POTUS: Why Duncan Hunter is the Right Man - Part 1

Why Duncan Hunter is the Man for POTUS, Part 1

Guest Post By Alexander J. Madison - February 08, 2010

The 2010 elections are right around the corner. All conservatives must work tirelessly to nominate and elect candidates who will not only stop Obama’s socialist agenda dead in it’s tracks, but who will also reverse course on the Republican ‘slow drift’ socialism it has embarked upon since Reagan departed.

Though it may now appear too early to spend much effort lobbying for the right 2012 Presidential candidate, all one needs to do is glance through the headlines to understand that a gaggle of Republican politicians are already lining their coffers and elbowing for a place in the primary.

Examples? Sure.

Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, has set up his Freedom First PAC and has hired some of President Bush’s old campaign hands to steer him to victory. Yes, the same Tiny Tim who has spent much of his governorship tongue kissing the wacko environmentalists and who stated: “We should not spend time on voices that say climate change is not real” and “We should have listened to President Carter” (about energy policy). Zoinks!!

How about the old Newster? Gingrich is well positioned financially to make a run for the Presidency. He has hinted strongly he will do just that, even proclaiming himself to be considered a “frontrunner”, naturally. If his global warming couch-pimping with Nancy Pelosi wasn’t enough to compel a little bile into the back of conservatives’ throats, then his cross country treks with Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Al Sharpton singing the praises of Obama’s education policy should do the trick.

Mitt Romney has been busy as well, and will no doubt be running. He’s already the favorite of the GOP elite and the “it’s his turn” crowd. Of course, his flip flops are so numerous and spectacular, that he will be made into a Mitt sausage all over again, just like McCain did to him. It would be a miracle if the Obama camp isn’t already secretly shuffling donations his way.

Sarah Palin pretty much erased all doubt about her intention to run during her interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace. With a good percentage of the tea partiers solidly behind her, she could be a formidable force. Unfortunately, her inexperience regarding foreign policy is an Achilles heel, just as it is for Mitt Hucklenty. And she will certainly have to answer for some of the weak tea responses she gave the media as McCain’s VP selection.

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, also is making lots of noise and has a Fox TV gig to promote himself. However, his inexplicable record of criminal pardons and commutations as governor once again reared its ugly head in 2009 – this time with 4 dead police officers – and he should seriously rethink his candidacy.

Others that are “maybes” to run include Rick “Vaccine” Perry of Texas (assuming he wins re-election), Lou Dobbs of CNN fame, Haley “Eminent Domain” Barbour, and Libertarians such as former NM governor Gary Johnson and Ron Paul.

With this in mind, it is incumbent upon conservatives to promote a rock-ribbed Reaganite instead. A rock-ribber without a PC bone in his body, who doesn’t moisten his finger or ‘focus group’ to help him determine his views, whose arm does not twist when the Party bosses come calling, and who has a certifiable, undeniable record of domestic and foreign policy conservatism. That man is Duncan Lee Hunter.

While it is true that Hunter, like several others mentioned above, ran for the 2008 nomination, it is also true that the rank and file GOP and independent voters largely wanted nothing to do with a return to conservative principles in 2007 and 2008. The absolute proof of this is that the 2008 frontrunners were named Giuliani, Romney and McCain throughout the entire campaign (with a late surge of panic for Huckabee).

Today is a different day. The guy Glenn Beck and Mike Reagan and Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin “really liked”, but “couldn’t win” is poised to reap the benefit of Americans finally waking up from their slumber and demanding a return to Constitutional governance and Reaganesque foreign policy. Duncan Hunter is the only likely candidate that comes close to satisfying this demand. But it is up to him and those that know this to get out in front of the train early and spread the word – that America can finish the revolution Reagan started if they support the right man for the job.

Hunter throughout his Congressional career advocated wholesale deletions of Federal departments and agencies such as the Department of Energy, the Department of Education and the NEA. He has an unvarnished record of opposing the drivel coming out of regulatory agencies such as the EPA and OSHA, and has pushed to slash their scope and funding. When asked this past January whether he still advocated getting rid of these dead weights, his response was “Oh absolutely!”

And Mr. Hunter delivered perhaps the finest defense of free market healthcare in the Congressional Record, dating back to the days when Clinton and Co. were pushing their version of socialized medicine. It can be found in it’s entirety at this link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2363325/posts

When it comes to amnesty and illegal aliens, even old Tom Tancredo didn’t promote the kind of toughness that Duncan Hunter advocated. That toughness not only included building a double fence separated by a Border Patrol road across all the smuggling corridors on the Mexican border, but insisted on the deportations of all illegal aliens as they are apprehended. A 2007 interview with PBS’s Judy Woodruff sheds light on Mr. Hunter’s unwillingness to bend on illegal Aliens:

JUDY WOODRUFF: You also have been adamant in saying that you think that the illegals, known illegals in this country should be deported. How do you go about finding them?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER: Well, I think, to some degree, we're like a boat that's got a big hole in it, and we're bailing water furiously. You have to plug the hole in the boat, which means you have to secure the border.

Once you secure the border, we have a deportation system, in fact, for people that say, "You can't deport people by the thousands," we deport thousands of people from this country every month! And if we don't, if we don't adhere to the law, the many people who are here right now, the millions of people who are here right now, who came in illegally after the amnesty of the 1980s, came in after the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House held up a big sign and we said, "This time we really mean it," 1986, I believe. We said, "We really mean it. Nobody else can come in illegally." And folks came in illegally and left tire tracks on those signs.

Regarding foreign policy, Ronald Reagan restored America’s confidence and superpower status after years of drift during the previous RINO and democrat administrations. George W. Bush provided a stop gap after Clinton and the supposed post Soviet Union “peace dividend”, but our nation is in dire need of increasing defense spending once more. Duncan Hunter vows to follow the Reagan model of “Peace through Strength”. Indeed, you can find no stauncher supporter for beefing up our Naval strength, increasing the size of our Army and Marine Corps, and perfecting our missile defense systems. Hunter is also adamant about America leading the world. Especially our adversaries, in space based weaponry, something that President Obama foolishly has vowed not to pursue.

You can be sure of one thing. If Hunter had been nominated last time, he would have wiped the floor with Mr. Obama in the debates, unlike a very stiff and uncertain John McCain. You can be sure of another thing. If Duncan Hunter were president right now, Iran would have already halted its pursuit of nuclear weapons, one way or another. When Hunter stated in an interview last October that “the West must move quickly. I think the United States needs to destroy those facilities”, he meant it. And if Mr. Hunter were now president, the ever bellicose China would be far less bellicose, knowing they had an adversary who would never blink. As Hunter said in the same interview, “the storm on the horizon is clearly China”. This too, he meant.

In summary, the reawakening of the American people to finish the Reagan revolution, to return to the federal government back to its constitutional duties, to restore the confidence of our nation, to checkmate our adversaries, and to jealously protect our sovereignty calls out for a leader of exceptional fortitude and love of country. Duncan Hunter is that man.

(Part 2 will focus on economics and the poison of political correctness – stay tuned)

Duncan Hunter Bonus Interview: Slams Obama Admin over Push for Gays in the Military

Bonus interview, posted by pissant at Free Republic-

AJM: Hello Mr. Hunter. I’m sure you’ve seen the news. Your son, Duncan D., has been getting hammered in the left-wing media and blogs for defending the Military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

DH: Yeah, I’ve noticed that. He must be doing something right (laughs). He’s doing a great job, as evidenced by the frothing attacks from the homosexual lobby, the media and their democrat allies. I talked to Duncan, called him up. Gave him some encouragement and a few ideas. But he’s doing great.

AJM: Have you had a chance to write anything up on this?

DH: No, I’ve been so busy. I haven’t had a chance to write anything on this yet. But I think I may get on the TV out in Texas. I’m going to see my cousin out there, who is real sick. Probably leave tomorrow. But I might be able to do a television interview out there on this.

AJM: Can you briefly summarize what your thoughts on this are?

DH: Well, I think that it’s disgraceful! It’s insulting that after nine years of our guys in uniform being deployed in inconvenient and dangerous places fighting for this country, for the Obama Administration to be prying this back open now. Especially from a President who has very limited knowledge of military life and who looks to socialist countries for ideas.

Now with Colin Powell on their side, they are going to really try to push this thing. The military leaders supporting the Administration seemed to have forgotten what the mission is. It isn’t social experiments to please the liberal democrats. I think it’s a real tragedy for these leaders to go along with this nutty idea.

No one talks about the absolute invasion of privacy. For these young men and women to have to be in extremely close quarters, shower with, live with essentially, people that will have a sexual attraction to them. That is unacceptable.

Most kids that join the military make a decision in conjunction with their families. And they do so, often times, because of its wholesome reputation and support of the traditional, conservative values that these young men and women and their families hold. It would be very detrimental to let a group of leftwing activists destroy that.

They are pushing this without thinking through its effects on National security. And affecting a National Security issue with a political decision is generally damaging. And this attempt by the Obama Administration to re-open this question and re-force this question is in that category.

I know that we did a lot of work, a lot of research when Bill Clinton tried to pay off his campaign contributors in the homosexual community in 1992 by opening up the military to their ranks. I know the enormous amount of research we did, the enormous amount of testimony we elicited in the Republican Research Committee during the hearings we held on it.

AJM: The big argument they are making that I’ve seen time and again, including from Mr. Kerry, who attacked your son, Senator Kerry that is, is that “times have changed” and it’s time now has finally come. How do you respond to that argument, that times have changed?

DH: His answers may change, but values haven’t!

But listen, I’ve got to walk in the door and meet some guys. That ought to give you plenty of ammo for now.

AJM: Absolutely. Thanks again and have a great rest of the day.

Duncan Hunter Interview 1-28-2010 On Obama's "Socialism With A Smile" Speech and More

DH: Hey, Jim, go ahead there friend.

AJM: Sounds like you were doing a little banking.

DH: Yeah, I‘m here on good old North Island. I’m getting a little money for my seed here.

AJM: Do you need my address?

DH: (laughs) Like I said it’s seed money, not feed money.

AJM: (laughs) OK. Well I guess since this is still relatively fresh in your mind, do you want to give your two cents on Obama’s speech?

DH: Yeah, I think the speech last night was classic Obama; and that is socialism with a smile. Apparently, he is not going to listen to the American people, including many people who voted for him in the last election, who don’t want to turn healthcare over to the Post Office. And he’s going to continue to try to socialize, basically, one sixth of the economy.

He also spent an inordinate amount of time blaming the previous administration for his problems. He spoke of inheriting the storm and how he’s gotten us through it. But almost every area he went into he compared himself to the previous administration. And I’m reminded of the fact that probably George Washington was the only American president that didn’t blame all of his problems on the previous administration. But this guy went overboard!!

He was fixated on the Bush Administration. And you can tell that the staff folks who wrote his speech for this thing had a few gaps in their research. For example, he said that they’ve killed, America killed, more Al Qaeda in 2009 than we did in 2008, before he came in. He made that point. Well, that’s true, and the reason is that we won the Iraq War that he attempted to retreat from. We won it in 2008, and the attacks on Americans and civilians in Iraq went down over 90%. The Iraq government matured, their military matured, the war is over and we won it! In 2007, we killed an enormous number of Al Qaeda and destroyed their ability there to attack in force. So obviously the number of Al Qaeda went down because there was no longer a center of gravity in the Al Qaeda organization left to confront the Americans in on the battlefield for much of 2008. And now, in 2009, the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan have flared up, and there is more confrontation and there is more fighting. And as a result we are killing more of them.

But the fact that the Al Qaeda numbers, their casualties, went down in 2008 is a direct result of a successful policy, that is the surge, that Obama foolishly opposed. In other words, not something he should brag about!

AJM: It was spin city in that chamber last night.

DH: He’s like a new sheriff in town claiming he’s gunning down more cowboys now than “Bat” Masterson did in his days. Bat Masterson had cleaned out the entire town.

AJM: (laughs)

DH: That’s what we did with Iraq.

Another thing Obama did which I thought really disserved everybody that has worn the uniform for the United States in Iraq, he said: “Make no mistake, we’re coming home”. He refuses to acknowledge that we’ve won, because he was against the war.

That’s a slap in the face to everybody that’s served over there, because we’ve clearly won in Iraq, by any metric. We stood up a government which is a representative form of government. It’s held. The 1st Iraqi Division has not taken a backwards step since before 2008. They went into Basra and soundly defeated Al Sadr’s guys. They then moved into surrounding areas in southern Iraq like Amarah, cleaned him out there. Then they marched on Sadr City, 4 battalions abreast, cleaned out the Mahdi Army that Al Sadr was leading. The Marines in Anbar province, in the big difficult, dangerous western province, cleaned out Al Qaeda and made a partnership with the Sunni community, which turned on Al Qaeda and helped the Americans in cleaning out Al Qaeda in western Iraq.

So the Iraqi military is stood up, the government is stood up. It’s legislating. It’s casting votes and solving their problems with ballots, not bullets. The Americans are packing up and leaving. I’ve got a son in Iraq right now, they are mopping up, they are packing up. US casualties are extremely low. In fact, I’d wager there were more Americans killed in Obama’s hometown in December than were killed in Iraq.

So we’ve won in Iraq, and Obama refused to acknowledge it, because it’s not politically expedient for him to acknowledge that these great young Americans carried the battle to the enemy and produced a victory for the United States! And it is probably, arguably, the most important victory for our country since Korea. And he won’t acknowledge it.

So I thought that that was something that should disturb the entire community of American veterans and their families.

AJM: And he had the gall to preface his remarks on Defense by saying how all Americans should “honor” the troops, not only when they go out to war but when they come home.

DH: Yeah, he used what I call the “Victim Strategy”. That is, all liberals are happy to announce that people who served their country in uniform are “victims”, and that they are going to take care of them.

Alan Cranston, former Senator Alan Cranston - now the late Alan Cranston - who represented California, was a conscientious objector in World War II. And he became, by his leftist notions, the greatest advocate for the veterans. Treating the veterans like victims is the answer for anti-war liberals.

The best thing you could do for veterans is to acknowledge that they’ve won, that they accomplished something, that their lives and sacrifices have value, and what they gave to the United States has great value!

AJM: Yeah, it’s amazing. Did you catch his slap at the Supreme Court over McCain Feingold?

DH: Yeah, I didn’t see it, so I didn’t pay too much attention to that. I thought the other big thing was his announcement that he was going to continue to try to socialize healthcare.

But one other thing on the security front. He gave an extremely weak statement on Iran. Iran is now committed to developing nuclear weapons. And they are refining uranium at the Qoms, at the 2nd site. When they get the uranium refined approximately to the 5 percent level, even though that is far below the 90% that you are supposed to need to make a nuclear weapon, that actually manifests an accomplishment that represents most of the work that goes into refining uranium. You’ve now made it much more difficult for somebody who wants to knock your program out, to eliminate the program, because the large facilities which are big targets, like Natanz, aren’t needed to take the uranium from 5% to 70, 80, or 90%. So the big targets are going by right now. It’s going to be much more difficult in the shooting gallery to find and destroy the small targets, especially if they are deeply buried.

So the President squawked about increasing consequences for Iran, but Iran is not suffering any consequences right now to the degree that they will be deterred from producing a nuclear weapon. So on the Security front, Obama was very, very weak on Iran.

And lastly, he failed to take on China. It’s been a mistake for both Democrat and Republican Administrations. China is still cheating on trade. They are taking the life blood out of the industrial base of this country, which is taking the good wages and good jobs of the middle class that underpins the housing industry in this country, a major segment of our economy.

AJM: One of the reasons he’s not going to be particularly or even mildly bellicose to the Chinese is that he has to fund all of his trillion dollar spending sprees, he needs them to keep buying the securities.

DH: Well, I think that’s the argument made to almost every president. The point is, if you really believe in that argument, and you believe that the red Chinese have an enormous amount of leverage over the United States right now, then by allowing them to continue this drag on the American industrial base you are agreeing to them INCREASING leverage over the United States in the coming decades! Meaning it is going to get much worse, and that China will continue to become an industrial powerhouse, that they will continue to accumulate American assets. And they’ll spend a great deal of those assets on a war machine, which they are building right now!

The Department of Defense’s publication on China’s military power reflects every year increasing military capability that will make it more and more difficult for the United States to carry out what it considers to be the proper foreign policy options in that part of the world.

So by saying “they’ve have a hold on us, they’ve got us by the shorthairs, they’ve got leverage on us, therefore we’re going to allow them to continue to extract America’s industrial base, and build up theirs while weakening ours” is essentially conceding the future to communist China. That’s what Obama is doing. I reject that. I think that’s a huge mistake.

AJM: I do too. And Congressman this is one of the main reasons, one of many I would say, that you have my support. Because you were the only one, the only one in a long time – I think Henry Hyde was a congressman that sided with you on this issue in terms of the future with China – but you’ve been harping on this for a good fifteen, twenty years. And you were the only one to run on that platform in the 2008 race. What you warned about in the early nineties and mid nineties has come to pass. And you’re right, it’s a situation that we need to extract ourselves from, not exacerbate.

DH: Yeah.

Anyway, that’s my take on the speech. So don’t put me down as “undecided” (laughs)

AJM: (laughing) I certainly won’t. Speaking of China, the Obama administration has agreed to sell Taiwan the package of armaments that the Bush Administration agreed on, with the exception of the advanced F-16 fighters. In the article that I read it said we didn’t want to sell them the advanced F-16 fighters because China said “no”. What is your take on the Taiwan situation, and how would you advise, how would you recommend that we treat Taiwan? It seems like a bastard child right now, and I think that is extremely unwise.

DH: Well I don’t think you need me for that discussion. (laughs)

AJM: (laughing) Well, I want your ideas, that’s my 2 cents on it but I ….

DH: I agree with you! (laughs)

But here’s what I’d say. To effectively blunt a Chinese assault on Taiwan, the Taiwanese department of defense needs what I would call ‘distributive fire’. That means they need to have ability on a sustained basis to take out platforms that are crossing the Taiwan Straights. That is naval platforms. And at the same time to handle incoming medium range ballistic missiles and ship fired missiles.

Now the reason they need to have distributive fires is because China is putting together a fairly effective air force. They’ve been watching the United States ‘knock down the door’ in theatres like Iraq and Afghanistan, but especially Iraq, where you go in and take out the anti-air capabilities of the country you are hitting. Then you can go in and work your will with superior air power. So the Taiwanese need to have survivable, distributive fires, meaning they can handle wave after wave of attacking aircraft coming over from mainland China.

I haven’t looked at the package proposed, to see whether or not that can happen, if they can handle that. They can’t do it simply with fighter aircraft. And China has an anti-air missile capability which is becoming increasingly sophisticated, which will be effective against a lot of the tactical aircraft the world has and the United States has. So without looking at that package, it’s hard to tell whether or not it is essentially symbolism involved. But I would say anything the Taiwanese do to build up their defenses is good. Whether or not it is sufficient to handle growing capability of China to cross the straights of Taiwan is questionable, at best.

AJM: What about this notion of not selling them particular items because of China’s protests?

DH: If we really want to defend Taiwan, obviously we should deliver to them what it takes to defend them. I don’t know what other systems we can give, but we don’t give our most advanced F-16s to anybody. There are some American components of F-16s that we hold back from everybody. There’s some high end equipment that we don’t want anybody to get their hands on. So you have plain vanilla F-16s, you’ve got some that are somewhat sophisticated, and then you’ve got some that are extremely ‘high end’. Without looking at the particular equipment package, I can’t give you a real good answer on whether or not we are giving Taiwan the right thing. Obviously, we need to give to Taiwan what it takes – or we need to sell to Taiwan, they need to pay for it. They haven’t been spending much of their Gross National Product on defense, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, because they are an industrial powerhouse.

But they need to build the ability to maintain distributive fires that are survivable and effective against aircraft, missiles and naval vessels.

AJM: And are we not, with the Taiwan Relations Act, committed to helping defend them, not only with weapons sales but with our miltary?

DH: Well, certainly. Obviously, the Obama administration is parsing the term ‘defense’. They are giving them something, while trying not to upset the Chinese.

And I simply haven’t looked at the package to be able to tell you that even if they gave them the more sophisticated F-16s, that’s going to do the trick. Because I’ve looked at Taiwan’s armaments and their military force structure, and China is advancing so rapidly. Chins is building roughly 100 medium range ballistic missiles a year, many which are being staged in the Taiwan area. Now whether they get early on, to what I would call the point of being able to overwhelm Taiwan’s defensive systems, that’s a question that requires more analysis.

