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Tropical Storm Fay Threatens Florida; Russian Power Play

Aired August 18, 2008 - 15:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, here comes Fay. The center of the storm is still hours from South Florida, but its outer bands are battering the Lower Keys. The Upper and Middle Keys are bracing for the same and all of Florida is under a state of emergency.
Now, earlier, the tropical storm swamped Haiti and the Dominican Republic. At least eight people are dead. And it caused far less destruction in Cuba, by the way, brushing over the western edge.

CNN's John Zarrella and his crew are getting pretty good and soaked in Key West.

How you doing, John?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look at this, Kyra.

An hour ago, we were just getting hammered here in Key West with sustained tropical-storm-force winds, gusty rain. We're in the center of circulation, so it looks as if the center of Tropical Storm Fay is actually over Key West right now, because it is just about dead calm here. The trees are hardly blowing over here. They're not moving at all.

The surf has completely died down. So, again, it looks as if Tropical Storm Fay, the center of that circulation has made it right up to where we are here in Key West now.

I'm sure that Jacqui Jeras, the weather folks probably keeping an eye on exactly where it is. But I have been through a lot of these, and I can't imagine it being anything else. Don't know what we can expect on the other side of the storm. I'm sure the weather will kick up a little bit.

Again, we understand now that, at least up in the middle part of the Keys, there's power lines that are down. There may be some minor damage possibly from a tornado. There's also standing water all through the Lower Keys. We're going to try and get out and get some of those pictures in a little while here.

But, right now, again, it looks, Kyra, as if we are, not an eye -- it doesn't have an eye -- but certainly the center of circulation of Tropical Storm Fay -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, we will keep tracking it. And, of course, we are going to talk to Chad Myers more about it, too. John, thanks so much.

A lot of questions about Fay. Will it become a hurricane? Where is it headed exactly?

What do you think, Chad Myers?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I don't think these keys are going to slow Fay down at all, Kyra.

We always talk about a hurricane approaching land, and it dies off. This isn't going to happen, because the keys are only about 10 feet tall. So, right now, we have the eye, the center of the circulation, very close to Key West, probably up toward Shark Key, if I had kind of my druthers on this.

But you have the onshore flow all the way up the oceanside, all the way down from (INAUDIBLE) down through Marathon and all the way back down across the Seven Mile Bridge. And then you have the other side of the storm, the west wind or the north wind. That's out toward the Dry Tortugas. And then you see Key West right there with the big squalls to the north and not very much to the south. And that's some good news there. We don't have very much to the south for John to contend with.

He was worried about what he's going to get on the other side because he knows the winds are going to shift. Moving on up here to south Miami-Dade, see those purple boxes? Those are tornado warnings for you, not for Miami proper, but for southern, way southern Dade County. We're talking Jewfish Creek way down there in the Everglades, just barely north of Florida Bay. That's where it is right now, talking about the Royal Palm Ranger Station in the way of this potential tornado.

Nothing reported on the ground, only that these storms are rotating. Well, no kidding, because you know what, Kyra? The whole thing is rotating and we're going to get many, many tornado warnings I think today as this thing comes onshore, makes a left-hand turn, moves around Florida proper. It would be nice if it came onshore right now into the Everglades and kind of killed itself. Don't think that is going to happen. It's going to spend some more time in the water, and maybe make an approach near toward Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, where we obviously had Charley.

And if it stays too far to the left, to the left, it could still, and you're still in the cone, Tampa -- Tampa still that's the biggest city still in the way for a direct hit, if it does stay just to the left of the line, but, Kyra, well within the cone of uncertainty. We always have to remember that, because Tampa was in the middle of the cone for Charley. And it didn't hit Tampa. It hit Punta Gorda. And that was 30 or 40 miles to the right of where everybody thought it was going to, because everybody focused on the line. Please don't do that with this storm. It is still not done yet.

