Rainstorms Cause Mudslides in Southern California; 'Simpsons' Character Comes Out
Aired February 21, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again.When it comes to the forces of nature, Southern California is famous for being either heaven on earth or hell on earth, but rarely anything in between.Last Thursday, after weeks of heavy rain, it started raining yet again, and it hasn't stopped since, turning riverbeds into rivers and high desert into flood plains.This morning, rescuers had quite a time pulling a man from the rising waters around a trailer park in Thousand Palms. They got him out safely, but they've been busy.Stories of rain and rescue begin us now with CNN's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Northbound 605.TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Los Angeles County Fire Urban Search and Rescue Team gets a call that a mudslide into a home has trapped at least one victim.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're about less than 10 out.ROWLANDS: They arrive to find mud and debris from floor to ceiling inside a condominium.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, bring a chainsaw and...
ROWLANDS: A woman is trapped against a bathroom wall.
CAPT. DON ROY, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: We had a whole mountain of mud from the hill had come through the house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don, can you pull that?
ROWLANDS: Using saws, crowbars, and sledgehammers, firefighters cut through a dining room wall to get to the bathroom.ROY: This would be what they call a fluid. It's not a static. But what I mean by fluid, it's constantly moving. And if we had actually water flowing underneath that mud pile, which is a big concern for us, because once you get the mud flowing down, and it's static, now we got water actually filtering underneath it into the house, into the spot where she was at, was the path of that mud. And that is bad.
ROWLANDS: A human chain is used to move debris. Eventually, they get to the woman. She is in pain, but able to talk.
LEO IBARRA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: The concern is with what's called a crush syndrome. When we have this pressure built up against our body parts over a period of time, lactic acid begins to build up in our system. And then once that pressure's released, all that acid goes to the major organs in our body.So the concern is, is that even though she's talking to us now, once we alleviate that pressure, she could, what we would call, bottom out. Then she would go into full arrest.ROWLANDS: The victim tells firefighters she can't feel the lower half of her body. Eventually, they're able to get her onto a stretcher.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can move her if she's strapped. We can go.
ROWLANDS: And into an ambulance. The victim is then taken by chopper to a local hospital.Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There is, of course, a difference between really bad weather and the damage it causes, and natural disasters of the sort that hit South Asia. Southern California will recover in weeks. South Asia won't recover for years.Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have wrapped up their three-day tour of the countries devastated by the tsunami, both visibly moved by what they saw and heard. They spent their final day visiting Sri Lanka and the Maldives.On March the 8th, they'll report on what they witnessed to the president.It's been nearly two months now since the tsunami hit, and we're starting to get some hard numbers on the magnitude of the destruction and the loss of life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): This much we do know, the December 26 tsunami was one of the worst on record. Nearly 170,000 people confirmed dead, more than the entire population of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Tens of thousands more remain missing.Indonesia suffered the brunt of the devastation, more than 122,000 dead there. Sri Lanka, India, Thailand also hit hard, very hard.Catastrophe has many measures. More than a million people throughout Asia have lost their homes. Many are orphans. Aid officials estimate there may be as many as 35,000 orphans in Indonesia alone.Enormous loss has been matched by tremendous generosity. Relief donations have reached almost $4.5 billion. Some aid agencies, like UNICEF, have even turned money away, saying they have enough to do the job for now.In the days and weeks after the tsunami, the task seemed overwhelming.
DR. RICHARD BRENNAN, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: This should be oriented...
BROWN: It did to Dr. Richard Brennan on the ground in Banda Aceh.
BRENNAN: It always takes days to weeks to gear up on a large- scale relief effort. The scale of this relief effort is something that I haven't seen before. I mean, this is just enormous.
BROWN: Dr. Brennan recently returned from Indonesia, where he says now the focus is shifting.
BRENNAN: We're into the phase of moving out of the acute emergency response and really having to focus our strategies on helping the communities rebuild their lives and their livelihoods. And we're already talking about community regeneration now.BROWN: The cost of rebuilding will be steep. The United Nations estimates it may take as much as $12.5 billion, which would mean more money will have to be raised.As for the long-term losses, they may be harder to quantify. Whole economies have been decimated. In Maldives, the damage equals more than half of the country's gross domestic product.For those on the ground across South Asia, losses and steps forward are measured on a smaller scale.
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BROWN: Such as one brick at a time. In Banda Aceh in Indonesia, not far from the epicenter of the earthquake that spawned the tsunami, so much of the city was leveled by the water, it'll take a lot of bricks, stacked one on top of the other, to give people a sense that their city is alive once again.Tonight, Beth Nissen introduces us to a woman in Banda Aceh who has a message for her friends and neighbors as they rebuild. Remember what Francis Bacon said, knowledge is power.
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BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Its walls withstood the violent shaking of the earth. But the Banda Aceh Public Library could not survive the huge waves of seawater, muck, and debris that followed. The ground-floor library was swamped, from the front steps to the back reading rooms.Just after the disaster, several bodies were collected from the front and back yards, but it was days before anyone ventured inside.
Ustidar (ph), a librarian who headed up the preservation department, was one of the first to return, one of the few librarians who survived. The library's director and some 20 members of staff died in the tsunami."
The references in the back, dictionaries, law books, the children's library, it's destroyed," she says. "There's nothing left. It's all gone."
Banda Aceh's only public library was a busy place, used by more than 800 people a day. They would come to read the periodicals, magazines, and newspapers from around the region, to wait their turn to get online, access the World Wide Web.
But mostly they came for the books, the heart of the library, of any library. Books on evolution and revolution, on city planning and village development, thrillers and mysteries, classic works by Tolstoy and Dickens, books that helped high school students with their term papers, and college students with their theses, books that were read to children and that children could learn to read by themselves.
The library housed 200,000 titles in all, says Ustidar, in several languages -- Indonesian, Arabic, English, Mandarin.Books in English were especially important. People would check them out to teach themselves English, or better English. "Everywhere in the world these days," she says, "the English language is essential.
"Since the tsunami, the sense of what's essential has shifted to new homes, clean water, restored livelihoods. In a city of ruined schools, clinics, and neighborhoods, rebuilding a library doesn't seem like a high priority.This veteran librarian insists it is. "Life is more than just food and shelter," she says. "A full stomach without knowledge means little. We need education. We need knowledge to expand." Knowledge in an information age to catch up, keep up.
Workers have salvaged what they can from the library's second floor offices and storage rooms. None of the books can be saved, not even the new ones still in their box that arrived the day before the tsunami. The collection will need to be rebuilt volume by volume. That will take great sums of money, years of time.
But Ustidar can already see it, she says, a place full of light and enlightenment, of information and knowledge and analysis and opinion, of civilization and hope, and the advancement of both. A library.
Beth Nissen, CNN, Banda Aceh.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Much more tonight, including a look at gays, God, and Homer Simpson. And an unholy mess at Harvard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAUDIA GOLDIN, HARVARD ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: He had a yellow pad, and it had, and I saw it had, exactly six words written on it.
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BROWN: Talking points indeed. They landed Harvard in the headlines, and its president in the doghouse.From that president to this one, before he became president.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R), TEXAS (on phone): I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BROWN: Candid moments with a friend he knew, and a tape recorder he didn't.Real life in Iraq. Let him paint you a picture.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Try to make the viewer see the cartoon in its real form, so he's shocked by the ideas, so at least he starts to realize that he cannot be neutral, that he has to take a side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And to top it all off, a very, very tall tale. But it's all true, and so is this.This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Busy day for President Bush on the first full day of his European trip. In Brussels, Mr. Bush delivered a speech highlighting what he called a new era of transatlantic unity. The president is in Europe in part to mend fences with some longtime allies who did not support the war in Iraq, chief among them French President Jacques Chirac. Two leaders met this afternoon. Both stressed the importance of Franco-American relations, and they had dinner tonight at the residence of the U.S. ambassador.
Thousands of antiwar protesters took to the streets of Belgium's capital today, holding signs saying President Bush is not welcome there.
As the president works at a bit of diplomatic kiss-and-make-up in Old Europe, he might also be wondering about an old friendship back home. Doug Wead was a friend. We assume "was" is the right word here, for Mr. Wead secretly recorded then-candidate Governor Bush as he was preparing his first run for the White House.
From what we've heard in these tapes, there is little shocking in the talks. The then-governor talks about his faith, talks about politics in a way that leads you to believe he understands it's a rough business, and he talks about drugs, pot, specifically, in a way that makes you think he probably inhaled.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BUSH: Well, Doug, but it's not, it doesn't matter, cocaine. It'd be the same with marijuana. I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.
DOUGLAS WEAD: Yes, and it never stops, the question.
BUSH: But, but, but you got to understand, I want to be president, I want to lead. I want to set -- Do you want your little kid to say, Hey, Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BROWN: In the tapes, Mr. Bush also disagrees with social conservatives who want him to take a stronger stance against gays.
The recording released by Mr. Wead are just a fraction of those he made over a two-year period that he's now turned into a book. Tonight, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper he's considering turning all nine hours of tape over to the White House.
Well, that is what he said. He also said he didn't think he was being disloyal, that he thought it was an act of preserving history.I suppose it dates me a bit. When I was growing up, nobody wasted a lot of brain cells wondering what the hidden messages were in "The Flintstones." Then again, the Flintstones weren't the Simpsons. "The Simpsons" have made it their business to grapple with and poke fun at as many hot-button issues as they can get their four-fingered hands on.
And in doing so, they've earned not only enemies and laughs, but also the grudging admiration of -- would you believe it -- more than a few evangelical Christians.The sacred in a moment. First the profane.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It's not politics but profit that leads Springfield to take up the cause of gay marriage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to bring tourism back to Springfield. As usual, I will open the floor to all crazy ideas that jump to people's minds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stronger beer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gladiator fights.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Poetry slam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Giant rats.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why don't we legalize same-sex marriage? We can attract a growing segment of the marriage market, and strike a blow for civil rights.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Springfield goes for the dollar, offering a sanctuary for gay and lesbian wedded bliss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gay-o, come stay-o...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gay-o, come stay-o...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gay-o, come stay-o...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Not everyone embraces the change. Religious leaders refuse to conduct same-sex ceremonies, which gives Homer Simpson an opportunity to cash in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reverend Simpson...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: If you think "The Simpsons" was coming to an easy conclusion about the morality of gay marriage, think again. Marge Simpson's sister, Patty, announces she will marry the woman she loves, and Marge has trouble coming to terms with her sister's sexual orientation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP., "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoa. Save something for your wedding night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marge, are you sure you're OK with this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course. Everyone should do whatever they want, take a bear to church, read a book with your feet, change your name to Gubelglab.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Even Homer has his doubts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, Lord, please help me say the right words this afternoon, as I consecrate another gay union that angers you so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And the wedding doesn't quite come off as planned, because Patty's bride-to-be turns out to be a man in disguise, trying to score big on the ladies' pro golf tour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Patty, will you marry the real me?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hell, no. I like girls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, safe to say not everyone is thrilled. Just the same, there's a lot to see in "The Simpsons." not all of it irreverent, dangerous, corrupting, or evil. Not that there's anything wrong with that.Mark Pinsky is the author of "The Gospel According to the Simpsons," and he joins us this evening from Orlando, Florida.It's nice to have you with us.Evangelicals went after Spongebob for less than this. Why would they embrace a cartoon program that is as irreverent on so many levels as "The Simpsons"?
MARK PINSKY, AUTHOR, "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE SIMPSONS": I think because they recognize that they have really a friend in this show. It's -- on the surface, it's critical and satirical, but underneath it really -- it respects faith. Here's a family that goes to church on Sundays, that prays, that says grace at meals, that prays, that reads the Bible, and that believes in God, and they make fun of organized religion, but they don't mock sincere faith.
BROWN: In the program, and as people just saw, seems to struggle with the issue, perhaps as a lot of Americans are struggling with the issue.
PINSKY: I think that's part of the genius of "The Simpsons." Springfield, where it takes place, is undetermined where it is geographically, but it's clearly in a red state. And here's a family where the dad works at a nuclear power plant, the mom stays at home. These are people who are -- they live in a suburban tract house. This is middle America grappling with an issue that really middle America is grappling with, and they do it in a fair and honest way, I think.
BROWN: If they had -- I guess to me, as I watched it, it was that it wasn't preachy that made it work. If it's preachy, then it becomes just another TV show preaching, if you will.
PINSKY: Yes. I think the genius of "The Simpsons" is that they take two steps forward, and then one-and-a-half steps back. You think they're predictable in what they're going to do, and then they fool you by looking at the other side of a question in the next joke.
BROWN: Have you ever talked to the people who write the program about how they see religion? They put the next-door neighbor, who is an evangelical, a born-again Christian, who is often the butt of a lot of jokes.
PINSKY: He is. But it's funny, the writers, the ones that I spoke with, really have fallen in love with Ned Flanders, the next- door neighbor. On the surface, he's kind of a doofus, but underneath, he's a really sincere and loving guy. And because of that, many evangelical Christians have really adopted Ned as their mascot, almost.
When I asked the writers about this favorable portrayal of religion, at first they were kind of embarrassed. Here was this show that had a reputation for being cutting-edge and antiauthoritarian. And I kept giving them examples of all this favorable stuff about sincere belief.
And they finally said, Well, it was an act of creative desperation. They never thought the show would last this many seasons, and so they ran out of ideas for a family sitcom, and because commercial television had ignored religion for so many years for fear of offending people or for watering it down, this was a whole area that they could use that hadn't been plowed to death by, you know, two dozen other sitcoms.
BROWN: Is it possible that a sitcom cannot do what a cartoon program can?
PINSKY: Absolutely. I think when people go into a sanctuary, when they go into a lecture hall to hear a talk about religion, a sort of veil of skepticism descends over their brains. But when they're on their family couch watching a cartoon on the TV, I don't think that filter is in place, and so really, some challenging and serious issues can get through to them, because they're not on guard the way they are when they're in church or in class.
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), have you ever tried to figure out sort of how large or how grand is the embrace among evangelicals? Clearly, some people, even at the mention of, are going to be offended by.
PINSKY: I think the recognition on the part of evangelicals that "The Simpsons" is really good for faith took a long time to build, and probably around four or five, maybe six years ago, discerning evangelicals, which is a code word for evangelicals with a sense of humor, began noticing it wasn't what people thought for so many years, that the series was changing, that there was something really valuable there.
And when I went on the radio to promote my book on Christian stations, particularly, host after host said, I'm glad you wrote this book, because I can come out of the closet as someone who's a supporter and a fan of "The Simpsons."
BROWN: You know, I think one of the things the program does, it makes a distinction between poking fun at organized religion or churches, as opposed to believers.
PINSKY: Absolutely. "The Simpsons," without prejudice, attacks every institution of modern American life, and that includes the organized -- the church. The church, the preacher, Reverend Lovejoy, who doesn't really love joy very much, all come in, all take their whacks.But sincere belief, and there's a separation there, sincere belief is never mocked, and God is never mocked. The cartoon characters, ever since Disney, have had four fingers, by tradition. But when God appears on "The Simpsons," God has five fingers. A little wink to say the Simpsons aren't real, but God really is real.
BROWN: Mark, nice to meet you. Thanks for coming with us tonight.
PINSKY: Thanks for having me.
BROWN: Thank you.Coming up on the program, a gentle debate. This is not a schoolyard donnybrook over speech and sex and science that could cost the president of Harvard his job.And later, remembering one of America's sweethearts, Sandra Dee.Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Henry Kissinger is famous for saying that academic infighting is so bitter because the stakes are so low.Perhaps he hasn't been back to Harvard lately, where both the bitterness and the stakes seem off the charts. Tomorrow, faculty members are scheduled to hold an emergency meeting. First, second, and last on the agenda, what President Lawrence Summers said last month about women and the sciences, and what it might mean for the future of Harvard -- his future, that is.
Reporting tonight from Cambridge, CNN's Bill Schneider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): What did Harvard President Larry Summers say to provoke so much controversy? Let's reconstruct the scene with Harvard economics professor Claudia Goldin, a Summers defender who was there.
CLAUDIA GOLDIN, HARVARD ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: When Lawrence Summers got up from a seat over here to address the group, he brought with him a pad of paper. It was a yellow pad. And it had -- and I saw it had -- exactly six words written on it. I have no idea what the words were. But that is what guided his talk. That is, there was no script. There was no formal speech.
SCHNEIDER: Why are women underrepresented in science? Summers asked. He offered three hypotheses. One, willingness to commit to a high-powered job.
GOLDIN: Individuals, men versus women, might make different choices.
SCHNEIDER: But to Harvard physics professor Lisa Randall, that raises a red flag.
LISA RANDALL, HARVARD PHYSICS PROFESSOR: To say that it's just the women's choice not to be serious about their work, that's a bit of an overstatement, and also that obviously has a lot of cultural issues behind it.
SCHNEIDER: Two, aptitude, intrinsic differences between men and women. What intrinsic differences? asks Professor Randall, who has voiced her concerns directly to Summers.
RANDALL: There's no way to establish the kind of intrinsic differences at this point. So having a debate about it is just a debate about prejudices.
SCHNEIDER: Three, socialization and discrimination. Girls are discouraged, and women face barriers.Their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described, Summers said.Summers said his aim was to be provocative.
GOLDIN: He said not once, but I think three times in the discussion, I could be wrong. Prove me wrong.
SCHNEIDER: OK, Professor Randall responds.
RANDALL: The real issue is that these statements just are factually incorrect. And that's pretty important.
SCHNEIDER: A purely academic argument? Not quite. Lawrence Summers is president of the most prestigious university in the world, as this physics student noted.
MARIANGELA LISANTI, WOMEN IN SCIENCE AT HARVARD-RADCLIFFE: His words are going to be heard not only by the students on campus, but also by people all around the country, all around the world, including young girls.
SCHNEIDER: Which makes this academic debate far more than academic.Bill Schneider, CNN, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Quick look now at some other news around the country.In Texas, the search continues for a pregnant woman from Fort Worth and her 7-year-old son. Today, police said the woman's sports- utility vehicle was found in a creekbed north of Dallas. The mother and son reported missing on Saturday.
In Mississippi, a 20-year employee of Northrup Grumman Ship Systems is in custody tonight after opening fire at the company's shipyard in Pascagoula. Two employees wounded, both in stable condition.Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney today proposed raising death benefits for National Guard members killed in action to $100,000 from $5,000. Payments would be retroactive to October 2001 to cover Massachusetts guardsmen killed in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
Douglas Wilder, the former governor of Virginia, owns a page in the history books, not only in his native state, but in the history of the country as well. His story is the focus of tonight's edition of CNN's anniversary series, Then and Now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lawrence Douglas Wilder has earned a reputation exploring uncharted territory, politically as well as racially. He graduated from the private all- black Virginia Union University after being turned away from all-white schools in his native Virginia. Doug Wilder went on to become a celebrated criminal lawyer, state senator, lieutenant governor, and in 1990, the first black governor ever elected in the U.S.
DOUGLAS WILDER, FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: The people of Virginia have spoken tonight!
PHILLIPS: To demonstrate distaste for his state's history of slavery, Wilder chose to take his oath of office outside Virginia's capitol, a building that had served as the Confederate capital during the Civil War. Now at 74, he's beginning a new phase of public service. Last November, following a historic change in the city charter, he became the first mayor elected by the people, rather than the council, in his hometown Richmond.
WILDER: What is it that we are to do? And who are you there for? You're there to represent the people.
PHILLIPS: Today, Mayor Doug Wilder is a common sight on the streets of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University, where he teaches political science.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Three more American soldiers were killed today in Iraq, a roadside bombing in Baghdad, eight other soldiers wounded in the attack. Insurgents have turned up the campaign of violence over the last few days to coincide with a major Shiite religious holiday. Dozens of Iraqis have been killed. CNN's Nic Robertson is in Baghdad tonight with the story of one man who is taking on the insurgents, but not with a gun, his weapon, a pen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's painful and provocative. And that's exactly what this cartoon is supposed to be. "The most painful thing I've ever drawn," newspaper cartoonist Muayyad Nima tells me. So many Iraqis have been killed by insurgents, he explains, that their bodies are like a sea. But Iraqis are determined to sail across to a better place.
MUAYYAD NIMA, CARTOONIST (through translator): Try to make the viewer see the cartoon in its real form, so he's shocked by the ideas, so at least he starts to realize that he cannot be neutral, that he has to take a side.
ROBERTSON: But his pictures, like this one of a family watching TV, reveling in the bloodshed by insurgents, or this, where Iraqis simply ignore insurgents on a killing spree, are not just a wakeup call to Iraqis. They are a direct challenge to the insurgents.
NIMA (through translator): I try to make my style as one of a stand. That is black cartoon, which gives a sense of toughness after all these events and this atmosphere that is full of killing and terrorism. I have to be tough.
ROBERTSON: And Muayyad's message does seem to be getting through. "His cartoons go deep into the true reality," this reader says. "It really is stinging criticism."
Such critique, though, is a new and rare phenomenon. Saddam Hussein banned dissent. And today, few cartoonists dare risk the insurgents' wrath and possible death.
