Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

A look at Presidential Debate; Questions Are Raised in Afghanistan Election

Aired October 09, 2004 - 09:00   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.


DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning from the CNN Center. This is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. I'm Drew Griffin.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you. I'm Erica Hill, in today for Betty Nguyen.

It is early morning in the heartland, where the presidential candidates are stumping today, late afternoon in Afghanistan, where a presidential election is now being challenged.

Here's the news.

GRIFFIN: Police say 14 people were killed this morning when a tour bus crashed in northeastern Arkansas. These pictures just came into CNN. The bus had left Chicago and was believed to be headed to a Mississippi casino. The bus was the only vehicle involved. This is Interstate 55. There are an unknown number of injuries there. We're going to bring you more on this story as soon as we get it.

Meanwhile, 14 opposition leaders called for a new election in Afghanistan before today's presidential vote was even over. The candidates are saying that ink used to mark voters' fingers could be washed off, allowing more people to vote more than once. U.N. officials are holding talks with the candidates in an effort to save today's landmark election.

Voters believe President Bush has improved his debating performance. A CNN/"USA Today"-Gallup poll questioned registered voters about who did better last night. It was a virtual draw. Poll respondents had given Senator Kerry a 16-point percentage lead after that first debate.

An agreement reached today to end weeks of fighting in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City. Under the deal, this man, Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Iraqi interim government, his Medhi Army will hand over its medium and heavy weapons by Monday.

HILL: Here's a look now at what we've got coming up.

It all started with a handshake, but then the gloves came off. The verbal jabs flew fast and furious during last night's presidential debate. Find out where each contender stands the morning after. And in politics, more politics for you, stretching the truth can be a bit of a strategy, but how can you tell if it's fact or fiction? We'll check which arguments are real and which are, shall we say, imagined.

Then, it's not a reality show in The Novak Zone. Find out what it really takes to survive in the U.S. Navy.

GRIFFIN: To our lead story at this hour in Afghanistan, the country's first direct presidential elections hit a snag. Several of the opposition candidates are leveling charges of fraud. Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour joins us live in Kabul. Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Drew, these opposition candidates, many of whom represent the warlords of the past, have banded together to declare that this is null and void, and to say they want a new election. But in the last hour, the election board that has been running this, the U.N. election board, has said that, no, this voting will go on, and whatever concerns the opposition has, they will decide in due course and decide on it.

But for the moment, they have said that this election continues. The voting has in most cases stopped, because the polls closed at 4:00 p.m. local, which was about an hour and a half ago, but in the those polling stations where there was still an overflow of people, the polling has been extended for another half an hour.

It began today with great deal of enthusiasm and excitement. We were at one of the main polling stations here in Kabul. There were huge lines, thousands of men, at least, at the one we went to, and hundreds of women. I must say the women were vastly outnumbered, and that seems to be the case around the country. Much fewer women did turn out than the men.

Nonetheless, they turned out, and they were eager to vote.

Two hours into this voting, candidates' agents, political party agents, came to the voting stations and started to raise issues about the ink, saying that the ink was not indelible. This ink was meant to prevent fraud, and indeed, we did see that it washed off. At that point, in many of these stations, the voting booths were closed down.

The U.N. did send new batches of ink, and in many stations the voting continued. But the candidates called for a boycott, as I said, and a postponement. Nonetheless, it is going ahead. People do say that they are pleased with it. But the opposition candidates, as I say, the warlords, made some threatening noises.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD SHAH AHMADZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is completely, completely prearranged fraud. We shouted to the whole world two and a half months ago that Mr. Karzai must resign, the election, the commission must be replaced. Nobody listened to us. They were telling us that we are just saying lies. Now, thank God, today was the proof for our request and for our recommendation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Well, the U.N. is rejecting the charges of fraud, and most clearly rejecting the charges that it was involved knowingly in this fraud. This is what the election board said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY KENNEDY, JOINT ELECTION MANAGEMENT BODY: The JEMB wishes to reassure voters, candidates, and observers that procedures exist to receive, investigate, and decide on complaints. All complaints and irregularities raised with the JEMB will be thoroughly investigated and will be taken into account when the JEMB deliberates on the extent to which the election accurately reflects the will of the Afghan people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: President Karzai himself, the transitional president who is hoping for a people's mandate and to be elected as the future president here, cast his vote at a special center designed for VIPs here in Kabul. He said that whether he won or lost, that was not the issue. The issue was a successful election, which would be a winning proposition for the people of Afghanistan.

These opposition candidates who are disputing this election say that if he does take office, he will have -- his legitimacy will be in question, and they were making threatening statements about whether or not they would cooperate with a Karzai government.

So at the moment, it does seem to be a bit disputed, this election, but, as I say, voting continuing, and the people themselves very, very happy to be at the polls, Drew.

GRIFFIN: Christiane Amanpour, live in Afghanistan on that country's first presidential election. Thank you for that.

We turn to this country's presidential election now. The second debate behind us, President George Bush and John Kerry last night in St. Louis. By most accounts, candidate Bush bounced back from his debate performance in debate number one. Still, early post-clash polls give Senator Kerry an edge in the overall performance.

We have a couple perspectives for you. One, the Republican side, is coming from New York Governor George Pataki, who is in St. Louis.

Governor, good morning. No doubt you think your candidate did quite well last night.

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK: Well, Drew, I was very pleased. I think the president made a very strong case for his leadership and really showed that he is the commander in chief and that America and the world are safer places because of his policies over the last four years and that America has created close to 2 million new jobs since last August, so I also think for the first time Senator Kerry was forced to talk about his 20-year Senate record, a record he doesn't want to talk about, because it's a record of consistently supporting higher taxes, a weaker military, voting to slash our intelligence, which is so important in this war against terror.

So I think the people saw a true contrast and saw a president who's in command and leading our country.

GRIFFIN: Governor, Senator Kerry tried to define this war, and I think has done it effectively, saying, Look, no weapons of mass destruction equals a mistake in Iraq. What has been the president's response to that, and is it effective?

PATAKI: The president's response was very effective, and that is that Senator Kerry has said himself that given the current evidence, he would have pursued the war in Iraq. The fact of the matter is, America is safer. Look what's going on in the world. We've seen attacks in the -- in Russia, against schoolchildren, and Madrid just yesterday, in Egypt against Israeli tourists.

But since September 11, America has not been attacked, because this president has provided strong leadership. And look what's happening today. An election in Afghanistan, and the fact that millions of Afghanis have the right to choose their leader. It's extremely important in this war against terror, and it's a result of this president's strong resolve and principled leadership.

GRIFFIN: Governor Pataki, thank you from New York. We want -- or from St. Louis, Missouri, this morning. Governor, thank you so much.

Now we go to the Democratic side. We have Joe Lockhart, Kerry campaign adviser. He is in Washington.

Good morning, sir. I'll give you the first 20 seconds free, as I did to Governor Pataki, on your candidate.

JOE LOCKHART, KERRY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: Oh, listen, I mean, John, John, John, John, yes. John Kerry won -- yes, he won the debate last night. I don't think it was even close. Every public poll has said that, and we believe that.

You know, I think part of the problem (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you just heard from Governor Pataki is that they live in a fantasy world. John Kerry's been very clear that with no weapons of mass destruction and no connection to al Qaeda, we would not have gone to war.

They have talked in the last few days about how this new CIA report justifies their actions in Iraq. In fact, if you read the report, it's devastating to their rationale for going to war.

The American public is smart. They know what the facts are, and that's why they are moving so aggressively to John Kerry.

GRIFFIN: Last night, we were supposed to talk about domestic policy (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I want you to ask you this. We heard it from John Edwards in the vice presidential debate, from Senator Kerry as well, this kind of class warfare, the rich against the poor, the rich get the tax breaks, the business gets the tax breaks.

Now John Kerry wants to take those tax breaks away and give it to the poor people. My question for you, Joe, is, how does that create a job?

