Political Influence of 'Occupy Wall Street'?

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Political Influence of 'Occupy Wall Street'?

Panel weighs in on movement politics

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," October 12, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Yes, I think people are frustrated and, you know, the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CA, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: God bless them for their spontaneity. It's -- you know, it's an independent people coming. It's young, it's spontaneous, it's focused, and it's going to be effective.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The core is the American people do not think the system is fair or on the level. That is the core of what you're seeing on Wall Street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: The politics of Occupy Wall Street, Democrats, Republicans, weighing in. There's obviously hypocrisy on both sides. Nancy Pelosi, remember, called the Tea Party in its early days Astroturf. You have Eric Cantor, now the House majority leader, who said Occupy Wall Street are angry mobs, mobs growing on Wall Street. And he called the Tea Party an organic movement that was a positive role in the election. So what about this, the politics of Occupy Wall Street? Charles.

KRAUTHAMMER: Focused? The protests on Wall Street are mindless. At least Tea Party, whom the media and Democrats denigrated as a sort of toothless, uneducated peasantry, they had a program, they had an idea, they had a plan -- smaller government, less taxes, less regulation.

And when you ask people on Wall Street what they want, they don't know. Their plan, eat the rich and what happens afterwards, after that meal, they have no idea. Democrats are making a big mistake in embracing a movement of this sort. In the end, they could have attached to them all the sort of weirdnesses or the excesses that you could get. Violence is possible. If it happens, it will redound to Democrats. And even just sort of obnoxiousness, if they leave the site on which they are on soiled and unkempt, that's not going to look good.

BAIER: A.B.?

STODDARD: Well, I agree with you. I think there's too much hypocrisy. The Democrats are just so starved for some grassroots excitement and energy that they're trying to capitalize on this. And you would argue that the protesters are progressives, but they're mad at the Obama administration. They think the Obama administration is a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. They think Congressional Democrats sold out to the financial services sector a long time ago.

Democrats voted for a Dodd-Frank and TARP, and they can't look as they try to associate themselves with the anger and frustration over economic fairness and wage disparity like they didn't take those votes. They can't look like hypocrites.

Republicans at the same time should associate themselves with this anger and frustration over joblessness and they shouldn't be critical of these protests. Ignore them, or say I understand your grievances, but there's no point on casting aspersions on this Occupy Wall Street. The protests will go on and on. Will they have a political component or an influence? I don't think so. But there's no reason to criticize the movement.

BAIER: Steve, what about the embrace, and is there a danger of it?

HAYES: Yes, absolutely there's a danger of it. I saw the e-mail from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee seeking petitions to support the Occupy Wall Street protesters and my mouth dropped wide open. I could not believe that you had the formal fundraising arm, campaign arm of the Democrats in the house embracing this movement with all of its excesses that we've already seen. I mean, that I think is one of the fundamental points.

But I want to go back to something that A.B. said. These are people who are protesting the Obama administration from the left. The idea that this is going to be a sustainable movement is preposterous. There is no constituency for that. Look at the Gallup poll -- 20 percent of Americans as a high water mark are self-identified liberals. This is the fringe of the fringe of the fringe of the fringe. They're not serious people. They don't know what they're talking about. Their motives and their goals shift every single day. It's not a sustainable movement. They'll get some life breathed into them because of the media coverage. The media seems to want to encourage this, but they're not a serious movement.

BAIER: We'll play this tape for you in January.

HAYES: Please do. I look forward to that.

STODDARD: That's a good point.

BAIER: Final word.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I think Democrats have envy of the Tea Party, and this they are hoping will be the equivalent. It won't be, because it needs an idea, it needs a plan, it needs a program, and it has none.

BAIER: That's it for the panel. But stay tuned -- by the way, we'll continue this conversation in the online show. Stay tuned to see a new draw to Occupy Wall Street.

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