| ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ for Oct. 24 |
| Read the complete transcript to Friday’s show |
| Guests: Wesley Clark, William Bennett, Philip Peters, Mario Diaz-Balart, Betsy Hart, Arnie Arnesen, Mike Barnicle CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: I’m Chris Matthews. Let’s play HARDBALL. We’ll get to General Wesley Clark in just a minute. But the big story tonight, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence blames CIA Director George Tenet and the intelligence community for exaggerating the Iraqi threat. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell has the report. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the failure to find weapons of mass destruction becoming an increasing embarrassment for the administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing a devastating indictment of the prewar intelligence. As first reported in today’s “Washington Post,” committee investigators plan to accuse CIA Director George Tenet and his agency of relying on circumstantial evidence based on single sources and hasty analysis. But today, committee Democrats said the investigators are simply trying to get the White House off the hook. SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: There’s a very, very clear effort being made to blame everything on the intelligence community and steer by all means away from anything that has anything to do with anybody in the administration at higher up levels. MITCHELL: The committee staff questioned more than 100 witnesses, but not the top analysts, says the CIA. In a statement tonight, the agency says, “It is hard to understand how the committee could come to any conclusions when only two days ago, CIA Director Tenet strongly complained to Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts that none of his top Iraq experts had been given a chance to testify.” And CIA defenders say the White House filtered out what it didn’t want to hear. ELLEN LAIPSON, FMR. MEMBER, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL: It was clearly understood that the administration had a-had already made up its mind or had a policy preference. MITCHELL: If the agency got it wrong, former CIA officials testified today it was partly because of political pressure, especially from the vice president. VINCENT CANNISTRARO, FMR. COUNTER TERRORISM CHIEF: Analysts are generally a feisty lot. They don’t often just roll over and play dead, but they’re also political animals and they’re also career minded. And they’re not going to say, well, Mr. Vice President, you’re full of it. MITCHELL: Late today, Republican Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said the committee had not reached final conclusions, but that the witnesses interviewed so far have had ample opportunity to defend their prewar judgments. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEWS: Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark is running for president as a Democrat. General, thanks for joining us. WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to be with you. MATTHEWS: Let me bring you back to a year ago at the University of Massachusetts. You were talking about the resolution that authorized the use of force against Iraq. And you said in some places diploma doesn’t work unless it is backed by the use of force. By the threat of force, rather. Do you believe that threat of force that was passed by the United States Congress last fall was useful to the country? Was it useful to our ambitions in Iraq? CLARK: Well, I think the threat of force is sometimes useful. And I would have voted for a resolution that gave the president leverage to go to the United Nations. But what we needed to do was then use the leverage to build a coalition, put the pressure on Saddam Hussein, and keep him in a box and keep pulling him apart. We didn’t have to do the invasion, as we did it unilaterally. So I think it is important to have the a threat of force. It is not always necessary to use that force, especially not when it is not the last resort. I’m one of those who believes that force should be used as the last resort. MATTHEWS: But why didn’t that threat pass? That was a less conditional threat. We passed a resolution in the United States Congress last year that was unconditional. It gave the president basically full power to wage war against the regime of Saddam Hussein and it didn’t do anything. We still had to go. So the threat didn’t work. Why do you still believe in threats? CLARK: Well, I think the threat could have worked. I think the United Nations resolution could have worked. I think the president could have played this hand out. But one of the things the president didn’t want to do and his advisors didn’t want to do, is they didn’t want to believe that the U.N. system of inspections could at all be effective. There were several different proposals for using forced inspections, for keeping U.S. forces in Kuwait, for giving more time to bring the other nations on board. And you could have coupled that with things like more intrusive human rights monitors and other measures to focus the sanctions more specifically on Saddam’s military industrial complex. I think you could have built and sustained a condition that would have assured there was not going to be an Iraqi threat in any near term. And at the same time, would have kept us from having to go in and fight a war and then deal with the aftermath of the occupation. Chris, I think the key point here is that this administration wanted war. They wanted war before they went to the United Nations. They wanted war in Iraq before the war in Afghanistan was over. They wanted war in Iraq before they had even begun the war in Afghanistan. MATTHEWS: Do you believe the weapons of mass destruction was the reason for this war? CLARK: No. MATTHEWS: Do you believe the administration... CLARK: I think that’s the reason they gave. MATTHEWS: Right, it was the reason they gave. I have a sense talking to the neo-conservative crowd who come on the show all the time that they wanted this war in the worst way. That weapons of mass destruction was a way to get that war. And I want to ask you, do you believe that there’s anything Saddam Hussein-not that he isn’t a villain-but is there anything he could have done to prevent this war given the fact that the administration wanted to attack him? CLARK: He could have invited the U.N. in a more grateful