NIMA (through translator): It seems I am not feeling the fear. It is not heroism. I feel that I am presenting a work that enlightens people.
ROBERTSON: Some of his pictures need no explanation, for this grandfather who made a living teaching ceramics during Saddam Hussein's rule, years of artistic frustration finally being released.
NIMA (through translator): I have to be like this. When I implement an idea, I really feel that some people are being moved by the idea, which means that I am on the right path.
ROBERTSON: These days, though, the gun is mighty. And keeping his pen on his chosen path will likely prove a challenge. Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come on the program the man who invented gonzo journalism is gone, the legacy of Hunter S. Thompson. And the rooster will bring no fear or loathing, just the morning's news. A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It is a strange weekend, indeed, when on one side of the obituary page is the poster child for the all-American girl and on the other side is the poster child for '60s excess. But that's where we find ourselves, remembering two people tonight who, despite the fact they lived at the same time on the same planet, seemed to have nothing in common. Sandra Dee and Hunter S. Thompson both died over the weekend. They lived differently, and they died differently. Ms. Dee first.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "GIDGET")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: See, this beach is for surfers only. It's too dangerous for dames.
SANDRA DEE, ACTRESS: Dames? Oh, no, I'm no dame.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Oh, well, what do you know?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: It has all the earmarks of a dame.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She was anything but a dame. Sandra Dee was the all- American girl, the quintessential teenager. If Jackie Kennedy was American royalty, Sandra Dee was our reigning prom queen.
ANDREW COHEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMMING, BRAVO: Sandra Dee was pure. She was everybody's wholesome idea of what a teenager was about in the early '60s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "GIDGET")
DEE: You've got to. It's delicious.
(END VIDEO CLIP);
BROWN: Before she became Gidget, Sandra Dee was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1942 as Alexandra Zuck. Talent shows and modeling propelled her into the movies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A SUMMER PLACE")
DEE: I'm afraid.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Of me? Of yourself?
DEE: Yes, that and some other new feelings that I can't explain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She was the girl every guy wanted to fall in love with, and she was what so many girls hoped to be. After a whirlwind courtship, Sandra Dee married teen idol Bobby Darin in 1960. They soon had a son, Dodd. And those who know Sandra Dee well said motherhood was the role she loved best.
STEVE BLAUNER, FORMER BOBBY DARIN MANAGER: Dodd is the apple of her eye, and he is a testament to what a good mother she was. The two loves of her life were her son and Bobby Darin. BROWN: But her marriage to Darin was tumultuous and capsized after seven years, part of that pain recounted in the new movie "Beyond the Sea."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BEYOND THE SEA")
KEVIN SPACEY, ACTOR: All the slaps and the smiles, and, in the meantime, I'm a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) joke out there.
KATE BOSWORTH, ACTRESS: Not as big of a joke as you are right now. SPACEY: Warren Beatty is there with Leslie Caron, who is nominated for best actress. And I'm there with Gidget.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Dodd Darin and director Kevin Spacey talked about the film recently with Larry King.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")
LARRY KING, HOST: Was it difficult for you to see them play out arguments between your father and mother?
DODD DARIN, SON OF SANDRA DEE: Sure.
KING: Your father and his temper, your mother and her drinking.
DARIN: Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the beautiful things of the film, is, it's very real. And it was difficult. I mean, my mom, you know, went through a lot with him. He could be difficult. She could be difficult. And it was painful to see that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: In later years, she revealed the reality behind the dream. She said she'd been sexually abused as a child, suffered from anorexia, but she battled back. And shortly before her death, she went to see the movie "Beyond the Sea."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")
DARIN: Well, she went with her assistant to watch it privately. I wasn't there. Kevin wasn't there. That's how she wanted it. And she came over right afterwards to my house. And she's a good actress, but she ain't that good. She was speechless. She was just moved and touched. And she came in and she said, you know, I'm so proud to have been part of his life, to have, you know, spent those years with them. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And those who knew and loved Sandra Dee felt exactly the same way about her.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: It is hard, on the other hand, to imagine what some of his friends must have thought of Hunter S. Thompson at times. Sandra Dee, he was not. Or, so the legend went, and so the caricature was drawn. The reality may be something else entirely, or at least something more complex. There was a gentle, courtly side to the man. But the legend grew to gobble up great chunks of our attention and perhaps a bit of the man as well. Hunter S. Thompson killed himself yesterday. He was 67.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Call it a coincidence, but on the last night of Hunter Thompson's life, millions of Americans were watching a television show celebrating a body of work whose peak was reached some 30 years ago, "Saturday Night Live." Like this first startling burst of energy from a satirical voice anchored in the counterculture, Hunter Thompson's journalistic voice was rooted in the sensibility of the late '60s rebellion. Authority was suspect. Insight was better fueled by mind-altering chemicals. And the conventions of a straight-ahead, neutral narration were inadequate to the facts. Only the vision of a slightly mad reporter, Thompson seemed to say, could really convey the madness of the times.
So, when the Kentucky-born Thompson, with years of mainstream journalistic experience behind him, arrived in Las Vegas in the early '70s, he took everything he knew about journalistic do's and don't's and threw them away. His vision of Vegas, the playground of the American id, was filtered through booze and drugs. He didn't just insert himself into the story. He hurled himself into it at real risk to body and mind, the result, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," a unique blend of fact and fancy.
And when "Rolling Stone" magazine sent Thompson on the campaign trail in 1972, the result was campaign coverage that appalled many and enthralled many others. Richard Nixon," he wrote, was like the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He spoke for the werewolf in all of us. "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" was another enduring work.
Two first-rate actors, Bill Murray and Johnny Depp, have tried to capture Thompson on film, but he seemed to inhabit neither the movies, nor the decades that followed the '70s. He ran for sheriff of his adopted home of Aspen, Colorado, found himself in a fair share of scrapes, found his attempts at fiction lacking an audience. And, on Sunday night, after years of affection for firearms, he made one final use of one. The arc of Hunter Thompson's life and work may not have been what he or we would have wished. But if his friends and admirers seek consolation, they can know that future generations will not be able to grasp the nature of his time without listening to that gifted, if demented voice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We began the program with the forces of nature. And that's where we go next, nature as exemplified by trees. Did you know that some trees are the largest living things on Earth? Some date back centuries, others thousands of years. And that's just the trees in this country, captured in a new book entitled "Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest," created by photographer James Balog.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES BALOG, PHOTOGRAPHER, "TREE: A NEW VISION OF THE AMERICAN FOREST": I started out doing the series with one original idea, namely, that I would put backgrounds behind the trees and light them, basically bringing a portrait studio to the forest.
As time went on, the project evolved into a lot of different styles, black and white with a little $16 plastic camera, very high- tech with all these digital images, and then a lot of points in between. I went from Key West to the Pacific Northwest, from Arizona to New England, and lots and lots of points in between. What I was trying to do was make portraits of the largest, oldest, strongest trees in America.
These bristlecone are so old that the great pyramids of Giza were being built when these trees were rooted. They are bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California in the desert. They're living at 10,000 feet. And they grow to be 4,733 years old. That's the age of the very oldest one.
This is a fantastic old cedar growing on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington all by itself out in a big clear-cut. This is one of the first times I decided that one frame just wasn't enough. I stood at the bottom of this thing and just -- one picture just didn't do it. There's this fabulous aspen grove in Fish Lake, Utah. It's 106 acres. It weighs 13 million pounds, because there's 47,000 trees all coming out of the same root system. I walked through the aspen grove. And this panel shows me looking forward and looking backwards at the same time as I'm moving through the grove itself.
This redbud had this very oriental, soft feeling to it. It's so soft and so romantic and so sweet, I almost didn't put it in the book.
This is the Mount Everest of the plant kingdom. It's a coast redwood named Stratosphere Giant. It's 370 feet tall. I shot this by repelling down through the forest. In the course of going down there, I photographed 815 frames, and then I later assembled the mosaic on a computer.
People help to give the pictures a sense of scale and monumentality of the subjects. This is the beautiful cottonwood tree that I have in my back yard. It's not one of the national champions by any means. But to me, it gave me such joy over the years watching this tree in its annual evolution.
Photography is an amazing act. It forces you to contemplate and slow down and just be there and consider things much more carefully. I learned that these trees have incredible individuality, incredible character, incredible individual personality.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers printed on recycled paper after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We'll start with "The International Herald Tribune." The president is overseas. Seems like a good way to start. Newspapers struggled a little bit to find the right lead on the president, but this one most often the case. "Bush Warns Russia on Rule of Law.
"But down here, thumbs, if you can. "Open Minds on Open Seas. British Royal Navy Woos Gays and Lesbians." Different countries, different policies I guess the way to look at that, British Royal Navy looking for more recruits.
"The Washington Times" on the president's trip. "Bush, Chirac Tell Syria to Leave Lebanon, Call For Pullout of 14,000 Troops, Per U.N. Resolution." They also put Hunter Thompson on the front page, "End of Story For Hunter Thompson."
Yikes.
"Gonzo Writer Takes His Own Life." I'm not sure why that's front page in Tuesday's paper. But maybe they had that early deadline yesterday.
"Stars and Stripes" or -- today that would be, wouldn't it? "Prison Riot in Iraq Reveals Risks For U.S. Recent Uprising Exposes Increasingly Violent Inmate Population." That's comforting. Also, they put Hilary Swank on the front page. "Oscar Winner Has Good Shot at Second Statue."
You bet.
I love this headline. I don't know about the story. "Conspiracy Theory, Representative Maurice Hinchey's, Claims White House Planted CBS Memos." Well, let's just say they did. It doesn't mean CBS shouldn't have checked them out, does it? Also, by the way, new tips for potty training, if you're interested.
"The Press of Atlantic City," haven't done this in a long time. "Bush Appeals to E.U. For Mideast Peace Help," different lead, same trip.
The weather in Chicago tomorrow, according to "The Chicago Sun- Times," "listless."We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Good to have you with us tonight. "AMERICAN MORNING," 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Sharon von Zwieten's Tirades
After an evening of Aaron's favorite subjects (2.18.04) during NewsNight, Ms. von Zwieten awoke to my posting on "The Revolt and the Revolting" (www.stopwarsaveearth.blogspot.com) in celebration of legislation from 1986 passed by the USA after 37 years of delay to make Genocide a crime.
She hated the assertion and had a 'conniption fit.' She took all the normally back page 'banner ads' that reflect bigotry and put them on the front page.
Ms. van Zwieten cannot handle her hatred and it is reflected in revenge on CNN's Main E-Page today.
I don't know where her hatred ends but somehow she actually thinks I am not supposed to have opinion beyond what she preceives as appropriate to her political aspirations for her party affiliations and possible personal affiliations that go beyond same. It's outrageous to believe there is a way of controlling my behavior based on her hatred. She isn't rational in her desire to control not just me by the outcome of elections and thought of people who are different outside her Christian directives.
It's a darn shame to realize a woman with such potential to do 'good' only wants to 'use' an entire news network to control a populous and bring about enthusiasm for a regime of war mongering.
I feel sorry for her. I don't think she has her own mind about her.
She hated the assertion and had a 'conniption fit.' She took all the normally back page 'banner ads' that reflect bigotry and put them on the front page.
Ms. van Zwieten cannot handle her hatred and it is reflected in revenge on CNN's Main E-Page today.
I don't know where her hatred ends but somehow she actually thinks I am not supposed to have opinion beyond what she preceives as appropriate to her political aspirations for her party affiliations and possible personal affiliations that go beyond same. It's outrageous to believe there is a way of controlling my behavior based on her hatred. She isn't rational in her desire to control not just me by the outcome of elections and thought of people who are different outside her Christian directives.
It's a darn shame to realize a woman with such potential to do 'good' only wants to 'use' an entire news network to control a populous and bring about enthusiasm for a regime of war mongering.
I feel sorry for her. I don't think she has her own mind about her.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
A Look at Cox-2 Inhibitors; Negroponte Nominated to Become Nation's First National Intelligence Director
Aired February 17, 2005 - 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.When Vioxx and Celebrex first hit the market in the late '90s it was easy to imagine them as the first two members of a whole new class of wonder drugs, super aspirins they were called. Scientifically they're known as Cox-2 inhibitors, painkillers that weren't also stomach killers, chemical heroes.
Tonight, after studies and hearings and headlines you might imagine the Cox-2 drugs as villains instead plain and simple, except that it's neither plain nor simple. In December, Pfizer, for example, stopped advertising Celebrex to consumers but it hasn't stopped selling it. In fact, you'll find a statement on Pfizer's Web site standing behind the drug, which leaves a patient exactly where?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): David Pollinger will turn 78 next week and he looks at risk with a rational eye.
DAVID POLLINGER, CELEBREX USER: I don't think it's been proven to me yet that I should cease taking this drug. If I have to and I'm told to and my doctor advises me to, well then I will but until that time I think I'm going to continue to take it.
BROWN: He continues to take Celebrex even as many people are switching to other medications, even though he has a history of heart disease. He takes it for a simple reason. It improves his life.
DAVID POLLINGER: Well, the first thing that Celebrex has provided was, of course, lesser discomfort and pain. The second thing is it improves my golf game. I can probably hit the ball a little better and swing a little better and score a few strokes better than if I were not taking it.
BROWN: Pollinger, who suffers from arthritis, started taking Celebrex five years ago after surgery on his shoulder. When recent studies linking the Cox-2s to heart attacks and strokes began surfacing he sat down with his cardiologist and his wife Donna.
DONNA POLLINGER, SPOUSE: We figure out, my husband and I and the doctor and we all discussed this, that if it's going to make him feel comfortable and he's not in so much pain that, you know, why not try it?
BROWN: Dr. Stephen Paget, a rheumatologist in New York, doesn't treat Mr. Pollinger but he does treat many others with disabling chronic pain including some who remain on the Cox-2 drugs.
DR. STEPHEN PAGET, PHYSICIAN IN CHIEF, HOSP. FOR SPECIAL SURGERY: They have severe pain that's incapacitating and stops them from living the life that they want to lead.
BROWN: Prescribing medication, Dr. Paget says, is a careful balancing act.
PAGET: And what you want to factor into it is a safety formula for that individual person.
BROWN: And now the equation has changed.
PAGET: There's no doubt that the formula that's used now is different from 1999 and 2000 because when you add into it death from cardiovascular disease or stroke that ups the ante tremendously.
BROWN: So, patients and doctors will continue to weigh the pros and cons of the Cox-2 drugs and people, being who they are, different patients will have different comfort levels when it comes to risk.
POLLINGER: I've heard the risks and in the whole scope of life on earth before we go to our future life this is -- it wasn't a big decision at this moment to make.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That is one side of the story. Now another contradiction, another drug, today Merck, the maker of Vioxx, said it's considering putting the drug back on the market despite the risk of heart attack and stroke. So, again two sides of the equation, risk and benefit.Here's CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's why it's really awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we had one come back after the Army. That was a little rough or a while there but, yes, they're on their own and they're doing OK and now we can play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, we have a technical problem there. We'll try and sort that out and we'll try and sort out some other things as well. Dr. Elizabeth Tindall joins us now from Washington. She's the president of the American College of Rheumatology in Boston; Dr. Jerry Avorn, professor of medicine at Harvard and the author of "Powerful Medicines," and it's good to see you both.
DR. ELIZABETH TINDALL, AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY: Thank you.
BROWN: There's a little bit of, I think, Cox-2 inhibitor 101 we need to do because there's been so much out there over the last couple of months. Jerry, do we know that these drugs relieve pain any better than aspirin or ibuprofen?
JERRY AVORN, M.D., AUTHOR, "POWERFUL MEDICINES": No, Aaron, we don't and what's striking and what sometimes gets forgotten about in the course of all this debate is that there are no studies out there showing that these drugs are stronger pain relievers than aspirin or Motrin or Naproxen or any of the other drugs that have been around for years.
Their one claim to fame had been that they'd be somewhat gentler on your stomach but if there had been a study that showed that Vioxx or Celebrex was stronger than Motrin or aspirin, I'm sure Merck and Pfizer would have shown it to us on commercials every night and we haven't seen those data because they don't exist.
BROWN: I want to come back to that question in a second. Dr. Tindall, nevertheless patients, some patients certainly believe that these Cox-2 inhibitors do relieve pain that the Motrin and the aspirins did not, correct?
TINDALL: That is correct, Aaron, and I think it has to do with each individual patient trying different medications. Sometimes they work for a while. Sometimes they don't. And when you have people with arthritis who have pain for years they can go through a lot of different medications before they find one that works well for them.
And, although it's true there is not an improvement over pain say over traditional non-steroidals, nonetheless all these medications had to do to be approved was to say they were equal in potency. So, we have sort of changed the standard. Now we're asking them to be better as far as pain relief.
BROWN: OK. I'll go back against Jerry on this. Do we ever -- does the industry or the government or you guys at universities do you ever take two drugs and compare them? Do you ever say put aspirin next to Vioxx and run tests on those or is it always a placebo?
AVORN: Well, that's exactly the point, Aaron. Those are the exact kinds of studies that we need, that patients need, the doctors need, where you do a randomized trial. It's controlled and people don't know what they're getting and you have patients like the kind that we just saw in that segment getting drugs for weeks to months and you see how is their pain relief doing? We don't have those studies because the companies don't like to do those studies.
BROWN: And the government doesn't do those studies at all?
AVORN: Exactly right. The FDA and the National Institutes of Health don't do the studies. Almost all the studies that we see about drug effects are done by the manufacturers and they would rather not compare their drug against other drugs if they can avoid it. The FDA standard is to compare it against a placebo. Sometimes you're lucky and you get some head-to-head studies but they're rare.
BROWN: Dr. Tindall, do you think the Cox-2 inhibitor drugs will even be on the market in a year?
TINDALL: Excuse me, could you repeat that?
BROWN: Do you think these drugs, the Cox-2 inhibitor drugs, will even be on the market available in a year?
TINDALL: Yes, I do believe there is a place for these medications and I heard the testimony today and I've heard some of the criticisms that have been laid out there. But one of the things that has not come out is the incredible benefit that all of the patients who spoke today gave before the panel and I think that can't be overstated that patients need these medications. These medications are not for everybody, even though the marketing I agree was aimed at as wide an audience as possible and if I might say something about the double blind placebo trials.
BROWN: Sure.
TINDALL: With arthritis patients you really can't use a placebo because they're in pain and the studies that came out of long use placebo use compared to the Coxibs were in patients who didn't have pain. They were in polyp prevention or Alzheimer's prevention. So, it's very difficult to come up with a placebo trial when the patient is going to know after a few weeks I'm not really probably taking anything.
BROWN: All right, one more area for both of you and I want to try mine here and that's this whole question of what is and how we decide acceptable risk here? If you had any history in your family of heart disease, for example, is that an -- based on what we know today is that an unacceptable risk, Jerry, to take any of the Cox-2 drugs?
AVORN: I think I would agree with Dr. Tindall that it does need to be individualized for each patient and one's cardiac history is important but we don't really have the data that shows that these drugs are free of problems even if you don't have cardiac disease. So, it is a combination of facts and unfortunately even here in 2005, we don't have all the safety risk factors that we'd like to know about.
BROWN: Dr. Tindall, how do you tell patients to evaluate risk?
TINDALL: Well, I try to go through what the risk factors are for known cardiovascular or cerebral vascular disease and that would be diabetes, smoking, post menopausal, family history, elevated cholesterol, overweight, all of the usual parameters that you would use in assessing a patient's risk and then a use of a Coxib may be another independent risk factor.And that was sort of asked to Dr. Graham and some of the members of the panel today and no one could really come up with when do you finally cross that line where the risk is unacceptable? No one really knows.
BROWN: Great, terrific. Thanks for that. We're working on it I guess. Hopefully at least a year from now we'll know more about it. Thanks.
TINDALL: I think so.
BROWN: Thank you both very much.
TINDALL: Thank you.
BROWN: If the Cox-2 saga is part blessing and part curse, this next story tonight is 100 percent blessing. The story takes place in northern California where Jerrick De Leon is recovering tonight from open heart surgery. His case will be one for the medical journals because even the smallest stack of medical journals vastly outweighs the patients. That's the headline of the story. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes us beyond the headline of one of the most delicate heart operations ever done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA LOURDES, JERRICK'S MOTHER: What if I just pray hard that my baby reaches two pounds?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Baby Jerrick was born weighing around just a pound and he also had a life- threatening heart defect. Doctors told his mother Maria, who is also a pediatrician, to abandon hope.
LOURDES: I told him, you know, like so you're not giving me any options here, you know. What is it that you want to -- what's the plan for the baby? It was very difficult. I was blocking a lot and I was just saying, you know, like I was just surrendering whatever comes.
GUPTA: But there was one option left and his name Dr. Mohan Reddy, a pediatric heart surgeon at Stamford and the only one willing to do the operation. In a last ditch effort, Jerrick was airlifted up the California coast. He was just a week old.Jerrick suffered from what the surgeons call transposition of the great arteries. Simply, the large blood vessel that is supposed to take oxygenated blood to the body was switched with the blood vessel that takes blood to the lungs and the body was literally starving for air. Fixing it would be risky but the alternative was almost certain death.