LOCKHART: Well, listen, I don't think anybody's talking about the rich versus the poor. I challenge you to go through either of the transcripts of the debate and find a reference to the rich versus the poor. What John Kerry and John Edwards have talked about is strengthening the middle class, because that's the backbone of our economy, giving them more spending power, more savings, more security will make the jobs grow.

In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was the president, there was a strategy to strengthen the middle class. We created 23 million new jobs. That's 23 million, as opposed to negative 1 million. What George Bush wants to do is to protect that 1 percent, the top 1 percent, people making over $200,000.

And our view is, we tried that. We spent three and a half years giving the bulk of the tax breaks to the top 1 percent, and we're still down a million jobs.

There are two strategies here. Look at the '90s. You find one that worked. Look at the last three and a half years, you find one that's failed miserably.

GRIFFIN: Thank you for joining us, Mr. Lockhart. I wish we had more time, but we're trying to keep the debate rules similar here even in the spin afterwards. Thank you, sir.

LOCKHART: Thank you.

HILL: Well, in the road to the White House is paved in stone, you might say the two candidates are laying the foundation. Last night each man built up his arguments in St. Louis brick by brick. You heard a little more of them just a few minutes ago.

Today, they're trying to cement their support in rallies around the country.

Senator Kerry is in Elyria, Ohio, and our Frank Buckley is also there. Good morning to you again, Frank.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning there, Erica.

Senator Kerry to appear here at a rally in concert with the singer Mary Chapin Carpenter later today to try to rally his troops just three and half weeks before election day.

Campaign officials, as you just heard from Joe Lockhart, are pleased, meanwhile, with the performance of Senator Kerry in the debate last night. They believe that they were able to put Senator -- or President Bush on the defensive and simultaneously score some points, specifically on some domestic issues.

We're told that the campaign used those metering devices to measure in real time how voters reacted to some of the issues that were coming up, and campaign officials tell us that Senator Kerry's position on importing prescription drugs from Canada scored particularly well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You heard the president just say that he thought he might try to be for it. Four years ago, right here in this forum, he was asked the same question, Can't people be able to import drugs from Canada? Do you know what he said? I think that makes sense, I think that's a good idea. Four years ago.

Now the president said, I'm not blocking that. Ladies and gentlemen, the president just didn't level with you right now again. He did block it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUCKLEY: Now, right after the debate, Senator Kerry held a rally at the St. Louis Art Museum, and he also give gave us a sense there of where he's going in the days ahead with his campaign. A senior strategist telling us, just as you heard Joe Lockhart say, that Kerry will talk again and again about how he is the candidate who will most help middle class voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERRY: The richest people in America have had their tax burden go down, and the middle class share of the tax burden has gone up. Not in my America, not in our America, not after November 2.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUCKLEY: And the focus in the days ahead will primarily be on domestic issues, but senior strategists telling me this morning that it will sound like stereo, because they will also simultaneously talk about Iraq, all of it leading to the next presidential debate that's coming up this Wednesday in Tempe, Arizona, Erica.

HILL: All right, Frank Buckley, as always, we appreciate it.

Meantime, for his part, President Bush campaigning in three Midwestern states today, Missouri, Minnesota, and an afternoon rally in Waterloo, Ohio -- oh, Iowa, rather, pardon me.

That's where our White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is now. She joins us. Good morning to you, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on phone): Well, good morning.

And speaking with a lot of Bush aides following the debate, the second debate, they said -- they told me, you know what? The president did what he needed to do, that he improved his performance from the last debate, that he's back in the game, essentially that they stopped that hemorrhaging.

He also did something that was important as well, and that was to set up his pitch, his attack lines for the domestic debate that's coming up in the week ahead.

And here's what they say. They say the bottom line is, despite Kerry's gains, they say that Bush's floor support, that is, his base, is higher than that of Kerry's, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a rally following that debate, the president thanked many of his supporters and said he was very confident in looking at the weeks ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a good debate tonight. There's clear differences of opinion. One thing I hope you can tell is I know what I believe, know where I need to lead this country to make this world a safer place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now, part of the Bush strategy, of course, is to build on this momentum and to use Kerry's own records or words against him, to plant these seeds of doubts in voters' minds. They're going to set up the scenario, Well, you like what Kerry says, but let's see here what he does. Let's take a look at the record.

For example, what he's going -- what they're going to hit him hard with is the economic policies here, Bush's economic policies of tax cuts, they're going to continue to make the case that Kerry voted on a number of occasions for tax hikes. The senator, they're going to do this over and over to try to set up a contrast, to say, Look, Kerry says one thing, but he does another. You just can't trust him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: When he talks about being fiscally conservative, he's just not credible. If you look at his record in the Senate, he voted to break the spending -- the caps, the spending caps, over 200 times. And here he says he's going to be a fiscal conservative all of a sudden. It's just not credible. You cannot believe it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And this is a message that he's going to give over and over in places that essentially that Gore won and that Bush narrowly lost back in 2000. That is really the centerpiece of their strategy in the week ahead.

That is why President Bush not only in St. Louis, Missouri, this morning but he's traveling next to Iowa, that is a state that he lost by just 4,000 votes, and then later today in Minnesota, he lost by just 2.5 percentage points. So he is going to be hitting those battleground states that are extremely important for his campaign. And of course, back to the Crawford ranch, that is where we expect he'll be preparing in earnest for, of course, the third and final debate.

HILL: A busy day for him, Suzanne, and a busy one for you. Thanks for making time for us.

Well, that's going to lead us to our e-mail question this morning. Who, in your opinion, was a winner in the debate, and why do you think so, if you tuned in? You can e-mail us at wam@cnn.com. We're going to check in with those e-mail replies throughout the program this morning.

And while you're online, be sure you cast your vote for a debate winner at our Web site. Just click on over to CNN.com, and there you'll see the Quick Vote poll. We'll be checking the results. You can see some of them there. Looks like if I squint, Kerry leading the charge.

GRIFFIN: CNN, of course, is your presidential election headquarters. A reminder that we will be covering the third and final debate this Wednesday in Arizona before, during, and after. And if, you know, last night was your bowling night, missed the debate, you'd like to see it again, going to be right here at 2:00 Eastern time on CNN. We'll replay the second presidential debate. It was a doozy.

Putting political accusations to the test, is John Kerry really the most liberal senator in the Congress? And just how many jobs have been lost under the president's tenure? We'll fact-check candidates' statements in the second presidential debate.

HILL: Plus, what do President Bush's pets say about him? We'll take a somewhat humorous look at presidential policy with comedian and author Mo Rocca.

GRIFFIN: And good morning, New York. We will have your complete forecast in 10 minutes.

CNN SATURDAY MORNING will be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: Candidates Bush and Kerry extended the factual envelope a bit during the presidential debate.

CNN's Joe Johns listened and checked the facts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than once, President Bush said John Kerry is the most liberal member of the Senate, citing the "National Journal"'s rankings of senators by their recorded votes.

BUSH: The "National Journal" named Senator Kennedy the most liberal senator of all, and that's saying something, that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

JOHNS: That's technically true for 2003, but it's far from the whole story. Kerry's lifetime rating puts him as the 11th most liberal senator. Once he started running for president, his voting attendance fell off dramatically, throwing the "National Journal"'s methodology way off.

The journal tossed out all of his votes on social and foreign policy because he hadn't cast enough votes on those issues, and based Kerry's ranking solely on his domestic policy votes on 22 of 62 total votes cast. Without the full accounting, the "National Journal"'s lifetime ranking of Kerry as the 11th most liberal senator is more fair than the label of most liberal.

For his part, Kerry appears to have overstated the number of lost jobs since Bush took office.

KERRY: President has presided over the economy, where we've lost 1.6 million jobs, first president in 72 years to lose jobs.

JOHNS: Kerry said the economy has lost 1.6 million jobs since 2001. That's true, if all you're considering is the private sector. If you add the government jobs created during that period, the net job loss is 821,000, almost half the figure Kerry cited.

