TONY COX, host:
Today is President Barack Obama's first full day in office, and with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a battered economy and strife in the Middle East, the 44th president has a lot of work on his plate. How will he lead during his first 100 days in the White House and beyond? And some key appointments in his Cabinet still have yet to be approved; will this stall his agenda in his first few days? Here to help break down the day's political news, Mary Frances Berry, back with us again, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission; and Ron Christie, CEO of Christie Strategies. He is also a former special assistant to President George W. Bush. Mary, you've been working really hard for us this week, and we appreciate your coming back.
Dr. MARY FRANCES BERRY (History, University of Pennsylvania; Former Chairman, Civil Rights Commission): All right, Tony.
COX: Ron, nice to have you as well. In fact, I'm going to begin with you, Ron, because the inauguration is over, and we're already back in governing mode with the new administration. I've heard some Republicans on the Hill already say, Ron, that they think President Obama is off to a good bipartisan start, sort of. But before we get to that, you were with former President Bush yesterday. What can you tell us about his mood as he departed the White House?
Mr. RON CHRISTIE (CEO, Christie Strategies): Well, I did get the opportunity to spend some time with the president yesterday, the 43rd president of the United States, and his spirits were high. He was in a very good mood, somewhat reflective about his time in office, but very much looking forward to going home to Texas, spending time with his family and moving onto the next chapter in his life. But a very wistful day for him, a day that he was very proud to return, as he said yesterday, to his favorite title, which is Citizen Bush, citizen of the United States.
COX: I know that it's a secret, but I'm just wondering, did he happen to share with you the contents of the note that he left on the desk of the Oval Office for the new-coming president?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. CHRISTIE: Sorry, Tony, no. That is only something that the outgoing president gives to the incoming president, and they don't share even to staff that they know and like.
COX: All right. Well, Mary, let's move on to this: Closing Guantanamo Bay prison camp, pulling troops out of Iraq, pushing through an economic stimulus package, lifting the restrictions on stem-cell research; these are just some of the items on the new president's agenda. I'm going to ask you which tasks should be at the top of his priority list in your opinion, although, Mary, it seems like he has already moved on Guantanamo, ordering a cessation of prosecutions for the next four months until May 20th.
Dr. BERRY: Yes. Well, what he ordered was a cessation until the review is completed in May. And the review, we don't know where it'll end. It could end with more military commissions or it could end with having the cases in regular courts. As for closing Guantanamo, he has already stated that it's going to take some time to do that. It's not easy figuring out what to do with the people who are there and whether to drop charges, have them detained somewhere else. His first item - he already started with the stimulus package before he was inaugurated, asking Congress to pass it, and there is a bill up there. We don't know the shape of it and what it will be in the end. So, he's already gotten a head start on that.
The other items on his agenda, he hasn't turned to stem cells yet, but if you look at the Web site, the new White House Web site, you will see all the things from the transition Web site are listed there. Everything from ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell to you name it, it's all listed there. We've gotten used to talking about the first 100 days of the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt, and every president does that. Clinton did it; Jimmy Carter tried it. Their first 100 days, there is no urgency that everything has to be done in 100 days, but we all keep track of it. The first thing he has to tackle, though, is the economy.
COX: Is the economy, right. Let me ask you this, Ron Christie, because he won't be able to do anything without bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, and he's making good on his campaign promises so far to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, reportedly making routine calls already to members of Congress from the Republican Party. Congressional Republicans are trying to get a meeting with him - him being Obama - this week to give their thoughts on a Democratic stimulus package. My question for you is this: How much of an issue is it for the Republicans to, on one hand, cooperate with the new administration, but on the other, maintain a political distance at the same time?
Mr. CHRISTIE: Well, I think Republicans on Capitol Hill want to find common ground with the new president and the new president's team and find areas of interest for the American people. I mean, they've all been elected to do the people's business and to make sure that this country is kept safe, to make sure that the economy gets going again. And so, I do think that the congressional Republicans are very eager to sit down with the president, to talk about their views for an economic stimulus package, and again, as I said from the outset, to find common ground. I think Republicans will only oppose the new president when they find ideological differences of opinion. But I think all Republicans and all Americans want this new president to succeed, and so I think they we're going to reached out with the strong spirit of bipartisanship and see what we can do on behalf of the American people.
COX: Yeah, but Mary...
