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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bush's Budget Cuts Veteran's Benefits;

Aired February 07, 2005 - 22:00   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.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We'll be talking a little bit more about Elton John later on tonight on NEWSNIGHT.
Good evening again. I'm Anderson Cooper in for Aaron Brown.

Is it just me or did Paul McCartney show a little bit of ankle last night, huh, during "Live and Let Die?" Huh, did you see that little, I saw that little white ankle. Wasn't he supposed to be the nice Beatle?

In this ever-changing world in which we live in, doesn't it just make you want to give in and cry? Maybe it's just wishful thinking brought on by whiplash. After all going from Janet Jackson, bearing her chest, to Sir Paul McCartney, showing his age, kind of does that to you.

A bit later tonight we'll get into whether the pendulum swung too far to the tame side of things last night and in the culture in general.

We'll begin with who gets hurt in the swinging of the budget ax.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERRY VLECK, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: I hope they shoot it down. I don't think it's right.

COOPER (voice-over): Squeezed by a tightening budget he's not the only one.

TOM WOODWARD, PITTMAN SUPPORTER: He is not a monster. Those were monstrous acts but he was not a monster.

COOPER: Families rallying behind a boy accused of double murder and against the prescription drugs that they believe made him do it.

For a defrocked priest guilty as charged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For once justice prevailed.

COOPER: Justice is done but will the verdict set a dangerous precedent?

And, no malfunctions, wardrobe or otherwise, so a year after asking what's become of the Super Bowl halftime show, we'll ask what's become of the Super Bowl halftime show? (END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Rock on. All right, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with a number and face, the number $2.57 trillion. That's the price tag of the budget plan George W. Bush sent to Congress today. The winners, defense and homeland security, with the Pentagon seeing about a five percent bump, now that is above and beyond the money separately budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan. The losers include just about everything else, education, Amtrak, farm subsidies, Medicaid.

Bottom line the deficit adds up to about $427 billion. The numbers will change when lawmakers have their say. This is just the beginning of a long and messy job. But no matter what happens to which programs you can be sure some of the people are going to feel a bite.

So, along with the number, $2.57 trillion, we begin tonight with a face and CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VLECK: In the morning it can be really rough.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jerry Vleck is heading home.

VLECK: What else have I got left in life to help the fellow vets now?

OPPENHEIM: Several times a week, Vleck volunteers for the American Legion at the V.A. Hospital in North Chicago, the same place where he gets all his health care. This year he'll celebrate the 60th anniversary of another homecoming, his return from two years in the Pacific during World War II, like many in his generation, like as modest.

VLECK: I didn't do anything different than anybody else was doing out there. We were trying to stay alive let me put it to you that way.

OPPENHEIM: At age 79, Jerry Vleck is still trying to stay alive.

VLECK: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

OPPENHEIM (on camera): What's that for?

VLECK: That's for blood pressure.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): He now takes eight different medications every day mainly for heart disease and diabetes.

(on camera): How much do you pay for one of those now for one prescription? VLECK: Seven dollars.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): Right now the costs are relatively low for Vleck as most of his health care is covered by his veteran's benefits.

On one level you must feel lucky that you're a veteran.

VLECK: Oh, I'm lucky I'm alive let's put it that way. I know a lot of guys that aren't.

OPPENHEIM: But in the president's current budget proposal, Vleck would have to pay $15 per prescription, more than twice as much. In his case with eight medications that could add up to more than $1,200 per year and that's not small change for a guy who only takes in about $2,200 a month between Social Security and his truck driver's pension. With these increases, he'll feel the squeeze, an insult he says to those who risked their lives for their country.

VLECK: Especially the ones who can't afford it, especially them.

OPPENHEIM (on camera): Are you that person? Can you afford to pay $7 for one of these?

VLECK: Right now it's not a question of whether I can afford or not. I have to do it.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): With all his ailments, Jerry Vleck has been getting by. As a widower, he has lived by himself for 17 years. But now he is looking for a little help from Congress, which has been known to stop presidents from touching benefits for veterans.

VLECK: I hope they shoot it down. I don't think it's right.

OPPENHEIM: Keith Oppenheim CNN, Grays Lake, Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A bit later on NEWSNIGHT, a big picture look at the winners and losers in this year's proposed budget.

On now to the intersection of medicine and the law, every day it seems we learn that certain drugs can do more harm than good. The cases wind up in civil court with billions of dollars in the balance.

In this case, however, it's different. The drug in question is one of the most popular antidepressants. The trial in Charleston, South Carolina involves a young man charged with murder, reporting for us tonight CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom Woodward sits in this South Carolina courtroom and he cries. He cries for Christopher Pittman, who at age 12 killed his grandparents as they slept and burned the house down around them. WOODWARD: He is not a monster. Those were monstrous acts but he was not a monster. I believe those monstrous acts were brought about by the drugs he was on.

COHEN: Woodward feels a bond with Pittman. He says he was a good kid, loved his sister, loved his grandparents and was ruined by this drug, Zoloft, much like Woodward's daughter, who was prescribed the antidepressant after going through what he calls a normal teenage rough patch.

WOODWARD: Seven days after taking her first pill she took her life.

COHEN: Lisa Vansyckel teenage daughter tried to kill herself after taking a similar drug Paxil. Several families like hers identify with the young defendant. The Vansyckels even went so far as to put up $175,000 bail last week when he was released to his family and she rented them a house.

LISA VANSYCKEL, PITTMAN SUPPORTER: I've come to know Christopher. I've come to love him as if he were my own son. I told Christopher that I would do everything in my power as a mother to protect him.

COHEN: She says she wants to warn other families about antidepressants. Last October, the Food and Drug Administration linked antidepressants, like Zoloft and Paxil, to some suicides among teens and told parents to be on the lookout for impulsive and hostile behavior.

Pfizer, which makes the drug, says there's no link between their drug and violence against others and South Carolina prosecutors say pills weren't to blame. They say Pittman was a troubled kid who was angry at his grandparents. Some psychiatrists say these families, who publicize their stories, may be doing more harm than good.

DR. HAROLD BIST, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION: That's just not right to give the public a distorted image like that. It's just wrong.

COHEN: He says the drugs have helped millions of depressed kids. But when the FDA warnings came out last fall, the number of prescriptions to young people went down.

BIST: And it would be a lot worse for them without the treatments.

COHEN: Despite this, the Woodwards and Vansyckles say they'll keep rallying around Christopher Pittman, a double murderer to some but a victim to them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: The state employed child psychiatrist who's seen Chris while he's been in jail testified today that she thinks he killed his grandparents because of a mood disorder induced by Zoloft -- Anderson.

COOPER: Elizabeth, the FDA hasn't linked this drug to violence against others, violence to one's self perhaps but not against others. How is the defense handling that?

COHEN: Right. The defense is trying to make a case that there's a similarity between violence that's directed inward and violence that's directed outward. It's interesting, Anderson, because Canadian health authorities have warned that taking these drugs could increase the risk of someone becoming violent towards others.

COOPER: All right. We'll be watching. Elizabeth Cohen thanks.

Inside a Massachusetts courtroom today, a 27-year-old man dropped his head and cried as a verdict was read. It wasn't a verdict against him. It was against a former Roman Catholic priest who molested the young man when he was a child, the story tonight from CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Defrocked priest Paul Shanley stood in a Cambridge, Massachusetts courtroom and heard the same word, like an echo ringing in his ears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

LOTHIAN: Of two counts of child rape and two counts of indecent assault.

MARTHA COAKLEY, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We never faulted in our belief that this young man had been abused.

LOTHIAN: Shanley's accuser smiled and cried off camera and, while he had no comment, other victims, like Bill, who was part of the Boston Archdiocese $85 million landmark abuse settlement but also wants to remain anonymous, called the verdict a victory.

BILL "ANONYMOUS": I'm very emotional. I'm very thrilled. I can't tell you. For once justice prevailed.

LOTHIAN (on camera): Throughout the two week trial there was often graphic testimony from the prosecution and the victim himself, who talked in great detail about what he says Shanley did to him when he was just six years old.

(voice-over): Like being pulled out of catechism classes at a suburban Boston parish during the 1980s to be raped repeatedly and groped in a bathroom and church pews.

ACCUSER: We'd sit towards the front and he'd put his right arm around me. I always sat on his right and he put his right arm around me and started touching me with his left hand.

LOTHIAN: Shanley's accuser came forward three years ago, empowered by the public priest abuse scandal and driven by what was described as repressed memories. The defense tried to discount his claims calling them false memories.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a case of massive doubt.

LOTHIAN: To bolster that argument the defense's one and only witness, a California psychologist who questioned the validity of memories repressed for nearly two decades.

This Shanley supporter also has doubts.

LOTHIAN: So you think he's innocent?

PAUL SHANNON, SHANLEY SUPPORTER: Oh, absolutely yes. No, and I just have no doubt about it. Now, obviously everyone on earth thinks I'm wrong.

LOTHIAN: Like Bill who says the verdict is liberating for all the victims.

BILL: We've all been imprisoned with this fear and the long term effects of molestation.

