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Glenn Beck
Why is Society Violent?; Florida Politician Weighs in on Foley Scandal
Aired October 03, 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: Tonight, more on the tragic Amish school shooting.
Some new information about the man who possibly could be the next Mohammed Atta.
And we round things out with Mr. T. It`ll all come together. I promise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Tonight`s broadcast is brought to you by North Korea. Remember us? We`re the other crazy country. If you like our cuisine, you`ll love our nuclear testing.
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BECK: You know, I`m going to be honest with you, one of the reasons I initially didn`t want to do a cable news show is that I hate the posturing on cable news, the people from opposite sides of an issue screaming at one another and nothing ever really gets done. And usually the story is lost in the yelling.
I just cannot make sense of anything in that world, and that`s why we`re trying to make this show a little bit different. But I don`t know if we succeed or fail most nights, but we try. It`s hard enough to sleep with the nightmares of hurricanes, and floods, and politicians hitting on my kids when they`re 16 years old.
But when a nut goes into an Amish schoolhouse and starts shooting children, it is almost too much to bear. Without -- without some digging beneath the surface of the story, we`ll never gain any real understanding. So let`s try to dig, shall we?
For instance, we have now come to find that this psycho allegedly told his wife that he had molested young children decades ago and had dreams of molesting again. With two more girls having died this morning, the death toll in this twisted rampage has risen to five.
So here`s the point: without exaggeration, I just don`t know what`s happening anymore. How did we get here? I don`t understand every side of a story, but I do -- thank goodness -- understand a little bit, and so let me share with you what little insight I do have tonight.
As the details come in about this Amish school shooting, I find myself -- but I don`t know if you felt this way last night -- kind of relieved that it was a random crazy nut job that did this, and not an Amish person. Maybe it`s silly, but I`ve got tell you, I think we need the Amish today more than ever. You know?
To me, they serve as a sign of hope, proof that people can live a simpler life. It`s possible. People can live by a set of strong values and avoid all the trappings, you know, of a consumer society that seems increasingly trivial. Don`t get me wrong: I don`t want to churn my own butter or anything. It`s just nice to see it.
As a community that has already separated itself from our society, can you even begin to imagine how even further away the Amish wish they could get from us right now?
My mom used to always say, "You are what you eat." That`s been going through my head today. If those words are true, no wonder we`re in so much trouble now. Think about this: a 30-second ad in the Super Bowl costs $2.5 million; $2.5 million dollars for thirty seconds of your attention. Now, ask yourselves, why would Coke or Ford spend that kind of money if they didn`t think that that kind of exposure would earn them even more money?
It`s a simple fact of life that advertising works. It influences your behavior. Why, then, is it so hard for so many of us to believe that we can sit our kids in front of a TV for hours and hours of violent sexual programming that`s just going into their head, and they soak it up every day? Why don`t people believe that would influence their behavior?
Television is a powerful medium. You know, like it or not, we buy the products that television sells us. We adopt the behaviors, the dress, and everything else that it glorifies.
Tonight, here is what I know. I know that we are raising a generation of kids that has been desensitized to violence and sex. You couple that with the fact that busy parents are making less time for their kids, and this is a recipe for disaster. Without Mom and Dad, you know, around the house to "resensitize" them to the very real consequences of violent action, our kids are literally killing each other.
The media is not to blame here; we are. Having children is a joy, but it`s a responsibility, and too many of us are just slacking off. Shame on us. Parents, if we do our job, we will all be safer. It is imperative that we raise strong children now.
I also know that, compared to my childhood, today`s kids are living in some sort of crazy theme-park Tomorrowland that I don`t even understand. I had as a kid, a bat and a ball. You saw in last night`s episode, clearly I never played with it, but today`s kids have cell phones, videogames and the Internet. Studies show that they still consider their lives boring. What? Their sense of entitlement and complacency is the powerful one-two punch. If idle hands are the devil`s playground, what is an idle mind?
Here`s what I don`t know: how long before we as Americans finally start connecting all of the dots? They`re all out there, the signs of the times, man. Columbine used to stand in boldface as an isolated incident, but as the number of copycat killings goes up, that boldface just starts to fade away as man`s love for man begins to wax cold.
What else don`t I know? If all of the reasons that I`ve just laid out -- the power of television, the overabundance of violent messages, the devastating effect of absentee parenting -- I mean, if these aren`t some of the key ingredients for the rampant anger and aggression that are making our kids come unglued, then good golly, man, I don`t have a single answer.
