MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC

SHOW: HARDBALL 23:00

BYLINE: Ben Ginsberg; Brian Williams; Tom Brokaw; Tim Russert; David Shuster; Ken Nesmith; Edward Hundert; Chris Jansing; Andrea Mitchell; Joe Scarborough; Ron Reagan; Chris Matthews

GUESTS: Patrick Leahy; Jesse Jackson; Lindsey Graham; Jon Meacham

HIGHLIGHT:
Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards face off in their first and only vice presidential debate.

BODY:
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Brian Williams. Great report.

Joining me now from the spin room, Senator Pat Leahy, Democrat from Vermont.

Senator Leahy, you have got to clear up this. You are a member of the Senate and great and longstanding. You are there all the time. You were there tussling it up with the vice president that infamous day. Is it possible for a senator to have never met the presiding officer of the Senate?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: Well, you know, the vice president does come up every Tuesday, as he says.

But unlike all vice presidents before him, he only meets with Republicans. He does not meet with Democrats. He only goes and meets with Republicans on Tuesday. We Democrats watch this entourage of 20 or 30 cars, sirens wailing up to Capitol Hill, and he goes in to meet with the Republicans, which is his choice. It's too bad. You know, there's still 49 in the Democratic Caucus that would love to see the presiding officer now and then.

MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you, if he only shows up for the Republican Caucus, how did he manage to offer you that encomium that he offered you that infamous day up near the chair?

LEAHY: Well, you know, you are going to have to ask him about that. I came here tonight to watch John Edwards. I thought he did an absolutely superb job.

MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about tonight.

Let me ask you about something that is very hot. And I thought Brian Williams did a great job of digging up that "Meet the Press" clip. It seems to me, this administration has been brilliant in suggesting, without saying so, a connection between 9/11 and the decision to go to Iraq. And if you can't find direct quotes to that effect, you can certainly sense that that was the way in which it was presented.

How do you look at this? Was the war with Iraq sold to U.S. as justice for 9/11 or wasn't it?

LEAHY: I'm sorry.

No, the war in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Afghanistan has something to do with 9/11. Osama bin Laden has something to do with 9/11. Our failed effort to find him and his forces in Afghanistan has nothing to do with 9/11.

I think you saw the vice president, here's a chance to clear up a lot of the mistakes they have made during the past four years. He made no effort to at all. I think it was very, very defensive. I think he was extremely defensive. This is an administration that came in promising to unite the country, not divide it. They end up with a more divided country than ever before.

They squandered the largest surplus any administration ever inherited, turned it into the biggest deficit. They have to go into the Social Security trust fund to do it. They sent troops into Iraq, pretending it was because of 9/11, now having to admit that it wasn't. And even Ambassador Bremer, who was a man on the ground, admits today they didn't send in enough troops. They didn't have a plan to win the peace. They had no idea what they would do once they got in there.

This has been an administration that has had mistake after mistake. And the vice president with his attacks or talk about things 20 or 30 years ago, did absolutely nothing to cover up the mistakes. Also, one of the things is, you never learn from a mistake if you don't admit it. He has a lot of mistakes to admit. I got the impression tonight he is never, ever going to admit them.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you if you will clarify something for your party and your ticket. Does the Democratic Party, the Democratic ticket for president and vice president believe going into Iraq was a blunder?

LEAHY: Well, you know, everybody is going to have to ask that question on their own.

I was opposed to going in there. I strongly supported going into Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden was. I wish we had kept the troops there. I have said over and over again, if we went into Iraq, we ought to go in with the number of troops we wanted. But you know what happens. This administration does not want to hear any dissent from anybody. They don't want to hear it internally in their own administration. They don't want to hear it outside.

You see how they react when they do have it. General Shinseki told, the Army, chief of staff, they needed to have more people there. What did they do? They just pushed him off-they pushed him out of his command.

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much, Senator Patrick Leahy.

LEAHY: Thank you.