Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Schwarzenegger Proposes Budget Cuts; Results of Catholic Church Audit Out; New Pictures of Mars

Schwarzenegger Proposes Budget Cuts; Results of Catholic Church Audit Out; New Pictures of Mars

Aired January 6, 2004 - 22:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.May I make a modest suggestion to both the left and the right in the country these days? Will you please, I'm begging you please stop using Hitler and Nazi analogies and comparisons in what passes for political debate these days?Yesterday, there was much fuss, in our view completely warranted, about two reader submitted ads on Moveon.org, the liberal Web site. Both ads compared the president to Hitler. Unnoticed by most was an opinion piece in a New York paper by Ralph Peters. Mr. Peters is an occasional guest on the program. We like him. We hope he'll return but, in our view, the piece was over the top in drawing analogies between Howard Dean and Nazis. He at one point refers to Governor Dean as Herr Howard, and believe me it got worse.This stuff is offensive. It's also wrong and in our view at least says a whole lot more about the people drawing these Nazi Hitler comparisons than it does about either the president or Governor Dean.Politics of a tamer sort to start the whip, the new governor of California and his political opening night, CNN's Rusty Dornin, Rusty a headline.


RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The state of the state according to Arnold Schwarzenegger will be great again. There were plenty of promises, no new taxes but cuts across the board. The question is, will the Democrats buy it?

BROWN: Rusty, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.Next to New York and the priest sex abuse scandal, another chapter written today, Jason Carroll covering, Jason a headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, an audit shows that the Catholic Church is doing a better job in implementing sexual abuse policies but victims say there is still a lot of work that needs to be done here -- Aaron.BROWN: Jason, thank you.And next, and finally, to Pasadena, California where they know for a fact tonight the Red Planet is red. CNN's Miles O'Brien again on the story so Miles a headline from you. 

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Or at least (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Mars in living color, or is it really living? Scientists had hoped they would land in a dry lake bed. It doesn't look like one though -- Aaron.

BROWN: Miles, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.Also ahead on the program tonight, a design chosen for the memorial part of Ground Zero here in New York. The controversy, however, is hardly over.One of the most famous photographers in the world Francesco Scavullo is dead. We'll look at some of the famous faces he photographed.And, as always, we end our evening with a check of your morning papers tomorrow and the animal that tragically comes with it, all that and more in the hour ahead.But we begin in California where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered his first State of the State Address to a joint session of the California Assembly and a worldwide television audience.For the governor and the state there are no easy choices. The state, said the new governor, faces bankruptcy unless the voters who elected him agree to his plan to borrow billions and shrink the state's budget.Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): Forty-five days after taking office Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told state lawmakers that being governor was better than being a movie star. Then it was on to plug his California recovery plan, a $15 billion bond measure on the March ballot. He told lawmakers the alternative is economic chaos. Facing a $15 billion deficit, Schwarzenegger still kept his promise not to make taxpayers reach into their own pocketbooks.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: A tax increase will be the final nail in California's financial coffin. The people of California did not elect me to destroy jobs and businesses by raising taxes. I will not make matters worse.

DORNIN: But he says there's no choice but to make spending cuts and everywhere his message was reorganize and consolidate government, whether it was energy policies, workmen's compensation or even education, only with a Schwarzenegger twist.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Every governor proposes moving boxes around to reorganize government. I don't want to move boxes around. I want to blow them up.

DORNIN: Then it was on to what has become his mantra, jobs, jobs, jobs and a Hollywood style promise.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I'm going to become California's job czar. I am going to travel the nation and the world to find those jobs.DORNIN: To fix the business climate he took aim, as expected at the Workman's Compensation Program. The state's rates are twice that of the rest of the nation and it's the number one reason employers cite for leaving. He says if the legislature won't do it he promises to take the vote to the people.Outside, thousands of people protested about cuts to services for the disabled. After the speech, leading Democrats were worried about all cuts and no revenue but were cautiously optimistic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Those Democrats say they want to cooperate with the new governor but they won't capitulate. They'll fight for programs for the needy, all want to see what may be tough details in the governor's budget. Those details won't be released until this Friday -- Aaron.BROWN: Rusty, thank you, quick work tonight, Rusty Dornin in Sacramento.The devil, as Rusty indicated, will be in the details and on Friday the governor will unveil his detailed blueprint to fix the California budget mess. The cuts are expected to be broad and deep and even before, as you could see, many of the specifics are known there are concerns the governor is moving in the wrong direction.Here's CNN's Charles Feldman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To Arnold Schwarzenegger this political commercial during the recent campaign is already coming back to haunt him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you have to cut education?