Joining me to help makes some sense of all of this is Dr. Philip Lazarus. He is a child psychologist, chairperson of the National Emergency Assistance Team.
Dr. Lazarus, besides ourselves, where do we look to place the blame on what`s happening in society? Not the Amish thing, but all of it.
DR. PHILIP LAZARUS, CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST: We are a culture that celebrates violence. And as you know, we have more than 200,000 acts of violence witnessed by children prior to the age of 16. We look at violence as a way of associating power, authority, sexuality.
BECK: But you know, we don`t -- there`s so many people that won`t even admit the fact -- or maybe they don`t know -- that some of the same things that we give our kids as Christmas presents were originally developed by the military to train people to kill. Am I not right?
LAZARUS: You are 100 percent right. We have actually become much more desensitized to violence than ever before, and when the military used to train individuals around World War I to have them become able to shoot enemy soldiers, it took them a long time for soldiers to feel somewhat OK in terms of doing that.
BECK: Right.
LAZARUS: Now we can kind of move into it real quickly, because people are trained right from the get-go on violent video games to shoot and kill.
BECK: OK. So that brings me to this. Is the culture of death, is the culture of violence that we watch for entertainment purposes, is that creating more freaks? Or is that just empowering the people who were born to be violent, and they don`t think -- gosh, I guess it`s OK to kill? Which is it?
LAZARUS: I think what`s happening now is those individuals much more prone to violence and have more violent predispositions, it really ratchets them up.
BECK: Right.
LAZARUS: And for most individuals that are not moving in that trajectory or in that direction, it maybe ratchets them up a bit, but not a great deal. So there`s a big influence on a small group of people.
BECK: OK. Is there something to be said for the desensitization of the normal people? I had so many calls today on my radio program from people who said, you know, hey, back off on all of these theories of yours. You know, this is part of the world, and the kids need to know that this is part of the world.
No, not so much. I think we should remain shocked by a lot of the stuff that we`re not shocked by anymore.
LAZARUS: I agree with you. I think it`s still as shocking to me, and we`ve had a number of school shootings around the country in the last couple years, but unless an individual shoots a few people...
BECK: Right.
LAZARUS: ... it doesn`t necessarily make national headlines. Now just shooting one person is just not good enough; you have to shoot more.
BECK: Are we -- are we different, really, than the Romans? I mean, we`re not putting Christians into cages and feeding them to lions, but I mean, some of stuff we see on television, we`re watching the same horrible stuff. We can just fake it now when they didn`t back then.
LAZARUS: Certainly, in terms of the Romans where we`re quite different than the Romans, but we do glorify violence.
BECK: Right.
LAZARUS: And that is something that also happened in Roman society.
BECK: And finally, any idea on how to stop it? The simple things like dinner, having dinner with your kids, turning the TV off, good?
LAZARUS: Of course. It`s 100 percent good. We have a lot of research studies that shows that having dinner with your children actually makes kids feel safer, more connected.
What we need to do is establish more levels of connections with our kids, and also look in terms of monitoring the children`s video watching, their game-playing, their TV watching.
And one thing I`d like to say, even though we`re seeing all these violent things happening in schools, children, you know, are fairly safe in school. It`s probably less than one in a million chance of a child actually being killed on school grounds today.
BECK: Right. Good. Thank you very much, Dr. Lazarus. Appreciate it.
You know, this kind of desensitization to violence is definitely not something unique to this country. In fact, we`re actually pretty good in comparison to some.
Take today`s installment of our continuing series called "Missed by the Media", where we show you what some in the Middle East consider must- see TV. Today`s clip, supplied to us by Memri (ph), it features a young girl and a young boy watching and enjoying the video footage of their father`s suicide mission.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (speaking foreign language)
GRAPHIC: This is the operation that Daddy carried out. This is the convoy coming from here, from Palestine. This is his operation. This is the place of the operations in which he was gone. This is the car Daddy blew up.
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BECK: Unbelievable. Back in a minute.
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BECK: We just haven`t done enough to protect our children. Maybe we should get guns off the street. Gosh darn it, we just don`t look at the real effects of any of this stuff.
I mean, this guy was clearly a psycho and disturbed, but he`s not alone. This week there`s been three deadly killings at schools, you know? As the -- you remember the headlines, how big that fount was? What was that, like 56-point font when we saw that on the front page? "Columbine". Now the font keeps getting smaller and smaller, and the sign just keeps getting bigger and bigger, but nobody`s willing to look at it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but some politicians are actually using the Congressman Foley sex scandal for political gain. Can you believe it?
