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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Florida Baby Samaritan Found to be Culprit; Rumsfeld Visits Iraq; Kinky Friedman Runs for Texas Governor

Aired February 11, 2005 - 17:00   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.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now. It was a shocking story, a newborn tossed from a car, then rescued by a good samaritan. But there's a stunning new twist to that tale.
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Nuclear standoff. North Korea wants to go one-on-one. But the U.S. is balking at talking.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The six-party talks are the way to resolve this matter.

BLITZER: What does he really want?

Firsthand look. Insurgents bomb a mosque and shoot up a bakery as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld pays a surprise visit.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Feel good about the progress that's being made.

BLITZER: He's a mystery writer and a musician. Now he's running for governor of Texas. I'll speak with candidate Kinky Friedman.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Friday, February 11, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We begin with a shocking story out of South Florida involving an abandoned baby boy. This morning we were told the boy was thrown out of a moving car. This afternoon the sheriff came out and gave us news that turned the story upside down. Our national correspondent Susan Candiotti joining us now live from Ft. Lauderdale with all the details -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Wolf. It was a hoax. At first police called her an amazing do-gooder. And now police say she's someone in need of serious psychiatric help.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as they can yell and fuss, that's a good sign. CANDIOTTI (voice-over): An eight-pound baby boy whose survival was a wonder, nicknamed baby Johny, police say he was put in a plastic bag and thrown out of a moving car by a young couple seen arguing. Incredibly, a woman said she saw a bundle hit a grassy roadside patch and stop to help. Police praised their good samaritan.

KEN JENNE, BROWARD COUNTY SHERIFF: The good news about this story is that we have someone in this community who has got the heart and soul to pick that child up and save it.

CANDIOTTI: Police said a neighborhood boy also saw a couple arguing in a car. Who were they? Why did they do it? Incredibly, the baby didn't have a scratch on him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We call him actually the miracle baby.

CANDIOTTI: Police frantically put out a call for help.

JENNE: We're anxious to have a thorough discussion with the mother at this time.

But hold on. It turns out they already were talking to the mother.

JENNE: This is a case of a disturbed woman who gave birth but did not want to keep her child and made up an incredible story. The mother of the baby is the good samaritan.

CANDIOTTI: Police said the mother, 38-year-old Patricia Pokriots, gave birth Thursday afternoon, took a shower and set out to concoct a cover story.

JENNE: She came upon two people in a white care arguing. She decided to build a story around it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: That story of deception unwittingly partially backed up by that neighborhood boy who also saw that couple in the car arguing. Eventually police put two and two together, invited the woman in, the good samaritan, and she admitted her alleged lie.

Police say she is already the mother of a 10-year-old and simply did not want to take care of another child. She is now under court- ordered psychiatric care, police say they are not sure whether charges will be filed -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Susan Candiotti, what an amazing story. Thanks very much for that report.

To our viewers, there is a safe have law in Florida to protect parents of abandoned newborns, but these parents have to follow the law to get the protection. The newborn must be approximately 3 days old or younger. He or she must be left at a fire station or emergency medical service station with full time firefighters, paramedics or an emergency medical technician. The newborn may also be left at a hospital. In exchange for leaving a child at those locations a parent is allowed to remain anonymous and will generally avoid being the target of a criminal investigation unless the newborn is abused or neglected.

CNN's John Zarrella continues our coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her name is Gloria Hope Lewis. These are her very proud, very excited parents, Michael and Lori Lewis. Last week after eight months as her foster parents, the Lewises adopted Gloria Hope. The Lewises knew baby Hope's situation was different from other foster children they had taken in. But they also knew immediately they wanted to adopt her.

LORI LEWIS, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: Really, I think it's God's way of saying, OK, you're my messengers, here's you gift, go out and spread the word I want more babies saved.

ZARRELLA: Last June, Gloria Hope's biological mother dropped the newborn off at this fire station in Deerfield Beach.

(on camera): Under Florida's safe haven law, mothers in desperate situations can drop off their babies up to 3 days old at fire stations, hospitals and emergency medical facilities without fear of prosecution. Gloria Hope is one of 18 newborns dropped off since the law took effect in July of 2000.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR: You can leave your unharmed baby...

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Some say the law which exists in various forms in 45 states is far from perfect. There's no family health history. The number of days old a child can be varies. Jeffrey Leving, a father's rights attorney, says safe haven laws don't give biological dads any say.

JEFFREY LEVING, ATTORNEY: I think every safe haven law must require the biological mother to identify the biological father.

ZARRELLA: Nick Soverio, who founded a non-profit organization to publicize the Florida law, knows it's not perfect but...

NICK SOVERIO, SAFE HAVEN FOR NEWBORNS: The alternative for not having this program would be that maybe Gloria Hope wouldn't be here today.

ZARRELLA: If anything, advocates like the Lewises say safe haven needs to be better publicized, because too many women don't know there are laws that give hope to their babies.

John Zarrella, CNN, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: So the question becomes this, why would this woman construct such an elaborate lie when Florida and other states let new parents give up an unwanted baby no questions asked? Joining us, Gina Ciolino, spokeswomen for ChildNet, a private organization set up to manage the child protection system in Broward County in South Florida.

Gina, thanks very much for joining us. First of all, how is the baby doing?

GINA CIOLINO, CHILDNET SPOKESWOMAN: Good evening.

To my knowledge, the baby is doing very well. It's in care of Broward General Medical Center and is doing fine.

BLITZER: How unusual is this story, based on your experience, what you've personally gone through and others in your area?

CIOLINO: It's an unbelievable story, Wolf. It is absolutely one of the most unusual, and most heartbreaking that I think we've ever heard.

BLITZER: Talk a little bit about how this mother finally confessed that she really wasn't the good samaritan, but really was the mother of this baby?

CIOLINO: My understanding from Sheriff Jenne here in Broward County was that the mother did come forward with the child, as you indicated, as a good samaritan and then later did change her story and acknowledged that she was the mother, that she had planned to take the child to the fire station and had changed her mind and her story on the way.

BLITZER: So what happens to the baby, baby Johny as he's called right now, what happens in the immediate future and long-term?

CIOLINO: Well, this afternoon, there was a hearing at the courthouse. And that hearing determined that this child was in fact a dependent child. And so that child came into the child protection care of ChildNet here in Broward County. We also found out and took into care this child's sibling who is 10 years old. And as a result, both of those children have been declared dependent.

From this point forward, there are a number of things that may happen. The first of which is that the mother may sign a waiver to terminate her parental rights. And if she does so, we can find move very quickly in finding a new home for these two siblings. However, if she doesn't do that, then we will need to take some expedited process to try to get those parental rights terminated within the next four months.

BLITZER: As we heard in the John Zarrella piece, what about the biological fathers of these two children, especially baby Johny?

CIOLINO: We're still investigating who the father of these two children are and what their status is. The mother was unwilling to give any sort of information about the father. And so an investigation is being done about that father. Once that father is located we'll determine if he's interested in caring for the children and we'll also do a background check to see if he has any prior allegations or anything in his history that would forbid us from putting the children with him.

BLITZER: If the biological father of baby Johny wants custody and assuming he's an upstanding citizen, will that father be able to have custody of that child?

CIOLINO: I don't see why not. However, that is a legal process that will transpire over the course of the next few weeks. And as I said, a background study would need to be done, as well as some other information gathered before we would be able to determine that. But yes, if he was an upstanding citizen, I would see no reason that would bar that.

BLITZER: When you look at the whole situation right now what lessons do you think should be learned to viewers out there who may be in this kind of predicament. Give us some advice to a pregnant mother who is nervous about having a child.

CIOLINO: Sure. As you said, it's a horrible situation and one we hope we don't see again. As the previous package indicated there is a safe harbor law here in Florida that allows any parent to drop off a child up until the age of three days at any police station or fire department and no questions asked to be able to turn over that child. That's what we hope that parents who feel the pressure to be in this situation will consider doing in the future.

BLITZER: And if the father is not interested, the mother is not interested, this child will be put up for adoption, is that right?

