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Glenn Beck

Why are We Obsessed with Paris Hilton?; Ann Coulter Responds to Elizabeth Edwards` Criticism; Girl, 2, Youngest Inductee into Mensa

Aired June 29, 2007 - 19:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight: our bizarre fascination with Paris Hilton. What keeps us tuning in to celebrities behaving badly?

Plus, Coulter versus Edwards. Elizabeth Edwards takes to the airwaves, asking Ann Coulter to stop with the personal attacks.

ELIZABETH EDWARDS, WIFE OF JOHN EDWARDS: I`m asking you politely to stop the personal attacks.

ANN COULTER, AUTHOR, "GODLESS": How about you stop raising money on your web page.

BECK: Is Ann Coulter is a bigot? I sit down with Coulter to get her side of the story. You won`t believe it when you hear it.

And more controversy for Tom Cruise. Germany has barred Tom Cruise from filming in their country. Why? His religion.

All this and more, tonight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Well, hello, America.

I -- you know, maybe it`s just me, but have you heard of this Paris Hilton girl everybody`s talking about? Oh, stop! There is no denying that we are obsessed with this woman: where she goes, what she wears, what she does, especially if it`s stupid, embarrassing or illegal, but here`s the point tonight.

Even though thousands and thousands of magazine pages and countless hours of television have been devoted to all things Paris, I can`t figure out why we`re transfixed by her. And what does the fixation say about us? And here`s how I got there.

Honestly, we don`t know Paris Hilton: what she thinks about, if she thinks. I mean, really. She`s not exactly a genius, and that was painfully obvious during her interview with our own Larry King.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PARIS HILTON, HOTEL HEIRESS: Well, I suffered from claustrophobia my entire life. And when I first got in that cell, I was having severe panic attacks, anxiety attacks. My claustrophobia was kicking in. I wasn`t sleeping. I wasn`t eating.

It was -- the doctors talked to the sheriff, and he could see that it would be better if I just did it on house arrest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Paris, on behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for finally shedding some light on just how totally scary jail really is. Have you forgotten that`s why we put you in jail? You being freaked out and uncomfortable is kind of part of the whole jail plan.

I know Paris Hilton isn`t exactly, you know, high on the intellect scale, but I`m not really sure that`s entirely her fault. For just a moment, I want you to try to imagine what life must have been like to grow up in the Hilton household, surrounded by wealth, privilege, unlimited opportunity. What could that have been like? OK, sweet.

But the other side of that coin is privilege often kills desire. Whether you look to the writings of Conrad Vanderbilt or FDR, wisdom teaches us that when we take away a person`s need to try, we take away their ambition and their dignity, as well. And if the absent of ambition and dignity doesn`t nearly describe Paris Hilton to the "T", I don`t know what does.

If you`re a parent, you know what I`m talking about. Our kids need expectations placed on them, and it doesn`t seem like the Hiltons had any expectations for their little heiress. At least no expectations that I can find.

But Paris Hilton is only half of the problem. The media doesn`t do stories about people we`re not interested in, so if you`re as burned out on Ms. Hilton`s exposure as I am, we really only have ourselves to blame. Until we can understand and conquer our preoccupation with celebrities behaving badly, then our culture will continue spiraling to the depths of the lowest common denominator. I think -- I say, I hope we`re better than that.

So tonight, here`s what you need to know. Paris, you did the crime, you did your time, and now you`ve got a clean slate. And while I wish you the very best, try not to forget that, for some reason, we`re still watching. And videotape lasts forever. But you probably already know that.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and author of "Living the Truth".

Doctor, we worship her and we hate her at the same time.

DR. KEITH ABLOW, PSYCHIATRIST: Yes, but that`s -- that`s every addict`s relationship with his or her drug, isn`t it? Cocaine is our Paris. Or Paris is our cocaine. In other words, we`re getting high off her. And isn`t that the traditional relationship you have? You say, "My God, I wish I didn`t use this stuff, but I`ll have some more."

BECK: Holy cow, are you -- I mean, where did you get that? Do you learn that in school or are you an alcoholic like I am?

ABLOW: Well, you know what? It`s the same thing. Look, you know what? If you weren`t going to your job, because you`re lying on a beach in the Caribbean, you`d come to hate that beach. And yet, if you`re lying there getting a tan, ordering your margaritas, you might not get up either, and so I think that she`s so simple, she is what she is. So we use her.

BECK: Is she a product of how bad things are in the world? Is she a product of September 11?