Guys, there are 35 days before the election. I would think that this would make even the dirtiest politicians feel slimy to use this for politics, but we are going to have a lot more on this coming up in "The Real Story" later on in the program, including a really important piece to the puzzle that I don`t think you`ve probably heard very many people talk about, if any.
But first I recently had a chance to talk with Congresswoman Katherine Harris, who`s currently running for Senate in Mark Foley`s home state of Florida about the scandal and how it`s already being politicized.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: We`ve had this conversation before. I hate politics. I hate politicians. We -- we have so many things going on in our world. Let`s take Mark Foley for a second. Here`s a guy who is preying on 16-year-old kids, and everything is making this about the election. Good heavens. What is that about?
KATHERINE HARRIS (R), FLORIDA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: It`s appalling and abhorrent. It`s not a partisan issue, though. And interestingly enough, I had worked on so many of those child predator bills and Mark had, too. Now, of course, some of those same bills he worked on he could be subject to.
BECK: What did you think of -- did you ever have -- I mean, I heard some aides saying he was great, he was nice. Some said he just was -- he was kind of creepy. What was your impression on him? Did you have any idea?
HARRIS: I had no idea, no idea.
BECK: Is he going to get away with -- is he going to pull a Cynthia McKinney on us?
HARRIS: I don`t think so, Glenn, and the focus has to be on the children. Like Carly`s Law, we worked on that. Remember the little girl who was brutally raped and murdered in my hometown.
BECK: Yes.
HARRIS: We just finished that very important piece of legislation this year in commemoration of Adam Walsh, his life and death and all the work that his father had done. And now violent -- the idea of sexual predators. Anytime there`s sexual abuse, that`s going to be classified as an act of violence, partly -- in part because of Carly`s Law. And they`ll stay in prison for longer.
BECK: Please don`t -- please don`t let this be swept under the rug. Please.
HARRIS: I don`t think there`s any possibility of that.
BECK: Good. I`m glad to hear that. People should not vote for a Republican this term. They should not vote for a Democrat. They shouldn`t vote for an independent. They should vote for an American that understands the issue. I don`t care what party it`s from.
And I asked you to answer some yes or no questions that, if you don`t mind, I`d like you to just -- just to help people understand who you are. It`s so simple. Nobody needs spin; they just need politicians to say, "Yep, I believe it; no I don`t." Can -- can we do yes or no with you?
HARRIS: Absolutely.
BECK: OK, here we go. Islamic extremists, we`re in war with war with Islamic extremists and they are the biggest threat the war has faced since World War II?
HARRIS: Absolutely.
BECK: We are in World War III now, and if we don`t win, it will be the end of the west as we know it? Yes or no.
HARRIS: I don`t believe we`re at World War III yet.
BECK: Do you want to explain? Why?
HARRIS: Yes, I believe that we have this enormous threat of epic proportions that came about in dark ages, the middle ages, with the Islamic fascists.
But I believe there is still time, there`s still a way to turn this around. And I don`t believe that they`re anywhere close to winning or getting on the same par to be called that war with us at the level of a World War III.
BECK: OK. Venezuela and -- but you do believe if we lose, it will be the end of the west?
HARRIS: Without question, but we won`t lose. We will not lose.
BECK: Good for you. Thank you.
Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, a threat to the country, yes or no?
HARRIS: Yes.
BECK: Companies should receive crippling fines if they repeatedly hire illegal aliens?
HARRIS: Yes, but we have to have a secure I.D. so that they know the identification is valid.
BECK: I`d give you that. English needs to be our official language.
HARRIS: Yes.
BECK: Teachers` unions are a large obstacle in the way of fixing our schools.
HARRIS: Yes.
BECK: Oh, you`re brave.
I will vote against my party if I believe they`re wrong.
HARRIS: I have, and yes.
BECK: And my party is most wrong about...
HARRIS: Immigration. But only half the party. I mean, in the House of Representatives, we are fighting to secure the borders.
BECK: You know -- you know what`s so funny? I really, truly believe that the Democrats are exactly the same as the Republicans. The Republicans are split on immigration. The Democrats are split on war. They talk a good game, but they don`t know what the hell they`re even doing, and they`re split in their own party.
HARRIS: You know, with this war against terror, we had Mohammed Atta training in our backyard. So it comes very near and dear to our hearts.
