Bill Frist on Porkbusting, the Bolton Confirmation, and the Joys of the Blogosphere

by eScribers, LLC

(Music intro)
GLENN: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glenn & Helen Show. Now brought to you by Pajamas Media’s POLITICSCENTRAL.com. I’m Glenn Reynolds.
HELEN: And I’m Helen Smith. Today we were lucky enough to catch up with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He talks about PorkBusters, his new Blogging for Bolton venture, new legislation on military tribunals for terrorists and more.
GLENN: Including how blogging and podcasting have given him a rich, full life. Stay tuned.
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HELEN: We’ve got Senator Frist on the line now.
HS: Hi, Senator Frist.
BF: Hey, good morning. Good to be with you both.
GR: Great to have you here. Now, last time we talked you said you were going to do something about pork and you seem to be a man of your word. The Earmark Transparency Bill has passed the Senate and I understand it passed the House last night. I suppose we can count on the President signing it.
BF: First of all, we made huge progress and with tremendous help from the blogosphere. The Senate passed S2590, which is formally called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, and yes, last night it was passed exactly as we wrote the bill. And thus, it is on the way to the President as of today and he will be signing that bill. Right now, it’s projected for next week.
It is a huge step forward. It’s one of these very simple bills that focus on transparency and accountability by establishing the single, easily-searchable database that I am convinced will bust some pork just because people will be able to see what is there, questions will be asked, legislators and members of the executive branch are going to feel the heat and have to justify each and every program in the future.
HS: Do you really think this will help the pork problem?
BF: I absolutely do. One of the biggest challenges today is for people to fully understand what has been passed and will be passed. And by being able to, in essence, search or Google, in effect, a particular bill or a fund or a grant or a earmark or a loan, that sunshine, that light, I am absolutely convinced will help eliminate pork in the future.
GR: Helen just thought this was one of my harebrained schemes.
HS: I did. Glenn’s always been going around talking about PorkBusters and originally, I thought it was some kind of joke or something. I didn’t realize it was actually going to help a bill get passed through the House and the Senate.
BF: Well, you know, what did help was the pressure from below and the blogosphere reached out and got it. What happens in Washington is people think you have to have these long complex bills, legalese that ultimately regulators look at. This is so simple, so straightforward, and the power in the simplicity was painted. That portrait was painted. Again, I have to attribute a lot to the blogosphere in bringing it to every United States senator’s attention. So it will have a huge impact.
GR: It looks like you’re sort of following the lead here of blogosphere activity. You’ve got this new site called BloggingforBolton.com You want to tell us about that?
BF: Yes. We have the new site up on the BloggingforBolton.com which has as its purpose: again, educating people broadly as to the importance of the Bolton nomination with regard to the future of the United Nations and how we can get him across the finish line. Right now, he is being obstructed in the United States Senate by Democratic senators and with that, there is the opportunity through the site to be able to get the telephone numbers of individual senators and to call them and let them know that what they’re doing is not in the interest of the United States. Bolton —
HS: Now —
BF: Bolton, let me just add, is doing a superb job. He has delivered everything the American people expect in his service thus far. I’m going to do everything in my power in the next two and a half weeks to bring him to the floor of the Senate for an up or down vote, which he deserves.
HS: Now, why are so many Democrats so opposed to Bolton? Because it seems that from what you said and from what I’ve read, that he’s pretty effective.
BF: You know, Bolton speaks his mind. And he is a Reformist. He represents the United States with boldness, with real discipline and for some reason the Democrats have sort of turned a blind eye to the importance of that. In part, it’s simply because he’s a nominee of the President of the United States and they want to do everything they can to defeat the policies of this President.
So, I think the fact that nearly five years after 9/11, we are having a generational struggle. We need somebody with Bolton’s prestige, with his integrity, with his boldness, with his forthrightness at the United Nations as we address the very tough issues that we have seen barely unfold in the last several months. Sanctions against Iran, action in Darfur region of Africa, the actions in Southern Lebanon recently. These are tough issues that we need to take an aggressive stance on and have the interest of the United States represented and John Bolton is the man to do that.