All in all, at first glance, the vast majority of assertions had at least some basis in fact. But when it suited their ends, both candidates left out the other side of the story.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: If you want a flu shot but you're in a high-risk group, is it ethical to get the injection, and perhaps deprive someone else who might need it more than you? We're going to pose that question to the ethics guy, syndicated columnist Bruce Winestein (ph), coming up on CNN at noon Eastern.

And if you've got a question about a situation at home or maybe at work that raises an ethical issue, you can send that question to the ethics guy. That e-mail address, ethics@cnn.com.

And still to come this hour, we're diving into the Naval Academy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT NOVAK, HOST, THE NOVAK ZONE: We're here at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, about to take a ride on a Navy patrol (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the Severin (ph) River, next on The Novak Zone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Good morning to you, New York, where the Big Apple is getting ready to welcome a winter tradition. No, not the fog that you see there. For the 68th year, Rockefeller Center is scheduled to open its ice skating rink. Very foggy morning, though, there in New York.

GRIFFIN: Always beautiful to have coffee down there, isn't it, Rob, and watch the skaters?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is, it is, especially if you're not one of them, you know. It's, not you, Drew, but, you know, just watching them.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

HILL: Drew is a champion skater, you know.

MARCIANO: Really? We'll have to get video.

HILL: Oh, he's got moves.

GRIFFIN: You know, I don't think they allow sticks and pucks down on that rink, last I checked.

HILL: Oh, yes.

MARCIANO: Oh, yes. I bet you could -- yes, nice, we'll have to get video of Drew strapping on the pads.

Hey, let's -- you know what else is a tradition this time of year is fog, and that's what they're getting in New York City.

(WEATHER FORECAST)

MARCIANO: Hockey season just around the corner, isn't it, Drew?

GRIFFIN: Well, not professionally. Thanks, Rob.

HILL: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MARCIANO: See you guys.

HILL: Thanks, Rob.

High-tech trading for the high seas. The Novak Zone shows us how the U.S. Naval Academy is preparing sailors today for the emergencies of tomorrow.

And still to come, White House humor, comedian Mo Rocka finds his funny bone through first family pets.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: At 9:32, we are in the Navy in The Novak Zone. The training it takes to survive a U.S. Naval Academy. I'm Drew Griffin.

HILL: Welcome back. I'm Erica Hill, in for Betty Nguyen.

That story coming up, but first the headlines.

The polls have closed across Afghanistan, which held its first direct democratic election today, but a new controversy has opened. Most of the opposition candidates are now alleging fraud and demanding a new vote. U.N. officials are said to be meeting with them to try to work things out.

In Baghdad, new hope for peace in the Sadr City neighborhood. Militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces. The interim government says it struck a deal with the militia fighters, and they have agreed to start handing over their weapons Monday.

In Australia, incumbent Prime Minister John Howard is claiming his fourth consecutive victory in his country's general election. The vote was seen as a test of Howard's Conservative government, which has been a key supporter of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

And back Stateside, a tour bus crash in northeastern Arkansas has killed at least 14 people. This video you're seeing is just in to CNN a short time ago. Arkansas state police say the bus flipped over as it left a highway. It was carrying people from the Chicago area to a Mississippi casino.

GRIFFIN: Wow.

Wading through rough waters and navigating the high seas, you're now entering The Novak Zone, where today Bob Novak dives into the lessons learned by students at the U.S. Naval Academy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK: Welcome to The Novak Zone. We're at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We're on the Severn River on YP 692. And we're talking to Commander Steve Lott, chairman of the Seamanship Navigation Program at the Academy, and one of his star students, Midshipman Caleb Humberd (ph) from Red Lion, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Humberd, what kind of a ship is this? Can you tell us?

MIDSHIPMAN CALEB HUMBERD, U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY: Well, it's a yard patrol craft. Really, it's just meant for training. We take it out here in the bay on afternoons, we take a couple weekend-long trips during the semester.

NOVAK: Commander, I understand every midshipman has to take a course in navigation, even though a majority of them are going into aviation or the Marine Corps. Why do they have to learn navigation?

CMDR. STEVEN LOTT, U.S. NAVY: Because they're still all naval officers. And we have -- it's our sense here that having an understanding of some of the basics of operating at sea is common to all of our graduates.

NOVAK: Commander, we just had a exercise, man overboard. Explain what that's all about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Man overboard, starboard side.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All stop.

LOT: What you saw was one of the midshipman executing orders to the con in a rehearsal of something just like we do on big ships at sea. That's how we maneuver a vessel to recover somebody who had fallen overboard. We increased our engine speed and made a very tight circle, and then I think that the YP was very expertly brought alongside the man, so that we could recover him safely.

NOVAK: Mr. Humberd, you're from the middle of Pennsylvania, which is not a lot of oceans there. What made you want to be a sailor?

HUMBERD: Actually, I came here wanting to fly. I heard that they have a -- you know, I could graduate from here and fly fighter jets like "Top Gun." But I came here, and I got involved in the YP Squadron as a freshman or as a plebe, and learned that I really like being out on the water.

NOVAK: Commander, what do these young fellows coming out of high school at the age of 17 or 18, most of them, is that a tough job, turning them into a naval officer in four years?

LOT: I would tell you, again, the Naval Academy prepares midshipman morally, mentally, and physically to go out and excel as officers in the Navy or the Marine Corps. My job is to make sure that we leave -- or we have graduates that are competent mariners.

We reinforce that training that happens in the classroom with the work that we do in the simulators, out here on the yard patrol craft that you're on board today, and then the training the midshipman do in the fleet during the summertime.

NOVAK: Now, what is a simulator?

LOT: A simulator is a facility inside our building that provides a simulation, if you'll excuse the use of the same word, of the experience of being on board ship. We can simulate entering and leaving a port, handling a ship alongside a pier, making approaches for another vessel for under way replenishment, and the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- the full gamut of wind and sea conditions.

NOVAK: Is it different being in the simulator, Mr. Humberd, than going out here on the river?

HUMBERD: At first you notice that, you know, you're not rocking like we are now, and that the picture looks a little computer generated, but after you get into the scenario and you start reacting to the situation, you forget about that stuff, and just -- and it happens just like you're under way.

NOVAK: Do you use a lot of high-tech stuff? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they used to have sextants in the old Navy and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) instruments they'd used for centuries, or do you have new navigational equipment?

HUMBERD: We certainly have a lot of new high-tech navigation equipment, but they start us off on the basics, paper charts, pencil and paper calculations, so that we understand what we're doing before we let -- turn it over to the machines to do it quickly and easier.

NOVAK: A lot of the alumni of this institution have really had amazing careers. Jimmy Carter got to be president of the United States, John McCain is a famous U.S. senator. Are those role models, do you think, for people here, or are the role models more the people who are the career Navy people?

HUMBERD: I think that all graduates from this place, you know, contribute in some way, one way or another to this country, whether they stay in 30 years, become an admiral, or whether they serve their five-year commitment and get out and go into business or politics or law. Not everyone's cut out for a career in naval service.

NOVAK: Commander Lott, you were class of...

LOT: Nineteen eighty-four.

NOVAK: ... '84, and I don't think we were in combat anywhere in that time.

LOT: No, sir.

NOVAK: Is it a different mood here now, knowing that we're -- the kind of war against terror you may be in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) any time?

LOT: I think there is. I think there's a little more gravitas to the average midshipman who's thinking more about the fact that he's going to be out there and be in combat and very shortly.

NOVAK: Commander Lott, what do the midshipmen learn here about sailing, the way people have sailed for years in the Navy?

LOT: All of the midshipmen complete a pretty extensive program that starts with their first summer here, starts with fleet summer, where they all learn to skipper a 26-foot Colgate (ph). Those midshipmen the next summer go out and spend an expended -- an extended period on a 44-foot vessel, where they go out with a crew of about eight or nine and go for a two- or three-week cruise.

NOVAK: And now, the big question. Midshipman Humberd, most Americans think of the Naval Academy, they think of the Navy-Army game, with the midshipmen and the cadets all marching for 100,000 people. Is that really a big deal here?

HUMBERD: Oh, it's a huge deal. It -- the whole week leading up to this event, it's crazy in the hall. People are getting fired up for the game. Then they ship all 4,300 of us out to wherever they're playing the game.