ABLOW: She is a product of September 11. She is a product of the war in Iraq. She`s a product, however also, of our human tendency to not want to get too distressed, to not really get into the issues that trouble us.

And so you know what? She`s like a vacation. And you know, you don`t take a philosopher on vacation with you. You take Paris Hilton.

BECK: I got to tell you, I`ve been on a lot of vacations and I`ve ridden a lot of planes. I don`t need penicillin after I read -- ride that plane.

Anyone in her life telling her, is there anyone telling her, you`re being used? And is she preparing it all for -- I mean, we have a very short attention span. She`s going to be out kicking the rocks in the parking lot at some point going, "What the heck happened? I thought everybody loved me."

ABLOW: You know what? That can be way down the road for people. People can run from their inner truth for a long time. And after all, where did we see her run right from prison. She runs into the arms of her mother.

And I had this gut feeling, like, oh, no, that`s probably not the place to go. These are the people who raised you. And look, I don`t know her diagnosis, but you know, you wonder, was privilege and money substituted for absolute, genuine love? If so, she`ll have to cope with that down the road.

BECK: How do you mean?

ABLOW: What I mean is that, you know, if she didn`t have a sense of self, if she can sit there on Larry King and not be able to say one quality about her, other than her voice, that she`d like to change and work on, then she was deprived of self.

And the environment in which that happens is one in which there isn`t a respect for the individual, and that may have been the environment in which she was raised. That`s...

BECK: Is this something that she would have been valued because she was pretty and she was a Hilton, and just be pretty and a Hilton?

ABLOW: Just be pretty and a Hilton. And you know what? We can even turn you into a product.

Now the girl`s not without ambition to get on the shelves of the stores of America`s media, but in terms of her internal world, the landscape does seem to be rather barren at present, but it can`t be. There has to be pain there.

BECK: You`re -- you`re her parent or you`re -- God forbid, I mean, some of us are raising children, you know, that are like her. I mean, there`s a lot of parents out there that their kids idolize Paris Hilton. What do you say to your kid? If you were Kathy Hilton -- imagine you with pretty blonde hair.

ABLOW: Ha, ha. A lot better than this.

BECK: If you were Paris Hilton`s mom or dad, what would you do right now?

ABLOW: What I would do right now is I would say, "Hey, look, you know what? The bottom line is we may have created an environment that deprived you of certain elements of self. You know, we listened to the interview, and I`ve got to tell you, Paris, you looked absolutely beautiful, but we got really deeply concerned when you couldn`t really reach inside yourself and give Larry King anything of yourself.

"And so what I`d like to say is this. I think it`s a very bad idea for to you be doing the media work that you`re doing right now. I think maybe even something as revolutionary as going to get some schooling. Maybe we gave you the message that you weren`t a student, but you know what? Maybe you really are, and we didn`t give you that opportunity to learn."

BECK: I want to play the clip from Larry King from last night, so in case you don`t know what he was talking about, when she just could not dig into herself, she was asked by Larry, you know, what`s the worst thing about you? You know, what do you want to change? Watch this clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": What don`t you like about Paris Hilton? What`s a personality trait Paris Hilton would change?

HILTON: Something, you know, when I get nervous or shy, my voice gets really high. I`ve been doing that ever since I was a little girl, and that`s something I don`t like that I do. I like when I talk in my normal voice, but sometimes I go down and that`s something I`m trying to change about myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I don`t think I`ve ever seen anyone more vacuous than that.

ABLOW: True.

BECK: You know, if this were my daughter and I saw that on TV I think I`d weep. I would have wept if my daughter would have -- you got out of jail, and you were thinking about how your voice is high? Are you that clueless?

ABLOW: But we`ll also listen with our third ear, if you will. As a psychiatrist I was listening to her. And she says I -- "My voice rises when I feel nervous, even when I was a little girl." And so the next question you ask, if you care about her as a human being, is Paris, let`s get off the voice thing. But what did make you nervous as a little girl?

BECK: I`m already uncomfortable.

ABLOW: Last time I`ll be a guest on your show.

BECK: That`s what you doctors do.

ABLOW: Absolutely.

BECK: So what -- what exactly does it say about us that we are transfixed by her, anything other than we just want a side show? Isn`t that normal?

ABLOW: Well, I think it says that we want distraction but also not just from her. We want distraction from our own feelings, from our own emotional loose ends, and she seems to be for us, somewhere, where we can take a vacation emotionally.

Unfortunately, however, I think she`s symptomatic of a cultural shift, which is in the direction of not having connection to self.

