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American Morning
'CNN Security Watch': Shoulder-Fired Missiles; Deer Rampage; '90-Second Pop'
Aired January 26, 2005 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. It's 7:30 here in New York. In a few moments, a "CNN Security Watch," looking at terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles. One plan to protect airplanes apparently will cost in the neighborhood of $11 billion. We'll talk with the head of the Airline Pilots Union about whether or not that is still a good idea. His thoughts in a moment.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, the deer that just went nuts in Ohio. It came out of the woods. It burst into a couple's home and nearly killed an 84-year-old man. The man's wife, the police and a taxi driver helped to save him, though. We're going to talk this morning with the cabby and one of the officers, right there, coming up.
HEMMER: Absolutely bizarre.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
HEMMER: Have you ever heard of anything like that before?
O'BRIEN: There are some stories where you say, you know, lucky to be alive. Well, I've got to tell you...
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Where did the cab driver come from?
O'BRIEN: He was driving by.
COSTELLO: Oh, really?
O'BRIEN: He's going to share his story. He just happened to be driving by. He saved the guy's life.
COSTELLO: It looks like it was out in rural Ohio. So you wonder why the cabby was out there.
HEMMER: Some tough deer, huh? Breaking into homes?
O'BRIEN: Some deer with good luck, yes.
HEMMER: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. It's time to get a check of the headlines "Now in the News."
The Army National Guard is apparently considering a proposal to offer $15,000 signing bonuses. The head of the National Guard says battalions are short some 15,000 soldiers. He's asking for the green light to offer cash to active-duty military members willing to join the Guard. The bonus is now just 50 bucks. No word yet on when the Pentagon will seek congressional approval for this plan.
In Washington, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to meet in two and a half hours to consider the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for attorney general. He's expected to win quick committee approval. The Senate is also expected to take a final vote today on Condoleezza Rice's nomination for secretary of state. We'll have more on that coming up. And be sure to stay with CNN for live coverage of the vote. That begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.
The FBI is investigating whether the Greater Alabama Boy Scout Council deliberately inflated membership rolls to gain funding from agencies like the United Way. The council is slated to get about a million dollars from the United Way this year. A spokesman for the Boy Scouts' national office says the organization is dedicated to accurate reporting of its membership.
And a federal appeals court is reviving part of a fat lawsuit against McDonald's. The part in question pertains to deceptive advertising. A lower court judge dismissed it because he said it didn't show a link between McDs (ph) and held health problems said to be caused by eating fast food. But an appeals court yesterday overturned that decision. McDonald's lawyers say the suit still doesn't make any sense. Chapter two.
O'BRIEN: Exactly. And I'm going to guess there's a chapter 3, 4, 5 and 10 in that story. Carol, thanks.
HEMMER: Thank you, Carol.
Well, the threat is real, we're told. But the cost of protecting airliners from terrorists with shoulder-filed missiles could be too high. In our "CNN Security Watch" this morning, a Rand Corporation study says the cost of outfitting commercial aircraft with a missile- defense system would be prohibitive, $11 billion to equip the nation's 6,800 commercial airliners, another $2 billion in operating costs.
Duane Woerth is president of the Airline Pilots Association. He's my guest now in Washington.
Captain, good morning to you.
DUANE WOERTH, PRES., AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION: Good morning.
HEMMER: They've given this story an awful lot of attention in the last several months.
WOERTH: Yes.
HEMMER: How real is the threat?
WOERTH: Well, I think it's very real. In fact, prior to September 11, ALPO was studying it with our colleagues in Europe and Israel. And after Secretary Mineta appointed me to be on his rapid response team for aircraft after September 11, I had a whole special task force with multiple disciplines working on this project. So, we take it seriously, and it is a real threat.
HEMMER: So, then, Captain, what do you make of the Rand Corporation's findings?
WOERTH: I'm sad to report that our own internal study of this concluded the same thing. We're disappointed and shocked at how expensive it is. But more importantly, if it actually worked all of the time or a high percentage of the time, we would probably still be pushing strongly for it.
But we were very disappointed to find out, with all of the standoff weapons -- and there's lots of different kinds of MANPADs. But against the better weapons it's sometimes less than a 30 percent chance of this actually working.
So, with all of the multiple threats and other threats that we need to defend against, at that price tag we might get more security for the dollar focusing on other issues.
HEMMER: Let me pick up on that for a moment here. What's a MANPAD, first of all?
WOERTH: In vernacular, it's a shoulder-fired missile that a single person can operate.
HEMMER: OK. Talk about the $11 billion. If you don't spend it in this area, where do you put it now?
WOERTH: Well, we have lots of priorities. We're working with Congress to get funding for it. First of all, just cargo security in general is not as good as passive security. But even in passive security, we've been focusing so much on taking away sharp object or looking for a gun that we don't have enough looking for explosives.
I know both the House and Senate want passengers to get screened, that they're screened for plastic explosives that only sniffers and puffers can do. So we have other threats that that money could actually prevent.
HEMMER: Are we sending the wrong message to terrorists who may even be thinking about this possibility when they hear about a report that goes out and says, you know what? It's too much money, and we're not going to do it?
WOERTH: Well, that is a consequence, of course, we're all worried about. And there are many threats that a terrorist could do.
