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CNN SUNDAY NIGHT

Viktor Yushchenko Thanks Doctors For Saving His Life; Debate On Validity Of Indecency Complaints To FCC; Scott Peterson Jury To Resume Sentencing Deliberations Tomorrow

Aired December 13, 2004 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN SUNDAY NIGHT. The Bernard Kerik fallout, what went wrong? And how did the White House miss the skeletons in Kerik's closet? Also, Saddam Hussein one year after his capture. Where is he now and when will he face Iraqis in court? Also, from the wardrobe malfunction to "Desperate Housewives," who's controlling what you watch on television? The answer might surprise you. And it's our hot topic.
These stories and more coming up next on CNN SUNDAY NIGHT.

Hello, I'm Fredericka Whitfield from the CNN Center in Atlanta. Ahead this hour, the poisoned politician tells us story and the investigation into who might have been trying to kill him continues.

On our rap sheet tonight, the Peterson trial. Scott's mother pleads for his life and possibly new evidence in the Michael Jackson case. Plus, Frank Sinatra, Jr. joins me live to remember his father on what would have been old blue eyes 89th birthday.

But first tonight, the fallout from the Bernard Kerik fiasco keeps, well, falling. Two days since Kerik embarrassed the Bush administration by backing away from a cabinet post, D.C. insiders are wondering tonight how it happened. How could a man invited into the president's inner circle have so much to hide and nobody knew?

Questions swirl now about who's responsible. And what might be wrong with the whole nomination process? Two reports tonight - Dana Bash in Washington and Mary Snow in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One week, the president touted him as being superbly qualified to be homeland security director. But within days, Bernard Kerik pulled the plug on his own nomination.

BERNARD KERIK, FMR. CABINET NOMINEE: It would have been an embarrassment to the president and his administration. And I just - I couldn't do that.

SNOW: Kerik pins the blame on discovering last week that a former nanny may not have been a legal immigrant. And there were tax issues involving her payment.

Saturday, a White House official said Kerik should have brought it to the administration's attention sooner. But some question the White House's role.

PAUL LIGHT, PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: This is presidential appointments process 101. And it's pretty clear to me that the White House moved much too quickly, not withstanding what they're all saying today, I think they moved on the basis of Mayor Giuliani's endorsement, the fact that the senior Democrats in New York endorsed Kerik. They moved ahead without doing their homework.

SNOW: But Kerik was coming under scrutiny before the nanny issue. In New York, where Kerik served as police commissioner, observers say his style may be partly to blame.

MICHAEL GOODWIN, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: He's not attentive to the kind of normal way of doing business that frankly, most professionals are. He's not a professional guy. He was a street cop who made it big, frankly, in the last few years. And it's just showing that he's kind of not quite ready for this level of scrutiny.

SNOW: Some suggest the very toughness that earned Kerik his stripes and honors may have been the very thing that also added to his failed nomination.

LIGHT: There's a little bit of hubris here when somebody enters the process and says well basically, I can survive it because my life's story is so compelling.

That's just not enough in the presidential appointments process today. And this is really an issue where Bernie Kerik was his own worst enemy.

SNOW: But while Kerik says he believes he would have been confirmed, he also expected the scrutiny and says he didn't want his past to become a distraction.

Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The White House is defending its vetting process for cabinet picks, saying Bernard Kerik is to blame for not disclosing earlier the legal problems that sunk his nomination. But Bush officials are breathing a sigh of relief that this all happened now and now later during what would have likely been a bruising confirmation process.

(voice-over): The president, at church, heard a sermon about Christmas, the date his aides are using as a gold post for finding a new candidate to run the homeland security department.

But the hand wringing still isn't over about what went wrong with the first Bush choice - Bernard Kerik.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D) NORTH DAKOTA: Is there something wrong when you announce the head of I think one of the most important agencies in our government, to protect this country against terrorism and discover that you've missed a significant piece of the vetting process.

BASH: The White House dropped the ball, say some Democrats, by not knowing its pick to oversee immigration had a nanny with questionable legal status.

