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U.S. Military Deployment Stretched to Limit; In Defense of Outsourcing

Aired June 05, 2004 - 12:59   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Here are the headlines.
Worrisome news about former President Ronald Reagan. Sources familiar with his situation say the 93-year-old former president's health is deteriorating. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about a decade ago. Sources say the White House has been told Reagan's death could come soon or it could be in weeks or months.

President Bush is in Paris today meeting with President Jacques Chirac. The stop is part of Mr. Bush's three-day European trip, part PR tour and part World War II remembrance. Mr. Bush is trying to rally support for rebuilding efforts in Iraq. He's also commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day which is tomorrow.

Thousands of D-Day veterans already are gathering in northern France to mark the 60th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Ceremonies being held today and tomorrow are paying tribute to the Allied troops who gave their lives to liberate Europe. About 250,000 Allied troops were killed in battles in northern France. More news in 30 minutes. Now time for IN THE MONEY.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the program. I'm Jack Cafferty. Coming up on today's edition of IN THE MONEY, the long good-bye. The Pentagon sending soldiers back to Iraq even though they've already served their full term. Find out what the guys in the trenches are saying, some of it is probably not worthy of a family television program.

Plus learning to love outsourcing, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist on the op-ed page of "The New York Times," Thomas Friedman is with us and looking at the job migration to India. And we're going to see why he thinks it might be good for America.

Plus liberal arts, we'll speak with a young author who says leftists are running the show at America's colleges. Joining me today, a couple of IN THE MONEY veterans, CNN correspondent Susan Lisovicz, and sitting in for Andy Serwer this week, Allen Wastler, managing editor of money.com.

More good news for the Bush administration in this election year came in the form of that jobs report Friday which came in at a higher number than anybody had estimated. But even more significantly perhaps, they went back and revised up the previous month's numbers, and now the big American jobs machine seems to be up and running.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You can take "jobless" out of "recovery," because that is over, and everybody had been saying well, that jobs frequently lag when an economy recovers. You've seen that now, but there are some concerns because with oil, how much that will cut into corporate profits with other commodity prices increasing whether, in fact, companies will be inspired to keep hiring at a very good rate though for three months, nearly a million jobs created.

ALLEN WASTLER, MONEY.COM: There's another dark cloud if you're looking at the election scenario. Yes, the job numbers are going up, but if you look at the latest confidence surveys, in there they ask a question, well, how do you feel? Are jobs easy or hard to come by or hard to come by? And people still think they are hard to come by.

And research shows there's a lag effect between when you start seeing the jobs come in and people actually feel like things are recovered. It's usually about half a year to a year. That puts it -- election, still in play.

LISOVICZ: And then also it's pretty much a given now that interest rates will rise later this month, and what that does to consumer spending and corporate spending.

CAFFERTY: Although they're at such a very, very low level, the lowest they've been in decades, that even if they went up 100 basis points, I think the Fed funds rate would still be at, what, 2 or 2.25 percent, something.

All right. Things to keep eye on as we go forward, when Johnny comes marching home, he might be told to turn around and go marching right back to Iraq. A top Pentagon officer announced this week the Army is expanding what it calls its stop-loss program. That means thousands of soldiers due to hang up their guns won't be allowed to leave the service with combat veterans deployed back in the combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Andrew Exum is the author of a book called "This Man's Army" about his experiences as a platoon leader in Afghanistan. And he joins us today with his thoughts on the stop-loss program.

Andrew, it's nice to have you with us, thanks for joining us.

ANDREW EXUM, "THIS MAN'S ARMY": Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: Give us a thumbnail of the stop-loss program and how it works.

EXUM: Well, basically, the stop-loss comes about through an act that President Bush signed on September 14, 2001, that authorizes military commanders to hold troops in the service past the time they're supposed to leave. The military says what this does is it gives some cohesion to the forces that are going to go and fight.

In other words, the units that trained together will be the same ones that go to Iraq and Afghanistan together. The problem is, is that stop-loss runs contrary to the notion of a volunteer military. So if we're going to say that our all-volunteer military can still meet the needs of Iraq and Afghanistan, we're going to have to really look hard at this stop-loss program as well as the activation of the individual ready reserve, because, quite frankly, those seem to me to be an admission that the active duty military isn't getting the job done.

LISOVICZ: Andrew, what are the biggest problems with keeping these troops on these extended rotations in very hostile environments, not only politically, of course, but physically?

EXUM: Well, obviously, the big problems you're going to see are in morale, retention and reenlistment. I think right now, the soldiers that are going, for instance, from 2nd Brigade of Ft. Drum, these guys are going to Iraq for upwards of a year. These guys have already done two combat deployments to Afghanistan, and a lot of these guys are due to leave the Army this summer, for instance.

I mean, these guys can't help but feel that they're being let down by the Army and also let down by their civilian leadership. Earlier this week I was happy to hear Senator Kerry address this issue and I'm kind of waiting for President Bush to address it as well and see what he has to say.

WASTLER: Andrew, a few weeks ago I was reading Hal Moore's book, "We Were Once and Young," about his experiences in the Vietnam War. One of his big criticisms in that is that the military rotated people in and out of Vietnam too quickly. You couldn't keep the experience that you needed to keep combat basically on going forward. What do you think about that in the context of this situation?

EXUM: Well, I think it's a legitimate point. I know that Joe Galloway and Hal Moore, those are two men I really respect, the two men that wrote that book. However, a lot of people are saying that the 12-month rotation to Iraq is really a morale-draining rotation. Keep in mind that this is a volunteer military so guys in the 3rd Infantry Division who went into Iraq for 12 to 15 months are turning right back around and 12 months later doing it again. That has a devastating effect on families and it's a lot more devastating to say a six-month rotation which was the norm before September 11.

CAFFERTY: Yes, but isn't that exactly the point, it's not anymore before September 11. We are at war. There were 3000 citizens killed here, and the volunteer military is still there to provide for the nation's defense and to do whatever it is, is deemed required to protect for the security of this country. I mean, we've got a war going on.

EXUM: Sure, but it's like you said, the volunteer military is there to do that. And right now, this isn't really a true volunteer military. So if we're going to say that after September 11 we need to throw the rule book out and come up with a new set of rules to play by, then we also need to look hard at if our voluntary military is getting the job done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look, our civilian planners did not expect to have 138,000 troops in Iraq at this point. They thought this was going to be a war without cost. And it's important that the civilian populous needs to understand this is not a war without cost, and right now the guys holding the bag for this Iraq war are the back-to-duty military.

LISOVICZ: Hey Andrew, I'm curious, because this war is proceeding longer than anyone expected because it is technically a volunteer army, and so many of the soldiers come from the National Guard, what are the requirements for their employers here? Must they stick with their payments, their salaries to these people to make sure that their families are fed here while they're overseas.

EXUM: That's a good question. I'd probably be the wrong Exum to as that. My cousin is a sergeant major in the National Guard and he could probably give you a better answer than I can. I know that there are certain laws that are enacted that allow -- require employers to protect National Guardsmen and Reservists as they go overseas.

But another good question there is what if that person is self- employed. What happens to his business then? And certainly I think that it definitely does affect their careers. On the other hand, though, we're talking about really two different things when you're talking about active duty and National Guard and Reserve. Really...

WASTLER: Andrew...

EXUM: Go ahead.

WASTLER: I noticed today or this week also the Army is redeploying units from Germany as well. And there has been a lot of discussion that maybe our military force is spread too thin. Do you think it is spread too thin and do you think maybe we need something like a draft?

EXUM: Well, I think it's obvious that it's spread too thin. Whether or not we need a draft is another issue altogether. I think that one of the more intelligent comments that has been made is that after 1991, after the first Persian Gulf War, after the Cold War, we really had an opportunity to do some things that we just didn't carry out, and we decided to scale back our military.

Really, when Dick Cheney was the secretary of defense, And continuing through the Clinton years, and that's something that we didn't address. And perhaps after September 11 we should have sat down and said, OK, what are our foreign policy commitments going to be over the next few years, and do we need a larger military? Certainly it's spread too thin, and I think that the stop-loss policies, the activation of troops in Korea, as well as the activation of individual ready reserve are all indicators that our military can't really get the job done as it's currently set up.

CAFFERTY: Yes, on the other hand, I don't think anybody would have been able to sit down and say, OK, our priorities are going to include a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There's just no way to predict that stuff. What do we do now? How do you fix it. They put you in charge tomorrow, fix it, how do you do that?

EXUM: Well, yes, these are all problems that are way above my pay grade. I think the first thing that I would do though is -- and the important thing is for our national civilian leaders to really start talking about this and be honest with the public before the November elections about some of the long-term strains that the military and that the civilian populous is going to be under.

What I would do is obviously I think you have to increase the size of the military. Now that's not an easy fix, that's something you have to do over a long period of time, but it's something that really we should start sooner rather than later. As far as a draft is concerned, there are a lot of bad options that we have, and really the option is to look for the least bad options, and maybe stop-loss is that. Other options are a draft or perhaps scaling back our commitments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

CAFFERTY: Andrew Exum wrote the book "This Man's Army." My favorite idea that you came up with is that the politicians be honest with the voters in an election year.

EXUM: Certainly.

CAFFERTY: Now there's a concept.

LISOVICZ: Novel.

CAFFERTY: From your mouth to God's ears, Andrew. Thank you for being with us, I appreciate it.

Yes, sir, thank you.

CAFFERTY: Coming up on IN THE MONEY as we continue, Bangalore USA. Outsourcing is filling American jobs with Indian know-how, see why that could actually help the United States.

Also ahead, caps on the left. We'll speak with a young author who says liberal teachers are taking their beliefs into the college classrooms all across this country and their message is sticking with students.

Plus, the exterminator. "Termite" Watkins is what they call him. He went to Iraq to kill bugs. That's why he got the name "Termite." He wound up running Iraq's Olympic boxing team. He's a guest, and I can't wait to talk to him. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: The outsourcing of white collar American jobs to India has been a hot-button issue over the last year, and while many journalists have focused on the effects of the outsourcing here in the United States, the Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist for "The New York Times," Thomas Friedman, has decided to take a look at outsourcing and how it's changed things in places like India.

Friedman is hosting a documentary on the Discovery Channel entitled "The Other Side of Outsourcing." I talked with him earlier this week and began by asking him about the impact of outsourcing over there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS FRIEDMAN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": When the jobs land over there, Jack, there are incredible opportunities. Indians make -- the standard of living there is about one fifth of ours. So when you take what is a low-paying, low-prestige job in America like a call center job and you send it over to India, it converts into a high-prestige, high-wage job over there.

