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Glenn Beck

What`s Wrong with Public Schools?; Who Are Iran`s Friends?

Aired September 01, 2006 - 19:00   ET

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

GLENN BECK, HOST: How screwed up is our public school system? "20/20`s" John Stossel has the answer.
Plus, more terrifying facts about Iran that you`re not going to hear any place else, coming up right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight`s episode is brought to you by the Glenn Beck lunch box. Be the biggest dork in school with the Glenn Beck lunch box. Beatings from cool kids not included.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: You know what makes this show a little bit different or, some would say, schizophrenic, is we like to talk a little bit about everything that you`re talking about, not just the everyday news. Here`s tonight`s exclusive for you.

Tomorrow, millions of parents are going to take their kids to college for the very first time, and I`m going to be one of them. I`m driving my daughter, Mary, up to school on Saturday. I got to be honest with you, I am losing my mind. There`s not enough valium on planet Earth to get me through this weekend.

She is my first child to go to college, and I don`t know where the time has gone. I mean, I know it sounds like a cliche, but it feels like I just brought her home from the hospital, just last week. Now, I`m packing her all up. I`m putting in boxes and packing it in the back of the car.

I can`t imagine what it`s going to feel like to drop her off at the door and say good-bye, get back in the car, without her and drive home. And while I`m driving away -- I know I`m just going to be blubbering like a baby -- some punk named Timmy is going to be inviting her to her first keg party, which I really appreciate.

I`m terrified of the guys that she`s going to meet there, you know? Trust me, I know, because I used to be one of those guys. I still kind of am, you know. I went to college for three weeks. I get it.

But I`m even more terrified of what she`s going to learn from her professors. Is she going to be taking classes like the films of Michael Moore, Intro to Socialism? I`d rather have her staying in her dorm room smoking joints with Timmy. It`d probably inflict less damage on her than some of the professors.

Do you remember when you were a kid? Do you remember what Labor Day weekend was like? It was always kind of scary. It was great, because it was the last weekend of summer, but it was scary because it was the last weekend of summer. You get that queasy feeling of dread in your belly just indicating, it`s almost over, and the long, joyless school year is just about to begin.

It was scary for me because, when I was a kid, I knew that just, in a few days, red rover, red rover would ask me to come over and then it would be nice months of getting picked last to look forward to.

But in these days, who`s more afraid of school? Is it our kids or is it our parents? It seems to me like our public school system, just about anything can happen there. You know, except for a good education.

Our kids are dropping out at a higher rate than ever. Teachers aren`t held accountable, because unions are pulling the strings. And they`re no longer churning out the best and the brightest. What has happened to our schools?

Here`s what I know tonight. With the way schools are now, America just cannot compete. If we don`t wake up and solve it, there are going to be two Americas. There`s going to be one for the educated and wealthy, one for the uneducated and poor. We`re going to be divided, and united we stand, divided we fall.

We won`t be able to communicate with each other, either. Because more and more illegal aliens are coming here refusing to learn our language. How do we even speak to each other?

I also know our schools are being hijacked by special interest groups. Either teachers are too frustrated or too lazy or unmotivated to really get through to our kids, or they`re too PC and correct the homework in purple ink because, you know, red may damage our kids. Or the kids themselves are coming from homes where the parents don`t even care.

Here`s what I don`t know. I don`t know what it will take to break the backs of special interest groups so we can at least begin to really talk about the problems in our school. How deep is this problem? How deep does it run?

I know I don`t want my kids in public school, at least the way they are.

John Stossel is the co-host of "20/20". He`s doing a special report on public school called "Stupid in America".

John, if you`re bringing your kids to public school, should you be concerned?

JOHN STOSSEL, CO-HOST, "20/20": Yes, I certainly would be concerned. It`s a government monopoly, and we should have learned from the fall of the Soviet Union that they don`t treat their customers very well.

BECK: Right. So, what is it -- and it`s almost like we`re encouraging mediocrity with the kids. I mean, it`s all just kind of just boiled down and you`re playing to the lowest common denominator. But you`re -- it`s not only that. Mediocrity within the teachers, as well.

STOSSEL: Any system where you pay the good ones and the bad ones the same is an invitation to mediocrity. And you can`t even fire the bad ones because of the union and the civil service rules.

BECK: So how do you see -- here`s the problem. I was watching TV with my -- with my son and my wife the other day. And we were watching a kids` show, and it was on PBS.