I think what the report focused on also -- rightly, not cynically -- was that as the 9/11 Commission said, we have to take the MAN out of MANPADs. In other words, if we focus $12 billion on getting those terrorists instead of focusing on the weapon and technology to stop the weapon, we'll probably have a better result with security. And I think -- I wish we had a different result. I wish we had a weapons system to defeat MANPADs that was cheaper, or more importantly, that actually worked. And I'm disappointed that currently, we don't.
HEMMER: Thank you Captain Duane Woerth. We'll get back to this issue as we go on forward. It's not going away just yet. Thank you for your time this morning down in D.C.
WOERTH: You're welcome.
HEMMER: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: An 84-year-old sculptor is recovering today after being attacked by a deer in his Ohio home. The 300-pound deer broke through Alfred Tibor's living room window yesterday and pinned him to the wall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALFRED TIBOR, ATTACKED BY DEER: It was coming right here. And if he would touch me here, it's a second and I would be dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: His wife ran to get help.
Joining us this morning from Columbus, cab driver Randall Rader, who came to help Tibor, and also police sergeant Anthony Wilson. He shot and eventually killed the deer.
Nice to see you, gentlemen. Thank you very much for talking with us.
Randal, let's begin with you. It's not really a rural area. There are woods nearby, which is where we assume the deer came from. You were literally driving by in your taxicab when Mr. Tibor's wife comes running out. What did you think was happening? What did you do next?
RANDALL RADER, WITNESSED DEER ATTACK: I had no idea what was going on. I just saw her and the way she was -- her actions. I thought there was an intruder in the house.
O'BRIEN: What was she doing? What was she saying?
RADER: She just kept saying, "The house is being ransacked, my husband's in there." I heard, you know, "He's on top of my husband." And I just saw the window broke out, and I went from there.
O'BRIEN: You thought, in fact, it was an intruder who had broken in and was attacking Mr. Tibor. When you got inside, you saw actually it was a deer, a 300-pound deer. What did you do then?
RADER: I kind of froze for a second. Then the deer took off, off of him. So, I just pulled it -- you know, helped the guy outside and waited for the police to get there.
O'BRIEN: Eventually you were able to get him right to the paramedics, because he was bleeding a lot.
RADER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: I know he looked like he was in rough shape. What were the injuries you saw that he had sustained?
RADER: A lot of cuts. His forehead was bleeding. I mean, his clothes were torn. He was in rough shape, you know. I'm just -- you know, I'm glad I startled him when I did. I mean, I didn't really do anything other than startle the deer.
O'BRIEN: Well, that seemed to be the action that was the most appropriate.
Sergeant Wilson, then the police arrived. By that time, I understand the deer was sort of trapped in the bathroom. What happened then?
SGT. ANTHONY WILSON, COLUMBUS, OHIO POLICE DEPT.: Well, when I arrived at the scene, there were two officers that had arrived ahead of me. And they had confined the deer to an area consisting of the bathroom and the dining room. And they had moved some furniture around to contain it in one specific area.
And once I entered the house, we made a decision to try to get the deer to exit the home, either through the rear door or the front door. So, we positioned some furniture in between ourselves and the deer to try to get it to go out either the front or the rear door.
O'BRIEN: I know you've said the deer was obviously very panicked and, eventually you discovered, injured as well. Did that play a role in your decision to take that deer down, to put it down, as opposed to trying to usher it out of the house and back into the woods?
WILSON: Yes. Once it came out of the bathroom the second time, I could see that it had significant injuries to its front and hind legs. And, you know, at that point, we made a decision to put it down.
O'BRIEN: Randall, have you had a chance to talk to Mr. Tibor?
RADER: I saw him, you know, probably an hour after he was at the hospital. And he seemed to be recovering pretty well.
O'BRIEN: Yes, he looks pretty good in the pictures, all things considered. I'm sure he's grateful to both of you gentlemen for helping him out and obviously his family as well. Randall Rader and Sergeant Anthony Wilson joining us this morning to talk about that. Appreciate it, guys.
RADER: Thank you.
WILSON: Thank you.
HEMMER: What a story there, Soledad. Wow!
Twenty minutes before the hour.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: It's another nail in the coffin for traditional landline phones. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" coming up.
HEMMER: Also, some "90-Second Pop" today. A popular home improvement show cleans house. We'll tell you why in a moment here right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: A major automobile maker decides to go mobile. Andy Serwer is checking back in "Minding Your Business."
News about Ford, huh? Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: That's right. That's right. Good morning to you.
Is this the wave of the future? Will the landline desktop phone go the way of the adding machine and the typewriter? It could be.
Ford has decided to ditch desktop phones for 8,000 of its employees at its Dearborn facility and replace those phones with cell phones. And interesting thing going on here. And these are mostly engineers. These engineers are at test tracks. They're at customers. You can never reach them. If you try to leave a message on their phones, you know, you get their voice-mail, and that doesn't do anybody any good at all.
HEMMER: Because they're out working.
SERWER: And, you know, you see this increasingly. I mean, if you really want to get in touch with me, call me on my cell phone. Don't bother calling Jack on his, though.
But the problem is for businesses is that cell phones still cost more than landline phones. So, you're not going to see this as a wholesale change. But Ford is saying that the cost, that they're getting some deal with Sprint. It also has a walkie-talkie function so that employees can direct-connect. Jack is loving this.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: They're not going to do that here, are they?