way. He could have used the U.N. to save himself. But instead, he fought against the U.N. He sort of played into the administration’ hands. MATTHEWS: That’s what I think. CLARK: But actually, the administration, in my view, and what I heard from people on the inside and around the edges is, this administration did want war. They wanted the show of force, the use of force in the Middle East. They wanted a country to pound and they wanted that country as a stepping stone to other adventures. I was told in the Pentagon, and in November of 2001, before we ever finished the campaign in Afghanistan, they had a list of seven countries. Six after Iraq that they were intending on taking down. Now, that doesn’t sound like an administration that was worried about threats or weapons of mass destruction. That sound to me like an administration that didn’t have any strategy other than to go after states because they were afraid they couldn’t go after terrorists effectively. And that’s what we’ve just seen now in the Rumsfeld memo. He admits it. MATTHEWS: Do you think the president still buys into that line? Do you think he is still in line with people like Wolfowitz and Fife and Scooter Libby and the whole crowd of them who are pushing war and trying to get the evidence to bring to us war? Do you think that he is still backing that line to the point where we’re going to Syria next and then on to Iran? Do you think he is still of one war after another? Of conquests? CLARK: I think he has kept his cards close, but I think there are those in the administration still pushing for the Syria option. I think I can see that option being set up now. You can see it in the rhetoric, you can see it in the legislation that’s going in front of the Hill. And you can see it as the sort of logical outgrowth of where they are right now in Iraq. There is no exit strategy from Iraq. This administration hasn’t given us a strategy. They haven’t given us a success strategy. And they’ve got a clean bill from Congress on the $87 billion without having to come forward with the strategy for Iraq. So I think the odds are that this administration is still looking for another foreign policy crisis. MATTHEWS: Do you believe that the war, the case for war against Iraq was sexed up? CLARK: Well, I think that what they did is they took the existing information and they made the strongest possible case with it. And intelligence information really doesn’t come that way. It really is balanced. It is nuanced, and there’s no one more eager than an intelligence analyst to tell you that there are two sides of this information. None of that came through in the public discussion. I think there was a lot of pressure that came from the highest levels within the administration to show the need to go after Saddam Hussein. MATTHEW: Let me ask you a very difficult question. As a fighting man, a man who has been a commander at such a high level, and as a patriotic American, this is a terrible question to put to you. But I’ve been thinking about it all day. The president has said it and his people have said that by going to war in Iraq, we’ve taken the fight to terrorism in its homeland. And we can fight over there rather than fighting in New York or Washington. However, we’ve seen over the last couple months of occupation that all the enemy, whether it’s al Qaeda coming in there or the people there, the Ba’athist remnants, all they have to do to make this war increasingly unpopular in this country and the world is to kill one or two of our people every couple of days. In other words, I’m asking you, have we put ourselves in a position where the game now, the horrible game, the tragic game is, our enemies can defeat us by simply knocking off a trooper who is out on patrol every night or standing guard duty in front of a bank or something? Isn’t that a position we can’t possibly win in? CLARK: Well, I think the American people are well prepared to accept sacrifices if there’s a reason for them and there’s a clear strategy for success. The problem is, in this case, we haven’t been given a valid and accurate and truthful reason for why we went to Iraq, and we haven’t been shown why we’re there and where we’re headed after that. And so I think because of that, the lack of information the administration’s lack of candor, it’s lack of planning, I think that the impact of the deaths of these American is magnified. This administration went to war without the real support of the American people. It never came back and went to the Congress of the United States just before going to war and got a vote. It was afraid to do that. Instead it pushed it through. You had the president going around in January and February of this year saying, if we’re forced to go to war, if we’re forced to go to war. But who was forcing us to go to war? He was the only one forcing the action. And so the American people are rightly concerned now. And they should be. So I don’t think anyone should misunderstand the courage and resolve of the American people. We’ll stay and fight as long as it is necessary for a real objective when the American people are told the truth that there’s a reason for it, and public support lines up behind it. That is simply not the case in Iraq. MATTHEWS: Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Congressman Gephardt and Senator Edwards all voted for this war resolution last fall for which they’re being knocked by people like Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and others on the left who are anti-war. Is it your position, just to make it clear, that if you had been sitting in the United States Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives last October, you would have not voted for that resolution? CLARK: No, I wouldn’t have voted for it. I would have been with Bob Graham. Bob Graham voted against it. He saw that it was a distraction from the real war on terror, and that is where I was. I’ve been against this war from the first time you and I talked about it in June of 2002 in London. I was against in it September. I was against it in November. I was against it during the war, and I’m against it now. It’s been a strategic mistake for the United States. MATTHEWS: I think that was in Dublin, by the way. But I think it was... CLARK: In Dublin. MATTHEWS: Dublin. Let me ask you this, General. What about the politics of winning? How do you win having started so late? You’re now contesting Iowa; you are