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CNN Take Five

What is the Back Story on Bush's Stem Cell Decision? Does Andrea Yates Deserve the Death Penalty? What is Bill Clinton's Book About?

Aired August 11, 2001 - 20:30   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CO-HOST: Good evening. Despite recent congressional actions, I have a secret for you: One of us here tonight is a human clone. It's up to you to guess who, and while you do, join us and TAKE FIVE, with John Dickerson, White House correspondent for "TIME" magazine; joining us for the first time on a very special episode of TAKE FIVE, Jonathan Karl, congressional correspondent for CNN; our regular panelist Robert George of the "New York Post"; and my co-host Michelle Cottle of the "New Republic." I'm Jake Tapper from Salon.com.

Tonight, the debate over stem cells and a book by Bill Clinton. Sharks in the water and swimmers who are bitten. Good dirty Web sites, but your boss is spying. These are a few of our favorite things. Plus our takes, all ahead -- Michelle.

MICHELLE COTTLE, CO-HOST: Jake. Already heated -- an already debate got even hotter this week with President Bush's announcement that he would allow federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, within limits. But the president said there are some boundaries that shouldn't be crossed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: While we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COTTLE: But the president's warning came as doctors at a symposium this week said the practice of cloning humans is inevitable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, CLONAID: The demand is huge. The demand is there. And this will be done. And I hope it's done properly, in a very safely way. I'm doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COTTLE: John, you spend your days and nights at the White House. What's the back story on all this decision?

JOHN DICKERSON, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, the back story is that they are very happy. You talk to the White House advisers this week, after the president got through this very big moment, and they are happy about a couple of things. One, they were shocked that the conservatives on the right weren't more upset, and to the extent that people are upset -- they're getting shots from the left and the right -- which makes them perfectly happy. They are right in the middle.

And that's the larger message they wanted to send as well, which is to the middle they wanted to send this notion that the president is thoughtful, he's careful, and no matter what people thought, they were giving him credit for that in the White House.

COTTLE: And how was this received on the Hill?

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was a remarkable case of damage control before the speech. I mean, the White House sent out various advisers on this to talk to the key people on Capitol Hill. The conservatives, the most fervent anti- abortion folks on the Hill got calls a half-an-hour before the speech to kind of, you know warn them what was coming.

And so did those on the other side. As a matter of fact, Arlen Specter, who was, you know, very much in favor of this research, was traveling in China. He got a call from Tommy Thompson, the secretary of Health and Human Services, in China, half-an-hour before the speech, outlining what it was all about.

ROBERT GEORGE, "THE NEW YORK POST": And what's interesting, some of the conservatives I've spoken to -- yes, there are a few who were furious, but most of them were -- were relieved. Even those who were a little bit disappointed that he came down this way were actually relieved.

But as we saw from these clips here, there are enough nuts out there who are going to try and go down at least in the cloning direction completely apart from what Bush is doing, and that's still -- that's still a lot of concern.

DICKERSON: That's right, and to the extent the White House thinks that they've done very well here, they've only just begun. And if the president and his staff think that he's done it, he's said what he needs to say, he's drawn that line and that's it, we can -- we can rest off for the next 20 years -- they will be lucky if they get 20 weeks.

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: ... hearings on this the day after they get back...

GEORGE: And Arlen Specter...

KARL: ... from recess.

(CROSSTALK) TAPPER: I don't question that this was smart politics. Obviously it was, in the way that they brought it out, with the months and months of Bush thinking about it and talking about it, he's a very thoughtful man, very pensive man -- I think that was all done brilliantly. But I do wonder: If you do -- if one believes that life begins at conception, which President Bush just yesterday on ABC News said he did, then how on earth can you justify to yourself using medical research based on the snuffing out of that life?

GEORGE: It's a very -- it's a very, very fine line that he's walking here, but I think you can actually justify it by, he's just focusing on these 60 stem cell lines that are already -- that have already been developed. There's not going to be any destruction of currently living embryos. It's a very fine line, but I think...

TAPPER: Let's look at how fine it is, actually.

