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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Tora Bora Battle Intensifies; Eight Palestinians Killed During Israeli Airstrikes
Aired December 14, 2001 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. I don't know about you, but it has been a long, tough week around here -- often, pretty grim. Three American soldiers killed in the war came home. The first American to die in combat, a CIA agent was buried at Arlington.
Three months after the attack, there were two new casualties this week. A man who had been hit by debris on the 11 died the other day, and just outside of New York City a woman widowed by the attack took her own life. She lost her will to live, said a friend.
There was new violence in the Middle East. Starting the peace process any time soon was called mission impossible by the U.S. envoy.
And then, of course, there was the bin Laden tape. And that's a lot of misery to pack into one week.
Now, Friday programs, we've long believed, need to be a little different. Viewers are in a different frame of mind. So tonight, because the news gods finally gave us a bit of a break and because it's Friday, it won't be all war all the time, and we hope that does suit your frame of mind tonight. Having said that, we also need to say this isn't exactly a war-free zone either tonight.
The fight to root out al Qaeda intensifies in Tora Bora. So did the rhetoric from the U.S. The general running the war today said what's left of al Qaeda is between a hammer and a anvil. Other officials suggest that al Qaeda members are resisting so much they must be protecting bin Laden.
President Bush this morning had one word for some in the Muslim world who say the bin Laden tape was doctored. The word: "preposterous."
And in Gaza City, Israeli warplanes struck targets for the third straight, tonight said to be Palestinian security facilities. And there were raids in the West Bank, too. Eight Palestinians died.
And at Ground Zero, a busy day in a busy week for recovering victims. Three bodies pulled from the ruins of the Trade Center in a span of five hours today. More than 2,000 still missing.
When we leave the war, we'll take a look at NBC's decision to accept adds from hard liquor companies, ending a self-imposed ban of broadcast networks that goes back decades. Public health officials, beer companies, not very happy.
We're also going to look tonight at why people lie. This, on the day that the Notre Dame University fired its football coach, the coach it hired about a week ago, because he lied on his resume. It's not a sports story.
And the debate over "TIME" magazine's "person of the year." This year, obviously, there's a bad guy in the running. Bad guys have always been controversial choices, so we'll talk about that.
Plus, something funny that one of our Canadian viewers tipped us off too. We'll end it all tonight, and we can just say this, on the punchline there.
That's all coming up. We'll start the way we always do, a whip around the world and our correspondents covering it. Ben Wedeman starts tonight in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Ben, the headline, please.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron. There have been very intense bombardments of the hills behind me by U.S. aircraft. U.S. Pentagon officials saying that as many as 50 al Qaeda members have been captured. But despite that, as we heard directly, al Qaeda fighters are still alive and kicking -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ben, back to you at the top tonight. We go next to Bob Franken, who's at the Pentagon. Bob, the headline, please.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Pentagon point of view is that those al Qaeda fighters are getting cornered more and more. But the big question is answered by just a guess, whether or not it includes that man they call U.B.L.
BROWN: Bob, thank you. Kelly Wallace on the lawn of the White House this Friday. Kelly, can we get a headline from you, please.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the headline is lots of tough talk from President Bush on this Friday. He had harsh words for those who say the bin Laden tape is a fake and for bin Laden himself. He also delivered another blunt message to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Mr. Bush saying the Palestinian leader needs to do much, much more -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, we'll end our whip in the Middle East. Gaza, Matthew Chance is there. Matthew, a headline, please.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron. Here in Gaza, more retaliatory airstrikes from the Israeli Air Force on installations of the Palestinian Authority and organizations linked very closely with Yasser Arafat. The Israelis putting him under more pressure to crack down on militant groups here.
BROWN: Matthew, back with you. Back with all of you shortly. Those are the headlines, and now we begin again with the search for bin Laden and the fierce battle in Tora Bora. One may have nothing to do with the other. The Pentagon hopes that bin Laden is alongside the hard core al Qaeda fighters there, that he's hemmed into this valley or holed up in a cave somewhere. It certainly helps explain why, night after night, the airstrikes are coming and why the enemy still shows no signs of surrendering.
To the war zone, CNN's Ben Wedeman in Tora Bora. Ben, Good morning to you.
WEDEMAN: Yes, good morning, Aaron. It does appear that the fighting is yielding some results. Pentagon officials are saying that U.S. special forces and Afghan opposition tribal fighters have moved as much as two kilometers into the hills behind me. One Pentagon official saying that 50 al Qaeda fighters have been captured in the last few days.
