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CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Aug. 30, 2009 – 2:58 p.m.

CQ Transcript: Sens. Hatch, Dodd, Cantwell on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’

CQ Transcriptwire

SPEAKERS: JOHN KING, HOST

SEN. ORRIN G. HATCH, R-UTAH

SEN. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, D-CONN.

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL, D-WASH.

[*] KING: I’m John King, and this is “State of the Union.”

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The lion of the Senate is laid to rest. Thousands of mourners turn out to pay their respects to Senator Edward Kennedy, a man who fought passionately and pragmatically in the Senate for nearly half a century.

DODD: John Fitzgerald Kennedy inspired our America. Robert Kennedy challenged our America. And our Teddy changed America.

HATCH: People have called Teddy and me the odd couple, which was certainly true.

Two of Senator Kennedy’s closest friends, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, share their personal memories.

Plus, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington on the post-Kennedy health care debate in the Congress.

And in our “American Dispatch,” the Kennedy connection to Boston sports dynasty. I talk to the president and CEO of the Red Sox, Larry Lucchino.

This is our “State of the Union” report.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: A champion for those who had none. A man who never stopped trying to right wrongs, and someone who wasn’t perfect, but believed in redemption. Just a few of the sentiments expressed at the funeral of Senator Edward Kennedy in Boston yesterday.

President Obama led the nation in saying goodbye to the 77-year- old senator, who was laid to rest near his brothers John and Robert at Arlington National Cemetery.

Here with their reflections on the senator’s life and his work, two of his closest colleagues, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who joins us by telephone.

And Senator Dodd, let me begin with you. You and Senator Hatch had the great privilege, the honor you called it, of eulogizing your friend at the memorial service Friday night. You waved as you pulled up. I saw you were still scribbling notes, edits on your speech. Talk about the moment. You’ve given so many speeches in your life. What made this one unique?

DODD: Well, John, first of all, thanks for doing this. But what makes it difficult is that it’s so personal. I mean, these are -- how do you express in eight or 10 minutes -- I tried to keep it brief -- and how do you capture 30 years of friendship in eight minutes? And particularly someone who the relationship goes far beyond just the personal. Obviously, I sat next to him for almost 25 years in that Health Education Labor Committee. We were partners in policy, great friends personally. Got to know his children, his family, (inaudible). And so, trying to capture all of that, in a sense, is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do.

KING: And so, Senator Hatch, as you put this together, what did you have to leave out that you wanted to say about your friend?

HATCH: Well, there were a lot of things that I left out because you only had so much time. But it was a privilege to be able to be there and be with Vicki and the family.

I was there when, you know, he called me out in California to tell me that he was going to marry Vicki. And the only reason he called me then, I asked him, why are you doing this? Because I was in a middle of a great big speech. And he said, well, her young daughter was in grade school and was bragging to the teacher that her mother was going to marry Ted Kennedy, and he said the teacher was married to a Washington Post reporter, so he wanted to tell me before it appeared in the Post. And we had that kind of a friendship.

We were called the odd couple. I’m conservative, and he was the leading liberal champion in the Senate. And we used to get into some tremendous rows, but in the end, we were able to put together some of the most important health care bills and other bills in history.

KING: And Senator Dodd, if you read the op-ed pages and have conversations with people involved in politics, who cover politics, the word soul comes up a lot. People saying the Democratic Party has lost its soul. Do you agree with that assessment? And if that is the case, sir, how does one replace its soul?

DODD: Well, no, you don’t lose your soul, and Teddy would be the first to say so. As he said in his -- when he gave that incredible eulogy of his brother Bobby, you know, you don’t enlarge someone in death more than he was in life.

Teddy was pragmatic and practical. He believed in the fundamental principles of the Democratic Party, he did so passionately. He also had a strong pragmatic sense, you move forward. And obviously, we’ve lost a great champion in all of this. But he would take umbrage, he’d be annoyed if he thought Democrats were somehow going to retreat here as the party of his choice back because he was no longer with us. He’d expect us to get up this morning, to get battling, decide what we needed to do, sit down with our friends on the other side, like Orrin and I have over the years on many issues together, and try to work things out, respecting each other. That’s what the Senate is all about, and get the job done. We don’t have a luxury here of sitting back and sort of engaging and wallowing in our own grief. We’ve got to get up and get moving.

One of the great attributes of Teddy was, one, his likability. People liked him. But also his ability to overcome adversity. You heard President Obama yesterday talk about it. What he’d been through -- 16 by the time he’d lost two siblings. Two of his brothers taken from him with great violence. Been through his own personal difficulties, with physical problems and the like. But he got up after every single one of those challenges and went back to work, and decided we’ve given so much time in this life, do the very best you can. And that’s what we’re supposed to do.

So we haven’t lost our soul at all. In fact, it’s been enhanced by his presence, and by invoking his memory these days, we’ll do a better job. And I think Orrin and I will get back next week in the Senate, and we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and go to work and do what Teddy would’ve done, and get this health care matter behind us.

KING: And as we look to see what comes next, when I was up there seeing old friends in Massachusetts politics, Senator Hatch, they say it is increasingly likely the legislature will change the law and allow the governor to make an interim appointment before the special election.

If there is that opportunity for an interim appointment, three or four months, the opportunity for a temporary senator to cast Teddy’s last votes -- she has said no, Vicki has said no, she is not interested -- but if that moment opened, would you call her up and say, maybe you should consider this?

HATCH: Sure, I think Vicki ought to be considered. She’s a very brilliant lawyer. She’s a very solid individual. She certainly made a difference in Ted’s life, let me tell you. And I have nothing but great respect for her.

You know, it’s interesting to be on with Senator Dodd, who was I think Senator Kennedy’s greatest Democrat friend. I consider myself his best Republican friend. And Chris and I -- we have been able to work together, as Teddy and I used to work together.

But it’s going to take a lot of work, because, you know, many of the so-called progressives in the Democratic Party are insisting on this public or Washington, government-run plan. And the vast majority of people out there in the public, they don’t want that. They’re scared to death knowing that Medicare is $38 trillion in unfunded liability as we sit here, and that in order to get that public plan and pay for it, they’re going to take $400 million to $500 million out of Medicare. I mean, that’s crazy. And so a lot of people are very concerned with what’s going on in Washington right now, especially in health care. And you can see there are people from all walks of life. It isn’t just people that don’t like Democrats, from all walks of life.

KING: Senator Dodd, we’re going to talk more about the policy of health care as we move on, but on the question of Vicki Kennedy, you know her very well, you had dinner with them up there. You were one of the few people who saw the senator in the final weeks. If the interim appointment becomes a reality, that possibility, would you call her up and say reconsider? You could come and cast your husband’s final votes?

KING: Senator Dodd, you are on the ballot next year, and at this point -- it is still early -- it looks like you may have a tough race on your hand. And among your allies is now your late friend, Senator Edward M. Kennedy . He produced -- he was part of an ad for your campaign, and we want to share it now with our viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: Quality health care as a fundamental right for all Americans has been the cause of my life. And Chris Dodd has been my closest ally in this fight. Today more than ever, we have a real opportunity to bring health care reform to Connecticut and all across America. And I believe that with Chris Dodd’s leadership, our families will finally have accessible, affordable health care.

DODD: I’m Chris Dodd and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It’s striking to watch that in the context of the events of the past few days, Senator, but it’s a powerful appeal from your friend, Senator Kennedy. Will you continue to run that ad as you seek reelection in Connecticut?

DODD: I don’t know, John. But thanks for running it, I haven’t heard it in a while. I don’t know. We’re not talking about that today. This is a time to talk about Teddy, remember him and his contribution. And what we need to do to get back on track again. I’ll leave politics to next year.

KING: We’re going to lose you, Senator, and Senator Hatch is staying with us. To his point that despite the death of Senator Kennedy, that doesn’t change the math, and all these concerns about the public option. Do you agree with him at this point, that you’ll come back to work and you will try to work on this in a bipartisan basis, but there’s no difference in terms of for or against on that divisive issue of the public option, is there?

DODD: Is that for me, John?

KING: Yes, sir.

DODD: Yeah, no, look, we need to sit down and work it out and go through this, and I didn’t -- that’s what we do in the Senate. That’s how things move forward. That’s what Orrin Hatch and I did years ago on child care legislation, what we did on the Family Medical Leave Act. Every bill I can think of, of any major significance, people sit down and work it out. This idea of negotiating this through a series of town hall meetings in August is not exactly how I was raised to understand the point of how the Senate functions. We’ll get back next week with the leadership of the president, and people who want to sit down and move forward.

The country cannot afford this any longer. We need to have a health care plan in this country that’s accessible, affordable, and quality. And how we get there is the challenge before us. And we must meet that challenge. That’s what Ted cared so deeply about. Introduced that first health care universal bill 40 years ago. And he would be terribly disappointed if we allowed partisan politics to dominate this debate. He expected more of us, and I think we ought to meet that expectation of his, and I’m confident we can.

KING: Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, thanks for being with us this morning as we’re discussing the health care issue. Senator Kennedy called it the cause of his life. So will this acrimonious debate over health care reform give way to his spirit of bipartisanship? When the Congress returns, we’ll talk it over. Senator Orrin Hatch is staying with us, and we’ll be joined by Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: Orrin, he said, what else did I agree to last night?

(LAUGHTER)

I start telling these things, my eyes start to water, my nose starts to run, it’s just a mess, I tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, whom you just saw right there, and joining us is Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state.

Senator Hatch, that was part of your tribute to Senator Kennedy, and you were talking about a deal you cut with him late one night after perhaps he had had an extra drink or two, and you came in the next day wanting to check his notes against your notes.

You came to Washington, you talked about it in your speech, you ran a campaign saying “send me to Washington to fight Teddy Kennedy.” When was it, what was the moment where you said, you know, this guy isn’t exactly what I thought?

HATCH: Well, we both lived up to it. We fought each other all the time. But he was willing to compromise, he was willing to come to the center. In many times, like in the CHIP bill, it was center right. And I found it very -- but you know, there were certain things he wouldn’t compromise on no matter what you did, and we just fought knock-down, drag-out battles.

But you know, it was a privilege to serve with him. He was a great senator. He was a leading Democrat, leading liberal in the Congress, and probably over the last 50 years, the leading liberal in the Congress, and I had to take that into consideration. You had to take into consideration my conservative politics, as well.

KING: If you look, Senator Cantwell, you’re a more junior member of the Senate, but if you look at your entry in the “Almanac of American Politics,” it says this. “As a child, Cantwell observed politics firsthand as her father dispensed advice to the union members, laborers and politicians who stopped by to talk politics. During her father’s stint as an aide to Congressman Andrew Jacobs, she woke one morning to the laughter of Ted Kennedy downstairs.” Take us back.

CANTWELL: That’s right. During his brother’s presidential campaign, Ted Kennedy came to my house, as a young girl, to thank everybody who had been participating and campaigning on behalf of his brother. And literally, I didn’t believe that he was in our house, and you know, went to school the next day and everybody at the Catholic school that I went to was talking about how Ted Kennedy had come to the Cantwell home. So it was a great honor.

KING: And when you come to the United States Senate, and someone has a reputation like him as a legislator, is he a mentor? Does he say, prove it, young lady? What’s he like?

CANTWELL: He’s absolutely a mentor. And he was so skilled. He knew every vote. If you had an amendment on the floor, he would say to you, well, you got 48 votes. Next time you’re going to get 52. So keep at it. So he knew exactly what you were doing.

And I remember once he told me, we were working on unemployment insurance, and our state, Washington, had high unemployment at that time. He said, go over there and talk to Arlen Specter , and here’s what he’ll do, and he’ll keep that in conference. Go ahead and cut that deal. So always a mentor, always looking out for how to get legislation passed, and that was the great story of Ted Kennedy, among other things, was that he was a fantastic legislator.

KING: And so his voice has been missing this past year and especially these past few months from the issue he cared most about, the debate about health care reform. And we’ve all heard in the eulogies and in the reflections on, well, could it be different now that he’s passed? Will there be a new mood of bipartisanship? The president’s point person on this issue is the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius . She put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEBELIUS: The best possible legacy is to pass health reform this year and have a bill that President Obama could sign. And hopefully at every step along the way, they’ll ask themselves, what would Teddy do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So let’s pose the question. What would Teddy do? And I want to start with you, Senator Cantwell, because you’re the Democrat, and this right now is largely a disagreement among the Democrats. In the House, you have a more liberal bill with the public option, it costs $1 trillion over 10 years, maybe a little more than that. The speaker has said the public option has to be there. A public, government-run competition, essentially, plan to compete with the private insurance. In the Senate, the votes simply aren’t there. And if Senator Kennedy did anything, as you just noted, he knew how to count the votes. What would Teddy do? Would Teddy go to the Byron Dorgans, the Kent Conrads, the Ben Nelsons, the conservative Democrats and say, look, get in line, be a good Democrat, vote for the public option? Or would he walk across to the speaker and Chairman Waxman and say, I’m with you, but the votes aren’t there. It’s your turn to compromise. Where is the compromise within the Democrats?

CANTWELL: Well, that was the magic of Senator Kennedy, because he had the faith of the party loyalists, and they knew that he would always fight for them. And so when he went across the aisle to cut a deal with Orrin Hatch, as he did on the children’s health care initiative, or other policy, people knew that that was the best deal that could be cut.

But I think right now, we still need to have this debate about the high cost of health care. And what everybody in America wants to know is what are we going to do to control the cost? We can talk about the uninsured, but those who have insurance want to know about what both Democrats and Republicans are going to do to keep health care costs down, because premiums going up 120 percent again in the next 10 years is just unsustainable.

KING: But do you think a public option has to be in a bill to control costs, or can that wait?

CANTWELL: Well, I would say to my Republican colleagues that when you think about how you control costs and you think about what a public option can do in controlling costs, it’s a very key component to it.

Right now, there’s insurance across the country where in a couple of states you only have one or two insurance providers, or they might have as much as 50 percent of the market. So if you want to get costs down and reform the system, then deliver health care at what it takes to deliver that health care cost. And both Senator Hatch and I come from states that are very efficient health care states. We provide good health care delivery with good outcomes at very low costs, and that’s what I’d like to see the rest of the country move to.

KING: Is there any chance, despite the passing of your friend, is there any chance that a bill with a public option is going to pass the United States Senate?

HATCH: I really don’t think so. But let me tell you, you know, you’re talking about one-sixths of the American economy. And a lot of people don’t seem to realize that. And you’re talking about having the federal government take control of health care when Medicare’s $38 trillion in unfunded liability, and going higher. When you’re going to triple -- you’re going to triple the budget deficit in 10 years, double it in five years or even less. And you know, when they talk about $1 trillion, they don’t even -- most of this doesn’t even trigger in under the Democrats’ plan until after the next election in 2013. The only fair way to do it is take it 10 years from there and it’s always $2 to $2.5 trillion on top of $2.5 trillion -- $2 trillion national budget for health care now, and that’s what they don’t tell you.

