March 30, 2004

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Joining us now on our newsmaker line, ambassador, former ambassador in the United Nations, Alan Keyes--and former Republican presidential candidate. How are you?

ALAN KEYES: I'm fine. How are you, Sean?

HANNITY: It's always a pleasure to talk to you. How did you ever become the [ambassador to the Economic and Social Council] of the United Nations? Because I'd bet you'd support me in saying what a worthless organization it is. I would love to see Alan Keyes at the U.N. now.

KEYES: [laughs]

HANNITY: At this time in our history, I'd give any amount of money for you to go there a confront Jacques Chirac's representative.

KEYES: I don't know that I'd want to go back to the U.N. I think, serving under Ronald Reagan as his representative, fighting the good fight during the course of the Cold War, the U.N. being abused as it was to try to damage our interests--it was the highlight of my career, working with Jean Kirkpatrick and others.

HANNITY: Yeah.

KEYES: But I think that, though occasionally the U.N. has its usefulness, overall there are many reasons to believe, to wish that the organization had been put together on a better foundation.

HANNITY: Are you watching this campaign at all?

KEYES: I'm watching off and on. I just find it hard to believe that in the midst of this insidious war, Americans would chose to put people like Kerry, who are, and have been throughout their career, against our national security, our national intelligence, our national defense--it would be suicide to put somebody with that mentality at the helm in the White House at this juncture.

HANNITY: Yeah. Well, I agree with you. Do you think he can win?

KEYES: No, I really don't.

HANNITY: You really don't?

KEYES: At the end of the day, I think that people in this country will show more common sense. It will be a battle, because there obviously are going to be a lot of bitter attacks and I think desperate efforts to assault the administration on all kinds of grounds--but at the end of the day, I can't believe the people of this country are so short-sighted about our national security that they would be willing to turn the helm over to John Kerry.

I think we just have to keep hammering away at this reality, so that when people go into the voting booth, they are thinking about the basic fact that we are at war, that our survival is at stake, and that we simply can't afford at this stage to put somebody questionable in office.

HANNITY: You know, I totally agree with you, and I guess in the daily ebb and flow of politics, I get a lot people concerned that, boy, Kerry's up--although the latest polls shows that he's down, but between now and November, there's going to be polls showing Kerry with a double-digit lead. I have no doubt about it. I mean, you see the media's love affair with anybody that's critical of President Bush.

This whole--you know, here is a guy by the name of Clark that just totally contradicts himself. Every other word out of his mouth is contradicted by what he said three years ago, two years ago, and yet, he's now the darling of the news media everywhere--which is the antithesis of the way they treated somebody like Gary Aldrich, who is an FBI agent deemed credible and trustworthy enough to guard a president. They wouldn't even put him on the air.

KEYES: Well, I think we're in the midst of a period of partisan frenzy. I think it's a deep and damaging shame that we haven't seen a clear and consistent effort, to understand what happened and what went wrong on September 11th, that took place outside of an atmosphere of partisan venom--which is what I unfortunately think we see right now.

HANNITY: Yeah.

KEYES: There are serious questions that need to be raised and answered, but this partisan environment is clearly not the time in which to do it, and it's a disservice to the country to be pursuing this kind of an effort with that spirit which, unfortunately, is characterizing the discussion right now.

HANNITY: Yeah. Now, as I understand it, you have this big rally that's going to take place on Saturday from 10 a.m. 'til 2 p.m. in Dallas?

KEYES: In Dallas, Texas, yes, we're getting people together. As you know, there are a number of issues on the table right now, including what's happening with the assault on traditional marriage, and so forth. A lot of this has to do with the abuse that is taking place in the courts, especially the federal courts, where efforts are underway to drive God and everything based upon any kind of moral and religious viewpoint out of our politics. Using the federal courts, they usurped an illegitimate power that they have claimed to decide whether or not people at the state level have the right to talk about God, to pray.

The Constitution was written, Sean, in such a way that this power was explicitly withheld from the federal government. No lawful authority can exist at the federal level to deal with the issues of church and state. It was left, by the First and Tenth Amendments, clearly in the hands of the states, and that's where it belongs.

And we're gathering people together in different places around the country, a big rally coming up in Dallas on April 3rd, to focus attention on this abuse, and to tell people there's something that can be done about it. Congress can limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts in these matters, and they need to act.

