Interview With Arlen Specter, Chuck Hagel; President Bush Names Replacement For Ashcroft; Senator-Elect Thune Promises to Work with Democrats
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening and welcome to PRIME TIME POLITICS. Thanks so much for joining us on a day when the president moved quickly to introduce the man he wants as his new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. We'll get the reaction to that appointment and look back at the controversial years of retiring Attorney General John Ashcroft. Also, the embattled Republican Senator Arlen Specter and the conservative campaign that is raging against him. He'll be joining us. Then, from sun sand and maybe all the way to the top job at City Hall, one California surfer's wild and unlikely political ride. But we begin tonight with the changing face of the Bush administration. In choosing Alberto Gonzales to replace Attorney General John Ashcroft, President Bush says he's trying to protect all Americans from discrimination so they can live the American dream, as Gonzales himself has done.</s>ZAHN (voice-over): Alberto Gonzales was born in 1955, the son of migrant workers, the first in his family to graduate from college and then on to Harvard Law School. He was Governor George W. Bush's legal adviser, then served on the Texas Supreme Court. Four years ago, he followed the new president to Washington, again, as his legal counsel.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, Al will continue our administration's great progress in fighting crime and strengthening the FBI and improving our domestic efforts in the war on terror.</s>ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: Within the Hispanic community, there is assured hope for an opportunity to succeed. Just give me a chance to prove myself. And that is a common prayer for those in my community. Mr. President, thank you for that chance.</s>ZAHN: Gonzales' record contains items that worry both Republican and Democrats. Liberals worry that in the White House Gonzales helped write the rules limiting the rights of suspected terrorists. He was also involved in the administration's decision that terror suspects are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, something critics say led to the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib. Conservatives worry because on the Texas Supreme Court Gonzales often sided with the moderates, even on a case involving abortion. Outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft stayed out of sight today, but not out of mind.</s>BUSH: The nation is safer and more just today because John Ashcroft has served our country so well.</s>ZAHN: Not everyone agrees with that. In a written statement, Senator John Kerry called John Ashcroft one of the most divisive faces in this administration. But from a corner you might not expect, a call for unity.</s>WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have no call to go into the future divided based on who's a good or a bad person or a good or a bad party. And once you get to the point when you're making a decision in politics without regard to evidence, just based on identity, you can get in a lot of trouble in a hurry.</s>ZAHN: Clinton says there will be great opportunities for good things to happen over the next four years if the Republicans and Democrats in Washington work together.</s>ZAHN: Well, let's see. And you'd expect Democrats and Republicans to have problems finding some common ground, but here we are, barely a week beyond the election, and it is the Republican Party's unity that seems to be fraying. Conservatives are furious with Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter because of some very public advice Specter gave the president about not trying to appoint judges who are against abortion rights. Well, now Senator Specter is fighting back himself. Here's congressional correspondent Ed Henry.</s>ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Arlen Specter ramped up his damage control campaign with an op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal" insisting he never warned the president he would block judges who oppose abortion rights. But conservative activists continue to whip up opposition to Specter. They say the senator is pretending to be a friend of the right to get the chairmanship of the judiciary panel.</s>RICHARD VIGUERIE, CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN TARGET ADVERTISING: I don't think you can trust Senator Specter. He has got a long track record of getting religion so to speak one year out of every six years, right before he runs for reelection.</s>HENRY: Republican senators will not vote on Specter's fate until January, ample time for conservatives to mobilize more opposition. The situation has grown so serious, Specter now tells CNN he is seeking a closed-door meeting with his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to explain himself. John Cornyn, a conservative on the judiciary panel, says he's withholding judgment until next week's meeting.</s>SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Ultimately, it's up to Senator Specter to convince his colleagues that he is going to be of course free to exercise his own conscious in his individual vote, but that, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has a responsibility to the rest of the Republicans in the conference, as well as the president.</s>HENRY: Specter has won the vote of at least one Republican colleague.</s>SEN. JUDD GREGG (R), NEW HAMPSHIRE: I think Arlen Specter should be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has served his time. He is the senior member. And in the last four years, he has supported every judgeship that has been put forward by the president.</s>HENRY: Senior Republicans privately say that, if Specter gets the chairmanship, he'll be in debt it Republican leaders when a Supreme Court nomination arises. The senator insists he will retain his independence. (on camera): But, after this bruising fight, if you do get the chairmanship, are you going to be your own person or now are you going to on a short leash?