CQ Transcriptswire

SPEAKERS: CHRIS WALLACE, HOST

SEN. JON KYL, R-ARIZ., SENATE MINORITY WHIP

SEN. BEN NELSON, D-NEB.

KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS ANALYST

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS MARA LIASSON, FOX NEWS

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS

BILL KRISTOL, FOX NEWS

[*] WALLACE: I’m Chris Wallace, and this is “FOX News Sunday.”

A political showdown between Barack Obama and Dick Cheney over keeping the country safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We must leave these methods where they belong -- in the past. They are not who we are, and they are not American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: To completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future is unwise in the extreme and would make the American people less safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: We’ll continue the national security debate with two top senators, Republican Jon Kyl and Democrat Ben Nelson .

Then, while the GOP gains some traction against the president on closing Gitmo, what about fights ahead over domestic issues? We’ll talk strategy with Karl Rove, a former key White House adviser.

Plus, Washington awaits a Supreme Court nominee. We’ll ask our Sunday group how fierce a confirmation battle to expect.

And our Power Player of the Week honors our fallen soldiers in 24 musical notes, all right now on “FOX News Sunday.”

And hello again from Fox News in Washington. Well, on this Memorial Day weekend, we want to continue the debate over our security and our values. Joining us, two senators who are leading voices in this area -- from Phoenix, the number two Republican in the Senate, Jon Kyl , and from Omaha, Democrat Ben Nelson , a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senators, let’s start with the issue that you had to -- you’re going to have to vote on later this year, and that is whether to approve funding for the closing of Guantanamo.

Now, this past week, the Senate voted against funding by a vote of 90-6, demanding that the Obama administration first come up with a plan. Senator Kyl, let me start with you. What do you need to see from the Obama administration that would convince you to allow some of these detainees into the U.S.?

KYL: I don’t think he can convince me of that. First of all, it would be against United States law for people to be released into the United States who are terrorists. That’s already illegal. He can’t do that.

And I don’t know why it is better to have somebody in a so-called Supermax facility in, say, Colorado than it is to keep them in Guantanamo, a state-of-the-art facility that we built not too long ago for the explicit purpose of holding these people.

There’s nothing wrong with the prison in Gitmo, and there are a lot of problems, as FBI Director Mueller pointed out in testimony just this week, with bringing those people to the United States.

WALLACE: Senator Nelson, congressional Democrats, I think it’s fair to say, jumped ship on the administration this week on the idea of closing Guantanamo. What do you need to see from the administration in the way of a plan before you can get behind this?

NELSON: Well, the president needs to come forward with a complete plan, a comprehensive plan. I think there are differences between those terrorists that have committed crimes in America against American law, such as Moussaoui -- they’re already in prisons here, Supermax prisons -- 30-some out in Colorado.

So consequently, I think what has to be done is a distinction made between those criminals and those who are -- who have yet to be tried by tribunals. I think the tribunals can occur anywhere, and I’d prefer not to see them occur in America, on -- in the -- within the continental United States.

Once they’re convicted, and assuming they will be, then I think we need to work out with their countries an arrangement where they’re incarcerated there. Those countries have a responsibility, too. They are, after all, their citizens, their residents, and they need to -- they need to step to the forefront on it as well.

WALLACE: I’m a little confused by your answer, though, Senator Nelson. Are you saying if someone is convicted -- now, I understand the administration is trying to get other countries to take some of these detainees. But -- and so far, the Obama administration has had the good fortune of getting only two picked up, one by Britain and one by France.

Are you saying that you would be willing to accept convicted terrorists in the United States, even perhaps in Nebraska?

NELSON: Well, no. Look, and federal prisons -- we don’t have any in Nebraska, so it’s not about “not in my backyard.” This is a situation where we have Moussaoui here. We have the blind cleric from the first bombing of the twin trade towers. We have them here. I’m just saying if they committed violations of American law, that’s one thing. They can be tried here, and it might be even hard to argue that they shouldn’t be kept here.

But on those that are detainees that have violated the laws of war, we don’t have to worry about bringing them here. I think they need to be kept elsewhere, wherever that is. I don’t think -- I don’t want to see them come on American soil.

WALLACE: Let me ask you both a simple question to try to wrap this up.

And I’ll start with you, Senator Kyl. A year from when the president made his original announcement, next January, will Guantanamo be open or closed?

KYL: Well, Chris, I don’t know. I mean, the president can make a very foolish decision and close it without having figured out what to do with the people. I can’t imagine that he would do that, however.

The reality is that the American people don’t want these people in the United States. By a Fox survey, 55-37, they don’t want to close Guantanamo.

You’ve got a Democratic House member, by the way, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Judge Hastings, who’s going to be introducing legislation, he says, to keep Gitmo open as long as it’s open to international observers and anyone else who would like to come down and see how well it’s run.

The reality is that there’s no point in having some kind of facility in the United States where these people are kept if it can be done in Guantanamo, and it can be done there perfectly safely.

WALLACE: And, Senator Nelson, very briefly, your best guess -- Guantanamo open or closed by next January?

NELSON: Well, the president said it should be closed. John McCain said it should be closed. President Bush before he left said it should be closed. Secretary Gates said it should be closed. And former secretary Colin Powell, I believe, has also said it should be closed.