CIOLINO: That is correct. Along with the 10-year-old sibling. They'll be put up for adoption together.

BLITZER: Gina Ciolino, thanks very much for joining us. A sad, sad case indeed. Let's hope some day it has a very very happy ending. Thank you very much.

In our CNN security watch, the standoff with North Korea. A day after that secretive regime publicly declared itself a nuclear power it's becoming more clear what North Korea wants. Let's get some background, some of the news of the day. CNN's Brian Todd joining us -- Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we've seen this before. The North Koreans pull back from engagement, take an aggressive stand and have an ulterior motive. The problem is this regime is so unpredictable and dangerous the major powers have to take them seriously.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): Down a familiar ominous road. Tensions at a high level. This time, North Korea boasts it has nuclear weapons, pulls away from negotiations, demands one-on-one dialogue with the United States and only the United States. The Bush administration, in no mood for this dance.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The problem is we've been down that road before. The 1994 agreed framework was the road that we went down before. It was a bilateral approach between the United States and North Korea. North Korea violated that agreement and continued to pursue nuclear weapons.

TODD: Once again, Kim Jong-il, reclusive leader of a hermetic bankrupt nation, accused of allowing millions of his own people to starve to death, is forcing the world's only superpower to worry, calculate, react.

DR. JERROLD POST, FMR. CIA PROFILER: And that brinkmanship really for the most part has worked for him. He's crossed red line after red line.

TODD: But how far will he go? This is a man who cut his political teeth from the father of modern North Korea, his own father, Kim Il Sung himself, a brutally repressive dictator.

Before his father's death in 1994, Kim Jong-il was known as a fast-driving, chain-smoking, binge-drinking playboy who many thought was crazy. Since his father's death observers say he's cut way back on the smoking, drinking and erratic behavior but still has some eccentricities.

POST: He recruits at junior high school level attractive young girls with clear complexions and pretty faces to be enrolled in his Joy Brigades. And the Joy Brigades' function to provide rest and relaxation for his (UNINTELLIGIBLE) senior officials. He lives in a seven storey pleasure palace, has this collection of 15,000 to 20,000 movies.

TODD: And U.S. officials say he once ordered the kidnapping of a South Korean movie star and her director husband. He's only 5'2" but wears four-inch lifts in his shoes. Most agree the country that now claims a nuclear arsenal is controlled by an insecure paranoid tyrant. But diplomats, journalists, others who have been to his capital say don't fall for the Dr. Evil comparison.

PETER MAASS, JOURNALIST: Really, everybody who has met with Kim Jong-il and there have been quite a few, South Koreans, Americans, Russians, North Koreans who have since defected, they all come out saying this man knows what he's doing. He is not crazy. He might be emotional, he might be somewhat eccentric but crazy, absolutely not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): The danger experts say is not that Kim Jong-il will get irrational and set off a major conflict but that he'll do it by miscalculating. Even on that possibility one expert said, quote, "Kim Jong-il may draw his guns but they'll be on safety." -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Brian Todd. Thanks very much for that report. To our viewers please stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

And here's your chance to weigh in on this story. Our web question of the day is this -- "should the U.S. engage in bilateral negotiations with North Korea? You can vote right now. Go to CNN.com/wolf. We'll have the results coming up later in this broadcast.

Surprise visit. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drops in on Iraq's security forces and sheds some light as to when American troops may leave for good.

Also ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, he looked at the wedding ring and he said, oh, these are large. And I said not really. There's larger ones than those.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The royal wedding planners. From the ring to the dress to the ceremony. What the marriage of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will look like.

And later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a gypsy on a pirate ship and I'm setting sail for the governor's mansion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Unconventional campaign led by the performer who wants to be the next governor of Texas. I'll speak with Kinky Friedman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb today in Baghdad and insurgents launched bloody attacks on a mosque and a pair of bakeries killing 21 Iraqis. Amid all this violence a surprise visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson reports from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A handshake. A conversation. And a photo op with Iraq's new elite forces. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's chance to meet the men who could replace U.S. troops and a chance to highlight the need to make that happen quickly.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Your assignment as a special intervention force is going to be extremely important.

ROBERTSON: A simulated assault of a building for Rumsfeld's benefit, adding emphasis to the quality of U.S. training some Iraqi forces are receiving. The secretary of defense apparently happy with what he saw. RUMSFELD: In the past when I would visit various units they would tend to be individuals who were fairly green, new, in training, or just out. Today, one of the units we visited has been repeatedly in combat situations.

ROBERTSON: His visit began with a pre-dawn landing in the northern city of Mosul shrouded in secrecy out of concerns for his safety. One of Rumsfeld's first duties, a morale-boosting visit to a U.S. medical facility, awarding a Purple Heart to U.S. Sergeant Shawn Ferguson (ph) shot in the hand by a sniper the day before, the sergeant's second Purple Heart in four months.

Rumsfeld's visit, the first for a senior U.S. official since the Iraqi elections, also yielding possibly his last chance to meet with the U.S. favorite Ayad Allawi in his role as interim prime minister before election results strip him of that title.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: I appreciate all the multinational forces have been doing. And we had very frank and candid discussions about future cooperation.

ROBERTSON: Even as the secretary of defense's visit was under way insurgents were undermining the stability he once established to get U.S. troops out. A car bomb detonated outside a Shiite mosque 45 miles, about 70 kilometers northeast of Baghdad killed 12 and wounded 23 others.

In Baghdad, another attack on Shiites targeted two bakeries. According to police, two cars full of gunmen, pulled up outside, sprayed the workers with bullets and left. Nine died in the hail of gunfire adding to fears, Sunni insurgents are trying to foment sectarian violence.

With election results apparently getting closer, just three percent of the votes left to check a new political landscape will soon begin to emerge. It will be one despite Donald Rumsfeld's encouragement still heavily dependent on U.S. troops for security. Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Death of a playwright. He married a movie star and wrote some of America's best known plays. We mark the passing of Arthur Miller.

The president's focus, all attention is on Social Security. But what are his other major priorities? Our Carlos Watson has the inside edge.

And later, police uncover what they're calling a mass suicide plot. Why more than 30 people across the country were allegedly planning to kill themselves on Valentine's Day. Mary Snow is going to investigate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: Arthur Miller is being remembered today as one of the greatest playwrights in the history of the American theater. The man behind "Death of a Salesman" and other classics is dead at the age of 89. CNN's Eric Phillips has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Arthur Miller has given our nation some of the finest plays of this century.

ERIC PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chief among them, "Death of a Salesman" which won the 1949 Pulitzer Price and in 1953 his metaphor for McCarthyism, "The Crucible."

But Miller took his lumps before becoming known as a writer of classics.

ARTHUR MILLER: Fifty years ago I quit forever. I had a disaster with my first play. I resolved never to write another one.

PHILLIPS: Fortunately the playwright reneged on that vow and within a few years was penning masterpieces. Miller's characters were specific yet universal, infected with human flaws like pride, envy, greed and lust.

MILLER: The are of playwrighting consists mainly with the manipulation of time. Everything has to be squeezed so it becomes dramatic.

PHILLIPS: At the peek of his fame in 1956 Miller married Marilyn Monroe. The pair became the celebrity couple of their time. The marriage, his second of three, lasted until 1961. Later on, Miller was honored for his contributions to the theater and honorary degree from Harvard, a lifetime achievement award from the Tonys and the National Medal of the Arts. Toward the end of his life Miller lamented how Broadway had changed over the years.

MILLER: There was a kind of reverence that is gone. People felt it was an art. Not a business. Of course, it always was a business.

PHILLIPS: That business made Miller famous. And Miller's plays enriched readers and audiences everywhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Arthur Miller dead at 89.

When we come back, planning a royal wedding. It's no simple affair.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she'll wear something that's a cross between evening and day.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: New details about the dress Camilla Parker Bowles may wear and what the ceremony will look like.

Plus, the Democrats and Howard Dean, does the former presidential contender have what it takes to help him prove his party's political position? Our Carlos Watson has the inside edge.

