As you all heard, Harry Reid gave the final keynote of Ykos. He speaks softly, with no bluster, reading his speech much of the time. He comes across as softspoken and almost shy.
But as he spoke, it became obvious to me why the Bush Administration underestimated him. The words couldn't be more different than the delivery -- tough, straightforward, without the pandering of a politican running for, say, president.
In his opening speech the other night, Markos said that the elites have failed us: "Republicans have failed us because they can't govern; Democrats have failed us because they can't get elected." I assume you agree with the first part.
I'm not too sure that he's wrong on the second part.
When I first got this job as the Democratic leader, I knew that we had to do something different. See, I'm not one who believes that we lost in 2004 because of abortion or gay marriage. The day after the election, I said two things.
I said that we lost the election because we did not campaign in rural America. Las Vegas -- 70 percent of the people live here in Las Vegas. Twenty percent live in Reno. Ten percent live in the 15 rural counties. So you would think that if John Kerry did well in the two counties, he'd win the election. He did, but he lost. Why? Because of the rural counties. You go to Douglas County, 94 percent turnout, he lost that 2 1/2-to-1. Lowest turnout in any of the 15 counties, 84 percent. He lost them all about the same as in Douglas County. So he lost the election in Nevada by 2 percent.
They talk about the turnout not being [good], the long lines in Cleveland or wherever it was. There was simply nothing in rural Ohio. It was the same in Ohio as everywhere.
The second thing that I said -- the president said it was his No. 1 issue, privatizing Social Security. Now, this is the day after the election, when he's at his height and we're at our low, and I said, "We're not gonna let you do that."
But I didn't have the pathway to stop that. I kind of got the idea that I needed help. That's why [for] my first retreat in January, the first time it ever happened, I invited Markos and the guy from MoveOn, Eli [Pariser]. They came and talked to all my senators. Senators had never heard of a blog. You know, they knew nothing about this. So we were able to defeat the privatization of Social Security, I believe, because of the blogs
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Are the blogs just another constituency for you, sort of an online AFL-CIO or something?
I wish that were the case, but it's simply not the truth.
I've come to learn one thing: They're not controllable. If you do something they like, they pat you on the back. If you do something they don't like, they kick you in the rear end.
Has that changed how you work or you think?
I think it's allowed me to be myself, to try to take on the giants, you know, because I feel like I have a little bit of help. When I started this thing with the privatization of Social Security, I felt like David going against Goliath. Bush and the media out there, it was a 9-foot giant, and here I was a teenage kid. But after we fired that rock and hit 'em in the middle of the forehead and beat them, they're no longer 9 feet high. They're about my size. We have a better shot at 'em. Still not as good as it would have been had we not had everything consolidated, and the Fairness Doctrine [had not gone] out the window, and all the things that were so "fair." We don't have that, but we've made progress.
And how did the blogs help in the Social Security fight?
They wouldn't let Bush off the ground. They were able to help us get crowds at places. They were able to drive the regular media crazy by having people write stories that they didn't want to write. They helped us slay the giant.
But do you see a corrosive effect, on the other hand, say, in what the blogs are doing to Joe Lieberman?
You know, I love Joe Lieberman, like him a lot.
But, you know, my wife and I have been together for a long, long time, but she doesn't think I'm perfect, and I don't think she's perfect. So...
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Between the capture of Zarqawi and the formation of an Iraqi government, Bush might be able to make an argument that 2006 has become a "period of transition" in Iraq.
I don't think he has any argument until we have a plan for bringing the troops home.
We're spending $2.5 billion a week; we have 2,500 dead Americans; we have 20,000 wounded; wherever you watched TV this week, you saw the terrible injuries we've got coming in from Iraq. We've got Haditha, we've got Abu Ghraib, and we've got Guantánamo. So I don't think the stage is subject to having cheerleaders out for him.
A substantial majority of the American people think the war was a mistake, disapprove of the way the president is handling it and want some or all of the troops to be withdrawn now. Why haven't the Democrats in Washington been able to take that big fat pitch over the middle of the plate and do something more with it?