GEORGE: But ethically, ethically, it can be...

TAPPER: We have a copy of what President Bush said just on May 18 in a letter. I'll read it to you: "I oppose federal funding for stem cell research that involves living human embryos." That's President Bush just a couple of months ago.

GEORGE: And you underling living -- you have to underline living.

TAPPER: Living human embryos -- or involves. "Involves destroying human embryos." Involves.

COTTLE: I'm not sure why we're criticizing him for taking into account -- taking into account other people's thoughts on this.

(CROSSTALK)

COTTLE: I mean, he's not pretending that he was the world's greatest living expert on the issues involved, and why are we suddenly criticizing? Because he thought this through?

GEORGE: And he listened -- he listened to the pope, but he's not -- he's not Catholic, and he recognizes that you've got -- you've got Jewish people who have weighted on this, Mormons who have weighted on this, and ethically speaking, he walked the line just perfectly.

DICKERSON: For the moment. He walked it for the moment, and he's going to have to walk it again and again. I repeat, because the White House thinks they maybe are done with this, and I think that they're going to have lots of troubles, as soon as Congress comes back, and this lines disappears very, very quickly.

TAPPER: Well, anyway, be that as it may. From the debate over creating life to the Texas mom charged with taking it away. Andrea Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity this week in the deaths of her five children. The 37-year-old mother had been undergoing treatment for postpartum depression with psychosis when she allegedly drowned the children in a bathtub at the family's Houston home in June. Despite her alleged mental condition, prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty against Yates.

Michelle, do you think this is the right move, or is this -- are there other extenuating circumstances in this case that...

COTTLE: Terrible move! Texas is just one step away from executing jay-walkers. But that said, this woman had a history of repeated problems with this. She had it after her next-to-the-last child. She tried to kill herself, and then -- of course, we see what happened this time around. So, you can't just stick her in therapy for a couple of months and then say everything's OK.

She should be given a choice. You know, you can lock her up forever, permanently, no question, or if you're going to do some kind of temporary treatment, then I'm sorry, it's time to snip-snip the fallopian tubes. I don't want this happening again. Nobody should be taking this risk.

DICKERSON: OK, you've now given me the willies. I don't think -- once you get into sterilization, I think we are down...

COTTLE: Oh, but we're willing to kill her, but we're not willing to give her the option...

DICKERSON: There is a separation here, there's a separation here -- there's a separation.

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: Prosecutors asked for the death penalty, and they say if you want mercy, if you want extenuating circumstances, that's dealt in another phase of the process. But in this phase, we ask for the death penalty, because she killed all of her children. And that you've got to separate the different parts of the judicial process.

GEORGE: And I think -- I think what's likely to happen is, the jury is going to look at this situation and the jury may very well find that she was insane at the time. I don't know whether...

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE: ... but then, if they do find that she's insane, then they're going to have to decide what to do with her at that point.

DICKERSON: You're also sending an incredibly ugly message to people who have postpartum depression if you start sterilizing -- the most horrible implications...

COTTLE: No, that's absolutely not true. You send a horrible message to those who have it horrible cases, and then drown their children. I mean, what are we supposed to -- what are we supposed to do here? In a lot of these cases, people claim temporary insanity, they send them to institutions for a little while, they get therapy, then they turn them loose again!

DICKERSON: Well, there is no evidence they're just going to let her loose on the streets. TAPPER: Jon, what's your take?

KARL: Well, you know, as far as whether or not they should, you know, seek the death penalty here -- I mean, Texas is a place that is not shy about seeking the death penalty, so I don't, you know, want to necessarily get to that debate, as to whether this is warranted. But my God, in Texas, if you have equal justice, people have gotten the death penalty for crimes far less heinous than this. I see nothing wrong with it in that context.

COTTLE: All right, then we have to go ahead and kill her...

(CROSSTALK)

COTTLE: We're going to turn now to what could be the biggest financial crime of the summer: Word this week that former President Clinton has inked a record-breaking book deal. He's getting at least $10 million to pen his presidential memoirs. That's $2 million more than either his wife or Pope John Paul II got for their autobiographies.