People supporting large extended families on these salaries, becoming huge consumers of American goods: Our exports to India have been rising rather dramatically as a result of it; and most importantly, giving these people a sense of dignity and self-worth. It's not an argument for we should send all our jobs over there, but it is saying that when jobs move over there as part of the natural evolution of technology in these things, they do have a very positive impact.

CAFFERTY: The natural evolution of technology, and in the corporate parlance, the pursuit of cheaper labor. What do you say to the American worker who feels betrayed and loses his job in a country that used to have some sense of loyalty toward its employees. These people feel like the pursuit of a better bottom line and a higher stock price is really all that matters and we send these jobs to India because we can get them done for less money?

FRIEDMAN: Right. I say two things really to that person. One is when you are unemployed, when you personally are unemployed, the unemployment rate isn't 4 or 5 percent, it's 100 percent. And I think we as a society and a government have a responsibility to design policies that are not only going to cushion people from the effects of these kinds of rapid shocks, but also empower them with the skills needed to move up the ladder.

That is the only alternative, I think building walls is not one that would benefit the society as a whole. But we have got to look at the impact on individuals and make sure we've got policies designed to help them. At the same time, though, this phenomena of outsourcing is really just a small slice of a much bigger phenomena.

And the bigger phenomena is that we're moving into a world that is increasingly flat, and where the playing field is increasingly leveled, where there's now the technology to disaggregate any job and send this function to India, this function to Boston, this function to Costa Rica, and then re-aggregate them at headquarters. That is the world we're going into, and we're all going to have to adjust to that. I wouldn't be surprised if my columns are edited in a few years in Bangalore.

CAFFERTY: I called one of the well-known computer service centers a few weeks ago, and I could tell within 10 seconds of the conversation starting that the call was not being answered in Texas where this company is headquartered. Are they making any progress in the call centers? Because I had just an awful time with this guy on the phone. He didn't understand me, I didn't understand him. We struggled with the language barrier. And in the end, I'm sure he was frustrated and I was angry. FRIEDMAN: You know, I think it's a good point. Several people as I've gone around talking about this and about the dock, have made that same point, they've had really bad experiences with it. Other people have had good experiences. But I think the point you're raising is an important one.

If this starts to not work for people, if it becomes -- that if -- one of the things we profile in the documentary, we go to a language neutralization class, accent neutralization class, excuse me, where Indians are taught to speak unaccented English for both British and American markets. And if this doesn't work for people, if people can't understand the technical helper on the other end, then this outsourcing end of it, the call centers, they're not going to be around for long.

CAFFERTY: All right. Let me, while we have you here, switch gears and get you to bring us up-to-date on your thinking, vis-a-vis, the war in Iraq and the march toward the handover of political sovereignty on June 30. It was a busy week last week, the Governing Council dissolved. The new government was named. The president, the prime minister put in place. Give me your take on the way things are beginning to evolve over there if you would?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, Jack, we've had so much bad news for so many months out of Iraq. As someone who believed in the possibility that this war could work and if done the right way and tilt the Iraq in the right direction and hopefully the wider Middle East, we finally had some good news.

And it is the appointment of this Iraqi cabinet with the help of the U.N. that has now been blessed by Ayatollah Sistani, the most important Shiite religious cleric in Iraq. And I think we have in place a decent Iraqi government: widely diverse, really representative of the country.

And I think there is a decent chance that this decent government can begin to build a wider support in the country. The real trick going forward is they're going to need our protection to some extent, and our enemies there, our enemies and the enemies of this government are going to try to attack American troops in hopes that we crack down on them and they will hope accidentally kill Iraqis, and that will then undermine and delegitimize this new government. And how we are smart about facing that challenge is going to be the key thing I think as we go forward here.

CAFFERTY: How would you expect we might have to approach it differently than the way we have been in order to prevent the very kind of thing you're talking about?

FRIEDMAN: I think we've got to get Iraqis -- on one hand, we've got to get Iraqis out in front as much as we can on the security side, and on the other hand, we have to get in the background. We have got to get over the horizon as much as we possibly can, and how we balance all that because you don't want to leave a vacuum. But we need to get over the horizon as much as we can. CAFFERTY: Let me get your thoughts on what seems to me to be a very aggressive timetable. There's talk about getting American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006 perhaps, having elections as early as next year. There is no trained Iraqi security force of any size or ability that's ready to assume the duties of 135,000 American soldiers that are doing it now. Is it realistic to expect that within another 18 months or so we can truly say "mission accomplished" in Iraq, or is that wishful thinking at this point?

FRIEDMAN: You know, I don't know whether the right date is 12 months or 18 months. All I know is this, that the sooner Iraqis have elections and really produce a sovereign -- an authentic government of their own, I think the sooner that government is going want to us to leave.

Because it is not going to want to be "protected," quote, unquote by the United States of America. We're too radioactive. And I believe the exit strategy is really Iraqi elections. Because once those elections happen, they're going to ask us to step into the background and eventually step out of their country. Now in between, we really have to have a crash course in getting the Iraqi army up and running.

CAFFERTY: All right, I told you before we started this when we were just chatting that I'm a huge fan, and I'll say it on the program as well, I am.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you so much.

CAFFERTY: You are one of the great voices of reason in American journalism and it's a treat to have you on this program, IN THE MONEY. And I hope you'll come back and do this again at some point.

FRIEDMAN: I sure will. Thank you so much.

CAFFERTY: All right. Tom Friedman, of "The New York Times." Time for a break now, but there is more ahead on IN THE MONEY.

Coming up, mogul on the move. Viacom's Mel Karmazin looking for a new gig. We'll see whether the Street likes the sound of that and maybe whether or not Michael Eisner over at Disney likes the sound of that.

Plus, sting like a termite. We're going to meet Maurice "Termite" Watkins, he's a bug masher who found a whole new job of training Olympic boxers in Iraq.

And logo-a-go-go. See if you can tell the colonel from the king as we check your eye for a fast food logo. Stick around for the "Fun Site of the Week," still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: Now let's take a look at the week's top stories in our "Money Minute." Viacom President and Chief Operating Officer Mel Karmazin stepped down, the stormy relationship with Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone finally coming to an end. Viacom quickly replaced Karmazin with two other men, CBS chief Les Moonves and MTV boss Tom Freston. Viacom shares fell slightly on the news. We'll have more on that in a moment.

Crude oil prices rode the roller coaster this week as traders reacted to new terror threats and promises of increased production. But OPEC's promise to raise production by 2 million barrels a day fell half a million barrels short of the number Wall Street was hoping for.

And the pain of paying for colleges, reaching higher up on the economic food chain. A new report shows the number of full-time college students taking tuition loans has risen by 50 percent since 1990. Most of that increase in borrowing came from upper income families. Seventy-one percent of all college students are now getting some kind of financial aid. That's up from 54 percent in 1990.

Now back to Viacom and the sudden departure of Mel Karmazin. He's not the only one who's leaving. Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone announced he will be out the door within the next three years. Viacom, CBS and MTV divisions are doing fairly well, but Viacom's stock is way off its year-highs and now there are definitely questions about the company's future. Viacom is our "Stock of the Week."

CAFFERTY: So the question is how big an impact has Mel Karmazin had on that company? It's obviously a huge place, and he's had great success in the broadcasting parts of what Viacom is involved in, and whether or not his absence will be the kind of thing that translates to a decline in the stock price. The early returns are it's not going to matter.

LISOVICZ: Well, there are couple of things there. One thing that Viacom can really boast about is that it always had a deep, deep talent pool when it came to managing. Mel isn't the only one, Tom Freston there as well from MTV, and Les Moonves as well; Sherry Lansing at Paramount and others.

So these were vying for that job. The other thing is that Mel was vulnerable recently because the lagging factor in Viacom's performance was radio. So he was a little vulnerable. There are some reports out there he wasn't going to get the number one job, and that he just decided to exit early.

But I had an interview with him, as you may recall, in November, and he said he just re-upped the three-year contract. He said everything was fine with Sumner, contrary to all these other reports, and he said that he really didn't want to go any other place, any other company.

WASTLER: Well, you pointed the radio is sort of a weak point for him. But the thing is, his departure is likely to make it more of a weak point revenue-wise, because he was sort of the protector of Howard Stern, one of their big moneymakers there.

LISOVICZ: And Imus.

WASTLER: And Imus. LISOVICZ: And you have got the FCC now.

WASTLER: And you've got the FCC breathing down on everybody, and Karmazin was there, saying hey, radio has got an on-off switch, right? You can you deal with it. And now he's not there, you kind of wonder if Viacom is going to knuckle under and then as an investors, you look at that and like, hey, you may not agree with it or what not, but it makes a lot of money.

(CROSSTALK)

CAFFERTY: The other unanswered question has to do with what happens when Sumner Redstone leaves. There is some talk that his daughter might in fact replace him as opposed to one of the gentleman you were talking about or...

LISOVICZ: That's -- and she's got a growing job at the company. And I think she recently took an apartment here in New York. So it's going to be a dramatic showdown, there's no question about it, because Les Moonves resuscitated CBS, really revitalized it under his tenure. And then you have Tom Freston, what he did with MTV, it's a global brand. So these guys have plans.

CAFFERTY: Except they probably won't be doing the Super Bowl halftime show again.

LISOVICZ: I think not. I think not.

CAFFERTY: All right. We shall see. We're going to clear the decks for a sales pitch of two of our own, put a nickel or dime in the Time Warmer coffers.

Coming up after the break, liberal creep, that's not an insult or a nickname for a person. It's a phenomenon. We're going to talk to an author who says left is right in today's college classrooms..

Plus, how to get to Athens by using your fists. We'll speak to an American who went to Baghdad to squash bugs and wound up coaching an Olympic boxing team.

And whatever you say, dear. Those man-pleasing "Stepford Wives" are back along with a bunch of other Hollywood retreads. We'll find out why last century's hot ideas are this summer's hot ideas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. Back to more of IN THE MONEY after a look at the headlines.

Former President Ronald Reagan may be close to death. Sources familiar with the situation say his health is deteriorating. Reagan, who is 93, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about 10 years ago. Sources say the White House has been told to expect his death, quote, "soon or it could be in week or months."

President Bush is in Paris meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, one of his staunchest critic on the war in Iraq. Tomorrow President Bush goes to Normandy to mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

In Baghdad an American soldier was killed this morning when a roadside bomb flipped over a military vehicle. Three other American troops were wounded. This brings the death toll for American troops in Iraq to 826. Of that number, 607 died in combat.

In Najaf, peace may finally be kicking in. A coalition spokesman says the situation in the holy city has improved significantly. Dan Senor said members of the Mehdi military are withdrawing from Najaf and Kufa after a truce was reached with a Shiite cleric.

More news in 30 minutes. Now back more of IN THE MONEY.

