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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Gorillas in the Midst of Murder; Corruption in Alaska; America Votes - 2008
Aired December 14, 2007 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR: Let's get serious now. We begin with endangered animals under attack; one of the most majestic animals in the world, the mountain gorilla. There are only about 700 of them left in the world. And in the last year, ten of them have been killed, all shot to death.
It has gotten so bad that conservationists now fear the entire species could be wiped out. The gorillas live in a forest that straddles Rwanda, Uganda and the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.
And that is where this year the killings have taken place. Last year, you may remember for 360 I traveled the Congo, I saw the endangered mountain gorillas in Congo. I have actually been six or seven times over the years to the region since I was a teenager. Some of those gorillas that we saw then are now dead.
And a few weeks ago I returned to Congo for CBS News's "60 Minutes" to find out who was killing them, and what can be done to save them.
Tonight we bring you that report. Some of the images you see will be disturbing but the slaughter of the gorillas is happening and the world needs to know.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: They act tough, but mountain gorillas are really gentle giants, playful, peaceful and highly intelligent; one of our closest animal relatives. They live in families, each headed by an adult male called a silver back because of its distinctive coloring.
Over the years, they have been gradually introduced to people so scientists can study them; taught that people won't hurt them. But this year in Congo, humans have betrayed them. Mountain gorillas are under attack.
DR. MANUEL DEMAROD ((PH)): They're extremely threatened in the Congo; threatened to the extent that we're worried about the survival of the whole population.
COOPER: The whole population could --
DEMAROD: The whole population could be destroyed, could be wiped out.
COOPER: Dr. Manuel DeMarod heads a nonprofit group called Wildlife Direct which helps pay the salaries of Congo's park rangers who protect the gorillas. He was with the rangers in July when they made their most gruesome discovery, finding the bodies of four gorillas who had been slaughtered in the dead of night.
DEMAROD: It was a terrible, terrible scene to witness. It was our whole lives, everything we're working for that was shattered in front of us.
COOPER: The dead gorillas were part of the Rugendo ((ph)) family filmed earlier this year. They were the first gorilla group introduced to humans.
DEMAROD: We had spent time with our group and there was in many ways a strong sense of trust.
COOPER: And you found a female named "Safari" first?
DEMAROD: Yes, she was quite famous in many ways because she had just had a baby and we had taken that photo in the days after she was born. And that photo had been, you know, a real symbol of hope for us. And then to find her dead and her baby nowhere to be seen was gutting for all of us.
COOPER: And she had been shot?
DEMAROD: She had been shot twice through the chest and they had poured fuel on her and set her alight.
COOPER: What was the scene like?
DEMAROD: There was a very, very strong smell which for all of us will always remain. It went right through your clothes, went to the back of your throat. It was everywhere and it stayed with us physically for days afterwards.
COOPER: The next day they found the body of the family's leader, a giant silverback named "Senkwekwe" ((ph)).
DEMAROD: We think he may have been shot and then chased into the forest. He had several bullet wounds through his chest.
COOPER: Had you ever seen anything like that?
DEMAROD: No, I hadn't, thankfully, nothing prepares you for the horror of a whole group that's been massacred.
COOPER: He calls it the worst day of his life and so do the park rangers. Augustin Kimbale ((ph)) couldn't believe his eyes.
AUGUSTIN KIMBALE: I was fear that I'm in dream and still now, it continues to move in my head.
COOPER: You still think about it?
KIMBALE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still now I don't understand why people can kill gorillas.
COOPER: In silence, rangers and villagers made stretchers and hoisted the gorillas on to their shoulders. They wanted, they say, to carry them out like kings.
KIMBALE: This animal is very, very important.
COOPER: You wanted to show the people that you respect them like kings?
KIMBALE: Exactly.
COOPER: So why were these kings assassinated? Simply, it seems for this. Charcoal, more than a million people in this area, practically everyone, use charcoal to cook their food. It's made by burning the trees in the gorilla's forest. They cover mounds of wood with mud and set it on fire, turning the ancient trees into brittle bricks of charcoal.
You can see the smoke from the air. Rob Muir, the Frankford Geological Society took us for a tour.
ROB MUIR, FRANKFORD GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY: They're cutting down the forest and they're smoking it out basically. And they'll continue to move further and deeper into the forest cutting down prime habitat.