Now, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is describing the fighting as very energetic. Certainly, we have seen some of the most intense bombing of the hills behind me in the last few days. B-52s, F-14s, F- 18s, dropping load after load of bombs on these mountains. And this goes on well into the night. We've been hearing these AC-130s pummeling the hills with their 30 caliber rounds, hundreds at a time. They make a horrendous sound, it sounds like a huge lawn mower going off in the background.
This always at night. Apparently, the U.S. Air Force is afraid of bringing those aircraft into the area during the daytime. There is some fear that the al Qaeda fighters have some of these stinger ground-to-air missiles that were given to the Afghan mujahideen during the time of the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Now, despite this very intense bombing from the air and from the ground, it appears that the al Qaeda fighters somehow have managed to survive. Yesterday I had a conversation with them on an Eastern Alliance military radio. They told me that they are fine. They are well, that they will continue fighting. That any talk of a surrender is mere lies and that they will stick it out to the very end -- Aaron.
BROWN: Did they -- that's a fascinating conversation. Did they actually think they were going to prevail in this, or that they were just going to die trying?
WEDEMAN: I think, my impression from when I spoke with them was that they think they're going to just have to fight to the end. Now, yesterday, or the day before yesterday for us, they told me that they would fight until -- they would fight the holy war, jihad, until America was destroyed. Now, I think I was speaking to two different people. But certainly, my impression from the conversation yesterday was that basically they realized that they are cornered and they could, this could be it for them -- Aaron.
BROWN: I just have a feeling that people in the audience are wondering how you make a phone call to the al Qaeda troops in a cave. Just give us a sense of how you made this connection.
WEDEMAN: Well, Aaron, I've been trying to do this ever since I got here. Basically whenever I can grab an Eastern Alliance radio -- these are just wireless handsets that aren't very good, as a matter of fact. We have to always put in new batteries and you have to climb to a higher location, move as close as possible to those caves. And basically, I talk to them and I tell them we want to know from you how your situation is. And I try every trick in the book, really, just to get them to come out and talk.
And yesterday this conversation that I believe you're seeing right now took place when we were very close. We were essentially at the front-lines where, in fact, we came under sniper fire. But there the signal was much clearer, and eventually they did come back to me after repeated appeals.
Basically, I finally elicited a response from them when I said: "There are reports that 300 of you would like to surrender. Is it true or is it not?"
They responded, "Whoever says this is a liar. They're lying." And once I got them into that conversation, they told me that they are well, that they're well-supplied, that they'll fight to the end. And when I asked them about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the radio went silent -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ben, thanks. Ben Wedeman in Tora Bora tonight, the search for bin Laden. Here's the problem. There are suspicions that bin Laden is in those caves. There is some considerable hope on the allied side that he's in those caves. But there is no certainty that he's in those caves, or for that matter, even in that country.
But as we just saw, someone is in those caves and whether it's bin Laden or not, military seems determined to get them out one way or another. For more on that, we go back to the Pentagon and CNN's Bob Franken. Bob, good to see you again.
FRANKEN: Aaron, the secretary of defense, as he was winging his way to Shannon, Ireland, the first stop on what's going to be a weekend trip, said about 50 lesser in the caves. They've surrendered to some of the opposition fighters. Meanwhile, the man operating his war was having another of his two-city news conferences.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Again, General Tommy Franks was in Tampa, not far from his Central Command headquarters. And the Pentagon reporters were not far from their desks. The burning question was: Where is Osama bin Laden?
GENERAL TOM FRANKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND COMMANDER: The fact is we don't know.
FRANKEN: Translation: U.S. military officials don't really know if U.B.L., as they call him, is still in the Tora Bora area or whether he's gotten away. They have suspicions, as General Franks put it, that bin Laden may be close to the fierce fighting that continues to rage in Tora Bora. Frank cited steady but slow progress. Opposition forces accompanied by U.S. special operations troops engaged in pitched battle. Their vice continues to tighten on the stubborn al Qaeda fighters. Pakistani troops are trying to block their escape into their country. The Afghan opposition, combined with coalition air power and intelligence, believe they have cut them off north, south and west, keeping al Qaeda in, food water and ammunition, out.
FRANKS: We can wait longer than they can. And we'll maintain pressure on this pocket of al Qaeda until they are ours.
FRANKEN: Franks said that opposition force have taken prisoners. How many and who they are, yet to be determined. The single one held by U.S. forces, the Taliban American, John Walker, has been moved from the Marine base Camp Rhino south of Kandahar to the Peleliu, the U.S. assault ship offshore.
