MR. CASEY: Based upon the information that we have now, I think that, that a lot of Americans would have serious doubts. I’m not sure there would have even been a vote on Iraq that early in the...
MR. RUSSERT: But in ‘05 you said you’d vote for it. Would you today in ‘06 vote for it?
MR. CASEY: Based upon the evidence that was presented then, yes, which I think has been—was misleading, and I think it was faulty. The intelligence was faulty.
MR. RUSSERT: But today, today is no. Today you would vote no.
MR. CASEY: Today—if we knew then what we know now, sure. I think there wouldn’t have been a vote and I think people would have changed.
Seriously, if everyone knew that the evidence was false, Bush lied and Iraq had no WMD, why would the resolution even exist?
MR. CASEY: I don’t think we can, Tim. I’m not ready to abandon this mission; I think a lot of Americans are not, either. What has to happen in Iraq is what you’ve, you’ve not seen. We need new leadership. We don’t need a deadline—a timeline; we need new leadership. And part of that leadership, I think, involves a couple of things. Let me just go through four of five of them.
...Accountability, I think, means replacing Donald Rumsfeld—Rick and I disagree on that—it means finding out how and whether we were lied to with regard to intelligence.
Good points on accountability!
SEN. SANTORUM: I’ll be happy to start there. I think Secretary Rumsfeld has done a fine job as the defense secretary, and the problems that we are confronting are problems of an enemy that’s a very potent enemy—much more potent than I think anybody ever anticipated....We need to go out there and continue to fight this war on Islamic fascism. Not just, as my opponent likes to focus on, just the war in Iraq. That’s a front of a multi-front war in which we’re fighting against an enemy that’s a very dangerous enemy.
WTF?
SEN. SANTORUM:...This is an enemy that uses a tactic that is a very effective tactic against us, called terror, because they don’t care about life, and we do. And so when you have—when you match up those forces, people who don’t put on uniforms, people who are willing to die for their cause, and want to die for their cause, makes it a very difficult enemy to fight, one that we have not successfully fought in the past—or I shouldn’t say successfully, one that we haven’t fought in the past.
We don’t need a friggin definition of the word terrorist.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me talk about a Pentagon report on Friday. Our ambassador to Iraq has said the principal problem is not foreign terrorists, it’s sectarian violence, Sunni vs. Shiite. The Pentagon report on Friday said this: “Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a Pentagon report said. ... ‘Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife.’ ... ‘The last quarter, as you know has been rough,’
Rodman said. ‘The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing.’”
This is Shiite vs. Sunni, Iraqi vs. Iraqi.
SEN. SANTORUM: Yeah. This is...
MR. RUSSERT: What do you do about that, stay the course?
SEN. SANTORUM: That makes, that makes it more complex....Santorum is spewing BS right here. Iraq and the war on terror are separate issue. He keeps talking about all the people who are chanting death to Americans. Is he suggesting an invasion of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, etc.?
MR. RUSSERT: But, but stay on Iraq, Senator.
SEN. SANTORUM: I’m coming back to it...This is a tactic of Iran to disrupt the—our, our efforts in Iraq by, in fact, trying to defeat the Sunnis. So there’s, there’s no question, this is a very complex war.
MR. RUSSERT: So Iran now has more influence in Iraq than they did before Saddam Hussein?
SEN. SANTORUM: Just understand.
MR. RUSSERT: Is that true?
SEN. SANTORUM: I would say that they have influence in, in, in a free country where you have an opportunity to express yourself, if you will. Yes. You can probably do more...
Iran is expressing themselves in a free country?
MR. CASEY: Couple of things. First of all, what you just heard was Senator Santorum’s long answer, which basically says, “Stay the course in Iraq.” It’s a completely different point of view. I think we’ve go got to change the course and, and have new leadership. Part of that is that, that accountability I’ve talked about.
Casey: Zing!
MR. CASEY: Tim, I’ve never favored a deadline in, in, in this whole campaign. Because we have to do everything we can to, to hold the administration accountable. And when you’re—when it’s not going well, you, you see the, the Pentagon report this past—just in the last couple of days, this thing is headed toward civil war. We don’t know if it’s there yet. We hope it’s not. But when you have it heading in the wrong direction, you’ve got to have a new course. And, and...
MR. RUSSERT: So, so when John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, introduced legislation which says, “All troops out by July of 2007,” Bob Casey votes no.
MR. CASEY: Absolutely.
Contradiction: There is absolutely no reason to continue giving the impression that a timetable for withdrawal is not the most rational next step. Iraq is in a civil war, but the notion that it's "not there yet" as an excuse against a timetable makes little sense. The situation is deteriorating rapidly. Keeping the troops in Iraq until everyone is satisfied that the country in a full-blown civil war is not logical! When he talks about troops pulling back, increasing special forces, turning over responsibility to the Iraqis, he makes sense. The rescue the mission crap is nonsense.
