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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

More Twists in Elizabeth Smart Case; Vatican Officials Unenthusiastic About New Abuse Rules; Flag Day Music Arrives

Aired June 14, 2002 - 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, HOST: Good evening again, I'm Aaron Brown.

A long time ago -- well, actually, it was nine months ago, but it feels a lot longer than that -- we said here that Fridays ought to be different. There should be something good or fun on the program on the day before the weekend. The world over these last months hasn't helped much in this regard, and this week, with its dirty bomb suspect and its battle over civil liberties, the fire, the kidnapping, the investigation, the bombing today in Pakistan, and the list goes on, unfortunately, hasn't helped much.

Add to that that good news tends to get lost in the bad, a truth of our business. So here tonight, on a Friday, is a bit of good news. Perhaps not perfect news, but good. It's about Afghanistan and democracy, and those words haven't gone together in a long time.

The grand council of leaders from all over the country came together today and voted overwhelmingly for Hamid Karzai to be the interim leader, to be the country's president for the next two years. The pictures along are extraordinary -- Afghan delegates putting votes in ballot boxes, the first truly representative election in decades. The scene of women voting, when just six months ago they were virtual prisoners of the Taliban, shrouded from the world. In fact, the runner-up to Karzai was the first woman in the history of Afghanistan to run for president.

We said it was imperfect, and it is. The country remains in many ways politically unstable. Any country with warlords and followers tends to be. One U.N. official called the vote today "reasonably fair." In other words, the best that can be expected. And it did seem good enough for the Afghans on hand. One woman said, "23 years of disaster and the future of the nation has been formed as we watch."

We are not, as some people think, naive, but we do believe that what happened this week, however imperfect, is a whole lot better than what existed before. Even the American democracy at its beginnings was imperfect. And this country, and that this country had a hand in today's election, is something good for a Friday and beyond.

I wish I could say our top story tonight was so good. It is not. We begin our new and improved whip, wait until you see it -- with the mystery of Elizabeth Smart. No wonder we trade-marked that thing.

Jeanne Meserve has made her way to Salt Lake City. Jeanne, you had news, and then the headline, please?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An arrest this afternoon raised hopes that police might have in custody a man wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart. Tonight police say he is not the man they were looking for -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeanne, we'll get more on that and the rest of the investigation in a moment.

Now the decision from Catholic bishops on abusive priests. Jason Carroll is in Dallas for us tonight, so, Jason, the headline from you, please.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, it has been two days of debate, revisions and some emotional moments, but finally the U.S. conference of bishops have come up with a national policy on how to deal with allegations of abuse. They say it's not a perfect policy, but it will protect children. Although there are a number of victims out there who say this policy still does not go far enough -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you. A bombing in Pakistan and a warning today of more to come. Chris Burns is back in the region tonight. Chris, the headline from you?

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, mangled cars, broken glass and twisted metal still the scene here outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. Officials still trying to piece together exactly who did it, how they did it. But it was a bombing. It was a car bomb. And they are trying -- and what is very clear at this point to many here is why that happened. Why is a motive against the U.S.-led war on terrorism and of Pakistan's support of that war against terrorism -- Aaron.

BROWN: Chris, thank you, on the videophone. Back with all of you shortly.

Also coming up in the program -- yes, I admit it, this is probably our favorite story of the day -- the case of the missing computer disk. This may sound a bit innocuous until you hear what's on it, who lost it and who found it. A minor intern scandal that has Republicans red-faced and Democrats giddy. And honestly, we are so cynical we would smile the same if it were the other way around. Doesn't matter to us.

Also, a very special, almost touching Father's Day tribute from the annoying music guy. Got to be a Friday story on a Friday. All of that in the hour ahead.

We begin, though, with the case of Elizabeth Smart, which took a sudden turn early tonight and then turned again just a short time ago. What looked like a promising new lead does not look that way now.

Again, CNN's Jeanne Meserve, who has been following this story from Salt Lake City -- Jeanne. MESERVE: Aaron, the FBI says tonight the man arrested in Texas today is not Bret Michael Edmunds, the individual who they have wanted to question in connection with the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart because he had been seen in the vicinity of her home prior to the abduction. The FBI says fingerprints did not match. Local detectives here in Salt Lake say they never thought it was Edmunds because the local police in Texas had never called them here. And so the search for Edmunds goes on, and so does the search for Elizabeth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Lois Smart spoke from her heart to her daughter.

