Transcript: Tweety & Ben Ginsberg service BushCo on Hardball (9/30/05)

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9571684/

MATTHEWS: I‘m with Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg, who is an advisor to a pressure group Progress for America, and former New York City public advocate, Mark Green, who‘s now president of the New Democracy Project. Let me ask you this, Ben: what is the significance of the charge that top people around the president, Karl Rove and “Scooter” Libby, the vice president‘s chief of staff, were pushing out the identity of Joe Wilson‘s wife?

BEN GINSBERG, FMR. BUSH/CHENEY ‘04 COUNSEL: Well, I‘m not sure that‘s what really happened. I mean, that‘s been the charge all along. But—

MATTHEWS: What could have happened today? Based on what‘s in the paper, how could it be something else than what I‘ve just said? Tell me what else it could be?

GINSBERG: Suppose a reporter calls up a source in the White House and said, hey, have you heard why did Joe Wilson end up being the one who was sent over there? That doesn‘t mean it was the White House official who then put out her name, or violated the law, by knowing that she was a covert operative. You‘re jumping to conclusions.

MATTHEWS: So what‘s—no, no, no—what is necessary for that conclusion, beyond what we know today? If we know that they said it‘s his wife, who has got him sent on this trip and she works for the CIA, what more do you have to know, to know that they broke the law?

GINSBERG: That they deliberately knew she was an undercover agent is one of the parts (ph) in the law.

MATTHEWS: So it‘s her status that distinguishes—that makes it a crime?

GINSBERG: I‘m not buying into your presumption—I‘m not buying into your presumption that that‘s the way the conversations went, Chris, and that makes a difference in a case like this.

---SNIP---

GINSBERG: Well, John Roberts was just approved 78-22. That is not a weakened president. Number two, Mark can answer the questions about—that you correctly asked about political corruption. What you have here is the Democrats smear machine, because they have no positive agenda. They cannot tell you what they‘re for. And so therefore, all of these folks are capable of doing like Mark is, is a smear attack that‘s not valid.