AJM: But the Hunter Doctrine is: We give them what it takes to beat back the chicoms?

DH: Yes. If we really want to defend Taiwan, and I believe we need to help Taiwan defend itself, they should have the equipment that is necessary to defend against a burgeoning defense capability in communist china.

Listen, I’m just about ready to go into a canyon. So I’ll have to sign off.

And in answer to your question, I think Obama gave a great ‘Socialism with a Smile’ speech. (laughs)

AJM: Good enough. Have a great day.

DH: Same here, Jim. How’s your weather up there, you guys getting any rain?

AJM: It looks like it’s coming in now. We should get some more snow pack in the mountains. We need it.

DH: OK. Looking good. Thanks for calling.

America Rising Video

Duncan Hunter Interview – 1/21/2010: Mass. Miracle, Obama, Cheney, Jobs, McCain-Feingold & More!

This is part 10 of an ongoing series of conversations with former Congressman and conservative icon Duncan Hunter. Hunter has agreed to do a series of free wheeling interviews to ensure that the conservative point of view is given voice as we try to move the Republican Party and the country in a pro-American, pro-constitutional direction; a return to our roots, if you will. In addition to being involved in recruiting and fundraising for a number of hawkish, conservative congressional candidates, Hunter is attempting to re-invigorate the GOP and re-establish the Reagan, pro-military, small government ideals.

DH: Hello, Jim you there?

AJM: Yes sir, this is Jim.

DH: OK. Duncan Here. How’s it going?

AJM: Good, Good. We have Gloria from Ohio here on the line.

DH: Good. Hi Gloria.

GW: Hi, how are you?

DH: I’m doing good. I’ve got my two little granddaughters here, they have now got the fire ready to go. They built a little house in the fire place. Now we’re going to light it.

{To his granddaughters: Ok, grab my hand dear. Ok c’mon. No, you light it right there sweetie. Put your hand over here. Grab Grandpa’s hand. Grab grandpa’s hand right there. Ok now we’re going to light it. That’s good}.

OK guys, well listen, what’s new?

AJM: Well, I missed you last week. Of course we are on no particular schedule. But unfortunately I was skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho.

DH: Well that’s not bad. I’m going to do an event up there in Couer d’Alane at the end {throw that in sissy} at the end of February for the Republican Party for Vaughn Ward. He’s the Marine company commander now running for that congressional seat. I think it’s against Minnick.

AJM: Yes, that’s correct.

DH: You might want to run on up there, Jim.

AJM: Couer d’Alene is not that far either, right on the other side of the Washington border. Do you know when that’s going to be?

DH: It’s right at the end of February. You need to talk to the Republicans in Couer d’Alene, they’ll know the date.

AJM: OK. Is your brother involved in this too?

DH: Well, I just called him and told him to try and get up there too. I think he’ll try to get up and make it.

AJM: Well I have no qualms with that whatsoever. I might have to hit a ski area or two on the way back.

DH: Well, we’re thinking about catching some steelhead, so we’re of the same mindset. {drop that sissy, just drop it. You can’t just hold on to it}

AJM: Who joined the call? Is that Lynn?

LD: Yes. Hi Congressman Hunter

DH: Hi, how are you doing?

LD: Good. You?

DH: Doing great. I’ve got two little granddaughters here and they helped grandpa make a fire.

LD: How awesome.

DH: We’re working away {put it right there at the edge there, sis}

So anything new happen?

AJM: Well, we always got to report the news to you, you know that (laughs). I’d like to start off with what your take is on the victory in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy’s former seat….

DH: It shows that God has a sense of humor!

All: (laughs)

DH: When He was thinking “now which Senate seat shall I give to the Republicans? I think I’ll give them Teddy Kennedy’s seat”.

All: (laughing)

AJM: Were you surprised? What do you think it portends for the upcoming elections?

DH: Well, I think the rule of thumb for politics is that truth is always stranger than fiction. So you have to always expect the unexpected. They have a 3 to 1 democrat versus republican registration, but a ton of independents, which was the key dynamic here.

But I think it shows that even folks from Massachusetts don’t like the idea of socialism! I think they harken back to lots of grim faced old WWII soldiers, Navy personnel, and Marines who fought in some of those horrendous battles, followed by lots of ongoing generations who fought in other tough places around the world to keep this country free. And the idea of giving away that freedom through Obama’s socialistic agenda was repugnant to most Americans, and I think, to a lot of liberals. I think there are a lot of liberals who in their hearts don’t believe in socialism. And they’ve watched the miracle of freedom and capitalism and I think that Americans don’t want to give that up. Even in Massachusetts they don’t want to give that up.

AJM: I think you might be right. Do you watch Glenn Beck’s show much, Congressman?

DH: Not much. Every now and again. But I don’t watch too much TV.

AJM: I don’t blame you.

DH: I like Glenn Beck. He was great to me in the presidential race. I like him. He gave me an hour on his show.

LD: I saw that!

DH: I appreciate Glenn Beck.

AJM: One of the things he likes to mention is the difference between your typical liberal democrats and the ‘progressives’ – the true believers in socialism and Marxism – and he likes to differentiate between those two. What camp do you believe that the Obama folks are in? Are they just typical liberal democrats or are they…..

DH: The latter. I think Obama, because of his background….everything Obama has ever had in life came from government. And I think his experience in life has revolved around radicals and government. And that’s what he believes in. And in the end, people tend to revolve back, to go back to their roots.

And I think Obama is a machine politician. And I think that’s why he had no problems in getting tough with Ben Nelson, and threatening to take things away from him. I think the American people were upset when Nelson, as I understand, it was threatened that the Obama Administration would take away the Strategic Operations Center from Nebraska, which is a national security issue. And that was treated by the Democrat leadership and Obama as a piece of cheese. I think that, to some degree, reflected the character, or lack thereof, of the Administration.

AJM: Yeah. And Nelson, if I’m not mistaken, is one of the more ‘moderate’ Democrats. They had to do some arm twisting somehow, I guess.

DH: My point is, if you really believe in machine politics and machine government, in a leftwing government-heavy administration, that is a classic approach. To simply threaten or cajole people until you get what you want.

AJM: That’s the Chicago way.

DH: There it is.

ALL: (laughs)

DH: I was in congress for 28 years. I never once called up the Whitehouse and told them I wanted something for a vote. Or that I would change my mind if I got something. You need to do what you think is right and let the chips fall where they may. If you are trying to work for a project in your district, you try to work for it on the merits. But the Chicago way is to bully and to intimidate and entreaty until you get your way. And I think that took a little bit of the shine off the Obama Administration’s claim to this “new direction” in American politics.

AJM: Post-partisanship!

DH: In the end, they reverted back to what you do with a ward precinct captain if he doesn’t go along with you. Beat him up. (laughs) They treated Ben Nelson like an expanded version of a recalcitrant Chicago precinct captain.

AJM: That’s great. When you mentioned your record of not bending to the chicanery of whatever administration…

DH: Not necessarily chicanery, but you go to DC to vote for what you think is right for your country, and if you really believe in exercising democracy in its proper way, you vote for things on their merits.

AJM: I agree. But I remember back in 2004, I believe Newsweek wrote an article about you entitled: Duncan Hunter’s Arm Does Not Twist. And it was an article talking about Cheney trying to cajole you into voting for something or another – I can’t even remember what the subject matter was right now….

DH: I think that was the Intel Bill, that tried to take away the assets of Defense related intelligence and move it over into this new intelligence reform package where Department of Defense would be responsible for a lot of our intel apparatus, but wouldn’t have the budget that funds that apparatus. And would not be in control of all of our intelligence assets in a war theatre.

What that means is if you had a rivet joint aircraft or an intelligence aircraft working in the Iraq theatre and the combatant commander said “we need that piece of equipment over Falluja right now because the Marines are in a heavy firefight”, one of our intelligence agencies might control that equipment and they’d have to get the OK from Washington before they could use it to support American soldiers in battle. You can’t do that in a war.

So what I think we did there, I insisted on maintaining the chain of control of our assets in theatre. And I think that accrues to the benefit of our soldiers, not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan as well.

Obviously, there are a lot of intelligence assets that are key to our war fighting in particular battles. {OK kids that’s enough. No, we have to save the rest of it for the next fire. You’ve got plenty.}

ALL: (Laughing)

DH: They are using up all my fire starting material. They are not that good of Boy Scouts (laughs).

AJM: In that Newsweek piece, I think the author was amazed that you, at the height of Bush and Cheney’s popularity, that you were able to back them down.

DH: Well, I didn’t back them down. I simply refused to do what the Administration wanted. That was signing off on the intelligence bill. General Myers, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, has an excerpt about that in his book, Eyes on the Horizon. I just saw it last night, that incident.

AJM: Coincidence. Interesting. I’m kind of going off on a tangent here, but since we brought up Cheney, and he was the one trying to do some of the arm twisting…

DH: Except he wasn’t twisting arms in this sense: Cheney didn’t say “we are going to do this for you if you go along with it”. Cheney argued it on its merits.

AJM: No, but he still obviously didn’t convince you. (laughs)

DH: Yeah.

AJM: But I just wanted to know what your relationship with Dick Cheney is. You’ve known him a long time. What do you think about him, and what do you think about his recent, pretty candid remarks against some of the Obama Administration’s policies?

DH: Yeah. I like Dick Cheney. I think he viewed his role as Vice President as focusing primarily on security issues, which I think is a key thing, especially when you are in an administration which is involved in two wars. So I think Cheney was the right man at the right time. And he’s a good friend, and I think a guy with a realistic and pragmatic view of the world.

And I think the Obama people are beginning to understand the real world to some degree now. Mr. Obama was very popular with the Europeans, but you noticed they haven’t sent a single additional soldier into the battle zones. The Germans still won’t leave the fort at night under their rules in Afghanistan and the French refuse to go where there is any fighting. Outside of that, they are prepared to be with us all the way.

ALL: (Laughing)

LD: Right behind us.

DH: They are right behind us…..about 450 kilometers. (laughs)

AJM: Regarding Cheney’s recent criticisms of Obama…

DH: I think those were very appropriate. In fact, I think it actually helps the country and it may help the Obama Administration to some degree for this reason: The Obama Administration doesn’t have a weather vane, or a compass with respect to national security. Maybe Jim Jones, a former Marine, is going to provide some leadership there. But generally speaking, across the board they have very few people capable of focusing on security, with a background in that important area. So Cheney’s remarks on security issues are a little bit of a compass for the Obama Administration. They are forced to respond to his statements. That makes them think. That makes them consult with each other. It forces an analysis, and I think that’s good.

AJM: Yeah. One of the interesting things that I read about that Massachusetts victory for Mr. Brown, Scott Brown, was that one of the things he focused on quite heavily during his stump speeches was the fact that our tax dollars need to be going to fighting the terrorists as opposed to paying for their lawyers. And that resonated even in Massachusetts.

DH: Yeah. I think that makes some sense. You know, if anything, the fact that we had a number of the people from Guantanamo that we released, the military released, go back to the battleground and take up arms against us is evidence that we have been too lenient.

AJM: It was not just one or two either. It’s been a handful.

DH: Yeah, I think it’s been more than a dozen. A couple of them have been killed. Some have been captured.

AJM: And then what do you do with them again?

LD: For God sakes, don’t give them a bloody nose.

DH: Obviously, they need a new trial according to the liberals.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK, I’m going to switch gears on you. On some other breaking news of the day. That is the Supreme Court today, at least I think it was today, or last night, finally overturned the majority of McCain Feingold, the campaign finance reform. It was a 5-4 vote, nonetheless they gutted the whole idea that corporations and other groups couldn’t spend their money the way they saw fit for elections. I know you opposed it when it came out, and I wonder if you’d like to comment on it now?

DH: I haven’t seen the opinion. And McCain Feingold was pretty complicated. So I’d have to take a look at the written opinion by the Supreme Court. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I at least have to have a chance to look at the summary of their opinion.

AJM: Ok. We’ll get you on that one next time. Regardless, it is at least being reported – and I haven’t read the opinion yet either – as having substantially overturned McCain Feingold. You did oppose it back in its day, I do know that.

DH: One of the many problems with McCain Feingold, aside from its legality, was using 527s, the leftwingers could absolutely inundate conservative candidates. During one election cycle, they spent in excess of 100 million against conservative candidates, and the Republican 527s were something like 20 million. It became a huge funnel for leftwing money to go after Republicans who themselves were somewhat hamstrung by spending limits to individuals. So you ended up with massively financed negative campaigns. And I’m thinking of Richard Pombo’s district that Pombo lost, was one in which I believe the lefty 527s went well over a million bucks against him. You’d have to look up the exact numbers to ascertain that.

AJM: Yeah. Aside from the practical aspects of kind of a unilateral disarmament on the right, it apparently is deemed now at least partially unconstitutional. I think it is always a good thing to review laws such as that, that deal with speech.

DH: Yeah, I think so. But anyway, I’d have to look at the written opinion by the Supreme Court to really have a good take on exactly what they’ve done with McCain-Feingold.

LD: It was bad enough for Pelosi to put out a statement.

DH: (laughs) That’s a good indicator!

LD: Yes it is!

DH: They are coming our way!

ALL: (laughing)

DH: The Democrats fought ferociously to keep 527s at full steam. Anything attempting to reform the 527s, which were literally allowing foreign entities to come in and pump lots of money into the US system.

AJM: And George Soros financed about a dozen of them.

DH: Yeah, and any attempt to reform that was beaten back by the Democrats. In fact those were the days of a Republican majority, the filibuster was threatened in the Senate if we even thought about attaching that to a major bill that was going through.

AJM: Yeah. I believe the first challenge to its constitutionality, before the court was reformed by George W Bush, with Alito and um – what’s his name ---

ALL: Roberts

AJM: Yeah, Roberts – was a 5-4 decision the other way to sustain McCain Feingold. And Mr. Fred Thompson who was very involved in that legislation for many years, actually argued in front of the Supreme Court to keep it, to argue that it was good law. I don’t know if you remember that?

DH: No, I don’t.

AJM: Well he did. I’m glad to see it gone. But we’ll let you get up to speed on the actual verbiage.

DH: Well you ought to also (laughs). It’s probably a 500 page opinion. So get ready, and get your reading glasses on!

AJM: (laughs) Yeah. All I know is that when I read McCain Feingold it was bad law. And anything that goes to the point of overturning it is fine with me.

DH: Yeah.

AJM: OK. Another thing that happened in the news today, the jobless claims rose, quote-unquote,“unexpectedly”, to the highest level in several months. New jobless claims. Indicating even to the liberal press that this so-called recovery is a lot less than meets the eye.

What would you do, what would you recommend to the Republicans to campaign upon, or even to the Obama Administration to push, to actually turn this economy around? Right now it does not look like it is turning very fast, if at all.

DH: Retrieve at least a small part of the production lines that served this country’s consumers to our own country. Make a few things in America. We’ve moved our assembly lines off shore. The base of this economy is a middle class guy who can make enough money - and manufacturing has always been a high wage industry – who can make enough money to make that mortgage payment, to buy that car, and to do the other things that are part of the American Dream. We’ve allowed China to cheat on trade, along with a lot of other countries, with their Value Added Tax, which for practical purposes is a de facto tariff on American products and an illegal subsidy to foreign made products.

And we’ve allowed that dynamic to maintain in such a way that a large part of the American manufacturing base has gone off shore.

So the American that drives his Toyota to his house, watches his Sony television, puts on his Malaysian made clothes, then wonders why his kid doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have to look to far. And that’s’ why the housing was the last – you know ‘housing’ is manufacturing, writ large. In fact a house is referred to by national homebuilders – they call their houses “products”, they don’t call them homes. They are a big manufactured product which is still made mostly in this country and that’s why the housing boom carried the economy, the US economy, for as long as it did. It’s big manufacturing. One of the last segments of manufacturing that other countries haven’t learned to exploit. China hasn’t learned yet how to make a home in such a way that they can ship it over to the US and crane it onto a lot.

But the ripples, the economic ripples, that a healthy manufacturing, a healthy homebuilding industry sends to the economy of the community that it is sited in is evidence of how important manufacturing is to this country. And how much of it we let slip away. So until we make our own products, and retrieve some of that manufacturing base, the jobs that millions of Americans have depended on in the past to be able to afford that mortgage and afford those other things we provide for them, it’s a grim picture.

AJM: Yeah, and during the campaign…

DH: And it’s been an Achilles heel for the Republican Party. But it seems the Democrats have drunk the ‘free trade’ kool-aid also. The Hunter-Ryan bill was a bill that would have punished China or at least given the President the ability to punish China for illegal devaluation of its currency. It was promised by the Democrat leadership to be front and center when they took control. After a couple of Wall Street fundraisers, it seems to have faded into oblivion.

It’s because there are a lot of companies, which are American companies, whose manufacturing is now sited in China, who appreciate the benefit of the subsidies that China’s currency devaluation and their VAT rebate gives to them.

AJM: And during the campaign, if I’m not mistaken – obviously it’s tough to browbeat other countries into doing something – you had solutions for what we could do on our side. One of them as I recall was the elimination of taxes on US manufacturers. You still believe in that? And what other things can we do internally to stimulate….

DH: Eliminating taxes on manufacturing would actually create substantially more tax receipts, more revenue for the American government because workers would be making more wages and pay withholding tax, and economies would be stimulated and jobs and communities would be roaring back.

What we ought to have with respect to trade, one thing I offered is what I call “mirror trade”. For example, China has a 17% Value Added Tax. That means if the telephone you’re holding right now and talking into cost $100 to make and its made in China, that company in China, instead of paying corporate taxes and income taxes and other business taxes, pays the government of China 17% Value Added Tax. A hundred dollar cost of that phone you are talking into includes $17 paid to the Chinese government. When that phone is taken down to the docks to be shipped to Washington State, to be sold in one of your stores, the Chinese government rebates $17. That is they give the tax money back to the exporter, because they are sending it to America. So they subsidize it to the tune of 17 bucks. So they now have only $83 in that 100 dollar phone. And if you make that same phone in Washington State, and export it to China, when that phone hits their docks, the Chinese government charges you a penalty of $17, 17 percent. The Washington State manufactured phone is now $117, while the one made in China and sent to you has now gone down to $83. So you’ve got a 34 point spread and the opening kickoff hasn’t even taken place yet in this international competition.

That Value Added Tax rebate was a loophole. It was described by one Senate Staff report, back in the old days when we agreed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as one of the biggest blunders in American negotiating history! There was only a few countries in the world at that time that had VAT taxes. Now, 132 of them have VAT taxes and they are upwards of 12 to 20 percent. And that amounts to an illegal subsidy for foreign based manufacturing, and a penalty, a de facto tariff on every product the United States manufactures and sells abroad. That’s why even countries that have higher labor rates than the United States, like Germany, have a trade surplus over the US.

AJM. Yeah. And for a country like China, which has a much, much lower labor rate, that’s even more poison in the well.

DH: You’d think the country with the highest labor rate, ie the US vis a vis China, would have the tax advantage. But interestingly, China has the lower labor rate, but they also scratched out this tax advantage, the VAT, and they manipulate their currency. So they have a triple play going in their direction.

Along with that you have US governments which do not understand that it is important to be friendly to business! In some of these States, the policy seems to be the ‘the beatings will continue until moral improves’.

ALL: (laughing)

DH: So you have…I remember when one of our big companies left San Diego and went to Arizona and the Democrat Mayor of San Diego told them that she was going to sue them if they left. And they said “you’ve now just explained why we are leaving”, and they left.

ALL: (laughing)

DH: And so being friendly to business, having low taxes, and doing everything you can to allow business to come in and operate, not overlaying the business structure with a punitive legal and regulatory system that is predicated on a massive extraction of dollars; those things are important in maintaining an economy where the average guy, without a PHD, can get a job that allows him to make mortgage payments, send his kids to college, buy a car, and do the things that constitute the American Dream.

And we are pushing manufacturing offshore. With that we are pushing off the dreams of the next generation.

AJM: I hear you. Obviously, it would take some time to adjust the WTO or get out of the WTO, don’t you think just in taxes and regulations, as you just described, we can make a big dent in the exodus of manufacturing?

