Chris Wallace Hosts Fox News Sunday
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XXX of the week.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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PALIN: The campaign said, Right on, good, you're showing your independence. This is what America needs to see, and it was a good interview. And of course, I'm thinking, If you thought that was a good interview, I don't know what a bad interview was, because I knew it wasn't a good interview.
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WALLACE: Love her or hate her, you're about to see a lot more of Sarah Palin when her book hits the stores and she comes to a television screen near you this week. Excuse me.
And we're back now with the panel.
So the book isn't even officially out until Tuesday, Bill, and there are already lots of stories, and they primarily focus on her war of words with the McCain campaign staffers, whether she did right by them, whether they did wrong by her.
From what you know, is that fair to the spirit of the book? And did she make a mistake writing about all this campaign internecine war in such juicy detail?
KRISTOL: No, she had to address it. I mean, it would be kind of crazy -- here's Sarah Palin's book, and she's not going to talk about her two months on -- in a credibly visible and interesting way on the national stage?
I gather the book is pre-campaign, a pretty interesting autobiography. She takes -- she settles some scores on the campaign, which from my point of view is fine, and then she looks ahead in the last chapter, I guess, in terms of her agenda.
I haven't read the book. Look, she will either -- she'll do the million interviews, giving speeches over the next year, campaigning for candidates. As Newt Gingrich said today, she'll either prove herself or she won't. Her fate is in her hands.
And a lot of people can sit and try to rule her out ahead of time. I'm struck by how many people want to do that. It makes me think that maybe they're a little scared of her being a very popular Republican, a conservative, but it's up to her whether she made mistakes.
She didn't have a -- she said she had a bad interview with Katie Couric. She let herself get mishandled in the campaign in 2008. It's now up to her to see if she can move ahead.
WALLACE: Mara, I've got to tell you that two -- I'm sitting just by my desk here preparing my show very assiduously, and two of the McCain staffers most prominently mentioned in the book -- and there they are.
Steve Schmidt, who immediately called up and said, Why is the bald guy always the villain, and Nicolle Wallace both called me and said that the Palin stories are made up and, quote, total fiction.
LIASSON: Well, I think what that guarantees is you're going to have this family feud, the Palin vs. the McCains, going on for quite a while.
And that's going to be one of the kind of sidelines of this story as she makes her big media debut. And they can fight it out, and I don't know who's going to end up getting the better of it. I don't think it's going to be good for either of them.
I think the question about Palin's future -- I think she is -- the fact that she's interesting, and charismatic, and polarizing and has tremendous popularity among the Republican base guarantees she's going to have a future as a force in the party, as a media celebrity.
The big question is what about her future as an actual candidate. And what I think about is whether or not she's willing to do the work that she wasn't willing to do when she went back to Alaska, which is kind of fill in the gaps, get up to speed on policy and kind of make herself into the full package candidate that you have to be if you're going to run for president. And I don't know if that's going to happen or not.
But even without that, she certainly has got a great career ahead of her.
WALLACE: Liz, you know, let me follow up on that, and put yourself, if you will, in the position of political adviser to Sarah Palin.
If she wanted to take advantage of all the attention she's going to get -- she's going to -- I mean, it's not just the book. She's going to be on Oprah tomorrow. She's going to be on Barbara Walters all week. She's going to be on Fox a bunch of times.
Should she try to pivot off this who struck John during the campaign and talk about other things?
CHENEY: You know, I actually don't think she's stuck on that. I've actually read parts of the book, and it's a good book. It's a good read. It's well written. She comes across, you know, as very likable, as somebody with a lot of common sense.
When she does make criticism, I have to say she does it with a pretty deft touch, and the book is moving in some parts. She talks about what it was like to meet mothers and other children with Down syndrome on the campaign trail.
So you know, it's clearly -- it reads like it was written by somebody who's got their future in mind. And you know, I think that the media likes to focus on, you know, sort of who shot John and who's up and who's down.
