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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview with Michael Smerconish, Victoria Jones
Aired February 17, 2002 - 08:34 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're going to take a look back -- way back -- at this week's best news stories. From skating scandal perhaps -- yeah, whatever -- maybe some other things as well. Our two guests this morning will weigh in. Michael Smerconish -- oh, nice necktie there, Mr. Smerconish.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, "PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS": Mine has the label cut out of it, though, Miles. I didn't pay retail.
O'BRIEN: Very nice you went down there. What's that place down in lower Manhattan there that -- anyway -- well, actually, you're Philadelphia. You would have gone there. He's a columnist, former radio talk show host and an attorney. A man of many hats a very nice necktie.
Victoria Jones comes back to the program. She's a talk show host on...
VICTORIA JONES, WMAL RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: No tie.
O'BRIEN: ... WMAL. But, still, well attired, if it's OK for me to say.
JONES: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Now I'll tell you what, instead of talking about skategate, per se, let's just talk about the Olympics. Or do you want to talk about skategate?
JONES: We can talk about both. I want to talk about the skating last night, where...
O'BRIEN: Yeah, let's talk about that.
JONES: ... the Korean fell down.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk about something new. You know, one little fall -- I just though it was -- you know, of course, I love the fact that his name is Ohno. You know, if you work at the "Daily News"...
JONES: Apolo Ohno -- I mean...
O'BRIEN: ... or the "New York Post" this morning, you just -- you know, you're salivating over Ohno. JONES: Oh, no. It's so great.
O'BRIEN: Yeah. But, anyway, the fact that he -- he literally kind of crawled across the finish line. I thought it was great. I mean it was a great Olympic moment, a tragic Olympic moment, too. But it was -- it was pure Olympics, don't you think, Victoria?
JONES: It was exactly what the Olympics are all about. I mean it was just so awful that everybody went down and then the fifth guy -- the Australian guy -- cruised through and looked so stunned that it couldn't possibly have happened.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
JONES: But you could see Apolo trying to get up, determined to get a medal, which is amazing, because he then cuts himself with his own skate before he gets over the line. And I'm so glad that so far there's been no nonsense and rubbish and protesting and saying, "We want it rerun." And it's the ISU. Because this is what it's about. You just accept it and you get over it.
O'BRIEN: Mr. Smerconish, would you agree? I'm kind of of the mind with Victoria on that one.
SMERCONISH: Well, it's -- he wins a medal, but it is part of the agony of defeat. And this is exactly why I don't like the final outcome of the figure skating. Because while I think that the Canadians deserved to win that competition, I don't like the outcome of everybody getting -- or at least two contestants getting a gold medal. I've got a son in tee ball who is just six years old. You know, they don't keep score and everybody goes home at the end of the season with a trophy. And so the good, bad and the ugly, even in the Olympics, I think the results ought to stand.
JONES: No.
SMERCONISH: And what's not getting the attention is the fact that it was not just the French woman who decided that they ought to be in first place. I mean the Cold War lives when it comes to the Olympics.
JONES: Well we don't know whether the Cold War lives or not. I mean France was on our side during the Cold War, so I don't think that...
(CROSS TALK)
SMERCONISH: You never know where the French are (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
JONES: Oh, I am not getting to get into nationalist name calling, because that's one of the problems we've already got with this Olympics, is our patriotism verging on nationalism.
O'BRIEN: Well now wait a minute...
(CROSS TALK)
JONES: Look, if some -- wait a second, I haven't said what I'm going to say about this.
O'BRIEN: Victoria, nationalism is OK at the Olympics, come on.
JONES: If somebody loses they lose, and that's fair. But if somebody loses because the judge is crooked, that's a different issue. If they had just lost and the judges had voted their consciences, we'd have had to get over that.
SMERCONISH: I think it sets a dangerous...
JONES: But that wasn't what happened. There's a difference.
SMERCONISH: ... it sets a dangerous precedent, though, Victoria. It's reminiscent...
JONES: I think kids need to know that there are crooked judges. I think the judges have to be...
