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Mark Steyn on the Vietnam syndrome sweeping segments of both political parties, and the national commitment to waging the War on Terror.

The world's columnist, Mark Steyn, opened the show today with lots to say about Iraq, Durbin's non-apology apology, and a lot more. Here's the transcript:

HH: Mark Steyn, I've got a lot to cover with you today. Columnist to the world that you are, you slammed Durbin hard this weekend. Did you consider his remarks on the floor of the Senate yesterday an apology?

MS: No, I didn't. They were the standard political apology, where you go, I'm sorry if some people misunderstood me. Nobody misunderstood him. He made an explicit comparison that is fatuous and insulting. And for him to cry and boast about how many soldier's funerals he's been to, and all the other rubbish he's done this past week, only added, I think, to the deep contempt in which large numbers of Americans, and large numbers of people in his own state now hold him. It's all his fault.

HH: I agree with you completely, and I think that despite John McCain's absolution...what's with McCain, Mark Steyn?

MS: Well, I think he's got the...he's one of the worst examples of that thing that I don't actually think plays well in the country at large...that Senatorial clubbiness, where they all carry on...I mean every time I watch Senators talking about each other, they remind me of Arab League meetings, where you know, it's one emir fawning on a president for life. It gives me the same creepy feeling as that. And that's what I think is quite repellent about it. You know, it's interesting. This whole business of war, terrorism, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the whole lot, the country actually has a fiercer will, and a tougher backbone, than their national legislators do on these issues. And that goes for both Democrats and Republicans.

HH: I hope you're right. There was an amazing exchange a couple of hours ago on Inside Politics, featuring Robert Novak and Paul Begala. It takes about three minutes. I need you to hear it, and then we've got to talk about it. Here's from Inside Politics, just a couple of hours ago.

RN: Well, I think the American people would love to end this war. They'd love to find some way that they could feel we were leaving as soon as possible, with honor, that we weren't bugging out, that we weren't making the world less safe. There's people in the administration who would like to do that right now. Believe me, because I talk to them. But they don't...that is not the president's view, and that's not the majority view. I think the trouble with the Democrats is, that when they have a meeting, and say we're going to get tough on Iraq, and say okay, we're going to fund it, but that these people have really screwed it up, they are not yet to the point of saying we are the people that...we will get out now. The Dennis Kucinich plan. We're going to get out immediately. They have not reached that point. They think it's too risky, and so therefore, there's something flat about the whole debate, because nobody has viable alternatives.

Ed Henry: But you seem to be saying there are people at the White House who are more nervous than they're letting on publicly.

RN: There are people in the administration who'll say, who think that Iraq is never going to be Iowa, and it's...we're going to have to get out. And if the Sunnis and the Shi'ias and the Kurds are having a civil war, we've done the best we could, and we have to keep it in their hands. And the counter-argument to that is, well, it's not just a civil war with...it's the center of the terrorist movement in the world. And I think that's a debatable thing, but there are...believe me, Ed. There are a lot of people, a lot of conservatives, who think that we should get out by the end of the year.

EH: Paul?

PB: Well, this thing's been a disaster for the country, for our country. And the president seems to be disengaged from reality. And the debate in Washington, I think, among those who are observing this, with respect is, is the president and his team, are they purposefully misleading us. In other words, do they understand what a debacle it is. But they are lying, or are they so delusional, that they think that we're winning this thing. That's...I have no idea which it is, but I'd like to know. I mean, maybe there are two camps. They're the reality, these people who understand that we're losing, but they're lying to us. And then, there's the delusional wing, who...

EH: Bob, you've been covering Washington for a long time. Do you think people like Chuck Hagel, it's just a pebble in the water? Or do you think there is building Republican concern on the Hill?

RN: There's building Republican concern on the Hill, and in the country. I go out, around the country a lot, and I take a very critical position on the prospects there, and I don't get criticism from conservatives. I think...I don't believe...I don't agree that it's either delusional or reprehensible. I think it is getting in this bureaucratic mode of whether the military people say oh boy. We can't leave. The Iraqi forces can't cut it. We've got to stay. And it's very hard to bite the bullet. If we had pulled out of Vietnam, in 1968, which I was violently against. I was a super-hawk. If we had pulled out in '68, the situation of the Communist tyranny over Vietnam, would not be any different than it is today, and we would have saved a lot of American lives. But it is very hard to pull that trigger.

