Fear and Loathing in the British Parliament: An Explanation for my US Friends

There is a current political story here in Britain which seems to be confusing our friends across the pond: the Mother of Parliaments has got itself into very hot water over members' expenses.

A number of my American friends have asked me to explain the furore, the public’s mood of disgust and anger. It’s simple, isn’t it? Our politicians can bend the rules and obscure the truth. Orwell’s 1984 has landed in 2009. “Expenses” is “pay”, as the political pigs take over the trough.

Those who have worked in the commercial sector will know that being imaginative with expenses is both an art form and a duel with scrutinising accountants. When I had a company car, a car wash payment of £1.00 was once disallowed on grounds that I should have washed the vehicle in my own time. I argued that this was unfair, arbitrary and wrong. On appeal to the managing director, my claim was upheld. No surprise there: I knew the MD claimed the same expense.

This case goes far beyond a one-pound car wash, however, especially in a time of self-imposed national austerity. It is argued by Westminster wonks that it has not been possible to pay these public servants the market rate. What market? They now earn £67,000 annually, a sum far in excess of the UK average wage.

To supplement these meagre earnings, a system of expenses was devised by civil servants in the 1980s which has evolved into a massive abuse of privilege. While expenses have always been a grey area, the MPs have turned it purple. It seems that in the bubble that is Westminster, many of our representatives believe they are entitled to the maximum expenses as a right, with greed taking over from common sense and decency.

Members' expenses now have a life of their own, labyrinthine and distinct from the practices of lay persons as they take-home pay into six figures. A culture has developed where cheating becomes acceptable; fictions such as “flipping homes” are the default position and tax evasion, if not avoidance, is legitimate. I have no doubt that newly elected MPs were encouraged by experienced pols, not to mention the rubber-stamp fees office, to perpetuate the system and not to rock the boat by exposing its excesses.

I understand why Americans are confused by the dark practices of Westminster. Members of the US Congress currently earn a salary of $174,000. Party leaders and the Speaker of the House are paid more. Significantly, however, no allowances whatsoever are permitted for a second residence, notwithstanding that virtually every American federal legislator has a longer commute than any MP.

Less affluent junior members live in their offices and shower in the House gym. Many operate on what is called the Tuesday to Thursday Club, arriving in Washington DC late on Monday or early Tuesday and leaving Thursday evening to save money. Another arrangement, one more likely pursued by senior members, is to move their family to Washington and maintain a small residence, use the home of a relative, or even "live" from a mailbox address in their Congressional district.

The cost of trips to Washington is defrayed from an expense account created from monies raised by the legislator, not taxpayers. Travel and rental of office space in the district is paid out of this account. All receipts and payments must be published and are scrutinized by both federal and state authorities.

In a land where speech is equated with money, it is comforting to know that legislators are both legally restricted and strictly scrutinized on sums which can be converted to personal use. The American system is transparent and seems to be simplicity itself.

I do not suggest that all American legislators are squeaky clean. Illinois Governor Blagojevich was caught with fingers in the cookie jar just a few months ago when he tried to sell the Senate seat left vacant by the then President-Elect Obama. But the contrast needs to be emphasised. As it stands, American legislators must make a positive decision to cheat; British counterparts need to make a positive decision not to do so. The clean up of the expenses system has started but has a long way to go. I am fed up with hearing that an expense is “within the rules” when individual MPs must have known that the rules themselves, the rules of the club, were wrong.

There is now talk in Westminster that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change our informal constitution and make our legislators more accountable. One idea being floated is to remove the Prime Minister’s prerogative of choice of date of an election. Surely much more is needed. We suffer from an overwhelmingly powerful executive which has increasingly strangled the initiative of the legislative branch. We have an unelected second chamber, some of whose members sit in the judiciary as the most senior judges of the land. Separation of powers does not exist.

Lesser reforms could include changes to Prime Minister’s Question Time, often a farce as stooges put forward sycophantic questions designed to put the government in a good light rather than test our chief executive. For those readers who have sat in the Commons watching a debate, they will know it is poorly attended and remarks made from the benches are often the worst kind of sledging, more fitted to a soccer field. It is time for the Parliamentary boys and girls to behave as responsible men and women, answerable and transparent to their electorate.

America has a written constitution which has stood the test of time and works, with separation of powers strengthening American democracy. In the 1980s, the Senate was exposed for its un-American privileges, such as committee chairs being chosen by longevity, not ability. It took little time to reform its practices.

The beauty of American democracy is that no one needs to trust anyone else. Checks and balances take care of that. President Clinton expressed his jealousy of Prime Minister Blair’s powers for good reason. Governing should be difficult, but under our British system, passing a law is simplicity itself if the prime minister wants it. Arguably, if our cabinet had a tougher political life seeking to pass legislation, it would pay greater attention to MPs as a more independent scrutinising body. In turn, it would have kept its eye on the ball and not allowed both Houses of Parliament to fall into disrepute over grotesque cheating in the expenditure of public funds and exchange of money for legislative influence.