LOTHIAN: After the verdict, Shanley's bail was revoked. He'll be sentenced next week and could get up to life in prison.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Cambridge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, making sure there were no wardrobe malfunctions at this year's Super Bowl. Is it possible to be just a bit too squeaky clean? We'll take a look at that.

And the secrets of the beautiful people at any age.

From around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, tens of millions tune in every year to watch the Super Bowl and not just the game, although it was a pretty good match- up but the commercials and the halftime show themselves attract a lot of viewers.

Paul McCartney's halftime performance was very family friendly and middle of the road, you might say, in stark contrast to Janet Jackson's now infamous wardrobe malfunction or alleged wardrobe malfunction of whatever it was during last year's halftime show.

One of the ads that aired during the Super Bowl actually made light of that incident. This is the ad godaddy.com mocked the calls for censorship that followed Janet Jackson's performance.

But in a strange twist, this commercial, which was supposed to air twice, was pulled by FOX and the NFL, which apparently thought it was too racy. In fact, some groups are more determined than ever to keep the airwaves squeaky clean. Aaron Brown takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REV. DON WILDMON, FOUNDER, AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION: There's a term called righteous indignation. I haven't heard it from the pulpit lately. It means holy anger.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The Reverend Don Wildmon has been unleashing the holy anger of conservative Christians for a quarter of a century now at stores that show adult magazines and courtrooms that won't show the Ten Commandments, over television shows that suggested naughty behavior and over those that delivered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're listening to American Family Radio.

BROWN: In Tupelo, Mississippi, the American Family Association and its chairman are still working to clean up America. Some things though have changed. There is now a radio network and a magazine and a news service and there is son Tim who has taken over the day-to-day operations. The outrage, however, hasn't changed a bit.

RANDY SHARP, DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROJECTS, AFA: And so I'm hoping that we've reached the limit in terms of what we're as a culture willing to tolerate openly and maybe we do have some standards still left.

BROWN: The newest and possibly the most effective weapon is the Internet.

TIM WILDMON, PRES., AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION: We can sit and start watching the numbers ten, 15, up to 60, 80 a minute for a couple of hours.

BROWN: On sites, like One Million Moms, the AFA can alert its faithful, offer a carefully written of complaint and see it signed and sent in seconds to FCC commissioners, network executives and major advertisers.

WILDMON: The latest count that we have is approximately 21,000 individual citizens have filed a formal complaint with the FCC regarding the broadcast of "Saving Private Ryan."

BROWN: The key term here is formal complaint. The American Family Association, like other online groups, records and screens the networks that provides the transcripts and broadcast details that the FCC requires.

SHARP: Over the years, the FCC has basically been a paper tiger. With the exception of a slap in Howard Stern every once in a while they've basically done nothing.

BROWN: The FCC says that under the law one complaint is just as likely to get results as a million but the statistics show a trend, about 100 complaints in the year 2000, more than a million in 2004. Numbers like that have to mean political pressure. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you letter will be sent to "60 Minutes."

BROWN: And when the e-mails flood into the networks and to major advertisers there is also economic pressure.

FRANK AHRENS, "WASHINGTON POST" BUSINESS REPORTER: And I do think that every company, be it a broadcaster, be it a soap maker, has a tipping point internally and if all of a sudden they see that one, two, three million people are saying we're going to stop buying your products if you don't stop advertising on the show, I think it certainly does have an effect.

BROWN: Critics say that it's not only truly indecent programming that's affected but anything innovative or risky.

JONATHAN RINTELS, SCREENWRITER: Currently, broadcasters are telling the creative community, writers and producers, that we have to be very, very careful about anything that might potentially be indecent.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the truth about your sex life and everyone else's, a primetime live special event.

BROWN: It's not something that worries the folks down in Tupelo where a return to old-fashioned family television sounds like a great idea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, in this environment we need to ask the question about big TV events, like the Super Bowl, will artists who push the envelope now be pushed aside in favor of the less controversial?

Joining me to talk about the subject is Christopher John Farley, a senior editor at "Time" magazine who covers art and entertainment among many other things, good to see you. Thanks very much for being with us.

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE SR. EDITOR: Hey, thanks for having me, appreciate it.

COOPER: Let's talk about the halftime show a little bit, Sir Paul McCartney. Have things -- is a sign to you that things have gone too far, that the pendulum has swung, that they have to reach back, you know, to an artist from so long ago to find someone who is palatable?

FARLEY: Well, I think they should go all the way and next time maybe sign up Ringo to be the halftime performer. But I do think that, you know, it does show that people think that we're always moving forward, that things are becoming more sexual, that things are becoming more racy and here the halftime show is reaching decades back for Paul McCartney, now Sir Paul McCartney, to be their halftime act.

And the Beatles once were a controversial group when they were in their prime in the '60s. Records have been recalled. They once had a butcher cover where the Beatles were all covered in blood and they had to recall that from stores. Everyone remembers John Lennon saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and people breaking their records because of that.

But since then, of course, he's now Sir Paul McCartney. He's now more mainstream and I think a lot of people in their 20s and teens saw him and didn't recognize a whole lot of the songs. I watched the halftime show with someone who is in their early 30s and he didn't recognize a single song (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COOPER: Is it a sign then that pop culture as it exists now that the current crop of artists who are out there who are young have gone too far, that they don't appeal to the mainstream of America?

FARLEY: No, I think it's just a sign that right now we're in a phase where people are afraid of what the FCC will do. They're afraid of what sort of self-appointed censors will do and they don't want to take chances.

I mean there have bee pop culture moments before this where things were racier. I mean in 1926, Josephine Baker was hit on both sides of the Atlantic for performing topless in a banana skirt. That was '26.

Now today Janet Jackson exposes one of her breasts and people can't take it, so clearly the pendulum swings different ways. Right now we're in a moment where people are very afraid to really cross that line when it's a big public event at the Super Bowl.

COOPER: You know but yet you look at viewing habits. I mean "Desperate Housewives" is a huge hit for ABC. It certainly pushes the envelope in terms of content. You know porn is more mainstream than ever before. You go down to Times Square, this huge poster of Jenna Jameson advertising some porn movie. It's sort of an odd juxtaposition.

FARLEY: Yes, but porn still isn't mainstream in many important ways. I mean you're not going to see a porn star, a Jenna Jameson isn't going to be part of a halftime spectacular right now, so it's still not mainstream in the way that the Super Bowl halftime is.

I mean that's a big American event. It's apple pie. It's mainstream America and so they wanted to have someone safe, so they reached back decades in the past and got Paul McCartney.

COOPER: And you think there are some artists who, even who we now think of as sort of mainstream who would be too risque to perform at the Super Bowl halftime, for instance Elton John and some of his songs? We have "The Bitch is Back." Let's just play a quick excerpt from that. Now this you think there's no way it would play at a Super Bowl halftime?

FARLEY: Well, you never know. I think he couldn't perform that at halftime but Elton John certainly could, if he performed things from "The Lion King," if he performed things from "Aida," certainly that would pass muster with mainstream censors. COOPER: He performed "The Bitch is Back" though at the Kennedy Center Honors.

FARLEY: He certainly did and it was sort of a surprise because it is sort of an edgy song. It is one of the edgier songs in his canon and it went over quite well.

COOPER: Even the Beatles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which we have the album cover for, do you think too controversial for halftime?

FARLEY: I don't think that Paul McCartney could have gotten away with playing this song. This song obviously when it came out, people thought, OK, this stands for LSD. The Beatles denied it. John Lennon specifically denied it. But still because of some controversy attached to the song, could they get away with this today, probably not in this kind of an atmosphere.

Could an Eric Clapton get away with playing "I Shot the Sheriff" on halftime at Super Bowl, you know I don't think so. So, again it sort of shows that we haven't moved forward in many important ways when it comes to music and in many ways we've taken steps back in terms of what the public and the press will accept.

COOPER: Christopher John Farley thanks very much, interesting, appreciate it.

FARLEY: Thank you.

COOPER: One performer on the world stage unlikely to ever be asked to appear at a halftime show is Leona Helmsley performing in a different way I suppose. In tonight's edition of CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now," we look bad at Mrs. Helmsley's life and find out where she is today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's known as the Queen of Mean, hotel magnate, real estate tycoon and unapologetic tax evader, Leona Helmsley personified the ultra rich who bend the rules.

She allegedly once told her housekeeper, "Only the little people pay taxes." Convicted of 33 felony counts of trying to defraud the government and the IRS in 1989, Helmsley served 18 months in prison.

LEONA HELMSLEY: I have done nothing wrong. I am not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Helmsley will turn 85 this year and remains involved in day-to-day operations of her empire. Her husband Harry died in 1997 and she now spends a lot of time with her dog. Helmsley is still one of the wealthiest women in the world with a reported net worth of more than $2.2 billion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And coming up on the program, the gloves are off. We'll see why the Senate Democratic leader is fighting mad at President Bush.

And, Israel makes a peace offer to Palestinian militants, is it one they can't refuse, a break first.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: At the top of the program tonight we looked at a single line in the president's budget as seen by a single person. Now, the bigger picture, which may also be a changing one, politics being what they are and the process being what it is, you can pretty much bet money on it.