COOPER: It's being carried away bag by bag, step by step.
MUIR: There's a train of charcoal carriers, you see that?
COOPER: Women carry huge bags of charcoal for miles on their shoulders. Men wield bigger loads to market on handmade wooden bikes. It's a multimillion dollar business, illegal, but backed by powerful interests, businessmen, soldiers, corrupt government officials; a charcoal mafia.
When rangers try to stop the destruction of the forest, Rob Muir says the charcoal mafia killed the gorillas to warn the rangers to back off.
MUIR: In June, a female gorilla was found killed, a bullet to the back of the head, execution style. They wanted to intimidate and scare the Congolese Wildlife Authority. The message was if you don't stop, we can kill all the gorillas.
COOPER: But the rangers refused to stop.
MUIR: Continued, even upped their campaign to try to dismantle their charcoal production. And then a month later, Rugendo family was decimated. I'm sure the charcoal mafia was behind this.
COOPER: How do you solve the charcoal problem? They are all using charcoal, they have no other source. How do you get around that?
MUIR: Provide alternative fuel, butane, for example.
COOPER: But butane requires special stoves and buying that equipment for every family would cost tens of millions of dollars.
MUIR: So it would need to be subsidized. We desperately need donors, the EU, the World Bank. Someone like that to really come in and say we have got some money here, we appreciate this is urgent. If we don't act now we could lose the gorillas.
COOPER: Muir says two babies were orphaned this summer when charcoal makers killed their mothers. One baby was found clinging to its dead mother corpse. The other had been pulled to safety by an older brother but was starving without its mother's milk. Rangers rescued both orphans and vets are still trying to nurse them back to health.
COOPER: Have you ever seen these gorillas as under threat as they are now?
MUIR: Never. I don't think they have ever been as threatened as they are currently today.
COOPER: How threatened? No one knows because the rangers haven't been able to see Congo's gorillas for more than three months now. Almost 200 mountain gorillas live here in the Congo along the forested slopes of that volcano.
The problem is there are more than a half dozen armed rebel groups fighting government forces in and around those forests and the rangers who protect the gorillas have had to flee. That means Congo's entire population of mountain gorillas is now left unprotected and they're caught in the middle of a civil war.
COOPER: So the gorillas right now are cut off? You cannot get to them?
KIMBALE: They can shoot them, they can be in traps. We don't know the situation of our gorillas.
COOPER: The gorillas can get caught in the cross fair?
MUIR: Yeah.
COOPER: Congo may be a dangerous country for gorillas but it's even deadlier for people. There's been fighting here for more than 10 years and more than 100 rangers have been killed. At a ranger's post outside the park, their sign is pock marked with bullet holes.
MUIR: Over 300 rebels would surround a patrol post during the night and just shoot it to hell; heavy artillery, bombing, with no care for human life. They're after the rangers' equipment. Ammunition, rifles. They see the rangers as a soft target.
COOPER: So rangers are outnumbered, outgunned?
MUIR: Completely. Completely. This is probably the most dangerous park on the planet.
COOPER: So dangerous that all the rangers can do now is gaze at the forest from afar and hope for a cease fire. But in that same forest, a few miles from the fighting, across the borders in Rwanda and Uganda, the rest of the mountain gorillas are safe for now though they face yet another threat. There are so few of them that ebola or some other deadly virus could wipe them out. It's a tough trek to get to Rwanda's gorillas but it is an extraordinary experience.
We're on our way to 21 gorillas headed by an adult male silverback, the park rangers call Agasha ((ph)). Trackers have already gone up ahead of us and found Agasha's family. They have radioed back the exact location. Now we just have to hike up and find them.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
In a moment what happened when we found the gorillas in Rwanda and why one of them decided to charge right for us. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Before the break we took you to Africa to see why so many endangered mountain gorillas have been shot to death this year. The gorillas are victims of a civil war in Central Africa. They are also being killed off because the trees that make up their habitat are used to make charcoal. Hundreds of thousands of people in the area rely on charcoal to cook their food.
