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Congress will be paralyzed this
fall
MSNBC
September 2005
Tim Russert is NBC News' Washington bureau chief and host of Meet the
Press. He regularly offers MSNBC.com's readers his insight and
analysis into questions about politics past, present and future.
MSNBC: Tim, This is a week Republicans would probably like to forget, what
with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, under fire for selling stock from
his blind trust and now the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay,
R-TX.
Russert: And you can couple that, according to Republicans I talk to, with
the anxiety over the Hurricane Katrina response and the war in Iraq. One
Republican congressman said to me, "I'm sure glad I'm running
in November 2006 and not November 2005.
As a consequence, this is a difficult time here and very little is going to
get done. Congress will deal with the Katrina fallout and try to get relief to
those people and the president's next Supreme Court nominee -- which we
expect to be made on Monday -- and then that's it. Everything else is
pretty much paralyzed.
MSNBC: So, do the Democrats smell blood? Is this an opportunity to
stall this next nominee because of the publicity over DeLay and Frist?
Russert: They think so. It depends on who it is. But they believe John
Roberts was easily confirmed, with 78 votes, because he was much more in the
conservative mainstream than they believe the next nominee will be. But we just
have to wait to see who President George W. Bush decides to put forward.
MSNBC: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said this week that John Roberts did the
right thing in the way he answered question during his chief justice
confirmation hearing – following what they now call the "Ginsburg
rule.'
Russert: Exactly. The only questions she answered were those in which she
had a very strong paper trail.
But it's going to be quite interesting to see how this all plays out
with the court. There are some people in the White House that feel, very
strongly, they prefer to have a controversial Supreme Court nominee to get the
debate in the country back on moral values, cultural values and off of Katrina,
Iraq and Tom DeLay.
So, it plays several different ways. It's going to be fascinating.
MSNBC: Aside from the legal aspects, how is Tom DeLay's indictment
going to play out, politically?
Russert: Oh, boy -- was that a seismic earthquake in Washington!
Tom DeLay is gong to be fighting for his political life over the next year
and will be very much distracted.
We're going to be talking about that on Sunday, with Tom Reynolds, who
heads up the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and Rahm Emmanuel who
heads up the Democrat's Congressional Campaign Committee. They've
agreed to come on together to try to sort that out. Both are very feisty and
combative men and have a very strong sense where their party is going to be
headed next year.
MSNBC: DeLay has been very successful in getting the GOP some important
votes on really close issues that have come up on the Hill. The White House has
to have some concern now about winning some of the close votes it used to be
able to get.
Russert: Tom DeLay can count and the White House knows that and he is going
to be preoccupied over the next year.
Republicans are convinced they can stay united and stay organized. But when
you talk to Republicans privately, they will say the DeLay indictment, the
investigation of Sen. Frist, the CIA leak investigation, Hurricane Katrina and
Iraq – there's a lot of anxiety.
One Republican congressman said to me, "I'm sure glad
we're running in November 2006 and not November 2005.
MSNBC: As of Thursday, over 28,000 emergency loan operation had been
received from the hurricane zone by the Small Business Administration, but just
one check has been sent and the government's temporary efforts for
hurricane victims has been stalled. And an audit of FEMA shows how overwhelmed
it was by the hurricanes in 2004.
Who has the responsibility of making sure these emergency plans and
emergency agencies are up to the job?
Tim Russert: Well, in the end it's going to be the president. As we
found out and as he found out after Katrina did not go well, he bore the burnt
of the political fallout. That's why you saw such hands-on response
during Hurricane Rita.
We have a problem - and we've talked about it before - that is, in
case of a catastrophe, whether it's a natural disaster or terrorist act,
we are not as well organized and prepared four years after September 11th as
we've been led to believe.
MSNBC: One thing that probably bothers a lot of folks is that after
something goes wrong, everyone wants to have an investigation, but the fact of
the matter is that there are provisions within the government that do call for,
especially for members of congress, to make sure these programs are working and
apparently it has been lacking on issues like this -- particularly given the
importance of matters after 9/11.
Russert: The one thing that's clear is there is so much blame to go
around and much of it justified.
In Katrina, it was the local, state and federal governments that did not
stand up. When you look at some of the warnings that have been made about FEMA,
some of the warnings that had been made about the levees, and that congress did
not exercise its oversight, that's exactly right.
Now is the time to get it right, when our focus is there, the American
people's attention is there and the resources are going to be there.
MSNBC: Can we assume some or all of this going to be discussed Sunday on
Meet the Press?
Russert: We'll talk with General John Abizaid about Iraq. And then
Congressman Tom Reynolds, Republican and Democrat Rahm Emanuel will debate
about the future of the congress after Tom DeLay. All Sunday, on Meet the
Press.
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