Joe Morris on TV: Taking on Buchanan, Pape and Berkowitz
Jeff Berkowitz: Pat Buchanan also said in the last few days, “They’re here because we are there.” Do you understand that comment?
Joe Morris: I do, and I think that’s utter nonsense.
Berkowitz: Utter nonsense. So, in your point of view, President Bush’s decision to go in, to take military action in Iraq, to get the Congress to authorize that, on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction, he certainly had other reasons-but that was the main reason--
Joe Morris: That was a main reason.
Berkowitz: Well, a main reason. Can you have a main reason? How many main reasons can you have?
Joe Morris: Five, six—as many as necessary.
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We discuss: you decide.
*******************************************
Tonight’s City of Chicago edition of “Public Affairs,” features Joe Morris, Chairman, United Republican Fund of Illinois. The show with Joe Morris airs throughout the City of Chicago [in the regular “Public Affairs,” City of Chicago Monday night slot] tonight at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 [CANTV]. See here for a partial transcript of tonight’s show and for links to the topics discussed on tonight’s show, more about Joe Morris’ background, as well as for another partial transcript of tonight’s show.
***********************************************
This week’s suburban edition and next Monday night’s City of Chicago edition of “Public Affairs,” features Pete Giangreco, Democratic Campaign Consultant, partner in The Strategy Group and currently a political consultant to Governor Blagojevich.
***********************************************
An additional partial transcript of tonight’s show with Joe Morris is included, below:
**************************************************
Berkowitz: Let me ask you on the foreign policy side. Pat Buchanan, you know that name, right?
Joe Morris, Chairman, United Republican Fund of Illinois: I’ve heard it.
Berkowitz: You probably have even met Pat a few times right?
Joe Morris: Many times.
Berkowitz: Respect the guy? Is he a Republican, still?
Joe Morris: I, I have a lot less respect today than I did for Pat Buchanan a dozen years ago. And-
Berkowitz: Is he still a Republican?
Joe Morris: I’m sure he is. I mean he hasn’t read himself out of the party, insofar as I’m aware-but I have some profound disagreements with Pat Buchanan, particularly on issues touching on immigration, race, religion--
Berkowitz: Well, let’s take it- On foreign policy-- he said-
Joe Morris: At best, Pat Buchanan has a tin ear when it comes to questions of bigotry and race relations.
Berkowitz: He said, just in the last few days, we should say we’re taping this show on July 17th, if you’re watching in the suburbs, it’s the week of July 25 if you’re watching in the city, it’s August 1st. He said, uh, just a few days ago, “Terror is the price we pay for the empire.” That is, he’s calling the United States an empire.
Joe Morris: I think that’s a shameful, a shameful statement.
Berkowitz: Really?
Joe Morris: I think that, I think that, uh-- What Pat Buchanan is today deriding as the empire-- certainly didn’t exist in its current form on September 10th, 2001
Berkowitz: But, you have-
Joe Morris: But, what?
Berkowitz: But--
Joe Morris: But what? There’s no--
Berkowitz: There’s a professor at the University of Chicago who espouses this philosophy- that we have, when we have troops on Saudi Arabia land--
Joe Morris: Jeff, his name is Pape. Robert Pape [See an abstract of his latest book, here-- Dying to Win]
Berkowitz: Robert Pape. You put troops in Saudi Arabia, as we did way before September-- September 11th, 2001, way before that. You will have repercussions; you will have suicide bombings-
Joe Morris: Jeff, there is a-
Berkowitz: He has tracked this-
Joe Morris: That’s just, that’s just-
Berkowitz: You dispute that?
Joe Morris: I do. I, I, I, I dispute your false connection of Pape’s analysis of suicide bombers with terrorists' attacks on the West which has a more than fifty year history coming out of the Middle East.
Berkowitz: It’s not my fault- That’s Mape’s connection.
Joe Morris: “Pape” is his name.
Berkowitz: Pape, sorry.
Joe Morris: No, no, that’s not his connection- His analysis is limited to
Berkowitz: Just suicide bombers?
Joe Morris: His analysis is limited to suicide bombers. I think it’s a debatable proposition. But, the assertion that fifty years of terrorism can be derived from President Bush’s policies in the last five years is absolutely nonsense.
