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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Suicide Car Bomb; Return to Campus; Deadliest Shooting; Missed Signals; Money Gap
Aired April 23, 2007 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... forces. Now the brigade commander up there, the leader of the "Grey Wolf" Brigade, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team from the 1st Cavalry Division with many other units attached to it, has said that he is aggressively targeting al Qaeda. He is going into their safe havens. - In Diyala Province, al Qaeda has training bases. It collects taxes. It has entire regions which are firmly under its control where it has Sharia courts. It's declared much of our -- much of Diyala Province as part of the Islamic state of Iraq.
And this combat brigade is attempting to rest it back by going into the al Qaeda strongholds, battling with them in blazing pitched fights that go for days and weeks at enormous cost of American life, trying to take this province back.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So, has anything in Diyala changed because of the increase in troops, of American troops in Baghdad -- the what was one time called a surge or an escalation -- is that occurring also in Diyala or is it simply in Baghdad?
WARE: Well, what we saw with the introduction of what's now almost 30,000 additional combat troops to the war here in Iraq, focusing on the capital Baghdad, as you say, the surge, is that we saw furtherance of a trend that had already been well underway in Diyala Province.
Yes, when more troops came to Baghdad, more al Qaeda went to Diyala to join the others who had already moved there.
But let's not forget, this has been an al Qaeda stronghold for years. It ebbs, it flows. The level of activity changes. But they have been the preeminent insurgent force in that province for quite some time now.
Indeed, when the American brigade commander arrived there, he described the situation that al Qaeda considered that America owned the roads in that province, but they owned everything else.
Well, he's been taking the fight to them. And this would be one of many acts of retaliation from al Qaeda.
That's Michael Ware reporting from Baghdad. Again, the breaking news, nine American service members killed that we know of. We're not sure exactly where in Diyala Province. On now to Virginia Tech, where students today put on a massive demonstration of Hokie pride a week after Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 fellow students and staff. They went back to class.
CNN's Gary Tuchman is on the campus at the end of an emotional and important day. He joins us now -- Gary.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, it was another sad, but very moving day. This was the day that thousands of Hokies came back to go to classes. But even as they started classes this morning, they attended this memorial service which was very emotional, partly because there was no speaking whatsoever.
At precisely 9:45 a.m., exactly to the minute a week after the attack at the classroom building here, a bell was rung to symbolize the massacre, the carnage, the terrible things that happened here.
And then, 32 more bells were rung, each bell for each innocent victim. And when the bell was rung, a single white balloon would float to the heavens.
After about 10 minutes after that part of the ceremony was over, 1,000 balloons were then put into the sky in orange and maroon Virginia Tech colors. And as those balloons, symbolizing the unity of this campus went into the sky and as they were against the very blue beautiful skies, they almost looked like, as you strained your eyes to see them as they were disappearing, tears -- orange and maroon tears floating into the sky. This happened as the students went back to classes.
And most of the classrooms today were relatively full, but very few of the classes are ready to start their studies that they had been undergoing just a week ago.
Last Monday these students were in classes, including the 32 students who were killed, people preparing for bright futures after they graduated from this wonderful university, Virginia Tech. And now they were gone. So it was very hard for a lot of the people to crack the book.
So these classrooms actually became counseling rooms and rooms to give people comfort today as the students talked with their professors. The professors talked with the students about what happened. In some of the larger classrooms they did have -- open the books a little bit, but in most of the classrooms today it was just talking.
We anticipate that tomorrow they will get back to some of the work. But the university is giving students an option. If they don't want to come back for the rest of the school year, they are telling them that they cannot take final exams and take the grade they've earned up to this point. If they don't like the grade they've earned up to this point or they're not happy with not taking final exams and not coming back, they can withdraw from the class and they can do it with no penalty whatsoever. The university is trying to be, Anderson, as flexible as possible considering the circumstances. COOPER: Hey, Gary, how sick of the media are these students? You know, in all these kind of things for the first couple of days, you know, people want to talk about it, and then oftentimes after a while they're kind of tired of seeing reporters.
I mean, CNN has -- most, I think, news networks have pulled back from the campus. I think you're the only person there for CNN right now. What kind of interaction are you having? What kind of response are you getting?
TUCHMAN: Yes, it's a ticklish position for us to be in. All we can do, Anderson, is be very polite. If students don't want to talk to us, we're very happy not to talk to them. We tell them, sorry for bothering you. But there are plenty people here who do want to talk to us.
They know their parents are watching, their relatives are watching, and they know that people want to know the story. So, all in all we've had a very friendly experience even on this day, even though a lot of the classroom buildings say, please no media beyond this point. We don't go into the buildings. We've been outside the buildings. But overall, it's been very friendly, but we do understand, as much as we can, what these students are going through.
