Tucker Carlson and Ana Marie Cox: Swine Flu, Waterboarding and Other Fun Topics

Tucker Carlson. Ana Marie Cox. He's conservative. She's liberal. They both write for The Daily Beast, and she's a national correspondent for Air America Radio. They were online Monday, April 27 at noon ET to offer their analysis of the Obama presidency and other goings-on in the world of politics.

____________________

Ana Marie Cox: Greetings, all from AMC World HQ. Stories we're monitoring now: swineflu hamdemic, craigslist killer and -- this one brand new, totally fascinating -- five US congressmen arrested during a Darfur protest here in DC. One of those? Civil rights pioneer Rep. John Lewis.

_______________________

Washington, DC: Hey, Tucker. what did you think of the Dead show at Verizon? Did you go to Charlottsville, or any others?

Tucker Carlson: Any show that opens with Cassidy is worth going to as far as I'm concerned. And I thought Warren Haynes did a nice job with Easy Wind, a tune I'd always wanted to hear live but couldn't since Pigpen died when I was four. The mid-show noodling was a bit undisciplined, I thought, but so what? A great time overall. I'm going to do my best to make the Philly Spectrum show Friday night.

Happy Monday!

_______________________

Atlanta: This is from something that was said on Friday, when I couldn't make the chat: Tucker: why do you think it's the government's responsibility to pay for roads, and not for trains? I don't understand.

Tucker Carlson: I don't think I argued that building roads is the government's responsibility, only that government is good at it. Our highway system is one of the best things about this country, and by the way it's mostly paid for by the people who use it, through tolls and gas taxes, which seems fair.

I love trains, personally. I just don't think other people should have to pay for them because some central planner decides that driving is immoral (cars give too much freedom to the individual apparently). And the idea that now, when we're broke, is the time to build a new publicly-financed high-speed rail system strikes me as insane.

_______________________

Moore, Oklahoma: Is political pragmatism dead? With the Republican Party just two Senate seats away from impotency why do they insist on extremism and obstructionism and can one person use too many "isms" in a paragraph?

Ana Marie Cox: It all depends on how you define extremism, huh? It is interesting that the standard Dem response to a GOP majority is to crumble -- n.b. the Patriot Act, welfare reform -- whereas the new GOP response to a Dem majority is to impotently stamp their feet.

But that doesn't mean that pragmatism is dead. In its own way, R stonewalling IS pragmatic: They are making a rational bet that the economy will get worse and Obama become more unpopular, and doing what they can to encourage both those things, to the seeming detriment of the American people. If that's not pragmatic, what is?

Tucker Carlson: I always assume there will be politics in congress, but I think we should also hold out the possibility that there may be some people in this world -- even Republican senators -- who have principled objections to Obama's program. They just don't agree with it. Are they practicing "obstructionism", or just voting their consciences?

_______________________

Chapel Hill, N.C.: Should Obama have attended Marilyn Chambers's funeral?

Tucker Carlson: Nope. That's the vice president's job.

_______________________

Madisonville, Tenn.: What's with the HuffPo tweet that funding for dealing with a flu outbreak was stripped from the stimulus at the behest of the GOP? Not a smart move in this nervous climate.

Tucker Carlson: Republicans are for pestilence. It's in the platform. But I suspect you'd already guessed that.

Ana Marie Cox: Yeah, War and Death have already worked out so well...

_______________________

Charlotte, N.C.: Do you think the Dems really want a "Whole Truth Commission" or do they just raise the issue to gain points with their base but fully expect "roadblocks" to their efforts.

Ana Marie Cox: I think there are several Dems who are fully serious about wanting these commissions (Levin, Leahy) -- and a handful who are serious about wanting them but less serious about MAKING them happen, and I think the base sees right through that.

FWIW, I think that criminal investigations are probably a non-starter, but that an authoritative history of how we got to a place where we tortured is a worthwhile project. Whether that be a "truth commission" or a more wide-ranging "9/12 Commission" (recently recommended by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham), I don't know. But -- contra Obama -- I think we have to look backwards in order to look forwards. We have confront what happened or I fear it will happen again.

Tucker Carlson: Agreed, though I already know how we got to torture: We were terrified, and we thought it would help. More interesting, I think, would be a study of why we haven't been attacked in more than eight years. Luck? Good policies? Seems like something we'd want to know.

_______________________

washingtonpost.com: Meacham on 9/12 Commission

_______________________

Bethesda, Md.: You both were on fire last week -- you should always do the chats on Friday afternoons. Or else Ana should start drinking earlier on Mondays.

Ana Marie Cox: Aw, thanks. It had been a kind of long week, I was less tipsy than punchdrunk. I know that Tucker doesn't even have that excuse.

BUT TEH STANDARDS! TEH STANDARDS! Please do not hold us to them!