PHILLIPS: Well, that happened even this morning. About 8:30, Reynolds Wolf came in and gave us a big scenario, telling us the whole scenario. And then he said, but, bottom line, we really don't know if that's what's going to happen.

MYERS: That's correct. If question had weather spotters that were sending up weather balloons every 50 miles in the ocean, we wouldn't have this unknown. We would know exactly where it's going. We don't have people out there telling us what's going on. We don't have weather watchers. We don't have weather balloons going up and down all day long telling us what those winds are like.

It's an ocean. Nobody lives there, so we don't have the information.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: We need a direct line to Mother Nature is what we need.

MYERS: Correct.

If I had this hurricane over Georgia right now, I could tell you where it's going because I have all kinds of weather balloons around. I have people telling me what direction the winds are coming from. In the middle of the ocean, they don't have those people.

PHILLIPS: Chad, thanks.

Well, with Tropical Storm Fay approaching Florida, have we learned any lessons from Hurricane Katrina? Lieutenant General Russel Honore, who helped the Gulf Coast get past the horrors of Katrina, will offer some helpful hints just ahead.

Back from vacation and back on the trail, Barack Obama is talking economic and energy issues in New Mexico today. On his schedule this hour, a town hall meeting in Albuquerque.

And military issues top John McCain's agenda today. The Republican candidate spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention this morning in Orlando, Florida. He said the policies he supports are helping make Iraq more secure. And in a couple of hours, he's going to hold a fund-raiser right here in Atlanta.

The faith forum both candidates took part in over the weekend is still causing a buzz.

CNN's Rick Sanchez spoke with the man who asked the questions, Reverend Rick Warren. We're going to hear what he had to say later in the hour.

And tributes in Little Rock today for the state Democratic Party chairman shot down on the job. The list of Bill Gwatney's mourners reads like a who's who in Arkansas politics, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. Gwatney was killed in a shooting last week at the Democratic Party headquarters. That gunman was later killed after a chase by police. The officers say that they had few clues as to a motive for the shooting.

Russia says that today it's begun a withdrawal from Georgia, but hours later there's no indication that Moscow is keeping its word.

CNN's Michael Ware is among the Georgia troops and the desperate Georgian civilians, actually, in the occupied town of Gori.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's already Monday afternoon on Georgia's eastern front. And the nominated deadline for Russia's troop withdrawal has passed. Yet there's no sign here on the eastern front of the Russian soldiers pulling back.

Indeed, this checkpoint is the furthest line of Russian advance, 15 kilometers east of the Georgian city of Gori. Indeed, in some of the Russian positions in the surrounding hills, there are signs of the soldiers digging trenches and camouflaging their tanks and armor with fresh-cut foliage, Russian withdrawal from Georgia or not, according to the cease-fire.

Standing here as dusk approaches in the Georgian city of Gori, still under Russian occupation, hundreds and Russian vehicles and their armors vehicles surround me. In this town square, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, a statue looms high above. At the town hall, desperate Georgians are registering for food rations as the Russian troops still maintain patrols and checkpoints around this city.

While most of the city appears to remain intact, the destruction wrought by this war can still be seen in buildings brought down like this one, that, according to locals, was destroyed by a Russian rocket. The scars of the war are also seen in the eyes and the jittery hands of the few Georgians who still remain.

Gori is an almost vacant city, shops, homes and apartments all shuttered. It is a town of the old and the infirm and but a few sparse families. Russian checkpoints still man the streets, like this one over here. The troops are telling us that they have orders to withdraw at dusk. Everyone now waits until nightfall to see whether those orders are carried through.

Russian armor still firmly inside Georgia as the last light begins to fade, an act of defiance or a precursor to departure? By the way, both sides to this conflict are reluctant to give ground.

Michael Ware, CNN, on the road to Tbilisi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And a changing of the guard in Pakistan. Who's going to replace U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf in a volatile front in the war on terror? We will talk about it.

