Texas Monthly Talks
Kay Bailey Hutchison
(Page 2 of 2)
First of all, of course, the president. There should have been a plan to rally the people and, certainly, members of Congress who agreed that this is a war for our way of life. Now, I also believe that there are those in Congress who have politicized this issue, and that’s wrong too.
I want to pose the question to you that has been asked of the presidential candidates who served in the Senate in 2003. Knowing what you know now—that there were no weapons of mass destruction—do you have any regrets about your vote on the war?
Let me say this: I believe the president was trying to protect America from another 9/11 with a weapon of mass destruction, and he had the intelligence, corroborated by the British and others, that Saddam Hussein did have them. We knew he had a history of using chemical weapons on his own people and the wherewithal to deliver. I think the president chose to go into Iraq to prevent that. Now, in the aftermath, from time to time he and others will say we needed to rescue the people of Iraq from this terrible dictator. Well, I draw the line there. I am not a supporter of preemptive war. I didn’t think we should have been bombing the Serbs when they were not doing anything to us. I thought we should have been taking action to stop the genocide but not bombing a country that had not attacked us. I feel the same way about the argument that we were protecting the Iraqi people from a terrible dictator.
Not our responsibility.
No, it’s not for us to go bomb him into oblivion. Do we want to take steps to help those people fight him? Yes. But the time to have attacked Saddam Hussein was when he kicked the weapons inspectors out. We had a provocation, and we didn’t do it. To come back in for any other reason than Americans were in danger? I wouldn’t have supported it. But I think the president had justification to think that, and so from his vantage point that was a good enough reason.
And that was the reason you supported the war?
Yes.
What kind of a job has the president done, generally speaking?
He has successes and failures. His successes have been underrated and his failures have certainly been adequately covered. I think there should be a more balanced view of his presidency.
Which successes do you think are underrated?
Building a Department of Homeland Security. The fact that we have not had another attack on America. We are well on our way to border security. His education initiatives are a good success—I mean, he’s responsible for putting accountability in public education into law, and he worked with the Democrats to do it. He wants to have an ownership society, and he’s opened the door to more home ownership. And he has been successful in transforming the military into a more agile force for the types of wars that we are going to fight.
And his failures?
We did not follow through in Iraq with the right post-invasion decisions, and we did not bring in neighboring countries in the Middle East as soon as we should have. It’s incredible to me that the moderate Arab nations have sat on the sidelines when this is in their territory. They should have been helpful to the United States and its allies, and they should have been supportive and much more active in trying to help the people of Iraq. And I think the president completely misjudged the immigration issue. His heart was in the right place, but he kept denying that the bill offered amnesty.
So what do you do with the 11 or 12 million people who are in this country illegally?
If you start a guest-worker program, a large number of the 11 or 12 million will go back home to get into the system. You set it up so people can apply to come into our country to work legally. This will have two benefits. It will keep our economy going, because we’re going to have a real problem—
We need the labor.
We do. And it would show anyone wanting to be in our country that there is a legal way to come in and that it will be enforced, and people would then be incentivized to enter legally. And the American people, and our labor unions, would not feel threatened.
Do you support the deportation of illegals who don’t get the message, who don’t go back to their native countries and reapply to enter as guest workers?
If you have a legal system and you find people working illegally, then you have to have deportation.
But aren’t they working here illegally now? Why not deport them now?
The system is broken.
Would you support sanctions on businesses who hire such people?
When you have a guest-worker program that works, when you give employers a way to verify [the status of their workers], there should be sanctions.
Do you have any sympathy for the Irvings and Farmers Branches of the world, where residents have taken matters related to illegal immigration into their own hands? Are they being too harsh?
I think they’re frustrated because the federal government has failed. That’s why we need to do the right thing.
You have not endorsed a presidential candidate in your party. Do you intend to?
No. I don’t have a strong feeling about who our strongest, best candidate would be, and I have a lot of close friends on all sides. I’m not sensing an overpowering need for me to get involved. And I think endorsements are highly overrated.
Do you think Senator [Hillary] Clinton’s going to be the Democratic nominee?
I do.
Does that worry you?
Her policies are not right for our country, but I would probably say that about any of the Democratic nominees. Our philosophies are different.
Is she electable?
I don’t think she is, though the jury’s out. You can’t say for sure. She’s got very high negatives, but the people who are for her are strong for her. She’s a polarizing figure, but it’s hard to tell where the country is, exactly.
What are the chances that the Republicans will keep the White House?
It will be a close race, and the purple states are the states that will be really targeted. The mood of the country right now is pretty frustrated. I think we have a frustrated electorate. People don’t really like the partisanship. There’s a kind of toxic atmosphere about politics. I think the blogs feed on that. I think the intemperate nature of blogs and the lack of accountability have had an overall toxic influence on our elections. People are cynical, and these blogs are cynical and mean on all sides. So I don’t think that’s good, and I hope that at least even if you disagree with the mainstream media, there is a sense of integrity and honesty and standards. There are journalistic standards that blogs don’t have. We have a frustrated, toxic atmosphere right now.
Let’s end with some more of that Austin-insider stuff. Have you ruled out the possibility of being the ticket-mate for one of the Republican presidential candidates in 2008? They could come looking for you and say, “We have Hillary at the top of the Democratic ticket, and we need a strong woman to run for vice president.”
I’ve been very clear that I don’t want it. I really want to come home to Texas, and I want to do it at the right time for Texas. But I think there will be talk about it. There’s already talk about it.
You could put an end to it right now by saying, “Under no circumstances will I run for vice president.”
I don’t want to take a stand and change it. That’s why I’m not making commitments on what I’m going to do in 2010 or 2008—anything that allows someone to come back and say, “But you said . . .” I don’t want to be vice president. I’m not doing anything to put myself in a position to be vice president. And I have told the candidates that I don’t want to be vice president.
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