Tucker Carlson: Thanks. I switched to 4 mg. Nicorette last week. Makes all the difference.

_______________________

Chicago: Personally I found the most disturbing headline of this morning "Creed Reunites for New Album" but that's what I get for checking People mag's Web site. But the other bad bad news of the weekend -- Swine Flu -- seems to be taking over the newsosphere.... Is the torture memos story, which seemed almost Watergatesque (by the way is anyone saying "Torturegate" yet?) last week, losing momentum? Is our attention span that short/bad?

Ana Marie Cox: I don't think the torture thing is going away, especially with new pictures and videos on the horizon. And you know how we are with pictures: SHINY NEW!

I was going to make a "and what were talking about" attention span joke but it isn't funny because it's true.

Tucker Carlson: I didn't realize Creed had broken up. Or formed in the first place, for that matter.

_______________________

Berks County, Pa.: Last discussion Tucker posed a (rhetorical?) question wondering why the U.S. has not been attacked on our home soil after 9-11. I'm guessing this was in some way to justify all the extreme measures taken by Bush and Co. But wasn't the 9-11 attack itself, in many ways, preventable if George ( asleep-at-the-wheel ) Bush had taken proper precautions and preventative measures based on the August 5, 2001 NSA briefings he may or may not have read and/or understood ? Wasn't this a case of closing the barn door long after the cows had wandered away ?

Ana Marie Cox: It's questions like this -- and Tucker's maybe-rhetorical one -- that make the "9/12 Commission" so attractive to me: It would explore both how the torture happened AND attempt to answer the question of whether it was necessary, and if it "worked." I think the "worked" question is irrelevant, personally, and new information about the KSM interrogations suggests that it was irrelevant to the interrogators as well. The WP reported on Sunday that they didn't even TRY to use less "harsh" methods, which is a little like advocating a forest fire as a solution to allergies without, you know, trying Zyrtec first.

Tucker Carlson: My question wasn't rhetorical in the least. I really don't know why we haven't been hit again. Why aren't more people interested? Because of the possibility Bush might get some of the credit? Come on. Let's rise above that.

_______________________

Peaceful Assembly: Why is that the people who protest the World Bank/IMF - most of who probably don't even know what it is they are "protesting" - aren't able to get together without throwing things through storefront windows?

Maybe if the tea parties resulted in such disorderly conduct they would have received broader media coverage. Silly civil protests...

Tucker Carlson: I used to have an office near the World Bank in Foggy Bottom, so at least once a year I'd get to ask the protestors (upper-middle-class kids in black, every one of them) what they were mad about. Never once -- and I'm not exaggerating, I promise -- did I get an answer I could understand. I'm pretty sure they had no clear idea either.

The problem, I decided, is college: It's boring. Much more exciting to dress up in revolutionary gear and throw stuff at cops.

Ana Marie Cox: I fully cop to the argument that college students protest in part because it's fun. Also you meet "dangerous" types who will scandalize your parents when you start to date them.

But I must point out that no IMF protester was ever so stupid/desperate to throw some random crap over the White House fence.

And while, unlike Tucker, I could *understand* what the tea party protesters told me they were protesting, "Obama is a foreign national who will make this a Socialist country" has no basis in reality, unlike, say, "World Bank deregulation and privatization schemes contributed to the global economic crisis."

(And, yes, lots of tea party protesters were not paranoid conspiracy theorists. Just like most IMF protesters don't throw bricks.)

_______________________

washingtonpost.com: Effectiveness Of Harsh Questioning Is Unclear: Detainee May Have Faced Few Traditional Tactics

_______________________

Chicago: This question is for Tucker -- I saw you at the Chicago Theater the other night as part of the speaker series, and I'm curious-- You seem to be very much a Libertarian, but in the past you've usually been the one to defend Republican points of view. Those two political views have much at odds with each other (as we saw in the discussion that night), so I'm curious to know how you reconcile your own political differences with the Republican party?

Tucker Carlson: I've never represented or acted as a proxy for anyone other than myself. So it's pretty simple: When I agree, I say so. When I don't, I do the same.

_______________________

Evanston, Ill.: Hey Ana and Tucker, What's your take of the Jane Harman fiasco? After supporting and defending illegal warrantless wiretapping she is denouncing and condemning legally authorized wiretapping that just so happened to catch her making a quid pro quo with an alleged Israeli agent. Why is the Washington establishment not commenting on this? I don't think I heard a word of it on any Sunday show. Why is she not cooked?

Tucker Carlson: Great questions. Pretty shocking that someone with access to as much classified material as Harman has, was caught talking to an alleged foreign agent.

Ana Marie Cox: Something substantive that Tucker and I agree on! Yay! There's usually one per chat, and I was getting worried.