PHILLIPS: Sniffing out cell phones, the newest tool to stop phones from being smuggled into state prisons.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: As a convicted felon, he wasn't even supposed to have one gun. And police say he was sitting on an arsenal. They called in the feds to help cart away a huge weapons cache from a home outside Pittsburgh, handguns, assault rifles, grenades, ammo, body armor, you name it.

It's pretty cool how the cops found the stuff. An officer visiting the house about a missing persons report saw three guns just sitting out. He memorized the serial number, ran it, and it came back stolen. Now the homeowner and his friend, another felon, are sitting in jail.

Cell phones can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands and now prison guards are using specially trained canines to keep them away from inmates.

Here's CNN's justice correspondent, Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Believe it or not, it is a growing and very serious problem, and it's taking some ingenuity to try to solve it.

(voice-over): They say in prison you can get just about anything you want for a price. Cigarettes, drug, weapons, but the hot commodity these days -- cell phones. And these dogs are trained to sniff them out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have found them inside of boxes of food, in cut out books, in shoes, with hollowed out soles, under mattresses, inside mattresses or pillows.

ARENA: And up to $400 a pop, cell phones are worth their weight in gold. That's a nice profit for a good smuggler. Which apparently I'm not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going have to have -

ARENA: I got caught, but more than 800 phones did get into Maryland's prisons last year.

MIKE STOUFFER, COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION: These institutions are like cities, and a lot of goods and materials and people have to come in and out all the time.

ARENA: So why go to through the trouble of training dogs to find phones?

Philadelphia, January, 2008. Shaunte Wright is gunned down as she prepares to testify against a career criminal. Investigators think it was a hit ordered from prison with a cell phone.

MAJ. PETE ANDERSON, K-9 UNIT COMMANDER: I Think we owe it to the victims to not allow inmates to continue to run their enterprises from behind our bars.

ARENA: And that's where these guys come in. The program's only been in place for a couple of months, and already the dogs have found more than a dozen phones. LT. RODNEY JORDAN, K-9 TRAINER: First I wasn't too keen on the idea. I didn't think they would be able to separate the phones versus a lot of the stuff in the institution.

ARENA: So how do the dogs tell the difference between a TV set and a cell phone on block nine?

JORDAN: Everything on earth has a scent signature.

ARENA: We'd tell you more, but why give the criminals that kind of information? We'll share this. It you're caught with a phone behind bars in Maryland you could get up to three more years in prison and a $1,000 fine. And, no, you can't have it back to call a lawyer.

(on camera): Officials from other states are now reaching out to Maryland hoping to replicate its success.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, tomorrow, we're going to take a look at a unique program that gives prisoners special playing cards with information about cold cases. They're hoping that it's going to help generate tips.

Well, costs are high. Demand is low. The choice is clear for many foreign airlines flying in and out of Los Angeles International Airport: cut flights. "The L.A. Times" reports Air India, Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Aer Lingus, and Malaysia Airlines are trimming the schedules in the fall, as are United Airlines and Delta. And at the same time, a few overseas carriers are planning new service at LAX. And renovations to the international terminal are still on the way.

(BUSINESS REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, is your life stored on a laptop? It's protecting your privacy, and that is key.

Christine Romans has some tips, too, in this week's "Right on Your Money" to protect it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the click of a mouse, you can view account information, pay bills and research investments. But be aware you may not be the only one screening your online information.

MANDY WALKER, SR. PROJECT EDITOR, CONSUMER REPORTS: If your computer is stolen or a hacker breaks in on the Internet, they get the whole list of all your passwords so they can get into all your accounts.

ROMANS: But here's how to protect your identity online. Don't reply to or click on any link in an e-mail that asks for your credit card or bank account information or any other private information, even if the e-mail looks like it came from your bank.

WALKER: Of course, this is usually phishing schemes done this way. So a cyber thief could be using your account number to get your passwords, to steal your identity or empty all your accounts.

