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American Morning

AP: Papers Show Alito Said Roe V. Wade Should be Overturned; Julia's Katrina Wish List; "A.M. Pop"

Aired December 23, 2005 - 09:35   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And we got this just in to CNN, coming to us from the Associated Press this morning. As you well know, Sam Alito, who of course is President Bush's pick to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor.
Over the past weeks and month, people have been reading through his past writings, et cetera, to figure out where he stands on various issues. Well, this one coming to us now from the Associated Press. Apparently there's an 1985 document that's been released or revealed, and in this document, Samuel Alito said that the landmark Roe versus Wade ruling legalizing abortion should be overturned.

Obviously this is going to put a little fuel in the fire for people who are very contentiously debating Samuel Alito as a nominee. Let's get right to Elaine Quijano.

She's at the White House for this morning, has more on that, and also we're going to talk a little bit about the Patriot Act as well. The extension, instead of being six months is just five weeks now.

Elaine, good morning to you.

Let's start with the Patriot Act.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad. That's right. Well, that shortened extension, the result of objections raised yesterday, objections from the very powerful Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James Sensenbrenner. The Senate had approved a six-month extension of the Patriot Act, but the chairman insisted the House pass an extension only through February 3rd. The chairman saying a later extension would have allowed the Senate to, quote, "duck the issue for months."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: The Senate chose to punt the issue until next year by passing a six-month extension of the Patriot Act that contains none of the important civil liberties safeguards carefully negotiated by house and Senate conferees, and included in the Patriot Act conference report.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: Last night after the House passed the extension, the Senate following suit. Most of the senators had already left town, so Republican John Warner of Virginia on hand for that in the Senate. Now all of the developments were watched very closely by the White House as senior administration official indicated that President Bush, who is now at Camp David for the Christmas holiday, would sign off on the measure. That despite initially opposing a temporary extension of the Patriot Act -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: And a quick question for you on this news that we're reading to folks from the Associated Press about Samuel Alito saying that Roe versus Wade in this memo from 1985 should be overturned. What do you think the president's response is going to be as this becomes more public?

QUIJANO: Well, it's difficult to say. What I can tell you is that this certainly represents a complicated intersection, if you will, of events. Not only do you have this development, which we're just learning about, need to find out a little bit more on, but also you have against the back drop of his confirmation hearings, this story about the domestic-spying program. It's already been made clear that in fact Alito may be asked about that, as well whether or not the legality of that is something that he agrees with. So perhaps very rough confirmation hearings ahead for Samuel Alito.

O'BRIEN: Could be. All right, Elaine Quijano for us at the White House. Elaine, thanks, on both fronts there.

And two days before Christmas, we want to talk about what they're wishing for in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Let's get right to Julia Reed. She's a contributing editor for "Newsweek," also a New Orleans native, and she's been joining us over the last couple of months to talk about and update us from New Orleans.

Nice to see you, Julia. Good morning.

JULIA REED, "NEWSWEEK" CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Hi, Soledad. Nice to see you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you. How are things going?

Bring me up to sped since the last time we spoke.

REED: Well, I think that things are getting better all of the time, I really do. As we discussed, there are a lot of things I still wish for, but you know, there are lots of signs of life here, and what I wish the most is that folks would come back down here and see it for themselves.

O'BRIEN: You actually made a Christmas wishlist, not just for yourself, but it's kind of personal, but it's really for the city.

REED: It's a little personal.

O'BRIEN: Let's kind of run through it. The first thing you say is you'd like a brand new governor. And I would say that that -- well, I would say to that, some people would say lots of blame to go around in the circumstance. Why do you want a new governor? REED: Well, I mean, I don't -- I don't mind if we keep this governor if she starts acting right. A lot of things that she's done since August 29th have mystified me, but the one thing that's mystified me the most is she effectively killed a bill in the special session of the legislature that we just had that would consolidate our levee boards, and it's hard to explain to folks from out of here, but we had 24 levee boards in charge of our safety, and it comes to light that none of the levees -- if we just had the levees we had maintained properly and built correctly, I wouldn't be sitting here because this wouldn't be a story.

So we find out that there are political appointees, they're corrupt, they're ineffective, basically by their own admission, they just sit around and have coffee and beginets, and then kind glance at the levees and say they look good to me.

So it's time for us to have a responsible levee board, and she killed a bill that would consolidate all of those, have engineers instead of political appointees sitting there actually taking care of our levees, and I don't even see how we can ask for category-five money if we're not responsible enough to maintain the levees that we've got. So that was the thing...