But there are only three alternatives here. We can win the war and stay the course. And maybe there`s some new ideas we can have to bring to bear that we will win this war.
Otherwise, your other two options are to lose, cut and run and leave. And al those who have put their lives on the lines to protect America will have died in vain.
Or we can tell the terrorists when we`re going to cut and run with a date certain, and you go back to the second alternative.
BECK: Right.
HARRIS: We`re going to win this war.
BECK: Thanks, Katherine, appreciate it. Good luck.
HARRIS: Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Every day you can hear my radio program at stations all across the country, including 1370 WSPD in Toledo, Ohio. And if you can`t find an affiliate in your area, you can sign up and listen online at my web site, GlennBeck.com.
Now giving us the pulse of Chicago from WLS 890-AM, it`s Roe Conn -- Roe.
ROE CONN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Glenn.
BECK: What are people in Chicago talking about today?
CONN: Well, just last week there`s been a great mystery here about our favorite celebrity in peril at the moment, which is Anna Nicole Smith. Who really is the baby daddy? Will it be...
BECK: Right. I know all my friends are wondering.
CONN: Will it be Larry Birkhead...
BECK: Right.
CONN: ... the celebrity photographer, or is it this man here on the right, Howard K. Stern? Not to be, of course, accused with Howard K. Smith, the very famous journalist.
BECK: Right.
CONN: Now, Howard K. Stern...
BECK: I`ve got to tell you, that`s the way -- that`s usually who she goes for, though. I mean, assuming that he`s still alive, I could see maybe if he`s still alive, some 90-, 100-year-old guy being the father of the child. I`m just saying.
CONN: It would answer a lot of questions.
BECK: It would.
CONN: Howard K. Stern, attorney, was on "LARRY KING LIVE" last week.
BECK: Yes.
CONN: And he said, "I`m the father, Larry. I just have to tell you. I know it`s a shock. I`ve been in love with her for a long time."
Have you ever watched that reality show, you`d noticed they had a very strange relationship. And I always thought that he was just kind of protecting her. She`s so stupid she may forget to breathe, I think.
BECK: Right. Here`s the thing, Roe. Would you ever go on Larry King and admit that you had sex with Anna Nicole Smith?
CONN: Never, never. Not even with your reputation, I wouldn`t do it.
BECK: I wouldn`t do it.
CONN: I`d never do it.
BECK: I wouldn`t wish that on my enemy. Yes, he was with Anna Nicole Smith. Oh, that`s just unkind.
CONN: And now this guy, this Birkhead guy, wants a paternity test, because he wants to prove that the baby is his. Unless he`s smelling that $400 million, which I guess, it`s the only reason. Other than that, I`d be running for the hills, wouldn`t you?
BECK: Right. Now, Lance Armstrong is also in the news.
CONN: Yes, he is. He -- apparently, he and Sheryl Crow is no longer. He`s now dating Ivanka Trump. Or at least rumored to be.
BECK: Isn`t she like 12?
CONN: Well, she`s -- remember, she`s the one that her dad wanted to date. Remember, he was in the press saying, "I would date her. She`s so beautiful and so perfect."
BECK: Right.
CONN: I thought, "Oh, God, that`s a little creepy."
BECK: So really, the whole thing is creepy. How old is she? If she were just a guy, you know, Mark Foley would have had a shot at her.
CONN: I think she...
BECK: Did I just say that out loud? That was wrong.
CONN: We should double check and see if Lance Armstrong is getting any of Mark Foley`s e-mails.
BECK: I don`t know. I don`t know where that even came from.
CONN: And now finally...
BECK: Yes.
CONN: ... the last celebrity in peril, Bobby Brown. Bobby Brown, he looks like he`s going to go to jail. He owes $11,000 in child support.
BECK: Do you know how much cocaine that could buy?
CONN: That seems -- I don`t know. That seems like two months of child support.
BECK: Yes.
CONN: I don`t know what that`s all about. He says he`s not going to do it; he`s going to jail. And this, of course, you know what this does. This opens it up for Osama bin Laden. Finally, you know, he will get his dream come true. He -- he told a journalist 10 years ago in Morocco that he`s hot -- he is hot for Whitney Houston.
BECK: He did not.
CONN: He did. He did. He loves Whitney Houston. And he would like to make her his little jihadist.
BECK: Why don`t we put Whitney Houston in a plane and drop her over Pakistan, then? Let`s be done with it.
CONN: We could actually dangle her on a string.
