January 13, 2004

SEAN HANNITY: Thanks for tuning in. Glad you're with us. Former ambassador to the United Nations, our good friend Alan Keyes, former presidential candidate, himself, is on our newsmaker line.

Ambassador, I'll bet all this, the whole process [of the Democrats' bid for president] brings back wonderful memories of your many trips to Iowa.

ALAN KEYES: [laughs] Well, I don't know. I imagine dealing with very different people in Iowa than some of the Democrats are. I find it, quite honestly, Sean, hard to take the Democrats seriously this time around. But . . . .

HANNITY: What do you mean by that? Why is it hard to take them seriously?

KEYES: Well, a couple of reasons. First, because I think that, given the present situation overall, I don't think anyone right now in the Democratic field has much of a chance of doing anything against G. W. Bush.

Second, I think the folks who are in the field, for the most part, are people who seem to me to pretty much lack everything that is required in order to run for the presidency with credibility. And even though you've got some who are stirring up the kind of hard-core left-wing on the Democrat side, and so forth and so on, they haven't shown anything--and that's one of the reasons, I think, they're not getting traction.

Absent an economy that was faltering, I don't think that they really have anything to go on or to offer right now.

HANNITY: I don't think they have any plan to deal with terror--which is the number one issue--and security issues. Look, you have been a very out-spoken critic at times of the president. Overall, how do you assess how he has been doing?

KEYES: Well, let's say it this way. I think he's been doing well enough, as I said, that he's not going to have any problem getting re-elected. Conservatives, like myself, have areas where we're not happy with this president. I think if we got into a discussion of this latest immigration stuff, there would be other reasons that people are unhappy.

But at the same time, on fundamental issues that are most important to the country--meeting the challenge of national security since 9-11, dealing with an effort fundamentally to maintain the nation's economic life--I think these things have been held together pretty well.

And I think that the Democrats would need something that they could stand there and really say, "The country is in bad shape, our prospects are bad, we're worse off than we were"--what have they got?

HANNITY: I mean, should the Bush campaign adopt the old Reagan phrase, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

KEYES: Well, I think that examining the facts of it, that would go far with the electorate. I think that's especially true since all the signs are that the economic turn-around has confirmed itself. I think that if, over the course of the next several months, the economy produces more jobs, that's going to confirm for everyone the reality of our present economic situation.

And going down into September, I suspect, and October, I think things are going to be looking the way they need to look for this president to do well.

HANNITY: Have you been following this Paul O'Neill controversy at all?

KEYES: I have. I think that that's an area where, if you examine it, the question of what was the rationale for our involvement with Iraq, I think there was only one, and that is the national security rationale--the tie with terrorism, the weapons of mass destruction. I think there's some honest questions about whether the president got really good intelligence and advice about that, and they still remain open questions. But we're also in a situation where, given what he was being told, he had no option but to act.

If he had sat on his hands in the face of the possibility that there were weapons of mass destruction that could be funneled to these terrorists, and one of our cities had faced this kind of threat, and tens of thousands of people had died, who would people have blamed? They would have blamed him for his inaction.

And so, I think the folks who are trying to criticize now in hindsight are doing something that's totally unjustifiable.

HANNITY: Now, by the way, O'Neill was on the Today Show being interviewed by Katie Couric earlier today, and he said, regarding his comments on Iraq, he said, [to paraphrase,] "People are trying to make the case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration." He said, "Actually, it was just a continuation of the work that was going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be a regime change in Iraq." And, asked if he sees anything wrong with post-Saddam planning being done, he said, "Absolutely not." On the issue of the president being disengaged, he said, "I used some vivid language that, if I could take back, I'd take back because that's probably the controversial centerpiece," and then he went on to say, "Probably vote for President Bush." So, I mean, this seems to be much ado about nothing, but the media just wants to tear down the president.

KEYES: Well, in the present circumstance, though, Sean--and I think that it's two-fold with the media--I mean, very often in election years, they have something that's going to stir up interest, they can build ratings on it, and so forth and so on. If it turns out, as I suspect it very well may, that this president is moving steadily toward re-election, that's not news! What's the excitement in this? They're going to have to fabricate something, and I think that's what they're trying to do.

HANNITY: What do you think of Howard Dean the person? I mean, the comments about suggesting the president may have known about 9-11 ahead of time, the idea that we're not safer having captured Saddam Hussein--another statement that he made--his constant flip-flopping and back-tracking on issues on taxes, and of course, his new-found love of religion in the campaign.

KEYES: Now, Sean, you want me to start doing something that, to be quite honest, I feel uncomfortable doing. I haven't given Howard Dean three seconds of my thought in any serious way. At all. I've got to tell you this. I really do not think that a Democrat like this is somebody who should be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidency.

