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CNN Live Sunday
Iraqi Children Return To School Today; U.S./British Authorities Stop Alleged Dirty Bomb Plot
Aired October 03, 2004 - 18:00 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we begin this hour with the results of a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll which could be upsetting news for the White House. It shows the presidential race is now a dead heat.
The bounce President Bush had after the Republican convention has disappeared. Now when survey, 49 percent of likely and registered voters say they would choose Bush, 49 percent of likely voters and 47 percent of registered voters would select John Kerry, 1 percent of voters in both categories would vote for Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader.
Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport in Princeton New Jersey crunking these numbers. Frank, I mean, it's not just a statistical dead heat, it is a dead heat. And John Kerry gained a lot of ground since the Republican convention.
FRANK NEWPORT, GALLUP: Indeed you're right. Literally 49-49 among likely voters. Let me show you trends here. And I think you described it aptly, as you were introducing the new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll just a moment ago, Carol. We're back where we started.
Back in August, you can see, it was virtually a dead heat. And that was, of course, was still after the Democratic convention, but before the Republican convention which came right at the end of August, and right into the first couple of days in September.
Then Bush had a lead. He expanded his lead. The lead had started to come down in our last poll. This poll taken all after the debate. This poll Friday, Saturday, and actually, we just finished interviewing a couple of hours ago, dead even at 49 percent-49 percent. So, we're back where we started. This is a dead-even race at this point.
LIN: What about President Bush's overall approval rating?
NEWPORT: It's still above 50 percent, but it has declined -- but at 50 percent, I should say. And for an incumbent, that's what we want.
It started at 49 again. Right before the Republican convention, it came up. And now back right at 50 percent. And for an incumbent, that's the dividing point. You want to be above 50 percent, not below it. Bush is right at it at this point, Carol. LIN: All right. A lot at stake in the next debate. The last debate on foreign policy. The next debate coming up this coming Friday is going to be on domestic policy. How does your polling stand on both candidates on the economy and the war in Iraq?
NEWPORT: Well, very interesting point here, Kerry has regained his lead in terms of who could do the better job on economy. Kerry had had a lead on that generally. It had kind of changed and gone back again.
This is the Iraq situation. And Bush still ahead of Kerry of who can best handle Iraq. But like everything else I'm showing, that has collapsed as a result of the debate.
But some comfort of the White House here, it was still Bush ahead of John Kerry when we asked who could do the better job on Iraq. But just by a little, about nearly the margin he had coming out of his convention.
I mentioned the economy. Now here's the graph that show it. It's kind of been up and down, but where we are right now is kind of where we had had previously in the summer, "who could handle the economy?" Kerry 51, Bush 44. So, Kerry has a lead there.
And that's significant, because as you know, Carol, the next debate and the next one are likely to focus a lot on domestic economic issues.
LIN: You bet. Some ground for President Bush to make up. All right. Thanks very much, Frank.
A little later in the program, our own Howard Kurtz takes on the political spin cycle. He's going to look at how the post-debate spin is affecting this election compared to the past ones. That and more coming up at 6:30 Eastern.
In the meantime, John Kerry is campaigning in Ohio today, talking about jobs and the economy. The Buckeye State is about battleground state, and just who will win it in November is anybody's call right now.
Our Frank Buckley is traveling with the Kerry campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Senator John Kerry was in Ohio for the seventh time since the Democratic National Convention, to talk about the economy and about jobs, in a state that's lost some 170,000 manufacturing jobs since the Bush administration took office.
(voice-over): Senator Kerry met with some steelworkers, who have been locked out of a titanium plant in Niles, Ohio, during a long labor dispute. He also held a town hall meeting in Austintown, Ohio, where Kerry said he proposes to change tax laws that, according to the senator, encourage outsourcing to other countries. SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I think we ought to be doing in America is not asking the American taxpayer to subsidize and reward a company that decides to take the jobs overseas. I think we ought to be rewarding the companies that keep the jobs and create them here in America.
BUCKLEY (voice-over): Senator Kerry also went off message, off the economy message to talk about a "New York Times" article that suggests that Bush administration officials used disputed intelligence information about whether Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program as it tried to make its case for war in Iraq.
(on camera): Senator Kerry's visit to Ohio is part of a multi- state swing of battleground states from Ohio. He's going to New Hampshire, to Pennsylvania and to Iowa, before finally settling in Colorado, for two days of debate prep, before next Friday's presidential debate. Frank Buckley, CNN, Austintown, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Well, you can just hear the pencils going.
Republicans will no doubt be looking very closely at our new poll. President Bush had a busy week ahead. Let's bring in our White House correspondent Dana Bash. Dana, so far any initial reaction from the Bush campaign on our CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll?
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Carol no surprise, I talked to a senior Bush aide who said what we've been hearing from the Bush team since the debate, which is that they do expect the race to tighten. That's what we're seeing now.
But the aide obviously said that voters do like John Kerry now better than they did before. But the thing that the Bush campaign says to look at is it is still neck and neck, that a majority of voters still, at this point, don't want to vote first John Kerry. Our poll shows among likely voters, it's neck and neck.
But, obviously, what this poll shows is that any hope of putting this race in the can after the first debate, which is what some Bush aides hoped to do, is now gone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The president spent a rare day off the campaign trail on a bike trail, a sport Mr. Bush took up after a leg injury prevented him from running for exercise. It's that love of competition, disdain for losing, Bush aides are counting on to rebound from what they only privately admit was a disappointing debate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every good team goes back and looks at the tapes and looks at transcripts and does that to see where opportunities could be, you know, found and things like that.
BASH: The president went over some potential opportunities at a Sunday debate prep session inside the White House. While still trying to manage expectations, aides are hoping the format for round two, a town hall, will help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Bush is very comfortable talking to real people and talking to them about big issues of the day.
BASH: One issue Bush officials would rather not talk about, but camp Kerry is pouncing on, whether the White House brushed aside known doubts about Iraq's nuclear capability in the run-up to war.
In September 2002, on CNN's "LATE EDITION" National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned of aluminum tube shipments to Iraq.
COLDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: ...high quality aluminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs.
BASH: An exhaustive "New York Times" report says Rice's staff knew then the Energy Department had already concluded what was later widely accepted, the tubes were not for nuclear use. Rice's response.
RICE: I know there was some debate out there. But I tell you, I did not know the nature of the debate.
BASH: She says she was relying on a multiagency assessment. And has no regrets.
RICE: If you underestimate the nuclear threat of a tyrant, you make a really big mistake. And I stand by that decision of the administration to this very day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And since last week's debate, the president has been trying to shift the focus on the Iraq discussion from his decision for war back to how Senator Kerry would do as commander in chief. Aides feel that making that distinction, turning that back is critical to making sure that the tightening of the polls, the neck-and-neck race we now see doesn't turn into a Kerry lead.
LIN: All right. Dana Bash, live at the White House, thank you.
Now you can keep up with the latest online at CNN's home page. There you're going to find new poll information about John Kerry and George Bush. And you can read about their stands on the issue, and watch videos of their campaign speeches. Remember, that address is CNN.com/Allpolitics.
In the meantime, an alleged dirty bomb plot foiled. We're going to show you how investigators stopped a suspected terror plot to hit several targets in the United States and Britain.
Also, more activity today from Mount St. Helens. Up next, we're live from the volcano where scientists say an eruption is imminent.
Also...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bush sounded like one of the dolls that you pull the cord.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Showing his teeth too much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: So maybe they weren't too impressed with the candidates. But our Jeanne Moos was. The humorous highlights of the presidential debate. That's later.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: OK so it's been 24 hours since we told you that Mount St. Helens was about to erupt again. And, yes, today the volcano is rumbling and spewing more steam. And there have been new rock slides. Our Ted Rowlands is on the scene watching it all for us. Ted, so what's happening? What happened to the imminent eruption?
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's really the situation, still, carol. Of course, yesterday we were told it was imminent and that it most likely that Mount St. Helens would be erupting in the next 24 hours. That has not happened. However, geologists did update us this afternoon to tell us that basically it is status quo.
Today there's been very limited visual signs that Mount St. Helens is about to erupt. There have been rock slides and some gas emissions with a little bit of ash, but not as much as we've seen in the last two days. However, geologists say they have detected new magma inside the mountain, meaning that a volcanic eruption is expected, and is imminent, and could be a significant eruption. They do not, however, believe that it will be anywhere near the magnitude of the eruption that took place in 1980.