Here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush confident he can rally public support for a budget he calls lean and one that proposes the biggest spending cuts since the Reagan administration.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I fully understand that sometimes it's hard to eliminate a program that sounds good.

KING: The budget calls for $2.57 trillion in federal spending next year and projects a record $427 billion deficit. Democrats called it reckless.

REP. JOHN SPRATT (D), HOUSE BANKING COMMITTEE: We do not get out of deficit. The deficit only gets bigger and deeper.

KING: Winners include homeland security and the Pentagon, which gets a nearly five percent boost in spending. Bush campaign promises mean more money for Pell grants and community health clinics and mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare will cost more.

Republican leaders label the Bush blueprint a good starting point, a polite but hardly enthusiastic reception that underscores the president's challenge cutting programs that are popular in Congress.

Twelve of the 23 major government agencies would get less money because 150 government programs are slated for elimination or significant cuts, including trimming the Medicaid health program for the poor, health benefits for more affluent veterans, more than $8 billion from agriculture programs, including $1 billion from food stamps, federal subsidies for Amtrak and grants for school literacy and anti-drug programs.

BUSH: The important question that needs to be asked for all constituencies is whether or not the programs achieve a certain result.

KING: Democrats say the president's promise to cut the deficit in half is dishonest because his budget doesn't include costs for the Iraq War next year, money to pay for the Social Security changes Mr. Bush proposes and hides the cost of making the big Bush tax cuts permanent.

SEN. KENT CONRAD (D), SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE: None of this adds up and it isn't even close. None of this adds up and the result is I think going to be very, very serious damage to the fiscal strength of our country.

KING: The White House insists the president will keep his deficit promise.

(on camera): But while the budget projects a smaller deficit next year, officials here concede in reality the red ink could even eclipse this year's record unless spending on the Iraq War drops dramatically in the coming months, which few here expect.

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Last week in the State of the Union address, the president said he welcomed bipartisan budget discipline and looked forward to working together with the Democrats. That was five days ago and in a town where the spirit of bipartisanship tends to last about as long as sweet cream on a hot summer day, tonight the Senate's top Democrat is fighting mad.

Earlier today he came out swinging, the blow-by-blow now from CNN's Ed Henry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: What government's all about is honesty, integrity, not phoniness.

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid blamed the president for a Republican attack against him and his family. The 13-page Republican memo calls Reid the, quote, chief Democratic obstructionist, highlighting his opposition to Social Security reform and conservative judicial nominees.

REID: Why didn't he stand and tell the American people last Wednesday that one of the first items of business we were going to do in Washington is send out a hit piece on the Democratic leader?

HENRY: The Republican National Committee memo also gets personal, raising old questions about the lobbying activities of Reid's sons. Reid has denied any improper conduct, but did change his office policy to ban family members from lobbying him. Although soft- spoken, Reid is a tough partisan infighter. Aides say the memo made him furious.

REID: I mean, is he, is President George Bush a man of his word? He said that he was going to reach out to the Democrats. Strange way to reach out.

Mr. President, I call upon you to repudiate this document, to tell the Republican National Committee, don't mail it.

HENRY: No chance of that. An RNC spokesman said the party is going ahead with the mailing, adding, quote, This is just intended to show he is an obstructionist and out of step with Americans and people in his home state of Nevada.

Privately, Republican strategists say this hardball strategy has a proven track record, helping to knock off former Georgia senator Max Cleland, John Kerry, and Harry Reid's predecessor, Senator Tom Daschle. The Republican who beat Daschle says all's fair.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R), SOUTH DAKOTA: If in fact the Democrat leadership continues the pattern of the last Congress, and that is to block and obstruct the agenda, then that's a legitimate charge to make.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENRY: As fate would have it, Senator Reid and his wife are at the White House tonight, in fact, for a prescheduled dinner with the president and first lady. Before the dinner, the senator's staff said Reid would probably not confront the president at supper, because Reid prefers to do his talking on the Senate floor. So this battle won't be settled tonight -- Anderson.

COOPER: Is this a real battle, though? Isn't this just how the game is played? One side does one thing, the other side pretends to get upset about it or maybe does get upset about it. But is this anything particularly unusual?

HENRY: I think it is.

Part of what you're saying is true, is that Republicans are pointing out, this is hardball. Harry Reid is now in the big leagues and he'd better get used to it. But what you're seeing from Harry Reid, he's fighting back so hard because Democrats are petrified that he's going to be Daschle-ized, that, basically, he's going to be turned into the next Tom Daschle, labeled as an obstructionist and then thrown out, just as Tom Daschle was last year.

But Democrats are caught in a kind of squeeze here. If they push hard against President Bush, they're called obstructionists. If they fall over and don't fight President Bush, liberals say that they're being wimps. So, right now, Harry Reid is trying to find that happy medium. And the bottom line, though, is that it will have lasting effects. If Reid and the president don't get along and there's a lot of obstructionism, a lot of the president's second-term agenda is going to get caught up in the Senate once again -- Anderson.

COOPER: I hadn't heard the terminal Daschle-ized, before, Ed, but I'm going to use it. It's an interesting term. Thanks very much.

HENRY: Thank you. COOPER: Still to come tonight, amid the violence of Iraq, a story of one man's heroism. He gave his life so that Iraqis could vote, and vote they did.

And, on a much lighter subject, it is Fashion Week here in New York. We'll talk about beauty and style that is in vogue at any age.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, there is new polling tonight showing a boost in the president's job approval numbers, in part due to the elections in Iraq, 61 percent saying they went better than expected. One reason, of course, is sobering. People died so others could vote.

This is one of those stories, reported from Baghdad tonight by CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A picture of grief. Abdul Showaili's family is in mourning. But beneath the surface, among this now dead policeman's relatives, there is pride. Pride he gave his life stopping a suicide bomber attacking a polling station.

SAMIRA AL-SHOWAILI, ABDUL'S SISTER (through translator): I'm proud of my brother because he is a patriot, proud of him because I brought up such a man who sacrificed his life for his people. And now all Iraqis consider him their brother.

ROBERTSON: Abdul is being remembered a hero. His brothers still absorbing the magnitude of his election-day actions.

SAMIR KHADOUM AL-SHOWAILI, ABDUL'S BROTHER (through translator): what he did is a medal of honor to me, for my family and all Iraqis because he gave something no one can give.

ROBERTSON: What he got for his sacrifice is the highest accolade yet for an Iraqi serviceman, a national tribute.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Abdul Amir Mohamad Khadoum (ph) recognized a terrorist wearing a suicide belt, heading toward a polling station. He ran toward him and sacrificed himself to save the voters. Abdul Amir (ph) is a true Iraqi hero.

ROBERTSON: But with the glory, there may be danger. Just days after his death, as the family were receiving well wishes, three armed insurgents were captured just near his house. The family is convinced they were to be attacked. Their vision is the future won't be easy, and others will to have pay the ultimate price, too.

SAMIR AL-SHOWAILI (through translator): I want all national guards and Iraqi policemen to be like my brother. I want them to take my brother's martyrdom as an ideal and a motive to finish their duty.

ROBERTSON: A poster in Abdul's bedroom conveys his religious culture of sacrifice, depicting the historic Shia martyrdom of the prophet Mohammed's grandson.

SAMIRA AL-SHOWAILI (through translator): Martyrdom is a heroic action, although it means that you will lose someone dear. It is a heroic action for Abdul Amir or any Iraqi to take this job.

ROBERTSON: A noble calling. But in this country, already awash with victims, the challenge will be remembering Abdul Amir.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll meet a wanted man and see whether he will come in out of the cold.

And we'll learn about some clothes that have, well, nothing to do with keeping you warm.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: If all goes well tomorrow in the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Israeli and Palestinian leaders will announce a cease-fire, a formal end to more than four years of informal fighting and dying, with very little to show for it since it all began.

After the summit, the two leaders will travel to Washington for meetings with the president. The meetings will be separate, a measure of just how far the two sides have come, but also how delicate the process remains. And, as it unfolds, people will be watching, people with demands, people with grievances, people with guns.

Here's CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jamal Abu Rob says he never goes anywhere without his M-16 and his handgun.

JAMAL ABU ROB, AL AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADES: It's very good.

VAUSE: A father of five, accountant by trade, he lives in the small West Bank village of Qabatiya, not far from Jenin, an area which Israel describes as a hotbed of terror, home to militants just like Abu Rob. He's a senior leader with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and has been on the run for more than four years.

ABU ROB (through translator): Moving from one village to one village, one mountain to one mountain to one house, one cave to one cave, you don't see people for many days. Sometimes, you can't stand the smell of your own clothes. VAUSE: But with the possibility of peace, he's now preparing a run for politics. He wants to fight corruption in the Palestinian Authority, calculator in one hand, M-16 in the other. Israel is now offering wanted men like Abu Rob a chance to start over. If they lay down their weapons, agree to stop the attacks, put that in writing and sign it, then Israel says they can live their lives without being hunted down or being on the wrong end of an Israeli airstrike.

(on camera): Are you prepared to sign an agreement that you will stop the attacks on Israelis and hand in your gun?