COOPER: Gary, you talked with two of Cho's roommates last week. I know you talked to one of them today. What was that like?
TUCHMAN: Yes. Last week we talked to two of his roommates from the last school year, Andy and John. They lived with him the entire school year. And one of the startling things they told us last week, they established for the first time before the university even said this, that their roommate Cho stalked three women, they said, in their dorm.
One of them was their friend. When Andy and John told Cho don't stalk our friend anymore, Cho sent them an instant message saying I'm going to kill myself. At that point they told campus police. The police came over to the dorm and they took Cho away for psychological counseling, but Cho ended up coming back.
Well anyway, Andy, who is now back at school today with thousands of other students, had some more things he thought about since we talked to us last week and we asked him about it in an interview today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN (voice-over): How did you feel when you saw the videotapes and pictures that came out with your old roommate?
ANDY KOCH, CHO'S FORMER ROOMMATE: I was disturbed and scared. The pictures were horrifying, you know, and got me to the point of shaking.
TUCHMAN: How was it going back to school for you today? KOCH: It still feels like Monday. And I know a lot of people have said that. It's -- I -- the first thing I did this morning was go to the memorial with the balloons and that was -- that was really touching and tough. It kind of felt like each person going away again each time their bell was rang and a white balloon was released.
And going to the first class was tough. It was a big lecture hall and the teacher's torn up and you can just tell, she -- everybody's just torn up.
TUCHMAN: How difficult was it for you to be in class today, a week after this? Knowing that you lived with this murderer?
KOCH: Yes. I've been able to keep composed, but I've had my moments.
COOPER: You and your roommate, John, did so much. You alerted the authorities here at Virginia Tech to the fact that he wanted to kill himself. He sent you the instant message saying that. You told them. They sent him way for counseling, but he came back. Do you look back now and say you wish you were more strident with them, you better not bring him back to us?
KOCH: We -- I wish maybe like we had pushed maybe to get him moved out. But I don't think it would have changed. He was obviously angry and something wasn't right. And I don't know if pushing him would have -- it would have happened somewhere else or I don't know.
TUCHMAN: Right. The fact is they took him away for a couple of days. He came back. Were you surprised that he was back? Did you think about it?
KOCH: I had forgotten about it. We had gone on winter break. And he was there. We had wondered if he would be back. But he was back and it was never really brought up again.
TUCHMAN: Were you disappointed he was back? Angry he was back? Happy he was back? What was your feeling about it?
KOCH: It was just, he's back. You know, we were just -- we wouldn't have missed him if he was gone because he wasn't really there to begin with. He didn't talk, so.
TUCHMAN: Did he -- his attitude change at all after he underwent this counseling and was brought back to school?
KOCH: He was calmer and there was no more of the extreme -- there was no more extreme stories and the incidents as far as we know.
TUCHMAN: So did you think perhaps whatever counseling had worked a little bit?
KOHC: Yes. Or I thought maybe he was more careful of what he was doing so we wouldn't see it, maybe.
TUCHMAN (on camera): One of the things you were telling us last week is that he wrote on the walls. And you concerned about it because you can charged when you write on the walls.
What did he write on those walls?
KOCH: It was lyrics from a Nirvana song, "Smells like Teen Spirit" and I remember it was bring -- load our gun, bring your friends. And there's another line, it's fun to pretend.
TUCHMAN: So when he wrote about loading your gun on the wall, did that concern you at all?
KOCH: No, not at the time it didn't concern me. I was, you know, more mad that we'd have to pay for the walls, you know? I didn't think much of it.
TUCHMAN: But you were telling us you never saw him with guns or talking about guns, but now that we look back at it, this is the only mention that you ever know where he mentioned guns.
KOCH: It was the only time I ever seen him interested in guns or even sale, I guess, the whole time.
TUCHMAN: You also told me some face book, he referred to himself as Question Mark, which is pretty strange. But I guess you're remembering now some more things he referred to himself as?
KOCH: Yes. Second semester, I think it was, that he created another one, another face book profile. And that was Burrito Taco Sauce.
TUCHMAN: What did that mean?
KOCH: I have no idea. And I don't remember what the profile was, but I just remember we found it one day and it was linked to Question Mark. And then at some point he also changed Question Mark's face book named Stand B (ph) for a while.
TUCHMAN: Stand -- last initial B?
KOCH: Yes.
TUCHMAN: And what did that all mean? Or what were you thinking that meant? Do kids do stuff like that?