DH: Absolutely. And it’s been proiven over and over and over. As I recall, but you’d have to check the facts on this, Ireland at one point decided to attract manufacturing, and eased up on their tax code and did things that made them much more business friendly, and was able to attract and revitalize their manufacturing industries.

This in not a secret. But it is something that the nature of government is to extend its power through its programs and bureaucracies, with its deliverance of so-called benefits to people. And by extracting money from the producers to finance those benefits. And it is very difficult to make some of these salmon swim upstream. Because the current of big government is always to accumulate power and that is manifested in its attempts to increase revenues.

LD: Up to a point. There comes a point where it all collapses, I would think.

DH: Listen, at one time – this is legendary – but legend has it that at one time Great Britain had a 95% tax bracket for some people. And the key is that those people simply left the country. And legend further says that they never actually collected a single dime under the 95% tax bracket. So you can pluck the golden goose til there’s no feathers left.

And that was the whole point of the Laffer Curve; it was the idea that if you continue to beat the prisoner – business – at some point they are going to stop producing.

GW: Yes, yes.

AJM: And you see that in the United States, where the low regulation – some of the southern states that have much lower regulation or regulatory burden compared to some of the more “enlightened” states.

DH: Yeah. That’s right. Well now listen, my little granddaughters – we’ve now built a fire. One of them has a shield and a sword, and the other one wants me to make Indian moccasins. I’m going to have to sign off here. (laughs)

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK, can I ask you one last quick question?

DH: Absolutely. Here we go.

AJM: This one’s quick. You have a Senate race, a Senate primary out there in California with Chuck DeVore versus Carly Fiorina. And I’m wondering, have you made an endorsement, and are you planning on making an endorsement??

DH: No. I haven’t made any endorsement. I haven’t even looked at the race. But we’ll do that and try to get up to speed on it. But, I haven’t yet, no. We got a long time before the California primary. {no, don’t draw on that}. I’ve got a granddaughter who is drawing on the wrong side of this leather.

LD: They’ll burn the house down while they are at it too. (laughs)

DH: (laughing) He, this is great time. I’m in my elk room right now. We’ve got these big elk heads on the wall. And they’ve represented a lot of meat, let me tell you.

AJM: Hey, when you went up to Idaho, or was it Colorado, where you got your elk, did you bring that home?

DH: Oh yeah. Yeah. We brought home the meat and we brought home the horns. So the Hunters will continue to eat well this winter.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK. We’ll let you go. Take care of those kids. Are you doing duty by yourself or is Lynne home too?

DH: OK, great. Right now I think I’m isolated with a couple of wild Indians.

ALL: (Laughing)

AJM: OK, thank you very much.

DH: Great talking to you guys. Hope you are all doing well. Hope your families are doing well.

ALL: Thank you!

DH: OK. And God Bless Massachussetts!!

ALL: (Laughing) Amen!

Duncan Hunter Interview 1-8-2010

Duncan Hunter Interview 1-8-2010: GOP Congressional Politics, JD Hayworth, Panty Bomber and FOOTBALL

AJM: Hello Congressman, how are you today?
DH: Very good.
AJM: How did your speech go?
DH: Good. It was a great event. It was for a guy named Lew Meyer. He was guy who was in Hue City when the NVA came and took Hue City, which our Marines then retook. He was badly hurt and was then in a POW camp. We got him a POW medal and a purple heart.
AJM: That’s great. Did you say it was on the Midway?
DH: Yeah, the ceremony was on the Midway. I’ve got about 20 minutes here, so let’s roll.
AJM: OK, let me close my office door so I don’t disturb the neighbors.
DH: OK.
AJM: OK. Happy New Year to you first of all. I guess what I’d like to know, what we’d like to know is what are your plans for 2010 in terms of helping move the country, move the ball in our direction? I know you’ve been very involved through 2009 , so what are your plans going into 2010?
DH: Well, I think the best efforts of all Republicans and all conservatives is to try to get good guys to run for office, particularly in seats in what I would call swing districts, where we can take a big step, a giant step towards taking congress back. And to those ends, what I’ve been doing is trying to help a few good candidates. One of whom is Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch who is running for Congress here in San Diego against a long term liberal incumbent Bob Filner. Popaditch is a Silver Star winner who was in that famous picture as the statue of Saddam came down, when Baghdad fell. He was a tanker and was thereafter injured pretty badly in a tough firefight, won the Silver Star, came back to the States and is now running for that congressional seat.
We have a number of other good guys who are running fresh out of the Service. One is Vaughn Ward, a rifle company commander in Iraq and he is running for the seat in Boise, one of the two house seats there. Then we have Jesse Kelly who is running for what should be a Republican seat in Tucson. That is a seat that has a 20,000 vote Republican plurality, yet the seat is held by a democrat.
So helping with these – what I would call these “takeback” congressional districts, helping good, conservative candidates win in those districts should be the agenda for all Republicans and all conservatives this year.
AJM: Sounds like a good agenda.
DH: You win these things by winning seats and that’s how we’ll take away this “do anything I want to do” program that the Obama Administration has embarked upon. They aren’t held back now, they are filibuster proof in the Senate, and as the Health Care vote demonstrated, they have enough votes to override a filibuster attempt. And that means essentially they can do whatever they want to do. That’s not balance, that’s not checks and balances, but rather it is the pathway for a socialist agenda this next year.
AJM: Yes sir! This next question is related and it is a little bit touchier. And that is what about conservatives challenging established moderates in the party for their seats?
DH: It depends. I’ve always been cool to that approach, because we end up with a limited number of bullets and we end up shooting each other. Republicans can’t afford to do that, generally. So if you’ve got some fairly scarce ammunition and you can use it in a district where $50 thousand or $75 thousand might mean a 2% win for a Republican, like the Nick Popaditch district, why would you go over and spend a million trying to knock out a Republican in a safe Republican seat?
That approach has always left me a little cool. And behind that approach, to some degree, is of course the self interest of folks who want to take a Republican seat, that want to get a political seat for themselves, so they end up stirring up a fight with a Republican incumbent who at least makes that first vote in the right column. And that is the vote for Speaker. And if you have a Republican majority, you should always have a conservative speaker, because the majority of the Republican Party is conservative. So if you have a Connecticut liberal like Nancy Johnson or a social liberal like Rob Simmons, who is otherwise good on defense, and that person would vote for, say, a Newt Gingrich for Speaker of the House. So it’s much more worthwhile to expend your ammunition trying to take back a district that is held by a Democrat then shooting at each other – and I say that as a staunch conservative – shooting at other republicans when your ammunition is scarce when it’s going to take an all out effort to simply win a majority.
AJM: I understand that position, and that is the good Republican position. Now I’m going to ask you to put on your conservative hat. What happens in the instances when a moderate IS challenged by a conservative? Obviously certain moderates, oh I would say like a Lincoln Chafee, is really quite left actually as opposed to moderate. But in this case specifically, I heard today that JD Hayworth, your old buddy from Congress, is going to challenge John McCain for his Senate seat.
DH: Yeah? I haven’t heard that. But I’m going to see JD I think in a couple of weeks. He’s going to be out helping Jesse Kelly. I’m sure if that’s what he’s going to do, I’m sure he’ll call me about it. You know, everybody is an ‘independent contractor’ so you can’t say you don’t have the right to run in a district – whether it’s for a Senate seat or a House seat – and go up against a member of your own party.
What you were asking me about, though, was the practicality of using scarce ammunition to shoot our own soldiers. And my answer to that is, that it is not a practical thing to do.
Now, you called me with a lot of enthusiasm about having a 3rd candidate when we had a Republican candidate and had a democrat candidate in that NY district 23. I think that, wasn’t that the McHugh district?
AJM: Yes. McHugh moved onto the Administration…
DH: What I told you probably would happen, or had a chance of happening, occurred. That is, we ended up having a split. From a Democrat’s strategy point of view, they loved it when the Republicans basically had a split. Then the Republican nominee, who did something entirely inappropriate, which is to endorse the democrat. So the one thing that could keep the democrats in control of that particular seat occurred.
So at some point, here’s what you have: You have to win! Winning is important. So when you only have so much ammo, you want to ensure every bullet is expended to achieve maximum leverage.
The district next door to my seat, which I won in 1980, I ran against an 18 year Democrat, liberal incumbent, I couldn’t raise a dime from the Republicans. In fact, I had to sell my house to run. Which I did. But I couldn’t raise any money from the so-called Republican establishment. That same establishment put about 3 million dollars into the primary contest in the Republican district next door. The money I got from selling my house, which I could not raise from the Republicans, put me over the top and I was able to win that 2 to 1 democrat seat by 53% to 47%. So I learned first hand that, in terms of numbers, I gave the Republican party a seat that they otherwise would not have had. So it’s much more effective to use your ammunition shooting at the other side than shooting at your own troops.
AJM: I generally agree. I don’t anticipate that JD Haworth will get much support from the Party. He’s going to have to raise his money on his own.
DH: I want to be clear. I’m not talking about JD. JD hasn’t said anything to me, so I don’t want to personalize or speculate about what your friends are going to do. I like JD, he’s a great friend of mine. And what you do in a case when you have a personal friendship, is very often you throw all the rules aside. Personal friendships are still important in this world, and they are important to me.
But you asked me a general question about Republicans using their resources to shoot their own guys in primaries, and I said it’s not a practical strategy, and it’s not. I mean look at the national numbers. The democrats are below 50% approval for the first time. We have to strike hard.
If you ask me whether I would take a liberal Republican in a seat where his first vote would be for John Boehner for Speaker of the House, rather than Nancy Pelosi; or you are going to have a lefty in that seat who votes for Nancy Pelosi, my preference is always going to be the former.
AJM: I understand that, and I think most conservatives do. But the environment, especially with the Tea Parties, has kind of changed the outlook on Republicans as well as Democrats.. …
DH: Yes it has. But I’m reminded of another thing. You know Bob Dornan lost to Loretta Sanchez here in Orange County…
AJM: Uhhhggggg…
DH: And Bob Dornan was one of the great conservatives in our party. Dornan was beaten by a couple of hundred votes. I think 224 votes, arguably a number of them cast by illegal aliens. The democrats played the race card and the republicans folded. Nonetheless, he only lost by about 200 votes. The libertarian candidate got about 5000 votes, as I recall. And probably a lot of those people who voted libertarian, said ‘well I’m going to vote Libertarian because I think the Republicans haven’t done enough to cut taxes, they don’t do enough for freedom’. So by voting libertarian, they helped to elect a liberal over a real conservative. That’s what I call the practical aspects of dividing your votes and dividing your resources.
AJM: Yeah, I understand the third party notion and what it can do. I think you explained it well regarding that seat in NY. But when we talk in terms of Republican primary I think it’s been your practice, in fact I know you’ve actually recruited conservative candidates in the past to run against more liberal republicans. And I think we are going to see a fairly decent groundswell of that this time, within the Republican Party, not necessarily third party.
DH: Yeah. People I’ve recruited in the past, like Gunny Nick Popaditch – though I’m not the only person to have encouraged him to run, I don’t want to give myself all the credit – I think he’s a great candidate. But I asked him if he’s interested in running against an extremely liberal Democrat. And that’s the reason I wanted Nick to run.
AJM: Yeah, that’s a seat held by a democrat. In the past, with the Conservative Opportunity Society, you were trying to identify conservatives to run, not just Republicans.
DH: Oh that’s true. I still do. But all the conservatives I recruited to run, I recruited to run as Republicans during my tenure at COS. (Laughing) I don’t recall ever asking anyone to run on the Libertarian ticket.
AJM: (laughs) Oh, no, no, no.
DH: (laughing) That’d have been a real trick if I had!
AJM: OK. Well good. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from JD in the weeks to come. It will be interesting to see what happens there.
DH: Yeah. JD is a great guy and he’s a great friend.
AJM: Yeah, I noticed also, you told me you endorsed Mr. Bob Smith for Senate down there in Florida, not the moderate NRSC’s Charlie….
DH: Yeah. Bob Smith helped me in my presidential race. He supported me. Plus, he’s an old time friend of 30 years. That’s important.
AJM: Plus he’s an old cold warrior too. We don’t seem to have too many anti-communists around anymore. We need a few more of them, I’ll tell ya.
DH: Yes, we do. Bob Smith’s a great guy and I would do the same thing again.
AJM: Well good. There you go, you’re stirring the pot.
DH: (laughs) That’s not so. You have a general practical rule which is when you divide votes, you divide resources, that hurts you in terms of the general election. But against that rule, you’ve got exceptions. One exception is old friends who have known you for a long time, who have helped you. There’s a certain reciprocity involved. And also, going out and recruiting candidates as I’ve done. When you go out and recruit a conservative candidate and you ask them to run, because you think they are just a tremendous candidate that would do great things for the country, you don’t have a crystal ball that tells you that 3 weeks from now you’re going to have a state senator get into the race who has got good poll numbers. So you understand, once you go out and recruit that good candidate to run, then you have to stick with him. There’s a certain loyalty factor involved. So overlay that loyalty factor, that conservative factor, and the recruitment factor against the practical rule that you want to use your scarce ammunition in the real battle (general election), not against fellow republicans. I think that is an important thing.
AJM: OK, very good.
Now on to our Christmas underwear bomber. I’m sure you are quite aware of that story, about the guy getting on the airplane with the bomb planted in his skivvies. They did not ‘connect the dots’ on this guy and I’m wondering if it’s because of their attitude that this is not really a WAR on terrorists we’re engaged in. They changed it to an “Overseas Contingency Operation”, and they don’t use the words “terrorism” or “jihadists”, so I think political correctness has slipped back into this fight, especially with the idea we are going to prosecute these guys in court. What is your message to the Obama Administration about how we need to keep these folks off of airplanes and out of our country?
DH: The Obama Administration, I hope, has learned the lesson that you can’t eliminate the war by changing your vocabulary. You can’t do that anymore than they could have in 1942 by declaring that World War II was over. That is essentially what the Obama Administration tried to do. They thought that by changing their vocabulary, they could somehow stop these jihadists from attacking us. That is a rather naïve point of view. And if that is representative of their strategic thinking, I think the country is in for real trouble.
AJM: I’ve seen nothing from these guys that tells me it’s not. That is why this 2010 election we just talked about it is one of the most crucial in our modern history. We’ve had others, but this one’s a biggie.
DH: Oh yeah! That’s why I’m doing…..let me again make a pitch for 3 guys. You’ve got 3 military guys who went out there and fought for this country in Iraq and understand what it takes to defeat an enemy. One of the guys is Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch, the “cigar marine”. He was the guy that was sitting in the turret of an M1 tank as the statue of Saddam came down. He later won the Silver Star in heavy combat. A great, great speaker, very eloquent; running against liberal Bob Filner here. We’ve got to help him. Also, Jesse Kelly, who was a Corporal who went over the line in the initial push towards Baghdad. He comes from a business family, and could have easily avoided service. In fact, everyone that serves today serves as a volunteer. He went into the combat arms as an infantryman and served in that first Iraq push. He’s running in Tucson. And lastly, Vaughn Ward, who served in both the CIA and as a Marine rifle company commander in Iraq, running in the Boise district of Idaho. These are three guys who served our country and want to serve again in the Congress. I’ve backed them up. If I did nothing else, I’d cut three checks and send them to those guys.
AJM: Well, you’re definitely going to get checks coming for all those guys. Plus there are another couple of gentlemen, like the guy out in Iowa, Chris Reed, who I believe you’ve campaigned for as well.
DH: Yes, absolutely. While he didn’t serve in a combat unit in Iraq or Afghanistan, he nonetheless was in the Navy, a servant of our country. He’s running against the liberal, Mr. Loebsack out there in Iowa. Great candidate. So I went out there to do a small event for him. We’ve got to help him out. That seat is representative of the kind of swing district that we need to get back if we are going to win majority. We can’t just win the solid Republican districts. We’ve got to win some tough ones. That seats in the same position, I think, as Mr. Filner’s here in San Diego. It’s a Democrat seat, a district that is marginally Democrat, but populated by a conservative constituency and voter base. We can win these with good candidates. Chris is an example of one of those good candidates.
AJM: And you are going to stay involved in these campaigns and other campaigns of up and coming conservatives throughout the year?
DH: Absolutely. Yes.
AJM: Well your 20 minutes is up, I hate to tell you (laughs). I know you have limited time, but I have to ask you this. Are you a San Diego Chargers fan by chance?
DH: Uh, yes.
AJM: And you think their chances this year are???
DH: Listen. I always think the Chargers are going to win every game. (laughs). With respect to other facets of life, we can be practical, we must be practical. But with the Chargers, I’m always for the Chargers whether they are up or down or indifferent, and I always think they are going to win every game. In this case they’ve won what? The last eleven?
AJM: Yes. I think.
DH: And Phillip Rivers has never lost a game in December, he’s 18-0 for December. And I hope that carries into this month! But I think we’ve got a great chance of winning everything.
AJM: They are looking good. I just filled out a football pool, I’m still picking the Vikings to win the Super Bowl – they’ve been my team since I was a kid – but in terms of who looks the scariest right now, I’d say it’s San Diego.
DH: San Diego’s looking good. Incidentally, on the college level, Vaughn Ward, the guy who is running for Congress in Boise Idaho, his team Boise State has done well. They just won the Fiesta Bowl.
AJM: Is Vaughn a Boise State grad?
DH: No, I don’t think he’s a Boise State grad, but he’s a Boise State aficionado at this point.
AJM: (Laughs) After last night’s National Championship game, Boise State ended up in the final polling, the AP and the Coaches Poll, as number 4 in the nation. That’s pretty impressive, because I think they have all but one of their starters is coming back next year. Can you believe that?
DH: Yeah. They ought to be a little higher. What they did was simply let them replace TCU who they beat.
AJM: Pretty much.
DH: They beat Oklahoma, they beat Oregon.
AJM: They should be number 2.
DH: I think they are the number 1 team in the nation! Who do they have ranked right now as number 1?
AJM: Alabama, of course.
DH: Yeah. But you know, TCU was number 4 ranked, right?
AJM: Uh huh.
DH: What did they get? 45 yards on the ground against Boise State?
AJM: That was an impressive defensive display.
DH: I think they have definitely got the best defense in the nation. And I think they’ve got the best team.
AJM: Well next year, because they should start the year highly ranked, if they go undefeated again, they should get a chance to play for the national championship this time, even though they are in the WAC. So we’ll see.
Final question for you. Michael Steele. Have you been paying attention to this guy the last few days?
DH: I haven’t been following Michael, but I know him.
AJM: He managed to put his foot in his mouth one more time. Yesterday, talking to Sean Hannity, Hannity asked him if he thought we had enough to take back the House, and he answered “no”. So he’s been scrambling trying to do damage control. But there have been a lot of calls for his head. Do you think it is beneficial at this point to call for this guy’s head?
DH: No. What I think Michael’s got to do, is redouble his efforts to take back the house. He can always make up by action for what faux pas have been wrought by speech. If he just works real hard and helps us raise money and goes into those districts – he’s a good speaker – and just does everything he can for us to win…
AJM: He needs to watch his language or something. He’s very good at shooting himself in the feet.
DH: Well, I’m not good at un-ringing bells. So it sounds like that bell’s been rung. (laughing)
AJM: (laughs) Well listen, I’ll let you go. And I’m going to be bugging you once JD gets a hold of you, and I’m going to ask you if you’ll be supported him over McCain.
DH: OK. Good
AJM: I have a sneaking suspicion you’re going to.
DH: (laughs) Well, thanks for calling up and….
AJM: No more Amnesty Queens. Have a good day.
DH: OK. Goodbye.

Duncan Hunter Interview - December 8, 2009: On Huckabee, the EPA, GOP Amnesty Hacks, and Harry Reid!!

Duncan Hunter Interview - December 8, 2009: On Huckabee, the EPA, GOP Amnesty Hacks, and Harry Reid!!

This interview is the seventh installment of an on going series of conversations with the former Congressman, 2008 presidential candidate and current conservative activist. Today I found Mr. Hunter driving from Nevada back to San Diego to attend a fundraiser for yet another conservative, ex-military, Republican candidate attempting to wrest a seat from a liberal Democrat in the 2010 Congressional election. He was also in Iowa over the weekend to support another super congressional candidate, Chris Reed. Mr. Hunter fully understands the dire straights that America finds herself in with Obama, Pelosi, and Harry Reid in charge. He is doing everything in his power to promote conservative candidates, conservative values and a conservative re-awakening in America. This series of interviews is part of his agenda to keep that conservative voice front and center as we attempt to save our Constitutional Republic from the ravages of weakness and socialism. We pick up the interview, once again, on the road….