LOIS SMART, ELIZABETH SMART'S MOTHER: Elizabeth, we love you. The world loves you. Everybody is praying for you. Thinking about you 24 hours a day. I want you to know, Elizabeth, that you are going to be home with us soon and we can hardly wait.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are looking for Elizabeth, her pajamas, and her shoes.

MESERVE: The search for Elizabeth thus far has been highly centralized. One command center has coordinated 8,500 volunteers searching 4,000 square miles on the ground, 40,000 square miles from the air. Now the family is urging a local approach, asking citizens to search their own neighborhoods and backyards for Elizabeth, or clues to her disappearance. They insist this is not a deescalation of the search, just a more focused phase.

CYNTHIA SMART OWENS, AUNT: We want to get Elizabeth home. We are thinking as much as we possibly can what are every way -- what are every way that we can to find Elizabeth.

RALPH MITCHELL, SEARCH VOLUNTEER: Now, this is where the trail continues, and then there's a deer trail that continues this way up behind the home.

MESERVE: Ralph Mitchell has been taking the approach the family is recommending all along. He grew up in these hills, near the Smart home, and as a youngster knew every path. He's taken particular care in recent days to examine two that run into the Smarts' backyard.

MITCHELL: I was looking for signs of a struggle, possibly hair, blood, maybe even a fresh, you know, cigarette butt.

MESERVE: Thus far he has found only footprints, no telling whose, but he has no doubt these trails were used to case the Smart house and take Elizabeth away.

MITCHELL: Sometimes I get chills in the back of my neck. The hairs stand up and it's kind of eerie, and I feel like all the searching I have done in all the foothills and everywhere, this is as close as I have been to the trail of the kidnapper.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MESERVE: And the investigation continues. Salt Lake Police saying today they believe they are getting closer to finding the person who abducted Elizabeth Smart. We know they have polygraphed at least two members of the family. The police saying the family has been nothing but cooperative. The family saying they understand the police have a job to do -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, they have said now I think for three days in a row they feel they are getting closer and closer. Do they ever say why they feel they are getting closer and closer?

MESERVE: They said today only that they feel that they have narrowed the leads. We know that they have had hundreds and hundreds of leads coming into them. They have been sifting through those methodically. They feel they have narrowed them down now to some that are most relevant, but beyond that, no. They are not telling us anything at all about the evidence they are finding or the suspects they may have in their sights, if any -- Aaron.

BROWN: And there's no question here. You just listen to the mom or any of the family members, but the mom in particular, and it just breaks your heart. What that family -- and it's a large extended family, what they are going through is unbearable.

MESERVE: It's true. They have shown up here en masse, shoulder to shoulder. Each one of them looking tremendously upset a great deal of the time. But each one of them consistently expressing the hope that this young girl is still alive, despite the length of time she's been missing -- Aaron.

BROWN: We hope they're right. Thank you, Jeanne. Jeanne Meserve in Salt Lake City tonight.

Police go with this kind of case a number of ways. They have gathered physical evidence, of course, they've talked to eyewitnesses such as there have been. We just heard they talked to family members, hoping that all of the details will paint in some way a picture of the suspect. They also work in the other direction, with a picture or a profile already in mind, searching for one person who might fit that profile best.

Clint Van Zandt made a career out of that side of things, as an FBI special agent and a profiler, and it's good to see him once again. He joins us from Washington. Clint, nice to see you.

Quick question on Mr. Edmunds, and then let's move on to other things. I think you said today, look, he's not that smart; eventually, they're going to find him, right?

CLINT VAN ZANDT, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: I think so. I'm surprised he's not in custody already. You know, anyone who's out stealing a bottle of water from a 7-Eleven, that suggests he doesn't have money, credit cards, anywhere to sleep. He's been used to sleeping in his car. He's perhaps going from stolen car to stolen car. This guy, you know, is not a career criminal that is used to evading detection this long, so they are going to find him very quickly.