KOCH: Not really. No. Didn't think anything of it at the time, again. It was just another incident with him.
TUCHMAN: And among the things you're remembering, you're remembering the story he told you about a vacation he said he took and he met a famous politician?
KOCH: I was going on Thanksgiving break and my family and I were traveling in the car to Ohio. He called me and I asked him what was up. He told me he was vacationing with Vladimir Putin in North Carolina. And I pointed out some of the difficulties in the Russian president coming here and that I didn't think Seung knew Russian and just the age difference that they -- it would be odd they would be friends. And he said he grew up in Moscow with Vladimir Putin.
TUCHMAN: And why do you think he was telling you this? Did you -- first of all, did you believe it at any point?
KOCH: No, I never believed it. It was -- I thought it was another game and I kind of played along and asked questions, you know, for a minute or two and then I was like I have to go.
TUCHMAN: The university says he stalked two girls, but you know of three girls he stalked?
KOCH: Right.
TUCHMAN: And one of the issues is none of these girls pressed charges. Is that your understanding of the two?
KOCH: Right.
TUCHMAN: I guess now that you're looking back at it, we all wish they did, right?
KOCH: Right. I wish somebody had done...
TUCHMAN: Do you know why they didn't? Did you ever ask them why they didn't?
KOCH: As far as like I can tell from like my own thoughts, they probably just didn't want to cause trouble. You know, it was annoying, it wasn't -- they probably weren't scared. They were just extremely annoyed. Maybe a little bit scared. They didn't know anything about him and he was doing these weird things. But more -- he was more of an annoyance, like I say. Didn't want to cause trouble.
TUCHMAN: The thing is, if you have in your room at this university drugs, what would happen to you?
KOCH: It's zero tolerance. You're out.
TUCHMAN: You're out of the dorm?
KOCH: Yes. Out of school.
TUCHMAN: But this guy stalked girls, was sent away because he wants to kill himself, never talked, teachers didn't want him in his class and he was left in your dorm the entire year. Does that anger you when you look back at it? You didn't think there's a contradiction there perceived?
KOCH: It doesn't anger me. It's scary. And it's -- there was never a system in place that all the information from us, from his teachers and from I guess the police could be put all in one place. So if it had been -- if there had been a system -- don't think there's a system anywhere, but if such a system existed, something may have been able to be done.
TUCHMAN: Can you still believe that this guy who you lived with for a year is the same guy who killed 32 people?
KOCH: Nope. Not even close to believing it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's got to be incredibly hard for them to believe. How do you think they're coping with this psychologically?
TUCHMAN: I think Andy and John, like many students here, are having a very tough time. But Andy told us today, particularly since this manifesto was released last week where they saw the videos and they saw the pictures and they saw the horrible nasty mystifying things that Cho said. And I think it's just starting to sink in for Andy that, right now, he is thinking about last year from September of 2005 to May of 2006, living with this guy who obviously was capable of murdering so many people and he slept right next to him for about 170 nights. And that is a really scary thought to him right now.
COOPER: So bizarre. Gary, thanks.
Over the past week we have learned a lot about who the killer is and how his deadly rampage unfolded. We've learned more today. We also saw more funerals today and over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Tomorrow would have been Austin Cloyd's 19th birthday. This weekend was her funeral.
Jarrett Lee Lane was also buried this weekend. So was Waleed Mohammed Shalan (ph) , Partahi Lumbantoruan, G.V. Loganathan, and Minal Panchal.
And today, more funeral, more tears for Ryan Clark, the resident assistant; Reema Samaha, who loved to dance; Matthew La Porte and Matthew Gwaltney.
As the grieving continues, so does the investigation. Here's what we have learned from the autopsies. The 32 victims suffered more than 100 gunshot wounds, many of them defensive wounds, suggesting those who died tried to shield themselves.
As for the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, he killed himself with a gunshot to the temple. Seven days later, the most painful question remains, why? What made Cho, a virtual ghost on the Virginia Tech campus, go on the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history?
Blood samples from Cho's body are being tested for drugs, but it will be weeks before the results are in.
Meantime, investigators are still searching the cell phone and e- mail records of Cho and his first victim, Emily Hilscher, looking for any link between them.
Investigators are looking into Cho's online purchases. EBay say his bought empty ammunition magazines through its Web site, magazines that match the type of gun used in the massacre. State police earlier said he used the Internet to buy one of the guns used in the attack.
There were questions in the Senate today as well at a Homeland Security hearing.
W. ROGER WEBB, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA: The spotlight is shining squarely today on college presidents and senior administrators. And that question is before us: How safe are our campuses?