AJM: Hello Congressman. You still in Nevada or have you made it to California yet?

DH: We’re in good old California.

AJM: OK. Just one more time, the gentleman’s name again that you are doing tonight’s event for?

DH: It’s Brian Rooney. He’s the brother of Tom Rooney. He’s a former Marine and he’s running for Congress in Michigan.

AJM: That’s excellent. So far, you’ve got a lot of good ones. Does he have a good shot at capturing this thing?

DH: You know, I don’t really know how this race is shaping up yet. His brother is in the House and is a good friend of Duncan’s. And he asked me to help. And I’ve been out helping all of the Armed Services guys that are running now as Republicans. I told him I’d be happy to help out.

AJM: Fantastic.

DH: I would think this could work out. He’s a quality guy. He was part of the law center that helped us to save the Mt. Soledad Cross in San Diego. The lawsuit over whether or not we could keep the cross on government property, the major lawsuit we had down here. The Thomas Moore Law group…

AJM: Yeah, the Thomas Moore guys. He’s part of that group?

DH: Yes. He’s a lawyer. He helped us out. It worked out well. And he was a JAG officer in the military.

AJM: That sounds like pretty good credentials to me. You guys needed all the help you could get on the Mt. Soledad suit. It was nip and tuck there for awhile.

DH: Yeah. It was a great victory.

AJM: I certainly think so. And I thank you for leading that charge.

DH: It was important.

AJM: Ok, let’s get some quick questions in before you get into the mountains here.

DH: OK.

AJM: Let’s start off with your friend Mr. Huckabee. He’s run into kind of a buzzsaw here. I think it may impact his ability to run again in, if he was planning to. That is the 4 police officers up here in my neck of the woods that were gunned down a week and a half ago. Today they are having a memorial. Turns out the guy that killed these 4 police officers up here in Washington was another one of the guys that Huckabee commuted the sentence for. It made him eligible for parole, and of course he got parole, that was the whole purpose. And lo and behold, he kills 4 police officers. It’s going to be shades of Michael Dukakis all over again for him I think. Would you like to comment on it?

DH: (laughing). I think you’ve just covered all the commenting. I don’t think you even need me here, Jim.

AJM: (laughs)

DH: Well, I like Mike Huckabee, but that’s an exposure you are always going to have as Governor. There is always a chance of a person, if you commute sentences, there’s always a chance that one of the people is going to hurt somebody down the line. That’s part of the exposure of being a Governor who commutes sentences. I think most, if not every governor commutes some sentences. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but I think he commuted this guy to 34 years, which should have kept the guy in jail if he did the time that Huckabee gave him. But that didn’t happen. He sure shouldn’t have been around to commit those crimes.

AJM: From my understanding, the whole point of taking his sentence from 90 years down to, I believe it was 47, because that was the magic number that allowed you to be eligible for parole. And within a year, of course, his parole came up, and of course, the rest is history.

DH: I don’t know that for sure. But if he had done 47 years….

I think what’s occurred is bad enough without folks thinking there was some kind of diabolical plot for an early release. If he wanted to release him immediately, he could have simply done so by pardoning him, right?

AJM: Yeah, this was a commutation, not a pardon.

DH: And I think normally you should presume that if a person gives you a certain amount of time, that that is the amount of time they want you to do.

AJM: Well, for Huckabee, it’s going to be a little more problematic than that. In his 10 years, he commuted and/or pardoned 1058 people. Compared to Romney – zero. Palin – zero. Huckabee by himself had more pardons than the six bordering states governors combined…

DH: You know more about it than I do then. I just saw flashes on television.

AJM: The other thing, just for your information, this wasn’t the first time that one of the guys that got out did something. In fact it was brought up during your guys’ primary race that a rapist that he let go, he actually pardoned instead of a commutation…..

DH: Well Jim, what’s the rest of your good news for the day (laughing)

AJM: No, this is bad news (laughs).

DH: I don’t think you needed me for that conversation, I think you just wanted to tell somebody (laughing).

AJM: No, I just didn’t know how close you were paying attention to this. I guess the bottom line question is do you think it hurts his chances for 2012?

DH: I really don’t know. It could. I think it’s tough to figure. As you said, that point was brought up, by CNN, at the first debate in Simi Valley. Huckabee managed to handle that question and went on to almost win the primary.

AJM: That’s true. The reason its big news today, it’s about a mile away where they are having the memorial today. A mile from my house. So it’s bigger news up here than most other parts of the country, so I apologize for….

DH: I think for all of us it’s a tragedy that those 4 guys were killed.

AJM: It’s a heartbreaker. All young. All young guys

Well OK. Enough about Mr. Huckabee. Did you hear the news today that our friends from the EPA decided to label CO2, carbon dioxide, as a hazardous exhaust, and thereby giving them the ability to regulate it on their own through the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as opposed to waiting for some kind of Cap and Trade.

DH: I just saw the headlines a few minutes ago in the LA Times.

AJM: Have you ever heard anything as ridiculous as labeling CO2 as a pollutant?

DH: Well, I think it is probably less about the CO2 and a lot more about government power. Just as their health care bill is more about power than it is about medicine. That multi-thousand page bill on healthcare, none of the people that wrote that have ever practiced a day of medicine. And by the same token, very likely the people that put together this new interpretation of CO2 probably have no technical capability. That’s more a political assertion, not a scientific fact!

AJM: You hit that one out of the park. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

DH: Yep.

AJM: That falls along the lines of what we discussing about global warming the last couple interviews. The whole thing in Copenhagen is going on right now too. But I haven’t had a chance to actually listen to what’s going on over there.

But do you remember Ed Gillespie?

DH: Yeah.

AJM: He was at one time, I think, during the Bush years, the head of the RNC?

DH: Yeah.

AJM: I just read a quote from him earlier today where he came out and is kind of laying the ground work for the new amnesty plan I think. Here’s his quote, and I want you to comment on it: “The GOP needs to do a better job of reaching out to minorities. The party’s harshest voices were the the loudest voices last time immigration reform was debated”. And I’m assuming he’s pointing his finger right at you and right at Mr. Tancredo on this. So would you like to comment to Mr. Gillespie?

DH: Sure. Well, we don’t know for sure he’s pointing at us, but I would say this. While building the border fence, I ran for re-election repeatedly during my 28 years in congress in the border area of California. One of my counties is predominantly Hispanic, 2 to 1 Democrat. And those folks gave me more votes than any other politician, Democrat or Republican, including Bill Clinton. Now that indicates to me – and I was well known as the guy who built the border fence – that actually, unlike the folks, some of the elites clinking champagne glasses in Washington DC, that most Hispanics in America really want to have border control. And they realized also that it has a direct link to their jobs. I’m reminded that one of the…one craftsman, a construction worker, came up to me during the debates and said ‘Don’t let Kennedy/McCain pass’. That’s how he described that legislation. And he explained that it took him many years to get to the point, where he as an American citizen, could make 35 bucks an hour as a master craftsman. And he said “if you open the floodgates, I’ll go down to $17/hour”. And so, many folks in the Hispanic community, as well as the general community, are concerned about their jobs, especially in this time of major unemployment. They despise the idea of opening up what they consider to be the floodgates of illegal immigration.

Another guy, down in Lakeside, a small business owner and also a Hispanic, said at one point “doesn’t President Bush get it? This is about national security! You have to have a secure border”. So I’ve always talked about border control and implemented border control legislation, a great deal which has been passed into law that I drafted, in the context of security and protecting jobs. And I’ve always been very well received in the ‘real’ Hispanic community. But that’s a different community than the one elites rub elbows with in Washington DC.

AJM: Well I think that Mr. Gillespie and maybe some of President Bush’s and McCain’s advisers were spending too much time going to cocktail parties with La Raza and LULAC, some of those organizations whose whole purpose in life seems to be to push amnesty.

DH: Could be. I don’t know where all their comments come from, but I think we as Republicans….I’ve always run as a conservative Republican and I haven’t tried to shape a separate message for the Hispanic community. I always gave them in my campaigns the exact same message as I gave to the general community. And I think they appreciated it. I think they are natural conservatives. They tend to believe in a strong national defense. Many of them are in our Armed Forces and our Border Patrol, I might add.

AJM: Both Ramos and Compean are of Hispanic descent.

DH: Yeah. What the Republican Party needs is fewer of its leaders saying that the Republican Party doesn’t like Hispanics!! At least my experience is that they have been very supportive of our party, and they’ve always been very supportive of me in my re-election bids. While I’m known as the guy who built the border fence, the Hispanics in my district seem to like that.

Incidentally, when we built the border fence we brought down murders and violence because you had those border gangs who were roaming wild on the border, and they were robbing, raping and murdering on both sides of the border. We averaged 10 murders a year on the San Diego side of the international border. It went down to zero when I built the border fence. We also saw the violence subside on the other side of the border, in the northern Tijuana neighborhoods.

But again, when you are clinking champagne glasses with the boys in the embassy you don’t usually see things like that. There was absolutely no logic behind allowing the murderous border gangs to control the land between San Diego and Tijuana. That was my central theme for years. You know we finally had to pass that with the vote of both houses of Congress to finish the border fence. And incidentally, Congress felt so strongly about it that they waived the environmental laws at the border, because the environmentalists held up the Smugglers Gulch construction for years. Massive cocaine deliveries came through there and destroyed many lives, Hispanics included. The environmentalists were delaying the construction of the fence, but we’ve now completed the fence. And again, the murders on this part of the border have gone down to virtually zero in San Diego city.

AJM: Fantastic. You’re not known just as the guy who wants to build the fence, you’re also known as the only guy who has consistently opposed any type of amnesty. A lot of these guys give lip service to the fence while they are stabbing you in the back. But they turn around and say ‘well, we’ve got to give 12 million, 15 million people a pathway to citizenship’ – is what they call it. And you’ve always opposed that as well! Yet you still got Hispanic support.

DH: Yeah, once again this goes to the jobs issue and the Hispanic American citizen who said ‘don’t let McCain/Kennedy pass because I’ll go down to $17 an hour instead of the 35 I’m getting’. You know, the idea that when you’ve got 10 percent unemployment that you are going to open the floodgates for vast numbers of illegal workers makes no sense whatsoever!

And the effect of calling an amnesty when reviewed in the historic context – that is the 3 million folks who were given amnesty in the 1980s when Congress said ‘now this time we really mean it, read the fine print – nobody else gets to get in’. They obviously let their friends and neighbors and relatives know that they got amnesty and so you had, which was entirely predictable, another wave of people heading north expecting to catch the 2nd amnesty. So as the credibility of the US government for enforcement slides lower and lower, if we get a second amnesty, if anyone thinks there won’t be another vast wave of illegal aliens coming in anticipation of a third amnesty, then I think we can sell those folks the Brooklyn Bridge fairly quickly. They are extremely gullible. Of course there will be a big wave of people.

AJM: I agree.

DH: In fact, maybe we can sell them the border fence (laughs)

AJM: (laughing) At least sell them some property along the border so they’ll get pissed off about all the illegals trampling over it.

DH: Yeah. So anyway….

AJM: I wanted to get your two cents on Harry Reid, a statement by Harry Reid from yesterday, or maybe it was two days ago. Where Mr. Reid had the audacity to compare us, those of us who oppose his ObamaCare bill, he compared us to the segregationists and the folks who opposed emancipation for the slaves. He basically said on the floor of the Senate that those who opposed his healthcare where like those who wanted to push off the freeing of black slaves to a later date. Do you want to comment on that?

DH: Well, I’ll say first that Harry Reid has already won a major contest. He’s come closest to unseating Algore - with his statement that he invented the internet - by Harry’s statement that we had lost in Iraq – shortly before we won! And his now famous statement was the only good news that any Al Qaeda leaders received as their forces were being crushed in Iraq by US Marines and Soldiers in the summer of 2007. That now famous statement that we had lost while we were winning, followed shortly by our victory in Iraq, put Harry in close competition with Algore.

His new statement, that if you don’t believe in socialism you are a racist, since that’s the essence of his statement, I think he’s actually close to beating out his first statement for being outrageous, ridiculous and false! He’s now got two contenders for ‘Wild statement of the Decade’, though I think Algore is still slightly in first place.

AJM: (laughing) Well, with any luck we’ll slam the door on Algore’s wetdream and stream of income. So basically, you put it (Reid’s statement) in the ridiculous category then?

DH: All you can do is laugh at that one.

AJM: Yeah. I don’t know if you know this or not, but he is running several points behind either of his GOP contenders in his home state of Nevada. That would be a nice win for us.

DH: Good!

AJM: Another thing I wanted for awhile to ask you about is that Bob Gates, presumably at the behest of his boss, Obama, cut out the F-22 program. Completely.

DH: Say that again, you’re kind of going out on me here….

AJM: If we lose you, we’ll take it up next week. But the F-22, I wanted to get your take on them cutting the F-22 out.

DH: What I think that Barack Obama is doing generally with our weapons programs, is that he is clearing the headroom for increased social spending by dramatically driving down defense spending. And the fact that he can’t scare up an additional 5000 soldiers from the combination of 26 socialized European nations for Afghanistan duty is to the evidence of this dynamic; whereby social programs pushed defense programs out of the budget.

The United States, as a superpower, has been able to maintain an umbrella of freedom not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the free world because we maintained a decent sized defense budget. And Barack Obama over the next several years can be expected to strive to take down the defense budget to allow headroom for his social spending. It’s a major problem that the West has right now, and that’s the problem with NATO. Socialism has crowded out their defense budgets and they are able to only supply extremely small contingents of soldiers and equipment. Yet another reason why we shouldn’t socialize Amerca. But I think more major defense cuts are to be expected from Barack Obama.

AJM: I know. But the F-22 in particular irritates me, because today, this very day, it is the most effective warplane of its kind in the world. It doesn’t make any sense until we have….I mean it hasn’t been off the assembly line for that long, and they are already cancelling it.

DH: Yeah. No, we need to have planes that have the speed and endurance and the radar evading characteristics that are necessary to handle the next generation of SAM missiles. The F-22 alone has that capability.

AJM: It hurts our national defense posture. And today we read in the paper, I read that China has every intention, every intention of weaponizing space, something Obama also wants no part of….

DH: We saw that several years ago when China shot down a satellite with their own anti-satellite system. China at that point declared a military competition in space. Whether we want one or not, we are in it. We must be able to defend our assets and eliminate the space based military assets of other nations, including China.

AJM: Yet that’s another one on the chopping block from our friend, Mr. Obama.

DH: I know.

AJM: It looks more and more like 2010 and 2012 are going to be crucial for the safety, security, economic viability and livelihood for our nation. Do you agree with that?

DH: Most certainly. We’re doing what we can. 2010 is a very important election. I think we have a great chance of taking back the House. The key is to have good candidates and support those candidates, not just in areas where Republicans should win, but we should take some districts that have fairly large constituencies of conservative democrats who don’t want to see this country socialized and want to maintain a strong national defense and want an enforceable border. And incidentally, Brian Rooney, who is running in Michigan is a former Marine, he’s the guy I going to campaign for here today. Obviously, Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch who is running against Bob Filner in California, is one of those seats that we need to take if we want to win back the majority. Jesse Kelly, another former Marine who went up the road to take Baghdad in 2003 as a corporal in the infantry, is another guy running for Congress in Arizona, the Tucson race. We’ve got Vaughn Ward, who was a rifle platoon leader in Boise running for Congress who has a good chance of winning.

AJM: Yeah, didn’t Vaughn re-join the military after he had a comfortable life? He had already done a couple of tours previously, then was in a comfortable life in the CIA, then re-joined the fight.

DH: Yeah. He was in the agency then came back out and ended up going back to Iraq.

AJM: God Bless him!

DH: Listen, I’ve got to close down here in just a second but it’s been great talking to you.

AJM: Yeah, it’s been great. I got another swath of my questions out; I’ve been wanting to ask you about the F-22 forever.

DH: Well good. I like the F-22. We’ve got to learn to make these planes a little cheaper. On the other hand, stealth is expensive. We’ve got some stealth capability with the F-22.

AJM: Yes. And just as a final thing here before you go, I read in the paper today that the first two months of fiscal year 2010, which I guess started in October --- 292 BILLION in the red. In the first two months of this fiscal year! So do you have a message for Republican and conservatives and activists, and just Americans in general to put pressure on the existing congress, existing Republicans and Democrats, to knock this stuff off and start cutting the spending?

DH: I think the message here is this: Reverse course!! Socialism is expensive. If you give government control of larger and larger sectors of the economy, you are going to increase the deficits, because you deaden the spirit of America’s entrepreneurs who create wealth in this country. And you provide a regulatory straight-jacket that prevents them from being able to start or expand businesses. And at the same time you lever in the traditional inefficiencies government brings to any enterprise.

AJM: Exactly right.

DH: Socialism is expensive.

AJM: Not only that, Congressman, but I think it’s an ice-pick in the back of the Constitution in a lot of these cases. Would you agree with that?

DH: Well, even though that is a very generalized statement, any time you take private property without compensation you are intruding unconstitutionally on the private sector. And secondly, when you undertake regulation that goes beyond the limits of the Commerce Clause and the 10th Amendment, you are also intruding unconstitutionally. So they may well be. But above and beyond that, it’s whether or not Americans want to retain personal responsibility, individual accountability, and the freedom to fail or to succeed. That’s the question for America right now! Whether we want to become Europe. I think the answer is clearly NO.

AJM: That’s why we are fighting this thing.

DH: But I’ve got to sign off. It’s been great talking to you. Hope you’re having a great day up there.

AJM: Well, thank you very much and keep up the great fight. You’re doing a lot on our side to make sure that worry does not come to pass.

DH: OK, my friend.

AJM: Have a great day.

Duncan Hunter Interview 12-01-2009: Obama's Weak Speech, Navy SEALS, Climategate & Downsizing the Gov't

This interview is the sixth installment of an on going series of conversations with the former Congressman and 2008 presidential candidate.

Now home in the San Diego area, Hunter has been keeping busy making appearances on local TV and promoting the campaigns of up and coming, conservative, young military veterans who are attempting to unseat liberal democrats in the 2010 congressional races. Among those Hunter has persuaded to run or has campaigned for are veterans Vaughn Ward in Idaho, Nick ‘Gunny Pop’ Popaditch in California’s 51st District, Jesse Kelly in Arizona and Chris Reed in Iowa. In fact, Hunter has a campaign event scheduled for December 5th for Mr. Reed. He plans on continuing his push for staunch conservatives to help retake the House of Representatives in the next election cycle. We pick up the interview after the introductions and a quick prayer for our friend Russell Scott….

DH: Hey, I think a rare thing has happened, either Jim has stopped talking or he got cut off.

ALL: (laughing)

GW: I think so.

AJM: Can you guys hear me???? (no they couldn’t)

DH: Listen, till he comes back in, I thought I’d tell you guys that I just got finished doing a commentary here in San Diego on Obama’s speech for a news channel here, for KUSI. And I was on with a Marine, retired Marine General Mike Neal, a great guy. He’s been out of the corps for a long time, and we were talking about the Obama speech. First, one thing I thought was kind of sad that the President told the West Point graduates, was that he was against the war in Iraq. I thought that was kind of a slap in the face. A lot of those guys fought in that war. And we’ve now won that war; by not following Obama’s call to retreat at a critical moment, along with Hillary Clinton and all the other Democrat nominees, or candidates for the presidential nomination. It was bad taste on Obama’s part.

Also, not much of a confidence builder. He was a guy that said we had to leave in Iraq. We didn’t leave. We put the surge on and we won. That doesn’t reflect well on his judgment. I thought it was bad on the part of Obama not only from the stand point of strategy, but also a slap in the face of the guys that defend the country.

So anyway, the other thought that I had about the speech was that we’re sending 30,000 people, that is not as many as McChrystal had requested. McChrystal’s request has been kind of muted at this point. I think he was criticized pretty strongly in the Administration for coming out and openly talking about the need for more troops.