SCHWARZENEGGER: No. We can fix this mess without hurting the schools. For me children come first.

FELDMAN: But the morning papers seem to suggest otherwise. Schwarzenegger is proposing a $2 billion cut and a mandated increase schools are expecting.

ELIZABETH GARRETT, POLITICAL ANALYST: Technically it's not a reneging on the promise but I think that if you look at the promise in its fullness, a promise to keep education safe, to make cuts in other places, to make spending reductions in other places then it is reneging on his promise.

FELDMAN: The proposed budget, which goes to the legislature after it's published Friday, comes against a backdrop of fiscal crisis in California which is after all largely why Schwarzenegger got elected in the first place.But some politicians worry that expected cuts, for example, in spending for the state's health insurance program for the poor will be medicine too bitter to take.

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY, L. A. COUNTY SUPERVISOR: Cutting medical care to the indigent, to the poor, to those who are uninsured, cutting access to medical care to kids is a disaster.

FELDMAN: Not everything is doom and gloom. The governor's Finance Office says there is good news. Personal income and taxable sales are up but hanging over the state like a fiscal sword of Damocles $14 billion in notes due this June. To cover that, Schwarzenegger wants voters to approve a $15 billion loan this spring.

GARRETT: If the bond fails that is going to make him a much less strong negotiator.

FELDMAN: In May, the proposed budget will be revised once April income tax receipts are known but an aide to the governor says Schwarzenegger won't put his feet up on the desk and wait until then to push for action.Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On to New Hampshire now where the man who came close to winning that state's primary in the year 2000, former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey today formally endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. The former NBA star and Senator apparently had been talking with Dr. Dean for several months, decided last weekend to back him and announced it today.The endorsements are piling up, the money flowing in. The polls show him leading his eight opponents, all of which makes the former governor of Vermont an obvious target for many and today the slings and arrows were out again.Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some of the territory that comes with being a frontrunner front page stories like this one, a Vermont auditor concluding that a top Dean aide once helped an HMO win a large state contract, a HMO that aide once lobbied for. One of Dean's most ardent supporters in Vermont's capital called the charge laughable.

PETER SHUMLIN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF VERMONT STATE SENATE: I'm amazed at the depth to which the national press has to dig to try to find negative stories on this guy. Ed Flanagan the current auditor at that time had a vendetta against Dean. They just didn't like each other.

WALLACE: Not true says the former auditor who told us he was just doing his job.

ED FLANAGAN, FORMER VERMONT STATE AUDITOR: My reports are solid. They are accurate. They are documented and that is the proof of the pudding.

WALLACE: This story comes as Dean's Democratic rivals have stepped up their attacks combing through Dean's eleven year record as Vermont's governor in the hopes of finding something to stop his momentum.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why don't you sign this agreement and open your gubernatorial records to full public view?

WALLACE: They raised questions about Dean's decision to seal his gubernatorial records and how he sold $15,000 in stock in Vermont banks after receiving what he called an inside report from a state regulator. Both decisions, Dean said, were the right things to do.

PETER FREYNE, POLITICAL COLUMNIST: Right now Howard Dean is being put through the microscope. Every breath he's taken, every step he's made is being examined by America's media right now and some of the stuff that comes out is kind of funny to us back here in Vermont.

WALLACE: In a state where most lawmakers know their constituents by name you find that even members of the opposing party don't believe there's anything damaging in Howard Dean's closet.

SEN. VINCE ILLUZZI, REPUBLICAN: There are no secrets in Vermont. There really are no backroom deals and I would be shocked, at least very surprised, if something came to light which people said my God I can't believe he did that.WALLACE (on camera): That does not mean that Democrats, Republicans and the national press will stop digging but, for now, nothing has turned up that seems to be slowing down the Dean train.Kelly Wallace CNN, Montpelier, Vermont.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll take you to Mars.Also coming up a look at the results of a report on how the Catholic Church is dealing with the sex abuse crisis.We'll look at the Pentagon's plan that could keep some members from leaving the military as planned.And later on the program from the car show, the big story, carmakers are going back to making cars.From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: On now to the pictures of Mars and a headline from a Cincinnati paper that caught our eye. TV men hail color cast as amazing, okay, the paper was the "Cincinnati Post" 50 years ago last week and the color cast in question TV's first broadcast in NBC living color, as they say, of the Tournament of Roses Parade.Fifty years later in Pasadena, today, another group of technicians flipped a switch on their own color cast and to this TV man at least it's still pretty amazing.Here's CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Mars in color, the question for scientists is it living? There's no denying the first color postcards from Spirit are spectacular in all their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) gray and grim glory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think my reaction has been one of shock and awe.