SERWER: They may. They're going to give you one.
CAFFERTY: Because I'll quit. I will resign effective immediately.
(CROSSTALK)
SERWER: To be able to get directly in touch from management to Jack, that's a scary proposition.
CAFFERTY: It isn't going to happen.
HEMMER: The trend is going that way, too, and not just with Ford but, you know, with a lot of the residents you see across the country, too...
SERWER: I think that's true.
HEMMER: ... more and more.
SERWER: Young people coming out of college are not getting a landline, just having a cell phone. That's a very prevalent trend.
HEMMER: Let's talk about the markets next up. I heard this is the slowest start since 1982.
SERWER: You're right.
HEMMER: Is that right?
SERWER: Yes, slow.
HEMMER: Twenty-three years.
CAFFERTY: Where did you hear that?
SERWER: He's reading "The Wall Street Journal". He's on top of it.
HEMMER: Thank you, Andy.
SERWER: Yes, you're welcome.
O'BRIEN: A new low reached. You want to talk about it in the "Question of the Day."
CAFFERTY: Yes, and not just the stock market either. The New York's Hot 97 Radio in big trouble for this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): You can hear the screaming (EXPLETIVE DELETED), little Chinaman swept away. You can hear God laughing, "Swim, you big (EXPLETIVE DELETED), swim."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAFFERTY: Pretty funny stuff, don't you think? Two hundred thousand people dead in that tsunami. In addition to the song, one of the Hot 97 morning show co-hosts said that he was going to start shooting Asians. These are bright people.
By the way, it should be pointed out the song aired for several days, not once...
HEMMER: Yes. CAFFERTY: ... several days on the radio station. Indeed a fine tribute to the wisdom of the management at that sewer of a broadcasting outlet over there.
City Council members and Asian American advocacy groups are furious. The station is owned by MS Communications. You should be very proud. They have apologized. Some staff members have donated a week's salary to tsunami relief efforts. But critics want federal fines, a stronger apology, and they want the morning crew fired at the radio station.
The question is this: How should the station be punished for doing this?
Jerry in Alpharetta, Georgia: "Hot 97 should have its licensed revoked. At minimum, Miss Jones and Todd Link should be terminated if the station is serious about its regrets."
D.W. in Crescent City, California, says: "The Bible says the poor are always with us. Well, this applies to jerks too. The way to punish them is to ignore them. Don't tune in to their lousy station."
Johnny in Vicksburg, Mississippi: "Public pressure can and should be used to have these figures fired. Listeners should notify sponsors and radio personnel. Nothing speaks louder than the thought of lost dollars."
And Doug in Bloomfield, New Jersey: "The hurtful Hot 97 should lose at least 97 sponsors for their irresponsibility and be shut down for 97 days for their callous stupidity."
And finally, an unsigned letter simply said: "Ain't (ph) freedom a (EXPLETIVE DELETED)?"
HEMMER: They're getting what they wanted. They're getting publicity and a lot of it.
O'BRIEN: Yes, but, you know, you can get publicity and get fired, too.
SERWER: This isn't good.
CAFFERTY: Yes, I'm not sure this is the kind of publicity you want, is it?
SERWER: There's still this line. There still is a line, and they crossed it.
O'BRIEN: Absolutely. All right. We've got to check in with what's coming up on "90-Second Pop." When Nicole Kidman speaks, people listen. Unfortunately for her, she didn't know it was happening right outside her home. Our poppers will explain up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) O'BRIEN: Guess what? It's time now for another edition of "90- Second Pop" with our pop stars this morning, Andy Borowitz from BorowitzReport.com.
Good morning to you.
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Thelma Adams from "US Weekly."
Nice to see you, Thelma.
THELMA ADAMS, "US WEEKLY": Good morning.
O'BRIEN: And Toure, CNN's pop culture correspondent is joining us.
Nice to see you, guys.
Nicole Kidman apparently being spied upon. I tell you, I usually don't care when stars say I'm sick of the paparazzi spying on me. I'm sick of them hanging out in the bushes when I go out for dinner. But this one actually I'm very sympathetic to that.
Woo-hoo (ph)! I mean, I agree. No, I...
O'BRIEN: Ow!
(CROSSTALK)
BOROWITZ: Let me just say, real mature.
O'BRIEN: You're not sympathetic?
ADAMS: No. I do. I actually am sympathetic. The poor woman, she goes to Australia to make eucalyptus, and someone put a bug -- allegedly put a bug in her garden. What I think is interesting...
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: But there is a bug across the street from her house. We just don't know who did it yet.
ADAMS: Who did it. OK. But it's interesting, he was caught on tape. It's like, you know, didn't he think if he was going to bug her that they would see him on tape? Because the whole place...
O'BRIEN: Their surveillance cameras caught his attempt at surveillance.
ADAMS: I know.
BOROWITZ: Actually, there were some surveillance cameras capturing the surveillance cameras as well.
ADAMS: But this is not the first time this has happened.
O'BRIEN: I know. Which makes it more sad. ADAMS: I know. I...
BOROWITZ: She's been bugged a lot.
TOURE: I wonder if this girl has three...
ADAMS: She's been bugged a lot. She was married to Tom Cruise, so, you know, no break, this woman.
TOURE: Well, I want to throw out three ideas of the thinking about it could be.