BROWN: And does it suggest anything else, one way or another, about the kidnapping?

VAN ZANDT: Well, you know, it doesn't. A lot of people have said, you know, surmise, gee, he's on the run, he's trying to avoid capture, therefore he must be involved. But remember, this is a guy when he was confronted by the police the last time sprayed mace in the officer's face to get away. This is a vagrant. This is someone who likes to stay in his car, stay away from people. He doesn't like confrontation. Probably doesn't like people real well, and now he's the focus of a nationwide manhunt. And this particular guy is saying to himself, I have to run because somebody is going to try to pin this on me whether I know something or not.

BROWN: So innocent or not, he is scared.

VAN ZANDT: He's scared. And innocent or not, we have got to find him. We have to either rule him in or rule him out and move on with the case.

BROWN: What -- I'm not asking specifically what sort of evidence are they not giving out here, but in a broad sense, what do you suspect the police know, have, feel that they are not talking about?

VAN ZANDT: Well, one thing for sure, Aaron. We are hearing quite a bit about this cut that was on the screen, the kitchen window, the screen was cut. There are those who suggest perhaps that's staging, in essence, trying to make it look like somebody came from the outside in when in reality it was somebody already inside the house, but the police would know -- are there footprints leading up to it? If I was outside the house, I'd have dirt on my feet. If I came through that window, did I leave it on the kitchen sink.

There is a lot of physical evidence there that police would have that they would know whether someone actually came through that window or not. Those are the type of things that they are going to hold close so they can separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. There are always people, Aaron, who come forward and who either say they know something, or many times even confess to the crime. We have got to be able to exclude those.

BROWN: Do they have a theory now, do you think, that they are working with the case?

VAN ZANDT: I think they are working with the two-track theory, in which you're always doing something like this, Aaron. Track number one is that 24 percent of the people who commit crimes like this are unknown offenders. In essence, the victim doesn't know them. They don't know the victim. So you have to, number one, look at the unknown offender, who might that have been.

The other side, 76 percent of kidnappers of children either come from the immediate family or the social circle. So, you know, statistics be darned in this, we are trying to find the little girl. That's what counts. But you still have to see what law enforcement's looking at statistically. They have to look at the family, and this has 150-member extended family, plus the social circle, which will be the school, the church, the neighborhood. So there is a tremendous amount of investigation to be done there.

And the flip side is, who has been doing house burglaries, what men in the community have committed crimes against young girls. Elizabeth Smart, with her age and physical description, she's in the highest target group of children that have offenses like this committed against them, so that's part of the challenge that the police face right now.

BROWN: Let me ask you. I'm reluctant -- what I think the most difficult question. Do you think they believe that this child will be found alive?

VAN ZANDT: I think in our heart of hearts we want to. You know, every time I have been involved in this -- my last year as an FBI agent, we had to tell two different families, even though we didn't find their child that the child probably wasn't coming home. In both cases, they didn't. And that is heartbreaking when you sit there and hold the hands of parents, and they look you in your eye and say "tell me the truth," and then you sit there and cry with them.

In this particular case, you know, where eight, 10, 12 days -- the further out we get, the lesser chances we have of getting her back, but I tell you what, law enforcement, the FBI, 24-seven, this girl is alive and well until we find evidence to the contrary.

BROWN: Well, we hope. We all hope. Thank you, Clint, it's good to see you again. One of these days we'll talk on things that are more pleasant than this.

VAN ZANDT: You know, one thing you said, Aaron, you talked about Friday being a happy day. This gives us all a chance to appreciate our children. To bring them, hug them a little closer, and say, you know, I'm sorry for Elizabeth Smart. I'm glad my child is safe.

BROWN: You can count on that from me tonight. Thank you. Clint Van Zandt with us from Washington.

Quickly here on the Colorado wildfires. Not a lot happened there today. The wind did die down. The humidity was up. Temperature mild. All good news for the 1,800 people battling the blaze that has already consumed 100,000 acres. Early in the week, the fire was threatening Denver's southern suburbs, forcing more than 5,000 people to evacuate. Some of those people now have been allowed to go home and survey the damage. More good news than bad out of the Colorado wildfires tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a former presidential candidate is forced to bear all, and the White House deals with the slipped disk. A little political pandering later in the program.

