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Glenn Beck

Analyst Provides First-Hand View of Mideast Conflict; Did U.N. Play Role in Conflict?; Time for Fidel to Go?; Mel Gibson`s Meltdown

Aired August 01, 2006 - 19:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: Tonight`s GLENN BECK is brought to you buy the Tourism Board of Cuba, reminding you that Castro`s almost dead, and they really need your money.
BILL HANDEL, HOST: Hey, everybody. I`m Bill Handel, in for Glenn Beck, who happens to be off sitting with his sick friend, Fidel Castro.

Now despite mounting casualties on both sides, fighting in the Middle East continues on. The loss of life and property has been tremendous. And even though 54 Lebanese civilians, mainly kids, were killed on Sunday, and it`s now reported nearly a million Israelis are living in bomb shelters, a peaceful solution just did you want seem likely. Doesn`t seem possible. At least not any time soon.

The two sides speak very similar languages, but they couldn`t be farther apart. The conflict defies logic for the western mind. We just don`t get it.

Now in my practice, I do surrogate parenting and quite often, I have Middle Eastern clients. I`m doing this for years. In the western world when we have a deal, we shake hands. It`s over. It`s done. In the Mideast, they shake hands; that begins the deal. Now let`s begin the negotiations. It`s a different mind set.

For a firsthand account of what it`s like on the streets of Jerusalem, I`m pleased to be able to be joined by Middle East analyst and a very good friend, David Gilbert, who lives in Israel.

David, the Jewish people are no strangers to war. Now what sense are you getting of how people there are feeling about this particular conflict?

DAVID GILBERT, MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: Well, Handel, it`s good to see you.

I think the way to describe the feeling here in Jerusalem and throughout Israel is the feeling of defiance that the Israeli people very much think that this is a war that they have to fight. It`s been thrust upon them, and they feel like they`re going to win it.

Now it`s interesting, it`s sort of a parallel reality. Here in Jerusalem you could almost think that there wasn`t a conflict going on. Life goes on as normal. However, if you go about two hours north, three hours north up to Haifa and other areas in the north, you can see people in bomb shelters and people very much off the streets and very much a ghost town sort of a feeling. Today, I should say, for the first time in a while, the people in Haifa were actually out of their bomb shelters, Bill.

HANDEL: Let`s talk for a moment this philosophy this time around with Israelis. Usually the wars are very quick, six-day war, the Yom Kippur War. This is now three weeks. It could go on for another two, three, four more weeks.

How are the Israelis dealing with that?

GILBERT: Well, Bill, you`re right. I think many Israelis have come to expect a quick, crushing victory, the likes of perhaps the 1991 Gulf War is the American parallel, where we just sort of went in there, did the job very quickly and got out of Dodge. The Six-Day War is probably the example for the Israelis.

This is not going to be like that. Many military analysts say this is a war against a guerrilla group, which could very easily meld into the surrounding areas and can hide out for years and years and years. We`ve seen a similar example in Iraq, where the army sort of evaporated into fighting the American troops for the last three years.

I think the very real sense among many Israeli analysts is ultimately this war is going to go on for a while. The Israelis are going to try to end it as quickly as possible. They`re going to fight. They`re going to send in an awful lot of armed troops in to Southern Lebanon, but ultimately, you`re right, it`s not going to be an easy one to win.

HANDEL: David, you`ve lived there for, what? Six years now. What`s it like for you living there? I mean, you go to the north? Do you have friends that have been victims of Katyusha rockets? Bomb shelters. Tell us a little bit about that.

GILBERT: It can be challenging. There`s no doubt. Overall, I think it`s terrific to be here. But I`ll tell you a couple stories. I got a call from a woman that lives in the northern town of Spat (ph), and we were talking about this and that and the other thing. She wanted to know what the media coverage was like in terms of the conflict in the north. And I was explaining it to her.

The middle of the conversation she very nonchalantly says to me, you know, by the way, my -- a Katyusha rocket hit my apartment, wrecked it, leveled everything. She -- didn`t seem to affect her in a very real sense. Most people would have gone running and moved out of the country immediately. She was very defiant, feeling that if anybody is going to leave their homes it`s going to be the terrorists.

Other people in Haifa, I met with the mayor of Haifa in particular and as I was speaking with him, he was telling him how Haifa is a town of Arabs and Jews living together and how it`s a town of coexistence. And just as he was saying it, not 10 seconds went by before there was an air raid siren. Incoming Katyusha rockets. Had to take cover in the bomb shelter.

So these are stories that happen day-to-day. People in Haifa in bomb shelters with their little kids. The kids basically after two weeks in bomb shelters are going stir crazy. How many times can you play Monopoly? How many times can you play cards? The parents are beside themselves in terms of what they can do with these kids, Bill.

HANDEL: David, we`ll talk again. I talk to David every day on the radio show, so we`ll probably no doubt talk tomorrow, David Gilbert.