HATCH: And then you add the public plan on to that, or what I call the Washington-controlled government plan, that’s what’s got people all over this country concerned. Because they know, once they do that, you’re going to get into all kinds of other problems, including rationing, that Democrats hate to talk about. But that’s what’s going to happen.

And -- and our senior citizens are scared to death. Plus, any taxpayer’s got to be tremendously concerned because, like I say, we’re going to triple the national debt. Even without health care reform, we’re going to triple it within 10 years under current budgetary approaches of this administration.

KING: Independent Joe Lieberman, who’s a -- you know, caucuses with the Democrats, was here last week and he said that’s not the way he would prefer it, but he believes, given the political climate, given the deficit numbers, that everyone should call a time-out and do this incrementally, pass a bill first that deals with the biggest problems in the system, and prove that -- the Democratic Party should prove we are bending the health care cost curve; now you can trust us when we come back to do the other things like universal coverage and a public option.

Is that the way to go, maybe, in this political environment?

CANTWELL: Well, you’re not going to get an argument about bending the cost curve from me, because my state almost subsidizes the rest of the health care system because we’re so efficient and the rest of the country delivers more inefficient care.

But the bottom line is that health care costs, which, right now, are about one-third of our federal budget, are going to double if we do nothing.

So doing nothing and thinking that we’re going to get out of this expense is not really an option. So coming to the table and saying, how can we deliver lower-cost health care is critical to the equation.

And so I think getting true competition into the system and giving consumers choice is what the Democrats and Republicans should be joining ranks on.

HATCH: Well, Senator Cantwell and I have done -- we’ve worked on very important legislation together, and I intend to work with her a lot further in the future. But the best way to get the costs down, it seems to me -- and you made the point that you have a pretty darn good state, as far as health care is concerned. Utah is one of the exemplary states.

I believe we ought to have 50 state laboratories testing all of these various health care things, and then we can pick and choose from the 50 states.

Now, we’ll always have some states that, no matter what you do, they’re not going to do well. California is a good illustration. New York, New Jersey may be good illustrations.

Sometimes even Texas, on child -- on the CHIP bill didn’t do as good a job as they could. But let me tell you this. Having 50 state laboratories laboratories -- which is what our founding fathers envisioned -- we can then pick and choose what really works and what doesn’t work.

And I think we’ve always been able to get together, just like Teddy and I were always able to get together. Because Teddy would come all the way to the center, and in the case of the CHIP bill, came to center-right.

In fact, he was pretty mad at me when we passed the CHIP bill...

(LAUGHTER)

... in the Finance Committee, and then, the next day, came down and said that’s going to be one of the most important bills in history. And he started to -- I started to laugh at him, and then he realized (inaudible)

KING: Let’s call a quick time-out here. Let me call a quick time-out here. When we come back, we’ll continue our conversation with Senators Hatch and Cantwell, including discussing the attorney general’s controversial decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush era CIA interrogations.

But first, another reflection on the life and legacy of Senator Edward Kennedy from a voice we rarely hear. Stephen Breyer once worked for Senator Kennedy up on Capitol Hill. Now he’s an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I talked to him exclusively at the memorial service in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN G. BREYER, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT: I’m grateful because he helped me give something good that I have to give, maybe. He found that in me and let me help him help other people.

But there are millions and millions of people all over the country whom he tried to help and whom he did help. And when they see the ceremony, that will remind them that they’re grateful too. And that’s why you’re seeing these thousands of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEDDY KENNEDY JR., SON OF EDWARD M. KENNEDY: He lived to be a grandfather. And knowing what my cousins have been through, I feel grateful that I have had my father as long as I did.

He even taught me some of life’s harder lessons, such as how to like Republicans.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell .

That was Teddy Kennedy Jr. speaking at the funeral mass in Boston yesterday, a remarkable speech by the son of Senator Kennedy.

One last point before we move on, on this health care issue. And I want to just show our viewers some of the Sunday papers.

This is the Boston Herald here: “He’s Gone Home Now,” a touching farewell to Senator Kennedy back home in Boston.

We’ve all talked about what he might have done, what would he do now, how he would negotiate. Many say that, if this is to be done, it is going to take the president to step up and do more.

Senator Kennedy talked at your convention last year about the torch being passed to Barack Obama .

Has the president failed the leadership test? Or, at least, does he need to lead better now?

CANTWELL: No, I think the president timed it perfectly. And coming in, in a new administration, he wanted to show that he was going to work with Congress. And he said this is a priority.

KING: You’ve been around for many presidents. He allowed the House to write the stimulus bill, essentially to start. He’s allowing Congress to write the health care bill. Is that a mistake, in your view, if he wants it done?

HATCH: Well, I don’t think it’s a mistake, but I think, sooner or later, the president has to weigh in, and he has to carry the ball. Frankly, I think he’s left too much up to Rahm Emanuel and Axelrod and the others, who are brilliant people. I mean, I have a lot of regard for them. But he’s going to have to weigh in.

But let me tell you, he’s going to have to realize that you’re not going to get this big broad Democrat big spending bill. You’re not going to get Republican support for it.

And if you do get Republican support, you can do some really, really important things that -- that will go down in history as a legacy for him.

That’s why Senator Kennedy was so important. Because Senator Kennedy, as Senator Cantwell has indicated, really almost controlled the base of the Democratic Party.

They knew he was the leading liberal, and if he said this is what we have to do to do it, they’d cough and sputter and then say, well, I guess, if he wants to do it this way, we’ve got to do it. And I don’t know of another Democrat that has that kind of (inaudible) in the whole Congress.

KING: Let’s move on to other issues. Last week, although the president had said, back in January, he didn’t want to look back, the attorney general decided to appoint a special -- an independent investigation to look into the Bush era CIA interrogations and the tactics, to see if anyone broke the law.

Senator Hatch, you were among eight Republicans who signed on to a letter to the attorney general saying that you were deeply concerned that this investigation could come.

KING: And you said such an investigation could have a number of serious consequences not just for the honorable members of the intelligence community, but also for the security of all Americans.”

Does this decision put Americans more at risk?

HATCH: I sure think so. I’m the longest serving person on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I’ve been through an awful lot on that committee and I know one thing, they’re making it so that people at the CIA are afraid to do anything, and we don’t want that situation because when we get into another potential 9/11 and they’re happening all the time, that’s as much as I’m going to say about it.

We want the toughest people we can have to handle the situation and don’t want them thinking twice that they’re going to get indicted or they’re going to have to go through unpleasant experiences in Congress or that they’re going to be mistreated and especially those who give legal opinions.

Legal opinions differ. Sometimes, you know, conservatives will give stronger legal opinions than the most liberals. Liberals sometimes give stronger ones from the liberal standpoint than most conservatives.

And you know what? You want them always tested, you want them always checked. But you also don’t want to say, well, these people were rotten in writing this opinion just because they were conservative or it was a conservative opinion. And frankly, it’s gone way too far. I’m not a big fan of special accounts or special prosecutors. They spend a lot of money, they take a lot of time, they get a lot of publicity, and in the end, we have less efficient government and less efficient, especially in the CIA, less efficient people who really aren’t going to take any risks we need to have them take.

KING: Let me let the Democrat into the conversation. Do you agree with that, that it would make CIA agents who have very important work to do, to keep the country safe? Will it make them more timid?

CANTWELL: I look at this differently. I look at the threat that we face from terrorism and I look at it as an asymmetrical threat, and it means we have to have the cooperation of the entire world community to help us.

KING: That means this investigation’s necessary? CANTWELL: I’m saying this investigation is very appropriate. No one is above the law. And this is not a political process. This is a legal process. It’s a legal process to find out whether the law was broken. And what we want to communicate to all our partners in the war on terror is that the United States is going to be for the rule of law. But in following that rule of law, we also want their help in fighting terrorism and finding terrorist suspects and working in a cooperative fashion.

KING: The former vice president of the United States in an interview that’s airing this morning, Dick Cheney , says Senator Hatch that this is playing politics. Do you think it’s a bad decision that they made? Or do you agree and go as far as saying that they’re deliberately playing politics with national security?

HATCH: I think it’s both. It’s both a bad decision and I think some politics are involved. I hate to think of that of the attorney general, I strongly supported him. But let me tell you something, I’ve traveled all over the world and let me just use France.

France will say things publicly that look like they’re against us, but behind the scenes, they’re intelligence people. They work very closely with us. They know what we’re doing. They know how important it is. And if our people are too timid to get out there and do the things that have to be done because we have -- and I believe in oversight. That’s what the intelligence committee should be all about.

But if we’re too timid, we’re not going to be able to protect this country. And I’ve got to tell you, talk to the head of the CIA, he’s a liberal Democrat who I know and trust and believe in. And I’ve got to tell you, he’s very upset about what’s going on here. And he knows it’s going to be detrimental to the work that the CIA has to do every day, day in and day out.

KING: We’re out of time, but I want to give you the last word on this issue.

CANTWELL: This is not about being timid, this is about being effective, and if we want to be effective in the war on terrorism, we have to communicate to everyone that we are going to follow the law and we want their help in bringing about justice for the American people and to make them secure. So this is a legal process. And I applaud the attorney general because I’m sure it’s a tenuous issue to be the chief law enforcement officer of this country.

KING: It’s a feisty debate that will continue. We’ll continue to check in. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, thanks so much for your time this morning.

And up next, reflections on the life of Ted Kennedy from a man who helped him try to win the White House. The former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and the son of the legendary House Speaker Tip O’Neill, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Senator Kennedy helped redefine both national and Massachusetts politics. And as you can see and hear, we want to go back into his home state of Massachusetts from the very beginning, health care was a major focus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

T. KENNEDY: Too many of our senior citizens are being forced to choose between neglecting their ailments or being compromised by them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vote for Edward M. Kennedy , the endorsed Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. He can do more for Massachusetts. Support the man who can help Massachusetts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: For a good stretch of his career, Senator Kennedy had an ally in the House of Representatives, the late speaker Thomas P. Tip O’Neill, another Irish Catholic who enjoyed a good partisan fight, yet who on the big issues, often worked for bipartisan progress. The late speaker’s son, the former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Tommy O’Neill was a Kennedy friend and ally who recalls so many similarities and one big disagreement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS P. O’NEILL, FORMER MASSACHUSETTS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: The first memory of Ted was a comment made by my dad that he was a young kid coming along with a silver spoon running on a name and wondered if he could ever make the bill, do the job, get elected, and then go beyond that to kind of carry on the tradition of the Democratic family of the Kennedys.

KING: Your dad’s no longer with us, but by the end, had Ted passed his test?

O’NEILL: More than passed it. He sat in amazement for 28 years because he had been in government for 26 by the time Teddy had run for the first time and he sat in astonishment at the progress and the evolution of Teddy in politics and government.

KING: Well, a lot of people say that --

O’NEILL: He became a great fan, by the way.

KING: A lot of people say that this is a generational passing, that people like your dad, the speaker, and Teddy you know could go to the floor and they could rail against that SOB Ronald Reagan and this and that and the other thing, but then at the end of the day when it got to the point where, oh are we going to get something done or not, figure it out.

O’NEILL: There’s a lot to that. There are a lot of similarities between the two. Both legislators, both had the ability to walk into a room, tell a joke, a good story, sing a song, make a friend and be bipartisan in order to proper and get legislation that would progress and go through.

They both had a capability to get something done, as well. They both had other symmetry. The most important vote I heard Ted Kennedy say this in tape the other night was a vote he made against the war in Iraq. Imagine that, over 47 years, the most important vote that man cast was a vote against Iraq.

O’NEILL: The most important vote Tip O’Neill ever had was leaving, you know, that range of -- of men and women of Congress and becoming the first regular in Congress to vote against the war in Vietnam.

So there are similarities. They’re both children of the New Deal. And they both sat in Congress, both as legislators helping out people, and that’s what they thought the role of government was going to be. And so I think, in the end, they became role models for the next generation of politicians to carry on.

KING: And it’s been more than half a century since Massachusetts has not had a Senator Kennedy. What happens?

O’NEILL: I -- I think it gets filled in a -- in a whole different way. I think that there will be a new role and a new, kind of, reinvention for John Kerry , who understands the responsibility that he’s going to be welcomed with.

I also think that there’s a new role for a senator either who will be, you know, given that job by the governor on an interim basis, and then somebody will come and run for it, will be very responsible.

I think we’re -- we’re pretty lucky. We have a horn of plenty of talent in this state, in our statewide constitutional offices, as well as in our congressional delegation. Somebody’s going to come forth. And as Ted Kennedy grew and Tip O’Neill grew, they’ll grow in office, as well.

KING: What happens to the name, the Kennedy name? It’s like the royalty of Massachusetts. Do you see the next generation stepping up?

Or, in terms of elective office, is that now passing?

O’NEILL: I see the next generation absolutely stepping up. I think -- I think, over the weekend, we saw that generation look at the folks along the motorcade, the folks in Washington, the appreciation that America has for the contribution, the men and women of that Kennedy -- that first Kennedy generation gave this country and how they forced change in this country.

I’d be amazed if they didn’t take that and build on the platform they already have to make things better.

KING: What about your personal relationship with Teddy? I saw the picture from 1980 yesterday. Take me back through some of that. O’NEILL: The -- I started off as simply the man that was going to run New England for Teddy Kennedy.

And when I first was asked to take that job, Ted Kennedy was an overwhelming favorite to beat Jimmy Carter and then go on to become the president of the United States. And then we had the Roger Mudd interview and a few other things happened, and the role expanded a little bit.

So I became a troubleshooter around the country for Ted, and we became very close friends, actually. I went from being an advance man in earlier campaigns to being one of the folks that were helping him out with the national campaign and his dream to become the president.

It was a lot of fun, and there’s a lot of fond memories. And, frankly, there’s a lot of appreciation in this next generation of Kennedys who have been friends of mine now for years.

KING: There are some who boil it all down to one word, Chappaquiddick, and say that’s why he was never president. Is that fair?

O’NEILL: You know, I’m reminded about my dad trying to advise him, in ‘80, not to run because he thought Chappaquiddick would come back and haunt him.

I think what people tend to forget is that, in 1984, he was going to run again and I think my father, I think, again admonished him, and said please don’t do it. It was more a father-son relationship, at that point, in their chemistry and relationship.

Kennedy called him the following week after he had that conversation with my dad. He had had an outing with his own family and his own children prevailed upon him to say, don’t do it. He called my father the next day and he said, “You know, this time you’re going to win out, Tip.”

(LAUGHTER)

KING: How much did that stick with him?

Everyone says, well, he went back and rededicated himself. Do you think he was always nagged by what could have been, or did he put it behind him?