Video and Transcript: Obama with C-SPAN on Empathy, Justice, and Politics (22 May)

"I want a judge not only to be applying the law in front of them, but also to understand that as a practical matter."

On DAY, President Obama spoke with the cable political network about domestic topics such as the next Supreme Court justice, the economic crisis, the situation of the auto industry, and health care, as well as his relationship with former President George W. Bush.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znZkxN0Ks0M[/youtube]

STEVE SCULLY, POLITICAL EDITOR, C-SPAN: Mr. President, as we speak to you in the White House Library, a constitutional lawyer, former law professor, as you work through the process for you personally in selecting the Supreme Court nominee, what are you thinking?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, there are some benchmarks that you have to make sure that you hit. Obviously, you want somebody who is highly qualified, who knows the law. I want somebody who, obviously, has a clear sense of our constitution and its history and is committed to fidelity to the law.

Is going to make their decisions based on the law that’s in front of them, but as I’ve said before, I think it’s also important that this is somebody who has common sense and somebody who has a sense of how American society works and how the American people live.

And you know, I said earlier, that I thought empathy wasn’t important quality and I continue to believe that. You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you.
But you have to be able to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living. And a good example of this, the Lilly Ledbetter case that came up a while back, where the justice has I believe misinterpreted the law in closing the door to a lawsuit by a woman who had worked for 20 years and had been paid less than her male counterparts.

She didn’t know that she was getting paid less, when she discovered it, she immediately filed suit to get back pay and the suggestion was somehow that she should have filed suite earlier.

Well, I think anybody who has ever worked in a job like that understands that they might not know that they were being discriminated against it. It doesn’t make sense for their rights to be foreclosed.
That’s the kind of case, where I want a judge not only to be applying the law in front of them, but also to understand that as a practical matter. A lot of times people have weak bargaining power.

Now, in some ways it might cut the other way. I want a judge who has a sense of how regulations might affect the businesses in a practical way. And so, when they’re interpreting a statute that they are saying, is congressional intent being met in this kind of circumstance. So, if there is a farm program somewhere, and you have somebody who can take the time to learn about how farmers work that’s helpful.

So, in all these cases what I want is not just ivory tower learning. I want somebody who has the intellectual fire power, but also a little bit of a common touch and has a practical sense of how the world works.

SCULLY: And that’s what empathy is?

Obama: Well that’s what empathy is to me. And I think that that’s – those criteria of common sense, practicality, a sense of what ordinary Americans are going through everyday. Putting that in the mix, when the judges are looking at cases before them, it’s very important.

Keep in mind that, the Supreme Court by definition only gets the tough cases. And even at the Supreme Court level, probably 95 percent of the cases are going to be determined by some clear statutory language, a strong precedent.

But there is going to be a 5 percent of the cases there, where the language is ambiguous, where the constitutional precedent is not clear. And in those situations you want a judge who has a sense of what’s going on in the day-to-day lives of the American people and has some practical experience. And I’m confident that there are people who combine both the intellectual qualities and the qualities of judgment and common sense that will make them a great Supreme Court justice.

SCULLY: Is it safe to say that an announcement in the next week or 2 with hearings in July?

OBAMA: Well, I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to have an announcement soon. And my hope is, is that we can have hearings in July so that we end up before Congress breaks for the summer – have somebody in place.

One of the things I would prefer not to see happen is that these confirmation hearings drag on and somebody has to hit the ground running and then take their seat in October without having the time to wrap their mind around the fact that they are going to be a Supreme Court Justice. I’d like to given them a little bit of lead time so that they can get prepared.

SCULLY: Are you worried about that?

OBAMA: No I am not worried. I think if you look at how this has worked in the past. Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, it took them approximately 70 days to get confirmed from the time that they were announced. And yes, I think that’s a fair timeframe for us to work with as well.

SCULLY: Is there a justice current or former that you look at as a role model, as kind of the characteristics that you want in a Supreme Court justice?

OBAMA: Well you know, I mean each justice I think brings their own qualities, and you know, there are some justices who are wonderful writers, even justices I don’t agree with, Justice Scalia is a terrific writer, and makes really interesting arguments.

You have people like Judge – Justice O’Connor, who again, I might not have agreed with her on every issue, but you always had a sense that she was taking the law and seeing what the practical applications of the law in this case. She wasn’t a grand theoretician, but she ended up having an enormous influence on the law as a whole.

And on the other hand there are Justices like Brennan or Marshall, who really focused on the broader sweep of history and came at a time during the Civil Rights movement, where they recognized the unique role that – the unique role that courts could play in breaking the political logjam that had locked out too many people in the political process.