ABU ROB (through translator): I am ready to lay down my weapon when there is real talk that will lead to our basic rights. If Israel continues to refuse our rights and continues to occupy our lands, then we'll take back our weapons.

VAUSE (voice-over): Five times I asked:

(on camera): And will you hand in your weapon, yes or no?

ABU ROB (through translator): You are starting to sound like Bush. Either you are with us fighting terror or against us.

VAUSE: The Israelis insist what they're offering is not an amnesty for wanted militants. It's more like a good behavior bond. And they say it will be up to the Palestinian Authority to ensure the terms of that indefinite probation are not broken.

(voice-over): Among the Palestinian militants, there is a deep mistrust of Israel. So it will fall to the newly elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to convince them the time has come to end the fight for good. They won't do it for Israel, but they might just do it for him.

John Vause, CNN, Qabatiya in the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, this is one of those very few weeks every year where the streets of New York turn into runways, fashion runways.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, our guests prove that even women of a certain age can be beautiful and stylish. Certainly true.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, right now, New York City is the fashionable place to be. I think it's always the fashionable place to be, but this week in particular because it's Fashion Week.

Models have taken to the runways, showing off the clothing that apparently we will see next fall, or perhaps not, depending on where we shop. Fashion Week gives us the opportunity to talk about style and beauty, things my next two guests know an awful lot about. In a business that celebrates youth, Carmen has been a top fashion model for more than half a century. And makeup artist Bobbi Brown, an entrepreneur, is a firm believer that you look good when you feel good at any age.

Appreciate you both of you being with us. Thanks very much.

(CROSSTALK)

CARMEN, MODEL: It's nice to be here. Nice to meet you.

COOPER: It is extraordinary the career that you have had in modeling and still going strong. Do you think people are more accepting now of sort of a changing nature of beauty, or is beauty still youth in this culture?

CARMEN: Well, I think it's always in the eye of the beholder. And youth is always revered and brought along. I love all the young people in the business today.

I started when I was 13. So there's nothing new. What's new is that society has grown up with me, and there are more older people. So I still have to keep reinventing myself. And it's a privilege to represent my end of the age spectrum.

COOPER: But Carmen is really an exception in this business.

BOBBI BROWN, MAKEUP ARTIST: She's definitely a freak of nature.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I mean, there's not many women that look like this. She's stunning, outside and inside. But that's not normal.

COOPER: A beautiful good freak of nature.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: She is. She is. She is.

No, she's unbelievable. And she was in my recent book, which is about aging and feeling good about yourself at any age. And I think it's important for women to have role models of women that are successful and look great and feel good about themselves. And Carmen is definitely a great role model for that.

CARMEN: And you can't get stuck in a rut. You know, what fashion gives to women is the inspiration to reinvent themselves and have fun with it.

I love being in Bobbi's book, because she has, you know, a different view of me than other people in fashion. I love the way you put makeup on me, because that's really where I live in my daily life. And...

BROWN: But you also look amazing without makeup.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But your hair is white, which I'm very thankful of, because I...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CARMEN: Hello, because, you see, I paved the way for you.

COOPER: Yes.

CARMEN: But, you see, what I did for a lot of people, men included, is that I made it all right to have white hair, because I let my hair grow out somewhere...

COOPER: Did you think about dyeing it ever?

CARMEN: I had dyed it. I had white hair when I was 18. And I just gradually let it come out finally.

And a lot of women were in the closet about their age because they're competing constantly against their own image when they were 18. I don't want to look the way I looked when I was 18.

COOPER: I mean, in your work in the makeup, do you try to make people -- I mean, obviously, I guess you try to make people look younger, but, at a certain point...

BROWN: It's not about looking younger. It's about looking better.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: And I really work with women of all ages.

CARMEN: Right.

BROWN: And the whole idea is to be who you are because, let's face it, you can't be anyone else. So you might as well...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: So looking better doesn't necessarily mean looking younger?

BROWN: It doesn't. It absolutely doesn't.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: And I think that women are wasting a lot of energy trying to think they should look younger. And they're doing all sorts of crazy things to their face is and looking like they've just done crazy things to their face. They don't necessarily look younger.

COOPER: Is it just you -- it seems to me everyone is starting to look alike.

CARMEN: Oh, yes. COOPER: People -- I don't know if it's same surgeon or what, but, as people age, they all become a certain type, the same haircut.

CARMEN: They lose their own individuality.

COOPER: Right. Yes.

CARMEN: A lot of it now, everyone wants to look like -- there were the periods where everyone wanted to look like Brigitte Bardot.

In the '30s, everyone wanted to look like Carole Lombard or whatever movie star. But what -- a terrible thing that's happened is that people have stopped developing themselves and they really go into surgery when they don't need it. And that's sad.

BROWN: Well, I think it's just -- it's really running rampant.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: And I think, unfortunately, it's a really bad thing, and I hope that I could help people change, because I think there are so many things you could do with makeup.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: I believe in fitness. I believe in positive attitude.

CARMEN: Good.

BROWN: And just accepting who you are. And there's so many things you could do to make you look better.

You can color your hair.

CARMEN: Right.

BROWN: You could do so many things to your skin. You could put on great concealer and a great foundation and a little bit of color and just feel good about yourself and not try to be what the images you see in magazines and on TV.

COOPER: Was there a time when you couldn't get work, I mean, when you reached a certain age?

CARMEN: Because I'm not a snob about the kind of work I do in modeling, I don't have to be on the cover of every magazine, there was always a job that I would do, a flannel nightgown for a Macy's catalog. So...

COOPER: Do you think, though, things are evolving? You were -- I remember seeing you I think in a Target ad with Isaac Mizrahi.

CARMEN: Well, listen, I will tell you, the secret of my success is being with the best agency in the whole world, the lady who invented the business. And that's Eileen and Jerry Ford. I've been with them since they opened their doors in... COOPER: You started modeling before there was a Ford agency. Is that true?

CARMEN: Yes. I started in 1945.

COOPER: Amazing.

CARMEN: They opened their doors in 1947. And a photographer brought me over to Eileen. I must have weighed 90 pounds. And I was 5'9''.

COOPER: But do you think people are more embracing of this notion of beauty at any age?

CARMEN: I think...

BROWN: I think it's changing. I do.

CARMEN: Good.

BROWN: And magazines like "More" magazine, which is for women over 40, that didn't exist years ago. And they show women exercising who are in their 40s and not in their 20s.

COOPER: I feel like Oprah Winfrey's -- I don't read it much, but they seem to have...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Oprah has done probably the most for women in the entire universe.

CARMEN: I agree with that.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Exercising, taking care of yourself, being who you are, reading more, learning more.

CARMEN: Everything.

BROWN: I mean, Oprah is...

CARMEN: Expanding.

BROWN: ... is one of my giant role models. Absolutely.

CARMEN: Me, too. I'm with you. I'm with you. She's absolutely fabulous.

COOPER: And her message seems very much, again, the whole accepting yourself at where you're at.

CARMEN: Well, working on yourself.

BROWN: Well, accepting but working at it. (CROSSTALK)

BROWN: And she always says it's not easy.

CARMEN: Yes. Exactly.

BROWN: You know, it's not easy to work. It's not easy to have a family. It's not easy to exercise.

CARMEN: To do it all.

BROWN: It's not easy to do everything. But you know what? We can do it. And I think that's the big message is for women, that we can do it. We have the ability to do it.

CARMEN: We must think and make choices and...

BROWN: And never stop.

CARMEN: Right, and never stop.

COOPER: What do you think women are losing by trying to go for this youth, as opposed to sort of recognizing where they're at and...

CARMEN: The time of their life they're losing. They're losing the moments.

BROWN: Well, they don't look younger, though.

But I think it's not about looking younger. You just don't look younger. You look good for your age. To me, that's the best compliment.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: You're how old? You look great for your age. You don't look younger. I can't try to be 30 years old. You know, it's really about being who you are and...

CARMEN: And be the best at the age you are. I'm going to be 74, and I'm trying to be the best each year I live. So...

COOPER: Wow.

CARMEN: I'm choosing to live as long as I can. I have, you know, good habits, which I picked up a long time ago. I do exercise.

COOPER: You're going to be 74 this June?

CARMEN: Exactly.

COOPER: June 3?

CARMEN: June 3.

COOPER: We share a birthday. CARMEN: We share it.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Carmen, it was great to meet you. Congratulations.

CARMEN: It's lovely to meet you, too.

COOPER: Bobbi, thanks very much.

BROWN: Thanks a lot.

COOPER: Good talking to you.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a fast woman. We're talking really, really fast, in the speed sense.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, talk about sailing into the record books.

A 28-year-old British woman today earned the title of the fastest person ever to sail around the world alone. Her name is Ellen MacArthur. And her seaborne journey clocks in at 71 days and 14 hours, which beats the old record, which was set only a year ago, by more than 32 hours. Along the way, she sailed through hurricanes, scooted around icebergs, and even dodged a few whales -- a remarkable journey, a remarkable feat.

That's it for the program tonight. Aaron Brown will be back tomorrow.

Until then, I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks for watching. Good night.