And later, the musician turned mystery author who wants to be the next governor of Texas. I'll speak with Kinky Friedman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

Plans for a royal wedding already in full swing. New details of the marriage ceremony for Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, including her dress. We'll get to that.

First, though, a quick check of some other stories now in the news.

The military plans to test a laser warning system for pilots who have flown into restricted airspace over the nation's capital. The lasers will pain a test aircraft with red and green warning lights. Currently, fighter jets are scrambled to intercept unauthorized planes or drop flares to warn them away.

The Air Force has grounded 30 C-130 transport planes because of cracks in the windshield. The grounding follows the most recent inspection of the planes, including about a dozen currently deployed in Iraq.

Now that Britain's Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles have announced plans to marry, attention is turning to wedding details. Unlike the first time Charles got married, it will be a relatively low-key civil ceremony.

But as CNN's Diana Muriel reports, there's still a lot of planning to do.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the past, royal wedding have been all about pomp and pageantry, royal brides in tiaras and long trains. Certainly, Prince Charles' first marriage to Princess Diana in 1981 bore all the hallmarks of a royal betrothal. But his youngest brother, Prince Edward and Sophie, countess of Wessex, had a much lower-key ceremony at Windsor Castle.

That will be the venue for Prince Charles's second marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles on April the 8th. With just eight weeks to go to wedding day, planners say a lot of the preparations will already have been done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This would have been carefully thought out. And the teams on this will be enormous, both from the palace, in the house, sort of royal experts in events, and also outsourcing it to the very, very best in the field. So I think lots would have already been planned.

MURIEL: Prince Charles, who was visiting craftsmen at Goldsmith's Hall in London when the news broke of his engagement Thursday, wasted no time in doing a little wedding research.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prince Charles came in and he came over to me. And was -- and he looked at the wedding rings. And he said, oh, these are large. And I said, well, not really. There's larger ones than those.

MURIEL: Certainly, Camilla appeared delighted with her engagement ring, which she showed off at a gala dinner on Thursday night.

(on camera): Of course, what a lot of people will be watching for at this royal wedding is the dress. Now, it's not known who the designer will be. But it's very unlikely Camilla will wear anything resembling Princess Diana's wedding gown.

(voice-over): Elizabeth Emanuel designed Diana's ivory wedding dress and 25-foot-long train.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she'll wear something that's a cross between evening and day, I think. But there will be elements of wedding attire there, maybe the tiara, the necklace, plenty of diamonds, pearls, that sort of stuff.

MURIEL (on camera): Now, she likes quite figure-hugging things. We saw that last night when she was wearing the scarlet dress at Windsor Castle. Do you think she might go for something like that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think these are just too obviously bridal, actually. I think she will go for something slim. But if you look at the cut of her clothes, it's quite clever, because they skim. They don't hug. She's not got the body of a model. So they can skim and sort of create a nice lengthening effect.

MURIEL (voice-over): One thing there won't be at this royal wedding is a kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony. But Charles and Camilla have demonstrated their mutual affection in the past and are expected to do so again on their wedding day.

Diana Muriel, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And now let's take a quick look at some other news making headlines around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Rescue operations are under way in Pakistan after the heaviest rains in 16 years. Hundreds of people are missing. At least 54 victims died when a dam gave away. Venezuela floods. Floods and landslides in Venezuela have claimed at least 15 lives. One more death reported in Colombia. Thousands are homeless. Many had to be evacuated with helicopters.

Concert for a cause. A Sting concert in Australia raised more than $3 million for tsunami relief; 6,000 fans attended the sold-out concert. And the government of Western Australia agreed to match the receipts dollar for dollar.

And that's our look around the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Social Security and the president's budget proposals were the hot topics on Capitol Hill this week. But beneath the surface, there are other important developments as well.

CNN political analyst Carlos Watson joining us now live from New York, as he does every Friday with "The Inside Edge."

Carlos, a simple question. How is the president doing so far?

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The president is doing quite well, Wolf.

Not only are his approval numbers up -- he's at 57 percent in our latest poll. And not only are the Iraqi elections seen as having gone well, and obviously he's been able to get all of his Cabinet nominees approved, with the exception of Kerik, who dropped out. But, more significantly, while a lot of people are focusing on the new budget and on Social Security, the president may put really some fairly landmark signatures, fingerprints, if you will, on at least a half- dozen other areas.

Today, a class-action bill is going to get ready to move on to the House. You'll also see some movement in this term on education, on the environment, on energy, maybe even on nuclear proliferation. And so while we're going to talk a lot in 2005 about what the president does on Social Security, don't forget that this could be a pretty major legislative agenda in other areas as well that may not get as much attention.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the new budget he submitted to Congress this past week. What goes through your mind when you look at that huge document?

WATSON: Well, at least two significant things, Wolf.

One is how much the two different sides have switched places; 15, 20 years, you would have heard Democrats make many of the same arguments that Republicans are making about the need to maybe run deficits in order to allow certain programs, in those days, domestic programs, enough money to go on.

You would have heard Republicans say something very different, in that they would have said cut the deficits, instead of allowing a $400-billion-plus deficit. But what's also interesting to me, not only that the two sides have switched, is that really the only person who's got a chance to curb this deficit, make -- that there's really meaningful change in it this year, is not a member of Congress and obviously is not the president himself, but maybe Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who is obviously in his final year, and who, in the late '80s and early '90s, was an important voice on lowering the deficit and obviously led to some of those landmark agreements.

So, when he goes up to Capitol Hill in early March, listen closely to what he has to say. He, more than any Democrat, maybe more than any congressional Republican, may help actually lead to some real tightening in the budget.

BLITZER: Carlos, when you look at the Democrats right now, what do you see?

WATSON: You know, obviously, there's a celebration going on as we speak, as Terry McAuliffe, the outgoing chairman of the Democratic National Committee, hands the reins over to Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and presidential candidate.

While a lot of people talk about Howard Dean in terms of bringing a new face, maybe a more aggressive new tone, if you will, in addition to fund-raising over the Internet and some other things, maybe the most important thing to follow in Howard Dean's case is whether, in cooperation with Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, and other members of the Democratic Senate Committee, is he able to help Democrats attract really good Democratic Senate candidates for 2006?

And in order to do that, you can't start a year from now. You have got to start now, looking in Virginia, looking in Maine, looking in Rhode Island and in other places as well. So, when all is said and done, it won't be the rhetoric, but it will be the candidates that really in many cases judge Howard Dean's first couple of years and whether it's a success or not a success.

BLITZER: Carlos Watson with "The Inside Edge" -- Carlos, thanks very much.

WATSON: Good to see you.

BLITZER: Have a great weekend.

WATSON: You, too.

BLITZER: When we come back, investigators uncover a mass suicide pact planned for Valentine's Day. Our Mary Snow will have details. Dozens of people from across the country and Canada believed to be involved. Does Valentine's Day trigger depression in some people?

Also ahead:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINKY FRIEDMAN (I), TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Teachers are getting screwed, blued and tattooed by this system. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Meet Kinky Friedman, an outspoken performer who wants to be the next governor of Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Valentine's Day is a holiday to celebrate love and lovers, a reaffirmation that romance is alive and well. How then to make sense of the holiday depression some feel or reports from Oregon of an alleged Valentine's Day mass suicide pact?

CNN's Mary Snow joining us now live from New York. She has more on this story -- Mary.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, police are certainly trying to make sense of it and trying to track down more than two dozen people believed to be involved in this plot.

A man in Oregon is under arrest. He's been charged with solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit manslaughter. His lawyer had no comment. However, police believe that this plot was scheduled to be carried out on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW (voice-over): At a time when there's a saturation of images of happiness and gestures of giving comes a chilling side to Valentine's Day. In Oregon, police arrested this 26-year-old man, saying they got a tip that he was planning to use the Internet to arrange a Valentine's Day mass suicide.

