Senator John McCain on CBS's Face the Nation
January 24, 2010
(Bin Laden Tape, Obama’s Terror Policy, Bernanke Confirmation, Supreme Court Campaign Finance Decision)
http://mms.tveyes.com/ExpandGuest.asp?ln=404246
BOB SCHIEFFER: good morning again. senator mccain, are you satisfied that the government is doing enough on this?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: well, i think that the events of last and the way it was handled proved that there were significant errors made both in anticipating the christmas bomber and putting together all the information that was obviously there. but the obama... osama bin laden tape, i'm sure, indicates that osama bin laden is still a motivating force for jihadists, islamist extremists throughout the world. so we have to stay after him. but any chance of finding out osama bin laden's connection with this bombing vanished when the decision was made without consulting any of our intelligence heads by apparently the justice department with directions to low-level of the f.b.i. to give this individual civil... a trial in civil court which then gave him his miranda rights and he was lawyered up. he was cooperating until he got a lawyer. now that makes it almost impossible for us to pursue the leads that the christmas bomber might have. that, to me, is unbelievable.
SCHIEFFER: as yet, the government has reviewed this. but we haven't seen anyone who has been held accountable yet.
SEN. MCCAIN: no, no one has been held responsible. apparently it may be unfortunately the old washington game. not invented with this administration. we're all responsible. so no one is responsible. the american people expect us to hold people accountable. i intend as a member of the homeland security committee to see if we can't continue to find out who was responsible and hold them accountable.
SCHIEFFER: should they be dismissed, fired? should heads roll here?
SEN. MCCAIN: i think that as the president said, there's responsibility. there was a failure. and as soon as we find out the depth of those failures, obviously i think there should be changes made. otherwise we really are not addressing the personnel side of it. the other side of it is, we ought to look at what we've done with the reorganization of government and the creation of massive new bureaucracies and whether we've actually improved our ability to stop these attacks from taking place.
SCHIEFFER: do you think creating the department of homeland security on reflection was a good idea or was it just another level of bureaucracy?
SEN. MCCAIN: i think the 9/11 commission clearly concluded and i agreed with them that there had to be a consolidation of intelligence assets and greater cooperation and sharing amongst the various agencies. now whether the creation of that department has achieved that goal or not is in light of recent events is not absolutely clear.
SCHIEFFER: senator, a lot of unforeseen opposition suddenly cropped up last week to the confirmation of ben bernanke to be the chairman of the federal reserve. i now count 10 senators, five republicans, five democrats who say they'll vote against him. are you going to vote for him or against him?
SEN. MCCAIN: i'm very skeptical about his nomination. i'm worried that if his nomination is turned down the effect that it might have. but the fact is that chairman bernanke was in charge when we hit the iceberg. his policies were partially responsible for the meltdown that we experienced. i think that he should be held accountable.
SCHIEFFER: do you think he should withdraw his nomination?
SEN. MCCAIN: no, i don't know.
SCHIEFFER: i mean, are you going to vote against him or you're just concerned about it.
SEN. MCCAIN: i'm both concerned and leaning against.
SCHIEFFER: leaning against voting for him. let's talk about this supreme court ruling this week which really blew the lid off putting limits on money in politics. you've been a leader in trying to limit the impact of money in politics. now we're seeing a supreme court ruling that says corporations can just go right in. if somebody comes out, for example, against wall street bonuses, a corporation can say, buddy, you're doing it at your own risk because we're going to buy attack ads and run against you. what do you plan... do you plan to do anything in response to this?
SEN. MCCAIN: i don't think there's much that can be done to tell you the truth, bob. i was over... i was not surprised at the supreme court decision. i went over to observe the oral arguments. it was clear that justice roberts, alito and scalia by their very skeptical and even sarcastic comments were very much opposed to it. i think that it was interesting that they have had no experience in the political arena. i was reminded of the story of lyndon johnson when he was vice president. was told about president kennedy's appointments of all these brilliant people. he said, you know, i wish one of them had run for county sheriff. we are going to see now an inundags of special interest money to political campaigns. i think that diminishes the influence of average citizens. by the way, i would point out that both justice rehnquist and justice o'connor who had taken a different position on this issue both had significant political experience. justices roberts, alito and scalia have none. but it what it is.
SCHIEFFER: so you will... you're not intending to try to introduce any legislation. you just don't think....
SEN. MCCAIN: the supreme court has spoken on an issue of constitution... on a constitutional basis.
SCHIEFFER: but reform is dead?
SEN. MCCAIN: oh, i think so. you know, i think that there's going to be over time a back lash because when you see the amounts of union and corporate money that's going to go into political campaigns, but in the short term the supreme court has spoken. i respect their decision.
SCHIEFFER: well, we had this thunder bolt in massachusetts where a republican gets elected to ted kennedy's seat. i think it's fair to say that it has stalled the drive toward health care reform in the senate. the democrats no longer for one thing have enough votes to filibuster health care. where do you think this ought to go now? what should republicans do in response to this?
SEN. MCCAIN: do what we've done and say we'd be willing to sit down and start over from the beginning. with genuine negotiations. there are things we can agree on. whether it be medical malpractice reform or whether it be across state lines people can purchase insurance policies that suits them best. outcome-based treatment. even to refundable tax credits for people to be able to purchase health insurance on their own. there are many things we could do. but we also have to reject this process. people in my state are are as angry about the process of bribery and extortion. the louisiana purchase, the corn husker kickback, the all of these unsafeory deals that were made behind closed doors. this is a president who promised to have it on c-span and now they did all these deals at the expense of other states.
SCHIEFFER: do you think you could get other republicans to sit down at a table with democrats and say, look, let's just go over what we can pass that and let that be a starter?
SEN. MCCAIN: as long as we start from the beginning. but we categorically reject much of what the democrats have passed on a party-line vote continuously.
SCHIEFFER: i want to ask you one further question about guantanamo. you and the president agreed it ought to be closed. the deadline he set for closing it came and went last week. what do you do now? should it still be closed?
SEN. MCCAIN: yes, but you have to have developed a policy to address the issues particularly the enemy combatants who kept and must be kept and can't be released and what you do with them. e president's mistake was announcing the closure within a year without having all the policies in place to achieve that. guantanamo bay must remain open until such time as we have a coherent, comprehensive policy addressing the detainees. many of them cannot be released especially to some of the countries that have... they've been released to and they've gone back into the fight.
SCHIEFFER: john mccain, thank you so much.
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