BECK: Let me ask -- let me ask one more question. If she changed, if she would have genuinely changed in a jail, would we have accepted her?

ABLOW: I think we would have accepted her in a way, but it would have damaged her brand. In other words, her brand is to be taken from the shelves plain and simple.

I don`t think that most of the people who consume Paris Hilton want to think of her saying, "You know, the thing that I`d like to change, I`m quick to anger, and then I have to reassess my thoughts and refocus." I think it will interfere with our enjoyment of her as our drug.

BECK: Keith, thanks a lot.

ABLOW: Thanks, Glenn.

BECK: Coming up, when wives attack. The presidential candidate, the wife of John Edwards comes out swinging, defending her husband from Ann Coulter`s controversial comments. But did she even make those comments? Were they taken out of context? Ann Coulter will be here.

Plus, Tom Cruise is being denied the right to film a movie in Germany because he`s a Scientologist. I don`t believe in Scientology, but I do believe in freedom of religion. This may be the only time you hear me defend Tom Cruise. Don`t miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: There are fires raging in Iran, literally. Iranian citizens protesting fuel rationing and torching gas stations in one of the richest oil nations in the world. Well, "The Real Story" isn`t about rationing; it is about revolution. Details in just a minute.

But first, political pundit Ann Coulter. I like her. We`re both conservatives. I think she`s very, very smart. I think she`s funny. I generally agree with her politics.

I heard about a piece, an appearance that she did with presidential candidate John Edwards`s wife, Elizabeth, on NBC`s "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. When I saw this piece, I had some questions I had to ask Ann Coulter myself.

But first, I want you to look at the clip that I saw. This is Elizabeth Edwards on "Hardball" with Ann Coulter, and Elizabeth Edwards is on the phone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COULTER: OK. The wife of a presidential candidate is calling in, asking me to stop speaking? You`re asking me to stop speaking? Stop writing your column. Stop writing your books.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST, MSNBC`S "HARDBALL": OK, Ann, please.

COULTER: OK.

EDWARDS: Which makes fun of the moment of Charlie Dean`s death and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car. It said, "Ask me about my dead son."

COULTER: That was three years ago.

(CROSSTALK)

EDWARDS: ... dialogue. It debases political dialogue. It drives people away from the process. We can`t have a debate about issues if you`re using this kind of language.

COULTER: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. The clip actually that I was -- that I`d asked for was not that clip. It was actually when she said to stop attacking her husband, and calling, you know, John Edwards, or saying that -- what was it they accused of you, Ann, that you wanted him to die as a -- in a terrorist attack or something like that?

COULTER: Yes.

BECK: Which is not true at all, completely baseless?

COULTER: Well, it`s like a Disney fun house. You have to, you know, step back and see what the full sentence was, which I think is actually easier done on TV if you just show both clips.

BECK: Yes.

COULTER: But if you want me to repeat myself...

BECK: No, no, no. I`m going to show it. I wanted to hear what you had to say about it. This is -- because honestly...

COULTER: I don`t need to explain what I said. You just need to see what I said rather than waffle (ph) that.

BECK: Ann, you`re hostile.

COULTER: It`s like being quoted and saying, yes, and having someone say, "You see, you said yes; you are a child molester." And you have to explain, no, the question was, are you a Republican?

BECK: Let me play the clip. This is from ABC`s "GMA". Look how far this was taken out of context.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COULTER: I wouldn`t insult gays by comparing them to John Edwards. That would be mean.

But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I`ve learned my lesson. If I`m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I`ll just wish he`d been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I don`t understand why anyone has a problem with that. You`re making a point, are you not, that one side can say something that outrageous, but then you`re attacked for making the point that he said that? This is -- this is the double standard that conservatives go through all the time.

COULTER: Well, it`s worse than a double standard. This is how the mainstream media operates. This is what they mean when they talk about the Fairness Doctrine. And that is, why is anyone outraged by that? Because most people don`t know that`s what I said.

What has -- what the A.P. has reported and is throughout the Web and being replayed on MSNBC, is just the part at the end where I`m imitating Bill Maher`s statement...

BECK: Right.

COULTER: ... saying I wish John Edwards had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot. And if they can do this to me, America, just look at what you are dealing with here.

BECK: Yes. Now, I have said things on the air that have been taken out of context. They have been twisted. I`ve said things that just -- foot in the mouth, just stupid, stupid things.