Embarrassed even annoyed, Bush officials deny rushing to a point the street cop turned 9/11 hero, insisting Kerik was asked if he had problems like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is disturbing that apparently, there was information in its background that was not shared with the White House. I know for certainty that there are questions asked about domestic employees, financial matters and legal disputes.

BASH: The president's moving on, say top aides, who suggest he's taking another look at candidates considered the first time around.

Like the department's head of border security, Asa Hutchinson, EPA commissioner Mike Leavitt, and the president's homeland security advisor, Francis Townsend.

Some say Mr. Bush should consider someone with broader experience. And one senator, a Democrat, is passing many Washington lips.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you want to go the other side, go to Joe Lieberman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Lieberman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joe Lieberman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joe Lieberman.

REP. JOE BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: Joe would be great, but I'd like to find a Republican from a blue state. Maybe we could pick up a state.

BASH: All kidding aside, Republican sources do say the president has considered asking Lieberman to join his administration. A source close to the Democratic senator noted he's been careful not to openly criticize the White House recently. And he'd likely take a job if he's asked.

(on camera): The only other cabinet post still open is Health and Human Services secretary. And Bush officials tell CNN the president will likely announce his pick for that post on Monday.

Dana Bash, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Tomorrow marks one year since U.S. troops, acting on a tip, looked in a hole near Tikrit, Iraq, and found Saddam Hussein hiding there. The long time Iraqi president has been in U.S. military custody. Since then, charged with a long list of war crimes, murder and genocide, in the 12 months since his capture, Saddam has appeared for his preliminary trial hearings, undergone a hernia operation, and taken up gardening. Officials of the post Saddam interim government expect it will be more than a year before a trial is ready to proceed.

Now today in Iraq, a U.S. Marine was killed in action west of Baghdad. No other details are being released. It's the second such U.S. combat death in the al Anbar province in as many days.

Elsewhere in Iraq, authorities are still trying to identify five bodies, all beheaded. Four were found yesterday south of Baghdad. The other, located north of the capitol.

More Pentagon planning. That's what lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are blaming for a lack of appropriately armored military vehicles in Iraq. Several senators, Republicans and Democrats, on the Sunday talk show circuit today expressed disappointment in the top levels of Pentagon leadership.

Let's bring in our military intelligence analyst, Ken Robinson, for his take on these latest developments.

Hello to you, Ken.

KEN ROBINSON, CNN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Hey, Fredericka.

WHITFIELD: All right, well the company that has probably to produce these armored vehicles say they will buy 100 increased production to try to get some of these properly armored vehicles over to Iraq.

Too little too later, or is that adequate, in your view?

ROBINSON: No, it's - we can't say it's too little, because every single one may save a soldier's life, but it's definitely responding too late.

The United States' Army has been trying to transform for the last four or five years into a smaller leader force. But unfortunately, the force structure was designed to fight the last war. And most of the armored vehicles were in the active component in the combat units.

And the support units are the ones that seem to be taking the toll in terms of these IEDs, these improvised explosive devices, which have been killing them, maiming so many soldiers.

WHITFIELD: Well, reportedly, there were some soldiers who issued these very complaints last year. Are you kind of miffed that it took a televised presser involving a soldier, drilling and asking questions of the defense secretary in order to get this kind of attention?

ROBINSON: Well, actually, the attention had already made it through the force. And the Army was already taking action. Unfortunately, the - for the action to have been taken properly, it should have happened long before this war ever started, but the Army was taking action on it. Unfortunately, they just have not taken what I would call a Herculean effort to spend ever expense necessary to get it done.

I don't understand why here we are a year and a half later, into the insurgency, and the end of the war, and we still have vehicles that are going north, that aren't properly armored.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's talk now about the violence. And you mentioned the insurgency, which seems to be picking up, particularly in the last couple of months as we now approach a planned January election.

There was a great thinking - conventional wisdom was that a lot of the insurgency violence would kind of die off after the capture of Saddam Hussein. Now we're approaching the one year mark tomorrow. And it's only escalating. How do you see this?

ROBINSON: Well, part of the strategies that has come out intelligence reports was that Saddam and his regime had a stay behind plan for the collapse of Baghdad, where they wanted former regime loyalists, who had rehearsed at a location called Salmon Pack, where they had rehearsed these types of attacks, both suicide attacks from the Saddam fedayeen, which we saw as embedded journalist and soldiers fought their way north to Baghdad.