TIMOTHY EVINGER, KLAMATH COUNTY SHERIFF: There was a person who had participated in a chat room that Mr. Krein had set up. And this individual had participated in that chat room along with what we believe to be at least 32 other people. There could be more.

SNOW: And in an effort to track them down, police seized a computer from suspect Gerald Krein's home. He has not yet made a public statement. But police believe that murder may have been a part of the plan.

EVINGER: There was some mention by one of the participants that she was going to kill her two children before she took her own life. And we're desperately searching, trying to locate that individual.

SNOW: Psychiatrist Alan Manevitz says, when it comes to relationships, Valentine's Day can also be a day that is used to send a desperate message.

DR. ALAN MANEVITZ, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: Suicide is an act of desperation. It's also an act of anger, sometimes anger at friends or family or a lover that you feel has abandoned you. It's also an act of anger against yourself.

SNOW: And Valentine's Day, he says, is similar to New Year's Eve, when people assess their lives.

MANEVITZ: Valentine's Day, while it's also a day that marks time when people deepen their relationships, it's also a time period where people reassess their relationships and you see that people decide not to continue their relationships.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And the emergence of chat rooms on the Internet of course have added a whole new dynamic. And in this case, authorities say that they're getting help from Internet providers to help try and track down the people believed to be involved in this plot -- Wolf.

BLITZER: So, is there a sense, Mary, that there's a trend unfolding now on the Internet?

SNOW: Well, Wolf, not so much in the United States have we seen this, but in Japan over the past couple of months, there have been several of these so-called suicide pacts.

And the Internet is something that's been connecting these people. In this case, authorities believe that Web cams may also have been involved. So this is something that we haven't seen so much here, but we have seen in other places.

BLITZER: Certainly something worthy of watching.

Mary Snow, thanks very much for that report.

When we come back, humorist, mystery writer, performer and maybe governor of Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDMAN: So I'm running as an independent for the first time since Sam Houston in 1859. There's never been an independent on the ballot in Texas until now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: My interview coming up with the very unique, the always candid Kinky Friedman. You'll want to stick around for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Texas is known, among other things, for its colorful politics. And Texas politics may even get more colorful now that entertainer Kinky Friedman has thrown his cowboy hat into the ring as an independent candidate for governor. We'll get to my interview with him in just a moment.

First, though, some background on this talented man.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): He's a singer. He's a mystery writer. FRIEDMAN: Well, I think there's 18 novels that I've churned out, I mean carefully crafted.

BLITZER: But could he be governor of Texas? More celebrities are running for office these days. Minnesota elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura. And California elected Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger. But could Texas elect Richard Kinky Friedman in 2006?

FRIEDMAN: Well, Texas elected a country singer to the governorship in the 1940s.

BLITZER: That's true. Pappy O'Daniel won his fame on the radio with a western swing band named the Light Crust Doughboys. But Kinky Friedman isn't your typical country singer, as he told CNN's Bruce Burkhardt.

FRIEDMAN: I'm a bastard child of twin cultures, Texas and Jewish. And the only thing they have in common is, we both like to wear our hats indoors.

BLITZER: As the leader of the Kinky Friedman and Texas Jewboys, he won a cult following with such politically incorrect satirical songs as "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed."

And when you look at some of Friedman's campaign materials, you might get the impression it's all a big joke.

FRIEDMAN: Now, here's some campaign posters. How hard could it be?

BLITZER: Still, Friedman says he's serious. His positions include legalizing casino gambling, reducing the number of executions, and making it a crime to declaw a cat.

To run as an independent, he'll need the signatures of more than 40,000 Texans. And none of them can be Republican or Democratic primary voters. A spokesman for incumbent Governor Rick Perry suggests Friedman has been smoking something. But Friedman doesn't see it that way. He says that, barring the candidacy of some other celebrity...

FRIEDMAN: You're talking to the next governor of Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Kinky Friedman, thanks very much for joining us.

What's going on? A lot of people hearing you want to be governor of Texas. Is this a joke or is this real?

FRIEDMAN: Well, this is -- it's not a joke, Wolf, in that I think the joke is that Texas is No. 1 in executions and we're No. 49 in funding public education. I think that's the joke.

BLITZER: So you're serious. You have substantive issues that you want to bring before the voters in Texas?

FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. And this is not a political campaign. This is kind of a spiritual calling.

Education is one thing that I'm very serious about. I think I say no teacher left behind, because the teachers are getting screwed, blued and tattooed by this system. And the governor appears to be more interested in ironing his shirt than he is in ironing out the problems we have in education.

BLITZER: Well, why not run as a Democrat? You're running as an independent.

FRIEDMAN: Yes. I think the choice between Democrat and Republican is pretty much today like plastic or paper or decaf or regular. I think it's a meaningless choice. And the people I like are George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt and Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, independents. After all, Jesus Christ was an independent. So was Moses. In their day, they stood up to the government and they told them the truth.

BLITZER: As a coffee drinker, I don't want to quibble over decaf or regular, because I know there's a difference there between caffeine and no caffeine.

But let's talk a little bit about some of the other issues that you want to use in the campaign. Give us some of the major issues on your agenda.

FRIEDMAN: Well, I want to shine a light into the darkness. The Texas governor doesn't do any heavy lifting, but he could do some spiritual lifting. And he could remind people that JFK is not an airport. And RFK isn't a stadium and Martin Luther King is not a street.

And I think that's what we need to do, is to inspire the people, especially the young people. And that's kind of why I'm running, outside of the fact that I need the closet space. I'm running because I've achieved a lot of my dreams in my life. And I want to see that people, others, especially younger Texans, get a chance to achieve theirs. And any Texan that is watching this, I want you to know, you are my special interest group. Nobody owns me.

BLITZER: Are you an old-fashioned liberal? Would you describe yourself as an old-fashioned '60s type of liberal? You and I are old enough to remember those liberals from that era.

FRIEDMAN: I liked Adlai Stevenson very much. I was probably a liberal then.

I'm no longer a liberal. I'm for nondenominational prayer in the public schools. I want to bring that back. What's wrong with a kid believing in something? I'm not anti-death penalty, but I am damn sure anti the wrong guy getting executed. And I'm afraid that, 2,000 years ago, we executed an innocent man named Jesus Christ. And the question is, what have we learned in 2,000 years? So I want to watch this very carefully.

BLITZER: So how do you go about getting on the ballot as an independent?

FRIEDMAN: It's very difficult in Texas. In California, anyone can run.

Here, you need 45,000 signatures. You collect them all in March '06, right after the primaries. You have two months to do it. And anybody who voted in the Democratic or Republican primary can't sign the petition. So, I either got to tell people don't vote in the primaries or we have to use the people that didn't bother to vote in the primaries.

In other words, the powers that be are not sending the elevator back down to the rest of us. They're determined to hang on to power any way they can. And I'm a gypsy on a pirate ship and I'm setting sail. Let's try that again. I'm a gypsy on a pirate ship and I'm setting sail for the governor's mansion.

BLITZER: Right. Now, that cigar, let's talk a little bit about it. You actually do smoke it, though. It's not just an unlit cigar. This is something that want to bring -- are you allowed to do what you're doing right now in Austin, Texas, smoke a cigar?

FRIEDMAN: In two years, I will be, yes, when I'm governor. That's part of my anti-wussification campaign.

Wolf, Texas is the Lone Star State. We didn't get this way by being politically correct. I want to take things back to a time when people weren't afraid to say merry Christmas, to a time when people could smoke a cigar, to a time when the Cowboys all sang and the horses were smart. So I'm going to fight this wussification if I've got to do it one wuss at a time.

BLITZER: And one voter at a time.

Kinky Friedman, running for governor of Texas, thanks for joining us.

FRIEDMAN: And may the God of your choice bless you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Thank you. Vice-versa. Right back at you.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Kinky Friedman in Austin, Texas.

One wuss at a time. I think he was looking at me when he was saying that.

We'll have the results of our Web question of the day. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Here are the results of our Web question for the day; 49 percent say yes; 51 percent say no. Remember, it's not a scientific poll.