contesting New Hampshire. But Howard Dean has a huge lead up there. When will you begin to show your fire power in this campaign for president? CLARK: Well, I’m in New Hampshire now. I’ll be here about half the time. It’s really not about electioneering. It is really about ideas, it’s about credibility, and it is about leadership. There’s two things going on right now across America. One is there’s a deep sense of anger at the administration that is in office right now not only for what they’ve done in Iraq in misleading people and the casualties we’re taking, but also for their failure on the economy and for the neglect of so many of the promises that were made during the election. But beyond that, there’s a real hunger for leadership. That’s why the draft movement got started. That’s why I got pulled into this. I had 50,000 people demanding I stand and present myself to the American people. And that’s what I’m doing. If the ideas take off and if they resonate, then it is more than a campaign, it is a movement. And that’s what we’re seeing the sign of. MATTHEWS: Why do you think the American people like to pick generals and governors for president and not senators and Congress people? Because that’s been our history. CLARK: I don’t know, Chris. I think it is a function of the personalities and the times. Clearly, in my case, this has come about because this country is at war. We are at war right now. It doesn’t matter whether the president landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and said it was over. It’s not over. And when you look at the Rumsfeld memo that was released or leaked a couple of days ago, you realize that at last, the Pentagon started to ask the same questions. It’s, OK, we’re there, we spent $160 billion in Iraq. And we’re no-not really any closer to winning the war on terrorism. Rumsfeld asked, maybe we should have a real long term strategy. That’s what I’ve been saying for two years. I think that’s why people are coming to me. They’re looking for someone who can help create and ask the honest questions, ask the tough questions, and help create a real long-term strategy. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, General Wesley Clark. Good luck up in the snow. I think it is coming. I’m feeling the weather already down here. Thank you, General Clark. General Clark will be joining us at Harvard University on December 8, as our series, “The Battle for the White House” continues. ANNOUNCER: Still to come on HARDBALL with Chris Matthews, why does the left get so much pleasure out of tearing down Rush Limbaugh? Chris goes one-on-one with William Bennett. Congress wants more Americans to be able to travel to Fidel Castro’s Cuba. But President Bush is threatening a veto. Should Americans be allowed to visit the Communist island? Or will tourism help keep Fidel Castro in power? That’s the HARDBALL debate. Plus, the latest polls from New Hampshire. Mike Barnicle, columnist Betsy Hart and radio talk show host Arnie Arnesen are here with the political buzz, as the presidential race heats up. You’re watching HARDBALL. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett is co-director of Empower America. Bill, we have so much to cover. So much of politics today is cultural and values-oriented. WILLIAM BENNETT, EMPOWER AMERICA: Yes, sir. MATTHEWS: Partial-birth abortion, is this an issue that is separate from all the other abortion arguments, or is this part of that bigger argument of the right to choose if you want to have an abortion? BENNETT: Certainly politically it is part of the larger argument, because you’ve seen the people who are opposed already gearing up. And this will be used in fundraising letters and so on. But I think it does throw the... MATTHEWS: Well, why the flip in so many Democrats like Tom Daschle and Harry Reed and people like that all backing the ban on partial-birth? BENNETT: Because it’s indefensible. I mean, you can’t be for partial-birth abortion. But groups will nevertheless try to mobilize. But I think... MATTHEWS: But you’re a lawyer. Do you think it will pass the court test? BENNETT: I’m not a lawyer. I went to law school, but I didn’t take the bar. Who knows what the courts will do? But the president will sign it. Remember twice it appeared before Bill Clinton and he didn’t sign it. This president will sign it. And Tom Harkin threw the hat down the other day. He said this is the first step, women. So it will be a big political issue. MATTHEWS: So it will be a big fundraiser for Democrats. BENNETT: Yes, that’s right. But I think when you take this issue, you take the Terri Schiavo issue in Florida... MATTHEWS: Tell me about Schiavo. BENNETT: Life and death issues. MATTHEWS: Do you think that’s a good case to make a political statement on? Because it was a family matter. BENNETT: No. MATTHEWS: The woman apparently has been in this state for 13 years. It is very clinical, the question is, whether she really has any chance of ever recovering her consciousness. Do you think that’s where the political parties should stake their claim? BENNETT: I don’t think it is a great political case. In fact, I don’t think it’s a useful case. MATTHEWS: Would you have done it if you had been governor of Florida? Would you have jumped in? BENNETT: I would have tried to find a way. Yes, I would have chosen to keep her alive. MATTHEWS: Would you have passed legislation? BENNETT: If that were the only way, I think I would have done it. MATTHEWS: To what effect? To what... BENNETT: To keep her alive. When in doubt, choose life. MATTHEWS: And what do you do? But how long do you go with it? BENNETT: All the facts and circumstances are... MATTHEWS: But I think people are saying, could you get a team of doctors who are not working for the family or the husband, who came in there, any team of doctors and decide whether she was recoverable or she is, in fact, in this long-term vegetative state from which she will never recover. I’ve been reading like you have when doctors say nobody has ever come back from a state like that. BENNETT: That’s very possible, but that assumes that the argument rests on recoverability. That is, life only has value if she can recover more of her consciousness. Not necessarily the argument. MATTHEWS: Would you keep a person like that in your family alive permanently? BENNETT: My child? I think would. MATTHEWS: Permanently? BENNETT: I think I would. I can’t tell you for sure. It is very hard to know