And I thought, it kills me. It kills me that my tax dollars are going to PBS, but it also, I hate the idea of having commercials, you know, a show designed to sell them stuff.

How do you bring capitalism into this system without selling them cereal at the same time in and do McMath?

STOSSEL: Well, the first step would be to attach the money that we`re spending to education, which ask a stunning $10,000 per student? I didn`t know that. Researching tonight`s program was my first discovery of that. I mean, that`s $250,000 per classroom. Think what you could do with that money. If you just attach the money to the kid, then the miracles of capitalism would bloom.

BECK: How do you mean attach -- how do you mean attach it to the kid?

STOSSEL: Instead of saying, OK, this school will give you millions of dollars to educate 450 kids, we`ll say, we`ll assign the money to this student, and if the student goes to school "B," school "B" gets the money. If he says school "A" is doing the superior job, "A" gets the money. And that gets the schools to try harder.

BECK: That sounds great, however, I know that there are schools that actually, I mean, I heard from teachers -- you were on my radio show a couple of days ago. And I heard from teachers after I spoke to you and they said, "Glenn, where they`re looking for test scores, I see it all the time."

They`ll say, "Oh, let that -- if the kids don`t finish right away, we can spend some extra time or they`ll give the kids the booklets in advance. I mean, there`s -- there`s games being played just to bring the test scores up so they don`t lose their money.

STOSSEL: Well, that can happen. But who`s better at evaluating whether the school is doing well or helping kids cheat than the parents? And if Johnny comes home and says, "Mom, they`re teaching me to cheat," she`s not going to keep sending Johnny to that school.

BECK: I mean, would you have said that, though, when you were a kid?

STOSSEL: We have a kid on tonight`s show who did say that.

BECK: Really?

STOSSEL: To his mother.

BECK: How are they teaching him -- how are they teaching him to -- he was a special ed kid?

STOSSEL: And they were giving him the answers to get the school up in the rankings so they wouldn`t get labeled a failing school.

BECK: So -- so, how do you fix this?

STOSSEL: You let the market work. The market fixes everything else.

BECK: But you have the parents -- is it the state? Is it the unions? Where do you go first?

STOSSEL: If you assign the money to the kids, then the union problem and the state problem solve themselves, because if the union has idiot rules or the state does, then parents won`t choose that school. And it will atrophy and eventually go out of business.

If they`re going to wake up and say, "We have to teach better, we have to get rid of the deadwood teachers," then they`ll thrive.

BECK: What is the purpose of tenure? For the life of me, I cannot figure it out. What is it, really? I mean, I can understand it, like, at the college level, where you`re teaching crazy thoughts and you need protection and blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, but at the elementary school level, what is the purpose?

STOSSEL: The purpose is the teachers want protection against the capricious principal who wants to hire his brother-in-law instead of you.

BECK: No, come on. I mean, that`s -- I mean, OK, that`s the truth. What is the spin? What is the -- what is the -- how do they present this, the other side, because I`ve been to -- I`ve tried to come up with the other side. And the only thing can I come up with is teachers need to be protected for freedom of speech or to teach outrageous thoughts or whatever. And that doesn`t work at a high school or elementary school level.

What was the original purpose of tenure?

STOSSEL: I don`t like to mouth off about what I haven`t researched. I haven`t researched that.

BECK: What is the most shocking thing that you have found, John?

STOSSEL: What shocked me most was discovering this $250,000 per classroom that we`re spending on schools that fail to teach when they say, "We don`t have enough money."

BECK: And if you`re putting your kids into school, and you think you`re in a good one, and you want to be an informed consumer, if you will, what -- what would be the signs of trouble? It`s a good school, supposedly a good school for the future. What should you be looking for?

STOSSEL: Oh, they always tell you it`s a good school.

BECK: I know.

STOSSEL: "Oh, yes, Johnny is performing up to standards" or they`re all above average.

But certainly, if they`re being admitted to good colleges, if they`re not dropping out. But it`s very hard to judge. People -- most Americans think their kid`s public school is pretty good. They give the whole system a "C" grade, their kid`s school an "A" or a "B".

BECK: Right.

STOSSEL: But it`s because they don`t know what they might have had.

BECK: Right. And what -- and is there a sign, is there a -- is there a trouble sign that you see in school after school that you go, "Uh-oh, wait a minute. There`s a sign, bad one."

STOSSEL: Something you can look for?

BECK: Yes.