Now, the Middle East situation is exactly the kind of crisis which the United Nations was supposed to be conceived for. It should come as no surprise they`re failing miserably, horribly. Why? Because they always do. They`re totally ineffectual. They`re a waste of time. It`s a waste of money. Even the clubhouse that they have that they call the United Nations building is right here on prime Manhattan real estate.

They continuously support nations that pose as real and hate us, the United States. As I said yesterday, give them the eviction notice. Build the luxury condos. Sell the blue helmets on eBay and make Kofi Annan get a real job. He`s overpaid anyway.

Now, we all know there are two sides to every story. So let`s check in with Claudia Rosett. She`s a journalist in residence for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

Claudia, is it time to accept the fact that the U.N., in fact, is useless and we all know it?

CLAUDIA ROSETT, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY: Oh, it is way past time, actually. I thought your introduction was quite well put. In fact, I would respectfully disagree with you on one point. It`s worse than useless. Unbalanced, it actually does harm. It helped incubate this war.

HANDEL: You know, let`s explore that for a moment. You`re saying that it`s not just a politically incorrect organization that gives lip service to democracy and actually helps third world countries and bashes the United States which I think -- and, and their diplomats all don`t pay tickets in New York. They get away with it.

You`re saying it actually harms the world effort towards peace. Let`s talk about that for a moment.

ROSETT: Well, let`s start with the problem that the U.N. itself has no definition of terrorism. That`s sounds all very well -- abstract and uninteresting, but what it means is they have -- don`t even have a way of recognizing that Hezbollah is a terrorist group.

To the U.N., it`s just one more group. It`s a Lebanese militia which they passed a resolution to disarm and then did not.

But you`re dealing with an institution, the United Nations, set up at the end of the World War II, which 60 years on, entering the era in which we are fighting a global war involving terror as a major tactic on the side of the bad guys and the U.N. doesn`t even recognize terrorism. They still are locked in that Arab black lobby debate over should Palestinian suicide bombers be regarded as, quote, "freedom fighters."

HANDEL: Hey, let`s talk about the corruption for a moment because...

ROSETT: Yes.

HANDEL: You made a fascinating point how they`re connected in that Arab kind of thinking, where corruption is just a way of life. Yasser Arafat and the people of the Palestinian territories or state or whatever you want to cal it.

It`s, you know, he raped them. Kofi Annan with that -- the food-for- oil program and his kid and the billions that are being stolen. It seems no one cares when you`re dealing with those people. With Enron, we care. How come they don`t care?

ROSETT: Because they operate under no system of law. They are not accountable. In the entire oil-for-food scandal, which involves Saddam Hussein under U.N. supervision, the U.N. paid more than a billion dollars to supervise that program. Saddam Hussein made off with more than 18 -- $17, $18 billion at least skimmed, smuggled, stolen.

The U.N. ran this program. Not a single U.N. official has even been fired for what happened there.

HANDEL: All right.

ROSETT: Let alone gone to jail.

HANDEL: Are they looking in to what happened to the money, Claudia? I mean, billions have been stolen clearly. Where does that go?

ROSETT: Well, actually, some of it laundered through Syria and Beirut and may well be funding the current war. The U.N. has shown no interest whatsoever in tracking this down. The U.N. has been sending aid in to Lebanon right now and is making no distinction between Hezbollah and the rest of the Lebanese.

HANDEL: Great. What an astounding accusation. Think about that for a moment. Money that flowed to the U.N. goes back to Syria, Iran, that funds Hezbollah. That`s killing people. I mean, that is -- is that legitimate? Is that a legitimate allegation?

ROSETT: Well, in the -- it`s an accurate description. Money that flowed through the U.N. program flowed through one of the places we know that Saddam Hussein hid the secret bank accounts is Syria. The treasury -- U.S. treasury has provided information about that, acquired after the fall of Saddam.

And some of that was trucked through Lebanon. In fact, Lebanon is a major center in this in any event, but U.N. has presided over the program where that happened, and the U.N. has shown no interest in following up on any of that. It`s over and done. They have accounted for nothing.

HANDEL: Claudia, thank you.

ROSETT: Thank you.

HANDEL: Up next, is it farewell to Fidel? More importantly, does it mean I finally get that good Cuban cohiba (ph)? Back with a Castro countdown right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANDEL: After 47 years of absolute rule, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has handed over control of the country to his brother Raul, and it seems that the almost 80-year-old Fidel has undergone abdominal surgery and is going to need some time to recover.

So seemed like a good idea to let his baby brother, who`s only 75, by the way, watch the store while he`s on the mend.

Raul is even more radical than Fidel. Raul has been Fidel`s right- hand man since January 1, 1959, the day of the revolution. Now, could Fidel`s condition be even more serious? Is Cuba a new tropical resort destination conveniently located 90 miles off the coast of Florida, just a heart beat away?

