Barack Obama: 9/11 fever has broken

Keith Olbermann Anchor, 'Countdown' • Profile

On Friday, "Countdown" host Kieth Olbermann talks to Sen. Barack Obama about the state of politics, the future of the Democratic Party and the senator's new book, "Audacity of Hope."

You can read the transcript below.

KEITH OLBERMANN, "COUNTDOWN': Proposing an alternative course for American politics, one that replaces fear with, of all things, hope, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in his new book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Senator Obama good enough to join us now from Boston.

Good evening, Senator.  Welcome to the program.

OBAMA:  Great to talk to you, Keith.

OLBERMANN:  I want to talk about the book and this buzz in the second half of our interview.

But let me begin, if I can, by asking you about the current political climate as epitomized by that new Republican ad, and keep in mind that, you know, 18 days before the midterm elections, it’s crunch time.  How do you, how does your party overcome the politics of fear, especially down the stretch like this?

OBAMA:  Well, first of all, I think it’s important for us to directly engage the issue of national security.  You know, after 9/11, it was understandable that everybody rallied around the president.  And I think that Democrats were hesitant to challenge the president on his national security agenda.

I think this election, you’re seeing the fever break, and people step back and say the consequences of a series of decisions by this administration have resulted in a fiasco in Iraq, a climate in which terrorists are actually growing in numbers around the world.  We haven’t done much about homeland security, and we’ve got two hostile nations, Iran and North Korea, rapidly developing or already having developed nuclear weapons.

And I think that’s a conversation that we should welcome.

One of the interesting things I’m seeing around the country, though, is, those kinds of ads are not working very well.  And that’s why your previous guest, I think, pointed out the number of potential races that are up for grabs this time out are actually growing as opposed to diminishing.

OLBERMANN:  Nonetheless, the Republicans have succeeded in the last—certainly the last two elections with great measure with a divide-and-conquer kind of strategy.  Is there—do you respond to that by saying, Hey, we will listen to both sides?  Or is there some responsive punch required to just—to stop that Republican divide-and-conquer strategy?

OBAMA:  First of all, we have an advantage in this election, in that there are facts on the ground that are indisputable, and the American people are seeing each and every day when they see reports back from Baghdad.  And so it’s very difficult to spin the deteriorating situation in Iraq, and that’s driving the impression of a lot of Americans about this administration’s problems in the foreign policy area.

The second thing, though, is, I get a sense of seriousness among the American people right now that is making them immune to some of these slash-and-burn political tactics.  I’ve been traveling all across the country for the last several weeks, and what strikes me is, people really are paying attention this time.  They recognize both in the areas of foreign policy and domestic policy that we got a set of challenges on health care and energy and education and foreign policy that aren’t amendable to sound-bite answers, that require us to think in commonsense, practical terms, non-ideological terms, about how to solve them.

And that, I think, is going to play to the advantage of Democrats in this election.

OLBERMANN:  There’s a remarkable passage in your book in which you describe your first meeting with President Bush.  And I think it’s both—this is both a question about the book and also about the events of the last few weeks.  Specifically, it’s about the shift in his demeanor when he began talking about his second-term agenda at a White House breakfast meeting in January of 2005.

Let me quote it exactly.  “The president’s eyes became fixed, his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption.  His easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty.  As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders’ wisdom in designing a system to keep power in check.”

My question to you, sir, has the power of the president been kept in check?  Because it would seem to many over the past six years, Congress has failed to do that job, pretty much wrote President Bush a blank check, especially with the Military Commissions Act and this kind of terrifying watering-down of habeas corpus.

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