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American Morning

In Iraq, Authors of New Constitution Struggling to Meet Monday Deadline; Interview with Bob Saget

Aired August 12, 2005 - 09:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is exactly half past the hour on AMERICAN MORNING.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up, the new movie "The Aristocrats" opens nationwide today.

O'BRIEN; Have you seen this?

COSTELLO: No, but I want to. I want to hear the joke.

O'BRIEN: It's kind of a lame joke actually. It's not a funny joke at all. We had Andy Borowitz tell us the joke. It's not funny.

COSTELLO: Yes, but it's all in the delivery, isn't it?

O'BRIEN: And it's the history of the joke. You have the same -- different comedians, 100 comedians tell the joke over, and over and over again, and embellish it as they go. It's actually a really good documentary.

COSTELLO: And Bob Saget tells the...

O'BRIEN: "Full House," like he was, you know, the dad!

COSTELLO: I think He's trying to change his image.

O'BRIEN: Totally trying to change his image. He's actually a great guy, really fun, too. We talked to him. He's a riot.

First, though, a check of the headlines with Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center in Atlanta.

Good morning.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, ladies.

Well, now in the news, U.S. intelligence officials have wrapped up an investigation into Iran's new president. They were looking into his alleged involvement in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Iran. Speculation grew that Iran's new president was involved after some of the former hostages said they recognized him as one of the captors. Well, a CIA report has concluded he was likely not involved.

New York City's fire department is releasing records from 9/11. Included will be radio transmissions between emergency officials from that day and hundreds of pages of oral histories from firefighters. A wildfire emergency has been declared in Washington State. Emergency crews are battling a string of wildfires. The biggest blaze has already destroyed more than 40,000 acres. Wildfires are also raging in western Montana and Idaho.

And a new mission for NASA. The space agency's Mars orbiter blasted off earlier this morning. The launch was postponed Thursday after some technical problems. Well, NASA hopes the orbiter will collect more data from Mars than all of its previous missions combined -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, Fred, thanks a lot.

Let's turn to Iraq now, where the authors of a new constitution are struggling to meet Monday deadline with just three days to go. Major issues remain unsolved and unresolved. Correspondent Aneesh Raman is in Baghdad for us this morning.

Aneesh, let's talk about some of those issues that are holding up this draft.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Soledad, essentially two major issues that remain unresolved. Iraq's political leaders continuing marathon talks to try and reach consensus on these two issues. The first is federalism, the Kurds, and now some Shia leaders want autonomous leaders in the north and in the south of the country where those two groups have majority population, and where, by the way, the majority of Iraq's oil is. That has raised immediate concerns among the minority Sunni organization, as well as Shiities who are within the government, including the prime minister himself. They see this plan as something that would destabilize any collective identity for Iraq and raises serious confess about who gets the revenue from oil and what that would mean for the populations that don't live in those two areas. The government saying this is a non- negotiable.

So whether they reach an impasse on that is what seems to have occurred. The other issue is the role of Islam. Will it be a source, or the source of Iraqi law. That's not just a matter of wording. It has enormous issues, specifically for women's rights, and whether conservative clerics would be interpreting the law and deciding what women can and cannot do. So they are trying to reach consensus on these seemingly impossible questions to answer, given all those involved.

They do, Soledad, have one or option. If they cannot reach consensus, they can essentially sideline any or all of the controversial issues, make the constitution vague and let the parliament that comes in at the end of the year deal with them next year -- Soledad.

Aneesh Raman in Baghdad, laying out some of the big problems that lie ahead. Thanks, Aneesh.

Let's right to Feisal Al-Istrabadi. He's the deputy permanent representative of Iraq to the United Nations. Before taking the U.N. post, he was one of the drafters of Iraq's interim constitution.

It's nice to have you. And, obviously, you've been knee-deep in these kinds of discussions and problems before.

First, can you draft make the deadline of Monday?

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI, DEP. REP. OF IRAQ TO U.N.: Well, whether it's exactly on time isn't the point. The point is that the process is unfolding. I think...

