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American Morning

Closing in on Osama bin Laden; '90-Second Pop'

Aired March 08, 2004 - 07:30   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. It's just about half past the hour on this very rainy AMERICAN MORNING, here in New York City at least. I'm Soledad O'Brien. Bill Hemmer off today. Miles O'Brien, though, is sitting in.
Nice to have you. Thanks.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hopefully, it's not my fault it's raining.

S. O'BRIEN: No, it's not, I'm sure.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, all right. Martha Stewart's fortune was built on her style and personality. Can her empire survive a prison term? Boy, that's a question for our "90-Second Pop" celebrity observers a little later.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll look at that.

Also this morning, the Mars rovers -- well, they haven't found life on Mars, but they certainly have enough evidence to start speculating about it. We're going to talk about that a little bit later this morning as well.

M. O'BRIEN: But first, let's check the news.

Iraq's interim constitution was unanimously approved today. The Iraqi Governing Council signed the 25-page key document just a few hours ago. Now, as you know, the ceremony had been delayed by nearly a week due to deadly violence and disagreements among the council members. The document is a key step in the U.S. plan to hand over power to Iraqis by June 30.

A train accident delayed commuters this morning in Montgomery County, Maryland. A freight train struck a car, as the driver tried to make it through a rail crossing. Police say the driver jumped from his car as the train, loaded with gas tanks, pushed the car under a nearby commuter train. Passengers were escorted off the train. No injuries reported.

The son of baseball legend Ted Williams has died. John Henry Williams lost his life to leukemia over the weekend. The Hall of Famer's son had been involved in a family dispute over freezing of his father's body after his death in 2002. John Henry Williams died in California on Saturday. He was 35. The first openly gay Episcopal bishop has taken over in New Hampshire. A crowd of hundreds welcomed Gene Robinson during a special ceremony yesterday. His selection last year sent shock wavers through the church. A conservative minority continues to oppose that appointment.

And beginning today, Seattle will recognize the marriage of gay couples. Mayor Greg Nickels announced yesterday that city workers who are married will be given equal rights, whether they are heterosexual or gay. The mayor supports same-sex marriages, but lacks the authority to issue licenses. Marriage license in Washington State are issued by the counties, not the cities.

S. O'BRIEN: Interesting development there. We'll see how that affects everyone else around the country.

(WEATHER BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: The hunt for Osama bin Laden is intensifying. According to "Newsweek," American military and intelligence officials are confident that they have narrowed bin Laden's whereabouts in the Afghanistan-Pakistani border area.

As the U.S. prepares to launch a spring offensive aimed at capturing the al Qaeda leader, "Newsweek's" senior editor, Michael Hirsh, profiles the man who is in charge of doing just that. And Michael Hirsh, in fact, joins us from Washington, D.C., this morning.

Nice to see you, Michael. Thanks for being with us.

MICHAEL HIRSH, SENIOR EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Happy to be here.

S. O'BRIEN: We're talking about a guy whose name is Bill McRaven, and he is literally the guy who wrote the book on special ops. Tell us a little bit about him and why he's been chosen to hunt for the most-wanted man in the world.

HIRSH: Well, throughout his career he's been the best of the best. One source told me he's refuted to be the smartest Navy S.E.A.L. ever graduated. He was also the principal author of the White House's strategy on combating terrorism after 9/11 as part of the National Security Council then. And he seems to be a man who is very well-suited to do what Task Force 121, his command, is all about, which is melding civilian intelligence -- that is CIA intelligence -- and military striking power to get bin Laden and other high-value targets.

S. O'BRIEN: Here's what McRaven's boss had to say -- his former boss at the White House had to say, General Wayne Downing. He said: "If anybody is smart and cunning enough to get bin Laden, McRaven and the Delta and S.E.A.L. team guys he now commands will do it. Is there any risk in having that kind of confidence in one person? And how is that confidence merited?

HIRSH: Well, there are a lot of risks, but, you know, McRaven is a guy who seems to know special ops in and out. The interesting thing about this confrontation is it's the best America has to offer in terms of men like McRaven, the kind of technology and software they're using to try to pin down bin Laden's whereabouts, going up against a guy, a guerrilla leader, a terrorist leader, bin Laden, who has proved incredibly elusive over the years.