That said, an eight-mile radius has been cleared around Mount St. Helens. Folks were cleared out of that area yesterday, on Saturday, when it was determined that there was this fresh magma. When that was determined, geologists really said this was a different ball game than we thought on Friday.
On Friday, of course, was the first alert that there was activity here, significant activity when steam and ash blew 10,000 feet into the air. At that moment, the FAA was notified, and air traffic was limited in the area. And geologists even today say, while there is expected to be a major eruption, the biggest concern they have is air traffic in the area. As one person said, jet engines and ash do not mix.
The other concern is panic. While they have cleared out an 8- mile radius, folks have come here and are surrounding the radius. There's only one major road in and out of here and they're hoping nobody does panic in the event the eruption is a significant one, which they do believe, Carol, is going to happen. They just don't know when.
LIN: So, Ted, technically how close can people get to the mountain right now?
ROWLANDS: Eight miles is the closest people can get. We've been set up in an area which is about 10 miles away from the mountain. Although it looks much closer when you're actually out here. And that 8 miles, they believe, is a proper cushion, given the way that they believe any ash would be flowing after an eruption.
The other thing to keep in mind, the difference between now and 1980, in 1980 Mount St. Helens had 900 feet more to its structure. That was blown away in that eruption. It's no longer here. So that amount of rock wouldn't be involved in the mixture, if you will, in an eruption, reducing the amount of danger involved when and if this does take place.
LIN: All right. And Ted Rowlands will be there. Thank you very much, Ted.
Ted was just talking about the power of when Mount St. Helens erupted last. Back in 1980 it scorched more than 200 square miles of forest: 57 people, 7,000 animals were killed. Our meteorologist Orelon Sidney is also an amateur volcanologist.
Orelon, when ted talks about a little bit of steam, a little bit of gas, are we talking about a bad dinner or a impending disaster?
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I guess you could say both are like that. Listen, nobody's going to be affected by this in any lethal way, as long as they're outside the evacuation area. Now, if some bozo wants to go climb the thing and it goes off, something bad's going to happen to him. But if you're 8 miles or more out, you're going to see soem ash, if this thing does erupt again. And you're going to see the ash plume if it happens, of course, in the daytime.
But this is not going to be anything like the 1980 eruption. The 1980 eruption was a 5 on the volcano explosivity index. Now they're expecting the event here, at least they said this yesterday, a 2, maybe a 3. Now if it's a 3, it's 100 times less force, 100 times less energy than a 5. If it ends up being a 2, it's going to be 1,000 times less. So, this is more like a hiccup. OK, maybe it's got a little bit of gas. A big hiccup is basically what we're going to see.
Here's the live picture now. You can see that the fog from early this morning has cleared out. And there's a few things that we do know. The earthuakes are still occurring at a rate of 1 to 2 a minute. The maximum magnitude of these is about a 3, and they're all shallow and centered around the lava dome.
I think we even have a close-up picture where we can show the lava dome itself. Instead of being centered underneath the volcano, it's centered under this big lump of hardened lava. That's actually looking over into the crater. Here's the crater rim. Crawl up that. Go down and you find this lump plugging the entrance to the magma chamber. That's hardened lava that's been there for several years.
Now, what they have discovered on one of the gas flights this morning was increased fumeral activity. That means there are some vents that are open on the dome. And gases are coming out. They did detect some C02. The people said they could smell a little SO2, that's the sulfur dioxide, that's the rotten egg smell that you often find around volcanoes. But they have not seen any changes on the flanks of the volcano.
There are intruments called tilt meters that are placed around this area. And if there's any movement at all, the GPS will indicate whether or not there's some bulging of the flanks themselves. Haven't seen any activity like that. It's all been inside the crater on the dome.
And that's good news, because that means it's going to be a shallow event. Now, if we start to see earthquakes that are centered under the volcano, then we'll start to be concerned about a larger event. At this time, though, it's kind of like watching somebody that's in labor. You know the baby's coming, you just don't know when it's going to get here -- Carol.
LIN: That's a great analogy. You know, because a girl can only sit up here so long and say imminent.
SIDNEY: So true.
LIN: Imminent it is. Thank you very much, Orelon.
Well, in a different kind of battle, it is a battle that is getting uglier by the day. More Palestinians are killed as the Israeli offensive in Gaza goes on.
Plus, schools in session, but holding class in Iraq is proving no easy task.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: In Gaza, Israel's biggest military offensive in 4 years continues for the fifth day. And Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon says it could widen and escalate to stop rockets from getting into Israel. At least 6 Palestinians died today, including 2 teenage boys.
And in Northeast India, a spree of deadly bombings. Ethnic violence continues for a second day. Seven people were killed in today's attacks on a crowded market, a tea plantation and other sites.
And in Southwestern France, the suspected leader of the Basque separatist group Etta, is under arrest, 20 other suspects also arrested. Eta is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union. It has been fighting to establish a Basque homeland for more than 30 years and is blamed for more than 800 people dying.
Now, Saturday was the first day, or at least the first day of class for millions of Iraqi children. But as CNN's Brent Sadler reports, the security situation has many parents worried and scared.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 7-year-old Ephra Sami (ph) dresses up for the start of a new school year in Iraq, twice delayed by violence.
I love school, she says. It's where we learn.
It's her second year of learning in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. 12 months ago, Ephra was skipping to class. Her old school cordoned off by razor wire, guarded by an American tank. Ephra's new school suffers similar problems to her last one, but now it's the turn of Iraqi guards to stand watch.
Hussein Hassan shows a leg wound from shrapnel he says he received from a rocket-propelled grenade fired through a wall into the schoolyard.
We are here to protect the children from kidnappings, says Hassan. And to help if there's a bomb attack.
But guards claim they have to by their own guns and bullets.
And some parents fear insurgents or kidnappers might target the school.
I fear for my daughter, says Ephra's mother, Samira. There's no security.
(on camera): U.S. and Iraqi officials have made education a cornerstone of the new Iraq, pouring millions of dollars into teachers' salaries, textbooks and fixing schools.
(voice-over): But so far, this school has no basic textbooks for eager young minds to consume.
They haven't arrived yet, explains the head teacher to her new intake. Perhaps next month.
In the meantime, they'll recycle this discarded pile of wornout textbooks purged of pictures of Saddam Hussein.
The system is slowly improving, though. Teachers, for example, get regular pay, turn up for class, and teach a curriculum where knowledge counts for more than loyalty to the regime.
This school, says Ephra Sammi, is better than no school. I would start to cry, she says, because I love my school.
And the lessons she learns. Brent Sadler, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Coming up, was a terror group in Britain targeting the United States? "TIME" magazine reveals chilling new details of a suspected plot to plant a dirty bomb on U.S. soil. Coming up next, I'm going to speak to a journalist who broke the story.
Plus, the 2 No. 2's, now it's their turn to steal the spotlight. What's in store for the vice presidential debates.
And later...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Oscar.
WILL SMITH, ACTOR: Jeannie, hey. What are you doing here?
UNIDENTFIED FEMALE: What, Oscar, did you forget something?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: No floundering for this fish film. "Shark Tale" swims to the top of the box office.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Welcome back. I'm Carol Lin. And here's a quick look at what's happening right now in the news. It can't get any closer than this. A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows the race to the White House is a tie: 49 percent of likely voters said they would chose President Bush, another 49 percent said they would pick Senator John Kerry, 1 percent say they would vote for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
Now John Kerry is on the road in Ohio with less than a month to go until Election Day. He's talking about the economy and job losses, and preparing for the second debate which is on domestic issues. His next stops are New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Iowa.
And President Bush is spending his Sunday taking a break from the campaign trail. Aides say they expect no major changes in the president's approach to next Friday's debate except for adjusting to the events town hall format.
And Condoleezza Rice says the military operations in Samarra are going well. The national security adviser appeared today on CNN's "LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER." Rice says she expects elections to take place throughout Iraq in January.
Now, "TIME" Magazine is reporting a group of terror suspects arrested in Britain may have been trying to make a dirty bomb. The story says evidence seized indicates the suspects planned to attack several targets in Britain, and included reconnaissance reports on targets in the United States.
Joining me now is "TIME" Washington correspondent Adam Zagorin. He wrote the story.
Adam, pretty -- pretty serious allegations here. We remember the story, because we remember stories about surveillance reports that members of potentially al Qaeda had stationed themselves outside of major financial institutions. Those reports several years old. What you're reporting, though, is that they were attempting to build a rough radioactive bombing device? ADAM ZAGORIN, "TIME": Well, that's right, Carol. The alleged leader of this group, who goes under the pseudonym Isal al-Hindi (ph), was reported by the 9/11 Commission to be in the United States prior to 9/11 doing the surveillance on some of the financial institutions, the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, and Citigroup Center in New York and New York Stock Exchange and others.