O'BRIEN: You don't think there's going to be big implications, if it's not Monday, it's Tuesday?

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: No. I mean, the original November 15th agreement, which set February 28th as a date by which we should have had the interim constitution was missed by three days. It didn't really matter in the end. What's more important is that a consensus is reached about the issues more than whether it's done on the 15th, or the 16th or the 17th.

O'BRIEN: The consensus reach and the issues, as we just heard from Aneesh a couple minutes ago, the issues are huge. And reaching consensus, some people at this point are saying, virtually impossible. It if you look at some of the issues that he laid out, the role of religion in government, the issues about the Kurdish state, oil revenues following that, and women's rights as well. Do you think they can actually resolve all four of these issues, maybe not by Monday, or by Tuesday or by Wednesday, or I'll even give you next Monday?

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: Well, we resolved them once already. They were the same issues that popped up when we were drafting the interim constitution, when the government council was passing on the interim constitution. They were resolved one time. You have largely the same actors negotiating the draft of the permanent constitution. They'll be resolved. You know...

O'BRIEN: Will that resolution, though, be sidelining issues? I mean, does that count at resolved in a way that other people deal with it later?

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: It's possible that some issues may prove too technical in nature and require consideration at a different time, but I think that there will be a document in the end that all Iraqis will support. That's exactly the history when he with the interim constitution, and all political parties at least will support, and that's what will happen on the permanent constitution as well.

O'BRIEN: Those issues that require consideration at another time, are you concerned that later on it could be a huge problem? I mean, if you look at the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, slavery, as an issue was sort of glossed over, and no one came to any concrete discussion and finalization on it, and that's really what ended up to a large degree to play role in the Civil War.

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: Yes. O'BRIEN: You could say there's an analogy here.

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: Yes, but I don't think we should make too much of the analogy. I think the issue, not nearly so contentious. I think that it may be that there is some agreement, that some issues need not be resolved now. There are some issues may require a more administrative action, such as a fuller census and so on they've we've had in Iraq than in -- over the past 50 years. So I don't think the issues are nearly as divisive as the issue of slavery was in American history.

O'BRIEN: There's a leader of a major Shiite party who, as you well know, suggested maybe the Shiites should take over a state and have autonomous rule of their own land? Is their support for that?

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: Well, I wouldn't characterize it as taking over a state. You make it sound as though the massive Shiite hordes are going to move from one geographic area to another and take it over. That's not the case. There are areas, in the south, particularly where the Shiites are, and majority, although...

O'BRIEN: But they would basically divide off, and that would be the Shiite...

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: Not divide off. The principle that has been accepted in Iraq is that there would about federated arrangement. Now the argument is about what exactly does a federated state look like. Is it three reasons, as your graphic suggested? Is it 18 governments? Is it sort of a Spanish system, like a Spanish system, which has multiple...

O'BRIEN: Do you see that happens, whatever the end division ends up being?

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: I think there will be -- I don't accept the word division. I think that on the contrary, the federal concept what will cause the unification of Iraq and the unity of Iraq. Iraq has been divided since 1991, since the safe havens were created, a federal structure will, in fact, reintegrate Iraq into a sovereign hole. The question which Iraqis will decide, ultimately, the populace in a referendum on the 15th of October is, what exactly is the shape of that federated state? What is the structure of that federated state? And whatever accommodation the Iraqi political party and the Iraqi populace make I think will be a long-lasting effort.

O'BRIEN: And the implications of that decision, hugely important, too.

FEISAL AL-ISTRABADI: They are very important, exactly.

O'BRIEN: Feisal Al-Istrabadi, the deputy permanent representative to the -- of Iraq to the United Nations, nice to see you, and thank you.

(WEATHER REPORT) COSTELLO: "The Kiss" isn't just a kiss. It's a legend. The famous photograph, snapped as Americans celebrated the end of World War II. And now 60 years later, people will attempt to re-create it at a kiss-in New York's Time Square on Sunday.

Jeanne Moos has more on the lip-lock frozen in time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sure, there have been a lot of memorable kisses: Al and Tipper, Madonna and Britney, Lady and the Tramp. Not to mention Spiderman having his mask peeled hanging upside down.