CAFFERTY: Well, for years, the news media has been accused of being too liberal. Now it looks like American universities are coming under the same sort of attack, I'm not sure how new that phenomenon is, but there is some attention being focused on it. My next guest says college campuses are dominated by liberal professors who brainwash students with their left wing ideas on everything from taxes to politics to art. Ben Shapiro says he experienced this firsthand as an undergraduate in UCLA and he's written a book called "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth." Brian joins us from Los Angeles to talk more about this.

Welcome to the program.

BEN SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, "BRAINWASHED": Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: What leads to the liberal academic environment on the nation's college campuses? It has been around I would suggest for longer than you have certainly and maybe even as long as I have, which is a lot longer than you have. But what is it that creates this sort of atmosphere?

SHAPIRO: Well, I think that a lot of professors tend to be anti- establishment in general. And that's why you have, for instance, in the former Soviet Union, a lot of professors were very, very anti- communist. So the establishment in the United States and the Constitution in particular tends to be a conservative document. So you tend to have a lot of liberalism on college campuses.

And I think that that also -- as you said, I think that it goes all the way back to the 1930s. If you're talking about opposition to World War II, you saw that there were massive protests against World War II on university campuses. Irving Kristol, who is now a conservative, said that when he was in CCNY in the 1930s, he didn't know one conservative and he was a socialist at that point. So CCNY had about 20,000 students. So clearly this is a phenomenon that's been around for a while.

LISOVICZ: Right, and Ben, isn't that part of a college experience, is you become an adult, and basically you start -- you're expected or professors try to teach you the value of critical thinking, not to just take everything spoon-fed, but to challenge certain doctrines not to accept the status quo, isn't there a value in that? SHAPIRO: There's an absolute value in that. I think that that's what they think they're doing, I don't think that's what they're actually doing. If they're talking about challenging certain values, they should also be willing to challenge their own values in the classroom. And I think that that's not what's going on in the classroom.

Typically you have a liberal professor who can either indoctrinate by omission of certain facts, which does happen quite a bit. I mean, professors control what's on the syllabus. They control what you hear and see in the classroom. So if you're not willing to go outside the classroom and do research yourself, then you're not going to hear the other side of the story. But clearly you're not getting both sides of the story and you can't really develop critical thinking skills in my opinion unless you're hearing both sides of the story and you're forced to make a decision between both sides based on evidence from both sides.

WASTLER: Ben, can you give me some real examples how this happens in the classroom? Just give me an experience.

SHAPIRO: Oh well, OK, so some offhand things that have happened in the classroom, for instance. I had one professor who said that Christianity was quote-unquote "harmful policy" because it says that the Earth is to be used, which is quite an interesting idea.

I also had a philosophy professor who said that September 11 could be justified by John Locke's concept of justified resistance. You see, for instance, the liberal agenda intruding into things like English where many, many readings are identified as homosexual allegories despite the fact that there's really no -- there's no homosexual undertone there.

For instance, I had one English professor read Henry James' "The Aspirin Papers" which is a story about a reporter attempting to dig up the story on an older -- on a dead guy. He read that as a homosexual allegory. So clearly the agenda is entering the classroom, and I think that it's a problem in that you're not hearing both sides of the story.

I'm calling for balance, I'm not calling for all universities to become conservative. I just want students to be able to hear both sides of the story, because it's really the apathetic students who are hurt by this.

Conservative students have always felt they're at a certain ideological advantage on campus. They come in, they hear liberal arguments, they have to develop good conservative arguments to combat those liberal arguments. Really, pressure does make coal into diamonds. But if you're talking about apathetic students, these are people who just want to go in the classroom, listen to what the professor says, spit it back out on tests, get As and go have a beer with their friends. How can you blame them for that? I certainly don't and I think that...

(LAUGHTER) CAFFERTY: Well, that's the way most of us went through college. What are you going to do the rest of your life just out of curiosity?

SHAPIRO: I'm not sure at this point. I'm going to be at Harvard Law in the fall which should be an interesting experience. It really is like going from the frying pan into the fire.

CAFFERTY: You talk about a liberal place to spend some time, Harvard Law School might be one of the top two or three in the country, don't you think?

SHAPIRO: Yes, I'm thinking from there I'm going to have to go Cuba. I'm going from UCLA to Harvard Law and I don't know where to go from there.

LISOVICZ: Ben Shapiro, author of "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate American's Youth." Thank you so much for joining us, and good luck at Harvard Law.

SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.

LISOVICZ: Up ahead on IN THE MONEY, perfect hair and big muscles, see how a job in the extermination business can get you to the Olympics. We'll tell you the story of Maurice "Termite" Watkins.

And "The Stepford Wives" are back and as flawless as ever. Find out why the plastic suburbanites are part of a trend that is coming to a town near you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: In Iraq these days, not many fights are for fun, but that's starting to change. Like the country, the Iraqi Olympic boxing team is trying to rebuild and leading the charge is a most unlikely candidate. Maurice "Termite" Watkins is a former car salesman and exterminator from Texas. His new job, helping Iraq bring home some boxing gold from Athens this summer. And the "Termite" joins us now.

Welcome. I am told, that's even your wife calls you "Termite." So I will call you "Termite" as well. I love the story. You were a fumigator in Iraq and word got out that you used to be a contender.

MAURICE "TERMITE" WATKINS, IRAQI BOXING COACH: Yes, yes, ma'am. I used to be a contender. I tell you, what happened is actually the second day I was there, a British colonel came up to me and he says, who are you? And I said "Termite" Watkins. What do you do? I said I'm going to be doing your pest control. He said, well, you better do it good or they're going to send your so-and-so back. And so I said, I will do it good.

And he says -- and I said, well, where are you from? He said, I'm from -- British, can't you tell? I said, no, sir, I couldn't or I wouldn't have asked you. He said why? Well, I said, they have a lot of good boxers that come from Britain. He says what do you know about boxing? I said, I know everything about boxing. And he says, did you ever fight? I said, yes, sir, I did. He says, were you any good. I said, yes, sir, I was good. And he says, have you ever trained anybody? I said, yes, sir, I have. He says, were you any good?

I said, I was the best. And he says, great, you meet me at 5:00 in the morning over at the heavy bag, you'll start training me. So that's when it started when I first went to Umm Qasr. About six months into the stay, actually a few weeks after -- into Umm Qasr, we went to al-Hilla, which is about a mile-and-a-half out of Babylon.

But about six months at Babylon. I had Colonel Bruce (ph) and Mr. Michael Gapeller (ph), who is leading the coalition of southern Iraq, come up to me and said, "Termite," we'd like for you to join CPA, would you like to? I said, well, of course I would.

About three weeks into that, Mr. Gapeller came up to me one morning, he says "Termite," what are the chances of putting together a boxing team and getting someone qualified for the Olympics? I said Mr. G, you have slim to none. I said, you may have a one in a million chance. He says, great! That's all we need, is we need the one chance! We don't need the million! And he pointed his finger and he says, I expect you to get this done.

WASTLER: So "Termite," tell me, are they any good? Are they going to be like contenders in the Olympics this year. Should the U.S. worry, that what I want to know?

WATKINS: Well, yes, they could because I'm training them. It takes an American to do this. My fighter is good. I have got one, Naja Ali (ph), that is going. And he is good. And if we can get past the corrupt judges -- and I'll say that right out here, the corrupt judges, if we can get past them, we will do fine. And all the corrupt judges, I'm looking at you. We're watching you.

CAFFERTY: What corrupt judges are talking about "Termite."

WATKINS: Well, I just went to Asia, we've been to the Philippines, we fought in the Philippine. We fought in China. We fought in Pakistan. And I was actually told some things that if I would have paid money and did this and did that, that my guys would stand a better chance of winning. But you know, I told them that didn't matter. We'd rather take the loss and keep our pride and our integrity. But watch out because we're coming.

CAFFERTY: Tell me about the kids you're coaching. They lived under Saddam Hussein. Some of their families may have been affected by his brutality. The whole society over there had been under his boot print for 30, 40 years. Now you've got kids who you work with every day who have a chance to go to the Olympic Games in Athens. Talk to me a little about the impact of the overthrow of that government and what the folks there think about what's happening in their lives these days?

WATKINS: Well, first of all, I want to say that the people there, the majority of them are very happy that we're there. As far as the athletes, I had about two weeks to sit down and talk with them on a daily basis of why they deserve this opportunity and why this is their time to shine and it was a chance of a lifetime. And so we got to bond during this time, and I got to implant in their head that they do deserve it. And, of course, or unfortunately we only have one person going to the Olympics, but we thank God for that. His name is Naja and he is good.

LISOVICZ: Hey, "Termite," you know, I got an idea for you, why don't you paint the face of Saddam Hussein on the speed ball, because you know, then like -- take out their aggression. Can you give us an idea though, in addition to that suggestion, what's it's like to train in Iraq. From what I understand for instance your boxers don't run outside. It's just too dangerous, you have to keep them running their laps inside, as an example?

WATKINS: Well, we do, we train inside -- the running part is inside a basketball gymnasium. We do run in there for our safety, and of course we train inside another building that's got a wall around it. We train there for our safety. It's unusual, I must say, it's unusual when you have to have security and big guns around you going to and from your job, which is -- training is my job.

But you know, I must say that I don't really worry about it because I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. And you know, I'm happy. I just don't think twice about it. Now I've also got to say that for all the bad stuff that we talk about, we as a whole, there is so much more good going on that the world needs to know. The schools that are being completed, there's so much good, so it's not all bad.

CAFFERTY: Good. And the other thing that's good is having as you a guest on IN THE MONEY. And I appreciate your time and thoughts. And we wish you good luck when it comes time to go to the Olympic Games. We'll be keeping an eye on you.

WATKINS: Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure and honor to be here with you.

CAFFERTY: All right, partner. Maurice "Termite" Watkins, coach of the Iraqi Olympic boxing team. A year ago who'd have thunk we would have been sitting here talking about the Olympic boxing team from Iraq, but we are.

Time for a break. When IN THE MONEY continues, once is not enough, see why the major movie studios are taking some celluloid classics for a second spin around the block.

And if you'd seen something on this program that makes you take pen to paper, don't, send us an e-mail instead, the address is inthemoney@cnn.com.

We shall be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(INTERRUPTED FOR LIVE EVENT)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. Back to more of IN THE MONEY after a look at the headlines.

Former President Ronald Reagan may be close to death. Sources familiar with the situation say his health is deteriorating. Reagan, who is 93, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about 10 years ago. Sources say the White House has been told to expect his death, quote, "soon or it could be in week or months."