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 February 7, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We'll be talking a little bit more about Elton John later on tonight on NEWSNIGHT.
Good evening again. I'm Anderson Cooper in for Aaron Brown.

Is it just me or did Paul McCartney show a little bit of ankle last night, huh, during "Live and Let Die?" Huh, did you see that little, I saw that little white ankle. Wasn't he supposed to be the nice Beatle?

In this ever-changing world in which we live in, doesn't it just make you want to give in and cry? Maybe it's just wishful thinking brought on by whiplash. After all going from Janet Jackson, bearing her chest, to Sir Paul McCartney, showing his age, kind of does that to you.

A bit later tonight we'll get into whether the pendulum swung too far to the tame side of things last night and in the culture in general.

We'll begin with who gets hurt in the swinging of the budget ax.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERRY VLECK, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: I hope they shoot it down. I don't think it's right.

COOPER (voice-over): Squeezed by a tightening budget he's not the only one.

TOM WOODWARD, PITTMAN SUPPORTER: He is not a monster. Those were monstrous acts but he was not a monster.

COOPER: Families rallying behind a boy accused of double murder and against the prescription drugs that they believe made him do it.

For a defrocked priest guilty as charged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For once justice prevailed.

COOPER: Justice is done but will the verdict set a dangerous precedent?

And, no malfunctions, wardrobe or otherwise, so a year after asking what's become of the Super Bowl halftime show, we'll ask what's become of the Super Bowl halftime show? (END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Rock on. All right, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with a number and face, the number $2.57 trillion. That's the price tag of the budget plan George W. Bush sent to Congress today. The winners, defense and homeland security, with the Pentagon seeing about a five percent bump, now that is above and beyond the money separately budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan. The losers include just about everything else, education, Amtrak, farm subsidies, Medicaid.

Bottom line the deficit adds up to about $427 billion. The numbers will change when lawmakers have their say. This is just the beginning of a long and messy job. But no matter what happens to which programs you can be sure some of the people are going to feel a bite.

So, along with the number, $2.57 trillion, we begin tonight with a face and CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VLECK: In the morning it can be really rough.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jerry Vleck is heading home.

VLECK: What else have I got left in life to help the fellow vets now?

OPPENHEIM: Several times a week, Vleck volunteers for the American Legion at the V.A. Hospital in North Chicago, the same place where he gets all his health care. This year he'll celebrate the 60th anniversary of another homecoming, his return from two years in the Pacific during World War II, like many in his generation, like as modest.

VLECK: I didn't do anything different than anybody else was doing out there. We were trying to stay alive let me put it to you that way.

OPPENHEIM: At age 79, Jerry Vleck is still trying to stay alive.

VLECK: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

OPPENHEIM (on camera): What's that for?

VLECK: That's for blood pressure.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): He now takes eight different medications every day mainly for heart disease and diabetes.

(on camera): How much do you pay for one of those now for one prescription? VLECK: Seven dollars.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): Right now the costs are relatively low for Vleck as most of his health care is covered by his veteran's benefits.

On one level you must feel lucky that you're a veteran.

VLECK: Oh, I'm lucky I'm alive let's put it that way. I know a lot of guys that aren't.

OPPENHEIM: But in the president's current budget proposal, Vleck would have to pay $15 per prescription, more than twice as much. In his case with eight medications that could add up to more than $1,200 per year and that's not small change for a guy who only takes in about $2,200 a month between Social Security and his truck driver's pension. With these increases, he'll feel the squeeze, an insult he says to those who risked their lives for their country.

VLECK: Especially the ones who can't afford it, especially them.

OPPENHEIM (on camera): Are you that person? Can you afford to pay $7 for one of these?

VLECK: Right now it's not a question of whether I can afford or not. I have to do it.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): With all his ailments, Jerry Vleck has been getting by. As a widower, he has lived by himself for 17 years. But now he is looking for a little help from Congress, which has been known to stop presidents from touching benefits for veterans.

VLECK: I hope they shoot it down. I don't think it's right.

OPPENHEIM: Keith Oppenheim CNN, Grays Lake, Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A bit later on NEWSNIGHT, a big picture look at the winners and losers in this year's proposed budget.

On now to the intersection of medicine and the law, every day it seems we learn that certain drugs can do more harm than good. The cases wind up in civil court with billions of dollars in the balance.

In this case, however, it's different. The drug in question is one of the most popular antidepressants. The trial in Charleston, South Carolina involves a young man charged with murder, reporting for us tonight CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom Woodward sits in this South Carolina courtroom and he cries. He cries for Christopher Pittman, who at age 12 killed his grandparents as they slept and burned the house down around them. WOODWARD: He is not a monster. Those were monstrous acts but he was not a monster. I believe those monstrous acts were brought about by the drugs he was on.

COHEN: Woodward feels a bond with Pittman. He says he was a good kid, loved his sister, loved his grandparents and was ruined by this drug, Zoloft, much like Woodward's daughter, who was prescribed the antidepressant after going through what he calls a normal teenage rough patch.

WOODWARD: Seven days after taking her first pill she took her life.

COHEN: Lisa Vansyckel teenage daughter tried to kill herself after taking a similar drug Paxil. Several families like hers identify with the young defendant. The Vansyckels even went so far as to put up $175,000 bail last week when he was released to his family and she rented them a house.

LISA VANSYCKEL, PITTMAN SUPPORTER: I've come to know Christopher. I've come to love him as if he were my own son. I told Christopher that I would do everything in my power as a mother to protect him.

COHEN: She says she wants to warn other families about antidepressants. Last October, the Food and Drug Administration linked antidepressants, like Zoloft and Paxil, to some suicides among teens and told parents to be on the lookout for impulsive and hostile behavior.

Pfizer, which makes the drug, says there's no link between their drug and violence against others and South Carolina prosecutors say pills weren't to blame. They say Pittman was a troubled kid who was angry at his grandparents. Some psychiatrists say these families, who publicize their stories, may be doing more harm than good.

DR. HAROLD BIST, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION: That's just not right to give the public a distorted image like that. It's just wrong.

COHEN: He says the drugs have helped millions of depressed kids. But when the FDA warnings came out last fall, the number of prescriptions to young people went down.

BIST: And it would be a lot worse for them without the treatments.

COHEN: Despite this, the Woodwards and Vansyckles say they'll keep rallying around Christopher Pittman, a double murderer to some but a victim to them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: The state employed child psychiatrist who's seen Chris while he's been in jail testified today that she thinks he killed his grandparents because of a mood disorder induced by Zoloft -- Anderson.

COOPER: Elizabeth, the FDA hasn't linked this drug to violence against others, violence to one's self perhaps but not against others. How is the defense handling that?

COHEN: Right. The defense is trying to make a case that there's a similarity between violence that's directed inward and violence that's directed outward. It's interesting, Anderson, because Canadian health authorities have warned that taking these drugs could increase the risk of someone becoming violent towards others.

COOPER: All right. We'll be watching. Elizabeth Cohen thanks.

Inside a Massachusetts courtroom today, a 27-year-old man dropped his head and cried as a verdict was read. It wasn't a verdict against him. It was against a former Roman Catholic priest who molested the young man when he was a child, the story tonight from CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Defrocked priest Paul Shanley stood in a Cambridge, Massachusetts courtroom and heard the same word, like an echo ringing in his ears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

LOTHIAN: Of two counts of child rape and two counts of indecent assault.

MARTHA COAKLEY, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We never faulted in our belief that this young man had been abused.

LOTHIAN: Shanley's accuser smiled and cried off camera and, while he had no comment, other victims, like Bill, who was part of the Boston Archdiocese $85 million landmark abuse settlement but also wants to remain anonymous, called the verdict a victory.

BILL "ANONYMOUS": I'm very emotional. I'm very thrilled. I can't tell you. For once justice prevailed.

LOTHIAN (on camera): Throughout the two week trial there was often graphic testimony from the prosecution and the victim himself, who talked in great detail about what he says Shanley did to him when he was just six years old.

(voice-over): Like being pulled out of catechism classes at a suburban Boston parish during the 1980s to be raped repeatedly and groped in a bathroom and church pews.

ACCUSER: We'd sit towards the front and he'd put his right arm around me. I always sat on his right and he put his right arm around me and started touching me with his left hand.

LOTHIAN: Shanley's accuser came forward three years ago, empowered by the public priest abuse scandal and driven by what was described as repressed memories. The defense tried to discount his claims calling them false memories.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a case of massive doubt.

LOTHIAN: To bolster that argument the defense's one and only witness, a California psychologist who questioned the validity of memories repressed for nearly two decades.

This Shanley supporter also has doubts.

LOTHIAN: So you think he's innocent?

PAUL SHANNON, SHANLEY SUPPORTER: Oh, absolutely yes. No, and I just have no doubt about it. Now, obviously everyone on earth thinks I'm wrong.

LOTHIAN: Like Bill who says the verdict is liberating for all the victims.

BILL: We've all been imprisoned with this fear and the long term effects of molestation.