So, while last week we gave the man from Hope our "Don't Back Down Award," this week we're giving him the "TAKE FIVE award for Wretched Excess." And we're going to do a quick round now on what people want to see in this book -- and it's a family show, so I'm limiting it to one Monica question.

DICKERSON: No more sterilization talk. I would want to know -- I want to know what he thinks about Vince Foster's suicide. Does he think he could have somehow stepped in and helped him? Or also, does he think that he had any role in creating the culture they say drove Foster to his suicide?

COTTLE: God, it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Mr. Karl.

KARL: Well, first of all, wretched excess? I mean, come on! This is the kind of money Evander Holyfield gets for a single fight. I see no problem with the former president getting $10, $12 million for his book. Question -- I don't know, I've almost heard too much from Bill Clinton, but maybe, if he'd be really honest, what does he really think of Al Gore.

GEORGE: Mr. Clinton, how do write a 300- or 400-page book where the definition of "is" changes every page?

TAPPER: That's painful. Well, I did a thing for the Web ModernHumorist.com, we proposed that the way that President Clinton should write his memoirs should be in comic book form. The comic book character Tinton (ph) -- we have the comic book character Tinton (ph) there, Clinton -- there's the Destination Chappaqua would be one of the adventures, and that's the way I think he sees his life, as a young, naive, just exploring the world, all these things are happening to him, he just wants to get the truth.

COTTLE: That's beautiful in a way...

GEORGE: But Jake, it would be a pop-up comic book, of course, right?

COTTLE: Oh, no, that's disgusting. OK, and I want to know all the down and dirty details about what he really thinks of Al Gore.

Big brother at the workplace, sharks on the attack, and "Our Takes," just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to TAKE FIVE. Check out our Web site: CNN.com/take5, for more about the show and an online chat every Friday. Our own Robert George did it yesterday, it was very exciting.

GEORGE: Stem cells all the way, baby.

TAPPER: Stem cells all the way. I don't know about you, but I sure hope my bosses aren't privy to my Web-surfing habits, whether I'm sending anonymous e-mails to Robert when he does the chat, or visiting some of my other favorite sites, and some federal judges in California agree. Angry about the monitoring of employee Internet use within the court system, they cut off the snooping for a week in protest, saying it was possibly unlawful.

So, Jonathan, does our privacy end when the workday begins?

KARL: I'm with the judges, Jake. I mean, we deserve some privacy even when we're at work, and Michelle is going to jump all over me, because she thinks the bosses own these computers, you know, they have the right to monitor us, but I mean, Jake, when you go to the bathroom, does your boss have the right to videotape you? I mean, it's his urinal. It's his urinal!

TAPPER: I hear you.

COTTLE: It's illegal to do that. They can't have cameras in the bathrooms. There's a difference. Everybody -- you know, the Internet has changed the way these things work. There are a half-dozen legitimate reasons why they have to do this. For one, yes, they own it, it's a company fixture. You're surfing at the, you know, the pleasure of the company. But there's also safety issues, and in terms of protecting themselves from lawsuits...

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: Now we've heard from the managers weekly.

KARL: The problem here is...

COTTLE: No, but how many people get in trouble for some bad porno site that, you know, Jake...

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: ... of course, you always drive us right toward the gutter. Let me try and rescue us back.

TAPPER: Thank you, John, thank you.

DICKERSON: My point is this, is that our workday is now bleed into the regular parts of our lives, and there's this notion in this country, we've had a little revolution about, in which we are sort of against unreasonable searches and seizures, because we want time to think without thinking people are always looking over our shoulders.

Now, the Fourth Amendment applies to government activity. But still, in the workplace, I think we do have a little zone of privacy where we can behave without thinking people are snooping into our business.

GEORGE: I believe -- first of all, knowing this 9th Circuit -- I mean, it's one of the most liberal circuits in the country, so I'd like to know exactly what these guys are doing while they are supposed to be working.

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE: The fact of the matter is, though, an employer has the right to assume that you were working while you're at the desk, and you're not just -- you're not just goofing off.

