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American Morning

'Here's What I Don't Get'

Aired December 10, 2001 - 08:35   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Happy Monday morning to you. Did you rest well this weekend?

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Is that a conflict of terms, "Happy Monday morning?"

ZAHN: Like jumbo shrimp.

CAFFERTY: Yes, there you go. There's an old rule of thumb in the public relations business. If you have bad news, release it late on Friday, because that way, it only gets into the Saturday papers, and everybody knows nobody reads the Saturday papers.

With that in mind and the word chutzpah, which is a Yiddish expression for arrogance, we offer a couple of tidbits on our distinguished elected officials that labor down there in Washington D.C. The first one is that reptilian from California Congressman Gary Condit, who late Friday raced into the courthouse to file his papers for re-election, just ahead of deadline. Now for those of you with real short memories, this guy all over the press for a long because of his relationship with Chandra Levy, a 19-year-old kid. He's married, by the way. A 19-year-old kid who disappeared off the face of the Earth, that after three or four weeks of haranguing law enforcement investigators, finally admitted he had had a romantic relationship with.

He did that putrid self-serving interview with Connie Chung, which I -- and now, he wants to be re-elected. In the bigger picture, the Democrats, many of who condemned the guy back when this all came out. I mean, he's got people in his own party can't stand him, but that seat that he holds out there is one that the Democrats desperately want to hold on to because of the off-year elections. Republicans only have a 10-seat majority in the House, and the Democrats, if they want to try and take control of the House, they've got to pick up everything they can, and they're afraid they may lose this.

My question is how anybody in his right mind would vote for this guy. I mean, how can you go and vote for this guy?

ZAHN: You know, it's interesting, because I followed that story closely and interviewed many of his constituents, and they can make a separation between what he was accused of doing and how he is performed as a congressman, and they thought he delivered the goods for -- particularly the agriculture community.

CAFFERTY: So the deal is, you can be failure as a human being, but still be good a politician.

ZAHN: I don't know, you've seen pretty big flaws in human beings elected to public office, haven't you, in your career?

CAFFERTY: Yes, here's some more. On Friday, under cover of darkness, you know what the people in the United States Senate? Now they can't pass a stimulus package to help this ailing economy. They've got no time for that. But they voted 65-33 to give themselves a $4,900 pay raise. That's right, and Trent Lott and Tom Daschle voted in favor of the money, by the way. So they can line their own pockets, but they can't vote for the stimulus package that might help the rest of the human race out.

There was a law passed in 1989 that allows for cost-of-living raises for the members of Congress, unless they vote not to take it. This way, they can get their raise every year without it becoming a big public to do. You know, people saying, why are you voting yourself a raise? So a Democrat introduced a resolution to block the pay raises. It was defeated, 65-33, in a very late Friday night vote. So, you know, politicians, know, they wonder why they get criticized. It's because of that kind of stuff.

Now the last item, very busy for a Monday -- remember last Friday on this program, we were having that little media roundtable. We were having a fellow from "The Daily News" and "The New Republic." We were talking about "Bias in the Media."

ZAHN: Sure.

CAFFERTY: Right at the end of the conversation, there was a little exchange that went like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: We report.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They decide.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAFFERTY: Now there was no last name? I just said, are you listening, Roger? But the phrase, "We report, you decide" is a thing that they've hung on Fox News up the street. So I get this e-mail over the weekend from some guy named John Moody. I have no idea who he is, but he writes me this, "Jack: Roger was not listening, and apparently he's not alone. However, I mentioned your media segment question this morning to him. He joins me in sending you congratulations and best wishes."

How did they know we were talking about Roger Earls (ph). We never mentioned his last name. And who is John Moody? ZAHN: He's a big guy over there. He's like number two or three in command over there. They must like you, Jack.

CAFFERTY: "Roger was not listening, and apparently he's not alone." A little attempted humor there on John's part.

ZAHN: Yes, I got that. That was very subtle, wasn't it?

CAFFERTY: Yes.

ZAHN: All right, Jack, take care. Glad you're feeling better.

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