HS: Well, it seems like psychologically so many people are against being bold. I mean, it seems like particularly liberal — the Democrats seem very upset by any type of stance that they perceive to be, like a cowboy stance or a bold stance. I mean, to me it seems psychological. They just can’t stand for people to put their foot down and say this is the truth or this is what’s going on. It seems like if you’re real wishy-washy and kind of talk around the issues and don’t really use anything direct, then that’s okay.
BF: Well, you know, what we need is definition. Clear definition. Clear leadership. If something is evil, call it evil and take action. Don’t sit there and either pander or rely on political — so-called political correctness. You know, in the past, pre-9/11, you could slip by with that and that’s what the Democrats have done. Right now, we have to be forceful. We have to be bold. If something is evil, we have to call it evil. We can’t just talk about it. We’ve got to act.
And that’s the sort of leadership that John Bolton represents. It’s the sort of leadership that President Bush represents. And, you’re right, the Democrats have a hard time with that. They want to be much more accommodating, wishy-washy, less direct, less disciplined in both comments and action and that’s unsatisfactory in this post 9/11 world.
GR: Now, you’ve got the terrorist surveillance legislation in front of the Senate now. And can you tell us what’s happening with that?
BF: Glenn, this is big. And it is as important as any legislation or issue that we’ve had to address recently. Last week I was in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — last weekend. And I took the next Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, down there and our inspector. At Guantanamo Bay are the fourteen terrorists that have been recently moved there, including the mastermind behind the 9/11 events: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others that are there.
The one thing I realized is how important it is that we’re able to interrogate in a humane way, but interrogate, these detainees, get that information to uncover plots. We’ve uncovered at least eleven plots since 9/11 which are lifesaving for Americans using information like that, using the appropriate humane interrogation techniques.
What is at risk on the floor today — in fact, today in the Armed Services Committee is a bill that would prevent those interrogation processes from being carried out. The President made it very clear yesterday that we have to get this bill right. It’s a bill that’s in response to the so-called Hamdan decision, from now two months ago Supreme Court decision, and the issue very simply is this: the Hamdan decision says that these military commissions or terrorist tribunals where we’re trying these terrorists, who have either killed or plotted to kill Americans, the Supreme Court decided those terrorist tribunals have to adhere to the Geneva Convention or an international treaty, what’s called Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, the Geneva Convention treaty. The legislation put forth by the Armed Services Committee does not define what is in that Article 3. It keeps it vague and thus, according to the administration, would take down our current surveillance programs, interrogation programs with detainees today.
Thus, I am very supportive of, not that legislation, but I am very supportive of the legislation put forth by the President which does not give classified information to terrorists who are on trial and which clearly defines what is in this Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. And it is critical that we support the President here. There is a debate that will take place in the Senate today in committee today and it will likely continue to next week.
GR: This has been pretty controversial, hasn’t it?
BF: It is really not very controversial in the sense that the House yesterday through their committee overwhelmingly supported the President in having a clearly defined program that can be continued, written into legislation. I’ve introduced that very same bill on the floor of the Senate. The controversy has been created by three senators, Senator Warner and Senator McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham, who disagree with the President and believe that Article 3 should remain undefined and thus we would be subjected to, unfortunately, international whims and international treaties which might not be in accordance with what we in the United States believe.
GR: Well, now, so far, we’ve interviewed both Harold Ford and Bob Corker on the show and the Tennessee Senate race is starting to look pretty close. Do you think the Republicans are going to be able to keep control of the House and Senate this fall?