(CROSS TALK)
O'BRIEN: No, no, no. Here's my feeling on it. The reason this is different is that you had a judge who admitted that there was a fix in. Otherwise, I agree, you've got to let it stand even though it was a better performance, because...
(CROSS TALK)
SMERCONISH: But, Miles, what's a shock to me is that the attention is all being given to the French woman. It was a four-to- four deadlock before she weighs in. And yet nobody is talking about those votes. But she admitted it.
JONES: Because she -- because she is the one who has admitted it.
SMERCONISH: But it's clear that they were all in on it. If it goes deeper than her...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: So? You have absolutely no evidence to substantiate that allegation. It's outrageous.
SMERCONISH: Well it's a heck of a coincidence, isn't it?
JONES: No, it's not. It's not a coincidence at all. In something that's close, you're going to get some voters voting that way and some voting another way. But when one judge says, "I was somewhat manipulated," please.
O'BRIEN: I mean it's just only been about four decades worth of coincidences, for God's sake. I mean it's...
JONES: Maybe the Russians are pretty good at skating.
SMERCONISH: They are, but they had a flaw. And even I could see that, and all I know about figure skating is Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.
JONES: They had a flaw and so they shouldn't have won. And the French judge voted in a crooked way and that's the end of it.
O'BRIEN: All right. End of story. End of story on that. Let's not...
JONES: And nobody gets the silver. It's such a shame.
O'BRIEN: Well I know. You'd think they could rise everybody up, like the fourth place winner gets the bronze.
JONES: Yeah.
O'BRIEN: You know, I though that would be -- I mean why not? Just go all the way. And then of course, now all these people who feel like they were unjustly removed of medals over the years are now petitioning. You know, "Hey, what about me?"
JONES: But they've got to get over it.
SMERCONISH: And it will come to litigation next. That's why (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Pandora's box.
O'BRIEN: Well, yeah.
JONES: No, they've got to get over it. What they need to do is to reform the judging within the ISU completely, and then move on. But, no, everybody from every other Olympics, it happened, get over it.
O'BRIEN: You know what they should do?
JONES: It's been at least four years. If you're not over it now, you're in deep trouble.
O'BRIEN: Here's what they should do. Wipe out the judging system, just bring in Judge Judy, don't you think?
SMERCONISH: Yes, perfect.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's talk about Enron a little bit. Hearing from -- you know, when we call her a whistle blower...
JONES: She's not.
O'BRIEN: ... I sort of -- you know, there's almost a pejorative there, you know? (CROSS TALK)
SMERCONISH: There's already a report out this morning that she's got a $500,000 book deal that's been (UNINTELLIGIBLE). O'BRIEN: Well, I know. I know.
SMERCONISH: I mean nobody's clean in this whole thing.
O'BRIEN: I realize that. But did -- where -- if you could find one admirable character in all of this, is it her?
JONES: Well, she's so far the most admirable. That doesn't say very much.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
JONES: The admirable characters are the people, the 4,500 people who've been laid off. They're the admirable characters. She tried -- if you look at this memo, she tried to keep the scandal in-house. She didn't want it getting out. That's not a whistle blower, that's someone who's trying to fix it.
O'BRIEN: Right.
JONES: She also, it seemed to me, is trying to protect -- for whatever reason -- Ken Lay, portraying him as a complete idiot who's so duped by everybody. And that's not who he was, he was selling stock.
(CROSS TALK)
SMERCONISH: I'll tell you what I think. I think long term, the political ramifications of this are not going to be lethal for either party or a group of elected officials? Why? Because much like the White Water fiasco, it's too complicated. In other words, it's not a burglary at a hotel in Washington, a la Watergate, which is something we can all understand. But this is much like a complicated land transfer...
JONES: No it's not.
SMERCONISH: ... and the American public, they don't get it and they're not going to get it.
JONES: Yeah, we do.
SMERCONISH: No they don't.
JONES: Yeah we do. We do get it. Yeah we do get it.
SMERCONISH: You may, Victoria, but they're not going to get it.
JONES: Oh, I'm one of the great American public. I get it.