what you would do when you’re in the situation. But I can certainly understand the parents’ sympathy. MATTHEWS: But you know the Catholic Church-we’re both member of the same church. BENNETT: Yes. MATTHEWS: And I think they have a very advanced position on this, and it’s a good advanced position. Since we were kids, you don’t to have take extraordinary means to keep a person alive. BENNETT: You don’t to have take extraordinary means. But you can take extraordinary means. The case of your child, some of us in the Catholic Church believe in miracles. I know that isn’t science we’re talking about. But if you’re talking about your child, put yourself in that place and point of view. That’s why. All those facts and circumstances, Chris, suggested to me Schiavo should stay alive. MATTHEWS: Let me put you in a position of being a script reader. Early scripts of a new CBS miniseries on the Ronald Reagan family, Nancy and Ronald Reagan, obtained by “The New York Times.” You have one scene where Reagan is confronted by his wife, Nancy, about dealing with the disease AIDS, to which the actor playing Reagan supposedly replies-apparently he really did in the movie-”They that live in sin shall die in sin.” In another exchange, Reagan’s Hollywood agent, Lew Wasserman, who is deceased now, that’s why he is in this movie, because he can’t sue. “People know you’re an informer for the blacklist,” he says to his client, Reagan. And Reagan says, “I’ve never called anybody a Commie who isn’t a Commie.” BENNETT: Yes. MATTHEWS: This is supposed to be the idiom of Ronald Reagan, our recent president. BENNETT: Shameful. You know, there they go again. Shame on them. I mean, when does it stop? I mean... MATTHEWS: Well, you know when it starts? When a person is dead or can’t sue back. BENNETT: I guess. MATTHEWS: Because that’s when they go after-because there’s no litigation. BENNETT: You know I was with him. I think I’m a pretty good test, I’m a pretty conservative guy. MATTHEWS: Did you ever hear him say “Commie?” BENNETT: Never heard him say anything like that. MATTHEWS: Did you ever hear him say anything homophobic? BENNETT: Never heard him say anything that would be of any value... MATTHEWS: Did you ever hear him say that gay people deserve what they get if they get HIV? BENNETT: No, no, no. Never heard him say anything that would be any value to any liberal trying to do him in ever. Always kind, always generous. MATTHEWS: The early knock on him was that he had a so-called homosexual ring working for him in Sacramento. He’s getting hit from both directions. BENNETT: Yes, right. Well... MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you about Rush Limbaugh and yourself and the gambling and all this other thing that’s come along. It is funny; you know, Frank Rich, a liberal columnist who we were talking about in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the other day. BENNETT: The rat pack. MATTHEWS: You are now-it’s you, it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, the grope guy. What is-are values and personal problems basically bipartisan? I mean, not values, but the personal stuff that comes up? BENNETT: Are they bipartisan? What do you mean? MATTHEWS: In other words, everybody is able to be addicted to something, like Rush Limbaugh. I was talking to his brother yesterday. Addiction is a serious problem. BENNETT: Addiction is a serious-addiction to painkillers. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Whether it’s a habit, a bad habit, like you had. BENNETT: Well, I was not addicted. I was not addicted. MATTHEWS: Yes, but you had a bad habit. BENNETT: I gambled too much. MATTHEWS: I carefully chose my words. BENNETT: I was gambling too much. MATTHEWS: What about-I was out in L.A. and San Francisco and all the conservatives were defending Schwarzenegger no matter what he did. BENNETT: Right. MATTHEWS: And I think did he some bad stuff. BENNETT: I did too. MATTHEWS: And they were the same people that were attacking Clinton for what he did. Is this just two-faced thinking? BENNETT: I understand. No, you have to be consistent. And I said I thought he had to answer the charges. Not the anonymous charges, but the women who came forward. And I think he should. And I do think Clinton helped inoculate Schwarzenegger. MATTHEWS: So what is good for the goose is good for the gander? BENNETT: No. I wrote “The Death of Outrage.” When I said “The Death of Outrage,” I meant the death of outrage. It’s kind of hard to make the case against Schwarzenegger when you didn’t make the case against Clinton, where the situation was worse, he was lying under oath. But I thought that the Schwarzenegger allegations were serious and should be looking into. MATTHEWS: I’m out rooting for you. You’re a good man. BENNETT: Thanks. MATTHEWS: And, by the way, I think the other guy does have a problem. BENNETT: Which other guy? MATTHEWS: Limbaugh. And I think he’s got to deal with it. It’s a serious problem. BENNETT: Well he said he has a problem. MATTHEWS: He said it again today on radio. BENNETT: I know. MATTHEWS: I wish him well. Rush, get better. I told your brother that and I mean it. Get better. BENNETT: Thank you. MATTHEWS: And Bill Bennett is a great man. BENNETT: Thank you. MATTHEWS: He goes to church with me every Sunday and I see him there. Up next in “The Battle for the White House,” a look at where the Democratic presidential candidates stand on President Bush’s $87 billion aid package for Iraq. That’s always going to be a hot one. And later, Congress passes legislation to allow more Americans to travel to Cuba. We’re going to debate that one. But would Cuba get a lot more money? Would that help Castro? The HARDBALL debating coming up. You’re watching HARDBALL. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MATTHEWS: This half-hour, the debate. Congress wants to loosen restrictions for Americans traveling to Cuba, but President Bush is threatening a veto. Does more tourism to the Communist island help Fidel Castro or not? Plus new polls for New Hampshire in the political buzz. But first, the latest headlines right now. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MATTHEWS: The HARDBALL debate tonight: Should Americans be allowed to visit Cuba? The House and Senate have approved a bill that would allow citizens to travel to the Communist country, but the president threatened to veto. Does U.S. tourism in Cuba help support Fidel Castro? He’s HARDBALL correspondent David Schuster. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC (voice-over): It has famous music, beautiful beaches, and a population that is among the most educated in the world, but Cuba’s government is still led by the Communist dictator, Fidel Castro. He has stayed in power for more than 40 years, and with the Bush administration maintaining an embargo on most trade and travel, Democrats. SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D), NORTH DAKOTA: This is a policy that just cannot be defended. It just doesn’t make any sense. SHUSTER: And Republicans are sticking it to the White House. SEN. LARRY CRAIG, ®, IDAHO: Turning on the lights, allowing our citizens the opportunity to travel there is the right way to change a country. SHUSTER: This week, Congress voted to stop the U.S. government from enforcing current travel restrictions to Cuba. As it stands, Americans can visit the island for educational, journalistic, or humanitarian reasons, but about half of the 150,000 Americans who go head to Cuba illegally as tourists. These Americans have faced aggressive tactics and fines by the Treasury Department’s Office on Foreign Asset Control, also known as OFAC, an agency that is supposed to trail drug runners and terrorists. CRAIG: OFAC, get your mission straight. Why are you doing this? SHUSTER: The Cuban-American community in Florida largely opposes any thaw in the relationship with the repressive Castro, and the White House with an eye on the 2004 presidential election and memories of the close call in Florida three years ago has repeatedly stayed in line. JOE GARCIA, CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL FOUNDATION: We’re happy that he’s lived up to this promise, and having someone in the White House who keeps at least this part of his promise is something we’re very pleased with. SHUSTER: But opponents say the travel and trade constraints hurt the United States more than Cuba and enable Castro to blame America for its problems. MIKE HOLTZMAN, FORMER CLINTON TRADE OFFICIAL: If the objective has been regime change since the early 1960s and the regime is still in power, you must be able to make the case perhaps that the policy has, in fact, empowered the regime. SHUSTER (on-camera): So the question is: Should the United States begin a new policy of engagement, or will that only reward Cuba’s Communist regime? I’m David Shuster for HARDBALL in Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEWS: Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart is a Florida Republican. Congressman Phillip Peters is with the Lexington Institute. Phil, why should we trade, or rather, should we allow free travel to Cuba, a Communist country? PHILIP PETERS, LEXINGTON INSTITUTE: Well, first of all, to respect the rights of American citizens. There’s no reason to restrict the travel there. Second of all. MATTHEWS: Well, we’re restricted from traveling to other countries like North Korea, aren’t we? PETERS: Well, fine, but not to Iraq, not to Iran. There’s no national security reason to restrict it. And more important, it will help the Cuban people who make-a lot of them make a living off tourism. They’ll be able to better take care of their families, and for foreign policy reasons. It will increase American influence in Cuba. We can’t. MATTHEWS: Won’t the Cuban government led by the Communist Fidel Castro be doing high fives all over the world the minute we open up the embargo? We let people travel there. Don’t they win if we do that? PETERS: Not necessarily. I don’t know how it helps the. SHUSTER: Well, Castro would like to have this happen, wouldn’t he? PETERS: Well, perhaps he would. MATTHEWS: Of course, he would. All that money pouring into his country if we OK this thing. PETERS: Well, there would also be a lot of American influence pouring into his country that isn’t there right now. And that’s one thing-look, this is so outside of the mainstream for our foreign policy for a very simple reason. We have the Helsinki Accords not because we liked those governments in Eastern Europe, but because we thought it was in our interest. MATTHEWS: Were you for cutting off trade with South Africa? PETERS: I was not involved in that debate. MATTHEWS: We cut our trade with South Africa because we didn’t like the white apartheid government down there. PETERS: Look, I don’t have a. MATTHEWS: Every time we don’t like the government, the standard procedure is to hurt them economically. And you’re saying in this case, if you don’t like the Castro government, we should what? Help them? PETERS: No, look. If you can show that sanctions are going to have some kind of impact on a country and change it, fine, but we have a long record, 40 years of sanctions. And all this has done-in fact, it’s strengthened Castro, because it. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask the congressman that question. Congressman, we have all lived through-everybody at this table has lived through Castro’s reign starting on New Years Eve 1958, ’59. He’s been in all that time. I thought Dean Martin would play him in the movies. Dean Martin is gone now. This guy is out living two or three generations of actors to play him in the movies. Do you really think we can bring down Fidel Castro by stopping people from traveling there? REP. MARIO DIAZ-BALART ®, FLORIDA: Well, you sure as hell don’t hurt him by doing the one thing that he’s asking for, which is, send him more money. MATTHEWS: But have we ever hurt him? DIAZ-BALART: Well, let me tell you what happened before. When the Soviet Union used to give, you know, $5 billion a year to Castro, what did Castro do with that money? Were the Cuban people better off? Were they freer? Was Castro less of a terrorist? No. Castro had troops in Africa, troops in Latin America. Hey, he had troops in Grenada where the U.S. had to invade, and Americans died to liberate Grenada from the Cuban thugs. Not only is he a Narco trafficking dictator, he’s a terrorist. There are only six states on the list of sponsors of terrorism. That’s one of them. And for anybody to do anything right now to help fund an anti-American terrorist state, to me, is unbelievable. MATTHEWS: But what about the charge made by Mr. Peters that letting Americans visit his country freely exposes his people to democracy? DIAZ-BALART: Well, you know, the entire world travels to Cuba: the French, the Germans, the Canadians, the Spaniards. Everybody travels. The problem