DR. MOHAN REDDY, LUCILE PACKARD CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Just to give you an idea we just took a picture of the baby with a finger next to the chest and the whole baby's chest is pretty much the size of my finger and the incision is probably the tip of my finger. That's how big the chest -- whole chest is.
GUPTA: And the heart?REDDY: I would say probably the size of a, you know, moderate sized grape maybe even smaller.
GUPTA: Still, after six hours, Dr. Reddy and his team completed a medical first. They switched the arteries back on what they believe is the smallest baby ever to survive this procedure and, at the same time, push back even further the boundaries of life and death.
REDDY: When you do cardiac surgery in children you are always living on the edge and unless you take risks you're not going to advance the field and you're not going to make progress.
GUPTA: In this case, progress is measured in a healthy baby and a happy mother.
REDDY: It's very joyous in the sense it's very satisfying that we can help this little tiny baby.
LOURDES: I'm a mother. I think I was always looking for the good side of it.GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More to come tonight, starting with a chilling turn of a romantic phrase, getting to know you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): This guy is getting to know all about you.
JAY PATEL, FOUNDER, ABIKA.COM: Why do we need privacy? That's the question like why do people need privacy?
BROWN: Meet a pioneer in the next gold rush. He's mining for data, maybe even your data. Interested in knowing what he knows? Meet another pioneer, the first national intelligence director but director of what actually and of whom and with how much clout?
RICHARD FALKENRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: I don't think it's a powerful job. This is a miserable job. This is one of the hardest jobs in Washington.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say this is the most extreme example of this kind of culture where everyone mistrusts everyone else.
BROWN: And this is the happiest place on earth, Michael Eisner and the battle for Disney.OK, maybe this is a happier place, we'll look at the stories behind the cover and talk with the model on the cover, tan lines and all because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It's possible that the most personal information on tens of thousands of Americans has been stolen. The database of an information collection company called Choice Point was essentially duped by thieves who now know everything from credit cards and driver's license and Social Security numbers to credit ratings and much, much more.Most states don't require that you be told if you're one of the people at risk. The scam it turns out was pretty sophisticated but in many ways finding out the most detailed parts of people's lives is easy, very easy, just ask Jay. Here's CNN Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You might think of Wyoming as the perfect place in which to get lost. It's the tenth largest state in the union yet it's dead last in population, a haven for anonymity. However, the cowboy state is where a lot of people are found, specifically the basement of this house on the outskirts of Cheyenne. This is the home of Jay Patel, founder of an Internet background search service called Abika.
PATEL: I don't even believe in privacy too much but first like most people when they discuss privacy why do we need privacy? That's the question like why do people need privacy?
SIEBERG: He says most people agree privacy isn't important. In fact, he says the world would be a better place if everyone knew everything about each other.
PATEL: Do you know the root cause of hatred or intolerance is because people don't know about other people.
SIEBERG: And Jay Patel says he's here to help. His company can track down a name from an e-mail address or instant message screen name, find an unlisted or blocked phone number, verify a person's salary. In fact, Abika has more than 300 ways for you to snoop on others and more than 300 ways for them to snoop on you.(on camera): Do you ever worry that this information could fall into the wrong hands? People these days talk about terrorism or criminal activity do you worry about that?
PATEL: See but for us it's not something which anyone cannot find it by going directly to the source, so it's not something which is like exclusive to us. It's right there, so we are only searching it. We don't create this information and we don't access anything which is restricted. We are just a small company in the basement here.
SIEBERG (voice-over): When Jay and his staff receive a request for information they often get nothing more than a name and last known address. They send that information to private investigators, court researchers and keepers of various databases.Abika will even create a psychological profile of a person, all this usually without the subject knowing he or she is being investigated. So, I decided to request a search on myself, at least I'd know about it.(on camera): So, I mean you have my Social Security number. Is there the possibility that someone could steal my identity because this information is so easy to get?
PATEL: If you see, we don't release the Social Security number. The last four digits are X'd out so in your whole profile...
SIEBERG (voice-over): Right.
PATEL: ...you would see that it's not released to anyone.
SIEBERG: But could someone else find that as easily as you did?
PATEL: Social Security numbers are the easiest thing to find as such.
SIEBERG: A scary thought but Jay says Abika releases Social Security numbers only to qualified customers; however, we also ordered a general background search on another person and did get his Social Security number because it was the same as his driver's license number and that's just one of the things that has privacy advocates concerned about services like Abika.
MARC ROTENBERG, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFO. CTR.: These new information brokers that have sprouted up on the Internet are really operating in the wild, wild west. There is no regulation or control. Information that these companies provide becomes the basis for decisions about whether you get a job, about whether you clear a background check, about whether you're able to lease an apartment, maybe even whether you get a home loan. So, the risk is very tangible but a mistake will be made that you'll be turned down for an opportunity that you really are entitled to.
SIEBERG: Still, these data brokers have a lot of fans. Software executive Steve Kirsch uses Abika and other services to sue the senders of junk faxes.
STEVE KIRSCH, PROPEL SOFTWARE: Propel will get lots of unsolicited faxes and the only identification -- there will be no identification of the company on the faxes and so the only thing we'll have is an 800 number that we should dial, so we've used Abika to look up who owns the 800 number because when we call the 800 number, of course, they just give us a phony company name and a phony location.
SIEBERG (on camera): As proof that Jay's approach to privacy can work for some people, Jay actually points to his own situation. Before moving here to Wyoming, he lived in South Dakota and one day he was at a store there and he saw a girl and read her name tag. He then went home and did a background search on her and when he returned to the store he told her some things about her that he had found. Now, surprisingly she didn't slap him. Instead three weeks later they were married.(voice-over): But not all background checks have a happy ending. In 1999, in New Hampshire, Liam Youens used another Internet data broker called Docusearch to find out where a former high school classmate worked. He then shot and killed the woman, 20-year-old Amy Boyer (ph) as she left work. He also killed himself. Boyer's family sued Docusearch saying it should have told the woman she was being investigated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She went to work not knowing that her personal private information was given by Docusearch, the defendants, to someone who had no legal right to have it.
SIEBERG: But Docusearch argued it has no duty to check a customer's background.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He premeditated his crime and he killed her. Telling him where she worked didn't foreseeably increase the risk of anything. It didn't proximately cause anything. It had nothing to do with Amy Boyer's death.
SIEBERG: The suit was settled out of court last year with the Boyer family getting $85,000 but the background search industry is still going strong. As Youens wrote on his personal Web site, as he was planning his quest to kill Boyers, "It's actually obscene what you can find out about a person on the Internet." Comments like that have many people searching for the balance between openness and the obscene.Daniel Sieberg CNN, Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead tonight a picture of Disney that certainly doesn't resemble a magic kingdom.And authorities weigh in on some lurid allegations against the comedian Bill Cosby.We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, the country now has its first director of national intelligence. Today the president nominated John Negroponte, currently the ambassador to Iraq. If confirmed by the Senate, and that appears likely, Ambassador Negroponte will oversee 15 intelligence agencies and control the purse strings of all of them, well sort of.Like so many other things in Washington and in life nothing is that simple and Congress and the president made sure the real power of the DNI isn't that simple either, more from our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Power in Washington flows to those with access to the president and those with control of budgets and personnel. Mr. Bush sought to make clear the new director of national intelligence will have both.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He will have access on a daily basis in that he'll be my primary briefer.ENSOR: On the estimated $40 billion intelligence budget spanning 15 different agencies, the president said Negroponte will determine who gets what.BUSH: People make their case. There's a discussion. But ultimately, John will make the decisions on the budget.
ENSOR: Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin, who has joined CNN as an analyst, says Negroponte will have his work cut out for him.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN NATL. SECURITY ADVISER: It's the legislation that empowers him. It's not as precise as everyone would like it to be in authorizing his powers. The legislation is, after all, the result of compromises during a difficult and contentious time in our country and therefore the language in many cases is what I would call kind of spongy.
ENSOR: Critics charge that the intelligence reform law that sets up the DNI job contains too much ambiguity about budget and personnel power. They predict trouble between Negroponte and the Pentagon.
FALKENRATH: I don't think a powerful job. This is a miserable job. This is one of the hardest jobs in Washington and it is so undefined that authorities are so ambiguous and the expectations are so high that it's unlikely to be a successful, fun experience for this person.
ENSOR: But the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee disagrees.
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), VICE CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: If we had prescribed in Congress every relationship between each of the agencies, I think that would have been an enormous mistake and would have rendered this person more useless. This person can exercise power and I think that's good.
ENSOR: As ambassador in Iraq and before, Negroponte has been a consumer of intelligence but he has no intelligence experience. His new deputy, however, General Michael Hayden, head of the National Security Agency, is a seasoned hand. Many present and former intelligence professionals are praising the president's choice of Negroponte.
JAMES PAVITT, FMR. CIA SPY CHIEF: I think he will be a first rate leader of this organization.
ENSOR (on camera): Negroponte called it his most challenging assignment in 40 years and that may be putting it mildly. Being the first at anything is always harder but the ambassador has been good at setting up and leading teams in a number of jobs in government. CIA regulars, present and former, are promising him their full support.David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Late word tonight concerning the comedian Bill Cosby. An investigation into a young woman's allegations that Mr. Cosby fondled her last year is now closed, no charges filed. Prosecutors say they found insufficient evidence. No would that Michael Eisner's tenure as head of the Walt Disney Company -- and he's run the company for almost a generation -- has been anything but remarkable, remarkable in its successes early on, remarkable in its struggles more recently. Most anyone who has ever met him who describe him as smart, tough and often funny. Some who work for him would describe him in more colorful ways. James Stewart has written about Disney and Mr. Eisner. The book is called "DisneyWar." We talk with Mr. Stewart in a few moments. But, first, as they say in Hollywood, the dish. Here is CNN's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): James Stewart originally pitched Disney a book about the company's influence on American culture. But after a management shakeup, it turned into a look at Eisner's dirty laundry, enough so that author James Stewart has delivered a 534-page laundromat of a book, "DisneyWar."
Stewart depicts Disney CEO Eisner as a paranoid, backstabbing corporate titan. Behind the Magic Kingdom facade lies a corporate battleground, well documented in public scandals, like Jeffrey Katzenberg's lawsuit claiming Disney reneged on a promised bonus. The company settled for $280 million, or Eisner's ousting of Michael Ovitz, a close friend he recruited as president and soon fired with a reported $140 million exit package. But after interviewing the key players, Stewart offers new details of Eisner's tactics. Only months after hiring Michael Ovitz, the book says, Eisner wrote to confidants on the board of directors: "Michael does not have the trust of anybody. I do not trust him. Michael Ovitz is simply not a corporate executive."
At about that time, Eisner, sitting next to Ovitz, told a different story on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")
LARRY KING, HOST: So, Michael Eisner, you would hire Michael Ovitz again today? MICHAEL EISNER, DISNEY CEO: Yes. Are you offering him again?
KING: No, all things being -- in other words...
(LAUGHTER)
EISNER: Yes. The answer is yes. The answer is yes.
KING: That would certainly clear up any rift stories.
(CROSSTALK)
EISNER: ... just all baloney.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHERNOFF: Within weeks, Eisner fired Ovitz. Eisner also tried to undermine Robert Iger, his next pick as Disney president. The book says Eisner told several board members, "Iger can never succeed me."
Though Eisner denies it in the book, Stewart reports, Eisner calls his theme park executives "monkeys who don't have any brains." Stewart has written in a narrative style without direct sourcing for specific events. Eisner has refused to comment, but Disney's public relations department calls the book "one-sided depiction of past events largely told through the eyes of those with a clear bias and personal agendas."(on camera): After former board member Roy Disney led a revolt, Michael Eisner last year lost nearly half the shareholder vote for reelection. He gave up his position as chairman and said he will step down as chief executive when his contract expires in 2006. Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Up next on the program, the author himself. We talk with James Stewart about his book "DisneyWar." Also ahead, "Sports Illustrated"'s swimsuit issue. No kidding. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: James Stewart is no stranger to the world of the rich and the infamous. He wrote "Den of Thieves," a look at insider trading on Wall Street. He also won a Pulitzer Prize for his work as a reporter and an editor at "The Wall Street Journal." We talked with Mr. Stewart this afternoon about "DisneyWar".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: You've written a lot of business books. This is not hardly your first. Is there something about Hollywood and show business that, as a business, makes it unique to write about and I guess unique to read about?
JAMES STEWART, AUTHOR, "DISNEYWAR": Well, I have never encountered a sort of Machiavellian culture like I discovered when I went to Disney. Now, I knew it wasn't going to be the happiest place on Earth, as it likes to proclaim as part of its brand image. But I thought it would be a fairly happy place. And it was like a dysfunctional family. Now, I've written about Wall Street. I've written about Washington. And I would say this is the most extreme example of this kind of culture where everyone mistrusts everyone else, where there's lying going on constantly, betrayals and backstabbing. And I did wonder, is there something endemic in the entertainment industry? I think part of it may be that the objective measures of success, other than the box office, are so difficult to gauge.
BROWN: Do we see Eisner, at least as you see him, as he is? Is he a success? Is he a great -- did he have a great 20 years? Nobody is perfect? What is he in the end?
STEWART: Well, I think, in any good story, a character changes through time. But Eisner -- and you see Eisner change over the years. He starts out. He is a great success, tremendous success, amazing success by Hollywood standards. He consolidates power. And with power comes a certain amount of hubris. And then you begin to see that great trajectory taper off and at some point begin to plunge downward.
BROWN: So, he doesn't get to walk out the way I guess we would all like to walk out, without being pushed?
STEWART: No. I mean, he doesn't -- he hates the idea that he was stripped of his title, but he was stripped of his title. He was repudiated. He did hang on too long. I think you can argue that, in the entertainment industry, nobody should run Disney or any of these companies for 20 years. But I thought of the recent -- reading the obituaries of Johnny Carson recently about he walked out at the top of his game, ceded the spotlight, retired gracefully, said nothing more, didn't try to have another act. That was really a classy way to go. That's not the Eisner way. I don't think Eisner can really see a future when he is not running Disney.
BROWN: Is that right?
STEWART: Well, in all of his conversations with me. For example, he intimates rather strongly that he would be quite happy to be restored as the chairman, if the board would ask him to do that, and remain as some kind of chief creative officer into the indefinite future. Now, I think that's very unlikely to happen, and it probably shouldn't happen. But, to me, it shows how much the identity of the company and his own personality have fused into one.
BROWN: But it's just a hard thing, generally, for people to do, to walk off the stage at the top of their game in any -- you know, it doesn't happen in my business. It doesn't happen in sports very often. It certainly doesn't happen in big corporations. It's a really hard thing for people to do.
STEWART: Well, and it's really hard in Hollywood. I mean, Eisner I think to this day is haunted that he is going to be a nobody overnight. I don't think he will, but that's his fear. There are a couple stories in the book where, after he was fired by Paramount, he couldn't get a reservation at the hot restaurant Morton's (ph), and so he had to ask Michael Ovitz. Michael Ovitz called and Michael Ovitz immediately got a table. And when Joe Roth was leaving, Eisner says, well, you don't want to leave. Nobody is going to return your phone calls. And Joe Roth said to Michael, Michael, that's called projection. People will return my phone calls. But, obviously, Eisner is very insecure about that.
BROWN: It's nice to see you. Good luck with the book. It's one of those books -- and partly I think because it's Disney, something about Disney and something about Hollywood -- people are talking about. So good for you.
STEWART: Well, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: James Stewart. We talked with him this afternoon. Still ahead, spring is getting close. It must be. Pitchers and catchers have reported and the swimsuit issue is out as well. And the rooster always joins us. Morning papers will wrap up the hour.We'll take a break. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Like most men my age, I learned about sex the old- fashioned way, in one of the February issues of "Sports Illustrated." Trust me. At 12, it was pretty hot stuff. At 56, it's still worth a discrete glance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It was born to fill a practical need, bridging the gap between the end of football and the time when anyone really cares about winter sports, the playoffs. At least that's their story over at "Sports Illustrated," and they're sticking to it.
DIANE SMITH, EDITOR, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" SWIMSUIT ISSUE: The image that I'm trying to capture is something that is a confident, wholesome, sexy, secure woman who looks great, has fun, feels great in a bathing suit and, you know, is healthy. I mean, I look for curves, obviously.
BROWN: She looks for curves. And so did the millions of, well, sports fans who read it each year. It's the most popular issue of "Sports Illustrated." And the magazine estimates that 60 million people will see it. That's about one in four Americans. Let's just say the swimsuit issue is a bigger draw than hockey.
SMITH: It's hard to realize or to believe how revolutionary that was, to have a bathing suit model on the cover of "Sports Illustrated." So, it had such a great response that it just grew, grew, grew to what it is now.
BROWN: Ms. Smith, we suspect, will not deny they are selling cheesecake here, but she insists it's a wholesome cheesecake, the sort of cheesecake dads and sons can enjoy together.
SMITH: It's a magazine that embodies like a great American tradition. It's totally innocent when you look at what's going on today.
BROWN: And we suppose that is a standard. It's not as racy as an ABC AFL promo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLETTE SHERIDAN, ACTRESS: Terrell, wait.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And that is, we learned, the art, after all. The swimsuit issue is all about the tease.
SMITH: I have an instinct. They have an instinct. We know where to stop and how to keep it still totally acceptable and wholesome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Carolyn Murphy is on the cover of "Sports Illustrated"'s swimsuit issue this year. Sammy Sosa, she is not. She joins us from Los Angeles. It's nice to see you.
CAROLYN MURPHY, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" SWIMSUIT COVER MODEL: It's nice to see you, too. Thank...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: So, are you upset about the NHL players strike?
MURPHY: No. You know, I wish I could say that I was. I'm not as up to date on it as I should be.
BROWN: Do you even like sports?
MURPHY: I do like sports. I grew up around sports. My father was a really big Redskins fan. I come from Virginia. I was a swimmer competitively for 11 years. And I'm a surfer. I love hiking, one of the reasons I live in California. I mean, I follow them as much as I can. But I've been very busy the past few days.
BROWN: I'll bet you have. Is it -- in the world of modeling, is it -- is it a big deal to be the cover of "Sports Illustrated"? Is it a bigger deal than being the cover of "Glamour" or something?
MURPHY: Well, you know, personally, it's a very big deal. But, of course, in my career, it's huge. It's like the pinnacle of my career, besides getting in a contract with Estee Lauder. What every model aspires to is to be on the cover of magazines, to be out there, to be in the face of every household and become a household name. And I think, with "Sports Illustrated," it targets a whole other demographic, which is why I was so proud when I found out about it. I was really excited, because it's not only just a woman's magazine. It's men as well.
BROWN: It's a men's magazine, actually, that some women read I think would be a fairer way to describe it, don't you think?
MURPHY: It's probably a better way to describe it, but I have to tell you, quite honestly, I've been looking at "Sports Illustrated" since I was a little girl. I mean, it wasn't just my brother that was pinning the pictures on his walls. I remember looking at pictures of Rachel Hunter and Elle Macpherson saying, wow, I want to look like that. How great does that woman look? She has a healthy body. She's beautiful and she's glowing. And I think that every woman out there cannot deny the fact that they're going to be looking at the issue, too, for those reasons. BROWN: The -- the issue I think has always been edited by women or a woman. Does that change how the issue comes out because of that?
MURPHY: Well, I think, you know, it takes two to make a great magazine like this. Of course, most of the time, yes, it is for men. It's a sports-oriented magazine. But how great is it to have an issue like this, to have these beautiful women on the covers and the inside? Because it sells. And it's -- we have women athletes in this issue. If you did not have a woman editor, it would just be all for the men. I think it's a perfect balance to have Diane Smith editing the magazine. She's great at it. She knows what also men want to see, but what women want to see. And that's important. BROWN: Do they want to see different things?
MURPHY: Of course. I mean, they want to see different ethnicities. They want to see different body types. They want to see girls that are in a photo laughing and smiling. And they want to see women that are being sexy. And that's the fun of it.BROWN: No, do men and women want to see different things? Will men and women see..
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: I'm serious, actually.MURPHY: No.BROWN: When they look at the picture, will they -- are women looking at something different from what men are looking at?
MURPHY: You know what? I think that it's really on an individual basis. Of course, I know that, when I look at a picture of a woman, I like when she looks sexy. I like when she's having fun, you know, playing volleyball. Of course, the men have a different vision of that. I'm not a man, so I can't answer that.
BROWN: No, but you have a rough idea.
MURPHY: I have a rough idea.
BROWN: Yes, I think you do, too. Next week or the week after, because this happens every year, "Sports Illustrated" will run five letters to the editor from people either threatening to cancel their subscription or objecting one way or another. What is it they don't get?
MURPHY: Well, what do you mean, what they don't get? They have -- they have -- I guess the ratio is less than 1 percent of people opt out. It's 98 percent subscription readers to this magazine. So, it's really -- I'm not sure what you're asking.
BROWN: I guess the question -- what I'm asking is, people who are offended by it, people who find it inappropriate for whatever reasons, what is it they're not seeing that everyone else sees?
