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Glenn Beck

What is the Government Hiding in Imprisoned Border Patrol Case?; Survivor of Home Invasion Discusses Connecticut Tragedy; TSA Warns of Terrorist Dry Runs

Aired July 25, 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, stunning developments in the case of the imprisoned border agents. I`ll tell you about the special treatment given to a drug dealer who helped put them away.

Plus, controversial college professor Ward Churchill finally fired. He may have compared the 9/11 victims to the Nazi, but he`s not going out without a fight.

WARD CHURCHILL, FIRED UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO PROFESSOR: I don`t owe an apology.

BECK: And "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks. We`ll ask him what it`s like to get more votes than the president.

All this and more tonight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Hello, America.

Tonight we take off the gloves. I`m outraged, and I hope you are with me. Month after month after month after month in hearing after hearing, our government has refused to reveal important information in the case against former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean. Today we may have finally found out why.

Here is the point tonight.

In Washington, it is most often not the crime, but the cover-up, and this cover-up may be bigger than any of us realize. And here`s how I got there. A few days ago there was a hearing that was held to determine what information the government should be forced to produce in this case.

A special assistant U.S. attorney argued that the answer is none, no information, quote, "because we don`t believe there`s sufficient public interest that outweighs privacy interests." Now we`re beginning to find out exactly why they have such an interest in that privacy.

New government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act clearly show that the drug smuggler that was shot in the butt by Agent Ramos was provided with inexplicable privileges, privileges that the government has apparently been trying to keep secret.

Now, we already know about the free medical care that we provided this drug smuggler, the immunity, but today we found out that our government also issued this scumbag a total of six golden tickets that allowed him to cross the border at will. Two of those unconditional, multiple entry passes. And they were issued, two of them, after the government was informed that the cartel member was still smuggling drugs into the country.

Even more insane, is the last card didn`t even expire until a month after the trial ended. If we`re to believe U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton who has sat right here at this desk and I think lied to me right to my face, we`re supposed to believe him that this guy need a pass so he could testify in court.

Then Mr. Sutton, why were we still helping him smuggle drugs across the border after the trial was over?

These people are lying to us, and I hope -- I hope, America, you are as fed up as I am.

Maybe the reason that we`re being stone-walled every step of the way is because this trail ends with a smoking gun that I believe may be sitting on the president`s desk.

Maybe the reason that we -- that such extraordinary lengths are being made to keep everything private is because Ramos and Compean are really just one small part of a much bigger story, one small piece of a thread that will unravel the whole sweater if we keep tugging away at it.

So here`s what you need to know tonight. The only way the government and Johnny Sutton and, yes, President Bush can clear their names and call off the dogs is by releasing everything they know right now.

Don`t you know, Mr. President, you are causing more problems? You are causing us to not believe and have good faith in our government. Stop stonewalling! Stop hiding. Stop treating us like fourth graders. We used to support you. Stop giving us the excuse that a Mexican drug cartel member has some inalienable right to privacy.

Earlier today I asked a member of Congress if he thought this was the beginning or the end. He thought, and so do I, this is just the beginning. Buckle up, gang. This one is headed right to the Oval Office.

When it comes to this administration, there is no conspiracy with 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was nothing sinister with Cheney and Libby and Valerie Plame. This one is different. This one could be the president`s undoing.

If there are honestly no hidden agendas, no message being sent to our Border Patrol, then Mr. President, please demand that everyone from Johnny Sutton on up come clean and release all of the records.

Congressman from California, Danny Rohrabacher. Thank you, Congressman, for joining me again.

The breaking news that you have today is the DHS document. What does it say?

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R), CALIFORNIA: Basically, we have a -- received through a bureaucratic fluke, I might add, documents that the U.S. attorney`s office and the Department of Homeland Security has done their best to try to keep from us.

What they are, are the border passing -- how do you say, they`re free transit passes across the American border that were granted by the United States government to this drug dealer in the Ramos-Compean case.

BECK: This is the one that, when asked in his testimony in front of Congress -- when asked, I believe it was by Dianne Feinstein, was this in retrospect, after the second drug run, was this a mistake to issue this? He said yes, in hindsight it was, but what`s the new information?

