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American Morning
'Here's What I Don't Get'
Aired December 19, 2001 - 08:33 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, "THE DAILY SHOW": In their normal pursuit to inform America, cable news networks have overlooked the fact that 24 hours is way too much time for a news network to fill.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, live from Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Al Qaeda fighters are on the run.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: In the wake of military changes on the ground in Afghanistan...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pounding of the area known as Tora Bora.
STEWART: Sort of repetitious, don't you think? Really kind of...
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Did the terrorist go nuclear?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: But it's important that we talk about what's going on in Tora Bora. There's a repetitiveness to coverage, but who sits down and watches these show 24 hours a day.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: His show is no day at the beach everyday.
ZAHN: But you like him.
CAFFERTY: I do sometimes, but let's not toss brick-bracks around. We're working -- hard-working journalists here. He's sitting over there at the Comedy Channel, you know, poking fun of everyone. How nice is that.
ZAHN: At our expense everyday.
CAFFERTY: Did you see the front of "The Daily News" this morning. ZAHN: Oh, I did. I laughed out loud. I shouldn't have laughed, but that was my initial reaction.
CAFFERTY: It's great. It's great. It's a whole piece on transforming bin Laden, and the premise is that they may have -- some plastic surgeon in one of those cave over there, shot full of little local anesthetic, got out their local tool kit, and a couple of wrenches and a pocket knife and alter his appearance.
And the plastic surgeons -- and they interviewed some legitimate ones for the piece -- suggested that things that could be done to improve his appearance, or at least change it in a way you wouldn't recognize include the following: remove his thick beard with laser.
ZAHN: Couldn't you just shave that off.
CAFFERTY: That Epple Stop (ph) stuff would have no chance of working on that face.
Pluck his eyebrows. That's a job nobody wants.
Reshape his chin, his nose, his heavy-lidded eyes, and thin out his lower lip. If he shaved his beard without thinning his lower lip, you would sea he serve a tea service for six off his lower lip, looks like a collagen operation gone all too hell there.
Anyway, it's very -- the author of the piece, Paul Wolfowitz (CORRECTION: ACTUAL AUTHOR DAVID WALLIS) , writes he could take plastic surgery, disguise himself and hide somewhere in the mountains of Chechnya as a woman.
ZAHN: That would be an unusual woman.
CAFFERTY: Six-feet -- how many?
ZAHN: Six feet, five inches tall.
CAFFERTY: Yes, mama Osama.
ZAHN: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said this?
CAFFERTY: Yes. He said it could take a long time to find him.
Other things. You can tell the war is over, things are slowing down.
ZAHN: Not yet. Those guys are heading to Pakistan right now.
(CROSSTALK)
CAFFERTY: E-mails -- yesterday, we had these two college professors on from some obscure school in Michigan or Minnesota who are teaching a class on "The Simpsons."
And here's one of the e-mails I got: "I was totally amazed to hear Jack Cafferty speak out against 'The Simpsons' this morning." I wasn't speaking out against "The Simpsons." I was talking spending tuition money to send your kid to a college that teaches about cartoon shows.
"I can't believe he's not a fan. His brand of humor and sarcasm is virtually identical to that of "The Simpsons." And there's more.
ZAHN: Bet you didn't know that, Jack.
CAFFERTY: Here it is. "Don't knock things you don't know anything about, Jack. My respect for Jack went down a couple of notches after he so ignorantly dismissed 'The Simpsons.'"
Guilty as charged. I've never watched "The Simpsons," so it is something I know nothing about it. I was not making fun of them, however.
ZAHN: No, but you went through this book and you talked about how these great philosophers are talking about what "The Simpson" have taught us about family life.
CAFFERTY: And here's the deal on e-mails. You're welcome to write to us. We prefer complimentary letters, letters filled with praise and good things. If you can write nasty letters, it's OK, but -- we're not ready for that one yet.
Here's the deal -- we're not ready for that one yet.
ZAHN: Get rid of it.
CAFFERTY: If you write nasty letters, you will be prohibited from watching this program for a period one week, and instead, you will be forced to watch "The Early Show" on CBS with Bryant Gumbel, that's the sentence. So if you want to criticize us, it's OK, but just understand, that for one week, it's "The Early Show" on CBS with Bryant Gumbel before you can come back to be with us.
ZAHN: He's doling it out this morning.
CAFFERTY: Now, here's the other letter we've got. This is nice. "You and Paula are welcome in our house in the mornings. I got stuck out of town last week without cable, without CNN and had to watch the big three networks instead." Now I love this part. "Got stuck watching all the squealing ninnies in the street." Would that be like Bryant Gumbel and Al Roker?
ZAHN: I don't know, I'm not going there.
CAFFERTY: "An in-depth coverage of closer makeovers that so absorbed the other networks. Thanks for a great morning news program." That's from Roswell in Mexico.
She'll be continued to watch everyday, because she said nice things.
ZAHN: We welcome her watching. CAFFERTY: We will be monitoring your house. You'll be watching "The Early Show" or we will have your TV set disconnected. That's the deal.
ZAHN: And the only makeover segments we will be doing here is ones people will be legitimately talking about, which is the changed appearance of Osama bin Laden that is possible.
CAFFERTY: Yes, but we've got somebody later in the program who came up with this computer software program, a woman from -- well, she's a professor out of California State University, came up with a computer software program called "Faces," and she's going to be on, and we will talk to her about how Osama legitimately may alter his appearance. And it could be interested. Why not?
ZAHN: The fact that he might have just shaved and headed over the border to Pakistan, and, once again, I don't know, I think it's hard to hide a six-foot-five inch guy.
CAFFERTY: Yes, but you know what, it ain't over until we get him and that other clown, Mullah Omar, and then the war is over. I mean, a lot of these people apparently did escape. They got across that porous border in Pakistan, and Mullah Omar...
ZAHN: Then they could have been absorbed by these Pashtun tribes.
CAFFERTY: Yes, so I mean, we've got to find them. I think they will at some point. Might take a while.
ZAHN: Thanks, Jack.
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