ROMANS: Don't store passwords or logon information on your computer.

WALKER: It's certainly tempting because you probably have a different password for 19, 20 different accounts. But we take note, don't click yes when they ask do you want to remember your online information and delete any that you've already stored that way, again so they won't get hacked into.

ROMANS: One way to prevent thieves from opening new accounts in your name put a freeze on your credit files.

WALKER: It can be a bit of a pain if you're applying for a new loan because you have to either give the creditor a PIN number or you have to unlock it somehow to give them access. But it will stop identity thieves from opening new accounts which can be key if you're suspecting you're going to be a victim or you have been a victim of identity theft.

ROMANS: And that's this week's "Right on Your Money."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, he nine tumultuous years ruling Pakistan. And, today, his reign comes to an end. We're going to take a look at Pervez Musharraf's legacy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, facing near certain impeachment, U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf resigned today as president of Pakistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTANI PRESIDENT (through translator): For the sake of country, please accept this decision. I am not thinking on personal levels, but first -- Pakistan first. So, take care of the Pakistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Now, Musharraf backed the U.S. war on terror, but was reluctant to challenge Islamic fighters on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. It's still not clear who will succeed him.

And Tropical Storm Fay back here in the U.S. is battering the Florida Keys with heavy wind and rain. Parts of the Overseas Highway and area roads are flooded. Where is it heading next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: And it's 3:26 Eastern time right now.

Here are some of the stories we're working on in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Confusion in the Republic of Georgia. After days of fighting and posturing, Russia says that it's complying with a cease-fire by withdrawing it's troops. Georgia says that it has seen no sign of that happening.

And one of President Bush's key allies his the war on terror is no longer in power. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf resigned under pressure today. He says that he made the move to spare the country from a power struggle with opponents vowing to impeach him.

And Tropical Storm Fay pounding the Florida Keys with heavy rain and wind right now. Fay is expected to become a hurricane as it nears the southwestern Florida coast tomorrow.

Well, the winds are picking up, the rain's falling harder. How close is Tropical Storm Fay to Florida?

Chad Myers in this hour tracking it for us.

What do you think, Chad?

MYERS: Sixty miles per hour right now, Kyra, and I think it probably goes to 70, or maybe 80 before it does cross Florida.

The theory here is that it's going to get in the Everglades and the Everglades are not land. It's basically a very hot water swamp, maybe hotter than the water surrounding it in Florida Bay. So, we will see Key West now basically in the right eye. You have lost basically all of you wind. And most of the squally activist is now well into your north, which is well into Florida Bay, even on up into the Gulf of Mexico.

As the day goes on, though, this storm is going to continue to spin.

Hey, Dave, can you guys give Glenn (ph) a kick?

This storm is going to continue to spin, and especially points east of here, on up toward Marathon. That's where we're going to see the potential for -- even into Key West, into Miami, that's we're going to see the potential for tornadoes.

The threat right now is not so much from a -- what these people down here would call a little blow on a 60-mile-per-hour storm. But it will be small isolated tornadoes that could come onshore as water spouts, come onshore and then hit the land, become tornadoes and do some damage that way.

This thing is going to be a great rainmaker. We're going too talk about rain all the way up to West Palm. But I have also seen storms get stronger as they approach the Everglades. We're talking about Wilma. Wilma a few years ago actually got stronger in the Everglades and then hit really about Fort Myers and then into Fort Lauderdale, hit them the wrong way.

So, the problem is, in Miami, you have all your storm shutters up on the east side and then the storm slam you this way and you get the winds going the other way on windows that aren't really protected.

There's Fay right now, 60 miles per hour, gusting to 70. I think it has enough time in the Gulf of Mexico or in Florida Bay to get a little bit stronger. It probably does turn into a hurricane before it makes landfall.