I think when you're in a baseball game and somebody throws you four balls, there's no reason to take a lot of swings.
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By requiring the director of national intelligence to vet the president's statements, your legislation almost seems like a concession that the usual Senate oversight isn't working. That's something the Senate Intelligence Committee might have been able to do itself.
You know, it's interesting. I'm very concerned about this. And so I called two people who I care about a great deal who were both chairs of the Intelligence Committee, Bob Kerrey and Bob Graham. You know, there were different things that could be done because [the Republicans and the Bush administration] were just simply ignoring us. We could all resign, say, "OK, well, this doesn't work anyway."
But the intelligence committees that we have in the House and the Senate were set up to serve a purpose, so that there would not be the assassination of Pinochet. Not Pinochet, but who was the leader of the country, who'd they kill -- Allende. That's how this all came about. And so it was after due consideration -- going to hang in there. It's not as if nothing is happening. You know, all the hot spots, they come in and tell them about that. So there's still some function.
But I think we've come to learn that the intelligence community in America is run by one person -- one person -- and that's the vice president. [Sen. Pat] Roberts, who is the supposed chair of that committee -- I shouldn't say "supposed chair"; he is the chair -- he can't do anything without [Dick Cheney].
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Everything is run through the vice president -- everything.
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Whatever it is, they ultimately buckle under. Specter talks a good game, but --
It's not "ultimately." Specter is the only one who's given an ostensible reaction, negatively [to the NSA program]. But that didn't last. He caved in like soft cake, you know.
Do you think there will come a time when the Republicans in the Senate see Bush's approval ratings for what they are and really start to stand up to him?
I don't know. Cheney has such a grasp on them, I don't think it will happen until these guys leave.
How will things be different if the Democrats take over after November?
First of all, I would hope that the third branch of government would be reestablished. We only have two branches of government now. We have the executive, the executive and the judicial. Constitutionally, we should have the executive, the legislative and the judicial. We're going to reestablish the legislative branch of government. We're not going to go crazy with investigations. We'll do our oversight work, and we'll legislate. We'll bring stuff to the floor that the American people want -- that will mean something to them. Gas prices. You know, we may even bring stuff to the floor that we lose. Republicans aren't willing to bring anything to the floor they're afraid they might lose. Anything that's pocketbook issues, they lose automatically.
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Nancy Pelosi has apparently taken impeachment off the table, even if the Democrats win in November.
But see, I've cooled that impeachment [talk] from the beginning. You know why? Who would be the president if the president were impeached? Why would I want Cheney president?
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You didn't support Howard Dean when he was running for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
No. But I'll tell you one thing. I'm a friend of Howard Dean's. He has proven to me who he is. He went out and got that job the old-fashioned way. Made phone calls, made personal contacts. He didn't call begging me for money like some of the people did. He raised his own money. I have an excellent relationship with him. I'm a Howard Dean fan.
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What's your personal relationship with the president like?
[Silence.]
That's hard to transcribe.
I'm terribly disappointed, terribly disappointed.
I cared for his father. I liked his dad. His dad wrote me three handwritten notes that I prize. Ronald Reagan wrote me a letter saying he agreed with me that the 22nd Amendment shouldn't have been repealed. Ronald Reagan wasn't a mean-spirited man. He was a good guy.
But this administration takes no prisoners. They're very difficult to work with. It's their way or the highway, and it's been extremely difficult for me. So I'm not a President Bush fan.
Do you have a personal relationship with the president?
Yeah, I go to the Oval Office, and, you know, he's nice to me and I'm nice to him. But I know his limitations, and he damn sure knows mine.
There's a lot more in the interview about Lieberman, Cheney and the difficulty of herding Democrats into a unified front on Iraq.
Lastly, if I could make a plug -- Salon is one of the few news magazines worth your hard-earned subscription dollar. I've given up on TNR, even on the NYT. But Salon has delivered the goods year after year.