BF: Tennesseans want a United State senator, a statewide office holder, that represents their values, that represents their beliefs, and that they know will represent them with integrity and honesty and consistency. Bob Corker is that man. Bob Corker will be the next United States senator. It will be a challenging race over the next fifty-five days but I don’t believe that Tennesseans want to elect somebody who has consistently voted against the tax relief that the President of the United States and the Republican leadership has given them. And Harold Ford has voted against the tax cuts and thus would reverse those and increase taxes of Tennesseans. Bob Corker would keep those taxes low.
Bob Corker believes in energy independence and therefore will support environmentally friendly exploration for fuel, for oil, in the United States and Harold Ford will vote against increasing that supply of homegrown American energy because he’s voted against that. So, the ANWAR, which is the opening of Alaska to oil that we know that is there. Those sorts of issues, once the Tennesseans see what those differences are, will ultimately define victory for Bob Corker.
HS: Now, you’ll be winding up in the Senate in a few months and I really respect you for keeping your term limits promise, but what comes next? Are you going to go back to medicine?
BF: Helen, we will see. You know, it’s interesting. Not many politicians come in and say — and take a term limit pledge and then turn around and do exactly that. And it was twelve years ago that I said that if elected to the United States Senate, as a citizen legislator, I would go to Washington and serve for twelve years and work hard and do my very best to represent the people of Tennessee. And then after twelve years of being in Washington, I would come back home and live under the laws that we passed. A citizen legislator just like back in the old days. And I’m going to do just that. So, in about five months, four months, I’ll be back in Middle, Tennessee, a citizen, not in government and it will make decisions about the future.
I spent twenty years becoming a doctor and practicing medicine. Just yesterday I got a call from a reporter who was interviewing a patient who I’d done a heart lung transplant on over twenty years ago, and he’s doing fine. And in that conversation it made me realize how powerful and how noble that profession of the practice of medicine is.
But also, politics and public service is a noble profession so I’ll need to make a decision in January, February, March, somewhere in there, as to which of those noble professions I’ll continue.
GR: Well, you’ve been blogging and podcasting and I can tell you there’s a rich, full life to be had that way.
BF: Yeah, well, that’s right. I will continue that. Both the importance of it, because that is just education, as you know, and the ability to reach people with information they’re interested is very, very powerful. So, whatever I do, I will continue to operate within the blogosphere.
HS: So, Senator, do you read your blog comments? Do you actually read — do you —
BF: You mean, people who write in their responses?
HS: Yeah.
BF: The ones that I write to set things off, I try to carefully place so that we do get good responses of people coming in because I use the information and the comments and that’s why I put so much emphasis on it. That’s why I take so much time with it. Because it’s got to be a two-way street of information coming and going. It’s useful for me to get information out just because I’m in the seat of so much information that comes through our office. But what is equally important is the responses that people write in, their interpretation, what they see. They are outside of this Washington Beltway and it allows me to extend my reach in understanding the impact of legislation. And also, people’s interpretation of what the impact might be. And I think that the Transparency and Accountability bill that passed last night in the House is a perfect example of that. That once we made that public to people broadly, they said, absolutely. If we can see what’s going on there, then we’ll know what to hold people accountable for.
GR: Well, thank you so much for joining us.
BF: Great to be with you once again. Thank you.
HS: Thank you.
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HELEN: Well, that was fun. We recorded this at 7 in the morning and I can’t believe how lively he managed to sound. I’m still in my pajamas.
GLENN: I think the Republicans would have rather he’d ignored his term limits pledge so they wouldn’t have an open seat in Tennessee. But I kind of admire him for keeping it when so many other politicians have broken theirs.
Anyway, we’ve pledged to keep these shows as interesting as we can make them. You can find updates or past episodes at GlennandHelenShow.com and you can subscribe via iTunes, My Yahoo and various other services. We’ll be back whenever we feel like it. So until then, have fun on the internet.
HELEN: Talk to you next time.
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(Time ended: 7:55 a.m.)

Transcribed by: Lisa Bar-Leib
Transcribed for eScribers, LLC
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