And whether it’s closed or not, we have to have a plan in place that outlines how we deal with the -- the people who are incarcerated there, the combatants. We have to find a way to do that. That’s why I think we’re -- people are jumping on the president right now.

I think what they ought to do is wait until a plan comes out. Then there’s plenty of time. I’m sure they’ll find another reason to jump on him at that point.

WALLACE: Gentlemen, let me pivot a little bit. President Obama and Vice President Cheney had quite a debate over national security this week, and I want to play for both of you what they had to say on the issue of enhanced interrogation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: They alienate us from the world, they serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: This recruitment tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the president himself. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the left, “we brought it on ourselves.”

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Senator Nelson, who’s right about the balance between, on the one hand, keeping the country safe and, on the other hand, living up to our values?

NELSON: Well, they probably both are in some -- to one degree or another. I don’t think anybody wants to see this country attacked again. And I think it’s also a question about whether or not it is held against us because these tactics have been used.

But look, the president, when he was running, said that we’re going to stop waterboarding. John McCain has said it’s torture. I think what we have to do is understand that this decision apparently was decided last -- last November.

But what we need to do is make sure that the intelligence information that’s gathered is accurate, that we do everything within our power to get good intelligence, and it may or may not consist of coming from enhanced techniques.

But you know, right now you’ve got questions about whether or not you’re getting accurate information from the CIA. Former Speaker Gingrich said back in ‘07 that the National Intelligence -- the NIE was (inaudible), not -- not workable, was not good, it was full of misinformation. And then you had Peter Hoekstra , Representative Hoekstra, saying he got lied to.

I think we need to get our intelligence at the best level that we can and stop the focus quite so much on enhanced techniques.

WALLACE: Let me, though, go back to that for a minute, Senator Kyl, because despite Dick Cheney ’s defenses this week, even the Bush administration stopped using almost all of these techniques years ago.

KYL: Well, the point is President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to use enhanced interrogation techniques under the right circumstances, except for waterboarding.

And Dick Cheney is absolutely correct -- those techniques used on a few people, not at Gitmo, produced the important intelligence that, as former CIA Director George Tenet said, saved lives.

The current director of national intelligence, Admiral Blair, agreed that these were high-value, important people who gave us important information about Al Qaida.

And so these techniques, first of all, were not criminal. They are constitutional. They didn’t violate a treaty. They provided important information that saved lives, and they had nothing to do with Gitmo.

When the president said in his speech that it -- that the existence of Gitmo probably created more terrorists than have ever been held there, he meant to say that 770 people or more became terrorists because we have a prison at Guantanamo.

We called his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, and asked for information about the charges that he’d made in his speech. We haven’t heard back yet. This is a false charge. In fact, it’s culpably false.

9/11 hijackers didn’t do their deeds because of Gitmo. The people that blew up the Cole or Khobar Towers or the first World Trade Center -- they didn’t sit around and say, “Gee, there’s Gitmo down there,” because it didn’t exist.

And even after that, I don’t think you saw guys sitting around some coffee shop in Saudi Arabia saying, “You know, those Americans have this prison called Gitmo. I think I’ll become a terrorist.”

I mean, it’s palpably false to suggest that the existence of Gitmo created terrorism, and yet the president gets away with that. We haven’t done anything wrong there. We haven’t lost our values. And Dick Cheney is exactly right at what he said in his speech.

WALLACE: Gentlemen, I want to move on to another topic. We expect the president in the next week or 10 days to announce his Supreme Court nominee.

Senator Kyl, back in January, in a speech before a lawyers’ group, the Federalist Society in Phoenix, you said that if the president’s choice is too liberal, you reserve the right to filibuster that choice. Do you stand by that, sir?

KYL: I went on to say a lot of things about what I meant by that, and I was distinguishing between a person who is just liberal -- and undoubtedly this nominee will be liberal -- and one who decides cases not based upon the law or the merits but, rather, upon his or her emotions, or feelings or preconceived ideas. That would be a circumstance in which I could not support the nominee.

Now, be clear. Republicans don’t have the votes to filibuster a nominee, and that’s probably not going to happen in this case either. But we will distinguish between a liberal judge on one side and one who doesn’t decide cases on the merits but, rather, on the basis of his or her preconceived ideas. WALLACE: But I just want to make sure I have this straight, because in fact, in the numbers now, you perhaps do have -- and if you could get some Democratic defections -- the opportunity to filibuster. You are reserving that right if you feel that the president’s choice is so far out of the mainstream.

KYL: Yes, the -- the Gang of 14 back three or four years ago had a standard that I think is probably appropriate. They said that there shouldn’t be a filibuster of judges except in extraordinary circumstances. And I think that’s -- that has it about right.

And hopefully the president won’t nominate someone here who is so far out of the mainstream in terms of the way that he or she approaches deciding cases that we won’t have to do that.

WALLACE: Well, let me just ask you -- and I do take all of your caveats here, Senator Kyl. Back in 2005, when Democrats were -- excuse me -- filibustering some Bush nominees and you were considering the nuclear option to stop that, here’s what you said. “It’s never been the case until the last two years that a minority could dictate to a majority what they could do.” So are you backtracking on that?