Please tune in Sunday on "LATE EDITION.' Among my special guests, the South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, Sunday, noon Eastern.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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 11, 2005 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now. It was a shocking story, a newborn tossed from a car, then rescued by a good samaritan. But there's a stunning new twist to that tale.
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Nuclear standoff. North Korea wants to go one-on-one. But the U.S. is balking at talking.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The six-party talks are the way to resolve this matter.

BLITZER: What does he really want?

Firsthand look. Insurgents bomb a mosque and shoot up a bakery as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld pays a surprise visit.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Feel good about the progress that's being made.

BLITZER: He's a mystery writer and a musician. Now he's running for governor of Texas. I'll speak with candidate Kinky Friedman.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Friday, February 11, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We begin with a shocking story out of South Florida involving an abandoned baby boy. This morning we were told the boy was thrown out of a moving car. This afternoon the sheriff came out and gave us news that turned the story upside down. Our national correspondent Susan Candiotti joining us now live from Ft. Lauderdale with all the details -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Wolf. It was a hoax. At first police called her an amazing do-gooder. And now police say she's someone in need of serious psychiatric help.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as they can yell and fuss, that's a good sign. CANDIOTTI (voice-over): An eight-pound baby boy whose survival was a wonder, nicknamed baby Johny, police say he was put in a plastic bag and thrown out of a moving car by a young couple seen arguing. Incredibly, a woman said she saw a bundle hit a grassy roadside patch and stop to help. Police praised their good samaritan.

KEN JENNE, BROWARD COUNTY SHERIFF: The good news about this story is that we have someone in this community who has got the heart and soul to pick that child up and save it.

CANDIOTTI: Police said a neighborhood boy also saw a couple arguing in a car. Who were they? Why did they do it? Incredibly, the baby didn't have a scratch on him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We call him actually the miracle baby.

CANDIOTTI: Police frantically put out a call for help.

JENNE: We're anxious to have a thorough discussion with the mother at this time.

But hold on. It turns out they already were talking to the mother.

JENNE: This is a case of a disturbed woman who gave birth but did not want to keep her child and made up an incredible story. The mother of the baby is the good samaritan.

CANDIOTTI: Police said the mother, 38-year-old Patricia Pokriots, gave birth Thursday afternoon, took a shower and set out to concoct a cover story.

JENNE: She came upon two people in a white care arguing. She decided to build a story around it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: That story of deception unwittingly partially backed up by that neighborhood boy who also saw that couple in the car arguing. Eventually police put two and two together, invited the woman in, the good samaritan, and she admitted her alleged lie.

Police say she is already the mother of a 10-year-old and simply did not want to take care of another child. She is now under court- ordered psychiatric care, police say they are not sure whether charges will be filed -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Susan Candiotti, what an amazing story. Thanks very much for that report.

To our viewers, there is a safe have law in Florida to protect parents of abandoned newborns, but these parents have to follow the law to get the protection. The newborn must be approximately 3 days old or younger. He or she must be left at a fire station or emergency medical service station with full time firefighters, paramedics or an emergency medical technician. The newborn may also be left at a hospital. In exchange for leaving a child at those locations a parent is allowed to remain anonymous and will generally avoid being the target of a criminal investigation unless the newborn is abused or neglected.

CNN's John Zarrella continues our coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her name is Gloria Hope Lewis. These are her very proud, very excited parents, Michael and Lori Lewis. Last week after eight months as her foster parents, the Lewises adopted Gloria Hope. The Lewises knew baby Hope's situation was different from other foster children they had taken in. But they also knew immediately they wanted to adopt her.

LORI LEWIS, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: Really, I think it's God's way of saying, OK, you're my messengers, here's you gift, go out and spread the word I want more babies saved.

ZARRELLA: Last June, Gloria Hope's biological mother dropped the newborn off at this fire station in Deerfield Beach.

(on camera): Under Florida's safe haven law, mothers in desperate situations can drop off their babies up to 3 days old at fire stations, hospitals and emergency medical facilities without fear of prosecution. Gloria Hope is one of 18 newborns dropped off since the law took effect in July of 2000.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR: You can leave your unharmed baby...

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Some say the law which exists in various forms in 45 states is far from perfect. There's no family health history. The number of days old a child can be varies. Jeffrey Leving, a father's rights attorney, says safe haven laws don't give biological dads any say.

JEFFREY LEVING, ATTORNEY: I think every safe haven law must require the biological mother to identify the biological father.

ZARRELLA: Nick Soverio, who founded a non-profit organization to publicize the Florida law, knows it's not perfect but...

NICK SOVERIO, SAFE HAVEN FOR NEWBORNS: The alternative for not having this program would be that maybe Gloria Hope wouldn't be here today.

ZARRELLA: If anything, advocates like the Lewises say safe haven needs to be better publicized, because too many women don't know there are laws that give hope to their babies.

John Zarrella, CNN, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: So the question becomes this, why would this woman construct such an elaborate lie when Florida and other states let new parents give up an unwanted baby no questions asked? Joining us, Gina Ciolino, spokeswomen for ChildNet, a private organization set up to manage the child protection system in Broward County in South Florida.

Gina, thanks very much for joining us. First of all, how is the baby doing?

GINA CIOLINO, CHILDNET SPOKESWOMAN: Good evening.

To my knowledge, the baby is doing very well. It's in care of Broward General Medical Center and is doing fine.

BLITZER: How unusual is this story, based on your experience, what you've personally gone through and others in your area?

CIOLINO: It's an unbelievable story, Wolf. It is absolutely one of the most unusual, and most heartbreaking that I think we've ever heard.

BLITZER: Talk a little bit about how this mother finally confessed that she really wasn't the good samaritan, but really was the mother of this baby?

CIOLINO: My understanding from Sheriff Jenne here in Broward County was that the mother did come forward with the child, as you indicated, as a good samaritan and then later did change her story and acknowledged that she was the mother, that she had planned to take the child to the fire station and had changed her mind and her story on the way.

BLITZER: So what happens to the baby, baby Johny as he's called right now, what happens in the immediate future and long-term?

CIOLINO: Well, this afternoon, there was a hearing at the courthouse. And that hearing determined that this child was in fact a dependent child. And so that child came into the child protection care of ChildNet here in Broward County. We also found out and took into care this child's sibling who is 10 years old. And as a result, both of those children have been declared dependent.

From this point forward, there are a number of things that may happen. The first of which is that the mother may sign a waiver to terminate her parental rights. And if she does so, we can find move very quickly in finding a new home for these two siblings. However, if she doesn't do that, then we will need to take some expedited process to try to get those parental rights terminated within the next four months.

BLITZER: As we heard in the John Zarrella piece, what about the biological fathers of these two children, especially baby Johny?

CIOLINO: We're still investigating who the father of these two children are and what their status is. The mother was unwilling to give any sort of information about the father. And so an investigation is being done about that father. Once that father is located we'll determine if he's interested in caring for the children and we'll also do a background check to see if he has any prior allegations or anything in his history that would forbid us from putting the children with him.

BLITZER: If the biological father of baby Johny wants custody and assuming he's an upstanding citizen, will that father be able to have custody of that child?

CIOLINO: I don't see why not. However, that is a legal process that will transpire over the course of the next few weeks. And as I said, a background study would need to be done, as well as some other information gathered before we would be able to determine that. But yes, if he was an upstanding citizen, I would see no reason that would bar that.

BLITZER: When you look at the whole situation right now what lessons do you think should be learned to viewers out there who may be in this kind of predicament. Give us some advice to a pregnant mother who is nervous about having a child.

CIOLINO: Sure. As you said, it's a horrible situation and one we hope we don't see again. As the previous package indicated there is a safe harbor law here in Florida that allows any parent to drop off a child up until the age of three days at any police station or fire department and no questions asked to be able to turn over that child. That's what we hope that parents who feel the pressure to be in this situation will consider doing in the future.

BLITZER: And if the father is not interested, the mother is not interested, this child will be put up for adoption, is that right?

