You've been quoted everywhere telling Democrats they should back the president full-throttle on the war and the way he's handled it, but hit him hard on the economy, on Enron and other domestic issues. I'm wondering if your thinking has changed at all, as the war drags on.

Look, I think it's time for Democrats to be for something, to put their own proposals on the table, and they certainly should contrast themselves with Bush. I think people expect us to support the war -- after all, they knocked our buildings down. But many of the issues people were concerned about Sept. 10 they're concerned about today.

But specifically on the war -- Tom Daschle got savaged by Republicans for asking the president to define his goals in Afghanistan. Do you think he did anything wrong?

He's gonna get savaged by Republicans no matter what he does. What Daschle did then was an interesting thing -- he went through his statement on the war, sentence by sentence, with [Minority Leader] Trent Lott, and Lott couldn't find anything he disagreed with. But there's a kind of hysterical prism that everything gets put through. I think Daschle had a constitutional duty -- look, some people say, even if everything he said was right, you shouldn't say it because it's gonna get misinterpreted. Well, that's too bad -- you can't let the fact that things are gonna get misinterpreted stop you from doing your job. Asking "What is our objective?" is a fair question to anyone who's engaged in leading our military operations. The Democrats have to understand that they need to go out and be for something -- sure, they're gonna get criticized, but in the end I think they're gonna be rewarded for it.

Do you think Daschle's been tough enough at this point?

I don't think Daschle ought to be the focus he is. I think the Democratic Party has the chronic problem of appearing to be weak, of not standing and fighting for what it believes in, not fighting for its own. I think that America will not trust a party to defend America that isn't willing to defend itself. And that's basically my message. The Republicans are hard-hitting, ruthless, and we don't have to do everything they do, but we ought to be just as willing to stand up for what's right as they're willing to stand up for what is wrong.

But Democrats don't do that ...

I agree. I think there's a culture in the party that has to change.

There's a great article in the Washington Monthly about that ...

It's wonderful. I called the guy that wrote it and told him he wrote a hell of an article ...

You could have written it.

Well, I couldn't find much of anything to disagree with in it. He points out how a nasty Op-Ed article in the Washington Post can completely paralyze the Democratic Party, and he's right.

But whose role is it to change that? Yes, there's too much focus on Daschle, who's constrained by his temperament as well as his leadership role from really going on the offensive. But who should be doing that? I mean, where's Al Gore? He no longer holds office -- he has the freedom for once in his life to really stand for something -- why isn't he playing more of a feisty leadership role?

Well, I don't think it's Gore. I don't think he's right. I think people are looking for someone. ... If you want to be angry at Gore, be angry at him for not fighting harder in Florida.

Where were you in Florida, anyway?

Where was I? I wasn't part of the Gore campaign. I thought he was the nominee, he had his people, he was entitled to do it. But I don't think we fought hard enough there.

Did you try to propose an alternative strategy?

Well, I mean, I talked to my friends, but it wasn't my turn. I didn't want to be second-guessing the people that were there. I just thought Republicans exhibited a lot more toughness and strength during the recount than we did. Again, America will be reluctant to trust a party to defend America that refuses to defend itself. You know there's nothing a Hill Democrat would rather do than criticize another Democrat. It is their favorite activity. Then they can read about how honorable they are in an Op-Ed piece, how bipartisan.

Let me give you an example. Tom Daschle has been criticized by Republicans -- they compared him to Saddam Hussein! And to my knowledge, I don't think a Democrat came to his defense for a long time.

Well, Joe Lieberman did.

When? Weeks later. Now, in 1998, I said on "Meet the Press" that I was rolling into battle and we ought to take on [former House Speaker] Newt Gingrich, and the Republican Party had a collective conniption -- my God, that Democrats would talk about going negative on Newt Gingrich! Now let's suppose I was out raising money to run a spot comparing Gingrich to Adolf Hitler. They would have had a traffic jam in the Senate and House of Republicans lining up to decry me. But no one stood up for Daschle.

Why is that?

I have no idea. It seems like it's the nature of being a Democrat.

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