Berkowitz: You would-
Joe Morris: And, it’s as silly coming from you as it is from Pat Buchanan.
Berkowitz: Well, well, it’s-- Look, I’m trying to provide a balanced perspective on this show--
Joe Morris: Who’s the guest here? Who’s the guest here?
Berkowitz: You are the guest, but you’re taking- If I raise a view—it doesn’t mean, necessarily that I hold it. I’m trying to balance the show, you understand that? ["On Air" Balancing, so to speak; and of some relevance to my discussion with Morris of handling terrorism and related to Pape’s views would be Professor Mearsheimer’s Offshore Balancing—see last few pages of this link, pp.13-16].
Joe Morris: Uh-- There are no rules, here, quoting the host.
Berkowitz: Okay… when you look at September 11th, has there been a change qualitatively in the threat from terrorism that we faced as of 2001, September 11th, as opposed to fifty years ago? Qualitatively-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively, I think the answer to that is no.
Berkowitz: No?
Joe Morris: No.
Berkowitz: No? Really? Three thousand people perished [in one morning] and no change?
Joe Morris: That’s that’s-
Berkowitz: When is the last time-
Joe Morris: That’s a quantitative change, Jeff.
Berkowitz: Well, that’s a qualitative [or order of magnitude] change-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively, the nature of the threat pre-existed September 11th, it was, it was that threat, it was that qualitative animus against the United States and the West, that led to September 11th.
Berkowitz: Pat Buchanan also said in the last few days, “They’re here because we are there.” Do you understand that comment?
Joe Morris: I do, and I think that’s utter nonsense.
Berkowitz: Utter nonsense. So, in your point of view, President Bush’s decision to go in, to take military action in Iraq, to get the Congress to authorize that, on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction, he certainly had other reasons- but that was the main reason.
Joe Morris: That was a main reason.
Berkowitz: Well, a main reason. Can you have a main reason? How many main reasons can you have?
Joe Morris: Five, six—as many as necessary.
Berkowitz: The University of Chicago—The University of Chicago taught you that? You can have multiple main reasons?
Joe Morris: Why not?
Berkowitz: All right. Seriously. That [WMD] was a predominant reason-
Joe Morris: It was a--it was an important reason.
Berkowitz: Was there anything as important that he [President Bush] gave as weapons of mass destruction, when he asked for support to go into Iraq?
Joe Morris: Well, at least two others, at least two other things that I was hearing prominently-
Berkowitz: As important [as WMD]?
Joe Morris: In my mind and, and one was-
Berkowitz: Model democracy?
Joe Morris: One was the broad support-- financial, training, political, communicative, and otherwise, of Sadaam Hussein’s regime for terrorism around the world.
Berkowitz: For terrorism.
Joe Morris: For terrorism.
Berkowitz: For Al-Qaeda, or just terrorism?
Joe Morris: Well, Al-Qaeda in particular, but terrorism in general.
Berkowitz: But, he [Hussein] was supporting Al-Qaeda?
Joe Morris: Training camps. Support for-
Berkowitz: In Iraq. Training camps?
Joe Morris: In Iraq. Yes.
Berkowitz: Really.
Joe Morris: That’s right. Uh, there-- there is a factoid that sometimes gets taken out of context. There is no direct evidence that Sadaam Hussein was involved in Al-Qaeda’s activity to the run-up, in the run-up, to September 11th. Uh, that may be true, but what is undisputedly true, undeniably true is the broad support that Sadaam Hussein was giving to terrorism prior to September 11th, across a very broad front.
Berkowitz: Well, are there training camps now?
Joe Morris: Including the physical presence of training camps-
Berkowitz: Are there training camps now in Iraq?
Joe Morris: Well, not, not, not up and running with the support of the Iraqi government. Whether there are clandestine training camps in Iraq, or, for that matter, in Illinois, I don’t know.
Berkowitz: Is it a greater threat now in terms of-- there’s an active war going on-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively or quantitatively?
Berkowitz: An active insurgency-
Joe Morris: Quantitatively, the threat is certainly more visible now. I, I, I, I cannot say with certainty that the threat is quantitatively greater today than it was on September 10, 2001.