And so, different times call for different justices, each justice has their own strengths as well as weaknesses. And what I just want to make sure of is that any justices I appoint are people who have not only the academic qualifications or intellectual capacity, but also the heart and the feel for how Americans are struggling in their day-to-day lives.

And also, an appreciation I think for how, even though, we live in new times there are some time tested principles embodied in our constitution that have to be respected.

SCULLY: Let me follow-up on that, because you could have 2 or 3 more appointments in the next couple of years.

OBAMA: Right.

SCULLY: Is that the imprint that you want on the Supreme Court?

OBAMA: I don’t want to jump the gun. Obviously, nobody else has announced their retirements, but the criteria that I described, a strong intellectual grasp of the law, an appreciation for the timeless principles of the constitution, and a sense of common sense and compassion and empathy for ordinary Americans, so that everybody is heard. Those are all qualities that I think make for a great Supreme Court justice.

SCULLY: William Howard Taft served on the court after his presidency, would you have any interest in being on the Supreme Court?

OBAMA: You know, I am not sure that I could get through Senate confirmation.

SCULLY: Mr. President, let’s move on to health care, because some of the same people who were at odds with President Clinton trying to block his initiatives 15 years ago are at the table today. What’s changed?

OBAMA: Well, a lot has changed. What hasn’t changed is the ever escalating cost of health care. And so, people are seeing since ‘93 when we failed to reform health care that costs have continued to skyrocket.
I think the biggest change politically is, is that businesses now recognize that if we don’t get a handle on this stuff that they are going to continue to be operating at a competitive disadvantage with other countries. And so they anxiously seek serious reform.

The fact that we’ve got hospitals and doctors who also recognize that the system is unsustainable on its current path, fiscal conservatives who recognize that the single biggest component of driving down our deficits and long-term debt is getting control of Medicare and Medicaid costs and that health care reform is critical to bend the curve.

All those things I think are converged. And you are absolutely right. The meeting we had here with insurance companies, drug companies, doctors, hospitals, labor, all the stakeholders involved, nurses, we haven’t seen that before.

Now, it’s still going to be very difficult to get a bill passed. But I’m absolutely committed to keeping this process moving, keeping the conversation going, focusing on how do we reduce costs, how do we increase efficiency, how do we make sure that families have some confidence that they can get health care when they need it and that they won’t go bankrupt because their child gets sick.

I really think that the stars may be aligned here and we potentially can get it done if everybody comes at it with a spirit not of ideological rigidity. But if they come at it with a sense that in a practical hard-headed way, we can really negotiate and compromise and get something done for the American people.

SCULLY: But do you think that’s something that – what ultimately will it look like and when will it happen?

OBAMA: Well, I’ve put forward a plan, a very extensive plan during the course of the campaign that I continue to think was the best approach. And what I would say is you will keep your health care if you already have health care. You can have your choice of doctors. You can have your choice of plans.

But what we are going to do is to invest more in prevention and wellness programs. We are going to manage how treatments are provided more effectively. We are going to initiate things like electronic medical record, something we invested in already in the recovery program that I passed. All these things will drive down costs.

Then what we want to do is also to make sure that everybody has basic coverage. Now, they may not have the gold-plated Cadillac health insurance, but it doesn’t make sense in a country as wealthy as ours that if you are working full time, you should be able to afford health care.

If you are a small business owner, you should be able to get the same low rates that somebody who works for a big company gets. And so, the principle of driving down costs at the same time providing greater care for more people, higher quality care, and making sure that we as a country as a whole are getting a better bang for our health care dollar.

I think those things are achievable. They are not going to be easy. And some of the savings you won’t see for five or 10 years, because the system is going to have to work through some of these inefficiencies.
Health information technology, for example, can be a huge cost saver, because it can eliminate duplicative records, reduce medical errors, but it’s going to take some time for us to build out the infrastructure so that every provider, every small community hospital has these things in place. And that’s part of the role that the government can play.

But the key point here, which I think I want to emphasize again, is if you’ve got health care – I don’t want to take away your choices. I want to add your choices. I want you to be able to keep your doctor, keep your health care, but I want to be able to drive down costs. And if you are dissatisfied with your health care, I want to make sure you get some other options out there.

SCULLY: Yet, it all takes money. You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?

OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we’ve made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we’ve seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.

So we’ve got a short-term problem, which is we had to spend a lot of money to salvage our financial system, we had to deal with the auto companies, a huge recession which drains tax revenue at the same time it’s putting more pressure on governments to provide unemployment insurance or make sure that food stamps are available for people who have been laid off.

So we have a short-term problem and we also have a long-term problem. The short-term problem is dwarfed by the long-term problem. And the long-term problem is Medicaid and Medicare. If we don’t reduce long-term health care inflation substantially, we can’t get control of the deficit.

So, one option is just to do nothing. We say, well, it’s too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can’t afford it. We’ve got this big deficit. Let’s just keep the health care system that we’ve got now.

Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything. That’s the wrong option.