President Bush is in Paris meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, one of his staunchest critic on the war in Iraq. Tomorrow President Bush goes to Normandy to mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

In Baghdad an American soldier was killed this morning when a roadside bomb flipped over a military vehicle. Three other American troops were wounded. This brings the death toll for American troops in Iraq to 826. Of that number, 607 died in combat.

In Najaf, peace may finally be kicking in. A coalition spokesman says the situation in the holy city has improved significantly. Dan Senor said members of the Mehdi military are withdrawing from Najaf and Kufa after a truce was reached with a Shiite cleric.

More news in 30 minutes. Now back more of IN THE MONEY.

CAFFERTY: Well, for years, the news media has been accused of being too liberal. Now it looks like American universities are coming under the same sort of attack, I'm not sure how new that phenomenon is, but there is some attention being focused on it. My next guest says college campuses are dominated by liberal professors who brainwash students with their left wing ideas on everything from taxes to politics to art. Ben Shapiro says he experienced this firsthand as an undergraduate in UCLA and he's written a book called "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth." Brian joins us from Los Angeles to talk more about this.

Welcome to the program.

BEN SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, "BRAINWASHED": Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: What leads to the liberal academic environment on the nation's college campuses? It has been around I would suggest for longer than you have certainly and maybe even as long as I have, which is a lot longer than you have. But what is it that creates this sort of atmosphere?

SHAPIRO: Well, I think that a lot of professors tend to be anti- establishment in general. And that's why you have, for instance, in the former Soviet Union, a lot of professors were very, very anti- communist. So the establishment in the United States and the Constitution in particular tends to be a conservative document. So you tend to have a lot of liberalism on college campuses.

And I think that that also -- as you said, I think that it goes all the way back to the 1930s. If you're talking about opposition to World War II, you saw that there were massive protests against World War II on university campuses. Irving Kristol, who is now a conservative, said that when he was in CCNY in the 1930s, he didn't know one conservative and he was a socialist at that point. So CCNY had about 20,000 students. So clearly this is a phenomenon that's been around for a while. LISOVICZ: Right, and Ben, isn't that part of a college experience, is you become an adult, and basically you start -- you're expected or professors try to teach you the value of critical thinking, not to just take everything spoon-fed, but to challenge certain doctrines not to accept the status quo, isn't there a value in that?

SHAPIRO: There's an absolute value in that. I think that that's what they think they're doing, I don't think that's what they're actually doing. If they're talking about challenging certain values, they should also be willing to challenge their own values in the classroom. And I think that that's not what's going on in the classroom.

Typically you have a liberal professor who can either indoctrinate by omission of certain facts, which does happen quite a bit. I mean, professors control what's on the syllabus. They control what you hear and see in the classroom. So if you're not willing to go outside the classroom and do research yourself, then you're not going to hear the other side of the story. But clearly you're not getting both sides of the story and you can't really develop critical thinking skills in my opinion unless you're hearing both sides of the story and you're forced to make a decision between both sides based on evidence from both sides.

WASTLER: Ben, can you give me some real examples how this happens in the classroom? Just give me an experience.

SHAPIRO: Oh well, OK, so some offhand things that have happened in the classroom, for instance. I had one professor who said that Christianity was quote-unquote "harmful policy" because it says that the Earth is to be used, which is quite an interesting idea.

I also had a philosophy professor who said that September 11 could be justified by John Locke's concept of justified resistance. You see, for instance, the liberal agenda intruding into things like English where many, many readings are identified as homosexual allegories despite the fact that there's really no -- there's no homosexual undertone there.

For instance, I had one English professor read Henry James' "The Aspirin Papers" which is a story about a reporter attempting to dig up the story on an older -- on a dead guy. He read that as a homosexual allegory. So clearly the agenda is entering the classroom, and I think that it's a problem in that you're not hearing both sides of the story.

I'm calling for balance, I'm not calling for all universities to become conservative. I just want students to be able to hear both sides of the story, because it's really the apathetic students who are hurt by this.

Conservative students have always felt they're at a certain ideological advantage on campus. They come in, they hear liberal arguments, they have to develop good conservative arguments to combat those liberal arguments. Really, pressure does make coal into diamonds. But if you're talking about apathetic students, these are people who just want to go in the classroom, listen to what the professor says, spit it back out on tests, get As and go have a beer with their friends. How can you blame them for that? I certainly don't and I think that...

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: Well, that's the way most of us went through college. What are you going to do the rest of your life just out of curiosity?

SHAPIRO: I'm not sure at this point. I'm going to be at Harvard Law in the fall which should be an interesting experience. It really is like going from the frying pan into the fire.

CAFFERTY: You talk about a liberal place to spend some time, Harvard Law School might be one of the top two or three in the country, don't you think?

SHAPIRO: Yes, I'm thinking from there I'm going to have to go Cuba. I'm going from UCLA to Harvard Law and I don't know where to go from there.

LISOVICZ: Ben Shapiro, author of "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate American's Youth." Thank you so much for joining us, and good luck at Harvard Law.

SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.

LISOVICZ: Up ahead on IN THE MONEY, perfect hair and big muscles, see how a job in the extermination business can get you to the Olympics. We'll tell you the story of Maurice "Termite" Watkins.

And "The Stepford Wives" are back and as flawless as ever. Find out why the plastic suburbanites are part of a trend that is coming to a town near you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: In Iraq these days, not many fights are for fun, but that's starting to change. Like the country, the Iraqi Olympic boxing team is trying to rebuild and leading the charge is a most unlikely candidate. Maurice "Termite" Watkins is a former car salesman and exterminator from Texas. His new job, helping Iraq bring home some boxing gold from Athens this summer. And the "Termite" joins us now.

Welcome. I am told, that's even your wife calls you "Termite." So I will call you "Termite" as well. I love the story. You were a fumigator in Iraq and word got out that you used to be a contender.

MAURICE "TERMITE" WATKINS, IRAQI BOXING COACH: Yes, yes, ma'am. I used to be a contender. I tell you, what happened is actually the second day I was there, a British colonel came up to me and he says, who are you? And I said "Termite" Watkins. What do you do? I said I'm going to be doing your pest control. He said, well, you better do it good or they're going to send your so-and-so back. And so I said, I will do it good. And he says -- and I said, well, where are you from? He said, I'm from -- British, can't you tell? I said, no, sir, I couldn't or I wouldn't have asked you. He said why? Well, I said, they have a lot of good boxers that come from Britain. He says what do you know about boxing? I said, I know everything about boxing. And he says, did you ever fight? I said, yes, sir, I did. He says, were you any good. I said, yes, sir, I was good. And he says, have you ever trained anybody? I said, yes, sir, I have. He says, were you any good?

I said, I was the best. And he says, great, you meet me at 5:00 in the morning over at the heavy bag, you'll start training me. So that's when it started when I first went to Umm Qasr. About six months into the stay, actually a few weeks after -- into Umm Qasr, we went to al-Hilla, which is about a mile-and-a-half out of Babylon.

But about six months at Babylon. I had Colonel Bruce (ph) and Mr. Michael Gapeller (ph), who is leading the coalition of southern Iraq, come up to me and said, "Termite," we'd like for you to join CPA, would you like to? I said, well, of course I would.

About three weeks into that, Mr. Gapeller came up to me one morning, he says "Termite," what are the chances of putting together a boxing team and getting someone qualified for the Olympics? I said Mr. G, you have slim to none. I said, you may have a one in a million chance. He says, great! That's all we need, is we need the one chance! We don't need the million! And he pointed his finger and he says, I expect you to get this done.

WASTLER: So "Termite," tell me, are they any good? Are they going to be like contenders in the Olympics this year. Should the U.S. worry, that what I want to know?

WATKINS: Well, yes, they could because I'm training them. It takes an American to do this. My fighter is good. I have got one, Naja Ali (ph), that is going. And he is good. And if we can get past the corrupt judges -- and I'll say that right out here, the corrupt judges, if we can get past them, we will do fine. And all the corrupt judges, I'm looking at you. We're watching you.

CAFFERTY: What corrupt judges are talking about "Termite."

WATKINS: Well, I just went to Asia, we've been to the Philippines, we fought in the Philippine. We fought in China. We fought in Pakistan. And I was actually told some things that if I would have paid money and did this and did that, that my guys would stand a better chance of winning. But you know, I told them that didn't matter. We'd rather take the loss and keep our pride and our integrity. But watch out because we're coming.

CAFFERTY: Tell me about the kids you're coaching. They lived under Saddam Hussein. Some of their families may have been affected by his brutality. The whole society over there had been under his boot print for 30, 40 years. Now you've got kids who you work with every day who have a chance to go to the Olympic Games in Athens. Talk to me a little about the impact of the overthrow of that government and what the folks there think about what's happening in their lives these days?

WATKINS: Well, first of all, I want to say that the people there, the majority of them are very happy that we're there. As far as the athletes, I had about two weeks to sit down and talk with them on a daily basis of why they deserve this opportunity and why this is their time to shine and it was a chance of a lifetime. And so we got to bond during this time, and I got to implant in their head that they do deserve it. And, of course, or unfortunately we only have one person going to the Olympics, but we thank God for that. His name is Naja and he is good.

LISOVICZ: Hey, "Termite," you know, I got an idea for you, why don't you paint the face of Saddam Hussein on the speed ball, because you know, then like -- take out their aggression. Can you give us an idea though, in addition to that suggestion, what's it's like to train in Iraq. From what I understand for instance your boxers don't run outside. It's just too dangerous, you have to keep them running their laps inside, as an example?

WATKINS: Well, we do, we train inside -- the running part is inside a basketball gymnasium. We do run in there for our safety, and of course we train inside another building that's got a wall around it. We train there for our safety. It's unusual, I must say, it's unusual when you have to have security and big guns around you going to and from your job, which is -- training is my job.

But you know, I must say that I don't really worry about it because I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. And you know, I'm happy. I just don't think twice about it. Now I've also got to say that for all the bad stuff that we talk about, we as a whole, there is so much more good going on that the world needs to know. The schools that are being completed, there's so much good, so it's not all bad.

CAFFERTY: Good. And the other thing that's good is having as you a guest on IN THE MONEY. And I appreciate your time and thoughts. And we wish you good luck when it comes time to go to the Olympic Games. We'll be keeping an eye on you.

WATKINS: Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure and honor to be here with you.

CAFFERTY: All right, partner. Maurice "Termite" Watkins, coach of the Iraqi Olympic boxing team. A year ago who'd have thunk we would have been sitting here talking about the Olympic boxing team from Iraq, but we are.

Time for a break. When IN THE MONEY continues, once is not enough, see why the major movie studios are taking some celluloid classics for a second spin around the block.

And if you'd seen something on this program that makes you take pen to paper, don't, send us an e-mail instead, the address is inthemoney@cnn.com.