Let`s ask someone who really knows. Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of "U.S. News & World Report", a man who spent hundreds of hours with Fidel Castro.

Mort, you were with Fidel six weeks ago. Now we`ve all got to go some time. Is this it? Is it time for Fidel to go?

MORT ZUCKERMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Well, you wouldn`t have known it from my visit with him. Because actually, there have been a lot of rumors that he`s suffering from Parkinson`s and has not been well.

You may recall, he fell on the stairs leading out of his office a couple of years ago, badly banged up his knee, broke his knee and shoulder, and it took a while for him to recuperate from that.

But I have to tell you that when I was with him, he seemed to be in perfect health. I mean, he was full of energy, and we had a six-hour meeting that started about 9 p.m., ended at 3 a.m. in the morning. I think I was more tired than he was. And he was still going on. And was right on top of his game.

So you wouldn`t have known it from where he was six weeks ago. So whatever it was that he has now, I think was not something that they knew that he had then.

HANDEL: Now Mort, you`ve been to Cuba many times, and you know Fidel Castro. And I`d like you to comment on the Cuban-Americans in Miami. I think we don`t get the real picture. We think that everybody in Cuba wants to overthrow Fidel, that they`re just waiting for him to die.

And my take on it, if he were to run for president today in a purely democratic election, he would overwhelmingly win that election. The Cuban people love him, don`t they?

ZUCKERMAN: Well, you know, it`s interesting. What Castro has said to me is that the way that he measures his support is different from the way we measure support. When they have elections and they do have elections, he measures what his popularity is by the number of people that either destroy their ballots or vote no, basically. They write a "X" in the ballot instead of voting in favor of him.

And his negatives, as we say, have never gotten above 10 or 11 percent. The highest was something like 11 point something percent.

So on that basis is the way he measures his support. I do think he`s still very popular. Indeed, he is the political icon in Cuba, and the people who do not support him, mostly the middle and upper middle class who left Cuba early on after the revolution, they are the people who are now primarily living in Cuba. I`m sure there are a lot of people who are still unhappy in Cuba, but by and large, I think the bulk of them support him.

HANDEL: So you`re talking -- you`re talking about people living in Miami, in Florida.

ZUCKERMAN: Yes. I`m sorry if I missed that.

HANDEL: Let`s talk about Raul. We know Raul`s taking over. He`s the designate. Will the Cuban people accept Raul, even on a lesser level, and accept a dictatorship from the brother?

ZUCKERMAN: Well, you know, you have to understand the nature of the government there. Yes, I think they will accept Raul, if only because he has a part of that revolution, as they would call it, from day one and is Fidel`s brother.

But there is a whole administration there of a whole second generation of Cubans led by Carlos Laha (ph), who is essentially the prime minister. They call him secretary of the cabinet and a whole series of cabinet officials, who I think do have legitimacy within the Cuban population.

And, in fact, they`ve had enough of a turn around in the economy in the last couple of years that I think that there is a general sense of content. If you can measure that by just walking around the city, as I did, I think there was a general sense of content within Cuba among the Cubans who were there.

HANDEL: Is the fact that Cuba`s in such trouble because it`s 90 miles away. If it were the tip of South America, it would be a whole different country?

ZUCKERMAN: Well, to some extent, but you have to understand that Castro has been poking the thumb in the American presidencies for now almost 50 years, and he has survived many American presidents. In fact, he is the longest serving political leader in the world. His only competitor was King Hussein of Jordan. And when he passed away, there`s Castro, 47 or 48 years running one country.

Now he`s gone through a lot of difficult times. The most interesting -- one of the most interesting answers he ever gave me to a question, I said what was the biggest mistake you ever made? And he said too closely aligning myself, he said, with the socialist camp.

HANDEL: That`s interesting. Mort, we have to run. Thank you very much. Mort Zuckerman.

The bottom line here is, until we know how Castro is doing health- wise, the future of Cuba and the leadership is pretty speculative. And here to help us understand the possibilities is Philip Peters. He`s vice president of the Lexington Institute. That`s a public policy research group, focusing on U.S.-Cuba relations.

Now, Phillip, you said something fascinating. I`ve never heard anybody say this. You said that this illness could actually be a dress rehearsal for Castro`s death. What do you mean by that?

PHILIP PETERS, VICE PRESIDENT, LEXINGTON INSTITUTE: Well, I`m not suggesting that anybody is faking anything down there.

HANDEL: But the whole thing is a dress rehearsal in a really strange way.

PETERS: But the fact is if what`s been said has actually taking place, if he had this intestinal problem, the operation, takes a few weeks to rest and recover, and then comes back, he will have seen a dress rehearsal of his own death.