Now, this storm can do a bunch of different things, Kyra. It can turn off into the ocean, a couple of models saying that. It can move on up towards Jacksonville and then turn left and go into the Gulf of Mexico. Many new models saying that. And so, this cone may not be perfect either.

PHILLIPS: All right, but you are. And that's why we talk to you about where it's all going.

MYERS: Oh, stop. I have to go home now.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Chad.

That's right. That's the day for you.

MYERS: That's right.

PHILLIPS: Well, South Florida has seen its share of storm disasters. That's for sure. Hurricanes Andrew and Wilma come to mind.

Governor Charlie Crist says that his goal is just keeping everybody safe. So, he's already declared a state of emergency. And he's activated 500 National Guard troops. The man who helped bring calm to the chaos in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina talked with us earlier about what local authorities have to do right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, US ARMY (RET): If I was asked to make a recommendation to the local governments along the coasts, I would say, go into the poor neighborhoods, make sure everybody knows where the shelters are.

PHILLIPS: Knock on doors.

HONORE: You got to knock on doors. You got to get neighborhoods organized. You have to have faith-based organizations. It is important that we act now, because tomorrow's going to be too late.

PHILLIPS: OK, what about -- I mean, if you could sit down with the governor -- because we know that this is where the lack of communication was. You have the local government. You have the federal government. Everybody has to ask for help in order to be really well prepared. So it starts with the mayor. What would you say to the governor right now, Governor Crist? This is his first big one he's having to deal with in office.

HONORE: First of all, I'll tell you, I think you have a good team in Florida. And they have gotten progressively better since 2004 and 2005 and so forth. The challenge is to penetrate that part of the community that are not informed, which is the poor and the disabled, that do not have access of information that's being put out by the government now. It's to help the local governments penetrate those communities and those people who live in structures that will not stand up to 100-mile-per-hour winds.

There are many small homes in and along the Florida coast and in low-lying areas that we know will not stand up to 100-mile-per-hour winds. It's to penetrate those communities now with people on the street knocking on doors, trying to get them to move to a shelter, and then to tell people when should you move if you live in Pinellas County. When should you move if you live further down the coast, move to a shelter and get those shelters open early.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Rains in the west caused lakes to overflow and creaks to rise. At the Grand Canyon, more than 170 campers, rafters and residents were left stranded on the cliffs, and awaiting risky rescues as well. About a dozen people still unaccounted for, and the search continues for them by ground and by air.

Facing near certain impeachment, US ally Pervez Musharraf resigned today as president of Pakistan. The one-time military ruler has been a supporter of the war on terror, while often resisting Washington's pleas to take on Islamic militants in Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Musharraf's successor, we still don't know who that's going to be.

Joining us now from Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan, correspondent Aryn Baker. She covers both countries for "TIME" magazine.

Aryn, glad to have you with us. Let's talk about this resignation and why you think he's doing it now.

ARYN BAKER, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, it actually started in February with the parliamentary elections, in which Pakistan's two major opposition parties came to power on a largely wave of anti- Musharraf sentiment. It took a while for those parties to get together, but they finally announced last week that they would start impeachment proceedings against Musharraf, one reason being for the coup that brought him to power in 1999. Rather than face impeachment proceedings, which could be embarrassing, he decided to resign.

PHILLIPS: The big concern now is how is that going to impact the overall war on terror? This was a U.S. -- Musharraf had a good relationship with the U.S., but, at the same time, there was a lot of criticism surrounding him, because he wasn't fighting the Islamic extremists as hard as he should have. And the U.S. is putting millions of dollars into its military. So will this change be better or worse for the war on terror?

BAKER: Actually, it's not going to change much at all. What's going to happen now in the next few months is the same sort of political horse trading, sort of fighting for power that has dominated politics for the past several months in Pakistan. This just means that while the new government tries to figure out who's going to be president, who's going to take that position, no one's going to be paying attention to the tribal areas, where the war on terror is really based.