But the real key here is to bring the NATO allies, the 26 nations which together have not suffered as many casualties as America alone because they stay out of the firefights. They stay out of the combat zones. Bringing them into the war, because right now they are AWOL. They may have their troops to some degree stationed in Afghanistan, but the Germans, for example, have a rule that was established as I understand it, by the Bundestag, that they cannot leave their forts at night, which is a time when our Marines do a lot of their fighting. And the French and others try to stay out of the combat zones and let the Americans take the combat zones. So there is a vast difference between being ‘in the country’ and being in the fight. Right now, most of our NATO allies are not in the fight. And I think this is a chance for Mr. Obama to talk to the leaders of those countries, face to face, and let’s see if he can do something to justify those prizes he’s been awarded lately.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: Can you guys hear me again??

ALL: Yes

DH: Jim, glad to have you back, I’m about ready to sign off here (laughing)

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: (Laughs) Thank you very much. Now I did hear in the news, yesterday I believe, that Great Britain decided to send all of another 500 additional troops. So apparently, whatever arm twisting he’s doing isn’t seeming to have the effect that we’d anticipate.

DH: Once again, the key is not just having troops there, and that (500) is obviously not a lot of troops, but there’s 26 NATO nations who have some people, as I understand, on the ground now in Afghanistan. But there’s a vast difference between providing airport security or security in Kabul, and sending your people into the fight in places like Helmand province. So this needs to be a cheap estate discussion. The Germans, the French and the others need to be kicked into the battle. They need to join the battle and right now they are AWOL from the battle. They may have troops there, but again, there is a vast difference between having a presence in the country and coming to the war.

So that’s the real test for Obama. If we can get the NATO allies engaged strongly in this war we wouldn’t need to have more troops.

AJM: I agree. What did you think about the timeline? He’s kind of telegraphing….that we are going to do this little surge, but then start withdrawing within a year?

DH: Yeah, I was reminded that in Iraq, because George Bush refused to give a timeline, which was the burning question of the day for the press, trying to extract a timeline from the Bush administration. You know, at one point the Sunni tribes in Anbar Province in western Iraq made a decision. They decided to turn against their fellow Sunnis, Al Qaeda, and be on our side. And actually fight Al Qaeda, fight their former allies. There were a couple of reasons for that. One reason is they found out that these foreign fighters, Al Qaeda fighters, started to wear out their welcome. They taxed Sunni businesses there to sustain the war effort. They took their women for short term marriages. When tribal leaders objected, they were killed. And they provided lots of very heavy punishment, including death for such things as eating ice cream, failing to flop to the ground quickly enough for prayer call, and many number of other things. So they began to resent the Al Qaeda foreign fighters. But at the same time they saw that the US Marines were very tough, that they stood toe to toe in these 15 foot firefights in Falluja with Al Qaeda until they were the only guys standing. They never retreated. And at the same time that Al Qaeda took money from the tribes, the Marines gave them money. They gave them projects. They hooked up sewage lines and water lines and they put together medical clinics and did lots of things that showed that they were the ‘good guys’. And you had as a result of all of that the “Awakening”.

The Sunni tribes did a remarkable and profound thing. That is they turned against their allies, the Al Qaeda, who they had been with and had joined with in attacking the Marines. They joined the Marines and turned and attacked Al Qaeda, their former allies. And what I’m getting to is that at one point, in Bing West’s great book called The Strongest Tribe, he asked one of the Sunni leaders why they had joined with the Marines, and the guy gestured to a squad of Marines that were walking towards them down the street and he said, “because you, the Americans, are the strongest tribe”.

Now those folks in Anbar, Iraq had a history of making choices. And those instances of choosing their allies were something that the well being of their clans, their families and their tribes depended on. They’d been occupied at one point by Genghis Khan, at another point in their history by Alexander the Great, and choosing your allies was something which your very life could depend.

My point is that because George Bush refused to give a deadline for leaving, and because his people, the US Marines in Anbar Province appeared to be the strongest tribe, the native tribes went with the United States, joined us, and turned against Al Qaeda and helped us exterminate Al Qaeda. In fact in 4 days, in the Zaidon area south of Falluja, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines joined up with the native Sunni insurgency, they joined the Marines and in 4 days, starting on the 4th of July 2007, they wiped out the Al Qaeda from the entire Zaidon area. They took ‘em out.

AJM: What a beautiful thing.

DH: Yeah, and that was done because the United States refused to give a deadline, amongst other things. And here’s Mr. Obama giving a deadline for the American presence in Afghanistan.

AJM: Whoa. Some heavy stuff here. But at least he’s given us…..I was afraid he was going to pull the rug out. So we have time to convince him to do this right still.

DH: Yeah, I think that’s so. And I think that he feels a little bit connected to this war too. His platform and the democrat platform was that Afghanistan was a ‘real war’ and Iraq was a wrong war. Now we’ve won Iraq, and his military in Afghanistan is saying ‘OK, let’s do this one right and win this thing’. So I was glad to see that he was putting the 30,000 troops in.

I thought it was wrong to try to put an exit strategy up front.

AJM: Well, thank you for your insight, we really appreciate that.

The next question I have has to do with the military as well, Mr. Hunter. And that is….In the news lately, you’ve probably seen it. In Iraq, some of our Navy SEALS, our best and brightest, managed to capture the scumbag who was responsible, or thought to be responsible for the US contractors being hung from the bridge in Falluja. And when they caught him, apparently, they did one of their expert raids when they found out where he was, and somehow he managed to end up with a fat lip or a swollen jaw in the process, claiming that one of the SEALS gave him a whack. Because of this deal – I believe it is 4 Navy SEALS – they are in court martial, for whacking this idiot. I want your take on this kind of nonsense that seems to be hamstringing our bravest, most courageous fighters for basically doing their damn job.

DH: You know, that’s a pretty good leading question. I don’t think you need me for this conversation, Jim (laughs).

ALL: (Laughing)

DH: I think you just want me to say “Dittos”. (laughing)

AJM: Yeah, I’m a wannabee Rush Limbaugh here (laughs)

DH: Well listen, I haven’t seen all of the testimony regarding these guys, but it will obviously come out. I would simply say this about the judicial system. There have been a lot of charges, as there always are when you have over 100,000 people involved in combat operations over a period of years. You’re always going to have some charges. We’ve had far fewer charges in this war than we had in wars past, including Vietnam, World War II, World War I, Korea.

Generally speaking, the judicial proceedings that have occurred in San Diego County with respect to Marines…

LD: The Haditha Marines?

DH: …in Camp Pendleton and other places have been very favorable to the people who were initially accused – and in some cases convicted in the liberal newspapers. I’m thinking about a lot of the defendants in the Haditha thing, for example.

The good thing about the military system is that those officers who sit in those tribunals realize that these tough combat operation don’t come wrapped in neat packages, where you are able to sit back and contemplate what seven guys in black robes would do, as they sit in their armchairs. They understand that these things happen in the fog of combat. And I think they also balance what happens.

I’ve seen a number of these cases where people got very upset that there were even charges lodged. I don’t know, I haven’t seen the specific reports that came out as a result of this capture. But if this is a case of balancing equities, of balancing actions, and the guy got a fat lip, that’s a fairly nominal wound, if you will, considering what his is alleged to have done.

The other thing is, you know, we are falling into this abyss of giving enormous rights to enemy defendants. For example, nobody wearing the uniform is considered to have the right to have a lawyer. Or to cross examine his accusers. Or to have any number of other rights that we give to criminals. If you took 500 POWs in any given conflict, and you required that each one of those people be specifically convicted, found beyond a reasonable doubt to have engaged in warfare against us, you’d have to release about two-thirds of them. Because it is very hard in the fog of war to find the particular sergeant who captured a particular enemy private, or enemy lieutenant, and is there to testify that he actually saw this person fire a weapon or undertake some other act of war. If you put this heavy, heavy standard, you apply that heavy standard – that’s why it’s very difficult with these terrorists that we’ve brought in from Afghanistan that heretofore have been at Guantanamo – it’s very, very tough to find the specific American who actually saw this person in an act of war. To apply this standard that we grant under our constitution to criminals, to apply that to terrorists makes it very difficult to keep these guys off the streets. And I think a lot of that is proven by the fact that there was a large degree of recidivism with the people in Guantanamo that we actually screened and released. A number of them went back and picked up weapons and were recaptured or killed fighting Americans again in the war theatre.

So giving this extraordinary, new protection to terrorists that our own soldiers don’t have is, I think, a very dicey thing.

It’s a long answer to your question, and I haven’t seen the specific reports on what you just described to me, but I have seen some pretty good outcomes in the military judicial system.

AJM: Yeah, so have I. I’m very grateful for that as well. On Free Republic, we’re very big supporters of the Marines who have been brought up on those charges. But one of the things that it seems to do is that it takes these guys out of combat, and it could be for years. In the case of the Haditha Marines, I think Chessani has his last hearing tomorrow, and Sgt Wuterich is still up for his court martial. But in regard to these SEALS, it blows my mind, Congressman, that they should have been authorized to execute the son of a bitch, yet they rough him up a little bit when they capture him, and they’re going to be put through this wringer. I think that is exceedingly ill-suited for the type of combat that we are dealing with here.

DH: Yeah. But you don’t have the right to…..just like Chesty Puller at Guadalcanal, they captured a bunch of Japanese as they were moving through the battlelines, and one of his lieutenants says “what are we going to do”; and as I recall Puller said ‘we’re moving too fast, we got to kill them’. Then they got into a quiet area, a secure area, and the same lieutenant or sergeant said, ”I didn’t shoot those guys back there, what do I do with them now?” And he said “now we’re secure, we got to keep them. You’ve got to protect them. We don’t shoot prisoners”. < p>

That’s not something we do.

You’re not authorized, no matter how heinous the guys are, you’re not authorized to do it. You can’t do it. And if you murder somebody you will be and should be brought up on charges. It’s a sad thing. It happens sometimes. There was a captain and a sergeant in World War II who were found guilty of machine-gunning a truck load of German prisoners. They were sent back to the front lines, and as I recall from reading the research, the captain and the sergeant were both killed in later combat. What that shows is that we realized even in those days that you had to abide by the law of war. On the other hand, it also shows that we kept our eye on the ball – we said ‘we also got to win this war’. So they sent those guys back to the front lines, and unfortunately they were killed. But we kept our eye on the ball. The point was winning. We had to win that war. That was a necessity; we had to keep forcing that front line.

AJM: Yeah, I know. It just rubs us the wrong way. I know Lynn and I have talked about this….

DH: If you look at the motion to suppress evidence, if evidence is found to be obtained in a criminal trial in the US, in a way that is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, then that evidence is suppressed. No matter how strong it is. That came I think, the original case was Davis vs. Mississippi, and that was a case in which a person who murdered an elderly lady had his fingerprints found on a windowsill of a window. But he was identified out of an unconstitutional lineup. And as a result of that, the evidence was suppressed, and he went free. With motions to suppress, we understand that the real result of that is going to be that killers do go free. And yet, we made a decision as a country that we would allow that, that it was more important to ensure that constitutional rights were not violated.

So society sacrifices even in the domestic scenario to ensure that criminals are treated in a constitutional manner. My point is that we carry that to the battlefield scenario in that we don’t murder prisoners. And you can’t murder prisoners. And you can’t abuse them.

On the other hand, you say we got a prisoner who has a fat lip….you’ve got to remember that these guys in combat are human, they’re not zombies, and again, they aren’t seminal men in black robes in a smoking lounge in the Supreme Court. They are out there in the middle of combat. And as one of the justices once remarked, you have to put them in that context, and understand those are decisions made in the heat of combat. You have to accord them that situation.

AJM: I think you nailed it on that last one. I think as you do find out some more information on this as it comes in – it’s exploded as an issue in the news now – so more and more information is coming out. It sounds like a ‘he said’ – he being the terrorist – versus ‘they said’, being the SEALS. So I would urge the people above who make these decisions to take the word of 4 SEALS over the word of a murderer….

GW: A terrorist

AJM: A terrorist, basically.

DH: I would agree with that.

And you know something else. Look at the disparity in standards here, and the unfairness that enshrouds this entire situation. That is, you had four contractors; they bumbled off the main road in Falluja in April of 2004, or late March of 2004. They were captured, grabbed by this crowd, presumably at the behest of this Al Qaeda leader. They were murdered. They were dragged through the streets. They were hung from that bridge and they were burned as I recall. And where the American press is going to focus is not on that fact, not on the remarkable cruelty of Al Qaeda and their ruthless nature, but it’s going to be on whether or not the guy that did this got a fat lip…

AJM: It’s frickin amazing…

DH: …whether we were mean to him. And one thing I really resented from the president in his remarks tonight. He said, “I have ordered that torture be stopped”.

AJM: No! He said WHAT??

LD: He said THAT??

DH: Yeah, he said “I ordered for torture to be stopped and Guantanamo to be closed”. You know there is only one major prison in the world that has never had a murder. And that’s Guantanamo. The President’s home prisons in Illinois have had multiple murders and he’s never called for any of them to be closed down. But beyond that, we do NOT torture people. Waterboarding is not torture.

LD: Amen!

DH: We use it as a training device for our own people. And I think it was Chris Matthews who asked me “then what’s your standard for what is torture?” So I said if we do it to ourselves in training, that should be an acceptable method for extracting information.

RM: There ya go.

DH: So now I have the lefties in the position where they have to say we basically torture our own people in training when we waterboard; for the president to say that!!

You know people around the world really do torture people. There are police departments that drive splints under people’s fingernails. And hook them up to batteries and electrocute them. And when they see that word ‘torture’, they think that’s what WE do. So when the president uses that term, because he’s now decided what has been heretofore considered to be allowable, this waterboarding, is now torture. When he uses that term, he denigrates our country, and he creates what he MUST know is a false impression. That is the impression that we somehow do electrocute people, that we do drive splinters under people’s fingernails, and we do enormous depravation of food and water--- which we simply do not do!

AJM: It fits nicely with his world view, as far as I know it to be. His entire life was mentored by radicals from Bill Ayers to Frank Marshall Davis to a plethora of communists and Palestinian rights activists, and blah blah blah. It’s part of his world view. He can’t shake it.

DH: Yeah. So we definitely got a mixed bag here with this guy. But I thought two major disservices to our country in this speech: One, saying that we tortured people. Another, saying that Iraq was a “bad war”, with all those guys at West Point, some of whom fought in Iraq. And lastly, giving an absolute date for leaving.

There’s never been a war in history that’s been won by establishing a quitting time. The clock doesn’t determine who wins these things.

Anyway, those are my views, and I know you had a few more questions here my friend.

AJM: Yes, yes. I’d like to return very briefly to our previous conversation on our global warming alarmist friends in the media and so forth. I know you’ve had access to the media now that you are out of Idaho. These E-mails that someone hacked into and released, from the East Anglia University, I believe, which is kind of the head operation for the global warming cabal, and global warming scientists. And they released those to the press. Come to find out these dirty suckers have been suppressing real scientific data and crafting the stuff to fit their own agenda, just like you said they did before we knew all this. In fact one of the guys had to step down from his prestigious post today. Its snowballing right back in their face…..

DH: I think what I told you before is this: That the evidence of global warming is very thin. Scientific evidence. That the ‘political evidence’, if you will, now dominates the discussion. And I think that part of that is ensuring that the scientists who don’t believe global warming is either as critical as its described, or that it exists at all, that they are pushed rapidly away from the forum, from the rostrum. And global warming has now become a political ‘fact’, rather than a scientific fact.

AJM: That’s a perfect way to state it. You don’t need to go any farther than that. These guys are in a heap of trouble so stay tuned…..

DH: Hey, incidentally you ought to pull…remember the guy who was the head of one of the major scientific groups. He passed away several years ago. Doggone it, I can’t remember…

AJM: The National Academy of Sciences?

DH: Yes, the National Academy of Sciences. You know who I’m talking about?

AJM: I know who you are talking about, but I don’t know his name.

DH: He was the senior statesman of scientists. He was the head of the National Academy of Scientists. And he was a staunch foe of the proposition of global warming. When I talked to you last time I had mentioned I saw his obituary, some time ago. And his statements ought to be pulled up.

AJM: I’ll look into that.

DH: At least when he was politically correct, he was considered to be a fairly revered scientist. (chuckles)

AJM: Yeah, until he went against the grain, then he was just an old coot.

DH: Yeah.

AJM: I’ll see if I can find it. It will be interesting to see how close he was to the truth. I think we are going to get a lot more revelations coming in the next months and weeks.

DH: Let’s just say there needs to be a REAL scientific debate.

AJM: Absolutely. Last question is not so topical, but it’s kind of important. And we can take it up again later if time expires on us. What do we need to do to actually turn back the massive growth in the federal government? Not just to stop the growth, but to reduce the scope of it. What do Republicans and conservatives, what message do we need to take forward to actually start chopping some of this stuff out. In your record, you have been on record as trying to get rid of the Department of Education, trying to get rid of the Art and Humanities, trying to get rid of even the Department of Energy at one point. So I know you’ve been down this road before. But I think at this time the country is ripe for actually looking seriously at slashing instead of just slowing. What is your recommendation?

DH: Well, one step that could be taken very quickly is to freeze non-defense discretionary. I think that ought to be frozen. But the annual growth in non-defense discretionary spending could be taken down very quickly.

AJM: There goes Obama’s agenda…

DH: Yeah, you’ve got to realize that necessity is the mother of invention. And I think we are seeing the very difficult times right now, where we are basically printing a lot of money, which has to have an inflationary effect. And the alternative to becoming fiscally responsible is to have massive inflation to pay off this huge amount of borrowing that has attended this last period of time. I’m just an old retired guy now, but I think we are going to have to take very, very strong steps and I think it’s going to be a result of coming up against the brink of massive inflation!

AJM: Yes. Do you still advocate getting rid of the Department of Energy, maybe transferring over its useful functions to….

DH: Oh absolutely!! I think we can get rid of A LOT of departments. And we can also cut….one thing I did for years as the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, initially chairman of the procurement subcommittee, was to cut the ‘shoppers’. That is the bureaucracy that just purchases weapons systems. These are not the folks that do the engineering, not the folks that bend the metal and make these things. At one point we had two Marine Corps of shoppers, professional shoppers. That’s almost 300,000 in the Department of Defense. They did the paperwork for acquisitions for systems. At one point, if you bought a $10 million helicopter, you spent $3 million on the shopping bureaucracy for purchasing it. So we were cutting 25,000 folks a year, much to the consternation of the Pentagon.

We’ve got a massive bureaucracy. I think it’s instructive that the only job sector that has increased during this period of massive job losses has been in many cases government jobs.

I got to go here pretty quick old kid, but go ahead.

AJM: I just wanted to add to that. I read that Obama was bringing in 20,000 more shoppers to the Pentagon.

DH: (laughs)

AJM: Probably people that were lobbying for such because they lost their jobs when you were running the thing.

DH: That’s too bad. That’s money that doesn’t go to the troops, it doesn’t go to ammunition, it doesn’t go to make things. It simply goes for paperwork.

AJM: Do you think it’s still possible to dump some of these things, like the Dept. of Education that I…

DH: That obviously requires a political change. And it’s going to require a Republican administration.

AJM: Another one I think should go away and give the money back to the states is HUD. There’s a whole plethora of ones like that I think we can work towards eliminating.

DH: You’re never going to get that kind of trimming until you get a conservative, Republican administration. But for us, it’s just having a nice conversation. That’s all its doing. Some of the things we talked about are achievable, like winning in Afghanistan – we could do that with the Obama administration. But if your talking about getting rid of all these departments in the federal government that is not possible with the Obama administration. (laughs)

It is just us having a nice conversation.

AJM: That is true. Well we’ll let you go and….

LD: Wait, wait, wait. Congressman Hunter?

DH: Sure, Lynn.

LD: Was it Frank Press for the Academy of Science?

DH: Now which name did you say?

LD: Frank Press?

DH: I’m just not sure. You know a friend of mine sent me his obituary here some months ago. He was very old. There can’t have been that many presidents of the Academy of Sciences.

LD: Now I had them here just a second ago now and I picked him as the most likely one…

DH: He was quite a senior citizen. And he passed away within the last several years.

LD: DO you know when he was president, how long ago.

DH: No, but it couldn’t have been too long ago.

AJM: Well, we’ll research it. We’ll figure it out.

DH: Yeah, look into it.