But when it comes to lingering kiss, these two have been lip- locked for 60 years, frozen in this photo that appeared in "Life" magazine.

(on camera): Now, did you think was a romantic kiss or you just thought, get this guy off me?

EDITH SHAIN, NURSE IN PHOTOGRAPH: Well, I didn't think that. At a time like that you kiss everybody.

MOOS (voice-over): V.J. Day, August 14, 1945, victory over Japan. It's become a tradition to commemorate the date by bringing a Jay Seward Johnson (ph) sculpture of the kiss.

(on camera): Watch when you're putting your hands!

(voice-over): To the exact spot in Times Square where it happened. Who better to unveil it than the nurse believed to be the one grabbed by a sailor she'd never met.

(on camera): He really bent you back. Did you have any back damage or vertebrae injury or anything?

SHAIN: No, not at that time.

MOOS: Edith Shain is now 87. She was 27 back then, when both the Japanese and she surrendered unconditionally.

(on camera): What was the actual best kiss you remember in your life?

SHAIN: I've had a lot of better things.

MOOS (voice-over): Edith likes to laugh and she likes men.

(on camera): You have three boyfriends?

SHAIN: Now?

MOOS: Do you still kiss like this?

(voice-over): As for the sailor, his identity is murkier. At the moment, a Rhode Island man named George Mendonsa has the edge, though others claim it's them.

GEORGE MENDONSA, POSSIBLE SAILOR IN PHOTOGRAPH: Of course, I was drinking, celebrating, raising hell with everybody else.

MOOS: George's case is boosted by Mitsubishi researchers at the Merle (ph) labs. They did 3-D imaging of George's face, then de-aged it and seemed to get a pretty good match with the sailor's photo taken, by Alfred Eisenstaed.

In movies, guys who grab women and kiss them tend to get slapped. Maureen O'Hara fractured her wrist slapping John Wayne.

"The Kiss" has ended up on a stamp. It's been parodied on "The Daily Show" and on this "Don't Ask, Don't Kiss and Tell," New Yorker cover.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kiss me like that!

MOOS: These two celebrated their 20th anniversary by imitating a 60-year-old kiss.

(on camera): Can I bend you back? Let's see. How would we do this?

(voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: They stopped it. It's a family show. They stopped it just in time. The sculpture, by the way, will be on display in New York's Time Square through Sunday, the 60th anniversary of V.J. Day.

O'BRIEN: Still to come, this week's "Extra Effort" is a special program for kids that's offering some hope and raising spirits, as well, with the help of some four-legged friends. We'll explain ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The world of art merges with the world of business. With that story and a check on the markets, Andy Serwer is here, "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: Some very intriguing business pictures, Carol. How often do you hear that?

Let's check out markets, first of all. Stocks retreating at this hour, down 43 on the big board. Not surprising, really, after yesterday's run-up. Price of oil testing new highs now, over $66 a barrel. The trade deficit hitting a new record. Annual rate of $686 billion -- 617 last year, $617 billion. And that's all about the price of oil as well. Dell dragging down tech stocks. Numbers not pleasing Wall Street. That stock's down eight percent.

Business art. It sounds kind of ugly, but maybe it isn't. Twenty-three-year-old Erin Crowe graduated from the University of Virginia a couple of years ago. She's going to grad school. She's got a thing for Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

COSTELLO: What kind of thing?

SERWER: She likes to paint his portrait.

COSTELLO: Oh.

SERWER: That's her portrait, one of her portraits of Alan Greenspan. Says he has a great face for portraiture, and her paintings are red shot now. It kind of looks like Thomas Hart Benton style, wouldn't you say? Eighteen paintings at show recently, sold all of them. All of them sold for thousands of dollars. People on Wall Street buying them like hot cakes.

COSTELLO: Andrea Mitchell, first in line?

SERWER: Probably. Although maybe she got a freebie. She actually said she's going write the Fed chairman an letter saying that she's not obsessed. Don't worry.

COSTELLO: I'm not a stalker.