This question on ABC, and this is the one thing I haven`t understood, and I wanted to talk to you about it personally, this question that you answered on "Good Morning America", and I think answered well, was -- stemmed from a comment that you made about John Edwards at a speech.

And I want to play the clip. Here`s the clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COULTER: I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word (expletive deleted). So...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: So, you...

COULTER: I see you`re bleeping that now. Are you also bleeping "illegal alien" and "amnesty" and other words we`re not supposed to use?

BECK: Well, one is a -- one is a slur. One is a slur. Do you believe -- you don`t believe that word is a slur?

COULTER: No.

BECK: You don`t?

COULTER: No. No, I think it`s a comedic word, a schoolyard word. Sarah Silverman uses the word. And oh, liberals don`t mind it when she uses it.

BECK: OK.

COULTER: And by the way, I wasn`t saying it on TV. I was saying it at a right-wing political convention with 7,000 college Republicans. I didn`t put it on TV.

BECK: OK, well -- but that doesn`t necessarily -- I don`t want to get into that. Here`s...

COULTER: You don`t think it makes a difference what the venue is? There`s nothing you`d say in front of a group of college Republicans that you wouldn`t say on TV? I doubt that.

BECK: No, there really isn`t. I mean, I do comedy tours and I say, because you live in the -- you live in the world of YouTube now, where you know you`re going to -- somebody`s going to take it and spin it out of context, et cetera, et cetera.

But I don`t understand the joke. Can you -- was it...

COULTER: Well, you`re going back six months. This was a week after Isaiah Washington, the actor...

BECK: I understand that. But what is the connection...

COULTER: ... was sent to rehab for using the word.

BECK: I got that. But what`s the connection to John Edwards?

COULTER: I had just done five minutes on Obama, five minutes on Hillary. I needed to end my speech, so I just threw in, "I can`t say anything about him because I can`t use this word." The word means wimp, wuss, pathetic.

BECK: OK. That`s all that...

COULTER: That`s what it means.

BECK: Got it.

COULTER: And someone who does, you know, the Las Vegas routine before illiterate juries in order to bankrupt doctors with junk science -- admitted by the "New York Times" to be junk science...

BECK: Yes. Yes.

COULTER: ... is precisely what that word means, which is why 7,000 college Republicans laughed.

BECK: Ann Coulter, author of "Godless: The Church of Liberalism". Thanks for having a great conversation.

Coming up, Tom Cruise is being denied to film a movie in Germany because of Scientology. This may be the only time that you actually hear me defend Tom Cruise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: All right. You don`t have to be a genius to host a TV show, and I`m living proof of that, but you do have to be a genius to become a member of Mensa.

The high I.Q. society just welcomed their newest member -- I don`t know if you saw this story over the weekend -- a 2-year-old little girl from England with an I.Q. of 152.

She can count to ten, draw on almost perfect circle and tell the difference between pink and purple. I can do all of those things. At 2, she`s already overqualified to work in my position.

Joining me now is Frank Lawless. He is a psychologist in charge of testing for Mensa.

How are you doing, Frank?

FRANK LAWLESS, PSYCHOLOGIST: How are you doing? I`m doing fine.

BECK: Well, yes. What is your I.Q., Frank?

LAWLESS: Well, it varies, depending on what test I take.

BECK: OK.

LAWLESS: It will range from, you know, really high to, you know, real high.

BECK: That`s weird. Mine too.

So she has 152 I.Q. The parents said she -- they think she could have scored higher, but she had to take a nap, in the middle of the test. How off the charts is this girl?

LAWLESS: Well, first of all, the Stanford-Binet that she was tested by, it`s a little bit -- it has a higher ceiling effect, so that particular score would probably be lower if they took a statistical kind of I.Q. test. So we`re really talking about 140.

This is really high. I don`t want to detract from that, but it is really very high, and, you know, noteworthy in terms of being higher than probably 99 percent of the population.

BECK: All right. The people -- people -- I heard people talking about this. Like, she drew a circle. How tough is drawing a circle?

LAWLESS: Yes. Well, again, let me explain what I.Q. is. It`s basically your mental age compared to your chronological age. So she`s 2 years old, and it takes a 3-year-old or a 4-year-old to draw a perfect circle.

So, if you compared just that test, then she`s 4 over 2, which would make her have an I.Q. of 200. So it`s very relative to, you know, to your age itself.

BECK: While he was giving that answer, I just drew a cube right there. That`s much more complex than a circle.