HANNITY: You know, Ambassador, you've got to give liberals credit. They're not total fools. I mean, one of the things you see happening with this gay marriage issue, there was a reason why they went to a court in Massachusetts--the timing of the marriages that took place in San Francisco, in my mind were not coincidental. It was all part of a strategy. You tell me if you think I'm wrong, but . . .

KEYES: Oh, no. Absolutely. They're moving nationwide on a number of fronts. First, they moved with the ACLU to undermine the idea that you could reflect the moral and institutional belief that is a part of our Judeo-Christian heritage in the law. You'll notice that in Lawrence [vs. Texas] arguments were made that it's inappropriate now to apply a biblical understanding of marriage, and so forth and so on. That was part of it, it's been going on for decades, and now we're seeing the consummation of it, the wholesale assault throughout the country, on traditional marriage that will get rid of monogamous marriage, that will introduce polygamy. We're opening the floodgates to the destruction of our basic institution of the family.

HANNITY: But isn't it true, what we're witnessing here--and I think, if you want to look at a broader issue, or even an issue that may even be more important than anything else, save, with the exception of the War on Terror, I mean is the issue of judicial appointments. You see Tom Daschle yesterday or Friday swearing that he will not allow or will stop any appointment that the president makes, if in fact the president's involved in a recess appointment after the fact that they haven't followed through on their job of advising and offering consent to the president, and they have been politicizing the bench. Because, don't liberals understand--here's my question--don't they understand what they could never get done legislatively, what they could never get done at the ballot box, their one avenue that's left to them is the judiciary?

KEYES: Well, but see, I think that abuse of the courts has taken place, especially on issues like God, religious establishment, they've established the courts as kind of moral sensors to be used to attack the moral foundations of the country, that that is because of this usurped power in the hands of the federal courts which was explicitly kept from the federal government by the Constitution. They have stolen it from the state governments and from the people of the states, and it's time for Congress to do something.

The Constitution gives Congress the explicit authority to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the federal court, and in this case, they'd be basically saying, "Look, the First Amendment says the federal government doesn't have this power. You must stop abusing it and give it back to the states and the people," which is what the Constitution provides for. And they can do it by a simple majority vote.

So, we're informing people, rallying people around the country to put pressure on the Congress to take this essential step to protect the moral foundations of the country.

HANNITY: So, you're calling these, what, "One Nation Under God" rallies against judicial tyranny?

KEYES: Ah, well, they've been called under the broad rubric of the Ten Commandments. I think some folks are referring to them as "One Nation Under God," because the basic issue is the right as citizens to acknowledge God in our actions and judgments, and so forth--a right that was actually protected first in the Constitution.

The First Amendment to the Constitution addressed this issue first of all, when it said that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. That doesn't just say Congress can't establish a religion. It says that Congress--i.e., the federal government--in any lawful way cannot deal with the issue of religious establishment, the issues of church and state. Those were left in the hands of the state governments.

HANNITY: Right. So, you're going to be in Dallas at the Convention Center--I've been to the Dallas Convention Center--on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and I guess you have a dinner at night. Is anybody invited to this? You're going to be there, Justice Moore's going to be there?

KEYES: I'm going to be there, Justice Roy Moore's going to be there, or, Judge Roy Moore. People can get information and tickets at the rally site Texasrally.us, Texasrally.us.

HANNITY: Texasrally.us, that's not com?

KEYES: Texasrally.us, yes.

HANNITY: OK, Texasrally.us--one word, Texasrally.us.

KEYES: Um, hm. Dot US.

HANNITY: Let me ask you this question, before we go. I mean, because, you ran against President Bush, you wanted the nomination. What do you think of him now?

KEYES: Well, Sean . . .

HANNITY: I mean, I want an honest answer. I'm not asking you to give me, just . . .

KEYES: I am a conservative. I'm part of that group of conservatives in the party who is not altogether happy with G. W. Bush. I see lots of reasons to find fault with steps that he has taken in various areas, but I'll tell you one thing: I think it's time that everybody in this country understand that when we are faced with a threat to our very survival, we put aside other things and we focus on the fact that we have at the helm somebody who is--even if, let us say for a minute that Iraq was a mistake, as some people are trying to argue. I'd rather have a president who errs on the side of defending this country, and going after our enemies, than somebody like John Kerry who wants to sit on his butt and does nothing while Americans die. And I think that's the key issue here.

HANNITY: All right. Ambassador Alan Keyes, we always love having you on. He's going to be in Dallas this Saturday, and if you want more information, just go to Texasrally--one word--dot US, Texasrally.us. Thank you, ambassador. Good to talk to you.

KEYES: Good to talk to you, Sean.