So, you know, you basically have guys hiding out in caves and getting surveiled by American Predators and tracked by enormously powerful software that tries to piece together the support network. And we're just going to have to see how it comes out.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit more specifically about some of that powerful software, and also some of the other technology that's being used to try to track and trace Osama bin Laden. What's out there?

HIRSH: Well, one of the things that investigators use is a software called Analyst Notebook, which, interestingly, has been used to track everyone from serial killers to, you may remember, the Love Bug virus culprit in 2000. And what it does is it enables analysts to piece together disparate information from, you know, different parts of the world.

For example, if bin Laden or someone else meets with or speaks with one suspect very often, the software will locate, you know, where he is, and it will enable investigators to piece together his shadowy support network. And that's part of what they're using now. It's also what they used, by the way, to track down Saddam.

S. O'BRIEN: Two thousand armed tribal fighters are going to help the government now search for some of the foreign terror suspects who are hiding in the region we've been talking about -- the Afghanistan- Pakistani border. How significant is this development, do you think?

HIRSH: It's very significant. So is, overall, the assistance that the Pakistanis have given, and this is part of that. What's happened in recent weeks is that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has finally gotten much more aggressive in putting pressure on these tribal regions where al Qaeda and Taliban are believed to be hiding. And what we've learned from our sources is, as a result of this pressure, many al Qaeda and Taliban are back across the border in Afghanistan, where, of course, Task Force 121 -- the American-led force -- is hopefully waiting for them.

And so, you have this kind of a hammer-and-anvil affect, where they're, you know, putting the squeeze on them.

S. O'BRIEN: Michael Hirsh is the senior editor at "Newsweek" magazine. Nice to see you. Thanks for being with us.

HIRSH: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Once you manage to prove that a dusty red planet had a watery past, what do you do for an encore? Well, NASA's twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still on a roll. We're going to talk about that and what's going on with Hubble with Michael Shara. He is the head of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History here in New York.

Michael, good to have you with us.

MICHAEL SHARA, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Good morning.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, it appears on the heels of Opportunity's big discovery that it appears this was once a warm -- well, at least wet -- habitable place on that side of the planet. On the other side of the planet, Spirit is seeing some signs that water might have actually flowed through some of these volcanic rocks that it is investigating. What's the significance of the possibility that there are signs of water in both places?

SHARA: This is beginning to tell you that water was really everywhere on the planet. There may have been a deep ocean or at least a deep lake covering a significant fraction of the planet. And so, it wasn't just a fluke that you happen to get very lucky and find it in one place and not in another. Finding it on two opposite sides of the planet tells us that it was probably common everywhere.

M. O'BRIEN: It could have been oceans.

SHARA: It could have been oceans. We'd love to know how deep and how long ago.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So, which statement is correct? Where there is water there's life, or where there's life there's water?

SHARA: It's clear on Earth that there is both life and water, and water is essential to life. Not sunlight. We have life at the bottom of the deep oceans. But water isn't a proof that there ever was life there. It's certainly a necessary condition on Earth, but not sufficient.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So, I guess the question would be, maybe there are some fossils in those rocks.

SHARA: We'd certainly love to bring some back and take a good look.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, a big day tomorrow for folks in your realm. The Hubble Space Telescope continues to really lead a golden age of astronomy. They're going to release a new image called the Deeper Field. Let's look at the '96 image called the Deep Field...

SHARA: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: ... which was -- Hubble was pointed at a dark piece of the sky, or so we thought, for a long period of time. Several exposures. And they discovered in excess of 1,500 galaxies that had previously not been seen before. What's the significance of that? And what are we likely to see tomorrow? SHARA: Well, to give you an idea as to just how many galaxies were found, if you hold up a grain of sand at arm's length, that was the piece of sky covered, and that's the piece of sky that you see on the image. We're going to be taking a picture with the Hubble Telescope -- or rather, releasing a picture that's been taken over the last several months that covers four times more area. It goes about four times as deep, and we're expecting 15,000 to 20,000 galaxies. And in addition...

