Five Minutes With: Paul Begala

By Ben Adler, Campus Progress
Wednesday December 21, 2005

Click here to download an audio podcast of the interview!
 

Paul Begala has been at the forefront of progressive political strategy for more than a decade. He gained national recognition after his consulting firm, Carville & Begala, helped elect President Bill Clinton in 1992. He worked in the Clinton administration as counselor to the president, helping to set policy and explain it to the public. He has written several books including Is Our Children Learning?: The Case Against George W. Bush. He is a voice “from the left,” on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

Begala shared his thoughts on some of the biggest issues facing the country, from the nomination of Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court, to the recent cascade of indictments in Washington, DC, to the challenges of being a progressive Christian in a political culture that often treats that as an oxymoron.

Since you’re an expert on the inner workings of Washington, let’s dive right into one of the hottest topics in town right now. What do you think about the nomination of Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court?

Well, I think President Bush is throwing down the gauntlet. Judge Alito is clearly highly educated, [and] in the sense of academics and experience is qualified to be on the Supreme Court. But he has views that are so far out of the mainstream, really of both parties, that I think he’s gonna have a rough go. The records that are coming out show a man who is really at the far edge of the right-wing of constitutional thought. Most Americans like things like a minimum wage, family and medical leave, and they really don’t like the idea of some cop strip-searching their ten-year-old girl. And yet these are things that have happened in Judge Alito’s America.

Despite the paper trail, it seems as if, on some big issues like Roe v. Wade, Alito is trying to walk his record back.

Judge Alito has written and bragged that he believes Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. Now that’s a legitimate view, it’s an honest view, I’m sure it’s a deeply held view. But it’s a view that he’s now trying to cover up and hide. So I’d start with that. Make no mistake about it. There’s no question, no issue, there’s no evasion that should be allowed: Judge Alito will overturn Roe v. Wade. To the extent that young people are more affected by abortion laws than older people, which is a great extent, that’s gonna matter to them.

Again, if you’re a pro-lifer, I think you probably should be for Judge Alito. What I don’t like is that he’s now being cute about it. He’s now trying to run away from twenty years of his life he spent trying to outlaw legal abortion. But I think that’s gonna be one big line of demarcation, but there are a lot more that frankly are gonna be just as broad, or more broad, over the years: Civil rights laws, equal representation, the rights of the individual and the consumer against the corporate elite, the rights of the citizen against the government. He’s definitely not the guy who instinctively sticks up for the underdog.

As a political strategist, how would you suggest young people go about raising awareness of Judge Alito’s record among their peers?

Well, there’s never been in history an age cohort more plugged in to each other than young people [today]. The technology that exists to communicate, that guys my age fumble with, and stumble with, is second nature to a twenty-something Americans. So, text message, email, you can even still use the telephone apparently, but be prepared for the government to wiretap you without a court order. The mechanics are there. We can email all of our friends in a couple of keystrokes. But what is it that we say?

I think what you gotta say, particularly to younger citizens, is that you’ve got a real stake in this. This man is going to be on the Supreme Court for thirty years and he’s gonna try to lead the Court in a particular direction. That direction is, I think, to the very hard right.

Second, I think a message that ought to be put out to progressives and to lots of thoughtful conservatives is the argument about ethics. Now in America we are having a government that is more corrupt than any I’ve seen in my lifetime. I think this crowd is worse than the crowd that Nixon had during Watergate. We have the Chief of Staff of the Vice-President of the United States under indictment, we have the Chief Procurement Officer of the White House under indictment, we have the Republican Majority Leader of the House under indictment, the Republican Majority Leader of the Senate under criminal investigation, the chief Republican lobbyist in Washington, Jack Abramoff, under indictment, and more to come. A Republican Congressman from California just pleaded guilty to taking $2 ½ million worth of bribes.

So, how does this affect Judge Alito? Well, Judge Alito when he was first confirmed to the lower court by the Senate wrote, signed his name, and pledged in writing, that he would not rule on any cases involving the Vanguard Mutual Fund in which he had investments. Years later, a citizen, a customer, a client sued Vanguard. The case came before Alito and he ruled on the case even though he pledged in writing he would never do so, and guess what? He ruled in favor of Vanguard. Which at least shows you once again where his heart is—on the side of big powerful monied interests against the little guy, in this case, a little gal. It suggests that this is a person who does not have the ethical standards that I think we need on the Supreme Court.

So I would have young people convey both of those messages. That he is out of step with the mainstream on most of the judicial issues that are likely to come before the Court and also he doesn’t have the ethical standards that we ought to demand of a Supreme Court justice.

If you were a Senator on the Judiciary Committee what questions would you ask Alito during the hearings?

I would try to tease out from him why on earth he broke his word to the Senate. That sort of thing bothers Senators and it’s a non-partisan issue. The most conservative Republican Senator and the most liberal Democratic Senator would agree that they don’t want to be lied to by a nominee, particularly a nominee who’s just trying to get a lifetime appointment. You never get a second chance at these guys, this is a very rare case where he’s coming up now for a second lifetime appointment. I would plumb those depths.