COOPER: In the case of Virginia Tech, at least, last Monday, the answer was not safe enough.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (on camera): Well, last Monday's deadly rampage doesn't appear to be having impact on prospective students. Here's the raw data.
Fall admission has been offered to 12,848 new students. As of today, only five had declined to enroll because of the shootings. They have until May 1st to decide whether to attend.
Up next tonight, the answer to a question so many people are asking: How was Cho, with his history of mental illness, able to buy a gun?
Also tonight these stories.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER (voice-over): On payday, it's still a man's world. A new study and new stunning numbers. The pay gap reality, how it impacts your bank account.
Rove versus Crow. The president's top adviser and the rock singer in a heated debate over global warming. The he said/she said, when 360 continues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER (on camera): So many questions remain unanswered, in particular, where did the system fail Virginia and Seung-Hui Cho.
Pete Earley has a lot to say about that. He's the author of "Crazy: A Father's Search through America's Mental Health Madness." He joins me now.
Pete, it's good to have you on the program again.
Where do you think the first breakdown was in the system of how Cho was treated?
PETE EARLEY, AUTHOR: "CRAZY": The first breakdown was our law. We require a person to be an imminent danger to himself or others. And what that means is, you can't help someone who has a mental illness even if they have a long history of mental illness unless they're a threat to themselves or someone else.
And that means we put civil rights ahead of common sense and compassion.
In my son's case, I couldn't get him help even though he had been hospitalized three times, was sitting in front of a TV with tin foil wrapped around his head, believing the CIA was sending him messages.
Imagine being a father seeing that, knowing that you had a pill that you could get him that would bring him back to normal; and having attorneys say, or doctors say, oh no, no, no. We have to wait. We have to wait until he hurts himself or hurts someone else because we don't want to infer on -- interfere on his civil rights.
COOPER: I know you're a member of a commission meeting tomorrow to look at the imminent threat clause, concerning when exactly mentally ill people should be involuntarily committed. I mean, how -- when should they be? How do you look at this process and decide, you know what? OK they haven't threatened a life, but they could theoretically do harm?
EARLEY: Well, again, nobody wants to throw every protection out. That would be ridiculous. But dropping the word imminent, for instance. Every state but three have already done that. Virginia stubbornly hangs in there and says, oh no, we have to have an immediate threat. But we also have to provide services. Even declaring someone a danger doesn't work if you don't plug them into the system.
So the question is, how do you balance that? And I say, it's a lot -- you know, it's just so frustrating because in this case, for example, look at all the warning signs. And yet imminent danger became the ultimate excuse. We can't do anything, the professor said, until he hurts somebody. We can't do anything, the police said, until he hurts someone. We can't do anything, the psychiatrist said, until he hurts someone. That just doesn't make sense. And we have 32 bodies to prove it.
COOPER: And as Gary Tuchman pointed out when he was interviewing one of Cho's suitemates just a couple minutes ago, you know, if Cho had been doing drugs and had been caught doing drugs on campus, he would have been kicked out. There's a zero tolerance policy on that, and yet it seems on this issue, somehow people kind of can't make up their minds.
EARLEY: These laws were passed when we had the horrible, horrible state institutions. No one wants to return to those days. We were afraid that people would be scooped up and thrown into these insane asylums for the rest of their lives and given lobotomies, and all these horrible things would happen to them. Those asylums no longer exist.
Yes, we have to safeguard people's rights, but we need to put a system in that can intervene before we reach this horrible step of someone hurting someone else.
COOPER: Another angle on this story which you touched on last week when we spoke, and I think it bears repeating, is that a lot of this boils down to money. And treating someone with a mental illness is a lot more costly, and often, you know, insurance companies don't want to cover it in the same way that they cover other forms of illness.
EARLEY: Insurance companies don't want to cover it and people without insurance are really, really vulnerable. But it boils down to it -- the reason we stayed -- closed state institutions wasn't compassion, it was money. The federal government said we'll take care of the mentally ill. And the state said, hurray, and they literally closed down institutions over night. And the federal government hasn't kept that promise. And we've abandoned people on the streets. And we've gotten used to it. We walk by homeless, psychotic people and we think, oh you deserve that.
Well, what did we do to this Cho? Now, we don't know if he was a sociopath or if he had a severe mental illness like bipolar or schizophrenia. But the point is everybody avoided him. We walked by him. We didn't want to have anything to do with him. And you have to intervene. At some point, you're going to have to step in and say, look, you're sick. Something's wrong. We need to plug you into the system.
COOPER: So you said it's three states right now that still have imminent in their laws? The person has to be an imminent threat. You said Virginia. Do you know what the other two states are?