KARL: Fine, fine, then Robert, your employer should have cause. If he has cause, if you know, there's been a slump in productivity, if they've got some reason -- fine, monitor the computer.

COTTLE: But they have to monitor this along so they have a record of it. If some problem comes up down the road, they have to have...

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE: Do you have a problem -- do you have a problem if they find out that you -- your employer finds out that you've been having -- talking to friends long distance on their phones? It's the same system.

(CROSSTALK)

COTTLE: I'm going to be going through your e-mail records later today. We'll report back next week.

We're going to have to go from the hazards of Web-surfing to the dangers of the good old-fashioned ocean surf, and specifically the slew of summer shark attacks. The most recent occurred this week in the Bahamas. The victim survived, minus a leg. His wife says the experience was frightening and surreal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AVEMARIA THOMPSON, VICTIM'S WIFE: As you can see from knowing once the shark pulled him under to start punching the shark and to grab his own leg out of the shark's mouth -- I mean, who thinks of that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COTTLE: Well, this certainly isn't the first summer of our fascination with sharks. Remember this?

And for the past 14 years, the Discovery Channel has devoted a week of programming to sharks. So, what do you think, Jake, are we turning ourselves into a shark smorgasbord here?

TAPPER: Well, I didn't think this was a phenomenon until that woman, whose husband was bitten in the Bahamas, hired Johnnie Cochran, and now we know -- a fellow shark, so now we have...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: ... it's -- it's a -- now we have a full-blown phenomenon. But the truth of the matter is, obviously, you're still more at risk to be hit by lightning or die in any number of ways, but there is an increase in the number of shark attacks worldwide, most of which are in American waters. I think the average was in the 50s throughout the '90s, and last year there were 79 shark attacks.

COTTLE: But one blip doesn't do it!

GEORGE: Call me predictable, Michelle, call me predictable, but you -- maybe you'd be interested to know that there's actually a government regulation...

COTTLE: Oh, predictable! So predictable.

GEORGE: ... that may cause this, in fact. They've cut down on the allowable shark fishing in Florida, and there is a correlation between...

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: ... there are a series of factors here, including more people are going to the beach, and the government regulation that has tried to rebuild the shark population has got a long way to go. There were -- in 1980, when there were more sharks, there were less attacks. So now that they say, well, there are more sharks because they are not fishing them and there are more attacks -- this is a one-year blip. I think we can't...

(CROSSTALK)

COTTLE: We are not on course this year to beat that number.

KARL: And let's keep this in perspective. I mean, you're not going to get attacked by a shark at the beach, OK? Seventy-nine worldwide, that's statistically insignificant. It's as if none happened. And I mean, you know, I don't -- I'm not afraid of sharks when I go swimming for the same reason I'm not going to play the lottery. Because, you know, I'm not going to win the lottery and I'm not going to get bit by a shark.

(CROSSTALK) TAPPER: ... interesting environment regulation. There's been an increase in the number of tiger shark attack in Hawaii. The reason is because green turtles became an endangered species, and the sharks now come in Hawaii closer to the shore to eat the green turtles.

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE: But interestingly enough, though...

COTTLE: He's pointing at me! I don't have any green turtles!

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE: Michelle, you and I are actually least likely to be attacked, because they seem to like young white males, and we've got three of them right here.

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: And "Jaws" was the very first R-rated movie I saw in a movie theater, so you know, I mean, I did go through some trauma there, but...

DICKERSON: Yeah, I would not get into a bathtub when my sadistic older brother took me to that movie.

COTTLE: That's just sad. Stay with us, our "Takes of the Week" are coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Remember to send us your take. The address is take5@CNN.com. Send them and we read them -- we really do. John Dickerson, give us your take on the news this week.

DICKERSON: "My Take" this week is on the photographs from "Talk" magazine that have the White House so irritated. In these photos there are two sort of cliche pouty models in a jail house scene. Obviously they are lampooning the Bush daughters adventures with alcohol.

The White House retaliated by saying no "Talk" magazine reporters would be spoken to. Well, that is fine. I think the Bush daughters should be allowed a zone of privacy when there is absolutely no news value, as was the case with these pictures. But what was the White House thinking? They drove right into what "Talk" magazine wanted.