KYL: What I’m saying, Chris, is that in extraordinary circumstances, which is essentially the way that the Senate resolved that dispute about the nuclear option, as you say, I think both Democrats and Republicans reserve the right to not only oppose a nomination but also prevent vote on the nomination. That should be a rare case.

And I would hope that the president’s nominee would not fall into that category. But I think you never say never here. And given the fact that the president has already signaled that he wants to appoint someone who has empathy and will decide cases based on that, I think you have to reserve it.

When Justice Roberts was asked the case (sic) in his confirmation hearing, “Would you vote for the little guy or the big guy,” he said, “It depends on whose side the law was. If the law is on the side of the little guy, he wins. If it’s on the side of the big guy, he wins.”

I don’t want the test to be, “Are you for the little guy or the big guy?” I want the test to be blind justice. Where is the law?

WALLACE: Let me just ask you briefly -- and I promise I’m going to bring you in in a moment, Senator Nelson.

Is there anybody on the list of names that we have heard in the last couple of weeks, and it’s about a dozen names -- is there anyone that on first glance you say, “That is an extraordinary circumstance?”

KYL: Chris, I want to wait and get the facts. The purpose of hearings and the purpose of the ABA investigation, the FBI investigation, the review of all the opinions and writings and so on of the nominee is to find out what they have said and done in the past. And I’m certainly not going to prejudge any of these nominees one way or the other until I get those facts.

WALLACE: Senator Nelson, as senator Kyl pointed out, you were one of the leaders of the so-called Gang of 14 that back in 2005 prevented a blow-up over the issue of filibusters.

Do you see any justification in this case, from what you’ve heard about the possible nominees, for the Republicans filibustering President Obama’s choice?

NELSON: Well, I haven’t studied their backgrounds to any great extent. I’m waiting until it’s narrowed down, till you see who’s really out there.

But as sort of an author of the words “extraordinary circumstances,” I do understand that there can be certain circumstances where you would -- you might vote against somebody on the filibuster.

But let me just say it this way. I don’t care whether they’re liberal or conservative. I just want to make sure they’re not activist. I don’t want an activist on the -- on the bench.

When I was governor, I appointed almost 81 -- over 81 judges -- the entire Nebraska supreme court, two chief justices, the entire court of appeals, and that was my -- I had no litmus test, but I did have a test, and that was did I believe that they were going to apply the law or were they going to be an activist and try to engineer the law.

Quite honestly, I think we want to read the law. We don’t want to have to read judges’ minds. So I think that’s the test -- will they be an activist or not -- and I -- I would hope that there wouldn’t be any circumstances that would be so extreme with any of the president’s nominees that the other side would feel the need to filibuster or that I might feel the need to filibuster in a case of extraordinary circumstances.

That’s what the Gang of 14 was all about.

WALLACE: Well, listen, as a -- I’m always happy to have a gang leader here on the show.

Senator Nelson, Senator Kyl, we want to thank you both so much for joining us on this holiday weekend.

KYL: Thank you, Chris.

NELSON: Thank you, Chris.

KYL: Happy Memorial Day.

WALLACE: Up next, Republicans put Democrats on the defensive over national security. What’s their next move? Karl Rove is here to give us his take. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Joining us now is former top White House adviser and Fox News contributor Karl Rove.

And, Karl, welcome back to “FOX News Sunday.” It’s been suggested that for the first time since Obama took the oath of office in January that Republicans have been able to drive the Washington agenda the last couple of weeks on the issue of national security.

How potent are Guantanamo, and enhanced interrogation, and Nancy Pelosi as weapons for the GOP?

ROVE: Well, first of all, they’ve been helped in this by Democrats. Nancy Pelosi would not have become an issue had not the speaker declared that the CIA lied to her in September of 2002, nor would the Gitmo issue be as powerful as it is if the Senate had not voted 90-6 to not fund President Obama’s request for Gitmo.

But these are issues that are going to have some persistence and have legs. I don’t think they’re potentially lethal. But they are going to be continuing problems for Obama, particularly Gitmo.

I mean, remember, we’re eight months from his self-imposed deadline. You cannot take 200 and some-odd people out of Gitmo and find someplace for them and wait until eight months. So he really has got to be -- got to lay out his plan and be able to start to move that plan in the next two or three or four months in order to meet his self-imposed deadline.

WALLACE: But, Karl, a number of conservatives say the real story is the degree to which President Obama has actually fallen in with and is -- and is basically pursuing Bush policies.

I want to put something up on the screen. “Mr. Obama’s flip- flops on national security have been wise. He ran hard to the left on national security to win the nomination, only to discover the campaign commitments he made were shallow and at odds with America’s security interests.” That was written by a very wise man.

ROVE: Great insight. Who wrote that? Please.

WALLACE: Well, let’s just see there. Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal...

ROVE: Exactly. WALLACE: ... on Thursday.

ROVE: Yeah.

WALLACE: But the point is which is it -- is Obama soft on terror or is he seeing the light?

ROVE: Well, he is seeing the light in certain policies, but it’s a -- this is a complex nuance thing, as oft times it is with President Obama.

Take, for example -- he dismissed the idea of Gitmo, which is indefinite detention of individuals who have tried to hurt our country, and yet on the same time that he gives the speech on Thursday, he announces that he’s going to have a policy of indefinite detention.

