From Friday night’s Special Report with Brit Hume

—On Immigration—

JIM ANGLE: Congress passes the bill to create the fence, but does not appropriate enough money to build it and the fence is scheduled to be built on about one-third of the border. Is that enough? What kind of impact will that have on illegal immigration?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It is not enough but it’ll demonstrate that fences work. . .
MORT KONDRACKE: Look, in theory, there is nothing wrong with a fence or some sort of a border protection. We absolutely need that. The border is out of control. We don’t have a good immigration policy, but a fence by itself, which is what the House Republicans proposed, is not going to work. . . . And it is politically stupid . . . because, look, President Bush got 42 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004. He was on his way to building up a Republican following among the fastest growing group of voters. And these House Republicans have just thrown it away by making this the only answer to the immigration problem.

From Fox News Sunday:

—On Iraq—

BILL KRISTOL: . . . political progress depends on military progress. There’s no security, you’re not going to have a stable government and people like Maliki aren’t going to have the confidence to take on the sectarian militias. Who’s going to take on the militias if they think we’re going to leave in six months and they’re just going to be killed by these people? . . . [T]he day after the election the president needs to make sure we win, I think.
JUAN WILLIAMS: So [Maliki]’s not able to stop the sectarian violence, yet he wants to stand up and make himself into a power player. I think it’s a futile act at this point, and I think President Bush is trying to do the best he can to paper over their differences, because there should be time lines. There should be some level — we talked about elections and constitutions being written. Why shouldn’t there be some level of accomplishment and achievement that the American people can see in terms of the investment of American blood?

—On the Elections—

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, I think the Democrats should at least be contemplating measuring drapes at this point. I mean, I went back earlier this week and took a look at district by district and made the best estimate I could, and I came up with no races called toss-ups. They were either going to lean one way or lean the other, and I had the Democrats gaining 16 seats. That would give them a three-vote edge in the House of Representatives. . . . So I think there’s better than a 50-50 chance of the Democrats winning a House majority, but probably not a big one.
MARA LIASSON: these ideas that there’s going to be a huge wave crashing on the beach with many dozens of seats lost I think is exaggerated.
KRISTOL: . . . it doesn’t look likely, but if you go down House district by House district, and I did it, too, and just assume a little bit of a late break to the Democrats, a little more demoralization for Republicans in the last week, you can get to 30, 35, even 40-seat Democratic pickup.