ANNOUNCER:   CROSSFIRE. On the left James Carville and Paul Begala. On the right Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson. In the CROSSFIRE tonight the State of the Union. 
BUSH:   Tonight, I am going in front of our nation to talk about the challenges that face our country. 
ANNOUNCER:   Tonight what we are waiting to hear about Iraq. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:   I don't think the American people have been told honestly what will be expected of them. 
ANNOUNCER:   Plus, what we're waiting to hear about the economy. 
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:   The president has laid down a great place to start. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:   Unfortunately the president's plan would make the deficit worse, not better. 
ANNOUNCER:   Plus, our hosts' own views on the State of the Union. Tonight, on CROSSFIRE. Live from the George Washington University, James Carville, Paul Begala, Tucker Carlson and Robert Novak. 
CARVILLE:   Welcome to a very special of State of the Union edition of CROSSFIRE. All four of us are here to count down to President Bush's big moment to make excuses for the miserable job he's doing on the economy, and to offer us distractions like a possible war with Iraq instead of real solutions. It sounds like the same old thing he always does. So we're going to start the same old way we always do with the best political briefing in all of television. Our CROSSFIRE political alert. 
NOVAK:   Tonight, President Bush fulfills a constitutional obligation to report from time to time on the State of the Union. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said Sunday, that state is anxious, and Democratic senators dutifully today kept repeating that word, anxious. Actually, it's Democrats still licking their wounds from November 5 who are anxious about the president's probable success tonight. He will attack Saddam Hussein for deceiving, instead of disarming. Talk about America exercising power without conquest, and sacrificing for the liberty of strangers. He will call for economic growth through tax cuts, and for better health care. Americans will be so anxious you can count on George W. Bush's approval ratings rising after tonight. 
BEGALA:   But will they stay up, Bob? And I think not unless he levels with us. If he says I want these tax cuts but they explode the deficit. I want a war with Iraq, but it may end badly, may be endless occupation in a foreign country. I want Medicare to have prescription drugs but to get it you have to go into a corporate HMO. That's being honest with us. If he does that I'll be very surprised. 
NOVAK:   You want to take your Democratic talking points and read them off. I don't think he'll do that. 
CARLSON:   No, but actually the fact is that his approval rating is high. It's me higher than Clintons' was when he won re-election pretty soundly in 1996. 
BEGALA:   No. 
CARLSON:   It is high right now. No president over 50 percent has ever lost an election. Keep that in mind. 
BEGALA:   He's at 53. In last year's State of the Union Address our president said that his economic plan could be summed up in one word, jobs. Since then 668,000 fewer Americans have jobs. And in all, 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs under President Bush. Last year Mr. Bush also promised more money to aid local police and firefighters in the war on terror. He pledged better border security, safer air travel, better tracking of foreigners in the United States. Two weeks ago his party voted down funding for those exact projects in order devote for money for another tax cut for the rich. Mr. Bush also promised last year to fully fund education, another promise he broke. And he promised to increase veterans health care, which, in fact, he later cut. Perhaps our straight-talking president is really just a man of his most recent word. 
NOVAK:   I think what the president's going to say tonight is that he is for fiscal discipline, and that means less spending rather than more. I can't really understand how you Democrats and liberals are so for smaller deficits when you're for higher spending. It doesn't work. 
CARVILLE:   See when we had a Democratic president, Bob, we were running deficits in the $275 billion a year. This country had accumulated $3 trillion of debt under Republican mismanagement, and ridiculous tax cuts we couldn't afford. We came into era of fiscal responsibility under Bill Clinton and Bob Rubin and had the largest that expansion we ever had. I hope the president starts taking advice from people like Bob Rubin and Bill Clinton and get this economy going. So we can enjoy... 
CARLSON:   This is the same lecture you always give. As you know the expansion was caused by tech revolution, Bill Clinton had nothing to do with it. 
CARVILLE:   But in the past his economic plan, everybody said the country was going to go so terrible and the country boomed. And they said well he had nothing to do with that. Well, here we go. 