LD: I thought if I said the name, Jim, he might remember….

DH: No. No, I don’t recall his name. OK. Listen. Thanks so much guys for tuning in here. And let’s hope our country survives these difficult times.

AJM: And thank you for going out and promoting some of these great candidates to take some of these democratic seats. You have a nice stable there, Mr. Hunter.

DH: We are going to try to help as many as we can. When I come into their districts, there numbers may drop a few points, but I’m going to help them anyway.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK, we’ll just talk next week then.

DH: OK. Goodnight.

ALL: Goodnight.

Duncan Hunter Interview : Terrorist Trials In NY, Amnesty, Sarah Palin and More !

Duncan Hunter Interview 11-17-09: Terrorist Trials in NY, Amnesty, Sarah Palin and More!

Thanks to Pissant at Free Republic for hosting these great conference call interviews, hope you enjoy them.- red

This interview is the fifth installment of an on going series of conversations with the former Congressman and 2008 presidential candidate. It appears that the extended Idaho retirement vacation is coming to an end. Hunter and his wife Lynne were on the road, driving south through the Beehive State with the ultimate destination of their home in El Cajon, CA. Once again, we used the conference call service that allowed several of us to partake in this unique opportunity to query the man who is perhaps the most solid and consistent conservative legislator to have served our nation in modern times.

AUTOMATRON: Someone has joined the conference.

DH: Hello, Duncan Hunter here.

AJM: Hello Mr. Hunter. This is Jim. We’ve got Lynn on the line from Ohio. And Don from Denver.

DH: Hello Lynn, how you doing?

LD: Good

DH: Hello Don.

DF: Hi Congressman Hunter, good to talk to you again.

AJM: And we might have a few stragglers joining in later. I’ll just tell them to keep quiet when they come on.

DH: OK. Now I’m steaming down highway 15. If I go out it’s because we got to a canyon area, but we should be clear for awhile.

AJM: OK. We’ll see how well those Mormons build cellular systems.

DH: We’ll find out.

AJM: Can we complain to Romney if it falls apart? (laughs). Before I get to any questions I just have a couple of things I wanted to inform you about. One, is that after we talked last time, and you mentioned Gunny Pop Popaditch, I went ahead and posted a news article from the local papers down there talking about your guys’ event and it got massive numbers of views. People were excited, and I saw it popping up all over the blogosphere. So you guys are making hay just in your first week.

DH: Great. Way to go Jim.

AJM. Yeah, there was really a sense of excitement on Free Republic and throughout the blogs on this guy. Everyone remembers him from the picture!

DH: He’s a solid guy. He’s a great speaker too. Very inspirational.

AJM: The funny thing is, I watched a little newscast from the TV that someone put up on Youtube. And it had you in it, you were interviewed as well! But he said that you are the one that inspired him to run.

DH: Oh oh (laughs)

AJM: So hats off to you!

DH: OK. He’s a good guy. We’ve got several more marines who are running too. We hope we bring them home. When I say bring them home, I don’t mean bring them home from Iraq…..

AJM: You mean bring them home into the party and into the Congress…

DH: Yeah.

AJM: The other piece of news that I wanted to mention was that there was an article in some local paper, I have it linked but I don’t remember which paper it was. But there was a guy calling out for your son, Duncan D., to be the Vice Presidential nominee this next go ‘round.

DH: Really?? Did you recognize Duncan’s writing style?

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: Actually, I was suspected you more than him.

DH: (laughing) No. I’m a good spear carrier for him now. I’m looking forward to having an appointment with him sometime in the next two months. I’m just another constituent now.

AJM: OK. I’m going to start off with a question. The first one that has been all over the news the last few days is Mr. Obama’s “deep bow” to the emperor of Japan. Were you able to see that?

DH: No, I didn’t see his bow.

AJM: Did you hear about it?

DH: No, tell me about it.

AJM: Well, he was over in Japan along with some other world leaders, and when it was his turn to go up, he bent down at the waist so far I thought he was going to bite the emperor’s kneecap. And he’s got some real harsh criticism from a lot of people, including Dick Cheney and some other conservatives. Even the liberal press has been mocking him. Remember, this isn’t the first time. He also bowed to the Saudi King, and a lesser bow to Vladimir Putin. So what do you think is his agenda with these bows?

DH: Well, I like MacArthur’s model. I think MacArthur had the right model for dealing with the Japanese royalty when he basically reconstituted the country. That was to treat them politely but firmly and not in some subservient manner. I thought MacArthur had the right professional approach.

I didn’t see the news flash on Mr. Obama’s greeting to the emperor. Maybe he’s getting some bad protocol advice. But I like the MacArthur style. He certainly didn’t do any bowing. He wasn’t cruel. He was statesman-like. In fact, one of the great models of this country for all time, for occupying militaries, was the occupation of Japan. After we had taken Japan, the warlords warned the people to expect treatment as cruel as that which they had doled out. I believe they killed 100,000 people in Nanking, China in one night, when they took Nanking. They obviously brutalized American POWs. They killed roughly one third of our POWs in captivity. And they expected the same brutal treatment as Japan lay prostrate before the American forces. Yet, the American troops walked down the streets of Tokyo handing out Hershey Bars. And there were practically no incidents of brutality or cruelty to the Japanese population. That was a great model and reflected the goodness of this country more than anything else we did during the war.

AJM: So do you think Obama’s bow is just being overly polite, ignorant, or he just wants to apologize to some degree for…

DH: (laughs) I don’t know if you noticed or not, Jim, but I’m not in his inner circle, so I don’t know!

ALL: (laughing)

DH: But from a positive point of view, I like the MacArthur approach. He was professional, firm, non-subservient to the emperor of Japan. And remember, the emperor of Japan had launched massive attacks. His warlords had been the engineers and strategist of that offensive against the United States, but the emperor condoned it. And I think we treated him magnanimously simply to allow him to keep his position and to maintain the structure that attends that office in Japan. But MacArthur had the right idea. He had an audience with the emperor, and he certainly wasn’t subservient, and he dealt with him from an arm’s length position and I think that was the right model, not Mr. Obama’s.

AJM: Very good. You’re probably aware of this one. It’s been announced in the news with several stories coming out of the Pelosi camp and the Obama administration that they are going to revisit amnesty in the next few weeks. They are working diligently on the next amnesty plan and I’m sure they’ll have some of the same republicans involved with this – namely Lindsey Graham and McCain and some of the other same cast of characters. So this thing actually has a lot of support when you toss in those republicans. What is your opinion on this and what should we do to fight it?

DH: I think there will be a large backlash against this. Especially among rank and file democrats during this high unemployment period. I’ll never forget a construction worker, an American citizen coming up to me one time, a member of the Hispanic community, and said “please don’t let”–what was known in those days as Kennedy/McCain- “this thing pass”. This guy explained that it had taken him years to get to the point where he was making $35/hr. And he said “if you open the floodgates, I’ll go down to $15 an hour, and my ability to take care of my family will diminish”. He said that in so many words.

Especially when you have a massive unemployment rate, the idea that we are going to open the floodgates is insane. That’s what you do when you entertain amnesty. We’ve seen the number of crossings, illegal border crossings increase when the President even TALKS about it, talks about amnesty. It’s human nature. The people that came over in the 80s, when we gave amnesty to some 3 million people – and we incidentally at that point, we said ‘now THIS IS IT, this time we really mean it and we are gonna enforce our borders’. And people knew we didn’t really mean it; so about 12 million more came pouring in subsequent to that admonishment that we were now going to enforce the borders in a serious way, and that there would be no more amnesty.

So when you announce an amnesty there will always be a new wave people coming over illegally, human nature being what it is, anticipating that they – the new wave- will catch the next amnesty. So at a time when jobs are very, very difficult to find, especially blue collar jobs, the idea that we are opening the floodgates again is something the American people will not accept.

And I know the democrat strategists are looking to… thinking they are going to pickup a new, huge voting constituency. I don’t think so. Last hired is often first fired. And there are lots of folks in the Hispanic community like the guy who approached me, the construction worker, who are worried about their jobs and the rate of pay.

AJM: So you think the backlash will stop it once again?

DH: I think so.

AJM: Because the last one we weren’t in a recession, the economy was booming and we still managed to stop it. But it took a lot of vocal leadership, people like you congressman, frankly, being probably the premier spokesman against it. It definitely rallied the troops. Talk radio finally got on it, and even a lot of democrats opposed it.

DH: I think we’ll get more now. I think the economic dimension will play out strongly at this point.

AJM: I sure hope so. Even the Reagan model, which you voted against by the way, the 1986 amnesty, there was the promise of border enforcement. I can’t imagine that these democrats writing this next bill will…..they’ve already gutted your Secure Fence Act several times over. What’s your take on getting some real border enforcement? Are we going to have to wait for the next Republican in office?

DH: I think it is clear that this administration does not want a secure border. And it is always difficult to understand their point of view. But it is clear from their initiatives, and the lack of interest in completing the border fence. The way most of the amnesty initiatives have been framed, proponents always promise that enforcement will go hand in hand with the amnesty. But I think at this point all the political proponents of amnesty have lost their credibility.

We had a Secure Fence Act, which was watered down massively. We got some fence up, some 100s of miles of some barrier, which has been good. Incidentally, we sealed up Smugglers Gulch in San Diego with the double fence. And when we did that, the crime rate in the city of San Diego, by FBI statistics, after we built the fence, fell by more than 53 percent. The apprehensions went down by more than 90 percent!

The point is that fences do work. And another point is that the then governor of Arizona, Governor Napolitano, swung back and forth between saying “fences don’t work” – saying “if you show me a 12 foot fence, I’ll show you a 13 foot ladder”, and in the next sentence she would lament the fact that we (California) were sealing our border so the illegal aliens were now going to her state of Arizona and crossing.

ALL: (laughs)

DH: She not only tried to have it both ways, but literally she tried to have it both ways in almost the same sentence (laughing).

In fact, in Yuma, Arizona, the one sector that they fenced there, as I recall, apprehensions went down from almost 138,000 in that sector to 3,800, after they did the fence.

AJM: That’s amazing. But you know the problem with Napolitano, don’t you? She got a promotion, a promotion from governor; she’s the head of Homeland Security. What a disaster.

DH: Yeah. I’m aware of that. The same person who discounted the fence, and resented the fact that we had one. So no, she’s not going to lead with a construction program.

AJM: That’s for sure. But do you have any words for your own party? My recollection is that the Secure Fence Act, the watering down of that, actually took place in the hands of Kay Bailey Hutchinson and John Cornyn.

DH: Yeah. We had the two Texas senators, with the Texas border literally on fire with the smuggling of people and narcotics, fold. And I don’t know where they got their direction. The President (Bush) had essentially the same position – they didn’t want to fence Texas. You had at one time I recall, some 600 unsolved murders in Nuevo Laredo. That’s the drug town immediately across from Laredo, Texas. Massive smuggling. Yet inexplicable disinterest on the part of Kay Bailey and John Cornyn. Good members of congress, strong on defense, generally folks that I agree with; but also the governor, Governor Perry was not an advocate of the fence.

I think they were all talking to the landowners who probably liked the idea of having a fairly large pool of people coming across the border to work inexpensively.

My point to the President, and to the Senators during the conference on this fence, was that a landowner on the border, or a rancher on the border, does not have the right to determine unilaterally what the immigration policy of this country is going to be. And just because that means that he gets some inexpensive people, he’s NOT the guy to be sorting out the people who may at one point be terrorists, or who may be the drug people, and determining who comes into the United States. The policy of the United States is deeper and is more important than the desires of a landowner to have some inexpensive labor coming in to his ranch from Mexico.

AJM: I’ll agree with that. I want to reiterate the fact that they’ve been catching a lot of non-mexicans, what do they call them, OTMs – Other Than Mexicans. A lot of Chinese coming…

DH: That’s always been the case. Everybody in the world knows if you want to get into America illegally, you use the southern border of the United States to do it. You don’t come through LA International Airport anymore. They understand that. That’s a MAJOR problem. So what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to elect a bunch of conservative Republicans in this next race. Obviously, we need to take Congress back!

And I think that’s possible. The swings, the nature of politics is to surprise. And I think we can have a surprising resurgence in the House races in this next election.

AJM: I sure hope so. And the guys you’ve been promoting are also, all of them, are strong border hawks. In the Hunter mold, as opposed to the McCain mold of wanting to grant amnesty. So keep up that work, Congressman. In the primaries, we need people that are going to do it right, and not waffle once they office.

DH: Yep. We need to do just that. We also need to – you know I’m looking forward to a lot more guys getting out of the service, and running for office across the country. That’s an important dimension to representation, especially when you have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the level they are at right now. Having people, wearing the uniform, shedding that uniform, running for office then becoming representatives I think is an important part of American society. And we have a paucity of military folks coming into Congress.

AJM: Well, that would be great. So what is your opinion on the RNC, the national party, picking sides in a primary? I think I told you when Charlie Crist of Florida came out – he’s kind of a liberal, so-so guy but a fairly popular governor – as soon as he announced the, Senatorial committee, the NRSC, immediately endorsed him even though there were already guys running in that race. This has been repeated a number of times. What is your opinion of the National party endorsing candidates in a primary?

DH: Well, I think there needs to be a balance. Sometimes they need to go out and recruit candidates to run. Especially when you have great candidates you think should run for office. For example, Eisenhower was actively recruited by the national party – I’m probably using the best example of recruitment – but Eisenhower was recruited by the national Republicans to run on the GOP ticket. And I think when they initially talked with him, they weren’t sure if he was a Democrat or Republican. And as I recall, the Democrats had an interest in trying to get Eisenhower to run also. So that’s probably the best example of a national recruitment.

In a number of races you do want to go out – for example I went out and asked old Gunny Pop. I think he was inclined to run, but I told him he’d make a great Congressman and I encouraged him to run. I think that’s important. If you do that, you do need to endorse them when they run. But in terms of simply going with the….if somebody is already predisposed to run and they are running and there are other good candidates out there running, the idea that you try to anoint someone, I think, is a mistake.

Incidentally, I like Bob Smith who is the former New Hampshire US Senator. He was great on Armed Services and on the military…

AJM: Yeah, he’s running too, but he’s not getting much…

DH: Yeah, I know he’s not. But he’s a friend of mine. But beyond that he knows National Defense in depth, especially missile defense. He has a much better handle on national security issues than the other candidates.

AJM: That’s for sure. OK. That answers that. Somebody had asked me, who could not attend this conference, to ask you a question regarding Sarah Palin. I don’t know if you’ve turned on a TV lately, but she’s everywhere. She’s got a new book just released today – number 1 bestseller. She’s on Oprah and Barbara Walters and basically it is her re-introduction after she quit her governorship. So what do you think about Sarah Palin and her future in the Republican Party?

DH: You know, I don’t know Governor Palin well. And I’m not close to their campaign. So I don’t know her well enough to comment on what her strategy may be for the next couple of years. But I think she provided some energy to the Republican Party. And I think she has provided a strong role model for conservative women who want to get involved in politics, and to take the fight back to the liberal feminist side which has dominated Democratic politics.

So I think Sarah Palin was a refreshing contrast to the model that the liberal media was shoving at us as to what women in politics should be. She represented independence, individualism. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with all of her activities as a governor in Alaska so it’s tough to comment on that.

But I think, generally speaking, she’s a refreshing new presence on the political scene and I wish her well.

AJM: Very good. The suggestion was that we’d send her up to Idaho – she’s from Idaho originally as a little kid – and you’d take her hunting. Not only could you guys have a good time hunting together, but that you could impart some of your military and foreign policy wisdom to her at that time. One of the criticisms of her, fair or not, was she doesn’t have a full grasp on certain aspects of what the Presidency entails when it comes to foreign policy or military affairs, national security, sovereignty, the types of things you’re known for. So we’d love to send her up to you at some point at least to meet. Would you be interested in meeting her?

DH: (Laughs) Well, of course. Listen; there are lots of people that have information, that have good backgrounds in national security who could brief up Sarah Palin.

I thought in the debates and interviews that she needed to have three or four positions that are classic republican, conservative positions, like Peace through Strength, and she needed to assert those. And remember Charlie Gibson, I think, was the first major interview that Sarah Palin did. I think she needed to assert those strongly, and stake out conservative positions, rather than kind of trying to handle the volleys that the media was throwing at her. I would have had a little different strategy going in to that.

But you know, I think Sarah Palin did a good job in the campaign. And certainly the campaign was in tough shape when Sarah Palin came onto the ticket. I think she was value added. Absolutely.

AJM: No doubt about that. The reason I’m pushing a date, a pairing with you whether it ever happens or not – who knows. The feeling is amongst the people that know your work, Congressman, is that you differentiate yourself from the vast, vast majority of Republicans, as well as from the conservative pundits by your actual, intimate knowledge, and your Reaganesque views on US sovereignty, weapons systems, and military matters – and that does not even include the border where sometimes you were the ONLY one, maybe along with Tancredo lately, fighting for us. So those are the things that attracted real conservatives to you. So obviously, we want to see the next – whoever is going to run for president – get closer to the Reagan/Hunter model. What we don’t need is another McCain/Giuliani model coming up.

DH: (laughing) Well listen, I think you are going to have some new blood in this next race.

AJM: I think so too.

LD: Better be good blood!

DH: If we can just get Duncan to quit writing in and suggesting himself for Vice President.

ALL: (Laughs)

DH: People are going to start to recognize his writing style. (laughs) No , I’m just kidding. He’s actually a very modest guy. He’s a great guy and is working really hard right now on the IED issue which is really damaging our troops in Afghanistan. He just got back from there about a week and a half ago, so that’s kind of the order of the day for him.

AJM: Yeah, he’s following in your footsteps on that, thank goodness.

Another issue that is current news is that apparently Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama decided to bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for a trial, affording him all the rights of a US citizen. What is your take on this nonsense?

DH: I think we had, we put together the terrorist tribunal, and I participated in putting that law together as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee on the House side. And I think we did it right. The defendants have lots of rights, the right to cross examine, the right against self-incrimination, and the right -except where classified evidence might be compromised – to confront their accusers. They had lots of rights. If you look at the Rwandan model and the Nuremberg model where we prosecuted war criminals, they have as many rights in our military tribunal system that we set up as the defendants in those two forums.

Now when you bring people to America, there are certain additional rights that attach because you are basically here. I think it is a mistake to bring him to New York and to give them all the protections of American criminals. One reason is this: If you take a batch of POWs that we’ve captured on the battlefield of a shooting war, people that wore uniforms, and you demanded that we had to release them unless we could prove that each and every one of them, prove beyond a reasonable doubt that everyone of them was actually in the act carrying out war against the Americans, we would never be able to prove a lot of those cases!

In the first place, war is a confusing thing. You don’t go back and recreate crime scenes when you get your Humvee blown up, or you have shots taken at you in the remote areas of Afghanistan. You can’t give a guy Miranda rights before you question him. Somebody’s life may depend on him answering those questions. And so you really give people when you afford them complete criminal rights in America, you are giving them a lot more rights than a soldier gets.

We now live in this age of terrorism, and we’ve got to find our way between the desire to give people massive rights when we are prosecuting them or else free them. Between that extreme and rights you afford somebody when they are wearing a uniform and engaging you in a direct fight. It is unusual that we are actually giving more rights to the guys who blew up women and children in a very cowardly way than are given to uniformed troops who march out to the battlefield and fight for their country in the open. But that is essentially what we are doing.

And we ought to keep Guantanamo going. Guantanamo is EXACTLY the right place for these guys. They all gained weight at Guantanamo. They have lots of sports and athletics. They have taxpayer paid prayer rugs, Korans, they have the loud speaker. As I recall when I was down there it was giving prayer call something like five times a day over the prison loudspeaker system. If that would have been a Baptist prayer call the ACLU would have gone nuts, but it was a muslim prayer call so it was OK.

The point is that they were very well taken care of. And the idea that we somehow acquiesce to this very fuzzy “world opinion” – a world opinion made up of foreign leaders who like the idea of the Americans always doing the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting terrorism – they want to offer up all these objections to Guantanamo.

The interesting thing about Guantanamo is that of all the major prisons in the world, it’s the only prison, the only major prison, where there’s never been a murder. It’s probably the only prison where people also gain weight. It’s also got a medical system there that is better than most American’s HMOs to take care of people medically.