I think the right option is to say, where are the game changers, the investments that we can make now that are going to reduce costs, even if they don’t reduce them this year or next year, but 10 years from now or 20 years from now, we are going to see substantially lower costs.

And if – one of the very promising areas that we saw was these insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, all these stakeholders coming together, committing to me that they would reduce costs by 1.5 percent per year.

If we do that, it seems like small number, we end up saving $2 trillion. $2 trillion, which not only can help deal with our deficit and our long-term debt, but a lot of those savings can go back into the pockets of American consumers in the form of lower premiums. That’s what we are driving for.

SCULLY: You mentioned the auto industry. What will GM look like a year from now?

OBAMA: Well, my hope is, is that we will see both GM and Chrysler having emerged from this restructuring process leaner, meaner, more competitive with a set of product lines that appeal to consumers, good cars that are fuel efficient and that look at the markets of tomorrow.

Keep in mind what’s happened in the auto industry. Right now, we’re seeing – we’re projecting that maybe this year the auto industry as a whole sells 10 million cars in the United States. Well, replacement numbers for the auto industry, you know, that the number of cars to replace cars on the road is closer to 14, 15, 16 million. And what that means is when the economy recovers and consumers say, you know the old clunker has finally given out. I need to get a new car.

You are looking at a substantial market that is going to be available for U.S. automakers if they’ve made some good decisions now, and if they are building the kinds of fuel efficient, high performance cars that American consumers are hungry for.

I think GM and Chrysler can do that. I think they have been weighed down by a legacy of some bad management decisions, health care costs and the whole host of other things that they are now in the process of cleaning up.

We’re confident that they can emerge and take advantage of that new market and actually be very profitable and thrive, but it means going through some pain now, and the thing I worry about most is that so much of that pain is borne by workers and communities that have historically been the backbone of the auto industry and so we’re going to have to work intensely with those communities.

If some of those auto jobs don’t come back, then what we’ve going to have to do is make sure that those workers are effectively retrained. We’ve got to make sure that those communities are supported that we are promoting green energy and green jobs as an alternative manufacturing base for many of these communities and that’s going to be one of the single-minded focuses of this administration.

SCULLY: When you see GM though as “Government Motors,” you’re reaction?

OBAMA: Well, you know – look we are trying to help an auto industry that is going through a combination of bad decision making over many years and an unprecedented crisis or at least a crisis we haven’t seen since the 1930’s. And you know the economy is going to bounce back and we want to get out of the business of helping auto companies as quickly as we can. I have got more enough to do without that. In the same way that I want to get out of the business of helping banks, but we have to make some strategic decisions about strategic industries.

Our financial system is the life blood of our economy and if banks collapse then businesses across America collapse. We had to make some decisions that insured that the financial system was strong.

In the same way, our auto industry is the foundation for economies all across the Midwest, and ultimately, for the country as a whole and had we allowed GM or Chrysler simply to liquidate that would have been a huge anti-stimulus on the economy as a whole, and could have dragged us even deeper into recession or even depression. Ultimately, I think that GM is going to be a strong company and we are going to be pulling out as soon as the economy recovers and they’ve completed their restructuring.

SCULLY: States like California in desperate financial situation, will you be forced to bail out the states?

OBAMA: No. I think that what you’re seeing in states is that anytime you got a severe recession like this, as I said before, their demands on services are higher. So, they are sending more money out. At the same time, they’re bringing less tax revenue in. And that’s a painful adjustment, what we’re going end up seeing is lot of states making very difficult choices there.

They are cutting programs some of them unfortunately essential and that’s why in our recovery package we provided dollars to make sure that teachers, police officers weren’t laid-off, but there is still some contraction that’s taking place at the state government level.

At the same time you know states have to balance their budgets and so they have got to make some very difficult choices. In California, because of the unique way that California’s government operates, you not only have a legislature and the government, but also have referendum that help determine some of these decisions. You know that’s probably a little bumpier working out some of those issues.

Probably, the biggest place where the states are needing some help right now is, just rolling over their debt issuing bonds. They are still being affected by some of the freezing in the credit markets and the uncertainty and anxiety in the credit markets. And so, we are talking to state treasurers across the country, including California, to figure out are there some creative ways that we can just help them get through some of these difficult times.

SCULLY: Your Senior Advisor David Axelrod describes you as a pragmatist, what does that mean?

OBAMA: Well, I think what it means is that I don’t approach problems by asking myself, is this a conservative – is there a conservative approach to this or a liberal approach to this, is there a Democratic or Republican approach to this. I come at it and say, what’s the way to solve the problem, what’s the way to achieve an outcome where the American people have jobs or their health care quality has improved or our schools are producing well educated workforce of the 21st century.

And I am willing to tinker and borrow and steal ideas from just about anybody if I think they might work. And we try to base most of our decisions on what are the facts, what kind of evidence is out there, have programs or policies been thought through.