CIOLINO: That is correct. Along with the 10-year-old sibling. They'll be put up for adoption together.

BLITZER: Gina Ciolino, thanks very much for joining us. A sad, sad case indeed. Let's hope some day it has a very very happy ending. Thank you very much.

In our CNN security watch, the standoff with North Korea. A day after that secretive regime publicly declared itself a nuclear power it's becoming more clear what North Korea wants. Let's get some background, some of the news of the day. CNN's Brian Todd joining us -- Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we've seen this before. The North Koreans pull back from engagement, take an aggressive stand and have an ulterior motive. The problem is this regime is so unpredictable and dangerous the major powers have to take them seriously.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): Down a familiar ominous road. Tensions at a high level. This time, North Korea boasts it has nuclear weapons, pulls away from negotiations, demands one-on-one dialogue with the United States and only the United States. The Bush administration, in no mood for this dance.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The problem is we've been down that road before. The 1994 agreed framework was the road that we went down before. It was a bilateral approach between the United States and North Korea. North Korea violated that agreement and continued to pursue nuclear weapons.

TODD: Once again, Kim Jong-il, reclusive leader of a hermetic bankrupt nation, accused of allowing millions of his own people to starve to death, is forcing the world's only superpower to worry, calculate, react.

DR. JERROLD POST, FMR. CIA PROFILER: And that brinkmanship really for the most part has worked for him. He's crossed red line after red line.

TODD: But how far will he go? This is a man who cut his political teeth from the father of modern North Korea, his own father, Kim Il Sung himself, a brutally repressive dictator.

Before his father's death in 1994, Kim Jong-il was known as a fast-driving, chain-smoking, binge-drinking playboy who many thought was crazy. Since his father's death observers say he's cut way back on the smoking, drinking and erratic behavior but still has some eccentricities.

POST: He recruits at junior high school level attractive young girls with clear complexions and pretty faces to be enrolled in his Joy Brigades. And the Joy Brigades' function to provide rest and relaxation for his (UNINTELLIGIBLE) senior officials. He lives in a seven storey pleasure palace, has this collection of 15,000 to 20,000 movies.

TODD: And U.S. officials say he once ordered the kidnapping of a South Korean movie star and her director husband. He's only 5'2" but wears four-inch lifts in his shoes. Most agree the country that now claims a nuclear arsenal is controlled by an insecure paranoid tyrant. But diplomats, journalists, others who have been to his capital say don't fall for the Dr. Evil comparison.

PETER MAASS, JOURNALIST: Really, everybody who has met with Kim Jong-il and there have been quite a few, South Koreans, Americans, Russians, North Koreans who have since defected, they all come out saying this man knows what he's doing. He is not crazy. He might be emotional, he might be somewhat eccentric but crazy, absolutely not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): The danger experts say is not that Kim Jong-il will get irrational and set off a major conflict but that he'll do it by miscalculating. Even on that possibility one expert said, quote, "Kim Jong-il may draw his guns but they'll be on safety." -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Brian Todd. Thanks very much for that report. To our viewers please stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

And here's your chance to weigh in on this story. Our web question of the day is this -- "should the U.S. engage in bilateral negotiations with North Korea? You can vote right now. Go to CNN.com/wolf. We'll have the results coming up later in this broadcast.

Surprise visit. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drops in on Iraq's security forces and sheds some light as to when American troops may leave for good.

Also ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, he looked at the wedding ring and he said, oh, these are large. And I said not really. There's larger ones than those.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The royal wedding planners. From the ring to the dress to the ceremony. What the marriage of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will look like.

And later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a gypsy on a pirate ship and I'm setting sail for the governor's mansion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Unconventional campaign led by the performer who wants to be the next governor of Texas. I'll speak with Kinky Friedman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb today in Baghdad and insurgents launched bloody attacks on a mosque and a pair of bakeries killing 21 Iraqis. Amid all this violence a surprise visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson reports from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A handshake. A conversation. And a photo op with Iraq's new elite forces. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's chance to meet the men who could replace U.S. troops and a chance to highlight the need to make that happen quickly.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Your assignment as a special intervention force is going to be extremely important.

ROBERTSON: A simulated assault of a building for Rumsfeld's benefit, adding emphasis to the quality of U.S. training some Iraqi forces are receiving. The secretary of defense apparently happy with what he saw. RUMSFELD: In the past when I would visit various units they would tend to be individuals who were fairly green, new, in training, or just out. Today, one of the units we visited has been repeatedly in combat situations.

ROBERTSON: His visit began with a pre-dawn landing in the northern city of Mosul shrouded in secrecy out of concerns for his safety. One of Rumsfeld's first duties, a morale-boosting visit to a U.S. medical facility, awarding a Purple Heart to U.S. Sergeant Shawn Ferguson (ph) shot in the hand by a sniper the day before, the sergeant's second Purple Heart in four months.

Rumsfeld's visit, the first for a senior U.S. official since the Iraqi elections, also yielding possibly his last chance to meet with the U.S. favorite Ayad Allawi in his role as interim prime minister before election results strip him of that title.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: I appreciate all the multinational forces have been doing. And we had very frank and candid discussions about future cooperation.

ROBERTSON: Even as the secretary of defense's visit was under way insurgents were undermining the stability he once established to get U.S. troops out. A car bomb detonated outside a Shiite mosque 45 miles, about 70 kilometers northeast of Baghdad killed 12 and wounded 23 others.

In Baghdad, another attack on Shiites targeted two bakeries. According to police, two cars full of gunmen, pulled up outside, sprayed the workers with bullets and left. Nine died in the hail of gunfire adding to fears, Sunni insurgents are trying to foment sectarian violence.

With election results apparently getting closer, just three percent of the votes left to check a new political landscape will soon begin to emerge. It will be one despite Donald Rumsfeld's encouragement still heavily dependent on U.S. troops for security. Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Death of a playwright. He married a movie star and wrote some of America's best known plays. We mark the passing of Arthur Miller.

The president's focus, all attention is on Social Security. But what are his other major priorities? Our Carlos Watson has the inside edge.

And later, police uncover what they're calling a mass suicide plot. Why more than 30 people across the country were allegedly planning to kill themselves on Valentine's Day. Mary Snow is going to investigate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: Arthur Miller is being remembered today as one of the greatest playwrights in the history of the American theater. The man behind "Death of a Salesman" and other classics is dead at the age of 89. CNN's Eric Phillips has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Arthur Miller has given our nation some of the finest plays of this century.

ERIC PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chief among them, "Death of a Salesman" which won the 1949 Pulitzer Price and in 1953 his metaphor for McCarthyism, "The Crucible."

But Miller took his lumps before becoming known as a writer of classics.

ARTHUR MILLER: Fifty years ago I quit forever. I had a disaster with my first play. I resolved never to write another one.

PHILLIPS: Fortunately the playwright reneged on that vow and within a few years was penning masterpieces. Miller's characters were specific yet universal, infected with human flaws like pride, envy, greed and lust.

MILLER: The are of playwrighting consists mainly with the manipulation of time. Everything has to be squeezed so it becomes dramatic.

PHILLIPS: At the peek of his fame in 1956 Miller married Marilyn Monroe. The pair became the celebrity couple of their time. The marriage, his second of three, lasted until 1961. Later on, Miller was honored for his contributions to the theater and honorary degree from Harvard, a lifetime achievement award from the Tonys and the National Medal of the Arts. Toward the end of his life Miller lamented how Broadway had changed over the years.

MILLER: There was a kind of reverence that is gone. People felt it was an art. Not a business. Of course, it always was a business.

PHILLIPS: That business made Miller famous. And Miller's plays enriched readers and audiences everywhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Arthur Miller dead at 89.

When we come back, planning a royal wedding. It's no simple affair.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she'll wear something that's a cross between evening and day.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: New details about the dress Camilla Parker Bowles may wear and what the ceremony will look like.

Plus, the Democrats and Howard Dean, does the former presidential contender have what it takes to help him prove his party's political position? Our Carlos Watson has the inside edge.

