CNN Inside Politics - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY 10:00

June 6, 2004 Sunday

HEADLINE: Remembering Ronald Reagan

GUESTS: James Baker, Lyn Nofziger, Walter Mondale, Margaret Tutwiler, Ed Markey, Pat Robertson

BYLINE: Judy Woodruff, Chris Lawrence, Wolf Blitzer, Candy Crowley, Ed Henry, Robert Novak, John King, William Schneider, David Mattingly, Bruce Morton, Howard Kurtz

HIGHLIGHT:
Remembering Ronald Reagan.

BODY:
WOODRUFF: My next guest is a Massachusetts congressman whose career stretches back before the Reagan presidency. Edward Markey also co-chairs a bipartisan task force on Alzheimer's disease, the condition that plagued the former president's final years. Congressman Ed Markey with us now from Boston.

Ed Markey, you were a Democrat, elected to Congress in 1976. Ronald Reagan came on the scene as the embodiment of everything you didn't believe in. What was your impression of him before he was elected?

REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, before he was elected, it was clear that the Democratic Party had underestimated him. But as soon as he took over, he had a plan. And even after he was shot in March of 1981, just a couple of months after he was inaugurated, he was actually calling Democrats from his recuperation bed, asking them to give him a vote for the Gipper on his budget and tax cuts. And at that point, we knew that there was somebody in the White House who should not be underestimated.

WOODRUFF: But you acknowledge you had underestimated him. Why?

MARKEY: I have no idea, in retrospect. Because it's clear that he was to the Republican Party what John F. Kennedy was to the Democratic Party. This incredibly inspirational figure who was able to mobilize public opinion, and was willing to work for the things that he believed in. Obviously, anyone who thought that he wasn't going to be a formidable political opponent had made a terrible mistake.

WOODRUFF: You were close to the late Tip O'Neill, who was speaker of the House during part of the Reagan presidency. In many ways, I think Tip O'Neill was a mentor to you. Talk about their relationship.

MARKEY: Well, I remember St. Patrick's Day 1982, and Tip decided to bring-give an invitation to President Reagan to come up and have a St. Patrick's Day lunch, up in the Capitol. And it was just a small little lunch, with some of the Irish Catholic members.

And so Tip got up and he started telling his stories. And it was just a funny, hilarious lunch. And then Ronald Reagan said, would you mind, Tip, if I got up and told a couple of stories? And he got up and he told his stories. And they were hilarious. And here we were watching these two great Irish politicians, with different beliefs, but with a love of politics, a love of a good time. And over the six- year period that Tip was speaker and Ronald Reagan was president, one controlled one party, the other controlled the other. They had to learn how to work together, even though they couldn't understand how the other one could believe what they believed about politics and America.

WOODRUFF: And one of the great parts of lore in Washington is that Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan might disagree during the day, but in the evening occasionally they would sit down and have a drink together. Did they really like each other, Ed Markey? Or were they just putting on?

MARKEY: Well, I think that they loved politics. And they knew that there was a ritual to politics. At the end of the day, Ronald Reagan was an Irish politician. And they didn't want to go socializing together. Let's not pretend that they did. But they, as good politicians, knew that they had to work together. And after 6:00 o'clock, they tried to put down the weapons of politics and then try to get along, as people should in politics. A lot of that was changed during the Gingrich era. But during the Reagan era, both parties were still very civil to each other.

WOODRUFF: Any policies of Ronald Reagan that you agree with?

MARKEY: Well, I, at the end of the day, even though he was very reluctant to negotiate an arms control treaty, and he said he never would, I think he will be remembered for going to Reykjavik, and then subsequently signing that huge arms control agreement. Up until that point, he was saying that he would never negotiate with them. And I think he will be remembered for that agreement, even though he disappointed many of his supporters in finally signing that arms control agreement. I think it was the key to ending the arms race.

WOODRUFF: How do you think liberal Democrats view Ronald Reagan's legacy?

MARKEY: Well, obviously it was a legacy that was tempered by the fact that the Democrats controlled the United States House of Representatives. But I think that we see him now as someone who really was the conservative champion of the era and someone who has created an entire generation of young conservatives, who now populate the House and the Senate in Congress. And we view him now in the same way, I think, that the Republicans view John F. Kennedy, as the symbol of a party's philosophy. And he deserves all of the respect which he is receiving today, and in the weeks and years ahead.

WOODRUFF: Last quick question, how did Tip O'Neill really view Ronald Reagan?

MARKEY: Well, again, he saw him as a conservative ideologue in many ways. But ultimately, whether it be the budget agreement on the tax increase that occurred in '86, or it be the arms control agreement, I think he realized that-Ronald Reagan was a practical politician. He was a principled man, but someone who wanted a practical result. And I think at the end of the day, that Tip recognized that he was someone who he could do business with because of that practicality.

If I may, Judy, say that my mother died from Alzheimer's, and my father took care of her until she was 90 years old. And I have the greatest respect for Nancy Reagan, because she did the same thing at home for Ronald Reagan. And there's no greater tribute that a family member can pay to another, that they pay that enormous price of protecting the privacy and the dignity of someone with Alzheimer's.

And my hope is that that the country listens to Nancy Reagan, and that they do lift all the restrictions on stem cell research, and that perhaps in Ronald Reagan's name we can find the cure to that terrible disease which afflicts four million people in our country right now, in addition to other diseases like Parkinson's and ALS. It would be a tremendous legacy for him if the country listened to his wonderful wife, Nancy.

WOODRUFF: It is clearly something that Mrs. Reagan has spoken out about. Congressman Ed Markey, remembering Ronald Reagan and remembering the connection that you, too, have with Alzheimer's disease. Ed Markey, very good to see you.

MARKEY: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thank you so much for coming by.

MARKEY: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it. Thanks.