But first, crime and punishment within the Catholic Church. U.S. bishops reach a decision. Their plan for priests who abuse when NEWSNIGHT continues on a Friday from New York. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK. On to Dallas now, and the vote today by American bishops on how to handle abusive priests. They agreed that one-time abusers, past, present and future, will be cut off from any sort of ministry, but will not be cast out of the church entirely. Not exactly the zero tolerance policy the victims had hoped for.

The bishops, though, say they have pushed through profound reform. After all, debate in the Catholic Church is usually measured in decades, even centuries. But to many of the victims, the decision was a half-measure at best, a travesty at worst. And one of them said, "this is akin to telling the street killer in the city we are sending you to the country."

From where we sit, it appears the bishops were trying to please a number of constituencies and may have pleased none. Details now from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The action item passes.

CARROLL (voice-over): After debate, revisions, and heartfelt words from victims. The U.S. conference of Catholic bishops finally adopted a national policy on sexual abuse.

BISHOP WILTON GREGORY, PRESIDENT, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS: This charter says to abusive priests or deacons, if you abuse a child, you will be stripped of your ministry forever. This charter says, you do not deserve to present yourself as a priest. This charter says, if you abuse a child, you will never be given another chance through our church to do it again.

CARROLL: The policy is a stronger version of a draft originally proposed last week. It closes a loophole that would have allowed one- time offenders to remain in the priesthood. Throughout the day the bishops spoke of their concerns about the policy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do I believe we have to come to a standard not of zero tolerance but a standard of forgiveness, and I think what in some ways we have arrived at a standard of unforgiveness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need strong support of this doctrine, begin to restore the credibility of the church and its morale authority.

CARROLL: The term "zero tolerance" not used because the policy would allow some priests who voluntarily withdraw from ministry to stay under the watchful eye of the church, perhaps in a monastery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can split hairs, we can move priests to more remote locations but we know they can not be monitored around the clock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That person is still going to be a criminal, still going to be a child molestor, is still a threat to children.

CARROLL: Another point under consideration, how will the Vatican respond to the policy? Clergy here saying they don't need Rome's approval.

CARDINAL THEODORE MCCARRICK: What I believe is happening, we complete this document, we all vote to approve it. It becomes what we do in the United States.

CARROLL: Enforcement of the policy still unclear, though it does call for the formation of a national lay review board, whose job it will be to monitor bishops. Its chair, Oklahoma governor Frank Keating, promising to take a tough approach against clergy who protect priests accused of pedophilia.

GOV. FRANK KEATING, OK: Not only is that, I think, immoral and sinful in the eyes of the Church, but it is potentially criminal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: The policy also says that allegations of abuse must be reported to authorities, which is why victims say that even though that that type of language is in there, victims also point out that it does not specify when such an allegation should be reported.

Another reason why, Aaron, many victims at this point are saying this is a policy that still does not go far enough -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just -- I want to pick up on the last point. The issue there is that when the bishop or whoever first hears of the allegation, he is not obligated at that moment to call police?

CARROLL: It's interesting, isn't it? It's unclear. The language in the charter simply says that any allegation must be reported to civil authorities, but if you are looking for a time element in terms of when that allegation should be reported to authorities, that type of language unclear because it is simply not mentioned in the charter draft that was adopted today.

BROWN: Jason, thank you. We'll deal with the Vatican question in just a moment or so. Jason Carroll down until Dallas for what was, no matter what you think of the outcome, an extraordinary couple of days for the Church.

As the bishops were meeting, however, the litigation was going on in Omaha today. A jury awarded $800,000 in damages to a former altar boy and his mother because a priest sexually abused the boy in the 1990s. The Omaha archdiocese admitted it was negligent in failing to supervise the priest. The mother and son -- the boy is now 23 -- had asked for $4 million. One of the few cases that have come to trial.

When we come back, how a big a role did the Vatican play in today's decision, and perhaps more importantly, how big a role will the Vatican play in how it's implemented. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

BROWN: More on the priest abuse scandal. The decision today by the American Catholic Bishops. We heard the speeches yesterday from the Church leadership, the apologies, the promises to do something. What we did not see today, and certainly would have been intriguing to see, were the deliberations and the debate in how they came about to write the policy they wrote.