PHILLIPS: And that's somber news. There's no good news in that at all. So you've got the increase or the continued problem of these Islamic terrorists, a number of them being trained in Pakistan. You're saying not much is going to change with this shift in government? You've also written about Batula Masood (ph), this education teacher, physical ed teacher turned assassin. Apparently, he's taking credit -- or the CIA has said he's behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. He's been behind the assassinations of a number of negotiators to try to create a peace accord. You think of him, you think of the next Osama bin Laden. Will we see a rise in terrorists like this?

BAKER: I think we'll see more people like Batula Masood. What we'll also see is a spreading of the insurgency prone areas in the Pakistani tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. They'll spread more into the settled areas, closer to the Pakistan scene capital. It is going to derail and destabilize Pakistan even more, yes.

PHILLIPS: That's going to be a tough story to continue to cover. Aryn Baker, appreciate you writing and thanks for your time today.

Straight ahead, a cone of silence; those are three words that are creating a lot of political buzz right now. Two days after the Faith Forum with John McCain and Barack Obama, we're going to hear what the man who asked the questions told CNN's Rick Sanchez.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Video just coming in to us from Key West, Florida. As you know, we're following the conditions of Tropical Storm Fay right now. And you can see it's calmed down quite a bit. About two hours ago, John Zarrella there on the ground for us -- you can see the rain and the wind picking up, and causing even problems with our signal. You can see now that things have calmed down quite a bit. That was a pretty mellow picture coming into our affiliate out of Miami, WSVN. We're continuing to follow conditions there as the storm does move through the state of Florida.

The other story we have been talking about is that buzz over this weekend's Faith Forum, over the so-called cone of silence. That's the quiet room where John McCain was thought to be waiting during Barack Obama's turn on stage. It turns out that McCain walked into the church after the Q&A with Obama had started actually, leading to question as to whether he had heard Obama's questions, and thus had an unfair advantage. Well you get the picture.

Rick Sanchez had a chance to speak with the man who questioned the two candidates separately, Reverend Rick Warren of Saddleback Church.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: We flipped a coin, you said, and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence. That's what you said. Did you think, at the time, he was in the -- when you said that, did you think he was in the building?

REV. RICK WARREN, SADDLEBACK CHURCH: Actually, yes I did. There was actually a question I got to Senator Obama in advance that I didn't give to Senator McCain because he wasn't there. I actually wrote down on a piece of paper the very first question, because I wanted them both to be relaxed. I said, here's the very first question. I gave it to both of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: So were there rules for this discussion or not? Were questions given to the candidates? It's a little confusing.

SANCHEZ: Quite clearly there were rules. He came out and he said, quite pointedly, that John McCain had been safely placed in a cone of silence. He was speaking in present terms, as if John McCain were right now in this cone of silence. Suddenly, while I'm watching this and many of us here are watching this, I get word from Steve Brusk at our political desk, making the announcement, "attention all networks, John McCain has just walked into the building."

So I and many of us looked at ourselves and said, how can he be in the cone of silence if he just walked into the building? We did some research. We checked with both sides and we checked with Warren's folks. And we found, as you heard Warren say himself right there, I thought he was in the cone of silence when I said. Apparently he was not.

We're not trying to infer anything beyond that, as to what he knew, whether he heard the questions or not. Only that if he was supposed to be sequestered so he couldn't hear the questions, at the time we were told he was sequestered, he wasn't.

PHILLIPS: Bottom line, Americans want the truth. They don't want anybody skirting the truth in any way.

SANCHEZ: I can tell you, as a guy who was not born in this country, that if there's one thing that everybody in the world envies about Americans, it's our sense of order, propriety and a rule oriented society. It is a nation of laws and because of that, we get a little uncomfortable when we're told this is what the rules are going to be, and then we find out maybe they weren't exactly that. I think there are two things that are going on here. One of them, for the bloggers picking this story and running with it -- it's all over the place now -- one of it is obviously the Obamacans and the Obama fans are taking this story and saying, maybe that's why our candidate didn't look as good as he perhaps usually looks. Obviously, the other thing in play here is the fact that Americans look at this and say, why did he tell us there was a cone of silence if there wasn't a cone of silence. I don't like that. In golf, if you're a three handicap, you're a three handicap from beginning to end. You don't change it mid-stream.