The question is “what are we doing?”.

And the answer is that we are satisfying a perception. And it’s a perception that really isn’t held genuinely by the people that utter that perception. That is leftist foreign leaders who complain about Guantanamo. They like us going after the terrorists, doing the heavy lifting, and they want to sit back and issue press releases saying ‘when you catch these murderers treat them very humanely, take care of them- and incidentally you Americans pay for it all – and we in other parts of the world will monitor your progress in terms of humanitarianism.’

AJM: Well listen, the world leaders might not be true believers in this social justice therapy and extra rights for terrorists, but I tell you what, President Obama and Eric Holder sure are. They are moving farther and faster than the world criticism and it was part of his campaign. I think it’s an overall ‘tearing down’ of structures that have been wisely built up over the years, starting with the Geneva Conventions for warfare, and precedent in US military affairs. Everything he touches he tears down. I think its part of his agenda.

DH: Yeah. Well with respect to Guantanamo, it’s the old saying “when the truth conflicts with the legend – print the legend”. I do not agree with the policy of pretending that a fiction or a myth is real in order to satisfy public opinion. We did NOT torture people in Guantanamo. If you ask the relevant authorities if dogs ever bit people in Guantanamo, the answer is “no”, or “once” at one point. People were not tortured at Guantanamo. They’ve generally been taken very good care of.

We’ve had tons of delegations visting Guantanamo. I remember Madeleine Bordallo who was the representative from Guam walked out of the trip I took down there – she was one of our congressional delegation members – and said at the press conference, “this place is a country club”. Of course, that’s the ‘wrong’ thing to say if you are going to be politically correct, but she’s a pretty gutsy lady. And she’s a democrat, incidentally, and told it like it was. We treat people very well in Guantanamo, and yet we’re acknowledging this myth, this legend, and treating it like it’s true. The legend that invokes images of people being chained and beaten and whipped – it’s just nuts.

AJM: Yep. And when you say “we”, it’s people like Dick Durbin and some of the more liberal democrats in addition to the Obama administration. They are going against the grain of American wisdom.

DH: Dick Durbin has had scores of murders in his prisons, and I don’t think he recommends closing them down! You know, and these people that say you shouldn’t use dogs – shouldn’t have dogs present – If you ask them if they are going to recommend closing down their K9 units in their own police departments in the states they represent, the answer would be an absolute NO. And if you don’t think a 110 pound German Shepherd – they say it’s torture to intimidate people with the presence of a dog – having a massive German Shepherd snapping at you six inches from your face, I think it tends to make you want to talk.

ALL: (laughs)

DH: I think lots of people have made lots of confessions with that 110 pound German Shepherd snapping away while the police officer of Illinois, Senator Durbin’s state, or lots of others, routinely goes through his Miranda warnings.

The Guantanamo situation is a tragedy. It is a situation in which they are pretending something happened which did not happen; trying to solve a problem which doesn’t exist, all to make people like us. In the end that never works.

AJM: Absolutely. Hey, Lynn or Don, do either of you guys have a quick question. We’ve got to let Congressman Hunter go here in just a second.

DH: Lynn, how are you doing Lynn? What’s on your mind today?

LD: (laughs) You don’t want to know. I must say that I was aware of you even though I lived in Virginia, long before you ran for the presidency. But I must tell you the day that I absolutely fell in love with you was when I saw you on CSPAN after you had been to Gitmo, and you served those halal meals. And I was like: “this is the man we need!”

DH: Now I did what now?

LD: You were on CSPAN talking about how you had just returned from Gitmo….

DH: (laughs) Oh yeah, we had the menu. And we had the House of Representatives cooks prepare the Guantanamo menu…

LD: Yes!!

DH: and I think it was honey glazed chicken and rice pilaf (laughs)

LD: Yes it was (laughing)

DH: Another bread and water meal for those terrorists! Yeah, that helped put the damper on that particular little surge of support for closing Guantanamo.

AJM: That “surge” was led by your buddy John McCain, by the way…

LD: That was my point.

DH: Well, the media really liked to use John McCain. I think it’s a little unfair to ask a guy who has been a POW how he wants people to be treated; to account for what our policy should be. It’s almost like going to a mother who has lost her son in a war, and asking “do you think we should still be there?” It’s almost unfair to ask him that question.

I always felt that John was, in my opinion, on the wrong side of that answer. And I’ve always though it’s a little bit phony for the media to ask him.

AJM: Well they (media) loved him up until the time he won the nomination, then they turned on him.

DH: That’s what happens to Republicans. You know, they also love us after we are dead.

ALL: (laughing)

DH: Barry Goldwater was absolutely treated in a despicable way, fashioned by the media. I mean there should have been a massive backlash when they had that commercial there during the Johnson race where it showed the little girl picking the flowers and a nuclear cloud erupts behind her; with the implication that Barry Goldwater was gonna nuke the world. I mean they just hammered him and called him dangerous and all kinds of names. But once he was retired, and after he died he became a ‘conservative statesman’. The media loved to issue these very ‘late in career’ statements of his – and we’re not sure if his nurse wrote them or he wrote ‘em (laughs) – he now had a liberal point of view on everything. So they loved Barry Goldwater after he left.

AJM: Yeah, he got old and started losing his marbles and all the sudden they quote him…

DH: I don’t know if Barry even made those statements. I mean I didn’t ever hear him make statements like those.

AJM: Same with Reagan. Now they love Reagan. But boy did they hate him. They hated him more than they hated George W. Bush.

DH: Yeah, they did…

LD: Oh, I don’t think anyone has been more hated than George W. Bush.

AJM: I don’t know. What do you think?

DH: (laughs) Isn’t it sad that we as conservatives have to sit around and decide which one of us was hated the most??

ALL: (laughs)

DF: Yes, which one is more hated.

LD: Yes, it is! And I just want to say one more thing about the whole John McCain and the media thing. No one loved manipulating him more than he did himself. He was a willing participant. And I will not excuse what he did. I mean a ‘terrorist bill of rights’?? And the ‘screw you President Bush’ law he got passed. Please people. I’m not very politically correct, congressman.

DH: The terrorist tribunal thing we put in place, was put in place by the House and the Senate. We did a lot of that stuff. I thought it was tough, fair…

LD: No, no! That’s not what the one I’m talking about.

DH: …and had a process for a speedy prosecution of these guys…

LD: That’s not the one I’m talking about.

DH: Oh, OK. Well listen, if there’s one thing us politicians do, is we always want to spend our dime talking about ourselves rather than the other guys. (laughs)

I like John McCain personally. I’ve served with him for a long time. I don’t agree with him, obviously, on many, many issues. But he’s a guy I got to know and was a good guy when he was in the House of Representatives. A good guy, personally. But my sense is John’s not going to be running for office in this next presidential campaign.

DF: I sure hope not.

DH: I think you are going to have a new crop. So beating up on John McCain is probably not going to do much. I believe in getting after John and his policies when I was running against him. But I’m not running against him now and I don’t think you are going to see him run for national office again. Could be wrong. (laughs)

AJM: Oh no no no no. We are knocking on wood right now!

DF: Can I sneak one in on you Congressman Hunter – Don in Denver.

DH: Yeah, go ahead Don.

DF: Continuing on the same line, give us some hope for the future for change. Let’s assume for a moment, let’s play ‘what if’. I think the pendulum is swinging back the other way. I see more and more resistance to the destruction of our country that is currently underway. Assume for a minute we get some control in 2010 –we being Republicans. Then in 2012 Obama is a one term president, much like his hero Jimmy Carter, and his successor is a true conservative, like a Reagan, or for this conversation even you. What would be your hopeful message to us out here that indeed, no matter what the destruction is right now, this country can be rebuilt? It’s the greatest country in the world I believe, and some of these things can be rolled back, that we can push that pendulum back the other way.

DH: The pendulum is coming back. It always does. And we all know about the statistics of off year elections, and the fact that the party not in the Whitehouse usually grabs a few seats back, picks up a few seats. The key is to turn a victory, to turn the tide into an overwhelming victory that allows you to take back control of the House. That’s what you need.

We need to maximize our gains and our strengths in this next election cycle. The democrats think they’ll lose a few seats, but they want to keep it at a few. Sometimes a ‘victory is keeping your losses at 10 seats or 12 seats, or 15 seats. We need to make sure that we have the best candidates. We have to make sure we don’t have a lot of interparty warfare.

For example, one thing that bothered me, let me give you some congressional dynamics. When I ran against a guy named Lionel Van Deerlin in 1980, I sold my house to run because I couldn’t raise any money. And this is a guy who won fairly handily over his 18 year career. In the seat I ran for, which was only 29 percent Republican, you had to draw straws to see who HAD to run as a Republican. The district next door was a good Republican district. It had good numbers and the Republican who won the primary would probably win. So you had Republicans spending millions fighting for the seat which was a sure thing in terms of being an ‘R’. And in the seat which we needed to take, which is the one that I took from Lionel Van Deerlin, we had no help from the party. So that’s a problem we’ve always had. We end up spending a ton of money and resources going after safe Republican seats. I know it’s always going to happen, because we are all independent contractors, and everybody’s got a right to run. But being able to spend resources, to reserve resources for those take-able seats is very, very important. Because you really do have to run the equivalent of a 50 state strategy in congressional districts if you want to take back the House, where you win seats that you didn’t anticipate winning. We have got to take some of those marginal seats back!

DF: Let’s say we do those back and get back control like you’re talking about and the pendulum pushes the other way and a good conservative is in power. Where to you begin to rebuild and restore this country, to what we, you and I, the people on this phone I know, love and want and that is our vision of this country. Can it be pushed back? Can the destruction be repaired?

DH: Well certainly. Congress can pass a law, and repeal a law with a vote, and the president can sign that law. So the answer to how far we’re going to have to roll this thing back is a function to some degree with what happens to things like this Health Bill that’s going forward right now. Let’s fight and hope they don’t get it. But they may have a lot of things that we’ll have to roll back. But I would say let’s roll back all the inhibitors to economic growth.

One thing that I think we should do though is that….the post ’73 Republicans broke away from the party and broke away from our traditions. I think this blind adherence to this concept of so-called ‘free trade’ has been a disaster for the United States. You’re talking in a phone now, if your phone costs a hundred bucks and the same phone is made in China that’s made in the United States. If you make that in China and you send it to the United States for sale, the Chinese government rebates 17 percent back to you in Value Added Tax, if you export to the US. If you are an exporter from the US trying to sell in China, you get 17 percent added to your cost when you cross the docks in China. That’s a 34 point spread, with respect to exports.

Our industrial base is being exported to China. I think that’s a mistake. In fact it’s kind of funny; the Red Army is winning, but they are not winning on the battlefield, they are winning in a move – in regimented fashion – with jobs in China that were formerly held by Americans in this country. So the lack of jobs, lack of blue collar jobs, the lack of manufacturing jobs is to a large degree behind a lot of other problems. For example, the housing industry. To have a solid, healthy housing industry, requires at the base of the pyramid workers who can afford to pay mortgages. And as you evaporate the industrial base of this country – and manufacturers in this country have traditionally been a higher paid sector than service – as you evaporate this constituency of homeowners who because they have good jobs, pay mortgages, you damage the homebuilding industry. Very substantially.

So I think trade is a place where we can work on. You know, I told the President when he wanted me to vote on the South American ‘free trade’ agreement, I said “you know, I like the Bush policy on trade, but it is the policy of Senator Prescott Bush, who in 1962 stood with Barry Goldwater against the Kennedy Trade Liberalization Act”.

And in this country, if you look at the two Republicans on Mount Rushmore, both of them were against this idea of free trade. They liked the idea of protecting American workers. Two of our greatest presidents, arguably. So this Republican adherence to free trade where we are shipping our industry overseas as fast as we can is a mistake. And the problem is democrats have taken it on too. I had the bill that would have allowed for punishment of China, for sanctions against China, for artificially keeping their currency low in order to destroy American exports and boost their exports. Democrats always talked about moving that bill rapidly. When they took control, after they did a few fundraisers on Wall Street, they lost their enthusiasm for my bill.

ALL: (laughs)

DH: And they never did have a vote on it.

DF: As I recall, you were virtually the lone voice in the last campaign talking about the trade deficit and the issues with China and their arming up. From what I can tell, you continue to be that.

DH: Well, our problem is we need to make sure the Republicans remember their roots. We haven’t traditionally been the free traders. If you go to the cellar of the Capital Hill Club and you look at the old cartoons from the 1890s and early 1900s, you’ll see the one with Teddy Roosevelt standing over a prostrate Grover Cleveland type – I don’t know if it was Grover himself – but Grover Cleveland has “free trade” on his boxing gloves and he’s being knocked out by the Republican, who has got “protection”. And you know now ‘protection’ is used in a pejorative way. But what a national government is with respect to trade is the one time when they are essentially a business representative. Because an individual businessman can’t leave Provo, Utah and go negotiate his own rules for trade with the government of China. When you deal with international trade, our government is your business advocate; it has to be your business advocate. It has to do the right thing with respect to making sure your guys have a level chance of winning in this world trade now. Anyway, that’s a place where the Republican party still needs to find its roots.

AJM: Just to add to this and top it off, Congressman, Ronald Reagan said “we’ll trade with anyone, but we’ll never be anyone’s ‘trade patsy’”. And that’s what we’ve become.

DH: Yeah. Ronald Reagan also said, “when one side is cheating, there is no free trade”. The other sides treat like crazy! We’ve allowed this one VAT, this value added tax rebate, where every other country in the world rebates value added taxes from 10 to 20 percent. We’ve got 122 trading partners that do that. Yet we don’t get to rebate our income tax to our guys that export. Big, big disparity.

AJM: A big, big disparity, and brought on by this creation of this supra-national entity called the WTO, and we give them the power which is supposed by the US Congress’ constitutional duty!

DH: Yeah, I agree with that. And incidentally guys, we’re pulling into St. George and we are going to enter the Cracker Barrel in just a few minutes here. It’s going to be great. So I need to say adios to everybody, but it’s been great talking to you.

AJM: Well thank you very much and we’ll try again next week sometime at your convenience and we have lots of questions to get through. You’ve been very generous.

DH: Hey listen. Great to talk to everybody.

AJM: Say hi to your wife and tell her thank you for being so patient with us (laughs)

DH: OK. I will!

Duncan Hunter Interview 11-10-09: Gunny Pop, Afghanistan, Terrorism & Political Correctness!!

I was privileged to be invited to participate in a series of conference call interviews with 2008 Presidential conservative hopeful Duncan Hunter.

For those who don't know or recall Duncan Hunter was the candidate Ann Coulter described as "magnificent" and who Michael Reagan said is "most like my father".

Here is the conference call interview as published by the moderator pissant at Free Republic.com-

"We finally pulled it off. We managed to have a conference call, as opposed to a randomly timed interview with the former Congressman. Not only that, he was in his hometown of San Diego for a change; if only for a brief stint. Hunter interrupted his weeks long vacation in Idaho to hit Texas last Saturday for a speech celebrating the 234th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. He then traveled back to San Diego to introduce the next Congressman (hopefully) for the 51st Congressional district of California – war hero and staunch conservative Nick Popaditch – to the good people of San Diego County. (He really picked a good one here). Popaditch will attempt to unseat liberal democrat and Pelosi sycophant Bob Filner. We wish him the best of luck in this endeavor.

Unfortunately, because of technical errors on the moderator’s part (me), only 34 minutes of the interview was recorded, and therefore subject to transcribing. The balance of the interview, as you will see, is simply summations. They are, however, summations based on notes and memories of the 5 of us who participated in the conference call. I promise to upgrade the recording techniques and equipment going forward.

Anyway, several of us were already on the conference call line, waiting for Mr. Hunter to join us. He was running late, unsurprisingly, considering his busy day.

Here is what transpired last night:

****************

Automatron: Someone has joined the conference call.

AJM: Let’s take a guess who that might be (laughter).

DH: Hunter here (laughing). Hi everybody.

AJM: Oh boy, your fan club is here, Mr. Hunter.

DH: Oh oh. Both of them? (laughing). Are they relatives?

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: I’ll tell you what, why don’t we do a quick introduction. Everyone knows who you are. I think we have five people on the line. Ladies, why don’t you go first.

GW: I’m Gloria from Ohio

DH: Hey Gloria

GW: Hi!

LD: Lynn from NE Ohio. I met you in DC at that private little dinner in September of 07 with Captain Bailey.

DH: Oh Great.

AJM: The one that was supposed to be twelve people but turned out to be forty?

LD: Yeah, that one.

DH: That’s great.

DF: I’m Don ******, Congressman Hunter. It’s an honor to talk to you. I’m in Denver Colorado, and I run a blog called Red Stater. I’ve been a fan of yours since the get go.

DH: Hey, thanks Don.

RS: Russell *****, from the Fort Worth Dallas metroplex in Texas. Pleasure to meet you this evening Congressman Hunter. And I run three blogs and I’ve been an avid supporter for many years. I come originally from Mesa, California, graduated from UCLA. I’m well in tune with your career, and I’ll turn it back to the moderator.

DH: Hey, Russell, I just left Texas. I spoke at the Marine Birthday bash, for the 14th Marine regiment out of the Dallas/Fort Worth, what was it…..Saturday night.

RS: Oh, that’s fabulous. But I love that country out there (California). I left in 68 and went on to South Dakota and ran a big cattle ranch before I got into the oil and gas industry. But anyway, I do want to take this moment just to thank you for your service, and your sons’ service to this country, and everything you do for this country.

DH: Well listen, you’re very kind. And I want to tell all of you it’s been kind of a neat day. I came back from the Texas thing, and today I went down to San Diego to the kickoff, and helped to kickoff the campaign of a real American hero. And that’s Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch. If you remember the AP photo they had of the statue of Saddam coming down, when the Marines were there in Baghdad Square, and there was a picture, an AP Photo, of a Marine Gunnery Sergeant smoking a cigar in the hatch of an M1 tank, while the statue behind him was going down; that was Nick Popaditch.

And later he was in some real tough fighting in Falluja. And he won the Silver Star. He was hit by an RPG, badly wounded, initially blinded totally, but got about 30% of his sight back in one eye. Great guy, wonderful wife April. And they are running for Congress here in San Diego. And we kicked off his campaign here today in San Diego. Then we drove over the mountain to Imperial County. This district goes all the way from San Diego to Arizona. So we went over the mountain into Imperial County and kicked off the campaign there on the courthouse steps.

It was a great day and Nick, he is the Grand Marshall at the San Diego Veteran’s Parade tomorrow. So that will help him a lot. But he’s got a good chance to win this seat, presently held by a very liberal guy, Bob Filner.

AJM: We know Bob.

DH: We call him Bad Bob, and we’ve got a great chance of beating him. It’s a conservative district, democrat by registration, but conservative democrat. Lots and lots of veterans here.

Gunny Nick Popaditch is just a superb speaker. He is a Ronald Reagan type speaker. Just a tremendous, tremendous guy. I heard him initially give a speech at an event where they raised $350,000 for wounded Marines. And I mean he got a 10 minute standing ovation. And I said “where did this guy come from?” Well, he ended up deciding to run for Congress here, and I think he’s going to end up being one of the winners this next cycle.

GW: Jim, get his website so we can all contribute!

AJM: Yeah. I will follow up on that. I just want to interject here – this is Jim, Mr. Hunter, you know me….

DH: Just faintly (laughing). He’s the only guy that calls me up when I’m in a tree stand.

ALL: (laugh)

LD: Did he scare the deer away?

DH: I got a big buck coming down the trail (laughing). Actually, Jim did call me. I was stalking elk in Colorado, and they were bugling, and I was moving in on them, and then *RING*. It’s Jim. And he wants to chat.

Go ahead Jim.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: I wanted also to mention, since the last time I posted our interview, someone said “well, what’s Hunter doing, he’s not doing anything. Tell him to get out in the arena.” And so I responded to that by saying well, to my knowledge he did a fundraiser for Vaughn Ward up in Idaho, and he also did one with Jesse Kelly down in Arizona. Two very promising vets….

DH: Hey, I also gave at the office. I donated a kid. (laughing) I got my own candidate out there.

AJM: That’s right. And that apple did not fall far from the tree, as I keep telling everyone.

DH: With any luck, I’m going to get an appointment with him in the next couple of weeks.