ROHRABACHER: Well, the new information is that, No. 1, we have proven that the drug deal -- the drug deal for the second drug deal happened -- you know, while this drug dealer was -- had been given this free pass to cross the border.

But even after the second drug deal in which the DEA then notified the Department of Justice that this man had been involved in yet a second drug shipment, another pass was issued to him. Actually, there were two passes issued to him for free transit, unescorted transit across the United States border.

This is after they knew he`d been involved in a second -- in a second shipment.

BECK: And even after the trial was ordered -- it was over.

ROHRABACHER: That`s correct. So it wasn`t a trial and they knew he was involved in a second shipment. They kept all of that from the jury, of course, and now they tried to keep from the U.S. Congress and the American people the fact that they`d issued this man a free pass to come across the border, even though they knew he`d been involved in drug dealing.

BECK: Congressman, I urge people to read the -- the transcript of the show from the radio program today at GlennBeck.com when you were on, but I asked you this question earlier. You reached out to the White House early on and said, "Look, we can solve this. Here`s how we do it."

What was your experience?

ROHRABACHER: Well, you know, I -- first of all, I voted for the president, and I am not an enemy of the president. But, you know, I wanted to diffuse this case, but most importantly, we don`t want to destroy the lives of these two Border Patrol agents.

So after one of them, Ramos, was attacked in prison, he could have been killed. I called up the White House and a friend there and said, look, we can diffuse this situation simply by having the prosecution, having the president agree to have a request of the judge to let these two men out on bail or bond, pending their appeal.

This happens all the time with criminals, and they said this is a great idea because it might take a year or two for their appeal to go through and then the president would be out of office.

Well, the next day -- instead of calling back, they issued a press release saying they are opposed to letting Ramos and Compean out on bail, pending their appeal. So it was a decision that went all the way to the White House and all the way to the Oval Office, and we got that kind of terse response.

BECK: Congressman, thank you. I appreciate it. And keep up the good work. We`ll continue to follow it.

I want to turn now to Sam Antonio. He`s a national spokesperson on immigration for the John Birch Society.

Sam, I have to tell you, when I was growing up, the John Birch Society, I thought they were a bunch of nuts, however, you guys are starting to make more and more sense to me. There is something dirty in this -- in this whole thing. I happen to believe it`s connected to the SPP.

Can you float some of the theories here by the American -- by the American public?

SAM ANTONIO, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY: Well, first and foremost, Glenn, it`s great to be on your program. And yes, we at the John Birch Society are not nuts. We are just exposing the truth that`s been out there for many, many years.

Now this news that just came from Congressman Rohrabacher has been very shocking, but at the same time is not shocking. And as you just mentioned in your segue, it is part of the bigger picture of the Security and Prosperity Partnership that was signed by the Bush administration in 2005.

What this all means to me, just taking in all this information, leads to me again, that it`s the breakdown of our law enforcement, the breakdown of our men and women at the border, to prepare our country for an opening of our borders for Canada and Mexico and eventually all throughout the Americas.

BECK: OK. The SPP -- in case somebody doesn`t know, you should go and look at this at SPP.gov. It`s a government web site and it`s -- you have to read between the lines. And a lot of people say that you`re a conspiracy freak if you believe any of this stuff.

But if you really think about it is the one answer that makes sense, that we want to share trade. We want to share workers. We want to have an open border. We want to have one border around Canada, Mexico and the United States. And we share everything including information.

You contend that the information that we`re sharing has -- has allowed the Mexican government to get a hold on our enforcement of laws here in America. What do you mean by that?

ANTONIO: That is correct. Again, your viewers, if they go to the web site, SPP.gov, it talks about exchanges of information between our governments.

Now in this case with Ramos and Compean, it was the Mexican government that really drove this agenda to get these innocent Border Patrol agents convicted and sent to jail for these terms.

Now, since this exchange of information, under the Department of Homeland Security, we`re going to see more and more and more of this. And what this is going to lead to, Glenn, is really a demoralization of our men and women on the Border Patrol. And it`s happening now.

BECK: Right.