Berkowitz: As, as you-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively, it’s identical, but we are-- we are much more conscious of it now.
Berkowitz: Okay. As you sit here today on July 17th, how does it play out in Iraq over the next year or two. What happens? Do our troops stay there?
Joe Morris: [They] Have, have to stay there. Uh-
Berkowitz: At the same level? A hundred and fifty thousand?
Joe Morris: Uh, not necessarily at the same level, but, but, but not, but not radical withdraws. If this exercise is to succeed, Iraq needs the presence of allied troops for a period of two, three years at a minimum.
Jeff Berkowitz: So, November 2006, does the Republican party take a sharp hit in the Senate, in the House, uh, because of Iraq still having—the U. S. still having one hundred fifty thousand troops, or so, there?
Joe Morris: I’m, I’m sure the presence of American troops in the Middle East will be an issue in November 2006, and, I’m sure, George W. Bush will stand up to that issue. I hope that others are able to stand up to that issue.
Berkowitz: Well, will the House stay Republican, as it is now?
Joe Morris: Oh, I think so.
Berkowitz: Well, Will the Senate stay Republican?
Joe Morris: I think so. And, if you want to go down, some states, I think, I can see where it could actually be- increasing the Republican Senate Majority
Berkowitz: We’d like to, but we don’t have time for that. Are you concerned? Recent polls show that the President-- that, less than forty percent of people in the country think the President is honest-- it used to be, only a few months ago, up in the high forties. Does that precipitous drop—does that concern you?
Joe Morris: Of course it concerns me.
Berkowtiz: Why do you think that is? Are people wrong? Wrong? Wrong? Or, has Bush’s credibility and honesty actively, substantively, declined?
Joe Morris: The latter, no. I don’t believe his honesty and credibility have declined at all.
********************************************
Joe Morris, recorded on July 17, 2005 and as is airing on the City of Chicago edition of Public Affairs tonight at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 .
*******************************
Transcript drafts prepared by Amy Allen, who also does research for “Public Affairs,” and has her own political blog- see here .
******************************************
Jeff Berkowitz, Host and Producer of Public Affairs and an Executive Recruiter doing Legal Search, can be reached at JBCG@aol.com
***********************
Joe Morris: I do, and I think that’s utter nonsense.
Berkowitz: Utter nonsense. So, in your point of view, President Bush’s decision to go in, to take military action in Iraq, to get the Congress to authorize that, on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction, he certainly had other reasons-but that was the main reason--
Joe Morris: That was a main reason.
Berkowitz: Well, a main reason. Can you have a main reason? How many main reasons can you have?
Joe Morris: Five, six—as many as necessary.
*******************************************
We discuss: you decide.
*******************************************
Tonight’s City of Chicago edition of “Public Affairs,” features Joe Morris, Chairman, United Republican Fund of Illinois. The show with Joe Morris airs throughout the City of Chicago [in the regular “Public Affairs,” City of Chicago Monday night slot] tonight at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 [CANTV]. See here for a partial transcript of tonight’s show and for links to the topics discussed on tonight’s show, more about Joe Morris’ background, as well as for another partial transcript of tonight’s show.
***********************************************
This week’s suburban edition and next Monday night’s City of Chicago edition of “Public Affairs,” features Pete Giangreco, Democratic Campaign Consultant, partner in The Strategy Group and currently a political consultant to Governor Blagojevich.
***********************************************
An additional partial transcript of tonight’s show with Joe Morris is included, below:
**************************************************
Berkowitz: Let me ask you on the foreign policy side. Pat Buchanan, you know that name, right?
Joe Morris, Chairman, United Republican Fund of Illinois: I’ve heard it.
Berkowitz: You probably have even met Pat a few times right?
Joe Morris: Many times.
Berkowitz: Respect the guy? Is he a Republican, still?
Joe Morris: I, I have a lot less respect today than I did for Pat Buchanan a dozen years ago. And-
Berkowitz: Is he still a Republican?
Joe Morris: I’m sure he is. I mean he hasn’t read himself out of the party, insofar as I’m aware-but I have some profound disagreements with Pat Buchanan, particularly on issues touching on immigration, race, religion--
Berkowitz: Well, let’s take it- On foreign policy-- he said-
Joe Morris: At best, Pat Buchanan has a tin ear when it comes to questions of bigotry and race relations.
