Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
'Morning Buzz'
Aired January 15, 2002 - 07:19 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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the Morning Buzz.
Paula, Anderson, a matter of time before they started coming out of the woodwork to whine about how the detainees are being treated down there at Guantanamo.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, you know what they're being fed?
CAFFERTY: What?
ZAHN: Bagels and cream cheese, according to "USA Today."
CAFFERTY: Well, this may be part of...
ZAHN: Of course, they're expecting a lot of human rights activists...
CAFFERTY: This could be a strategy. Down at CNNfn on Fridays they used to give us these bagels. I guarantee you, you eat them for a couple of days, you'll tell anybody anything they want to know. They were pretty sad. This could be a part of the interrogation strategy.
ZAHN: Well, yes, it might be less inflammatory than torturing people and...
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did you see the story Al Gore Gennifer Flowers? A great story in the "New York Times" today that Gennifer Flowers, you know, of the Clinton era scandals, is actually singing in a bar in New Orleans and is actually very successful and very popular. I loved the story. I love the fact that only in America, you know, would something like this happen. You know, there are, you get a second chance in America.
CAFFERTY: But what's up with the old gray lady running a color photo of Gennifer Flower's saloon singer on their front page?
COOPER: I feel bad for Tonya -
ZAHN: Under the headline "The Slow Glow of Celebrity."
COOPER: I feel bad for Tonya Harding, who's like stuck detailing cars, you know. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CAFFERTY: Yes, I know.
COOPER: Let's get her doing something. Yes. There's a whole slew of people who could have, who could be out there doing stuff.
CAFFERTY: That's right.
ZAHN: Back to the Enron story. This memo that surfaced and now we can, of course, identify the woman who wrote this letter to Kenneth Lay indicating that there were some impending accounting problems. And what is critical is the timing of this letter. We now know this woman to be Sherron Watkins. She was a financial planner. The letter was actually written in mid-August, which is two months before Enron declared bankruptcy.
CAFFERTY: Yes. Now, you wonder how long it's going to be before the president of the United States is going to have to say something about this. I mean Kenneth Lay was a friend of the Bush family for a very long time, a friend of his dad's, a friend of his. So far the administration comes up clean on this thing. But as the evidence begins to pile up that apparently there was some really crummy stuff going on, at some point isn't he going to have to say something?
ZAHN: But, no. But there's no suggestion that...
CAFFERTY: No, no, no, not...
ZAHN: ... this directly affected how the president himself dealt with the energy policy.
CAFFERTY: No. But the obscenity of a publicly traded company going through what apparently Enron has gone through should require, I would think, the attention of the highest officials in the federal government.
COOPER: Look...
CAFFERTY: There are a lot of publicly traded companies out there.
COOPER: I disagree. I don't think it's a political story, I think it's a financial story. And what scares me is how many other companies out there have these same accounting practices. I mean I actually talked with a former top executive at a big company who said look, you know, our outside accountants would do whatever we told them to do because there's just too much money involved.
CAFFERTY: Right.
COOPER: How deep does this thing go? I mean how far does it...
ZAHN: Another interesting story on the front page of the "New York Times" about doctors.
CAFFERTY: Right.
ZAHN: Now, you've got to love this. As all of you are struggling to try to figure out how to get your insurance plan to pay for your visits to doctors, some doctors across the country have come up with a way to charge you $4,000 extra a year to ensure that you will actually get to your appointment on time. There's the creation of these boutique services where they will provide you with monogrammed robes.
COOPER: They'll give house calls...
ZAHN: Heated towel racks.
COOPER: They'll do house calls. They'll see you on the same day.
CAFFERTY: Yes. The really cool thing about it, though, is that if you pay the extra four grand, you'll never get sick. And so I mean it's worth it, you know? Can you believe that? Health care costs...
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: But, you know what? Can't just people, if they can afford this, will probably, I mean obviously...
COOPER: Well, of course.
ZAHN: ... there's a need for this.
COOPER: Yes, but whatever happened to the...
ZAHN: They're going to charge through the nose for it.
COOPER: Whatever happened to health care reform? Wasn't that...
CAFFERTY: Yes, what happened to that?
COOPER: Wasn't that a story once?
CAFFERTY: Yes, a long time ago.
COOPER: Yes. I guess we should just throw up our hands and just like, you know, let the rich get richer.
CAFFERTY: Yes. You know who can afford that $4,000 a year health care deal? Larry King. A $56 million contract according to the papers, that he signed.
COOPER: And where is Bill Hemmer? Sleeping on a mat...
CAFFERTY: On a mat. And I can't get my office painted. But now...
ZAHN: He hasn't had a hot shower in...
CAFFERTY: Now that explains all of these things.
ZAHN: ... in a week.
All right, you, too, can get in on the Morning Buzz by e-mailing us here at AMERICAN MORNING. Our address is anam@cnn.com.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