BOROWITZ: Right.
TOURE: Porter Goss, the head of the CIA. It could be him. It could be Bonnie Fuller (ph) or somebody from the "Star" magazine that's...
O'BRIEN: Not Bonnie (ph) herself.
ADAMS: Yes, in her (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
TOURE: Well, yes, right, right (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Or Tom Cruise trying to figure out what's going on.
ADAMS: It's gone. It went. It's over.
O'BRIEN: I'm shooting down all three of your options.
TOURE: Oh, man I can't believe it.
ADAMS: You know, I do feel sympathetic, because she is -- her father has called her a prisoner in her own home.
O'BRIEN: It's a nice home.
TOURE: Apparently.
ADAMS: OK, not so bad.
O'BRIEN: It's not like prison.
ADAMS: It's kind of like Martha Stewart when she is on house arrest. But the thing is, on the other side, the tabloid reporters are so desperate to get any scrap.
TOURE: Yes.
ADAMS: And they're so well-rewarded that you can understand why they do this.
TOURE: Yes.
BOROWITZ: Yes. No, but except that they're overhearing conversations between her and her bodyguards. So that would be like, your Chinese food is here now. I mean, that's going to be on the cover of "The Enquirer."
O'BRIEN: You never know.
ADAMS: If she had, like, kung pow (ph) chicken, I mean, then you know in detail.
O'BRIEN: There you go. Let's move to our next topic. I'm so emotionally involved in the stories this morning.
BOROWITZ: That's good.
O'BRIEN: "Trading Spaces."
BOROWITZ: I know.
O'BRIEN: Host Paige Davis, what that's about? Gone? Out? She's, like, the cute woman on that show. Did you like here?
BOROWITZ: I know. She was like the mainstay. And it was, you know, it was a shocking story. It's also sort of cruel the way they told her, because apparently she got to her office and they had done a makeover. It's a conference room now. That was harsh. No, actually, I made that part up.
But you know what? The true part of the story that I think is really harsh is it's one thing if you're, like, on a show and they replace you with another host. But here, they're replacing her with nothing. It's just going to be a host-less format. So, that's basically our way of saying, Paige, we could have done it without you from the beginning. A completely unnecessary spare part.
O'BRIEN: You know, they say we're moving in a new creative direction, which, of course, we know is the death nail, because that means they're not moving in a new creative direction at all.
BOROWITZ: Right.
O'BRIEN: It's personal whenever they say that.
BOROWITZ: Right.
ADAMS: I think it's not because she's fat, which some people have said.
O'BRIEN: Yes, the weight gain is one issue.
ADAMS: I think she probably just didn't play her office politics well. She was, you know, out there the field changing people's houses and didn't keep the back office in mind.
O'BRIEN: Well, also -- I mean, wasn't there some issue where she was flashing her thong to people and maybe getting...
ADAMS: She did a striptease.
O'BRIEN: Did a little strip -- what? Toure is sitting here like the cat that swallowed the canary.
(CROSSTALK)
ADAMS: He knows the whole story.
O'BRIEN: You do?
ADAMS: He knows the scoop.
TOURE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: OK.
TOURE: Well, I was specifically told not to say it, so I'm not saying it.
O'BRIEN: OK, well don't.
ADAMS: He has been censored.
BOROWITZ: OK. Well, I'm glad we're driving more people to the Internet. That's very good. That's our job here.
O'BRIEN: Well, I'm glad...
ADAMS: It has to do with S-E-X. We're not saying anymore.
BOROWITZ: Oh, OK.
TOURE: I don't want the lightning bolt to hit me.
O'BRIEN: Oh, some people have Watergate. I have Paige Davis as my secret scandal that we won't reveal.
All right, Michael Douglas is going to do a remake of the 1980s hit "Romancing the Stone."
TOURE: Well, he's just continuing that whole jewel thief thing, but he's doing it in India, with my girl, Ashwari Ari (ph). I'm so excited. She is trying to become a star in America. So that's why she wants to do this.
O'BRIEN: Because she's a Bollywood star.
TOURE: She is a huge Bollywod star.
ADAMS: "Pride and Prejudice."
TOURE: She might be the biggest movie star in the world. Right, she has "Pride and Prejudice" coming out in February.
O'BRIEN: A gorgeous woman.
TOURE: But she's unbelievably gorgeous, but she does not want to kiss on screen. This is not what they do in Bollywood. So it's going to be really difficult to become a star actress in America without there being some level of sex in that.
O'BRIEN: That could be a problem.
BOROWITZ: What is the approximate age gap now between Michael Douglas...
ADAMS: Ninety years.
O'BRIEN: I was going to say, 91.
ADAMS: Ninety-one. The sad thing is, you know, those movies were him and Kathleen Turner.
TOURE: Yes.
ADAMS: It's like she's so shelved, Kathleen Turner. And it just seems sad to me.
O'BRIEN: Thelma, we could sit around and talk about women in Hollywood and how unfair and double standard...
ADAMS: True.
O'BRIEN: Girl, that's a "90-Second Pop" for another day. You guys, as always, thank you very much.
Bill -- let's go back to you.
HEMMER: All right, Soledad. In a moment here, Condoleezza Rice is expected to be confirmed later this morning. Do not look for her critics to go down without a fight. Live to the White House and live to Capitol Hill on this story after this on AMERICAN MORNING.