In other words, he`ll be able to see how did his people perform, to whom he delegated these various authorities? How did his enemies perform? What happened in Miami? Did anybody take off from Miami in boats to try to come to Cuba? Did the U.S. Coast Guard stop them? How did the Cuban Coast Guard function? Were they -- were they alert or not? What did President Bush do? Did the CIA try to send messages to the Cuban military? All that. He`ll be able to look over exactly what happened and prepare for the real thing.

HANDEL: Now Phillip, that begs an interesting question. Does Castro micromanage the country that much? And, is he going to change what he does based on this dress rehearsal, as far as you`re concerned?

PETERS: There`s no way to tell that. He certainly -- he is the final arbiter of all the important decisions and in some case, he`s a micromanager. That`s fair to say.

Who knows if he -- what lessons he would draw from this experience? To, you know, to prepare for the future. That`s really hard to figure out.

HANDEL: Now Raul, I`m going to ask the same question I asked mort Zuckerman. Raul comes into play. You know, he`s the next leader of Cuba. Big change in Cuba? Does it collapse? Does a new economy come into place? Does democracy become instituted or is it mostly the same?

PETERS: I think there`s no doubt that they will pull off a constitutional succession and Raul Castro will succeed his brother.

The one thing that`s clear about him, and we know this from people that have -- that have worked with him and have left Cuba, is that Raul is more open to economic change. Now, I don`t know if he would go all the way to the China model, for example, but he`s clearly more comfortable with incorporating market reforms on to the socialist system.

And so, I think that we would probably see an economic opening in Cuba, which would be good for the Cuban people. And I think it would also be good for -- for the Cuban government politically, because nobody has Castro`s political -- nobody has Fidel Castro`s political juice, and lacking that charisma, sort to speak, they need to deliver results to have political support.

HANDEL: Phillip Peters, thank you.

PETERS: Thank you.

HANDEL: Now straight ahead, more on the melt-down of Mel. Today apology No. 2. And you won`t believe who he`s asking to help him out of this mess now. We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANDEL: And now the buzz from L.A. Gary Hoffmann, who happens to be my news anchor on KFI in Los Angeles, is with us.

So Gary, what is the buzz from L.A.?

GARY HOFFMANN, KFI RADIO: There is -- there`s a great story that we`ve been following about the Disney Studios have teamed up with the American Kennel Club, and they`re putting disclaimers in their movies now, at least in the DVD packaging, especially for their animals movies, suggesting that people don`t go out and necessarily adopt the animals that they see running around in the movies. What you see in the movie screen is definitely not what you`re going to get after you adopt out of the pound.

HANDEL: You know, it reminds me of when "101 Dalmatians" came out. We covered this story, especially the live version of -- the live action version of "101 Dalmatians".

People all over America were adopting Dalmatians like crazy. I mean, they couldn`t keep them in stock. And of course, Dalmatians are the worst dog in the world for a family. They hate kids. They`re hard to train. They`re hard to house break.

And by the way, those of you who love Dalmatians, and I know you`re going to be writing in letters, it`s to Glenn Beck. That`s who you write the hate mail to. Not to me, please.

HOFFMANN: And "Eight Below" and movies like that where these great, beautiful, hot and very heavy coated dogs...

HANDEL: Yes.

HOFFMANN: They don`t do well in a place like Southern California or even New York on a day like today.

HANDEL: Yes, no kidding. Can you imagine the dogs are all dead out there? That`s one way to get rid of dogs.

You know, it almost begs credulity, you know, when you talk about this. Have we really reached a point where we have to do that? Do they have to give warnings?

For example, we watched "The Rescuers", and there has to be a disclaimer. Make sure your kid doesn`t go on the back of some pigeon and try to take off. There may be some real harm caused here. Have we really gotten to that point?

HOFFMANN: It was a seagull, not a pigeon.

HANDEL: Whatever. They all look the same to me.

HOFFMANN: I don`t know if we`ve ever gotten to that point specifically where it`s going to reach a mass audience.

But you figure if you have 99 percent of the people watch a movie and don`t adopt a dog, there are going to be one percent that do. And of that percentage, maybe this pamphlet or this package is going to reach that person who might say, "You know what? I`m not in the right place to adopt a dog like this. I don`t have enough space for a dog like this." Or "I live in Phoenix. I don`t think an Alaska Malamute is going to do very well in a place like mine."

HANDEL: Yes, real smart people, they do that. Right? You`re going to see them adopting like crazy.

So what else is going on?

HOFFMANN: There`s a beautiful story, and I say beautiful in the poetic sense, a beautiful story about a mother out in Norco, in Riverside County, east of L.A.

She woke up one morning to find her house toilet papered. That`s not unusual. I mean, just -- it`s something that happens in America. But she got into it a little bit more and found as she started to clean up forks stuck in her lawn, and flour everywhere and ground up dog food. She even found her cars were wrapped in plastic wrap with flour over it and that actually wore away some of the clear coat.

So it wasn`t just a T.P. It was vandalism and destruction of property. But she got even by finding out who did it.

