SCOTT SIMON, host:
This WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
The war in Iraq continues, of course, but it was almost eclipsed in the U.S. Congress this week by the confrontation between congressional Democrats and the administration.
NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr joins us.
Hello, Dan.
DANIEL SCHORR: Hi, Scott.
SIMON: And how would you summarize what we saw this past week?
SCHORR: Well, it's very complicated. But, yeah, I suppose, basically, you can say that it's divided in two parts: one is the battle over contempt and the other is the battle over perjury.
SIMON: Let's talk about the contempt part first.
SCHORR: Okay. Well, what we have here is that the House Judiciary Committee wants a resolution citing Joshua Bolten, the chief of staff of the White House, and Harriet Miers, a former legal counsel - wants to cite them for contempt because they refused to show up and talk about the firing of at least nine U.S. attorneys.
SIMON: And where does that desire to cite them stand right now?
SCHORR: Well, it's past the House Judiciary Committee. But then it goes to the full House, which, as you know, is away - will be back until September. So that's on hold until September.
SIMON: And different track but at the same time the perjury battle?
SCHORR: Uh-huh. And in some ways more interesting or at least more bloody. The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee suspect that Attorney General Gonzales may have lied about the White House effort to try to cover up his attempt to retain NSA domestic surveillance program, which some Justice employees consider it to be illegal. It's very complicated. It gets more complicated after here.
SIMON: Well, and judging by some of the comments we heard, it's - the Democrats aren't necessarily alone in this.
SCHORR: Well, that's true. First of all, they have the ranking Republican Arlen Specter who I saw in a judiciary when he had the attorney general there. And he said to his face, I just don't believe you, which doesn't often happen. But then you also have FBI Director Robert Miller who gave an account of all of this, that's in variance with the attorney general's account. And so it has to do with that...
SIMON: Well, Dan, this is 2004, in which then Attorney General Ashcroft was in a hospital room.
SCHORR: There you are.
SIMON: And you pick up the story from there.
SCHORR: That's right. That episode has been going over time and time again because everything seems to be still in dispute. And so as you remember, Ashcroft refused to sign the paper and some people threatened to resign over the incident. And now, we're at a point where the question is one of the credibility of the attorney general and that raises this awful question of perjury.
SIMON: What happens next?
SCHORR: Well, the Senate Democrats are now saying what they want is a special prosecutor, which I called - think has called now an independent council to investigate a possibility of perjury.
SIMON: And how are they likely to get a special prosecutor? Who votes(ph) there?
SCHORR: I rather think not on the whole. A council would have to be appointed by the attorney general. He would presumably recluse himself. But then the solicitor general had to do it, and it's very likely the solicitor general wouldn't do it.
SIMON: So has the past week been a lot of sound and fury?
SCHORR: There's been a lot of sound and there's been a certain amount of fury. But what we have here is a continuing battle between these two branches of government and the people in these two branches of government, who don't seem really get along without threatening legal action.
SIMON: Is there a chance that Attorney General Gonzales will be asked to step down as you read it?
SCHORR: Well, it depends by whom. A lot of people are asking him to step down all the time.
(Soundbite of laughing)
SIMON: I meant by the one person that I think it would come from.
SCHORR: Yes. The president will stand behind him, and no question, has to stand behind him now until Gonzales himself decides the time has come.
SIMON: Of course, the 2008 elections are - in all practical ways, the campaign is already underway. And certainly, candidate debates were held in South Carolina this week
SCHORR: Right.
SIMON: And as a generalization, candidates really on both sides have been gentle and respectful with each other but people have been noting irresistibly Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, senators from Illinois and New York, respectively...
SCHORR: Right.
SIMON: ...did seem to draw a little blood this week.
SCHORR: Oh, yes, they did. What happened there, there were questions, as you know, came from the YouTube and was submitted by CNN. But there were questions from people that came in the form of video clips. In one of those clips, a person wanted to know whether either each of these people, if elected, during his or her first year in office, would go and talk to people like Cuba and Syria and North Korea.
Well, Obama said, yes, he would. Hillary Clinton said, nah, and she'd be more circumspect. She'd want to make sure that she wasn't being used for propaganda purposes. Obama said that sounded like Bush-Cheney light. She suggested that he was inexperienced and naive.
SIMON: Do you think anybody got the upper hand in that flurry?
SCHORR: It's really so hard to judge. But I must say that, yeah, it looked as though this was Hillary's moment.
SIMON: U.S. and Iranian ambassadors met in Baghdad for the second time. There was the first meeting in May. Do we know if anything came out of this?
SCHORR: Well, they said nothing came out of it. But then Iran comes today and said they were willing to have another meeting at a higher level. So I don't know what that means.
Before we go, there's one thing. There is - Vice President Cheney has his operation to fix defibrillators, heart defibrillators and so and so forth. I understand he's turning over his powers to the president.
SIMON: Thanks very much. NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr.
SCHORR: Yes, sir.
Copyright © 2007 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.