I spend a lot of time sitting with my advisors and just going through a range of options. And if they are only bringing me options that have been dusted off the shelf, that are the usual stale ideas, then a lot of times I ask them, well, what do our critics say, do they have ideas that maybe we haven’t thought of.

So, in that sense – I don’t have a lot of pride of authorship on this. I don’t have some need to constantly say, my way or the highway. I think the attitude is let’s sit down and create a process where we can work through and find the best ideas that will help the American people the most.

SCULLY: Have you had any conversation with former President Bush since the inauguration?
OBAMA: I have.

SCULLY: And?

OBAMA: Well, I think that although I’ve only been president four months, I think a general policy of keeping confidence with your predecessors is important.

SCULLY: Yesterday, your speech followed by the former Vice President was described as historic. Was it?

OBAMA: I am not sure it’s historic. I think that I tried to create a context for what we’re doing around issues like Guantanamo, my decision to ban enhanced interrogation techniques, how we can, both preserve our values, uphold our ideals and wage an aggressive battle against organizations like Al-Qaeda that want to do us harm.

And I am confident that we are stronger when we uphold our principles, that we are weaker when we start pushing them aside.

I think there was a period of time right after 9/11, understandably, because people were fearful, where I think we cut too many corners and made some decisions that were contrary to who we are as a people.

I think there were adjustments that were made even within the Bush administration to try to deal with some of those mistakes. There are still consequences, though, to some of those earlier poor decisions, and I think Guantanamo was one of them. And it’s a messy situation. It’s not easy.

We’ve got a lot of people there who we should have tried early, but we didn’t. In some cases, evidence against them has been compromised. They may be dangerous, in which case we can’t release them. And so finding how to deal with that I think is going to be one of our biggest problems.

On the other hand, I am very confident that if we approach this in a way that isn’t trying to score political points, but is trying to create a legal and institutional framework with checks and balances, respectful of due process and rule of law, if we set up that system, then there is no reason why we can’t try either in a military commission or in a federal court people who’ve done us harm and also spend a bulk of our time preventing people from doing us harm in the first place.

SCULLY: When in your day or in your schedule do you have time to think?

OBAMA: Well, you know what? I try to make time during the course of the day. I mean usually I’ve got some desk time during the course of the day where I can review materials that I think are important for decisions that I’m going to have to make later in the day.

I tend to be a night-owl. So after I have had dinner with the family and tucked the girls in, then I have a big stack of stuff that I have taken up to the residence. And I’ll typically stay up until midnight, just going over stuff and sometimes push the stack aside and just try to do some writing and focus on not the immediate issue in front of me, but some of the issues that are coming down the pike that we need to be thinking about.

And there are a whole host of those issues. I’ll give you a good example. We don’t have I think the kind of comprehensive plan to deal with cyber security that the country needs. Now, there is not a cyber attack right now. There is not some emergency virus right now. But that’s a big critical system that is vital to our economy. It’s vital to our public health infrastructure.

And so you’re figuring out how do we set up systems where government is working with the private sector in a way that doesn’t put a crimp on innovation and discovery, but also make sure that the data is secure and the American people are protected. That’s something where you got to get the wheels turning now. And so we’re doing that.

There are a range of examples like that that if you don’t build in some thought time, end up being pushed aside by the constant churning of events.

SCULLY: Let me just ask you one last question about your wife and your family. Time Magazine, out with a cover story about your wife and saying, “No first family has lived with the weight of hope and a hope that has landed on the Obamas.” Do you feel that way?

OBAMA: No, we don’t feel a lot of stress. We don’t think in those terms. We think in terms of mom and dad and kids and now a dog and how do you make sure that your kids are doing their homework, brushing their teeth, treating each other nicely.

When I think about Michelle, I am thinking, am I listening to her and responsive to some of the things she is going through. And I think she is trying to do the same for me. And, we really think of ourselves as a family like every other family. We’ve got some issues like every other family has that they have to work through.
But I – one of the things we’ve found actually is that the White House has been terrific for family life compared to some of our other previous situations like campaigns, because we are all in the same place. I have got this pretty nice home office, and I am home for dinner every night just about that I’m in town. And I can read to the girls, and they can tell me about their day.

I’ve even gotten to go to a couple of soccer games. And so, we also happen to be blessed by two almost perfect children. So we are pretty lucky there.

SCULLY: But you sell a lot of magazines.

OBAMA: Well, you know, Michelle sells a lot of magazines. I don’t about how magazines with me on the cover do. I think Michelle’s do very well.

SCULLY: Let me conclude with the U.S. Supreme Court. What would you tell your wife, your mother-in-law and your two daughters if it weren’t a woman that you are about to appoint?

OBAMA: You know, it’s interesting to me. Actually I can’t tell you the number of women, including Michelle, who say chose the person you think is going to be best. If I end up having more than one nominee, I am pretty confident that it would be reflective there of some diversity.