HANDEL: And she did it herself. She did the slew thing. She went to the cops and said, "Hey, you officer. The one with the powdered sugar on your shoulder, would you help me out?"

And they said, no, right?

HOFFMANN: Well, the sheriff department in Riverside County had plenty to do. They do not have to worry themselves with a vandalism story, even one as serious as this.

But what she did was she took the case upon herself. She went to local supermarkets and figured out if there had been any spike in toilet paper sales and, in fact, found a place that had sold 144 rolls of toilet paper to a group of kids, two nights before her house was vandalized.

Now, they paid for it with cash, so they couldn`t trace them through a debit card or a credit card, but they did have surveillance tape of the purchase. One of the kids was wearing a letterman jacket from Norco High school with his name stitched across the back.

HANDEL: That`s how they got him?

HOFFMANN: Yes.

HANDEL: That`s a great story. We don`t get news stories like that every day. Gary, thank you.

HOFFMANN: You bet.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANDEL: Welcome back to GLENN BECK. I`m Bill Handel, in for Glenn, who picked a great week to take off and work on his tan. It`s 100 degrees here in New York today, sweating like crazy.

And along the U.S.-Mexican border, let`s see, Laredo, Texas, 104. And as of today, more than 6,000 Army and Air National Guard troops are now sweating it out along the border as part of Operation Jump Start. And it`s part of President Bush`s immigration reform plan, and that`s placing troops in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

And they`re building roads, and fences, and supposedly freeing up more Border Patrol agents to keep watch on the nearly 2,000 miles that separate us from Mexico. They`re cooking menudo for the people coming in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These guys are able to come down with their equipment, with their personnel who are experienced and skilled. That frees up our agents and that gives us a very, very solid border infrastructure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANDEL: Now, Ira Mehlman is keeping an eye on all this for the Federation for the American Immigration Reform. That`s FAIR.

And, Ira, today was the deadline day for Operation Jump Start. Now, does this thing really have a shot at really making any difference at all?

IRA MEHLMAN, FED. FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM: Well, let me begin by saying that any assistance down there is welcome. The border has been out of control for far too long. Even if this is just a temporary measure, you know, especially with what`s going on in the Middle East, there`s a national security imperative to get that border under control now.

But it`s not a substitute for permanent Border Patrol agents. You know, over the past few years, Congress has actually authorized and been willing to fund more Border Patrol agents than the Bush administration has been willing to put down there.

And, you know, this administration now has a 5 1/2-year track record of doing virtually nothing at all when it comes to securing our borders, nothing at all when it comes to enforcing immigration laws. And, you know, you have to be a little bit skeptical about the motivation for all of this.

The president has been pushing this amnesty and guest worker program. He sees that it`s foundering in the Senate. It passed the Senate, but it doesn`t look like it`s going to get through the House of Representatives. And he is trying to show that, yes, I`m a tough guy when it comes to enforcing borders.

This has to be more than just for show, more than just an attempt to get an unpopular bill passed. It has to be a real attempt to secure America`s borders.

HANDEL: Now, this president is not passionate at all about the borders. And I don`t get it. He is a true American patriot. He believes in America. But when it comes to the border issue, I just don`t understand.

You know, Vicente Fox and him seem to be best friends on this issue. You know, but Fox said there`s no such thing as borders. They don`t exist. There`s no such thing as an illegal alien.

As a matter of fact, I`m convinced the president is going to be pushing for the next president of the United States as Vicente Fox for our new president. I mean, that`s how insane I think this is.

Let`s talk about the politics of this. When did he start Operation Jump Start, after the American public went berserk and said, "We`re not taking this anymore"? Isn`t that true?

MEHLMAN: That`s true. It has only started in the past few months when the president thought he had a real chance to get this amnesty and guest worker bill through that`s highly unpopular with the American public. And, you know, the argument has always been, well, you`re not really serious about enforcing our borders. You haven`t done anything for 5 1/2 years.

So now, you know, 5 1/2 years into his administration, he`s putting some National Guard troops down there. He wants the American people to believe that he`s serious about this, when in fact he has an entire track record that says he isn`t.

HANDEL: So what`s going to happen? Is it going to get peter out? He`s going to finish his administration, nothing`s going to happen, and we have to wait for the next president to either do something that secures the border or doesn`t?

MEHLMAN: Well, you know, what`s going to happen now is CNN and the other news networks are going to send their cameras down there. They`re going to see these guys out there working, but what happens, you know, six months from now?

There needs to be a long-term commitment to enforcement, and that doesn`t seem to be the focus of this administration. What he wants is open borders. He wants unlimited supplies of low-wage labor. What the American really want is our borders secured and our jobs protected, but that doesn`t seem to be what this administration is all about.

He and Vicente Fox believe that we can have one unified labor market here in North America, which will be great for the businesses that want to employ cheap labor, but it`s going to be terrible if you`re a middle-class worker trying to earn a living in this country. And that really ought to be his focus: to take care of the interests of middle-class Americans.