I went to Africa a few weeks ago for CBS News's "60 Minutes." In part two of that report which you're about to see, we're on our way to meet a family of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. They're thriving in Rwanda in stark contrast to the danger gorillas now face in neighboring Congo.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: It can take from 20 minutes to 4 hours to find the gorillas. The forest is dense, the trail muddy. As we reach Agasha's family, our guides grunt like gorillas to assure them we come in peace.
While it's impossible not to be impressed by the size of the gorillas, Agasha weighs more than 400 pounds, they didn't seem too impressed by us.
They spend their days eating bamboo and other plants and the occasional mound of termites. Agasha eats up to 60 pounds a day. He needs the energy. He has 11 adult females in his family and tries to mate with each of them every day to keep them from wandering off.
This female is pounding her chest trying to get his attention. The silverback seemed unconcerned by our arrival, but he did want to make sure we knew who's boss. Twice when he thought we had gotten too close, he charged right past our cameras.
Mountain gorillas seem to have a sense of humor and like to stare at those who stare at them. Gorilla see, gorilla do. You're only allowed one hour with gorillas to limit their risk of catching a disease.
Poachers are another problem. Two gorillas in this family have lost a hand because of snares. Even in Rwanda, poachers set snares usually to catch antelope but gorillas get trapped them in too; a fact which pains our guide, Olivier Nabanomona ((ph)) who feels that gorillas are a national treasure. OLIVIER NABANOMONA: I really love these gorillas because they need to survive. Also they bring money into the country. It helps in production.
COOPER: In Rwanda, gorilla tourism has created jobs for guides, handicraft makers and hotel workers. Each visitor pays $500 to see the gorillas. Rwanda will make $6 million from tourists this year.
Part of that money goes to villagers who live right next to the park to convince them that protecting the gorillas and the forest can enhance their lives too.
The government has installed ten new water tanks so villagers don't have to walk miles to get clean water. They have also built a new health clinic, new schools and planted thousands of new trees.
But back in Congo, all that's new are the graves of Senkwekwe and Safari and the other mountain gorillas killed this year. They're buried outside the forest. It's still too deadly for park rangers to return to Congo side of the forest to find out what's happened to the animals they feel they can talk to.
NABANOMONA: When you are together with them, you'll see that they have some sounds.
COOPER: Do you speak gorilla?
NABANOMONA: I can speak some.
COOPER: Yes?
NABANOMONA: I can.
COOPER: Speak some gorilla.
NABANOMONA: That is something that's not going well.
COOPER: So much is not going well here, charcoal, civil war, poachers, disease, and all of it is threatening these gentle giants, these last few kings of Congo.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
They are truly magnificent. We're going to have more on gorillas at the end of the program tonight. To find out how to help, go to cnn.com/360 click on the link to the blog, again that's cnn.com/360. We have some organizations listed there.
We're following a number of other stories tonight, including a suspected serial killer facing jail for another crime. Gary Tuchman has that and more in our 360 Bulletin. Gary?
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson a Phoenix man has been sentenced to 438 years in prison for the sexual assault of two sisters in 2005. Mark Goudeau still faces trial and charges. He's the city's baseline killer. He's accused of killing eight women and a man. If convicted, Goudeau could get the death penalty.
Tonight the plains are being hit by another storm. Eight inches of snow is expected to fall in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma by tomorrow morning. The area is still trying to clean up from an ice storm that at one point left nearly one million customers without power.
In South Korea, they are at it again, Anderson, watch this nasty fight between lawmakers of the National Assembly. Unbelievable. Punches, choke holds, even a cane and a telephone are being used to fight off opponents. One man was apparently knocked unconscious.
Anderson for our viewers who might badmouth the U.S. Congress, at least they don't fight or perhaps maybe they should, I don't know.
COOPER: Unbelievable. Now Gary, I know you kind of have a beef with me, something about my guest hosting duties on "Regis and Kelly" this morning. We'll get to that in a moment.
Also tonight, new poll numbers showing that nice guys or al least politicians who people believe are nice guys, and women perhaps might finish first.
All that and more after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: In "Raw Politics" tonight, the presidential candidates are trying to be good. How's that for a segue? Trying, some more successfully than others to be nice, not naughty. Hillary Clinton today unveiling an ad featuring her mom. Mike Huckabee channeling Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama, talking about hope. Our question is, is it working? A new polling out today says yes. Tom Foreman has the raw rundown.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, maybe it's Christmas spirit, maybe it's campaign fatigue but whatever it is, something has changed. And American voters have started thinking with their hearts.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I had a great time.