She`s compared to Stephen Hawking, which I love, because Stephen Hawking, he did nothing with his intelligence until he got -- until he fell down the stairs when he was at Cambridge as a student and realized, "Uh-oh, I`ve got something bad going on." And then he was given a very short period of time to live and decided to apply himself.

Just because she`s a genius doesn`t mean that she`s going to amount to anything. I`m trying to make myself feel better about me and my kids and my whole family for generations, quite honestly.

LAWLESS: Well, she scored high on an I.Q. test for 2-year-olds. That doesn`t mean that she scored high for a test for adults.

BECK: Oh, so she could stop at any time?

LAWLESS: She could stop at any time.

BECK: This may be as good as it gets for her?

LAWLESS: Well, it might be, but what happens is that 50 percent has to do with her gray matter. Fifty percent has to do with what happens along the way.

We can destroy a lot of brain cells just by taking too much alcohol, staying up too late, not getting enough sleep and being angry or stressed. All those things will detract or subtract from your I.Q.

BECK: That`s why mine is only 160, quite honestly. Or -- I know it`s got a 60 in it.

You -- the -- somebody who tested like this or would have tested like this is Einstein, right? They thought he was -- they thought he was a dummy when he was a kid.

LAWLESS: Well, exactly. And that`s what I was going to say about the term genius. Genius really can`t be calculated. There`s not a test for genius. There`s a test for high intelligence.

BECK: Yes. Frank, let me tell you something, you`re watching this show, you`re a genius. Takes one to know one, too.

Back in a second with "The Real Story". Don`t miss it.

Frank, thanks a lot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, Paris Hilton did say she was a changed woman, but, really, who knew she was talking about her hair? The heiress`s special post-jail delivery, and how she`s adjusting to life on the outside, coming up in just a minute.

But, first, welcome to the "Real Story." Protesters in Iran have now torched at least 12 gas stations and riots have broken out in major cities all across the country. The media is reporting that it`s happening to a reaction to a gas rationing program declared late Tuesday night, but if you`ve been watching this show, you know why it`s really happening.

The "Real Story" is: Iran has tons of oil, but they can`t refine it into gasoline. And it`s created a huge weakness, a weakness that I`m happy to say we`ve been exploiting. Through official sanctions and back-channel oil deals with countries like Saudi Arabia, we`ve been putting the squeeze on the neck of Iran`s economy, and now it`s finally paying off. Gas prices jumped over 25 percent just last month. Unemployment is rampant. Inflation is raging. And there are hundreds of thousands of cars today lined up at gas stations.

Businesses are being looted, gas pumps are burning, and things are so bad that 57 leading Iranian economists have even had the guts to risk their own lives and publish a letter saying that President Ahmadinejad`s policies are bringing financial chaos.

But the best thing of all of this is the Iranian people, our best chance for change, they`re finally starting to stand up, and not a minute too soon. I don`t know if you saw this in the paper today, but former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton recently said that he thinks we`re running out of time in Iran and military action may be one of the only options left. I hope that`s wrong.

The only way to prevent us going in with military action is to tighten the screws even further. If the U.N. had a shred of credibility left, they`d recognize what`s happening in Iran for what it really is: an opportunity, an opportunity to crush this regime and change the face of the Middle East, all without ever firing one bullet.

It`s an opportunity of a lifetime. It`s an opportunity, quite frankly, that Jimmy Carter missed in the late `70s, and we can`t miss it again.

Ilan Berman is vice president for policy of the American Foreign Policy Council. Ilan, what needs to be done right now? And how do we support the Iranian people today?

ILAN BERMAN, AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL: Well, I think what`s going on today is really remarkable, because I think you hit it exactly right. What you see today is the result of the Achilles heel of the Iranian regime: the intersection of poor economic planning on the ground in Iran and their reliance on refined petroleum from abroad. Iran may be an energy superpower, but they import about 40 percent of the gasoline they consume every year from aboard.

The intersection of those two things means if we really put the squeeze and we start turning off the gasoline pump, as we are beginning to do, and as the regime is fearful that we are going to do to an even greater extent, we could really bring people out onto the streets, we could really cause this regime to stop doing business as usual, on the nuclear front and any other.

BECK: But here`s the scary part. You know, these economists were saying that President Ahmadinejad needs to be removed, et cetera, et cetera. The world has so demonized Ahmadinejad without ever really explaining to the masses that it`s not Ahmadinejad that is the real power there, it is the ayatollah and the mullahs that have the real power. Do you fear at all that they could use Ahmadinejad as a scapegoat and survive this, the real power structure?