O'BRIEN: Which kind of brings us to civic responsibility.

REED: Right.

O'BRIEN: I mean, when you say we, you mean the people, the citizens of New Orleans need to get more involved.

REED: Well, they did. The second thing that I always have wished for in New Orleans is that people would get involved and take responsibility for their own fate. And that has not been the case, because it's easy to say, oh, we had this corrupt government, they're so crazy, ha, ha, ha, you know, we're Louisiana, but after that happened, after the levee board bill died, people really got cranked up, and there were petition drives, and the paper was really great about it, and people across the board in the city really fought back, and so I thank that we'll have a special session in January. I think suddenly the governor has seen the light. I wear my little levee one, one levee board button everywhere I can go.

And so I'll keep the governor if she pushes through this bill in January, and then we can say, OK, we've taken responsibility for ourselves. we're not corrupt and crazy down here; give us category- five levees.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's take a look at your final thing on your list, which is come on down. People need to come back to New Orleans. Some people would say, well, is it really ready for tourists?

REED: Absolutely. Listen, I've got five people in my house that arrived last night. We had a great time last night. We went to the Ogden Museum and listened to jazz. People were packed in there. All of the restaurants are up and running. Arno's (ph) is one of the great old restaurants. What I'd really like is a reservation at Arno's tonight, but that's impossible. So people should come and see we're doing the best we can, and you know, we're not -- we're not the folks that we used to be, which is a good thing, and that's the best thing that Katrina's done for us.

O'BRIEN: Interesting way to put it.

Julia Reed, as always, great to check in with you. Have a happy holiday if I don't see you before then, all right?

REED: You, too.

And come on down yourself, Soledad. We miss you.

O'BRIEN: Actually I'll be there in a couple of weeks, Julia. We'll see you then.

REED: Great.

O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we're going to get back to this new information we have on Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court nominee. Apparently there's a memo from 1985 in which Samuel Alito says he thinks Roe v. Wade should be overturned. What's that going to mean? What could the fallout be? We've got a look at that just ahead.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. We've got this just in to CNN. A report coming to us from the Associated Press says that there is a 1985 document that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion, should be overturned, and this is a document apparently written by Judge Samuel Alito. Judge Alito, you'll recall, of course, was nominated by President George Bush to the Supreme Court to replace the position soon to be vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Now, obviously, many lawmakers have said that they want to sit down and talk about many of the decisions that Judge Alito has made in his past, but truly the focus has really been on abortion. That is going continue to be the focus as well, and in many cases they've been looking very closely at some of the landmark and important decisions that Judge Alito has made in his time on the bench, some of them about abortion.

For example, a case called Planned Parenthood versus Casey back in 1991, which threw out a Pennsylvania law that required women to -- who were seeking abortions to notify their husbands. So we are going try to get more information on this, but we know right now is that apparently Judge Samuel Alito saying back in 1985 in some kind of document this he believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. We're going to follow up on this story obviously throughout the morning and throughout the day.

Business news now. Andy's got that. There's a big fight brewing over packaging. ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes, well, when you see this packaging, you'll see that it closely resembles packaging from another company. So we will get to that in a second.

Let's start out with the markets, Soledad, and go down to Wall Street and see how stocks are faring at this hour. Well, that's pretty glad, 10888. Soledad and I, of course, have a bet to see whether the Dow will pass 11,000.

O'BRIEN: And trending downwards is not going help you, Andy.

SERWER: I'm saving out, Soledad. Five trading days left in the year. The markets are closed on Monday. Santa Claus is ringing the closing bell at the exchange today, so you may want to stay tuned to see that.

We want to talk about this packaging lawsuit. Procter & Gamble is suing a company called MaCleans (ph), which is a very large wholesale grocery company over packaging that P&G says looks almost identical to some very familiar products. Look at that, Bounty, paper towels. Well, the Towels. That's identical. i MEAN, except for the word "Bounty," and then there's Nyquil there, and there's some other stuff that looks exactly like Nyquil.

And you know, this is a gray area, Soledad. You can make things look pretty close, but not identical.

O'BRIEN: That's really close.

SERWER: But that's really close, wouldn't you say?

O'BRIEN: Yes, I would say, but I'm not a judge ruling in the case.

SERWER: Yes, well, we'll see what happens on that one.