M. O'BRIEN: Fifteen to twenty thousand galaxies we hadn't seen before.

SHARA: That we hadn't seen before.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow!

SHARA: And that are at extremely large distances from us. Really galaxies from when the universe was very, very young.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So, a final thought here. There's a bit of irony that this is being released even as there's a big debate on the future of the Hubble. NASA's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, wants to cancel that final repair mission. A lot of scientists, such as yourself, upset about that prospect. What do you think is going to happen?

SHARA: Right now, there's a review under way within NASA, and there is going to be advice given to the administrator as to what to do. The images that we keep seeing from Hubble, the sciences coming back from Hubble is better than anything else -- any other instrument we've ever had. I think that all of us have our fingers crossed that NASA is going to rethink this decision. And I think we all think there's a chance that it's going to be reinstated.

M. O'BRIEN: Worth the risk of human life to fix it?

SHARA: That's always a hard one. I would say that it is the most valuable thing that NASA has done in the last 25 years. This telescope has brought us extraordinary knowledge of the universe, extraordinary insight. Insofar as everything that NASA does has got some level of risk, I would say that this is certainly worth it.

M. O'BRIEN: Michael Shara, thanks for dropping by for a little astronomy segment. We appreciate it.

SHARA: Pleasure.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, Iraq has a new constitution, but now the hard work really begins. We're going to speak with former Defense Secretary William Cohen about the country's lingering political problems.

M. O'BRIEN: Also, what was the strongest evidence against Martha Stewart? We'll tell you how jurors reached their verdict. S. O'BRIEN: And the family is back. Our "90-Second Pop" team has the lowdown on this season's first episode of "The Sopranos."

Those stories all ahead as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: We're going to do a best of clips from -- audio clips only -- from "90-Second Pop."

Welcome, everybody. Time for "90-Second Pop." Today's hot topics are a TV mob scene. You're seeing some of those there. Jesus is still a superstar, and also a very bad day for Martha. We're going to talk about all of that with humorist Andy Borowitz, also Toure, a contributing editor for "Rolling Stone," and Sam Rubin, entertainment reporter for KTLA out in Los Angeles.

It's nice to have you, Sam. Welcome, because first time.

SAM RUBIN, REPORTER, KTLA-TV ENTERTAINMENT: First time right here, yes, on the hot seat, to be sure.

S. O'BRIEN: You were wonderful. Yes, you've been on our show a million times, but the first time on "90-Second Pop."

Let's talk about Martha. Toure, do you want to...

TOURE, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE: Wow! Wow!

S. O'BRIEN: Are you shocked?

TOURE: No, I wasn't shocked. I mean, like, five minutes before, we were all e-mailing around, and a lot of people were saying guilty, guilty, guilty. This is the year of comupems (ph), the year of ickoris (ph), where the high and mighty will fall. She is first. Michael Eisner is coming. Kobe Bryant, I'm sorry, is going to fall. Jayson Williams, absolutely, is going to fall. R. Kelly. I mean, it's going to be a year of watching these mighty people redefine their whole career.

ANDY BOROWITZ, HUMORIST: It's a great time to be alive.

RUBIN: Well, you know, everyone had this aspiration to be -- what's better than being famous and someone like Martha Stewart, completely in control of your own destiny. Now it turns out what isn't necessarily the case. And no sympathy. Nobody seems to be the least bit sorry.

S. O'BRIEN: You don't think anyone is -- I know some people who feel like...

RUBIN: I think they feel badly for the circumstance, but they don't feel badly for her.

BOROWITZ: I feel bad...

TOURE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BOROWITZ: I feel bad for the people who had to work in the company and now they have to move on.

RUBIN: Right.

BOROWITZ: They're calling -- I guess the magazine is now going to be called "Martha Stewart leaving." You know, it's a big adjustment.

RUBIN: Right.

TOURE: I mean, it's amazing, because it's an image-conscious brand, of course. The towels are the same. The stuff she's selling is the same.