It's an incredible experience to get together and have both sides yelling and cheering for their teams. And it's -- the competition is fierce, but in the end, we all know that after we graduate, we're all on the same team. NOVAK: Midshipman Humberd, thank you very much. Thank you, Commander Lott.

And thank you for being in The Novak Zone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Right now, President Bush speaking at a breakfast in St. Louis, Missouri, after the debate. He has a heavy campaign schedule this morning.

Presidential candidates have, of course, spoken. Now it is your turn. We're going to read some of your e-mails about last night's debate right after the break.

HILL: Plus, they warm the laps and hearts of the first family. But can White House pets actually influence major policy decisions? Comedian Mo Rocca's take on the burning issue next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Our top stories now.

United Nations officials overseeing the presidential election in Afghanistan are in crisis talks with many of the candidates. Fourteen of those who oppose interim leader Hamid Karzai claim widespread fraud over the ink used to ensure people voted only once. They want the U.N. to now void the election.

Palestinian sources say the Israeli military killed six Palestinians in four separate attacks in Gaza today. Israel says it has beefed up its campaign to crack down on Palestinian terrorists.

Back in the U.S., President Bush put in a stronger performance in the debate rematch last night in St. Louis. But early polls show viewers thought Senator John Kerry did a slightly better job. Statistically, though, it was a tie.

GRIFFIN: We've had about a thousand e-mails on this question this morning. And here's some of them.

Robert from Jacksonville answers the question of who won by saying, "Bush, decisively. He clearly articulated the differences between his long-term goals in the war against the Islamic terrorists and Kerry's myopic views."

HILL: Meantime, Christina in New York finds that Kerry won the debate. She says, "He was succinct, related to the audience in a direct and compassionate manner, and answered questions with information rather than with the broad generalities used by Bush."

GRIFFIN: Thanks for writing in.

HILL: Well, within every president's inner circle of advisers there are the trusted advisers, of course, reliable aides, and that ally who needs to be walked every day. A new book by comedian Mo Rocca suggests America has always gone to the dogs. It's called "All the President's Pets." In it, Rocca says those innocent-looking animals are really barking up their own agenda.

Rocca joins now us live this morning from St. Louis.

Good morning. Recovered from the debate?

MO ROCCA, AUTHOR, "ALL THE PRESIDENT'S PETS": I just got in from the debate afterparty. It was crazy. Teresa really knows how to throw it down.

HILL: Teresa may know how to throw down, but we hear, apparently, the first pets also know a thing or two.

ROCCA: Well, listen, here's the thing. Just -- to give you some background on why I wrote this, I think that the press and the public don't know enough about presidential decision making, and I'm quite serious about this.

I think that the president, not just this president, its insulated by advisers who want to help cultivate the image of an infallible, superheroic chief executive that's not really accountable to the people. I think it's beyond anything the framers of the Constitution intended.

So I wanted to see what it is that they're hiding that would undermine this image of Godlikeness that presidents seem to want and be successful at, unfortunately.

And I found in studying presidential pets, and I studied presidential pets for years, there are only seven books written on the subject, I own five, you can probably get by with three, there were strong connections between presidential pet behavior and presidential decision making.

HILL: Well, give us some examples of that relationship between the behavior and the decision making.

ROCCA: Well, in -- the Cuban missile crisis is sort of my Rosetta stone. In October of 1962, we came to the nuclear brink, as we all know. At the time, Kennedy had a Welsh terrier named Charlie, a very handsome, charming, focused, very horny dog, very much like the president. A wonderful dog.

And Nikita Khrushchev, months before the crisis, gave Mrs. Kennedy the gift of Puschinka (ph). She was a beautiful white half- husky, the daughter of Strelka (ph), the first Soviet space dog to come back alive.

Well, the two dogs fell in love with each other. Well, at least they mated. And Puschinka gave birth to four little puppies that JFK called pupniks, which I think is very cute. This is the exact moment that JFK rejected the nuclear first strike option advocated by some of his more hawkish advisers and instead embraced the more peaceful blockade, which we know was the right solution. And this is just Kennedy looking at those pupniks, learned to emphasize, which is an important virtue in leadership. And this is, this was certainly intentional on the part of the animals, to affect Kennedy this way.

And I saw this all the way down the line, with Martin Van Buren's tiger cubs, a gift of the Sultan of Oman, and their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- their, their, their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) participation in the crisis of -- the panic of 1837, which is the first economic crisis in this country.

So I must make clear that presidential pets don't always have a good effect. Sometimes they make bad decisions or influence bad decisions.

HILL: Unfortunately, just like politicians sometimes. Hey, in the book, also, fair amount of encounters with the White House press corps, most notably Helen Thomas.

ROCCA: Well, this is a thriller, because it's high-stakes material, and it's nothing any White House would ever want known.

Helen Thomas is my heroine. I've always wanted to star in a thriller with Helen Thomas. She's the dean of the White House press corps. She's somebody that we saw certainly in the runup to the Iraq war was tireless, indefatigable pursuer of the truth, not afraid to ask tough questions, and I think was alienated and ridiculed by some for it.

In my book, I reveal that she lives underneath the White House in a subterranean lair where she's the keeper of the presidential pet archives. She has secrets of her own. She spent an idyllic girlhood with Sacagawea and had an illicit relationship with Millard Filmore.

And she takes me under her wing, and there's a pun there, you have to get the book to understand why, because she has another secret. And we battle the rest of the press corps, who don't want to ask the tough questions in this case.

And we come in counter with (UNINTELLIGIBLE) encounter with a lot of other beloved news media personalities.

HILL: Pretty incredible stuff, including some of our own from CNN, Candy Crowley and Wolf Blitzer.

ROCCA: Well, Wolf Blitzer, my friend, whom I adore, is my Sensei in this book. He's certainly portrayed in a positive light. And that's the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

HILL: I think that's probably how he...

ROCCA: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

GRIFFIN: ... sees himself...

ROCCA: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)... that he's Japanese. HILL: ... too.

ROCCA: I'm sorry?

HILL: We're going to have to cut you off there, I'm sorry, Mo.

ROCCA: Oh.

HILL: But much to, much more to find out, apparently, in this book, so thanks for giving us a sneak peek.

ROCCA: Yes, and please buy it, "All the President's Pets." The next time we get together, I'll talk about John Tyler's canaries and their role in same-sex marriage and the opposition to it in the current White House.

HILL: I look forward to it, it'll be a fascinating discovery. Mo Rocca, joining us from St. Louis.

ROCCA: Thank you.

HILL: Thanks.

GRIFFIN: A librarian society must-have, no doubt.

Good morning, San Francisco. We'll have your complete forecast in five minutes when CNN SATURDAY MORNING continues. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: We're back with weather. Something swirling in the Gulf.

HILL: A little bit, a blob, as Drew said earlier. Rob?

MARCIANO: Very weak tropical storm. Hi, guys.

(WEATHER FORECAST)

MARCIANO: Near 80 degrees expected in San Francisco tomorrow. This is the time of year where they start to see summerlike weather. Great time of year to visit. And I think their air show is Columbus Day weekend, which is this weekend.

HILL: You're right. Fleet Week, exactly.

MARCIANO: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HILL: Big weekend in San Francisco.

MARCIANO: Good time.

HILL: All right, thanks, rob.

GRIFFIN: "ON THE STORY" is next, with Barbara Starr. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, "ON THE STORY": Well, good morning to you.

We're "ON THE STORY" from Washington, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Dana Bash is "ON THE STORY" of last night's presidential debate. Christiane Amanpour has the latest from Afghanistan's first-ever vote for president. Jane Arraf and I are both on the Iraq story from the hallways of the Pentagon to the byways of Samarra north of Baghdad. And Sabila (ph) Vargas talks about show biz and politics and how to escape from it at the movies, all coming up, all "ON THE STORY."

GRIFFIN: All right, Barbara, thanks a lot.

And thanks for watching this morning. That will do it for us.