You probably wouldn't get the full story even if you did have access to those private meetings in Dallas to get the complete picture of what the bishops did or didn't do. You have to in some respects at least nod your head to the Vatican, because the Vatican does play a role in this. John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the "National Catholic Reporter" joins us tonight from Rome.

John, it's always good to see you. Before we get into the substance, your story today became a kind of theological and journalistic game of telephone. You had a chance encounter with an important church leader and by the time people got done talking about it the pope had spoken.

JOHN ALLEN, VATICAN CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: Yes, that's right, and actually, Aaron, I need to confess for all the CNN folks out there. It was actually CNN that called me this afternoon saying that they had heard I had reported the pope had said no to zero tolerance, which of course isn't quite the story.

The story is that I spoke not just to one but to several Vatican officials this morning Rome time to just sort of take the temperature of what the reaction around here is to what was taking shape in Dallas. I think that the story is there are some very deep reservations here in Rome about the approach the American bishops adopted tonight.

BROWN: It is, I think, on this side of the ocean, fascinating how differently the Vatican sees this. Bishop Gregory got up yesterday and didn't talk about this as being media driven. He accepted responsibility, the bishops accepted responsibility, but the Vatican continues to see this as peculiarly American and in some respect victim and media driven, right?

ALLEN: Yes, I think that's part of the background of this. They think, essentially, I think the concern I hear repeated when I talk to people in the Vatican offices is that the U.S. bishops are sort of being swept along on this tidal wave of public outrage generated in part by legitimately awful things that happened but also whipped up by sort of media campaign, by the threat of lawsuits like the one you talked about, that the verdict that just came down today, and on the basis of all of that, the Vatican's concern is the bishops making policy sort of with a gun to their head went too far.

That is, the failure in the past was to be insufficiently protective of victims and insufficiently cooperative of the civil authorities. They have now gone too far in the other direction, and this sort of quasi zero tolerance, many people in the Vatican here think is too broadly construed, and that they're almost too eager now to turn over information and turn over allegations.

I think if you want a good summary of kind of how the Vatican sees this, I think the speech that was given tonight by Cardinal Avery Dulles during the final vote on the document summarized it very well. He made three points. One is that the definition of sexual abuse in this document is too broadly construed.

It could bring in all sorts of offenses that maybe don't justify being kicked out of the priesthood.

Secondly, that this requirement that bishops turn over allegations immediately to the police, any allegation against a priest, could destroy the relationship of intimacy that ought to exist between a bishop and his priests, and third, that the Church is being asked to turn over all of its records, every scrap of paper, to prosecuting authorities and to investigators, and that that is too much of a sacrifice of the Church's right to confidentiality.

That was a good summary of what I hear from Vatican officials.

BROWN: I want to talk about the implications of this. Because, and just tell me if I got this right, OK? If the pope signs off on what the bishops did, then that becomes the law for all of the United States. That's the way it will be. If the pope does not, then individual bishops still retain the right to implement the policy or not?

ALLEN: Yes, that's right, although it's a little bit more complicated than that. Basically, what you have to understand is that the U.S. bishops conference, from the point of view of the Vatican, functions like a social club. That is, it's a place where bishops can come together and talk out their problems, but it has no authority to impose anything on an individual bishop.

So now those bishops who just a few hours ago adopted this policy, they are free to go home and implement it. And I expect the overwhelming majority of them will. The problem is that if they take disciplinary action against a priest based on this new policy, that priest can then appeal it to Rome. And if Rome doesn't like it, Rome could over turn that disciplinary action.

So the bishops tonight voted to do was come to Rome immediately to seek Rome's approval. If they get that approval, then the thing becomes what's called particular law, meaning it's binding on all of the diocese in the United States. And it's uniform. And Rome will back it up.

Now of course if Rome does not give that approval, or if they ask for some changes then you got a whole new ball game.

BROWN: Now as a practical matter, if a priest were to take such a complaint, a priest accused of abuse, judged credible by his bishop, he were to take -- make an appeal to the church in Rome, is it reasonable to believe that the Vatican would support the individual priest?