MURPHY: You know, again, it's -- there's always going to be people there to stir the pot. You know, you -- there's always going to be people that are unhappy with something. Generally, I would like to think that, overall, people love it. Again, the ratio of people that opt out of this, because they do have the choice, is less than 1 percent.
BROWN: Congratulations.
MURPHY: Thank you.
BROWN: It's a beautiful picture and it's a nice honor for you.
MURPHY: Thank you.
BROWN: And we're glad to have you on the program. Thank you.
MURPHY: Thank you. I'm proud. Thank you.
BROWN: Thank you, Carolyn Murphy. We'll take a break. Morning papers when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Let's just set those over there. And we'll work with these tonight. Here we go. The glasses over there, Aaron.
"The Washington Times" leads it off, because it's on top. No other reason.
"House Approves Class-Action Act. Measures Target -- Measure Targets Frivolous Lawsuits."
Actually, the measure targets all class-action lawsuits, some of which are perhaps frivolous and some of which are not, but it moves them all into federal court, which is a tougher venue, lawyers say. That's an interesting headline, huh?
"Richmond Times-Dispatch," down here, if you will, please.
"Senate Panel Rejects Abortion Measures. Fetal Anesthesia, Clinic Regulations Bill Defeated and Other Proposal Withdrawal" in the Virginia Senate. So that remains a front-page issue in the state of Virginia. I guess it's a front-page issue anywhere.
The two competing papers in Detroit. They used to have a hockey season. Now they just have the two newspapers competing.
"The Detroit News" starts it off. "College Aid Changes Hurt the Poor. Governor's Merit Scholarship Proposal Means Less Federal Money For Some." I think that's unfortunate. People who -- it would nice if people who want to go to college can go to college.
"The Detroit Free Press." "FDA to Rule on Fate of Pain Pills." We obviously like this story a lot, since it was our lead tonight. "State Bills For Taxes on Web and Cigarettes. At Least $1.7 Million Owed By Smokers Who Bought Online." Oh, I get it. I'm sorry. "State Bills For Taxes on Web Cigarettes."
"Attack of the Crows" in "The Des Moines Register." "The birds are leaving a mess across Iowa. Is there anything that can stop them?" What the heck ever happened to scarecrows? Wasn't that the whole point of scarecrows? Did crows figure that out and now they're not scared of scare crows anymore? This article will explain it. How we doing on time?
"Rebuilding the Army" is "The Stars and Stripes" headline. "U.S. Forces Tasked With Training Iraqi Troops Report Progress, But No Definite End in Sight."The weather in Chicago tomorrow -- do it with my right hand tonight -- "deceitful." We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Time to plan the early morning. Here is Bill Hemmer with a look at "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," a burning controversy has landed on the frozen outer reaches of the solar system. Is the planet Pluto really just a planet wanna-be? Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium here in New York is -- he calls Pluto a pretender. It turns out Pluto has a lot of friends out there, too. We'll talk with Neil on that tomorrow morning starting at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Going to boost our numbers in Pluto tomorrow. Good to have you with us tonight. We're all back tomorrow around the world and perhaps around the universe 10:00 Eastern. Until then, good night for all of us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 17, 2005 - 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.When Vioxx and Celebrex first hit the market in the late '90s it was easy to imagine them as the first two members of a whole new class of wonder drugs, super aspirins they were called. Scientifically they're known as Cox-2 inhibitors, painkillers that weren't also stomach killers, chemical heroes.
Tonight, after studies and hearings and headlines you might imagine the Cox-2 drugs as villains instead plain and simple, except that it's neither plain nor simple. In December, Pfizer, for example, stopped advertising Celebrex to consumers but it hasn't stopped selling it. In fact, you'll find a statement on Pfizer's Web site standing behind the drug, which leaves a patient exactly where?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): David Pollinger will turn 78 next week and he looks at risk with a rational eye.
DAVID POLLINGER, CELEBREX USER: I don't think it's been proven to me yet that I should cease taking this drug. If I have to and I'm told to and my doctor advises me to, well then I will but until that time I think I'm going to continue to take it.
BROWN: He continues to take Celebrex even as many people are switching to other medications, even though he has a history of heart disease. He takes it for a simple reason. It improves his life.
DAVID POLLINGER: Well, the first thing that Celebrex has provided was, of course, lesser discomfort and pain. The second thing is it improves my golf game. I can probably hit the ball a little better and swing a little better and score a few strokes better than if I were not taking it.
BROWN: Pollinger, who suffers from arthritis, started taking Celebrex five years ago after surgery on his shoulder. When recent studies linking the Cox-2s to heart attacks and strokes began surfacing he sat down with his cardiologist and his wife Donna.
DONNA POLLINGER, SPOUSE: We figure out, my husband and I and the doctor and we all discussed this, that if it's going to make him feel comfortable and he's not in so much pain that, you know, why not try it?
BROWN: Dr. Stephen Paget, a rheumatologist in New York, doesn't treat Mr. Pollinger but he does treat many others with disabling chronic pain including some who remain on the Cox-2 drugs.
DR. STEPHEN PAGET, PHYSICIAN IN CHIEF, HOSP. FOR SPECIAL SURGERY: They have severe pain that's incapacitating and stops them from living the life that they want to lead.
BROWN: Prescribing medication, Dr. Paget says, is a careful balancing act.
PAGET: And what you want to factor into it is a safety formula for that individual person.
BROWN: And now the equation has changed.
PAGET: There's no doubt that the formula that's used now is different from 1999 and 2000 because when you add into it death from cardiovascular disease or stroke that ups the ante tremendously.
BROWN: So, patients and doctors will continue to weigh the pros and cons of the Cox-2 drugs and people, being who they are, different patients will have different comfort levels when it comes to risk.
POLLINGER: I've heard the risks and in the whole scope of life on earth before we go to our future life this is -- it wasn't a big decision at this moment to make.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That is one side of the story. Now another contradiction, another drug, today Merck, the maker of Vioxx, said it's considering putting the drug back on the market despite the risk of heart attack and stroke. So, again two sides of the equation, risk and benefit.Here's CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's why it's really awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we had one come back after the Army. That was a little rough or a while there but, yes, they're on their own and they're doing OK and now we can play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, we have a technical problem there. We'll try and sort that out and we'll try and sort out some other things as well. Dr. Elizabeth Tindall joins us now from Washington. She's the president of the American College of Rheumatology in Boston; Dr. Jerry Avorn, professor of medicine at Harvard and the author of "Powerful Medicines," and it's good to see you both.
DR. ELIZABETH TINDALL, AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY: Thank you.
BROWN: There's a little bit of, I think, Cox-2 inhibitor 101 we need to do because there's been so much out there over the last couple of months. Jerry, do we know that these drugs relieve pain any better than aspirin or ibuprofen?
JERRY AVORN, M.D., AUTHOR, "POWERFUL MEDICINES": No, Aaron, we don't and what's striking and what sometimes gets forgotten about in the course of all this debate is that there are no studies out there showing that these drugs are stronger pain relievers than aspirin or Motrin or Naproxen or any of the other drugs that have been around for years.
Their one claim to fame had been that they'd be somewhat gentler on your stomach but if there had been a study that showed that Vioxx or Celebrex was stronger than Motrin or aspirin, I'm sure Merck and Pfizer would have shown it to us on commercials every night and we haven't seen those data because they don't exist.
BROWN: I want to come back to that question in a second. Dr. Tindall, nevertheless patients, some patients certainly believe that these Cox-2 inhibitors do relieve pain that the Motrin and the aspirins did not, correct?
TINDALL: That is correct, Aaron, and I think it has to do with each individual patient trying different medications. Sometimes they work for a while. Sometimes they don't. And when you have people with arthritis who have pain for years they can go through a lot of different medications before they find one that works well for them.
And, although it's true there is not an improvement over pain say over traditional non-steroidals, nonetheless all these medications had to do to be approved was to say they were equal in potency. So, we have sort of changed the standard. Now we're asking them to be better as far as pain relief.
BROWN: OK. I'll go back against Jerry on this. Do we ever -- does the industry or the government or you guys at universities do you ever take two drugs and compare them? Do you ever say put aspirin next to Vioxx and run tests on those or is it always a placebo?
AVORN: Well, that's exactly the point, Aaron. Those are the exact kinds of studies that we need, that patients need, the doctors need, where you do a randomized trial. It's controlled and people don't know what they're getting and you have patients like the kind that we just saw in that segment getting drugs for weeks to months and you see how is their pain relief doing? We don't have those studies because the companies don't like to do those studies.
BROWN: And the government doesn't do those studies at all?
AVORN: Exactly right. The FDA and the National Institutes of Health don't do the studies. Almost all the studies that we see about drug effects are done by the manufacturers and they would rather not compare their drug against other drugs if they can avoid it. The FDA standard is to compare it against a placebo. Sometimes you're lucky and you get some head-to-head studies but they're rare.
BROWN: Dr. Tindall, do you think the Cox-2 inhibitor drugs will even be on the market in a year?
TINDALL: Excuse me, could you repeat that?
BROWN: Do you think these drugs, the Cox-2 inhibitor drugs, will even be on the market available in a year?
TINDALL: Yes, I do believe there is a place for these medications and I heard the testimony today and I've heard some of the criticisms that have been laid out there. But one of the things that has not come out is the incredible benefit that all of the patients who spoke today gave before the panel and I think that can't be overstated that patients need these medications. These medications are not for everybody, even though the marketing I agree was aimed at as wide an audience as possible and if I might say something about the double blind placebo trials.
BROWN: Sure.
TINDALL: With arthritis patients you really can't use a placebo because they're in pain and the studies that came out of long use placebo use compared to the Coxibs were in patients who didn't have pain. They were in polyp prevention or Alzheimer's prevention. So, it's very difficult to come up with a placebo trial when the patient is going to know after a few weeks I'm not really probably taking anything.
BROWN: All right, one more area for both of you and I want to try mine here and that's this whole question of what is and how we decide acceptable risk here? If you had any history in your family of heart disease, for example, is that an -- based on what we know today is that an unacceptable risk, Jerry, to take any of the Cox-2 drugs?
AVORN: I think I would agree with Dr. Tindall that it does need to be individualized for each patient and one's cardiac history is important but we don't really have the data that shows that these drugs are free of problems even if you don't have cardiac disease. So, it is a combination of facts and unfortunately even here in 2005, we don't have all the safety risk factors that we'd like to know about.
BROWN: Dr. Tindall, how do you tell patients to evaluate risk?
TINDALL: Well, I try to go through what the risk factors are for known cardiovascular or cerebral vascular disease and that would be diabetes, smoking, post menopausal, family history, elevated cholesterol, overweight, all of the usual parameters that you would use in assessing a patient's risk and then a use of a Coxib may be another independent risk factor.And that was sort of asked to Dr. Graham and some of the members of the panel today and no one could really come up with when do you finally cross that line where the risk is unacceptable? No one really knows.
BROWN: Great, terrific. Thanks for that. We're working on it I guess. Hopefully at least a year from now we'll know more about it. Thanks.
TINDALL: I think so.
BROWN: Thank you both very much.
TINDALL: Thank you.
BROWN: If the Cox-2 saga is part blessing and part curse, this next story tonight is 100 percent blessing. The story takes place in northern California where Jerrick De Leon is recovering tonight from open heart surgery. His case will be one for the medical journals because even the smallest stack of medical journals vastly outweighs the patients. That's the headline of the story. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes us beyond the headline of one of the most delicate heart operations ever done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA LOURDES, JERRICK'S MOTHER: What if I just pray hard that my baby reaches two pounds?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Baby Jerrick was born weighing around just a pound and he also had a life- threatening heart defect. Doctors told his mother Maria, who is also a pediatrician, to abandon hope.
LOURDES: I told him, you know, like so you're not giving me any options here, you know. What is it that you want to -- what's the plan for the baby? It was very difficult. I was blocking a lot and I was just saying, you know, like I was just surrendering whatever comes.
GUPTA: But there was one option left and his name Dr. Mohan Reddy, a pediatric heart surgeon at Stamford and the only one willing to do the operation. In a last ditch effort, Jerrick was airlifted up the California coast. He was just a week old.Jerrick suffered from what the surgeons call transposition of the great arteries. Simply, the large blood vessel that is supposed to take oxygenated blood to the body was switched with the blood vessel that takes blood to the lungs and the body was literally starving for air. Fixing it would be risky but the alternative was almost certain death.
DR. MOHAN REDDY, LUCILE PACKARD CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Just to give you an idea we just took a picture of the baby with a finger next to the chest and the whole baby's chest is pretty much the size of my finger and the incision is probably the tip of my finger. That's how big the chest -- whole chest is.
GUPTA: And the heart?REDDY: I would say probably the size of a, you know, moderate sized grape maybe even smaller.
GUPTA: Still, after six hours, Dr. Reddy and his team completed a medical first. They switched the arteries back on what they believe is the smallest baby ever to survive this procedure and, at the same time, push back even further the boundaries of life and death.
REDDY: When you do cardiac surgery in children you are always living on the edge and unless you take risks you're not going to advance the field and you're not going to make progress.
GUPTA: In this case, progress is measured in a healthy baby and a happy mother.
REDDY: It's very joyous in the sense it's very satisfying that we can help this little tiny baby.
LOURDES: I'm a mother. I think I was always looking for the good side of it.GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More to come tonight, starting with a chilling turn of a romantic phrase, getting to know you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): This guy is getting to know all about you.
JAY PATEL, FOUNDER, ABIKA.COM: Why do we need privacy? That's the question like why do people need privacy?
BROWN: Meet a pioneer in the next gold rush. He's mining for data, maybe even your data. Interested in knowing what he knows? Meet another pioneer, the first national intelligence director but director of what actually and of whom and with how much clout?
RICHARD FALKENRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: I don't think it's a powerful job. This is a miserable job. This is one of the hardest jobs in Washington.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say this is the most extreme example of this kind of culture where everyone mistrusts everyone else.
BROWN: And this is the happiest place on earth, Michael Eisner and the battle for Disney.OK, maybe this is a happier place, we'll look at the stories behind the cover and talk with the model on the cover, tan lines and all because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It's possible that the most personal information on tens of thousands of Americans has been stolen. The database of an information collection company called Choice Point was essentially duped by thieves who now know everything from credit cards and driver's license and Social Security numbers to credit ratings and much, much more.Most states don't require that you be told if you're one of the people at risk. The scam it turns out was pretty sophisticated but in many ways finding out the most detailed parts of people's lives is easy, very easy, just ask Jay. Here's CNN Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You might think of Wyoming as the perfect place in which to get lost. It's the tenth largest state in the union yet it's dead last in population, a haven for anonymity. However, the cowboy state is where a lot of people are found, specifically the basement of this house on the outskirts of Cheyenne. This is the home of Jay Patel, founder of an Internet background search service called Abika.
PATEL: I don't even believe in privacy too much but first like most people when they discuss privacy why do we need privacy? That's the question like why do people need privacy?
SIEBERG: He says most people agree privacy isn't important. In fact, he says the world would be a better place if everyone knew everything about each other.
PATEL: Do you know the root cause of hatred or intolerance is because people don't know about other people.
SIEBERG: And Jay Patel says he's here to help. His company can track down a name from an e-mail address or instant message screen name, find an unlisted or blocked phone number, verify a person's salary. In fact, Abika has more than 300 ways for you to snoop on others and more than 300 ways for them to snoop on you.(on camera): Do you ever worry that this information could fall into the wrong hands? People these days talk about terrorism or criminal activity do you worry about that?
PATEL: See but for us it's not something which anyone cannot find it by going directly to the source, so it's not something which is like exclusive to us. It's right there, so we are only searching it. We don't create this information and we don't access anything which is restricted. We are just a small company in the basement here.
SIEBERG (voice-over): When Jay and his staff receive a request for information they often get nothing more than a name and last known address. They send that information to private investigators, court researchers and keepers of various databases.Abika will even create a psychological profile of a person, all this usually without the subject knowing he or she is being investigated. So, I decided to request a search on myself, at least I'd know about it.(on camera): So, I mean you have my Social Security number. Is there the possibility that someone could steal my identity because this information is so easy to get?
PATEL: If you see, we don't release the Social Security number. The last four digits are X'd out so in your whole profile...
SIEBERG (voice-over): Right.
PATEL: ...you would see that it's not released to anyone.
SIEBERG: But could someone else find that as easily as you did?
PATEL: Social Security numbers are the easiest thing to find as such.
SIEBERG: A scary thought but Jay says Abika releases Social Security numbers only to qualified customers; however, we also ordered a general background search on another person and did get his Social Security number because it was the same as his driver's license number and that's just one of the things that has privacy advocates concerned about services like Abika.
MARC ROTENBERG, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFO. CTR.: These new information brokers that have sprouted up on the Internet are really operating in the wild, wild west. There is no regulation or control. Information that these companies provide becomes the basis for decisions about whether you get a job, about whether you clear a background check, about whether you're able to lease an apartment, maybe even whether you get a home loan. So, the risk is very tangible but a mistake will be made that you'll be turned down for an opportunity that you really are entitled to.
SIEBERG: Still, these data brokers have a lot of fans. Software executive Steve Kirsch uses Abika and other services to sue the senders of junk faxes.
STEVE KIRSCH, PROPEL SOFTWARE: Propel will get lots of unsolicited faxes and the only identification -- there will be no identification of the company on the faxes and so the only thing we'll have is an 800 number that we should dial, so we've used Abika to look up who owns the 800 number because when we call the 800 number, of course, they just give us a phony company name and a phony location.
SIEBERG (on camera): As proof that Jay's approach to privacy can work for some people, Jay actually points to his own situation. Before moving here to Wyoming, he lived in South Dakota and one day he was at a store there and he saw a girl and read her name tag. He then went home and did a background search on her and when he returned to the store he told her some things about her that he had found. Now, surprisingly she didn't slap him. Instead three weeks later they were married.(voice-over): But not all background checks have a happy ending. In 1999, in New Hampshire, Liam Youens used another Internet data broker called Docusearch to find out where a former high school classmate worked. He then shot and killed the woman, 20-year-old Amy Boyer (ph) as she left work. He also killed himself. Boyer's family sued Docusearch saying it should have told the woman she was being investigated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She went to work not knowing that her personal private information was given by Docusearch, the defendants, to someone who had no legal right to have it.
SIEBERG: But Docusearch argued it has no duty to check a customer's background.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He premeditated his crime and he killed her. Telling him where she worked didn't foreseeably increase the risk of anything. It didn't proximately cause anything. It had nothing to do with Amy Boyer's death.
SIEBERG: The suit was settled out of court last year with the Boyer family getting $85,000 but the background search industry is still going strong. As Youens wrote on his personal Web site, as he was planning his quest to kill Boyers, "It's actually obscene what you can find out about a person on the Internet." Comments like that have many people searching for the balance between openness and the obscene.Daniel Sieberg CNN, Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead tonight a picture of Disney that certainly doesn't resemble a magic kingdom.And authorities weigh in on some lurid allegations against the comedian Bill Cosby.We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, the country now has its first director of national intelligence. Today the president nominated John Negroponte, currently the ambassador to Iraq. If confirmed by the Senate, and that appears likely, Ambassador Negroponte will oversee 15 intelligence agencies and control the purse strings of all of them, well sort of.Like so many other things in Washington and in life nothing is that simple and Congress and the president made sure the real power of the DNI isn't that simple either, more from our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Power in Washington flows to those with access to the president and those with control of budgets and personnel. Mr. Bush sought to make clear the new director of national intelligence will have both.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He will have access on a daily basis in that he'll be my primary briefer.ENSOR: On the estimated $40 billion intelligence budget spanning 15 different agencies, the president said Negroponte will determine who gets what.BUSH: People make their case. There's a discussion. But ultimately, John will make the decisions on the budget.
ENSOR: Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin, who has joined CNN as an analyst, says Negroponte will have his work cut out for him.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN NATL. SECURITY ADVISER: It's the legislation that empowers him. It's not as precise as everyone would like it to be in authorizing his powers. The legislation is, after all, the result of compromises during a difficult and contentious time in our country and therefore the language in many cases is what I would call kind of spongy.
ENSOR: Critics charge that the intelligence reform law that sets up the DNI job contains too much ambiguity about budget and personnel power. They predict trouble between Negroponte and the Pentagon.
FALKENRATH: I don't think a powerful job. This is a miserable job. This is one of the hardest jobs in Washington and it is so undefined that authorities are so ambiguous and the expectations are so high that it's unlikely to be a successful, fun experience for this person.
ENSOR: But the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee disagrees.
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), VICE CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: If we had prescribed in Congress every relationship between each of the agencies, I think that would have been an enormous mistake and would have rendered this person more useless. This person can exercise power and I think that's good.
ENSOR: As ambassador in Iraq and before, Negroponte has been a consumer of intelligence but he has no intelligence experience. His new deputy, however, General Michael Hayden, head of the National Security Agency, is a seasoned hand. Many present and former intelligence professionals are praising the president's choice of Negroponte.