SEN. SANTORUM: What I would say is that we have found weapons of mass destruction, they were older weapons, but we have found chemical weapons. The report was just released not too long ago that, that said that there were over 500 chemical weapons found in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator, the president has accepted the report of his two task force and said, “That the chief weapons inspector has issued his report. Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there.”
SEN. SANTORUM: Well, there were all sorts of weapons that our intelligence believed were there. They thought that they were new weapons. So far we, we did not—we have not found any new weapons. But we have found old weapons, weapons from the Iran/Iraq conflict, and we found over 500 and the report says that there were more.
This was debunked! Repubs simply continue spewing the same BS to confuse.
MR. RUSSERT: President Bush said that Iraq had “nothing to do with September 11th.” Do you agree with that?
SEN. SANTORUM: As far as we know, that’s, that’s the case. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a working relationship with a variety of different terrorist organizations. In fact, the Saddam Hussein government was giving bounties for killing Israelis, giving terrorists bounties for killing Israelis.
Huh? See last point!
SEN. SANTORUM: I don’t know if it’s a question of more troops or less troops. You get—I, I think the focus should not be Iraq, should be Iran.
MR. CASEY: Tim, you’re hearing, you’re hearing a long speech here about, about other speeches he’s given. What we need and what the president needs to tell us about, and what this senator won’t hold the president accountable for is a plan. One of the things that we could be doing, not just when it comes to Iraq, but when it comes to the, the global war on terror, is to have more Special Forces out there. Doubling the number of Special Forces, having counterproliferation units run by the Special Forces that intercept nuclear, biological, chemical, potential weapons around the world—finding them before the terrorists get them. That’s the kind of on-the-ground thing. We don’t need more speeches.
Casey: Zing!
MR. CASEY:...Let me, let me just have a moment on, on Iran. Rick, you just talked about, and you’ve heard him a lot talking about Iran. You’ve heard him a lot talking about the terminology of, of the war on terror. He calls it Islamic fascism and, and he, and he talks about the terminology and changing the terms. What we need, Rick, is not a change in the terminology, we need to change the tactics. And we’ve got to make sure that even as you’re debating whether or not we call Osama bin Laden a terrorist or a fascist, I don’t think that really matters. We need a plan. You’re in the Senate, you have votes, you should be leading that effort. And I, I think after it’s over, after you get the terminology right, maybe you can have a seminar in Washington about whether bin Laden, whom we should be finding and killing, whether he’s a dead terrorist or a dead fascist. And I think you should worry more about finding him and killing him.
Casey: Zing!
SEN. SANTORUM: My, my opponent has, my opponent has, my opponent has no plan. The idea—all he’s suggested is his plan is Special...
MR. CASEY: I just gave a plan. Where’s yours?
SEN. SANTORUM: All you, all you suggested with your plan is more Special Forces.
MR. CASEY: No, it’s not. That’s not, that’s not all it is.
SEN. SANTORUM: Do you, do you support, do you support more intelligence gathering because your party has been out there...
MR. CASEY: Absolutely.
SEN. SANTORUM: ...trying to, trying to undermine our surveillance programs. You’re the one who’s gone out and said that you have serious questions about our intelligence surveillance programs. What do you think has kept our people safe? What do you think stopped the British, the British attack? You folks have been the party, as you have been the party, of making sure that we don’t have the intelligence gathering capabilities that we need, and, and, and have, have joined in making sure...
MR. CASEY: Rick, Rick, you’re not debating the party, you’re debating me right here.
SEN. SANTORUM: I’m debating you.
MR. CASEY: Yeah.
Casey, calm! Ricky rabid!
SEN. SANTORUM: Please let me finish—because the American people are not going to stand—are, are, are losing their resolve because of the tactics the terrorists are using. Understand, terrorists understand. What they, what they want to accomplish is every single day to kill people, and every single day make it hard for Americans to open up their papers, or turn on their television and find more death and more destruction. And it’s undermining our ability to prosecute this war.
This where you insert Senator Kerry’s excellent response to Bush’s “America’s strained psyche” nonsense.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me pursue that, because when President Clinton took troops into Kosovo, this is what you said. “President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill defined objective and no exit strategy. He is yet to tell Congress how much this operation will cost. And, he has not informed our nation’s Armed Forces about how long they will be away from home.”
Do you believe you should have the same standard for President Bush? He should give a defined objective, he should give an exit strategy, he should give a cost, and he should give a timeline for Iraq, just as you were demanding President Clinton give for Kosovo?
SEN. SANTORUM: No. Because, because Kosovo and, and Slobodan Milosevic were never a security threat to the United State of America. No way. There—I mean, it wasn’t even close.
So Clinton should have, but not Bush?
