From Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace:
—On the Imus Fallout—
JUAN WILLIAMS: I just think [rap] music is so destructive. I think it’s evidence of a dysfunctional culture in black America at the moment, and I don’t see — you heard Reverend Sharpton say he’s been leading.
There’s no crusade. You don’t see the marches. You don’t see people standing up and saying very clearly, “This is wrong. It’s hurting the community,” . . . I think it’s a vacuum when it comes to the Sharptons, the Jacksons, the NAACP.
BILL KRISTOL: I think this has been such a spectacle of vulgarity and idiocy and pomposity and hypocrisy on all sides that it’s hard to believe anything good will really come out of it, but it’s been fun for conservatives to watch.
You know, basically, this has been an incredible spectacle of liberalism in America. Imus is basically a liberal. His favorite guests were certainly liberal media figures. And one of the best things this weekend is to read . . . Frank Rich speculating should he have been more offended in the past when he went on the show, and Sam Tanenhaus — is he a hypocrite? Is he complicit in this? It’s wonderful to have liberals agonizing about this kind of thing.
The cowardice of the corporate CEOs, of course, is wonderful — Sharpton and Jackson being legitimized as sort of moral arbiters for America. This has been a wonderful view into major parts of the liberal establishment, in my view.
—On the War and Politics—
KRISTOL: John McCain said on Wednesday the Democrats are playing small politics with this war. The Democrats squealed. The next day, Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said . . . ”We’re going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war. Senator Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding.”
What were the numbers that Senator Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Committee, showed him? They weren’t numbers about casualties. They weren’t numbers about whether getting out would hurt or help Al Qaida. They were poll numbers about Senate races. So the Democrats are playing politics.
For the Senate majority leader to say this war will cost the Republicans Senate seats is really a disgrace. And I think McCain is vindicated in his notion that he has made a serious argument about how we have to win. The Democrats have made no argument about the consequences of following their policy. They just want to pick up Senate seats.