BECK: I mean, thanks a lot, Roe. Appreciate it. Dangle her on a string.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Welcome to "The Real Story." This is where we try to cut through the media spin to figure out why a story is actually important to you.
If stories involving politics, sex and scandal really aren`t your thing, then let me just give you a quick recap of what`s happened with former Representative Mark Foley over the last couple of days. As far back as 2003, Congressman Foley allegedly sent sexual e-mails and instant messages to at least two different teenage boys who were employed as congressional pages. A blog recently posted those messages, and they were confirmed that, yep, he sent them by the congressman`s office.
Foley has now resigned and claims to be an alcoholic. Boo-hoo. Cry me a river. This morning, I got up and I opened the paper, and I read the headline, quote, "Conservative paper calls for Hastert`s resignation over Foley scandal." You know, since it`s only 35 days to the elections, you`d expect this to be immediately used for political gain, but the real story is that, like so many other things, this is not about politics. It is about a sick and depraved man.
Here is the part of the story that you probably haven`t heard much about. Two other newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times, which is widely regarded as having an insane liberal slant, had copies of the same e-mail exchanges as Hastert had for almost a year now. St. Petersburg Times didn`t publish them. They did nothing with them. Even ABC News admits to learning about these messages back in August and not pursuing them.
Let me tell you a little inside secret now that I`m in the media now. If people in the media -- if they have a story, and especially one involving politicians and sex, they don`t care about ruining lives, let alone elections. If it`s a good story, they`re going to run it. Some of them don`t even care about giving away troop positions if they think it will get better ratings.
So when three different media outlets all decide to pass on the same story, you could be pretty confident they didn`t think there was anything into it. I`ll make a deal with you: If it turns out that Speaker Hastert did know how disgusting and dangerous these conversations got and he didn`t do anything about it, I promise you, my friend, I will join on the resignation parade. But until that time, can we please stop pretending this is a political story? It`s not.
And the only thing that Hastert may be guilty of is not talking to the leadership on the other side of the aisle, but how can you blame him? It`s the very environment of "What did you know and when did you know it?" that created this atmosphere in the first place. He didn`t feel comfortable talking to them; they would have used it for politics. It`s that very environment that will virtually ensure that something like this will happen again.
Next, you probably heard by now that the Senate has approved the building of 700 miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexican border and they have also mandated that 22 of the largest shipping ports install radiation detectors by the end of next year, but the real story is that securing some of our ports and some of our border just ain`t going to cut it.
In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security released an 157-page record called "National Planning Scenarios," detailing 15 different possible U.S. disasters and attacks. The first scenario, called "nuclear detonation," describes how a nuclear device could hypothetically get into the country. Quote: "Some of the components of the device will be smuggled across the border with different groups of illegal immigrants," end quote.
Frightening, huh? Hey, let`s do something about the border. But is it possible? Former attorney general John Ashcroft was on my radio show yesterday, and I asked him, "Could this happen?"
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JOHN ASHCROFT, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: There are lots of different scenarios that have been both played out and have been guarded against, including whether you -- if you were to bring in components and assemble them instead of bringing in a completed instrument.
BECK: Right.
ASHCROFT: And I don`t know that I can say with any clarity or assurance about what the potential for that kind of effort is. However, I would say that it has been very thoroughly considered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Thoroughly considered. Wow, that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I don`t know about you. I`m about to make that feeling not go away, but get worse.
On September 20th, we did an interview on this program with Hamid Mir. He`s a Pakistani journalist who has met with Osama bin Laden three or four times in the past. He claims to have recently met with a Al Qaeda key leader in Afghanistan. That leader, Mir says, told him that Al Qaeda has finished its, quote, "cycle of warnings" and is getting ready to unleash an American Hiroshima, by -- you guessed it -- smuggling a nuke into the U.S. across the southern border.
The attack, according to the Al Qaeda operative, is to be mastermind by a U.S. citizen and Al Qaeda cell leader who`s been called the next Mohamed Atta. He also goes by the alias Jafer the Pilot. We`ve been showing you his picture for the last couple of weeks.
He has been missing and wanted by the FBI since 2003. There`s a $5 million reward for his capture. We`ve been telling you about him for the past couple of weeks, but what you really need to know is who this guy is and what kind of threat he may actually pose.
Pat D`Amuro, he is the CEO of Giuliani Security and Safety -- that names sounds familiar -- a former assistant director of the FBI. He`s the guy who led the team who first identified Jafer the Pilot.