HILL: Have a great day, and enjoy your Saturday. "ON THE STORY" next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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 9, 2004 - 09:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning from the CNN Center. This is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. I'm Drew Griffin.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you. I'm Erica Hill, in today for Betty Nguyen.

It is early morning in the heartland, where the presidential candidates are stumping today, late afternoon in Afghanistan, where a presidential election is now being challenged.

Here's the news.

GRIFFIN: Police say 14 people were killed this morning when a tour bus crashed in northeastern Arkansas. These pictures just came into CNN. The bus had left Chicago and was believed to be headed to a Mississippi casino. The bus was the only vehicle involved. This is Interstate 55. There are an unknown number of injuries there. We're going to bring you more on this story as soon as we get it.

Meanwhile, 14 opposition leaders called for a new election in Afghanistan before today's presidential vote was even over. The candidates are saying that ink used to mark voters' fingers could be washed off, allowing more people to vote more than once. U.N. officials are holding talks with the candidates in an effort to save today's landmark election.

Voters believe President Bush has improved his debating performance. A CNN/"USA Today"-Gallup poll questioned registered voters about who did better last night. It was a virtual draw. Poll respondents had given Senator Kerry a 16-point percentage lead after that first debate.

An agreement reached today to end weeks of fighting in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City. Under the deal, this man, Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Iraqi interim government, his Medhi Army will hand over its medium and heavy weapons by Monday.

HILL: Here's a look now at what we've got coming up.

It all started with a handshake, but then the gloves came off. The verbal jabs flew fast and furious during last night's presidential debate. Find out where each contender stands the morning after. And in politics, more politics for you, stretching the truth can be a bit of a strategy, but how can you tell if it's fact or fiction? We'll check which arguments are real and which are, shall we say, imagined.

Then, it's not a reality show in The Novak Zone. Find out what it really takes to survive in the U.S. Navy.

GRIFFIN: To our lead story at this hour in Afghanistan, the country's first direct presidential elections hit a snag. Several of the opposition candidates are leveling charges of fraud. Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour joins us live in Kabul. Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Drew, these opposition candidates, many of whom represent the warlords of the past, have banded together to declare that this is null and void, and to say they want a new election. But in the last hour, the election board that has been running this, the U.N. election board, has said that, no, this voting will go on, and whatever concerns the opposition has, they will decide in due course and decide on it.

But for the moment, they have said that this election continues. The voting has in most cases stopped, because the polls closed at 4:00 p.m. local, which was about an hour and a half ago, but in the those polling stations where there was still an overflow of people, the polling has been extended for another half an hour.

It began today with great deal of enthusiasm and excitement. We were at one of the main polling stations here in Kabul. There were huge lines, thousands of men, at least, at the one we went to, and hundreds of women. I must say the women were vastly outnumbered, and that seems to be the case around the country. Much fewer women did turn out than the men.

Nonetheless, they turned out, and they were eager to vote.

Two hours into this voting, candidates' agents, political party agents, came to the voting stations and started to raise issues about the ink, saying that the ink was not indelible. This ink was meant to prevent fraud, and indeed, we did see that it washed off. At that point, in many of these stations, the voting booths were closed down.

The U.N. did send new batches of ink, and in many stations the voting continued. But the candidates called for a boycott, as I said, and a postponement. Nonetheless, it is going ahead. People do say that they are pleased with it. But the opposition candidates, as I say, the warlords, made some threatening noises.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD SHAH AHMADZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is completely, completely prearranged fraud. We shouted to the whole world two and a half months ago that Mr. Karzai must resign, the election, the commission must be replaced. Nobody listened to us. They were telling us that we are just saying lies. Now, thank God, today was the proof for our request and for our recommendation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Well, the U.N. is rejecting the charges of fraud, and most clearly rejecting the charges that it was involved knowingly in this fraud. This is what the election board said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY KENNEDY, JOINT ELECTION MANAGEMENT BODY: The JEMB wishes to reassure voters, candidates, and observers that procedures exist to receive, investigate, and decide on complaints. All complaints and irregularities raised with the JEMB will be thoroughly investigated and will be taken into account when the JEMB deliberates on the extent to which the election accurately reflects the will of the Afghan people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: President Karzai himself, the transitional president who is hoping for a people's mandate and to be elected as the future president here, cast his vote at a special center designed for VIPs here in Kabul. He said that whether he won or lost, that was not the issue. The issue was a successful election, which would be a winning proposition for the people of Afghanistan.

These opposition candidates who are disputing this election say that if he does take office, he will have -- his legitimacy will be in question, and they were making threatening statements about whether or not they would cooperate with a Karzai government.

So at the moment, it does seem to be a bit disputed, this election, but, as I say, voting continuing, and the people themselves very, very happy to be at the polls, Drew.

GRIFFIN: Christiane Amanpour, live in Afghanistan on that country's first presidential election. Thank you for that.

We turn to this country's presidential election now. The second debate behind us, President George Bush and John Kerry last night in St. Louis. By most accounts, candidate Bush bounced back from his debate performance in debate number one. Still, early post-clash polls give Senator Kerry an edge in the overall performance.

We have a couple perspectives for you. One, the Republican side, is coming from New York Governor George Pataki, who is in St. Louis.

Governor, good morning. No doubt you think your candidate did quite well last night.

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK: Well, Drew, I was very pleased. I think the president made a very strong case for his leadership and really showed that he is the commander in chief and that America and the world are safer places because of his policies over the last four years and that America has created close to 2 million new jobs since last August, so I also think for the first time Senator Kerry was forced to talk about his 20-year Senate record, a record he doesn't want to talk about, because it's a record of consistently supporting higher taxes, a weaker military, voting to slash our intelligence, which is so important in this war against terror.

So I think the people saw a true contrast and saw a president who's in command and leading our country.

GRIFFIN: Governor, Senator Kerry tried to define this war, and I think has done it effectively, saying, Look, no weapons of mass destruction equals a mistake in Iraq. What has been the president's response to that, and is it effective?

PATAKI: The president's response was very effective, and that is that Senator Kerry has said himself that given the current evidence, he would have pursued the war in Iraq. The fact of the matter is, America is safer. Look what's going on in the world. We've seen attacks in the -- in Russia, against schoolchildren, and Madrid just yesterday, in Egypt against Israeli tourists.

But since September 11, America has not been attacked, because this president has provided strong leadership. And look what's happening today. An election in Afghanistan, and the fact that millions of Afghanis have the right to choose their leader. It's extremely important in this war against terror, and it's a result of this president's strong resolve and principled leadership.

GRIFFIN: Governor Pataki, thank you from New York. We want -- or from St. Louis, Missouri, this morning. Governor, thank you so much.

Now we go to the Democratic side. We have Joe Lockhart, Kerry campaign adviser. He is in Washington.

Good morning, sir. I'll give you the first 20 seconds free, as I did to Governor Pataki, on your candidate.

JOE LOCKHART, KERRY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: Oh, listen, I mean, John, John, John, John, yes. John Kerry won -- yes, he won the debate last night. I don't think it was even close. Every public poll has said that, and we believe that.

You know, I think part of the problem (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you just heard from Governor Pataki is that they live in a fantasy world. John Kerry's been very clear that with no weapons of mass destruction and no connection to al Qaeda, we would not have gone to war.

They have talked in the last few days about how this new CIA report justifies their actions in Iraq. In fact, if you read the report, it's devastating to their rationale for going to war.

The American public is smart. They know what the facts are, and that's why they are moving so aggressively to John Kerry.

GRIFFIN: Last night, we were supposed to talk about domestic policy (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I want you to ask you this. We heard it from John Edwards in the vice presidential debate, from Senator Kerry as well, this kind of class warfare, the rich against the poor, the rich get the tax breaks, the business gets the tax breaks.

Now John Kerry wants to take those tax breaks away and give it to the poor people. My question for you, Joe, is, how does that create a job?

LOCKHART: Well, listen, I don't think anybody's talking about the rich versus the poor. I challenge you to go through either of the transcripts of the debate and find a reference to the rich versus the poor. What John Kerry and John Edwards have talked about is strengthening the middle class, because that's the backbone of our economy, giving them more spending power, more savings, more security will make the jobs grow.