STOSSEL: No. I don`t think there`s any way, any clean way to judge like that. But the international comparisons show American kids do pretty well in fourth grade, but they`re behind by eighth grade and way behind by 12th.

BECK: Great, John, thanks a lot.

John Stossel`s special report airs tonight on "20/20". He is also the author of "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity". You`ve got to read it; it`s an amazing book.

Thanks a lot.

Iran 101 is next on our list. Who are Iran`s friends?

Also, Chavez taking a little road trip to all of our good friends in Syria, Iran, Russia and more.

And Jews for Jesus. Jackie Mason tells me that you can`t be a chair and a table at the same time. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I`ve been more and more convinced every day we`re being lied to, we`re being distracted. So nobody has to solve the real problems, because the real problems are there. You know what the real problems are. I know what the real problems are. How come nobody`s doing anything about it?

We`ve got Grandma sitting at the freakin` border in lawn chairs! Grandma is willing to protect the border? But our government isn`t? How does that work?

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BECK: We are so distracted, but hang with me here for a second, because here is one of our big problems that are facing our nation and we need to pay attention to.

Earlier today, Iran`s President Ahmadinejad, as I like to call him, President Tom, pledged to continue with his peaceful nuclear technology. He said that the entire international community, except for the U.S. and England, approves of this.

Then he challenged President Bush to a televised debate which, I don`t know about you, man, but I`d gladly shell out 40 bucks on pay-per-view to watch that.

As I`ve said before, I believe Iran is the biggest threat maybe that we`ve ever faced in our history. And we all need to decide if that is true or not and then decide what`s the best way to handle this information.

That`s why we`re doing a week-long series, Iran 101. You need to know who they are and decide for yourself if they are a huge threat.

My mother used to say to me, "Show me your friends and I`ll show you your future." Well, we thought we would take that for tonight`s chapter. I`m going to show you Iran`s friends and then show you our future. The friends speak volumes about whether Iran is just totally evil with a bomb or just plain annoying and just kind of evil.

Ariel Cohen, he`s from the Heritage Foundation.

Ariel, I want to go through some of these countries and you tell me, what this friend does for them and what it means to us. All right?

ARIEL COHEN, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, Iran`s friends are after Iran`s money or Iran`s oil. And in order to do that, they`re willing to sell them nuclear weapons, nuclear technology, train their scientists, sell them conventional military or, for that matter, anything else in the kitchen sink.

BECK: OK. So let`s go -- let`s go one by one. Let`s start with Russia. You know, we`ve always tried to think that Russia is our friend. I think they`re in the foe category, but they are clearly friends with Iran. What do they provide?

COHEN: Russia, first and foremost, provides conventional nuclear technology. They sold them the nuclear reactor, we`re sure, but also, they`re a major source of anti-aircraft missiles, of missile technology, of tanks and...

BECK: There`s no way -- there`s no way Russia on the Security Council is ever going to put sanctions on these guys, is there?

COHEN: They are dragging their feet. But it`s so obvious that Iran needs a nuclear reactor for conventional electricity like Al Capone needs a bunch of M-16s and bombs (ph) to go duck hunting.

BECK: I know. China, next friend of Iran, what do they provide?

COHEN: China wants Iranian oil and gas, and they would be selling their grandmother if they can. They are investing $100 billion. They`re committed, and then maybe another $10 billion for gas projects and oil projects.

BECK: Do you think that China will be a -- in the grand scheme of things, if we ever really saw global war and it was basically Iran and the United States, do you think China would sit on the sideline? Or are they kind of a...

COHEN: Absolutely. Both Russia and China will not go and fight for Iran. I don`t think Russia is going to threaten us with nuclear weapons, but they will do everything to discredit us, to deny us international legitimacy through the Security Council.

BECK: OK. North Korea.

COHEN: North Korea has invited Iranians to observe their missile launches, have sold Iranians medium-range ballistic missiles and is the chief attendant for the Iranian nuclear -- for the Iranian missile program.

BECK: And North Korea is -- I don`t think North Korea is the kind of country that`s going to wipe us off the face of the earth with a missile, because they know what -- I mean, they want to live. But I -- I mean, do you agree with me North Korea would sell Iran a nuclear weapon in a heartbeat?

COHEN: North Korea`s broke, but they throw posh dinners for the Iranians when the Iranians come there, and North Korean people are starving.

BECK: Right. Syria and Lebanon, what are they providing?

COHEN: Syria signed a mutual defense treaty with Iran which means that if Syria escalates something with Israel and if Israel defends herself, Iran may have cause to intervene.