I think in any given pick, my job is to just find somebody who I think is going to make a difference on the courts and look after the interest of the American people. And so, I don’t feel weighed down by having to choose a Supreme Court Justice based on demographics. I certainly think that ultimately we want a Supreme Court that is reflective of the incredible variety of the American people.

SCULLY: Is this job what you expected?

OBAMA: You know, this is an extraordinary honor and an extraordinary privilege, and it exceeds expectations, both in terms of the challenges, but also the opportunity to just everyday be involved in issues that really matter. It’s a great privilege.

SCULLY: Mr. President, thank you.

OBAMA: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Video and Transcript: Colin Powell on Face the Nation (24 May)

Video and Transcript: Colin Powell on Face the Nation.

On Sunday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on CBS's Face the Nation. The interview is the latest round in an ongoing battle with other Bush Administration officials, notably the former Vice President Dick Cheney, over national security issues, the Republican Party, and attitudes toward President Obama.


Watch CBS Videos Online

SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. On this Memorial Day weekend, former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell is with us in the studio this morning. Thank you, General. It has been quite a two weeks, as you know. It was on this broadcast that your old boss and colleague, Dick Cheney, accused this administration of putting the nation's security at risk.

He finalized that argument in a speech last week. Said he had no regrets about the terrorist -- the methods in dealing with terrorists that the administration took. He criticized the closing of Guantanamo. I'm going to ask you about all of that, but I want to start where he ended his interview here on FACE THE NATION when he said some things about you. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIEFFER: Rush Limbaugh said the other day that the party would probably be better off if Colin Powell left and just became a Democrat. Colin Powell said Republicans would be better off if they didn't have Rush Limbaugh out speaking for them. Where do you come down?

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican.

SCHIEFFER: So you think that he's not a Republican?

CHENEY: I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for president this time, Barack Obama. I assume that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interest.

SCHIEFFER: And you said you'd take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell.

CHENEY: I would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIEFFER: Well, there you have it, General. So I guess the first question, are you a Republican?

POWELL: Let me answer it this way, if I may, Bob. Rush will not get his wish. And Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican. And I'd like to point out that in the course of my 50 years of voting for presidents, I have voted for the person I thought was bestqualified at that time to lead the nation. Last year I thought it was President-now Barack Obama. For the previous 20 years I voted solidly for Republican candidates. Voted for Ronald Reagan twice. George Bush 41 twice. George Bush 43 twice. I spent eight years in Bush administrations. I served Ronald Reagan for two years. I spoke at the 1996 convention and I spoke at the 2000 convention. What the concern about me is, well, is he too moderate? I have always felt that the Republican Party should be more inclusive than it generally has been over the years. And I believe we need a strong Republican Party that is not just anchored in the base but has built on the base to include more individuals. And if we don't do that, if we don't reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base. You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on the base. And I believe we should build on the base because the nation needs two parties. Two parties debating each other. But what we have to do is debate and define who we are and what we are and not just listen to diktats that come down from the right wing of the party.

SCHIEFFER: Well, why do you think the former vice president said what he said?

POWELL: Well, I assume that was his point of view. But he was misled if he thought I left the party. You know, neither he nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party. I get to make my decision on that. And so I will continue to work in a way that I think is helpful to the country and helpful to the party. And there are good reasons for this. I mean, in the military we have something called afteraction reviews. After a battle or after a training exercise you bring all of the leaders in. And you say, what's going right? What's going wrong? What did do right or wrong? And how do we move forward? It's a no-holds-barred candid discussion of where we are. That's what the Republican Party needs now. When you look at the results of the election last year, lost the presidency by 10 million votes. Lost that campaign by 10 million votes. We saw both houses of Congress switch to the Democrats. We saw whole sections of the country move to the Democratic column, Virginia, my state, Democratic. Florida, Nevada, other places. We looked at all of the demographics of it, a Gallup poll had a series of indicators. And in almost every demographic indicator, the Republican Party is losing. North, south, east, west. Men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics. And I think the Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide what kind of party are we?

POWELL: Are we simply moving further to the right, and by so doing opening up the right-of-center and the center to be taken over by independents and to be taken over by Democrats? You look at the statistic in Pennsylvania that Arlen Specter has cited -- 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania switched their allegiance to become Democrats in the election of 2008. That kind of leakage cannot continue if the Republican Party is going to play a major role in the life of our country. And if you look at the other statistics that is around these days and the number of people identifying themselves as Republicans has dropped significantly, into the low 20s. And among those low 20s, they're not all conservatives. A lot of them are fairly moderate or right-of-center Republicans, who are concerned about the right wing. And they're not that vocal about it, because if you are vocal, you're going to get your voice mail filled up and you're going to get lots of emails, like I did.