In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was the president, there was a strategy to strengthen the middle class. We created 23 million new jobs. That's 23 million, as opposed to negative 1 million. What George Bush wants to do is to protect that 1 percent, the top 1 percent, people making over $200,000.

And our view is, we tried that. We spent three and a half years giving the bulk of the tax breaks to the top 1 percent, and we're still down a million jobs.

There are two strategies here. Look at the '90s. You find one that worked. Look at the last three and a half years, you find one that's failed miserably.

GRIFFIN: Thank you for joining us, Mr. Lockhart. I wish we had more time, but we're trying to keep the debate rules similar here even in the spin afterwards. Thank you, sir.

LOCKHART: Thank you.

HILL: Well, in the road to the White House is paved in stone, you might say the two candidates are laying the foundation. Last night each man built up his arguments in St. Louis brick by brick. You heard a little more of them just a few minutes ago.

Today, they're trying to cement their support in rallies around the country.

Senator Kerry is in Elyria, Ohio, and our Frank Buckley is also there. Good morning to you again, Frank.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning there, Erica.

Senator Kerry to appear here at a rally in concert with the singer Mary Chapin Carpenter later today to try to rally his troops just three and half weeks before election day.

Campaign officials, as you just heard from Joe Lockhart, are pleased, meanwhile, with the performance of Senator Kerry in the debate last night. They believe that they were able to put Senator -- or President Bush on the defensive and simultaneously score some points, specifically on some domestic issues.

We're told that the campaign used those metering devices to measure in real time how voters reacted to some of the issues that were coming up, and campaign officials tell us that Senator Kerry's position on importing prescription drugs from Canada scored particularly well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You heard the president just say that he thought he might try to be for it. Four years ago, right here in this forum, he was asked the same question, Can't people be able to import drugs from Canada? Do you know what he said? I think that makes sense, I think that's a good idea. Four years ago.

Now the president said, I'm not blocking that. Ladies and gentlemen, the president just didn't level with you right now again. He did block it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUCKLEY: Now, right after the debate, Senator Kerry held a rally at the St. Louis Art Museum, and he also give gave us a sense there of where he's going in the days ahead with his campaign. A senior strategist telling us, just as you heard Joe Lockhart say, that Kerry will talk again and again about how he is the candidate who will most help middle class voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERRY: The richest people in America have had their tax burden go down, and the middle class share of the tax burden has gone up. Not in my America, not in our America, not after November 2.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUCKLEY: And the focus in the days ahead will primarily be on domestic issues, but senior strategists telling me this morning that it will sound like stereo, because they will also simultaneously talk about Iraq, all of it leading to the next presidential debate that's coming up this Wednesday in Tempe, Arizona, Erica.

HILL: All right, Frank Buckley, as always, we appreciate it.

Meantime, for his part, President Bush campaigning in three Midwestern states today, Missouri, Minnesota, and an afternoon rally in Waterloo, Ohio -- oh, Iowa, rather, pardon me.

That's where our White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is now. She joins us. Good morning to you, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on phone): Well, good morning.

And speaking with a lot of Bush aides following the debate, the second debate, they said -- they told me, you know what? The president did what he needed to do, that he improved his performance from the last debate, that he's back in the game, essentially that they stopped that hemorrhaging.

He also did something that was important as well, and that was to set up his pitch, his attack lines for the domestic debate that's coming up in the week ahead.

And here's what they say. They say the bottom line is, despite Kerry's gains, they say that Bush's floor support, that is, his base, is higher than that of Kerry's, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a rally following that debate, the president thanked many of his supporters and said he was very confident in looking at the weeks ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a good debate tonight. There's clear differences of opinion. One thing I hope you can tell is I know what I believe, know where I need to lead this country to make this world a safer place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now, part of the Bush strategy, of course, is to build on this momentum and to use Kerry's own records or words against him, to plant these seeds of doubts in voters' minds. They're going to set up the scenario, Well, you like what Kerry says, but let's see here what he does. Let's take a look at the record.

For example, what he's going -- what they're going to hit him hard with is the economic policies here, Bush's economic policies of tax cuts, they're going to continue to make the case that Kerry voted on a number of occasions for tax hikes. The senator, they're going to do this over and over to try to set up a contrast, to say, Look, Kerry says one thing, but he does another. You just can't trust him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: When he talks about being fiscally conservative, he's just not credible. If you look at his record in the Senate, he voted to break the spending -- the caps, the spending caps, over 200 times. And here he says he's going to be a fiscal conservative all of a sudden. It's just not credible. You cannot believe it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And this is a message that he's going to give over and over in places that essentially that Gore won and that Bush narrowly lost back in 2000. That is really the centerpiece of their strategy in the week ahead.

That is why President Bush not only in St. Louis, Missouri, this morning but he's traveling next to Iowa, that is a state that he lost by just 4,000 votes, and then later today in Minnesota, he lost by just 2.5 percentage points. So he is going to be hitting those battleground states that are extremely important for his campaign. And of course, back to the Crawford ranch, that is where we expect he'll be preparing in earnest for, of course, the third and final debate.

HILL: A busy day for him, Suzanne, and a busy one for you. Thanks for making time for us.

Well, that's going to lead us to our e-mail question this morning. Who, in your opinion, was a winner in the debate, and why do you think so, if you tuned in? You can e-mail us at wam@cnn.com. We're going to check in with those e-mail replies throughout the program this morning.

And while you're online, be sure you cast your vote for a debate winner at our Web site. Just click on over to CNN.com, and there you'll see the Quick Vote poll. We'll be checking the results. You can see some of them there. Looks like if I squint, Kerry leading the charge.

GRIFFIN: CNN, of course, is your presidential election headquarters. A reminder that we will be covering the third and final debate this Wednesday in Arizona before, during, and after. And if, you know, last night was your bowling night, missed the debate, you'd like to see it again, going to be right here at 2:00 Eastern time on CNN. We'll replay the second presidential debate. It was a doozy.

Putting political accusations to the test, is John Kerry really the most liberal senator in the Congress? And just how many jobs have been lost under the president's tenure? We'll fact-check candidates' statements in the second presidential debate.

HILL: Plus, what do President Bush's pets say about him? We'll take a somewhat humorous look at presidential policy with comedian and author Mo Rocca.

GRIFFIN: And good morning, New York. We will have your complete forecast in 10 minutes.

CNN SATURDAY MORNING will be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: Candidates Bush and Kerry extended the factual envelope a bit during the presidential debate.

CNN's Joe Johns listened and checked the facts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than once, President Bush said John Kerry is the most liberal member of the Senate, citing the "National Journal"'s rankings of senators by their recorded votes.

BUSH: The "National Journal" named Senator Kennedy the most liberal senator of all, and that's saying something, that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

JOHNS: That's technically true for 2003, but it's far from the whole story. Kerry's lifetime rating puts him as the 11th most liberal senator. Once he started running for president, his voting attendance fell off dramatically, throwing the "National Journal"'s methodology way off.

The journal tossed out all of his votes on social and foreign policy because he hadn't cast enough votes on those issues, and based Kerry's ranking solely on his domestic policy votes on 22 of 62 total votes cast. Without the full accounting, the "National Journal"'s lifetime ranking of Kerry as the 11th most liberal senator is more fair than the label of most liberal.

For his part, Kerry appears to have overstated the number of lost jobs since Bush took office.

KERRY: President has presided over the economy, where we've lost 1.6 million jobs, first president in 72 years to lose jobs.

JOHNS: Kerry said the economy has lost 1.6 million jobs since 2001. That's true, if all you're considering is the private sector. If you add the government jobs created during that period, the net job loss is 821,000, almost half the figure Kerry cited.

All in all, at first glance, the vast majority of assertions had at least some basis in fact. But when it suited their ends, both candidates left out the other side of the story.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: If you want a flu shot but you're in a high-risk group, is it ethical to get the injection, and perhaps deprive someone else who might need it more than you? We're going to pose that question to the ethics guy, syndicated columnist Bruce Winestein (ph), coming up on CNN at noon Eastern.