ALLEN: Not normally. I mean, normally, the way these things work is -- it's sort of like in baseball. You know the tie goes to the runner. BROWN: Yes.

ALLEN: And in church, the tie goes to the bishop, as opposed to the priest. And so, the assumption always is, excuse me, the assumption always is that the bishop has acted appropriately, but there are cases in the past, and canon lawyers know it, in which the Vatican has acted, has ruled that the priests due process rights were adequately respected by the bishop.

This is a longstanding concern the Vatican has with the American bishops. They think the American bishops have. since the mid 80's, been a little too quick to cut priests loose, and a little too -- play a little fast and loose with some of the canon law procedures.

And so there are cases in which these rulings have been overturned. And you heard Bishop Gallante (ph) tonight during the debate on the document say this is what they want to avoid. They want to avoid a situation in which they go home and they discipline priests based on this policy, and then appeals come over here and decisions get overturned. That's why they want to come here as quickly as they can, to ask for this thing called the recognizia (ph), which is the stamp of approval from Rome.

BROWN: John, I have at least a dozen other things I'd like to talk about. Maybe we'll get together next week. And as this thing settles some, and go over some of those as well. It's always good to talk to you. Thank you. John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for "The National Catholic Reporter."

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, bad songs. That's later. Nothing but bad songs. The guy who's made a living on bad songs and it's not the accordion guy. So relax. OK?

When we come back, the bombing in Pakistan. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NBROWN: Another reminder today that war goes on, this time from the streets of Pakistan. A car bomb went off outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. Eleven people died. None of them Americans. And yet, another sick twist on the war. Many of the victims apparently are Pakistani.

Again from Karachi, CNN's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blast was so powerful, it shattered and scattered cars on this normally busy street. The bomb blew a hole in the reinforced outer wall of bunker like U.S. consulate. And it scattered body parts more than a football field away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just arrived at a meeting in another part of the town. Sat down when we heard the boom. It was clearly from this direction. Came back and found out that as you see here, the van had been blown up. And it had taken out a large wall of the consulate and killed several passersby.

BURNS: Exactly how the attack was carried out remains under investigation. Authorities in this port city aren't ruling out a suicide attack, but aren't discounting other theories.

SINDH SAYED, PROVINCIAL POLICE CHIEF: According to the eyewitness account, traffic was moving and it did not stop. The explosion took place in a car, which was among the moving vehicles.

BURNS: Officials say the bottom line is the bombing was a terrorist attack. Suspicion falls on Muslim militants President Pervez Musharraf has been cracking down on in recent months. Two days earlier, authorities say they arrested five more suspects in Karachi in the so-called dirty bomb case. And Musharraf has not only joined the U.S.-led war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, he stepped up efforts to stop militants from entering the Indian controlled section of mostly Muslim Kashmir. Fighting there threatens to draw nuclear armed India and Pakistan into war. That's why authorities say they have a pretty good idea who bombed the consulate.

RASHID QUESTIN, MAJ. GEN.: In the past, there have been certain extremist groups, who felt very upset about Pakistan aligning with itself against terrorism in the world.

BURNS: Backlash against Pakistan's crackdown has already been deadly. A suicide bombing in Karachi last month killed 15 people, including 11 French workers. Another suicide attack on a church in Islamabad killed five people, including two Americans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNS: Overnight a claim of responsibility in this car bombing attack here. If you can see, this is the claim of responsibility faxed to news agencies here in Karachi. It is by the group calling itself "Al Qanoon" or "Law." "American and allies and slave Pakistani rulers," it says, "should be prepared for more attacks."

Aaron, this attack came just a few days after the U.S. and other governments called on their citizens to leave the country. That's got Pakistani authorities concerned and worried because an exodus of expatriates from this country could be a severe blow to the struggling economy.

Aaron?

BROWN: Chris, is the group a known group or an unknown group?

BURNS: It is an unknown group. Nobody has ever leader of it before, either among officials or among the people that we have consulted ourselves. However, the authorities say that they take any kind of threat like that seriously. There will be, they will be trying to track that.