And among the things that the British authorities found when they arrested and raided these people, there were eight -- 12 initially, and now eight being charged in Britain, including Mr. al -- Hindi (ph) -- were a lot of -- hundreds, possibly more than hundreds of smoke detectors which contained -- common household smoke detectors with contained very tiny amounts of radioactive material, which, if...
LIN: Smoke detectors?
ZAGORIN: ... extracted from each of these -- smoke detectors.
LIN: Seriously, smoke detectors?
ZAGORIN: Smoke detectors have a small amount of radioactive material. It's called Americium. It's a man-made radioactive chemical. And if extracted from all of these devices and put together, the authorities in Britain, at least according to what they've told U.S. authorities, believe that it could have been an attempt to create a very crude dirty bomb. Now...
LIN: How close did he get to doing so, do they think?
ZAGORIN: All I know -- all I know is that the British told U.S. authorities that they had been collecting these smoke detectors, and that this was the apparent reason. I'm not sure how much further they got. But from a technical aspect, we've been told that creating a dirty bomb by this means would be extremely inefficient, and possibly even ineffectual.
In other words, you wouldn't be able to -- to kill or radiate a lot of people by this means. But that doesn't exclude the fact that it could very well have caused panic. It probably would have set off radiation detection equipment in the area, and it could have caused some contamination, if it were released, for example, in a subway or, you know, in a stadium or something of that nature.
LIN: Well, do they know what the likely targets were?
ZAGORIN: Well, they know that there were also -- it's not clear what the target of the dirty bomb might have been. They do -- the group did indicate certain targets in Britain. For example, high-rise buildings occupied by multinational companies. They didn't specify which one.
The interesting thing there is, they suggested -- the terrorists that were going to be charged in this matter in Britain indicated that they would like to attack those buildings by sending automobiles into the parking garages underneath them. Now, that's a very similar method of attack as the terrorists recommended for the Prudential Center in Newark, where they talked about also sending in cars or even limousines into that center to blow it up.
Other targets in Britain were an unspecified synagogue. We don't know where that is. And the express train that ran from Heathrow Airport to Paddington Station in London.
LIN: Interesting. Adam, thank you very much. We'll look forward to more of your reporting on this. I know this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Adam Zagorin, "TIME" Magazine.
Well, when it comes to -- when it comes to presidential elections, it may not be the economy, to quote a famous line from a previous election, but the spin that carries the day. CNN's Howard Kurtz has more on how spin has spun its way into previous presidential elections.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM LEHRER, MODERATOR, PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: This is Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.
HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES" (voice-over): So you've watched President Bush and John Kerry go at it, and you think you've got a pretty good idea of who won. But you're not counting on the media factor. There's the post-game chatter and the morning papers and the campaign spinners arguing their case. And this cacophony can, incredibly enough, turn a victory into defeat.
Take Al Gore's first debate against Bush four years ago. Most commentators and the network's insta-polls said the vice president had carried the night.
RON BROWNSTEIN, "LA TIMES": Well, I thought that overall, Gore's performance was probably a little insteadier, more confident than Bush.
KURTZ: And no one watching thought this was a turning point.
AL GORE, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And first, I want to compliment the governor response to those fires and floods in Texas. I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out.
KURTZ: But it turned out that Gore hadn't been with Witt, the Federal Emergency Management Director, but with Witt's deputy. A trivial point, perhaps, but Ari Fleischer and other Bush spinners kept telling reporters, there he goes again, Gore was exaggerating.
RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was puzzled and saddened to learn at the debate last night Al Gore once again made up facts.
KURTZ: That became the story line.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But you don't, Mr. Vice President. And that is a huge difference. Testing is the cornerstone... KURTZ: And then there was the matter of Gore's sighing while Bush was talking, which CNN asked him about the next day.
GORE: I learned my lesson on that. I'll be much more careful not to -- not to give up an audible reaction when he's talking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that is some sense of a regret or something you'll change.
GORE: I don't think that's a big deal, incidentally.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
KURTZ: He was wrong. It became a "Saturday Night Live" skit and the media buzz for days. And keep in mind that the media loved metaphors.
When the first President Bush debated Bill Clinton and Ross Perot in 1992, he did something that was largely unnoticed. He glanced at his watch. But after Maureen Dowd seized on that in "The New York Times," it became media shorthand for a president bored by a discussion of economic policy.
Finally, there's the gaff. When President Ford faced Jimmy Carter in 1976, the initial wave of media coverage paid little attention when he said this.
GERALD FORD, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be.
KURTZ: But within a day, the press jumped on the remark as a sign of a president out of touch with the era's Cold War reality. And wouldn't let up until Ford finally backed off.
Kerry and Bush may be done debating for now, but the media factor is just warming up.
Howard Kurtz, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Be sure to stay with CNN for the most complete coverage of the race for the White House. The vice presidential debate is coming up Tuesday night, the second presidential debate Friday night. And coverage begins at 7:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
In the meantime, we've got a new poll that has come out that shows that this race is ever so tight. It is a complete tie.
Terry Neal, the chief political correspondent for WashingtonPost.com, joins me now to talk about this poll that you're looking at right now, and the upcoming vice presidential debate.
Terry, good to have you.
TERRY NEAL, WASHINGTONPOST.COM: Thanks for having me. LIN: You take a look at this poll, I mean, 49 percent of 49 percent for Bush and Kerry, when asked of either likely voters -- or registered voters, rather, here, who would be your choice for president. This after the most recent debate. Does this spell trouble for George W. Bush?
NEAL: Well, you know, I've been telling people for at least a couple of months here that the polls at this point -- this is -- this is a close, tight race. I expect that there are going to be fluctuations. One week one candidate is going to be doing better than the other, and the next week then the other candidate -- the candidate is going to be doing better than the other.
But the bottom line is no one really knows. We don't even know, in fact, whether the polls are really accurately reflecting who's going to turn out.
The Democrats are saying that they've done a much better job, for instance, registering new voters, and that that will push them over the edge on Election Day. I'm just going on the assumption that it's a dead heat and we won't have any clue until -- until Election Day.
LIN: All right. The upcoming debate, presidential debate on Friday, is going to be a town hall format. How does President Bush wipe away the scowling impressions from the last debate?
NEAL: Well, you know, I was a little surprised to see that from him. Because he caught -- I covered the Bush campaign for "The Washington Post" in 2000, wrote about the smirk a lot. He had done a pretty good job of sort of kind of getting rid of that, or at least sort of suppressing it. But it came back in full force in the debate last week.
I think that he's going to probably make a very conscious effort to make sure that he doesn't do it again. And to make sure that -- I mean, one of his strong points is his likeability. That sort of thing doesn't help very much. It's these little things. It's just like what -- in my colleague Howard Kurtz's last piece, you know, Gore sighing in the debate 2000.
These little things suddenly become big things. So he's got to be very careful.
LIN: So do you think for John Kerry he has been able to put it to rest with likely unregistered voters, that he lacks core convictions and that he's a flip-flopper?
NEAL: Well, I think -- I think that he did a pretty good job. The campaign, my understanding, is they're -- they're thrilled with it. They're thrilled with it enough that they think they can sort of turn their attention to domestic issues and move away from foreign policy.
I'm not so sure whether that's the right thing. I mean, it seems to me that, you know, if you look at what -- focusing on one -- one particular issue, Iraq, and talking about making the case that he's been consistent on that, did a tremendous deal of -- had a tremendous impact in terms of changing voters' perceptions by moving those numbers a little bit.
So I think what you'll see probably is some balance. He's not going to be able to run away from the Iraq issue, or just talk about domestic policy, because the Bush folks are going to come after him based on some of the things that he said in the debate.
LIN: But at the same time, all right, so President Bush is out talking about taxes, he's talking about home ownership. John Kerry now is releasing a new set of ads in 15 states, focusing on domestic issues. He's got the momentum, though, from a foreign policy with the president. Is this a mistake -- is this is a change -- is this is a mistake and change in strategy?
NEAL: Well, you know, you've got to give -- see, my opinion is, the Bush people really know -- the Bush campaign people really know public -- public communication and PR strategy much better than the Kerry folks do. The Kerry folks think, well, we kind of wrapped that part up so we're going to move to something else.
But the bottom line is, a lot of people care about the economy. They care about these domestic issues. But Iraq, foreign policy, that's the thing that's on the front of the newspapers every day. You can't run away from that issue.