And then also, the beginning of the insurgency itself, which was that mix of former regime loyalists and these jihadists who come across the borders from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

WHITFIELD: Is it your feeling that those that are coming across the borders are coming in such great numbers that they are essentially replenishing these Saddam loyalists that you talk about who may be eliminated by coalition forces?

ROBINSON: Yes, because you know, if you look at the attacks that occurred in Najaf and the subduing of the city, and then you look at the attacks and the subduing of Falluja to the main extent, denying them a sanctuary, they keep replenishing themselves. And they keep recruiting.

And their actual numbers are uncounted. There's no real way to estimate them, but most analysts agree they're in the thousands.

WHITFIELD: The U.S. military is hoping that something like 150,000 troops will be on the ground in Iraq by the time the elections were to take place in January. How do you see the coalition forces being able to handle an election, when at this juncture, the insurgency violence is so high and escalating so quickly, that it seems as though it might be quite difficult for the coalition forces to be able to handle both.

ROBINSON: Well, there's a couple strategies in play right now. One of those is, as very quickly as possible, they're trying to get as many police and as many military as they can, trained and on the streets.

The insurgents have a different strategy. And that's to defeat that, by killing as many policemen, judges, and military personnel as they can, which we're seeing throughout the country.

Prime Minister Allawe has a plan that he's submitted that says well maybe we should stretch the elections out over a period of two to three weeks, where we can focus it on geographic areas, and then maybe be able to use the four structure that we have from the coalition and from the Iraqi government to try to optimize specific areas to hold secure elections.

But then the insurgents have another strategy that says no, we're not going to let you get away with that. And the Sunnis are trying to boycott the election. Many of the Sunnis are trying to make the elections illegitimate because they know majority vote means they lose anyway. The Shi'ia majority may take power.

WHITFIELD: Military analyst Ken Robinson, thanks so much.

ROBINSON: Complex.

WHITFIELD: It is indeed.

Well, pushing the limits of network television, that's our hot topic tonight. Up next, we'll find out how stunts like the wardrobe malfunction or having a major impact on what you watch in prime time.

Also, Ukraine's opposition candidate speaks out tonight, after doctors publicly blamed poisoning for his disfigurement.

And fond memories of Frank Sinatra. Straight ahead, we'll hear from the son of the legendary crooner.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Tonight's hot topic, the battle over the airwaves, the FCC has thrown down the gauntlet on offensive material on television this year. The crackdown is largely due to a reported rise in viewer complaints.

Just three years ago, the FCC received 350 complaints about programming. Last year, that number soared to 240,000 complaints. Even more alarming, according to media week publication, "99 percent of the complaints this year, aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson now infamous wardrobe malfunction incident, came from one group - the Parents Television Council.

One of the council's directors, Lara Mahanat, joins me now. Also joining me is Jonathan Rintels from the Center for Creative Voices in Media.

Good to see both of you.

LARA MAHANAT, PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL: Thanks for having me on. WHITFIELD: Well, Lara, let me begin with you. Since your group is being credited with lodging the most complaints, do you feel that the Parents Television Council represents America has a whole on the issues of decency and morality?

MAHANAT: Yes, absolutely. For a long time, parents had the concern about the growing content on television. In fact, a recent poll said that over 90 percent were concerned about it.

And I did want to correct you, though. The figure was actually parents filed over one million complaints last year. In the past, Television Council, -- our members generated about 21 percent of those complaints.

But I think in general, you do see an outcry over what the networks are showing to our kids.

WHITFIELD: How are you going about issuing the complaints to the FCC? Is it a mass e-mailing, telephone calls? How do you do it to get these numbers so high?

MAHANAT: Well, we actually do it a couple ways. I mean, people can file a complaint through our website if they want, if they see something offensive or hear something offensive on the radio.

Or if there is something that's pretty outrageous or egregious, we do have an e-mail distribution list that we can have people take action and file a complaint if they want to.

And you know what? The great thing about it is the more that people know that they can file a complaint, the more people are doing it on their own.