PHILLIPS: Yes, but we'd like to. We'd like a mulligan now and then. We'll get side-tracked. Something else creating debate, discussion, tax breaks and income. That was brought up with John McCain. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So I think if you're just talking about income, how about five million? So -- but seriously, I don't think you can -- I don't think seriously that -- the point is that I'm trying to make here, seriously -- and I'm sure that comment will be distorted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: OK. Let's see, who do we consider rich?

SANCHEZ: That comment will be -- it's funny, I had a conversation yesterday with Rick Warren and I said, what did you think of that when he said that? He said, I took a gulp and I could see all of McCain's advisers taking a gulp, because they knew it was one of those moments that -- Look, we all make mistakes.

PHILLIPS: There's some people that think folks making 50,000 dollars a year are rich.

SANCHEZ: And there's a lot of people who think that money has nothing to do with being rich. It's about your relationship with your family, whether you're happy inside. All that aside, five million is probably very far away from what most Americans would think. That's why it was one of those comments that you might expect that the Democrats will be turning into a campaign ad. Who knows? They might be working on it as we speak.

PHILLIPS: And there might be else that the other side is working on as we speak, and that was Barack Obama and what was said about abortion. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: Let's deal with abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have to deal with all the time, all of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions; at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view? SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Above my pay grade?

SANCHEZ: You're right. You're right to oh. I think there are some, certainly within the conservative movement, who will look at that and say, we want an answer from you. And some people may see that as a bit of a cop out. You say that you're adherent to your faith. You have to give us an -- We're not saying -- and this is what Rick Warren and I spoke about yesterday. And he had an interesting take on this as well. A candidate doesn't have to say I am going to do everything possible to repeal Roe v. Wade because I'm a Christian. But he probably does have to personify it somehow, and say look, personally I'm against abortion. However, when it comes to the law --

Where I think, and I think some of the others who have been looking at this -- we were talking a little while ago about what ad would be used against McCain. There's a possibility this could be used against Barack Obama by many saying, where does he really stand on this, and saying it's above my pay grade may be seen by some as a bit of a cop-out.

PHILLIPS: And you're going to want to catch CNN's LARRY KING LIVE tonight at 9:00 Eastern, with the Reverend Rick Warren as Larry's guest. He's going to give us a behind the scenes look at the faith forum.

It took Robert Downey Jr. in black face to topple the rein of "The Dark Night" at the box office. But since when did a white actor make up a black person become socially acceptable?

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PHILLIPS: "The Dark Knight's" reign at the box office is over after four weeks. "Tropic Thunder" wrestled the top spot away over the weekend, taking in 26 million dollars. And it did so despite a little controversy as well.

CNN's Kareen Wynter has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Taboo, that's been the final word on black face for decades. But it would appear pop culture has reopened the issue for debate.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR., ACTOR: What do you mean, you people?

BEN STILLER, ACTOR: What do you mean, you people?

WYNTER (voice-over): It was a performance that could have spelled disaster. "Tropic thunder's" movie within a movie stars Robert Downey Jr. as a white actor playing a black man in a film.

DOWNEY: That word just kept us down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were a couple of parts in the film where I did cringe. But what I liked about it is that you have a real African American actor, Brandon T. Jackson, there to say what audiences are going to probably be saying back to the screen.

WYNTER: According to the film's studio, the NAACP gave Thunder the thumb's up. In fact, there have been a number of recent black face performances to receive essentially no backlash from the black community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When Fred Armisen on SNL plays Barack Obama, to me, he looks like Barack Obama, so I don't think about that. Or when Tracy Ullman does her many characters.