FRANKS: We'll continue to control him on the Peleliu until the determination is made regarding whether we handle him within the military community or whether he is handled on the civilian side. And that determination has not yet been made. But he is on the Peleliu, safe and being well cared for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: Now, the other prisoners, Aaron, will be taken to detention facilities that the U.S. has set up at Camp Rhino,0 which is south of Kandahar, and now at the Kandahar airport, or they'll be taken offshore for what General Franks called "interrogation and exploitation." Conceivably, that could include sometime Osama bin Laden -- Aaron.
BROWN: Bob, quickly, he says we'll stay there until the job is done. Did you hear any buzz in the hallway, any talk about how long they think it will take now to take these caves and remaining fighters?
FRANKEN: Well, they're afraid to say so because every time they make an optimistic prediction, they have to come back and say these guys were tougher than we thought they were.
BROWN: Bob Franken at the Pentagon. Have a good weekend. Thank you.
Day after the release of the bin Laden tapes, the president today had some harsh words about both bin Laden and those calling the tape a fake. His words were only a little milder today when he talked about Yasser Arafat and this recent round of deadly violence in the Middle East, which leads us back to Kelly Wallace, who's at the White House. Kelly, good evening.
WALLACE: Good evening to you, Aaron.
When President Bush was asked about those in the Islamic world who claim that this bin Laden tape had been doctored, well, the president said he found such notions "preposterous." And he also said it's really just a feeble excuse for those who want to support bin Laden, a man he called incredibly evil.
The president also talking more about bin Laden as well. He was asked about that statement he uttered shortly after the September 11th attacks, when he said he wanted bin Laden dead or alive. Mr. Bush making it very clear today that he would be fine if Osama bin Laden was brought to justice, or as the president likes to say, if justice was brought to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't care. Dead or alive, either way. I mean, it doesn't matter to me. Secondly, I don't know whether we are going to get him tomorrow or a month from now, or a year from now. I really don't know. But we are going to get him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: And senior aides say those words are important to keep reminding the American people that it is going to take time to find and get Osama bin Laden. Now, Mr. Bush also had strong words for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. This, after a week of more violence in the Middle East, more Israeli retaliatory attacks against Palestinian targets after another attack by Hamas militants. Mr. Bush once again making it clear he is putting the onus on the Palestinian leader. Mr. Bush saying the Palestinian leader is not doing nearly enough to crack down on suspected terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Chairman Arafat has said that he intends to fight terror, bring those to justice who are killing, murderers in the Middle East. And now is his time to perform.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: And the U.S. is encouraging Arab allies as well to put pressure on Mr. Arafat. But at the same time Israel is saying they consider the Palestinian leader irrelevant. I'm told that U.S. officials behind the scene are telling the Israelis, look, Mr. Arafat is the elected representative of the Palestinian people, and that the Israelis will have to deal with him.
Aaron, as for where the United States goes from here, we know the U.S. envoy in the region, retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, could be coming back from the region soon for the holidays -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, thank you. Kelly Wallace at the White House, have a good weekend to you, too.
WALLACE: You, too.
BROWN: When we come back we'll get the latest from Gaza. As you heard the president say, it's pretty nasty over there these days. Another night of airstrikes there. NEWSNIGHT continues on Friday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: One observer said today, when F-16s over Gaza are as common as B-52s over Afghanistan, there's a problem. In this case, there's also a bit of a stretch. About 140 bombs fell on Afghanistan. Far, far, far fewer fell in the Palestinian territories today, but it was the third day of airstrikes, nevertheless. The Israeli sending what they believe is a justified message.
How that message is being received, well, that's another story, as they say. CNN's Matthew Chance is in Gaza tonight. Good evening, Matthew.
CHANCE: Good evening, Aaron. That's right. For a third consecutive day, we have been witnessing these Israeli airstrikes on institutions, installations of the Palestinian Authority here. The two bombs that exploded on this evening were, according to Palestinian officials, falling on the offices of 417 in the presidential compound of Yasser Arafat here in Gaza City. A third bomb also fell from Israeli warplanes, but that lies still unexploded in the rubble underneath that building.
Palestinian officials tell us that at least five people were injured as a result of those latest attacks. The casualties relatively light because members of the Palestinian security forces and of course civilians know very well which buildings are being targeted by the Israeli Air Force, and are doing their best to stay well away from them.
Another four Palestinian police, according to hospital officials, have been injured in a tank incursion by Israeli security forces in the northern area of the Gaza Strip. So, more injuries there as well. A lot of military activity taking place on the ground here.
Yasser Arafat himself is out of Gaza and is holed up, pretty much, in his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah. From there, the Palestinian Authority is calling on the United Nations to condemn the violence by Israel, the military action of Israel there, and calling for international monitors to protect Palestinian civilians, here.