FOREMAN: They are the sunshine boys. The upbeat, upstart hope mongers Republicans and Democrats are swooning over these days. Mike Huckabee, summer's folksy afterthought is winter's formidable front- runner and not just in Iowa either.
A new CNN opinion research corporation poll has Huckabee out front in South Carolina too with 24 percent of Republican voters in his corner. In July, he had 3 percent.
OBAMA: Our moment is now.
FOREMAN: After a summer slump, Barack Obama has got his game back, sounding themes that made him a contender in the first place; hope, optimism, possibility. He's neck and neck with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, gaining on her in South Carolina.
OBAMA: When folks say I can't do something, that's when I like to do it.
FOREMAN: The raw read at the end of an endless primary campaign; many voters are sick of being told who they should vote for and now it's about who they want to vote for. Still, sunshine only goes so far and today Huckabee added some muscle to his momentum.
MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today I would like to make an announcement that I believe will help to fill in many of the gaps that we have had up to this point.
FOREMAN: Legendary political strategist Ed Rollins, the brains behind Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide election is now Huckabee's political Yoda. The message, this is for real.
ED ROLLINS, HUCKABEE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: Governor Huckabee has inspired me as much as Ronald Reagan.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
FOREMAN: All roads lead back to Reagan of course in the world of sunshine politics. So it's no surprise that Obama and Huckabee are winning with plays from the Gipper's playbook. Selling the idea that it's morning again in America or at least it could be. Anderson?
COOPER: For more now on the salesman, Ed Rollins, and a not so nicey- nicey moments between the Clinton and Obama camps. With us now Time Magazine's Joe Klein and CNN's Gloria Borger.
Joe, Hillary Clinton came under fire this week. Her campaign co-chair mentioned cocaine use of Barack Obama in the past. He resigned. Hillary Clinton had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As soon as I found out that one of my supporters and co-chairs in New Hampshire made a statement, asked a series of questions, I made it clear it was not authorized; it was in no way condoned. I didn't know about it and he stepped down.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: In that same announcement though, she's talking about how if she gets elected, she's vetted, she's a known quantity. There will be no surprises, isn't that a swipe at Obama?
JOE KLEIN, TIME COLUMNIST: Yeah, I think she's saying that there're still things to be learned about Obama. What she's really trying to do is o stop the bleeding at this point. She isn't gushing blood, she isn't falling apart the way some of her colleagues are saying. But there is a slight downward trajectory.
COOPER: That's the sort of media narrative right now, that everything is collapsing?
KLEIN: But that's not true. She has plenty of time. What she really has to worry about is that kind of cold aspect that you just saw in that clip.
Yesterday in the debate, she was asked about her failure when she tried to reform health care during the Clinton administration. And she could have said, "God, I just screwed that up. I really learned a lot from that."
But what she said was, "I learned that we need a stronger media communications strategy." I mean, you know, regulation human beings just don't talk like that.
COOPER: Gloria, what is it that the people who like Hillary Clinton, what is it that draws them to her and those who support Obama, what it that draws those to him?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Hillary Clinton has campaigned as the most experienced candidate and I think people are drawn to that. Certainly women are drawn to Hillary Clinton, but the irony here, Anderson, is that the woman in the Democratic field is known as the toughest candidate, which is kind of interesting.
And now she's known as tough, but her likability is a real problem for her. And so now she's got to get a little warm and fuzzy. You have seen these ads she has done with her mother and her daughter, trying to get people to know who she really is as a person.
Barack Obama, people like him an awful lot, but they don't think he's tough enough at this point and not experienced enough. And it was interesting in the Democratic debate the other day, when he was asked what his New Year's resolution was, he said, "I can't be so timid."
And Hillary Clinton says her New Year's resolution is to exercise and to win. Those are two of the candidates right there.
COOPER: Ed Rollins, Joe, taking over for Mike Huckabee's national campaign. Will that change? What does it mean?
KLEIN: Ed Rollins is a babbler. By the way, he wrote one of the best political memoirs, one of the funniest ones I have ever read and one of the most candid. Ed Rollins has a history of getting into trouble with his mouth. It's going to be a very interesting relationship.