So he’s embracing the policy. The question is is he going to embrace it to the degree the Bush administration did. Doubt it. Military tribunals -- he’s probably -- he’s going to keep them, but he’s probably going to do fewer of them than the Bush administration might have been inclined to do. But it is a welcome reversal.

I thought it was interesting -- Gitmo’s perhaps the best example. In the campaign, he used as a standard throwaway line in the primaries -- he’d say, “On Guantanamo, it’s easy. Close it.” And then Thursday we heard in that speech that he knew right from the beginning that this would be difficult and hard.

And look, it is difficult and hard. If you get into office, you find there are demands of governing that are different than the demands of campaigning.

WALLACE: Let’s talk about the point man for the GOP on this issue. And that, of course, is Vice President Cheney. Some conservatives say that his problem isn’t with Obama, that in fact, it’s with the second Bush term which stopped a lot of these harsh tactics, pushed diplomacy, and that in a sense during the second term that -- and it was Cheney who was the odd man out. Isn’t there some truth to that?

ROVE: Well, a small amount. But look, for example, enhanced interrogation techniques -- the administration used these -- the Bush administration used these in the aftermath of 9/11 when there was deep concern and a lot of chatter about a second wave of attacks, and they used these enhanced interrogation techniques for a period of time to break up those kind of plots.

I think there was a general recognition that these methods were useful only when time was a very valuable commodity and we were not getting cooperation.

As we got more cooperation and more information, and as we got further away from 9/11 and the idea of a second wave of attacks became less imminent, then there was less reliance on these techniques. I don’t think it’s easy -- it’s comfortable and easy but wrong to say first term was Cheney dominating, second term Cheney was in descendancy, not ascendancy, and therefore things changed. I think that’s much too easy a reading.

WALLACE: I don’t think there’s any question that Cheney -- whether you agree with him or not -- gave, as you would expect, a strong, substantial speech this week, but he’s still unpopular. He’s still highly controversial.

Is he the person that the GOP wants to have as the face of this debate?

ROVE: Well, obviously not. But he is the person who’s willing to step up and engage in the debate. And by doing so, he has empowered and encouraged others to engage in the debate.

Without Dick Cheney stepping forward, I’m not certain we would have seen other people like Porter Goss and others emboldened to add their voices to the fray.

So -- and look, what’s not -- what’s important is not so much where his popularity is, but what about the popularity of the ideas. And for example, in the Fox poll, in the Resurgent Republic poll, even in a CNN poll, the American people believe that Gitmo and enhanced interrogation techniques have made us safer.

Even if they consider them torture and don’t like them, they still believe that they’ve had value for the United States.

WALLACE: You talk with former President Bush all the time, who famously said when he stepped down that Mr. Obama deserved his silence for a period of time. Is he all right with Cheney going after Obama so early in his term?

ROVE: Well, I don’t want to speak for him, but I do -- I do know this. I do know that we have an unprecedented effort by the current administration to blame all of its problems on its predecessor.

I even went back and read, for example, the statements issued -- made by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 after he was inaugurated in March of 1993 (sic). And you cannot -- 1933. You cannot find any American president who has spent -- as routinely and as often has excoriated his predecessor as this current administration has done.

And so I think there are a lot of people who welcome people like Cheney standing up and setting the record straight.

WALLACE: Let me just say, because I’m sure some people out there are saying, “But wait a minute, didn’t Bush do that to Clinton? ‘Let’s bring honor, integrity, back to the White House.’”

ROVE: Well...

WALLACE: “Clinton, what a waste of valuable talents.” ROVE: Well, look. First of all, the question is whether you’re doing it prospectively. Barack Obama could make his criticism prospectively. He could say, “This is what I intend to do.” But instead, what he always does is he says, “Here’s the problem. Somebody else created it. It’s not my fault. I inherited it.” And then, “Here’s what I’m going to do.”

And most presidents -- look, every president tries to chart a future course. What’s interesting about this administration is how often he feels compelled and his people feel compelled to say, “It’s not our fault. Somebody else created it. This guys left us a mess,” and then to oft times unfairly depict what those are.

I thought, for example, Thursday when President Obama said that the Bush administration’s attitude towards enhanced interrogation and so forth had been, quote, “anything goes,” was intellectually dishonest.

I mean, they didn’t even read the memos that they released themselves. You may disagree with the legal reasoning between Yoo and Bradbury and others writing those memos, but those memos are an attempt to constrain behavior, to define what cannot be done and what can be done, not, quote, “anything goes.”

WALLACE: I want to get to a couple of areas. Supreme Court -- we expect, as we said, the president to name his Supreme Court nominee in the next 10 days. How free a choice is this for Obama?

ROVE: Pretty free. I mean, he’s ultimately going to get his nominee. I think, frankly, it’s a mistake for him to move this quickly to nominate, to name.

Having been on the Judicial Selection Committee, the five-person committee that looked at all the prospective nominees, we spent years going over binders of material on each prospective Supreme Court nominee, waiting for the day that it might happen.

And when it did happen, we had the advantage of having extensive dossiers on these people and then the ability to carefully review all of their material, all of their tax returns, all their public statements, all their private statements, all their private writings, public writings, anything that...