And the bottom line is, as people -- just because he did well one day doesn't mean that the Bush campaign is going to let that stand. They're going to be coming back after him every day. He's going to have no choice but to talk about it.
LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Terry Neal.
Also the day of the debate on Friday those unemployment figures are going to come out. So that's something else that's going to be on the front page of the domestic policy debate.
Terry Neal, WashingtonPost.com.
Now a quick look at news "Across America."
SpaceShipOne shoots for a $10 million prize tomorrow. That private space plane had a successful run on Wednesday, and now it must go beyond Earth's atmosphere once again to win that money. The prize was created by a space activist and opens the door to private citizens -- or at least to private citizens exploring space.
And two people are dead after a swamp tour boat overturns in Louisiana. The boat was carrying 16 passengers when it flipped over. Thirteen of the passengers were injured. Tourists take the boat ride to see wildlife that includes alligators.
And the music video channel VH-1 is celebrating 30 years of hip- hop. The first VH-1 hip-hop honors show premiers October 12. And the honorees include Sugar Hill Gang, Public Enemy and Topac Shakur. They're on call 24/7 in the event of a health crisis facing the first patient. Straight ahead, an in-depth look at the men and women charged with securing the president's health.
Also, it's Sunday night, but never too late to play a little Monday morning quarterback on presidential debates. Jeanne Moos shows us what you may have missed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: We have this just in from the Middle East. CNN has now learned from Palestinian police sources that two people have died after Israelis fired two missiles into Gaza, targeting a local Hamas commander. The two people dead now, the Israeli military has no immediate comment.
This after five days of rocket exchanges and fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. We'll keep you posted on the story as soon as we learn more.
In the meantime, we have a very special report tonight. We have been talking about the president's health and how it impacts all of us here in the United States.
So what is the plan when the unexpected affects the president's well-being? Well, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with another glimpse of his primetime special, "The First Patient," about health and medical care inside the White House.
I love the slogan, too, that even the Secret Service can't stop a cold?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Can't stop a cold, that's right.
LIN: You bet.
GUPTA: All the resources that go into protecting the president, a worst case scenario, an assassination attempt. President Reagan had an assassination attempt 23 years ago. There was no medical contingency at that time. How that was handled changed everything for subsequent presidents.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): March 30, 1981, 2:25 p.m.: Six shots ring out as President Reagan leaves a Washington hotel. A Secret Service agent pushes President Reagan into his limousine as would-be assassin John Hinckley is wrestled to the ground. President Reagan arrives at George Washington University hospital minutes later, near shock.
DR. JOSEPH GIORDANO, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: He collapsed. His blood pressure was 70, very low. And we put him on the gurney, and the residents immediately started IVs and got fluid in him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president has been shot once in the left chest.
GIORDANO: We were watching the blood come out of the chest tube, and a very significant amount came out. And there was no question in our mind that he had to go to surgery.
GUPTA: 3:24 p.m.: President Reagan is wheeled into the operating room and placed under anesthesia. At the White House, a desire to show the world there is no leadership vacuum that might be exploited by an enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As of now, I am in control here in the White House.
GUPTA: 6:45 p.m.: President Reagan emerges from a successful operation to stop his internal bleeding and remove the bullet lodged near his heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has the president turned over control or authority to the vice president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There has been no cause for that to take place.
GUPTA: But there was a need in the 48 hours following surgery, according to Dr. William Knaus, an intensive care physician who treated President Reagan.
DR. WILLIAM KNAUS, TREATED PRESIDENT REAGAN: I think if that day, after surgery, you know, Vice President Bush had walked in and said, you know, I'm taking over now, I think it would have been absolutely appropriate. I don't think any medical person -- I certainly would not have questioned it. I would think it would have been absolutely the logical thing to do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And Dr. Knaus took care of President Reagan afterwards, said he was disoriented. The White House never made mention of it. They never invoked the 25th amendment, even though all of this was going on.
In fact, you may remember, Carol, the day after he was shot, they actually had President Reagan sort of propped up in bed signing a dairy farm bill. All the doctors we said -- talked to about this said, really, he was not in any position to be able to do that.
LIN: And you're learning through your research that he really should have probably transferred powers at that point?
GUPTA: Yes. I mean, the 25th amendment, the way that it's invoked is one of two ways.
If the president is conscious, he can actually sign over power to the vice president. In this sort of situation, an assassination attempt, or if the president's incapacitated, the vice president can assume power with the cabinet's approval. And that's probably what should have taken place here.
LIN: All right. Interesting. A full hour special at 9:00 Eastern.
GUPTA: Are you going to watch?
LIN: I'm going to be watch. I'm going to be here.
GUPTA: All right. Hopefully other people will as well.
LIN: You're my lead-in to our big primetime show. Thank you very much, Sanjay.
GUPTA: All right. Thank you.
LIN: Well, you can see more of Dr. Gupta's inside look at the world of White House medicine tonight. "The First Patient: Health and the Presidency" begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
Now, you may have seen the debate the other night, but did you see the great puppet debate?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Senator, may I touch your hair?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you may.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Well, we're thinking probably not. But Jeanne Moos didn't miss it. Up next, those highlights, and little known awards for the presidential debate coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: An update and a correction out of that story out of the Middle East. Israel's military did fire two rockets towards Gaza -- Gaza City, targeting a Hamas military leader. We reported deaths. We are going to amend that to say casualties.
We want to be extra careful about what we report on this story. And we're going to keep you posted.
In the meantime, of course, it is a campaign year here in the United States. And while there was a presidential debate, there was a different sort of debate of sorts near Times Square. The regular debate watchers seemed to be concentrating more on what was not said there. CNN's Jeanne Moos has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOOS (voice-over): OK, gentlemen, shake hands and come out squinting and head-shaking and rubbing.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would have made a better choice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's horrible.
MOOS (on camera): But you're a Bush supporter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know. I know. Stand erect, don't make the faces.
MOOS (voice-over): President Bush gets the award for most blinking per answer. While some say Senator Kerry...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He showed his teeth too much.
MOOS: Picky, picky, picky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bush sounded like one of those dolls where you pull the cord.
MOOS: The most overused phrase award goes to the president.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, he said that it's hard work. It's hard work what we're doing.
BUSH: It's hard work.
It is hard work.
And it's hard work.
I understand how hard it is.
MOOS: John Kerry was hard at work, constantly scribbling notes, as Jon Stewart noted.
JON STEWART, TALK SHOW HOST: What was he writing?
MOOS: As for the rules...
LEHRER: No hissing, no booing, no cheering, no crying, no laughing.
MOOS: ... the high school principal award goes to moderator Jim Lehrer.
LEHRER: If for some reasons there is some noise, I'm going to stop the debate, and I'm going to turn you around and hold you up to public ridicule.
MOOS: The candidates were kept from going overtime by flashing warning lights. The moderator never had to resort to the sound you never heard.
(BELL RINGING)
LEHRER: Hey, now that's power, right? OK. MOOS: No, this is power. This was the overtime gong at a presidential debate in Times Square just hours before the real one featuring puppets from the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q.
(on camera): Senator, may I touch your hair?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you may. It needs a little smoothing.
MOOS (voice-over): At the real debate, puppet was a dirty word.
BUSH: One of his campaign people alleged that Prime Minister Allawi was like a puppet.
MOOS: At least at the puppet debate no one could roll their eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, what a girlie man he is. He's a puppet of the liberal left.
MOOS: The girlie factor came into play back at the real debate. We call this the who needs Viagra exchange.
BUSH: You cannot wilt under that pressure.
KERRY: I have no intention of wilting. I've never wilted in my life.
MOOS: Which brings us to the Al and Tipper Gore memorial kiss award. It goes to the Kerrys, who almost got carried away.
The most enigmatic sign award goes to this three-letter word displayed to the cameras of a rival network. And don't pooh-pooh the superficial fashion award moment. It goes to the candidates' wives, seen comparing their matching white outfits while the rain-soaked puppets took pity on the press.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And wipe of your lens. You're all wet. For gosh sakes. Look at that.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: That's all the time we have for this hour.
Coming up at 7:00 Eastern, "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" featuring Vice President Dick Cheney and his Democratic opponent, John Edwards.
At 8:00, CNN PRESENTS: "Born to Run: A Profile of Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry."
At 9:00 Eastern, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's special, "The First Patient: An Inside Look at Securing a Healthy President."
And I'll be back at 10:00. Another big day is coming up for SpaceShipOne. Miles O'Brien is going to join me live from the Mojave Desert as the team gets ready for another launch into space.