ANTONIO: I live here in San Diego, Glenn. I`m 15 minutes away from the border. I`ve spoken with Border Patrol agents, you know, active and retired, and I`m telling you, this case has really demoralized them.

BECK: I have to tell you, Sam, that you know, whether you want to believe in the black helicopters or not, America, you should look into this. And this is the warning to the Bush administration, by not releasing the documents. And this is the stuff they`re holding back.

Well, the people want to know what was the communication between our government and the Mexican government? Give us those records. They will not release them. And by not releasing them, they further these conspiracy theories of black helicopters and all kinds of things.

Sam, thank you very much.

Coming up, the tragic story of home invasion in Connecticut. The outcome is so gruesome it`s impossible to comprehend. I`m going to talk to somebody who lived through a similar nightmare that, thankfully, had a much different outcome.

Then are terrorists making dry runs at the airport, and did they pack crackers along with the cheese? Oh, I`ll explain. And wait until you hear the government`s explanation on it.

Plus "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks stops by. The latest on the Soul Patrol? Oh, perhaps.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Coming up, University of Colorado fires outspoken Professor Ward Churchill. Good! Some say it`s retaliation for his controversial comments about 9/11 victims. I wish it was. But the university says he`s a plagiarist and he deserves it. For both reasons in my book. I`ll have the entire story in just a bit.

But first, if you have children in the room, please mute the TV for the next 60 seconds or so or just pause it on TiVo.

Somewhere around 3 a.m. last Monday morning two men broke into the house of Dr. William Petit. He lived in Cheshire, Connecticut.

It`s a town I know well. I lived right down the street for from this guy for a time. Two guys from my staff grew up in Cheshire, Connecticut. It`s a place where throwing eggs the night before Halloween or sneaking liquor into the prom makes you a story in the town newspaper. And it`s also a place that was completely unprepared for what was about to happen at Dr. Petit`s house.

After allegedly beating Dr. Petit beyond recognition with a baseball bat and then tying him up in the basement, sources say the men proceeded to his daughter`s rooms, where they tied up the girls, ages 18 and 11, and raped them both.

A few hours later, about 9 in the morning, one of the men took Ms. Petit to the local bank to withdraw money. She tipped off the bank teller that something was wrong. We don`t know how she did it at this point. As police descended on the home the men then allegedly poured gasoline all over the house, lit a match and then ran away.

They left the family of four members to burn to death. Unfortunately, the two young daughters did. The mother was also killed, but we think that she was strangled. Dr. Petit, badly beaten, managed to escape.

The men who did it, one of whom is a 26-year-old from Cheshire. Both career criminals on parole. They`re now in police custody -- custody. They`re being held on $15 million bond. And, yes, in case you`re wondering, Connecticut, thank the Lord almighty, has the death penalty.

So what, if anything, could this family have done differently? What is it like to be held against your will for hours at a time, especially if you think you know what`s going on happen to you?

Stanley Albert knows firsthand. He has a book called "The Birthday Party". It is a riveting read. It details his own ordeal.

Stanley, before we get into Cheshire, just recap your own ordeal for me.

STANLEY ALBERT, AUTHOR, "THE BIRTHDAY PARTY": I was grabbed on the street in Manhattan by three gun-toting thugs who took me to a cash machine. And when they figured out I had money in my savings account decided to keep me in an apartment in Brooklyn for 25 hours.

Now, the interesting thing is their original plan was to take me to the bank in the morning and have me withdraw money, just as happened in Cheshire, but they chickened out of that. They were afraid they`d get caught.

And as we can see from what that wife did when she went to the bank, they`re right. I mean, that`s the place to tell the police what`s happening.

BECK: So what was it that they did do to you?

ALBERT: So they kept me in the apartment in Brooklyn while they were using my cash machine cards and my credit cards, getting more money, buying laptop computers. They knew if they let me go that I would cancel the cards, so they kept me for 25 hours.

BECK: OK. Did you at any point think that you were a dead man?

ALBERT: I knew all along that I might be. I mean, kidnapping is an extremely serious crime, and that`s why the law treats it so seriously, and I knew that these were the sort of volatile folks that anything could set them off and make them pull the gun.