WALLACE: So how long from the time that you learned there was a vacancy until you named somebody?

ROVE: Well, a number of months. I mean, we moved relatively quickly, but we had extensive biographies on them. These people just come into office. They don’t have -- they have not given this the kind of -- kind of -- kind of research.

I mean, they’ve got problems with vetting already. They had the well-known tax problems with five of their nominees. The question is -- think about it this way. There are probably 15 or 20 people at most at the Justice Department and the White House who are thinking through each one of these people. The moment they nominate -- say they nominate them on Tuesday. The work of those 20 people to understand and evaluate these individuals -- now those individuals are going to be -- those same -- that nominee is going to be looked at by tens of thousands of people -- journalists, researchers.

And what’s going to happen is they’re going to find something that those 15 or 20 people didn’t find in the few days that they’ve been looking at this prospective nominee.

WALLACE: Finally, Colin Powell is answering his Republican critics today. Powell said -- and we’re going to put it up on the screen -- this earlier this month. “Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

Not just that statement, but his body of work, his endorsement of Obama -- do you think that Colin Powell is a Republican? And is there room in the Republican Party for Powell?

ROVE: Sure. And look, anybody who says they’re a Republican is a Republican. There is no membership committee that designates whether you are or not. If you say you’re Republican, you’re Republican.

Look, Colin Powell has a right to advocate this view. I defend his right to do that. I don’t agree with it, but I defend his right to do so. I would hope that he would back up that vision by finding candidates who represent his vision of the future of the Republican Party and actively working for them. That’s what it ought to be about.

I don’t like this thing where people -- and Powell is one them -- who said, “Rush Limbaugh, shut up.” I mean, that’s -- we believe, as Republicans in the marketplace of ideas, let that marketplace decide. Let everybody with a competing vision find the kind of candidates they want to support and work hard for them.

I want Colin Powell to go out there and lay out his vision, and then I want him to back it up by finding people who share it and working like heck to get them -- and that’s how you win the party -- the party’s intraparty battle of ideas.

WALLACE: Dick Cheney said if it’s a battle between or a choice between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell, he sides with Limbaugh. You?

ROVE: I -- yes, if I had to pick between the two. But you know what? That’s -- neither one of those are candidates. Neither one of those are going to be people who are offering themselves for office.

Again, that’s -- this is a false debate that Washington loves. The real debate takes place out there in the real world by people getting out there and encouraging and helping the kind of candidates who represent their vision for their party, Republican or Democrat.

This happens every election after the party loses. It’s a healthy thing. I say go to it. Find the people that you think represent your vision, outline it, and work like heck for them, and the country and the party will be better off for it.

WALLACE: Karl, thank you.

ROVE: You bet.

WALLACE: Thank you as always. Please come back.

ROVE: You bet.

WALLACE: Up next, our Sunday group on the Obama-Cheney debate. Who’s got the political high ground when it comes to national security? Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half measures keep you half exposed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Well, that was a taste of the remarkable debate this week over how best to keep the country safe.

And it’s time now for our Sunday group -- Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard; Nina Easton from Fortune magazine; Bill Kristol, also of The Weekly Standard; and Ceci Connolly from the Washington Post.

Well, Bill Kristol, I’m sure the White House thought this week on Thursday morning making Dick Cheney the foil in a debate over national security was a sure winner for them. How do you think it played out for President Obama?

KRISTOL: Yeah, I think White House aides said that three or four weeks ago, “Bring it on -- Dick Cheney . What a wonderful contrast that’s going to be, one of the most unpopular politicians from the discredited Bush administration against the popular President Obama.”

But arguments matter, and facts matter. And Dick Cheney has made a sustained argument over the last three to four weeks, and he’s winning it. I think there’s not much question about it.

The Senate Democrats abandoned their president this week and stripped funds to do -- to pursue the president’s policy of closing Guantanamo Bay.

WALLACE: Ceci, is Dick Cheney beating Barack Obama in this argument? CONNOLLY: Well, I’m not the decider, Chris, but I do think that this past week reminded us once again of President Obama’s incredible skill and asset as an orator. His rhetorical powers once again were on display.

But we also saw the limitations of those rhetorical powers, because even though his speech -- I think if you were to compare the two on merits, his was stylistically far above Cheney’s, but yet the simple fact of the matter is the White House hasn’t figured out what to do with these prisoners.

And as Karl Rove pointed out, there are now eight months’ time left to his self-imposed deadline. And as Bill is noting, Congress really spanked President Obama this week with that vote. It was a real repudiation -- frankly, the only significant vote on Capitol Hill that President Obama has lost so far in his presidency.

WALLACE: All right. I want to go to Guantanamo in a minute.

But, Steve, as the man who wrote a book about Dick Cheney , what about the argument that you heard from some people this week that Cheney’s views, hard-line views, on all of these national security areas were out of step not just with Obama but with the second Bush term, and that he was kind of the odd man out on enhanced interrogation, and Guantanamo and secret prisons?

HAYES: Well, I think there’s some truth to that, but it’s -- but it only goes so far. I mean, what you’ve seen with what President Obama is trying to do is eliminate these things going forward.

I mean, President Bush said in sort of a vague way he would like to see Guantanamo Bay closed. He didn’t say, “I’m going to close it a year from today.”