COOPER: That's why we love him, though, right, Joe?
KLEIN: We absolutely adore him.
COOPER: But does Mike Huckabee have a national campaign at this point?
KLEIN: He has a network of a lot of evangelicals who really like him and -- but that's only part of it. The big part of it is the fact that when people see him in these debates, he seems like a normal guy. He seems like someone who's comfortable in his own skin. Could I just make one other point about Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani? As the war in Iraq has kind of subsided, as we have learned that Iran doesn't have nukes, as security issues and toughness issues have receded, both Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani have receded.
And who have emerged? Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, the guy who's you know, "Let us reason together. Can't we all just get along here?" The Rodney King candidates.
COOPER: Gloria, let's talk about Giuliani; he was the national front- runner all summer as Joe was talking about. Now some polls have him running second to Huckabee. Giuliani's focusing on winning Florida, basically the big states that vote on Super Tuesday. Is that still a viable strategy?
BORGER: No, I don't think so and I think the Giuliani campaign would be the first campaign to tell you that that's not a viable strategy anymore. They have to come in second somewhere early if not win somewhere early. And he's clearly not going to win Iowa.
And he really has to do well because you have to have enough credibility and enough momentum to go on to those Super Tuesday States. And so that strategy is sort of gone away at this point. And they really understand that they need to do something to get their momentum back. Because those national polls, Anderson, don't really mean anything right now. They're all about name identification and all the rest of it.
COOPER: Joe, when you're on a campaign, do the people in the campaign, when something changes, and Gloria was talking about things changing, the word receding other things, do you feel it in the campaign?
KLEIN: You absolutely feel it. It's like living in a cult, especially when you get down to these last days and each day now seems as long as a month used to seem.
COOPER: For the candidate and the people.
KLEIN: For the candidate and their people and the pressure is absolutely enormous. Let me tell you what Rudy Giuliani is really rooting for. He's rooting for Hillary Clinton to get beat in Iowa even though he would love to run against her. You know why? Because if she gets beat, she's the big story that night and whoever wins the Republican caucus is kind of forgotten as an after thought.
BORGER: But Anderson, to get back to your question about what it's like inside a campaign, we all have our blackberries, it's not a daily schedule anymore. It's every hour, every ten minutes, every campaign is hearing what's going on in another campaign or there's another poll that CNN has just released in South Carolina did you hear the result?
And so they are just so tightly wound right now because they know this next three weeks, anything can happen.
COOPER: It's fascinating. Joe Klein, Gloria Borger, thanks, appreciate it.
Still to come, corruption caught on tape, politicians and oil executives call themselves "The Corrupt Bastards Club." That's the name they came up with. We're keeping them honest when "360" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The "360" singers testifying you better be good for goodness sake. I have no idea why but we thought, why not tonight.
COOPER: In "Raw Politics" tonight, the presidential candidates are trying to be good. How's that for a segue? Trying, some more successfully than others to be nice, not naughty. Hillary Clinton today unveiling an ad featuring her mom. Mike Huckabee channeling Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama, talking about hope. Our question is, is it working? A new polling out today says yes. Tom Foreman has the raw rundown.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, maybe it's Christmas spirit, maybe it's campaign fatigue but whatever it is, something has changed. And American voters have started thinking with their hearts.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I had a great time.
FOREMAN: They are the sunshine boys. The upbeat, upstart hope mongers Republicans and Democrats are swooning over these days. Mike Huckabee, summer's folksy afterthought is winter's formidable front- runner and not just in Iowa either.
A new CNN opinion research corporation poll has Huckabee out front in South Carolina too with 24 percent of Republican voters in his corner. In July, he had 3 percent.
OBAMA: Our moment is now.
FOREMAN: After a summer slump, Barack Obama has got his game back, sounding themes that made him a contender in the first place; hope, optimism, possibility. He's neck and neck with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, gaining on her in south carolina.
OBAMA: When folks say I can't do something, that's when I like to do it.
FOREMAN: The raw read at the end of an endless primary campaign; many voters are sick of being told who they should vote for and now it's about who they want to vote for. Still, sunshine only goes so far and today Huckabee added some muscle to his momentum.
MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today I would like to make an announcement that I believe will help to fill in many of the gaps that we have had up to this point.
FOREMAN: Legendary political strategist Ed Rollins, the brains behind Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide election is now Huckabee's political Yoda. The message, this is for real.
ED ROLLINS, HUCKABEE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: Governor Huckabee has inspired me as much as Ronald Reagan.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
FOREMAN: All roads lead back to Reagan of course in the world of sunshine politics. So it's no surprise that Obama and Huckabee are winning with plays from the Gipper's playbook. Selling the idea that it's morning again in America or at least it could be. Anderson?
COOPER: For more now on the salesman, Ed Rollins, and a not so nicey- nicey moments between the Clinton and Obama camps. With us now Time Magazine's Joe Klein and CNN's Gloria Borger.
Joe, Hillary Clinton came under fire this week. Her campaign co-chair mentioned cocaine use of Barack Obama in the past. He resigned. Hillary Clinton had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As soon as I found out that one of my supporters and co-chairs in New Hampshire made a statement, asked a series of questions, I made it clear it was not authorized; it was in no way condoned. I didn't know about it and he stepped down.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: In that same announcement though, she's talking about how if she gets elected, she's vetted, she's a known quantity. There will be no surprises, isn't that a swipe at Obama?
JOE KLEIN, TIME COLUMNIST: Yeah, I think she's saying that there're still things to be learned about Obama. What she's really trying to do is o stop the bleeding at this point. She isn't gushing blood, she isn't falling apart the way some of her colleagues are saying. But there is a slight downward trajectory.
COOPER: That's the sort of media narrative right now, that everything is collapsing?
KLEIN: But that's not true. She has plenty of time. What she really has to worry about is that kind of cold aspect that you just saw in that clip.
Yesterday in the debate, she was asked about her failure when she tried to reform health care during the Clinton administration. And she could have said, "God, I just screwed that up. I really learned a lot from that."
But what she said was, "I learned that we need a stronger media communications strategy." I mean, you know, regulation human beings just don't talk like that.
COOPER: Gloria, what is it that the people who like Hillary Clinton, what is it that draws them to her and those who support Obama, what it that draws those to him?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Hillary Clinton has campaigned as the most experienced candidate and I think people are drawn to that. Certainly women are drawn to Hillary Clinton, but the irony here, Anderson, is that the woman in the Democratic field is known as the toughest candidate, which is kind of interesting.
And now she's known as tough, but her likability is a real problem for her. And so now she's got to get a little warm and fuzzy. You have seen these ads she has done with her mother and her daughter, trying to get people to know who she really is as a person.
Barack Obama, people like him an awful lot, but they don't think he's tough enough at this point and not experienced enough. And it was interesting in the Democratic debate the other day, when he was asked what his New Year's resolution was, he said, "I can't be so timid."
And Hillary Clinton says her New Year's resolution is to exercise and to win. Those are two of the candidates right there.
COOPER: Ed Rollins, Joe, taking over for Mike Huckabee's national campaign. Will that change? What does it mean?
KLEIN: Ed Rollins is a babbler. By the way, he wrote one of the best political memoirs, one of the funniest ones I have ever read and one of the most candid. Ed Rollins has a history of getting into trouble with his mouth. It's going to be a very interesting relationship.
COOPER: That's why we love him, though, right, Joe?
KLEIN: We absolutely adore him.
COOPER: But does Mike Huckabee have a national campaign at this point?
KLEIN: He has a network of a lot of evangelicals who really like him and -- but that's only part of it. The big part of it is the fact that when people see him in these debates, he seems like a normal guy. He seems like someone who's comfortable in his own skin.
Could I just make one other point about Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani? As the war in Iraq has kind of subsided, as we have learned that Iran doesn't have nukes, as security issues and toughness issues have receded, both Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani have receded.
And who have emerged? Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, the guy who's you know, "Let us reason together. Can't we all just get along here?" The Rodney King candidates.
COOPER: Gloria, let's talk about Giuliani; he was the national front- runner all summer as Joe was talking about. Now some polls have him running second to Huckabee. Giuliani's focusing on winning Florida, basically the big states that vote on Super Tuesday. Is that still a viable strategy?