BROWN: Chris, thanks. Chris Burns, good to see you again in Karachi. Be safe out there, Chris Burns tonight. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the White House Powerpoint plan, need to be professional to say that, and the case of the missing disk. We'll talk politics as NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well now I guess you could read this story two ways. One, that so much has changed since last September. Or you could read it as so much has changed since November of 2000. On a trip to Wisconsin last week, former Vice President Al Gore was frisked twice. Once at National Airport in Washington and once in Milwaukee, as he headed back East. Now you can either believe he is a completely forgotten man, or that in the interest of proving the searches are indeed random, they pick out somebody really well known. Or perhaps it was both. He was searched twice.

And the cynic would call this our big chance to be cynical tonight. Not that we generally need a big chance. News that war or no war politicians are still politicians. Imagine that. Here's the deal. A computer disk, complete with flashy Powerpoint presentation, details the both the Republican strategy and the Republican concerns about the fall elections and beyond.

It was lost by a White House intern, and it was found it seems, by a young Democrat. The Republicans plan to run on the economy and the war. It is the latter that has the Democrats seeing red. They may feel the economy, after all, is their issue, too. The White House press spokesman, Ari Fleischer, is playing it up for laughs, saying why he's shocked, shocked the White House political office would really stoop to politics.

Anyway, it's all great fun for cynics. It's also red meat for Craig Crawford, the executive publisher of "The Hotline," a great political journal in the country. He joins us tonight from Orlando. It's good to see you.

CRAIG CRAWFORD, EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER, THE HOTLINE: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, this is actually -- it's sort of embarrassing. I mean, one of the things the thing does is it names the senators mostly, who the White House believes are in trouble. You may believe people are in trouble. You're not supposed to talk about it publicly.

CRAWFORD: Right. Yes, this unmasks the spin, shows us the under tow. And I think like all under tow, it goes the opposite direction of what you see on the surface. There are some races here, in particular Tim Hutchinson, running for Senate out in Arkansas, saying that he's in trouble, vulnerable. That's something they don't say publicly.

BROWN: And who else? I think Bob Smith was on the list and Susan Collins.

CRAWFORD: Susan Collins in Maine.

BROWN: In Maine. CRAWFORD: That's another one that was kind of surprising. This has been a lot of fun in Washington. Haven't had had this much fun since they found General Robert E. Lee's battle plans in a cigar wrapper, I think. New technology note -- now it's on a disk.

BROWN: You know, this is a -- all White Houses are political. And this one is. But this White House seems to say so often that it's not political. It doesn't poll. It doesn't look at that sort of stuff. This does put a lie to that.

CRAWFORD: Oh, nobody really believed it, to tell you the truth, but at least in the media, at least in the skeptic and cynics in Washington, but it does put the lie to that. And we knew that it was going on. They're spending at least $1 million a month on polling through the Republican National Committee. This document shows someone counted up 96 data points of polling data they were using and referring to in this. So they're obviously looking at this stuff.

And this was done on White House computers. There are Democrats talking about an investigation because this shows politics in the White House, which is nefarious. And of course, you remember Al Gore made the phone calls for fundraising. And that was a big scandal. I don't know if it really gets to that level.

BROWN: You know, as I look through this, you know much more about this stuff than I. I thought this is -- well there was concern about 2002 that this in many ways was a document that talked about 2004 and the president's reelection.

CRAWFORD: One of the interesting things about this for those of us who are looking at 2004, is we see some signs about how they're strategizing this current race for the control of Congress for President Bush's reelection. There are many signs that this White House is more focused on getting involved, and targeting races in states that are more important for Bush in his reelection.

For example, South Carolina is a race they do not target. And yet, there's a Senate race there that's very hot between Lindsey Graham and Alexander as a Democrat, where that is a race that could determine the outcome of the Senate control, but that's a state that Bush is going to win. No problem. So that's not a state they've targeted.

BROWN: So they don't -- they're not going to throw resources. I mean, this is the theory, they're not going to throw resources which is money or the president into a state simply to elect a senator if they believe the president can win there any way in 2004.