EARLEY: Yes. Georgia and Hawaii.
COOPER: All right. Good to know.
Pete, appreciate you being on the program again. Pete Earley.
One other note on how you can help. The university has set up what it's calling the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. Donations are going to go to help victims and their families pay for grief counseling, memorials and other related expenses. We put a hotlink to it on the blog, CNN.com/360blog.
So equal pay -- or equal jobs, we should say, but unequal pay. There is still a surprisingly big income gap between men and women. Just ahead, we'll explore the reasons why with Author Suze Orman.
Plus, Sheryl Crow versus Karl Rove. Sparks fly as they meet face to face. We'll tell you what the spat was all about, coming up next on 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So of course, men and women are to receive equal pay for equal work. It's called the Equal Pay Act and it's the law. But it is not the reality. A new study paints a disturbing look at the gender gap in the 21st century. And if anything, it may be getting only bigger.
CNN's Randi Kaye reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wouldn't it be nice if we could all earn a living on the catwalk? Modeling is one of the few careers where women actually earn more than men.
In nearly every other field, boys make the bigger bucks.
CATHERINE HILL, AMERICAN ASSOC. OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN: We found that one year out of college, women were already earning less than their male peers; and that 10 years after college, that gap had widened.
KAYE: Researcher Catherine Hill found women earn just 80 percent of what men earn one year out of college. A decade later, their paychecks continue to plummet, down to 69 percent.
HILL: We're seeing the same kind of gap that we saw for their mothers and grandmothers.
KAYE: In the 1960s Hill says women earned 59 cents on the dollar compared to men. By the 90s, it had jumped to 78 cents. But in the last few years, women's salaries have been stuck right and there. Why does the pay gap still exist?
HILL: When we have something unexplained that we can't control by any of the things we know affect earnings, it suggests to us that discrimination's still a problem.
KAYE: Is it really discrimination or is it career choices? Women favor education and lower-paying jobs, while men gravitate toward engineering and finance which pay more. But there is evidence the gap exists even within the same field.
HILL: Even within people who are doing the same field of study, one year out, we see very large pay differences.
KAYE (on camera): The gender pay gap varies by state. Here in New York, women earn 82 percent of what men earn. That is just slightly behind West Virginia, which has the smallest pay gap in the country. But in Louisiana, the ladies make just 64 percent of what the guys do. That is the largest gender pay gap in the U.S.
(voice-over): Not only do women get paid less, but there are fewer of them in executive roles. That leaves men with more authority, more involvement in hiring, and yes, setting pay.
Why don't we see more women at the top? Sylvia Ann Hewlett has been tracking gender issues in the workplace for two decades and finds women forced to choose between work and family.
SYLVIA ANN HEWLETT, CENTER FOR WORK-LIFE POLICY: What we are finding is that ambitious, committed women are looking at this -- these jobs and electing really not to go into them. Women are in a way deliberately avoiding the very long-hour career.
HILL: The percentage of female executives, Hewlett says, has dropped from 15 to 14 percent just in the last year.
(on camera): But 15 to 14 percent doesn't sound like a lot.
HEWLETT: Yes, but it's heading in the wrong direction. It took us about 30 years to get up to that 15 percent. And so, any step back, I think, is very disturbing.
KAYE: Can the gap be narrowed? Sure, says Hewlett, by encouraging young women to break into male-dominated fields and by making the work model more female-friendly, allowing women to raise a family and climb the corporate ladder. Only then will the gender pay gap be gone for good.
Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, for more on the gender gap issue, I spoke with Suze Orman, the well-known personal finance expert and author of the new book "Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.
Suze joined me earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: I've got to tell you, I was stunned by the study, you're not.
SUZE ORMAN, AUTHOR, "WOMEN & MONEY": No, I'm not at all.
COOPER: Why?
ORMAN: Because I've always been saying -- I've been saying it a lot lately, women may be making more money, we're still not making more out of what we make. Women do not ask for what they deserve. Women are women when they come to who they are and what they make and what they ask for.
COOPER: But the study found that one year after college women only earn 80 percent of what men earn. After 10 years the salary discrepancy increased to leaving women with only at 69 percent of what men make. I mean, you think it's just a matter of women not asking what they deserve?
ORMAN: Yes. I don't think women are as aggressive as they need to be. And they will settle for less when it comes to their money. And when you start with less and you compound on less that makes the gap larger, Anderson, as time goes on if you think about it.
So most people get raises based on their base salary. So if you start out at $100,000 and you're compounding that at 5 percent a year, that grows a lot larger than if you're starting out at $80,000 and compounding on $80,000. So of course, as time goes on, the gap gets larger.