Pat, they say this guy is the next Mohamed Atta. From what I`ve read, he may be worse. Is he?
PAT D`AMURO, FORMER ASST. DIRECTOR, FBI: Well, I think he could potentially be worse. We know that Jafer has had a relationship -- Shukrijumah has had a relationship with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11. Atta was not the mastermind. So we know that he was in Pakistan; we know that he`s had a relationship with some very dangerous people. And he is a great concern.
BECK: But he was also -- Atta was just kind of a foot soldier. This guy was hand-picked, wasn`t he?
D`AMURO: This individual is very well-educated. He attended Broward Community College, lived in the United States for some time, speaks English without any accent, has the ability to potentially come in and out of the United States, except for the fact that he`s very well-known and identified, and that all federal agencies, local agencies are on the lookout.
BECK: OK. So how did we originally hear about him? What`s the Guantanamo connection?
D`AMURO: Well, we first learned of Shukrijumah through the FBI team that came down to Washington with me shortly after 9/11. They began taking a look at all the patterns and traits of the 19 hijackers that were involved in 9/11 and began cross-referencing that, finding that Shukrijumah was the son of an individual who had a relationship with Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheikh, had some of the same travel patterns as the 19 hijackers.
So from that, interviews individuals in Guantanamo and other places, learning that he was known and did train in Afghanistan with some of these individuals.
BECK: OK. Now, I`ve heard that there`s been FBI chatter that some people in the FBI believe that he went across the border in Canada and is responsible for missing uranium at one of the universities. I believe it`s in Ontario. Have you heard that?
D`AMURO: There is media reports from Canada identifying that Shukrijumah was in Canada, may be response for stolen nuclear material. Some of it I find a little hard to believe that all the facts are accurate, but this is an individual that Al Qaeda would use in a massive attack against the United States. We know that bin Laden has desires to utilize nuclear weapons against the United States.
BECK: He has claimed that he has them and just hasn`t used them because of, I don`t know, some clerical error or something like that, but he has claimed in the past that he has them.
D`AMURO: Well, you know, Bin Laden was also defrauded years ago in trying to purchase red mercury which he thought could build a nuclear device, so they have some work to do. But it is my fear that someday Al Qaeda will obtain, or a terrorist group like Al Qaeda, will obtain a nuclear device and try to smuggle it into this country.
BECK: How close do you think we are -- how close could we be to, you know, what are they calling it, an American Hiroshima?
D`AMURO: Well, I`ll tell you, it`s a dangerous game to guess. The United States has to do a much better job in procuring technology to be able to identify this type of material from being smuggled into the United States. We need to do a better job at our borders; we need to do a better job at our ports. We are safer, I think, now than we were before 9/11, but we`re still not safe.
BECK: We need to find this guy, don`t we? Do you think he`s here? Could we show the picture? Do you think that this guy is here in the United States? Do we have any idea where he is?
D`AMURO: Well, all intelligence reports indicate that he`s probably in the Waziristan area of Pakistan, the same area that bin Laden is hiding out in.
BECK: OK, Pat, thank you very much. And that is "The Real Story" tonight. If you would like to read more about Jafer the Pilot or have free access to the "Real Story" archive, please visit glennbeck.com. Click on the "Real Story" button.
All right, let`s go "Straight to Hill." It`s Erica Hill, the anchor of "PRIME NEWS" on Headline News.
Hello, Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Hello, Glenn. How are you doing?
BECK: I`m pretty good. Fun with that crazy North Korean leader, which...
HILL: Nothing like a man in a members-only jacket, huh?
BECK: No, there really isn`t. What is it with the North Korean leader and President Tom, both wearing the members-only?
HILL: You may be onto something.
BECK: Hey, I like your glasses.
HILL: Hey, thanks.
BECK: Those are nice. It`s almost like Clark Kent. I almost didn`t recognize you. I was...
HILL: But I`m still me. Yes, I just thought the eyes deserved a break from the contacts today.
BECK: Yes, good for you. All right, so anyway tell me about North Korea.
HILL: OK. So your boy, Mr. Members-Only, the North Korean government warning it`s going to conduct a nuclear weapon test. Now the only question is: When? Here`s the deal. North Korea says the test is necessary because of what it calls the extreme threat of a nuclear war with the U.S. Now, the White House says, "We have no plans to attack you."
BECK: Really, please. Stand in line. I`m just saying, stand in line for that. We`ve got bigger countries to invade.