S. O'BRIEN: You don't think it can survive? I've got to tell you, that magazine is one of my favorite magazines of all time.

BOROWITZ: All the stuff is good?

S. O'BRIEN: And I'm concerned that now I've paid my 28 bucks for my subscription, like, oh, what happens if -- do I get my $28 back for...

TOURE: That's a good question.

RUBIN: Well, they talk about how her daughter might be able to sort of take the mantel of the name to a degree. And I think, you know, if you enjoy the magazine, people enjoy the towels, in some form, it might survive.

S. O'BRIEN: It might be able to make it.

All right, let's talk about a lighter topic. How sad is that? "The Sopranos."

BOROWITZ: I know.

S. O'BRIEN: And I wasn't even trying for the joke there. Wow! I didn't stay up to see it, because, you know, that's just way too late for me.

TOURE: Oh, wow!

RUBIN: You know, the thing about "The Sopranos," is, you know, my god forbid, this be 120-second pop. The TV has it pacing, pacing, pacing, pacing. This is a show takes its time.

TOURE: Yes.

RUBIN: The opening sequence has a respect for the viewers. It's, like, let's all come back in, and, you know, everybody can say this, and it's the best show on television.

TOURE: That's right. That's right. S. O'BRIEN: Did you love the episode?

BOROWITZ: And it's going to get better...

TOURE: I loved it.

BOROWITZ: It's going to get better next week because Steve Buscemi is joining the show.

TOURE: Yes. Yes. I mean, this is like A-Rod joining the Yankees. One of the great actors of Hollywood who plays this wonderful villain all of the time joining this great cast of villains. I mean, it's the best show on TV. It's the easiest thing to say.

BOROWITZ: I mean, the only other villain they could add is Trump at this point.

S. O'BRIEN: He could walk around and say, "You're fired, you're fired."

RUBIN: But it's the prefacing.

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIN: And it so rarely happens where it's a true water cooler show, where people actually make plans. Oh, you know, we can't go out Sunday night. I'm doing this.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm going to watch "The Sopranos."

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIN: Yes. So, absolutely. And how much can we say about that?


Aired March 8, 2004 - 07:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. It's just about half past the hour on this very rainy AMERICAN MORNING, here in New York City at least. I'm Soledad O'Brien. Bill Hemmer off today. Miles O'Brien, though, is sitting in.
Nice to have you. Thanks.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hopefully, it's not my fault it's raining.

S. O'BRIEN: No, it's not, I'm sure.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, all right. Martha Stewart's fortune was built on her style and personality. Can her empire survive a prison term? Boy, that's a question for our "90-Second Pop" celebrity observers a little later.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll look at that.

Also this morning, the Mars rovers -- well, they haven't found life on Mars, but they certainly have enough evidence to start speculating about it. We're going to talk about that a little bit later this morning as well.

M. O'BRIEN: But first, let's check the news.

Iraq's interim constitution was unanimously approved today. The Iraqi Governing Council signed the 25-page key document just a few hours ago. Now, as you know, the ceremony had been delayed by nearly a week due to deadly violence and disagreements among the council members. The document is a key step in the U.S. plan to hand over power to Iraqis by June 30.

A train accident delayed commuters this morning in Montgomery County, Maryland. A freight train struck a car, as the driver tried to make it through a rail crossing. Police say the driver jumped from his car as the train, loaded with gas tanks, pushed the car under a nearby commuter train. Passengers were escorted off the train. No injuries reported.

The son of baseball legend Ted Williams has died. John Henry Williams lost his life to leukemia over the weekend. The Hall of Famer's son had been involved in a family dispute over freezing of his father's body after his death in 2002. John Henry Williams died in California on Saturday. He was 35. The first openly gay Episcopal bishop has taken over in New Hampshire. A crowd of hundreds welcomed Gene Robinson during a special ceremony yesterday. His selection last year sent shock wavers through the church. A conservative minority continues to oppose that appointment.

And beginning today, Seattle will recognize the marriage of gay couples. Mayor Greg Nickels announced yesterday that city workers who are married will be given equal rights, whether they are heterosexual or gay. The mayor supports same-sex marriages, but lacks the authority to issue licenses. Marriage license in Washington State are issued by the counties, not the cities.

