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American Morning

Morning Buzz: Trials, Political Forecasts

Aired January 07, 2002 - 08:11   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: Another sign of the changing times here in New York, a man who has just arrived here in the studio that we're going to talk to a little bit later on, New York's new Fire Commissioner. Congratulations, sir, we look forward to talking to you in a couple of minutes.

We're going to turn to some of the other news items that have caught our eye today and take a couple of minutes to catch up on the morning buzz. Welcome back, Anderson and Jack. We talked a little bit this morning about the dueling headlines about Mr. Bush and Mr. Daschle duking it out over tax cuts. We talked a little bit about the student pilot's picture appearing on the front page of some newspapers.

But one of the things we didn't have a chance to mention are there are two very important trials getting underway. At least jury selection in the Andrea Yates trial, the young Houston mom who was accused of drowning five of her children. And I think this case is going to be riveting to watch. She's going to use a postpartum defense -- depression defense -- which is recognized, by the way, in dozens of countries outside of the United States. Eighty percent of all American women suffer some kind of postpartum depression.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, but they don't kill their children.

ZAHN: Not who all manifest itself in a psychotic incident, but it is a problem that I think the nation has really not addressed still.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: But this is also in Texas, where, you know, they don't really coddle to a lot of liberal sort of ideas of justification for -- for things like murder.

ZAHN: Sure. So who knows what will work or not. Of course, the trial has caught your eye, which is the trial of one of these hockey dads who's accused of murdering a fellow hockey dad.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the most tragic, I guess, extension of -- of what Saturday Night Live plays as a sketch. And it's that old story about, you know, parents of children who participate in things like little league baseball and amateur hockey and football getting too involved and too carried away with the performance of the kids on the field. This is a trial in Massachusetts where a hockey dad is accused of killing the coach of his son's hockey team after the two of them got into an argument over -- of all things -- the subject of rough playing.

Now this is the defendant in the case; he plans to use self- defense as a defense to the charges against him. This man weighs 260 pounds; the victim who was killed weighs 160 pounds. And perhaps the saddest part of all of this is these kids witnessed this thing when it happened and are now perhaps going to be called upon to testify in open court, and that's the real tragedy.

ZAHN: So it's not clear they'll be called to testify. But, I mean, there's a chance.

CAFFERTY: No, but there's some instruction (ph) that it may be necessary in order to -- in order to...

COOPER: He also wasn't just killed. I mean, he almost had his head removed apparently.

CAFFERTY: Well, apparently, he was put on the floor and the defendant -- according to witnesses -- beat his head on the floor until he died. I mean, that's...

ZAHN: I wanted to share with you now some of the predictions Al Newhart (ph) made from "USA TODAY" and I want you to see whether you think any of these things will come to pass. One of the things he mentions will happen is the recession ends. The Dow tops 11,125, up 11 percent. Jack, is that feasible?

CAFFERTY: Yeah. I mean, the recession is ending. There have been signs for a month or two that it's starting to end, so that's not going way out on a limb. And the all-time high on the Dow is like 11,700, so that's not a big reach there.

ZAHN: Colin Powell named vice president?

COOPER: I think Jeanne Dixon said that also.

ZAHN: Exactly.

CAFFERTY: Don't we have a vice president?

ZAHN: We do. I guess he's assuming that Mr. Cheney, at some point -- I don't know, I don't know what his assumption is. Will he either retire early or...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: That's a big assumption there.

CAFFERTY: The one theory I heard on this -- assuming that President Bush runs for a second term -- if Dick Cheney chooses not to, that there would be the idea of perhaps putting Rudy Giuliani on the ticket as vice presidential candidate. TIME's man of the year; former New York City mayor and all around great guy. ZAHN: We'll see. Democrats gain Senate seat; GOP hold house. Yasser Arafat deposed as Palestinian leader. Osama bin Laden still missing. Now that one may not be going too far out on a limb, right? Osama bin Laden still missing?

CAFFERTY: I don't' know.

ZAHN: It depends on what part of 2002 we're talking about.

CAFFERTY: Well that's true. I mean, if they -- but, I mean, if he's still missing at the end of the year, then something's wrong with our approach. I mean, you've got to be able to find this guy. You've got a $25 million reward out there; you've got all these intelligence guys: CIA, FBI, special ops. I mean, you've got to find this guy.

COOPER: If they can't find Mullah Omar, a one man -- one-armed man on a motorcycle, I don't know. I'm obsessed with this vision of Mullah Omar riding a motorcycle.

CAFFERTY: He's a one-armed guy in the middle of the night on a motorcycle who escapes out of Afghanistan and everybody goes, "Where did he go?"

ZAHN: It depends on what kind of motorcycle it was, too.

CAFFERTY: That's true.

ZAHN: All right. Thanks, gentlemen. Once again, we invite your comments and ideas for our morning buzz. Please e-mail us here at AMERICA MORNING. Our address is at am@cnn.com, and watch the space for your e-mails to pop up.

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