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Aired January 26, 2005 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. It's 7:30 here in New York. In a few moments, a "CNN Security Watch," looking at terrorists with shoulder-fired missiles. One plan to protect airplanes apparently will cost in the neighborhood of $11 billion. We'll talk with the head of the Airline Pilots Union about whether or not that is still a good idea. His thoughts in a moment.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, the deer that just went nuts in Ohio. It came out of the woods. It burst into a couple's home and nearly killed an 84-year-old man. The man's wife, the police and a taxi driver helped to save him, though. We're going to talk this morning with the cabby and one of the officers, right there, coming up.
HEMMER: Absolutely bizarre.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
HEMMER: Have you ever heard of anything like that before?
O'BRIEN: There are some stories where you say, you know, lucky to be alive. Well, I've got to tell you...
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Where did the cab driver come from?
O'BRIEN: He was driving by.
COSTELLO: Oh, really?
O'BRIEN: He's going to share his story. He just happened to be driving by. He saved the guy's life.
COSTELLO: It looks like it was out in rural Ohio. So you wonder why the cabby was out there.
HEMMER: Some tough deer, huh? Breaking into homes?
O'BRIEN: Some deer with good luck, yes.
HEMMER: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. It's time to get a check of the headlines "Now in the News."
The Army National Guard is apparently considering a proposal to offer $15,000 signing bonuses. The head of the National Guard says battalions are short some 15,000 soldiers. He's asking for the green light to offer cash to active-duty military members willing to join the Guard. The bonus is now just 50 bucks. No word yet on when the Pentagon will seek congressional approval for this plan.
In Washington, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to meet in two and a half hours to consider the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for attorney general. He's expected to win quick committee approval. The Senate is also expected to take a final vote today on Condoleezza Rice's nomination for secretary of state. We'll have more on that coming up. And be sure to stay with CNN for live coverage of the vote. That begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.
The FBI is investigating whether the Greater Alabama Boy Scout Council deliberately inflated membership rolls to gain funding from agencies like the United Way. The council is slated to get about a million dollars from the United Way this year. A spokesman for the Boy Scouts' national office says the organization is dedicated to accurate reporting of its membership.
And a federal appeals court is reviving part of a fat lawsuit against McDonald's. The part in question pertains to deceptive advertising. A lower court judge dismissed it because he said it didn't show a link between McDs (ph) and held health problems said to be caused by eating fast food. But an appeals court yesterday overturned that decision. McDonald's lawyers say the suit still doesn't make any sense. Chapter two.
O'BRIEN: Exactly. And I'm going to guess there's a chapter 3, 4, 5 and 10 in that story. Carol, thanks.
HEMMER: Thank you, Carol.
Well, the threat is real, we're told. But the cost of protecting airliners from terrorists with shoulder-filed missiles could be too high. In our "CNN Security Watch" this morning, a Rand Corporation study says the cost of outfitting commercial aircraft with a missile- defense system would be prohibitive, $11 billion to equip the nation's 6,800 commercial airliners, another $2 billion in operating costs.
Duane Woerth is president of the Airline Pilots Association. He's my guest now in Washington.
Captain, good morning to you.
DUANE WOERTH, PRES., AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION: Good morning.
HEMMER: They've given this story an awful lot of attention in the last several months.
WOERTH: Yes.
HEMMER: How real is the threat?
WOERTH: Well, I think it's very real. In fact, prior to September 11, ALPO was studying it with our colleagues in Europe and Israel. And after Secretary Mineta appointed me to be on his rapid response team for aircraft after September 11, I had a whole special task force with multiple disciplines working on this project. So, we take it seriously, and it is a real threat.
HEMMER: So, then, Captain, what do you make of the Rand Corporation's findings?
WOERTH: I'm sad to report that our own internal study of this concluded the same thing. We're disappointed and shocked at how expensive it is. But more importantly, if it actually worked all of the time or a high percentage of the time, we would probably still be pushing strongly for it.
But we were very disappointed to find out, with all of the standoff weapons -- and there's lots of different kinds of MANPADs. But against the better weapons it's sometimes less than a 30 percent chance of this actually working.
So, with all of the multiple threats and other threats that we need to defend against, at that price tag we might get more security for the dollar focusing on other issues.
HEMMER: Let me pick up on that for a moment here. What's a MANPAD, first of all?
WOERTH: In vernacular, it's a shoulder-fired missile that a single person can operate.
HEMMER: OK. Talk about the $11 billion. If you don't spend it in this area, where do you put it now?
WOERTH: Well, we have lots of priorities. We're working with Congress to get funding for it. First of all, just cargo security in general is not as good as passive security. But even in passive security, we've been focusing so much on taking away sharp object or looking for a gun that we don't have enough looking for explosives.
I know both the House and Senate want passengers to get screened, that they're screened for plastic explosives that only sniffers and puffers can do. So we have other threats that that money could actually prevent.
HEMMER: Are we sending the wrong message to terrorists who may even be thinking about this possibility when they hear about a report that goes out and says, you know what? It's too much money, and we're not going to do it?
WOERTH: Well, that is a consequence, of course, we're all worried about. And there are many threats that a terrorist could do.