Hezbollah is Iranian fully owned subsidiary in Lebanon. It`s Shiah Arab, and it gives Iran a long arm in the Middle East.

BECK: Venezuela.

COHEN: Great friend of Iran. Hugo Chavez was recently in Tehran after -- after Hugo Chavez visited, this beacon of democracy, Belarus and Russia to lobby for a seat on the Security Council.

BECK: Yes, we have something on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez coming up in a second. There`s something that my gut is telling m. I`ll try to explain here in about 15 minutes.

Last one is Europe, friend of Iran?

COHEN: Not really. They`re scared of Iran because they know that these ballistic missiles that the North Koreans and everybody else is happening Iran to build can reach European territory, and as Iran is building bigger and better missiles, more and more European cities will be in the Iranian sights.

BECK: OK. Thank you, Ariel. I appreciate it.

I don`t know about you, but I don`t want to be in bed with really any of their friends.

Now, we have been spending an awful lot of time telling you about Iran and the threat that that country represents, but I want to show you how Iran is posturing itself in all of this.

Here`s some headlines. I asked some people on the staff to see if they could look into the Iranian news sources and find out what they are saying on their own news sources.

This first one comes from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. "More U.S. Soldiers Deserting Army." I mean, this is propaganda at its finest. Quoting from the article here, "Thousands of American soldiers have fled to Canada for being of being dispatched to Iraq."

I must have missed that jam into the -- into the border crossing. The source for that information -- an Arab news channel. Just saying.

Then there`s this one: "Iran is Superior Power of Middle East: Official". That official, by the way, is Iran`s Expediency Council secretary being interviewed about his belief that the U.S. is poised to attack.

And during that interview, he said, quote, "Iran will benefit a great deal from such U.S. idiocy, because the oil prices will hike dramatically."

Remember, I really, truly believe we have to take these people at their word. They don`t threaten; they don`t bluff; they make promises. This is not what they`re telling you for your consumption. It`s what they`re telling their own people in Iran.

Back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Every day you can hear my radio program on stations across the country, including 98.38 WOW-FM in Des Moines, Iowa, 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis. And let`s go to Los Angeles now with Brian Whitman to get the buzz from L.A.

Hey, Brian.

BRIAN WHITMAN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Hello, my friend, how are you?

BECK: Good. So yesterday afternoon it broke that the DNA with Captain Highpants, as we like to call it, the guy who claimed to kill JonBenet, didn`t match, not so much.

WHITMAN: Yes.

BECK: You surprised by that?

WHITMAN: No, not really, not really knocked off my feet by that one.

BECK: Yes.

WHITMAN: I`m not an expert, but I think he might be delusional. And I think he might have had nothing to do with this crime, oddly enough. I guess we`ll have to wait to find out.

BECK: I`ve been asking people all day: does that make him more dangerous or less dangerous in your eyes?

WHITMAN: Well, you know, some people say we should take people at their word, and if a guy says he did this, well, then let`s treat him as if he did it. We`re going to have to get to the bottom of it. He`s creepy no matter what.

And I have to tell you, this week this story, Glenn, does not surprise me of his DNA not matching.

BECK: No, not at all.

So Brian, there is a -- there is an effort in California to ban smoking.

WHITMAN: That`s right.

BECK: Yes.

WHITMAN: The local government in Dublin, California, just outside of San Francisco, has -- they`re making it easier now for you to sue your neighbor for second-hand smoke. They`re treating second-hand smoke like a public nuisance, like you would treat loud noises.

BECK: Brian, Brian, get out of California. What are you thinking, man?

I mean, you know, Brian in our token liberal. Brian and I disagree on almost everything politically. But we`re good friends and have been for a long time.

But, Brian, as your friend, I`m begging you: get out before it`s too late.

WHITMAN: You know, this is an amazing story. You know, what they really want to do, a lot of local governments, Glenn, they really want to ban cigarettes. But they don`t have the political might to do that.

BECK: Right.

WHITMAN: And to propose something like that but, look, the people in California, we need to butch up here. When I was a kid growing up in Staten Island, my brother and I would be in my Mom and Dad`s station wagon, all of the windows sealed, Mom and Dad smoking like chimneys. And the station wagon was like a rolling, air-sealed ashtray.

BECK: Right. I grew up if in that same household, man, and I`m fine.

WHITMAN: I think -- I think I`ve turned out all right.