Dr. BERRY: But Tony, Tony, it's also true that members of Congress are usually very timid about taking on a president of the opposite party as long as his popularity is high. When Reagan came in and he had very high popularity ratings, the Democratic House wasn't willing to take him on, on anything until he had a few stumbles, and he didn't have that many. It's the same thing with a president each time, and now with Obama, you have the added factor of the singular nature of his presidency. So, I don't think the Republicans will give him a great deal of trouble until he actually slips in, you know, the polling data or has some misstep or other.
COX: Well, yeah, but what about the - and that was going to be my question to you, Mary - what about alienating congressional Democrats, those on the left who think, perhaps, some of his centrist views are not what they signed up for?
Dr. BERRY: Well, I think that some will be alienated. Some will worry more when they get to two years from now when they are running for reelection based on their own promises. But I think the criticism will be muted, one, by his popularity, two, as they focus on the economy, things are so bad that most people up there will go along whatever's being proposed in the end, with some face-saving measures here and there for the Blue Dogs, for example, just because everybody wants something to happen and nobody really knows exactly what to do.
COX: Let's talk about foreign policy for a moment. Ron, the president phoned leaders in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to promise that he will actively engage on Arab/Israeli peace efforts. He is also expected to name former U.S. Senator George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy. Are these the right first steps?
Mr. CHRISTIE: I think they are. I mean, given what we've seen in Gaza and given what we've seen in Middle East over the last several months, I think it's a very volatile region of the world; I'd say it's a region that has very strong geostrategic importance to the United States; and I think it was very wise for him to reach out to these leaders to continue the nonpartisan approach started with President Bush and President Clinton before him of actively engaging leaders in the Middle East. I mean, this is something that's not a partisan political issue. It's very important for the United States to not only know what their allies know, that we're behind them, but also know that we want to be very much engaged in the peace process, particularly as it pertains to Israel and some of her neighbors in that volatile part of the world.
COX: Let me remind our listeners that you're listening to NPR's News & Notes. I'm Tony Cox. If you're just tuning in, with me on today's Political Roundtable we have Mary Frances Berry, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and Ron Christie, whom you just heard, CEO of Christie Strategies. He is also a former special assistant to President George W. Bush. Mary, headlines on newspapers and media outlets around the world heralded Obama's inauguration as the chance for a new dialogue with the international community. One of them caught my eye from Al-Jazeera in Qatar, talking about how Obama has already reached out to Palestinian leaders over the conflict in Gaza. This is a follow-up to what we were just talking about. What does this signal to you?
Dr. BERRY: Well, it does signal that he is going to attempt to make a new departure here. We had for years a no-talk policy with the Palestinians, and then that changed and we started talking. And now we have our Palestinians, which is Abbas and Fatah, and their Palestinians are the ones that we don't like, Hamas, who were encouraged to have - the Palestinians had an election encouraged by Bush and Rice, and they elected Hamas. So, it's been a mess since then since we don't like them.
I think that what he's saying is he wants to make a new start and talk to everybody who is involved, as he said during the campaign, that he's willing to talk to anybody and listen to anybody and see if he can resolve this conundrum, which has been in politics for all of these years that no one has resolved. But the key to getting some kind of settlement for all of the areas in the Middle East that concern us and in Iraq and Afghanistan and with the Arab nations everywhere, with Iran, is trying to do something about the Palestinian question.
COX: One last thing in foreign policy and we'll go back to talk about what's happening in the nation's capital is this: Obama's also meeting with his military leaders. The question is whether drawing down troops from Iraq to send to Afghanistan is the right move at the right time. What are your thoughts about that, Ron?
Mr. CHRISTIE: Well, that's obviously a determination for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and consulting with his various members of the armed forces and consulting with the commander-in-chief, Obama, to make that military decision. I'm always reluctant of moving troops from one battlefield to another unless there's a specific objective and there's a reason for doing so. But you know, again, I'm willing to give the new president the benefit of the doubt here. He has said that from the day one he wanted to call in the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and talk to the Joint Chiefs about not only our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also around the world. So, I think it is a good opportunity for him to get a fresh assessment of what the capabilities of the military are and what we need to do to fight and wage and win this War on Terrorism.
Dr. BERRY: Let me just say quickly that there are two things here. One is with Iraq. We're forgetting about all the refugees who fled Iraq and who are in Syria and other countries suffering mightily, up in the thousands, some people say millions, many of them Christians, for example, and the fact that the job in Iraq that that was started - in my view, inappropriately - hasn't been completed. But also, there's another. Sometimes we say we never learn anything from history, but we ought to learn something. Every country that has tried to engage in warfare in Afghanistan and tried to defeat the Afghanistan people has failed. This has been true throughout human history. I'm just a little bit concerned; I don't know what the answer is of how they propose to go about winning in Afghanistan when it hasn't been done before, and a surge, and whether we're going to now get bogged down in Afghanistan. I don't know what the alternatives are, but clearly, it's something that I hope they think about very, very carefully.