I can tell you, on the streets of Gaza, a lot of people very frightened, very angry as well, at these airstrikes. Not just at them, though, but also at the fact that there are these continuing incursions by Israeli tanks on some Palestinian lands. There have also been a number of house demolitions conducted by the Israeli security forces, for what they say is security reasons there.
Also security clamp downs in Gaza, effectively cutting this Gaza Strip into three parts and making it very difficult for people to move up and down from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip. Many people here saying that's not fair. It's collective punishment for the actions of the militants, Aaron.
BROWN: Well, I guess it's understandable, Matthew, that they wouldn't be too happy about what's going on in Gaza. What did they say, though, about the reasons for this, that is, the series of suicide bombings over the last week that have been devastating in Israel?
CHANCE: Well, of course, that's right. These retaliatory strikes come as a result of those devastating suicide attacks over the past week or so, which have left really about 30 Israelis killed as a result. But what many people say here is that those suicide attacks, remember, didn't come out of a void. They want to bring attention back to the Israeli occupation here. They say that's what the Palestinian militants are fighting.
Now, there is all this pressure that's been put on Yasser Arafat to crack down on those militants, of course. There is also a sense of irony that is being expressed here on the streets by many Palestinians, saying that on the one hand, Israel and the international community is calling on Yasser Arafat to crack down on these militants. On the other, it's the Israeli Air Force that's bombing the Palestinian police, the Palestinian security forces that would be used to pick up these militants.
So it's making it a lot more physically difficult for Yasser Arafat to do that. It's also making it a lot more politically difficult for him to do it as well. It was never very popular to do this. The fact that Israel is continuing the military action here is making it even less so, Aaron.
BROWN: Matthew, thanks. Matthew Chance, who's in Gaza now, here to talk to you. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Friday, he certainly changed the course of history this year, but should bin Laden be "TIME" magazine's person of the year? We'll talk to the managing editor of Time.com on that debate when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In the weeks following September 11, the face of Osama bin Laden began appearing on the covers of the weekly news magazines. A lot of people got angry at that. Letters to the editors say the coverage just gave bin Laden more stature than he deserves. This whole debate has gotten a lot more interesting, because it's the time of the year when "TIME" magazine chooses its person of the year.
Now "TIME" has chosen villains before. Hitler would qualify. But villains are the exception. Rick Stengel is the managing editor of Time.com and he's with us on a late Friday night.
RICK STENGEL, MANAGING EDITOR, TIME.COM: Right.
BROWN: Nice to see you.
I want to talk about how these choices are made and what goes into it. But do you think when the bosses are kicking around a villain, that they go, you know, we do this, we're going to get creamed by readers?
STENGEL: Oh, there were a lot of -- thousands, I believe, of canceled subscriptions when the Ayatollah Khomeini was man of the year in 1979. So you go into it knowing that a lot of folks are going to be unhappy. BROWN: So -- "TIME" has been doing this for how long?
STENGEL: Since 1927. Charles Lindbergh, first man of the year.
BROWN: I was going to say, you back to someone like Lindbergh. There's a slam dunk choice when you made it, when the magazine made it. Now, whether -- that's Lindbergh there -- now, whether that would have been a slam dunk choice in 1939...
STENGEL: Right. I mean, in fact, there have been some people who have been chosen more than once who have been perceived originally as sort of a good guy, and later as a villain. Joseph Stalin, for example. When he was a first chosen, he was an ally. When he was chosen the second time, he was leader of the Soviet Union.
BROWN: And the difference in years, do you recall off the top of your head, on Stalin?
STENGEL: I think the second -- first year was '43, and I'm not sure when the second year was.
BROWN: What is the standard?
STENGEL: The standard is -- Henry Luce, a long time ago, set the standard.
BROWN: The founder of the magazine.
STENGEL: The founder of the magazine, who said that the person who, for better or for worse, most affected events during the past year, most affected our lives during the past year. So, from the "Lucian" perspective, it's not an honor or an accolade. It's really the newsmaker who, for better or for worse, most influenced our lives.
BROWN: But it has -- I think it's fair to say, it has become -- at least it's perceived by a lot of people as an honor.
STENGEL: It is. But I hate to say to them that they're mistaken. But it's more neutral than that, because you can have villains. And of course, this year, I mean, there's a villain who seems to stand out who is certainly in the running.
BROWN: President Bush was man of the year last year, wasn't he?
STENGEL: Right.
BROWN: Has anyone ever been man of the year two years in a row?
STENGEL: I don't know the answer to that.
BROWN: OK. Who makes the decision?
STENGEL: The managing editor of "TIME" magazine, in conjunction with his brain trust of folks, other editors, writers.
BROWN: Like every employee, you smile when you say that. Are you getting a lot at the Web site, a lot of comment on it? Do you have chat rooms or whatever set up?