BERMAN: Oh, I think so. There`s no question that Ahmadinejad is really useful as a tool for radicalizing the dialogue. If you remember seven years ago, we wouldn`t talk to the then-president, the "reformist," in quotes, cleric Mohammad Khatami, and now we`re desperate to talk to anyone in Tehran that would listen, just as long as they slow down the nuclear problem, they stop meddling in Iraq.

So he`s been really a useful tool, in terms of radicalizing the dialogue. But it might be that his usefulness is at an end. He`s been spending like it`s going out of style. His anti-corruption campaign, which he campaigned on in 2005, has not gotten out of the gate. And a lot of his policies are actually making economic conditions very tangibly worse for ordinary Iranians.

BECK: So these are the people that invested chess. I mean, they`re brilliant, and they`re always several moves ahead. Why announce this at 9:00 at night and say, "This rationing is starting at midnight," you know, in three hours from now, when you have enough gas reserves? What is the next step? What are they doing? What are they positioning for?

BERMAN: Well, what this really is, it`s tough medicine ahead of time. The Iranian regime is trying to inoculate its population, because what they`re really afraid of is they`re afraid of their population rising up and saying, "You haven`t delivered for us politically. You haven`t delivered for us economically, and we want change."

So what they`re trying to do is they`re looking at the energy equation and the fact that the regime is vulnerable from the outside, and they`re expecting that the U.N., and more likely that the U.S. and the coalition working outside of the U.N. will impose something like a gasoline embargo, so they`re imposing rationing as a preemptive step to inoculate the population.

BECK: All right, next time we have you on, we have to talk a little bit about Chavez and what role he`s going to play in this. Thanks, Ilan.

Next, the CIA released the "Family Jewels" yesterday. These are decades-old records that detail the embarrassing episodes from the Cold War days. There was the attempt to enlist mafia members to poison Fidel Castro and make his beard fall out. I`m not kidding. The plans to assassinate the leaders of the Congo and Dominican Republic, the secret holding cell in Maryland where a Russian defector was held for two years, the spying on all kinds of Americans, the testing of hallucinogenics on unwilling participants, and, of course, the physical surveillance of now FOX News anchor Brit Hume, who we all know in the heart of hearts is a dirty Commie and a danger to our society.

CIA Director Michael Hayden released these documents with the hope that it would be a close to an embarrassing chapter and help them regain the public`s trust and confidence. I don`t know about you, but it`s not really working out that way for me. The "Real Story," at least for me, this has made things worse. Even though a lot of these incidents happened in the papers before, this is the first time you can read first-person accounts from the agents themselves all in one place. And it`s pretty disturbing stuff.

I hate to be Mr. Obvious here and ask the commonsense question, but somebody should: Why is the CIA still in business? Their charter unequivocally states that they can only operate overseas, yet they seem to always be spying on Americans here on U.S. soil, all the while being wrong about just about every major event over the last 40 years.

Now, I know the CIA can`t exactly, you know, issue a press release every time they do something right. You know, "Hey, we just stopped a nuke attack on Manhattan." But still, doesn`t it seem to anybody else the bad seems to outweigh the good? I mean, when Tom Cruise can sneak in and steal your NOC list, things are not really -- hang on, I just realized what I`ve been doing here. You know what? It`s the CIA. I`ve changed my mind entirely. I love the CIA! No need to kill me now, guys.

I`m joined now by the former head of the CIA search for OBL and author of "Imperial Hubris," Michael Scheuer. Michael, you were a guy on the inside. Do we need to reform the CIA?

MICHAEL SCHEUER, "IMPERIAL HUBRIS" AUTHOR: Oh, I think if anything, we`ve been over-reformed, sir. So many of those comments and documents that came out the past couple days are really old news. They certainly happened. They were certainly taken care of, but the oversight of the agency now is very, very restrictive and well within the confines of the law.

BECK: OK, so we`re not spying on, you know, Brit Hume, and we`re not spying on American citizens and violating the charter of the CIA?

SCHEUER: Certainly not that I know of, sir. One of the reasons, for example, I had FBI officers within my unit at CIA was to make sure that no agency officer was pursuing a lead inside the United States.

BECK: You were one of the co-authors of the rendition program which really gave birth to things like Guantanamo, didn`t it?

SCHEUER: Not really, sir. Guantanamo was basically a military operation until very late in the game, when we moved the...

BECK: But I mean it`s the same -- rendition is the same kind of concept, isn`t it, where you take people out and you isolate them where they have no rights to anything?

