JSP instant Transcript! Pat Caddell and Rick Lazio

From Fox News Live, September 11, 2004:

GREGG JARRETT [FOX NEWS]: Joining us now to talk about the controversy, former Congressman Rick Lazio, Republican, who represented New York's 2nd District, Pat Caddell, Democratic strategist and former Presidential pollster. Welcome to both of you. Pat, are you troubled by the way CBS and Dan Rather handled their story both initially when it aired and then subsequently in its defense?

PAT CADDELL [DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Absolutely. In fact, I'm really stunned, I mean, you would think this was the government during Watergate trying to coverup stuff. I mean, I am amazed because, you know, there are very very serious problems here, and the Republicans, this isn't a partisan thing. I think the press is sometimes amazingly irresponsible. For them to go out and say this story and these documents--and you know the person they quoted yesterday, for instance, I was on the internet looking this stuff, Marley, who said Oh no, the signatures are fine, this is a man who wrote an essay explaining you should never take a Xerox document. The signature, the ability to be able to commit fraud on the signatures is overwhelming.

JARRETT: Was that Marcel Matley you were referring to?

CADDELL: Yes, yes, and there's an essay he wrote on it. But the other problem is, they will not say, and there's no reason for this--these documents did not, this man has been dead for 16 years. His family says they didn't do it. They don't believe it's him. Now you've got contradictions, where some of these documents are signed, where the person is supposed to have been "forcing" the sugar coating had been out of the, had been retired for a year and a half. And other things like that. But they will not do, they will not tell us who these other sources are. And most importantly they won't say where they got this. They didn't get it from the Pentagon, and they didn't get these from the family. And I'm afraid what that's leaving there is that I'm afraid as a Democrat, I have a very very bad feeling where they got this. And it's going to come out in the end I'm afraid, and it's going to come something disastrous.

JARRETT: Pat Caddell and Rick Lazio, stand by for just a moment. We're going to pause and take a quick break and we'll be right back to continue this interesting conversation...
[commercial break]
JARRETT: Continuing now with Pat Caddell and Rep Rick Lazio on the story that was broken by 60 Minutes on Wednesday about President Bush's National Guard service, and there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents they used. Pat Caddell--and Rick Lazio, I'll get to you in just a second--but Pat Caddell, you said something that did not escape our view just a moment ago. And that is that you have a feeling where these documents came from. Can you elaborate?

CADDELL: Well, I'm just very bothered by the fact, there's no reason they should not be a news organization, saying, at least indicate where they got these documents. And they don't have the originals. And I know how this political thing works. And I think it's time for somebody to ask them directly, and get a direct answer, and I mean the other members of the news media, particularly the great prestigious, you know, Columbia Journalism Review, and the other people are supposed to be protecting the public from the journalists. And find out whether these were delivered by political operatives. And if it is, I'm really worried because if it's what I'm afraid of, it could be disastrous for my party. Because they got themselves in this so deep it's unbelievable.

JARRETT: Yeah, let me remind our viewers, you're a Democratic strategist, former Presidential pollster--

CADDELL: I think on 9/11, you know, some of us ought to think about being Americans first. And I, it would be nice to see our political process and the other people in it show just half the kind of honor the people who gave their lives here, giving their lives in the Middle East.

JARRETT: Rick Lazio, should CBS reveal something about how they got these documents, and should they moreover reveal all of the experts on whom they rely, and make them available for scrutiny?

RICK LAZIO [FORMER REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN]: Well you would certainly think so, Gregg. I think Pat got it absolutely right. I was a Prosecutor, dealt with cases involving forgeries and document alterations. This wouldn't have lasted five minutes on my desk; I would have got rid of it. You really do expect an organization with the prestige and the history and legacy of CBS to come clean, so to speak, and to lay out what their case is. I mean, you're talking about something that happened 30-something years ago. The author of the document's son actually disowns it, claims his father would never have written anything like that. We're talking about photocopies right now, may have been made numerous times over, we don't know because we can't see them.

JARRETT: And he warned CBS in advance that this isn't my Dad's work.

CADDELL: Well Congressman, also understand, one of the things that has not even come out yet is the fact that so many of these documents, I was on the board at West Point and I know you were in the Congress. I've dealt with a lot of the rules for military documents and stuff. They are not, both in terms of the acronyms and expressions they use, are not military, and their formats are not military.

LAZIO: And the other thing to keep in mind, when he talks about, when Rather talks about corroborating evidence, look at the reports, the annual reviews that the President received when he was in the Air National Guard--all of them were glowing. So it's not consistent with what they're saying. And they're not really providing any specific information that would contradict that.

CADDELL: Well, it's even--

JARRETT: Pat, you said this to our producers and I have to ask you about it, and you're a Democrat. "There are idiots in the Democratic Party that do things that do not hurt Bush and continue to hurt Kerry." What do you mean?

CADDELL: Well, getting into this issue, watching, having Terry McAuliffe for instance go out and call the President of the United States a liar. Having a certain Senator, whom I happen to like very much, who was almost got knocked out of a Presidential race because that particular Senator had exaggerated saying he was a combat pilot in VietNam, when he was flying mail runs to Tokyo, and is out there calling the President a liar. All they're going to do is they're helping the President. Because every time this issue is on the table so is all the swift boat stuff. And these people, it's like World War I, it's like the Battle of the Somme, they just can't get it out of their system. That's what worries me about the connections.

JARRETT: Gentlemen, I wish we had all day to talk about this, it's not going to go away. Pat Caddell, Rep Rick Lazio, gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.