The hour's headlines when I come back, and then "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS."
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 3, 2004 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we begin this hour with the results of a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll which could be upsetting news for the White House. It shows the presidential race is now a dead heat.
The bounce President Bush had after the Republican convention has disappeared. Now when survey, 49 percent of likely and registered voters say they would choose Bush, 49 percent of likely voters and 47 percent of registered voters would select John Kerry, 1 percent of voters in both categories would vote for Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader.
Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport in Princeton New Jersey crunking these numbers. Frank, I mean, it's not just a statistical dead heat, it is a dead heat. And John Kerry gained a lot of ground since the Republican convention.
FRANK NEWPORT, GALLUP: Indeed you're right. Literally 49-49 among likely voters. Let me show you trends here. And I think you described it aptly, as you were introducing the new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll just a moment ago, Carol. We're back where we started.
Back in August, you can see, it was virtually a dead heat. And that was, of course, was still after the Democratic convention, but before the Republican convention which came right at the end of August, and right into the first couple of days in September.
Then Bush had a lead. He expanded his lead. The lead had started to come down in our last poll. This poll taken all after the debate. This poll Friday, Saturday, and actually, we just finished interviewing a couple of hours ago, dead even at 49 percent-49 percent. So, we're back where we started. This is a dead-even race at this point.
LIN: What about President Bush's overall approval rating?
NEWPORT: It's still above 50 percent, but it has declined -- but at 50 percent, I should say. And for an incumbent, that's what we want.
It started at 49 again. Right before the Republican convention, it came up. And now back right at 50 percent. And for an incumbent, that's the dividing point. You want to be above 50 percent, not below it. Bush is right at it at this point, Carol. LIN: All right. A lot at stake in the next debate. The last debate on foreign policy. The next debate coming up this coming Friday is going to be on domestic policy. How does your polling stand on both candidates on the economy and the war in Iraq?
NEWPORT: Well, very interesting point here, Kerry has regained his lead in terms of who could do the better job on economy. Kerry had had a lead on that generally. It had kind of changed and gone back again.
This is the Iraq situation. And Bush still ahead of Kerry of who can best handle Iraq. But like everything else I'm showing, that has collapsed as a result of the debate.
But some comfort of the White House here, it was still Bush ahead of John Kerry when we asked who could do the better job on Iraq. But just by a little, about nearly the margin he had coming out of his convention.
I mentioned the economy. Now here's the graph that show it. It's kind of been up and down, but where we are right now is kind of where we had had previously in the summer, "who could handle the economy?" Kerry 51, Bush 44. So, Kerry has a lead there.
And that's significant, because as you know, Carol, the next debate and the next one are likely to focus a lot on domestic economic issues.
LIN: You bet. Some ground for President Bush to make up. All right. Thanks very much, Frank.
A little later in the program, our own Howard Kurtz takes on the political spin cycle. He's going to look at how the post-debate spin is affecting this election compared to the past ones. That and more coming up at 6:30 Eastern.
In the meantime, John Kerry is campaigning in Ohio today, talking about jobs and the economy. The Buckeye State is about battleground state, and just who will win it in November is anybody's call right now.
Our Frank Buckley is traveling with the Kerry campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Senator John Kerry was in Ohio for the seventh time since the Democratic National Convention, to talk about the economy and about jobs, in a state that's lost some 170,000 manufacturing jobs since the Bush administration took office.
(voice-over): Senator Kerry met with some steelworkers, who have been locked out of a titanium plant in Niles, Ohio, during a long labor dispute. He also held a town hall meeting in Austintown, Ohio, where Kerry said he proposes to change tax laws that, according to the senator, encourage outsourcing to other countries. SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I think we ought to be doing in America is not asking the American taxpayer to subsidize and reward a company that decides to take the jobs overseas. I think we ought to be rewarding the companies that keep the jobs and create them here in America.
BUCKLEY (voice-over): Senator Kerry also went off message, off the economy message to talk about a "New York Times" article that suggests that Bush administration officials used disputed intelligence information about whether Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program as it tried to make its case for war in Iraq.
(on camera): Senator Kerry's visit to Ohio is part of a multi- state swing of battleground states from Ohio. He's going to New Hampshire, to Pennsylvania and to Iowa, before finally settling in Colorado, for two days of debate prep, before next Friday's presidential debate. Frank Buckley, CNN, Austintown, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Well, you can just hear the pencils going.
Republicans will no doubt be looking very closely at our new poll. President Bush had a busy week ahead. Let's bring in our White House correspondent Dana Bash. Dana, so far any initial reaction from the Bush campaign on our CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll?
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Carol no surprise, I talked to a senior Bush aide who said what we've been hearing from the Bush team since the debate, which is that they do expect the race to tighten. That's what we're seeing now.
But the aide obviously said that voters do like John Kerry now better than they did before. But the thing that the Bush campaign says to look at is it is still neck and neck, that a majority of voters still, at this point, don't want to vote first John Kerry. Our poll shows among likely voters, it's neck and neck.
But, obviously, what this poll shows is that any hope of putting this race in the can after the first debate, which is what some Bush aides hoped to do, is now gone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The president spent a rare day off the campaign trail on a bike trail, a sport Mr. Bush took up after a leg injury prevented him from running for exercise. It's that love of competition, disdain for losing, Bush aides are counting on to rebound from what they only privately admit was a disappointing debate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every good team goes back and looks at the tapes and looks at transcripts and does that to see where opportunities could be, you know, found and things like that.
BASH: The president went over some potential opportunities at a Sunday debate prep session inside the White House. While still trying to manage expectations, aides are hoping the format for round two, a town hall, will help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Bush is very comfortable talking to real people and talking to them about big issues of the day.
BASH: One issue Bush officials would rather not talk about, but camp Kerry is pouncing on, whether the White House brushed aside known doubts about Iraq's nuclear capability in the run-up to war.
In September 2002, on CNN's "LATE EDITION" National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned of aluminum tube shipments to Iraq.
COLDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: ...high quality aluminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs.
BASH: An exhaustive "New York Times" report says Rice's staff knew then the Energy Department had already concluded what was later widely accepted, the tubes were not for nuclear use. Rice's response.
RICE: I know there was some debate out there. But I tell you, I did not know the nature of the debate.
BASH: She says she was relying on a multiagency assessment. And has no regrets.
RICE: If you underestimate the nuclear threat of a tyrant, you make a really big mistake. And I stand by that decision of the administration to this very day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And since last week's debate, the president has been trying to shift the focus on the Iraq discussion from his decision for war back to how Senator Kerry would do as commander in chief. Aides feel that making that distinction, turning that back is critical to making sure that the tightening of the polls, the neck-and-neck race we now see doesn't turn into a Kerry lead.
LIN: All right. Dana Bash, live at the White House, thank you.
Now you can keep up with the latest online at CNN's home page. There you're going to find new poll information about John Kerry and George Bush. And you can read about their stands on the issue, and watch videos of their campaign speeches. Remember, that address is CNN.com/Allpolitics.
In the meantime, an alleged dirty bomb plot foiled. We're going to show you how investigators stopped a suspected terror plot to hit several targets in the United States and Britain.
Also, more activity today from Mount St. Helens. Up next, we're live from the volcano where scientists say an eruption is imminent.
Also...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bush sounded like one of the dolls that you pull the cord.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Showing his teeth too much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: So maybe they weren't too impressed with the candidates. But our Jeanne Moos was. The humorous highlights of the presidential debate. That's later.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: OK so it's been 24 hours since we told you that Mount St. Helens was about to erupt again. And, yes, today the volcano is rumbling and spewing more steam. And there have been new rock slides. Our Ted Rowlands is on the scene watching it all for us. Ted, so what's happening? What happened to the imminent eruption?
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's really the situation, still, carol. Of course, yesterday we were told it was imminent and that it most likely that Mount St. Helens would be erupting in the next 24 hours. That has not happened. However, geologists did update us this afternoon to tell us that basically it is status quo.
Today there's been very limited visual signs that Mount St. Helens is about to erupt. There have been rock slides and some gas emissions with a little bit of ash, but not as much as we've seen in the last two days. However, geologists say they have detected new magma inside the mountain, meaning that a volcanic eruption is expected, and is imminent, and could be a significant eruption. They do not, however, believe that it will be anywhere near the magnitude of the eruption that took place in 1980.
That said, an eight-mile radius has been cleared around Mount St. Helens. Folks were cleared out of that area yesterday, on Saturday, when it was determined that there was this fresh magma. When that was determined, geologists really said this was a different ball game than we thought on Friday.