And later, the musician turned mystery author who wants to be the next governor of Texas. I'll speak with Kinky Friedman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

Plans for a royal wedding already in full swing. New details of the marriage ceremony for Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, including her dress. We'll get to that.

First, though, a quick check of some other stories now in the news.

The military plans to test a laser warning system for pilots who have flown into restricted airspace over the nation's capital. The lasers will pain a test aircraft with red and green warning lights. Currently, fighter jets are scrambled to intercept unauthorized planes or drop flares to warn them away.

The Air Force has grounded 30 C-130 transport planes because of cracks in the windshield. The grounding follows the most recent inspection of the planes, including about a dozen currently deployed in Iraq.

Now that Britain's Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles have announced plans to marry, attention is turning to wedding details. Unlike the first time Charles got married, it will be a relatively low-key civil ceremony.

But as CNN's Diana Muriel reports, there's still a lot of planning to do.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the past, royal wedding have been all about pomp and pageantry, royal brides in tiaras and long trains. Certainly, Prince Charles' first marriage to Princess Diana in 1981 bore all the hallmarks of a royal betrothal. But his youngest brother, Prince Edward and Sophie, countess of Wessex, had a much lower-key ceremony at Windsor Castle.

That will be the venue for Prince Charles's second marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles on April the 8th. With just eight weeks to go to wedding day, planners say a lot of the preparations will already have been done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This would have been carefully thought out. And the teams on this will be enormous, both from the palace, in the house, sort of royal experts in events, and also outsourcing it to the very, very best in the field. So I think lots would have already been planned.

MURIEL: Prince Charles, who was visiting craftsmen at Goldsmith's Hall in London when the news broke of his engagement Thursday, wasted no time in doing a little wedding research.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prince Charles came in and he came over to me. And was -- and he looked at the wedding rings. And he said, oh, these are large. And I said, well, not really. There's larger ones than those.

MURIEL: Certainly, Camilla appeared delighted with her engagement ring, which she showed off at a gala dinner on Thursday night.

(on camera): Of course, what a lot of people will be watching for at this royal wedding is the dress. Now, it's not known who the designer will be. But it's very unlikely Camilla will wear anything resembling Princess Diana's wedding gown.

(voice-over): Elizabeth Emanuel designed Diana's ivory wedding dress and 25-foot-long train.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she'll wear something that's a cross between evening and day, I think. But there will be elements of wedding attire there, maybe the tiara, the necklace, plenty of diamonds, pearls, that sort of stuff.

MURIEL (on camera): Now, she likes quite figure-hugging things. We saw that last night when she was wearing the scarlet dress at Windsor Castle. Do you think she might go for something like that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think these are just too obviously bridal, actually. I think she will go for something slim. But if you look at the cut of her clothes, it's quite clever, because they skim. They don't hug. She's not got the body of a model. So they can skim and sort of create a nice lengthening effect.

MURIEL (voice-over): One thing there won't be at this royal wedding is a kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony. But Charles and Camilla have demonstrated their mutual affection in the past and are expected to do so again on their wedding day.

Diana Muriel, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And now let's take a quick look at some other news making headlines around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Rescue operations are under way in Pakistan after the heaviest rains in 16 years. Hundreds of people are missing. At least 54 victims died when a dam gave away. Venezuela floods. Floods and landslides in Venezuela have claimed at least 15 lives. One more death reported in Colombia. Thousands are homeless. Many had to be evacuated with helicopters.

Concert for a cause. A Sting concert in Australia raised more than $3 million for tsunami relief; 6,000 fans attended the sold-out concert. And the government of Western Australia agreed to match the receipts dollar for dollar.

And that's our look around the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Social Security and the president's budget proposals were the hot topics on Capitol Hill this week. But beneath the surface, there are other important developments as well.

CNN political analyst Carlos Watson joining us now live from New York, as he does every Friday with "The Inside Edge."

Carlos, a simple question. How is the president doing so far?

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The president is doing quite well, Wolf.

Not only are his approval numbers up -- he's at 57 percent in our latest poll. And not only are the Iraqi elections seen as having gone well, and obviously he's been able to get all of his Cabinet nominees approved, with the exception of Kerik, who dropped out. But, more significantly, while a lot of people are focusing on the new budget and on Social Security, the president may put really some fairly landmark signatures, fingerprints, if you will, on at least a half- dozen other areas.

Today, a class-action bill is going to get ready to move on to the House. You'll also see some movement in this term on education, on the environment, on energy, maybe even on nuclear proliferation. And so while we're going to talk a lot in 2005 about what the president does on Social Security, don't forget that this could be a pretty major legislative agenda in other areas as well that may not get as much attention.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the new budget he submitted to Congress this past week. What goes through your mind when you look at that huge document?

WATSON: Well, at least two significant things, Wolf.

One is how much the two different sides have switched places; 15, 20 years, you would have heard Democrats make many of the same arguments that Republicans are making about the need to maybe run deficits in order to allow certain programs, in those days, domestic programs, enough money to go on.

You would have heard Republicans say something very different, in that they would have said cut the deficits, instead of allowing a $400-billion-plus deficit. But what's also interesting to me, not only that the two sides have switched, is that really the only person who's got a chance to curb this deficit, make -- that there's really meaningful change in it this year, is not a member of Congress and obviously is not the president himself, but maybe Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who is obviously in his final year, and who, in the late '80s and early '90s, was an important voice on lowering the deficit and obviously led to some of those landmark agreements.

So, when he goes up to Capitol Hill in early March, listen closely to what he has to say. He, more than any Democrat, maybe more than any congressional Republican, may help actually lead to some real tightening in the budget.

BLITZER: Carlos, when you look at the Democrats right now, what do you see?

WATSON: You know, obviously, there's a celebration going on as we speak, as Terry McAuliffe, the outgoing chairman of the Democratic National Committee, hands the reins over to Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and presidential candidate.

While a lot of people talk about Howard Dean in terms of bringing a new face, maybe a more aggressive new tone, if you will, in addition to fund-raising over the Internet and some other things, maybe the most important thing to follow in Howard Dean's case is whether, in cooperation with Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, and other members of the Democratic Senate Committee, is he able to help Democrats attract really good Democratic Senate candidates for 2006?

And in order to do that, you can't start a year from now. You have got to start now, looking in Virginia, looking in Maine, looking in Rhode Island and in other places as well. So, when all is said and done, it won't be the rhetoric, but it will be the candidates that really in many cases judge Howard Dean's first couple of years and whether it's a success or not a success.

BLITZER: Carlos Watson with "The Inside Edge" -- Carlos, thanks very much.

WATSON: Good to see you.

BLITZER: Have a great weekend.

WATSON: You, too.

BLITZER: When we come back, investigators uncover a mass suicide pact planned for Valentine's Day. Our Mary Snow will have details. Dozens of people from across the country and Canada believed to be involved. Does Valentine's Day trigger depression in some people?

Also ahead:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINKY FRIEDMAN (I), TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Teachers are getting screwed, blued and tattooed by this system. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Meet Kinky Friedman, an outspoken performer who wants to be the next governor of Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Valentine's Day is a holiday to celebrate love and lovers, a reaffirmation that romance is alive and well. How then to make sense of the holiday depression some feel or reports from Oregon of an alleged Valentine's Day mass suicide pact?

CNN's Mary Snow joining us now live from New York. She has more on this story -- Mary.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, police are certainly trying to make sense of it and trying to track down more than two dozen people believed to be involved in this plot.

A man in Oregon is under arrest. He's been charged with solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit manslaughter. His lawyer had no comment. However, police believe that this plot was scheduled to be carried out on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW (voice-over): At a time when there's a saturation of images of happiness and gestures of giving comes a chilling side to Valentine's Day. In Oregon, police arrested this 26-year-old man, saying they got a tip that he was planning to use the Internet to arrange a Valentine's Day mass suicide.

TIMOTHY EVINGER, KLAMATH COUNTY SHERIFF: There was a person who had participated in a chat room that Mr. Krein had set up. And this individual had participated in that chat room along with what we believe to be at least 32 other people. There could be more.