is not that the people of Cuba don’t know that there’s a problem. The problem is that Castro is there. The Cuban people know that Castro is a problem. Sending Castro more money-Money, by the way, does not get to the Cuban people, because look at history. He’s had money in the past. It has not gotten to the Cuban people. He has used it to oppress, to terrorize, to export anti-American terrorism. Here is a regime 90 miles away that harbors Hezbollah, Islamic jihad that shot down two unarmed American airplanes in international air space killing Americans. People want to send money to Castro? Get real. MATTHEWS: Congressman, I want to bring back the question to you. Let’s see if we can agree on one thing. Do you think Castro-Cuba would be better off if Castro is overthrown? (CROSSTALK) PETERS: Not necessarily. (CROSSTALK) DIAZ-BALART: There’s your answer. MATTHEWS: Do you think Castro has been all things considered, a good leader for Cuba? PETERS: No, no. MATTHEWS: Do you think they would be better to have him overthrown? PETERS: It depends what follows. They need more freedom; there’s no doubt about it. And I don’t defend his-he’s a dictator. MATTHEWS: Will he ever change as long as he’s there? PETERS: I doubt it. I doubt it. MATTHEWS: Well, what good is it letting people in there if he won’t change? PETERS: Because it connects us. Why should we wait to influence that country? MATTHEWS: Because you can’t wait till he dies. PETERS: Why should we wait till he dies? MATTHEWS: Why don’t we wait till he dies and dance on his grave? PETERS: But why should we wait? MATTHEWS: Because he’s a Communist, and if we had lost the Cold War, he would have been watching the executions from Central Park. PETERS: But why not connect now? MATTHEWS: Because he’s on the other side. He bought the wrong ticket. PETERS: Why not connect now and influence now the people who are going to govern Cuba in the future? MATTHEWS: How do we do that? PETERS: By opening up the travel to Cuba, by allowing people to go. MATTHEWS: Could it be that if we go in there and give them some more money that that just extends the Communist dictatorship for another generation? Do you think it might, Congressman-do you think going in there now — (UNINTELLIGIBLE) could resuscitate the Communist administration of his regime and even extend it beyond his life? DIAZ-BALART: Castro has spent about $200 million lobbying to get U.S. dollars, U.S. travel. This is the number one issue that he wants in order to keep him in power. He says it. And for anybody to, you know, say that sending him more money helps him is really kind of a lack of seriousness, right? I mean, come on, get real. If you want to help Castro, say it. Don’t say you’re trying to hurt him by sending him billions of dollars of U.S. money. MATTHEWS: I think we should give him a hundred thousand dollars for a trip to Spain, set him up in a villa over there, and move on, but I don’t think we can pull it off. Congressman, thank you very much, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. Phil Peters, thanks for joining us. ANNOUNCER: Still to come on HARDBALL, the latest polls out of New Hampshire. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Is it Howard Dean’s race to lose? (END VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Mike Barnicle, radio talk show host Arnie Arnesen, and columnist Betsy Hart will be here with the political buzz. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MATTHEWS: Time now for the political buzz. Mike Barnicle is a columnist for the “New York Daily News” and an MSNBC analyst. Betsy Hart is a columnist for the Scripps Howard news service, Arnie Arnesen is a New Hampshire radio talk show host. Hi, everybody. According to a new Zogby poll out just recently, in fact today, of likely New Hampshire voters, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean leads the pack with 40 percent; John Kerry, a distant second at 17 percent; Wesley Clark and John Edwards are tied at third with six percent; Gephardt at four; and Lieberman with three. Dean’s success may be due in part to his tough stance on Iraq. Here’s an ad he’s running this week in the Granite State. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 130,000 troops in Iraq with no end in sight and the price tag that goes up daily. The best my opponents can do is ask questions today that they should have asked before they supported the war. I opposed the war from the start, because I want a foreign policy consistent with American values. And I want to reclaim our rights and our liberties that were taken away in the name of patriotism. (END VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: Mike Barnicle, how do you explain? It can’t be that ad. That ad seemed to have no firepower at all, so maybe that works up in New Hampshire. Does it? How do you explain this guy going up to 40 percent with Kerry fading to 17? MIKE BARNICLE, “NEW YORK DAILY NEWS”: Well, I was up there for the past couple of days walking, Chris, walking around Nashua and Manchester, New Hampshire, and I would say that it’s an old story being rewritten new by Howard Dean. He’s a non-Washington voice who speaks English and speaks to the frustration and anger that a lot of people have. Iraq is the pinpoint. But if you really talk to people up there, healthcare is a huge issue. They feel nothing has been done with it by the people in Washington, the president included. Republicans included will tell you that. And Iraq is the focal point for much of their frustration. And Dean has hit the nail on the head. MATTHEWS: Arnie, is that how you see it up there? ARNIE ARNESEN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: There’s no question. What Howard Dean has is attitude. I mean, and we kind of like it right now. He’s a risk taker. He doesn’t apologize for his position. He took a stand on Iraq. He did it when it wasn’t a comfortable stand to take. And, frankly, one of the reasons why he’s running that ad is that he knows that John Kerry is kind of in this sort of monkey in the middle. You know, he voted for the resolution. Now he voted against the $87 billion. And the question is: So where are you, John? And I think that’s part of the problem. But I think what Howard Dean also has-and you’re absolutely right, Mike. We are nauseous about healthcare. We’re seeing double digit decreases in the costs of our insurance, prescription drugs is going out of style. And Howard Dean, how