And finally here I want to give a big shout out and a heartfelt thanks to my producer of three-and-a-half years Todd Bonan (ph), who is leaving AMERICAN MORNING and going to Wolf Blitzer's "SITUATION ROOM." Todd was born in a small town. No, he wasn't. He was born in Philadelphia. And to the extent that any of my hits were good at all, I owe a lot of it, well, all of it, to Todd.

O'BRIEN: The truth is, Todd's been propping you up for years. And after today, circling the drain.

SERWER: Oh, my goodness, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Hey, Todd, we're going to miss you.

SERWER: We really are. He did excellent work.

And I also hear that they get up a whole lot later in the day at "THE SITUATION ROOM."

O'BRIEN: They do? Are they looking for people? Todd, take us with you, man!

SERWER: Take us with you when you go-.

O'BRIEN: Congratulations, Todd. We're going to miss you.

SERWER: That's right.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Andy. Appreciate it.

Ahead this morning, for some families going to the movies is a tradition on the holidays. For my family, we have that tradition. A bunch of great new films coming out this weekend. There's a little something for everybody. We'll explain. We have your holiday movie preview coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: As an investigation to the background and opinions of Samuel Alito -- who is now a Supreme Court nominee -- continues, people continue to look through the things that he's written or that rulings that he has been part of to determine where he stands on various hot-button issues.

This is just coming into us now and now confirmed by CNN. Apparently back in 1985, Samuel Alito, who is a judge, wrote a memo. And in that memo he said that he believed the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion should be overturned. Apparently this is what he has said.

He said, "The government," quote, "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether and if so, to what extent, that decision should be overruled."

This document on June 3, 1985, was one of 45 documents that was released by the National Archives today. And we're getting more of this information to coming in to us. We're going to continue to monitor the story. Obviously, Judge Alito's position on abortion is one of the things that lawmakers are looking very closely at as they are getting ready for Judge Alito's hearings to be a justice in the Supreme Court. We follow that.

First, though, we have more news for you.

The holiday season is time for great movies. A bunch of them coming out. Today's edition of "A.M. Pop." "US Weekly"'s Bradley Jacobs got a preview.

Good morning. Nice to see you.

BRADLEY JACOBS, "US WEEKLY: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Lots to see. Do you have a family of tradition of going to the movies on Christmas?

JACOBS: Yes, I do.

O'BRIEN: You do?

JACOBS: But you know, I see movies every single week. Every single weekend.

O'BRIEN: So it's kind of work for you, isn't it?

JACOBS: Yes, yes. No. I will go see a few this weekend, or, you know -- over the holiday weekends I generally see a lot. Because there's so much to see at this time of year.

O'BRIEN: Yes, lots of good ones out there. So I'll run through the list. You tell me thumbs up or thumbs down.

JACOBS: OK.

O'BRIEN: "The Producers," nationwide over the weekend.

JACOBS: It has gone nationwide this weekend. This is -- of course.

O'BRIEN: I'm not sensing loving it.

JACOBS: I'm not -- no, no, no, you're definitely not sensing loving it. This is, of course, the big screen version of the Matthew Broderick/Nathan Lane, huge success on Broadway. And there's Uma Thurman in there. Uma brings a lot to this movie. She sings, she dances. She's really magnificent. But I think it doesn't translate that well to the screen. The lines fall a little flat.

O'BRIEN: You didn't love it. All right. "Rumor Has It," which stars Jennifer Aniston. You really haven't heard that much about this film.

JACOBS: Yes. I'm also pretty mixed on this film. This is, of course, Jennifer Aniston, flies home to Pasadena, one for her sister's wedding and finds out that her family may have inspired -- her family was actually the family that inspired the movie and the book "The Graduate." Shirley McLean plays her grandmother, who she finds out is based on the Mrs. Robinson character, or the Mrs. Robinson character is based on her.

Anyway, the movie is complicated and there aren't that many laughs in it. Jennifer Aniston does her best. But the screenplay has got some problems and I just don't -- I'm not recommending it hugely.

O'BRIEN: OK, we're not starting out with a bang.

JACOBS: We have some good ones.

O'BRIEN: "Match Point," which is Woody Allen. This has gotten rave reviews.

JACOBS: Yes. I loved this movie, Soledad. Here's the good ones. "Match Point"... O'BRIEN: Do you love every Woody Allen movie?