O'BRIEN: Jim Bell leads the team that designed, built, and is now successfully running the panoramic camera on the Spirit rover. They have a motto. Every day you wake up on Mars is a good day.9:15 in the Martian morning, day or Sol 4 for Spirit, and he and all the other players in the orchestra take their cues from the conductor, the activity lead, getting more of these wonderful yet huge images across 100 million miles of space via a tiny transmitter requires a good deal of patience.

JIM BELL, PANCAM TEAM LEADER: It's a big challenge. We could take more data with the Pancams than we could ever, ever dream of sending back.

O'BRIEN: So, the early images are compressed and thus lower quality. As time goes on and there is less need to check the health of the spacecraft even more spectacular images will fill their 3D glasses. Perhaps they will show proof of ancient water but not just yet.

MATT GOLOMBEK, SPIRIT SCIENTIST: Or that water was involved here, it's just, there's no smoking gun that we've seen so far. It's possible that water was involved here. It's just there's no smoking gun that we've seen so far.

O'BRIEN: And there is this mysterious clump of material right near Spirit's wheels. It was scraped as the rover retracted its air bags. No one is sure what it might be. Each image, each mystery is spurring the Spirit team on.

JULIE TOWNSEND, SPIRIT ENGINEER: Still a lot of applause every time we get a new image down and every time we accomplish a new objective in our egress routine everybody is just on Cloud 9 because everything is going so well. 

O'BRIEN: For the Pancam team it is no different. Their hardware is on Mars and working to be sure but, for them, it seems like something more.

BELL: It's like a baby. In some ways it sort of is, our baby cameras and to see them grow up and go out in the world, is a very, very emotional, very exciting feeling.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: It's now about eleven o'clock in the morning on Sol 4 or Day 4 for Spirit and the big word for the engineers right now the big task is to try to retract an air bag which is standing in the way of the rover moving off its landing pedestal. If all goes well on that they'll start pulling down that big panoramic image a little later in the Martian day -- Aaron.

BROWN: And if it doesn't?

O'BRIEN: And if it doesn't they'll have to wait another day because the important thing is the health of that spacecraft first, get that air bag retracted so that they can move off of that pedestal in a week or so.

BROWN: All right, Miles, thank you. This stuff is unbelievable. Thank you.On to other matters. The Pentagon is considering changes in the command structure in Iraq. As the country returns to self government the proposal calls for the appointment of a four-star general to oversee the country and take some of the burden off the three-star general who currently runs the show. No final decision has been made according to the defense secretary, who today was defending another, much more controversial plan, one involving troops farther down the chain of command.From the Pentagon tonight, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The Army is putting a stop, albeit temporarily, to the plans of some 3,500 soldiers who were counting on leaving the U.S. military this year. The soldiers are all in units now in Iraq and under the so-called stop loss order they will have to stay in uniform even if their enlistment is up until after their units complete their yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and then perhaps as much as three months more after that. The Pentagon insists the move is routine and necessary in a time of war.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's the combatant commander's request of the department for a certain amount of overlap so that the day someone arrives his predecessor in that post doesn't leave but there's a continuity. There's a transfer of knowledge and information and relationships that take place.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld disputes the notion the U.S. military isn't big enough to handle the demands of fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and insists that recruiting and retention aren't suffering even though the U.S. military is undeniably stressed.Still, in an effort to encourage war weary soldiers to stay in, the Army will begin offering bonuses of between $5,000 and $10,000 to soldiers in the two war zones who sign up for three more years. It's not a crisis insists the top brass.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEF'S CHAIRMAN: In my view this is not unusual at all. It's business as usual for the department in trying to retain those folks that we need to retain and maintain our strength.

MCINTYRE (on camera): While some critics are calling for a return to the draft that's something Rumsfeld rejects outright. He says the last thing he wants is a military made up of people who don't really want to be there. But ironically for a few months at least that will be the case for a few thousand soldiers who will have to put their return to civilian life on hold.Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A year and a half ago American Catholic bishops gathered in Dallas to try, they said, to get a handle on the scope of the priest sex abuse problem and they said institute changes to make sure it never happens again. The second part is problematic but even the first, defining the problem and the progress so far, is daunting. Today the church issued a report card.Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): The audit is meant to be a snapshot of how U.S. bishops are implementing sexual abuse policies they adopted in June, 2002.