We shall be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(INTERRUPTED FOR LIVE EVENT)

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Aired June 5, 2004 - 12:59   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Here are the headlines.
Worrisome news about former President Ronald Reagan. Sources familiar with his situation say the 93-year-old former president's health is deteriorating. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about a decade ago. Sources say the White House has been told Reagan's death could come soon or it could be in weeks or months.

President Bush is in Paris today meeting with President Jacques Chirac. The stop is part of Mr. Bush's three-day European trip, part PR tour and part World War II remembrance. Mr. Bush is trying to rally support for rebuilding efforts in Iraq. He's also commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day which is tomorrow.

Thousands of D-Day veterans already are gathering in northern France to mark the 60th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Ceremonies being held today and tomorrow are paying tribute to the Allied troops who gave their lives to liberate Europe. About 250,000 Allied troops were killed in battles in northern France. More news in 30 minutes. Now time for IN THE MONEY.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the program. I'm Jack Cafferty. Coming up on today's edition of IN THE MONEY, the long good-bye. The Pentagon sending soldiers back to Iraq even though they've already served their full term. Find out what the guys in the trenches are saying, some of it is probably not worthy of a family television program.

Plus learning to love outsourcing, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist on the op-ed page of "The New York Times," Thomas Friedman is with us and looking at the job migration to India. And we're going to see why he thinks it might be good for America.

Plus liberal arts, we'll speak with a young author who says leftists are running the show at America's colleges. Joining me today, a couple of IN THE MONEY veterans, CNN correspondent Susan Lisovicz, and sitting in for Andy Serwer this week, Allen Wastler, managing editor of money.com.

More good news for the Bush administration in this election year came in the form of that jobs report Friday which came in at a higher number than anybody had estimated. But even more significantly perhaps, they went back and revised up the previous month's numbers, and now the big American jobs machine seems to be up and running.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You can take "jobless" out of "recovery," because that is over, and everybody had been saying well, that jobs frequently lag when an economy recovers. You've seen that now, but there are some concerns because with oil, how much that will cut into corporate profits with other commodity prices increasing whether, in fact, companies will be inspired to keep hiring at a very good rate though for three months, nearly a million jobs created.

ALLEN WASTLER, MONEY.COM: There's another dark cloud if you're looking at the election scenario. Yes, the job numbers are going up, but if you look at the latest confidence surveys, in there they ask a question, well, how do you feel? Are jobs easy or hard to come by or hard to come by? And people still think they are hard to come by.

And research shows there's a lag effect between when you start seeing the jobs come in and people actually feel like things are recovered. It's usually about half a year to a year. That puts it -- election, still in play.

LISOVICZ: And then also it's pretty much a given now that interest rates will rise later this month, and what that does to consumer spending and corporate spending.

CAFFERTY: Although they're at such a very, very low level, the lowest they've been in decades, that even if they went up 100 basis points, I think the Fed funds rate would still be at, what, 2 or 2.25 percent, something.

All right. Things to keep eye on as we go forward, when Johnny comes marching home, he might be told to turn around and go marching right back to Iraq. A top Pentagon officer announced this week the Army is expanding what it calls its stop-loss program. That means thousands of soldiers due to hang up their guns won't be allowed to leave the service with combat veterans deployed back in the combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Andrew Exum is the author of a book called "This Man's Army" about his experiences as a platoon leader in Afghanistan. And he joins us today with his thoughts on the stop-loss program.

Andrew, it's nice to have you with us, thanks for joining us.

ANDREW EXUM, "THIS MAN'S ARMY": Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: Give us a thumbnail of the stop-loss program and how it works.

EXUM: Well, basically, the stop-loss comes about through an act that President Bush signed on September 14, 2001, that authorizes military commanders to hold troops in the service past the time they're supposed to leave. The military says what this does is it gives some cohesion to the forces that are going to go and fight.

In other words, the units that trained together will be the same ones that go to Iraq and Afghanistan together. The problem is, is that stop-loss runs contrary to the notion of a volunteer military. So if we're going to say that our all-volunteer military can still meet the needs of Iraq and Afghanistan, we're going to have to really look hard at this stop-loss program as well as the activation of the individual ready reserve, because, quite frankly, those seem to me to be an admission that the active duty military isn't getting the job done.

LISOVICZ: Andrew, what are the biggest problems with keeping these troops on these extended rotations in very hostile environments, not only politically, of course, but physically?

EXUM: Well, obviously, the big problems you're going to see are in morale, retention and reenlistment. I think right now, the soldiers that are going, for instance, from 2nd Brigade of Ft. Drum, these guys are going to Iraq for upwards of a year. These guys have already done two combat deployments to Afghanistan, and a lot of these guys are due to leave the Army this summer, for instance.

I mean, these guys can't help but feel that they're being let down by the Army and also let down by their civilian leadership. Earlier this week I was happy to hear Senator Kerry address this issue and I'm kind of waiting for President Bush to address it as well and see what he has to say.

WASTLER: Andrew, a few weeks ago I was reading Hal Moore's book, "We Were Once and Young," about his experiences in the Vietnam War. One of his big criticisms in that is that the military rotated people in and out of Vietnam too quickly. You couldn't keep the experience that you needed to keep combat basically on going forward. What do you think about that in the context of this situation?

EXUM: Well, I think it's a legitimate point. I know that Joe Galloway and Hal Moore, those are two men I really respect, the two men that wrote that book. However, a lot of people are saying that the 12-month rotation to Iraq is really a morale-draining rotation. Keep in mind that this is a volunteer military so guys in the 3rd Infantry Division who went into Iraq for 12 to 15 months are turning right back around and 12 months later doing it again. That has a devastating effect on families and it's a lot more devastating to say a six-month rotation which was the norm before September 11.

CAFFERTY: Yes, but isn't that exactly the point, it's not anymore before September 11. We are at war. There were 3000 citizens killed here, and the volunteer military is still there to provide for the nation's defense and to do whatever it is, is deemed required to protect for the security of this country. I mean, we've got a war going on.

EXUM: Sure, but it's like you said, the volunteer military is there to do that. And right now, this isn't really a true volunteer military. So if we're going to say that after September 11 we need to throw the rule book out and come up with a new set of rules to play by, then we also need to look hard at if our voluntary military is getting the job done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look, our civilian planners did not expect to have 138,000 troops in Iraq at this point. They thought this was going to be a war without cost. And it's important that the civilian populous needs to understand this is not a war without cost, and right now the guys holding the bag for this Iraq war are the back-to-duty military.

LISOVICZ: Hey Andrew, I'm curious, because this war is proceeding longer than anyone expected because it is technically a volunteer army, and so many of the soldiers come from the National Guard, what are the requirements for their employers here? Must they stick with their payments, their salaries to these people to make sure that their families are fed here while they're overseas.

EXUM: That's a good question. I'd probably be the wrong Exum to as that. My cousin is a sergeant major in the National Guard and he could probably give you a better answer than I can. I know that there are certain laws that are enacted that allow -- require employers to protect National Guardsmen and Reservists as they go overseas.

But another good question there is what if that person is self- employed. What happens to his business then? And certainly I think that it definitely does affect their careers. On the other hand, though, we're talking about really two different things when you're talking about active duty and National Guard and Reserve. Really...

WASTLER: Andrew...

EXUM: Go ahead.

WASTLER: I noticed today or this week also the Army is redeploying units from Germany as well. And there has been a lot of discussion that maybe our military force is spread too thin. Do you think it is spread too thin and do you think maybe we need something like a draft?

EXUM: Well, I think it's obvious that it's spread too thin. Whether or not we need a draft is another issue altogether. I think that one of the more intelligent comments that has been made is that after 1991, after the first Persian Gulf War, after the Cold War, we really had an opportunity to do some things that we just didn't carry out, and we decided to scale back our military.

Really, when Dick Cheney was the secretary of defense, And continuing through the Clinton years, and that's something that we didn't address. And perhaps after September 11 we should have sat down and said, OK, what are our foreign policy commitments going to be over the next few years, and do we need a larger military? Certainly it's spread too thin, and I think that the stop-loss policies, the activation of troops in Korea, as well as the activation of individual ready reserve are all indicators that our military can't really get the job done as it's currently set up.

CAFFERTY: Yes, on the other hand, I don't think anybody would have been able to sit down and say, OK, our priorities are going to include a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There's just no way to predict that stuff. What do we do now? How do you fix it. They put you in charge tomorrow, fix it, how do you do that?

EXUM: Well, yes, these are all problems that are way above my pay grade. I think the first thing that I would do though is -- and the important thing is for our national civilian leaders to really start talking about this and be honest with the public before the November elections about some of the long-term strains that the military and that the civilian populous is going to be under.

What I would do is obviously I think you have to increase the size of the military. Now that's not an easy fix, that's something you have to do over a long period of time, but it's something that really we should start sooner rather than later. As far as a draft is concerned, there are a lot of bad options that we have, and really the option is to look for the least bad options, and maybe stop-loss is that. Other options are a draft or perhaps scaling back our commitments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

CAFFERTY: Andrew Exum wrote the book "This Man's Army." My favorite idea that you came up with is that the politicians be honest with the voters in an election year.

EXUM: Certainly.

CAFFERTY: Now there's a concept.

LISOVICZ: Novel.

CAFFERTY: From your mouth to God's ears, Andrew. Thank you for being with us, I appreciate it.

Yes, sir, thank you.

CAFFERTY: Coming up on IN THE MONEY as we continue, Bangalore USA. Outsourcing is filling American jobs with Indian know-how, see why that could actually help the United States.

Also ahead, caps on the left. We'll speak with a young author who says liberal teachers are taking their beliefs into the college classrooms all across this country and their message is sticking with students.

Plus, the exterminator. "Termite" Watkins is what they call him. He went to Iraq to kill bugs. That's why he got the name "Termite." He wound up running Iraq's Olympic boxing team. He's a guest, and I can't wait to talk to him. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: The outsourcing of white collar American jobs to India has been a hot-button issue over the last year, and while many journalists have focused on the effects of the outsourcing here in the United States, the Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist for "The New York Times," Thomas Friedman, has decided to take a look at outsourcing and how it's changed things in places like India.

Friedman is hosting a documentary on the Discovery Channel entitled "The Other Side of Outsourcing." I talked with him earlier this week and began by asking him about the impact of outsourcing over there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS FRIEDMAN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": When the jobs land over there, Jack, there are incredible opportunities. Indians make -- the standard of living there is about one fifth of ours. So when you take what is a low-paying, low-prestige job in America like a call center job and you send it over to India, it converts into a high-prestige, high-wage job over there.

