BEGALA:   Connie, thanks. Before we let you go, what's on tap tonight on your show? 
CHUNG:   We're going to talk about fast food. There's a man who has filed a lawsuit against four fast food companies because he believes they are contributing to his growing waistline and his health. So you two, of course, never touch the stuff, right? 
BEGALA:   Never. 
NOVAK:   I gorge on it, Connie. 
CHUNG:   I know, I know. I love it. I always eat fast food. It's the best. 
NOVAK:   We'll be watching at the top of the hour. Connie Chung, ladies and gentlemen. 
BEGALA:   Thanks, Connie.    Oh, you can do better than that. Ever since the nation's capital city began rising out of the Potomac River swamps right here in Foggy Bottom, generations of politicians have had only one thought when August rolls around -- leaving town. This year the question is who is the most eager to get away? Members of the do-nothing nationally partisan Congress, or a president who has been fighting a non-stop war against non-stop political sniping? Next in the crossfire, Democratic consultant Steve McMahon and Republican consultant Ed Rogers. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:   Good to see you. Thank you for coming.    Good to be here. 
BEGALA:   Ed Rogers, first let me go on record as being in favor of presidential vacations. 
ROGERS:   Wow. I have a hard time being against it. 
BEGALA:   I worked for President Clinton, and there was a point at which he was ready to cancel his summer vacation. I went to him and said, sir, you need this vacation, and if you don't take it, people are going to think you are weird. And he said, Paulie, I am weird. I love this job. I don't want to quit doing it... 
ROGERS:     ...that was not an issue. 
BEGALA:   But the question with Bush is he does always seem to want to be on vacation. Is he lazy or just doesn't like the job? 
ROGERS:   Gee, what a journalistic question that was. 
BEGALA:   Well, which is it? 
ROGERS:   To even call it a vacation is a misnomer. As you know, as somebody who is accompanied presidents on these August outings, the institution of the presidency does in fact follow the president. The very fact a president has people like you and me accompany him makes it less of a vacation. The daily briefings don't start, the plannings for when Congress returns don't start. Of course the crises and whatever world events that present themselves don't stop, so a president doesn't take a vacation in the traditional sense. 
BEGALA:   That is a very good point. You're right on every one of those points. 
ROGERS:   Wow. 
BEGALA:   Probably for the last time tonight, Ed. But Bush has a problem that President Bush Sr. didn't have, that President Clinton didn't have, and that is a lot of people don't think he's really running the show. And let me show you the poll from the "New York Times." It's just not by partisan bent. The "New York Times" asked people who is in charge at the White House? It seems to be in evidence like who is buried in Grant's tomb? But no! Only 45 percent of our countrymen and women think Bush is in charge, and 45 think that other running things. Ten percent, I guess, were laughing so hard they couldn't answer. But that is a special political problem for this president, is it not? 
ROGERS:   Well, the pedigree of a "New York Times" poll is suspect to any Republican, first of all. 
BEGALA:   But it showed him with very high approval ratings. 
ROGERS:   But also, I was going to say, by any standard, the president's job approval is very, very good. So to slice it and dice it and come up with some component that suggests that people aren't happy with him is ludicrous. 
NOVAK:   Steve McMahon, let me go on the question of job approval. Of course I have heard this about Republican presidents. I've been here 45 years. They said Eisenhower wasn't in charge. They said -- they never said Nixon wasn't in charge. They said Ford wasn't in charge, they said the senior, they said Reagan wasn't in charge. That's just a Democratic propaganda. 
MCMAHON:   Who is they? People who responded in this poll? 
NOVAK:   No, you. People like you. 
MCMAHON:   But we're just reporting the poll, aren't we, Paul? We're talking about -- I'm sorry. 
NOVAK:   Well, let me give you the "New York Times"-CBS poll. Bush job approval rating, this is July 22nd, 23rd, after all of the battering he's been getting from the media, stock market falling. Approve, take a look at that. Approve, 65 percent approve. Disapprove, 27 percent. 
ROGERS:   There you go. 
MCMAHON:   That's pretty good. I think -- I think if he can hold those numbers it will be remarkable. What's happening to President Bush is the internals are collapsing. If you ask people, do you think he's doing a good job on the economy, the answer is increasingly no. Do you think he's doing a good job on corporate accountability? The answer increasingly is no. And what happens is your internals collapse first, your favorables collapse last. This is actually good timing for the Democrats, because as these issues engage, and they almost all favor Democratic candidates, the fall elections are going to come. And yes, maybe President Bush will be back from his vacation by then, but, you know, it's... 
NOVAK:   Let me go back to that. You know, Bill Clinton used to go mooch on the liberal rich people in Martha's Vineyard. That was a real vacation. He'd be out at different fancy places with a big old dinner every night, places that wouldn't invite people like Ed Rogers and me. I mean, do you begrudge George W. Bush changing his venue from the beautiful mansion on Pennsylvania avenue, just, and that is a beautiful place down the street, or Camp David, which is a government place, and going to a dusty old ranch, near Waco, Texas, where my wife grew up and got out of as fast as she could? Do you begrudge him that? 
MCMAHON:   You mentioned President Clinton going and mooching off of his wealthy friends. That was probably because he didn't have the opportunity to huge, huge blocks of stock and make hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a great big ranch down in Texas. He didn't have a place like that because he couldn't afford it. 