JACOBS: I don't love every Woody Allen. I loved a lot of early Woody Allen, but then the last decade or so he's been stumbling. But you know, this is the first movie he's made in London and it's sort of reinvigorated heim.

O'BRIEN: What's it about?

JACOBS: Well, it's a lot of things. It's a drama, it's a romance,, it's a thriller and it's got some dark comedy in it. Basically Scarlet Johanssen is an actress in London and she begins an affair with her soon-to-be brother-in-law, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. There he is on the right. And just kind of one thing leads to another and it goes and takes surprising turns you're not expecting and I really enjoyed it.

O'BRIEN: All right. I'm going to go see that one then.

Then we have "Casanova." Heath Ledger, which really makes any movie go worth seeing. And Sienna Miller, too, are the lovers in this film.

JACOBS: This is another good one.

O'BRIEN: You love it.

JACOBS: It's cute. We can recommend it. He plays the legendary lover in Venice, of course. He's caught with a young nun one day and then basically ordered by a politician in Venice to either get married or risk exile. So he then goes about finding a wife. He asks a rich girl to marry him but then he meets the Sienna Miller character, who is bookish and very free-thinking, and he sort of really truly falls for her.

O'BRIEN: Ah, the irony. Because I bet she doesn't want him back.

JACOBS: Exactly. She's resistant.

O'BRIEN: Ah, interesting story. And then we've got "Munich," which is Steven Spielberg's new film. It sounds amazing.

JACOBS: It's a movie to watch. It's got a lot of great reviews. Basically, as people know, it's the story of the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 Israeli athletes were massacred. And it's sort of the hunt for the men, the Palestinians who killed those athletes.

Eric Bana from "Troy," you remember him, he leads this sort of brigade to basically take revenge on these men. And it's controversial, it's very Steven Spielberg-y. It's very heavy and I think it's going to have to struggle to find an audience, but is very good and very worth seeing.

O'BRIEN: Oh, I bet it's great. Bradley Jacobs from "US Weekly," nice to see you. Happy holidays.

JACOBS: Thank you. Thank you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Have a great vacation. I know you're taking off for a little vacay, so good for you.

JACOBS: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: A short break and then we're back in just a moment with more on this breaking news coming into CNN. Judge Alito, who is trying to become a Supreme Court justice, and documents from 1985 on his position on Roe v. Wade. We're going to take a look at that just ahead. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. We've been talking about this new information. A memo, apparently from 1985, coming to us, now made public from Samuel Alito, the judge who is hoping to one day be a Supreme Court justice.

Let's get right to Kendall Coffey for some legal analysis. Kendall, good morning, thanks for talking with us.

First of all, it looks as if this document was -- or the quote from it was a friend of the court briefing that was filed. Give me a sense of what that means and the implications of this statement.

KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, a friend of the court means that various entities -- it could be a government agency, it could be a public interest group --- will be watching the case and decide that they want to weigh in on how a case is going to be decided. And they'll prepare what they call a friend of the court brief. Even though they're not actually one of the parties, they will put their views forward because the case involves matters of public interest. They want to have their say.

And in this case, the strategy being discussed was Roe versus Wade. And apparently now Judge Alito, then a member of the Justice Department, was advocating a thesis of dismantling abortion rights piece by piece.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let me read specifically for everybody what's being quoted as part of this moment owe. He said this or wrote this: "The government should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether and, if so, to what extent, the decision should be overruled." How important is this piece of this memo? What's the impact potentially?

COFFEY: Well, I think it's really going to crystallize the discussion during his confirmation hearing and perhaps polarize the entirety of the debate over his confirmation. We now have what in some context would be described as effectively a smoking gun document that tells you exactly where he was going on this issue. And I think the strategy of trying to dismantle abortion rights piece by piece is, in fact, something that could be in the future for the Supreme Court. Bear in mind that he's going say -- and I think with some validity -- that he was then a lawyer advocating for a client, reflecting an advocate's view. That as a judge he certainly would have a different focus, a different responsibility and that would include great respect for precedent.

Nevertheless, there's no mistaking the words. And I think that given the change that's going to be made -- we all recall that he would be replacing Justice Sandra O'Connor, that critical, critical swing vote -- I think this memo is going to be a major topic in the confirmation hearings.

O'BRIEN: No question about that. Kendall Coffey for us this morning. Kendall, thanks for helping us out. Daryn Kagan's got much more on this story. She picks up the coverage now. Hey, Daryn, good morning.

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