COX: It would seem, too, that the president would have to, in some way, follow up on his campaign promises to get the troops out of Iraq, and perhaps this meeting with the Joint Chiefs will help him to figure out a way...
Dr. BERRY: Perhaps.
COX: To accomplish that. Perhaps, with a capital P. Let me ask both of you, as Washington insiders, something that also was a part of the president's campaign pledge, which was to sort of reduce the power of lobbyists in the nation's capital. How does the culture, Ron, of the nation's capital change when the new administration comes in, and what happens along K Street, where all the lobbyists are located?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. CHRISTIE: You mean, how do I go about making my daily living?
CONAN: Well, I'm trying not to put you out there like that, but yeah...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. BERRY: Ron is biased to all those questions...
COX: How are you going to survive now?
Mr. CHRISTIE: I have a slight bias. No, I think it's just fascinating. I mean, you have nearly 34,000 people who were registered to lobby the federal government, the executive branch and the legislative branch from Washington. And despite the change of the government, despite the change in administration, I think many things will remain the same. Efforts to curtail the amount of money that's in the process has largely failed in my view, and I think that you'll find a lot of people with a lot of issues and a lot of concerns, with the agenda that the new president has set forth, who are going to want to hire lobbyists and special interests to make sure that their voices are heard. And that's the best way that they can to advance their interests. So, many things in Washington change, but many things remain the same, and I think the K Street Corridor will be doing quite well for the years to come, for better or worse....
Dr. BERRY: And let me add to that that I think that lobbying is central, and it's a part of the culture. It's going to continue. I agree with him. Hillary Clinton, I remember, in one of the debates, tried to defend lobbying by pointing out that they work, you know, not just for business people, which is fine, but also for things like the Nursing Association, the Dental Association, the education people. Everybody has lobbyists. Members of Congress and their staffs get information from lobbyists who collect it. They don't believe everything each lobbyist tells them, but they, in fact, do collect information. Lobbyists, in fact, are people who represent most of the people out there in the country who are professionals or belong to anything at all, unions or whatever, and so, the only difference is that there will be slightly more jobs for Democrats - there are always more jobs for whoever is in power - and there may be fewer jobs for Republicans. But there will be some jobs for Republicans because republicans have enough people to filibuster in the Senate, and they have members, and they make agreements with people on the other side. So, (unintelligible)...
COX: Yeah, but what about safeguards, Ron Christie, in terms of precluding some of the scandalous behavior some lobbyists have been involved with? How's that going to be - how're people(ph) going to be protected against that under an Obama administration?
Mr. CHRISTIE: Well, I think the Congress, in the last session, passed the most comprehensive lobbying-reform bill that we've ever seen. Unlike the previous system, where you had to file once every six months, now lobbyists have to disclose their activity every quarter, and I think that that is a very good sense of accountability. I mean, we want to make sure that those who, as Mary aptly points out, have the constitutional right to lobby their government and to work with their government, also have an opportunity to see who they represent and on what issues they're lobbying, and perhaps what areas, if there are any, to be concerned about, of the influence of money in the system. But I would just remind your listeners, when I worked in the White House and Andy Card was my first chief of staff, he said, the most noble profession in the world is to be a lobbyist because to be a good lobbyist is to be a good educator...
Dr. BERRY: But wait, though, Ron. Let's just tell - make sure that we make clear that the real problem...
COX: Make it clear, but you only have about 30 seconds to do it.
Dr. BERRY: OK. But the real problem is that members of Congress and people in the administration do not inappropriately deal with lobbyists, and having people put in jail or kicked out of office, like Ted Stevens and other people, sets a good example for what the constraints ought to be and how careful they ought to be in what they do in their relationships with lobbyists.
COX: And that's a good place for us to stop, unfortunately. We'll have to continue that conversation. The real issue is whether or not there is going to be substantive change, and it is just too early to tell that, but we'll find out very, very quickly. Let me thank both of you for coming back. Again, we always enjoy having you on. Mary Frances Berry, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. She joined us from NPR's headquarters in Washington. And Ron Christie, CEO of Christie Strategies, he is also a former special assistant to President George W. Bush.
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