Erica, we`re out of time. Thanks.
HILL: See you tomorrow.
BECK: Bye-bye.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: I mean, I watch television, too. Don`t tell me that, "I`m 38 years old. I`m 45. Look at this. Look how I turned out." We were watching "Gilligan`s Island" and "Gunsmoke." We were watching -- "Charlie`s Angels" was the racy one.
Society has changed; media has changed; standards have changed. Go back and look at an old movie compared to a movie today. Everything has changed. Look at the stacks of broken families. You cannot say, "Well, when I was a kid, I did this and I turned out fine." You are living in the past. You must face what our children are facing today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: You know, there are some performers in this crazy world that I like to call showbiz that are so legendary they`re recognizable by just one name, Liza, Madonna, Gallagher, Beck. But rare is the breed of an individual and as singular a talent that can go by just one initial, but don`t take my word for it. The achievements of this man speak for themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The year 1982. The Rubik`s cube had us all stymied. A hairdo called the mullet was all the rage. And each Tuesday night, Joanie proclaimed her love to Chachi.
But it was a young manchild named Mr. T who entered America`s consciousness, offering hope, offering inspiration, and most of all offering guys the courage to wear lots and lots of jewelry. For Mr. T, the hits came quickly. "Rocky III," "The A-Team," "D.C. Cab." And the misses, well, they came even quicker, "TNT," "Spy Hard," "Not Another Teen Movie."
Yet, no matter how turbulent the world around us became, there was one thing we could always count on: Through it all, Mr. T remained Mr. T. As an American icon, one of a kind; as an American man, one of the kindest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Often imitated, never duplicated, Mr. T. How are you, sir?
MR. T, ACTOR: Thank you, Glenn. I`m glad to be here, brother.
BECK: So I have to start with this, and I feel like the dumbest man in America because probably everybody knows this. What happened to the chains? Where are they?
MR. T: I stopped wearing the gold, because I am a Christian man and I`m follower of my lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And because I`m a Christian, it would be a sin against God -- you know, I took my gold off last year when I saw the people suffering in Katrina. I said I would no longer wear my gold again. I wanted people to know that I have a heart of gold and a couple of gold false teeth, you know?
BECK: Wow, that`s a pretty profound -- I didn`t expect that answer from you. When I just asked you, you know, as we were getting ready to go, you closed your eyes for a second, and I said, "Are you a meditating man, a praying man, or just taking a quick nap?"
MR. T: And I said I was a praying man, because I asked God to give me the right words. Because every time I do an interview, I try to speak to someone to give someone hope out there.
BECK: Good for you. Good for you.
MR. T: Thank you.
BECK: So you could have used Mr. T for good or for evil. Was there ever a time that you thought, "I could use Mr. T for evil"?
MR. T: No, because I`m an old-fashioned mama`s boy. You know, when I was 9 years old, I told my mother I just wanted to be a good son. I want to buy her a house and pretty dresses, because I`m a product of the ghetto. I grew up on welfare and stuff like that. So I wanted to be a good son.
BECK: And you were originally a bodyguard, right?
MR. T: Yes. Yes.
BECK: And you protected Muhammad Ali?
MR. T: Yes, I protected a lot of people.
BECK: I actually heard you say in the makeup room that you protected a lot of people that were nobodies...
MR. T: I mean, they weren`t famous. Everybody was somebody, but they just wasn`t famous.
BECK: Yes, they weren`t famous, and you said that they were afraid. And the first thing I thought of was, "Were they afraid of you?"
MR. T: No, they were afraid of people -- you know, slowly the world is understanding that I look tough on the outside, but deep inside I`m a tender, loving guy. I`m a marshmallow, you know? You know, I`m only tough to the thugs who try to attack me. If you don`t jump me, you`ll just find that I`m the nicest guy in the world.
BECK: Do you ever -- because you are so recognizable. I was just in an airport over the weekend, and I`ve just done TV now for, what, four months.
MR. T: I`ve been following you.
BECK: And I`m a nobody.
MR. T: You`re somebody. You`re somebody, Glenn.
BECK: And I can`t imagine what it must be like for you to walk through an airport. Do you ever...
MR. T: No, it`s a lot of love.
BECK: Really, glasses wouldn`t work for you.
MR. T: No, no, I don`t wear glasses. I want to be recognized. I don`t travel in an entourage. I travel by myself, maybe a press agent, something like that. I want the people to come to me, to love on me.