BECK: Were you blindfolded? Did you see their faces?

ALBERT: When I first got in the car they didn`t blindfold me. On instinct, I looked away. I purposely tried to avoid looking at them. And later after they were caught, you can hear them in the confessions, which I relayed in the book, saying how they thought I was trying not to look at them, so that actually helped me.

That`s one tip for people who are in this circumstance. But after they decided to keep me, they did blindfold me, and I was blindfolded for the balance of the 25 hours.

BECK: OK. Do you think, and I know I`m just asking you to guess here, with what you know on this story, do you think that they intended to kill this family from the get-go? I mean -- the family, I mean, there would really be no choice, would they? The family would be able to identify these people.

ALBERT: This story is so bad, Glenn. It really reminds me of "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. I mean, it`s just horrific. These guys, career criminals, they should have been stopped long ago by the law. Instead, they`re out there on parole. The younger guy, who was put in for nine years, and they let him out half way so he could commit more crimes against people.

I think this family didn`t have much chance. The best thing is that the wife, when she went to the bank, had the good sense to tell them to alert the police, which is fantastic. That was really their best shot.

When I got out of my situation, all the FBI agents and detectives who investigated were amazed that I made it out alive, because their understanding is it doesn`t happen very often. So if you get a chance to call the cops, go for it.

BECK: What was your -- what was your plan? I mean, you have three tips. You say if you`re in this situation there are three things that you have to do. One of them is get word out. If you would have gone into the bank, I mean, I can`t imagine how she -- how she did it.

What was your plan to tell the teller behind the bank that you`re being held hostage?

ALBERT: Well, keeping in mind that my family wasn`t being held, although, frankly, they had threatened to kill my father if I didn`t cooperate. And that was really the worst of it for me, when they threatened to kill someone I love.

But I -- I didn`t have a precise plan, but I`m sure I would have gotten word to them, because that`s really the time. You need to alert law enforcement.

For me, the idea was to -- as long as they had the drop on me with the gun, the idea was to play it cool, avoid looking at them so they wouldn`t think I was threatening them and cooperate to the max.

Dr. Petit and his family may not have had that opportunity. It sounds like these guys were violent from the start.

BECK: Such a -- such a tragic, tragic story.

ALBERT: This is unbearable.

BECK: It really is. I don`t know how this -- honestly, I mean, my prayers are with the good doctor. I don`t know how he lives with it. I really don`t.

Stanley, thanks a lot.

Coming up, airports are on alert now as TSA warns of a possible terrorist dry run. Find out if you`re going to be flying safe this summer.

And the University of Colorado finally fires controversial Professor Ward Churchill. He says he`s a target. They think he`s a plagiarist. I`ll have "The Real Story", coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: TSA has a new reason for you to be terrified to fly this summer. In an alert issued last week, they warned airport security all across the country to look out for terrorists on dry runs, practicing to carry, quote, "unusual and improvised items" onto airplanes, like wires, switches, pipes, tubes, cell phone components and dense claylike substances, including block cheese.

First time I heard that, I thought, "Oh, great, we`re trying to blow up planes now with Velveeta?"

But on the bright side, when questioned about the likelihood of a cheese bomb, the TSA spokesperson said, "Don`t panic. We look for these kinds of things all of the time."

Bull crap. There`s more to this story.

Terror analyst Steve Emerson is joining me now.

Steve, I read this report. It is clearly dry runs to see what they can get on planes. There`s, I think, six different examples, but the thing I noticed in the report is they described each person that was carrying these switches, wires, cheese, taking out gels, et cetera, et cetera. They describe them as U.S. people. What?

STEVE EMERSON, TERRORISM EXPERT: They could have described them as human beings to go a step further.

BECK: Yes.

EMERSON: Look, they did a good job in terms of detecting them, reporting on them and issuing a warning.

The bad thing is I think there`s a political correctness here. What we need to know is whether these individuals who brought these items on to the plane or tried to bring them on were members or nationalities reflected in terrorist-supporting regimes. We need to know their ethnicity, and that`s a dirty word because that suggests profiling.