They dumped more publicity into this thing than the pictures ever would have had in the first place and they encourage more mischief.

COTTLE: Now I have to take a little exception here with they did. When I first heard about this, because of course the story broke before the magazine hit the news stands, I thought it was kind of photo manipulation with Jenna and Barbara all dressed up or behind bars, or caricatures.

It's 2 models, obviously it is supposed to be them...

TAPPER: It doesn't say their names. It's much ado about nothing for the White House to be upset about this. But I do think it's weird. It feeds into this "us versus them" mentality at the White House...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: ... that they have. Remember there was a reporter from "The Houston Chronicle" asked a question about Jenna after she had been arrested, and Ari Fleischer took him in and said it's been noted in the building -- very hostile, Nixon's "enemies list-esqe."

(CROSSTALK)

DICKERSON: I would draw a distinction here between the two. I think they were wrong in the second case. That was a totally legitimate question about the daughters and the trouble they were into. And it was a legitimate news question. These pictures are complete silliness.

TAPPER: The point is that they don't get to pick the questions. Anyway, Jonathan Karl, what is "Your Take"?

KARL: "My Take" is on this report out this week that shows that only 5 percent of that $205 billion tobacco settlement is actually going to anti smoking programs.

I've got no problem with states spending their money on something besides those silly anti smoking ads, but I think what this show is that that big tobacco settlement by and large was not about smoking. It was about money.

TAPPER: I agree. And you know what is going on in Boston right now, in Massachusetts, there is a law firm that is now trying to get even more money. It was a -- Massachusetts's end of the deal was like $8 billion, and the law firm got I think, 178 million. And now that law firm is suing. They want more, 178 million -- not enough.

GEORGE: The whole suit is a quasi-legal way of getting an additional tax on a certain company or I should say a whole industry that has fallen out of favor. And that's all it's been.

DICKERSON: And it's also a tax without any of the benefits that you have of legislative process that creates the tax and hopefully would get it to the right thing. This was all totally created by lawyers and of course it was going to fall apart.

COTTLE: Robert, talk to us.

GEORGE: "My Take" is on another comeback. This would be Jesse Jackson. The "Rhyming Rev" who had been in mini-exile because of a scandal involving the affair and the out-of-wedlock child and so forth, came back with a bang this week...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So to speak. GEORGE: ... when he got a 7.8 billion -- that's with a B -- basically diversity settlement from Toyota. Toyota's by the way, had been an advertisement where they showed a black youth with a gold tooth that had an image of Toyota SUV.

Considering the number of rappers that have mouths that look like Fort Knox, this is basically a corporate shakedown by Jackson. I could say that he should be ashamed, but of course there's no shame here.

COTTLE: Exactly, they got a lot of publicity and everybody jumped on him when it turned out that he had knocked some woman up. but he has been pulling these kind of shenanigans for years. And so now, because of the personal indiscretion he gets...

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE: And don't be surprised if one of the advertising firms that Toyota has to contract with probably has some kind of relationship with either Jackson or his family.

TAPPER: You know, the real shame in this and it is not unlike the tobacco settlement, is that whatever legitimate issues there are, of whether the tobacco industry should be accountable or what racism still exists, the issue gets hurt by these very flawed, faulty spokes people, such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has no credibility, unlike, I would say, Kweisi Mfume, who has a lot more.

And if you are a civil rights leader, once you give up your moral authority, you have given up everything.

COTTLE: Jake, you are going to have to have the last word. That's all we have time for on TAKE FIVE. Thanks for watching.

Up next on "LARRY KING WEEKEND," an encore presentation of Julie Nixon Eisenhower's tour of the Nixon Presidential Library.

TAPPER: Our thanks to John and Jonathan. Great job, wonderful debut. Michelle and Robert, always a pleasure. For "The Five," I'm Jake Tapper. We will see you next week. Thanks for watching. Next week we will be on at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, 5:30 p.m. Pacific, which is the same time as always.

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