As a matter of fact, I was telling, when they travel, they want to put me in one of them rooms. And I said, "Don`t put me in that room. Put me out so the people can see. Put me out so the mother with three kids can get a glance at me." But if I`m locked up in one of the rooms, the hoity- toity crowd is going to get to me. I`m a regular guy. I`m a blue-collar actor, you know? I`m for the people. I`m the guy down on the street who had an opportunity and took advantage of it.
BECK: You`re great. Now, you have a new TV show on.
MR. T: Yes.
BECK: And we have a clip from it. You`re kind of a motivational guy in it.
MR. T: Yes, exactly.
BECK: All right. Let`s go ahead and roll the clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MR. T: Hello, Mr. B. I`m Mr. T. I`m a salesman at Nemmit Motors (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ha, ha, ha.
MR. T: OK. OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello?
MR. T: Hello, Mr. Jones?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who`s this?
MR. T: This is Mr. T. We got a big sale coming up. And we want to know if you`re interested in coming down and look at some of our models. And we can make a good deal for you. Hello?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: So you must get that a lot. When you call people up and say, "Hey, it`s Mr. T," people want to say, "Shut up," and hang up.
MR. T: You know, I was trying to be a car salesman. And I think I just called the people at the wrong time. That`s what salesmen do. You bug people, you know? I didn`t mean to bug people, you know, but now I see what it`s like.
BECK: So what is the premise of the show?
MR. T: The premise of the show, each week I go out to people, neighborhoods, to their homes, to their workplace, and I motivate them. I inspire them. I lift they spirits.
I come with street sense, you know? I don`t have no degrees and the like. And I tell people -- Dr. Phil, he give advice. I don`t give people advice. I motivate them. I inspire them. I show them how to work their problems out.
BECK: OK, more with Mr. T on our podcast coming up. Also, "I Pity the Fool" premieres October the 11th on TV Land. We`ll be back in a second.
Pleasure.
MR. T: Thank you, brother.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Lots of hate mail to get to today. The first one comes in from Ben at Canada. He said, "Glenn, did you know that your pitch at the Angels game was made from about halfway between the pitcher`s mound and the home plate? Please, no more, Glenn. Or is that Glennette?"
Yes, it is Glennette, actually. Ben, I`m not going to show the pitch again. But needless to say, yes, I could have stepped a little farther back. OK, that`s not necessary. Watch this rocket arm that I have. My wife actually said to me -- believe it or not, last night, when she saw it, she said, "I can`t believe I`m married to you."
By the way, the rumors are not true. Neither I nor Roger Clemens have used any performance-enhancing drugs, although I wish I had. My webmaster at glennbeck.com who apparently hates my guts put a poll up where you could rate my pitch on a scale from 1 to 10: 76 percent gave it a score of 5 or below; 46 percent actually gave it a 0. But I thought the scale was 1 to 10, but I want to thank everybody for voting, and I mean that, really.
Byron writes in from Richmond. He says, "Should I sue you, TiVo, or Headline News for the carpal tunnel syndrome that I have developing in my thumb from managing my GLENN BECK season pass?"
You know, we get more e-mails on this more than on any other subject, outside of my glasses, which -- get a life, people. If you tell your TiVo to report every episode of this show, it`s going to fill up faster than an e-mail inbox of some subordinate of Mark Foley. But as far as I know, the best way to get around it is to go to the manual record feature and just schedule it to report only one showing or just watch all three showings live. That`s my recommendation.
Steven writes in, "I thought this man was a buffoon until I found out that he has psychiatric problems. Is he really being exploited by performing on TV? He needs to be somewhere quiet on medication and in therapy. With all due respect, I am unable to watch him. Thank you."
Well, thank you for respectfully calling me psychotic, really. I`m going to say, Steven, your e-mail filled with lies. Saying that I have a psychiatric problem indicates you believe I only have one, which is obviously untrue.
Visilio from Miami writes, "Want to help America? Promote the legalization of hemp growing." OK, well, you know, whatever, you didn`t exactly say why that would help America, but I can only assume your comment is based on in-depth thought, deep analysis of some kind. Maybe it was needed to help the economy that I hear is worse than Herbert Hoover, and I`m not basing that on statistics, or numbers, or factually based statements of any kind.
I just look in the mirror and I see a man everyday who`s forced to work two jobs on TV and on radio, and I say, "Damn this Bush administration!" Horrible.
See you tomorrow on the radio, you sick freak.
END