HANDEL: So, Ira, what`s it about for him? Is it really because he believes that business has to win out and we`re doing this for the big business forces, or does he believe that these poor people have to have a chance at the American dream?

MEHLMAN: I think, you know, if you look at this administration`s record, that what they are interested in is cheap labor for American business. The American business community has decided that American workers really are too expensive, and why should we have to bother with them when we have this ready supply of cheap labor south of the border that`s willing to come here, work for whatever we`re willing to pay them?

And I think that`s been the focus of this administration from day one, and it`s only been deterred by the fact that we had September 11th, which kept them from creating this open border agreement.

HANDEL: Ira, thank you.

MEHLMAN: My pleasure.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: And now the history of illegal immigration in a couple of minutes.

BECK (voice-over): Illegal immigration is as old as, well, immigration itself. In 1890, a headline of the "L.A. Times" proclaimed, "More Illegal Immigration." So how have we gone 116 years without any progress?

To understand, we`ve got to go back, way back, all the way to the war you`ve probably never even heard of. In 1846, the U.S. formally declared war on Mexico under the leadership of a very underrated president, President Polk. It seemed that Mexico was hoping to take Texas back and Polk wasn`t having it.

"Texas is mine!" "Texas is mine!" "Texas is yours!" "You can keep it."

Two years and almost 14,000 American lives later, a treaty was signed, and the U.S. paid $15 million for the land that`s now modern day California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, along with parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah. Offer not available in Hawaii.

With inflation, that`s $297 million. Still, that`s less than the value of the Colorado Rockies` baseball franchise. Not a bad deal, huh?

1924, with no quotas and barely any border security in place, 89,000 Mexicans come to the U.S. on permanent visas. By 1950, the "L.A. Times" was declaring, "Thousands of Mexicans illegally cross the U.S. border each month."

Sound a little familiar? A few years later -- warning: Historically accurate but politically incorrect phrase about to be uttered -- Operation Wetback. Wow, imagine using that name now? Gee, that sounds a little politically incorrect.

Operation Wetback was started by the government to round up illegal aliens. Over a million were deported in over a year. But in doing so, agents profiled anyone who looked like a Mexican. Understandably, Mexican- Americans weren`t so happy, and the program was canceled. Good news for kids everywhere: The Muppet, Ernie, was eventually returned.

Things were pretty quiet for a while. What? Until 1976, when we began an era of caring about immigration only in years ending in a six. That year, Jimmy Carter wanted to give legitimate status -- a nicer term for amnesty -- to millions of -- get ready, you`ve heard this before -- undocumented workers.

"Americans just won`t pick peanuts anymore." The idea never got enough support to pass. But then, 10 years later, President Ronald Reagan had plenty of support. He signed an act into law in 1986 that gave amnesty to about 2.7 million illegal aliens.

But Reagan thought he was doing the right thing because, in exchange for the freebie, he demanded huge fines, up to a million dollars against the magnet that was drawing people here, the companies hiring illegal aliens. Ha, ha, ha, right. I think we all know how that idea turned out.

Ten years after that, 1996, Clinton came along and decided that it was time to finally get serious about the border. He bolstered the Border Patrol, installed sensors, and even built a fence. Unfortunately, it was only 40 miles long. "I just don`t think anybody would drive 40 miles."

And that`s pretty much where we stand today in 2006, yet another 10 years later, as immigration once again becomes a big story in a year that ends in a six.

But don`t worry. In 10 years, we`ll bring you part two of this series, and we`ll update you on how what we did in 2006 didn`t work either.

ANNOUNCER: You`ve just heard the history of illegal immigration in a couple of minutes with Glenn Beck.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANDEL: Now it`s time to go "Straight to Hill," Erica Hill, the anchor of "PRIME NEWS" on Headline News. Hi, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Hi again, Bill. Nice to see you back today.

And, you know, you just came out of a piece -- or Glenn did a piece on immigration. Well, this next one kind of applies, too. It turns out America`s population is about to top 300 million. According to the Census Bureau, that should happen sometime in mid-October.

Keep in mind the population doesn`t just grow when a baby is born or an immigrant arrives. The Census Bureau also takes returning military and civilians overseas into account.

Now, there`s a little disagreement here over just where and when that 300 millionth American will arrive. According to "USA Today," though, most demographers predict it`s going to be a newborn rather than an immigrant. So look for births in mid-October.

HANDEL: And look for someone named Pedro, or Rodrigo, or Jesus.

HILL: Actually, no.

HANDEL: No?

HILL: No. Demographers, they differ on this point. Some folks think that it will most likely be a boy born to a white woman, while there are other people who think -- in the south, I should say, and then there are other folks who think that it may be a child of Latin or Hispanic descent, possibly in the L.A. area. So, really, nobody knows. So you can`t just focus in on one.