He did the same thing with interrogations. He never, you know, said, “We will never use these interrogation techniques for years in the future, forever,” as President Obama said. So I would make that distinction.

I think it’s an important one, because what I think what former Vice President Cheney is saying is, “We need to have those things available to us. And President Obama, by taking those off the table, as it were, is making us less safe.”

EASTON: Well, I thought this whole -- the two speeches this week were just a high-pitched -- unfortunate high-pitched partisan duel between the two of them.

I know the press focused a lot on -- and has focused a lot on Dick Cheney and his provocative comments that the administration is keeping us less safe. And frankly, I think Cheney should give this president some credit on things like his very difficult decision to not to release the photos of alleged detainee abuse, for example, his flip on military tribunals.

But if you look at the Obama speech, that was equally partisan, and there wasn’t a lot of focus on that. I mean, he talked about this mess that he had inherited. He talked about the administration sort of fitting facts for an ideological agenda.

Why can’t this president give the previous president credit for keeping us safe for seven years? And by the way, we know from the C- SPAN interview that he’s in touch with President Bush. They’ve actually talked since he’s been in office.

But I think it would carry this White House a long way past the problems that Ceci talks about and get the support of somebody like McCain, Senator McCain, or Senator Lindsey Graham , who also supported closing Gitmo and also had concerns about enhanced interrogation techniques.

I think it would buy him a lot of credit or a lot of good will on the other side of the aisle and with centrist Democrats if he gave this -- he gave the Bush administration some credit.

WALLACE: Bill, let’s look forward, because that, of course, is the big thing, not their review of what happened the last eight years, but the policy issues as they go forward.

Obviously, the big policy debate and issue going forward is what to do about Guantanamo. As we said, there are only eight months left to meet the president’s self-imposed deadline for those 240 detainees.

And as Ceci pointed out, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted overwhelmingly, 90-6, against funding at this point until they see a plan.

What can Obama come up with that would satisfy not only Republicans but Democrats as a sensible way to close this prison?

KRISTOL: He can keep it open. And in fact, Congressman Alcee Hastings has laid out the way. And I think the Obama -- I think he -- I suspect he did this with some encouragement behind the scenes from Rahm Emanuel , with whom he worked closely when they were both congressmen.

He’s a Democratic congressman from Texas (sic), a senior member of the Intelligence Committee. He said, “Look, the problem with Guantanamo isn’t that all these horrible Bush-Cheney techniques were being used, and they didn’t have transparency and all this. But now with President Obama, we’ll let the Red Cross in. They were already in, but we’ll let them in even more. And we’re -- and Obama has said we’re not going to use any of these techniques. So once it’s the new Guantanamo, it’s Guantanamo 2.0, we can keep it open.”

And in fact, Alcee Hastings said he’s going to introduce legislation to this effect, and I believe that after a certain amount of huffing and puffing, the Obama administration will keep Guantanamo open, but it will be a new, better, improved Guantanamo, acceptable to the most enlightened parts of European public opinion.

EASTON: I disagree, because I think -- this president said in this speech -- he said, “Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for the enemy.” I don’t see how he walks...

WALLACE: But wait a minute.

EASTON: ... back from that.

WALLACE: He also called military tribunals a legal black hole.

EASTON: True, but this is a -- that’s a tough thing for him to walk back from, from the base of the party, after he -- after he did the tribunals. And he’s already in hot water with part of the party. And I think that’s a tough walk back for him.

WALLACE: And, Ceci, I want to -- I want to bring that up, and -- because while the big news this week was the fire that the president was taking from the right, he also held a very interesting meeting with civil liberties groups in the Roosevelt room at the White House to discuss their criticism of him for his decision to revive military tribunals, his decision not to release those photos of alleged detainee abuse.

Who’s he got a bigger problem with right now, the right or the left?

CONNOLLY: That’s an excellent question. I think that the White House is going to sort of moderate that criticism with the left and kind of strike a balance where they’ll take a certain amount of heat from the left and know that it won’t really hurt them politically.

It’s going on -- I know we’re going to talk a little more about the Supreme Court, but it’s also happening there, where you’re starting to hear Hispanic groups in particular talking about wanting a Hispanic on the court, and the White House is kind of pushing back saying, “Hey, don’t pressure him. Don’t put too much pressure on him.” So they’re trying to calibrate that.

But I was going to say in Nina’s point, I think that symbolically now, this president has to make significant progress in closing Guantanamo. I don’t know if by January every single 241 of those prisoners will be gone.

WALLACE: Well, then it’s not closed.

CONNOLLY: Then -- you’re absolutely right. But I think that if Obama, come January, can say, “I’ve gotten all but 30 or 40 of those most difficult cases,” he will declare victory. But I think he’s going to have to move in that direction.

HAYES: Well, he can declare victory, but it won’t be convincing at all. I think his problem comes from the right on this issue. I think you look at the prospect of him releasing terrorists into the United States or...

WALLACE: And when you say “releasing,” are we talking about sending to prisons or are we talking about putting them on the street?

HAYES: Any or all of the above. We’ve already seen the Democratic Senate reject or at least express significant problems with putting them in prisons here.

I think you’re talking about having to release or repatriate some very, very dangerous people to countries that are hospitable to those views, frankly, like Yemen.

