John Edwards - Hardball interview w/Chris Matthews 3/16/06

[Catchawave]

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11877795/

But first, direct from New Orleans, former Democratic senator and vice presidential candidate, John Edwards is down there helping with the Katrina recovery. Senator, thank you very much for joining us from down there. What‘s it like down there? Is there a sense that things are working again or is this still a long way off?

JOHN EDWARDS (D), FMR. NC SENATOR: Long way off. I mean, where we are, I‘ve got 700 college kids who‘ve come with me to work during their spring break instead of going to the beach, which is an amazing thing. They‘re from like 80 plus schools across the country.

And from what we‘ve seen here—we‘re in St. Bernard‘s Parish, and we‘ve spent the day today, for example, gutting houses but there‘s enormous work left to be done here. And, in fact, we could have brought more kids who wanted to come and participate in this, but it‘s hard to find places for them to stay.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about these houses. We were watching down there on the ground and we watched all those houses being flooded in St. Bernard‘s Parish. Are those houses any good anymore, or you got to give them up for good or what? Or can you dig the muck up around them and get them sanitary again?

EDWARDS: Well, what you have to do is, you have to go in, dig out all the mess, shovel out all the mess. You can see some of it piled up behind me. We‘ve done that on 50 different locations here in St. Bernard‘s Parish all day long today. And once you get out the mess, then you can make a determination about whether the house could be rehabilitated. But I think a lot of these houses can be rehabilitated.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the situation in Iraq right now. You know the hell that‘s going on over there. This day we launched a major initiative, Operation Swarmer—you know, 1,500 troops, 50 helicopters, 200 land vehicles, an assault involving the United States and Iraqi forces, some who have mixed loyalties perhaps between the militia of the Shia and also the—their commanders and our outfits were put together. Are you optimistic we can, quote, “win that war” or are we better off just gradually reducing our commitment?

EDWARDS: Well, my view is it‘s extraordinarily unstable. I‘m worried about it, my own personal feeling that the thing may be slipping away from us and I think ultimately it‘s not going to be determined by the United States. I think it‘s going to be determined by Iraq and the Iraqi people.

You know, they‘ve got to decide if they‘re going to actually have a representative government, whether they‘re going to be able to protect themselves, and we can‘t—we can‘t take responsibility for this over the long haul.

So—and my own view is, we need to reduce our size, our footprint there and send an absolutely clear signal that we‘re not going to stay there forever, that we‘re going to let them govern themselves and protect themselves and that we‘re not there for oil.

MATTHEWS: When is the point at which you think we ought to just say this is going to be a civil war, these people don‘t want to form a common government, we‘re not going to stay in the cross-fire? When would you know that would be the time to make that call?

EDWARDS: I can‘t tell you today when that is. What I think we ought to do is we ought to start getting our presence much lower there. We ought to make them start taking responsibility for themselves and their own country and their own government.

And at some point in the future, if it‘s clear they‘re not going to do that, so be it. We can‘t do this for them over the long haul. And we need to make it absolutely clear we have no intention of doing it over the long haul.

MATTHEWS: You know, Senator, before you and the others who were in the United States Senate at the time voted to authorize a use of force in that very tricky time right before the 2002 election, you were told a lot of things.

You were told that there were weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein, including a nuclear potential against us in this country, that our arrival in that country would be greeted—we would be greeted as liberators. You were told by Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, that the Iraqi oil would pay for a mission which is now costing $1 trillion.

You were given all kinds of commitments over there. None of them turned out to be true. None of them. Do you feel it‘s something that the Democratic Party as a whole should say, we were lied to, we were misled, we were B.S.‘d, if you will, if that‘s somewhere in the middle and that we ought to just say so, yet you‘re one of the few who has said so.

EDWARDS: Well, here‘s—what I honestly think is that Bush, the administration, members of his administration, grossly misled the country, I think made an effort to mislead members of Congress.

But I think the other truth is, and I believe this very strongly, Chris, those of us who voted for this war—and as you know, I‘ve now said my vote was a mistake. Those of us who voted for this war, we had our own responsibility and we need to take responsibility for what it is we did.

Speaking for myself, you know, I was on the Intelligence Committee, I went to many hours of hearings and briefings, I talked to member—former members of the Clinton administration and I made a judgment and it turns out that judgment was wrong.