BECK: Yes.

WHITMAN: Let`s -- please, let`s butch up. It`s a little signature smoke, and people in California think the cigarette smoke is going to pollute the air. You should see what`s in the air without the cigarette smoke.

BECK: Here`s the thing. If you`re going to ban cigarettes, then ban cigarettes.

WHITMAN: Right.

BECK: You know, it`s this giant game, and you know why they`ll never ban cigarettes? They`ll never ban it, because the government makes way too much money in taxes on cigarettes.

WHITMAN: That`s right.

BECK: They want it both ways.

WHITMAN: Yes, and it`s freedom issue. I mean, this is America. If you can`t smoke in your backyard, legal cigarettes, my gosh, you know, what can do you?

BECK: So, you can -- you can actually sue your neighbor? Because, what, do you have to have cancer? I mean...

WHITMAN: I don`t know if you have to have the big "C," but I think the smoke needs to be -- you know, needs to be shown to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury that the smoke is billowing over the backyard fence and infecting you and your precious children.

BECK: Are you living next to Winston Churchill? I mean, what does he have to be smoking to have it billow over the fence?

WHITMAN: But this is California. I mean, people are crazy about cigarettes. They`re crazy about coffee.

You wouldn`t know much about this. As a Mormon, I know that the coffee is not on your -- is not on your radar.

BECK: Sure.

WHITMAN: But if I were to drag you and some of your Mormon friends kicking and screaming into a Starbucks, you would see that people just hang out there all day. They call them the Starbucks squatters.

BECK: Oh, yes.

WHITMAN: They buy a $4 cup of coffee, and they think they can sit there all day every day.

BECK: Brian, I`ve got to tell you, I`ve got to run, but I`m not going to anybody`s office at Starbucks. And too many people are setting up offices in Starbucks. Thanks, Brian.

WHITMAN: Thanks, buddy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: All right. Welcome to "The Real Story," where we cut through the media spin and try to figure out why a story is actually important to you. Now, at the top of the show tonight, we covered the latest in the JonBenet case and where Captain Highpants goes from here.

But the real story today isn`t about the scumbag who claimed that he killed her. It`s about the fact that we all now know for sure that her killer is still out there. You know, the 10 years that have passed, combined with all the media sensationalism, the investigative false starts, have made us -- I shouldn`t include you in this -- it`s made me somehow or another forget that a little girl was murdered and the killer is still walking free.

Roger Depue, well, he used to be the lead guy for the FBI`s behavioral science unit. He`s taken a look at some of the evidence in the case, including the ransom note, and he still believes JonBenet`s mom, Patsy Ramsey, fits the criminal profile. Are we back there again?

But, you know, it`s still impossible to say whether or not she`s the killer, because now she`s dead. And I hate to say it, but I don`t believe that we`re ever going to find JonBenet`s real killer. And I say that, not only because the killer may already be dead, but because of this whole Captain Highpants debacle that has proven to me that the investigators have absolutely no other real leads.

They wouldn`t have gone this far down the road with Highpants if they had any other real avenues to explore, do you think? The only thing I think that we`ve learned in the last couple of weeks is that this case is now colder than ever before.

Next up, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he is reportedly on his way to meet with the leaders of Syria today. Now, I know I`ve been saying this for a while, but the real story about Hugo Chavez is that he is quickly positioning himself as a real enemy of the United States.

In just the last few months, his official travel schedule -- I swear to you -- reads like an enemy of the state laundry list. He`s visited Syria, Cuba, China, Russia, and, yes, even our good friends in Iran. The best part is Chavez is signing deals with each of these countries at each stop. In Russia, he dealt for arms. In China, it was oil. In Iran, it was reportedly a deal to help him start a nuclear program. Oh, that`s great.

Now, before I went on the air today, I was looking through all of the things on Chavez, and I have to tell you here, I don`t have anything here but my gut, but there`s something to this. I believe that Chavez is -- I don`t know -- maybe like the connecting tissue between each of our enemies. You know, they may not all be friends with each other, but they`re all friends with him, and that puts him into a very unique and dangerous position.

As always, we will keep our eye on Hugo Chavez, and we`ll continue to bring you the latest developments in his worldwide tour of our enemies countries.

Finally, as I`m sure you have been hearing over and over and over and over again today, this is the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall. News coverage today has mainly focused on the rebuilding efforts of the region, but it has largely ignored many of the storylines that were the big headlines last year. It seems like the media has amnesia here.