On Friday, of course, was the first alert that there was activity here, significant activity when steam and ash blew 10,000 feet into the air. At that moment, the FAA was notified, and air traffic was limited in the area. And geologists even today say, while there is expected to be a major eruption, the biggest concern they have is air traffic in the area. As one person said, jet engines and ash do not mix.
The other concern is panic. While they have cleared out an 8- mile radius, folks have come here and are surrounding the radius. There's only one major road in and out of here and they're hoping nobody does panic in the event the eruption is a significant one, which they do believe, Carol, is going to happen. They just don't know when.
LIN: So, Ted, technically how close can people get to the mountain right now?
ROWLANDS: Eight miles is the closest people can get. We've been set up in an area which is about 10 miles away from the mountain. Although it looks much closer when you're actually out here. And that 8 miles, they believe, is a proper cushion, given the way that they believe any ash would be flowing after an eruption.
The other thing to keep in mind, the difference between now and 1980, in 1980 Mount St. Helens had 900 feet more to its structure. That was blown away in that eruption. It's no longer here. So that amount of rock wouldn't be involved in the mixture, if you will, in an eruption, reducing the amount of danger involved when and if this does take place.
LIN: All right. And Ted Rowlands will be there. Thank you very much, Ted.
Ted was just talking about the power of when Mount St. Helens erupted last. Back in 1980 it scorched more than 200 square miles of forest: 57 people, 7,000 animals were killed. Our meteorologist Orelon Sidney is also an amateur volcanologist.
Orelon, when ted talks about a little bit of steam, a little bit of gas, are we talking about a bad dinner or a impending disaster?
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I guess you could say both are like that. Listen, nobody's going to be affected by this in any lethal way, as long as they're outside the evacuation area. Now, if some bozo wants to go climb the thing and it goes off, something bad's going to happen to him. But if you're 8 miles or more out, you're going to see soem ash, if this thing does erupt again. And you're going to see the ash plume if it happens, of course, in the daytime.
But this is not going to be anything like the 1980 eruption. The 1980 eruption was a 5 on the volcano explosivity index. Now they're expecting the event here, at least they said this yesterday, a 2, maybe a 3. Now if it's a 3, it's 100 times less force, 100 times less energy than a 5. If it ends up being a 2, it's going to be 1,000 times less. So, this is more like a hiccup. OK, maybe it's got a little bit of gas. A big hiccup is basically what we're going to see.
Here's the live picture now. You can see that the fog from early this morning has cleared out. And there's a few things that we do know. The earthuakes are still occurring at a rate of 1 to 2 a minute. The maximum magnitude of these is about a 3, and they're all shallow and centered around the lava dome.
I think we even have a close-up picture where we can show the lava dome itself. Instead of being centered underneath the volcano, it's centered under this big lump of hardened lava. That's actually looking over into the crater. Here's the crater rim. Crawl up that. Go down and you find this lump plugging the entrance to the magma chamber. That's hardened lava that's been there for several years.
Now, what they have discovered on one of the gas flights this morning was increased fumeral activity. That means there are some vents that are open on the dome. And gases are coming out. They did detect some C02. The people said they could smell a little SO2, that's the sulfur dioxide, that's the rotten egg smell that you often find around volcanoes. But they have not seen any changes on the flanks of the volcano.
There are intruments called tilt meters that are placed around this area. And if there's any movement at all, the GPS will indicate whether or not there's some bulging of the flanks themselves. Haven't seen any activity like that. It's all been inside the crater on the dome.
And that's good news, because that means it's going to be a shallow event. Now, if we start to see earthquakes that are centered under the volcano, then we'll start to be concerned about a larger event. At this time, though, it's kind of like watching somebody that's in labor. You know the baby's coming, you just don't know when it's going to get here -- Carol.
LIN: That's a great analogy. You know, because a girl can only sit up here so long and say imminent.
SIDNEY: So true.
LIN: Imminent it is. Thank you very much, Orelon.
Well, in a different kind of battle, it is a battle that is getting uglier by the day. More Palestinians are killed as the Israeli offensive in Gaza goes on.
Plus, schools in session, but holding class in Iraq is proving no easy task.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: In Gaza, Israel's biggest military offensive in 4 years continues for the fifth day. And Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon says it could widen and escalate to stop rockets from getting into Israel. At least 6 Palestinians died today, including 2 teenage boys.
And in Northeast India, a spree of deadly bombings. Ethnic violence continues for a second day. Seven people were killed in today's attacks on a crowded market, a tea plantation and other sites.
And in Southwestern France, the suspected leader of the Basque separatist group Etta, is under arrest, 20 other suspects also arrested. Eta is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union. It has been fighting to establish a Basque homeland for more than 30 years and is blamed for more than 800 people dying.
Now, Saturday was the first day, or at least the first day of class for millions of Iraqi children. But as CNN's Brent Sadler reports, the security situation has many parents worried and scared.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 7-year-old Ephra Sami (ph) dresses up for the start of a new school year in Iraq, twice delayed by violence.
I love school, she says. It's where we learn.
It's her second year of learning in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. 12 months ago, Ephra was skipping to class. Her old school cordoned off by razor wire, guarded by an American tank. Ephra's new school suffers similar problems to her last one, but now it's the turn of Iraqi guards to stand watch.
Hussein Hassan shows a leg wound from shrapnel he says he received from a rocket-propelled grenade fired through a wall into the schoolyard.
We are here to protect the children from kidnappings, says Hassan. And to help if there's a bomb attack.
But guards claim they have to by their own guns and bullets.
And some parents fear insurgents or kidnappers might target the school.
I fear for my daughter, says Ephra's mother, Samira. There's no security.
(on camera): U.S. and Iraqi officials have made education a cornerstone of the new Iraq, pouring millions of dollars into teachers' salaries, textbooks and fixing schools.
(voice-over): But so far, this school has no basic textbooks for eager young minds to consume.
They haven't arrived yet, explains the head teacher to her new intake. Perhaps next month.
In the meantime, they'll recycle this discarded pile of wornout textbooks purged of pictures of Saddam Hussein.
The system is slowly improving, though. Teachers, for example, get regular pay, turn up for class, and teach a curriculum where knowledge counts for more than loyalty to the regime.
This school, says Ephra Sammi, is better than no school. I would start to cry, she says, because I love my school.
And the lessons she learns. Brent Sadler, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Coming up, was a terror group in Britain targeting the United States? "TIME" magazine reveals chilling new details of a suspected plot to plant a dirty bomb on U.S. soil. Coming up next, I'm going to speak to a journalist who broke the story.
Plus, the 2 No. 2's, now it's their turn to steal the spotlight. What's in store for the vice presidential debates.
And later...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Oscar.
WILL SMITH, ACTOR: Jeannie, hey. What are you doing here?
UNIDENTFIED FEMALE: What, Oscar, did you forget something?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: No floundering for this fish film. "Shark Tale" swims to the top of the box office.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Welcome back. I'm Carol Lin. And here's a quick look at what's happening right now in the news. It can't get any closer than this. A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows the race to the White House is a tie: 49 percent of likely voters said they would chose President Bush, another 49 percent said they would pick Senator John Kerry, 1 percent say they would vote for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
Now John Kerry is on the road in Ohio with less than a month to go until Election Day. He's talking about the economy and job losses, and preparing for the second debate which is on domestic issues. His next stops are New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Iowa.
And President Bush is spending his Sunday taking a break from the campaign trail. Aides say they expect no major changes in the president's approach to next Friday's debate except for adjusting to the events town hall format.
And Condoleezza Rice says the military operations in Samarra are going well. The national security adviser appeared today on CNN's "LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER." Rice says she expects elections to take place throughout Iraq in January.
Now, "TIME" Magazine is reporting a group of terror suspects arrested in Britain may have been trying to make a dirty bomb. The story says evidence seized indicates the suspects planned to attack several targets in Britain, and included reconnaissance reports on targets in the United States.
Joining me now is "TIME" Washington correspondent Adam Zagorin. He wrote the story.
Adam, pretty -- pretty serious allegations here. We remember the story, because we remember stories about surveillance reports that members of potentially al Qaeda had stationed themselves outside of major financial institutions. Those reports several years old. What you're reporting, though, is that they were attempting to build a rough radioactive bombing device? ADAM ZAGORIN, "TIME": Well, that's right, Carol. The alleged leader of this group, who goes under the pseudonym Isal al-Hindi (ph), was reported by the 9/11 Commission to be in the United States prior to 9/11 doing the surveillance on some of the financial institutions, the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, and Citigroup Center in New York and New York Stock Exchange and others.