BECK: They did say that none of them have been traced back to terrorist organizations; however, they did not describe them at all. They did say one of them was possibly from a foreign country, but there`s a difference -- you know, there`s a difference between Ireland and perhaps Yemen.

Should we know these things?

EMERSON: We absolutely should know these things. And besides, if they`re looking for a prior terrorist connection, they`re not going find one. Muhammad Atta didn`t have a prior terrorist connection. They`re going to find new people that basically are clean. So that type of description doesn`t help us much.

BECK: So -- go ahead. No, go ahead.

EMERSON: I`m just afraid in general, Glenn, that the political correctness in making these reports, in assessing the threats and not -- and not even -- Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saying we`re not going to use the term Islamic extremism with making entrees to the Muslim Brotherhood. We are defeating ourselves.

BECK: I want to know that in the report that I saw that they said that the reasons for carrying items like ice packs with the gel taken out and replaced with a claylike substance then duct tape with wire and batteries and pipes, they said some of the explanations were suspicious. Leading you to believe that they had a reasonable explanation for that.

Can you think of a single explanation on what would make a device like that reasonable?

EMERSON: No. The only thing you could think of is some kid who`s basically trying to test the system. You know, whose only motive is mischief.

But on the other hand, we don`t know what countries they were from. We don`t know what countries they visited. We don`t know whether, in fact, what their ethnicity is. Those are all things that are absolutely relevant in determining whether, in fact, there`s a pattern here of trying to blow up planes.

BECK: Steve, let me tell you something. You know and I know, if it was a kid, that would have been the story, that he was trying to test the system as a kid.

Coming up, Ward Churchill has run -- been run out of the University of Colorado. We have the university president and Churchill`s lawyer on next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Coming up, he conquered "American Idol" and now his new memoir chronicles his journey to the top. Oh, yes, it`s Taylor Hicks. He`ll be joining me in just a minute.

First, 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 you felt a powerful surge in the force, Luke, yesterday? You can thank the University of Colorado Board of Regents; in an 8 to 1 decision, they voted to fire tenured Professor Ward Churchill, it`s the first time they`ve ever done that. The real story is, no matter what you hear, no matter what you read, this case is not about free speech.

Ward Churchill was fired because of repeated and deliberate plagiarism and academic misconduct. It`s just that simple. Just like you or me, Ward Churchill is entitled to free speech. You know, he can talk about his opinion openly, no matter how offensive it is, even though I believe the university should have the right to fire somebody who makes claims as irresponsible and baseless as Churchill`s.

But the chancellor of the University of Colorado made one fact very clear. Churchill`s firing had nothing to do with essay where he compared the 3,000 innocent men and women, and children, who were murdered in the 9/11 attacks to Nazis. Little Eichmanns, he called them.

This is not a free speech case. And anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is playing lawyer 101 games. They know the facts are not on their side, so they`re playing the weak hand they have. Here is the real deal.

Churchill had published -- as a fact -- that the U.S. Army deliberately distributed small-pox infested blankets to Indians in 1837 causing an epidemic that killed over 100,000 people. That is clearly contrary to the source that Professor Churchill cited in his paper. Misrepresenting facts, intentionally miss-citing sources -- high crimes, not misdemeanors -- in the academic world. And for good reason.

Then during the University of Colorado`s review of Churchill, a professor at a Canadian university told the board of regents that Churchill plagiarized her work, published an entire chapter from her book as his own. Words and ideas have great value in our society and stealing those ideas and words is just as wrong as stealing money or property.

The legal consensus -- legal consensus was that, yes, Ward Churchill had stolen the Canadian professor`s work. Just so we`re clear here, these are only two examples of Ward Churchill`s flagrant, intellectual dishonesty, and that`s why he got canned. He`s a liar. He`s a cheat.

Can you imagine what would happen to a student in any respectable university if they had proven that those students had done those same things? They`d be expelled and rightly so. But this isn`t about Churchill being a liberal. It`s not. Even though I believe that is an insult to liberals.