People supporting large extended families on these salaries, becoming huge consumers of American goods: Our exports to India have been rising rather dramatically as a result of it; and most importantly, giving these people a sense of dignity and self-worth. It's not an argument for we should send all our jobs over there, but it is saying that when jobs move over there as part of the natural evolution of technology in these things, they do have a very positive impact.

CAFFERTY: The natural evolution of technology, and in the corporate parlance, the pursuit of cheaper labor. What do you say to the American worker who feels betrayed and loses his job in a country that used to have some sense of loyalty toward its employees. These people feel like the pursuit of a better bottom line and a higher stock price is really all that matters and we send these jobs to India because we can get them done for less money?

FRIEDMAN: Right. I say two things really to that person. One is when you are unemployed, when you personally are unemployed, the unemployment rate isn't 4 or 5 percent, it's 100 percent. And I think we as a society and a government have a responsibility to design policies that are not only going to cushion people from the effects of these kinds of rapid shocks, but also empower them with the skills needed to move up the ladder.

That is the only alternative, I think building walls is not one that would benefit the society as a whole. But we have got to look at the impact on individuals and make sure we've got policies designed to help them. At the same time, though, this phenomena of outsourcing is really just a small slice of a much bigger phenomena.

And the bigger phenomena is that we're moving into a world that is increasingly flat, and where the playing field is increasingly leveled, where there's now the technology to disaggregate any job and send this function to India, this function to Boston, this function to Costa Rica, and then re-aggregate them at headquarters. That is the world we're going into, and we're all going to have to adjust to that. I wouldn't be surprised if my columns are edited in a few years in Bangalore.

CAFFERTY: I called one of the well-known computer service centers a few weeks ago, and I could tell within 10 seconds of the conversation starting that the call was not being answered in Texas where this company is headquartered. Are they making any progress in the call centers? Because I had just an awful time with this guy on the phone. He didn't understand me, I didn't understand him. We struggled with the language barrier. And in the end, I'm sure he was frustrated and I was angry. FRIEDMAN: You know, I think it's a good point. Several people as I've gone around talking about this and about the dock, have made that same point, they've had really bad experiences with it. Other people have had good experiences. But I think the point you're raising is an important one.

If this starts to not work for people, if it becomes -- that if -- one of the things we profile in the documentary, we go to a language neutralization class, accent neutralization class, excuse me, where Indians are taught to speak unaccented English for both British and American markets. And if this doesn't work for people, if people can't understand the technical helper on the other end, then this outsourcing end of it, the call centers, they're not going to be around for long.

CAFFERTY: All right. Let me, while we have you here, switch gears and get you to bring us up-to-date on your thinking, vis-a-vis, the war in Iraq and the march toward the handover of political sovereignty on June 30. It was a busy week last week, the Governing Council dissolved. The new government was named. The president, the prime minister put in place. Give me your take on the way things are beginning to evolve over there if you would?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, Jack, we've had so much bad news for so many months out of Iraq. As someone who believed in the possibility that this war could work and if done the right way and tilt the Iraq in the right direction and hopefully the wider Middle East, we finally had some good news.

And it is the appointment of this Iraqi cabinet with the help of the U.N. that has now been blessed by Ayatollah Sistani, the most important Shiite religious cleric in Iraq. And I think we have in place a decent Iraqi government: widely diverse, really representative of the country.

And I think there is a decent chance that this decent government can begin to build a wider support in the country. The real trick going forward is they're going to need our protection to some extent, and our enemies there, our enemies and the enemies of this government are going to try to attack American troops in hopes that we crack down on them and they will hope accidentally kill Iraqis, and that will then undermine and delegitimize this new government. And how we are smart about facing that challenge is going to be the key thing I think as we go forward here.

CAFFERTY: How would you expect we might have to approach it differently than the way we have been in order to prevent the very kind of thing you're talking about?

FRIEDMAN: I think we've got to get Iraqis -- on one hand, we've got to get Iraqis out in front as much as we can on the security side, and on the other hand, we have to get in the background. We have got to get over the horizon as much as we possibly can, and how we balance all that because you don't want to leave a vacuum. But we need to get over the horizon as much as we can. CAFFERTY: Let me get your thoughts on what seems to me to be a very aggressive timetable. There's talk about getting American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006 perhaps, having elections as early as next year. There is no trained Iraqi security force of any size or ability that's ready to assume the duties of 135,000 American soldiers that are doing it now. Is it realistic to expect that within another 18 months or so we can truly say "mission accomplished" in Iraq, or is that wishful thinking at this point?

FRIEDMAN: You know, I don't know whether the right date is 12 months or 18 months. All I know is this, that the sooner Iraqis have elections and really produce a sovereign -- an authentic government of their own, I think the sooner that government is going want to us to leave.

Because it is not going to want to be "protected," quote, unquote by the United States of America. We're too radioactive. And I believe the exit strategy is really Iraqi elections. Because once those elections happen, they're going to ask us to step into the background and eventually step out of their country. Now in between, we really have to have a crash course in getting the Iraqi army up and running.

CAFFERTY: All right, I told you before we started this when we were just chatting that I'm a huge fan, and I'll say it on the program as well, I am.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you so much.

CAFFERTY: You are one of the great voices of reason in American journalism and it's a treat to have you on this program, IN THE MONEY. And I hope you'll come back and do this again at some point.

FRIEDMAN: I sure will. Thank you so much.

CAFFERTY: All right. Tom Friedman, of "The New York Times." Time for a break now, but there is more ahead on IN THE MONEY.

Coming up, mogul on the move. Viacom's Mel Karmazin looking for a new gig. We'll see whether the Street likes the sound of that and maybe whether or not Michael Eisner over at Disney likes the sound of that.

Plus, sting like a termite. We're going to meet Maurice "Termite" Watkins, he's a bug masher who found a whole new job of training Olympic boxers in Iraq.

And logo-a-go-go. See if you can tell the colonel from the king as we check your eye for a fast food logo. Stick around for the "Fun Site of the Week," still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: Now let's take a look at the week's top stories in our "Money Minute." Viacom President and Chief Operating Officer Mel Karmazin stepped down, the stormy relationship with Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone finally coming to an end. Viacom quickly replaced Karmazin with two other men, CBS chief Les Moonves and MTV boss Tom Freston. Viacom shares fell slightly on the news. We'll have more on that in a moment.

Crude oil prices rode the roller coaster this week as traders reacted to new terror threats and promises of increased production. But OPEC's promise to raise production by 2 million barrels a day fell half a million barrels short of the number Wall Street was hoping for.

And the pain of paying for colleges, reaching higher up on the economic food chain. A new report shows the number of full-time college students taking tuition loans has risen by 50 percent since 1990. Most of that increase in borrowing came from upper income families. Seventy-one percent of all college students are now getting some kind of financial aid. That's up from 54 percent in 1990.

Now back to Viacom and the sudden departure of Mel Karmazin. He's not the only one who's leaving. Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone announced he will be out the door within the next three years. Viacom, CBS and MTV divisions are doing fairly well, but Viacom's stock is way off its year-highs and now there are definitely questions about the company's future. Viacom is our "Stock of the Week."

CAFFERTY: So the question is how big an impact has Mel Karmazin had on that company? It's obviously a huge place, and he's had great success in the broadcasting parts of what Viacom is involved in, and whether or not his absence will be the kind of thing that translates to a decline in the stock price. The early returns are it's not going to matter.

LISOVICZ: Well, there are couple of things there. One thing that Viacom can really boast about is that it always had a deep, deep talent pool when it came to managing. Mel isn't the only one, Tom Freston there as well from MTV, and Les Moonves as well; Sherry Lansing at Paramount and others.

So these were vying for that job. The other thing is that Mel was vulnerable recently because the lagging factor in Viacom's performance was radio. So he was a little vulnerable. There are some reports out there he wasn't going to get the number one job, and that he just decided to exit early.

But I had an interview with him, as you may recall, in November, and he said he just re-upped the three-year contract. He said everything was fine with Sumner, contrary to all these other reports, and he said that he really didn't want to go any other place, any other company.

WASTLER: Well, you pointed the radio is sort of a weak point for him. But the thing is, his departure is likely to make it more of a weak point revenue-wise, because he was sort of the protector of Howard Stern, one of their big moneymakers there.

LISOVICZ: And Imus.

WASTLER: And Imus. LISOVICZ: And you have got the FCC now.

WASTLER: And you've got the FCC breathing down on everybody, and Karmazin was there, saying hey, radio has got an on-off switch, right? You can you deal with it. And now he's not there, you kind of wonder if Viacom is going to knuckle under and then as an investors, you look at that and like, hey, you may not agree with it or what not, but it makes a lot of money.

(CROSSTALK)

CAFFERTY: The other unanswered question has to do with what happens when Sumner Redstone leaves. There is some talk that his daughter might in fact replace him as opposed to one of the gentleman you were talking about or...

LISOVICZ: That's -- and she's got a growing job at the company. And I think she recently took an apartment here in New York. So it's going to be a dramatic showdown, there's no question about it, because Les Moonves resuscitated CBS, really revitalized it under his tenure. And then you have Tom Freston, what he did with MTV, it's a global brand. So these guys have plans.

CAFFERTY: Except they probably won't be doing the Super Bowl halftime show again.

LISOVICZ: I think not. I think not.

CAFFERTY: All right. We shall see. We're going to clear the decks for a sales pitch of two of our own, put a nickel or dime in the Time Warmer coffers.

Coming up after the break, liberal creep, that's not an insult or a nickname for a person. It's a phenomenon. We're going to talk to an author who says left is right in today's college classrooms..

Plus, how to get to Athens by using your fists. We'll speak to an American who went to Baghdad to squash bugs and wound up coaching an Olympic boxing team.

And whatever you say, dear. Those man-pleasing "Stepford Wives" are back along with a bunch of other Hollywood retreads. We'll find out why last century's hot ideas are this summer's hot ideas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. Back to more of IN THE MONEY after a look at the headlines.

Former President Ronald Reagan may be close to death. Sources familiar with the situation say his health is deteriorating. Reagan, who is 93, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about 10 years ago. Sources say the White House has been told to expect his death, quote, "soon or it could be in week or months."

President Bush is in Paris meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, one of his staunchest critic on the war in Iraq. Tomorrow President Bush goes to Normandy to mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

In Baghdad an American soldier was killed this morning when a roadside bomb flipped over a military vehicle. Three other American troops were wounded. This brings the death toll for American troops in Iraq to 826. Of that number, 607 died in combat.

In Najaf, peace may finally be kicking in. A coalition spokesman says the situation in the holy city has improved significantly. Dan Senor said members of the Mehdi military are withdrawing from Najaf and Kufa after a truce was reached with a Shiite cleric.

More news in 30 minutes. Now back more of IN THE MONEY.