WYNTER: Not everyone has been so lucky. Performance artist Charles Knipp is best known as Shirley Q Liquor, a robust southern black woman who speaks ebonics, and has 19 children, a character based on Knipp's childhood caregiver.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had 18 children. And I used to be so fascinated with the way she spoke. She was from Louisiana.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's talking about welfare checks and 12 days of Kwanazza. All of that is like stop, no. Charles Knipp has crossed that line.

WYNTER: Packed with mostly gay, racially mixed crowds, Knipp's shows sell out nationwide. He says only someone who believes in white supremacy would be offended.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you think that white people are supreme or better than black people, then it really is exclusionary. But at the same time, nobody in the audience believes I'm a black woman. Everyone is in on the joke. I think when black people and white people can laugh at each other and their foibles and the silliness that we do and all of our little hidden prejudices, it can be a healing thing.

WYNTER: So, if there is a new playbook on black face, the rules are open to interpretation.

(on camera): Knipp tells us next, he's headed out on the road to Georgia, Louisiana, California, and Nevada.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: A good turnout today to remember, once self-proclaimed bad mother, tribute to soul legend Isaac Hayes comes eight day after his death at age 65. Crowding the Memphis are church with friends, strangers, even famous faces. Entertainer Bootsy Collins there, as are Reverends Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Congressman John Lewis, actress Anne Archer and many more. Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for the theme from Shaft. Your kids probably knew him as the voice of Chef on "South Park."

Time to check in with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. He's standing by in "THE SITUATION ROOM" to tell us what's coming up at the top of the hour.

Hi, Wolf.

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PHILLIPS: Sounds good, Wolf. Thanks.

Superman in the water, with eight new gold medals placed around his neck. Michael Phelps talks about his amazing run at the Beijing Olympics.

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PHILLIPS: Off the coast of Sydney, Australia, a baby humpback whale may be having an identity crisis. That whale calf has adopted this yacht as its mommy. It was spotted snuggling the boat, trying to suckle it. That yacht was then used to lure the whale, estimated to be one or two months old, by the way, right back out to sea. Rescuers say the baby whale's condition has deteriorated. They just hopes it finds its real mother or another pod of whales pretty soon, so it can have some food.

In case you somehow missed it, Michael Phelps completed one of the most amazing feats in Olympic history, winning eight swimming gold medals in Beijing. That pushed him back Mark Spitz as the most decorated athlete in a single Olympics. His seventh was the most dramatic, winning the 100 meter butterfly by one hundredth of a second, the smallest margin measured in swimming.

This morning, our Larry Smith caught up with Phelps.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL PHELPS, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I've always had, you know, the kind of mind frame where anything is possible. You know, no matter what it is, if you put your mind to it, you can do it. And, you know, I've been able to do that through my career. So coming into here, I thought anything was possible. And it's just fun for me to -- you know, to have people say it's not possible and be able to come out and do it. It makes it ten times better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Do you have a question for Phelps? You can go to iReport.com and submit your own video question, and catch him live on CNN.com tomorrow starting at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, only at CNN.com/live.

Michael Phelps' run is over, but the quest for gold, silver and bronze is still fast and furious. Here's the latest medal count at this point. The U.S. remains on top in total medals with 72. Those are total medals won, rather, including 22 gold. And then host China is second with 67, and a whopping 39 golds. Russia third, total of 36 medals. And then rounding out the top five, Australia has 33 and France 28.

Closing bell about to ring on Wall Street. Stephanie Elam standing by with a final look at the trading day. I know she's also watching Phelps because she is a swimmer herself.

I should tell our viewers. I get in there early in the morning, you come strolling in with a wet head. Steph, you just got out of the shower? No, I've down in the pool swimming laps.

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PHILLIPS: Let's take it now to "THE SITUATION ROOM" and Wolf Blitzer -- Wolf.