O’Donnell: "Do you think that anyone will call for the impeachment of George Bush in Congress?"
Schumer: "Probably not. Because usually impeachment is when you've committed a crime."
O’Donnell: "Treason is not a crime?"
Behar: "It's not treason. It’s not considered treason."
Hasselbeck: "It’s not treason. He took the chance."
Schumer: "Yeah, well making very bad policy blunders, which the country is paying for is not treason."
Right off the start, Rosie O’Donnell asked about the issue she rants about the most, the PATRIOT Act. Joy Behar asked an odd question tying it with some Republicans’ infidelities.
O’Donnell: "So what is your feeling currently on the PATRIOT Act? What do you think about this?
Schumer: "My feeling is that you have to do something, Elisabeth’s right about terrorism. But they’ve abused it. That's the problem. You can have both. I saw you talking about it. You can have both security and liberty. This administration seems to think you can only have security and you got to give up liberty, but for 200 years we've had both. So I would not repeal it but I’d certainly put some limits on it so that they don’t abuse it the way they’ve been abusing it."
Behar: "Do you think that all this adultery on the Republican side is going to impede their efforts?"
Schumer: "Not touching that one." [laughing]
[Applause]
Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck did manage to get a question in about the Democrats’ plan, or lack thereof, on how to fight the war on terror.
Hasselbeck: "I just want to know what the Democrats will do to keep us safe. What's the plan? You know, I keep hearing what everyone did wrong. I keep hearing what the Republicans did wrong, I want to know what you’re going to do."
Schumer: "We should be focusing on terrorism. The war in Iraq is not related to terrorism. When al Qaeda sets up a camp that might go against us we should go after it. We should take out that camp. So Afghanistan should actually have more focus and effort and Iraq where we're policing a civil war, the Sunnis, the Shiites, they don't like each other, they’ve hated each other for 400 years, when we leave, they’re going to be shooting at each other again. It's not our job. It wasn’t what the president stated when he asked people to go into Iraq to police a civil war. Focus on what could hurt us, terrorism. It will be more effective. It will cost us less in terms of lives and dollars."
Hasselbeck: "And you don't think that leaving there will leave sort of a place for terrorists to then take over and, and plan for another attack?"
Schumer: "We're pretty united as Democrats. The book talks about this. If we focus on terrorism, if al Qaeda sets up a camp in Iraq we should have enough troops there to go in take out that camp and leave. But not have 160,000 troops all over Iraq trying to get the Sunnis and Shiites to stop shooting at each other."
Schumer, who’s 2006 rating with the American Conservative Union is four percent, and 100 percent with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, somehow discovers his disdain for ideologues on the left and right.
Schumer: "I don't think they thought it out. I don’t -- it seems obvious, but you have -- I don't like ideologues, people who are so sure they are right they don't have to listen to anyone else. They are on the left, they’re on the right."
Hasselbeck: "Absolutely."
Schumer: "And either side screws things up because they don't look at the shades of gray and the world’s a complicated place."