JAMES PAVITT, FMR. CIA SPY CHIEF: I think he will be a first rate leader of this organization.
ENSOR (on camera): Negroponte called it his most challenging assignment in 40 years and that may be putting it mildly. Being the first at anything is always harder but the ambassador has been good at setting up and leading teams in a number of jobs in government. CIA regulars, present and former, are promising him their full support.David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Late word tonight concerning the comedian Bill Cosby. An investigation into a young woman's allegations that Mr. Cosby fondled her last year is now closed, no charges filed. Prosecutors say they found insufficient evidence. No would that Michael Eisner's tenure as head of the Walt Disney Company -- and he's run the company for almost a generation -- has been anything but remarkable, remarkable in its successes early on, remarkable in its struggles more recently. Most anyone who has ever met him who describe him as smart, tough and often funny. Some who work for him would describe him in more colorful ways. James Stewart has written about Disney and Mr. Eisner. The book is called "DisneyWar." We talk with Mr. Stewart in a few moments. But, first, as they say in Hollywood, the dish. Here is CNN's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): James Stewart originally pitched Disney a book about the company's influence on American culture. But after a management shakeup, it turned into a look at Eisner's dirty laundry, enough so that author James Stewart has delivered a 534-page laundromat of a book, "DisneyWar."
Stewart depicts Disney CEO Eisner as a paranoid, backstabbing corporate titan. Behind the Magic Kingdom facade lies a corporate battleground, well documented in public scandals, like Jeffrey Katzenberg's lawsuit claiming Disney reneged on a promised bonus. The company settled for $280 million, or Eisner's ousting of Michael Ovitz, a close friend he recruited as president and soon fired with a reported $140 million exit package. But after interviewing the key players, Stewart offers new details of Eisner's tactics. Only months after hiring Michael Ovitz, the book says, Eisner wrote to confidants on the board of directors: "Michael does not have the trust of anybody. I do not trust him. Michael Ovitz is simply not a corporate executive."
At about that time, Eisner, sitting next to Ovitz, told a different story on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")
LARRY KING, HOST: So, Michael Eisner, you would hire Michael Ovitz again today? MICHAEL EISNER, DISNEY CEO: Yes. Are you offering him again?
KING: No, all things being -- in other words...
(LAUGHTER)
EISNER: Yes. The answer is yes. The answer is yes.
KING: That would certainly clear up any rift stories.
(CROSSTALK)
EISNER: ... just all baloney.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHERNOFF: Within weeks, Eisner fired Ovitz. Eisner also tried to undermine Robert Iger, his next pick as Disney president. The book says Eisner told several board members, "Iger can never succeed me."
Though Eisner denies it in the book, Stewart reports, Eisner calls his theme park executives "monkeys who don't have any brains." Stewart has written in a narrative style without direct sourcing for specific events. Eisner has refused to comment, but Disney's public relations department calls the book "one-sided depiction of past events largely told through the eyes of those with a clear bias and personal agendas."(on camera): After former board member Roy Disney led a revolt, Michael Eisner last year lost nearly half the shareholder vote for reelection. He gave up his position as chairman and said he will step down as chief executive when his contract expires in 2006. Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Up next on the program, the author himself. We talk with James Stewart about his book "DisneyWar." Also ahead, "Sports Illustrated"'s swimsuit issue. No kidding. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: James Stewart is no stranger to the world of the rich and the infamous. He wrote "Den of Thieves," a look at insider trading on Wall Street. He also won a Pulitzer Prize for his work as a reporter and an editor at "The Wall Street Journal." We talked with Mr. Stewart this afternoon about "DisneyWar".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: You've written a lot of business books. This is not hardly your first. Is there something about Hollywood and show business that, as a business, makes it unique to write about and I guess unique to read about?
JAMES STEWART, AUTHOR, "DISNEYWAR": Well, I have never encountered a sort of Machiavellian culture like I discovered when I went to Disney. Now, I knew it wasn't going to be the happiest place on Earth, as it likes to proclaim as part of its brand image. But I thought it would be a fairly happy place. And it was like a dysfunctional family. Now, I've written about Wall Street. I've written about Washington. And I would say this is the most extreme example of this kind of culture where everyone mistrusts everyone else, where there's lying going on constantly, betrayals and backstabbing. And I did wonder, is there something endemic in the entertainment industry? I think part of it may be that the objective measures of success, other than the box office, are so difficult to gauge.
BROWN: Do we see Eisner, at least as you see him, as he is? Is he a success? Is he a great -- did he have a great 20 years? Nobody is perfect? What is he in the end?
STEWART: Well, I think, in any good story, a character changes through time. But Eisner -- and you see Eisner change over the years. He starts out. He is a great success, tremendous success, amazing success by Hollywood standards. He consolidates power. And with power comes a certain amount of hubris. And then you begin to see that great trajectory taper off and at some point begin to plunge downward.
BROWN: So, he doesn't get to walk out the way I guess we would all like to walk out, without being pushed?
STEWART: No. I mean, he doesn't -- he hates the idea that he was stripped of his title, but he was stripped of his title. He was repudiated. He did hang on too long. I think you can argue that, in the entertainment industry, nobody should run Disney or any of these companies for 20 years. But I thought of the recent -- reading the obituaries of Johnny Carson recently about he walked out at the top of his game, ceded the spotlight, retired gracefully, said nothing more, didn't try to have another act. That was really a classy way to go. That's not the Eisner way. I don't think Eisner can really see a future when he is not running Disney.
BROWN: Is that right?
STEWART: Well, in all of his conversations with me. For example, he intimates rather strongly that he would be quite happy to be restored as the chairman, if the board would ask him to do that, and remain as some kind of chief creative officer into the indefinite future. Now, I think that's very unlikely to happen, and it probably shouldn't happen. But, to me, it shows how much the identity of the company and his own personality have fused into one.
BROWN: But it's just a hard thing, generally, for people to do, to walk off the stage at the top of their game in any -- you know, it doesn't happen in my business. It doesn't happen in sports very often. It certainly doesn't happen in big corporations. It's a really hard thing for people to do.
STEWART: Well, and it's really hard in Hollywood. I mean, Eisner I think to this day is haunted that he is going to be a nobody overnight. I don't think he will, but that's his fear. There are a couple stories in the book where, after he was fired by Paramount, he couldn't get a reservation at the hot restaurant Morton's (ph), and so he had to ask Michael Ovitz. Michael Ovitz called and Michael Ovitz immediately got a table. And when Joe Roth was leaving, Eisner says, well, you don't want to leave. Nobody is going to return your phone calls. And Joe Roth said to Michael, Michael, that's called projection. People will return my phone calls. But, obviously, Eisner is very insecure about that.
BROWN: It's nice to see you. Good luck with the book. It's one of those books -- and partly I think because it's Disney, something about Disney and something about Hollywood -- people are talking about. So good for you.
STEWART: Well, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: James Stewart. We talked with him this afternoon. Still ahead, spring is getting close. It must be. Pitchers and catchers have reported and the swimsuit issue is out as well. And the rooster always joins us. Morning papers will wrap up the hour.We'll take a break. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Like most men my age, I learned about sex the old- fashioned way, in one of the February issues of "Sports Illustrated." Trust me. At 12, it was pretty hot stuff. At 56, it's still worth a discrete glance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It was born to fill a practical need, bridging the gap between the end of football and the time when anyone really cares about winter sports, the playoffs. At least that's their story over at "Sports Illustrated," and they're sticking to it.
DIANE SMITH, EDITOR, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" SWIMSUIT ISSUE: The image that I'm trying to capture is something that is a confident, wholesome, sexy, secure woman who looks great, has fun, feels great in a bathing suit and, you know, is healthy. I mean, I look for curves, obviously.
BROWN: She looks for curves. And so did the millions of, well, sports fans who read it each year. It's the most popular issue of "Sports Illustrated." And the magazine estimates that 60 million people will see it. That's about one in four Americans. Let's just say the swimsuit issue is a bigger draw than hockey.
SMITH: It's hard to realize or to believe how revolutionary that was, to have a bathing suit model on the cover of "Sports Illustrated." So, it had such a great response that it just grew, grew, grew to what it is now.
BROWN: Ms. Smith, we suspect, will not deny they are selling cheesecake here, but she insists it's a wholesome cheesecake, the sort of cheesecake dads and sons can enjoy together.
SMITH: It's a magazine that embodies like a great American tradition. It's totally innocent when you look at what's going on today.
BROWN: And we suppose that is a standard. It's not as racy as an ABC AFL promo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLETTE SHERIDAN, ACTRESS: Terrell, wait.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And that is, we learned, the art, after all. The swimsuit issue is all about the tease.
SMITH: I have an instinct. They have an instinct. We know where to stop and how to keep it still totally acceptable and wholesome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Carolyn Murphy is on the cover of "Sports Illustrated"'s swimsuit issue this year. Sammy Sosa, she is not. She joins us from Los Angeles. It's nice to see you.
CAROLYN MURPHY, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" SWIMSUIT COVER MODEL: It's nice to see you, too. Thank...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: So, are you upset about the NHL players strike?
MURPHY: No. You know, I wish I could say that I was. I'm not as up to date on it as I should be.
BROWN: Do you even like sports?
MURPHY: I do like sports. I grew up around sports. My father was a really big Redskins fan. I come from Virginia. I was a swimmer competitively for 11 years. And I'm a surfer. I love hiking, one of the reasons I live in California. I mean, I follow them as much as I can. But I've been very busy the past few days.
BROWN: I'll bet you have. Is it -- in the world of modeling, is it -- is it a big deal to be the cover of "Sports Illustrated"? Is it a bigger deal than being the cover of "Glamour" or something?
MURPHY: Well, you know, personally, it's a very big deal. But, of course, in my career, it's huge. It's like the pinnacle of my career, besides getting in a contract with Estee Lauder. What every model aspires to is to be on the cover of magazines, to be out there, to be in the face of every household and become a household name. And I think, with "Sports Illustrated," it targets a whole other demographic, which is why I was so proud when I found out about it. I was really excited, because it's not only just a woman's magazine. It's men as well.
BROWN: It's a men's magazine, actually, that some women read I think would be a fairer way to describe it, don't you think?
MURPHY: It's probably a better way to describe it, but I have to tell you, quite honestly, I've been looking at "Sports Illustrated" since I was a little girl. I mean, it wasn't just my brother that was pinning the pictures on his walls. I remember looking at pictures of Rachel Hunter and Elle Macpherson saying, wow, I want to look like that. How great does that woman look? She has a healthy body. She's beautiful and she's glowing. And I think that every woman out there cannot deny the fact that they're going to be looking at the issue, too, for those reasons. BROWN: The -- the issue I think has always been edited by women or a woman. Does that change how the issue comes out because of that?
MURPHY: Well, I think, you know, it takes two to make a great magazine like this. Of course, most of the time, yes, it is for men. It's a sports-oriented magazine. But how great is it to have an issue like this, to have these beautiful women on the covers and the inside? Because it sells. And it's -- we have women athletes in this issue. If you did not have a woman editor, it would just be all for the men. I think it's a perfect balance to have Diane Smith editing the magazine. She's great at it. She knows what also men want to see, but what women want to see. And that's important. BROWN: Do they want to see different things?
MURPHY: Of course. I mean, they want to see different ethnicities. They want to see different body types. They want to see girls that are in a photo laughing and smiling. And they want to see women that are being sexy. And that's the fun of it.BROWN: No, do men and women want to see different things? Will men and women see..
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: I'm serious, actually.MURPHY: No.BROWN: When they look at the picture, will they -- are women looking at something different from what men are looking at?
MURPHY: You know what? I think that it's really on an individual basis. Of course, I know that, when I look at a picture of a woman, I like when she looks sexy. I like when she's having fun, you know, playing volleyball. Of course, the men have a different vision of that. I'm not a man, so I can't answer that.
BROWN: No, but you have a rough idea.
MURPHY: I have a rough idea.
BROWN: Yes, I think you do, too. Next week or the week after, because this happens every year, "Sports Illustrated" will run five letters to the editor from people either threatening to cancel their subscription or objecting one way or another. What is it they don't get?
MURPHY: Well, what do you mean, what they don't get? They have -- they have -- I guess the ratio is less than 1 percent of people opt out. It's 98 percent subscription readers to this magazine. So, it's really -- I'm not sure what you're asking.
BROWN: I guess the question -- what I'm asking is, people who are offended by it, people who find it inappropriate for whatever reasons, what is it they're not seeing that everyone else sees?
MURPHY: You know, again, it's -- there's always going to be people there to stir the pot. You know, you -- there's always going to be people that are unhappy with something. Generally, I would like to think that, overall, people love it. Again, the ratio of people that opt out of this, because they do have the choice, is less than 1 percent.
BROWN: Congratulations.
MURPHY: Thank you.
BROWN: It's a beautiful picture and it's a nice honor for you.
MURPHY: Thank you.
BROWN: And we're glad to have you on the program. Thank you.
MURPHY: Thank you. I'm proud. Thank you.
BROWN: Thank you, Carolyn Murphy. We'll take a break. Morning papers when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Let's just set those over there. And we'll work with these tonight. Here we go. The glasses over there, Aaron.
"The Washington Times" leads it off, because it's on top. No other reason.
"House Approves Class-Action Act. Measures Target -- Measure Targets Frivolous Lawsuits."
Actually, the measure targets all class-action lawsuits, some of which are perhaps frivolous and some of which are not, but it moves them all into federal court, which is a tougher venue, lawyers say. That's an interesting headline, huh?
"Richmond Times-Dispatch," down here, if you will, please.
"Senate Panel Rejects Abortion Measures. Fetal Anesthesia, Clinic Regulations Bill Defeated and Other Proposal Withdrawal" in the Virginia Senate. So that remains a front-page issue in the state of Virginia. I guess it's a front-page issue anywhere.
The two competing papers in Detroit. They used to have a hockey season. Now they just have the two newspapers competing.
"The Detroit News" starts it off. "College Aid Changes Hurt the Poor. Governor's Merit Scholarship Proposal Means Less Federal Money For Some." I think that's unfortunate. People who -- it would nice if people who want to go to college can go to college.
"The Detroit Free Press." "FDA to Rule on Fate of Pain Pills." We obviously like this story a lot, since it was our lead tonight. "State Bills For Taxes on Web and Cigarettes. At Least $1.7 Million Owed By Smokers Who Bought Online." Oh, I get it. I'm sorry. "State Bills For Taxes on Web Cigarettes."
"Attack of the Crows" in "The Des Moines Register." "The birds are leaving a mess across Iowa. Is there anything that can stop them?" What the heck ever happened to scarecrows? Wasn't that the whole point of scarecrows? Did crows figure that out and now they're not scared of scare crows anymore? This article will explain it. How we doing on time?
"Rebuilding the Army" is "The Stars and Stripes" headline. "U.S. Forces Tasked With Training Iraqi Troops Report Progress, But No Definite End in Sight."The weather in Chicago tomorrow -- do it with my right hand tonight -- "deceitful." We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Time to plan the early morning. Here is Bill Hemmer with a look at "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," a burning controversy has landed on the frozen outer reaches of the solar system. Is the planet Pluto really just a planet wanna-be? Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium here in New York is -- he calls Pluto a pretender. It turns out Pluto has a lot of friends out there, too. We'll talk with Neil on that tomorrow morning starting at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Going to boost our numbers in Pluto tomorrow. Good to have you with us tonight. We're all back tomorrow around the world and perhaps around the universe 10:00 Eastern. Until then, good night for all of us.
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The Religious Bigotry of NewsNight's Morning Papers Segment
The dog will bring in morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers around the country and around the world, a lot of good ones today, so I need to move sort of briskly.
"The Christian Science Monitor." ... "States Shore Up Support For Troops. From Life Insurance to Utility Bills and Tuition, There's a Surge of Support For Part-Time Soldiers,"
says "The Christian Science Monitor."
DOUBLE BILLING.
And out West in Portland, Oregon there seems evidence that that is in fact true, not that
"The Christian Science Monitor"
TRIPLE BILLING.
"The Washington Times"
"San Antonio Express-News"
"The Des Moines Register"
"The Detroit News."
"The Philadelphia Inquirer."
(The Chicago Sun Times) Weather tomorrow in Chicago is "rude."
Wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers around the country and around the world, a lot of good ones today, so I need to move sort of briskly.
"The Christian Science Monitor." ... "States Shore Up Support For Troops. From Life Insurance to Utility Bills and Tuition, There's a Surge of Support For Part-Time Soldiers,"
says "The Christian Science Monitor."
DOUBLE BILLING.
And out West in Portland, Oregon there seems evidence that that is in fact true, not that
"The Christian Science Monitor"
TRIPLE BILLING.
"The Washington Times"
"San Antonio Express-News"
"The Des Moines Register"
"The Detroit News."
"The Philadelphia Inquirer."
(The Chicago Sun Times) Weather tomorrow in Chicago is "rude."
Wrap it up in a moment.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Producer Shift at CNN
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: February 16, 2005
CNN, which has been retooling its programming in a bid to close the ratings gap with Fox News, has replaced the senior executive producer of the prime-time program "NewsNight With Aaron Brown," a spokeswoman said last night.
The senior producer, Sharon Van Zwieten, who held the post for about a year, was succeeded by Wil Surratt, executive producer of CNN's morning show, "American Morning," said Christa Robinson, a CNN senior vice president.
In informal remarks yesterday to the network's employees, Jonathan Klein, president of CNN's domestic operations, said, "This move puts us in a better position to win," Ms. Robinson said. CNN is a unit of Time Warner.
Published: February 16, 2005
CNN, which has been retooling its programming in a bid to close the ratings gap with Fox News, has replaced the senior executive producer of the prime-time program "NewsNight With Aaron Brown," a spokeswoman said last night.
The senior producer, Sharon Van Zwieten, who held the post for about a year, was succeeded by Wil Surratt, executive producer of CNN's morning show, "American Morning," said Christa Robinson, a CNN senior vice president.
In informal remarks yesterday to the network's employees, Jonathan Klein, president of CNN's domestic operations, said, "This move puts us in a better position to win," Ms. Robinson said. CNN is a unit of Time Warner.
Social Security Advertising To Increase Over President's Day Holiday; Baby 81 back at home with parents; Replacement troops being trained in Iraq
Aired February 16, 2005 - 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.
There are many ways of gauging the distance between the fall of Baghdad and today, schools built, an election held, lives lost. Tonight, we look at how many times a unit returns to Iraq, a measure, a rough one in more than one way, not just of the then but the now and also the is and the ought to be.
Almost two years ago, we watched as members of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the 3rd ID stormed across the desert. That was then. Tonight, Iraq is a different place. The mission is different too, one that begins with a crash course in the now.We begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): This is a crash course on Iraq. Battalion Commander Pete Newell is the back seat driver. His replacement is in the front. Newell is showing Roger Cloutier, commander of Task Force 130 of the 3rd Infantry Division the lay of the land.
CDR. PETE NEWELL, BATTALION CMDR., 1ST INFANTRY DIV.: This land is 75 percent Sunni.
ARRAF: Across north central Iraq more than 22,000 U.S. troops are switching out in the space of a few weeks and across the area the soldiers and officers leaving are trying to teach the new troops as much as they can to deal with this dangerous and complex environment.
LT. COL. ROGER CLOUTIER, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: So, the hardest thing is how do I extract a year's worth of experience in two weeks of time?
ARRAF: And how do the soldiers absorb it? (on camera): For more than half of these new troops, this is their second deployment in Iraq but they left a year and a half ago and they're going to find that a lot has changed. (voice-over): It's become more dangerous. The units that Newell's task force replaced last year lost two men in their time in Iraq. Newell's task force lost 36. The 3rd Infantry Division took Baghdad in 2003 and left before there was a new Iraqi Army or a new police force. One of the most important things the new troops are learning is who not to shoot that an armed man wearing a ski mask might be an Iraqi policeman trying to protect his identity and not a criminal.Just before heading out on the road, Sergeant Major Darren Bohn (ph) reminds the men how to recognize an Iraqi soldier. They wear old model U.S. uniforms from the first Gulf War.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: AK-47, look for the uniform. If he's ING he'll have like the chocolate chip uniform.
ARRAF: Colonel Newell tells them what danger signs to look for in the crowded market where they're going.
NEWELL: A sure sign that something's not right is people will start running. If people start running before you hear a round go off, start looking for a guy with an RPG.
ARRAF: Newell has spent a year forging a close relationship with Iraqi security forces and earning the trust of local and tribal leaders. One sheikh said of him "He can't be American. He's so patient."
NEWELL: Anybody coming here to do what we do has got to be able to take a multi-faceted approach to dealing with problems and dealing with people.
ARRAF: Cloutier's training in psychological operations and his Master's degree in international relations will serve him well. It's a whirlwind of introductions this one to local mayors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's important to know that most of his soldiers have been here before. Iraq is not necessarily new to them.