BISHOP WILTON GREGORY, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS: I believe that these findings show that we bishops are keeping our word.

CARROLL: The audit found 90 percent of diocese complying, 68 percent given commendations for their sexual abuse policies, including Los Angeles which faces about 500 civil lawsuits from alleged victims.

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONEY, LOS ANGELES: I'm optimistic that we will continue to take whatever steps we have to take to guarantee the safety of the church for children.

CARROLL: The audit also found 20 diocese or archdiocese not fully complying in Anchorage, Omaha, Arlington, Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, Honolulu, Memphis and New York City. The Archdiocese of Boston, the flashpoint of the crisis, is not on that list but was told it needs to work in areas such as keeping better records of abuse. Auditors say many diocese still need to do better with victims.

KATHLEEN MCCHESNEY, OFFICE OF CHILD AND YOUTH PROTECTION: The one thing that I can tell you is where they need to do more work is in reaching out to victims.CARROLL: Critics question the report's findings saying even the investigators doing the audit didn't reach out enough to victims to hear their views and to corroborate what bishops told auditors.

BARBARA BLAINE, SNAP: Our concern is that the standard that they're using is just so minimal and it's not an accurate picture of this actual crisis in the Catholic Church.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And the next phase of this audit could be the most telling. That's when investigators will try to tally the exact number of sexual abuse victims and priests accused of abuse since 1950. Those results will be available by the end of February and many clergy say the results will be staggering -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you, Jason Carroll on that.Peter Steinfels is the beliefs columnist for the "New York Times" and the author of "A People Adrift" the crisis of the Catholic Church in America. He joins us again. It's good to see you to talk about today's findings. Just broadly it seems to me that the easy part is to set up systems. The hard part, the really hard part for the church is to regain a lost trust and I'm not sure how you quantify that.

PETER STEINFELS, AUTHOR, "A PEOPLE ADRIFT: THE CRISIS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA": Well, I think what we saw today was, as I believe Bishop Gregory himself acknowledged, only the first step in any regaining of trust. There's no question that even the most valuable and credible kind of audit of what kind of systems have been set up so far is only going to go a little way toward countering the amount of anger and suspicion and distrust that emerged with the revelations during the year 2002.

BROWN: Keeping what you just said in mind how then should we view the criticisms of the victims groups that they -- not enough attention was paid to them and their concerns and so on?

STEINFELS: Well, I guess there's one kind of criticism that distresses me and that I don't really understand and that is aimed at really discrediting the report all together. It seems to me that there's lots of very valuable information in here and that this is as independent as audits usually are but I think that the report itself and the bishops recognize that there's a lot of limitations, a lot of things yet to be found out about the actual grassroots implementation, for example, of some of these systems, procedures, and so on at the parish level and here the victims and their experience could be very helpful.

BROWN: And this is kind of a chain of command question. Am I right that the audit looked at how a diocese is performing but didn't go down essentially to the street, to the parish level?

STEINFELS: That's right and they recommended that that be a further step to be taken. For example, there are 19,000 parishes in the Catholic Church in the United States and sooner or later, it seems to me, that they'll have to do something like going into a diocese and taking a random sample of ten parishes or more or less, depending on the size of the diocese, and see whether the procedures that have been set in place by the diocesan officials are really working at the parish level.Now some of them have been working there for years and years but there's a lot yet that I think deservedly has to be explored.

BROWN: Were all bishops helpful? Were they -- did they cooperate with the audit?

STEINFELS: My impression is from reading the first half of the audit, the second half consists of diocese by diocese reports which could be very, very useful to people who really want to see what's going on in their locality.But my impression from reading the first part and from hearing their report at their press conference today is that virtually all of them were cooperative with at least this audit of what's been happening right now and that where places fell below it was due to either lagging resource personnel problems but not an outright form of resistance. Now mind you the diocese which are not compliant are not compliant in general in one or two out of 14 areas that the audit was looking at.

BROWN: For example what might not they have complied with?

STEINFELS: The areas that were most commonly cited had to do with background investigations of people working procedures to look at investigative backgrounds, make checks on personnel working with young people and also the setting up of safe environment programs which would train both personnel and young people themselves about the issues involved in preventing sexual abuse.BROWN: Just really quickly do you also expect this report out at the end of next month to be staggering in its scope?