O’NEILL: You know, Kennedy was a guy who always had a terrific sense of humor. So, if you were to ask him in his final days, would you have liked to have been the president of the United States, he would have said, “Are you kidding? Of course.”

So in that sense, I think it nagged him. But through the reinvention process of ‘80 and then beyond, I think he put his mind to being one thing, the greatest U.S. senator in the history of the modern Senate and our time.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Tommy O’Neill there.

And Senator Kennedy was a man of many passions, the Boston Red Sox among them. When we come back, memories of the long relationship of two famous Massachusetts brands, the Kennedy and Fenway, from the Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Most weeks, we plan our journeys outside the Beltway. Sometimes breaking news dictates them. This week was a bittersweet trip back home to Boston to cover the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy .

To know him was to see his passion for politics and for policy but also for competition and sports. He kept close track of the Celtics and the Bruins and the patriots. But when he knew he was in a race with cancer he might prolong but would ultimately lose, he wanted to walk one last time in the shadow of the Green Monster.

We stretch out here into the city of Boston, and right here you see, along the Massachusetts Turnpike, this is Fenway Park.

And when Senator Kennedy knew he was ill, he wanted to come here to do this. You see his infectious smile. He’s throwing out the first pitch. This is opening day in Fenway Park, April 7th -- the manager of the Red Sox, Terry Francona, Hall of Famer Jim Rice, the smile of Senator Kennedy, despite his illness, in a place he loved so much.

He wanted to be there in Fenway Park in the shadow of the Green Monster. And so, in this week’s “American Dispatch,” we decided to go there, too, to trace the history of two storied brands, the Red Sox and the Kennedys.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: You worked in Washington as a younger man, involved in politics, in the big debates of our time. When you were there, did you run into Senator Kennedy -- or you certainly knew of him?

LUCCHINO: I certainly knew of him, and I did get to know him, as I got to know the Shriver family quite well there in my time there. And I got to see him in a personal context. I got to see him as the -- certainly one of the centers, if not the center of the Kennedy- Shriver extended family. And I saw how close he was to so many of his nieces and nephews, and was always impressed by the priority that he assigned to that.

KING: And so now you’re here. And you’re the president of this storied franchise. And as you know, some politicians -- all politicians say they’re fans. All politicians say, you know, I’m a fan, but then you start asking them, and you realize, two, three questions in, they’re not really fans; they just have to be fans.

Was Teddy Kennedy a fan? LUCCHINO: Teddy Kennedy was a fan. Teddy Kennedy’s entire family were fans. The -- again, the sons and daughters, the nieces and nephews -- there was an intensity about their connection to Boston and New England, no matter where they lived.

LUCCHINO: And the Red Sox were a reflection of that -- the connection. And yet Ted was a fan.

They are, as you well know, intensely competitive people, and the Red Sox were an outlet for that competition as well as a tangible connection to Boston and to New England.

KING: And go back in time to when this place was built and the family lineage goes all the way back.

LUCCHINO: Well, that’s true. The -- Fenway Park is the oldest and smallest ballpark in all of baseball. And it was built in 1912. And the first pitch at the very first game at Fenway Park was thrown out by Honey Fitz, the mayor, and of course, Teddy’s grandfather. So his connection goes back that far.

This is a -- a picture of Teddy and Bobby and the patriarch Joe at a baseball game, sitting in the stands, way back when. We’re probably talking about the mid ‘60s here. And it just reinforces the notion that the Kennedy family and the Red Sox and Massachusetts, they all go together.

Ted Kennedy went to baseball games here at Fenway Park for parts of eight decades. Born in 1932. Parts of eight decades. He knew the players. He knew the ballpark. He had a special relationship with the Red Sox and we’re very, very proud of that.

Indeed, when we -- on opening day this year, we had Senator Kennedy here throwing out the first pitch and it was on the 97th anniversary. And we had an invitation out to him that we would like him to throw out the -- would have liked for him to throw out the first pitch on -- in April of 2012.

And he joked that he has already had it on his calendar and he was saving that date. So I’m certainly glad that we got him here on opening day this year, because he was in fine spirits. He was very happy. He enjoyed himself immensely. And it was just great to see him here in that setting.

KING: And even when he knew of his sickness, he sent you a note saying he would try to be here?

LUCCHINO: Yes, that’s exactly right. We had formally invited him a couple years ago to join in the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park in 2012. This is in about 2007 or 2008 that we wrote to him. And then after he was diagnosed, he sent a letter back saying, I told you I would be there in 2012, and I will be there in 2012. So his spirit remained strong to the very end. And inspirational.

KING: You mentioned the competitiveness. This is great city, and a place that is defined by its brands. The Boston Red Sox are one of the brands of Boston and Massachusetts. The Kennedy name has been a brand for some time, for more than a half century there was a Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts.

Now that there isn’t what does that mean?

On a more immediate level, with respect to the Red Sox, it means the loss of a great fan and a great supporter. He was an American icon to be sure. But he was always a Boston and a Massachusetts guy. And constituent services were always very important to him.

If we had an issue, our players had a problem, if there were charitable things that we needed from the senator or from the government, he was a go-to guy for us. And we were very fortunate to have his -- have the kind of passion and loyalty that he showed to every constituent given to the Red Sox as well. And we will miss him.

We’ll miss his -- the joy he brings. You know, when he walked into a room, he was just larger than life, with a big laugh, and a big smile, and a lot of joking, and a lot of teasing. And it’s just that whole Kennedy mystique was real. And you saw it when you saw him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: So many people have said of Senator Kennedy, he liked to give other people things that they wanted. Going to Fenway Park this week to see Larry Lucchino, to trace the family’s heritage, gave me a chance to take batting practice on the field at Fenway Park. So that is something I will thank Senator Kennedy for.

We want to say goodbye to our international audience for this hour, but up next for our viewers here in the United States, Howie Kurtz looks at how the media covered the death of Senator Ted Kennedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): As the nation pays tribute to Ted Kennedy, so did many of the journalists who knew him. Did the coverage reflect both the triumphs and tragedies of such a complex man?

Plus, he says the media helped fuel an age of excess. And how that the economic bubble has burst, Kurt Andersen says the same media can help us reset the way we now live. In this hour of STATE OF THE UNION, Howard Kurtz, as always, breaks it down with his “RELIABLE SOURCES.”

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, “RELIABLE SOURCES”: Thanks, John.

He was portrayed as a politician and a celebrity. A liberal lion and a bipartisan dealmaker. A tabloid figure and the living link to two murdered brothers. We all knew the end was near, but Ted Kennedy’s passing reverberated across the media landscape this week, prompting an outpouring of tributes, recollections, and for the most part, relentless praise. Even in death he was larger than life.

What struck me in this ocean of acclimation has been the decidedly personal tone from anchors, correspondents, commentators who covered Kennedy, who socialized with Kennedy, and who, in some cases, were befriended by Ted Kennedy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANE SAWYER, CO-HOST, “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”: That smile, that trademark smile through his entire 15-month battle with brain cancer.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST, “HARDBALL”: I’m a type 2 diabetic, and he called me and it was funny because he called me right after I had an attack of hypoglycemia. And he called me up, and he started talking about his friend John Tunney’s father, Gene Tunney, who was the heavyweight fighter. And he had it, and then some cousin had it. He was trying to tell me all of the people in the family, his friends who had this diabetic situation.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: We used to go vacationing with him in Caribbean. We’d be up having tropical drinks at night. He would be bellowing with stories.

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX CORRESPONDENT: He really was a mentor to me in many ways. And in that regard, leading me, helping me editorially, helping me emotionally.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: My father was diagnosed with a very rare, kind of nasty cancer. He’s fighting it off, he’s still in remission, he’s a tough old bird. But Senator Kennedy heard about that and he called me at home. He gave me the name of one of the world’s foremost experts in cancer treatment.

He said, “He’s expecting your calling. I just talked to him.”

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: So, have the media provided an honest portrait of Kennedy’s life, warts and all? And how much is too much?

Joining us now are four first-rate journalists who have covered the senator for decades.

In New York, Joe Klein, columnist for “TIME” magazine. Here in Washington, David Broder, columnist for “The Washington Post”; Thomas Oliphant, a former columnist for “The Boston Globe.” And in Boston, Emily Rooney, the host and executive editor of “Beat the Press” on WGBH.

Joe Klein, you’ve described your relationship with Ted Kennedy over the years as affectionate. You first met him back in 1970.

What was he like to deal with over the years?

JOE KLEIN, COLUMNIST, “TIME”: Well, I also said in that same sentence that we were not friends. You know, it was a professional relationship, but it lasted 40 years.

And when I first met him, he was not the guy that many other journalists came to know. I met him right after Chappaquiddick, and he was very, very wary of the press, he was very awkward in public. It took -- you know, he didn’t start becoming the Kennedy that -- who was really praised this week and mourned until after he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1980.

KURTZ: Yes, that was kind of a turning point.

And Emily Rooney, what was it like for you to cover the dominant figure in Massachusetts politics for so many decades?

EMILY ROONEY, HOST, “BEAT THE PRESS”: Well, you know, it’s funny that Joe says that Kennedy was wary of the press, because my experience was that he was very aloof, that he was sort of unaware of who the important journalists were. I had a personal experience with him myself. My husband was a journalist at WCVB, the ABC affiliate in Boston, and he had a heart attack and died the summer of 1997. And Ted Kennedy showed up at the hospital room.

And not only did he know who my husband was, but he described how he behaved at press conferences. He said, well, Kirby was always in the background, jumping up and down, and he wanted to have the best perspective from the back of the room. And that sets you back as a journalist, frankly, when you suddenly have a personal connection with somebody that is so important in your life that you cover almost every day as a working journalist, and then, suddenly, he intersects with your life.

So, to hear so many other stories of people who had these same experiences with him has been profound.

KURTZ: So many journalists have had those kinds of touching experiences.

And David Broder, you first met Ted in JFK’s 1960 campaign. What was he like in those early years and later?

DAVID BRODER, COLUMNIST, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: He was a callow youth, but a charmer. And they sent him to one of the toughest parts of West Virginia, the home of the Klan, historically. And he tackled it by just going out and talking face to face with everybody that he could possibly meet and said, “Give my brother a chance. Give him a chance. You’ll like him.”

KURTZ: Did you envision him as a future senator at that point?

BRODER: No, I did not.

KURTZ: All right.

Tom Oliphant, was Kennedy good at working the press, especially the hometown press?

TOM OLIPHANT, FMR. COLUMNIST, “BOSTON GLOBE”: Well, hometown, national. Remember one thing, he didn’t need the press to have name recognition.

KURTZ: That is true.

OLIPHANT: He didn’t need the press to get attention for any proposal or speech he wanted to make.

KURTZ: Unlike, say, the other 99 senators.

OLIPHANT: That’s right.

KURTZ: He was so famous, yes.

OLIPHANT: He was a notorious no-show on Sunday morning, at least until recent years. He didn’t need to go. And yet, he had gone through one rough experience with us after another. His campaign in ‘62 was actually ugly, especially the primary. He had not been in office much more than a year when he made one of the biggest political mistakes of his life, putting a hack friend of his father’s up for a federal judgeship that cost him about a year of -- and then Chappaquiddick two years after that.

He was used to pretty rough treatment. And my experience from 1969 forward was that he relished it. He loved the combat. He loved to get in your face, he loved to argue with you. He was not afraid to come back and challenge you when he didn’t like what you wrote.

He was a transitional -- this was not like Bob Kennedy and President Kennedy from a different era. This guy really liked the game.

KURTZ: Let me go back to Joe Klein.

Because what struck me is, on the first day, when they had the bio pieces, you know, things like Ted Kennedy got kicked out of Harvard for cheating were mentioned. By the second day, it almost reminded me of the Michael Jackson death in this respect -- he was a legend already, it seems to me, in the coverage.

So, do you feel, since this guy did have certainly negative aspects to his career, that Kennedy has now been lionized by the press?

KLEIN: Well, I think he was justifiably lionized. And he just died, Howie, for God sakes. I think, you know, the bad stuff was mentioned, it wasn’t dwelled upon, although there were some conservative commentators who did.

He was a very, very human being. And I think that over time, this past week, the stuff that will be remembered about Ted Kennedy is not so much Chappaquiddick, as the legislation he passed. But I think for many of us, it was such a personal experience to cover Kennedy, that those were the things -- those personal experiences were the things that we dwelled on.

I mean, I was with him the day he was pelted with tomatoes by a crowd of anti-busing protesters in Boston’s City Hall. And, you know, we reflected on that later. And he talked very personally about how he didn’t hold it against them, that they and the poor blacks in Roxbury were being asked to carry the burden of this social experiment, and the rich kids in the suburbs were getting off scot- free.

KURTZ: That’s quite a scene.

KLEIN: And so, I think those are the sorts of things that we remember about him. It isn’t -- this isn’t the time to re-litigate Chappaquiddick. I mean, this is the time to remember the man for what he accomplished.

KURTZ: Well, I’m going to re-litigate a little bit, and I’m going to ask Emily Rooney a question on the other side. Let me play for you -- it’s 40 year now after the car accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne. Let’s look at what Ted Kennedy -- some of what he had to say after that tragedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: These events, the publicity, innuendo which have surrounded them, and my admission of guilt this morning, raises the question in my mind of whether my standing among the people of my state has been so impaired, that I should resign my seat in the United States Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Emily, that was a tragedy I think that would have ended the career of just about anybody else. And so, aren’t we as journalists -- sure, there’s a natural reluctance to bring up negative things when somebody has just passed away, but isn’t that part of the story as well?

ROONEY: I think people did bring it up. You know, the Kennedys have left an incredible archive of video behind them. They have been recorded since their birth, each one of them.

This episode appeared on every national and local television station across the country. It was the 40th anniversary of Chappaquiddick this past July. It was also the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, which got more attention.

And also, as Joe Klein points out, Ted Kennedy was dying. So, to bring that up repeatedly.

But I certainly saw it in every single obituary, in every single biography, in every single piece that was replayed. It was an important chapter in his life.

And you have to remember that the people of Massachusetts have never forgotten about Chappaquiddick. Even though Ted Kennedy is reelected every six years, a third of the people of Massachusetts never voted for him. Frankly, never vote for a Kennedy, and largely because of that and other issues -- for instance, his position on being pro-abortion.

KURTZ: Right.

David Broder, watching the funeral procession reach Arlington last night reminded me of that terrible weekend in 1963. Do journalists, say, over 55 -- you’re in that category, right?

BRODER: Somewhat.

KURTZ: Is it possible to look at Ted Kennedy and talk about Ted Kennedy without looking at it through the prism of JFK and RFK?

BRODER: I think it is now, Howie, because his career stayed so long, and he carved out such a different role for himself. His brothers never were really important figures in the United States Senate. And he became a dominant figure in the United States Senate. And he became much more of a populist leader than either Robert or John Kennedy had been.