HANDEL: There you go. That`s what I get. So I`m guessing Mohammed or Pedro. What can I tell you?

HILL: All right, well, we`ll check in with you in October to see who was right.

HANDEL: I`d love to hear that.

HILL: OK. Meantime, could a pill possibly be the answer to America`s obesity problem? A team of scientists at the Scripps Institute has created a vaccine that slows down a key hunger hormone in rats. It actually kept them from gaining weight even when they overate.

But the scientists caution here it may not work in humans. The vaccine is actually a long way off from human tests, but still researchers say the findings, which were published in this week`s proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, do offer some new insight into just how hunger and weight gain work.

HANDEL: As a matter of fact, having been heavy most of my life, I was up to 300 pounds, the idea of skinny rats running around a laboratory is very exciting to me. I mean, I`m thrilled by that.

HILL: All right, well, good. Then we`ll keep you posted on that one, too.

Lastly, I don`t know if you`re a Harry Potter fan. I`m a huge Harry Potter fan, though, and I`d love to have his invisibility cloak. Well, it turns out it actually might be a little easier than we think. Actually, with a little help though from the Fantastic Four, not the folks at Hogwarts.

It turns out the comic`s invisible woman may not be so farfetched. Basically, here`s how she`s invisible. She kind of bends light around her to appear invisible. Now a theoretical physicist at St. Andrews in Scotland says advances in certain materials could one day do the same. So basically, in theory, because it`s still a theory, he`s saying here there are certain devices that could be used to mimic that curved space to make something appear invisible.

HANDEL: Oh, come on. That was -- you know...

HILL: Clear as mud, huh?

HANDEL: When I was a kid, we used to take those glasses that you got on the back of the comic books for a buck, and everybody was invisible. Erica, thank you.

HILL: Thanks, Bill.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANDEL: Oh, the meltdown of Mel. On Friday, he`s arrested on DUI. Today, he acknowledged making anti-Semitic remarks. And here`s his booking photo. He actually looks pretty good. A little bug-eyed, but pretty good.

And here he is before the arrest feeling absolutely no pain, just probably taken at a bar where he`s, well, a happy camper. But that`s not fair, because everybody at a bar that sees Mel Gibson wants to take a picture, so that could have been one of dozens of pictures taken that night.

Well, today he apologized. He insisted he`s not a bigot. He said he had begun, quote, "an ongoing recovery program." And he asked the Jewish community to help him recover from his addiction.

But the fallout`s already begun. First of all, ABC just canceled that planned mini-series it was producing with Gibson. Ready for this? It was about the Holocaust. Also, an ABC executive actually read the script, the first one, and they found out that in Mel`s Holocaust documentary, the Germans are the good guys.

Now, Mel`s not the first celeb to get in hot water and try to explain his or her way out of it, and we`ve put a few of these together. Let`s start with Oprah and her apology over endorsing James Frey`s book "A Million Little Pieces."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: I left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: If I have done anything wrong where I thought that I am playful and just, you know, have fun, I feel bad about that.

KOBE BRYANT, BASKETBALL PLAYER: Disgusted at myself. I`m so sorry.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: And I am very sorry that it might have been interpreted in a way that would cause distress to anyone.

MIKE TYSON, BOXER: I apologize to the MGM, to the (INAUDIBLE) boxing fans of the world that I mean -- that I am willing to accept what I have coming to me. Evander, I am sorry.

HUGH GRANT, ACTOR: I needed to suffer for this. You know, I`ve done an abominable bad thing. I did a bad thing, and there you have it.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate; in fact, it was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANDEL: OK, as I wag my finger. Sometimes it`s about alcohol, or drug use, or sex. Sometimes it`s about alcohol, and drugs, and sex and always, always it`s a P.R. nightmare. So how do you make an apology believable?

Paul Slansky is the author of "My Bad: Years of Public Apologies and the Appalling Behavior that Inspired Them."

Paula, for Mel, this really is that bad, isn`t it?

PAUL SLANSKY, AUTHOR, "MY BAD": I think it is. You know, I think that that first apology was -- it just was one of those kind of standard boilerplate apologies that people come out with where they say, "You know, I didn`t really mean it. I was drunk, whatever." And everyone`s supposed to just say, "OK, well, let`s move on."

But this one was so huge and the apology was so insufficient that I think it required a second take today.

HANDEL: Yes. How about if he had done the second apology first? Because the second apology reaching out to the Jewish community, saying, "I want to meet with you." He`ll probably come out dressed as a Hasidic rabbi by the time this thing is finished. Would that have worked the first time out?

SLANSKY: It would have been better for him the first time out. I think that, you know, he would have avoided having to come out with the second one, because it would have faced the main issue right away, which is the anti-Semitism. And that first apology, it was really kind of like, "Well, I said a bunch of stuff, and I acted badly," without any specifics.