STENGEL: Yes, we have people who have canceled their subscriptions in advance, thinking it's Osama bin Laden.
BROWN: Those are my favorite kind of viewers.
STENGEL: I don't know whether they will renew if he's not selected. But we have a poll up there. And in fact, George Bush is leading the poll. We -- people can write in with their choices, and we've had something like 70,000 people write in with a paragraph on who they think man of the year ought to be. And Osama bin Laden is not leading in that.
BROWN: You mention President Bush. Who else is -- I don't necessarily mean in the readers' minds. But who else seems to be in the game?
STENGEL: Aaron, if you think you're going to torture out of me who the choice is, I'm not going to tell you.
BROWN: I'm not going to even try. I want to try and figure out -- well, I may try.
STENGEL: No, they have -- there's about a half a dozen names that are in the hat, and...
BROWN: You can't tell me who those are?
STENGEL: I can't tell you who those are.
BROWN: So I'm going to spend the next weekend trying to figure out who six names are?
STENGEL: That's the whole game, right? It's -- you know, people think about it. It made an impression on the popular imagination, and here you are, worrying about it.
BROWN: There you go. Who would you pick? Who would you pick? Because you're not going to pick anybody.
STENGEL: You know, somehow -- I know this is going to sound like a cop-out, but sometimes they picked in years past a kind of symbolic figure. And so you could, for example, pick the terrorist without actually picking Osama bin Laden, and say that, you know, it's worldwide global terrorism.
BROWN: Matter of fact, I think the magazine one year picked women, American women.
STENGEL: Women and Hungarian freedom fighters, and the machine of the year, computers, once. So...
BROWN: I want to go back to a question I asked. If anyone had been picked twice in a row, and the answer is yes.
STENGEL: Did you find out in the interim? BROWN: Yes, it wasn't like a trick on my part.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was it FDR?
BROWN: No. It was -- take a look. I don't know if you can see the monitor? It's Richard Nixon. And I assume it was when he was -- '71 or '72. So after the...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you could make the case that Nixon, in fact, is also one of those straddlers? Good guy first time, bad guy last time.
BROWN: Right. You could also make the argument he could have been in '73, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now FDR only got picked three times.
BROWN: That's the only person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
BROWN: Well, we'll look forward to the magazine coming out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good.
BROWN: Thanks for teasing us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
BROWN: We appreciate it. It's nice to see you. "Time's" man of the year is coming up. And yes, we are all the same company. We'll say that too.
Coming up, NBC shakes up the media business, as it were, agreeing to air commercials for hard liquor. We'll hear from a critic and a reporter covering the story. That's coming up next. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: "Saturday Night Live" may be worth watching tomorrow night, not just for the laughs but for a small piece of national television history.
NBC is planning to start a commercial campaign for a liquor company. The first stage of the campaign will be warnings about safe drinking. Then in a few months there'll be outright commercials featuring hard alcohol.
This breaks a voluntary ban on running liquor ads that goes back to the late '40s.
Now, here's the problem. Ad dollars are very, very scarce these days and NBC is clearly willing to take some heat -- and they're about to get some -- to get some of those ad dollars. The network has put lots of conditions on when the ads can air and what they can show, but critics say there's no such thing as a harmless liquor ad.
To talk about this, we're joined tonight by Joseph Califano, Jr., now the president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Former secretary of health education and welfare, if I recall.
And in Boston, Hillary Chura, a reporter for "Advertising Age" and she is covering the story. And good evening to both of you.
HILLARY CHURA, "ADVERTISING AGE" REPORTER: Evening.
BROWN: Hillary, let me start with you. I this just about money? Is that pretty clear?
CHURA: Basically, yes, I think it is. Ad dollars this year are at their lowest levels since 1999, and the percentage drop for 2001 is going to be, I think, the largest since 1938. So the networks really are -- are struggling for money.
They're run by public companies. They have to make some sort of -- they have to show that they're making money. And this is one way to do it, they have found these dollars.
BROWN: And -- and this is new money. This isn't going back to Chevrolet and saying, "want to buy more ads?"
CHURA: Absolutely.
BROWN: This is found money, in a way.
CHURA: Absolutely, and that's -- that's the beauty of it, I think, is the networks are concerned because this is rather than getting their current customers to increase their advertising incrementally, they have -- they've found this great groundswell. It could be hundreds of millions of dollars on a -- on a yearly basis.
BROWN: And Secretary Califano, given the fact some liquor ads have been running on some local TV stations -- not a lot, but they've been out there -- and there are beer ads all over the place, what's the problem here?