KURTZ: Ironically, Tom Oliphant, for a guy who’s remembered for some really eloquent speeches, Ted Kennedy, when you interviewed him, could be rather inarticulate. I want to play a little bit of the famous 1979 CBS interview with Roger Mudd, when Kennedy was asked a non-curveball question -- “Why do you want to be president?”

Let’s watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER MUDD, JOURNALIST: Why do you want to be president?

KENNEDY: Well, I’m -- were I to make the announcement, and to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country that it is -- there’s more natural resources than any nation in the world. There’s the greatest educated population in the world, the greatest technology of any country in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: It seems to be painful to watch now. What was it with...

OLIPHANT: Can you answer the trivia question of what that show was up against that night?

KURTZ: I do not know.

OLIPHANT: The commercial network premiere of “Jaws.”

Roger’s interview is metaphor, not tree-ring act, and it’s important to remember that, though he was usually much more inarticulate than that. Whenever he would have a good day, those of us who were condemned to cover the presidential campaign from start to finish, we’d joke that somebody had given him a basket full of verbs and that it helped him get through the day.

And one time I collected a bunch of his -- just did a long quotation to give people a sense of how inarticulate he could be. And again, this is another one of those occasions when he just blew a gasket, but at the same time, thought it was hilarious because he knew he was guilty.

KURTZ: All right.

Let me play a little bit from one other clip. This is 1987, Senator Kennedy on the nomination to the Supreme Court of Robert Bork.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: In Robert Bork’s America, there is no room at the inn for blacks and no place in the Constitution for women. And in our America, there should be no seat on the Supreme Court for Robert Bork.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And, Joe Klein, in a floor speech, Kennedy said that in Robert Bork’s America, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors at midnight raids.

How do we square that kind of partisanship with the bipartisan deal-making for which he was justifiably famous -- Orrin Hatch, John McCain , working with President Bush on education?

KLEIN: Well, I think that, you know, until recently, those two were not mutually exclusive. You could do both.

Could I just make a point on his tongue-tiedness?

It seemed to me that he became a lot more at ease with himself and at ease with answering questions almost immediately after he was eliminated from the presidential competition. I was with him the day that he lost New Hampshire, the first -- you know, a Kennedy losing in New England.

He lost the New Hampshire primary to Jimmy Carter. And that night, he gave a rip-roaring ad hoc speech. And after that, I think he seemed to loosen up because the pressure was no longer on him.

And yes, at times he could be wildly partisan, passionately partisan. And at times he could be demagogic, as he was with Bork. But that was in public.

In private, you know, there was -- he was a different guy. He worked small rooms better than either of his brothers.

KURTZ: Right.

KLEIN: His brothers worked big rooms better than he did.

KURTZ: Let me just jump in and ask Emily Rooney this question.

Putting on your media critic hat, don’t many journalists identify with Kennedy’s causes? I mean, could a Republican senator have gotten anything approaching these kinds of tributes in the last five days?

ROONEY: Well, I don’t think there’s anybody like Ted Kennedy. I don’t know what Republican senator would have deserved it, frankly.

I was trying to think of -- even any living president, I don’t think at this point, would get the kind of attention. Which one? If George Bush 1 or 2 died tomorrow, I’m not sure they would get the same kind of accolades.

I also want to jump in though on the articulateness of Ted Kennedy. He sort of originated the filibuster in terms of answering a question. It didn’t matter. I’m sure everybody had the same experience with him.

One on one, no matter what question you asked him, he answered it in the way he wanted -- he just picked an answer and he started going. And then he started looking down. He would stop looking at you in the eye.

So, you couldn’t interrupt him. You couldn’t say, “So, what a second, Senator. What I asked you was...” -- so he just went right...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I thought we interrupt politicians for a living. I’m interrupting you right now because we’ve got to get a break.

When we come back, we’ll talk about whether the media coverage has gone overboard.

And as we go to break, let’s look at “TIME” and “Newsweek” commemorative issues on the life of Edward Kennedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KURTZ: A look at some of the nation’s front pages the day after Ted Kennedy’s death. And in today’s “Washington Post,” I counted nine stories and columns about Ted Kennedy.

You know, the story has really been inescapable. From primetime specials, to the constant cable coverage, to the extravaganza of yesterday’s funeral, Ted Kennedy’s death has dominated television for days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE COURIC, CBS NEWS: Good evening. Tonight, the nation marks the end of an era in American politics and the end of an unprecedented family dynasty.

CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS: Good evening from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS: This is “NBC Nightly News,” and we’re now continuing our special coverage of this story from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN: Right now we’re all going to get a unique look at Senator Edward Kennedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And Tom Oliphant, even those live shots of the funeral procession, the motorcade going through Boston, and then yesterday making its way to Capitol Hill and Arlington National Cemetery got live coverage. It’s all part of the melodrama.

OLIPHANT: Yes, though, interestingly enough, I thought we underplayed, damn near missed one element of the story that started to break last night, and that was the release of the letter he had had President Obama hand Pope Benedict, a letter more from penitent to priest, as a supplicant asking for a blessing, admittedly one with unique access.

KURTZ: Right.

OLIPHANT: But it showed a vulnerability and an awareness of sin.

We’re going to hear more about this when his memoir is released in a few weeks, but I think this was an example of all the preparations, overwhelming news judgment. And I would have liked to have seen more attention to that letter and the reply.

KURTZ: Joe Klein, there have been a lot of television segments and print stories asking this question about, who will now assume the leadership, the mantle of Camelot? And it strikes me as kind of a bogus question, because Ted Kennedy, at this point, really sort of irreplaceable.

KLEIN: Right. And in many ways, Ted Kennedy saw his older brother, John Kennedy, in Barack Obama . Obama is a very similar, cool sort of politician, charismatic in the way his older brother was.

There are, you know, really interesting, wonderful courageous politicians coming up through the ranks. And there will be another one.

But I would like to ask -- you know, that Bork speech is still kind of digging at me. And I’d like to ask both David and Tom a question, if I could.

And that is, the Ted Kennedy who was the compromiser in the Senate, it’s my recollection -- and I may be wrong -- that that began to happen later in the -- starting in the late ‘80s, ‘90s, you know, the last 20 years, rather than the first 20 years, especially after his 1980 speech at the Democratic Convention, when he was very much the liberal lion.

KURTZ: All right. I’m going to let David Broder answer that, because we’re short on time.

Go ahead.

BRODER: Joe, I think it was a combination of two things. One, he was an emotional politician before he was an intellectual politician. And two, somebody on his staff wrote that inflammatory rhetoric, and in that moment he did not have the sense to tone it down.

KURTZ: And Emily Rooney, as we look at the larger question here about whether these five days of coverage has in any way gone overboard, we do have to remember that this was not just a senator, but he was a Kennedy, he was a celebrity, he was a tabloid figure, and all of that.

True?

ROONEY: Overboard compared to what? Compared to the coverage of Michael Jackson? I should say not.

And something that the local stations did here, which was really profound, starting in the wee morning hours of Wednesday, they blew out coverage, went wall to wall, forced out all commercials. And that’s been going on right up until 8:00 last night.

And I just want to say to Tom Oliphant’s point...

KURTZ: Just briefly.

ROONEY: ... that one of the letters that did get a lot of attention here was the letter he sent the Thursday before he died to the local leadership here on Beacon Hill asking that his seat be temporarily replaced by the governor, instead of waiting 143 days for a special election. So, that has gotten a tremendous amount of attention.

KURTZ: And that will be the next chapter for those of us in the media to cover.

Thank you very much for helping us remember Ted Kennedy this morning, Emily Rooney, Joe Klein, David Broder and Tom Oliphant.

Coming up in the second half of RELIABLE SOURCES, life after the bubble. Author Kurt Andersen says everything has changed since last year’s financial meltdown and that the media are finally getting more serious. I say he’s getting carried away and not much has changed.

We face off in a moment.

Plus, Steve Brill has a plan and a new company to rescue newspapers and magazines. But are readers really willing to pay for the same stories online they have been reading for free?

And RELIABLE SOURCES becomes fodder in the war of words between Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King, and this is STATE OF THE UNION. Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning.

Fire crews are battling wildfires in central and southern California. The largest and most dangerous is burning in the mountains above Los Angeles. It nearly tripled in size yesterday, burning more than 20,000 acres. Residents of several nearby communities have been told to evacuate.

In all, 10,000 homes are in jeopardy.

Allegations of fraud in Afghanistan’s election have doubled in the last two days. Officials says there are now nearly 2,500 complaints. About a quarter of them serious enough to alter the results. They include allegations of voter intimidation and ballot stuffing.

The latest tallies indicate incumbent president Hamid Karzai now has a sizable lead over his main rival.

President Obama is wrapping up his weeklong family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. He’s scheduled to fly back to Washington late this afternoon. Yesterday, the president traveled to Boston to deliver the eulogy at Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral.

That and more ahead on STATE OF THE UNION.

KURTZ: It was a nice ride while it lasted. America was living life on the bubble, a stock market bubble, a housing bubble that created a whole lot of wealth for a whole lot of people, until, of course, the bubble popped, the economy nose-dived, investment banks crumbled, Bernie Madoff went to jail, and the rest of us were left to pick up the pieces.

But are the media now being too quick to proclaim a new era of austerity?

Kurt Andersen, the “New York Magazine” columnist and NPR host, has a new book on the subject called “Reset.”

I spoke to him earlier from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Kurt Andersen, welcome.

KURT ANDERSEN, HOST, “STUDIO 360”: Happy to be here.

KURTZ: You say we’ve been living through a gilded age that came to a spectacular halt late last year. But didn’t the media push and promote all of the conspicuous consumption, the big houses, play the stock market, get rich quick, and all of that?

ANDERSEN: Oh, you know, the media played a big job. I mean, magazines, certainly for the last 25 years, which is more or less the length of the era we’re talking about, were so much about aspirations, as the term of art went, creating a fantasy world that people should aspire to be part of. So, absolutely. And those luxury brands were a big, diehard foundation of a lot of those magazines and media.

KURTZ: And the advertising that rolled in. And most news organizations, with few exceptions, did not warn us sufficiently that the economy and the big banks were dangerously overextended.

But let’s talk about this new era. Politicians don’t like to ask people to sacrifice. I’m not sure the media do either. You don’t get a great cover story out of, don’t buy that big house or, stick with the boring municipal bonds.

ANDERSEN: No. That’s absolutely true.

And in that sense, all of us, in our -- in the media and out of it, and just normal Joes, were part of this great denial. It felt pretty good. It was -- you know, there was a recession or two along the way, but as people looked at their 401(k)s, people looked at their house prices increasing, why be a buzzkill?

And certainly the media were part of that, let’s not be the skunks at this party.

KURTZ: And we were wall complicit, you would say.

ANDERSEN: Absolutely.

KURTZ: You write in “Reset” that people -- even in their now reduced circumstances, people will still want to buy cars, buy houses, read quality journalism. Really? There are a lot of bankrupt newspapers out there, and I had the impression that the YouTube culture seems to be diminishing the audience for what we would call high-end journalism.

ANDERSEN: I think there is an audience for high-end journalism that I -- for instance, look at the growth of public radio, of which -- on which I happen to have a show. Public radio, while every -- while the rest of journalism and media have been cracking apart into smaller audiences while newspapers -- the particular platform of newspapers as it existed in the 19th and 20th centuries has been dying, public radio’s audience has been growing and growing. And so, to me, that says, absolutely there is an audience for quality journalism.

KURTZ: Although public radio does have the advantage of some government subsidies.

Let’s take the...

ANDERSEN: Tiny government subsidies.

KURTZ: OK. Let’s take the tenor of this conversation down several notches. Donald...

ANDERSEN: Happy to do so.

KURTZ: Donald Trump, you call him a “clownish reality show artifact living the high life in Manhattan and Palm Beach.”

KURTZ: “The Donald” fires back with this: “Kurt Andersen has always been a third-rate writer, and an unsuccessful one at that.”

ANDERSEN: Yes.

KURTZ: You two just don’t get along, do you?

ANDERSEN: Well, we’re -- sometimes I feel like we’re professional wrestlers. That once a decade, we’re brought back to take punches and swings and scream at one another.

You know, he is what he is. Donald Trump is an amazing creature of the media and of entertainment, and kind of depends, as most of us depend, on oxygen and sunlight for life on the attention of the media. So, I think -- I guess I’m doing him a favor, a small favor in my own sentence in “Reset.”

KURTZ: That is awfully generous of you. Of course, you and Graydon Carter, when you were young whippersnappers, were taking shots at Donald Trump when you ran “Spy” magazine.

I wonder if in some ways this book hasn’t already been partially overtaken by events. And I’m sympathetic to that as somebody who has written books, and two weeks after you go to the press, something happens and you say, gee, I wish I’d gotten that in.

I mean, you write about the implosion of Wall Street. Wall Street seems to have bounced back, with the big banks now again handing out big bonuses.

ANDERSEN: Well, but Wall Street is changing, absolutely. I mean, yes, if you concentrate on the day’s news, oh good, the Dow is back up. The Dow is still off 35 percent, off of what it was two years ago at the peak of the boom.

KURTZ: Now writing in the wake, I presume, of Barack Obama ’s inauguration, which, of course, was so heavily trumpeted by the media and the culture, you say we seem to be heading into a new era of racial reconciliation.

ANDERSEN: Yes.

KURTZ: Yet, lately, we’ve had the Henry Louis Gates controversy and the birthers and other things that are racially-tinged controversies. So, I think your era of reconciliation has hit a few bumps on the road. ANDERSEN: Well, actually, I was writing -- I was writing this book in as recently as May and early June. So, I -- you know, it’s not as though I was in some Inauguration Day swoon while I was writing it.

And I don’t suggest that we have suddenly, with the election of Barack Obama , or with the recession, turned 180 degrees. I’m talking directionally about the swing of the pendulum away from the last few years. And I think that is happening.

Yes, we see people -- we see kind of crypto -- we see racial tensions continuing, absolutely. We see kind of crypto-racist feeling fueling some of the crazy attacks on this administration. Yes, that’s going to still be there. But I’m still hopeful.

It becomes somewhat less -- it becomes harder to be quite as hopeful when one sees the nuttiness, the sort of Glenn Beck nuttiness, for instance, that...

KURTZ: Well, since you mentioned his name...

ANDERSEN: Yes.

KURTZ: ... let me first read a sentence that struck me in your book. Let’s put it up on the screen.

You say that “Hyperbolic rants and rigid talking points, in either Limbaughian or Olbermannian flavors, now seem worse than useless.” And yet, Rush Limbaugh has probably got more attention in the last six months than he has gotten in a long time. And Keith Olbermann isn’t exactly lacking in the spotlight either.