CAFFERTY: Well, for years, the news media has been accused of being too liberal. Now it looks like American universities are coming under the same sort of attack, I'm not sure how new that phenomenon is, but there is some attention being focused on it. My next guest says college campuses are dominated by liberal professors who brainwash students with their left wing ideas on everything from taxes to politics to art. Ben Shapiro says he experienced this firsthand as an undergraduate in UCLA and he's written a book called "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth." Brian joins us from Los Angeles to talk more about this.

Welcome to the program.

BEN SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, "BRAINWASHED": Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: What leads to the liberal academic environment on the nation's college campuses? It has been around I would suggest for longer than you have certainly and maybe even as long as I have, which is a lot longer than you have. But what is it that creates this sort of atmosphere?

SHAPIRO: Well, I think that a lot of professors tend to be anti- establishment in general. And that's why you have, for instance, in the former Soviet Union, a lot of professors were very, very anti- communist. So the establishment in the United States and the Constitution in particular tends to be a conservative document. So you tend to have a lot of liberalism on college campuses.

And I think that that also -- as you said, I think that it goes all the way back to the 1930s. If you're talking about opposition to World War II, you saw that there were massive protests against World War II on university campuses. Irving Kristol, who is now a conservative, said that when he was in CCNY in the 1930s, he didn't know one conservative and he was a socialist at that point. So CCNY had about 20,000 students. So clearly this is a phenomenon that's been around for a while.

LISOVICZ: Right, and Ben, isn't that part of a college experience, is you become an adult, and basically you start -- you're expected or professors try to teach you the value of critical thinking, not to just take everything spoon-fed, but to challenge certain doctrines not to accept the status quo, isn't there a value in that? SHAPIRO: There's an absolute value in that. I think that that's what they think they're doing, I don't think that's what they're actually doing. If they're talking about challenging certain values, they should also be willing to challenge their own values in the classroom. And I think that that's not what's going on in the classroom.

Typically you have a liberal professor who can either indoctrinate by omission of certain facts, which does happen quite a bit. I mean, professors control what's on the syllabus. They control what you hear and see in the classroom. So if you're not willing to go outside the classroom and do research yourself, then you're not going to hear the other side of the story. But clearly you're not getting both sides of the story and you can't really develop critical thinking skills in my opinion unless you're hearing both sides of the story and you're forced to make a decision between both sides based on evidence from both sides.

WASTLER: Ben, can you give me some real examples how this happens in the classroom? Just give me an experience.

SHAPIRO: Oh well, OK, so some offhand things that have happened in the classroom, for instance. I had one professor who said that Christianity was quote-unquote "harmful policy" because it says that the Earth is to be used, which is quite an interesting idea.

I also had a philosophy professor who said that September 11 could be justified by John Locke's concept of justified resistance. You see, for instance, the liberal agenda intruding into things like English where many, many readings are identified as homosexual allegories despite the fact that there's really no -- there's no homosexual undertone there.

For instance, I had one English professor read Henry James' "The Aspirin Papers" which is a story about a reporter attempting to dig up the story on an older -- on a dead guy. He read that as a homosexual allegory. So clearly the agenda is entering the classroom, and I think that it's a problem in that you're not hearing both sides of the story.

I'm calling for balance, I'm not calling for all universities to become conservative. I just want students to be able to hear both sides of the story, because it's really the apathetic students who are hurt by this.

Conservative students have always felt they're at a certain ideological advantage on campus. They come in, they hear liberal arguments, they have to develop good conservative arguments to combat those liberal arguments. Really, pressure does make coal into diamonds. But if you're talking about apathetic students, these are people who just want to go in the classroom, listen to what the professor says, spit it back out on tests, get As and go have a beer with their friends. How can you blame them for that? I certainly don't and I think that...

(LAUGHTER) CAFFERTY: Well, that's the way most of us went through college. What are you going to do the rest of your life just out of curiosity?

SHAPIRO: I'm not sure at this point. I'm going to be at Harvard Law in the fall which should be an interesting experience. It really is like going from the frying pan into the fire.

CAFFERTY: You talk about a liberal place to spend some time, Harvard Law School might be one of the top two or three in the country, don't you think?

SHAPIRO: Yes, I'm thinking from there I'm going to have to go Cuba. I'm going from UCLA to Harvard Law and I don't know where to go from there.

LISOVICZ: Ben Shapiro, author of "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate American's Youth." Thank you so much for joining us, and good luck at Harvard Law.

SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.

LISOVICZ: Up ahead on IN THE MONEY, perfect hair and big muscles, see how a job in the extermination business can get you to the Olympics. We'll tell you the story of Maurice "Termite" Watkins.

And "The Stepford Wives" are back and as flawless as ever. Find out why the plastic suburbanites are part of a trend that is coming to a town near you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: In Iraq these days, not many fights are for fun, but that's starting to change. Like the country, the Iraqi Olympic boxing team is trying to rebuild and leading the charge is a most unlikely candidate. Maurice "Termite" Watkins is a former car salesman and exterminator from Texas. His new job, helping Iraq bring home some boxing gold from Athens this summer. And the "Termite" joins us now.

Welcome. I am told, that's even your wife calls you "Termite." So I will call you "Termite" as well. I love the story. You were a fumigator in Iraq and word got out that you used to be a contender.

MAURICE "TERMITE" WATKINS, IRAQI BOXING COACH: Yes, yes, ma'am. I used to be a contender. I tell you, what happened is actually the second day I was there, a British colonel came up to me and he says, who are you? And I said "Termite" Watkins. What do you do? I said I'm going to be doing your pest control. He said, well, you better do it good or they're going to send your so-and-so back. And so I said, I will do it good.

And he says -- and I said, well, where are you from? He said, I'm from -- British, can't you tell? I said, no, sir, I couldn't or I wouldn't have asked you. He said why? Well, I said, they have a lot of good boxers that come from Britain. He says what do you know about boxing? I said, I know everything about boxing. And he says, did you ever fight? I said, yes, sir, I did. He says, were you any good. I said, yes, sir, I was good. And he says, have you ever trained anybody? I said, yes, sir, I have. He says, were you any good?

I said, I was the best. And he says, great, you meet me at 5:00 in the morning over at the heavy bag, you'll start training me. So that's when it started when I first went to Umm Qasr. About six months into the stay, actually a few weeks after -- into Umm Qasr, we went to al-Hilla, which is about a mile-and-a-half out of Babylon.

But about six months at Babylon. I had Colonel Bruce (ph) and Mr. Michael Gapeller (ph), who is leading the coalition of southern Iraq, come up to me and said, "Termite," we'd like for you to join CPA, would you like to? I said, well, of course I would.

About three weeks into that, Mr. Gapeller came up to me one morning, he says "Termite," what are the chances of putting together a boxing team and getting someone qualified for the Olympics? I said Mr. G, you have slim to none. I said, you may have a one in a million chance. He says, great! That's all we need, is we need the one chance! We don't need the million! And he pointed his finger and he says, I expect you to get this done.

WASTLER: So "Termite," tell me, are they any good? Are they going to be like contenders in the Olympics this year. Should the U.S. worry, that what I want to know?

WATKINS: Well, yes, they could because I'm training them. It takes an American to do this. My fighter is good. I have got one, Naja Ali (ph), that is going. And he is good. And if we can get past the corrupt judges -- and I'll say that right out here, the corrupt judges, if we can get past them, we will do fine. And all the corrupt judges, I'm looking at you. We're watching you.

CAFFERTY: What corrupt judges are talking about "Termite."

WATKINS: Well, I just went to Asia, we've been to the Philippines, we fought in the Philippine. We fought in China. We fought in Pakistan. And I was actually told some things that if I would have paid money and did this and did that, that my guys would stand a better chance of winning. But you know, I told them that didn't matter. We'd rather take the loss and keep our pride and our integrity. But watch out because we're coming.

CAFFERTY: Tell me about the kids you're coaching. They lived under Saddam Hussein. Some of their families may have been affected by his brutality. The whole society over there had been under his boot print for 30, 40 years. Now you've got kids who you work with every day who have a chance to go to the Olympic Games in Athens. Talk to me a little about the impact of the overthrow of that government and what the folks there think about what's happening in their lives these days?

WATKINS: Well, first of all, I want to say that the people there, the majority of them are very happy that we're there. As far as the athletes, I had about two weeks to sit down and talk with them on a daily basis of why they deserve this opportunity and why this is their time to shine and it was a chance of a lifetime. And so we got to bond during this time, and I got to implant in their head that they do deserve it. And, of course, or unfortunately we only have one person going to the Olympics, but we thank God for that. His name is Naja and he is good.

LISOVICZ: Hey, "Termite," you know, I got an idea for you, why don't you paint the face of Saddam Hussein on the speed ball, because you know, then like -- take out their aggression. Can you give us an idea though, in addition to that suggestion, what's it's like to train in Iraq. From what I understand for instance your boxers don't run outside. It's just too dangerous, you have to keep them running their laps inside, as an example?

WATKINS: Well, we do, we train inside -- the running part is inside a basketball gymnasium. We do run in there for our safety, and of course we train inside another building that's got a wall around it. We train there for our safety. It's unusual, I must say, it's unusual when you have to have security and big guns around you going to and from your job, which is -- training is my job.

But you know, I must say that I don't really worry about it because I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. And you know, I'm happy. I just don't think twice about it. Now I've also got to say that for all the bad stuff that we talk about, we as a whole, there is so much more good going on that the world needs to know. The schools that are being completed, there's so much good, so it's not all bad.

CAFFERTY: Good. And the other thing that's good is having as you a guest on IN THE MONEY. And I appreciate your time and thoughts. And we wish you good luck when it comes time to go to the Olympic Games. We'll be keeping an eye on you.

WATKINS: Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure and honor to be here with you.

CAFFERTY: All right, partner. Maurice "Termite" Watkins, coach of the Iraqi Olympic boxing team. A year ago who'd have thunk we would have been sitting here talking about the Olympic boxing team from Iraq, but we are.

Time for a break. When IN THE MONEY continues, once is not enough, see why the major movie studios are taking some celluloid classics for a second spin around the block.

And if you'd seen something on this program that makes you take pen to paper, don't, send us an e-mail instead, the address is inthemoney@cnn.com.

We shall be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(INTERRUPTED FOR LIVE EVENT)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. Back to more of IN THE MONEY after a look at the headlines.

Former President Ronald Reagan may be close to death. Sources familiar with the situation say his health is deteriorating. Reagan, who is 93, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about 10 years ago. Sources say the White House has been told to expect his death, quote, "soon or it could be in week or months."