And if you've got a question about a situation at home or maybe at work that raises an ethical issue, you can send that question to the ethics guy. That e-mail address, ethics@cnn.com.

And still to come this hour, we're diving into the Naval Academy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT NOVAK, HOST, THE NOVAK ZONE: We're here at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, about to take a ride on a Navy patrol (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the Severin (ph) River, next on The Novak Zone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Good morning to you, New York, where the Big Apple is getting ready to welcome a winter tradition. No, not the fog that you see there. For the 68th year, Rockefeller Center is scheduled to open its ice skating rink. Very foggy morning, though, there in New York.

GRIFFIN: Always beautiful to have coffee down there, isn't it, Rob, and watch the skaters?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is, it is, especially if you're not one of them, you know. It's, not you, Drew, but, you know, just watching them.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

HILL: Drew is a champion skater, you know.

MARCIANO: Really? We'll have to get video.

HILL: Oh, he's got moves.

GRIFFIN: You know, I don't think they allow sticks and pucks down on that rink, last I checked.

HILL: Oh, yes.

MARCIANO: Oh, yes. I bet you could -- yes, nice, we'll have to get video of Drew strapping on the pads.

Hey, let's -- you know what else is a tradition this time of year is fog, and that's what they're getting in New York City.

(WEATHER FORECAST)

MARCIANO: Hockey season just around the corner, isn't it, Drew?

GRIFFIN: Well, not professionally. Thanks, Rob.

HILL: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MARCIANO: See you guys.

HILL: Thanks, Rob.

High-tech trading for the high seas. The Novak Zone shows us how the U.S. Naval Academy is preparing sailors today for the emergencies of tomorrow.

And still to come, White House humor, comedian Mo Rocka finds his funny bone through first family pets.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: At 9:32, we are in the Navy in The Novak Zone. The training it takes to survive a U.S. Naval Academy. I'm Drew Griffin.

HILL: Welcome back. I'm Erica Hill, in for Betty Nguyen.

That story coming up, but first the headlines.

The polls have closed across Afghanistan, which held its first direct democratic election today, but a new controversy has opened. Most of the opposition candidates are now alleging fraud and demanding a new vote. U.N. officials are said to be meeting with them to try to work things out.

In Baghdad, new hope for peace in the Sadr City neighborhood. Militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces. The interim government says it struck a deal with the militia fighters, and they have agreed to start handing over their weapons Monday.

In Australia, incumbent Prime Minister John Howard is claiming his fourth consecutive victory in his country's general election. The vote was seen as a test of Howard's Conservative government, which has been a key supporter of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

And back Stateside, a tour bus crash in northeastern Arkansas has killed at least 14 people. This video you're seeing is just in to CNN a short time ago. Arkansas state police say the bus flipped over as it left a highway. It was carrying people from the Chicago area to a Mississippi casino.

GRIFFIN: Wow.

Wading through rough waters and navigating the high seas, you're now entering The Novak Zone, where today Bob Novak dives into the lessons learned by students at the U.S. Naval Academy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK: Welcome to The Novak Zone. We're at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We're on the Severn River on YP 692. And we're talking to Commander Steve Lott, chairman of the Seamanship Navigation Program at the Academy, and one of his star students, Midshipman Caleb Humberd (ph) from Red Lion, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Humberd, what kind of a ship is this? Can you tell us?

MIDSHIPMAN CALEB HUMBERD, U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY: Well, it's a yard patrol craft. Really, it's just meant for training. We take it out here in the bay on afternoons, we take a couple weekend-long trips during the semester.

NOVAK: Commander, I understand every midshipman has to take a course in navigation, even though a majority of them are going into aviation or the Marine Corps. Why do they have to learn navigation?

CMDR. STEVEN LOTT, U.S. NAVY: Because they're still all naval officers. And we have -- it's our sense here that having an understanding of some of the basics of operating at sea is common to all of our graduates.

NOVAK: Commander, we just had a exercise, man overboard. Explain what that's all about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Man overboard, starboard side.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All stop.

LOT: What you saw was one of the midshipman executing orders to the con in a rehearsal of something just like we do on big ships at sea. That's how we maneuver a vessel to recover somebody who had fallen overboard. We increased our engine speed and made a very tight circle, and then I think that the YP was very expertly brought alongside the man, so that we could recover him safely.

NOVAK: Mr. Humberd, you're from the middle of Pennsylvania, which is not a lot of oceans there. What made you want to be a sailor?

HUMBERD: Actually, I came here wanting to fly. I heard that they have a -- you know, I could graduate from here and fly fighter jets like "Top Gun." But I came here, and I got involved in the YP Squadron as a freshman or as a plebe, and learned that I really like being out on the water.

NOVAK: Commander, what do these young fellows coming out of high school at the age of 17 or 18, most of them, is that a tough job, turning them into a naval officer in four years?

LOT: I would tell you, again, the Naval Academy prepares midshipman morally, mentally, and physically to go out and excel as officers in the Navy or the Marine Corps. My job is to make sure that we leave -- or we have graduates that are competent mariners.

We reinforce that training that happens in the classroom with the work that we do in the simulators, out here on the yard patrol craft that you're on board today, and then the training the midshipman do in the fleet during the summertime.

NOVAK: Now, what is a simulator?

LOT: A simulator is a facility inside our building that provides a simulation, if you'll excuse the use of the same word, of the experience of being on board ship. We can simulate entering and leaving a port, handling a ship alongside a pier, making approaches for another vessel for under way replenishment, and the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- the full gamut of wind and sea conditions.

NOVAK: Is it different being in the simulator, Mr. Humberd, than going out here on the river?

HUMBERD: At first you notice that, you know, you're not rocking like we are now, and that the picture looks a little computer generated, but after you get into the scenario and you start reacting to the situation, you forget about that stuff, and just -- and it happens just like you're under way.

NOVAK: Do you use a lot of high-tech stuff? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they used to have sextants in the old Navy and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) instruments they'd used for centuries, or do you have new navigational equipment?

HUMBERD: We certainly have a lot of new high-tech navigation equipment, but they start us off on the basics, paper charts, pencil and paper calculations, so that we understand what we're doing before we let -- turn it over to the machines to do it quickly and easier.

NOVAK: A lot of the alumni of this institution have really had amazing careers. Jimmy Carter got to be president of the United States, John McCain is a famous U.S. senator. Are those role models, do you think, for people here, or are the role models more the people who are the career Navy people?

HUMBERD: I think that all graduates from this place, you know, contribute in some way, one way or another to this country, whether they stay in 30 years, become an admiral, or whether they serve their five-year commitment and get out and go into business or politics or law. Not everyone's cut out for a career in naval service.

NOVAK: Commander Lott, you were class of...

LOT: Nineteen eighty-four.

NOVAK: ... '84, and I don't think we were in combat anywhere in that time.

LOT: No, sir.

NOVAK: Is it a different mood here now, knowing that we're -- the kind of war against terror you may be in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) any time?

LOT: I think there is. I think there's a little more gravitas to the average midshipman who's thinking more about the fact that he's going to be out there and be in combat and very shortly.

NOVAK: Commander Lott, what do the midshipmen learn here about sailing, the way people have sailed for years in the Navy?

LOT: All of the midshipmen complete a pretty extensive program that starts with their first summer here, starts with fleet summer, where they all learn to skipper a 26-foot Colgate (ph). Those midshipmen the next summer go out and spend an expended -- an extended period on a 44-foot vessel, where they go out with a crew of about eight or nine and go for a two- or three-week cruise.

NOVAK: And now, the big question. Midshipman Humberd, most Americans think of the Naval Academy, they think of the Navy-Army game, with the midshipmen and the cadets all marching for 100,000 people. Is that really a big deal here?

HUMBERD: Oh, it's a huge deal. It -- the whole week leading up to this event, it's crazy in the hall. People are getting fired up for the game. Then they ship all 4,300 of us out to wherever they're playing the game.