ANDERSEN: No. And what -- to me, it’s the last hurrah of a discredited era where people substitute shouting instead of reasoned discussion, which is -- again, it’s not going to go away overnight. But I think -- and people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, are invested in a certain kind anger.

And there is going to be a small number of Americans who flock to that and who respond to that. But a small number of Americans is very good -- a perfectly good basis for a business model if you’ve got a cable channel.

KURTZ: Well, that’s a point that I often make on this program, which is that you get a couple of million people watching, and you’re a huge success, even though it’s a small amount of -- small percentage of the culture. But you’re right about the juvenilization of national life.

And you mention Glenn Beck, you say “Children scream and cry and exaggerate,” like Glenn Beck, but he is, at least by the standards of this cable universe and radio talk shows, a pretty successful guy.

So, you say it’s a discredited culture. I’m not sure I see the evidence of that. ANDERSEN: Well, one piece of evidence is that this last week, the adults -- at least insofar as they are -- run the consumer products companies that have heretofore sponsored Glenn Beck, have taken the wheel back and said, nah, this is crazy, this is extreme, we don’t want our ads on his show.

So, you know, I think -- you know, I trust the market over the long run to correct. And I think Glenn has found where the market is going to correct for his over-the-top nuttiness.

KURTZ: But what you would call nuttiness, don’t people like Glenn Beck and CNN’s Lou Dobbs speak for a certain disaffected portion of the culture? You said that you have been critical of Dobbs, but that all of the excess on Wall Street made you viscerally understand the rage and disgust of his followers.

ANDERSEN: Absolutely. And -- but when it gets to the point of simply asserting untruths about birth certificates, or about Barack Obama being a racist, you know, I can viscerally understand the -- when my children, when they were small, crying and screaming and telling lies. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with them or pretend as though they’re not acting up.

KURTZ: But how good is the mainstream media culture at providing some sort of antidote or corrective to things that you might think, I might think, or people with different political views might think are untruths, exaggerations, distortions by people who have a pretty big megaphone because they’ve got a big television show or a big radio show?

ANDERSEN: Well, you have to do what you can do. I was watching one of your competitors -- one of CNN’s competitors, MSNBC, and I saw Dr. Nancy Snyderman doing an exquisitely good job of moderating a discussion of health care. Not screaming and not saying, oh, these people are stupid or nutty, but saying, here’s the facts, let’s not pretend that there are anything such as “death panels” proposed under any bill in Congress.

And so all you can do is be reasonable, be fair-minded, try to tell the facts as they are, and hope that at the end of the day, the good and the true and the real drive out the bad and the false.

KURTZ: Let’s end on a less-than-profound note. In writing about the “age of excess,” as you call it, you have kind of a throwaway line. You say, “So long Paris Hilton.” And she hasn’t really been getting much attention lately, but if your point is that the sort of trivial, cultural phenomenon that probably soak up too much of our attention are maybe fading, what about “Jon & Kate”? What about “Octomom”?

I mean, it seems like there is always a couple of these going on, and they get on network news shows and they get newspaper coverage and other kinds of coverage.

ANDERSEN: Again, we’re not going -- we’re not becoming an aesthetic, serious, earnest, you know, only-The-Economist-reading culture overnight. I would suggest that we look at ourselves in a year or two or three and say, is this culture a little more sane, a little more serious than it was in 2007? And I’m betting you’ll say yes.

KURTZ: And you have no doubt that the culture is heading in that direction despite some of the excesses of the past?

ANDERSEN: Oh, I have doubts every day. I mean, we live on doubt. You know, the people without doubt are the crazy ones.

No, of course. But do I still have hope and belief and a strong hunch that the winds of history right now are blowing in the right direction? Yes, I do.

KURTZ: Well, if you’re right, you will get bragging rights. And if you’re wrong, we’ve got the videotape.

ANDERSEN: Great.

KURTZ: Kurt Andersen, thanks very much for joining us.

ANDERSEN: My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Up next, charging for news. The era of free newspaper and magazine stories online may soon be ending. Steve Brill on why his new company won’t scare off millions of readers once the free ride is over.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: The body count isn’t pretty. Major newspapers in Seattle and Denver have died in recent months. Both Chicago papers are in bankruptcy, along with those in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolis. And almost all the others have been laying off or buying out editors and reporters and slashing sections. “Reader’s Digest” is in bankruptcy as well.

There’s a growing consensus that print publications can’t continue to give away their goods for free on the Internet, but are enough people willing to pay? A new company called Journalism Online has signed up hundreds of clients to help them collect money, at least small amounts of money, from some of their online customers.

Steven Brill, the lawyer, businessman and one-time media maven, is a founder of the company. I spoke to him earlier from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Steve Brill, welcome.

STEVE BRILL, LAW/MEDIA WRITER, ENTREPRENEUR: It’s good to be with you, Howie.

KURTZ: As you know, newspapers, magazines have been giving it away online for years now. People are used to getting everything for free. Now they’re suddenly going to open their wallets and pay?

BRILL: Well, it’s not going to be so sudden. And what they’re going to be asked to open their wallets to pay for is going to be the most valuable, distinctive content that various newspapers and, I should add, magazines and online news sites are now giving them.

And not all of them are going to be asked to pay. The idea is that a newspaper probably has 10 or 15 percent of its audience who are the most engaged, who come to that Web site all the time. Those are the people who will be asked to pay a small portion. And the goal, really, is to say that, you know, there is valuable journalism out there...

KURTZ: Right.

BRILL: ... and it needs to be treated like valuable journalism.

KURTZ: So, the other 85, 90 percent, they will be free riders? They will be able to access everything for free because the most committed customers are going to fork over some money?

BRILL: Well, it’s not quite like that. Let’s say that a newspaper in a given month has one million visitors. It might be that 850,000 of those people just came there casually through a Google news search, came there once or twice, but aren’t particularly devoted to, let’s say, “The Washington Post.”

On the other hand, there might 100,000 or 150,000 of those people who absolutely, positively have to see “The Washington Post” every day. They want to read your column. They want to read the stuff about lobbying. They want to read the stuff that really makes “The Washington Post” “The Washington Post.” Those people will be asked to pay something, typically getting a big discount if they already have a print subscription.

KURTZ: Right. Well, I’ll personally ask them to pay if they’ll keep reading me.

But the great fear, I think, has been -- you know, because this has been tried before on a limited basis. “The New York Times”...

BRILL: It hasn’t been tried before.

KURTZ: Well, not in the way that you’re envisioning it. But the great fear is that if you start charging something, even to some people, that it is all too easy for computer surfers to go clicking off to Yahoo! or AOL or TMZ or YouTube, and that your traffic numbers will plummet.

BRILL: Well, Howard, you are way too modest. That assumes that what you write every morning, what you get up in the morning and do, is absolutely fungible with what 100 other journalists do. And it’s not.

And a lot of people will pay something for that after they’ve sampled it, let’s say, five or 10 times. Or a lot of people will pay for the coverage of the State Department.

Most significantly, lots of people will pay for coverage in their hometown, in their hometown newspaper, of the local zoning board or the high school baseball team, because there is nobody else that’s covering that. And I think most Americans understand that. And in fact, most Americans have been paying for that kind of coverage all their lives.

Now we’re simply saying that the form in which you now get it, which is much more convenient and much faster, that that form shouldn’t be free, that everybody made a mistake a long time ago. And what we’re going to do is give you the convenience across thousands of Web sites of having one password and one account so that all you have to do is click once.

KURTZ: Right.

Now, just briefly, who decides how much to charge? And I read the other day that there might be a scheme, for example, where people could pay money to support specific reporting projects, or reporting in a certain area rather than everything on the site.

BRILL: All of those decisions are left in the hands of the individual publisher. This is not any kind of a group action. Every publisher will decide what to charge for, how to charge, whether to allow people, for example, to have 10 samples a month before they charge, or five samples, or no samples.

KURTZ: Right.

BRILL: Whether they’ll allow people to read the first two paragraphs of everything for free before they charge. Whether they’ll only charge for their Big Ten college football coverage and make everything else free.

There will be a whole variety of decisions. What we’re doing is giving them the flexibility and the ability to do that, and giving their customers the ability to do that with one account.

KURTZ: Now, your detractors might say, you know, you started “Brill’s Content,” the media magazine which I wrote a couple of articles for, which lasted about three years. And...

BRILL: Yes, I know. That’s why it failed. If your articles had been better, Howie...

KURTZ: Well, I tried to do my part.

And you had an airport fast lane security company that after you left this year went out of business. So why should people have confidence that you’re going to make this one work?

BRILL: Well, first of all, I have some very good partners this time. And Gordon Crovitz, who, as the publisher of “The Wall Street Journal,” has made this work.

And second, you know, I know you’re limited in time, but you’ve listed two of the projects I’ve started, one of which did not work after I left, and the other which -- you know, Brill’s Content was a noble effort that never gathered an advertising audience, but I’m proud to have started that. So, I think my batting average is pretty good. But this time I think the partners I have are even better.

KURTZ: In 20 seconds, what’s at stake here? If this kind of effort fails, can newspapers survive without getting some revenue from the place where everybody now seems to be gravitating? And that, of course, the Internet.

BRILL: Well, there really isn’t a significant news-gathering business that you or I can think of that has ever existed long term as a viable business entity, without getting too streams of revenue, advertising revenue, and some stream of revenue from the people that you’re asking to read it. So, I think this is pretty important, but I also think that’s why it will succeed.

KURTZ: Steve Brill, we’ll be following the progress of your effort. Thanks very much for joining us. BRILL: Thanks, Howie. Great to be with you.

KURTZ: Same here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: After the break, the Pentagon investigating journalists? What’s wrong with this picture?

And Glenn Beck beats up on a White House official without disclosing a rather crucial detail.

Our “Media Minute” straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Reporting alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan is one risky assignment. No question about it. But now the Pentagon wants to make sure that journalists are, shall we say, acceptable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ (voice-over): The Defense Department has asked a private contractor to check out anyone who wants to become an embedded reporter. Does this have to do with their experience in war zones? Not exactly.

According to “Stars and Stripes,” the Rendon Group examines each journalist’s recent work and determines whether it is positive, negative or neutral. The “Stars and Stripes” says the Army recently barred one of its staffers from embedding in Iraq from reporting that many of the people in Mosul want the American soldiers to leave. A letter from the military said the reporter, Heath Druzin, was allowed to visit places where Iraqis were committed to working with U.S. forces, but “... refused to highlight any of this news.”

(on camera): Now, the Pentagon initially denied using theses background checks to reject journalists, but that didn’t smell right. And on Friday, that explanation became inoperative.

An Army spokesman acknowledging that the reports were used to deny access to two correspondents in Afghanistan as recently as last year. The spokesman told “Stars and Stripes,” “If a reporter has been focused on nothing but negative topics, you’re not going to send them into a unit that’s not your best. There’s no win-win there for us. We’re not trying to control what they report, but we are trying to put our best foot forward.”

Of course, by keeping journalists off the battlefield, the military is controlling what they report.

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS: Do yourself a favor...

(voice-over): Glenn Beck devoted some time this week to trashing a man named Van Jones, a special adviser at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

BECK (voice-over): Let’s start at Yale Law School, where Van Jones showed up wearing combat boots and holding a Black Panther book bag. A major turning point came in 1993, when he was arrested during the Rodney King riots. He spent the next 10 years as full-fledged radical. Among other things, founding a group called STORM, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, which held study groups in the Marxist and Lenin teachings.

And why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisers?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: And why is it that the Fox News host would target this relatively obscure administration official, along with that scary music? Van Jones was a co-founder of Color of Change, an advocacy group that has been promoting an advertising boycott of Beck’s show over his denunciation of President Obama as a racist. Some three dozen advertisers have pulled their spots from the Beck program, a detail that Beck somehow neglected to mention.

Still to come, selective editing. Jon Stewart, Bill O’Reilly and the RELIABLE SOURCES video that was cut off at a very interesting moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: We could all agree, I think, that wrenching thing outs of context isn’t fair play, even in search of laughs.

On last week’s program, we waded into a spat between Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly over “The Daily Show” mocking Fox’s coverage of the protesters at this summer’s town hall meetings. We did the fair and balanced thing, pointing out that the tone of Fox’s coverage seems to have changed a bit from the Bush years, but that “The Daily Show” cut out some of O’Reilly’s qualifying words.

Well, we’re deeply honored that our segment was featured on “The O’Reilly Factor” this week, but look at how Bill’s show edited it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Jon Stewart, on “The Daily Show” played some clips to that effect. And then Bill O’Reilly came back the next night with a rebuttal.

BILL O’REILLY, FOX NEWS: When we cover the town hall meetings, we don’t describe the protesters as loons.

JON STEWART, “THE DAILY SHOW”: Of course you don’t describe the protesters as loons!

O’REILLY: The surveys show many protesters are simply loons.

To be fair, ah, once again, Jon Stewart took the “loon” clip out of context. Here’s what I really said.

There are the anti-Bush protesters here in New York City. Why most of these people have been peaceful, more than 1,000 have been arrested, and surveys show many protesters are simply loons. KURTZ: So, Anne Kornblut, I mean, sure “The Daily Show” does selective editing for comedic purposes, but isn’t there a serious point here about how you describe protesters depending on what the cause is?

ANNE KORNBLUT, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, I guess so.

O’REILLY: You guess so, Madam? You guess so?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Now, just a minute. Look at what Kornblut said just seconds later about what “The Daily Show” was up to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KORNBLUT: And certainly, I think Jon Stewart’s goal in all of this is to be funny, first, and probably accurate first-ish.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Right. She did zing “The Daily Show” over that piece.

What was it again that Bill was saying about unfair editing?

And John King, as I turn things back over to you this Sunday morning, the death of Ted Kennedy has really turned into this remarkable television moment in recent days. And you’ll be talking more about that this hour, right?

KING: We will be. We’ll be talking more about it this hour, the future of health reform, all the tributes to Ted Kennedy, Howie.

And before I let you go this Sunday, I want to say, congratulations. I bet you’re not sleeping at home. A new addition.

KURTZ: A new edition. A new baby girl. Thank you very much for sharing that with the audience.

KING: All right, Howie. You have a great Sunday.

And I’m John King, and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): It’s 11:00 a.m. Eastern, time for STATE OF THE UNION: SOUND OF SUNDAY.

Fourteen government officials, politicians and analysts have had their say -- the former vice president of the United States and the former colleagues who knew Senator Ted Kennedy best.

We’ve watched the Sunday shows so you don’t have to, and we’ll break it all down with James Carville and Mary Matalin, and the best political team on television.