STEINFELS: I think it's going to be. I think it's a very, very important report and I think it will undoubtedly be controversial and very valuable because that's data, baseline data about 52 years and there's no other study that I know of a profession like that which will be extremely important for future work that the Catholic Church has to do. 

BROWN: Good to see you. Thanks for coming in tonight.

STEINFELS: I'm glad to be here.

BROWN: Thank you. A few other stories making news around the country before we head to break, first Cincinnati where a Delta Airlines flight from Paris became the center of yet another scare. It started when a Saudi woman who was carrying a Jordanian passport tried to board the plane while wearing an electrically heated jacket, really, which looked suspicious to screeners. She was kept off the flight, which got a thorough going over even after it landed more than an hour late in Cincinnati, no problems.In Arkansas, Charles Singleton, a convicted murderer with a history of severe mental illness was executed tonight. He had been on death row in Arkansas since 1979, longer than any other inmate. Last year a Federal Appeals Court ruled the state could force a condemned man to take medication to make him sane enough so that he could be executed. Mr. Singleton's lawyer called his client's mental state artificially induced competence.Goose Creek, South Carolina, the high school principal who requested that a drug raid, which led to accusations of excessive force by police and racism, resigned today. He'll be reassigned to a new school. The video of the raid back in November showed officers with drawn guns ordering students to the floor, no drugs found, no arrests made but two federal lawsuits against the school district and the police have been filed.The U.S. Senator from New York Hillary Rodham Clinton says the joke she told over the weekend was, in her words, a lame attempt at humor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: And, as I introduce her I want to end with her favorite quote because I love this quote. It's from Mahatma Gandhi. He ran a gas station down in St. Louis for a couple of years. Mr. Gandhi, do you still go to the gas station? A lot of wisdom comes out of that gas station.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Senator Clinton was at a political fund-raiser in Missouri introducing a candidate for the Senate when she told the joke, which seemed funny at the time but obviously not later to many people including students of the late Mahatma Gandhi.Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the winning plan for the memorial at Ground Zero but will the choice end the debate over what belongs there?On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Some called it an impossible task. At the very least, selecting a memorial to honor the victims of the September 11 attacks was a marathon that began eight months ago. The number of entries, more than 5,000, exceeded the number of deaths they're meant to commemorate. The designs exposed differences of opinion and agendas and attachments to the idea itself, set off bitter debates, 5,000 designs winnowed to eight finalists, and today, a winner selected. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN (voice-over): The memorial's primary symbols of loss are these twin pools, where the towers once stood; 30 feet below street level, water would cascade on stone walls, bearing the engraved names of those who died at ground zero. Designer Michael Arad originally wanted the nearly 3,000 names arranged randomly. 

MICHAEL ARAD, DESIGNER: I thought that if the names could be just arranged at random, it would echo the way in which people died there. 

BROWN: But Arad HAS told jurists he's flexible on this point. If the families or rescue workers want certain names listed together, he's not opposed. At street level, he envisions a cobblestone plaza with groves of trees to bring back life and that verticality to the site that the towers once had. Unidentified human remains would be interred at the site's deepest point, 70 feet underground. This competition began just eight months ago with a worldwide call for entries, 5,201 ideas sent in on simple poster boards. A jury of 13, mostly professionals in the arts, including Vietnam memorial designer Maya Lin, studied each and every one. Just six weeks ago, the jury revealed eight finalists. They all made dramatic use of water and light, multilevel construction and, in some way, marked those tower footprints. But, in many ways, it seemed, the public was unimpressed. 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very cold, very stark. Maybe in reality, it wouldn't be like that, but that's how the -- that's how this strikes me. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like reflecting absence. I think it's simple. I think the architectural lines fit into this area of the city. 

BROWN: The memorial must fit in the southwest corner of these 16 acres. 

DANIEL LIBESKIND, WORLD TRADE CENTER MASTER ARCHITECT: It's a great day for the project. Another important piece of the puzzle, the central one, the memorial itself, has now fallen into place. BROWN: Arad is but 34 years old, an Israeli-born architect, educated in the United States, living in New York City and, until now, designing police stations. 

VARTAN GREGORIAN, WORLD TRADE CENTER MEMORIAL JUROR: Even the final investigation of the winning design will require additional refinements. BROWN: The jury said Arad's revised plan will be unveiled publicly next week, with the hope to begin construction by the end of this year. 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN: It was clear early on it would be impossible to satisfy everyone who has a stake in the World Trade Center memorial. And it is fair to say the families of those who perished on September 11 have a unique stake. Monica Iken and Mary Fetchet are among them. We're always glad to see them both.Mary, let me start with you. You're not especially happy with the choice.