BORGER: No, I don't think so and I think the Giuliani campaign would be the first campaign to tell you that that's not a viable strategy anymore. They have to come in second somewhere early if not win somewhere early. And he's clearly not going to win Iowa.
And he really has to do well because you have to have enough credibility and enough momentum to go on to those Super Tuesday States. And so that strategy is sort of gone away at this point. And they really understand that they need to do something to get their momentum back. Because those national polls, Anderson, don't really mean anything right now. They're all about name identification and all the rest of it.
COOPER: Joe, when you're on a campaign, do the people in the campaign, when something changes, and Gloria was talking about things changing, the word receding other things, do you feel it in the campaign?
KLEIN: You absolutely feel it. It's like living in a cult, especially when you get down to these last days and each day now seems as long as a month used to seem.
COOPER: For the candidate and the people.
KLEIN: For the candidate and their people and the pressure is absolutely enormous. Let me tell you what Rudy Giuliani is really rooting for. He's rooting for Hillary Clinton to get beat in Iowa even though he would love to run against her. You know why? Because if she gets beat, she's the big story that night and whoever wins the Republican caucus is kind of forgotten as an after thought.
BORGER: But Anderson, to get back to your question about what it's like inside a campaign, we all have our blackberries, it's not a daily schedule anymore. It's every hour, every ten minutes, every campaign is hearing what's going on in another campaign or there's another poll that CNN has just released in South Carolina did you hear the result?
And so they are just so tightly wound right now because they know this next three weeks, anything can happen.
COOPER: It's fascinating. Joe Klein, Gloria Borger, thanks, appreciate it.
Still to come, your thoughts on the destruction of mountain gorillas and the race to save them from extinction.
Also, corruption caught on tape, politicians and oil executives call themselves "The Corrupt Bastards Club." That's the name they kind of championed. We're keeping them honest when "360" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Keeping them honest in Alaska tonight, it's a big job in America's biggest and coldest state considering what's described there as a culture of corruption.
We're talking about the kind of graft that lines the pockets of American politics while benefiting corporate interests. Graft is now being exposed. "Keeping Them Honest" here's CNN's Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Something is rotten in the state of Alaska. Watch carefully. The man on the far right of your screen is counting money. It's a bribe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me count first, here.
JOHNS: In the state capital of Alaska, this has been business as usual. That man on the right, he's a top oil executive. He's paying off the man on the left; a high ranking state official who is helping the oil company.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll get it done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you'll do it. I'm serious about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care. I'll get her done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know. I know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sold my soul to the devil.
JOHNS: It was a room just like this one in the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, Alaska just a few blocks away from the state capital that broke this case wide open. A top executive from an oil field services company set up shop in the hotel and the FBI set up a hidden camera to record all the action.
Hotel management didn't know it but Suite 604 of the Baranof served as a cash machine for crooked politicians and a favor bank for the oil industry; all caught on tape and thousands of secret videos and audio recordings by the FBI.
In this tape on the right, two executives from an oil services company called Veco, including Bill Allen the company's former CEO who later pleaded guilty to bribery. In the middle the politician they bought.
REP. PETE COT: I'm had to get it done. I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie.
JOHNS: That's state representative Pete Cot, he's the former Alaska house speaker. And what did the oil services company get for its money? The crooked lawmakers tried but failed to kill a law that could cost the oil industry millions of dollars and all of this could only be the beginning.
In July the FBI raided the home of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, a lion of Alaska politics and one of the most powerful men in the nation. There are questions about whether Bill Allen, remember, he's the oil company executive on the tape, helped renovate the senator's home. Stevens denies doing anything wrong.
CNN has also learned that Alaska congressman Don Young's connection to that oil services company is also under investigation. Young denies wrong doing too.
Stevens and Young literally built modern Alaska funneling; hundreds of millions of federal dollars back home over decades in the U.S. Congress. Their supporters say they're being unfairly tarnished.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's turning into like a witch hunt. It's been like McCarthyism. There's no question there were some guys who did some things that were inappropriate. But to reflect that upon our senior senator and our long-term congressman, those guys had nothing to do with that.
JOHNS: The scandal has brought ridicule to Alaska. There's a parody song about what happened in Suite 604 at the Baranof Hotel. A local coffee shop is selling a brew called Corrupt Bastards' blend.