STATE OF THE UNION: SOUND OF SUNDAY, for August 30th.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: He was one of Senator Ted Kennedy’s closest friends, asked by the family to speak at the memorial service. But if you think Kennedy’s death will change votes in the health care debate, especially on the controversial question on a public question, Senator Orrin Hatch says think again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: I don’t think so. But let me tell you, you know, you are talking about one-sixth of the American economy. And a lot of people don’t seem to realize that. And you’re -- you’re talking about having the federal government take control of health care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Also this Sunday, the bipartisan tributes to Senator Kennedy give way to a crackling debate over national security. Remember when Dick Cheney said here on STATE OF THE UNION that President Obama was making Americans less safe? Now the former vice president is attacking the administration’s new investigation of Bush- era CIA interrogations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I think it’s an outrageous political act that will do great damage long-term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Democrats are aggressively firing back, defending the administration’s investigation and questioning Cheney’s credibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, Dick Cheney has shown through the years, frankly, disrespect for the Constitution, for sharing of information with Congress, respect for the law.

CANTWELL: I’m saying this investigation is very appropriate. No one is above the law. And this is not a political process. This is a legal process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As you can see, we’ve been watching all the other Sunday shows so maybe you don’t have to.

With me here in Washington, where you can only find them together right here on STATE OF THE UNION, Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor James Carville, and Republican strategist and CNN political contributor Mary Matalin.

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.

KING: Good morning. Happy last Sunday in August.

Let’s start with, again, provocative words from your former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney , saying that this decision to go back and have a special investigation of the CIA interrogations during the Bush days, not only does he say it is a bad idea, but he says it is a political calculation by the president and his team.

MARY MATALIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: It’s despicable politics. It’s a dangerous policy. It’s part and parcel of the systematic gutting of the intelligence community, which is our number one first defense against these terrorists.

Senator Cantwell saying this morning, this is a matter of law and no one is above the law, she is referencing Holder’s decision to launch a criminal investigation, a preliminary investigation to lead to a criminal investigation of the implementers, the intelligence gatherers?

Here’s the law. Here’s the history. That -- those cases which the CIA referred to the Justice Department was fully and completely investigated. not by Bush appointees, but by career professionals, the creme de la creme career professionals in the detainee abuse task force in the Eastern District of Virginia.

They looked at all of them and they sent out formal declamation memoranda which said they declined to prosecute and they gave reasons for every single one that they declined to prosecute.

One who was a non-CIA person, a contractor, was convicted. And he is serving time. Fully investigated. So not only are they again demoralizing the CIA, they are dissing their professional prosecutors. He’s accusing them of prosecutorial misconduct.

So this has been vetted. It has been investigated. It has fallen within the law. And it’s so you can say, what’s new? The only thing that’s new is politics. So of course it’s political.

KING: Come in on that point, she says despicable politics. As you know, if you talk to Democrats, they will tell you that Leon Panetta, a friend of yours, the CIA director now, that he’s not happy about this either.

CARVILLE: No, he’s -- first of all, it’s bad politics. The public doesn’t want this. But there is a Republican view of the Justice Department, that’s the Alberto Gonzales pick, is that you put a flunky in there, and he does everything that you tell him to do.

There’s a law that says the attorney general acts independently. This attorney general, the White House is not particularly happy about this, but this is an independent Justice Department as opposed to an arm of the political operation in the White House. They’ve appointed a guy that is going to look into this, he is a professional. He’s actually a Republican. I suspect that the more desirable outcome would be that he decides to do nothing. But there’s also, you know, a lot of people in this country like General Petraeus, like Tom Ridge, like the whole United States military, like the FBI, who thinks that these policies don’t make us safer.

And that’s a discussion we need to have because there’s a whole weight of real opinion in the national defense world that the policies of the past administration actually are more dangerous to the United States. And we need to have that discussion.

KING: Let’s continue to discuss this. Hold on, because I want to hear more from the former vice president, because to your point that you say it’s an independent attorney general, he made this decision, the president did say back in January he didn’t want this to happen, but what the former vice president says is in -- this is my word, not his, that malarkey. If the president didn’t want it, he could have stopped it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: The president is the one who bears this responsibility. And for him to say, gee, I didn’t have anything do with it, especially after he sat in the Oval Office and said this would not happen, then Holder decides to do it so now he has backed off and is claiming he’s not responsible.

I just -- I think he’s trying to duck the responsibility for what’s going on here. And I think it’s wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that what he’s doing, James, ducking the responsibility?

CARVILLE: Well, again, if you’re Cheney, Alberto Gonzales is your model attorney general, because what you do is, is you put an attorney general in that was what the -- and Nixon did the same thing. There’s just a different view of the way the Justice Department operates. And that’s the vice president’s view. We know what he views as a sort of model Justice Department. We saw it in action.

MATALIN: These were not Bush appointees. These were the creme de la creme, organized in a detainee abuse task force who sent out formal declamation memoranda. They said there was insufficient evidence of criminal content -- intent, insufficient evidence of criminal conduct, insufficient evidence of subject involvement, and low possibility or probability of conviction.

The Justice Department does law. The president does policy. Dick Cheney was being characteristically restrained. This is an act of presidential cowardice. This is a security policy. Clearly these interrogations were offered every bit -- almost every bit of information that we have, have saved endless attacks, anthrax attacks, the Brooklyn Bridge, a second wave mass casualty in Los Angeles, sleeper cells.

They discovered 70 trained for Western attacks that we didn’t previously know. They learned the finances. They learned the network. They learned the philosophy. They indispensably worked. It is no accident that we were not attacked for the next seven years.

It is policy. It is the president’s, as the commander-in- chief’s, job and obligation to keep us safe. So it’s an act of presidential cowardice to just say, I’m going to let Holder make this decision. These were not Bush appointees. So you can make the Gonzales point again. But they were career prosecutors.

CARVILLE: And, Mr. Durham, who is a career Republican, look at that, and maybe say -- again, there’s a different thing. You have got Vice President Cheney, we will be greeted as liberators. You’ve got General Petraeus. You’ve got Ridge. You’ve got the entire United States military. You have the FBI.

In that instance, who do you trust to protect the country? Some people say we’ll trust Cheney. Some people say the military and FBI...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: What about -- what about Orrin Hatch? What about Orrin Hatch? He was here and he’s a conservative. But he is not known as a partisan flamethrower. And he served on the Intelligence Committee a long time. And he agreed with the vice president’s point about politics. But he said the biggest concern to him was that a CIA guy faced with a decision in an interrogation is going to take the timid course out of fear of being investigated down the line. Does that give you pause?

CARVILLE: Well, what happened was, as I understand this, and it will come out is, the people that asked for the guidelines, that followed the guidelines, are not here. What apparently -- and who knows, like I said, this is not very good politics for the Democrats.

But, again, if you don’t believe in a politicized Justice Department, as the Republicans obviously do, then the attorney general and these people are going to pursue this. I hope that it comes to nothing because it’s not going to be good politics. This is not good politics for Democrats at all.

MATALIN: Systematic gutting of the post-9/11 policies that have kept us safe. He -- it’s not just a revelation of all of these documents. He has moved -- this president has moved the interrogation, the intelligence-gathering from the CIA to the FBI, which is the -- the FBI collects evidence for the purposes of prosecuting after the fact. Intelligence in the security mode is for collecting intelligence before a terrorist attack.

So now the FBI -- this is 9/10. That is how we got to 9/11 in the first place. And it’s going to be housed, overseen by the National Security Council, which is non-operational. One has to ask, what is Jim Jones doing in a non-operational role housing the interrogation process? Systematic gutting of our number one line of defense against terrorists.

CARVILLE: Again, I just say, as a Marine, I have to say the idea that a commandant of the Marine Corps is gutting national intelligence is...

MATALIN: That the president...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: It’s doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But...

(CROSSTALK)

MATALIN: Jim Jones is the head of the National Security Council inside the White House. It’s a non-operational arm.

CARVILLE: Right, right, I just don’t think that the former commandant of the Marine Corps and the former commander of all NATO forces would, quote, “gut national security.”

MATALIN: One hopes not.

CARVILLE: But that’s my view and I’m entitled to it. I may be wrong.

KING: Let me make a pivot, and it’s a pretty big one, but let’s make a pivot to the health care reform debate here in Washington when Congress comes back from this August of town halls.

Now some have said with the passing of Senator Kennedy, maybe that will change the mood, the spirit, and maybe it will get you votes for the public option. The public option, Senator Orrin Hatch says no, Senator Maria Cantwell was here this morning. She said Republicans should think again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANTWELL: I would say to my Republican colleagues that when you think about how you control costs and you think about what a public option can do in controlling costs, it’s a very key component to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Any chance?

CARVILLE: I agree with Senator Hatch.

KING: You agree with Senator Hatch on what point?

CARVILLE: And I think that the president, when he comes back, it’s evident, there are not going to be Republican votes for this. And so then the Democrats are going to have to forge a bill and present the president with several different options as a way to go forward. But no, Senator Kennedy’s death is not going to change this. They never had any intention of being for anything. And so they’ll just have to proceed from that basis. But no, I like Senator Cantwell, I like Senator Hatch, too. He’s been on my radio show. But in this instance, he’s right.

MATALIN: Well, the notion of renaming this bill, it’s just -- they need to retract it. Renaming it would, dare I say, be like putting lipstick on a pig. There’s many places where Republicans would join with Democrats to cut costs, cutting costs of insurance. Maria Cantwell thinks only a public option will do that. They never talk about the obvious decrease of cost for insurance companies would allow interstate competition.

So then small businesses could pull for an economy at scale or you can have comparison shoppers so patients and consumers could compare. That’s how you get competition or tort reform, which Howard Dean said this week of course we’ll never have because you’re holding on the trial lawyers. There’s lots of ways to cut costs besides a public option.

They have got to drop public option, they’ve got to drop abortion, they’ve got to drop the advance care consulting, they’ve got to drop the competitiveness research council. They’ve got to drop that big stuff, go for incrementalism and you know, Senator Kennedy did get stuff done. He got SCHIP done with Hatch, he got portability done with Kassebaum. Go back to some incremental targeted reform.

KING: What is your view? People ask the question what would Teddy do? What is your view? Would he lobby the conservative Democrats in the Senate and say, hey, stand up for the public option or would he count the votes and go to the speaker and say the House has to give on that.

CARVILLE: Senator Kennedy would know -- everybody knows there’s not going to be any Republican votes.

KING: What about Democratic votes?

CARVILLE: Let me just make a point. Eight years they were in office. Family premiums went from $6,000 to $12,000 a year. If you follow them, they will be $24,000. So following them is not an option. I think Senator Kennedy said that. It would have been evident to him very early in this process that they are going to have to forge something within the Democrats. That’s what the president is going to be faced with when he returns from vacation.

I think he would have liked his instinct to be bipartisan. He was what we call at his heart a unity community Democrat. He liked to bring people together. It’s evident this will not happen. It’s evident that the White House and the Congress is going to present him with several options. Whatever option it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to get any Republican votes. And they know that now.

KING: Let’s take a quick break, quick break. We’ll be back with more of James and Mary. And when we com back, among the things we’ll talk about, their reflections on their hometown now. They live in New Orleans, Louisiana, four years after Katrina. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with CNN political contributors James Carville and Mary Matalin. I want to return to the subject we started with, the CIA investigation now of the Bush era interrogation tactics because as we were speaking in our first block, we always watch the other Sunday shows. And Senator Dianne Feinstein , she is the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on intelligence so her voice matters in this debate, she said she understands why people are upset and might want to look at the interrogation tactics of the Bush days but she is also questioning the attorney general’s timing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEINSTEIN: I was horrified. So I understand the attorney general’s reaction. However, I think the timing of this is -- is not very good. The Intelligence Committee has under way now a total look at the interrogation and detention techniques used for all of the high-value detainees. We are well along in that study. And I’m trying to push it along even more quickly at this time. We are not going to be deterred from completing this study. And candidly, I wish that the attorney general had waited.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Leading Democrats saying we’re doing this, we’re doing this in private, let us finish and then decide what next.

CARVILLE: She makes a good point. Again politically this is not a very comfortable thing. And I think what Senator Feinstein is saying is once they open this up, people are going to say I am going to take the Fifth Amendment or congressional committee and she would have preferred to finish that. I completely understand what Senator Feinstein is saying. The attorney general probably takes the view, as do other people, that we believe that there’s a reasonable chance that laws are broken, but we can’t turn our backs on it. But this is not, I don’t pretend that this is good politics for Democrats at all, but the attorney general is an independent entity in this instance.

MATALIN: I will say again, it’s a 5-year-old report. Its policies are no longer in place. Every CIA director including this one disagrees with this decision. The professional prosecutors have been accused basically of prosecutorial misconduct. Terrible legal precedent, terrible policy to roll back, terrible for the demoralization to the CIA, plus this is delicious.

We’ve paid for one investigation. We’re paying for these multiple investigations. Now we are going to pay to reinvestigate what we have already investigated and Panetta just said this week, he disagrees with all of this, he’s going to pay for the defense of the very people the government is prosecuting again. It’s completely the theater of the absurd.

KING: Let me jump in because the former vice president, Dick Cheney , makes the case that this investigation will further undermine security. But there are competing voices in the debate. John McCain , who I don’t think he likes this investigation, but he said just a short time ago that those tactics, those interrogation tactics have hurt America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: I think that these interrogations, once publicized, help al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative from a prison camp in Iraq who told me that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Again, that’s General Petraeus’ view. That’s Admiral Blair’s view. That’s Tom Ridge’s view. That’s the whole military, anybody who did this in the military would be court marshaled on the spot. It’s a difficult time in the nation’s history. It seems the absolute weight of opinion is that these things made us less safe.

CARVILLE: But, again, the timing of the attorney general -- and I’m interested to see what Senator Feinstein’s committee reports. I think every American is. And these are some difficult things. But if the attorney general believes -- and we don’t know if we said all this, there could be new evidence, it could be any number of things -- it’s in the hands of a Republican, a person who is an expert in this kind of stuff, hopefully, my hope is in three months he comes back and says that we are not going to pursue this.

MATALIN: There is no new evidence. When the prosecutors decline to prosecute --

KING: What about Senator McCain’s point though that he is telling the truth?

CARVILLE: He said operatively in that sentence, once it was publicized. That’s the whole point. All the things that were found to be startling in the just-released report didn’t happen. So a guy brought a drill into the room. You know why that was scary? Because if you look at the al Qaeda handbook, they actually use the drill. The guys who brought the drills in those sorts of tactics and used a Mideast accent because these guys know we don’t do things like that. They water boarded and they got all the aforementioned information. They did sleep deprivation. So you want to have a moral discussion, what is the greater morality? Saving thousands of lives, thwarting dozens of attacks or the civil liberties of brutal, high-target terrorists.

KING: Let’s tie this one up. If I were to somehow lose my mind and decide to run for something, I would come to you two --

MATALIN: We would say you lost your mind.