SCHIEFFER: What about Rush Limbaugh? A lot of people who are Republicans say, hey, people are taking him too seriously. He is just an entertainer. But he's been on your case for quite a while. When you announced you were voting for Barack Obama, he said the only reason he's doing that is because Barack Obama is black. Was he calling you a racist?

POWELL: I don't know what he was doing by that, and I don't want to exchange insults with him. But I thought it was unfortunate. I laid out a very specific set of reasons as to why I was voting for Barack Obama. Mr. Limbaugh saw fit to dismiss all those reasons and put it into a racial context, that the only reason I did it is I was black and I had never voted for a Democrat before. Well, yes, I have. I voted for John Kennedy. I voted for Lyndon Johnson. I even voted for Jimmy Carter. And I've always tried to vote for the best man. But he put it in that racial context, and I thought that that was very unfortunate. What about the 69 million people who voted for Barack Obama? Did they all do it on the basis of race? Why doesn't he sort of comment on those? But Mr. Limbaugh is entitled to his opinion. And I don't say he shouldn't have a opinion. The nature of our country is we ought to debate these things. But he shouldn't have a veto over what someone thinks. And he's an entertainer. He is a radio figure, and he is a significant one. But he's more than that. When the chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issues the mildest of criticism concerning Mr. Limbaugh, and then 24 hours later the chairman of the RNC has to lay prostrate on the floor apologizing for it, and when two congressmen offer the mildest criticism of Mr. Limbaugh, they too within 24 hours have such pressure brought to bear on them that they have to change their view and apologize for criticizing him -- well, if he's out there, he should be subject to criticism, just as I am subject to criticism. Let's debate the future of the party. And let's let all segments
of the party come in. You know, my model for the Republican Party is a great man we just lost, a man by the name of Jack Kemp. Jack was as conservative as anybody. We all know Jack. And Jack also was a man who believed in inclusiveness, reaching out to minorities, reaching out to the poor, sharing the wealth. Which became a bad term last fall, but sharing the wealth of the country not only with the rich, but with those who are least advantaged in our society. It's that kind of Jack Kemp Republicanism that I like, and I would like to see the party move more in that kind of a direction.

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk a little bit about Guantanamo. The vice president came out very hard against the Obama administration and his policies. He said it would be a mistake to close Guantanamo. Others have said it would actually pose a danger to this country if these people are brought back. Do you think Guantanamo should be closed, General?

POWELL: Yes. I felt Guantanamo should be closed for the past six years, and I lobbied and presented reasons to President Bush. And Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama's policy. He's disagreeing with President Bush's policy. President Bush stated repeatedly to international audiences and to the country that he wanted to close Guantanamo. The problem he had was he couldn't get all the pieces together. Secretary Rice, Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates had come forward with plans, but the plans ran into difficulties with Department of Justice and others. So it is a complex problem, and President Bush wasn't able to close Guantanamo on his watch. And President Obama came in saying he would close Guantanamo, and he has run into some of those same sorts of problems. So I think we need to kind of take the heat out of this issue. I think President Obama didn't handle it very well by going up to the Congress and asking for $80 million without a plan. And by, frankly, giving enough time to opponents of it to marshal their forces as to why we shouldn't do this. But Guantanamo has caused us a great deal of trouble throughout the world. And Mr. Cheney the other day said, well, we're doing it to satisfy European intellectuals or something like that.

POWELL: No. We're doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world that we are a nation of law. It isn't so much Guantanamo. It's the people at Guantanamo. How do we deal with them? We can't keep them locked up forever. This business about making the country less safe by bringing these people to our prison system, we have got two million people in jail in America. The highest incarceration rate in the world. And they all had lawyers. They had all had access to the writ of habeas corpus and they're all in jail. And I don't know, Bob, if you've ever seen some of these prison reality shows on television where they show you what a super lock-up is. I'm not terribly about worried one of these guys going to a super lock-up and being ...

SCHIEFFER: So you think they can be brought here and kept safely without posing any damage?

POWELL: Yes. Yes. I think it should have been done immediately and not start looking for $80 million to build prisons. Look, we're talking about roughly 240. The hard-core problem is that there are some of them that you really do not have cold evidence on that you could put before an Article III court. That's the problem that President Bush struggled with. It's the problem that President Obama is struggling with. We may have to find new legislation or have the Congress assist us with this. But let's get it into our system of laws with an executive and a legislative and a judicial branch all working it together.

SCHIEFFER: Have you talked to President Obama about this?

POWELL: Yes.

SCHIEFFER: You have? And what have you talked to him about?

POWELL: The views I have just expressed to you President Obama has heard from me.

SCHIEFFER: He has heard from you on this.

POWELL: I have been public on this.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think that he can get the Congress to go with him on this? I'm told there are people like Lindsey Graham and maybe even John McCain who might be willing to help him with this but only if he presents a detailed plan.