HANDEL: You know, am I wrong, but are there more and more apologies coming out all the time?

SLANSKY: I think there`s an ongoing stream of them now. I think that there`s, you know, definitely more. It`s almost like each year there`s more, because I think there`s so many places monitoring people these days, with all the cable news channels and all the stuff on the Internet. There`s a lot of people watching peoples` behavior. And you know...

HANDEL: So it`s not a question of the activities of these people being more questionable or just the morality. They just live in a goldfish bowl, and the goldfish bowl is bigger, is what you`re saying?

SLANSKY: Well, and also I think that there`s -- you know, we`re in an era of political correctness, where people are accountable for the thing that they say. You know, so many apologies come for, you know, slurs against blacks, or Jews, or gays, or women.

I mean, in the book that`s -- probably 50 percent of the book consists of those kinds of apologies. And people, they always say, "I didn`t mean it," you know, but how did you not mean -- how do you say these things and not mean it? It just doesn`t make sense.

HANDEL: Well, of course, everybody means what they say, unless, as they say, we really didn`t mean it. You look at this, the most famous apology, the one that you enjoyed the most?

SLANSKY: Well, I mean, I think the most famous one was the Hugh Grant one on Jay Leno back in 1995. I think it was -- it got so much attention. It`s given credit for turning Jay Leno`s ratings around and putting him ahead of Letterman.

I think, you know, and Hugh Grant is a likable guy, and he came on, and he was, you know, a good sport about it. And you know, really, he only really hurt his girlfriend. I mean, it`s not like it really was one of these things -- I mean, the Mel Gibson thing is like he`s, you know, spit out of a blast of hatred toward like, you know, millions and millions of people on the planet. So it`s harder to get away with that.

HANDEL: So what works? Give me the difference between an apology that actually does work and hits home and one that is just blown off and no one pays attention to it?

SLANSKY: I think -- you know, it`s like the Supreme Court said about pornography. You know when you see it. It works if it, you know, strikes a true cord in you. You know, if listen to it, and you look at the person, and it seems sincere, then it worked.

You know, I think, in the culture at large, though, the sincerity doesn`t matter these days. I think it`s just a required ritual to move on.

HANDEL: Paul, thanks for being with us.

And now it`s time for a preview of tonight`s NANCY GRACE on "Headline Prime" -- Nancy?

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, we show you exclusive video meant for the jury`s eyes only. Andrea Yates confessing in chilling detail how she planned and executed the drowning death of all five of her children.

And tonight, an expert who testified under oath that Yates was not insane at the time of the murders. And also with us, another first, a member of the Yates` jury, explaining her disappointment with the verdict and the system.

HANDEL: Thanks, Nancy. Nancy Grace every night after this show, at 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANDEL: You know, they put me in Glenn`s office while he`s gone, and one of the great things about working there is I get to root around the office and look at the e-mail. Man, this guy gets a lot of hate mail. And here`s one example.

"Glenn, I don`t think you have the qualification or the education to talk about international affairs. Sometimes when I watch your program, I say to myself, `How come this stupid has got a job here?`" S. from Minneapolis.

That`s a nice name, S. I`d like one of those, too. Let me tell you: That`s how you get a job in television. You can`t know anything about international affairs. That`s the secret.

Next, a guy with great grammatical and spelling skills. "Glenn, why do you hate France? Today you said we care because France lost again. And then you started laughing." Patrick.

Patrick, everybody hates France. That`s our job as Americans, to hate the French.

Now I love this one. "Hey, Glenn, don`t you think it`s strange that you never see Kofi Annan and Grady from `Sanford and Sons` in the same place at the same time?" Joe, in Pennellville, New York.

You`re absolutely right, Joe. I`ve never thought of that, but that`s a good point.

Now, some of you wrote in about yesterday`s show. In other words, you wrote in about me. Jason in Houston, "Who the hell is this guy and what have you done with Glenn? And why the hell is he yelling?" Good point. Because that`s what I do. I yell. I yell at everybody. I yell at everything. Even when I`m quiet, I`m yelling.

And this from John from somewhere. "Glenn, your replacement made my head explode. Please warn us when he comes back so I can intentionally miss the show. Is it possible that you have nut jobs like this on your show to make us appreciate you even more?" Kevin in St. Louis.

You know what? That`s how you keep a job in television. You make absolutely sure that your replacement is hated more than you.

Here`s one. "He`s more liberal than you, and I don`t care for it. His comments about the morning-after pill made me shout expletives at the TV and mute him. Just thought I`d let you know."

But it wasn`t all bad. Here`s one letter I want to share with you. "I really liked the new show, Bill. I really like that new fellow Bill. Hope he shows up more often. Signed, Linda in Long Beach."

Actually, Linda in Long Beach is my mom. And that`s it for tonight. I`m Bill Handel. Thanks for joining me, and thanks, Glenn. We`ll see you again.

END