COOPER: This study accounted for the usual factors, parenthood, things like that. But it still pointed out that a portion of the gap is due to discrimination. If that's the case, that's not easily overcome, that's not something just demanding money is going to bridge.
ORMAN: No, but women have to learn to say this is what I want, I'm not going to take the job unless you pay me that which I want, they need to be able to say, what are you paying a man in this exact same position? Women will not, but they need to, women will not go in and say, this is what I want, and stick with it.
And I think men know that. So men or employers will absolutely undervalue women and women will settle and say, OK.
COOPER: But you would think as more and more women are in the workplace and higher in higher positions that this would have changed.
ORMAN: You would think that it would change. But it hasn't changed because women are not as aggressive as they need to be. And the perception of them not being aggressive also hurts them because women don't want to hurt people's feelings. Women don't want to step up to the plate that way. They're totally capable.
They actually get better grades in college than most men do. I'm sure the study, if you looked at it, would say that women graduate with a higher grade point average. But when they go in to get a job they will settle for less money.
ORMAN: But there's also the concern that employers that women that aren't going to be there long term, they're going to take time off. In fact, Catherine Hill, the director for the group that did the study said, quote: "Employers assume that young women are going leave the workforce when they have children and therefore don't promote them." Some would say, look, that's a fair assumption. A lot of people take time off for having babies.
ORMAN: It's a fair assumption. However, how many men today are the stay-at-home fathers? Fifty-one percent of all women today are living alone. Women -- not all women, are having babies right away so that's an old excuse that I think people are using to penalize women.
Women again, it -- so many people would like to say, it's a man's fault. Men are doing this to us. I'm going to stick by the fact that I think we are doing this to ourselves, we settle for less, we don't go in there and we're not as aggressive as we should be.
When we are aggressive, we're labeled as, look at that woman, she goes for it, and therefore we settle for less.
COOPER: So your advice to someone out there, a woman listening who believes they are underpaid, who knows they are being underpaid compared to the men in their company?
ORMAN: I would go in and I would have a very harsh talk with my employer. I would want to know what men are getting paid in the exact same position I have and why are they underpaying me. And I literally would not settle for less, even if that meant I had to leave my job and go look for somebody else who could value me and pay me what I was worth, I would leave.
COOPER: All right. Suze, thanks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Up next, dinner drama, rock star versus Karl Rove. Their heated exchange that has a lot of people talking.
Also tonight these stories...
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: (voice-over): Two skaters, one daring move at 40 miles per hour leads to trouble.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Half revolution before my skate hit her face. I knew we were too close.
COOPER: One skater slashed, the other consumed with guilt. Will they ever compete again?
Plus, he helped bring democracy to Russia. From defying communism to his more colorful side. Remembering Boris Yeltsin when 360 continues.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, presidential adviser Karl Rove there. He has been known as the ultimate behind-the-scenes man. But at the White House Correspondents Dinner, he wound up front and center in a confrontation that has a lot of people in Washington buzzing.
Tom Foreman was there and has the story in a fight over global warming that continues to be talk of the town.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The black-tie dinner is one of the biggest annual parties for the inside-the-Beltway crowd. It draws 3,000 people and is jokingly called "the prom." News organizations invite dignitaries, entertainers and news sources to rub elbows with newsmakers. The president is often there and he was this year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH")
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: We are causing global warming.
(END VIDEO CLIP) FOREMAN: Among CNN's guests was the producer of Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," Laurie David. Singer Sheryl Crow was there, too, as a guest of Bloomberg News. And both women are ardent environmentalists.
LAURIE DAVID, MOVIE PRODUCER: We saw Karl Rove in the room. We got really excited because you know after all of these years of working on this issue, I've never had the opportunity to talk directly to the administration.
We tried to have a conversation with him, and you know, it was odd because he got immediately hostile and very combative and you know the conversation went downhill from there.
FOREMAN: The Web site politico.com snagged these pictures as the two say they tried to talk to rove about global warming and he, according to them, started walking away. Crow says she touched his arm and he responded, "don't touch me."
AMY ARGETSINGER, "THE RELIABLE SOURCE," THE WASHINGTON POST: There is some exchange to the extent of the two of them saying, hey, you work for us, Karl Rove saying, no, I work for the American people and walking away. Karl Rove later said that he felt like he had been set up.
SHERYL CROW, MUSICIAN: I felt it was very disappointing because you want to -- with leadership, you want to be able to engage because we're all Americans here and we all have the same concerns and to be shut down, it was disappointing.