ROGERS:   Hillary did that with commodity trades. That was Hillary's job. 
MCMAHON:   She only made 100. 
ROGERS:   We don't know. 
MCMAHON:   I think this administration has made more money in the stock market -- if Hillary Clinton were half as successful as -- I'm sorry. 
NOVAK:   This is not a free association thing. I want you to answer the question. Do you begrudge him doing his regular work? He's going to be -- only 18 working days he's going to be on the road. Eight of those days, there's going to be three days where there's events. do you begrudge -- that adds up to, by my calculation, about seven days of vacation. 
MCMAHON:   He was just on vacation three weeks ago up in Maine riding around in a boat. Now I didn't see any of Ed's people back there advising him on policy. 
NOVAK:   You begrudge him that. 
MCMAHON:   No, no, no. I think it's great, but you know this president has people wondering whether he's fully engaged. There's a prescription drug benefit that's languishing on the hill. 
NOVAK:   That's for Tom Daschle... 
MCMAHON:   There's a corporate accountability -- there's a corporate... 
ROGERS:   The House -- the Republican House passed a bill. 
MCMAHON:   I understand the Republican House has passed a bill.  
BEGALA:   Let me ask Ed about this question about the economy, though, because as Steve pointed out, the president's sense that he's doing a good job on the economy has been eroding steadily in the poll. I want to bring you back to the presidential debate, and Jim Lehrer asked a question of Governor Bush then that was prescient. Lehrer's question was this: "The stock market could take a tumble. There could be a failure of a major financial institution. What is your general attitude toward government intervention in such events?" Here is Governor Bush's answer from that debate. Take a look. 
BUSH:   Well, it depends, obviously. But what I would do first and foremost is I would get in touch with the Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to find out all of the facts and all of the circumstances. 
BEGALA:   Well, just as Lehrer predicted, the market has taken a tumble, financial institutions have collapsed, and so we called the White House press office today and said when was the last time the president met with Alan Greenspan? They said, January. So we called back and said, well, that can't be. And they said, well, he saw him in May at a tribute to Arthur Feldstein (ph), the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan. I don't consider that a business meeting. But even if they... 
NOVAK:   Could you possibly mean Martin Feldstein (ph)? 
BEGALA:   Martin Feldstein (ph), excuse me. So, I got his name wrong. 
NOVAK:   Well, you know, it might have been Arthur, the guy who runs a delicatessen in.... 
BEGALA:   Marty, my old pal, Marty Feldstein. So, even if they did talk about the market on May 9, which I strongly doubt, we've lost 1851 points since then, why isn't he doing what he said he'd do and help Alan Greenspan run the economy? 
ROGERS:   Well, I think what the president is doing is not going half-cocked into the marketplace. By any standard, the economic vitality of the country is in good shape, when you look at productivity, when you look at inflation, when you look at interest rates. The macroeconomy is in good shape. Hey, there's a lot of bad things happening in the stock market that may or may not have to do with macroeconomics. It may or may not have to do with some of the scandals that have been -- that were hatched during the Clinton era, not during the Bush era.  
BEGALA:   So, it's Clinton's fault. 
ROGERS:   No, no, and it's not Clinton fault... 
BEGALA:   So, even though he said he would meet with Greenspan, why didn't he do what he said? 
ROGERS:   Because there's no purpose in having a meeting. There hasn't been a macroeconomic shock to the system. The economy, the overall macroeconomy is not in bad shape. 
BEGALA:     since Bush took office. 
ROGERS:   The stock market doesn't equal the overall economy. The stock market doesn't equal the economy. 
NOVAK:   Steve McMahon, with all due respect, you are not an economist. You are not a central banker. I don't think you know as much about the economy as even Ed Rogers does, but you are a politician. 
ROGERS:   He aspires to be. And let's be really honest, and what it is is the Democrats were not in very good shape up until two or three weeks ago. And you saw the fall of these corporate entities, people getting laid off, corporate corruption. You say, oh, hallelujah, thank the Lord, we got some issue against George W. Bush. Isn't that the truth? 
MCMAHON:   No, no, no. We had many issues against George W. Bush. When you go out there and you talk to real voters, what they ask is what happened to the surplus? What are we doing to provide health security for people? 
NOVAK:   Voters ask you what happened to the surplus? 
MCMAHON:   What are we doing to provide economic security for people? What are we doing to replenish these 401(k)s? I mean, it was great that the president and vice president were able to get out with all of their money. I'm delighted they were able to do that. But let me tell you something, the American people didn't. And they are angry about it and they want someone held accountable. And they're going to hold accountable, frankly, probably not just not Republicans and not just the president and vice president who -- did I mentioned they cashed out early -- but perhaps to some degree incumbents. 
BEGALA:   That will have to be the last word. Steve McMahon, ace Democratic strategist, Ed Rogers, ace Republican strategist. Thank you all both for a terrific job and a good debate. Coming up, your chance to "Fireback" at us, and one of our viewers has a suggestion for how either party could win his vote. But first, the man who won Gary Condit's vote and our eternal gratitude, even if he is a convicted felon. 
TRAFICANT:   This was an unusual case, most unusual, and it's not over. And they do have the testicles of an ant.