I think what the report focused on also -- rightly, not cynically -- was that as the 9/11 Commission said, we have to take the MAN out of MANPADs. In other words, if we focus $12 billion on getting those terrorists instead of focusing on the weapon and technology to stop the weapon, we'll probably have a better result with security. And I think -- I wish we had a different result. I wish we had a weapons system to defeat MANPADs that was cheaper, or more importantly, that actually worked. And I'm disappointed that currently, we don't.
HEMMER: Thank you Captain Duane Woerth. We'll get back to this issue as we go on forward. It's not going away just yet. Thank you for your time this morning down in D.C.
WOERTH: You're welcome.
HEMMER: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: An 84-year-old sculptor is recovering today after being attacked by a deer in his Ohio home. The 300-pound deer broke through Alfred Tibor's living room window yesterday and pinned him to the wall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALFRED TIBOR, ATTACKED BY DEER: It was coming right here. And if he would touch me here, it's a second and I would be dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: His wife ran to get help.
Joining us this morning from Columbus, cab driver Randall Rader, who came to help Tibor, and also police sergeant Anthony Wilson. He shot and eventually killed the deer.
Nice to see you, gentlemen. Thank you very much for talking with us.
Randal, let's begin with you. It's not really a rural area. There are woods nearby, which is where we assume the deer came from. You were literally driving by in your taxicab when Mr. Tibor's wife comes running out. What did you think was happening? What did you do next?
RANDALL RADER, WITNESSED DEER ATTACK: I had no idea what was going on. I just saw her and the way she was -- her actions. I thought there was an intruder in the house.
O'BRIEN: What was she doing? What was she saying?
RADER: She just kept saying, "The house is being ransacked, my husband's in there." I heard, you know, "He's on top of my husband." And I just saw the window broke out, and I went from there.
O'BRIEN: You thought, in fact, it was an intruder who had broken in and was attacking Mr. Tibor. When you got inside, you saw actually it was a deer, a 300-pound deer. What did you do then?
RADER: I kind of froze for a second. Then the deer took off, off of him. So, I just pulled it -- you know, helped the guy outside and waited for the police to get there.
O'BRIEN: Eventually you were able to get him right to the paramedics, because he was bleeding a lot.
RADER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: I know he looked like he was in rough shape. What were the injuries you saw that he had sustained?
RADER: A lot of cuts. His forehead was bleeding. I mean, his clothes were torn. He was in rough shape, you know. I'm just -- you know, I'm glad I startled him when I did. I mean, I didn't really do anything other than startle the deer.
O'BRIEN: Well, that seemed to be the action that was the most appropriate.
Sergeant Wilson, then the police arrived. By that time, I understand the deer was sort of trapped in the bathroom. What happened then?
SGT. ANTHONY WILSON, COLUMBUS, OHIO POLICE DEPT.: Well, when I arrived at the scene, there were two officers that had arrived ahead of me. And they had confined the deer to an area consisting of the bathroom and the dining room. And they had moved some furniture around to contain it in one specific area.
And once I entered the house, we made a decision to try to get the deer to exit the home, either through the rear door or the front door. So, we positioned some furniture in between ourselves and the deer to try to get it to go out either the front or the rear door.
O'BRIEN: I know you've said the deer was obviously very panicked and, eventually you discovered, injured as well. Did that play a role in your decision to take that deer down, to put it down, as opposed to trying to usher it out of the house and back into the woods?
WILSON: Yes. Once it came out of the bathroom the second time, I could see that it had significant injuries to its front and hind legs. And, you know, at that point, we made a decision to put it down.
O'BRIEN: Randall, have you had a chance to talk to Mr. Tibor?
RADER: I saw him, you know, probably an hour after he was at the hospital. And he seemed to be recovering pretty well.
O'BRIEN: Yes, he looks pretty good in the pictures, all things considered. I'm sure he's grateful to both of you gentlemen for helping him out and obviously his family as well. Randall Rader and Sergeant Anthony Wilson joining us this morning to talk about that. Appreciate it, guys.
RADER: Thank you.
WILSON: Thank you.
HEMMER: What a story there, Soledad. Wow!
Twenty minutes before the hour.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: It's another nail in the coffin for traditional landline phones. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" coming up.
HEMMER: Also, some "90-Second Pop" today. A popular home improvement show cleans house. We'll tell you why in a moment here right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: A major automobile maker decides to go mobile. Andy Serwer is checking back in "Minding Your Business."
News about Ford, huh? Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: That's right. That's right. Good morning to you.
Is this the wave of the future? Will the landline desktop phone go the way of the adding machine and the typewriter? It could be.
Ford has decided to ditch desktop phones for 8,000 of its employees at its Dearborn facility and replace those phones with cell phones. And interesting thing going on here. And these are mostly engineers. These engineers are at test tracks. They're at customers. You can never reach them. If you try to leave a message on their phones, you know, you get their voice-mail, and that doesn't do anybody any good at all.
HEMMER: Because they're out working.
SERWER: And, you know, you see this increasingly. I mean, if you really want to get in touch with me, call me on my cell phone. Don't bother calling Jack on his, though.
But the problem is for businesses is that cell phones still cost more than landline phones. So, you're not going to see this as a wholesale change. But Ford is saying that the cost, that they're getting some deal with Sprint. It also has a walkie-talkie function so that employees can direct-connect. Jack is loving this.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: They're not going to do that here, are they?