And I would try—it would be an exercise in futility—but I would try to get him to take stands on these issue that he’s already taken stands on: minimum wage, family and medical leave, machine guns, and gun control. Now it’s a fool’s errand because all these guys now are coached by the far right not to reveal any of their true views. And they pretend that it’s a matter of principle: “Well, I can’t comment on any case that might come before me.”

If Judge Alito’s nomination is defeated…

When.

Right, when. When Judge Alito’s defeated do you know of any lower court judges or legal figures who President Bush might actually nominate as a more appropriate replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor?

Yes. There’s a guy named Michael McConnell on the Appeals Court, very conservative. I don’t know him but people I know and trust say that Judge McConnell while very very conservative does not have the same extreme views and does not have the same ethical problems as Judge Alito. When I was advising Bill Clinton, I advised him to do this and he didn’t do it—reach outside of the priesthood of the courts and high academia. The President tried to do that with Harriet Miers, but unfortunately she wasn’t qualified.

But I’d look to the Senate. When Alito is beat, President Bush is gonna be on the ropes. He’s only at 39% now; I don’t know how much lower he can get. And the sure win is to pick a Senator, there are plenty of good Senators. I mean, I don’t support any of them politically … Well, there’s Orrin Hatch or Mel Martinez, or Lindsay Graham or Judd Gregg, all of whom are attorneys, all of whom have had distinguished records, and all of whom have actually lived a life, and had to run for sheriff. Honestly, I’d advise the President to pick a Senator. You’d get someone just as conservative possibly, but someone who could get confirmed, and someone who understands a little bit more of the give and take of the real world.

You were once offended by Wolf Blitzer making a joke about you not being a good Catholic, after describing your conservative co-host, Bob Novak, as a good Catholic. How do you think progressives can change the perception that they aren’t good Christians?

Well, to defend my friend and colleague Wolf Blitzer, he later told me he was trying to make a joke and it fell flat. It’s something no one should ever joke about, though, and he acknowledged that. It’s instructive that the media now begins with a presumption that if you’re a conservative, somehow you’re more spiritual. One of my friends, someone I admire greatly and whose books I’ve read is Jim Wallis, he’s an Evangelical Protestant minister, so a different denomination than me, but really a wonderful person and a great Christian leader. And one of the things he says is “since when did being a Christian make you pro-war, pro-rich, anti-poor?” The Gospels have 3,000 passages in which we are told to take care of the poor, not one in which we are told to beat up on homosexuals. So it seems to me, the biggest reason I’m a Democrat and I’m a liberal is, even more than that, I’m a Catholic and I’m a Christian.

Now I accept my Church’s teachings on abortion, other people have different views and their faiths have different views and I understand that. But the notion that only right-wingers can be good Catholics has been disproved by none other than John Paul II, John Paul the Great in my eyes, one of the great Popes in Church history, who was a huge liberal. He came to America, I had the honor of being there, and he begged us to repeal the death penalty, begged us. He said it was wrong, always wrong to take a human life. And Mel Carnahan, then the Governor of Missouri, who’s a Baptist, was so moved that he commuted a death sentence after the Pope’s appeal. Most conservatives turn a deaf ear to John Paul the Great’s appeal on that. He spoke out against what he called “savage and unbridled capitalism.” He spoke out against materialism. He spoke out against greed. All of these have become right-wing values now in America: greed, materialism and savage unbridled capitalism. John Paul II is a true liberal although he is obviously very traditional on issues of personal morality. But on all these issues of economics and social justice, he was a great liberal.

Progressives have done a bad job of defining the terrain. They’ve accepted that the only moral values we should ever talk about are gays and abortion and whether we have “under G-d” in the pledge of allegiance. And I’m all for that. But I also think we should have the words “One Nation” and I’m sick of right-wingers using our pledge that should be uniting us as yet another means of dividing us.

Liberals and progressives should stand up when they talk about the budget and say it is a profoundly moral document. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Where your heart lies there too shall your treasure be.” Well, we know where Mr. Bush’s heart lies; it lies with the very very rich. This holiday season, this Christmas season, our national government in Washington is cutting help to the poorest Americans in order to give more help to the wealthiest Americans. Now I think that’s a sin. It’s not just bad fiscal policy, it’s a sin against G-d and I think more progressives ought to talk that way and give voice to their values instead of sounding like sociologists all the time or sort of bloodless technocrats.

Sometimes when progressives oppose a far-right judicial nominee who happens to be Catholic, conservatives have said, “you’re just opposing him or her because he or she is Catholic, because his or her Catholicism compels them to oppose a woman’s right to choose.” So, how do we counteract that?

It’s just preposterous. It’s like when people, without any foundation, scream racism. You can’t do that, you oughtn’t to do that in America. There are plenty of principled reasons to oppose Judge Alito, the fact that he’s Catholic is just not one of them. John Kerry is Catholic and all of my conservative friends opposed him. I didn’t accuse them of religious bigotry for opposing John Kerry. I think they opposed him for ideological, partisan political reasons; good for them. They have a right to do that. But we ought not say that people are religious bigots just because they disagree with people. Mr. Alito’s faith has nothing to do with it any more than Janice Rogers Brown and whatever church she goes to [does] …. I opposed her. Priscilla Owen, I think she’s Episcopalian, I opposed her. I mean this is preposterous.