MARY FETCHET, CHAIRWOMAN, VOICES OF SEPTEMBER 11: Well, I'm part of a group that is working on the memorial, the Coalition of 9/11 Families. And we're very disappointed in the memorial, truthfully, all the eight memorial designs. We feel that the process has been backwards, that the site is historical and has historical significance, and that the footprints of the building, of both buildings, should be identified, preserved, and incorporated into the memorial and that families and all that visit the memorial should have access to those footprints. 

BROWN: Monica, when you saw it first, did you expect to like it? 

MONICA IKEN, FOUNDER, SEPTEMBER'S MISSION: From the beginning, I saw the eight designs. And I was privileged to be on the program for the elements for the competition.And I have to say that each and every one of those designs did incorporate those elements that we had concerns as family members for. And I was inspired. And I was so impressed at the jury to have -- I don't know how they did it, to come up with the eight designs. I couldn't have picked one. And I still don't know how they've done that. And I feel like, you know, we're losing sight, really, of what this is. This is not about a design. This is about remembering our loved ones who are no longer here and why we are here today. This is not about the families. This is not about the residents. This is not about the politicians. This is about why we're here. Why are we here? Why am I here with you? It is to remember the lives that were lost, that were taken away, senselessly, that day. And we're here to make sure that whatever design gets implemented at that site reflects those lives and honors those lives for the future. And I think that that design will do that, because it can be modified. It can be changed. The Libeskind plan, the land use changed four times. And I feel that the elements that were missing will be incorporated. It's like the Vietnam Wall. No one liked that. And it took years. 

(CROSSTALK) 

BROWN: Mary, go ahead. 

FETCHET: I was going to say, the difference between the Vietnam Wall and the World Trade Center site is, this event took place on this site.And the thing that it lacks, it does not convey the story of the destruction, the magnitude of the event, or the loss of life. And I think, if bedrock -- if the boxed-in columns which exist today on bedrock are identified and preserved and they bring back the remains of the building, the facade, the globe, the cross, incorporate the slurry wall, you know, all of these important historical artifacts, so people can see, feel, and touch and experience the destruction and certainly the loss that we've suffered not only as a country, but as a world. 

BROWN: Mary, do you -- is there any part of you that thinks that this has all happened too quickly? 

FETCHET: I think it has been very rushed. You know, I'm surprised, even, with these eight designs that they have been able, despite the input, the response that they've had from artists, historians and so forth, the negative response that they've had, that there was just a delay of one week. I think the first thing that they should have done as an historical assessment of the site, to determine to historical significance. And I think of the site, just as USS Arizona, that you will go to the museum at Pearl Harbor, but then you walk out and you stand over that ship that is exactly where it sank. It hasn't been moved. It hasn't been infringed upon. 

BROWN: Yes. 

FETCHET: It hasn't been covered up. And it's -- the footprint of the building and the space within it is a sacred space. That's where 3,000 people lost their lives. BROWN: Actually, I think the first time you and I talked -- it's almost two years ago now -- we talked about this question of how soon, how quickly, whether we ought to wait. The Vietnam Wall took a really long time. Just take a few seconds and a bit talk about your own evolution and how you've come to accept I think more comfortably than certainly two years ago the process that has gone on downtown. 

IKEN: I feel that I have definitely been one of the most outspoken critics of the process when warranted. And I'm finally coming to a point where I've realized -- and I've paid close attention to the memorial process -- that you have to work with all those involved in this process. And I look to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and the governor and the architects and the designers, who have the most renowned experience in this. And this is what their task is to do. And we need to follow that. And I see it differently now, because I'm confident. I really do feel that this is now going to be an amazing memorial. And we have some hope now. There's some hope here. I can't see myself be negative for eight more years. I want to know that, at some point, for the two-thirds of us who will not get a remain back, that I can go to that site and it's peaceful. It's not glorified destruction. I don't want to go there and feel that horrific event. I want to go there and feel peace and hope and reverence and honor. 

BROWN: Good to see you. Good to see you both again. You both have clear and important voices on this. And we appreciate them tonight. Thank you both. 

FETCHET: Thank you. IKEN: Thank you. 