CARLSON:   President Bush hadn't even finished writing his State of the Union Address when what passes for the Democratic leadership attacked the speech as dishonest and misleading. At a press conference in Washington yesterday, Minority Leader Tom Daschle called the president's position on Iraq reckless. At one point Daschle questioned whether Saddam Hussein even has weapons of mass destruction. Presiding over a discredited political party is a time consuming job so Senator Daschle hasn't had a chance read a newspaper in several years. Somehow he missed Hans Blix's devastating new report to the United Nations which cataloged chemical weapons components discovered by inspectors In Iraq. Nor did he hear about either Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent speeches making the same point. Daschle did say that war with Iraq is a bad idea because it would, quote, "inflame our adversaries." In other words, lay off Saddam or al Qaeda might get angry. And they call Bush a moron. It's just not a serious point. He didn't have a serious point. 
BEGALA:   It's not a serious argument you make. Daschle made a very serious speech. We'll play a little bit later on. And he laid out a very thoughtful critique of our president. He used the phrase that haunted Lyndon Johnson when Bob described him, credibility gap. This is going to be the president's central problem for the next two years, does he do what he says. 
NOVAK:   I hate to correct your history, credibility gap was applied to John F. Kennedy. That was the first use of that phrase. He was a very popular president, too. You know, I thought your democracy core, James runs a little, what do you call it, a side show called a democracy. 
CARVILLE:   You always come to our briefings. You must enjoy it, because I didn't see you at the last one. You would have seen that people think the tax cuts are irresponsible? 
NOVAK:   Do you mind if I speak while you're interrupting? 
CARVILLE:   Go ahead if you want to attack me. 
NOVAK:   I was saying that as I read it, and it wasn't too hard, I think they're always interesting, you were advising Democrats to lay off attacking the president on the war, as Paul is, and to talk about domestic affairs, weren't you? 
BEGALA:   Nope. I don't think we said that. We had a briefing, you should have been there. 
NOVAK:   You always read your own stuff. 
CARLSON:   We'll have to check the C-Span tape for the full proceedings. 
CARVILLE:   It was only a year ago that President Bush assured the country that even though he was going to start running deficits it wouldn't be much of a problem. 
BUSH:   Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term. 
CARVILLE:   Sorry, Mr. President, fiscal responsibility went out the window back when you gave your rich Republican friends a big tax cut. Budget Director Mitch Daniels is predicting $200 billion deficit this year, $300 billion of red ink the next year, and whopping deficits as far the eye can see. "Small and short term," it's just another broken promise. 
BEGALA:   And, in fact, if you saw "The Wall Street Journal" today, private sector economists in "The Wall Street Journal" were saying that yes, deficits do hurt the economy. Even Glen Hubbard, the president's chief economic adviser wrote in a textbook that high deficits hurt the economy. 
CARLSON:   I'm glad you're reading. Let me make one point James and Paul. Every single night you say his tax cuts for his rich Republican friends, smoking cigars at the country club and oppressing the poor. 
CARVILLE:   I never said that. 
CARLSON:   But in fact, it's ludicrous... 
CARVILLE:   Don't tell me I said something I didn't say. 
CARLSON:   You just said... 
CARVILLE:   I just said rich Republicans. I didn't talk about smoking cigars and hurting children. If you're going to say I said something, say what I said. 
CARLSON:   OK. But address the fact that in fact the proposed tax cut would make the rich, those who earn $100,000 a year or that pay a higher percentage of income taxes. You ignore that. 
NOVAK:   Why don't you answer that, James? 
CARVILLE:   Let me start by saying this, the middle class pay a disproportionate amount of taxes. You always focus just on the federal income tax. The second thing is we saw what fiscal responsibility could do with Bill Clinton and Bob Rubin did... 
CARLSON:   We're back to Clinton. 
CARVILLE:   I'm just telling you. We have a recent example. 
BEGALA:   It is a preposterous argument to say that bush wants to tax the rich. He's taken $674 billion of your money and given to his rich friends. 
NOVAK:   You don't have to mimic your friend. Before the left side of the table gets back to whining about the economy more, we're going to go to questions of war and peace. Next, will President Bush make a case for military action against Saddam Hussein? And later, we'll look at how the Republicans intend to spur economic growth, disregarding the Democratic declaration which you just heard of class warfare.