POWELL: I think that's the message that came out of Congress. We can't give you $80 million. There's a lot of internal home resistance to bringing these people into the country. So you come forward with a plan that makes some sense and you tell us how you're going to resolve all of these cases and do it in a way that we can support and then maybe we can move forward. So I think it was premature to ask for the money. It was premature to say we're going to give it to work out and then immediately ask for the money for something. John McCain has been a strong supporter from the very beginning of closing Guantanamo but in recent days he's been saying, I haven't moved off that point but you have to give us a plan. This has become very, very political. And so I think after we have had these dueling speeches and the controversy of recent days, things will settle down and the president can go off and spend some time with his staff thinking it through all the way and coming up with a plan just as he said he would do in his speech. And one point I have to make. It really comes out of the things that have been written lately. That is in the first year after 9/11, we did everything we could to stop the possibility of another 9/11. We put in place the PATRIOT Act. We used enhanced interrogation techniques. I shut down for the most part the visa system until we could fix it. But after about a year-and-a-half when it looked like things were relatively secure and we were doing a better job, then we started to relax the visa system once we fixed it because we can't keep moving in that direction with putting people in jail forever without resolving their cases. We're not letting people come to our country. So it was natural to start shifting back to our more normal ways of doing business and dealing with the rest of the world after we had achieved a level of security. We are more secure. I mean, my Republican friends sort of get mad when I say we need government. People want effective, responsible government. Republicans have not cut much government even though talk about limited government and cutting government. We created the Department of Homeland Security. Needed. We created the Transportation Security Agency that guards our terminals where people go in and out. Needed. We created a director of national intelligence. Needed. The American people want to see a FEMA that takes care of us in hurricanes and tornadoes. The American people want to see federal regulators making sure we never get into the kind of financial problem we had last year. And we're working our way out of it. So there is a need for government. What the American people want not just slogans, limited government. They want effective government. Government that works and just as much as we need. But if we need it, let's have it.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Let me ask you this. The former vice president said he had no regrets about the methods that were used including waterboarding. He actually authorized it. He says they may have saved thousands of lives. I want to ask you two questions. Do you agree with that? That these techniques were effective? And number two, when did you know about this business, general?

POWELL: When we started to examine these techniques I was in some meetings where they were discussed.

POWELL: I was not privy to the memos that were being written or the legal opinions that were being written.
I think it was unfortunate but we had a system that kept that in a very compartmented manner. And so I was apart that these enhanced interrogation techniques were being considered. And they were judged not to be torture at the time. And when you were facing the possibility of a 9/11, you had to give some -- some flexibility to the CIA. But it was under the Bush administration that they stopped using these techniques back in 19 -- in 2003. So obviously the CIA did not feel that we had anybody else in our custody that would need to have these techniques used. And as a result...

SCHIEFFER: Do you think they were effective?

POWELL: ... they haven't been used -- I have no idea. I hear that they were. I hear that they weren't. You see people from the FBI who come out and say, we got all of that information before any of that was done. I cannot answer that question. And the problem is, I don't know what I don't know.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you this. Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News reported last year that the top people in the administration, you, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, were actually brought in to meetings in the White House where these things were outlined. But you're saying you don't know -- at those meetings you're saying that nothing was (INAUDIBLE)?

POWELL: They were outlined. We were aware that these techniques were being discussed. And we were aware that legal opinions were being given that said they met the standard of the law. But over time, now that we look at it, it's easy now in the cold light of day to look back and say, you shouldn't have done any of that. But as Mr. Cheney has said very, very often, as has President Bush and all of us, if we had another attack like 9/11, say on 9/11 a year later, nobody would have forgiven us for not doing everything we could. And the CIA thought we needed those kinds of techniques but now we see that these are not appropriate. And I saw a guy on television being waterboarded yesterday, this correspondent, this television commentator, and in six seconds -- he thought he could take it. He thought it was just like swimming. In six seconds he was screaming that he had be released from this kind of waterboarding. And remember waterboarding comes out of your Survival, Evasion and Escape techniques. And those were intended to be torture to show our guys what they should be subjected to.

SCHIEFFER: We have just a second left. Memorial Day weekend. I know this is a meaningful weekend for you.

POWELL: This is a time when we reflect on the privilege we have had as citizens to have had other citizens willing to put their lives on the line. And so let's remember all of those who served their nation. Remember their families. And remember those who were injured and are still with us. And there will be another wonderful Memorial Day concert this evening on the West Lawn of the Capitol. And I will be there with a number of other people to celebrate the sacrifice of our young men and women, especially those who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today. They are also a greatest generation.

SCHIEFFER: Thank you very much, General. Thanks for being with us.

FBI Director Robert Mueller: 'Keep Away from Me'

The “America is less safe” rhetoric of the former Vice President Dick Cheney has finally found a receptive ear in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Wednesday that bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US could pose some risks even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons. According to Mueller, these risks consist of “the radicalization of others” and “potential individual attacks in the United States".

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