BROWN: We'll take a break. We'll continue in a moment. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: Well, it used to be pretty simple. You were a Ford family, unless dad was doing all right and drove a Buick. Uncle Harry, who always knew what he wanted, had a Coupe DeVille in the driveway. But Uncle Ernie drove a Dodge, because a car is just for getting from point A to point B, after all, and who needs air conditioning anyway? Just roll down the windows if you're hot. And foreign cars? For grad students and oral surgeons. The day all that changed should have been a day of reckoning for Detroit. Instead, the SUV came along and, for a while, everything was gravy again, until that too changed. And now GM and Ford and Chrysler are waking up to the cold reality that, as car companies, they've lost the touch when it comes to selling cars. From this year's auto show in Detroit, here's CNN's Jeff Flock. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

 JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Detroit's about cars again, fast cars, flashy cars, fun cars. The sixth- generation Corvette, the Chrysler ME 412 super sports car that goes 248 miles an hour, the first all-new Mustang in 25 years. 

CSABA CSERE, "CAR & DRIVER": This represents the type of car that Detroit's going to be building to captivate customers, hopefully to get customers to buy without the rebate. 

FLOCK: Essentially paying people to buy isn't cutting it, says "Car & Driver" editor Csaba Csere. So automakers are bringing on high style, cars buyers may actually want, the Pontiac Solstice, hot two- seat convertible, concepts like the Saturn Curve. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the new breed of sports car.

FLOCK: The Chevy Nomad, a throwback to a '50s concept modeled on a Corvette, the Dodge Slingshot. Speaking of concepts:

CSERE: This is the Toyota FTX. 

FLOCK: A concept truck and a pretty wild one at that, even down on the show floor. 

CSERE: But it's the vehicle at this show that has Detroit scared the most. 

FLOCK: That's because it will some day go head to head with Detroit's big trucks, like the F-150, North American truck of the year winner at the show, and others from Chrysler and GM, which have been so successful. 

CSERE: That was the last place where Detroit could make a lot of money, was in the full-size pickup segment. 

FLOCK: Which is why there's a new focus on the rest of what they build. And while dancing girls sing the praises of the Chrysler snow- and-go minivan seats, featuring CEO Dieter Zetsche. 

DIETER ZETSCHE, CEO, CHRYSLER: Who says minivans can't be sexy.

FLOCK: The real stars of the show may be the hybrids, the gas- electric Toyota Prius, car of the year, and concepts like this diesel- electric Tourer from Mercedes, and a flashy gas hydrogen Mazda RX-8.

CSERE: You're not going to know it's a hybrid from behind the wheel. It is going to work perfectly well. It's going to have good performance. It's simply going to get better fuel economy. 

FLOCK: Having it all, a winning concept. Now, if only Detroit can sell it at full price. I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, in Detroit. 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Moving on to our MONEYLINE "Roundup" right now, which begins with the new normal. The Bush administration today choosing three companies to try and develop a plan for systems to defend commercial airliners against anti-aircraft missiles. They'll get $2 million each for their effort. Actually deploying such a system is expected to cost at least $1 million a plane. The Army decided today that Halliburton was not gouging on gasoline in Iraq. A ruling from the Army Corps of Engineers puts the blame for the overcharge on the Kuwaiti government. Markets rallied back from early losses today, except for the blue chips, which finished in the red, but only by a gnat's eyelash. How do we know that? Who has ever seen a gnat's eyelash?Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the loss of a legend. One of the most celebrated portrait photographer of all time dies in New York. We'll look at some of his extraordinary work after the break. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: There's no disguising this program's love affair for the still picture, which we life to think sometimes better expresses the truth or exposes a deeper truth than pictures that move. For the most part, that means photojournalism and lately war photography. It's where we are these days. But tonight, we have occasion, sad occasion, to look at pictures of another sort, images of great beauty and the truth they reveal. It is a sad occasion, because Francesco Scavullo, who always had the gift for finding truth in beauty, died today. He died of heart failure at 81. The words and now pictures from NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No other photographer had a greater influence on fashion and beauty than Francesco Scavullo. 

FRANCESCO SCAVULLO, PHOTOGRAPHER: Beautiful like that. 

NISSEN: His cameras chronicled 50 years of style, focused on thousands of the most famous faces in the world, Elizabeth Taylor, Muhammad Ali, Christopher Reeve. His focus on movie stars started early, in the mid-1920s. 

SCAVULLO: My grandfather took me to the movies I think when I was 4. And I just was fascinated by movie stars, by glamorous women and great looking guys. 