ALL: (laughing)

DH: Last time I introduced Duncan – you know my other son Sam he’s in a Stryker unit over in Iraq right now - that’s my son ‘special’. Sam is ‘favorite’. He’s an Army guy, he joined the Army like his dad. But Duncan’s doing a great job. He just came back from Afghanistan incidentally, he’s on the Armed Services Committee, and the area he’s working – which is crucial for us – is roadside bombs. And, you know we developed a program in Iraq where we swept the roads with aerial surveillance. We brought in gunships to hit these guys as they were putting these bombs in place. It takes a while to set up a roadside bomb and we bring them in and get them. We literally took out thousands of roadside bombers. It was devastatingly successful. And we haven’t replicated that capability in Afghanistan, which makes absolutely no sense!

It’s an operational thing and Duncan’s campaign is to take out the roadside bombers. So he’s hammering the Marines, his old corps, to move faster, and also he’s trying to get the Pentagon and Generals to start moving in that direction.

AJM: Yeah, that sounds an awful like Duncan Hunter, D1, about 2 or 3 years ago, or more like 3 or 4 years ago.

DH: You know, he was on Fox News, and the guy that was doing the interview had expected me. He hadn’t been keeping up with the times. He says “you’re not Duncan Hunter”. So Duncan looked the camera in the eye and said “oh yes I am”. He said “my secret is Botox and exercise”. (laughs)

ALL: (laughing loudly)

AJM: Oh sh*t! (laughing)

DH: So listen, what’s happening with you guys?

LD: May I interject something really quick.

DH: Go ahead.

LD: Congressman Hunter, what you were just talking about, the roadside bombs and all. I was actually able to view those, from the guys at Walter Reed. On their laptops they were showing me, just what you said, they were watching them from the air. They said “now watch, now watch”. You see them putting the bombs, then CREEEEE-BOOM. Gone. And we would laugh. It was great. Great job.

DH: We were very effective. We really hammered them. Just took out thousands of them. And the thing about killing a roadside bomber is you are not putting a two thousand pound bomb into a house that may or may not have civilians in it. You are hitting the guys who are trying to kill your troops. There is no collateral damage and they are in the act of war right there. And if you don’t hit them, later on they detonate these things remotely. The next day, if you are a terrorist, you are standing in a fruit market 200 yards from the road waiting for the Marine convoy to come down the road and line up with the street lamp you put the bomb under, then you simply detonate it with the clicker in your pocket. And you probably don’t even carry a weapon. So at that point you can’t get them (the terrorists). The time to get them is when they are putting these things in, and that is what we are trying to impress upon the command in Afghanistan. So that’s the campaign we’ve got going right now.

AJM: And the Commander in Chief.

LD: We don’t have one of those…..

AJM: That leads me to my first question. I was going to start off with Fort Hood, but I’m going to start off with Afghanistan

Afghanistan as you know, Obama in March told us in a very eloquent speech, his brand new strategy with his brand new commander and all this stuff, and during the campaign he was promising that Afghanistan would be priority number one. Come to find out that General McChrystal’s report has been sitting on his desk, and Bob Gates’ desk, since August. And Obama is doing nothing but dithering. Just the day before yesterday, CBS came out and said “Obama has approved the 40,000 extra troops”. Then today, they put out a correction, he has not approved it. Spokesman Gibbs, giblets is what I call him, said that Obama is still considering the FOUR options and will make a decision within WEEKS! That was from today. Do you have anything you’d like to impress upon the ‘commander in chief’?

DH: Here is the challenge to President Obama. He has talked at length about how effective he would be in bringing the American allies to the cause. And one of his chief criticisms of the President, President Bush, was that he felt President Bush went to war without the allies. He now has the NATO countries, some 26 nations, and a few non-NATO countries in Afghanistan. And they agree in principle that the war in Afghanistan is important, and that it’s important that we win.

So you now have the Germans, who are under admonishment from their own Bundestag not to leave the fort at night, to prevent casualties. You have the French refusing to go into the areas where they actually have combat.

GW: Shocker.

DH: So you have the allies with just a few exceptions, the Brits one of them….

AJM: The Canadians…

DH: just a few, yeah the Canadians have been in some combat areas, although we’ve now displaced the Canadians in Helmand Province which is one of the places where there is a lot of action. I call that the “NATO shift”. If you made a mistake and you are in NATO, and you actually have to go to war, and there is an American nearby that can displace you, you quickly rotate out and get the Americans to rotate in. And so you’ve got a NATO membership which spends more time enjoying catering and uniform fittings than they do employing to the battlefield. And so this should be a job for the President.

I think we have to concede that President Bush utilized his secretaries of defense to carry this message, this argument that NATO should be doing more. Don Rumsfeld carried it. Remember he had some pithy comments about ‘old europe’ not being as supportive as ‘new europe’ was. You had Secretary Gates making tough comments about the fact that only Americans right now were fighting and dying in Afghanistan and there was no burden sharing. So now the secretaries, they’ve had their run at the European stonewall and they haven’t succeeded in getting the Europeans onto the battlefield.

And the guy who argued that he would be the man to persuade European leaders to join up in the war against terrorists - that is President Obama - should now put his money where his mouth is! He should now prove up. And he should, with head of state to head of state communications, one by one, persuade the NATO allies to actually come to the battlefield and participate in the war. That’s the real determinative of leadership, the real addition of leadership. And he has not done that. That is what he should be doing right now.

AJM: He’s too busy backslapping with Hugo Chavez.

DH: Yeah, I don’t think Mr. Chavez is going to show up on that front. But anyway, that is a legitimate role for a President. And at this point it’s clear that only the President is going to be able to move this boulder, of actually pulling NATO back into the reality that they are supposed to be a security organization, not a catering club.

AJM: Well what do you think about this idea, or this fact that Obama came out in March of this year, several months after taking office, and proclaimed that he had a brand new working strategy for Afghanistan, when he didn’t have anything of the frickin sort?

DH: Well, it’s time for him to man up. We haven’t seen the prove up. If he can persuade the NATO allies, for example, to get in and share this combat burden, then I’ll be the first person to congratulate him. But he has not done that.

LD: He’s insulted most of them hasn’t he? The French, the English, the Germans…

DH: (laughs) According the ‘world press’, he’s still immensely popular with the electorate of those countries. In fact he may well be, because their press, their national press is very, very liberal. I think they embraced anyone who was against George Bush and George Bush’s policies. The argument that is made by the European allies, by the heads of state, is that their hands are tied, that their people are very much against their soldiers going into combat. They are able to drag their troops to the theatre; they just can’t get them to leave the fort without upsetting their people. Obama, according to these world polls, is supposedly quite popular with their people. So there is no reason for a French leader or a German leader, there is no excuse for them to not now participate in this burden sharing of actually going out on the field of combat and handling some of these difficult missions.

That’s the thing he ought to be doing right now, and that’s essentially what he promised he would do. And he hasn’t come through at all.

AJM: Yeah, that’s an understatement. Let me tie that into the general War on Terror, where we saw a very bleak example of that transpire at Fort Hood Texas, not too far from Russell. And that is the incident – what day was that – Thursday, with 14 people dead, 13 people dead and 30 something wounded. Come to find out, Congressman, that even in the liberal press and the conservative press they are finding that the FBI, the military intelligence, everybody and their brother to a look at this son of a bitch, and saw that he was communicating with Al Qaeda types, and they did nothing. I’d like your commentary on what the heck is wrong with this politically correct attitude that we’re not going to yank people out like this, that have proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt to be of questionable motives.

DH: Yeah, all I’ve got is what I’ve read in the newspapers, so I’m always careful. You’ve got to see precisely what facts were in front of the FBI, in front of our military intel guys. I know that he went to this church, this mosque, that was then in Northern Virginia, as was reported in the paper. It was led by this extremist cleric, who as I understand, has issued a statement saying he did the right thing in killing those Americans. I understand this is also the same mosque where some of the 911 highjackers went to.

I don’t know what was exactly in front of the FBI at the time. But if there is fault and blame in this thing, we have to follow this thing through to the end! And ensure that when you see those signs, that you IMMEDIATELY take action. This isn’t a game we’re playing. And let’s hold people ACCOUNTABLE for what they did.

I don’t know all the facts, but what I thought about when I saw this, it brought to mind a couple things. One is, remember just before we went into Iraq, as I recall there was a Sergeant who killed two officers. He threw a grenade into the tent. A muslim Sergeant. And I think that is something we have to look at. This guy’s not a raving maniac. He is a guy that is told by his preachers, so to speak, “attaboy, you did the right thing; you did what was morally right”. So he felt that was his moral compass, to kill Americans, that is. So this is a very dangerous element, if you have a person in a military organization who feels it’s his moral duty to kill his fellow soldiers; that is something where you HAVE to take tough action.

That’s not an attitude of resentment; it’s not an attitude of slight instability. In fact, it’s exactly the same position – when I saw what this guy did – he had the same mental state, the same purpose, as the muslim guys that drove the planes into our buildings.

DF: Exactly.

DH: That’s what I know so far.

AJM: Let me inform you one other piece of information on this. There’s been a ton of stuff coming out, and I know you’ve been busy today. But one of the things that Michelle Malkin has put up, along with the Washington Post as well, is that he (Hasan) gave a presentation, 2 years ago, as he was just about to get his degree in psychiatric medicine, or psychiatry, or whatever it is. But all the students that were in the military taking these courses had to make presentations. While most of the guys got up and talked about a certain drug use, or combat stress, things they’ve learned or researched, this guy got up and gave a jihadist speech, going so far to say that the infidels throats must be cut. This was in front of a bunch of other officers and military doctors, etc, etc., two years ago. And they didn’t drum this SOB out?!

DH: Have you seen the speech, word for word?

AJM: I have not seen it word for word, but I’ve seen slides or snippets of it that the Washington Post reported.

DH: Did they record it?

AJM: I believe it is recorded.

DH: Or transcribed. Well, I haven’t seen it. But it makes my point. This wasn’t a guy who suddenly lost his stability and went berserk. This was a person whose purpose, driven by what he saw as his moral compass, was to kill Americans. What you just told me was that purpose was actually articulated some months earlier. So it’s not something that happened two hours before he went on a rampage. So the inaction of his colleagues is just bizarre.

And one other thing I think is remarkable. Let’s just say he didn’t do anything; circumstances were such that he didn’t take the action that led to all of this. The question you’d ask is – this is a guy who is supposed to be helping to stabilize people and to reassure people about their moral purpose in life, that they are right in fighting for their country, and in laying down their lives for the country? These returning GIs being counseled that their cause is morally wrong? And that the jihadists are right? How can that possibly help their mental state? That’s a question we should ask. The type of question from a psychiatric point of view. Why is THAT good for our any of our GIs?

The answer is just that they put a bunch of psychiatrists in a big forum and stir them like scrambled eggs, then apply them to our soldiers. There is no benefit coming out of these so-called ‘counseling’ sessions.

They ought to be listening to guys like Jim Mattis, General Jim Mattis of the First Marine Division who said “when you kill these jihadists who are trying to kill our people, these Al Qaeda, you are doing the RIGHT thing!”

I'm reminded that General Kelly had to take one of his chaplains aside who was kind assuring all his Marines that they were all “victims” of the war. He had to pull this guy aside and he (Gen. Kelly) finished the session to the Marines.

AJM: A counseling session?

DH: It wasn’t a counseling session, it was an address to the Marines, and he had this nitwit chaplain who started going off on the “we are all victims” route, and Kelly jumped in and said “listen, you’re all great Americans. You are doing the right thing. Feel good about what you are doing.”

If these psychiatrists that are telling these guys that they are victims, that we are all victims, and beyond that - they are wrong, that makes you wonder about this guys colleagues! What are they doing? Are they a bunch of potted plants?

AJM: Hey Congressman, Lynn has a follow-up on this. Lynn, why don’t you ask, or tell Congressman Hunter what you told me earlier.

LD: Congressman Hunter, I spent 4 years at Walter Reed. I was there at least one day, sometimes two or three days a week. Numerous times I over-nighted there…

DH: What were you doing, Lynn? When you were there all that time, what were you doing?

LD: I was just acting as a citizen that loves our heroes and wanted to make sure they were supported.

DH: OK, so you weren’t there as an employee of any kind, or service provider. You were coming in to see our wounded guys, give them some comfort and cheer. That’s great.

LD: Yes, for a couple of years when it got real bad in Iraq, I was making “Welcome Care” baskets. When they would come in, we’d give them this basket, because you know, their clothes are cut off of them on the battlefield; they go to Germany to stabilize before they are flown in…

DH: Yeah, I know all about that. Only the US Army could fine you for leaving your equipment when you’re carried off in a stretcher. I sometimes wonder if they do these things for humorous reasons. Only Uncle Sam could do this to you.

ALL: (laughing)

LD: Yes, I’ve known hundreds and hundreds of these guys. If you read the Citizens Report on Iraq, I’m the one who wrote what the troops and the families had to say. I interviewed our troops, and I was getting emails from the battlefield, as well as from the wounded. Being there as often as I was, I wanted to say that not to elevate myself in any way. Because to me, I could never possibly do enough for these men and women. But the reason I said all that was to let you know how terribly involved, how intimately involved, I was with them. And the big thing is, because I wasn’t a government employee, they trusted me. I was privy to a lot of information.

Now, various wounded Warriors at Walter Reed expressed shock and surprise when they saw a soldier wandering around the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in muslim garb. I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures of Hasan in the long white gown and the headdress, the white cap thing.

AJM: This is the murderer guy….

LD: Yes, yes, yes.

DH: That is what he wore??

LD: Well, he didn’t always, Congressman Hunter. I think that that did not happen until later….I’ll be honest with you, I was in DC for Michele Bachaman’s call (Tea Party), in DC on Thursday and I got home at 4:30 AM and one of my soldiers called me at 8:30, just ranting about this. I’ve known this kid now since 05. He’s out now and everything, but he was severely wounded. He was just screaming and ranting “YOU KNOW HIM, YOU KNOW HIM”. And he started telling me that this Hasan actually ‘counseled’ this kid, because “they all have to be counseled”. And here they have this muslim guy. I don’t think in the beginning he wore this white gown, but was in uniform. But later on he started wandering the grounds. I even asked one of the employees at Walter Reed “who is that and what’s he doing here”. He said “he’s just visiting the soldiers”. I said “oh, Okay”. So one day I’m standing there with a group of soldiers, and quite frankly, they were like “WHAT?” and one said “what the ‘F’, are you kidding me?”

So my question is, do you really think Walter Reed is the best military hospital they could find for Hasan to do his internship, his residency, and his fellowship? He spent six years Walter Reed Army Medical Center! Did anyone in the upper echelon give ANY consideration to the effects that this might have on our battle fatigued and wounded warriors, when this is the premier hospital that brings in the worst of the worst?

DH: The answer to that is I don’t think they do. This is an intuitive answer, not one that is based on absolute knowledge of what they do and what their standards are. But I think that this is such a vague science, and subject to so much interpretation, that when you have a person that’s got credentials as a psychiatrist, it’s like taking your car, a new car that’s got all the computer stuff in it, and you take it in for repair, and they have all the machines there. They could be chewing gum for the next ½ hour and you wouldn’t know if they were really affecting these complex systems in your car or not. So I think it is something that the fighting, the war fighting wing of the military kind of pushes away, or compartmentalizes – and says that’s all the squirrelly guys who come in and talk to you about your mental state. And I think most of the war fighters don’t have a high opinion of these psychiatric people, and possibly for very good cause. So these providers, they kind of left them alone. This is not something like going down to the rifle range, where you either hit the target or you don’t. It’s a very vague science, and one in which, I think, people can provide no value whatsoever and can still exist for years. Even then, and I understand that this guy even got some bad OERs – so apparently some people picked up on his appalling lack of value that he represented –

AJM: And he was proselytizing…

LD: Yes.

DH: Yes, that’s what you told me, and that may have led to some of his bad reports. It’s kind of like – the guy who used to work for me, was a great guy, Wendell Cutting, my chief of staff out here that died of cancer a couple of years ago. And he was at one time a superintendent of a school here in California. And he said that one year, he fired a teacher. And he said he thinks he was the ONLY superintendent in the entire state, that year, who successfully fired a teacher; and did not have them later re-instated. The teacher came back later, ran for the school board and was a burr in his saddle ever since.

My point is, there are certain government jobs you can be in, where you cannot be dynamited out of that job. And I think that being a psychiatrist in the military, is quite possibly one of those jobs. Maybe akin to being a professor, like this Ward Churchill idiot, in Colorado, where they can say the most outrageous things, and be protected by the politically correct bureaucrats.

*****************

(Here the transcript ends, due to malfunction, but the summary of the rest of our conversation follows below)

Congressman Hunter went on to state emphatically that people that show any tendencies like Nidal Hasan need to be yanked out of the military immediately. And it is more than obvious that jihadist speeches are grounds for more than just a dismissal. That this kind of thing creates a “toxic environment that cannot be tolerated”, period.

He stated that the “entire discipline of psychiatrists” in the military needs to be opened up and examined. And heads should roll for any dereliction of duty associated with the case of this terrorist in Foot Hood.

Hunter also stated quite bluntly that if the Nidal had been a Baptist, and used his position as a shrink to proselytize to our wounded troops, the ACLU and the politically correct bureaucrats would have had him identified and would have attempted to drum him out in a heartbeat.

Hunter mentioned the case where the Pentagon Bureaucrats had told Chaplains – yes, chaplains, not to preach in Jesus’ name, and also their decision to prohibit the reciting of the traditional Christian prayers during the folding of the flag ceremonies at military funerals. It was, in fact, Hunter himself who put on the brass knuckles while still in office and forced the bureaucrats to rescind this PC claptrap.

Russell then asked what we, as citizens, could do to counter the politically correct nonsense that seems to have permeated even into our military. Russell’s son is currently on active duty, so he was not simply speculating.

Hunter’s answer was twofold. First, it is the responsibility of the parent to raise their children right with the “right values and principles”. Hunter noted that the vast majority of our servicemen are upstanding and are willing to mock the politically correct stuff that is sent their way. Also, Hunter stated that we must have leaders that understand the importance of allowing our warriors to live by their principles and the heritage of our armed forces. And for the most part, Hunter says, the military is a great place for people to be able to live those principles, and that those principles are demonstrated time and again by the quality men and women now serving, “regardless of their station in life” when they joined.

To illustrate this, Hunter recounted a story told to him by General Tom Kelly, about an incident in Iraq. Two Marines were on duty together, in charge of guarding an outpost entryway out in the very dangerous Anbar Province. One was a poor black kid who grew up without a father, dirt poor, in a bad neighborhood. He joined the Marines to find a better life and to find self discipline. The other Marine on duty that night was a Princeton student, raised in a wealthy, well educated family, with the expectations and opportunities that he would go on to live well in the upper class society of America. He joined the Marine Corps after 9-11. While on duty that night, a truck loaded with explosives came barreling down the entry way, with no intention of stopping. The Iraqis who were on duty scattered and ran. These two warriors both got down with their weapons and began firing heavily at the rushing truck. They kept firing until it finally lurched to a stop, at which point it detonated. Both men were killed. Together. But they saved the lives of a multitude of other Marines and Iraqis who were stationed at the outpost. It is a poignant story about duty, honor, America and what it means to be Marine.

Hunter then pointed out that the warriors in the USMC look up to and greatly admire men like General Peter Pace, who had the courage to call homosexuality “immoral” in his testimony against the idea of ending the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy that the democrats are so eager to dismantle.

AJM reminded Hunter that while the slings and arrows of the democrats and leftwing media were being fired at Peter Pace, there was one rock ribbed republican who did not run and hide behind Nancy Pelosi’s skirt, but instead contributed a triumphant defense of General Pace and a scathing rebuttal to the leftists’ social experiments in an A-Section Op-ed in the USA Today, and that was Duncan Hunter himself.

In summation, Hunter said to lead by example, congratulate our warriors who do so day in and day out, and support the politicians that do not abide by cowardly political correct platitudes, but rather are proud of America and our heritage.

Finally, Hunter encouraged us all to spread the word about Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch’s campaign to take back the border county of California from the very liberal, and very beatable Bob Filner! This was a prime example how we could directly support a return to the “values and principles” that will keep America great!

More to come in the weeks ahead.
Thanks again to Pissant at Free Republic.com for inviting me to participate and providing the transcript.
-red