Berkowitz: He said, just in the last few days, we should say we’re taping this show on July 17th, if you’re watching in the suburbs, it’s the week of July 25 if you’re watching in the city, it’s August 1st. He said, uh, just a few days ago, “Terror is the price we pay for the empire.” That is, he’s calling the United States an empire.
Joe Morris: I think that’s a shameful, a shameful statement.
Berkowitz: Really?
Joe Morris: I think that, I think that, uh-- What Pat Buchanan is today deriding as the empire-- certainly didn’t exist in its current form on September 10th, 2001
Berkowitz: But, you have-
Joe Morris: But, what?
Berkowitz: But--
Joe Morris: But what? There’s no--
Berkowitz: There’s a professor at the University of Chicago who espouses this philosophy- that we have, when we have troops on Saudi Arabia land--
Joe Morris: Jeff, his name is Pape. Robert Pape [See an abstract of his latest book, here-- Dying to Win]
Berkowitz: Robert Pape. You put troops in Saudi Arabia, as we did way before September-- September 11th, 2001, way before that. You will have repercussions; you will have suicide bombings-
Joe Morris: Jeff, there is a-
Berkowitz: He has tracked this-
Joe Morris: That’s just, that’s just-
Berkowitz: You dispute that?
Joe Morris: I do. I, I, I, I dispute your false connection of Pape’s analysis of suicide bombers with terrorists' attacks on the West which has a more than fifty year history coming out of the Middle East.
Berkowitz: It’s not my fault- That’s Mape’s connection.
Joe Morris: “Pape” is his name.
Berkowitz: Pape, sorry.
Joe Morris: No, no, that’s not his connection- His analysis is limited to
Berkowitz: Just suicide bombers?
Joe Morris: His analysis is limited to suicide bombers. I think it’s a debatable proposition. But, the assertion that fifty years of terrorism can be derived from President Bush’s policies in the last five years is absolutely nonsense.
Berkowitz: You would-
Joe Morris: And, it’s as silly coming from you as it is from Pat Buchanan.
Berkowitz: Well, well, it’s-- Look, I’m trying to provide a balanced perspective on this show--
Joe Morris: Who’s the guest here? Who’s the guest here?
Berkowitz: You are the guest, but you’re taking- If I raise a view—it doesn’t mean, necessarily that I hold it. I’m trying to balance the show, you understand that? ["On Air" Balancing, so to speak; and of some relevance to my discussion with Morris of handling terrorism and related to Pape’s views would be Professor Mearsheimer’s Offshore Balancing—see last few pages of this link, pp.13-16].
Joe Morris: Uh-- There are no rules, here, quoting the host.
Berkowitz: Okay… when you look at September 11th, has there been a change qualitatively in the threat from terrorism that we faced as of 2001, September 11th, as opposed to fifty years ago? Qualitatively-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively, I think the answer to that is no.
Berkowitz: No?
Joe Morris: No.
Berkowitz: No? Really? Three thousand people perished [in one morning] and no change?
Joe Morris: That’s that’s-
Berkowitz: When is the last time-
Joe Morris: That’s a quantitative change, Jeff.
Berkowitz: Well, that’s a qualitative [or order of magnitude] change-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively, the nature of the threat pre-existed September 11th, it was, it was that threat, it was that qualitative animus against the United States and the West, that led to September 11th.
Berkowitz: Pat Buchanan also said in the last few days, “They’re here because we are there.” Do you understand that comment?
Joe Morris: I do, and I think that’s utter nonsense.
Berkowitz: Utter nonsense. So, in your point of view, President Bush’s decision to go in, to take military action in Iraq, to get the Congress to authorize that, on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction, he certainly had other reasons- but that was the main reason.
Joe Morris: That was a main reason.
Berkowitz: Well, a main reason. Can you have a main reason? How many main reasons can you have?
Joe Morris: Five, six—as many as necessary.
Berkowitz: The University of Chicago—The University of Chicago taught you that? You can have multiple main reasons?
Joe Morris: Why not?
Berkowitz: All right. Seriously. That [WMD] was a predominant reason-
Joe Morris: It was a--it was an important reason.