KING: I would come to you two for advice. You’re both very experienced and skilled at running campaigns. The big question now is if the Massachusetts legislature changes the law and allows for an interim appointment for Senator Kennedy’s seat until there’s an election for a replacement, many say that if they change that law and create the interim opening, there will be pressure on his widow, Vicki, to take that temporary seat. I want you to listen to two of Senator Kennedy’s best friends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: Sure, I think Vicki ought to be considered. She’s a very brilliant lawyer, she’s a very solid individual. She’s certainly made a difference in Ted’s life. Let me tell you. And I have nothing but great respect for her.

DODD: If Vicki wants to do it, I’m in her corner. She expressed to me her own sort of reluctance do that. But she could change her mind. If she did, I’m for her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Gee whiz, media making this story up or is there a compelling argument to say if it’s five or six months, maybe a little longer, you know what, we know you don’t want to be in politics but go cast your late husband’s final votes.

CARVILLE: I think it would be great and for me of course because actually she’s from Louisiana, Crowley, Louisiana, which is a wonderful town in southwest Louisiana. She is a remarkable woman. She obviously knows politics. And if the Massachusetts legislature changed this and they changed the law and let her serve through 2010, I think it would be a wonderful thing. I think it would be great. But you know what? It’s up to her. She said before that she doesn’t want to do this. But some people change their minds. And I think she would be the person that most people would feel very good about her finishing out her husband’s term.

MATALIN: Of course changing the laws is naked, flagrant politics, but it is Massachusetts and her brother was our wedding photographer.

CARVILLE: Right.

MATALIN: She’s a wonderful --

KING: I met him, nice guy.

MATALIN: Very cool, wonderful family. I don’t know what difference it would make. Nobody knows her political views. It’s if Massachusetts wants to do it.

KING: Let me ask thank you in closing, my two favorite residents now of New Orleans, Louisiana. The “Times-Picayune” on Friday, “We’re counting on you, Mr. President.”

The president said he would go there, there are some soon this year. There are some who are saying why hasn’t he been there already? But take me to your hometown in the sense of four years later, what’s right? What’s still wrong? And is there something the president can do tomorrow, next week or next month to help out?

CARVILLE: First of all, I’m a democrat, this is a Democratic president. I would describe myself as slightly miffed that he hasn’t been down yet. But he says he’s coming down before the end of the year. We’re hospitable people and we certainly will welcome him. He’s had any number of cabinet people and they’ve been very, very helpful.

I would describe things as -- I can honestly say -- we moved down in June of 2008. You can start to feel the progress now. And people would be wrong to think that nothing is happening in New Orleans. Things are happening. And they are really good things happening. We now have agreement on LSU Tulane Medical School, big construction project.

We have a Final Four coming, we have the Super Bowl coming, more restaurants open now than there were before the storm. Streets are being rebuilt. It’s a work in progress, but there has been progress. I promise you that.

MATALIN: Let me say as a conservative something good about this administration. The Women of the Storm who grouped up after Katrina early on hooked up with Janet Napolitano , way before he was even -- Barack was even the nominee. And they got Napolitano to understand the necessity of clearing up roadblocks, red tape. And she has been down there a number of times and she has freed up the fights with FEMA and the new FEMA director is good. And the woman that’s in the White House, Janet Woodka, is good. So they have a team that loves New Orleans, is focused on it.

It would be nice if he came, symbolic, but it’s better that these women of the storm, the other citizens groups got focused, got focused on those who needed to be focused on it. And the beautiful thing about this is the absolute explosion of citizen activism to get so many things done from the women of the storm to education. Our own Walter Isaacson, exponential growth in education reform.

CARVILLE: But the big gaping holes, like the coastal restoration, there’s not a sense of complacency, but we have made some progress. We are making progress on the levees. Senator Boxer put in an important piece of legislation that improves drainage in New Orleans. So not complacency, but there has been progress, no doubt about it.

KING: James and Mary, thanks for coming in. I should say to everybody, they have a beautiful home in New Orleans. Nice enough to invite me into it, Professor Carville did. And he is right about the restaurants, we had a great meal after my visit there. Thanks for being here.

Up next, we get out of Washington and head together to the Sooner State, Oklahoma for a great meal and a great discussion on the economy, health care and the role of government.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We ended our travels this week in Boston for Senator Kennedy’s funeral but we began in a state that overwhelmingly supported John McCain for president. In fact, Oklahoma delivered Senator McCain’s widest margin, the president’s widest margin of defeat, 32 percent. That’s an anomaly when you consider the national results. So in this struggling economy, how has Oklahoma fared under an administration it clearly didn’t want?

KING: We will get to that, but first I want to tell you, if you ever visit Oklahoma City, you must go here. This is the memorial to those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing back in ‘95. It is an incredibly solemn place, remarkably well done, an amazing and wonderful tribute to those killed on that horrific day back in ‘95.

And we were honored to spend a few minutes there at dusk, as you can see. It is a breathtaking place and worth visiting to remember that horrible tragedy.

Now, in Oklahoma, here’s the statewide -- unemployment rate is 6.5 percent; 18.5 percent of the residents are uninsured, no health insurance. That means only seven other states have a higher percentage of their residents without health insurance.

So, in that context, we sat down for a light meal at Earl’s Rib Palace in Oklahoma City, to see if the president has convinced anyone there that his policies are the right ones for Oklahoma and the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: How’s the economy here?

(UNKNOWN): The economy is -- fairly strong. It had some limits where some of the businesses have reduced some of their benefits, and a lot of businesses have cut the raises for this year. Our hospital is that way. So that’s, kind of -- pretty common in the area.

(UNKNOWN): I work in a public library. We’re not feeling the economic downturn, but yet we’re experiencing more people coming in to see us because of their own financial issues.

KING: They come to the library because they’re not spending money on books?

(UNKNOWN): Right.

KING: OK. How about you?

(UNKNOWN): I’m pretty much in the same boat. You know, I recently was laid off, but that’s because I was in the mortgage industry, you know, so I feel it really depends upon what department you’re working in, what type of job you’re working in.

KING: This was not a good state for candidate Barack Obama . Anyone at the table vote for Obama?

(UNKNOWN): No.

(UNKNOWN): I did.

KING: You did? One -- so we have one Obama voter.

Let’s talk, a little bit, about what’s going on in Washington. This week the administration put out a new budget review. And back in February, they predicted unemployment would be about 8 percent, and then we’d have a $7 trillion deficit over 10 years.

Now they say, no, unemployment will be probably over 10 percent for the rest of this year and into next year, and the deficit’s going to be $9 trillion over the next 10 years.

What does that tell you about the country?

(UNKNOWN): It’s going to affect every single household in America. You know, I just feel like we have to strap down and we have to know what our limits are.

KING: Do you, as someone who supported the president, do you think he needs to scale back some of his agenda because of those numbers, the debt?

(UNKNOWN): Probably, to be a little bit more conservative and be a little bit more cautious about what he’s walking into. Of course, he inherited part of that, so, you know, he’s not totally responsible, but, yet, needs to be mindful of the decisions he’s making.

(UNKNOWN): I think they’re getting involved in areas that they really don’t have any business. The government is getting larger instead of less into the people’s business.

KING: Do you assume that they will do something big in health care this year or do you think, because of what’s happened in July and August, that one’s gone off the rails?

(UNKNOWN): We pray not. I’m not only employed by health care but I use health care also. I’m a diabetic, and so I’m on both sides of health care. And I just don’t see that the government has the ability to get into health care the way it would need to be if they’re going to control it like they think they want to.

KING: What do you think? Do you want Washington to do something about health care or leave you alone?

(UNKNOWN): I would like assistance, but, at the same time, I would like to be able to make my own choices.

KING: The central theme of the Obama campaign was, “I’ll change Washington.”

Seven months into the administration, does Washington look any different to you? (UNKNOWN): Change was a good marketing tool. That word “change” alone is what did it. You know, I would love to see change. I would truly love to actually see changes, you know. But right now, I think everyone’s throwing everything all at one time on the table. And there just has to be better organization.

(UNKNOWN): I think it does look different, because we have a new justice on the Supreme Court. And so she brings a whole different perspective to the legislative -- I mean, the judicial side of the government.

(UNKNOWN): It’s just leaning the other way right now. It just seems that it went from leaning one way, and now it’s leaning the other. Our church prays for the government and the president every time we meet, and hopes that they get some -- some knowledge, some insight. And we’re going to continue. And we hope that we can -- we can make a difference.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Great folks and a nice meal at Earl’s. We thank them all.

And up next, Ted Kennedy called it the cause of his life. With the summer recess coming to a close, will Congress return to Washington with real solutions to health care?

The best political team on television standing by to answer that and much more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Joining me now from Washington, senior political analyst Gloria Borger, senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash, and, from Martha’s Vineyard -- ooh, he’s the lucky one -- White House correspondent Dan Lothian.

(LAUGHTER)

Let’s get right to the former vice president, back in the news today, talking about this attorney general’s decision, Attorney General Eric Holder, to have a special investigation looking into whether the Bush era CIA interrogation tactics violated a law.

The vice president says it’s bad policy, bad politics, and he thinks it’s the president’s fault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We had the president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn’t be an investigation like this, that there would not be any look back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration.

Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and they’re reversing course on that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dan, how does the White House answer the vice president saying, you know, the president, A, could have stopped this, and, B, he says it’s disingenuous for the president now to say, well, that’s Eric Holder, the attorney general, and he made this decision independent of the White House.

LOTHIAN: Well, that’s -- that’s exactly what they’re saying, John.

They’ve been very careful not to weigh in on this issue, saying, instead, whenever they’re asked about what the president’s preference would be or whether this, sort of, goes back on what the president had promised, that this really is an independent decision that was made by Eric Holder, in fact, the spokesman, deputy spokesman, saying that the president, when he picked Holder to do this job, that he picked someone who he knew would be independent.

And when we asked whether or not he supports the decision, he says the president supports Eric Holder making that decision, John.

KING: Interesting distinction.

LOTHIAN: Exactly.

KING: Dianne Feinstein , the chairwoman of the committee, the Intelligence Committee, says, this morning, I understand Eric Holder’s outrage, but, you know, we have an investigation under way. Why didn’t he wait?

BASH: Well, some of that is a turf battle. Because Senator Feinstein has been -- has the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has been working on this for months and months, and will continue to do that.

So part of it is that. But the other part of it is that she is talking to people over at the CIA. And guess what? I’m sure she is hearing some of what Dick Cheney and other Republicans have been voicing, which is that there really is a fear that there will be a chilling effect on what goes on in the interrogations going forward in terms of going after terrorists, there’s no question about that.

BASH: What is so interesting to me is what Dan was talking about, the politics of this inside the administration and good cop/bad cop. I mean, how could the White House really say with a straight face, you know, we don’t really have anything do with this?

I mean, you know, maybe it is possible that they just let the attorney general do his thing, but it’s just kind of hard to believe with something at this level, especially something that the president promised or at least suggested that he didn’t want to do, that there wasn’t a discussion about it.

BORGER: The person left hanging out there in all of this is the CIA director, Leon Panetta. Here’s a guy who goes into the CIA and tries to improve morale. He goes to the White House or sends his emissaries to the White House and says, the last thing we need is a prosecutor to start investigating the behavior, who were doing what they thought they needed to do to save lives post-9/11 and were given legal memoranda saying that in fact they could do these things.

And so he has got a real problem here inside his own agency. I think the big question that remains unanswered here is whether we are talking about those agents who actually did the interrogations or are we talking about possible prosecutions of the people above them who gave them the orders, whether they were at the Justice Department or somewhere else who gave them the orders saying it is OK to do X, Y, and Z.

And my guess is you’re not talking about prosecuting the agents in the field who thought they were just doing their job.

KING: And there is a spicy political argument about this, but there is a very important policy question. And Orrin Hatch was on the show this morning. He is a veteran of the Intelligence Committee. And he said his fear that an agent is in a room doing an interrogation, and you get to a very difficult point where you have to decide how aggressive to be, and in the back of the mind, this agent is going to think, I’m going to be investigated for this if I do this. And so Senator Hatch says his fear is that agent will be too timid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: If our people are too timid to get out there and do the things that have to be done because we have -- we have -- and I believe in oversight. That’s what the Intelligence Committee should be all about. But if we’re too timid, we’re not going to be able to protect this country. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dan, if you are working in the Obama White House, they won the last election, but looking back at what happened to John Kerry , looking back at how Republicans have used the argument that Democrats view terrorism as law enforcement, they’re softer than we are, they have to be somewhat sensitive to the political argument playing out that this policy, their policies, and now this investigation are going to make Americans less safe.

LOTHIAN: Well, they certainly hear that, John. And there is that concern out there that there will be this chilling effect, as pointed out. That if there is an agent sitting down, wanting to gather some kind of information, will think twice as to how they will do that.

But you know, there is also this other knock against the CIA that we saw this week, is that this agency, which the president has signed off on, this new agency, so-called HIG agency, which will now in essence push the CIA out of the interrogation business, at least in leading it, where now the FBI will be taking the charge, where this will be happening at FBI headquarters.

We are told that the CIA is on board with this, but certainly some see this as yet another slap to the CIA and this administration trying to take more control of the process.

BORGER: You know, this is not a good political issue for President Obama, either. I think he wishes it would just go away, because when you look at public opinion polls, it shows that a majority of Americans do not believe in prosecutions for these people.

And so it’s going to be a tough political thing for this president if his Justice Department and this prosecutor recommends prosecutions. It’s not something the president really wants to talk about when he has got health care he needs to talk about.

BASH: Which is exactly why he’s not talking about it, and he’ll let the attorney general do it.

BORGER: Right.

KING: Let’s take a quick time out on that very point. We’ll take a quick break, then we’re back with Dan, Gloria, and Dana, to talk about health care, the health care debate here in Washington after the death of Senator Edward Kennedy. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with CNN’s Gloria Borger, Dana Bash, and Dan Lothian, who is on Martha’s Vineyard.

I want to move on to health care. But first, right as we head into the break, a little proof, we always say, in this hour, we watch so you don’t have to. BORGER: I got an e-mail. We were having the discussion about the CIA interrogations. Got an e-mail from a senior administration official who makes the point, saying that the attorney general and the president have said explicitly that those who were acting within the parameters of the Justice Department guidelines should not be prosecuted.

So what we’re talking about is, those agents who were just doing their jobs according to the rules, according to the president and the attorney general, off-limits for prosecution.

KING: All right. We’re glad they’re watching. And if that senior administration official wants to come in and explain in more detail next Sunday, we’ll make some room. That’s a promise.

Let’s move on to the health care debate, because one of the big questions, anyway, was what would the president do after the August recess? What would the lesson learned be from all of these town halls? And is there support for the public option? And how are they going to pay for it? And can they bridge the disagreements among the Democrats?