convenient. It is Dr. Dean. So you’ve got the attitude, you’ve got the risk, plus you’ve got the medical background. He doesn’t even have to have a healthcare plan. We assume he gets it. BETSY HART, SCRIPPS HOWARD COLUMNIST: Look, I think what you’re seeing is an angry Howard Dean. My question is: When was the last time the angry candidate won the White House? Certainly not in any time frame that I can remember. Think of Jimmy Carter, think of Bill Clinton. They weren’t the angry candidate. That is who Howard Dean is appealing to, because the base, the leftist base of the Democratic Party hates George Bush. This is not just about Iraq. In fact, I think if things were going really well in Iraq, if we’d established some sort of Jeffersonian democracy, they would hate it even more, because they don’t want America to be a force for good in the world. (CROSSTALK) HART: Wait a minute. So they-so that incredible anger and fury that George Bush shouldn’t be president because of what happened in Florida is what’s fueling that campaign right now. But wait till you get to General Election. BARNICLE: Let me suggest something that has nothing to do with talking heads like we people appearing on television. Let’s go to John Kusos (ph), 45 years old, owns a shoe store, Alex’s Shoes on Main Street in Nashua, New Hampshire. Wife, two kids. He is a Republican, voted for Bush the last time. Kind of reluctant to vote for him this time because of a couple of things: healthcare. And he told me yesterday he’s kind of hesitant about this. You’re right. The with-us or against-us kind of attitude coming out of the Bush administration. He wants Americans to be liked overseas where his father came from in Greece in 1938, and he’s getting kind of tired of the same old same old. ARNESEN: Well, you know what Mike? If you read the article in yesterday’s “Wall Street Journal” by Al Hunt, they were going to someplace in Pennsylvania. We’re not even talking New Hampshire. And the only candidate that those folks were even interested in were someone like Howard Dean, General Clark, and even John Edwards. Again, sort of outside the box. When they were talking about why they were intrigued by Howard Dean, not once did they mention the issue of Iraq. Not once. They liked his forthrightness. They liked his bluntness. They liked his comfortable style. To a large extent, he’s kind of little bit like a bubba like George Bush, only this is our liberal version of the bubba. And this time, he is talking, and he’s talking in a way that addresses foreign policy and addresses where we feel very vulnerable, which is the healthcare conversation. HART: Arnie, what’s happening, the big impact Howard Dean is going to have. And it certainly looks like it’s his to lose at the moment. He is consistently pulling the other members of the Democratic team to the left, far to the left whether it’s-even Lieberman now has come out for higher taxes. That’s going to be a tough road to hoe when it comes to the General Election. That’s going to be, I think, his lasting legacy. If he doesn’t get the nomination, these other guys have gone so far to the left to try to be the stop Dean movement that they’re going to be left with a very tough legacy to beat when it comes to the General. ARNESEN: Be rational on the economy and paying your bills in a timely fashion used to be a Republican value. I’m sorry you forgot that. MATTHEWS: Do you know what Iraq is coming down to? (CROSSTALK) ARNESEN: Look at Howard Dean-Howard Dean’s background in Vermont is something that is not only stellar when it comes to fiscal prudence, but the Republican governor, Jim Douglas, only praises Governor Howard Dean for how he left the state. He left a history and a legacy of balancing budgets. HART: Here’s an issue that Howard Dean certainly could take on, which is that George Bush had been spending money like a drunken sailor. ARNESEN: Absolutely. HART: But guess what? That has not been a center of his campaign, because guess what? Democrats like to spend money. The first thing when somebody starts talking like that, you say, “OK, well, where would you cut spending?” And they do not want to do that. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Mike, I want to remind you, because you remember this. Maybe Arnie does, too. Remember back in ’68 Jean McCarthy got his 42 percent against the write-in candidacy of LBJ and basically began to blow LBJ out of the election-our of the presidency? Remember the issues at the time? Certainly, it was the Vietnam War, which was so pronounced with regard to McCarthy. But remember they went back and interviewed people, and what really were bothering them, the Granite State types, was inflation. So, I mean, people were being-they felt out of it then. They felt like the government wasn’t going to look out for them. There was huge inflation back in the Vietnam War era. I don’t think people vote on one thing. They vote on an attitude towards the (UNINTELLIGIBLE). HART: Absolutely. Remember, the point I’m making is if there. MATTHEWS: But you said they’re just anti-Bush. Do you sense that anti-Bush thing up there, Arnie, just purely personal (UNINTELLIGIBLE). ARNESEN: No, it’s not just anti-Bush. It does have to do with the economy. Can I take you back to 1992? Who won in 1992? Not Bill Clinton. Paul Tsongas, the eat-your-spinach candidate. Well, guess what? That’s exactly kind of the milieu you’re seeing with Dr. Dean. Dr. Dean is not just talking Iraq, he’s not just talking anger. He’s talking, let’s be reasonable, let’s be responsible. And in New Hampshire, that plays incredibly well. HART: Arnie. MATTHEWS: Mike, your turn, Mike. BARNICLE: Well, you know, I’ve heard all the talk about, you know, anti-Bush, or no, he’s moderate or whatever. I have to tell you, you find anti-Bush sentiment in any state: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, certainly in Massachusetts. HART: Of course, you do, among the Democrats. MATTHEWS: Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, no, no, no. I’m talking about ordinary people, if you’d please stop and listen. It’s not anti-Bush so much as it is just a puzzlement over what is going on in Iraq. The phrase “exit strategy” appeals to people. And let me tell you what’s occurring to more and more people in New Hampshire, in Alabama, all over this country is that the exit strategy is employed for people like John Hart, 20 years of age, from Bedford, Massachusetts, who’s