Facts have no political point of view. All we can ask of those who teach our children is that they do so with absolute honesty. How can we expect students to do the right thing if their teachers don`t lead by example? Remember, it wasn`t me. It wasn`t the media, it wasn`t politicians, who fired Ward Churchill, it was his own university colleagues and peers.

Do I feel that the overwhelming majority of college professors are liberal? Yes. Yes, I do, but do I also believe that the majority of those guys are decent and honest people? You bet. Ward Churchill is a bad guy. And getting him out of the academic system makes as much sense as keeping child molesters away from schools.

At the end of day, we need to remember that one vitally important thing and that is, professors are not gods who are above criticism. They`re just people, like you and me, doing a job. And I`ve to admit, I have news for you, I`ve done bad time on jobs, I have. I`m probably doing it right now. And I have deserved it, in the past when I`ve been fired just like Ward Churchill deserves it right now.

Hank Brown is the president of the University of Colorado.

Hank, first of all, I`ll have his attorney on here in just a second. His name is David Lane. He is going to tell me that the smallpox thing is Native American oral history. That he wasn`t miss-citing He wasn`t miss- citing anything. There are no stats here or anything because this is oral history.

HANK BROWN, PRESIDENT, UNIV. OF COLORADO: Surely, he wouldn`t say that. That would be totally inaccurate, and surely he knows that. The fact is, of course, Professor Churchill cited some of the sources, and described what they said totally inaccurately. And it`s clear that he knew they were inaccurate.

What`s happened here is Professor Churchill got caught committing fraud, he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and now is claiming that he`s being fired for something other than his misdeeds.

BECK: And the other thing I just know -- and we`ll wait to hear it from him. I just know that he`s going to say that he was an editor on this book of his, and that he never claimed that he wrote it. He said he just edited this book.

BROWN: You know, the reality is that the professor`s had numerous occasions to bring witnesses, to cross examine witnesses, to present evidence. And when it was all over, three separate panels of university faculty, over 20 of his colleagues unanimously found he was guilty of plagiarism, of falsification, of a variety of sins that really come down to academic fraud.

Knowing it was wrong, knowing it was false, and doing it anyway. There wasn`t anyone who would listened to that, who would believe it.

BECK: Would any of this have happened if he hadn`t have said the 9/11 victims were Eichmanns?

BROWN: That`s speculative, but I believe it would have. And the reason I do is because the depth of his fraudulent activity was so great that it was clear it was coming to light and complaints were beginning to come in.

BECK: Would you just answer something for -- I mean, I`m just a simple guy here. I don`t really understand tenure. I know we should be able to say the earth is flat, the earth is round. The earth is cooling, the earth is warming. I get it. We should be able to have those discussions on campus and college campuses especially. I personally believe this guy is full of hate and he engages in hate speech an awful lot. Why can`t you fire somebody in a tenured position for just that?

BROWN: The reality is you can under some circumstances. There`s a second circuit court of appeals ruling on this very subject. It has to be very unusual circumstances, but it can be done. The University of Colorado chose not to go that route, chose not to fire him on that basis, or even to bring charges against him on that bases.

BECK: Hank, thanks a lot.

Now with a different point of view is David Lane, this is Ward Churchill`s attorney.

Counselor, let me start with this. It`s kind of an unusual question for you, do you agree that the 9/11 victims were little Eichmanns?

DAVID LANE, WARD CHURCHILL`S ATTORNEY: Oh, absolutely not.

BECK: OK, Good. At least you have some credibility to start with. Now let`s take it to the claims that you say this is all about freedom of speech.

Let`s go right to the Army delivered smallpox blankets and killed 100,000 Indians. They did it intentionally. The source that your client cites is contrary in both the numbers of dead, and the version of the story.

LANE: Let me just say this: There is a refutation for every one of the counts that he was convicted of. We`re going to be presenting those in Denver District Court and our allegation is that those counts were merely pretexts for firing him, when the real reason was his 9/11 comments.

BECK: OK. He says that it`s oral tradition, Indian oral tradition, that that`s what happened.

LANE: Let me say this --

BECK: So that`s one thing, but that`s not what he cited in his paper, so he misquoted, miss-cited and misrepresented the facts. That is not freedom of speech, sir.