LOTHIAN: After the verdict, Shanley's bail was revoked. He'll be sentenced next week and could get up to life in prison.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Cambridge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, making sure there were no wardrobe malfunctions at this year's Super Bowl. Is it possible to be just a bit too squeaky clean? We'll take a look at that.

And the secrets of the beautiful people at any age.

From around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, tens of millions tune in every year to watch the Super Bowl and not just the game, although it was a pretty good match- up but the commercials and the halftime show themselves attract a lot of viewers.

Paul McCartney's halftime performance was very family friendly and middle of the road, you might say, in stark contrast to Janet Jackson's now infamous wardrobe malfunction or alleged wardrobe malfunction of whatever it was during last year's halftime show.

One of the ads that aired during the Super Bowl actually made light of that incident. This is the ad godaddy.com mocked the calls for censorship that followed Janet Jackson's performance.

But in a strange twist, this commercial, which was supposed to air twice, was pulled by FOX and the NFL, which apparently thought it was too racy. In fact, some groups are more determined than ever to keep the airwaves squeaky clean. Aaron Brown takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REV. DON WILDMON, FOUNDER, AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION: There's a term called righteous indignation. I haven't heard it from the pulpit lately. It means holy anger.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The Reverend Don Wildmon has been unleashing the holy anger of conservative Christians for a quarter of a century now at stores that show adult magazines and courtrooms that won't show the Ten Commandments, over television shows that suggested naughty behavior and over those that delivered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're listening to American Family Radio.

BROWN: In Tupelo, Mississippi, the American Family Association and its chairman are still working to clean up America. Some things though have changed. There is now a radio network and a magazine and a news service and there is son Tim who has taken over the day-to-day operations. The outrage, however, hasn't changed a bit.

RANDY SHARP, DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROJECTS, AFA: And so I'm hoping that we've reached the limit in terms of what we're as a culture willing to tolerate openly and maybe we do have some standards still left.

BROWN: The newest and possibly the most effective weapon is the Internet.

TIM WILDMON, PRES., AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION: We can sit and start watching the numbers ten, 15, up to 60, 80 a minute for a couple of hours.

BROWN: On sites, like One Million Moms, the AFA can alert its faithful, offer a carefully written of complaint and see it signed and sent in seconds to FCC commissioners, network executives and major advertisers.

WILDMON: The latest count that we have is approximately 21,000 individual citizens have filed a formal complaint with the FCC regarding the broadcast of "Saving Private Ryan."

BROWN: The key term here is formal complaint. The American Family Association, like other online groups, records and screens the networks that provides the transcripts and broadcast details that the FCC requires.

SHARP: Over the years, the FCC has basically been a paper tiger. With the exception of a slap in Howard Stern every once in a while they've basically done nothing.

BROWN: The FCC says that under the law one complaint is just as likely to get results as a million but the statistics show a trend, about 100 complaints in the year 2000, more than a million in 2004. Numbers like that have to mean political pressure. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you letter will be sent to "60 Minutes."

BROWN: And when the e-mails flood into the networks and to major advertisers there is also economic pressure.

FRANK AHRENS, "WASHINGTON POST" BUSINESS REPORTER: And I do think that every company, be it a broadcaster, be it a soap maker, has a tipping point internally and if all of a sudden they see that one, two, three million people are saying we're going to stop buying your products if you don't stop advertising on the show, I think it certainly does have an effect.

BROWN: Critics say that it's not only truly indecent programming that's affected but anything innovative or risky.

JONATHAN RINTELS, SCREENWRITER: Currently, broadcasters are telling the creative community, writers and producers, that we have to be very, very careful about anything that might potentially be indecent.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the truth about your sex life and everyone else's, a primetime live special event.

BROWN: It's not something that worries the folks down in Tupelo where a return to old-fashioned family television sounds like a great idea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, in this environment we need to ask the question about big TV events, like the Super Bowl, will artists who push the envelope now be pushed aside in favor of the less controversial?

Joining me to talk about the subject is Christopher John Farley, a senior editor at "Time" magazine who covers art and entertainment among many other things, good to see you. Thanks very much for being with us.

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE SR. EDITOR: Hey, thanks for having me, appreciate it.

COOPER: Let's talk about the halftime show a little bit, Sir Paul McCartney. Have things -- is a sign to you that things have gone too far, that the pendulum has swung, that they have to reach back, you know, to an artist from so long ago to find someone who is palatable?

FARLEY: Well, I think they should go all the way and next time maybe sign up Ringo to be the halftime performer. But I do think that, you know, it does show that people think that we're always moving forward, that things are becoming more sexual, that things are becoming more racy and here the halftime show is reaching decades back for Paul McCartney, now Sir Paul McCartney, to be their halftime act.

And the Beatles once were a controversial group when they were in their prime in the '60s. Records have been recalled. They once had a butcher cover where the Beatles were all covered in blood and they had to recall that from stores. Everyone remembers John Lennon saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and people breaking their records because of that.

But since then, of course, he's now Sir Paul McCartney. He's now more mainstream and I think a lot of people in their 20s and teens saw him and didn't recognize a whole lot of the songs. I watched the halftime show with someone who is in their early 30s and he didn't recognize a single song (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COOPER: Is it a sign then that pop culture as it exists now that the current crop of artists who are out there who are young have gone too far, that they don't appeal to the mainstream of America?

FARLEY: No, I think it's just a sign that right now we're in a phase where people are afraid of what the FCC will do. They're afraid of what sort of self-appointed censors will do and they don't want to take chances.

I mean there have bee pop culture moments before this where things were racier. I mean in 1926, Josephine Baker was hit on both sides of the Atlantic for performing topless in a banana skirt. That was '26.

Now today Janet Jackson exposes one of her breasts and people can't take it, so clearly the pendulum swings different ways. Right now we're in a moment where people are very afraid to really cross that line when it's a big public event at the Super Bowl.

COOPER: You know but yet you look at viewing habits. I mean "Desperate Housewives" is a huge hit for ABC. It certainly pushes the envelope in terms of content. You know porn is more mainstream than ever before. You go down to Times Square, this huge poster of Jenna Jameson advertising some porn movie. It's sort of an odd juxtaposition.

FARLEY: Yes, but porn still isn't mainstream in many important ways. I mean you're not going to see a porn star, a Jenna Jameson isn't going to be part of a halftime spectacular right now, so it's still not mainstream in the way that the Super Bowl halftime is.

I mean that's a big American event. It's apple pie. It's mainstream America and so they wanted to have someone safe, so they reached back decades in the past and got Paul McCartney.

COOPER: And you think there are some artists who, even who we now think of as sort of mainstream who would be too risque to perform at the Super Bowl halftime, for instance Elton John and some of his songs? We have "The Bitch is Back." Let's just play a quick excerpt from that. Now this you think there's no way it would play at a Super Bowl halftime?

FARLEY: Well, you never know. I think he couldn't perform that at halftime but Elton John certainly could, if he performed things from "The Lion King," if he performed things from "Aida," certainly that would pass muster with mainstream censors. COOPER: He performed "The Bitch is Back" though at the Kennedy Center Honors.

FARLEY: He certainly did and it was sort of a surprise because it is sort of an edgy song. It is one of the edgier songs in his canon and it went over quite well.

COOPER: Even the Beatles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which we have the album cover for, do you think too controversial for halftime?

FARLEY: I don't think that Paul McCartney could have gotten away with playing this song. This song obviously when it came out, people thought, OK, this stands for LSD. The Beatles denied it. John Lennon specifically denied it. But still because of some controversy attached to the song, could they get away with this today, probably not in this kind of an atmosphere.

Could an Eric Clapton get away with playing "I Shot the Sheriff" on halftime at Super Bowl, you know I don't think so. So, again it sort of shows that we haven't moved forward in many important ways when it comes to music and in many ways we've taken steps back in terms of what the public and the press will accept.

COOPER: Christopher John Farley thanks very much, interesting, appreciate it.

FARLEY: Thank you.

COOPER: One performer on the world stage unlikely to ever be asked to appear at a halftime show is Leona Helmsley performing in a different way I suppose. In tonight's edition of CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now," we look bad at Mrs. Helmsley's life and find out where she is today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's known as the Queen of Mean, hotel magnate, real estate tycoon and unapologetic tax evader, Leona Helmsley personified the ultra rich who bend the rules.

She allegedly once told her housekeeper, "Only the little people pay taxes." Convicted of 33 felony counts of trying to defraud the government and the IRS in 1989, Helmsley served 18 months in prison.

LEONA HELMSLEY: I have done nothing wrong. I am not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Helmsley will turn 85 this year and remains involved in day-to-day operations of her empire. Her husband Harry died in 1997 and she now spends a lot of time with her dog. Helmsley is still one of the wealthiest women in the world with a reported net worth of more than $2.2 billion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And coming up on the program, the gloves are off. We'll see why the Senate Democratic leader is fighting mad at President Bush.

And, Israel makes a peace offer to Palestinian militants, is it one they can't refuse, a break first.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: At the top of the program tonight we looked at a single line in the president's budget as seen by a single person. Now, the bigger picture, which may also be a changing one, politics being what they are and the process being what it is, you can pretty much bet money on it.