SERWER: I'm not a stalker, that kind of thing. She just says that he's a cool guy.

COSTELLO: He does have an interesting face to paint.

SERWER: I think so. Turns 80 in March, by the way. We knew about that.

Let's talk about this picture, this patriotic Jeep picture. This is -- these are Jeeps. One hundred and forty Jeeps used to make an American flag. That's 226 tons, Carol.

COSTELLO: Wow!

SERWER: Of Jeep. In Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. This is part of national anthem project by DaimlerChrysler, teaching Americans "The Star Spangled Banner," re-teaching them, saying that a majority of Americans don't know the words. They're doing that to kick it off.

COSTELLO: Well, good for them, then. Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Soledad?

O'BRIEN: And you know, Andy, when you have to write a letter saying you're not stalker and you're not obsessed, that generally is a very good sign that you're a stalker and you're a little obsessed.

SERWER: The lady doth protest too much.

O'BRIEN: Exactly.

But we move on. And, in fact, each Friday at our weekly "Extra Effort" segment, we pay tribute to those who kind of go the extra mile to help other people. This morning, a woman who's turned her passion helping children and riding horses into a labor of love.

Here's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBBIE KANZER, OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST: Ready to go? You ready to go?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Debbie Kanzer can't imagine doing anything else with her life.

KANZER: It's spectacular. It's a blast. And it's such a privilege to be a part of.

LOTHIAN: An occupational therapist and riding instructor who has combined both skills to help children with special needs.

KANZER: Sometimes you see little miracles.

Good holding the reins, buddy!

And sometimes you have the privilege of being there when they say -- when they talk for the first time, or communicate, or start walking.

LOTHIAN: At Lovelane, the program she founded in Lincoln, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, Debbie, a small staff and an army of volunteers work with about 100 children, like 9-year-old Benjamin Siedman.

KANZER: Good job, Ben!

LOTHIAN: He suffers from a rare terminal disorder that has been robbing him of speech and muscle control. But on a horse, Benjamin's mother sees small miracles.

JENNIFER SIEDMAN, BEN'S MOTHER: When he gets on that horse and he speaks a sentence or he smiles, or even just turns his head a certain way to look at you when he's riding by, you see the passion, and we don't really get opportunities see that in Benjamin much anymore.

KANZER: The horse and the gait and the movement and the whole environment provides a lot of the therapy.

LOTHIAN: Six-year-old Delaney Supple suffers from cerebral palsy. She can't walk and can't talk, but once a week, on the back of a horse, something happens.

KANZER: Good job!

DAVID DUPPLE, DELANEY'S FATHER: I'm amazed that she can actually stand up in the stirrup, but it's a way for her to move around and get the feeling that, you know, get from walking. LOTHIAN: Debbie was first exposed to pain, suffering and rehabilitation in high school, when a close friend was injured in a car accident and needed physical therapy. She was also impacted by a Special Olympics coaching job. Eventually, her passion for helping kids and riding horses ended up on the same path. It's been a mostly invigorating ride, but sometimes, there's pain.

KANZER: We've had more kids that have terminal disorders and some of our children have died. And that can be -- you know, it can break your heart and I don't think you can get hard to that all, or get used to it.

LOTHIAN: But she tends to focus on the smiles and sounds, and small steps forward.

KANZER: It's such a privilege to go home and feel like, I just made a difference today.

LOTHIAN: A difference in the lives of children facing difficult challenges every day, but who escape for a few moments in the saddle.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Lincoln, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Love Lane has more than 200 children on its waiting list. And while they're always looking for volunteers and support, they encourage people to find similar programs in their communities that also need help.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The joke begins innocently enough. Goes like this -- so a guy walks in to a talent agent's office and -- but the rest is pretty shocking, sexually explicit and in the world of stand-up comedy, legendary. "The Aristocrats" is a documentary about the dirtiest joke ever told, and a who's who of comedians offer their take on the joke that since the days of vaudeville have taken on a life of its own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SAGET, COMEDIAN: You know, now that I think back on it, it's probably wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now it looks like some strange sort of mouth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are swimming in manure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wait, wait, wait. Backtrack a little here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They would juggle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there's screaming in blood everywhere. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's completely covered with...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She blows a smoke ring out of her...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then we all drop our drawers and take a huge...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, what do you call him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The aristocrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Comedian Bob Saget is in the film, joining us.