FOREMAN: Ever since, Crow and David have been defending their actions and the White House has been defending Rove, suggesting the two women were grabbing a cheap headline.
DANA PERINO, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESWOMAN: So we have big climate change challenges ahead of us, and I just wish that they would channel some of that Hollywood energy into something constructive rather than baseless finger-pointing.
FOREMAN: This is second big dinner recently that has found Karl Rove in the spotlight. His rap at the last one became an Internet sensation for fans and foes. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, heck, these days, you can't miss him.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: There you go. It is clear Sheryl Crow and Laurie David are very passionate about global warming. I found out myself a couple of weeks ago. I was down in New Orleans, so were they. And I had a chance to talk with both of them about the issue that they feel strongly about.
Here's the interview.
COOPER: Do you still find a lot of skepticism from people in audiences saying, look, is this real? I mean...
DAVID: I think we are finding -- you find skepticism, but it's mostly because they're misinformed. And that's one of our goals, to really, you know, get information out there. People -- look, the consensus is in, the globe is warming and humans are causing it. The debate is over. And now we need to get that message out to the people.
COOPER: There are those who say, look, some scientists disagree with that.
DAVID: Yes, but they don't. I mean, no serious peer-reviewed scientist disagrees with this information anymore. Seriously, 2,000 scientists from 150 countries say this is happening, it's happening now and it's happening faster than even we thought it. So this isn't opinion anymore. It's not even -- it's not our opinion. It's fact. And we really have to face the truth of what's happening and we need to start solving it.
COOPER: Is it something which is just cyclical? Is it something which is just part of the natural cycle?
DAVID: No.
CROW: No.
DAVID: No. Listen, as CO2 levels go up, heat goes up with it, that's a fact. It's indisputable. And we're putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than has been in the atmosphere in the last 650,000 years. I mean, really, wrap your mind around that number.
COOPER: But do -- I mean...
DAVID: Seventy million tons of CO2 a day we're adding into the atmosphere. Like that -- just basic common sense says that cannot be right.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Laurie David and Sheryl Crow are going around the country on a bus fuelled with biofuel and they are giving concerts on college campuses and giving lectures as well.
Well, coming up, he was often contradictory but always larger than life. Just ahead, we'll remember the late Russian president, Boris Yeltsin.
And disaster on ice, two skaters, too close. Take a look at this video. What happened next when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: He will be remembered for standing up for Russia. He will also be remembered for the moments when he had a tough time standing up at all. Boris Yeltsin was a big man with big appetites and major shortcomings. He also had a deep and abiding love for a country that didn't always love him back. Mr. Yeltsin died today of heart failure. He was 76 years old.
More from CNN's David Mattingly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two months after winning the first popular presidential vote in Russian history, Boris Yeltsin climbed atop a Soviet era tank and passionately defied an attempted coup. It was a defining moment for both Yeltsin and the fragile Russian democracy, and the first of many contradictory images of a complex man who came to power as the old Soviet Union crumbled.
GEORGY ARBATOV, DIR., USA CANADA INSTITUTE: When he was on the tank, it was his best hour. But time comes when you have to climb down from the tank and say that you're (INAUDIBLE) stable (ph). And he cannot do it.
MATTINGLY: He was a leader of democratic reform, and yet Yeltsin demanded complete control. He became deeply unpopular as he abruptly dismantled the old Soviet economy.
Then came war. Tens of thousands died after Yeltsin ordered troops into a heavy-handed attack on the breakaway republic of Chechnya, a decision that he said haunted him.
BORIS YELTSIN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): I feel the pain of every mother's family. It might have been a mistake, but I couldn't tolerate the disintegration of Russia. But my heart bleeds for every victim. It makes me sleepless at night and no one can help me with that.
MATTINGLY: He once ordered tanks to attack the parliament building in Moscow, when hardliners seized the facility. But there was a lighthearted side to Boris Yeltsin that emerged as well. He made no secret of his love for Russian vodka and at times seemed to be drunk at public functions.
While at times playful, Yeltsin was also described as charismatic. He built diplomatic bridges to the West. A friendship with former President Clinton was evident when he caught the president off-guard with a joke, calling the U.S. press corps a disaster.
Yeltsin's own administration, however, was marked by sweeping dismissals and constant turmoil. Whatever goodwill he promoted abroad, it did not follow him home. Still, he managed to barely win reelection, a tribute to his political savvy.
Yeltsin announced he was leaving office in 1999 after recovering from heart surgery and a serious bout with pneumonia. He picked former KGB chief Vladimir Putin to take over as he entered a quiet retirement.
Now, dead at the age of 76, history has yet to choose which bigger-than-life image of Boris Yeltsin will endure.