NISSEN: By the time Scavullo was 10, he was involved with pictures himself, using his dad's box camera to take photos of his sisters, whom he posed to mimic models he'd seen in "Harper's Bazaar" and "Vogue" magazines. Fashion magazines made the young Scavullo's career. For 30 years, from 1965 to 1995, he shot the covers of "Cosmopolitan" magazine, made the "Cosmo" girl into an icon of American fashion. Scavullo shot covers for a newsstand full of other magazines, from "TIME" to "Rolling Stone." He shot movie posters, most famously for the remake of "A Star is Born," starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.He shot album covers for a number of artists, including Diana Ross, whom he persuaded to pose in ripped jeans, a wet T-shirt, wet hair and no makeup. She still looked glamorous. That was Scavullo's particular gift. Through his lens, all his subjects looked glamorous, Grace Kelly in an enamel-on-canvas silk-screen, a young Brooke Shields in black and white. Many of his subject were beautiful on the face of it. Scavullo somehow drew out their inner beauty with his own sense of wit, sense of fun. 

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, MODEL: When Scavullo used to call me and he would say Thursday, call the agency, and say Thursday, I want Isabella at my studio, I used to say to Francesco, I start giggling on Wednesday and I stop laughing on Sunday. 

NISSEN: The photographer was once asked what the Scavullo style was. "It is more a caring about the person and loving them," he said, "and putting them in a good light." That, he did, put thousands of the beautiful and famous in very good light. Beth Nissen, CNN, New York. 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN: Morning papers after the break. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

(ROOSTER CROWING) 

BROWN: OK, time to check the morning papers from around the country and around the world. If you're traveling around the world tomorrow, you may find "The International Herald Tribune," the world's daily newspaper, published by "The New York Times." There we go. It's easier if I do it this way. Edited and printed in Paris. So, for those of you who are still having some issues with that, you may not want to pick it up. I like the story. It actually appeared in today's "New York Times," I believe. "Libyan Arms Traced to Pakistan. Nuclear Know-how Imported, U.S. Says." Pakistanis have some issues on this transferring of nuclear technology. Anyway, that's the lead, or one of the leads. Interestingly enough, "Pakistan and India Make Leap Forward." This is a pretty good story. Americans don't largely pay attention to this, but it's just possible peace may break out. This is not tomorrow's paper, OK? This is the only way I could get this into the program. And you know how I love these royals stories. "Diana Letter: It Was Charles." You know, this story that Diana thought that her husband, or ex-husband, was trying to kill her. This stuff is like a movie, isn't it? "The Times of London." "Royal Fury At Diana Inquiry." "She wasn't pregnant. I've seen into her womb." I don't want to know. OK, back here to the United States, we go. This isn't an audience program. "The Des Moines Register." This is the first time we've had the paper, I think. We're glad to have it. I hope they keep sending it. "Competitors Keep the Heat on Dean. Radio Debate Shows Divisions on Pocketbook Issues." We're a couple weeks away from Iowa. And keep an eye on "The Des Moines Register," a very nice newspaper in the middle of the country."The Times Herald-Record" in Upstate New York. "Credit Card Delinquencies Set Record. Consumer Debt Hits All-Time High." Plus -- I love when newspapers do this, by the way -- "Tips For Getting Out of Debt." Don't spend so much. "The Detroit Free Press," right? "Car Sales to Surge, But Not Profit." Sounds like a lousy business model to me. You know, the more you sell, you ought to make more. But what do I know? Thirty seconds, really? I had not heard about this. This is "The Jerusalem Post." This is just a grab bag of papers today, isn't it? "Israel Reported Holding Talks With Libya." That's pretty cool, if that's actually going on. Maybe that will lead to something good. How much time, Terry (ph)? Oh, I'll never get there. "Cape Cod Times." "Kind of a Miracle. Sleeping Dennis Man Survives After Car Plows Into His Cabin, Sending His Bed Into the Street." That's called leading local. The weather in tomorrow is Chicago -- the weather in tomorrow is Chicago. No, the weather tomorrow is Chicago is iced down. There's your "Sun-Times."We'll be right back. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: Before we go, a quick recap of our top story, the state of the state address seen around the world, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tonight warning of painful budget cuts, details to come Friday, and bankruptcy for the state if voters don't approve a $15 billion bond issue they'll vote on in March.Tomorrow on the program, Connecticut's governor targeted by allegations of corruption and, perhaps, shortly, an impeachment attempt. Also tomorrow, Bill Maher, target of nothing that we know of, but we like to have him on the program. He'll be here, too."LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.For most of you, we'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT. 

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