President Bush is in Paris meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, one of his staunchest critic on the war in Iraq. Tomorrow President Bush goes to Normandy to mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

In Baghdad an American soldier was killed this morning when a roadside bomb flipped over a military vehicle. Three other American troops were wounded. This brings the death toll for American troops in Iraq to 826. Of that number, 607 died in combat.

In Najaf, peace may finally be kicking in. A coalition spokesman says the situation in the holy city has improved significantly. Dan Senor said members of the Mehdi military are withdrawing from Najaf and Kufa after a truce was reached with a Shiite cleric.

More news in 30 minutes. Now back more of IN THE MONEY.

CAFFERTY: Well, for years, the news media has been accused of being too liberal. Now it looks like American universities are coming under the same sort of attack, I'm not sure how new that phenomenon is, but there is some attention being focused on it. My next guest says college campuses are dominated by liberal professors who brainwash students with their left wing ideas on everything from taxes to politics to art. Ben Shapiro says he experienced this firsthand as an undergraduate in UCLA and he's written a book called "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth." Brian joins us from Los Angeles to talk more about this.

Welcome to the program.

BEN SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, "BRAINWASHED": Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: What leads to the liberal academic environment on the nation's college campuses? It has been around I would suggest for longer than you have certainly and maybe even as long as I have, which is a lot longer than you have. But what is it that creates this sort of atmosphere?

SHAPIRO: Well, I think that a lot of professors tend to be anti- establishment in general. And that's why you have, for instance, in the former Soviet Union, a lot of professors were very, very anti- communist. So the establishment in the United States and the Constitution in particular tends to be a conservative document. So you tend to have a lot of liberalism on college campuses.

And I think that that also -- as you said, I think that it goes all the way back to the 1930s. If you're talking about opposition to World War II, you saw that there were massive protests against World War II on university campuses. Irving Kristol, who is now a conservative, said that when he was in CCNY in the 1930s, he didn't know one conservative and he was a socialist at that point. So CCNY had about 20,000 students. So clearly this is a phenomenon that's been around for a while. LISOVICZ: Right, and Ben, isn't that part of a college experience, is you become an adult, and basically you start -- you're expected or professors try to teach you the value of critical thinking, not to just take everything spoon-fed, but to challenge certain doctrines not to accept the status quo, isn't there a value in that?

SHAPIRO: There's an absolute value in that. I think that that's what they think they're doing, I don't think that's what they're actually doing. If they're talking about challenging certain values, they should also be willing to challenge their own values in the classroom. And I think that that's not what's going on in the classroom.

Typically you have a liberal professor who can either indoctrinate by omission of certain facts, which does happen quite a bit. I mean, professors control what's on the syllabus. They control what you hear and see in the classroom. So if you're not willing to go outside the classroom and do research yourself, then you're not going to hear the other side of the story. But clearly you're not getting both sides of the story and you can't really develop critical thinking skills in my opinion unless you're hearing both sides of the story and you're forced to make a decision between both sides based on evidence from both sides.

WASTLER: Ben, can you give me some real examples how this happens in the classroom? Just give me an experience.

SHAPIRO: Oh well, OK, so some offhand things that have happened in the classroom, for instance. I had one professor who said that Christianity was quote-unquote "harmful policy" because it says that the Earth is to be used, which is quite an interesting idea.

I also had a philosophy professor who said that September 11 could be justified by John Locke's concept of justified resistance. You see, for instance, the liberal agenda intruding into things like English where many, many readings are identified as homosexual allegories despite the fact that there's really no -- there's no homosexual undertone there.

For instance, I had one English professor read Henry James' "The Aspirin Papers" which is a story about a reporter attempting to dig up the story on an older -- on a dead guy. He read that as a homosexual allegory. So clearly the agenda is entering the classroom, and I think that it's a problem in that you're not hearing both sides of the story.

I'm calling for balance, I'm not calling for all universities to become conservative. I just want students to be able to hear both sides of the story, because it's really the apathetic students who are hurt by this.

Conservative students have always felt they're at a certain ideological advantage on campus. They come in, they hear liberal arguments, they have to develop good conservative arguments to combat those liberal arguments. Really, pressure does make coal into diamonds. But if you're talking about apathetic students, these are people who just want to go in the classroom, listen to what the professor says, spit it back out on tests, get As and go have a beer with their friends. How can you blame them for that? I certainly don't and I think that...

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: Well, that's the way most of us went through college. What are you going to do the rest of your life just out of curiosity?

SHAPIRO: I'm not sure at this point. I'm going to be at Harvard Law in the fall which should be an interesting experience. It really is like going from the frying pan into the fire.

CAFFERTY: You talk about a liberal place to spend some time, Harvard Law School might be one of the top two or three in the country, don't you think?

SHAPIRO: Yes, I'm thinking from there I'm going to have to go Cuba. I'm going from UCLA to Harvard Law and I don't know where to go from there.

LISOVICZ: Ben Shapiro, author of "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate American's Youth." Thank you so much for joining us, and good luck at Harvard Law.

SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.

LISOVICZ: Up ahead on IN THE MONEY, perfect hair and big muscles, see how a job in the extermination business can get you to the Olympics. We'll tell you the story of Maurice "Termite" Watkins.

And "The Stepford Wives" are back and as flawless as ever. Find out why the plastic suburbanites are part of a trend that is coming to a town near you.

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LISOVICZ: In Iraq these days, not many fights are for fun, but that's starting to change. Like the country, the Iraqi Olympic boxing team is trying to rebuild and leading the charge is a most unlikely candidate. Maurice "Termite" Watkins is a former car salesman and exterminator from Texas. His new job, helping Iraq bring home some boxing gold from Athens this summer. And the "Termite" joins us now.

Welcome. I am told, that's even your wife calls you "Termite." So I will call you "Termite" as well. I love the story. You were a fumigator in Iraq and word got out that you used to be a contender.

MAURICE "TERMITE" WATKINS, IRAQI BOXING COACH: Yes, yes, ma'am. I used to be a contender. I tell you, what happened is actually the second day I was there, a British colonel came up to me and he says, who are you? And I said "Termite" Watkins. What do you do? I said I'm going to be doing your pest control. He said, well, you better do it good or they're going to send your so-and-so back. And so I said, I will do it good. And he says -- and I said, well, where are you from? He said, I'm from -- British, can't you tell? I said, no, sir, I couldn't or I wouldn't have asked you. He said why? Well, I said, they have a lot of good boxers that come from Britain. He says what do you know about boxing? I said, I know everything about boxing. And he says, did you ever fight? I said, yes, sir, I did. He says, were you any good. I said, yes, sir, I was good. And he says, have you ever trained anybody? I said, yes, sir, I have. He says, were you any good?

I said, I was the best. And he says, great, you meet me at 5:00 in the morning over at the heavy bag, you'll start training me. So that's when it started when I first went to Umm Qasr. About six months into the stay, actually a few weeks after -- into Umm Qasr, we went to al-Hilla, which is about a mile-and-a-half out of Babylon.

But about six months at Babylon. I had Colonel Bruce (ph) and Mr. Michael Gapeller (ph), who is leading the coalition of southern Iraq, come up to me and said, "Termite," we'd like for you to join CPA, would you like to? I said, well, of course I would.

About three weeks into that, Mr. Gapeller came up to me one morning, he says "Termite," what are the chances of putting together a boxing team and getting someone qualified for the Olympics? I said Mr. G, you have slim to none. I said, you may have a one in a million chance. He says, great! That's all we need, is we need the one chance! We don't need the million! And he pointed his finger and he says, I expect you to get this done.

WASTLER: So "Termite," tell me, are they any good? Are they going to be like contenders in the Olympics this year. Should the U.S. worry, that what I want to know?

WATKINS: Well, yes, they could because I'm training them. It takes an American to do this. My fighter is good. I have got one, Naja Ali (ph), that is going. And he is good. And if we can get past the corrupt judges -- and I'll say that right out here, the corrupt judges, if we can get past them, we will do fine. And all the corrupt judges, I'm looking at you. We're watching you.

CAFFERTY: What corrupt judges are talking about "Termite."

WATKINS: Well, I just went to Asia, we've been to the Philippines, we fought in the Philippine. We fought in China. We fought in Pakistan. And I was actually told some things that if I would have paid money and did this and did that, that my guys would stand a better chance of winning. But you know, I told them that didn't matter. We'd rather take the loss and keep our pride and our integrity. But watch out because we're coming.

CAFFERTY: Tell me about the kids you're coaching. They lived under Saddam Hussein. Some of their families may have been affected by his brutality. The whole society over there had been under his boot print for 30, 40 years. Now you've got kids who you work with every day who have a chance to go to the Olympic Games in Athens. Talk to me a little about the impact of the overthrow of that government and what the folks there think about what's happening in their lives these days?

WATKINS: Well, first of all, I want to say that the people there, the majority of them are very happy that we're there. As far as the athletes, I had about two weeks to sit down and talk with them on a daily basis of why they deserve this opportunity and why this is their time to shine and it was a chance of a lifetime. And so we got to bond during this time, and I got to implant in their head that they do deserve it. And, of course, or unfortunately we only have one person going to the Olympics, but we thank God for that. His name is Naja and he is good.

LISOVICZ: Hey, "Termite," you know, I got an idea for you, why don't you paint the face of Saddam Hussein on the speed ball, because you know, then like -- take out their aggression. Can you give us an idea though, in addition to that suggestion, what's it's like to train in Iraq. From what I understand for instance your boxers don't run outside. It's just too dangerous, you have to keep them running their laps inside, as an example?

WATKINS: Well, we do, we train inside -- the running part is inside a basketball gymnasium. We do run in there for our safety, and of course we train inside another building that's got a wall around it. We train there for our safety. It's unusual, I must say, it's unusual when you have to have security and big guns around you going to and from your job, which is -- training is my job.

But you know, I must say that I don't really worry about it because I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. And you know, I'm happy. I just don't think twice about it. Now I've also got to say that for all the bad stuff that we talk about, we as a whole, there is so much more good going on that the world needs to know. The schools that are being completed, there's so much good, so it's not all bad.

CAFFERTY: Good. And the other thing that's good is having as you a guest on IN THE MONEY. And I appreciate your time and thoughts. And we wish you good luck when it comes time to go to the Olympic Games. We'll be keeping an eye on you.

WATKINS: Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure and honor to be here with you.

CAFFERTY: All right, partner. Maurice "Termite" Watkins, coach of the Iraqi Olympic boxing team. A year ago who'd have thunk we would have been sitting here talking about the Olympic boxing team from Iraq, but we are.

Time for a break. When IN THE MONEY continues, once is not enough, see why the major movie studios are taking some celluloid classics for a second spin around the block.

And if you'd seen something on this program that makes you take pen to paper, don't, send us an e-mail instead, the address is inthemoney@cnn.com.

We shall be back after this.

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