And some have thought maybe the death of the legendary Ted Kennedy, whose issue was health care for so long, maybe that would change the substance of the debate, not just the tone of the debate.

Senator Orrin Hatch, one of Ted Kennedy’s best friends, was here this morning. And he said, you know what, this is not about Ted Kennedy, it’s about the president providing better leadership.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: I think sooner or later the president has to weigh in and he has to carry the ball. Frankly, I think he has left too much up to Rahm Emanuel and Axelrod and the others, who are brilliant people, I mean, I have a lot of regard for them.

But he’s going to have to weigh in. But let me tell you, he’s going to have to realize that you’re not going to get this big, broad Democrat high -- big spending bill. You’re not going to get Republican support for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dan, do they have any different strategy? The president has deferred to the Congress so far, to the Democratic chairmen and the speaker and the majority leader, saying, you guys write the bill and then you’ll call me when you need my help. Do we get any sense that with the clock ticking, they’re going to do things differently?

LOTHIAN: Yes, I talked to a senior administration official about this, and I was told that nothing really changes. That the president, when he gets back, will be fully engaged. And they believe as engaged as he was before.

You know, for weeks I’ve been talking to Robert Gibbs and asking him questions about whether or not there would be more involvement from the president, and he always points out, well, the president has been very involved. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes.

But as you pointed out, I mean, there is a lot of criticism, that the president needs to get more involved in the nitty-gritty. From the White House’s perspective, they believe that he had been fully engaged and will continue to do that.

KING: Quickly on this point, because I want to move on to other things. But it’s an interesting point.

KING: They says he hasn’t evolved, he’s had these meetings, but even Democrats on Capitol Hill, they don’t translate it that way.

BASH: Many Democrats would agree with what Orrin Hatch said about that the president needs to get more involved. And it’s not about meetings. He’s certainly -- he’s had umpteen meetings with Democrats and Republicans at the White House and other places. The issue is, what do you want, Mr. President? Where are your bright lines? What do you want in terms of specifics? Get involved to end what has become an increasing civil war in your own party. This isn’t about Republicans. It’s about getting his fellow Democrats to come together and that’s where many Democrats say they really need his leadership, especially coming into the fall about what he wants so they can help negotiate the compromise that Ted Kennedy was able to do so many times on this issue.

KING: I want to turn to the funeral last night and the burial ceremony in particular at Arlington National Cemetery. Dusk was turning to dark, and the archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, was reading a letter that Ted Kennedy wrote in his final days to the pope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARDINAL MCCARRICK: Shortly before he died, Senator Kennedy wrote a very moving letter to the holy father and took advantage of the historic visit to the Vatican of President Obama to ask the president if he would deliver it personally, which Mr. Obama gladly did. A couple of weeks later, the pope replied with a message of concern --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: What did you take away from that? He said in that letter to the pope that he was an imperfect man, that he had many flaws, and that he wandered away from the church’s teachings on occasion, but he always found in it his roots to return and to guide in his life. It was an interesting moment.

BASH: It was. It was almost like a final confessional. We knew that Senator Kennedy had written that letter, one of the last letters that he had written and gave it to the president to personally deliver. But Senator Kennedy’s aides, nor the Vatican, would disclose what was in that letter. And we also did not know until that dramatic letter at the grave site last night at Arlington that the pope actually responded. And it was -- we talked many times in the past several days about Senator Kennedy’s faith and the fact that he had a deep Catholic faith and the fact that that really did drive his policies. But the fact that he had a complicated relationship with the church because of his position supporting abortion rights. And so I think he wanted to try to make peace with the Catholic Church as the highest level with the pope, and that was such an unbelievable moment to hear those final words from Senator Kennedy and then to hear the response from the pope.

KING: Speaking at his own burial.

BORGER: I think he delivered his own eulogy, exactly. And there were lots of folks saying, why didn’t we hear more about health care? Why didn’t we hear more about his fights against poverty, the death penalty, to end the war? Well, we did. But we heard about it in Senator Kennedy’s own words and he talked about being “committed to do everything I can to achieve access for health care for everybody in this country.” So he literally spoke from the grave. And it was kind of a stunning, stunning moment.

KING: Jump in, Dan.

LOTHIAN: I was just going to say though this was not the first time that we’ve heard Senator Kennedy through the words from that letter talk about how he was imperfect. I mean, time and time again, whenever he would stumble throughout his life, he was always willing to sort of step up and talk about that, how he was not perfect and how as a human being, that he would stumble, but that he would pick himself up again. So this was just sort of summarizing again in that letter at the end of his life what he had been saying now for years.

KING: Dan’s right on that point. It was a major theme of the weekend, the redemption and the get up if you’re knocked down qualities of Ted Kennedy. When we come back, we’re going to take a break. When we come back, what we call our lightning round. Two issues, we’ll give our correspondents two sentences. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back for our lightning round and John McCain was among those who gave a passionate statement about Ted Kennedy’s life at the Friday night memorial service. And not exactly Ali-Foreman, Ali-Frazier, but he did say that he loved the idea of being on the floor with Teddy Kennedy and sometimes having a good old fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Ted and I shared the sentiment that a fight not joined was a fight not enjoyed. And irresistibly, when we were both drawn into a debate, we had no particular interest in, but which suddenly looked like fun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So who is it next time, John McCain ’s down on the floor itching for a fight, who is the successor?

BASH: You know, I hate to say this, but there really isn’t. There are people like Pat Leahy who have been there for a long time, but you know, he enjoys his partisanship maybe a little more than Ted Kennedy does, did. So I think most of Ted Kennedy’s colleagues would tell you that there really isn’t anybody.

BORGER: I agree. There is no more joy in Mudville. There is no more fun like that on the Senate floor in politics. It’s become so polarized and so serious in the battles.

KING: OK, it’s the lightning round. Dan, you’re in Massachusetts. We had Marvin Haggler growing up. Who is the next middleweight?

LOTHIAN: Believe me, the answer is pretty easy. His shoes were bigger than Shaquille O’Neal’s. I don’t think anyone can fill them.

KING: OK, that’s good. Let’s listen to two friends of Ted Kennedy on whether his wife should take his temporary appointment, if there is one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: Sure, I think Vicki ought to be considered. She’s a very brilliant lawyer. She’s a very solid individual. She certainly made a difference in Ted’s life, let me tell you, and I have nothing but great respect for her.

DODD: Whatever Vicki wants to do, I’m in her corner. She knows that. And she has expressed to me her own sort of reluctance to do that. But she could change her mind. If she did, I’m for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Yes or no, if the interim appointment is created?

BORGER: Yes.

KING: Yes?

BORGER: The women of the next generation.

KING: We’ve got to go. Dan Lothian, thanks very much. I’m John King. Dan says yes. I’m John King, this is “State of the Union.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING (voice-over): The lion of the Senate is laid to rest. Thousands of mourners turn out to pay their respects to Senator Edward Kennedy, a man who fought passionately and pragmatically in the Senate for nearly half a century.

DODD: John Fitzgerald Kennedy inspired our America. Robert Kennedy challenged our America. And our Teddy changed America.

HATCH: People have called Teddy and me the odd couple, which was certainly true.

KING: Two of Senator Kennedy’s closest friends, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut share their personal memories.

Plus, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington on the post-Kennedy health care debate in the Congress.

KING: And my exclusive interview with the late senator’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

And in our “American Dispatch,” the Kennedy connection to Boston sports dynasty. I talked to the president and CEO of the Red Sox, Larry Lucchino.

Four years now since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu gets the last word.

This is the “State of the union” report for Sunday, August 30.

A champion for those who had none; a man who never stopped trying to right wrongs; and someone who wasn’t perfect, but believed in redemption -- just a few of the sentiments expressed at the funeral of Senator Edward Kennedy in Boston yesterday.

President Obama led the nation in saying goodbye to the 77-year- old senator, who was laid to rest near his brothers John and Robert at Arlington National Cemetery.

KING: And so, Senator Hatch, as you put this together, what did you have to leave out that you wanted to say about your friend? HATCH: Well, there were a lot of things that I left out because you only had so much time. But it was a privilege to be able to be there and be with Vicki and the family.

DODD: Well, we talk frequently, and you know, whatever Vicki wants to do, I’m in her corner. She knows that. And she’s expressed to me her own sort of reluctance to do that, but she could change her mind. If she did, I’m for it. I think she’d be great. I think Orrin is right. She brings talent and ability to it, and to fill that spot I think is something the people of Massachusetts would welcome. We could certainly use her in the Senate. But I leave that up to her. She’s got a lot on her mind right now, and frankly, I’ll leave it up to her decision-making process. I know talking with her children and talking with Teddy and Kara and Patrick and others, they’ll come to the right decision. Whatever she thinks is best, I’m for. KING: Senator Dodd, you are on the ballot next year, and at this point -- it is still early -- it looks like you may have a tough race on your hand. And among your allies is now your late friend, Senator Edward M. Kennedy . He produced -- he was part of an ad for your campaign, and we want to share it now with our viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DODD: I’m Chris Dodd and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It’s striking to watch that in the context of the events of the past few days, Senator, but it’s a powerful appeal from your friend, Senator Kennedy.

Will you continue to run that ad as you seek reelection in Connecticut?

DODD: I don’t know, John. But thanks for running it. I haven’t heard it in a while. I don’t know. We’re not talking about that today. This is a time to talk about Teddy, remember him and his contribution, and what we need to do to get back on track again. I’ll leave politics to next year.

KING: Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, thanks for being with us this morning as we’re discussing the health care issue. Senator Kennedy called it the cause of his life.

So will this acrimonious debate over health care reform give way to his spirit of bipartisanship? When the Congress returns, we’ll talk it over. Senator Orrin Hatch is staying with us, and we’ll be joined by Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HATCH: He said -- Orrin, he said, what else did I agree to last night?

(LAUGHTER)

HATCH: I start telling these things, my eyes start to water, my nose starts to run. It’s just a mess, I’ll tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, whom you just saw right there, and joining us is Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington State.

Senator Hatch, that was part of your tribute to Senator Kennedy, and you were talking about a deal you cut with him late one night after perhaps he had had an extra drink or two, and you came to you the next day wanting to check his notes against your notes.

HATCH: Well, we both lived up to it. We fought each other all the time. But he was willing to compromise, he was willing to come to the center. And many times, like in the CHIP bill, it was center- right. And I found it very -- but you know, there were certain things he wouldn’t compromise on no matter what you did, and we just fought knock-down, drag-out battles.

But you know, it was a privilege to serve with him. He was a great senator. He was the leading Democrat, leading liberal in the Congress, and probably over the last 50 years, the leading liberal in the Congress, and I had to take that into consideration. You had to take into consideration my conservative politics, as well.

KING: If you look, Senator Cantwell, you’re a more junior member of the Senate, but if you look at your entry in the “Almanac of American Politics,” it says this. “As a child, Cantwell observed politics firsthand as her father dispensed advice to the union members, laborers, and politicians who stopped by to talk politics. During her father’s stint as an aide to Congressman Andrew Jacobs, she woke one morning to the laughter of Ted Kennedy downstairs.” Take us back.

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D), WASHINGTON: That’s right. During the -- his brother’s presidential campaign, Ted Kennedy came to my house, as a young girl, to thank everybody who had been participating and campaigning on behalf of his brother.

And literally, I didn’t believe that he was in our house, and you know, went to school the next day and everybody at the Catholic school that I went to was talking about how Ted Kennedy had come to the Cantwell home. So it was a great honor.

KING: And so his voice has been missing this past year and especially these past few months from the issue he cared most about, the debate about health care reform. And we’ve all heard in the eulogies and in the reflections on, well, could it be different now that he has passed? Will there be a new mood of bipartisanship?

The president’s point person on this issue is the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius . She put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: The best possible legacy is to pass health reform this year and have a bill that President Obama could sign. And hopefully at every step along the way, they’ll ask themselves, what would Teddy do? (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: What would Teddy do?

But I think right now, we still need to have this debate about the high cost of health care. And what everybody in America wants to know is what are we going to do to control the cost?

I mean, we can talk about the uninsured, but those who have insurance want to know about what both Democrats and Republicans are going to do to keep health care costs down, because premiums going up 120 percent again in the next 10 years is just unsustainable.

KING: Is there any chance -- despite the passing of your friend, is there any chance that a bill with a public option is going to pass the United States Senate?

HATCH: I really don’t think so.

But let me tell you, you know, you’re talking about one-sixth of the American economy. And a lot of people don’t seem to realize that. And you’re talking about having the federal government take control of health care when Medicare is $38 trillion in unfunded liability, and going higher. Where you’re going to triple -- you’re going to triple the budget deficit in 10 years, double it in five years or even less.

And you know, when they talk about $1 trillion, they don’t even -- most of this doesn’t even trigger in under the Democrats’ plans until after the next election in 2013. The only fair way to do it is take it 10 years from there and it’s always $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion on top of $2.5 trillion -- $2 trillion national budget for health care now, and that’s what they don’t tell you.

And then you add the public plan on to that, or what I call the Washington-controlled government plan, that’s what’s got people all over this country concerned. Because they know, once they do that, you’re going to get into all kinds of other problems, including rationing, that Democrats hate to talk about. But that’s what’s going to happen.

And -- and our senior citizens are scared to death.

KING: Independent Joe Lieberman, who is a -- you know, caucuses with the Democrats, was here last week and he said, not the way he would prefer it, but he believes, given the political climate, given the deficit numbers, that everyone should call a time-out and do this incrementally, pass a bill first that deals with the biggest problems in the system, and prove -- that the Democratic Party should prove we are bending the health care cost curve; now you can trust us when we come back to do the other things like universal coverage and a public option.

Is that the way to go, maybe, in this political environment?

But the bottom line is, is that health care costs, which, right now, are about a third of our federal budget, are going to double if we do nothing.

And so I think getting true competition into the system and giving consumers choice is what the Democrats and Republicans should be joining ranks on.

HATCH: Well, Senator Cantwell and I have done -- we’ve worked on very important legislation together, and I intend to work with her a lot further in the future.

But the best way to get the costs down, it seems to me -- and you made the point that you have a pretty darn good state, as far as health care is concerned. Utah is one of the exemplary states.

I believe we ought to have 50 state laboratories testing all of these various health care things, and then we can pick and choose from the 50 states. KING: Let me call a quick time-out here. When we come back, we’ll continue our conversation with senators Hatch and Cantwell, including discussing the attorney general’s controversial decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era CIA interrogations.

I talked to him exclusively at the memorial service in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEDDY KENNEDY JR., SON OF EDWARD M. KENNEDY: He lived to be a grandfather. And knowing what my cousins have been through, I feel grateful that I have had my father as long as I did. He even taught me some of life’s harder lessons, such as how to like Republicans.