S. O'BRIEN: Interesting development there. We'll see how that affects everyone else around the country.

(WEATHER BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: The hunt for Osama bin Laden is intensifying. According to "Newsweek," American military and intelligence officials are confident that they have narrowed bin Laden's whereabouts in the Afghanistan-Pakistani border area.

As the U.S. prepares to launch a spring offensive aimed at capturing the al Qaeda leader, "Newsweek's" senior editor, Michael Hirsh, profiles the man who is in charge of doing just that. And Michael Hirsh, in fact, joins us from Washington, D.C., this morning.

Nice to see you, Michael. Thanks for being with us.

MICHAEL HIRSH, SENIOR EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Happy to be here.

S. O'BRIEN: We're talking about a guy whose name is Bill McRaven, and he is literally the guy who wrote the book on special ops. Tell us a little bit about him and why he's been chosen to hunt for the most-wanted man in the world.

HIRSH: Well, throughout his career he's been the best of the best. One source told me he's refuted to be the smartest Navy S.E.A.L. ever graduated. He was also the principal author of the White House's strategy on combating terrorism after 9/11 as part of the National Security Council then. And he seems to be a man who is very well-suited to do what Task Force 121, his command, is all about, which is melding civilian intelligence -- that is CIA intelligence -- and military striking power to get bin Laden and other high-value targets.

S. O'BRIEN: Here's what McRaven's boss had to say -- his former boss at the White House had to say, General Wayne Downing. He said: "If anybody is smart and cunning enough to get bin Laden, McRaven and the Delta and S.E.A.L. team guys he now commands will do it. Is there any risk in having that kind of confidence in one person? And how is that confidence merited?

HIRSH: Well, there are a lot of risks, but, you know, McRaven is a guy who seems to know special ops in and out. The interesting thing about this confrontation is it's the best America has to offer in terms of men like McRaven, the kind of technology and software they're using to try to pin down bin Laden's whereabouts, going up against a guy, a guerrilla leader, a terrorist leader, bin Laden, who has proved incredibly elusive over the years.

So, you know, you basically have guys hiding out in caves and getting surveiled by American Predators and tracked by enormously powerful software that tries to piece together the support network. And we're just going to have to see how it comes out.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit more specifically about some of that powerful software, and also some of the other technology that's being used to try to track and trace Osama bin Laden. What's out there?

HIRSH: Well, one of the things that investigators use is a software called Analyst Notebook, which, interestingly, has been used to track everyone from serial killers to, you may remember, the Love Bug virus culprit in 2000. And what it does is it enables analysts to piece together disparate information from, you know, different parts of the world.

For example, if bin Laden or someone else meets with or speaks with one suspect very often, the software will locate, you know, where he is, and it will enable investigators to piece together his shadowy support network. And that's part of what they're using now. It's also what they used, by the way, to track down Saddam.

S. O'BRIEN: Two thousand armed tribal fighters are going to help the government now search for some of the foreign terror suspects who are hiding in the region we've been talking about -- the Afghanistan- Pakistani border. How significant is this development, do you think?

HIRSH: It's very significant. So is, overall, the assistance that the Pakistanis have given, and this is part of that. What's happened in recent weeks is that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has finally gotten much more aggressive in putting pressure on these tribal regions where al Qaeda and Taliban are believed to be hiding. And what we've learned from our sources is, as a result of this pressure, many al Qaeda and Taliban are back across the border in Afghanistan, where, of course, Task Force 121 -- the American-led force -- is hopefully waiting for them.

And so, you have this kind of a hammer-and-anvil affect, where they're, you know, putting the squeeze on them.

S. O'BRIEN: Michael Hirsh is the senior editor at "Newsweek" magazine. Nice to see you. Thanks for being with us.

HIRSH: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Once you manage to prove that a dusty red planet had a watery past, what do you do for an encore? Well, NASA's twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still on a roll. We're going to talk about that and what's going on with Hubble with Michael Shara. He is the head of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History here in New York.