SNOW: And in an effort to track them down, police seized a computer from suspect Gerald Krein's home. He has not yet made a public statement. But police believe that murder may have been a part of the plan.

EVINGER: There was some mention by one of the participants that she was going to kill her two children before she took her own life. And we're desperately searching, trying to locate that individual.

SNOW: Psychiatrist Alan Manevitz says, when it comes to relationships, Valentine's Day can also be a day that is used to send a desperate message.

DR. ALAN MANEVITZ, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: Suicide is an act of desperation. It's also an act of anger, sometimes anger at friends or family or a lover that you feel has abandoned you. It's also an act of anger against yourself.

SNOW: And Valentine's Day, he says, is similar to New Year's Eve, when people assess their lives.

MANEVITZ: Valentine's Day, while it's also a day that marks time when people deepen their relationships, it's also a time period where people reassess their relationships and you see that people decide not to continue their relationships.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And the emergence of chat rooms on the Internet of course have added a whole new dynamic. And in this case, authorities say that they're getting help from Internet providers to help try and track down the people believed to be involved in this plot -- Wolf.

BLITZER: So, is there a sense, Mary, that there's a trend unfolding now on the Internet?

SNOW: Well, Wolf, not so much in the United States have we seen this, but in Japan over the past couple of months, there have been several of these so-called suicide pacts.

And the Internet is something that's been connecting these people. In this case, authorities believe that Web cams may also have been involved. So this is something that we haven't seen so much here, but we have seen in other places.

BLITZER: Certainly something worthy of watching.

Mary Snow, thanks very much for that report.

When we come back, humorist, mystery writer, performer and maybe governor of Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDMAN: So I'm running as an independent for the first time since Sam Houston in 1859. There's never been an independent on the ballot in Texas until now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: My interview coming up with the very unique, the always candid Kinky Friedman. You'll want to stick around for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Texas is known, among other things, for its colorful politics. And Texas politics may even get more colorful now that entertainer Kinky Friedman has thrown his cowboy hat into the ring as an independent candidate for governor. We'll get to my interview with him in just a moment.

First, though, some background on this talented man.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): He's a singer. He's a mystery writer. FRIEDMAN: Well, I think there's 18 novels that I've churned out, I mean carefully crafted.

BLITZER: But could he be governor of Texas? More celebrities are running for office these days. Minnesota elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura. And California elected Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger. But could Texas elect Richard Kinky Friedman in 2006?

FRIEDMAN: Well, Texas elected a country singer to the governorship in the 1940s.

BLITZER: That's true. Pappy O'Daniel won his fame on the radio with a western swing band named the Light Crust Doughboys. But Kinky Friedman isn't your typical country singer, as he told CNN's Bruce Burkhardt.

FRIEDMAN: I'm a bastard child of twin cultures, Texas and Jewish. And the only thing they have in common is, we both like to wear our hats indoors.

BLITZER: As the leader of the Kinky Friedman and Texas Jewboys, he won a cult following with such politically incorrect satirical songs as "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed."

And when you look at some of Friedman's campaign materials, you might get the impression it's all a big joke.

FRIEDMAN: Now, here's some campaign posters. How hard could it be?

BLITZER: Still, Friedman says he's serious. His positions include legalizing casino gambling, reducing the number of executions, and making it a crime to declaw a cat.

To run as an independent, he'll need the signatures of more than 40,000 Texans. And none of them can be Republican or Democratic primary voters. A spokesman for incumbent Governor Rick Perry suggests Friedman has been smoking something. But Friedman doesn't see it that way. He says that, barring the candidacy of some other celebrity...

FRIEDMAN: You're talking to the next governor of Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Kinky Friedman, thanks very much for joining us.

What's going on? A lot of people hearing you want to be governor of Texas. Is this a joke or is this real?

FRIEDMAN: Well, this is -- it's not a joke, Wolf, in that I think the joke is that Texas is No. 1 in executions and we're No. 49 in funding public education. I think that's the joke.

BLITZER: So you're serious. You have substantive issues that you want to bring before the voters in Texas?

FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. And this is not a political campaign. This is kind of a spiritual calling.

Education is one thing that I'm very serious about. I think I say no teacher left behind, because the teachers are getting screwed, blued and tattooed by this system. And the governor appears to be more interested in ironing his shirt than he is in ironing out the problems we have in education.

BLITZER: Well, why not run as a Democrat? You're running as an independent.

FRIEDMAN: Yes. I think the choice between Democrat and Republican is pretty much today like plastic or paper or decaf or regular. I think it's a meaningless choice. And the people I like are George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt and Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, independents. After all, Jesus Christ was an independent. So was Moses. In their day, they stood up to the government and they told them the truth.

BLITZER: As a coffee drinker, I don't want to quibble over decaf or regular, because I know there's a difference there between caffeine and no caffeine.

But let's talk a little bit about some of the other issues that you want to use in the campaign. Give us some of the major issues on your agenda.

FRIEDMAN: Well, I want to shine a light into the darkness. The Texas governor doesn't do any heavy lifting, but he could do some spiritual lifting. And he could remind people that JFK is not an airport. And RFK isn't a stadium and Martin Luther King is not a street.

And I think that's what we need to do, is to inspire the people, especially the young people. And that's kind of why I'm running, outside of the fact that I need the closet space. I'm running because I've achieved a lot of my dreams in my life. And I want to see that people, others, especially younger Texans, get a chance to achieve theirs. And any Texan that is watching this, I want you to know, you are my special interest group. Nobody owns me.

BLITZER: Are you an old-fashioned liberal? Would you describe yourself as an old-fashioned '60s type of liberal? You and I are old enough to remember those liberals from that era.

FRIEDMAN: I liked Adlai Stevenson very much. I was probably a liberal then.

I'm no longer a liberal. I'm for nondenominational prayer in the public schools. I want to bring that back. What's wrong with a kid believing in something? I'm not anti-death penalty, but I am damn sure anti the wrong guy getting executed. And I'm afraid that, 2,000 years ago, we executed an innocent man named Jesus Christ. And the question is, what have we learned in 2,000 years? So I want to watch this very carefully.

BLITZER: So how do you go about getting on the ballot as an independent?

FRIEDMAN: It's very difficult in Texas. In California, anyone can run.

Here, you need 45,000 signatures. You collect them all in March '06, right after the primaries. You have two months to do it. And anybody who voted in the Democratic or Republican primary can't sign the petition. So, I either got to tell people don't vote in the primaries or we have to use the people that didn't bother to vote in the primaries.

In other words, the powers that be are not sending the elevator back down to the rest of us. They're determined to hang on to power any way they can. And I'm a gypsy on a pirate ship and I'm setting sail. Let's try that again. I'm a gypsy on a pirate ship and I'm setting sail for the governor's mansion.

BLITZER: Right. Now, that cigar, let's talk a little bit about it. You actually do smoke it, though. It's not just an unlit cigar. This is something that want to bring -- are you allowed to do what you're doing right now in Austin, Texas, smoke a cigar?

FRIEDMAN: In two years, I will be, yes, when I'm governor. That's part of my anti-wussification campaign.

Wolf, Texas is the Lone Star State. We didn't get this way by being politically correct. I want to take things back to a time when people weren't afraid to say merry Christmas, to a time when people could smoke a cigar, to a time when the Cowboys all sang and the horses were smart. So I'm going to fight this wussification if I've got to do it one wuss at a time.

BLITZER: And one voter at a time.

Kinky Friedman, running for governor of Texas, thanks for joining us.

FRIEDMAN: And may the God of your choice bless you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Thank you. Vice-versa. Right back at you.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Kinky Friedman in Austin, Texas.

One wuss at a time. I think he was looking at me when he was saying that.

We'll have the results of our Web question of the day. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Here are the results of our Web question for the day; 49 percent say yes; 51 percent say no. Remember, it's not a scientific poll.

Please tune in Sunday on "LATE EDITION.' Among my special guests, the South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, Sunday, noon Eastern.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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