ARRAF: They go to the governor's home. Outside are tribal leaders come to pay condolences for the death of two of the governor's bodyguards. Inside there's a test of sorts. Cloutier's cultural training has included how to eat with your hands but this is the first time he's done it for real. His training has not included dancing but here at an Iraqi Army celebration that's part of being one of the guys, as their savvy commander's part of the learning curve in Iraq 2005.Jane Arraf, CNN, Muqtadia (ph), Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There are people we've been proud to meet in the last few years. They've given a lot and they continue to give. But in each meeting with every introduction there's also a chill that comes from knowing that soldiers fight and sometimes soldiers die.Since arriving back in Iraq, the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade has lost three members already, so with mixed feelings now another member of that brigade as he prepared to leave for Iraq, the introduction provided tonight by CNN's Michael Schulder.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 4:00 a.m. near Fort Stewart, Georgia and Sergeant Major Bob Gallagher is making his wife coffee and warming her car. She has a long drive ahead of her to a fire station where she's the only woman firefighter in the county.
BOB GALLAGHER: I'll see you later on tonight. I love you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you too.
B. GALLAGHER: Be safe, all right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
B. GALLAGHER: It's really foggy out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll be fine.
SCHULDER: Only a few more days left until Bob Gallagher heads back to the war in Iraq. The Gallagher's 14-year-old daughter Casey (ph) has already witnessed the toll a long deployment takes on her mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's weird because the last time he went over there mom spent like half the time he was over there sitting in bed watching the news. It was just creepy because she wouldn't get up from the bed. She was really sad and all.
SCHULDER: His last time in Iraq, Sergeant Major Gallagher's leadership was tested here beneath the overpasses of Highway 8 at the edge of Baghdad. He and his men are outnumbered by enemy forces. Gallagher is hit by shrapnel in his left calf. A fellow officer works to stop the bleeding while Gallagher limps into position and continues fighting. Gallagher and his men prevail.As a boy, Bob Gallagher did not seem destined to become a leader.
GALLAGHER: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning sergeant major.
GALLAGHER: I was a juvenile delinquent. My mother passed away when I was young, six, seven years old, left my father to raise myself and my two brothers. I did not finish high school. I just decided on my own either I'm going to stay in this town and probably wind up in jail or I'm going to get up and go and I got up and went.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you do on your time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did just a little bit over three miles in 24 and a half minutes.
SCHULDER: He joined the Army, got his high school equivalency diploma and has risen to become the highest ranking non-commissioned officer of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Combat Brigade.
GALLAGHER: No problems last night?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sergeant major.
GALLAGHER: OK, thanks. What's up with you? Need a break? Still got that girlfriend?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GALLAGHER: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember her name too.
SCHULDER: After this day's rigorous physical training Sergeant Major Gallagher will have what some would call a come to Jesus meeting, a final opportunity to impress upon the several hundred who answer to him what will be required to accomplish the mission and survive. The deployment will be long, 12 to 18 months they're told.
GALLAGHER: I'm telling you it is a marathon.SCHULDER: Twelve to 18 months of vigilance.
GALLAGHER: Supervising and maintenance on your vehicles, you'll pay attention to it more when your happy ass is one of these trucks and it breaks down, you know, three miles down the road.
SCHULDER: Twelve to 18 months protecting each other.
GALLAGHER: Take this to the bank, no one moves alone at any given time, buddy teams at a minimum.
SCHULDER: Twelve to 18 months of staying alive.
GALLAGHER: Helmet, groin protector, hearing protection will be worn, gloves, ballistic eye protection. Of the 42 soldiers that have lost their eyesight, I believe that all 42 were not wearing protective lenses. It's non-negotiable platoon sergeants. Make sure your squad leaders know and understand that. With that uniform I can guarantee that the effects from direct fire or indirect fires will be reduced.This is the helmet I was wearing in Mogadishu. That's shrapnel from an RPG blast.
SCHULDER: Twenty-three years of front line experience including the deadly battle in Somalia, known as Black Hawk Down, are some of the reasons Gallagher's men and women trust him.
GALLAGHER: That one right there probably would have put a whopping on me.
SCHULDER: Reasons for his wife to lose sleep.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't take it one day at a time. It just gets too much. You know, you take it one week at a time and end of the month you check it off, you know, and just wait and just wait for him to come back.
SCHULDER: One last thing about Bob Gallagher we learned while looking at what he calls his ten square feet of wall space where photos of his past military battles hang.When this is all over if you want one more picture on that wall what kind of picture do you envision? What would you like to see?
GALLAGHER: Being at a retirement ceremony upright, walking with a smile on my face with my wife on my arm.
SCHULDER: Michael Schulder, CNN, outside Fort Stewart, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We have much more to come tonight beginning with a question.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. MICHEL DUBOIS, NYU PAIN MANAGEMENT CENTER: What number would you put to your pain, zero is no pain and ten maximum possible?
ASHLEY TAYLOR, PAIN PATIENT: Now it's about six.
BROWN (voice-over): Doctors can ask you where it hurts but can they tell you why it hurts? With painkillers in the spotlight we look at the nature of pain itself.Elsewhere, the end of a mother's heartache quietly, we'll tell you the story of the happy ending for Baby 81.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll spend what it takes. It's going to be a long campaign.
BROWN: Separating the noise from the facts on Social Security, facts tonight.And the mutt owner makes room on the program and on the set for a pure bred dog or two and we'll ask what makes them tick, the dogs as well? You said it.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The safety and effectiveness of Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra were questioned and debated at an FDA hearing today. As a class these drugs are known as Cox-2 inhibitors. They're used to treat chronic pain like arthritis. Vioxx already off the market because it increases the risk in some people of heart attack and stroke. Celebrex and Bextra are still available but studies suggest they could impact the heart as well. The hearings continue tomorrow and Friday. It should result in recommendation on how the drugs should be used in the future if at all. Those recommendations will affect millions who live with pain, especially those with pain that is difficult, if not impossible to diagnose.
Here's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the prick of a needle to a broken bone, physical pain is familiar to all of us but what happens when pain can't be measured?
TAYLOR: Walking around is very difficult and it usually takes just a few minutes before I get very tired and I have to rest and even when I do rest I don't feel better.
GUPTA: Since the age of ten, Ashley Taylor has felt pain in her neck, shoulders, back and legs. Now 20 years old she's seen neurologists, rheumatologists, even psychiatrists. In all, Ashley has been to more than 20 different doctors in just the past few years.
TAYLOR: Doctors don't know. I've had x-rays done and MRIs and numerous blood tests and a spinal tap and everything is negative, everything is OK and no doctor can tell me what's going on.
GUPTA: It's more than discomfort. She takes up to seven pain pills a day, including Celebrex and Vicodin and had to drop out of school last semester.
DUBOIS: A young lady who obviously you expect to be in perfect health who is going through a critical time of her life with a major handicap. Our role is to try to help her going.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).
GUPTA: Despite all the advances of modern medicine, when doctors measure pain they rely primarily on the verbal analog scale.
DUBOIS: What number would you put to your pain, zero is no pain and ten maximum possible?
TAYLOR: Now it's about six.
GUPTA: A complicated name for a simple test. How much does it hurt on a scale from zero to ten?
DUBOIS: Since it is a subjective measurement based only on the patient's feedback you can imagine situations where the patient is not truthful when he reports his or her pain.
GUPTA: And there are variations. What one person calls a nine could easily be a four for another. While there is no reliable way to gauge honesty in these tests, the pain is very real to patients like Ashley.
TAYLOR: Right now I just have to learn to live with the pain as best as I can because it's not going away anytime soon.
GUPTA: A somewhat immeasurable price for a frustratingly immeasurable pain.Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One programming note, tomorrow on the program we look at how the Cox-2 inhibitor drugs were heavily marketed to physicians and patients and how those doctors and those who suffer with pain must now balance the benefits of the drugs against the potential risks. That's tomorrow here on NEWSNIGHT.
Other news tonight, Andy Warhol once said that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Over the last few nights, we've been reporting the story of a 4-month-old Sri Lankan boy Named Abhilash, just an infant yet known around the world as Baby 81, famous long before he'll ever know what fame means.Tonight what is probably the final public chapter in the saga of a young life from Sri Lanka, CNN's Satinder Bindra.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Home at last, the infant known for so long simply as Baby 81 sleeps fitfully under the watchful and loving eyes of his parents.For seven weeks, they've tried to get custody of their 4-month- old son. So have eight other couples until DNA tests led to this. This court handed over Sri Lanka's most famous and pampered baby back to the mother who tried so desperately to hold onto him through the tsunami.
"I went without food and sleep for days" says mother Junita Jeyarajah. "Now, I'm very happy."
Hundreds packed this courtroom. Baby 81 arrived escorted by a police guard. With his parents watching nervously Baby 81 slept through most of the proceedings, getting up just once for a little lunch.
The baby that was found among the debris on the beach has become an icon of suffering, the suffering of his parents and others across Sri Lanka have led to a worldwide outpouring of sympathy.
To show their appreciation and as an offering to the gods, the entire Jeyarajah family smashed 101 coconuts at this temple. Later, the Jeyarajahs took Abhilash to their old home, which was completely destroyed by the tsunami.
There they changed him from hospital clothes to his own. Many family members, including his grandmother broke down. Even though the Jeyarajahs have finally got their most cherished wish, they say they're not planning any parties."We won't be celebrating" says father Murugupillai Jeyarajah "because 30,000 people have lost their lives." All that matters, the Jeyarajahs say, is that Abhilash is home and all they want to do is raise him as a normal child.
Satinder Bindra CNN, Kalmunai, Eastern Sri Lanka.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In a moment, a return to the more sobering news of the day, first the testimony of the country's top spy and the possibility of the next major terrorist attack and that it might be nuclear.And later, separating the facts from the considerable noise on Social Security and the competing plans to change it, a break first.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two demonstrations in one today in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets of Beirut to remember Rafik Hariri, the country's assassinated former prime minister, many of them also demonstrating against Syria, the nation they believe was behind the bombing that killed him on Monday.In Washington, the message to the Senate Intelligence Committee today stark and clear, messages concerning terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. Delivering the news the country's top intelligence officials, the story delivered to us tonight by our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At his first appearance on Capitol Hill as intelligence chief, Porter Goss said the top threat to the nation's national security remains terrorism, causing mass casualties.
PORTER GOSS, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE: It may be only a matter of time before al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that.
ENSOR: Russian reports say terrorists may have stolen some nuclear materials in Russia in recent years leading to concern about a possible dirty radioactive bomb.
SEN. JOHN ROCKEFELLER (D), VICE CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: Can you assure the American people that the material missing from Russian nuclear sites has not found its way into terrorist hands?
GOSS: No, I can't make that assurance.
ENSOR: Homeland security official James Loy said though that the most likely next attack will be a conventional one, along the same lines that troops are facing in Iraq.
JAMES LOY, DEP. SECY. DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We think we are most likely to be attacked with a vehicle borne improvised explosive device because that's the weapon of choice around the world.
ENSOR: Goss spoke of evidence both Iran and North Korea are moving ahead with nuclear weapons programs. Reflecting the criticism of the CIA about intelligence prior to the 9/11 attacks and on Iraq's weapons or lack thereof before the war, he stressed that the agency is getting more aggressive.
GOSS: Our officers are taking risks and I will be asking them to take more risks, justifiable risks because I would be much happier here explaining why we did something than why we did nothing.
ENSOR: On December 17th, President Bush signed an intelligence reform law creating a new director of national intelligence who will be Porter Goss' boss once selected. Democratic Senator Rockefeller said the president is taking too long making his choice.
ROCKEFELLER: Two months have now passed since the bill signing ceremony and the position of director of national intelligence remains vacant, not even a person nominated. To me this is unacceptable.ENSOR: But the Republican chairman said the decision is too important to be rushed.
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: It is I think crucially important not only in terms of timing but to get the right person.ENSOR: What Goss did not discuss in the open hearing but what U.S. officials confirm is that CIA officials are growing uneasy about holding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and other top al Qaeda prisoners indefinitely at undisclosed locations overseas.
(END VIDEOATAPE)
ENSOR: Sources say the CIA wants to scale back its role running secret prisons around the world. The question, said one, is what is the end game for these people and that's a difficult question being quietly posed to the Justice Department and the White House -- Aaron.
BROWN: Two questions. First and quickly on both I guess, do we have any idea how many prisoners around the world the CIA is, in fact, holding?
ENSOR: They've never given a number publicly but talking to people who have some dealings with this, I would put it around a couple of dozen.
BROWN: OK. And on the question of the national intelligence chief hearing any buzz on the timing there?
ENSOR: We're hearing a lot of buzz this evening here in Washington, Aaron, on that one, a lot of suggestions it could be as early as tomorrow, people noting the president has a free schedule tomorrow and so -- and a lot of rumors that he has made his choice and will announce it very soon, a lot of people speculating about who it could be.
BROWN: Well, we'll find out more tomorrow. Thank you David, David Ensor in Washington for us tonight.
ENSOR: That's right.
BROWN: The president was in New Hampshire today again selling his plan for revamping Social Security and privatizing a portion of it, though it remains to be seen what the precise contours of the president's plan may be. He did, though, for the first time yesterday indicate he might accept raising the ceiling on Social Security taxes. Currently every dollar you make above $90,000 is not taxed for Social Security purposes. The president says he's open to a change there.This much is already clear. There's going to be a lot of noise in this debate, a lot of noise, paid for by a lot of money and somewhere in that noise there actually will be some facts, a bit of both now from CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Castellani, President of the Business Roundtable, has formed a new coalition spending at least $20 million to promote the president's Social Security plan, the latest salvo in an ad war expected to dwarf the epic healthcare battle of a decade ago.
JOHN CASTELLANI, PRESIDENT, BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE: We'll spend what it takes. It's going to be a long campaign.
HENRY: Democrats believe these Fortune 200 corporations have been sent on a rescue mission.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D), NEVADA: The way the Bush Social Security is going they'll need to spend tens of millions of dollars because it's not doing well at all.
HENRY: But Democrats are playing the same game. CNN has learned a powerful labor union, the 1.4 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is leading a new coalition to defeat the Bush plan. The former campaign manager for ex-Senator Tom Daschle, Steve Hildebrand, will be running the coalition, which faces an uphill fight.In addition to the Business Roundtable, conservative groups like Club for Growth and Progress for America are providing cover for the president with millions of dollars in TV ads.
REP. EARLY POMEROY (D), NORTH DAKOTA: They want to privatize Social Security and they've gotten them to pony up vast sums of money and now they're about to roll a big lie out across the country in paid media advertising.
HENRY: But both sides have gotten caught bending the truth. The liberal group Moveon.org has been running TV ads charging the president's plan will lead to "the working retirement." The highly- respected independent group FactCheck.org points out the Move On ad falsely accuses the Bush plan of cutting benefits by 46 percent.In his State of the Union, meanwhile, the president said Social Security is headed for bankruptcy but even when the system faces trouble decades down the road it would still pay out a large share of benefits now promised.
The TV ads intensify next week when members of Congress head home for the President's Day recess. At their town hall meetings, Democrats will be armed with talking points claiming the president wants to create a crisis where none exists. Republicans will show off a new DVD of the president making his case.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But if we approach the Social Security debate with courage and honesty, we can succeed.
HENRY (on camera): Congressional Republicans are privately still very nervous that the Social Security issue could blow up in their faces, but they believe the president will be their best weapon. Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come tonight on the program, they're certainly beautiful. They're definitely champions, but are they pets or something else? And finding light love at light speed. The company selling that possibility is a company "On the Rise."
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Every dog shall have its day, except for the canine creme de la creme, who get two days, it turns out, every year at New York's Madison Square Garden. The annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is a serious piece of business. What makes it so wonderful is that it's also just a little bit weird. Where else can you hear someone say to a dog, as reported in "The Boston Globe": "Hold still, girl. We've just got the grease pencil and the hairspray left to do"? I love that quote. Carlee was judged to be the top dog last night. The German shorthaired pointer also happened to look like an actual dog out there, instead of some Barbie-gone-bad version of a dog. Joining me now to add to their -- their insight to this subject, Leslie Padgett, the editor of "New York Dog" magazine. There's a magazine for everything. And Jim Deppen, a dog breeder fresh from the show, and his 195 -- 185 pound? -- 185 pounds sidekick, Sirius Black. That is a -- for people who are trying to figure out, what kind of dog is it?
JIM DEPPEN, DOG BREEDER: Neapolitan mastiff.
BROWN: And there are many different mastiff dogs? Is that it? I mean, this is...
DEPPEN: There's a variety of different mastiffs out there.
BROWN: Yes.
DEPPEN: Five or six different varieties of mastiff. And this one happens to be the one from Italy.
BROWN: And this is one -- this was in the show, actually.
DEPPEN: He was in the competition, yes.
BROWN: And he didn't win it, but the fact that he got there, that was pretty cool.
DEPPEN: It was an award of merit this year. BROWN: Here's my question. Here's a question.
DEPPEN: OK.
BROWN: Do you think of him as a pet?
DEPPEN: Absolutely.
BROWN: Really?
DEPPEN: Best pet you could ever have.
BROWN: I'm not -- you know, a pet like here, Rover, go get, bring it back?
DEPPEN: Well...
BROWN: Roll over.
DEPPEN: Neapolitans basically look at that job as something that the Border collies and the golden retrievers should do. Their job is more utilitarian in the fact that they're a guard dog and they're going to sit there and protect you. And their loyalty and their job is basically to serve and protect.
BROWN: Does the magazine -- is the magazine catering to Jim, who's -- you're a professional breeder of dogs.
DEPPEN: Sure.
BROWN: Right. Or is it to people like me, who go to the pound and get this little mutt and race around the backyard with it, to be honest?
LESLIE PADGETT, EDITOR, "THE NEW YORK DOG MAGAZINE": Well, we cater to all types of dog owners, because we really believe there's a special relationship between dogs and their owners. And it's very much turning into almost like a parent-child relationship, where the person -- the dog is a part of the family and sleeps with you at night. And I'm sure...BROWN: Like in the bed?
PADGETT: In the bed.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: I find that weird, too. That's the truth. That's not allowed in -- not in our house, no.
PADGETT: Well, sure. They're definitely treating them like members of the family. I mean...
BROWN: So you don't think it's particularly odd if you see a dog dressed up in a raincoat, galoshes and a hat?
PADGETT: Absolutely not. They need the protection from the elements, just like we do. And that's...
BROWN: No, actually, they don't.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: That's the -- the great thing about a dog is that they don't need to wear a raincoat, galoshes and a hat.
PADGETT: Well, some dogs don't necessarily function that well in rainy season. So...
BROWN: I wrote today in the e-mail we send to viewers that, in trying to understand the way breeders look at dogs and the way people who follow the competition look at it, that it's really -- you have to sort of see it as art, kind of a living art. Does that seem over the top?
DEPPEN: No, it's exactly that. I mean, you look at this dog here, and I don't think there's another piece of living art that's like that. And what's really interesting about the Neapolitan is that, like a fingerprint, each one of them is individual. You won't find any one of them that's exactly the same as the other. You might look out into a ring of Dobermans or rottweilers or, say, poodles, and you look at all of them, and you say, oh, there's a whole class of white standard poodles standing out there or black and tan Dobermans. When you look at this breed here, you see Neapolitan. You recognize it if you understand and know the breed. But then you start to actually look at them and every single dog has its own individual...
BROWN: But when people, like, show Dobermans, something I know about that much about, OK, they do see the distinction between Doberman Fido and Doberman Rover. I may not see it. Leslie may not see it, but they seem to tell. That's how these dogs win, right?
DEPPEN: Well, the judge is trained, and they have to learn to train their eye to look at the different idiosyncrasies and the small, small detail between each of those dogs and how they relate to the standard.
BROWN: Who's the market for the magazine? What kind of articles are in the magazine?
PADGETT: Well, we cover a lot of different topics.
BROWN: I hope so.
(LAUGHTER)
PADGETT: Obviously.
BROWN: Yes.
PADGETT: We cater to dog owners and what things...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: What's your cover story?
PADGETT: Well, for the next issue, we're covering the doggie dating scene and how dogs are now used as date bait. We also do dogs...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Wait, dogs aren't dating.
PADGETT: No, dogs aren't dating, but dogs are used as date bait.
BROWN: It's a way to get a date.
PADGETT: Absolutely. Dogs are a test for potential daters and potential partners that say, love me, love my dog. We're also doing dogs on Atkins, how to get your dog past a co-op board.
BROWN: Are you guys serious, or is this a joke?
PADGETT: Oh, we're absolutely serious.
BROWN: This is serious.
PADGETT: We take topics that we feel would pertain to us, and we then relay them to the dogs. So we're absolutely serious.
BROWN: OK. In the -- how many big dog competitions are there a year?
DEPPEN: Oh, there's thousands.
BROWN: They go on every week somewhere?
DEPPEN: Every weekend. You know, 52 -- almost 52 weekends a year, you can be out showing your dogs. But the number of big dog shows like Westminster or, say, the World Dog Show or Crufts, there's a handful of those that are recognized throughout the world.
BROWN: And the sort of investment that someone would make to train a top dog would be what? Hundreds of thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars?