Michael, good to have you with us.

MICHAEL SHARA, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Good morning.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, it appears on the heels of Opportunity's big discovery that it appears this was once a warm -- well, at least wet -- habitable place on that side of the planet. On the other side of the planet, Spirit is seeing some signs that water might have actually flowed through some of these volcanic rocks that it is investigating. What's the significance of the possibility that there are signs of water in both places?

SHARA: This is beginning to tell you that water was really everywhere on the planet. There may have been a deep ocean or at least a deep lake covering a significant fraction of the planet. And so, it wasn't just a fluke that you happen to get very lucky and find it in one place and not in another. Finding it on two opposite sides of the planet tells us that it was probably common everywhere.

M. O'BRIEN: It could have been oceans.

SHARA: It could have been oceans. We'd love to know how deep and how long ago.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So, which statement is correct? Where there is water there's life, or where there's life there's water?

SHARA: It's clear on Earth that there is both life and water, and water is essential to life. Not sunlight. We have life at the bottom of the deep oceans. But water isn't a proof that there ever was life there. It's certainly a necessary condition on Earth, but not sufficient.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So, I guess the question would be, maybe there are some fossils in those rocks.

SHARA: We'd certainly love to bring some back and take a good look.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, a big day tomorrow for folks in your realm. The Hubble Space Telescope continues to really lead a golden age of astronomy. They're going to release a new image called the Deeper Field. Let's look at the '96 image called the Deep Field...

SHARA: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: ... which was -- Hubble was pointed at a dark piece of the sky, or so we thought, for a long period of time. Several exposures. And they discovered in excess of 1,500 galaxies that had previously not been seen before. What's the significance of that? And what are we likely to see tomorrow? SHARA: Well, to give you an idea as to just how many galaxies were found, if you hold up a grain of sand at arm's length, that was the piece of sky covered, and that's the piece of sky that you see on the image. We're going to be taking a picture with the Hubble Telescope -- or rather, releasing a picture that's been taken over the last several months that covers four times more area. It goes about four times as deep, and we're expecting 15,000 to 20,000 galaxies. And in addition...

M. O'BRIEN: Fifteen to twenty thousand galaxies we hadn't seen before.

SHARA: That we hadn't seen before.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow!

SHARA: And that are at extremely large distances from us. Really galaxies from when the universe was very, very young.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So, a final thought here. There's a bit of irony that this is being released even as there's a big debate on the future of the Hubble. NASA's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, wants to cancel that final repair mission. A lot of scientists, such as yourself, upset about that prospect. What do you think is going to happen?

SHARA: Right now, there's a review under way within NASA, and there is going to be advice given to the administrator as to what to do. The images that we keep seeing from Hubble, the sciences coming back from Hubble is better than anything else -- any other instrument we've ever had. I think that all of us have our fingers crossed that NASA is going to rethink this decision. And I think we all think there's a chance that it's going to be reinstated.

M. O'BRIEN: Worth the risk of human life to fix it?

SHARA: That's always a hard one. I would say that it is the most valuable thing that NASA has done in the last 25 years. This telescope has brought us extraordinary knowledge of the universe, extraordinary insight. Insofar as everything that NASA does has got some level of risk, I would say that this is certainly worth it.

M. O'BRIEN: Michael Shara, thanks for dropping by for a little astronomy segment. We appreciate it.

SHARA: Pleasure.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, Iraq has a new constitution, but now the hard work really begins. We're going to speak with former Defense Secretary William Cohen about the country's lingering political problems.

M. O'BRIEN: Also, what was the strongest evidence against Martha Stewart? We'll tell you how jurors reached their verdict. S. O'BRIEN: And the family is back. Our "90-Second Pop" team has the lowdown on this season's first episode of "The Sopranos."

Those stories all ahead as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: We're going to do a best of clips from -- audio clips only -- from "90-Second Pop."

Welcome, everybody. Time for "90-Second Pop." Today's hot topics are a TV mob scene. You're seeing some of those there. Jesus is still a superstar, and also a very bad day for Martha. We're going to talk about all of that with humorist Andy Borowitz, also Toure, a contributing editor for "Rolling Stone," and Sam Rubin, entertainment reporter for KTLA out in Los Angeles.