going to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery next week. That’s an exit strategy that a lot of American people are reading about each and every day and wondering without regard to partisanship what is going on over there? HART: Mike, I am not disagreeing with you for a minute that that could be a huge problem for President Bush. In no way am I saying that that’s something he could ride easily. I am saying that right now, I think the American people are very supportive of what we’re trying to do over there. Let that play out. But my thought is that if Howard Dean puts his eggs in that basket, in that angry basket, it’s not going to be attractive. MATTHEWS: It was either right to go to Iraq or it was wrong to go to Iraq. Who’s ever right on that question should be out next president. Coming up, more controversy brewing over three more intelligence reports, the Senate investigating committee (UNINTELLIGIBLE) CIA director George Tenet. You’re watching HARDBALL. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MATTHEWS: The “Washington Post” reports this morning on the growing controversy over the Bush administration’s hundred-page National Intelligence Estimate Report which was used as the basis for the threat post by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. According to a senior intelligence expert, quote, “The NIE,”-that’s the document-”that was hastily done in three weeks. It was a cut-and-paste job with agencies and officials given only one day to review the draft final product, when they usually take months. Today, they still disagree on the meaning of what came out.” Mike, it seems to me we faced a real possibility-I’m not saying probability but a possibility that for years to come, there will be no physical evidence of why we went to war with Iraq. There will be no smoking gun, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction on any large scale, no evidence they were poised to attack us and to put up a mushroom cloud. Nada. And somebody’s going to have to get blamed for that, whether it’s the vice president, his chief of staff, or the people that went along as toadies with their campaign to come up with evidence. That assumes, I admit, that we don’t find the stuff. If we find the stuff, those guys look like they’re geniuses. BARNICLE: You know, a couple things here, Chris. First of all, it appears that George Tenet is on the launching pad more so than anyone else around the president. But reading Dana Priest’s (ph) story this morning in the “Washington Post,” it struck me that the “Los Angeles Times” cited more sources and spent more time in going after Arnold Schwarzenegger than the United States government did in going to war with Iraq. MATTHEWS: Well,, you don’t to have say much more than that, because that’s a hell of a statement, because I wonder if that’s true. HART: Let’s. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Did we have enough basis to go to war? Remember the old rule about war? Don’t tread on me with a rattle snake? We only went to war when somebody came at us. Here, we went at a country with no available physical evidence that they were coming at us. HART: Wait. Hold on a second. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Do we have any point to it? HART: Yes. Please remember, first of all, that Bill Clinton made the case that Iraq had. MATTHEWS: He didn’t go to war with Iraq. HART: You’re right. And that’s actually maybe part of the problem that we have now. MATTHEWS: Why? What are you saying? HART: Wait a minute. Let’s look at first, is there physical evidence? Yes, there is. MATTHEWS: That they were coming at us? HART: No. Read the David Kay report about the weapons of mass destruction and the things that were happening there, and it’s very clear that that is the beginning. MATTHEWS: They were coming attacking us with a mushroom cloud. HART: No, no. And George Bush never. ARNESEN: First of all, let’s go back. HART: Excuse me, Arnie, let me please finish. George Bush never said the threat was imminent, but he did make the case over a period of years, not a period of a few weeks as this would suggest. But Chris, you’re right. We don’t always have the perfect crystal ball. And I would argue. MATTHEWS: Do we have any evidence that they were coming at us? HART: I would argue that the CIA, if there’s a problem there, they absolutely should be held accountable, but sometime not asking is riskier than asking without (UNINTELLIGIBLE) information. (CROSSTALK) ARNESEN: So let’s talk about the problem. MATTHEWS: You’re only going with the president (UNINTELLIGIBLE) because the president said there’s no connection to 9/11. If he hadn’t said there was no connection to 9/11, you’d be sitting here arguing there was a connection 9/11. Thank God the president had some honesty. Now someday, we’re going to have some honesty about WMD. (CROSSTALK) ARNESEN: Chris, let’s go back to the estimates from October of 2002. The estimate was not requested by the Bush administration. It was not requested by the Republicans. It was requested by Senator Bob Graham, who I want to remind everyone voted against the Iraq resolution. He is the one that requested it. If they’re going to start dumping on people, they have to ask the question-they didn’t even want a damn estimate in order to go to the war on Iraq. Sot that’s the first point. The second thing is, nobody actually read the estimate. If you read the summary and then you read the text of the estimate, it was a totally divergent document. The summary was all these hardened statements that didn’t show how shady and how ridiculous the information was actually in the estimates. That’s the real problem. Maybe the person that knew it was Bob Graham, because he asked how they can dump on George Tenet now when they didn’t even want an estimate. I’m confused. HART: Knowing everything we do now, going to war was still the right thing to do. MATTHEWS: And so we’ll argue that for the next couple of years. Anyway, Thank you, Mike Barnicle, thank you. It’s just not the reason they say. Anyway, Arnie Arnesen, thank you for joining us. Betsy Hart. We’ll come up with more reasons why we should have gone to war. Next, we’ve got a battle for the White House series heats up again. We’ve got the Reverend Al Sharpton. The... END Copy: Content and programming copyright 2003 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 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