SCHEUER: Well, there`s two different programs, yes, sir. We captured people for the Bush administration, which were held by the United States. For Mr. Clinton, we captured people and then turned them over to Egypt and other countries at his direction.

BECK: OK, Michael, I mean, here`s a guy -- you`re a guy who I trust. You`re a guy who says it like it is. And I`m not a guy who is in the CIA and trying to get out and just live a normal life. I`ve seen Jason Bourne movies.

But can you be honest on this? The CIA was wrong about Berlin. They were wrong about Cuba. They were wrong about the Cold War and, you know, how many nukes Russia had. They were wrong about WMDs. I mean, they have been really wrong on huge, huge issues. I mean, why haven`t we just completely torn this system down and started over?

SCHEUER: Well, you know, everyone makes mistakes, Mr. Beck, and you do what you can do with the information you have at hand, which is often imperfect. I would...

BECK: But this isn`t imperfect. I mean, it`s the Berlin Wall, the Cold War, 9/11, WMD. We`re looking at Iran and saying, you know, do they have nukes? How close are they? How do you trust any of this information?

SCHEUER: Well, you know, I think we have a little difference of opinion here. I think there`s very seldom an intelligence failure. There`s always refusal to act on the information by the policymaker. I think Iraq is a good example of that. I think Al Qaeda is a good example of that. Intelligence is no good to you unless you act on it.

BECK: OK, Michael, thanks a lot. That`s the "Real Story" tonight.

Coming up next, he may be one of the world`s biggest movie stars, but he`s not welcome in one European country. And I`ll tell you why Tom Cruise and his religion are risky business in Germany. Stick around.

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BECK: Here`s why I`m outlawing vegetarians, because I believe vegetarians, that`s the first step into insanity. You go right from vegetarianism, right to the Hybrid, and, you know, both of those, I can handle both of those. But then you`re, all of a sudden, you know, hugging a dolphin and a whale, making best friends with them, saying, you know, to a trout or a salmon, "You`re more important than people." Yes, that`s what`s coming. It`s a very slippery slope that a lot of people are sliding right down.

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BECK: Speaking of slippery slopes, Germany is banning religion again. Panic! That`s what you`re led to believe if you read most of the headlines about the German government giving the smackdown to Tom Cruise recently. But it really isn`t about religion, or at least I don`t think it is. It`s about protecting a national hero.

Cruise is set to play Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer who tried to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944. And the movie studio was hoping to film parts of it in historic government buildings in Germany. But since the German government officially believes that Tom Cruise`s Scientology religion is, quote, a "cult," they decided to deny the studio access to those buildings.

All of the controversy and the Nazi rhetoric, you know, is not going to stop the filming, but it will do something else: It`s going to sell a heck of a lot of tickets, because I`m ready to buy mine right now.

Julia Allison is the new editor-at-large for "Star" magazine. Julia, help me make sense of all of this. They just built a new Scientology -- I don`t even know what they call it -- a temple, or building, or whatever over in Germany, but they don`t want Tom Cruise in the government buildings?

JULIA ALLISON, "STAR" MAGAZINE: No, nor on the military sites, which is the primary problem there. Look, Germany has a big problem with Scientology. It`s gone back more than a dozen years. Actually, back in 1996, they got into a huge fight over how it was going to be classified. Germany classifies Scientology as a business. They say that it`s profit- based and it exploits various people in their country, and they`re not interested in seeing it as a religion. Obviously, Tom Cruise has a huge issue with this.

BECK: OK, so they won`t classify it as a religion?

ALLISON: Right.

BECK: And they also have claimed that Scientologists say that Germany is run by just a pack of Nazis.

ALLISON: Well, I don`t know about that. I mean, I definitely know that Scientology and Germany, they don`t get along well. Even in 2002, Cruise went over to Germany to do a promotional trip, but he spent the majority of the trip lobbying the U.S. ambassador for changes in the German law towards Scientology. I mean, you know, they don`t get any tax breaks over there. And, as you know, you know, Scientology is very dependent upon the donations of the practicing members.

BECK: I`ve got to tell you, these darn Germans -- and I`m of German dissent -- they screw everything up.

ALLISON: As am I.

BECK: They`ve been screwing things up for a hundred years. I read about this story, and I know the story of von Stauffenberg, who, you know, put the briefcase on the wrong side of the table, et cetera, et cetera. And Tom Cruise is perfect for this, even looks like the guy. And it sounds like the perfect Tom Cruise movie that would resuscitate his career, honestly.