SERWER: They may. They're going to give you one.
CAFFERTY: Because I'll quit. I will resign effective immediately.
(CROSSTALK)
SERWER: To be able to get directly in touch from management to Jack, that's a scary proposition.
CAFFERTY: It isn't going to happen.
HEMMER: The trend is going that way, too, and not just with Ford but, you know, with a lot of the residents you see across the country, too...
SERWER: I think that's true.
HEMMER: ... more and more.
SERWER: Young people coming out of college are not getting a landline, just having a cell phone. That's a very prevalent trend.
HEMMER: Let's talk about the markets next up. I heard this is the slowest start since 1982.
SERWER: You're right.
HEMMER: Is that right?
SERWER: Yes, slow.
HEMMER: Twenty-three years.
CAFFERTY: Where did you hear that?
SERWER: He's reading "The Wall Street Journal". He's on top of it.
HEMMER: Thank you, Andy.
SERWER: Yes, you're welcome.
O'BRIEN: A new low reached. You want to talk about it in the "Question of the Day."
CAFFERTY: Yes, and not just the stock market either. The New York's Hot 97 Radio in big trouble for this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): You can hear the screaming (EXPLETIVE DELETED), little Chinaman swept away. You can hear God laughing, "Swim, you big (EXPLETIVE DELETED), swim."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAFFERTY: Pretty funny stuff, don't you think? Two hundred thousand people dead in that tsunami. In addition to the song, one of the Hot 97 morning show co-hosts said that he was going to start shooting Asians. These are bright people.
By the way, it should be pointed out the song aired for several days, not once...
HEMMER: Yes. CAFFERTY: ... several days on the radio station. Indeed a fine tribute to the wisdom of the management at that sewer of a broadcasting outlet over there.
City Council members and Asian American advocacy groups are furious. The station is owned by MS Communications. You should be very proud. They have apologized. Some staff members have donated a week's salary to tsunami relief efforts. But critics want federal fines, a stronger apology, and they want the morning crew fired at the radio station.
The question is this: How should the station be punished for doing this?
Jerry in Alpharetta, Georgia: "Hot 97 should have its licensed revoked. At minimum, Miss Jones and Todd Link should be terminated if the station is serious about its regrets."
D.W. in Crescent City, California, says: "The Bible says the poor are always with us. Well, this applies to jerks too. The way to punish them is to ignore them. Don't tune in to their lousy station."
Johnny in Vicksburg, Mississippi: "Public pressure can and should be used to have these figures fired. Listeners should notify sponsors and radio personnel. Nothing speaks louder than the thought of lost dollars."
And Doug in Bloomfield, New Jersey: "The hurtful Hot 97 should lose at least 97 sponsors for their irresponsibility and be shut down for 97 days for their callous stupidity."
And finally, an unsigned letter simply said: "Ain't (ph) freedom a (EXPLETIVE DELETED)?"
HEMMER: They're getting what they wanted. They're getting publicity and a lot of it.
O'BRIEN: Yes, but, you know, you can get publicity and get fired, too.
SERWER: This isn't good.
CAFFERTY: Yes, I'm not sure this is the kind of publicity you want, is it?
SERWER: There's still this line. There still is a line, and they crossed it.
O'BRIEN: Absolutely. All right. We've got to check in with what's coming up on "90-Second Pop." When Nicole Kidman speaks, people listen. Unfortunately for her, she didn't know it was happening right outside her home. Our poppers will explain up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) O'BRIEN: Guess what? It's time now for another edition of "90- Second Pop" with our pop stars this morning, Andy Borowitz from BorowitzReport.com.
Good morning to you.
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Thelma Adams from "US Weekly."
Nice to see you, Thelma.
THELMA ADAMS, "US WEEKLY": Good morning.
O'BRIEN: And Toure, CNN's pop culture correspondent is joining us.
Nice to see you, guys.
Nicole Kidman apparently being spied upon. I tell you, I usually don't care when stars say I'm sick of the paparazzi spying on me. I'm sick of them hanging out in the bushes when I go out for dinner. But this one actually I'm very sympathetic to that.
Woo-hoo (ph)! I mean, I agree. No, I...
O'BRIEN: Ow!
(CROSSTALK)
BOROWITZ: Let me just say, real mature.
O'BRIEN: You're not sympathetic?
ADAMS: No. I do. I actually am sympathetic. The poor woman, she goes to Australia to make eucalyptus, and someone put a bug -- allegedly put a bug in her garden. What I think is interesting...
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: But there is a bug across the street from her house. We just don't know who did it yet.
ADAMS: Who did it. OK. But it's interesting, he was caught on tape. It's like, you know, didn't he think if he was going to bug her that they would see him on tape? Because the whole place...
O'BRIEN: Their surveillance cameras caught his attempt at surveillance.
ADAMS: I know.
BOROWITZ: Actually, there were some surveillance cameras capturing the surveillance cameras as well.
ADAMS: But this is not the first time this has happened.
O'BRIEN: I know. Which makes it more sad. ADAMS: I know. I...
BOROWITZ: She's been bugged a lot.
TOURE: I wonder if this girl has three...
ADAMS: She's been bugged a lot. She was married to Tom Cruise, so, you know, no break, this woman.
TOURE: Well, I want to throw out three ideas of the thinking about it could be.
BOROWITZ: Right.