In terms of 2012, whatever Republican takes the mantle of our party in 2012, you know, they're going to have to be able to address these incredibly grave challenges we're facing as a nation.
They're going to -- in my view, they're -- they will have to undo a lot of the damage, some of which we talked about in the last segment, that this president has done to our national security, to our economy, to our health care system, to our standing around the world.
And the person who is going to be able to sort of put forward the kind of leadership and courageous policy proposals that will attract Republicans as well as independents -- and I think by 2012 you'll have a number of moderate Democrats who are also looking for a way out...
WALLACE: Let me ask a...
CHENEY: ... I think that person will...
WALLACE: ... Let me ask a simple question before I go to Juan. Do you take...
CHENEY: ... will prevail.
WALLACE: ... Sarah Palin seriously as a potential presidential candidate?
CHENEY: Absolutely.
WALLACE: Because?
CHENEY: You know, look. I think that she will have to go through the exact same process as anybody else, but you know, she was our vice presidential nominee in 2008, and I think that it would be nothing short of sexist to say that simply, you know, she -- she's not a serious candidate.
Once you've been the vice presidential nominee, you are a serious candidate. Now, she has to prove herself like everybody else has to prove themselves.
WALLACE: Juan?
WILLIAMS: Well, Bill Kristol is in love with her, so I'll excuse his comments this morning.
But you? Why would you say that she's a serious candidate for president?
CHENEY: Juan, she was the...
WILLIAMS: Look, she has...
CHENEY: ... she was...
WILLIAMS: ... she has -- look.
CHENEY: I think she's a contender, Juan.
WILLIAMS: Let us -- let us look...
CHENEY: And I think she's got to...
WILLIAMS: ... at the record here.
CHENEY: ... prove herself like everybody else.
WILLIAMS: Let's look at the record here. The woman resigned --resigned -- from being governor of Alaska, a responsible position, with no reason.
Secondly, she's the one who's been talking about things like death panels.
Even if you are a die-hard conservative, she essentially gave the Democrats the 23rd congressional district of New York when she hijacked the nomination from the person that the Republicans had nominated and gave it to this true-blue -- true-red conservative, I should say. And what did it do? It imploded.
There is -- I mean, this is someone who is centered on herself. She apparently doesn't even know what's going on with her family. She says in these interviews that the kids don't know...
CHENEY: Do you know her well? Do you know her well?
WILLIAMS: I don't know her well. I'm just saying this is the record. This is the records of interviews. You say judge her ahead of time, Bill. It's incredible to me. This is a windfall for Barack Obama in 2012...
WALLACE: OK.
WILLIAMS: ... if anybody would suggest...
WALLACE: All right. I...
WILLIAMS: ... Sarah Palin should be the Republican nominee.
WALLACE: Nobody's going to get to respond to that comment, because we are going to switch to another subject. We've got less than two minutes left.
The Internet is abuzz today with this picture. Take a look. It is a picture of the president of the United States bowing to the emperor of Japan during his trip to Asia. By way of comparison, when Vice President Cheney met the emperor in 2007, no bow.
Bill Kristol, what do you make of bow-gate?
KRISTOL: Sarah Palin would not have bowed to the emperor of Japan.
(LAUGHTER)
She wouldn't even have curtsied to him, you know? Nor would she have an attorney general who is taking the extremely risky move of bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York. Oh, I don't know. I mean, it...
CHENEY: You could also look at the comparison and think Cheney 2012.
KRISTOL: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: How far do you want to go with that...
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: Cheney-Palin. Anyway...
WALLACE: Or Palin-Cheney. Don't be sexist.
KRISTOL: I met the emperor when I was Vice President Quayle's chief of staff. We went over just after he was...
WALLACE: Did you bow?
KRISTOL: No. And the vice president didn't. And we weren't told by the embassy to. And I bet if you look at pictures of world leaders over 20 years meeting the emperor in Japan, they don't bow.