ALLISON: Well, he needs it, absolutely. But you know, actually, the son of von Stauffenberg does not want Tom Cruise to play his dad`s role. However, that`s not going to change anything. I mean, honestly, he doesn`t really have a good fight against Tom. He already has the movie. They`re going to shoot it. United Artists have said, no matter what, they will shoot it in Germany. They`re just going to find other places to go.

BECK: OK. And because they can, Tom can shoot other places, just not at these buildings?

ALLISON: Yes, that`s exactly right, well, and also military sites. I mean, you know, it should be interesting to see how this actually turns out. This is the first that, you know, a lot of people have even heard about this movie. So I guess it`s not exactly working out in a bad way for Tom.

BECK: And von Straussberg is a guy who is a national hero. I don`t even know if we have somebody like this. It would be like -- I don`t even know who to compare him to, almost like if we sent somebody out to kill Osama bin Laden, and they failed, but, you know, this is a real hero over there.

ALLISON: He is. And I think it will resurrect Tom`s movie career. I think certainly he needs it. Obviously, his "Mission Impossible 3" did not do well at the box offices. He`s been acting a little crazy.

But you have to remember, ultimately, Tom puts his Scientology first. And so, you know, people are not big fans of that. And if they see -- you know, I think he thinks that, oh, you know, the German government overreacting to Scientology will garner him a lot of sympathy in the U.S. And I`m not sure if he`s correct in that regard.

BECK: Well, I don`t think anybody -- you know, look, I don`t care what your religion is -- I don`t think Americans want to hear about your religion all the time. I mean, you know, if I`m paying money to see you in a movie, would you please just be an actor and just shut the piehole?

ALLISON: Right. Just act.

BECK: Right, I went to "Mission Impossible 3," and I think I really liked it, but I couldn`t stop seeing Tom Cruise jumping up and down on the couch.

ALLISON: Right.

BECK: He became a Scientologist. Now, time has gone past this. If he doesn`t screw it up again, I`d love to go see this movie.

ALLISON: You`re absolutely right, Glenn. I think that, if he comes out and speaks out against the German government yet again in favor of Scientology, specifically about them banning him, it`s going to be a big mistake. He should just be cool.

BECK: Julia, thank you very much.

ALLISON: Thank you.

BECK: Glad to have you on the program.

Now, up next, what`s the best way for Paris to adapt to life after her hard time in jail? Well, I`ll share my thoughts in just a minute. Stick around.

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BECK: This may come as a shock to you, but I have never been to prison. I have seen "Shawshank Redemption" twice, and I think that pretty much makes me an expert on our penal system. And if there is one thing that I know about prison, it`s that, for many convicts, the real trouble begins once they`re out of jail. We call it re-entry.

It can be fraught with problems. A lot of times, people hang themselves. A lot of time, these ex-cons, once they`re let free, they feel like life has already passed them by. And for America`s favorite new ex- con -- America`s sweetheart, really -- I`m sure things are no different.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): For Paris, life on the outside certainly won`t be easy. The world now is a much different place than when she first entered prison or, for that matter, when she entered prison for the second time. Back then, the price of milk was only $3.29 a gallon. Now, it`s -- well, it`s not much higher. But you when you also take into account the rising price of Kahlua, well, let`s just say Paris is in for a bit of a sticker shock.

To help ease the adjustment back to society, for the time being, Paris will be living in this halfway house. It`s here where she`ll begin in her own words to start making a difference. And she`ll start by making a difference for those famous hair extensions we`ve so grown to love over the years.

Experts say Paris may benefit from studying how other famous ex-cons used prison as a second chance, as an opportunity to give something back, like subway vigilante Bernard Goetz, who after prison used his second chance to provide shelter for wayward squirrels, whether the squirrels actually needed Bernie`s help or were wayward in the first place is beside the point. The squirrels made Bernie happy. And if history is any indication, you want to keep Bernie happy at all costs.

Paris, of course, has her own wayward creatures to look after. In fact, perhaps Paris could take what she learned during her years of -- months of -- sorry, weeks of -- 23 days in prison, and help teach the world, or at least these young ladies, that you shouldn`t have to waste your life behind bars when you can do the same thing sitting at a bar.

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BECK: I think that says it all. And, don`t forget, if you want to know what`s on tomorrow`s show or you want some transcripts of the radio show, sign up for my free e-mail daily newsletter at glennbeck.com. From New York, good night, America.

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