SMERCONISH: Bill Clinton was reelected after White Water. I mean come on.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: I think this is much simpler than Whitewater. JONES: They cheated -- they cheated the workers out of the money, they lied, they made money, the workers got laid off. I think we know what that is.
O'BRIEN: I don't know.
SMERCONISH: I don't think that any public official has suffered as a result of it.
JONES: We don't need to know the details about all these different companies, we can figure out the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
O'BRIEN: But, I mean, if there's -- if you want to take any sort of shred of optimism out of this as well, finally -- after how many years of talking about it -- Congress is moving towards some campaign finance reform and the president has not threatened to veto. So that's some progress, right?
SMERCONISH: Well there'll be no campaign conference reform.
JONES: Maybe.
SMERCONISH: I mean what really the end result ought to be, anybody can give any amount of money as long as there is full disclosure. Because you know what will happen, Miles...
O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.
SMERCONISH: ... whatever -- whatever the net effect will be in the legislation, there will be a loophole. It will be like the tax (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: All right. But wait a minute, let me ask you this. What about public financing of campaigns, why not just do that? Put it on the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
JONES: I have no problem of that whatsoever. But we're not prepared to move that way because the politicians do not want to cut of the flow of blood to them. So that's not going to happen, although I think it's probably the cleanest thing. There absolutely are going to be loopholes in this. Some of them we can already see, some of them we have no idea of. But you can bet the $450 an hour guys are looking through the bill right now to find them.
O'BRIEN: Well there's a little bit of a conflict of interest there, when all the lobbyists, of course, love the system.
SMERCONISH: And there always will be.
O'BRIEN: It is, after all, their paycheck, right?
JONES: I think so.
SMERCONISH: You're never going to get away from it. O'BRIEN: Michael, what do you think about public finance of (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
SMERCONISH: I don't like public financing of elections.
O'BRIEN: Why not?
SMERCONISH: Well, because I think that -- you know, Winston Churchill once said that nothing so tests the character of an individual as the running of elections. And I think that it's important for somebody to go out there honestly and have to show support for their campaign by raising funds. It's a necessary evil, a necessary ugly part of the process. And I don't want the public to be financing campaigns. Why should the public at large be writing checks for candidates? That's not the American way.
JONES: Because we already are. And Winston Churchill said that, actually, in a very different context. I want the politicians out there. I want them having to go around and shake hands, kiss babies, and do all those other things, and not be having fund raisers for extremely wealthy people who can finance their campaigns.
SMERCONISH: No, the outcome...
JONES: I want them -- I want them out there dealing with real people.
SMERCONISH: No, Victoria, the answer is...
JONES: I think they could all run campaigns on far less money than they're doing now. They up the ante every year.
O'BRIEN: Of course they could. Of course they could.
SMERCONISH: They ought to go out and raise money. And if you don't...
(CROSS TALK)
JONES: So with public financing...
SMERCONISH: ... if you don't like where the money...
JONES: With public financing, what they could do is lower the cost of the campaigns and they could actually have to do real campaigning, except for (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
SMERCONISH: No, here's the answer. Give me a chance to say it, will you? The answer is that if you don't like where the money's coming from for a particular candidate, then vote against that person, as long as there's full disclosure. In fact, make them put on the Internet, within 24 hours of receiving a check, exactly who their contributors are. And that way, if you, Victoria, don't like, "Oh, they gave -- Enron gave money to that candidate," God forbid, you can vote against them. Full disclosure is the answer. JONES: I have no -- I have no problem with that. And that's probably what is going to happen, because public financing is not going to happen anytime soon, although it's what should happen. But the bill we've got now doesn't even do that, because there are ways of getting around it in terms of people giving to other people who then give. And so you still don't find out who everybody is. There all loopholes in this (UNINTELLIGIBLE), unfortunately.
O'BRIEN: All right, folks. Unfortunately, we've got to leave it at that. Michael Smerconish, good to have you join us.
SMERCONISH: Thank you. All right, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Victoria Jones, good to have you back as always. And we appreciate you sharing your views in such a polite manner this morning on a Sunday morning. We're going to take a break. We'll be back with more in a moment.
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