Do you remember what everything was happening? This is really an unfortunate event today, since most of the stories that were the most popular and the most sensational are still alive today. The ones that people remember the best, these stories have turned out to be false. Since the media isn`t covering the myths of Katrina, we`re forced to live with the lies and the finger-pointing and the divisiveness of those lies.

It not only makes it hard to move on, but it also makes it hard to learn any of the lessons that this storm is supposed to teach us. So the real story tonight is that the truth can set us free, but we have to be willing to hear it, embrace it, and learn from it. And that`s exactly what we intend to do right now.

James Meigs, he is the editor-in-chief at "Popular Mechanics" magazine. He`s here to take us through some of the more popular myths that developed during the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

James, let me just start with -- let me take everybody back a year and show you what was happening and spilling out onto our living rooms on television a year ago tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: What we`re about to show you is going to make your stomachs churn. We have some shocking new pictures of the horror and chaos at the New Orleans` Convention Center in the days that followed Hurricane Katrina.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it wasn`t ordinary chaos. The New Orleans` police chief said people had been beaten and raped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They would grab the women that they wanted to assault, drag them into the Convention Center, and rape them, and sometimes they would kill them. I heard a report of a 6-year-old that had been raped and died during the trauma of the rape.

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Leon Doby (ph), what did you see?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, ma`am, I saw everything, from stabbings, to fights, to women hollering, being dragged off in bathrooms. I like to call it the mouth of hell; that`s what the Convention Center was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. Ray Nagin on Oprah`s show said they have people that have been in that, quote, "frickin` Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people and raping people." True or not, James?

JAMES MEIGS, "POPULAR MECHANICS": No, it wasn`t true. You know, there was so much of this kind of thing, about armed gangs going around shooting helicopters, rapes and murders in the Superdome. The Superdome was a mess, but it wasn`t a prison riot.

In the end, when they pulled everybody out of there, they expected to find dozens of bodies. They talked about possibly hundreds of bodies in the Convention Center. In fact, they found 10 bodies, one possible murder. They never found a bullet hole in a helicopter. Things were very bad in there, but it wasn`t the way it was portrayed.

BECK: Next one, possibly the second most popular, is the aftermath of Katrina. This is Aaron Broussard. He was a president of Jefferson Parish. He said this on "Meet the Press." "The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."

MEIGS: Right. You know, Katrina was a disaster, and it caused so much mayhem for so many people and so many tragic stories, but the idea that the government just sat on its hands and didn`t do a thing has really sunk into our culture, and it`s simply not true.

Within 72 hours after the storm passed, there were 100,000 first responders. They didn`t all come from FEMA. FEMA was probably the least effective. But you had the National Guard, the Coast Guard, you had the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, a lot of local resources, and they did an extraordinary job. The Coast Guard alone rescued 33,000 people in a matter of days.

BECK: Next myth -- and I love this one. This drives me out of my mind. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. This comes from Ray Nagin.

MEIGS: This is the thing we really have to fight. If we`re going to understand the lessons of Katrina, we have to do a better job. This will happen again.

You know, we`re in the early phase of a 40-year hurricane cycle, a cycle of heightened hurricanes, we believe. And we`re going to see this hit -- we could see it hit Miami. We could see it hit Houston. We could see a storm like this hit New York. And all of these cities, none of them are built below sea level like New Orleans, but they all have massive areas that would be well below the storm surge. And we could be facing fatalities that could be worst than the New Orleans` situation, if we don`t accept that hurricanes are a fact of life today.

BECK: James, this is such a dangerous myth. Well, I think all of them are, because, I mean, it`s gone to divide us and let people that haven`t taken real responsibility for what happened just let them go scot- free. But this one, Ray Nagin was on TV on "60 Minutes" on Sunday. I don`t know if you remember if you saw it, but he was standing there by the levee and he said, "Look at this. This will withstand a hurricane Category 3, possibly a 4." A five is coming. A four is definitely coming in our lifetime.

MEIGS: You know, maybe New Orleans will get lucky again. You know, they`ve had a long lucky streak before this, but the city is below sea level. It`s sinking all the time. We have to look at the whole Mississippi Delta region and find a way to replenish those marshes, to fix the levees so that they really do protect the city in a worst-case scenario, and really deal with the problem that is the whole region. It`s not just New Orleans. Those marshes are disappearing.

BECK: Michael Brown, former FEMA director, said this: "The failure to evacuate was the tipping point for all other things that went wrong." True or false?