I think the problem that he faces going forward is that he boxed himself in in this speech that he gave on Thursday, to a certain extent. He talked, in what I think was the most overlooked part of the speech -- at the end of it, President Obama talked about transparency.

He said, “I still believe in transparency. We are going to -- you know, we are -- I’m going to deal with these issues in a transparent way.” Well, he hasn’t done that, and he hasn’t done that on -- particularly on this Guantanamo report that the New York Times wrote about last week that talks about the recidivism rate, which is high. It’s 14 percent.

He’s going to have that problem that he’s got to deal with going forward.

WALLACE: All right. We have to take a break here.

But up next, as Ceci previewed, Washington awaits President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court. The panel handicaps the favorites when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1976, the Concorde began trans-Atlantic flights from London to Washington, D.C., cutting travel time in half. The Concorde continued service until retiring in 2003.

Stay tuned for more from our panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What I want is not just ivory-towered learning. I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower but also a little bit of a common touch and has a practical sense how the world works.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was President Obama this weekend listing some criteria for his soon-to-be Supreme Court pick.

And we’re back now with Stephen, Nina, Bill and Ceci.

So let’s put up a list of what are believed to be the three frontrunners for the job -- Judge Diane Wood of the federal Court of Appeals; Solicitor General Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School; and Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Now, given the caveat that we really have no idea who the president’s going to pick, Steve, from that list or any other names that have been mentioned, anyone who seems particularly strong or particularly weak to you?

HAYES: Well, I like the caveat. I think when you look at the fact that this is a guy who’s been thinking about this decision for not only months but years -- I mean, this is somebody who did teach constitutional law. This is somebody who’s been grappling with these issues and thinking about these things for months.

So I think we have to look at his comments in that context. And the fact is that he’s been saying this about practical, real-world experience not just since David Shouter retired but all the way back to the campaign.

I think if you look at the comments in that context, it seems to me that it makes it less likely that he would pick somebody like a Diane Wood, who’s basically lived her life in academia and has a strong academic background but it’s ultimately an academic background, and strengthens the case for somebody like a Sonia Sotomayor, who, you know, has lived in the, quote, unquote, real world, or maybe even a dark horse candidate that people aren’t talking about quite as much.

EASTON: Well, I hear that Sonia Sotomayor, when you talk to people around the legal... WALLACE: Now, just tell briefly who she is.

EASTON: She’s on the New York -- the Second Circuit in New York, and she’s key because she’s, you know, a Hispanic candidate and he would have to say no to the Hispanic community, which is a difficult political thing to do. But he will have other -- we assume other chances at this down the road.

You know, what I hear is Diane Wood and Elena Kagan -- they don’t necessarily, I agree, meet the common touch -- although Diane Wood -- I should say who she is, with the Seventh Circuit in Chicago.

WALLACE: Out of Chicago.

EASTON: Out of Chicago. If you look at -- I think the president is, I believe, very keen on finding somebody who will not just replace Shouter’s liberal vote but can also shape decisions, shape a majority, and can stand up to conservatives on the Supreme Court, and she’s done that.

She’s done that on the Seventh Circuit, Diane Wood. She’s stood up to very strong intellectual minds on that circuit. She’s considered -- just intellectually, she’s been praised by conservatives. Now, the downside -- the conservatives believe that she’s way too weak on national security issues.

But I think this administration could position her as a centrist, for example, on business issues. So I think she’s somebody that’s certainly in the front running.

WALLACE: Bill Kristol, you not only have thoughts about who the president should pick but when he should pick him or her.

KRISTOL: Well, I think he will announce it Tuesday. I mean, why not? He’s made up -- I think he’s probably made up his mind. He doesn’t travel to the West Coast till late Tuesday afternoon. He’ll have a nice Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington.

WALLACE: And you were suggesting that he might want to do that to change the subject?

KRISTOL: Well, I think if you -- the other rumors are sort of late in the week or the very beginning of next week before he goes to Europe. But why not do it on Tuesday and dominate the whole week? And it’s not last week the debate about Guantanamo was so great for him.

So I think he wants to do it, because -- why not do it Tuesday, assuming that he’s made up his mind? I think he has made up his mind, and I think it’s going to be Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, for this reason. Obama gave that interview Friday which we saw the snippet from.

In that interview, he uses the term practical seven times -- I want someone with a practical sense of how the world works, I want someone with practical experience. Obama knows what he’s doing, and I think he wants to say, “I’m putting on someone who went to Harvard Law School, clerked at an appellate level, was attorney general of Michigan, has good quotes from Republicans and Democrats about their conduct of that legal office, but who really understands the effect on real-world decisions.”

And I think he will say when he announces her Tuesday some people think only law professors should serve on the court. Who was the last governor who served on the Supreme Court? Earl Warren...

WALLACE: Earl Warren.

KRISTOL: ... who previously was attorney general of California, then governor. And I -- someone like me might not like the Warren court, but I think in Obama circles, the idea of Earl Warren as a model is pretty good.

Granholm’s only 50 years old. I think it would be a pretty easy confirmation in the Senate. They tend to like their fellow politicians. There are eight appellate court -- former appellate court judges on the Supreme Court. I think Granholm on Tuesday. And if you bet on that, you’re a foolish person.