TOURE: Porter Goss, the head of the CIA. It could be him. It could be Bonnie Fuller (ph) or somebody from the "Star" magazine that's...
O'BRIEN: Not Bonnie (ph) herself.
ADAMS: Yes, in her (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
TOURE: Well, yes, right, right (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Or Tom Cruise trying to figure out what's going on.
ADAMS: It's gone. It went. It's over.
O'BRIEN: I'm shooting down all three of your options.
TOURE: Oh, man I can't believe it.
ADAMS: You know, I do feel sympathetic, because she is -- her father has called her a prisoner in her own home.
O'BRIEN: It's a nice home.
TOURE: Apparently.
ADAMS: OK, not so bad.
O'BRIEN: It's not like prison.
ADAMS: It's kind of like Martha Stewart when she is on house arrest. But the thing is, on the other side, the tabloid reporters are so desperate to get any scrap.
TOURE: Yes.
ADAMS: And they're so well-rewarded that you can understand why they do this.
TOURE: Yes.
BOROWITZ: Yes. No, but except that they're overhearing conversations between her and her bodyguards. So that would be like, your Chinese food is here now. I mean, that's going to be on the cover of "The Enquirer."
O'BRIEN: You never know.
ADAMS: If she had, like, kung pow (ph) chicken, I mean, then you know in detail.
O'BRIEN: There you go. Let's move to our next topic. I'm so emotionally involved in the stories this morning.
BOROWITZ: That's good.
O'BRIEN: "Trading Spaces."
BOROWITZ: I know.
O'BRIEN: Host Paige Davis, what that's about? Gone? Out? She's, like, the cute woman on that show. Did you like here?
BOROWITZ: I know. She was like the mainstay. And it was, you know, it was a shocking story. It's also sort of cruel the way they told her, because apparently she got to her office and they had done a makeover. It's a conference room now. That was harsh. No, actually, I made that part up.
But you know what? The true part of the story that I think is really harsh is it's one thing if you're, like, on a show and they replace you with another host. But here, they're replacing her with nothing. It's just going to be a host-less format. So, that's basically our way of saying, Paige, we could have done it without you from the beginning. A completely unnecessary spare part.
O'BRIEN: You know, they say we're moving in a new creative direction, which, of course, we know is the death nail, because that means they're not moving in a new creative direction at all.
BOROWITZ: Right.
O'BRIEN: It's personal whenever they say that.
BOROWITZ: Right.
ADAMS: I think it's not because she's fat, which some people have said.
O'BRIEN: Yes, the weight gain is one issue.
ADAMS: I think she probably just didn't play her office politics well. She was, you know, out there the field changing people's houses and didn't keep the back office in mind.
O'BRIEN: Well, also -- I mean, wasn't there some issue where she was flashing her thong to people and maybe getting...
ADAMS: She did a striptease.
O'BRIEN: Did a little strip -- what? Toure is sitting here like the cat that swallowed the canary.
(CROSSTALK)
ADAMS: He knows the whole story.
O'BRIEN: You do?
ADAMS: He knows the scoop.
TOURE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: OK.
TOURE: Well, I was specifically told not to say it, so I'm not saying it.
O'BRIEN: OK, well don't.
ADAMS: He has been censored.
BOROWITZ: OK. Well, I'm glad we're driving more people to the Internet. That's very good. That's our job here.
O'BRIEN: Well, I'm glad...
ADAMS: It has to do with S-E-X. We're not saying anymore.
BOROWITZ: Oh, OK.
TOURE: I don't want the lightning bolt to hit me.
O'BRIEN: Oh, some people have Watergate. I have Paige Davis as my secret scandal that we won't reveal.
All right, Michael Douglas is going to do a remake of the 1980s hit "Romancing the Stone."
TOURE: Well, he's just continuing that whole jewel thief thing, but he's doing it in India, with my girl, Ashwari Ari (ph). I'm so excited. She is trying to become a star in America. So that's why she wants to do this.
O'BRIEN: Because she's a Bollywood star.
TOURE: She is a huge Bollywod star.
ADAMS: "Pride and Prejudice."
TOURE: She might be the biggest movie star in the world. Right, she has "Pride and Prejudice" coming out in February.
O'BRIEN: A gorgeous woman.
TOURE: But she's unbelievably gorgeous, but she does not want to kiss on screen. This is not what they do in Bollywood. So it's going to be really difficult to become a star actress in America without there being some level of sex in that.
O'BRIEN: That could be a problem.
BOROWITZ: What is the approximate age gap now between Michael Douglas...
ADAMS: Ninety years.
O'BRIEN: I was going to say, 91.
ADAMS: Ninety-one. The sad thing is, you know, those movies were him and Kathleen Turner.
TOURE: Yes.
ADAMS: It's like she's so shelved, Kathleen Turner. And it just seems sad to me.
O'BRIEN: Thelma, we could sit around and talk about women in Hollywood and how unfair and double standard...
ADAMS: True.
O'BRIEN: Girl, that's a "90-Second Pop" for another day. You guys, as always, thank you very much.
Bill -- let's go back to you.
HEMMER: All right, Soledad. In a moment here, Condoleezza Rice is expected to be confirmed later this morning. Do not look for her critics to go down without a fight. Live to the White House and live to Capitol Hill on this story after this on AMERICAN MORNING.
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