MR. CASEY: And so do I, and so do a lot, a lot of Americans. But, but I think you should tell the American people today about what you’re feeling is about the number one, or the most prominent, at least, opponent of sanctions, critic of, of Iran’s sanctions when he was in the private sector at least. His name is Dick Cheney. It’s not some, some European. Dick Cheney opposed sanctions when he was at the Halliburton Company. And I want to ask you today, Rick, do you—are you going to sit here today and not denounce him for continually opposing sanctions, and are you going to give the money back that he raised for you? I think he raised you 300,000 bucks in Luzerne County.
SEN. SANTORUM: I’m not going to denounce the vice president of the United States, and I think you’d find that...
MR. CASEY: Even on sanctions?
SEN. SANTORUM: Even—I, I disagree with him on sanctions, I’m not going to denounce him because I have a disagreement. I don’t denounce people because I disagree with them.
Casey: Zing!
SEN. SANTORUM: Absolutely. I agree with the president, as you see, a vast majority of the time. When I agree with him, I say it. And when I don’t agree with him, I, I say it, too.
Santorum: Rubber stamp Repub!
MR. RUSSERT: But by your standards, it’s the taking of a life.
SEN. SANTORUM: It is, there’s no question it’s the taking of a life. But if it—it is an attempt for me to try to see if we can find common ground to actually make progress in limiting the other abortions. So yes, that’s what I would do.
But? WTF? Either it’s “murder” or you’re full of shit!
MR. CASEY: Well, Tim, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I disagree. You know, Tim, what I think what the governor is trying to make a point about is that, as a public official, certainly as a governor, you’ve got to work with both parties, and I’m glad that he does, and he’s a great, great governor. And Ed Rendell has been a great supporter of mine throughout this whole campaign and we look forward to, to working together and, and winning this race.
Quote by Rendell was completely unnecessary, goofy and wrong!
MR. CASEY: Tim, what you’ve got here is some, some Washington hot air and lecturing. Here, here are the facts. He just, he just completely misrepresented the facts. He, he said here today, as he did a week ago, that, that I didn’t make the statement I made on the pay raise until after the election when people were defeated. That is 100 percent wrong.
There’s only one person at this table who has made a commitment, or made a commitment when he was first elected to office never to take a pay raise and then he did, and it’s this guy right here. I never made that promise and never broke that promise. And on the issue of the state pay raise, I came out very clearly, long before Election Day in November ‘05 against it. And, and Rick Santorum when he was asked...
SEN. SANTORUM: You didn’t do anything when you could’ve stopped it.
MR. CASEY: When he was, when he was—hold on, Rick.
SEN. SANTORUM: You didn’t do anything when you could’ve stopped it.
MR. CASEY: When he was, when he, when he was asked about it, when he was asked about it...
SEN. SANTORUM: Why didn’t you try to stop it, Bob?
Santorum: has no point to make, sticks out his tongue! Geez!
MR. RUSSERT: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had this editorial: “Five Santorum children have been home-schooled at their house in Leesburg, Virginia, through the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, an education paid for by the Penn Hills district to the tune of $38,000 a year, until it became apparent that they don’t live in Penn Hills.” They go on. “The
sent a letter to Rick Santorum at his home address, at least the one that he claims. Back from Penn Hills came the letter with a sticker from the U.S. Postal Service checked as ‘Not Deliverable As Addressed—Unable To Forward.’”
And what people point to, and particularly the media in the western part of the state, is in 1990 when you ran for the House, you ran against the incumbent Doug Walgren, and ran this commercial repeatedly. Let’s watch.
(Videotape, 1990 Santorum campaign ad):
AD ANNOUNCER: There’s something strange about this house. It belongs to our congressman, Doug Walgren. What’s so strange? Instead of living in his own congressional district, Congressman Walgren lives in this house, located in the wealthiest area of Virginia.
(End of videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: And now the State Education Department, state taxpayers are going to have to—have agreed to give the Penn Hills school district $55,000 to compensate for your children’s’ tuition while they were in Virginia taking a cyber course. And based on that commercial...
SEN. SANTORUM: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: ...isn’t that rather hypocritical of you?
SEN. SANTORUM: No, not at all. Look, look, first off, that commercial, you didn’t play the rest of it, that commercial criticized my opponent. First off, he never owned a home in the district, ever, in 14 years. Let me finish. He never owned a home for 14 years, never had a residence there.Santorum: corrupt Repub!
MR. CASEY: Absolutely, and I already have made that pledge.
Tim, let me get 30 seconds on the residency question. It is an issue. It’s an issue with, with Senator Santorum and his constituents, and it’s an issue because he made it, as you said, an issue in 1990. But the—in addition to that question, the question is not where he lives in the end—it’s one of the questions, not the only question—it’s how he votes. He votes the wrong way for the people of Pennsylvania, 98 percent of the time with George Bush.
Casey: Zing!
IMO, Casey came off as a calm rational person. Listening to Santorum hyper BS is painful. He's hyper and seems to believe that whiney, screeching way he presents his confusing case scores him points. In fact, I believe he adopted that as a delivery is a tactic believing it makes him sound authoratative. Some may want to confuse it with dominating the debate, but it really is a diversionary tactic.
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