WALLACE: This is the man who picked Sarah Palin .

CONNOLLY: Well, and wouldn’t Jennifer Granholm be happy to move on after the tough job that she’s had? I don’t know about that. I think we should mention, though, Elena Kagan, the solicitor general, who also is a serious contender.

I did speak to the one lawyer who has been through this with previous administrations who makes the point that Elena Kagan, who just got into her new job -- you might want to leave her for a little while, do that. She could be -- come forward in a later position, potentially when Obama doesn’t have as much political capital, and could get her through.

I think, though, the interesting -- as interesting as the choice itself is, what’s really going to be interesting here is I think these hearings will be the single best communications opportunity for Republicans in Congress. The spotlight.

WALLACE: They can bring up their issues. They can...

CONNOLLY: They will be able to bring up their issues. They’re a pretty coordinated, cohesive group on that committee led by Senator Sessions.

I think it will be very interesting. They’ll be able to drive discussion on things like the role of the courts in national security, military tribunals. It will be a very meaty discussion.

WALLACE: Steve, we have a little over a minute left, and I want to talk about that, because there has been a striking difference between how the two parties deal with Supreme Court nominees coming from presidents of the opposing party. Democrats basically went to war with a number of Reagan appointees, Bush appointees -- both Bush appointees -- while meanwhile, let’s take a look at how Democrats (sic) dealt with Clinton’s nominees. Forty-one of 44 Republicans voted to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and 33 of 42 supported Stephen Breyer.

Do you expect the GOP to be so cooperative this time?

HAYES: You know, I do. I think Ceci is right that this is an opportunity for them to raise issues that are going to be appealing to their base going forward, but at the same time I think they have to be careful, because it’s unlikely that they’re going to block the nominee, as you heard Senator Kyl say.

And if you -- if you’re not going to block a nominee, the more you raise these issues, if it seems that you’re doing so simply to be obstructionist, that could, I think, have the reverse impact politically.

WALLACE: And if you raise the nominees and you don’t do a filibuster, then the base says, “Where are your principles?”

HAYES: What were you -- yes, exactly.

WALLACE: All right, panel. We’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you all for coming in on this holiday weekend. Of course, you belong here, so you have to come in. See you all next week.

And don’t forget to check out the latest edition of Panel Plus where our group here continues the discussion on our website, foxnews.com/fns, shortly after the show ends.

Time now for some mail. And with all the talk about what to do if Guantanamo is closed, Anthony Brinson (ph) proposed this idea. “We should spend some of the stimulus money to rehabilitate Alcatraz and put the terrorists there. It is secure, it is out of the way and would probably cost less to run.”

I should tell you San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi says no way.

Be sure to let us know your thoughts by e-mailing us at fns@foxnews.com.

Up next, our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Often lost amid the picnics and trips to the beach is the true meaning of Memorial Day, to honor Americans who died while serving in the military.

But we found a man who lives the spirit of this holiday all the time, and he’s our Power Player of the Week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAY: When you’re playing it, it’s only 24 notes, but it’s so meaningful to that family.

WALLACE: Tom Day is talking about playing “Taps” at the funerals of military veterans, and he should know.

He’s the founder and president of an organization called Bugles Across America.

All told, how many funerals have you done since you started Bugles Across America?

DAY: Two hundred thousand.

WALLACE: Really?

DAY: In 10 years, right.

WALLACE: It started back in 2000 when Congress gave every vet the right to a funeral with military honors, including two uniformed officers to present a flag and play “Taps.”

The problem was the military only had 500 buglers, so they sent someone to play a recorded “Taps” on a boom box or an electronic device inside a bugle.

Tom Day, who played in the Marines in the ‘50s, didn’t like it.

DAY: I call it stolen dignity that these veterans can’t get live “Taps” when we are out there ready to perform live “Taps.”

WALLACE: So he started his organization, recruiting 400 horn players within a year.

DAY: Now we have 6,270 horn players and we’re doing 2,200 funerals a month.

WALLACE: It’s become quite an operation that Day runs out of his basement near Chicago. Families can go on his Web site to ask for a bugler. A message is sent to every horn player within 100 miles of the funeral.

Day gives away bugles and helps with uniforms. While he gets support from foundations, he runs a deficit every year.

How do you make up for the shortfall?

DAY: I kind of make it up myself.

WALLACE: Fifteen, $20,000 a year?

DAY: Probably 10. You finish the last of the 24 notes. You put the horn down. And the flag has been presented. Then the family comes over. The kisses, the handshakes from these families -- there is nothing -- no amount of money could ever buy the feeling that I get from the family once I finish the 24 notes.

WALLACE: With soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus 1,800 veterans of World War II dying every day, there is a flood of military funerals.

Day, who is 69, says he wants to keep going until he dies then leave his organization in solid shape to carry on.

DAY: I want every family to have live “Taps” at that going-away presentation of their veteran, and it kind of tells the Marines who are guarding the gates in heaven, “Live ‘Taps,’ we’re going to let this veteran right in.”

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: If you want to help Tom Day either by playing the horn at funerals or donating money, go to his Web site, BuglesAcrossAmerica.org.

And that’s it for today. Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. And we leave you with Tom Day playing live “Taps” for all our fallen veterans.

END