Well, I‘m responsible for that, but Bush and the administration are responsible for misleading the country, and making—and just being absolutely incompetent in the way they‘ve administered this war.

MATTHEWS: You know, Hillary Clinton, the senator from New York, will not say what you just said. She has a way of skirting the issue. We had her spokesman, Mr. Wolfson, on last night who said there wouldn‘t have been a vote to allow force if the administration hadn‘t made the case it made.

But she won‘t say that she made a mistake. Is she hemmed in by the fact that she‘s a woman and can‘t admit a mistake, or else the Republicans will say oh, that‘s a woman‘s prerogative to change her mind, or another fickle woman? Is her gender a problem in her ability to change her mind?

EDWARDS: Oh, I don‘t think her gender has anything to do with this.

I think this is an individual, personal ...

MATTHEWS: I mean because how it would be used by the other side. Not objectively, obviously ...

EDWARDS: Right. Right.

MATTHEWS: ... but how the other side would use it.

EDWARDS: No, I wouldn‘t—I don‘t think she‘s concerned about that. I don‘t think any woman leader in this country should be concerned about that. This is a difficult, independent judgment that people have to make about what they‘re going to say.

For me, you know, I‘ve been going around the country and the world talking about poverty and our moral responsibility. And I didn‘t feel like I could do that if I didn‘t tell the truth about what had happened with this war in Iraq, at least as it relates to me.

MATTHEWS: You‘re very young.

EDWARDS: It‘s also, I might add—can I add, Chris?

MATTHEWS: Sure.

EDWARDS: It‘s also—in fairness to everybody, it‘s very hard because, you know, I made a mistake, a serious mistake. So did lots of other people. President Bush made an enormous mistake. But the people who didn‘t make a mistake are the men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq, and who have served in Iraq. And that makes it very hard to talk about these things. But I still think it‘s the right and honest thing to do.

MATTHEWS: You know, like yourself, Jack Kennedy, when he ran for vice president in 1956 and lost, learned something about party politics. And he said afterwards, I‘m going to be a full-time professional politician now, no more just showing up and giving a nice speech, I am going to be a great political leader. I‘m going to build an organization and win the presidency. Does that sound like something you‘ve gone through?

EDWARDS: Well, part of it is what I‘ve gone through. I mean, you learn—when you‘re involved in a national campaign, you learn a great deal. You know, one of the things that I have seen and I have believed very strongly now is I don‘t think the country is looking for politicians that are like the politicians they‘ve seen all their lives.

I think they‘re hooking for leaders. I think they‘re looking for people who will tell them the truth, even when the truth is harsh and difficult to hear. And they‘re hooking for leaders that have back bone and strength and conviction and will actually stand up and fight for what they believe, whether it‘s popular or not.

I think the politics actually, the politics as usual as people say, is what people are sick of, and they see that all the time. They‘re looking for something different. They ought to be looking for something different.

MATTHEWS: Do you feel that anyone has more of a right to run for president on the Democratic side than you do?

EDWARDS: No, but I don‘t think I have any more right than anybody else. I think...

MATTHEWS: ... In other words, you don‘t feel you have to wait in line behind John Kerry or Hillary Clinton or anybody else and wait your turn again?

EDWARDS: If I decide to do this, I‘m not going to wait in line behind anybody. And I suspect nobody else will either.

MATTHEWS: Do you think you‘ll be running?

EDWARDS: Him who?

MATTHEWS: Do you think you‘ll be running, I‘m sorry, Senator, you misheard me. Do you think John Edwards of North Carolina, now working in New Orleans, will be running for president, six months from now?

EDWARDS: I‘m thinking about it, but I haven‘t decided yet.

MATTHEWS: Well let us know, will you Sir? Thank you, thank you for coming on and good luck with that good work down there in New Orleans. It‘s a great thing for kids to do rather than go to south of Florida, to the Gulf Coast and help rebuild. What a great thing, thank you.

EDWARDS: These kids are amazing.

MATTHEWS: By the way today—it sounds like it. Anyway, thank you, Senator.

Today Hardblogger College All-Star Eric Martin is in with John Edwards in New Orleans and you can read his blog on your Web site, he‘s out there working and blogging. Hardblogger.MSNBC.com.

[blue neen]

1. I saw Sen. Edwards' interview with Chris Matthews.

He was eloquent and sincere.

edited for typo.