JOSEF CALIFANO, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CENTER ON ADDICTION AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE: Well, the problem is that alcohol is the number one drug of abuse in the United States of America. It is by light years the number one drug of abuse of American kids.
And when NBC starts running hard liquor ads, we are going to have the same kind of reaction we've had, incidentally, to beer ads. I mean, what's the -- what's the drink that kids use? It's beer. It's beer that -- that saturates the networks on sports events and things like that.
This is a serious problem. It's a tragedy. I mean, it means self regulation doesn't work where profits are concerned. I mean, the network is in trouble. It needs advertising dollars, and -- and it's going after them.
And the restrictions are quite frankly preposterous. I mean, one of the restrictions is that the advertising shall not show a pronounced loss of inhibitions. I don't know what what a pronounced loss of inhibition -- what an unpronounced loss of inhibitions is.
They say that they'll them run them only from 9 to 11. But that's eight -- eight o'clock Central Time. Teenagers watch television after 9:00. The only other times they'll run them is when 85 percent of the audience happens to be adult. 15 percent children. But if the audience is a couple million, that's 300,000 kids. I mean -- it's bucks.
BROWN: Secretary Califano. Well, that gets it done. Would it be fair -- just as a matter of fairness -- to allow beer ads but not allow hard liquor ads? If what you want is a law that bans this stuff, isn't it logical -- as least logical, maybe not possible -- to ban it all?
CALIFANO: Well, I think -- I think there's -- there's a strong case to be made for banning the advertising of all alcohol. And you know, you will see hard liquor sales go up, just as beer sales have gone up because of television. And -- and just as wine sales have gone up.
BROWN: Well, presumably that's why they're advertising, to get sales up.
CALIFANO: Well, there's absolutely no question about it. And I think -- and I mean up among kids.
BROWN: OK.
CALIFANO: You cannot distinguish this. And I think that we have to recognize here that in a -- in a better world, there probably wouldn't be any advertising of this kind on television.
But NBC itself is so clearly embarrassed about this. I mean, they've got one hand reaching for the money and on the the other hand they're saying -- I mean, Randy Falco, who's the president of NBC -- said, "we didn't solicit this. They came to us." I mean, come on.
BROWN: Let me -- let me -- Secretary Califano, let me go back to Hillary for a second on two points that have just come up. If you took beer advertising -- I'm asking you to do something just off the top of your head here, I'm not sure if you know it -- if you took beer advertising away from the networks, how much money are we talking about or what percentage of advertising? Give me a number to work with.
CHURA: I think we are talking about around $780,000 -- oh, sorry, sorry -- $780 million that we would be taking away.
BROWN: So three quarters of a billion dollars? CHURA: I think so. I think so. And that is for -- I think it's for all television. Perhaps the networks are maybe $560 -- pardon me, $560 million.
BROWN: And one other question on beer, because interestingly here, one of the groups that is most opposed to this are the breweries, right, Hillary?
CHURA: Well, you'd be hard pressed to get them to actually say it.
BROWN: Yeah.
CHURA: The problem is, one, they've had television pretty much to themselves with a little bit of sprinkling with wine and malternatives and coolers and such like that.
But the -- the primary problem, I think, as they see it is, one, they're going to have increased competition. And a lot of spirits ads are really good and they're very sexy. And this is what -- I think they're afraid people are going to -- that they might lose some share that way.
But the other thing they're saying is they are concerned that this -- the spirits coming onto television will bring federal regulation for all alcohol, including beer marketers.
BROWN: I think I just heard Secretary Califano suggest exactly that. If you can it in 20 seconds, I'll give you the last word.
CALIFANO: Let me -- let me just -- 20 seconds. Let me say when -- when tobacco advertising came off television, everyone was worried about the hundreds of millions dollars that would be lost and it didn't happen.
And number two, most importantly, the lack of tobacco advertising on television has made television a phenomenal force for reducing smoking in this country, because they didn't depend on television dollars. And I saw that when I started the anti-smoking in the late '70s. And -- and it will be a seductive thing for the networks.
BROWN: Mr. Secretary, I'm -- I truly hate to do this, but I'm -- I'm going to have to stop you. I've got a time issue here. Secretary Califano, Ms. Chura, thank you both. You did a terrific job tonight. Thanks for coming in.
CHURA: Thank you.
BROWN: Up next -- I like this segment coming up: why we lie. Not me, of course. I never lie. But we'll talk about lying in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is a segment on lying, and I urge you -- indeed, I beg you -- to pay very close attention to everything on this screen now. OK, not everything. You can ignore the crawl, but everything else.
A segment on lying just perfectly suited to my skills, because I am after all a trained polygraph expert with degrees from both Harvard and Yale. Further, my years at the FBI honed these special skills.