CRAWFORD: That's right. And that's a blue print that this shows the White House is looking at is where to target resources. And it really is about money. Isn't that a shock? But this is the kind of document that the White House and the Republican committees, the Senate campaign committee, the House campaign committee for the Republicans will use to decide where to put their money, particularly toward the end of the race in campaigns, which ones will get the big bucks. And when we see these stories about these big dinners they have, you know, one in Washington where the president raised $15 million and Democrats did the same thing, that's where this money goes. Into the races where is they target on their Powerpoint programs and decide which ones will get the money for ads, primarily for television ads.

BROWN: In a half a minute, why does this matter, if it matters? Is it all just kind of fun for us to kick around and for junkies to look through and go oh, it's interesting. That's what they're worried about. Does it matter?

CRAWFORD: It matters in that the control of Congress should matter to people. If you, you know, if you want a certain solution for prescription drugs for example, if you want to lean more toward the insurance industry in dealing with the prescription drug problem, you want Republicans to control the Congress. If you want more of a government based solution, you want Democrats to control the Congress, on student loans. There are so many different issues where the parties do differ.

And having that control of Congress allows them to set the agenda and decide when the votes are held and what gets passed. And so in that sense, this is a document that shows us this White House is a little more worried about House races and Senate races then they let on publicly. This race for the control of Congress could be tighter than we thought, based on what we see here.

BROWN: Craig, it's good to see you. I'll be in Washington next week.

CRAWFORD: Sure.

BROWN: Perhaps we'll run into each other. Thank you.

CRAWFORD: All right.

BROWN: Craig Crawford of "The Hotline." There's nobody I know who enjoys this stuff more than he.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, as we head toward the weekend, a Father's Day tribute made complete with those songs you love to hate, the most annoying music of all from, who else, the annoying music man. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

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BROWN: Finally from us tonight, for the week, a little annoying music. Now there is no shortage. I know what's coming up. That's why I'm laughing of annoying music in the world. Get in almost any elevator or supermarket, but it takes something approaching genius to turn really annoying music into an art form and a career. Jim Nader has done both. He joins us from Chicago again tonight with a special Father's Day edition of annoying music.

Hello, Jim?

JIM NADER: Hello, Aaron. Happy Flag Day, Father's Day...

BROWN: Thank you.

NADER: And happy Hanukkah. Let me be the first to wish you a happy Hanukkah.

BROWN: Thank you very much. And spin a disk for us, will you?

NADER: Absolutely. You know, Father's Day is such a special holiday, especially for those of us who had fathers before we were born. Country Western always brings a tear to the eye. This is the great Dotty West, one of the greatest country singers. Unfortunately she brought her son Dale with her to sing, too.

I'm trying to figure out what he's saying.

BROWN: Sounds like a cat is dying.

NADER: I think can I still call him daddy?

BROWN: Yes. Oh man, that is bad.

NADER: I think the dad left because he heard his kid singing.

BROWN: All right. Move on. That's -- for this, for these fine viewers that stuck with us, that's too painful. I want to hear "Cats in the Cradle." I'm told this is brilliantly annoying.

NADER: Yes, there's absolutely no way to intro it, other than to say if you have kittens or frail plants in the room, get them out now. And we'll just start it. This is the great Harry Chapin song.

Any time you want me to stop it, let me know.

BROWN: No, no, we wouldn't want to interrupt this. Oh, man. And who is that? Who's that singing that song?

NADER: It's a fellow called Piranha Man from Pakistan. I couldn't find a picture of him, but I do have a picture of a piranha.

BROWN: Oh, there we go. Wait, I need had my glasses for this, but I'm tearing. Time for one more, I think Loren Green?

NADER: Oh, absolutely. Let me queue him here.

BROWN: The great Ben Cartwright. And that guy can sing.

NADER: Here we go. This is the greatest song from the greatest film done in the most annoying way ever. Of all the studios in all the world.

BROWN: Oh man, father to us all, Pa Cartwright. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

NADER: This is why Starbucks should ban this.

BROWN: Jim?

NADER: Yes?

BROWN: Happy Father's Day. Thank you.

NADER: Aaron, can I say you can get the annoying music show CD at amazon.com. Am I allowed to day that?

BROWN: No, you can't say that. Thank you.

NADER: How about CD now?

BROWN: No, good-bye. And good-bye to all of you. We'll see you next week. Good-night from NEWSNIGHT.

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