I do wonder how long this story stays on the back burner -- I'm sure it has to do with Democrats protecting their own, but, on the other hand, Harman and Pelosi have a well-known rivalry so who knows how long that protection will last.

_______________________

New York : Some reasons to want investigation, even if you enjoy the idea of torture on a personal recreational level:

1. the Administration didn't do it to keep us safe; they did it to advance their own policies. E.g. Trying to torture some bogus story about linkage between Saddam Hussein and the 9-11 Attacks. (Watch for this one when Obama needs one more vote to nail his budget).

2. It didn't work (see #1) - or we would have heard of that one.

3. It cost us dead Americans - Generals in Iraq have long been on record as claiming that terrorists were recruited by stories of torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. They knew more over there than we were told over here.

4. It cost us money: they tortured stories out of suspects about imaginary attacks on malls, which cost the economy millions in false alarms.

5. C'mon, 147 times? How stupid is that? After 24 times, wouldn't you have given every phony story that you could possibly imagine? Sounds like its all entertainment for the torturer after 5 or so.

6. We executed Japanese generals for waterboarding. Won't reparations be expensive now?

7. His Holiness Ronald Reagan signed the anti-torture treaty; It's the law; that settles it.

Ana Marie Cox: I think Japanese generals were executed for waterboarding AMONG OTHER THINGS and I understand the 147 number is somewhat misleading BUT... mostly you're right on. Especially on that last point.

(Tucker's saying crazy stuff on the live page that I can't see, isn't he? Has he denied global warming yet? That's always fun...)

Tucker Carlson: If I question global warming, do I get excommunicated?

Ana Marie Cox: No no no, I enjoy your baiting of the readers! Please, continue!

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Why would someone be against a progressive tax system that was put in place by a moderate republican, Theodore Roosevelt? Hasn't this country plainly benefited from it over the course of the last 100 years? Was Adam Smith a communist? And do we really want to end up like some sort of Mexican plutocracy?

Tucker Carlson: With all respect to you and Teddy Roosevelt, I don't think it's a choice between the tax current system, which isn't simply progressive but wildly skewed against the rich, and Mexican plutocracy. As of today, before Obama's tax increases on the upper income, the top one-percent of earners pay about as much in income taxes as the bottom 90 percent of earners. So next time you see a rich person, thank him for keeping the country afloat.

Ana Marie Cox: Yeah, those roads and libraries and schools and the military really aren't thanks enough. They want flowers! And chocolates! And not to pay for stuff!

_______________________

Re: Why haven't we been hit again?: Tucker, I'm actually in agreeance (to quote the great Fred Durst) with you on that one. I actually would like someone to explore what may seem to be an insensitive or even stupid question: was 9/11 just a fluke? A one-time event by a not-very-dangerous group that just got lucky? As time goes by with no repeat, I think you do have to acknowledge that is one option.

Tucker Carlson: I'd love to reach that conclusion. But first we have to get serious about the question.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Do either of you know if President Obama has reached out (in a non-Clintonian way) to Ms. California/USA, in light of the public drubbing she received after stating that she agreed with the Pres's position on gay marriage?

Tucker Carlson: You mean Obama doesn't support allowing loving gay couples to marry? That can't be true. If the president really opposed such a basic civil right, surely someone would notice. Reporters would hound him about it at press conferences, ACT-UP would picket the White House. There's no way gay rights groups would have raised millions for him during the campaign. I don't believe it.

Ana Marie Cox: The depth of Tucker's sarcasm speaks for us both.

_______________________

cars give too much freedom to the individual apparently: Actually, I think the societal benefits from a well-planned first-rate rail system are that transporting significant numbers of people can be accomplished with less air pollution, and in the case of high-speed trains, far more quickly than by automobile.

Tucker Carlson: Most central planers agree with you. Most citizens don't. They like the autonomy of their own vehicles. That's why they drive so much.

_______________________

Chattanooga, Tenn.: So Tucker, just who would those principled Republican senators be, and what exactly would be the nature of their principled objection? Because they all look like their just following in lockstep behind McConnell.

Tucker Carlson: Good question. Call me when you find one.

I was merely pointing out that, potentially, there are Members of Congress whom, in their hearts, don't really believe that Obama is Jesus and may therefore have honest disagreements with his reckless and crazy economic program. Just holding out the possibility.

Have a terrific rest of the week. See you next Monday.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: AMC, thanks for your comment, "... waterboarding AMONG OTHER THINGS." Whatever one's views on what the CIA did, the Begala position is wrong: That people who waterboarded were executed and therefore they were executed BECAUSE they waterboarded.

Ana Marie Cox: I think it's self-evident that one does better if one's argument is based mainly on facts, but thanks!

And that's it for me. Thanks for all the questions, thanks for reading and see you next week!

_______________________

Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.