David Mattingly, CNN, Atlanta. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: What a life. Just ahead, a painful mistake in a dangerous sport. Two skaters are colliding perhaps the worst possible way. That is the video. What happened next is a medical marvel. The story when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Imagine working in an environment where fast-moving blades, as sharp as knives, fly just inches away from your face. For a pairs figure skater, that is just part of your everyday life, where the slightest mistake can lead to disaster. And tonight, one couple's horrific accident. We warn you, it's hard to watch. You'll be hoping, as we did, they could come back.
360 M.D., Sanjay Gupta, reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If there's anything Canadian pairs skater 19-year-old Jessica Dube and 21-year-old Bryce Davison understand, it's how to captivate an audience and chemistry.
BRYCE DAVISON, SKATE HIT PARTNER: All it took was a glance at each other's eyes and we knew what was going on.
GUPTA: Today in Montreal, they practice a camel spin. That's a move judged on its speed. And also on how frighteningly close they get. It's the same camel spin that nearly ended their career at a skating competition in Colorado Springs just two months ago. The world watching as Davison's skate hit Dube's face and she collapsed on the ice, sobbing.
DAVISON: Half revolution before my skate hit her face. I knew we were too close and the reaction time just wasn't quick enough to get my leg down and my skate hit her face.
GUPTA: Davison's skate was calculated to be moving 40 miles an hour when hit, delivering a gash with near surgical precision across her nose and her cheek.
JESSICA DUBE, SKATER SLASHER: I just thought he broke my nose because I had -- I get a lot of pain. But then I saw like the blood and everything.
GUPTA: Pumped up on morphine, Dube doesn't remember being rushed to the ER where she was met by a facial trauma surgeon. She had already lost lots of blood from the gash, which was nearly four inches long and several centimeters deep.
DR. J. CHRISTOPHER PRUITT, FACIAL TRAUMA SURGEON: There were bony particles in there that had been crushed. Fortunately it did not break all the way through into her sinus underneath here, the maxillary sinus. GUPTA (on camera): Dr. Pruitt spent about three hours closing Dube's wound. It took more than 80 stitches and he had to close it in layers. The good news is there was no underlying fracture or head injury. In fact, within 10 days she was back on the ice.
(voice-over): The physical healing proved the easy part. What they needed was post-traumatic stress counseling for several months. Her injury, his guilt.
DAVISON: Sorry.
The man is supposed to be the protector, protect his partner. It wasn't anything where we fell on a lift or anything like that. It was actually I hit her.
GUPTA: The pair has wrapped up therapy but there's still one question they can't or won't answer: Who got too close that day?
DUBE: I don't know. I really wanted him to know that I didn't think it was his fault at all.
GUPTA: Dube and Davison are back. They recently placed seventh in the world championships, the same position as last year. To move up, they cannot hold back.
DUBE: I think we can say that it made us -- it made us stronger person.
DAVISON: Well, I think Jess said it pretty well, that -- I mean, the harder things get, the more you have to fight. And for us, what it has been is the more we have to fight, the better we get from it.
GUPTA: Still, they know they lost something, perhaps youthful invincibility.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And it could have been so much worse. More of the breaking news out of Iraq coming up when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Time for 360 bulletin. Once again, here is Randi Kaye -- Randi.
KAYE: Hi, Anderson. An update now on our breaking news. A deadly car-bombing in Iraq. The suicide killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded more than 20 other U.S. soldiers. It happened today near a patrol base just northeast of Baghdad. We learned just a short time ago that the soldiers were all with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
On Capitol Hill, a veto showdown over the war in Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today Congress will no longer turn a blind eye to the Bush administration's "incompetence and dishonesty." Those are his words.
Congressional leaders have agreed to back a Senate bill for war funding that calls for a March, 2008, goal for a U.S. pullout. President Bush has pledged a veto. Democrats may not have enough votes to override it.
And an update on a story we told you shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the dolphins rescued off the Gulf Coast. Well, tonight, we are happy to tell you that two of the dolphins gave birth during the first week of April. Sixteen of the dolphins are now safe at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. Very good news, Anderson.
COOPER: Good news indeed, Randi, thanks. Have a good evening. Don't miss the day's headlines with the 360 daily podcast. If you don't have iPod, you can watch it on the computer, cnn.com/ac360podcast or go to iTunes where it is one of the top podcasts.
And a reminder, be sure to catch "AMERICAN MORNING" for all of the latest news, tomorrow morning, of course, beginning at 6:00 a.m. Eastern. And that is it for us tonight. I'll see you tomorrow. Larry King is next. Good night.
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