DEPPEN: Well, it's all indicative of that particular breed. I mean, you might spend more money to campaign some sporting dogs. I mean, you look at the dog that took best in show last night.
BROWN: Yes.
DEPPEN: The training of that animal was probably the least of their expenses. It was the time and the travel and the advertising, the promotion. All of the behind to promote and push that dog throughout the whole entire year is where you really find the expense.
BROWN: It's -- I'm fascinated by this. I mean, it's just -- you get that I see dogs differently, just -- I just want to roll around with them and, yes.
DEPPEN: Not as a commodity.
BROWN: Yes.
DEPPEN: Right.
BROWN: Nice to meet you. Thanks for bringing the dog in. That's -- or the dog brought you in. I'm not sure which it was.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Nice meeting you, too, Leslie. Thank you.
DEPPEN: Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: We'll take a break. We'll continue in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That dog was something, wasn't it?
A few other stories that made news around the country today, this one something as well.
A high school chemistry teacher in Orlando, Florida, arrested and charged with showing his students how to make bombs. Police say the investigation began after a student detonated an explosive device -- that would be a bomb -- on a golf course and videotaped it. They also say the teacher admitted to exploding four bombs on a ball field behind the school. They don't make chemistry teachers like they used to.
In Boulder, Colorado, anything but pennies from heaven. Two children out playing discovered a duffel bag stuffed with cash, more than $80,000. Police say the size of the stash and the way the money was packaged seemed to indicate it may have been part of a drug transaction. Someone's not very happy.
In Washington tonight, word that Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is battling Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph system. In a statement, the 75-year-old Pennsylvania Republican said -- quote -- "I've beaten a brain tumor, bypass heart surgery, and many tough political opponents. I'm going to beat this, too." And we hope he's right.
In sports -- and you'd be amazed at how seldom we say that around here -- the National Hockey League announced it is canceling its season. The league and its players tried one last time, but failed to end a five-month-old lockout over salaries, though the players did offer to give back a quarter of their pay. For the first time since 1919, there will be no fight -- kind of a hockey pun there -- for the Stanley Cup.
During the long years of apartheid, millions of black South Africans had no rights in their own country. Archbishop Desmond Tutu never stopped encouraging his people to believe that freedom was possible. But he told them it could only flourish if freedom was brought about without violence. Desmond Tutu's heroic story now as we continue our anniversary series "Then and Now."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU, HELPED END APARTHEID: Our struggle is going to succeed because it is a just struggle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the dark days of apartheid in South Africa, me he was the voice of hope.
TUTU: This must be the last of its kind!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Archbishop Desmond Tutu always claimed he was a leader by default, but e used his faith to inspire black South Africans to fight for freedom peacefully. In honor of his battle against apartheid, Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. And when apartheid crumbled 10 years later, President Nelson Mandela pointed to Tutu to lead the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help South Africa deal with the crimes committed during apartheid.
TUTU: We must face this ghastly past and not pretend it never happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Often, the truth of the past was painful, even reducing Tutu to tears. Now, age 73, Tutu is still outspoken on issues around the world, from war to crimes committed in the name of God.
TUTU: God is not a Christian. Nor is God a Muslim. All -- all are God's children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Despite a battle with prostate cancer in 1987, Tutu continues to inspire nonviolent political change around the world and works with the peace center that bears his name.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, picture this. In the amount of time it takes to tell this story, you could discover your future spouse. And if this were a Hollywood love story, you might call it "Gone in 60 Seconds Meets On the Rise."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEN DECKINGER, CEO, HURRYDATE: And here we go. HurryDate!
ADELE TESTANI, PRESIDENT, HURRYDATE: HurryDate!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, did you bring a resume?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Steve 52.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) 13.
DECKINGER: HurryDate is basically a dating company with the idea of cutting to the chase and the idea of getting people to meet people quickly and efficiently and in a fun way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry. Middle Village, Queens.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't say that. You're the one that just said that. DECKINGER: We do that in two ways. One is, we throw parties around the country where people go on 20 four-minute dates. And then we also offer online dating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry. It was important. I went to the bathroom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.TESTANI: First, you sign up at our Web site at HurryDate.com. You'll pick a party that's right for you. We have tons of different age ranges.
DECKINGER: We do tons of different niches. We'll do different ethnic groups. We do all types of gender references, whatever you want.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even better.
TESTANI: You show up the night of the party, and you get a scorecard and a name tag. And our hosts will literally start blowing a whistle every time you have one of your four-minute dates.
DECKINGER: Rotate!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was really nice meeting you.
TESTANI: You'll look at their number on their name tag, then open up a scorecard and find that number and circle either a yes or a no, just to say if you want to see them again.
DECKINGER: After the party, everyone goes back to the HurryDate Web site, and our computer matches everybody up; 95 percent of the people who come to HurryDate get at least one match from the party.
TESTANI: And, on average, most people actually get about three to five matches per party.
DECKINGER: Welcome to HurryDate world headquarters. Hey.
TESTANI: Hey, welcome.
DECKINGER: This is where we basically run our whole business. This is our favorite success wall.
TESTANI: Eighty-three. We love them, part of our little HurryDate family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a tough city to like get into the whole dating scene.
DECKINGER: We started in New York City in May 2001, and we do HurryDates on a regular basis in roughly 65 cities right now. There are several thousands of people HurryDating monthly. A HurryDate party costs between $30 and $37, depending on the city that you live in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've never been to one of these things before. Have you?
TESTANI: There are actually a lot of tips for any dating situation, but especially at a HurryDate party. The biggest one is to just take a deep breath, relax, and have fun with it. Don't take it too seriously. You know, it is just a party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's only been like 20 seconds, but it feels more like 30, doesn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut up? Wow.
DECKINGER: Differentiation is key in HurryDate. As long as you can stick out from the crowd, you're golden.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you met any cool guys, besides me, of course?
TESTANI: When we hear about our success stories, that's what it's all about, you know, that we are bringing these people together. It's just amazing that just Ken and I are creating these...
DECKINGER: That's what is call.
TESTANI: You know, true love.
DECKINGER: Yes.
TESTANI: It's really cool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very nice to meet you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very nice meeting you.
TESTANI: Even if there's not marriages or engagements out of it, that's not even really how we define success.
DECKINGER: You make a friend, whatever you want. As long as you got something out of HurryDate and you had a good time, it's a success.
DECKINGER: This is your last date. Yay!
TESTANI: Yay!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: HurryDating, doggie dating. What is going on here? The dog will bring in morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers around the country and around the world, a lot of good ones today, so I need to move sort of briskly.
"The Christian Science Monitor." "Bush Administration Blurs Media Boundary. Controversy Over a 'Journalist' -- in quote -- "Adds to the Buzz About Message Control in the Capital." This is the Jeff Gannon story chapter, about six now. It's actually -- it's kind of uncomfortable for the White House on this, in my view. This is the story I like most, though. "States Shore Up Support For Troops. From Life Insurance to Utility Bills and Tuition, There's a Surge of Support For Part-Time Soldiers," says "The Christian Science Monitor." And out West in Portland, Oregon there seems evidence that that is in fact true, not that "The Christian Science Monitor" would put something that was untrue on the front page. "Soldiers: Gene's Got Your Back." "A Tavern Owner in Tangent, Oregon" -- I hope I pronounced that right -- "Aids Families of Oregonians Serving in Iraq." So, good for him.
Now, two different ways to headline Social Security and Alan Greenspan today. "The Washington Times." "Greenspan Backs Social Security Plan," which kind of makes it sound like Greenspan backs the Social Security plan.
"San Antonio Express-News," same testimony, same Greenspan. "Social Security Caution Is Urged. Greenspan Says Bush on Right Track, But Private Retirement Accounts Shouldn't Be Rushed. Fed Chairman Concerned About the Impact on the Deficit."
How are we doing on time?
Thank you.
I knew you'd get there.
"Colorado's Top Dog Earns a Spot on the Couch." That's the winning dog, Carlee. And maybe that's her trainer. I can't -- yes. "The Des Moines Register." Nothing that I cared about today, as it turned out.
"The Detroit News." OK. "Game Over. Impasse: $6.5 Million Difference Kills Season. Impact: Metro Businesses, Fans End Up as Big Losers." Future: NHL's Existence in Doubt Beyond This Season." That's why they call Detroit hockey town USA, isn't it? Now, where is it that the owners were forced to pay the players all this money? I never understand that part of these stories.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." NHL is -- it's a good hockey town also. They put the NHL on the front page. But I just love the way this story is laid out. "Avalanche of Details From Probe. Transcripts and Other Evidence Flesh Out Prosecutors' Portrait of Pay- to-Play at City Hall."
Weather tomorrow in Chicago is "rude."
Wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Soledad O'Brien with a look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," the guy who wrote "Honeymoon With My Brother." It starts with that guy getting stood up at the altar, and it gets better from there. Actually, it's a moving story about how a single event led two brothers on a journey that would end up completely transforming their lives. Now Hollywood can't wait to get its hands on the story. We talk to them CNN tomorrow 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Soledad, thank you. Tomorrow, right here, we'll take a look at the controversy over painkillers Vioxx and the rest, how they were marketed, and the other side of the story, which is patients who very much still want to take these drugs, despite the risks -- that and much more right here on NEWSNIGHT tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time.
"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 16, 2005 - 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.
There are many ways of gauging the distance between the fall of Baghdad and today, schools built, an election held, lives lost. Tonight, we look at how many times a unit returns to Iraq, a measure, a rough one in more than one way, not just of the then but the now and also the is and the ought to be.
Almost two years ago, we watched as members of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the 3rd ID stormed across the desert. That was then. Tonight, Iraq is a different place. The mission is different too, one that begins with a crash course in the now.We begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): This is a crash course on Iraq. Battalion Commander Pete Newell is the back seat driver. His replacement is in the front. Newell is showing Roger Cloutier, commander of Task Force 130 of the 3rd Infantry Division the lay of the land.
CDR. PETE NEWELL, BATTALION CMDR., 1ST INFANTRY DIV.: This land is 75 percent Sunni.
ARRAF: Across north central Iraq more than 22,000 U.S. troops are switching out in the space of a few weeks and across the area the soldiers and officers leaving are trying to teach the new troops as much as they can to deal with this dangerous and complex environment.
LT. COL. ROGER CLOUTIER, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: So, the hardest thing is how do I extract a year's worth of experience in two weeks of time?
ARRAF: And how do the soldiers absorb it? (on camera): For more than half of these new troops, this is their second deployment in Iraq but they left a year and a half ago and they're going to find that a lot has changed. (voice-over): It's become more dangerous. The units that Newell's task force replaced last year lost two men in their time in Iraq. Newell's task force lost 36. The 3rd Infantry Division took Baghdad in 2003 and left before there was a new Iraqi Army or a new police force. One of the most important things the new troops are learning is who not to shoot that an armed man wearing a ski mask might be an Iraqi policeman trying to protect his identity and not a criminal.Just before heading out on the road, Sergeant Major Darren Bohn (ph) reminds the men how to recognize an Iraqi soldier. They wear old model U.S. uniforms from the first Gulf War.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: AK-47, look for the uniform. If he's ING he'll have like the chocolate chip uniform.
ARRAF: Colonel Newell tells them what danger signs to look for in the crowded market where they're going.
NEWELL: A sure sign that something's not right is people will start running. If people start running before you hear a round go off, start looking for a guy with an RPG.
ARRAF: Newell has spent a year forging a close relationship with Iraqi security forces and earning the trust of local and tribal leaders. One sheikh said of him "He can't be American. He's so patient."
NEWELL: Anybody coming here to do what we do has got to be able to take a multi-faceted approach to dealing with problems and dealing with people.
ARRAF: Cloutier's training in psychological operations and his Master's degree in international relations will serve him well. It's a whirlwind of introductions this one to local mayors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's important to know that most of his soldiers have been here before. Iraq is not necessarily new to them.
ARRAF: They go to the governor's home. Outside are tribal leaders come to pay condolences for the death of two of the governor's bodyguards. Inside there's a test of sorts. Cloutier's cultural training has included how to eat with your hands but this is the first time he's done it for real. His training has not included dancing but here at an Iraqi Army celebration that's part of being one of the guys, as their savvy commander's part of the learning curve in Iraq 2005.Jane Arraf, CNN, Muqtadia (ph), Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There are people we've been proud to meet in the last few years. They've given a lot and they continue to give. But in each meeting with every introduction there's also a chill that comes from knowing that soldiers fight and sometimes soldiers die.Since arriving back in Iraq, the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade has lost three members already, so with mixed feelings now another member of that brigade as he prepared to leave for Iraq, the introduction provided tonight by CNN's Michael Schulder.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 4:00 a.m. near Fort Stewart, Georgia and Sergeant Major Bob Gallagher is making his wife coffee and warming her car. She has a long drive ahead of her to a fire station where she's the only woman firefighter in the county.
BOB GALLAGHER: I'll see you later on tonight. I love you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you too.
B. GALLAGHER: Be safe, all right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
B. GALLAGHER: It's really foggy out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll be fine.
SCHULDER: Only a few more days left until Bob Gallagher heads back to the war in Iraq. The Gallagher's 14-year-old daughter Casey (ph) has already witnessed the toll a long deployment takes on her mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's weird because the last time he went over there mom spent like half the time he was over there sitting in bed watching the news. It was just creepy because she wouldn't get up from the bed. She was really sad and all.
SCHULDER: His last time in Iraq, Sergeant Major Gallagher's leadership was tested here beneath the overpasses of Highway 8 at the edge of Baghdad. He and his men are outnumbered by enemy forces. Gallagher is hit by shrapnel in his left calf. A fellow officer works to stop the bleeding while Gallagher limps into position and continues fighting. Gallagher and his men prevail.As a boy, Bob Gallagher did not seem destined to become a leader.
GALLAGHER: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning sergeant major.
GALLAGHER: I was a juvenile delinquent. My mother passed away when I was young, six, seven years old, left my father to raise myself and my two brothers. I did not finish high school. I just decided on my own either I'm going to stay in this town and probably wind up in jail or I'm going to get up and go and I got up and went.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you do on your time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did just a little bit over three miles in 24 and a half minutes.
SCHULDER: He joined the Army, got his high school equivalency diploma and has risen to become the highest ranking non-commissioned officer of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Combat Brigade.
GALLAGHER: No problems last night?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sergeant major.
GALLAGHER: OK, thanks. What's up with you? Need a break? Still got that girlfriend?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GALLAGHER: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember her name too.
SCHULDER: After this day's rigorous physical training Sergeant Major Gallagher will have what some would call a come to Jesus meeting, a final opportunity to impress upon the several hundred who answer to him what will be required to accomplish the mission and survive. The deployment will be long, 12 to 18 months they're told.
GALLAGHER: I'm telling you it is a marathon.SCHULDER: Twelve to 18 months of vigilance.
GALLAGHER: Supervising and maintenance on your vehicles, you'll pay attention to it more when your happy ass is one of these trucks and it breaks down, you know, three miles down the road.
SCHULDER: Twelve to 18 months protecting each other.
GALLAGHER: Take this to the bank, no one moves alone at any given time, buddy teams at a minimum.
SCHULDER: Twelve to 18 months of staying alive.
GALLAGHER: Helmet, groin protector, hearing protection will be worn, gloves, ballistic eye protection. Of the 42 soldiers that have lost their eyesight, I believe that all 42 were not wearing protective lenses. It's non-negotiable platoon sergeants. Make sure your squad leaders know and understand that. With that uniform I can guarantee that the effects from direct fire or indirect fires will be reduced.This is the helmet I was wearing in Mogadishu. That's shrapnel from an RPG blast.
SCHULDER: Twenty-three years of front line experience including the deadly battle in Somalia, known as Black Hawk Down, are some of the reasons Gallagher's men and women trust him.
GALLAGHER: That one right there probably would have put a whopping on me.
SCHULDER: Reasons for his wife to lose sleep.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't take it one day at a time. It just gets too much. You know, you take it one week at a time and end of the month you check it off, you know, and just wait and just wait for him to come back.
SCHULDER: One last thing about Bob Gallagher we learned while looking at what he calls his ten square feet of wall space where photos of his past military battles hang.When this is all over if you want one more picture on that wall what kind of picture do you envision? What would you like to see?
GALLAGHER: Being at a retirement ceremony upright, walking with a smile on my face with my wife on my arm.
SCHULDER: Michael Schulder, CNN, outside Fort Stewart, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We have much more to come tonight beginning with a question.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. MICHEL DUBOIS, NYU PAIN MANAGEMENT CENTER: What number would you put to your pain, zero is no pain and ten maximum possible?
ASHLEY TAYLOR, PAIN PATIENT: Now it's about six.
BROWN (voice-over): Doctors can ask you where it hurts but can they tell you why it hurts? With painkillers in the spotlight we look at the nature of pain itself.Elsewhere, the end of a mother's heartache quietly, we'll tell you the story of the happy ending for Baby 81.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll spend what it takes. It's going to be a long campaign.
BROWN: Separating the noise from the facts on Social Security, facts tonight.And the mutt owner makes room on the program and on the set for a pure bred dog or two and we'll ask what makes them tick, the dogs as well? You said it.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The safety and effectiveness of Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra were questioned and debated at an FDA hearing today. As a class these drugs are known as Cox-2 inhibitors. They're used to treat chronic pain like arthritis. Vioxx already off the market because it increases the risk in some people of heart attack and stroke. Celebrex and Bextra are still available but studies suggest they could impact the heart as well. The hearings continue tomorrow and Friday. It should result in recommendation on how the drugs should be used in the future if at all. Those recommendations will affect millions who live with pain, especially those with pain that is difficult, if not impossible to diagnose.
Here's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the prick of a needle to a broken bone, physical pain is familiar to all of us but what happens when pain can't be measured?
TAYLOR: Walking around is very difficult and it usually takes just a few minutes before I get very tired and I have to rest and even when I do rest I don't feel better.
GUPTA: Since the age of ten, Ashley Taylor has felt pain in her neck, shoulders, back and legs. Now 20 years old she's seen neurologists, rheumatologists, even psychiatrists. In all, Ashley has been to more than 20 different doctors in just the past few years.
TAYLOR: Doctors don't know. I've had x-rays done and MRIs and numerous blood tests and a spinal tap and everything is negative, everything is OK and no doctor can tell me what's going on.
GUPTA: It's more than discomfort. She takes up to seven pain pills a day, including Celebrex and Vicodin and had to drop out of school last semester.
DUBOIS: A young lady who obviously you expect to be in perfect health who is going through a critical time of her life with a major handicap. Our role is to try to help her going.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).
GUPTA: Despite all the advances of modern medicine, when doctors measure pain they rely primarily on the verbal analog scale.
DUBOIS: What number would you put to your pain, zero is no pain and ten maximum possible?
TAYLOR: Now it's about six.
GUPTA: A complicated name for a simple test. How much does it hurt on a scale from zero to ten?
DUBOIS: Since it is a subjective measurement based only on the patient's feedback you can imagine situations where the patient is not truthful when he reports his or her pain.
GUPTA: And there are variations. What one person calls a nine could easily be a four for another. While there is no reliable way to gauge honesty in these tests, the pain is very real to patients like Ashley.
TAYLOR: Right now I just have to learn to live with the pain as best as I can because it's not going away anytime soon.
GUPTA: A somewhat immeasurable price for a frustratingly immeasurable pain.Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One programming note, tomorrow on the program we look at how the Cox-2 inhibitor drugs were heavily marketed to physicians and patients and how those doctors and those who suffer with pain must now balance the benefits of the drugs against the potential risks. That's tomorrow here on NEWSNIGHT.
Other news tonight, Andy Warhol once said that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Over the last few nights, we've been reporting the story of a 4-month-old Sri Lankan boy Named Abhilash, just an infant yet known around the world as Baby 81, famous long before he'll ever know what fame means.Tonight what is probably the final public chapter in the saga of a young life from Sri Lanka, CNN's Satinder Bindra.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Home at last, the infant known for so long simply as Baby 81 sleeps fitfully under the watchful and loving eyes of his parents.For seven weeks, they've tried to get custody of their 4-month- old son. So have eight other couples until DNA tests led to this. This court handed over Sri Lanka's most famous and pampered baby back to the mother who tried so desperately to hold onto him through the tsunami.
"I went without food and sleep for days" says mother Junita Jeyarajah. "Now, I'm very happy."
Hundreds packed this courtroom. Baby 81 arrived escorted by a police guard. With his parents watching nervously Baby 81 slept through most of the proceedings, getting up just once for a little lunch.
The baby that was found among the debris on the beach has become an icon of suffering, the suffering of his parents and others across Sri Lanka have led to a worldwide outpouring of sympathy.
To show their appreciation and as an offering to the gods, the entire Jeyarajah family smashed 101 coconuts at this temple. Later, the Jeyarajahs took Abhilash to their old home, which was completely destroyed by the tsunami.
There they changed him from hospital clothes to his own. Many family members, including his grandmother broke down. Even though the Jeyarajahs have finally got their most cherished wish, they say they're not planning any parties."We won't be celebrating" says father Murugupillai Jeyarajah "because 30,000 people have lost their lives." All that matters, the Jeyarajahs say, is that Abhilash is home and all they want to do is raise him as a normal child.