WHITFIELD: And Jonathan, does this seem right that one group can lodge so many complaints to encourage the FCC or any other federal organization to respond?

JONATHAN RINTELS, CTR. CREATIVE VOICES IN MEDIA: Well, we don't have a problem with that. We believe in free speech. And that's why we're here. And we believe in free speech not only for the people who we agree with, but also for the people who we disagree with.

I think it's important to put the number of comments in perspective, though. For example, the Parents Television Council claims they filed 4,000 complaints against a show called "Married in America" that resulted -- the FCC ultimately find $1.2 million for indecency.

The Parents Television Council claims one million members. So that means less than half of one percent of the members of the Parents Television Council actually complained about this program.

So I'm not sure exactly how widespread the number of complaints from the general public is.

WHITFIELD: And Lara, how large is your group? MAHANAT: Well, we do have over one million members. But you know what? The thing about it is, is like...

WHITFIELD: And so, are you saying that of the one million that -- of the complaints that were lodged just about every member lodged a complaint with the FCC last year?

MAHANAT: Well, yes. I mean -- but all of them didn't come from the Parent's Television Council. They were from people all across America.

Where I disagree with Jonathan is the fact that we're supposed to represent the population. You know, what he just said would be akin to saying that the holocaust was OK, because a majority or a powerful group in Germantown, thought it was all right.

What we believe is that if people have those -- like complaint against what's on television, and have a right to complain. And the FCC should do its job to enforce the law. That's it. That's all we asked for.

WHITFIELD: Now what about the notion that the FCC has to do...

RINTELS: May I respond to that?

WHITFIELD: Sure go, ahead.

RINTELS: Well, that is just an outrageous analogy. And -- but you know, having said it's an outrageous analogy, again, I defend Lara's and the President's Television Council to write the speech and to make it. I think it's important to get away from this numbers game, because it really is beside the point.

The point really here is, and we agree with the Parents Television Council on this, that there is a problem of having parents subjecting -- having their children subjected to objectional programming on television. And that's something we want to do some thing about.

But there's also competing value here that most Americans share, which is that they're against government censorship. And so, we...

WHITFIELD: So what are the options that you're proposing? Are you saying that...

RINTELS: Well, there are many options...

WHITFIELD: ...more parents should become a little bit more educated about how to inquire with the networks or the FCC about what the content of a program will be, so that they can better police their children or...

RINTELS: Well, exactly.

WHITFIELD: ...they're children are watching?

RINTELS: It's astonishing.

WHITFIELD: Well who's responsibility is that, then?

RINTELS: It's astonishing that the FCC has jumped as a first resort to censorship of programming when there's so many other things that they could do to better inform and educate and empower parents to avoid...

WHITFIELD: For example?

RINTELS: ...objectionable programming.

MAHANAT: Well, may I respond - which I...

WHITFIELD: Let me let Jonathan respond what some options, examples are.

RINTELS: They could improve their website. They could educate people on how to use the V-chip. They could educate people on what the rating systems mean. They could allow parents to pick and choose what channels that they subscribe to, if they're cable or satellite subscribers. They don't need to let parents pay their hard earned money to purchase channels that offend them.

WHITFIELD: All right. Lara....

RINTELS: They could call their cable and satellite operators and find out how to block channels.

MAHANAT: Well...

WHITFIELD: OK, well, Lara, let me let you respond to those options?

MAHANAT: Sure, those are not viable options, though. Let me give you a couple reasons why. The v-chip doesn't work. The networks to the ones that are rating themselves, which everybody knows is a failure, for example, NBC doesn't even rate its programming V for violence, so that the V-chip wouldn't work. The FCC is not in the job of letting people know what content is. That's not their job. They don't even look at content ahead of time. They do it afterwards.

Therefore, it's the networks - really, they get to be the ones to choose if they're going to air in decent content.

WHITFIELD: All right, Lara Mahanat, I'm going to have to let that be the last word...

MAHANAT: Sure.

WHITFIELD: ...because we're out of satellite time with the Parents Television Council, thanks so much. And Jonathan Rintels of the Center for Creative Voices in Media.

Thanks so much to both of you.

MAHANAT: Thank you.

RINTELS: Thank you.