But those aren't the only reasons I wanted to do this tonight. It just so happens that a brand new football coach at Notre Dame resigned for telling a couple of lies. And my background as both an NFL player and a coach makes this a perfect fit.
Did I mention, by the way, that I invented the Internet? And believe me, that story about the intern is not true, either. OK, enough about my resume. To the story, the true story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On a snowy day on the campus of Notre Dame today, the news was not good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will just move on as Notre Dame always will and -- and there will be somebody there, believe me.
BROWN: Barely a week after being hired for one of college football's premiere jobs -- the head coach at Notre Dame -- George O'Leary quit today because he admitted he lied on his resume.
LOU NANNI, NOTRE DAME SPOKESMAN: Ultimately, we accepted his resignation with great regret and heavy hearts and -- and real sadness.
BROWN: O'Leary, it turned out, said he lettered in football at the University of New Hampshire and he hadn't. And that he had a master's degree in education from NYU. And he doesn't.
DALE WINSTON, EXECUTIVE SEARCH CONSULTANT: If he didn't know that this could happen, shame on him. It boggles my mind that it -- it took a week for someone to, you know, kind of turn him in, that it wouldn't have happened before. And I have to believe that there was not enough proper due diligence done in verifying his background.
BROWN: These notable stories about lying to get ahead have become quite common. Three years ago, Tim Johnson was fired from his job as the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays because he lied about serving in Vietnam.
And earlier this year, the acclaimed historian, Joseph Ellis, lied about Vietnam as well. He was suspended by his university for a year without pay.
And the business executive who acquired the nickname "Chainsaw" because he so ruthlessly cut jobs, also intentionally left out some critical things on his resume.
WINSTON: It came up that Al Dunlap, who was with Sunbeam, had out-and-out dropped off a company that he had been head that had gone bankrupt. BROWN: Perhaps the man who said it first said it best. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." That was the poet, Sir Walter Scott, in 1808.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: For a little more on lying now and why people do it -- or are drawn to it -- we're joined by Steve Rushin, senior writer at "Sports Illustrated." Terrific writer. And in Washington, Jake Tapper, of the on-line magazine "Salon." Good to see you both.
Do you think this is a -- do you think this is more a sports problem or weakness than it is in society generally, Steve?
STEVE RUSHIN, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" SENIOR WRITER: No, I don't. I don't think it's any more of a weakness than, say, politics. You mentioned having invented the Internet. Al Gore mentioned that in the presidential campaign. It seems to have hurt the Notre Dame football coach more than it hurt the presidential candidate, which is a little weird.
BROWN: Why do they do it?
RUSHIN: Well, why does anybody do it? I think in sports you spend so much time in the locker room where so many lies are told about women and fishing and everything else -- the stock market -- that it's seen as almost innocuous in that context.
But when it's -- when it's under the glare of a press conference or something, it's -- it's horrible and -- and we all do it, I think.
I -- I worked in a convenience store in high school selling beef jerky and slurpies in a red smock. But to read that item on my resume it sounds like I was, you know, on the high command on NORAD or something. Fortunately, I'm not a Notre Dame football coach.
BROWN: Well, you wouldn't be now.
RUSHIN: No.
BROWN: Jake, do you think lying is seen differently in Washington than it is anywhere or everywhere else?
JAKE TAPPER, "SALON ONLINE": Well, there are different kinds of lies here. I mean, you mentioned the Al-Gore-inventing-the-Internet lie.
But, you know, there are other lies that -- that Candidate Bush told at the time. More complex lies. Lies about a trillion dollars that he had promised both for Social Security and also for other spending programs. That kind of lie is more acceptable because it is a less easily comprehended and reported by members of the media. So I don't know.
But I have to say, I don't know that the lies that were told by -- by Tim Johnson at the Blue Jays are the same kind of lies that the rest of us told.
He told stories about combat in Vietnam, including killing a little girl. I mean, his stories were meant to motivate his players and show what a ballsy guy he was. But then they're not really the same kind of lies that I think the three of us probably tell on a day- in, day-out basis.
BROWN: But are they the same kind of lies that Coach O'Leary told? I mean, it's essentially padding the resume. It's making your something you're not.
TAPPER: Well, I think politicians are savvy enough to know that -- that reporters are going to look into that sort of thing. And when Coach O'Leary did that, he did it years ago and it just stayed on his resume.
You know, there's another player with the -- with the Seattle Mariners, Al Martin, who for years has been saying that he had a football scholarship to USC and that he -- you know, he played two seasons at strong safety.
Completely not true, but he's not being punished. They're just taking that out of his bio because his lie is somehow less offensive than Coach O'Leary's.