It's an incredible experience to get together and have both sides yelling and cheering for their teams. And it's -- the competition is fierce, but in the end, we all know that after we graduate, we're all on the same team. NOVAK: Midshipman Humberd, thank you very much. Thank you, Commander Lott.

And thank you for being in The Novak Zone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Right now, President Bush speaking at a breakfast in St. Louis, Missouri, after the debate. He has a heavy campaign schedule this morning.

Presidential candidates have, of course, spoken. Now it is your turn. We're going to read some of your e-mails about last night's debate right after the break.

HILL: Plus, they warm the laps and hearts of the first family. But can White House pets actually influence major policy decisions? Comedian Mo Rocca's take on the burning issue next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Our top stories now.

United Nations officials overseeing the presidential election in Afghanistan are in crisis talks with many of the candidates. Fourteen of those who oppose interim leader Hamid Karzai claim widespread fraud over the ink used to ensure people voted only once. They want the U.N. to now void the election.

Palestinian sources say the Israeli military killed six Palestinians in four separate attacks in Gaza today. Israel says it has beefed up its campaign to crack down on Palestinian terrorists.

Back in the U.S., President Bush put in a stronger performance in the debate rematch last night in St. Louis. But early polls show viewers thought Senator John Kerry did a slightly better job. Statistically, though, it was a tie.

GRIFFIN: We've had about a thousand e-mails on this question this morning. And here's some of them.

Robert from Jacksonville answers the question of who won by saying, "Bush, decisively. He clearly articulated the differences between his long-term goals in the war against the Islamic terrorists and Kerry's myopic views."

HILL: Meantime, Christina in New York finds that Kerry won the debate. She says, "He was succinct, related to the audience in a direct and compassionate manner, and answered questions with information rather than with the broad generalities used by Bush."

GRIFFIN: Thanks for writing in.

HILL: Well, within every president's inner circle of advisers there are the trusted advisers, of course, reliable aides, and that ally who needs to be walked every day. A new book by comedian Mo Rocca suggests America has always gone to the dogs. It's called "All the President's Pets." In it, Rocca says those innocent-looking animals are really barking up their own agenda.

Rocca joins now us live this morning from St. Louis.

Good morning. Recovered from the debate?

MO ROCCA, AUTHOR, "ALL THE PRESIDENT'S PETS": I just got in from the debate afterparty. It was crazy. Teresa really knows how to throw it down.

HILL: Teresa may know how to throw down, but we hear, apparently, the first pets also know a thing or two.

ROCCA: Well, listen, here's the thing. Just -- to give you some background on why I wrote this, I think that the press and the public don't know enough about presidential decision making, and I'm quite serious about this.

I think that the president, not just this president, its insulated by advisers who want to help cultivate the image of an infallible, superheroic chief executive that's not really accountable to the people. I think it's beyond anything the framers of the Constitution intended.

So I wanted to see what it is that they're hiding that would undermine this image of Godlikeness that presidents seem to want and be successful at, unfortunately.

And I found in studying presidential pets, and I studied presidential pets for years, there are only seven books written on the subject, I own five, you can probably get by with three, there were strong connections between presidential pet behavior and presidential decision making.

HILL: Well, give us some examples of that relationship between the behavior and the decision making.

ROCCA: Well, in -- the Cuban missile crisis is sort of my Rosetta stone. In October of 1962, we came to the nuclear brink, as we all know. At the time, Kennedy had a Welsh terrier named Charlie, a very handsome, charming, focused, very horny dog, very much like the president. A wonderful dog.

And Nikita Khrushchev, months before the crisis, gave Mrs. Kennedy the gift of Puschinka (ph). She was a beautiful white half- husky, the daughter of Strelka (ph), the first Soviet space dog to come back alive.

Well, the two dogs fell in love with each other. Well, at least they mated. And Puschinka gave birth to four little puppies that JFK called pupniks, which I think is very cute. This is the exact moment that JFK rejected the nuclear first strike option advocated by some of his more hawkish advisers and instead embraced the more peaceful blockade, which we know was the right solution. And this is just Kennedy looking at those pupniks, learned to emphasize, which is an important virtue in leadership. And this is, this was certainly intentional on the part of the animals, to affect Kennedy this way.

And I saw this all the way down the line, with Martin Van Buren's tiger cubs, a gift of the Sultan of Oman, and their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- their, their, their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) participation in the crisis of -- the panic of 1837, which is the first economic crisis in this country.

So I must make clear that presidential pets don't always have a good effect. Sometimes they make bad decisions or influence bad decisions.

HILL: Unfortunately, just like politicians sometimes. Hey, in the book, also, fair amount of encounters with the White House press corps, most notably Helen Thomas.

ROCCA: Well, this is a thriller, because it's high-stakes material, and it's nothing any White House would ever want known.

Helen Thomas is my heroine. I've always wanted to star in a thriller with Helen Thomas. She's the dean of the White House press corps. She's somebody that we saw certainly in the runup to the Iraq war was tireless, indefatigable pursuer of the truth, not afraid to ask tough questions, and I think was alienated and ridiculed by some for it.

In my book, I reveal that she lives underneath the White House in a subterranean lair where she's the keeper of the presidential pet archives. She has secrets of her own. She spent an idyllic girlhood with Sacagawea and had an illicit relationship with Millard Filmore.

And she takes me under her wing, and there's a pun there, you have to get the book to understand why, because she has another secret. And we battle the rest of the press corps, who don't want to ask the tough questions in this case.

And we come in counter with (UNINTELLIGIBLE) encounter with a lot of other beloved news media personalities.

HILL: Pretty incredible stuff, including some of our own from CNN, Candy Crowley and Wolf Blitzer.

ROCCA: Well, Wolf Blitzer, my friend, whom I adore, is my Sensei in this book. He's certainly portrayed in a positive light. And that's the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

HILL: I think that's probably how he...

ROCCA: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

GRIFFIN: ... sees himself...

ROCCA: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)... that he's Japanese. HILL: ... too.

ROCCA: I'm sorry?

HILL: We're going to have to cut you off there, I'm sorry, Mo.

ROCCA: Oh.

HILL: But much to, much more to find out, apparently, in this book, so thanks for giving us a sneak peek.

ROCCA: Yes, and please buy it, "All the President's Pets." The next time we get together, I'll talk about John Tyler's canaries and their role in same-sex marriage and the opposition to it in the current White House.

HILL: I look forward to it, it'll be a fascinating discovery. Mo Rocca, joining us from St. Louis.

ROCCA: Thank you.

HILL: Thanks.

GRIFFIN: A librarian society must-have, no doubt.

Good morning, San Francisco. We'll have your complete forecast in five minutes when CNN SATURDAY MORNING continues. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: We're back with weather. Something swirling in the Gulf.

HILL: A little bit, a blob, as Drew said earlier. Rob?

MARCIANO: Very weak tropical storm. Hi, guys.

(WEATHER FORECAST)

MARCIANO: Near 80 degrees expected in San Francisco tomorrow. This is the time of year where they start to see summerlike weather. Great time of year to visit. And I think their air show is Columbus Day weekend, which is this weekend.

HILL: You're right. Fleet Week, exactly.

MARCIANO: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HILL: Big weekend in San Francisco.

MARCIANO: Good time.

HILL: All right, thanks, rob.

GRIFFIN: "ON THE STORY" is next, with Barbara Starr. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, "ON THE STORY": Well, good morning to you.

We're "ON THE STORY" from Washington, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Dana Bash is "ON THE STORY" of last night's presidential debate. Christiane Amanpour has the latest from Afghanistan's first-ever vote for president. Jane Arraf and I are both on the Iraq story from the hallways of the Pentagon to the byways of Samarra north of Baghdad. And Sabila (ph) Vargas talks about show biz and politics and how to escape from it at the movies, all coming up, all "ON THE STORY."

GRIFFIN: All right, Barbara, thanks a lot.

And thanks for watching this morning. That will do it for us.

HILL: Have a great day, and enjoy your Saturday. "ON THE STORY" next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com