You tell the dirtiest version of the dirtiest joke ever. Truly, that is fair to say.

SAGET: I don't know. I think it's very subjective.

O'BRIEN: No, no. I'm not the only one who thinks that.

SAGET: Really?

O'BRIEN: People have written reviews about this movie, who love this movie, and say you tell the raunchiest, grossest dirtiest version of the dirtiest joke.

SAGET: I'm drawn this way.

O'BRIEN: What is it about this joke that actually sustains a movie?

SAGET: It's amazing that it sustains a movie, because it's not a good joke.

O'BRIEN: A horrible joke.

SAGET: And the Whole purpose of the joke is what 15-year-old boys would laugh about behind the schoolhouse, which is here's the worse thing I've ever heard, and there's a joke that went around in showbiz for like 75 years, and I heard it, like, 20 years ago, but supposedly one of the -- Jack Benny told Gary Owens, who was in the movie, I found out at the premiere. It's just a very -- a horrible joke. Not one that we even want to share with anyone.

O'BRIEN: It's not funny at all?

SAGET: Not funny at all. And so how did they do it? And why did they do it? It's 100 comedians that are -- some people don't tell the joke. Robin Williams is in it, and Chris Rock. They don't tell the joke.

O'BRIEN: The tell the history of the joke. They tell around the joke, they tell stories about the joke, but some people don't tell the joke.

SAGET: Right, they improv around it. It takes 10 minutes -- you saw the film, it takes 10 minutes to even get to the joke, which is fascinating.

O'BRIEN: George Carlin is the first one who actually tells the joke?

SAGET: I guess he's the Yoda of the movie.

O'BRIEN: But he was like, every single who does the same old joke, which is a stupid joke, and it's an old joke and it's not a funny joke, everybody's personality comes right through.

SAGET: I think the key to it, too, is it's about desperation in show business. How low will people go to make it in show business? Would "The Aristocrats" be booked on "American Idol." You know, do they act, and then, you know, they all sit there and Simon goes, I don't really like it.

O'BRIEN: If it's a long joke, you've really gone low?

SAGET: You can supposedly tell this joke for a long -- when they filmed me, when Pen Gillette (ph), the filmmaker, and Paul Pervanza (ph) came with their three digital cameras, I think I did about 20 minutes or 25 minutes.

O'BRIEN: I think the record was 30, right? Don't they say in the movie the record was 30?

SAGET: I think Chevy Chase -- Michael O'Donahue (ph) I believe, said -- did it the longest. I don't know. It's frightening.

O'BRIEN: It is frightening.

SAGET: I can never go back to family television again.

O'BRIEN: I was going to say, so not your M.O. As far as we know.

SAGET: I mean well. I just want to make people laugh, you know.

O'BRIEN: I hear you. I hear you.

SAGET: But I do stand-up, and my stand-up is a little bit more 'R' rated, and the people yell out, tell the "Aristocrat's" joke!

O'BRIEN: Do they yell out "Full House." Remember you were on...

SAGET: They always do. They always do. They yell out all the same things, "Full House," the Olsen twins. Who wrote your jokes on the video? So that's the order of things. See, the crew laughed. Yes, those jokes suck. They were very -- I wrote it with two Canadian guys.

O'BRIEN: It's nice to you have come in and talk to us. The movie's good. The joke is bad. SAGET: Correct. You're very smart. It is wrong.

O'BRIEN: I'm breaking it down for everybody.

SAGET: It is wrong. It's wrong. They should not see it unless they're not offended. People should not see this movie unless things really don't offend them, because it is offensive.

O'BRIEN: Yes, yes.

SAGET: That being said -- that's offensive? I'll pay for that.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Bob. Nice to see you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: I can hear the stampede now, people going to see the movie. It's offensive! AMERICAN MORNING will be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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