're not telling the commander, the military commander of the Central Command, who is supposedly running the country -- you may not tell the ambassador everything. Sometimes it's better not to have the ambassador know. 

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