I don't know why President Obama thought that was appropriate. Maybe he thought it would play well in Japan. But it's not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one.
WALLACE: Mara?
LIASSON: Yeah, I think it's not that significant either way. He was obviously showing his respect to a foreign leader. I don't think he was showing his allegiance to the emperor of Japan.
WALLACE: Well, that's a good thing to clear up. Thank you all, panel. See you next week.
And don't forget to check out the latest edition of Panel Plus where our group here continues the discussion shortly after the show ends on our website, foxnewssunday.com.
Time now for a comment that you posted to our blog, Wallace Watch, that reflected the thoughts of many about last week's tragedy at Fort Hood.
Fonda Parker writes, I believe that the murderer was not fully investigated. People are so afraid to say anything about anyone. The government can cover itself all it wants, but the average American knows that we are ruining ourselves with political correctness.
Please keep your comments coming to foxnewssunday.com. Up next, our Power Player of the Week.
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WALLACE: The H1N1 scare is just the latest in a long line of health emergencies that have confronted our country. And for decades one man has led his team working almost non-stop to protect us. He's our Power Player of the Week.
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FAUCI: We get confronted with various challenges through the years -- HIV/AIDS, SARS, West Nile, regular influenza and now pandemic influenzas.
WALLACE: For a quarter century, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, which means since 1984 he's led government research into vaccines and other treatment of some of our worst illnesses.
How have you stayed in such a high-visibility job for a quarter century?
FAUCI: If you just stick with the science, don't get involved in any political things, no ideology, just stick with the science --the science is true and the science is knowledge.
WALLACE: These days Fauci is focused on swine flu and those long lines waiting for the vaccine. The government projected by now there would be 200 million doses, but so far there are only 40 million.
The main problem was just making the stuff?
FAUCI: That was the problem, not the main problem. It was the problem.
WALLACE: Fauci says it turned out growing this strain of vaccine took longer than expected. But he adds while H1N1 spreads easily, it turns out to be mild to moderate as flus go. And he says doctors and patients should have no more fears about this vaccine than any flu shot.
FAUCI: I think the idea of being afraid of getting vaccinated is probably kind of a knee-jerk reaction that doesn't necessarily look at the scientific facts.
WALLACE: If H1N1 is Fauci's latest battle, it's not his biggest one.
Fair to say that AIDS has been your fight of career?
FAUCI: There's no doubt about it.
WALLACE: He said almost from the moment gay men started getting the disease in 1981, he devoted his life to fighting it. Back then AIDS activists thought he was part of the problem.
You were public enemy number one.
FAUCI: Well, I was public enemy number one because I was the face of the federal government.
WALLACE: But over the years, Fauci's pioneering work on the immune system helped develop drugs to fight a disease that was once 100 percent fatal.
FAUCI: Now a person comes into my clinic. If that's a 20-year- old person who was just HIV-infected and I began treatment, I could predict that person would live to at least 69, 70 years old.
WALLACE: Tony Fauci started at the National Institutes of Health in 1968.
FAUCI: I wanted something that was clear, no ambiguity about infectious disease. They come in, they make you very sick or they kill you, or you do something and you make somebody better.
WALLACE: In the last 41 years, his work ethic has become legendary.
People say, Infamous workaholic. Never takes a vacation. Never even considers retirement. How do you plead?
FAUCI: Guilty. Totally. Totally guilty.
WALLACE: And even now at age 68, he has no interest in slowing down.
FAUCI: We have the AIDS challenge. There's malaria. There's tuberculosis. And I want to get us out of this H1N1 pandemic situation. So we've got a lot of things we need to do. So that's the future that I'm looking at.
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WALLACE: If you want practical advice about the H1N1 virus, who should get the vaccine, how do you know if you have swine flu, you can see a special segment of our interview with Dr. Fauci at foxnewssunday.com.
And that's it for today. Have a great week and we'll see you next Fox News Sunday.