If they want to nominate him, let them go ahead. I think he will get crushed the way McGovern got crushed, and for the same reason: that he represents something that is so far outside of the mainstream understanding of what this country really needs that he doesn't stand a chance. And I think there are lots of Democrats who know this.

HANNITY: You know, I think you're probably right, which is why there's this big push towards Wesley Clark. But, you know, I just mentioned a piece I got from my good friend Rich Lowry on National Review Online that he put up there, and he's been following the Clark campaign. Clark's racing around the country sounding as extreme as Howard Dean, questioning the president's patriotism. Clark's the guy who, when he got into this race in September, said, quote, "I never would have voted for this war," the next day, "I probably would have voted for this war," the next day, "I don't know whether or not I would have voted for this war, I've said it both ways." Hey, there's man of principle for you, Alan Keyes.

KEYES: Well, this is the problem I have. This is like the Keystone Cops. You want to watch them for comedy relief, this is fine.

HANNITY: [laughs] Yeah.

KEYES: The notion that we should be looking at this as serious drama, deciding the fate of the country--not unless people in the electorate have lost their minds, which they don't appear to have done.

HANNITY: Did they lose their minds when they voted for Bill Clinton?

KEYES: Well, no, let's be fair, Sean. Let's not look at that in hindsight and remember that Clinton presented himself as somebody who was trying to bring the Democratic party back to its conservatism.

HANNITY: That's true. And listen, if there were a Harry Truman or an FDR--especially on national security issues--or even a JFK or a Scoop Jackson, as Zell Miller said, they wouldn't be a national party anymore, they would be contenders here.

KEYES: That's right. I think that the problem is that you don't have a Democrat standing up who really wants to speak in a way that would allow the Democrats to be competitive.

For instance: you know, there is a critique that could be made of the national security policies and approaches of the Bush administration--a serious one--but they are not in a position to make it because they are coming at it from the point of view of people who have always neglected our intelligence, always neglected our military structure, who don't like dealing with issues of national security in a serious way. The Democrats never have, or at least, not since the era of the Trumans and the Roosevelts. So, sad to say, they don't have it in them anymore to do what is necessary to be really competitive against this president.

HANNITY: Look, I don't know, necessarily. I think this is a very divided country, and I think this president has to take all these candidates seriously. I do agree with you. I think he's probably going to win. I think, on the issues, things are moving in his direction. The momentum is certainly on his side. He's had great success in the War on Terror, the economy is turned around, people have more money back in their pockets. Conservatives have no other choice, even if they are angry over immigration issues or prescription drugs or any of these other issues--but I think we've got to take these guys seriously.

KEYES: Well, Sean, you said it perfectly, though. The president has to take this seriously. I don't have to take it seriously! [laughs]

HANNITY: [laughs] Well, this is my business! I've got to take it seriously; I work in this business.

I want to ask you this question, though, because you have somebody like Wesley Clark who actually makes a statement that he can guarantee American will not be hit by another terrorist attack if he's elected president. Frank Gaffney says that disqualifies him from public office. Do you agree with that?

KEYES: Well, I think that anybody who'd stand in front of the American people and act as if there was some kind of fool-proof panacea for this threat doesn't understand, then, the threat--and is, in fact, without qualification for the presidency.

And I think somebody coming from a military background who would make a statement like that I think is doing something that's very foolish, and is misleading the people in a way that could damage our security--because the one thing we can't afford to be in the face of this threat is complacent, at all, in any way. And so, I think that that's highly foolish.

But you know, from my point of view also, to state my prejudices, I have a problem with these Democrats--because, Sean, come on. On the issues I believe are most important to the future of the country, particularly those that affect the moral heart of this country and its principles--issues like abortion, and what we are doing with human sexual responsibility, and so forth--they will never turn around. They offer nothing but spades with which to dig the grave of our freedom.

And so, I can't take this seriously, and I could never consider it.

HANNITY: All right. Former presidential candidate, former ambassador to the United Nations, our good friend Alan Keyes. Listen, you've got to come on TV more often. We miss ya.

KEYES: Well, I'd love to join you at some point. I've been very busy . . . .

HANNITY: We've been asking you to come, you've just been too busy.

KEYES: I've been busy. I'm involved in the Ten Commandments movement, this effort to rein the courts in and all the excesses that they're doing, and we're trying to organize things around the country. It really keeps me on the go.

HANNITY: Well, if we can help you in any way, let us know.

KEYES: I will, thank you.

HANNITY: All right. Ambassador Alan Keyes on the Sean Hannity Show.