Here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush confident he can rally public support for a budget he calls lean and one that proposes the biggest spending cuts since the Reagan administration.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I fully understand that sometimes it's hard to eliminate a program that sounds good.

KING: The budget calls for $2.57 trillion in federal spending next year and projects a record $427 billion deficit. Democrats called it reckless.

REP. JOHN SPRATT (D), HOUSE BANKING COMMITTEE: We do not get out of deficit. The deficit only gets bigger and deeper.

KING: Winners include homeland security and the Pentagon, which gets a nearly five percent boost in spending. Bush campaign promises mean more money for Pell grants and community health clinics and mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare will cost more.

Republican leaders label the Bush blueprint a good starting point, a polite but hardly enthusiastic reception that underscores the president's challenge cutting programs that are popular in Congress.

Twelve of the 23 major government agencies would get less money because 150 government programs are slated for elimination or significant cuts, including trimming the Medicaid health program for the poor, health benefits for more affluent veterans, more than $8 billion from agriculture programs, including $1 billion from food stamps, federal subsidies for Amtrak and grants for school literacy and anti-drug programs.

BUSH: The important question that needs to be asked for all constituencies is whether or not the programs achieve a certain result.

KING: Democrats say the president's promise to cut the deficit in half is dishonest because his budget doesn't include costs for the Iraq War next year, money to pay for the Social Security changes Mr. Bush proposes and hides the cost of making the big Bush tax cuts permanent.

SEN. KENT CONRAD (D), SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE: None of this adds up and it isn't even close. None of this adds up and the result is I think going to be very, very serious damage to the fiscal strength of our country.

KING: The White House insists the president will keep his deficit promise.

(on camera): But while the budget projects a smaller deficit next year, officials here concede in reality the red ink could even eclipse this year's record unless spending on the Iraq War drops dramatically in the coming months, which few here expect.

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Last week in the State of the Union address, the president said he welcomed bipartisan budget discipline and looked forward to working together with the Democrats. That was five days ago and in a town where the spirit of bipartisanship tends to last about as long as sweet cream on a hot summer day, tonight the Senate's top Democrat is fighting mad.

Earlier today he came out swinging, the blow-by-blow now from CNN's Ed Henry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: What government's all about is honesty, integrity, not phoniness.

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid blamed the president for a Republican attack against him and his family. The 13-page Republican memo calls Reid the, quote, chief Democratic obstructionist, highlighting his opposition to Social Security reform and conservative judicial nominees.

REID: Why didn't he stand and tell the American people last Wednesday that one of the first items of business we were going to do in Washington is send out a hit piece on the Democratic leader?

HENRY: The Republican National Committee memo also gets personal, raising old questions about the lobbying activities of Reid's sons. Reid has denied any improper conduct, but did change his office policy to ban family members from lobbying him. Although soft- spoken, Reid is a tough partisan infighter. Aides say the memo made him furious.

REID: I mean, is he, is President George Bush a man of his word? He said that he was going to reach out to the Democrats. Strange way to reach out.

Mr. President, I call upon you to repudiate this document, to tell the Republican National Committee, don't mail it.

HENRY: No chance of that. An RNC spokesman said the party is going ahead with the mailing, adding, quote, This is just intended to show he is an obstructionist and out of step with Americans and people in his home state of Nevada.

Privately, Republican strategists say this hardball strategy has a proven track record, helping to knock off former Georgia senator Max Cleland, John Kerry, and Harry Reid's predecessor, Senator Tom Daschle. The Republican who beat Daschle says all's fair.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R), SOUTH DAKOTA: If in fact the Democrat leadership continues the pattern of the last Congress, and that is to block and obstruct the agenda, then that's a legitimate charge to make.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENRY: As fate would have it, Senator Reid and his wife are at the White House tonight, in fact, for a prescheduled dinner with the president and first lady. Before the dinner, the senator's staff said Reid would probably not confront the president at supper, because Reid prefers to do his talking on the Senate floor. So this battle won't be settled tonight -- Anderson.

COOPER: Is this a real battle, though? Isn't this just how the game is played? One side does one thing, the other side pretends to get upset about it or maybe does get upset about it. But is this anything particularly unusual?

HENRY: I think it is.

Part of what you're saying is true, is that Republicans are pointing out, this is hardball. Harry Reid is now in the big leagues and he'd better get used to it. But what you're seeing from Harry Reid, he's fighting back so hard because Democrats are petrified that he's going to be Daschle-ized, that, basically, he's going to be turned into the next Tom Daschle, labeled as an obstructionist and then thrown out, just as Tom Daschle was last year.

But Democrats are caught in a kind of squeeze here. If they push hard against President Bush, they're called obstructionists. If they fall over and don't fight President Bush, liberals say that they're being wimps. So, right now, Harry Reid is trying to find that happy medium. And the bottom line, though, is that it will have lasting effects. If Reid and the president don't get along and there's a lot of obstructionism, a lot of the president's second-term agenda is going to get caught up in the Senate once again -- Anderson.

COOPER: I hadn't heard the terminal Daschle-ized, before, Ed, but I'm going to use it. It's an interesting term. Thanks very much.

HENRY: Thank you. COOPER: Still to come tonight, amid the violence of Iraq, a story of one man's heroism. He gave his life so that Iraqis could vote, and vote they did.

And, on a much lighter subject, it is Fashion Week here in New York. We'll talk about beauty and style that is in vogue at any age.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, there is new polling tonight showing a boost in the president's job approval numbers, in part due to the elections in Iraq, 61 percent saying they went better than expected. One reason, of course, is sobering. People died so others could vote.

This is one of those stories, reported from Baghdad tonight by CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A picture of grief. Abdul Showaili's family is in mourning. But beneath the surface, among this now dead policeman's relatives, there is pride. Pride he gave his life stopping a suicide bomber attacking a polling station.

SAMIRA AL-SHOWAILI, ABDUL'S SISTER (through translator): I'm proud of my brother because he is a patriot, proud of him because I brought up such a man who sacrificed his life for his people. And now all Iraqis consider him their brother.

ROBERTSON: Abdul is being remembered a hero. His brothers still absorbing the magnitude of his election-day actions.

SAMIR KHADOUM AL-SHOWAILI, ABDUL'S BROTHER (through translator): what he did is a medal of honor to me, for my family and all Iraqis because he gave something no one can give.

ROBERTSON: What he got for his sacrifice is the highest accolade yet for an Iraqi serviceman, a national tribute.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Abdul Amir Mohamad Khadoum (ph) recognized a terrorist wearing a suicide belt, heading toward a polling station. He ran toward him and sacrificed himself to save the voters. Abdul Amir (ph) is a true Iraqi hero.

ROBERTSON: But with the glory, there may be danger. Just days after his death, as the family were receiving well wishes, three armed insurgents were captured just near his house. The family is convinced they were to be attacked. Their vision is the future won't be easy, and others will to have pay the ultimate price, too.

SAMIR AL-SHOWAILI (through translator): I want all national guards and Iraqi policemen to be like my brother. I want them to take my brother's martyrdom as an ideal and a motive to finish their duty.

ROBERTSON: A poster in Abdul's bedroom conveys his religious culture of sacrifice, depicting the historic Shia martyrdom of the prophet Mohammed's grandson.

SAMIRA AL-SHOWAILI (through translator): Martyrdom is a heroic action, although it means that you will lose someone dear. It is a heroic action for Abdul Amir or any Iraqi to take this job.

ROBERTSON: A noble calling. But in this country, already awash with victims, the challenge will be remembering Abdul Amir.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll meet a wanted man and see whether he will come in out of the cold.

And we'll learn about some clothes that have, well, nothing to do with keeping you warm.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: If all goes well tomorrow in the Egyptian town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Israeli and Palestinian leaders will announce a cease-fire, a formal end to more than four years of informal fighting and dying, with very little to show for it since it all began.

After the summit, the two leaders will travel to Washington for meetings with the president. The meetings will be separate, a measure of just how far the two sides have come, but also how delicate the process remains. And, as it unfolds, people will be watching, people with demands, people with grievances, people with guns.

Here's CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jamal Abu Rob says he never goes anywhere without his M-16 and his handgun.

JAMAL ABU ROB, AL AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADES: It's very good.

VAUSE: A father of five, accountant by trade, he lives in the small West Bank village of Qabatiya, not far from Jenin, an area which Israel describes as a hotbed of terror, home to militants just like Abu Rob. He's a senior leader with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and has been on the run for more than four years.

ABU ROB (through translator): Moving from one village to one village, one mountain to one mountain to one house, one cave to one cave, you don't see people for many days. Sometimes, you can't stand the smell of your own clothes. VAUSE: But with the possibility of peace, he's now preparing a run for politics. He wants to fight corruption in the Palestinian Authority, calculator in one hand, M-16 in the other. Israel is now offering wanted men like Abu Rob a chance to start over. If they lay down their weapons, agree to stop the attacks, put that in writing and sign it, then Israel says they can live their lives without being hunted down or being on the wrong end of an Israeli airstrike.

(on camera): Are you prepared to sign an agreement that you will stop the attacks on Israelis and hand in your gun?