LANE: Well, you know, you`re wrong about that. And the -- again, I`m not the scholar. I am the First Amendment lawyer and we will present a refutation of all the pretexts at trial in front of a jury.

BECK: Then, let`s talk about the law a little bit. Let`s talk about some legal scholars. Some legal scholars got together up in a University in Canada and said that they decided that it was plagiarism of this whole chapter. We`re talking legals.

LANE: It was -- it was plagiarism. Yes, it was plagiarism, however, it was not done by Ward Churchill and that`s part of our refutation on that count.

BECK: OK.

LANE: All right?

BECK: So these just Canadian lawyers` oral history?

LANE: No. The Canadian lawyers decided that it was plagiarism. We`re saying yes, it was plagiarism. We`re saying it wasn`t done by Ward Churchill.

BECK: Oh, so he was plagiarizing a plagiarizer.

LANE: No. Ward Churchill was in charge of copy editing a volume of stories submitted by other authors. Another author had plagiarized Faye Cohen (ph) and Ward Churchill -- his name appeared as an editor on the book, not as the author of the book.

BECK: This was done by his peers. These are people who defended him on freedom of speech. His peers defended him -- they defended him --

LANE: I don`t know where you`re getting that but --

BECK: They defended him on his --

LANE: I don`t know of any peers. Which peers defended him?

BECK: Defended him on his right to have the freedom of speech. They didn`t agree with him, you don`t agree with him on the little Eichmann thing, but they agreed with him on the freedom of speech. This is sloppy, perhaps deliberate, bad research. Do you think that he would accept this from his students if it was bad and sloppy and inaccurate research?

LANE: Well, let`s assume, and I`m just assuming this for argument. I disagree with you because he can stand behind every point that they convicted him on. But let`s assume it was bad and sloppy, all right? You don`t fire a tenured university professor, you don`t launch a two and a half year investigation vowing to scrutinize every word this man has ever written, every word this man has ever spoken.

That`s what the chancellor of the University of Colorado said. We will look at every word he`s ever spoken and written. We will find a reason to fire this guy. And they spent two and a half years --

BECK: That`s the way the real world works, and you know what --

LANE: Oh, no, no, that`s the way a First Amendment violation works. That`s what I`m going to show a jury --

BECK: -- you come, I want to see you defend the student that plagiarizes, misrepresents the facts, and takes things out of context, and then says it`s my right to free speech when the school tries to kick him out.

LANE: It is -- that student does have a right to free speech. That`s not a right to an A plus grade, OK? That`s the point I`m making. The University of Colorado is the government. If they don`t like certain aspect of what Ward Churchill did, the remedy is to write scholarly articles to refute what he has said. The remedy is not because you dislike his politics, and what he said politically, to engage in a witch hunt designed to bring him down.

BECK: David, thank you very much. That`s the "Real Story" tonight. We`ll be back in a minute on transition with Taylor Hicks.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I`m a freakin` dough person. I`m surprised I have muscles. I`m a doughy, Pillsbury dough boy with hair that looks ridiculous. I have a reverse skunk -- the only natural hair in America that looks like a toupee. I can barely speak, I`m so riddled with ADD, I have absolutely no memory whatsoever. I have an IQ of maybe 90. I never graduated college, and I have this job? Please use me as the poster boy of God bless America, you can succeed!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Speaking of success, Taylor Hicks received 63 million votes the night he was declared the winner of "American Idol," more votes than the president received just a year earlier, but George Bush can`t sing Motown. I`m just saying, seems fair to me.

His first album was platinum. Now Hicks has a new book entitled "Heart Full Of Soul".

Taylor, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way, my friend.

TAYLOR HICKS, SINGER: Well, the hard way was trying to write a book on the "Idol" tour.

BECK: Really?

HICKS: Yeah.

BECK: You know, I supported you from the very first episode. Very first episode and then we tried to get you, and book you for a year, and you would never come on this show.

HICKS: Well, here I am. The Soul Patrol has arrived.

BECK: The Soul Patrol. All right. Do you have your harmonica?

HICKS: No, I don`t. I`m sorry, I`ve been traveling.