</s>SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I've always been my own person. I've always been my own person.</s>HENRY (voice-over): Indeed, conservative activists say Specter has always been a maverick and will not feel indebted to anyone and that's why he needs to be stopped.</s>ZAHN: And Senator Arlen Specter joins us now from Capitol Hill. Always good to see you, sir. Welcome.</s>SPECTER: Nice to be with you, Paula. Thank you for the invitation.</s>ZAHN: Thank you, Senator. I want to start off this evening by talking about this political storm you set off last week. When you talked about Roe v. Wade -- quote -- "being inviolate" and you went on to say that appointment of judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade would be unlikely. Let's listen to more of what you had to say.</s>SPECTER: I don't want to prejudge what the president is going to do, but the president is well aware of what happened when a number of his nominees were sent up with a filibuster. And the president has said he is not going to impose a litmus test. He faced that issue squarely in the third debate. And I would not expect the president to -- I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I've mentioned.</s>ZAHN: Did that amount to a warning to the president to not consider putting conservative judges before your committee?</s>SPECTER: Absolutely not, Paula. That was not a warning. I was simply stating a political fact of life. But the experience has been that the Democrats have been filibustering the judges. The fact is that I have never had a litmus test and I have voted for Supreme Court nominees who have been strongly pro-life, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy and O'Connor. And you may remember back to the confirmation proceeding on Clarence Thomas, where I took the lead and Thomas was very strong pro-life. And my taking the lead almost cost me my Senate seat. So, there's no doubt that I have never had a litmus test.</s>ZAHN: I'm having trouble understanding, though, exactly where the spin is, because we just played your comments right now. And I think our viewers heard you say that you won't believe the president has a litmus test, but you also stated clearly what his conservative judges would be up against with Democrats and maybe perhaps moderate Republicans.</s>SPECTER: Well, not moderate Republicans, now. There has been support for the president on the filibusters to oppose them. I've gone to the floor 17 times. The part you just quoted was where I said that I thought the president would be mindful of the filibusters which the Democrats have waged in the past. That is a political fact of life. That's not an Arlen Specter invention.</s>ZAHN: So where is the spin here?</s>SPECTER: The spin is where it was said that I warned the president.</s>ZAHN: Basically, Senator, our audience has just heard exactly what you had to say. All you're charging tonight is that was subject to a number of different interpretations.</s>SPECTER: We are subject to no difference of interpretations, Paula, on what the Democrats have done on mounting filibusters. And I think the president knows that and, obviously, will keep it in mind.</s>ZAHN: But, Senator, in spite of your clearly laying out your record for us this evening, apparently, people like Dennis Hastert aren't hearing you, nor is a group focused on family excepting what you have to say. They are calling you a big-time problem. Why? They've seen your transcripts. They've seen your record. They're making a different judgment here.</s>SPECTER: Well, they would like to see me not become the chairman.</s>ZAHN: Sir, is that because you're pro-choice?</s>SPECTER: That's the reason. I'm the only pro-choice Republican on the Judiciary Committee. And I'm known for calling it as I see it and that's the source of the concern.</s>ZAHN: So you don't think this latest controversy has anything to do with their judgment right now?</s>SPECTER: I think it has a lot to do with their preference that I not be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.</s>ZAHN: What are they afraid you're going to do if you get that job?</s>SPECTER: Well, I don't know. I have talked to the president about it. Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, said last Sunday that Arlen Specter made a commitment to the president to bring his nominees out of committee on to the floor and that Karl Rove said that Arlen Specter is a man of his word and that we take him at his word. And no one, Paula, has ever doubted my integrity.</s>ZAHN: Finally tonight, sir, how would you describe where you are in this fight to try to get this chairmanship?</s>SPECTER: Well, I am responding to your interviews, Paula, responding to many other interviews. I have talked to my colleagues. And I'm working at it. That's my stock in trade, is to work at it.</s>ZAHN: Are you optimistic or pessimistic it will come through for you?</s>SPECTER: I wouldn't characterize it one way or another. I'm working at it, like I'm doing right now.</s>ZAHN: And our viewers, I'm sure, will hear you loud and clear, as I have this evening.</s>SPECTER: OK.</s>ZAHN: Senator Specter, thanks so much for your time.</s>SPECTER: Great talking to you, Paula. Thank you.</s>ZAHN: Thank you very much. And with that, we turn to our voting booth question. Should Senator Arlen Specter become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Log on to CNN.com/Paula. Click away. The vote results coming up at the end of the hour.</s>ZAHN (voice-over): And still to come on PRIME TIME POLITICS, two politicians who want to shake up the status quo. He's a conservative from the plains of South Dakota who defeated the Senate's top Democrat. And she's a California surfer riding a wave of voter resentment against big-city politics, kicking sand in the face of the Republican establishment. Tonight, I'll be talking with both when PRIME TIME POLITICS continues.