And among the things that the British authorities found when they arrested and raided these people, there were eight -- 12 initially, and now eight being charged in Britain, including Mr. al -- Hindi (ph) -- were a lot of -- hundreds, possibly more than hundreds of smoke detectors which contained -- common household smoke detectors with contained very tiny amounts of radioactive material, which, if...
LIN: Smoke detectors?
ZAGORIN: ... extracted from each of these -- smoke detectors.
LIN: Seriously, smoke detectors?
ZAGORIN: Smoke detectors have a small amount of radioactive material. It's called Americium. It's a man-made radioactive chemical. And if extracted from all of these devices and put together, the authorities in Britain, at least according to what they've told U.S. authorities, believe that it could have been an attempt to create a very crude dirty bomb. Now...
LIN: How close did he get to doing so, do they think?
ZAGORIN: All I know -- all I know is that the British told U.S. authorities that they had been collecting these smoke detectors, and that this was the apparent reason. I'm not sure how much further they got. But from a technical aspect, we've been told that creating a dirty bomb by this means would be extremely inefficient, and possibly even ineffectual.
In other words, you wouldn't be able to -- to kill or radiate a lot of people by this means. But that doesn't exclude the fact that it could very well have caused panic. It probably would have set off radiation detection equipment in the area, and it could have caused some contamination, if it were released, for example, in a subway or, you know, in a stadium or something of that nature.
LIN: Well, do they know what the likely targets were?
ZAGORIN: Well, they know that there were also -- it's not clear what the target of the dirty bomb might have been. They do -- the group did indicate certain targets in Britain. For example, high-rise buildings occupied by multinational companies. They didn't specify which one.
The interesting thing there is, they suggested -- the terrorists that were going to be charged in this matter in Britain indicated that they would like to attack those buildings by sending automobiles into the parking garages underneath them. Now, that's a very similar method of attack as the terrorists recommended for the Prudential Center in Newark, where they talked about also sending in cars or even limousines into that center to blow it up.
Other targets in Britain were an unspecified synagogue. We don't know where that is. And the express train that ran from Heathrow Airport to Paddington Station in London.
LIN: Interesting. Adam, thank you very much. We'll look forward to more of your reporting on this. I know this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Adam Zagorin, "TIME" Magazine.
Well, when it comes to -- when it comes to presidential elections, it may not be the economy, to quote a famous line from a previous election, but the spin that carries the day. CNN's Howard Kurtz has more on how spin has spun its way into previous presidential elections.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM LEHRER, MODERATOR, PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: This is Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.
HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES" (voice-over): So you've watched President Bush and John Kerry go at it, and you think you've got a pretty good idea of who won. But you're not counting on the media factor. There's the post-game chatter and the morning papers and the campaign spinners arguing their case. And this cacophony can, incredibly enough, turn a victory into defeat.
Take Al Gore's first debate against Bush four years ago. Most commentators and the network's insta-polls said the vice president had carried the night.
RON BROWNSTEIN, "LA TIMES": Well, I thought that overall, Gore's performance was probably a little insteadier, more confident than Bush.
KURTZ: And no one watching thought this was a turning point.
AL GORE, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And first, I want to compliment the governor response to those fires and floods in Texas. I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out.
KURTZ: But it turned out that Gore hadn't been with Witt, the Federal Emergency Management Director, but with Witt's deputy. A trivial point, perhaps, but Ari Fleischer and other Bush spinners kept telling reporters, there he goes again, Gore was exaggerating.
RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was puzzled and saddened to learn at the debate last night Al Gore once again made up facts.
KURTZ: That became the story line.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But you don't, Mr. Vice President. And that is a huge difference. Testing is the cornerstone... KURTZ: And then there was the matter of Gore's sighing while Bush was talking, which CNN asked him about the next day.
GORE: I learned my lesson on that. I'll be much more careful not to -- not to give up an audible reaction when he's talking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that is some sense of a regret or something you'll change.
GORE: I don't think that's a big deal, incidentally.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
KURTZ: He was wrong. It became a "Saturday Night Live" skit and the media buzz for days. And keep in mind that the media loved metaphors.
When the first President Bush debated Bill Clinton and Ross Perot in 1992, he did something that was largely unnoticed. He glanced at his watch. But after Maureen Dowd seized on that in "The New York Times," it became media shorthand for a president bored by a discussion of economic policy.
Finally, there's the gaff. When President Ford faced Jimmy Carter in 1976, the initial wave of media coverage paid little attention when he said this.
GERALD FORD, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be.
KURTZ: But within a day, the press jumped on the remark as a sign of a president out of touch with the era's Cold War reality. And wouldn't let up until Ford finally backed off.
Kerry and Bush may be done debating for now, but the media factor is just warming up.
Howard Kurtz, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Be sure to stay with CNN for the most complete coverage of the race for the White House. The vice presidential debate is coming up Tuesday night, the second presidential debate Friday night. And coverage begins at 7:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
In the meantime, we've got a new poll that has come out that shows that this race is ever so tight. It is a complete tie.
Terry Neal, the chief political correspondent for WashingtonPost.com, joins me now to talk about this poll that you're looking at right now, and the upcoming vice presidential debate.
Terry, good to have you.
TERRY NEAL, WASHINGTONPOST.COM: Thanks for having me. LIN: You take a look at this poll, I mean, 49 percent of 49 percent for Bush and Kerry, when asked of either likely voters -- or registered voters, rather, here, who would be your choice for president. This after the most recent debate. Does this spell trouble for George W. Bush?
NEAL: Well, you know, I've been telling people for at least a couple of months here that the polls at this point -- this is -- this is a close, tight race. I expect that there are going to be fluctuations. One week one candidate is going to be doing better than the other, and the next week then the other candidate -- the candidate is going to be doing better than the other.
But the bottom line is no one really knows. We don't even know, in fact, whether the polls are really accurately reflecting who's going to turn out.
The Democrats are saying that they've done a much better job, for instance, registering new voters, and that that will push them over the edge on Election Day. I'm just going on the assumption that it's a dead heat and we won't have any clue until -- until Election Day.
LIN: All right. The upcoming debate, presidential debate on Friday, is going to be a town hall format. How does President Bush wipe away the scowling impressions from the last debate?
NEAL: Well, you know, I was a little surprised to see that from him. Because he caught -- I covered the Bush campaign for "The Washington Post" in 2000, wrote about the smirk a lot. He had done a pretty good job of sort of kind of getting rid of that, or at least sort of suppressing it. But it came back in full force in the debate last week.
I think that he's going to probably make a very conscious effort to make sure that he doesn't do it again. And to make sure that -- I mean, one of his strong points is his likeability. That sort of thing doesn't help very much. It's these little things. It's just like what -- in my colleague Howard Kurtz's last piece, you know, Gore sighing in the debate 2000.
These little things suddenly become big things. So he's got to be very careful.
LIN: So do you think for John Kerry he has been able to put it to rest with likely unregistered voters, that he lacks core convictions and that he's a flip-flopper?
NEAL: Well, I think -- I think that he did a pretty good job. The campaign, my understanding, is they're -- they're thrilled with it. They're thrilled with it enough that they think they can sort of turn their attention to domestic issues and move away from foreign policy.
I'm not so sure whether that's the right thing. I mean, it seems to me that, you know, if you look at what -- focusing on one -- one particular issue, Iraq, and talking about making the case that he's been consistent on that, did a tremendous deal of -- had a tremendous impact in terms of changing voters' perceptions by moving those numbers a little bit.
So I think what you'll see probably is some balance. He's not going to be able to run away from the Iraq issue, or just talk about domestic policy, because the Bush folks are going to come after him based on some of the things that he said in the debate.
LIN: But at the same time, all right, so President Bush is out talking about taxes, he's talking about home ownership. John Kerry now is releasing a new set of ads in 15 states, focusing on domestic issues. He's got the momentum, though, from a foreign policy with the president. Is this a mistake -- is this is a change -- is this is a mistake and change in strategy?
NEAL: Well, you know, you've got to give -- see, my opinion is, the Bush people really know -- the Bush campaign people really know public -- public communication and PR strategy much better than the Kerry folks do. The Kerry folks think, well, we kind of wrapped that part up so we're going to move to something else.
But the bottom line is, a lot of people care about the economy. They care about these domestic issues. But Iraq, foreign policy, that's the thing that's on the front of the newspapers every day. You can't run away from that issue.