ABU ROB (through translator): I am ready to lay down my weapon when there is real talk that will lead to our basic rights. If Israel continues to refuse our rights and continues to occupy our lands, then we'll take back our weapons.

VAUSE (voice-over): Five times I asked:

(on camera): And will you hand in your weapon, yes or no?

ABU ROB (through translator): You are starting to sound like Bush. Either you are with us fighting terror or against us.

VAUSE: The Israelis insist what they're offering is not an amnesty for wanted militants. It's more like a good behavior bond. And they say it will be up to the Palestinian Authority to ensure the terms of that indefinite probation are not broken.

(voice-over): Among the Palestinian militants, there is a deep mistrust of Israel. So it will fall to the newly elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to convince them the time has come to end the fight for good. They won't do it for Israel, but they might just do it for him.

John Vause, CNN, Qabatiya in the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, this is one of those very few weeks every year where the streets of New York turn into runways, fashion runways.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, our guests prove that even women of a certain age can be beautiful and stylish. Certainly true.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, right now, New York City is the fashionable place to be. I think it's always the fashionable place to be, but this week in particular because it's Fashion Week.

Models have taken to the runways, showing off the clothing that apparently we will see next fall, or perhaps not, depending on where we shop. Fashion Week gives us the opportunity to talk about style and beauty, things my next two guests know an awful lot about. In a business that celebrates youth, Carmen has been a top fashion model for more than half a century. And makeup artist Bobbi Brown, an entrepreneur, is a firm believer that you look good when you feel good at any age.

Appreciate you both of you being with us. Thanks very much.

(CROSSTALK)

CARMEN, MODEL: It's nice to be here. Nice to meet you.

COOPER: It is extraordinary the career that you have had in modeling and still going strong. Do you think people are more accepting now of sort of a changing nature of beauty, or is beauty still youth in this culture?

CARMEN: Well, I think it's always in the eye of the beholder. And youth is always revered and brought along. I love all the young people in the business today.

I started when I was 13. So there's nothing new. What's new is that society has grown up with me, and there are more older people. So I still have to keep reinventing myself. And it's a privilege to represent my end of the age spectrum.

COOPER: But Carmen is really an exception in this business.

BOBBI BROWN, MAKEUP ARTIST: She's definitely a freak of nature.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I mean, there's not many women that look like this. She's stunning, outside and inside. But that's not normal.

COOPER: A beautiful good freak of nature.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: She is. She is. She is.

No, she's unbelievable. And she was in my recent book, which is about aging and feeling good about yourself at any age. And I think it's important for women to have role models of women that are successful and look great and feel good about themselves. And Carmen is definitely a great role model for that.

CARMEN: And you can't get stuck in a rut. You know, what fashion gives to women is the inspiration to reinvent themselves and have fun with it.

I love being in Bobbi's book, because she has, you know, a different view of me than other people in fashion. I love the way you put makeup on me, because that's really where I live in my daily life. And...

BROWN: But you also look amazing without makeup.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But your hair is white, which I'm very thankful of, because I...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

CARMEN: Hello, because, you see, I paved the way for you.

COOPER: Yes.

CARMEN: But, you see, what I did for a lot of people, men included, is that I made it all right to have white hair, because I let my hair grow out somewhere...

COOPER: Did you think about dyeing it ever?

CARMEN: I had dyed it. I had white hair when I was 18. And I just gradually let it come out finally.

And a lot of women were in the closet about their age because they're competing constantly against their own image when they were 18. I don't want to look the way I looked when I was 18.

COOPER: I mean, in your work in the makeup, do you try to make people -- I mean, obviously, I guess you try to make people look younger, but, at a certain point...

BROWN: It's not about looking younger. It's about looking better.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: And I really work with women of all ages.

CARMEN: Right.

BROWN: And the whole idea is to be who you are because, let's face it, you can't be anyone else. So you might as well...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: So looking better doesn't necessarily mean looking younger?

BROWN: It doesn't. It absolutely doesn't.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: And I think that women are wasting a lot of energy trying to think they should look younger. And they're doing all sorts of crazy things to their face is and looking like they've just done crazy things to their face. They don't necessarily look younger.

COOPER: Is it just you -- it seems to me everyone is starting to look alike.

CARMEN: Oh, yes. COOPER: People -- I don't know if it's same surgeon or what, but, as people age, they all become a certain type, the same haircut.

CARMEN: They lose their own individuality.

COOPER: Right. Yes.

CARMEN: A lot of it now, everyone wants to look like -- there were the periods where everyone wanted to look like Brigitte Bardot.

In the '30s, everyone wanted to look like Carole Lombard or whatever movie star. But what -- a terrible thing that's happened is that people have stopped developing themselves and they really go into surgery when they don't need it. And that's sad.

BROWN: Well, I think it's just -- it's really running rampant.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: And I think, unfortunately, it's a really bad thing, and I hope that I could help people change, because I think there are so many things you could do with makeup.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: I believe in fitness. I believe in positive attitude.

CARMEN: Good.

BROWN: And just accepting who you are. And there's so many things you could do to make you look better.

You can color your hair.

CARMEN: Right.

BROWN: You could do so many things to your skin. You could put on great concealer and a great foundation and a little bit of color and just feel good about yourself and not try to be what the images you see in magazines and on TV.

COOPER: Was there a time when you couldn't get work, I mean, when you reached a certain age?

CARMEN: Because I'm not a snob about the kind of work I do in modeling, I don't have to be on the cover of every magazine, there was always a job that I would do, a flannel nightgown for a Macy's catalog. So...

COOPER: Do you think, though, things are evolving? You were -- I remember seeing you I think in a Target ad with Isaac Mizrahi.

CARMEN: Well, listen, I will tell you, the secret of my success is being with the best agency in the whole world, the lady who invented the business. And that's Eileen and Jerry Ford. I've been with them since they opened their doors in... COOPER: You started modeling before there was a Ford agency. Is that true?

CARMEN: Yes. I started in 1945.

COOPER: Amazing.

CARMEN: They opened their doors in 1947. And a photographer brought me over to Eileen. I must have weighed 90 pounds. And I was 5'9''.

COOPER: But do you think people are more embracing of this notion of beauty at any age?

CARMEN: I think...

BROWN: I think it's changing. I do.

CARMEN: Good.

BROWN: And magazines like "More" magazine, which is for women over 40, that didn't exist years ago. And they show women exercising who are in their 40s and not in their 20s.

COOPER: I feel like Oprah Winfrey's -- I don't read it much, but they seem to have...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Oprah has done probably the most for women in the entire universe.

CARMEN: I agree with that.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Exercising, taking care of yourself, being who you are, reading more, learning more.

CARMEN: Everything.

BROWN: I mean, Oprah is...

CARMEN: Expanding.

BROWN: ... is one of my giant role models. Absolutely.

CARMEN: Me, too. I'm with you. I'm with you. She's absolutely fabulous.

COOPER: And her message seems very much, again, the whole accepting yourself at where you're at.

CARMEN: Well, working on yourself.

BROWN: Well, accepting but working at it. (CROSSTALK)

BROWN: And she always says it's not easy.

CARMEN: Yes. Exactly.

BROWN: You know, it's not easy to work. It's not easy to have a family. It's not easy to exercise.

CARMEN: To do it all.

BROWN: It's not easy to do everything. But you know what? We can do it. And I think that's the big message is for women, that we can do it. We have the ability to do it.

CARMEN: We must think and make choices and...

BROWN: And never stop.

CARMEN: Right, and never stop.

COOPER: What do you think women are losing by trying to go for this youth, as opposed to sort of recognizing where they're at and...

CARMEN: The time of their life they're losing. They're losing the moments.

BROWN: Well, they don't look younger, though.

But I think it's not about looking younger. You just don't look younger. You look good for your age. To me, that's the best compliment.

CARMEN: Yes.

BROWN: You're how old? You look great for your age. You don't look younger. I can't try to be 30 years old. You know, it's really about being who you are and...

CARMEN: And be the best at the age you are. I'm going to be 74, and I'm trying to be the best each year I live. So...

COOPER: Wow.

CARMEN: I'm choosing to live as long as I can. I have, you know, good habits, which I picked up a long time ago. I do exercise.

COOPER: You're going to be 74 this June?

CARMEN: Exactly.

COOPER: June 3?

CARMEN: June 3.

COOPER: We share a birthday. CARMEN: We share it.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Carmen, it was great to meet you. Congratulations.

CARMEN: It's lovely to meet you, too.

COOPER: Bobbi, thanks very much.

BROWN: Thanks a lot.

COOPER: Good talking to you.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a fast woman. We're talking really, really fast, in the speed sense.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, talk about sailing into the record books.

A 28-year-old British woman today earned the title of the fastest person ever to sail around the world alone. Her name is Ellen MacArthur. And her seaborne journey clocks in at 71 days and 14 hours, which beats the old record, which was set only a year ago, by more than 32 hours. Along the way, she sailed through hurricanes, scooted around icebergs, and even dodged a few whales -- a remarkable journey, a remarkable feat.

That's it for the program tonight. Aaron Brown will be back tomorrow.

Until then, I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks for watching. Good night.

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