It's a reference to the Corrupt Bastards' Club which is what the crooked oil men and politicians call themselves, even making baseball caps with a CBC logo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it started off meaning as a joke, but I'm not sure who's laughing now.
JOHNS: For one, Pete Cot isn't. He's the Alaska lawmaker taking that bribe on tape. The court found he accepted $29,000 in bribes from Veco. Last week he was sentenced to six years in prison, though he says he is still innocent.
Do you sort of regret all those conversations in the hotel?
REP. PETE COT, ALASKA: Oh, yeah, I mean barroom talk, locker room boys.
JOHNS: Two other state lawmakers have also been convicted of taking bribes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what they say, Bill, the bigger you are --
UNIDENTIFIED MAEL: The harder you fall.
Joe Johns, CNN, Anchorage.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: Ha, ha, ha. Now a "360" follow on the frankly outrageous story. David Mattingly's report on Samuel snow. Today another lawmaker took up Mr. Snow's cause. You'll remember he was convicted of a crime he says he did not commit, drummed out of the army and stripped of his pay and G.I. benefits.
That was in the 1940s. Six decades later, the army sent him a check for his back pay; $725 saying the law doesn't give them the discretion to pay him more than that. No interest, no G.I. benefits.
Today Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said he'll draft legislation to change that to be voted on as early as next week. Said a Nelson staffer about David's report, "That was a heck of a piece."
Monday another report that you'll get that should get a lot of attention or certainly should get your attention, especially if you have been following the sickness known as stop snitching. Because of it in many inter-city communities it's hard to get people who witness a violent crime to come forward.
What happens when they actually do come forward bravely? Take a look at what Randi Kaye found out.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This man doesn't want you to know him his name or where he lives. What's he so afraid of? Getting killed.
We'll call him Scott. Eight years ago Scott and his wife witnessed a crime. Their decision to testify against the suspect nearly cost them their lives and they're not alone. One prosecutor told Congress, witness intimidation is an epidemic.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
Randi Kaye reporting from a state where they spend more money planting flowers than actually protecting crime witnesses. That's Monday on "360."
Still to come tonight, what did Michael Vick write to the judge in his dog fighting case and would it move you if you were the judge? You'll hear for yourself when "360" continues.
Also the guy who rips off someone's wallet, a camera catches him doing it. That's not the only camera that caught him. And you will not believe where both pictures ended up. It is an amazing coincidence. It's our "Shot of the Day" in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Time now for the shot -- not this shot but take a look anyway at the surveillance video. You'll see what I mean. It's a thief caught on tape grabbing a wallet that was left on a counter. The guy walks right out; it's a clean getaway you might think.
Have a look at the front page of the local paper. You'll recognize a frame from the surveillance tape right there on the front page there. Now look closely at the photo above. That's right, police say it is the same man. Conveniently for the cops, he's identified by name in the caption.
Police confirm the man's identity, made the collar and they say he admits taking the wallet. He was photographed just washing a window in a totally unrelated story and they named him and right below, there he is on the security camera. TUCHMAN: Poetic justice.
COOPER: And on our double bill tonight, another shot we couldn't resist. Take a look at this. That's Liza Minelli on the right, and on the left, if you can see through the make up, that's Liza's ex- husband David Guest. And as London's "Daily Mail" described it looking all the world like Liza.
Apparently the day after she fainted on stage, he went to some party dressed up as her.
TUCHMAN: You know Anderson, when they got married, I thought it would be for eternity.
COOPER: Yeah. We just got to move on from that one.
We don't want to appear needy or anything but my producer is starting to freak out a little bit. He just looked at the calendar and realized that there's less than three weeks to New Year's.
We have a big show on New Year's Eve with me in Times Square along with our very special guest this year, Kathy Griffin. And we need your help, we need your pictures. Like this one from last year's show. That's little Jake McKenzie, his sash says Baby New Year 2007; pretty adorable right there.
We want your videos like this one as well. That is the reverend Lillian Porter from Niagara Falls doing the old pot-banging trip to ring in the New Year. So go to cnn.com/i-party and send us your photos. Tell us your memories of New Years plus shout to friends. The possibilities are endless.
For international viewers, CNN Today is next. Here in America, Larry King is coming up. Have a great weekend, I'll see you Monday.
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