And the bottom line is, as people -- just because he did well one day doesn't mean that the Bush campaign is going to let that stand. They're going to be coming back after him every day. He's going to have no choice but to talk about it.
LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Terry Neal.
Also the day of the debate on Friday those unemployment figures are going to come out. So that's something else that's going to be on the front page of the domestic policy debate.
Terry Neal, WashingtonPost.com.
Now a quick look at news "Across America."
SpaceShipOne shoots for a $10 million prize tomorrow. That private space plane had a successful run on Wednesday, and now it must go beyond Earth's atmosphere once again to win that money. The prize was created by a space activist and opens the door to private citizens -- or at least to private citizens exploring space.
And two people are dead after a swamp tour boat overturns in Louisiana. The boat was carrying 16 passengers when it flipped over. Thirteen of the passengers were injured. Tourists take the boat ride to see wildlife that includes alligators.
And the music video channel VH-1 is celebrating 30 years of hip- hop. The first VH-1 hip-hop honors show premiers October 12. And the honorees include Sugar Hill Gang, Public Enemy and Topac Shakur. They're on call 24/7 in the event of a health crisis facing the first patient. Straight ahead, an in-depth look at the men and women charged with securing the president's health.
Also, it's Sunday night, but never too late to play a little Monday morning quarterback on presidential debates. Jeanne Moos shows us what you may have missed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: We have this just in from the Middle East. CNN has now learned from Palestinian police sources that two people have died after Israelis fired two missiles into Gaza, targeting a local Hamas commander. The two people dead now, the Israeli military has no immediate comment.
This after five days of rocket exchanges and fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. We'll keep you posted on the story as soon as we learn more.
In the meantime, we have a very special report tonight. We have been talking about the president's health and how it impacts all of us here in the United States.
So what is the plan when the unexpected affects the president's well-being? Well, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with another glimpse of his primetime special, "The First Patient," about health and medical care inside the White House.
I love the slogan, too, that even the Secret Service can't stop a cold?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Can't stop a cold, that's right.
LIN: You bet.
GUPTA: All the resources that go into protecting the president, a worst case scenario, an assassination attempt. President Reagan had an assassination attempt 23 years ago. There was no medical contingency at that time. How that was handled changed everything for subsequent presidents.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): March 30, 1981, 2:25 p.m.: Six shots ring out as President Reagan leaves a Washington hotel. A Secret Service agent pushes President Reagan into his limousine as would-be assassin John Hinckley is wrestled to the ground. President Reagan arrives at George Washington University hospital minutes later, near shock.
DR. JOSEPH GIORDANO, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: He collapsed. His blood pressure was 70, very low. And we put him on the gurney, and the residents immediately started IVs and got fluid in him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president has been shot once in the left chest.
GIORDANO: We were watching the blood come out of the chest tube, and a very significant amount came out. And there was no question in our mind that he had to go to surgery.
GUPTA: 3:24 p.m.: President Reagan is wheeled into the operating room and placed under anesthesia. At the White House, a desire to show the world there is no leadership vacuum that might be exploited by an enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As of now, I am in control here in the White House.
GUPTA: 6:45 p.m.: President Reagan emerges from a successful operation to stop his internal bleeding and remove the bullet lodged near his heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has the president turned over control or authority to the vice president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There has been no cause for that to take place.
GUPTA: But there was a need in the 48 hours following surgery, according to Dr. William Knaus, an intensive care physician who treated President Reagan.
DR. WILLIAM KNAUS, TREATED PRESIDENT REAGAN: I think if that day, after surgery, you know, Vice President Bush had walked in and said, you know, I'm taking over now, I think it would have been absolutely appropriate. I don't think any medical person -- I certainly would not have questioned it. I would think it would have been absolutely the logical thing to do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And Dr. Knaus took care of President Reagan afterwards, said he was disoriented. The White House never made mention of it. They never invoked the 25th amendment, even though all of this was going on.
In fact, you may remember, Carol, the day after he was shot, they actually had President Reagan sort of propped up in bed signing a dairy farm bill. All the doctors we said -- talked to about this said, really, he was not in any position to be able to do that.
LIN: And you're learning through your research that he really should have probably transferred powers at that point?
GUPTA: Yes. I mean, the 25th amendment, the way that it's invoked is one of two ways.
If the president is conscious, he can actually sign over power to the vice president. In this sort of situation, an assassination attempt, or if the president's incapacitated, the vice president can assume power with the cabinet's approval. And that's probably what should have taken place here.
LIN: All right. Interesting. A full hour special at 9:00 Eastern.
GUPTA: Are you going to watch?
LIN: I'm going to be watch. I'm going to be here.
GUPTA: All right. Hopefully other people will as well.
LIN: You're my lead-in to our big primetime show. Thank you very much, Sanjay.
GUPTA: All right. Thank you.
LIN: Well, you can see more of Dr. Gupta's inside look at the world of White House medicine tonight. "The First Patient: Health and the Presidency" begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
Now, you may have seen the debate the other night, but did you see the great puppet debate?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Senator, may I touch your hair?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you may.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Well, we're thinking probably not. But Jeanne Moos didn't miss it. Up next, those highlights, and little known awards for the presidential debate coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: An update and a correction out of that story out of the Middle East. Israel's military did fire two rockets towards Gaza -- Gaza City, targeting a Hamas military leader. We reported deaths. We are going to amend that to say casualties.
We want to be extra careful about what we report on this story. And we're going to keep you posted.
In the meantime, of course, it is a campaign year here in the United States. And while there was a presidential debate, there was a different sort of debate of sorts near Times Square. The regular debate watchers seemed to be concentrating more on what was not said there. CNN's Jeanne Moos has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOOS (voice-over): OK, gentlemen, shake hands and come out squinting and head-shaking and rubbing.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would have made a better choice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's horrible.
MOOS (on camera): But you're a Bush supporter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know. I know. Stand erect, don't make the faces.
MOOS (voice-over): President Bush gets the award for most blinking per answer. While some say Senator Kerry...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He showed his teeth too much.
MOOS: Picky, picky, picky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bush sounded like one of those dolls where you pull the cord.
MOOS: The most overused phrase award goes to the president.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, he said that it's hard work. It's hard work what we're doing.
BUSH: It's hard work.
It is hard work.
And it's hard work.
I understand how hard it is.
MOOS: John Kerry was hard at work, constantly scribbling notes, as Jon Stewart noted.
JON STEWART, TALK SHOW HOST: What was he writing?
MOOS: As for the rules...
LEHRER: No hissing, no booing, no cheering, no crying, no laughing.
MOOS: ... the high school principal award goes to moderator Jim Lehrer.
LEHRER: If for some reasons there is some noise, I'm going to stop the debate, and I'm going to turn you around and hold you up to public ridicule.
MOOS: The candidates were kept from going overtime by flashing warning lights. The moderator never had to resort to the sound you never heard.
(BELL RINGING)
LEHRER: Hey, now that's power, right? OK. MOOS: No, this is power. This was the overtime gong at a presidential debate in Times Square just hours before the real one featuring puppets from the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q.
(on camera): Senator, may I touch your hair?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you may. It needs a little smoothing.
MOOS (voice-over): At the real debate, puppet was a dirty word.
BUSH: One of his campaign people alleged that Prime Minister Allawi was like a puppet.
MOOS: At least at the puppet debate no one could roll their eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, what a girlie man he is. He's a puppet of the liberal left.
MOOS: The girlie factor came into play back at the real debate. We call this the who needs Viagra exchange.
BUSH: You cannot wilt under that pressure.
KERRY: I have no intention of wilting. I've never wilted in my life.
MOOS: Which brings us to the Al and Tipper Gore memorial kiss award. It goes to the Kerrys, who almost got carried away.
The most enigmatic sign award goes to this three-letter word displayed to the cameras of a rival network. And don't pooh-pooh the superficial fashion award moment. It goes to the candidates' wives, seen comparing their matching white outfits while the rain-soaked puppets took pity on the press.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And wipe of your lens. You're all wet. For gosh sakes. Look at that.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: That's all the time we have for this hour.
Coming up at 7:00 Eastern, "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" featuring Vice President Dick Cheney and his Democratic opponent, John Edwards.
At 8:00, CNN PRESENTS: "Born to Run: A Profile of Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry."
At 9:00 Eastern, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's special, "The First Patient: An Inside Look at Securing a Healthy President."
And I'll be back at 10:00. Another big day is coming up for SpaceShipOne. Miles O'Brien is going to join me live from the Mojave Desert as the team gets ready for another launch into space.
The hour's headlines when I come back, and then "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS."
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