MEIGS: That`s false. The evacuation could have been a lot better, but actually, by the standards of other hurricanes in other regions, it was not bad. About 80 percent of the residents of the New Orleans` metro area evacuated. They did it in 38 hours, which was much faster than most experts thought they could do it.

The sad thing is that people who were left behind -- there wasn`t a good plan to get out people in hospitals, the poor people who didn`t have a lot of options. So much more could have been done to plan ahead.

BECK: James, thank you very much. And that is the real story about Hurricane Katrina that you need to know.

Now, if you see something in the news and you`re thinking to yourself, "Jeez, how is the media completely missing the mark on this one?" I want you to e-mail it to me, along with what you think the real story is, by writing to realstory@CNN.com.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: And I`m part of the problem how exactly?

CALLER: Well, I think that you are like Nero. You`re fiddling and entertaining us while Rome is burning.

BECK: I will tell you that I am an entertainer and a businessman. That is what I do. The secret to this show, Terry, is that we entertain and inform. Listen to the slogan of this show. It is the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

Let me quote Mary Poppins. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I like to phrase that the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment. If we all just keep pounding ourselves into the ground of, "The end is near," we`re all going to -- we`ll kill ourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Speaking of that, let`s go to Jackie Mason. Jackie Mason, in case you don`t know -- of course you know -- he`s famous for pointing out the differences between Jews and Christians. You know, Jews can`t fix things. They don`t know sports. They like to be offered a piece of cake wherever they go. I think I`m a Jew.

He has been getting coverage for something else, at least here in New York. His face is on the cover of a pamphlet, "Jews for Jesus." There it is on your screen. Mason really doesn`t find anything funny about it. He`s suing the group for $2 million for using his name and likeness in their ad.

Jackie, what a pleasure meeting you, sir.

JACKIE MASON, COMEDIAN: How do you do? How do you do? Every time I`ve got a problem, you find a pleasure in it?

BECK: Yes, pretty much.

MASON: I`m furious, and you`re enjoying yourself. So you must have an anti-Semitic tendency. That`s my honest opinion.

(CROSSTALK)

BECK: I don`t think we need -- all of a sudden, he`s coming right after me.

MASON: How could you enjoy the fact that I`m having such a miserable experience here?

BECK: You know...

MASON: They decided to use my name without my permission and give me a title of a gentile. All of a sudden I`m wondering, "How did this happen?" I`m a Jew all my life, and here I was a gentile and I didn`t even know it.

BECK: Right. And you`re a...

MASON: They decided I`m merely a gentile. First of all, it`s a moronic, obnoxious, idiotic thing to say, "Jews for Jesus." Either you believe in Jesus, which makes you a Christian, so either I converted or I didn`t. Since I never remember converting...

BECK: Well, I mean, we could go down the road -- I mean, you could -- he was a Jew.

MASON: But there are two different religions now. What is the difference between a Christian and a Jew? One believes in Jesus and the messiah, which makes him a Christian. If I didn`t convert, I`m still a Jew. I can`t be a Jew for Jesus. I can`t be a table and a chair. I can`t be a horse and a cow. I can`t be a toilet and a kitchen.

BECK: All right.

MASON: They are two different things, but you`re not intelligent enough to follow the conversation.

BECK: OK, I get it, I get it. Now, you actually -- you have been very helpful to Christians on the fight for Christmas...

MASON: Well, I`m not saying because I don`t want to be known as a Christian instead of a Jew, because if I`m all of a sudden a Christian instead of a Jew, every Jew that was paying for my show will all of a sudden go to the wrong building. They wouldn`t know where to find me. They`ll all think either I`m retarded or I lost my place or I`ve got Alzheimer`s. How does a guy forget what he is? All of a sudden, I`m something else that I never knew.

BECK: OK, so you`re...

MASON: So, of course, I fought for Christmas. I still fight for "Merry Christmas." I think there`s nothing more obnoxious in the history of the world than people saying, "You can`t say merry Christmas." Merry Christmas is a godsend to the Jews. Look, we collect presents, we sell them trees, we make a fortune from Christmas.

Who has any complaint about saying "Merry Christmas"? The gentiles never said you can`t say "Happy Hanukkah," so why should I say they shouldn`t be able to say "Merry Christmas"? This is such a moronic thing in a free country. You`re allowed to celebrate a holiday, but you`re not allowed to say about who. Imagine if somebody said, "Happy birthday to who? I can`t tell you."