HH: Mark Steyn, the Vietnam syndrome is back.

MS: Yes, and I think, with respect to Bob Novak, my Chicago Sun-Times colleague, he's missing the point. Losing Vietnam was the problem, not the year in which you choose to lose it. So in that sense, he's right. It doesn't make any difference whether you lose it in 1968, 1975, 1984. That makes no difference. And what matter here would be the perception if America were to pull out now. I happen to think the Iraq war is pretty much over, in the sense that it's going to be the Iraqi army bearing the brunt of things from now on. This Australian hostage, who was rescued the other day, I assumed he was rescued by coalition special forces, elite highly-trained people. But it turned out he was rescued by soldiers from the Iraqi army. So I think, in a sense, the American role is going to diminish in prominence over the next few months. But, you know, this is immature stuff, because you can't be the only hyper-power on the face of the Earth, and think that you can keep everybody at home, and go the beach every weekend. You can't be the first super-power in history that doesn't maintain troops overseas. And if we're going to talk about bringing troops home, I'd much rather they came home from Germany, where they're doing nothing useful, than from the Middle East, where they're actually serving to implement the long-term strategy of the Bush administration, which is going very successfully in the sense that the democratic pressures, the pressures to liberalize, are working in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Kuwait and throughout the region.

HH: Mark Steyn, it would be laughable to assert we are losing this war, except that it has such a terrible effect on our troops, and our enemies, discouraging the former and encouraging the latter. 23 people were killed in a suicide car bombing today. That has happened a lot. Hundreds have been killed by suicide car bombings. But that's all they've got. I mean, it's not...we can't lose this war unless we walk away from it. But that seems to be the agenda of the Democratic Party, though covert at points, and of isolationists like Bob Novak.

MS: Yea, and I think that's the problem here. When you listen...I mean, Paul Begala, I regard as a hack. I'm sure he has certain...

HH: Yea, he doesn't count.

MS: ...merits, when it comes to sort of crude, political tactics, but he's not...he has no great ideas, no great stratagies. Bob Novak is a different kettle of fish in that he's a very old-fashioned, isolationist, skeptical Republican. And the fact of the matter is, that it's this isolationist strategy that took a wallop on September the 11th. The old idea that America was the continental power, thousands of miles away from anybody...if you've got a couple of hundred dollars, and a suitcase nuke, you can be in Houston in a couple of hours, wherever you are in the world.

HH: Right.

MS: And it is absolutely absurd to think that you can just pull up the drawbridge and live at home. In fact, America, by the standards of most so-called imperialist powers, America travels very light. And the fact of the matter is, America has got to be engaged in the world. Because otherwise, the world is going to develop in ways that are hostile to America's interests.

HH: And as a result, yesterday, and the day before that, this Democratic attack on these detention centers, whether at Guantanamo or anywhere else in the world. It's all part of a plan to get us to withdraw American power, I believe. I think that this is intuitive on their part, that they want to go backwards into a hole, and hope that nothing bad happens.

MS: Well, I think there's a...what's happened is there's an accidental alliance that's come about, between the hard left, for which America is always the issue. You know, if it's America versus your crazy, psychotic bad guy here, they're always on the side of the cracy, psychotic bad guy. It doesn't matter whether it's a leftist, like Allende or Castro, or a misogynist, homophobe, theocrat like Mullah Omar. They're always on the other guy's side. But they've hooked up with the soft left. The sort of John Kerry, John Edwards, and I would guess one would have to say the Dick Durbin kind of legalistic left, that thinks we can somehow prosecute the War on Terror as a law enforcement operation, reading terrorists their Miranda rights, and hiring them O.J.'s legal team to represent them, and that's been a disaster. It doesn't work in Germany, Holland, or Britain, where cases have collapsed. They're not a serious party on this issue. And it's the great tragedy, because it's a war that's going to go on long enough that you need both parties to be serious about prosecuting it.

HH: I think that's the most important thing to underscore. Really, to win, the American people have to be committed to it, and every day the Democrats go to work to ruin that commitment.

MS: Absolutely.

HH: Mark Steyn, always a pleasure. Steynonline.com, America.

End of interview

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