Berkowitz: Was there anything as important that he [President Bush] gave as weapons of mass destruction, when he asked for support to go into Iraq?
Joe Morris: Well, at least two others, at least two other things that I was hearing prominently-
Berkowitz: As important [as WMD]?
Joe Morris: In my mind and, and one was-
Berkowitz: Model democracy?
Joe Morris: One was the broad support-- financial, training, political, communicative, and otherwise, of Sadaam Hussein’s regime for terrorism around the world.
Berkowitz: For terrorism.
Joe Morris: For terrorism.
Berkowitz: For Al-Qaeda, or just terrorism?
Joe Morris: Well, Al-Qaeda in particular, but terrorism in general.
Berkowitz: But, he [Hussein] was supporting Al-Qaeda?
Joe Morris: Training camps. Support for-
Berkowitz: In Iraq. Training camps?
Joe Morris: In Iraq. Yes.
Berkowitz: Really.
Joe Morris: That’s right. Uh, there-- there is a factoid that sometimes gets taken out of context. There is no direct evidence that Sadaam Hussein was involved in Al-Qaeda’s activity to the run-up, in the run-up, to September 11th. Uh, that may be true, but what is undisputedly true, undeniably true is the broad support that Sadaam Hussein was giving to terrorism prior to September 11th, across a very broad front.
Berkowitz: Well, are there training camps now?
Joe Morris: Including the physical presence of training camps-
Berkowitz: Are there training camps now in Iraq?
Joe Morris: Well, not, not, not up and running with the support of the Iraqi government. Whether there are clandestine training camps in Iraq, or, for that matter, in Illinois, I don’t know.
Berkowitz: Is it a greater threat now in terms of-- there’s an active war going on-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively or quantitatively?
Berkowitz: An active insurgency-
Joe Morris: Quantitatively, the threat is certainly more visible now. I, I, I, I cannot say with certainty that the threat is quantitatively greater today than it was on September 10, 2001.
Berkowitz: As, as you-
Joe Morris: Qualitatively, it’s identical, but we are-- we are much more conscious of it now.
Berkowitz: Okay. As you sit here today on July 17th, how does it play out in Iraq over the next year or two. What happens? Do our troops stay there?
Joe Morris: [They] Have, have to stay there. Uh-
Berkowitz: At the same level? A hundred and fifty thousand?
Joe Morris: Uh, not necessarily at the same level, but, but, but not, but not radical withdraws. If this exercise is to succeed, Iraq needs the presence of allied troops for a period of two, three years at a minimum.
Jeff Berkowitz: So, November 2006, does the Republican party take a sharp hit in the Senate, in the House, uh, because of Iraq still having—the U. S. still having one hundred fifty thousand troops, or so, there?
Joe Morris: I’m, I’m sure the presence of American troops in the Middle East will be an issue in November 2006, and, I’m sure, George W. Bush will stand up to that issue. I hope that others are able to stand up to that issue.
Berkowitz: Well, will the House stay Republican, as it is now?
Joe Morris: Oh, I think so.
Berkowitz: Well, Will the Senate stay Republican?
Joe Morris: I think so. And, if you want to go down, some states, I think, I can see where it could actually be- increasing the Republican Senate Majority
Berkowitz: We’d like to, but we don’t have time for that. Are you concerned? Recent polls show that the President-- that, less than forty percent of people in the country think the President is honest-- it used to be, only a few months ago, up in the high forties. Does that precipitous drop—does that concern you?
Joe Morris: Of course it concerns me.
Berkowtiz: Why do you think that is? Are people wrong? Wrong? Wrong? Or, has Bush’s credibility and honesty actively, substantively, declined?
Joe Morris: The latter, no. I don’t believe his honesty and credibility have declined at all.
********************************************
Joe Morris, recorded on July 17, 2005 and as is airing on the City of Chicago edition of Public Affairs tonight at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 .
*******************************
Transcript drafts prepared by Amy Allen, who also does research for “Public Affairs,” and has her own political blog- see here .
******************************************
Jeff Berkowitz, Host and Producer of Public Affairs and an Executive Recruiter doing Legal Search, can be reached at JBCG@aol.com
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