It's nice to have you, Sam. Welcome, because first time.

SAM RUBIN, REPORTER, KTLA-TV ENTERTAINMENT: First time right here, yes, on the hot seat, to be sure.

S. O'BRIEN: You were wonderful. Yes, you've been on our show a million times, but the first time on "90-Second Pop."

Let's talk about Martha. Toure, do you want to...

TOURE, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE: Wow! Wow!

S. O'BRIEN: Are you shocked?

TOURE: No, I wasn't shocked. I mean, like, five minutes before, we were all e-mailing around, and a lot of people were saying guilty, guilty, guilty. This is the year of comupems (ph), the year of ickoris (ph), where the high and mighty will fall. She is first. Michael Eisner is coming. Kobe Bryant, I'm sorry, is going to fall. Jayson Williams, absolutely, is going to fall. R. Kelly. I mean, it's going to be a year of watching these mighty people redefine their whole career.

ANDY BOROWITZ, HUMORIST: It's a great time to be alive.

RUBIN: Well, you know, everyone had this aspiration to be -- what's better than being famous and someone like Martha Stewart, completely in control of your own destiny. Now it turns out what isn't necessarily the case. And no sympathy. Nobody seems to be the least bit sorry.

S. O'BRIEN: You don't think anyone is -- I know some people who feel like...

RUBIN: I think they feel badly for the circumstance, but they don't feel badly for her.

BOROWITZ: I feel bad...

TOURE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BOROWITZ: I feel bad for the people who had to work in the company and now they have to move on.

RUBIN: Right.

BOROWITZ: They're calling -- I guess the magazine is now going to be called "Martha Stewart leaving." You know, it's a big adjustment.

RUBIN: Right.

TOURE: I mean, it's amazing, because it's an image-conscious brand, of course. The towels are the same. The stuff she's selling is the same.

S. O'BRIEN: You don't think it can survive? I've got to tell you, that magazine is one of my favorite magazines of all time.

BOROWITZ: All the stuff is good?

S. O'BRIEN: And I'm concerned that now I've paid my 28 bucks for my subscription, like, oh, what happens if -- do I get my $28 back for...

TOURE: That's a good question.

RUBIN: Well, they talk about how her daughter might be able to sort of take the mantel of the name to a degree. And I think, you know, if you enjoy the magazine, people enjoy the towels, in some form, it might survive.

S. O'BRIEN: It might be able to make it.

All right, let's talk about a lighter topic. How sad is that? "The Sopranos."

BOROWITZ: I know.

S. O'BRIEN: And I wasn't even trying for the joke there. Wow! I didn't stay up to see it, because, you know, that's just way too late for me.

TOURE: Oh, wow!

RUBIN: You know, the thing about "The Sopranos," is, you know, my god forbid, this be 120-second pop. The TV has it pacing, pacing, pacing, pacing. This is a show takes its time.

TOURE: Yes.

RUBIN: The opening sequence has a respect for the viewers. It's, like, let's all come back in, and, you know, everybody can say this, and it's the best show on television.

TOURE: That's right. That's right. S. O'BRIEN: Did you love the episode?

BOROWITZ: And it's going to get better...

TOURE: I loved it.

BOROWITZ: It's going to get better next week because Steve Buscemi is joining the show.

TOURE: Yes. Yes. I mean, this is like A-Rod joining the Yankees. One of the great actors of Hollywood who plays this wonderful villain all of the time joining this great cast of villains. I mean, it's the best show on TV. It's the easiest thing to say.

BOROWITZ: I mean, the only other villain they could add is Trump at this point.

S. O'BRIEN: He could walk around and say, "You're fired, you're fired."

RUBIN: But it's the prefacing.

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIN: And it so rarely happens where it's a true water cooler show, where people actually make plans. Oh, you know, we can't go out Sunday night. I'm doing this.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm going to watch "The Sopranos."

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIN: Yes. So, absolutely. And how much can we say about that?