BECK: All right, $2 million, you`re going for $2 million.

MASON: Oh, $2 million, I should go to $12 million. But the truth of the matter is, I don`t know if I`ve got time to collect so much money.

BECK: Right, right.

Let me switch gears here with you for a second, because you are a political conservative.

MASON: Right.

BECK: And I have never received a good answer on this. I don`t understand, at least currently, why there are not more Jewish conservatives, because it`s really the conservatives that are saying, "Let`s not let Israel be wiped off the face of the Earth."

MASON: This is the most unbelievable thing in the world. The greatest support that the Jews always have is from the conservative Republicans. The further right a Republican is, the more he`s likely to be supportive of a Jew, and the more they see it as their biblical homeland as far as Israel`s concerned, and they`re 10 times more in favor of Israel and Judaism than the Jews are. There`s a lot of Jews who are in favor of the Palestinians.

BECK: It is true.

MASON: I performed at a college, and all the Jews are in favor of the Palestinians. They treat them as their victims. They see that they`re killing Jews every 10 seconds. The Jews are begging for mercy, and all they tell you is that it`s the Jew`s fault. Imagine if I come to your house to blow you up every 10 minutes, and everybody says, "It`s your fault because, if not for you, I would have nothing to blow up."

BECK: So why is that? What is it that...

MASON: Because, since the Roosevelt era, Jews have always been married to the -- Jews are very guilt-ridden for making money. If a Jew makes a living, and especially if he gets rich, he has to feel that he`s caring, and feeling, and involved with the underdog, with the underprivileged, that he`s suffering, that he`s a suffering soul for the people who can`t make a living.

Because if a Jew makes too much money, they say to themselves, "It doesn`t look nice. I have to pretend I`m really not making this much money. And if I am, I have to pretend I`m giving it away. And I have to go visit a black person every 10 seconds if he hits a Jew in the heart"...

BECK: Wait, wait, wait.

MASON: "I have to buy him a condominium."

BECK: I`ve got 30 seconds. I have to bring this full circle: Has anybody ever said to you that you`re an anti-Semite?

MASON: They have. You know who has said it? The people that are jealous that I make so much money. Gentiles like you, it`s killing them.

BECK: Jackie Mason, thank you, sir. Best of luck.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: All right, let`s get right to the e-mails. Stan in Salt Lake City writes, "I just read about that dirt bag, Warren Jeffs, in a July issue of your `Fusion` magazine and saw today that he was caught. Just wanted to thank you for taking one of our 10 most wanted off the streets. Oh, yes, and thanks to the FBI, for whatever small part they may have played."

You`re welcome, Stan. I`m glad "Fusion" could be of some service to you. Warren Jeffs was arrested in Nevada for sexual contact with a minor. This guy wasn`t some wannabe child freak like Captain Highpants from the JonBenet story. This guy was the real deal, "allegedly." Standards and practices are making me be accurate again. This guy is going to spend a very long time in prison and eventually some place much, much warmer.

Patty in Georgia writes, "Mr. Beck, Sir, last evening on your show you rushed past the crown prince of Iran who is our only hope for anything good to happen there. And then you went to a dreadful commercial. Then you took a long, leisurely time to talk about Captain Highpants. That sequence made a hopeless statement."

I mean, is it just me? I was just being criticized for talking too little about Iran? When did that happen? Did I fall through a wormhole? Patty, I`m covering Iran as best I can without President Tom getting, you know, royalties for it. In fact, I believe we`re ready -- are we? Yes. Yes. We are now ready to make a significant announcement on -- well, this is global significance -- in regards to Iran.

Here it is: Earlier today, the president of Iran challenged the president of the United States to do a debate on the state of the globe. And we now can announce that we are willing to host the proposed debate right here on this program.

I will, of course, moderate. And, you know, I`ll commit the entire hour to it, maybe. I mean, remember, there are two repeats to the show. So you`d get on TV three times in one night, President Tom. I`ll even print a short summary in "Fusion" magazine, plus unlimited water. Yes, yes.

I mean, I think I could even score you an autographed picture of Anderson Cooper. I don`t know, you know, if I can get it personalized. No promises on that one, but Bush is right here in the U.S. I`m sure he`ll be easy to get. But President Tom may be a little more difficult due to the travel time and, you know, lack of direct flights from Tehran to New York, which is probably a good thing.

So I appeal directly to you, President Tom. Contact me at GlennBeck@CNN.com.

END