BROWN: Plus somewhat less relevant. When you say whether -- I mean, look, he's a baseball player and whether he played football or not doesn't matter. This is a football coach at at university, no less.
RUSHIN: Sure, and it goes to his credibility, believability among the players and whatnot, but I think the lies are so piddling and the consequences so enormous relative to them that, you know, this guy is going suffer the worst consequence in America, which is to become ridiculous.
And this is a kind of a pinata that the media is going to beat, you know, the last piece of candy out of until the next story like this comes along.
It's almost like those stories that we sort of relished before September 11, these stories about Danny el Monte, another case of lying in sports, you know, perpetrated by adults really in that case.
BROWN: Yeah, but that was -- I mean, yes, that was about lying. This -- this was the kid who was the Little League pitcher from around here, actually. That wasn't so much lying, though clearly that was about cheating.
RUSHIN: It was about cheating. Yeah, that's true. But it was -- it was -- it had less to do with cheating on the playing field than a bunch of adults perpetuating this lie that he was 12 years old when in fact he was -- had an AARP card or something.
And we -- we just rode that story into the ground. And -- and the poor kid, he's -- when we do the "where are they now" stories, we are not going to do "where are the adults who lied." Where is he?
BROWN: Absolutely fair point. We've got about a half a minute. Let me ask each of you the same thing here. Do you think people come to believe their own lies over a period of time? Jake?
TAPPRE: I think -- I think they do, and there's a fascinating guy up in Maine. He's a lobsterman named Steve Waterman. He runs a web site. And when people say that somebody in their neighborhood or their church or whatever claim to have been a Navy SEAL, Steve Waterman has access to the Navy SEAL database and he checks to see if it's true or not. And if the person is lying he posts their name on the web site. It's a -- it's a fascinating thing that goes on up there in Maine.
BROWN: Jake, thanks. Steve, do you think athletes come to believe their own lies?
RUSHIN: Oh, absolutely. I look in the mirror every morning and in certain lights see a vibrant, healthy head of hair on me. And I think we all do that to some extent.
BROWN: It's nice to meet you finally.
RUSHIN: It's nice to meet you.
BROWN: As you know, I've been a fan. Jake, thanks. Good to talk to you again. And when we come back, no more delay: a spoof of this program. We're kidding. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally from us tonight, the spoof. Last Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney was on "Meet the Press" and Tim Russert showed him a tape clip of the vice president being impersonated on "Saturday Night Live". And the vice president said simply, "I've arrived."
Well, darn it, so have I -- at least in Canada. On Canada's version of "Saturday Night Live", called the "Royal Canadian Air Farce," a couple of weeks ago there was a spoof on war coverage and the most annoying part of it -- or as we think of it, the longest three seconds in television.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ACTORS IMPERSONATING AARON BROWN AND CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN. Luke, give in to the dark side.
AARON BROWN (IMPERSONATOR): It's day 41 of Operation Bomb the Living Daylights Out of Afghanistan. Joining me to discuss the situation is our Chief International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, in Jalalabad.
Christiane, I know it's very early there. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR (IMPERSONATOR): My pleasure.
BROWN: Christiane, given the deployment of ground troops in Afghanistan in addition to the bombing missions and use of special forces, can we expect a swift fall of the al Qaeda network?
AMANPOUR: Pardon?
BROWN: Christiane, given the deployment of ground troops and bombing missions and use of special forces, can we expect a swift fall of the al Qaeda network?
AMANPOUR: Could you repeat the question?
BROWN: Christiane, given the deployment of ground troops in Afghanistan in addition to bombing missions and use of special forces, can we expect a swift fall of the al Qaeda network?
AMANPOUR: No.
BROWN: How successful has the U.S. military been with its mission thus far?
(LONG PAUSE)
BROWN: What is the...
AMANPOUR: The military? The military has caused much destruction, devastation, despondency, desolation, and I'm out of alliteration. Aaron.
BROWN: So I guess you could say it's bad in Jalalabad?
AMANPOUR: Excuse me?
BROWN: It's bad in Jalalabad. Get it?
AMANPOUR: Bad in Jalalabad? I don't get it.
BROWN: Christiane, would you say the political situation in Afghanistan is volatile?
AMANPOUR: Aaron, the political situation in Afghanistan is volatile.
BROWN: Christiane, thanks for this report.
AMANPOUR: You're welcome. Jerk.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BROWN: OK. That that was courtesy of the CBC. She got all the jokes, I noticed. That's our report. Have a terrific weekend. We'll see you again, we hope, on Monday night. From all of us at NEWSNIGHT, I'm Aaron Brown in New York. Good night.
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