Satinder Bindra CNN, Kalmunai, Eastern Sri Lanka.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In a moment, a return to the more sobering news of the day, first the testimony of the country's top spy and the possibility of the next major terrorist attack and that it might be nuclear.And later, separating the facts from the considerable noise on Social Security and the competing plans to change it, a break first.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two demonstrations in one today in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets of Beirut to remember Rafik Hariri, the country's assassinated former prime minister, many of them also demonstrating against Syria, the nation they believe was behind the bombing that killed him on Monday.In Washington, the message to the Senate Intelligence Committee today stark and clear, messages concerning terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. Delivering the news the country's top intelligence officials, the story delivered to us tonight by our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At his first appearance on Capitol Hill as intelligence chief, Porter Goss said the top threat to the nation's national security remains terrorism, causing mass casualties.
PORTER GOSS, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE: It may be only a matter of time before al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that.
ENSOR: Russian reports say terrorists may have stolen some nuclear materials in Russia in recent years leading to concern about a possible dirty radioactive bomb.
SEN. JOHN ROCKEFELLER (D), VICE CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: Can you assure the American people that the material missing from Russian nuclear sites has not found its way into terrorist hands?
GOSS: No, I can't make that assurance.
ENSOR: Homeland security official James Loy said though that the most likely next attack will be a conventional one, along the same lines that troops are facing in Iraq.
JAMES LOY, DEP. SECY. DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We think we are most likely to be attacked with a vehicle borne improvised explosive device because that's the weapon of choice around the world.
ENSOR: Goss spoke of evidence both Iran and North Korea are moving ahead with nuclear weapons programs. Reflecting the criticism of the CIA about intelligence prior to the 9/11 attacks and on Iraq's weapons or lack thereof before the war, he stressed that the agency is getting more aggressive.
GOSS: Our officers are taking risks and I will be asking them to take more risks, justifiable risks because I would be much happier here explaining why we did something than why we did nothing.
ENSOR: On December 17th, President Bush signed an intelligence reform law creating a new director of national intelligence who will be Porter Goss' boss once selected. Democratic Senator Rockefeller said the president is taking too long making his choice.
ROCKEFELLER: Two months have now passed since the bill signing ceremony and the position of director of national intelligence remains vacant, not even a person nominated. To me this is unacceptable.ENSOR: But the Republican chairman said the decision is too important to be rushed.
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: It is I think crucially important not only in terms of timing but to get the right person.ENSOR: What Goss did not discuss in the open hearing but what U.S. officials confirm is that CIA officials are growing uneasy about holding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and other top al Qaeda prisoners indefinitely at undisclosed locations overseas.
(END VIDEOATAPE)
ENSOR: Sources say the CIA wants to scale back its role running secret prisons around the world. The question, said one, is what is the end game for these people and that's a difficult question being quietly posed to the Justice Department and the White House -- Aaron.
BROWN: Two questions. First and quickly on both I guess, do we have any idea how many prisoners around the world the CIA is, in fact, holding?
ENSOR: They've never given a number publicly but talking to people who have some dealings with this, I would put it around a couple of dozen.
BROWN: OK. And on the question of the national intelligence chief hearing any buzz on the timing there?
ENSOR: We're hearing a lot of buzz this evening here in Washington, Aaron, on that one, a lot of suggestions it could be as early as tomorrow, people noting the president has a free schedule tomorrow and so -- and a lot of rumors that he has made his choice and will announce it very soon, a lot of people speculating about who it could be.
BROWN: Well, we'll find out more tomorrow. Thank you David, David Ensor in Washington for us tonight.
ENSOR: That's right.
BROWN: The president was in New Hampshire today again selling his plan for revamping Social Security and privatizing a portion of it, though it remains to be seen what the precise contours of the president's plan may be. He did, though, for the first time yesterday indicate he might accept raising the ceiling on Social Security taxes. Currently every dollar you make above $90,000 is not taxed for Social Security purposes. The president says he's open to a change there.This much is already clear. There's going to be a lot of noise in this debate, a lot of noise, paid for by a lot of money and somewhere in that noise there actually will be some facts, a bit of both now from CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Castellani, President of the Business Roundtable, has formed a new coalition spending at least $20 million to promote the president's Social Security plan, the latest salvo in an ad war expected to dwarf the epic healthcare battle of a decade ago.
JOHN CASTELLANI, PRESIDENT, BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE: We'll spend what it takes. It's going to be a long campaign.
HENRY: Democrats believe these Fortune 200 corporations have been sent on a rescue mission.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D), NEVADA: The way the Bush Social Security is going they'll need to spend tens of millions of dollars because it's not doing well at all.
HENRY: But Democrats are playing the same game. CNN has learned a powerful labor union, the 1.4 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is leading a new coalition to defeat the Bush plan. The former campaign manager for ex-Senator Tom Daschle, Steve Hildebrand, will be running the coalition, which faces an uphill fight.In addition to the Business Roundtable, conservative groups like Club for Growth and Progress for America are providing cover for the president with millions of dollars in TV ads.
REP. EARLY POMEROY (D), NORTH DAKOTA: They want to privatize Social Security and they've gotten them to pony up vast sums of money and now they're about to roll a big lie out across the country in paid media advertising.
HENRY: But both sides have gotten caught bending the truth. The liberal group Moveon.org has been running TV ads charging the president's plan will lead to "the working retirement." The highly- respected independent group FactCheck.org points out the Move On ad falsely accuses the Bush plan of cutting benefits by 46 percent.In his State of the Union, meanwhile, the president said Social Security is headed for bankruptcy but even when the system faces trouble decades down the road it would still pay out a large share of benefits now promised.
The TV ads intensify next week when members of Congress head home for the President's Day recess. At their town hall meetings, Democrats will be armed with talking points claiming the president wants to create a crisis where none exists. Republicans will show off a new DVD of the president making his case.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But if we approach the Social Security debate with courage and honesty, we can succeed.
HENRY (on camera): Congressional Republicans are privately still very nervous that the Social Security issue could blow up in their faces, but they believe the president will be their best weapon. Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come tonight on the program, they're certainly beautiful. They're definitely champions, but are they pets or something else? And finding light love at light speed. The company selling that possibility is a company "On the Rise."
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Every dog shall have its day, except for the canine creme de la creme, who get two days, it turns out, every year at New York's Madison Square Garden. The annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is a serious piece of business. What makes it so wonderful is that it's also just a little bit weird. Where else can you hear someone say to a dog, as reported in "The Boston Globe": "Hold still, girl. We've just got the grease pencil and the hairspray left to do"? I love that quote. Carlee was judged to be the top dog last night. The German shorthaired pointer also happened to look like an actual dog out there, instead of some Barbie-gone-bad version of a dog. Joining me now to add to their -- their insight to this subject, Leslie Padgett, the editor of "New York Dog" magazine. There's a magazine for everything. And Jim Deppen, a dog breeder fresh from the show, and his 195 -- 185 pound? -- 185 pounds sidekick, Sirius Black. That is a -- for people who are trying to figure out, what kind of dog is it?
JIM DEPPEN, DOG BREEDER: Neapolitan mastiff.
BROWN: And there are many different mastiff dogs? Is that it? I mean, this is...
DEPPEN: There's a variety of different mastiffs out there.
BROWN: Yes.
DEPPEN: Five or six different varieties of mastiff. And this one happens to be the one from Italy.
BROWN: And this is one -- this was in the show, actually.
DEPPEN: He was in the competition, yes.
BROWN: And he didn't win it, but the fact that he got there, that was pretty cool.
DEPPEN: It was an award of merit this year. BROWN: Here's my question. Here's a question.
DEPPEN: OK.
BROWN: Do you think of him as a pet?
DEPPEN: Absolutely.
BROWN: Really?
DEPPEN: Best pet you could ever have.
BROWN: I'm not -- you know, a pet like here, Rover, go get, bring it back?
DEPPEN: Well...
BROWN: Roll over.
DEPPEN: Neapolitans basically look at that job as something that the Border collies and the golden retrievers should do. Their job is more utilitarian in the fact that they're a guard dog and they're going to sit there and protect you. And their loyalty and their job is basically to serve and protect.
BROWN: Does the magazine -- is the magazine catering to Jim, who's -- you're a professional breeder of dogs.
DEPPEN: Sure.
BROWN: Right. Or is it to people like me, who go to the pound and get this little mutt and race around the backyard with it, to be honest?
LESLIE PADGETT, EDITOR, "THE NEW YORK DOG MAGAZINE": Well, we cater to all types of dog owners, because we really believe there's a special relationship between dogs and their owners. And it's very much turning into almost like a parent-child relationship, where the person -- the dog is a part of the family and sleeps with you at night. And I'm sure...BROWN: Like in the bed?
PADGETT: In the bed.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: I find that weird, too. That's the truth. That's not allowed in -- not in our house, no.
PADGETT: Well, sure. They're definitely treating them like members of the family. I mean...
BROWN: So you don't think it's particularly odd if you see a dog dressed up in a raincoat, galoshes and a hat?
PADGETT: Absolutely not. They need the protection from the elements, just like we do. And that's...
BROWN: No, actually, they don't.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: That's the -- the great thing about a dog is that they don't need to wear a raincoat, galoshes and a hat.
PADGETT: Well, some dogs don't necessarily function that well in rainy season. So...
BROWN: I wrote today in the e-mail we send to viewers that, in trying to understand the way breeders look at dogs and the way people who follow the competition look at it, that it's really -- you have to sort of see it as art, kind of a living art. Does that seem over the top?
DEPPEN: No, it's exactly that. I mean, you look at this dog here, and I don't think there's another piece of living art that's like that. And what's really interesting about the Neapolitan is that, like a fingerprint, each one of them is individual. You won't find any one of them that's exactly the same as the other. You might look out into a ring of Dobermans or rottweilers or, say, poodles, and you look at all of them, and you say, oh, there's a whole class of white standard poodles standing out there or black and tan Dobermans. When you look at this breed here, you see Neapolitan. You recognize it if you understand and know the breed. But then you start to actually look at them and every single dog has its own individual...
BROWN: But when people, like, show Dobermans, something I know about that much about, OK, they do see the distinction between Doberman Fido and Doberman Rover. I may not see it. Leslie may not see it, but they seem to tell. That's how these dogs win, right?
DEPPEN: Well, the judge is trained, and they have to learn to train their eye to look at the different idiosyncrasies and the small, small detail between each of those dogs and how they relate to the standard.
BROWN: Who's the market for the magazine? What kind of articles are in the magazine?
PADGETT: Well, we cover a lot of different topics.
BROWN: I hope so.
(LAUGHTER)
PADGETT: Obviously.
BROWN: Yes.
PADGETT: We cater to dog owners and what things...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: What's your cover story?
PADGETT: Well, for the next issue, we're covering the doggie dating scene and how dogs are now used as date bait. We also do dogs...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Wait, dogs aren't dating.
PADGETT: No, dogs aren't dating, but dogs are used as date bait.
BROWN: It's a way to get a date.
PADGETT: Absolutely. Dogs are a test for potential daters and potential partners that say, love me, love my dog. We're also doing dogs on Atkins, how to get your dog past a co-op board.
BROWN: Are you guys serious, or is this a joke?
PADGETT: Oh, we're absolutely serious.
BROWN: This is serious.
PADGETT: We take topics that we feel would pertain to us, and we then relay them to the dogs. So we're absolutely serious.
BROWN: OK. In the -- how many big dog competitions are there a year?
DEPPEN: Oh, there's thousands.
BROWN: They go on every week somewhere?
DEPPEN: Every weekend. You know, 52 -- almost 52 weekends a year, you can be out showing your dogs. But the number of big dog shows like Westminster or, say, the World Dog Show or Crufts, there's a handful of those that are recognized throughout the world.
BROWN: And the sort of investment that someone would make to train a top dog would be what? Hundreds of thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars?
DEPPEN: Well, it's all indicative of that particular breed. I mean, you might spend more money to campaign some sporting dogs. I mean, you look at the dog that took best in show last night.
BROWN: Yes.
DEPPEN: The training of that animal was probably the least of their expenses. It was the time and the travel and the advertising, the promotion. All of the behind to promote and push that dog throughout the whole entire year is where you really find the expense.
BROWN: It's -- I'm fascinated by this. I mean, it's just -- you get that I see dogs differently, just -- I just want to roll around with them and, yes.
DEPPEN: Not as a commodity.
BROWN: Yes.
DEPPEN: Right.
BROWN: Nice to meet you. Thanks for bringing the dog in. That's -- or the dog brought you in. I'm not sure which it was.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Nice meeting you, too, Leslie. Thank you.
DEPPEN: Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: We'll take a break. We'll continue in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That dog was something, wasn't it?
A few other stories that made news around the country today, this one something as well.
A high school chemistry teacher in Orlando, Florida, arrested and charged with showing his students how to make bombs. Police say the investigation began after a student detonated an explosive device -- that would be a bomb -- on a golf course and videotaped it. They also say the teacher admitted to exploding four bombs on a ball field behind the school. They don't make chemistry teachers like they used to.
In Boulder, Colorado, anything but pennies from heaven. Two children out playing discovered a duffel bag stuffed with cash, more than $80,000. Police say the size of the stash and the way the money was packaged seemed to indicate it may have been part of a drug transaction. Someone's not very happy.
In Washington tonight, word that Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is battling Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph system. In a statement, the 75-year-old Pennsylvania Republican said -- quote -- "I've beaten a brain tumor, bypass heart surgery, and many tough political opponents. I'm going to beat this, too." And we hope he's right.
In sports -- and you'd be amazed at how seldom we say that around here -- the National Hockey League announced it is canceling its season. The league and its players tried one last time, but failed to end a five-month-old lockout over salaries, though the players did offer to give back a quarter of their pay. For the first time since 1919, there will be no fight -- kind of a hockey pun there -- for the Stanley Cup.
During the long years of apartheid, millions of black South Africans had no rights in their own country. Archbishop Desmond Tutu never stopped encouraging his people to believe that freedom was possible. But he told them it could only flourish if freedom was brought about without violence. Desmond Tutu's heroic story now as we continue our anniversary series "Then and Now."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU, HELPED END APARTHEID: Our struggle is going to succeed because it is a just struggle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the dark days of apartheid in South Africa, me he was the voice of hope.
TUTU: This must be the last of its kind!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Archbishop Desmond Tutu always claimed he was a leader by default, but e used his faith to inspire black South Africans to fight for freedom peacefully. In honor of his battle against apartheid, Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. And when apartheid crumbled 10 years later, President Nelson Mandela pointed to Tutu to lead the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help South Africa deal with the crimes committed during apartheid.
TUTU: We must face this ghastly past and not pretend it never happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Often, the truth of the past was painful, even reducing Tutu to tears. Now, age 73, Tutu is still outspoken on issues around the world, from war to crimes committed in the name of God.
TUTU: God is not a Christian. Nor is God a Muslim. All -- all are God's children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Despite a battle with prostate cancer in 1987, Tutu continues to inspire nonviolent political change around the world and works with the peace center that bears his name.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, picture this. In the amount of time it takes to tell this story, you could discover your future spouse. And if this were a Hollywood love story, you might call it "Gone in 60 Seconds Meets On the Rise."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEN DECKINGER, CEO, HURRYDATE: And here we go. HurryDate!
ADELE TESTANI, PRESIDENT, HURRYDATE: HurryDate!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, did you bring a resume?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Steve 52.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) 13.
DECKINGER: HurryDate is basically a dating company with the idea of cutting to the chase and the idea of getting people to meet people quickly and efficiently and in a fun way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry. Middle Village, Queens.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't say that. You're the one that just said that. DECKINGER: We do that in two ways. One is, we throw parties around the country where people go on 20 four-minute dates. And then we also offer online dating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry. It was important. I went to the bathroom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.TESTANI: First, you sign up at our Web site at HurryDate.com. You'll pick a party that's right for you. We have tons of different age ranges.
DECKINGER: We do tons of different niches. We'll do different ethnic groups. We do all types of gender references, whatever you want.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even better.
TESTANI: You show up the night of the party, and you get a scorecard and a name tag. And our hosts will literally start blowing a whistle every time you have one of your four-minute dates.
DECKINGER: Rotate!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was really nice meeting you.
TESTANI: You'll look at their number on their name tag, then open up a scorecard and find that number and circle either a yes or a no, just to say if you want to see them again.
DECKINGER: After the party, everyone goes back to the HurryDate Web site, and our computer matches everybody up; 95 percent of the people who come to HurryDate get at least one match from the party.
TESTANI: And, on average, most people actually get about three to five matches per party.
DECKINGER: Welcome to HurryDate world headquarters. Hey.
TESTANI: Hey, welcome.
DECKINGER: This is where we basically run our whole business. This is our favorite success wall.
TESTANI: Eighty-three. We love them, part of our little HurryDate family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a tough city to like get into the whole dating scene.
DECKINGER: We started in New York City in May 2001, and we do HurryDates on a regular basis in roughly 65 cities right now. There are several thousands of people HurryDating monthly. A HurryDate party costs between $30 and $37, depending on the city that you live in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've never been to one of these things before. Have you?
TESTANI: There are actually a lot of tips for any dating situation, but especially at a HurryDate party. The biggest one is to just take a deep breath, relax, and have fun with it. Don't take it too seriously. You know, it is just a party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's only been like 20 seconds, but it feels more like 30, doesn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut up? Wow.
DECKINGER: Differentiation is key in HurryDate. As long as you can stick out from the crowd, you're golden.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you met any cool guys, besides me, of course?
TESTANI: When we hear about our success stories, that's what it's all about, you know, that we are bringing these people together. It's just amazing that just Ken and I are creating these...
DECKINGER: That's what is call.
TESTANI: You know, true love.
DECKINGER: Yes.
TESTANI: It's really cool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very nice to meet you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very nice meeting you.
TESTANI: Even if there's not marriages or engagements out of it, that's not even really how we define success.
DECKINGER: You make a friend, whatever you want. As long as you got something out of HurryDate and you had a good time, it's a success.
DECKINGER: This is your last date. Yay!
TESTANI: Yay!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: HurryDating, doggie dating. What is going on here? The dog will bring in morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers around the country and around the world, a lot of good ones today, so I need to move sort of briskly.
"The Christian Science Monitor." "Bush Administration Blurs Media Boundary. Controversy Over a 'Journalist' -- in quote -- "Adds to the Buzz About Message Control in the Capital." This is the Jeff Gannon story chapter, about six now. It's actually -- it's kind of uncomfortable for the White House on this, in my view. This is the story I like most, though. "States Shore Up Support For Troops. From Life Insurance to Utility Bills and Tuition, There's a Surge of Support For Part-Time Soldiers," says "The Christian Science Monitor." And out West in Portland, Oregon there seems evidence that that is in fact true, not that "The Christian Science Monitor" would put something that was untrue on the front page. "Soldiers: Gene's Got Your Back." "A Tavern Owner in Tangent, Oregon" -- I hope I pronounced that right -- "Aids Families of Oregonians Serving in Iraq." So, good for him.
Now, two different ways to headline Social Security and Alan Greenspan today. "The Washington Times." "Greenspan Backs Social Security Plan," which kind of makes it sound like Greenspan backs the Social Security plan.
"San Antonio Express-News," same testimony, same Greenspan. "Social Security Caution Is Urged. Greenspan Says Bush on Right Track, But Private Retirement Accounts Shouldn't Be Rushed. Fed Chairman Concerned About the Impact on the Deficit."
How are we doing on time?
Thank you.
I knew you'd get there.
"Colorado's Top Dog Earns a Spot on the Couch." That's the winning dog, Carlee. And maybe that's her trainer. I can't -- yes. "The Des Moines Register." Nothing that I cared about today, as it turned out.
"The Detroit News." OK. "Game Over. Impasse: $6.5 Million Difference Kills Season. Impact: Metro Businesses, Fans End Up as Big Losers." Future: NHL's Existence in Doubt Beyond This Season." That's why they call Detroit hockey town USA, isn't it? Now, where is it that the owners were forced to pay the players all this money? I never understand that part of these stories.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." NHL is -- it's a good hockey town also. They put the NHL on the front page. But I just love the way this story is laid out. "Avalanche of Details From Probe. Transcripts and Other Evidence Flesh Out Prosecutors' Portrait of Pay- to-Play at City Hall."
Weather tomorrow in Chicago is "rude."
Wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Soledad O'Brien with a look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," the guy who wrote "Honeymoon With My Brother." It starts with that guy getting stood up at the altar, and it gets better from there. Actually, it's a moving story about how a single event led two brothers on a journey that would end up completely transforming their lives. Now Hollywood can't wait to get its hands on the story. We talk to them CNN tomorrow 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Soledad, thank you. Tomorrow, right here, we'll take a look at the controversy over painkillers Vioxx and the rest, how they were marketed, and the other side of the story, which is patients who very much still want to take these drugs, despite the risks -- that and much more right here on NEWSNIGHT tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time.
"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.
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