BECK: What have you done with Taylor Hicks?

All right. So let me ask you this question, first of all, let me go in the book. I found something interesting in the book, that I had never heard before. And it`s how you actually got to "American Idol." And that is, it`s tied into Hurricane Katrina?

HICKS: Yeah. I was in the last weekend of Hurricane Katrina and took one of the last cab rides out of New Orleans and had a free voucher anywhere in the country because my plane flight had been cancelled. So I`d never been to Vegas before, so I went to Vegas. And my brother called and said you might want to try out. So I tried out and here I am.

BECK: So what`s it been like for you? The ride?

HICKS: It`s been amazing. I appreciate all of the fans and all of the support I`ve received on the show, and then after the show, in my own musical career. It`s a blessing. I pinch myself every morning. There`s a lot of people that try to break into the business and you really have to seize the opportunity.

BECK: It was hard to be -- it was hard not to be crushed by the machine that is "American Idol"? How much pressure did they put on you to change your hair?

HICKS: Well, you know, they asked me to, but if it`s not broke, don`t fix it. That`s my mentality, specially having spent 10 years on the road as a musician and trying to gain my own artistic integrity. That`s something they always will stick to, because you can have people try to change you, but ultimately in the end, it`s about your genuine persona and the fans.

BECK: Yeah. And maybe that`s what it is. I don`t know, I`m a huge fan of Michael Buble, and I watch that guy and he is so genuine. He just -- that`s who he is. And you, too -- and maybe the Soul Patrol will hate me for saying this, I think you two have a lot in common. You`re both throwbacks to an earlier age. But it`s just so quintessentially you, it works.

How do you connect with the young audience, because you do, and so does Buble, when you traditionally would have been categorized as old people coming to see you?

HICKS: Well, I think the production of this last album really helped to modernize the old throwback style. We recorded the album in a live sense. And you know, the whole process in the book, the whole process is laid out from, you know, from when I won, to going through the recording process, to afterwards. And who all I`ve met. It`s an interesting -- it`s an interesting, interesting combination of the two.

BECK: Yeah. Best of luck to you. Best of luck on the book.

HICKS: Thank you.

BECK: Back in just a second.

HICKS: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: All right. Let`s take a minute to play a fun little game called "Fun With Numbers". Yes, nothing as exciting as a midweek cable news statistics-based game, to jumpstart your week.

First number of the night, 260 million. Can you guess what it is? The amount that Oprah Winfrey earns in a year. More than anybody else on TV, and I think most developed nations. It is about 215 million more than Simon Cowell, who is placing second as a TV personality according to "TV Guide" magazine at $45 million.

Also on the list, Judge Judy. She makes $30 million a year. Judge Judy, 30 million? Really? That pisses me off. In case you`re wondering, I was just a little further down the list, although, thanks to Congress my pay has recently raised from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour. Thanks a lot, Nancy Pelosi.

Second of the night is 29,000. Here`s the hint. If you have a kid under 18, this number will keep you up all night; 29,000 is the number of registered sex offenders found to have MySpace profiles.

By the way, that is four times what the site estimated just two months ago. There have been over 100 criminal incidents this year with adults using MySpace to attempt to prey on children. But on the other side, it`s an excellent place to find great ways to work from home and earn up to $45,000 a week, just by forwarding e-mails to Bill Gates.

Plus there`s a lot of interesting people, apparently waiting to show you their webcams, among other things.

And our final number of the day is eight. That is the amount of miles that you can go after a full charge of the Toyota plug-in HV. The first plug-in hybrid cleared for legal street use in Japan based on the Prius.

By the way, you get the eight miles after you plug it in for four hours, and your entire trunk is filled up with batteries. I mean, where do I get mine? While that may not exactly sound practical, we`ve calculated that if you just put charging stations every eight miles on the highway from your house, you`d be able to make it from New York to Philadelphia in only 45 and half hours. It will take 14 hours longer than if you would walk it, but, you`ll save the earth. So go green.

For video, audio and transcripts you can sign up for my free daily, e- mail newsletter at Glennbeck.com.

From New York, we`ll see you here tomorrow. Good night, America.

END