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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
President Bush to Undergo Colonoscopy; Explosions Heard in West Bank
Aired June 28, 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, GUEST HOST: Good evening everyone.
Every week the never dull "New York Post" has a feature that's sort of buried in the Saturday edition. It's called "The Dinner Party Cheat Sheet." In one handy column, it can give even the most socially challenged among us some buzzworthy things to talk about, no matter how tedious the party we're at might be.
It's got a little scandal, something obscure to make you look kind of like you're with it, maybe the hot new book, and always some news of the weird. Well, it seems that tonight on NEWSNIGHT we have our own version of "The Dinner Party Cheat Sheet," and we hope it will give you something to talk about, at least this weekend.
There's the women of Enron. You won't see them all tonight as you thought you were going to, but you will hear some thoughtful and illuminating observations about life from Carey, Courtney, and ah Vanessa.
For the more highbrow conversation, you want to catch Beth Nissen's piece on the inspiration behind "Minority Report." Not Cruise, not Spielberg, this is about the sci-fi writer with a cult following from decades past.
The hot book tonight is one that will impress the foodies (ph) at any party and that could be quite a feat. Those foodies can be quite difficult. Jane and Michael Stern, authors of "Road Food,' a guide to all those tiny road side restaurant gems that are scattered across the country. They are very fun people and it is a great book to know about ahead of the Fourth.
And, of course, some news of the weird, which tonight has to do with me. No surprise there. That is in our "Segment Seven" and it should be an education for both you and for me. We hope you will stick around for that.
But "The Whip" begins, as always, with the hard news. What's likely to be one of the shortest presidencies ever, the vice president assuming power tomorrow while the president undergoes a medical procedure. John King is covering that tonight. John, the headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, that medical procedure is a colonoscopy. It is routine for men over 50. The president will have one tomorrow morning at Camp David. These are anything by routine times, of course. So as you noted, Mr. Bush will take the extraordinary step of before he is sedated, temporarily assigning the powers of the presidency to Vice President Dick Cheney.
COOPER: All right. John, we'll be back with you shortly.
Explosions today in the West Bank. Wolf Blitzer has the latest in Jerusalem where it is early morning now. Wolf, the headline.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, until a few hours ago, it was a huge Palestinian security compound in Hebron. Now, it's simply rubble. We'll tell you what happened -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Thanks, Wolf.
Memories of a brutal crime, one that in a way marked the end of the peace and love era of the 1960s, that is if there ever really was one, a one-time Manson family member seeking parole again. Charles Feldman is on that tonight. Charles, the headline.
CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, for the 14th time, a parole board has slammed the door shut on a follower of Charles Manson. Will it be forever? Maybe not. I'll tell you why later -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right. We'll be back with all of you in a moment.
Also coming up tonight, one small Colorado town, a rash of child sexual abuse, and it has nothing to do with the Catholic Church, nothing to do with what we think of as the classic pedophile, which makes it all the more frightening; that story tonight from Kathy Slobogin.
All that to come, but we begin with a medical procedure two million Americans undergo every year from Katie Couric, who got hers done on network television, to presidents of the United States, in which case, the story normally gets about three paragraphs on Page 22.
So it's more than a bit odd to lead the program tonight with the news that President Bush will have a routine colonoscopy at Camp David tomorrow. A year ago, we wouldn't have made a big deal of it. But then again, a year ago, neither would the White House. Here's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice over): The president will undergo a routine colonoscopy Saturday at Camp David and take an extraordinary step as a wartime precaution.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going, I'm going to be sedated for a period of time and we'll transfer power to the vice president during that time.
KING: White House doctors say the president is in superb health and Mr. Bush himself put in a plug for preventative medicine. BUSH: I do recommend and urge that, you know, people take get these precautionary tests and take a look.
KING: Colonoscopy is a cancer screening recommended for men over 50, 4.3 million were performed in the United States in 2000, and it will be the third time Mr. Bush has undergone the procedure.
The first was in July, 1998, the second in December, 1999. In each case, doctors discovered and removed two non-cancerous polyps. Doctors recommended another check this year.
Colonoscopy usually takes 30 to 60 minutes. Sedation is recommended to minimize discomfort, and Mr. Bush's doctors chose an intravenous anesthesia called Propofol because it takes effect quickly and wears off fast as well.
But because he will be sedated and could be unconscious for a bit, Mr. Bush consulted with White House lawyers and decided to temporarily transfer power to the vice president.
BUSH: We're at war and I just want to be super cautious. He'll realize he's not going to be president that long.
KING: The voluntary transfer of power is governed by Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. It has been done just once before. In July, 1985, President Reagan had cancer surgery and transferred power for about eight hours to his vice president, the current president's father.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING (on camera): Now Vice President Cheney, we are told, will be here at the White House first thing in the morning. Sometime after arriving, he will become the acting President of the United States, probably though only for perhaps as long as three hours.
It will work like this. As the president is sedated, he will sign a letter to the leaders of Congress, informing them officially that he is transferring power. After the procedure, once the president feels up to it, he will sign a second letter, transmit that to the congressional leadership and reassume the powers of the presidency -- Anderson.
COOPER: It seems like a pretty radical thing to do, transferring power for such a minor procedure. Is this simply a case of erring on the side of caution?
KING: It is. Because of the ongoing military operations overseas and because we are approaching July 4th and the threat of terrorism here at home, it is viewed at high at the moment, and so the president, we are told, had several conversations with the White House lawyers, and said let's play it as carefully, as cautiously as we can.
It's just as the president said it today, we're at war. He just thought this was the best thing to do. White House officials think though that Dick Cheney will be the acting president, you saw the president himself joking there, maybe an hour, three at the most.
COOPER: All right, John King, thanks very much.
As you point out, the war on terror continues, of course. Investigators think they have found evidence that accused dirty bomber Jose Padilla expected to link up with a network of al Qaeda members still operating in the United States. Here now is CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In a speech before the American Muslim Council, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the terrorist threat is nearly invisible.
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: The frontlines are right here at home, in our own streets, in our own cities, and in our own neighborhoods.
ARENA: Mueller has admitted there are individuals in the U.S. under surveillance. Sources tell CNN FBI field offices continue to watch an undisclosed number of people that are here legally and illegally for clues that could lead to so-called sleeper cells, terrorist units awaiting orders for future attacks.
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL) INTELLIGENCE VICE CHAIRMAN: The question is where are these people? Are they in the fabric of this country? Are they citizens? Are they lying low to hit us again? I think we have to be concerned with all of that.
ARENA: Take, for example, Jose Padilla. He was on his way to the U.S., according to officials, as part of a plot to build and set off a radioactive dirty bomb. Law enforcement sources tell CNN it's highly unlikely he had the resources or skill to pull that off alone.
The FBI arrested Padilla before he could make contact with anyone here in the United States. Sources say he called this man, Adam Hassoun of Sunrise, Florida, before his trip to the U.S. Hassoun is in custody for a visa violation.
CNN has reported the two knew each other, even attended the same mosque in Florida. But was Padilla counting on Hassoun to hook him up with other al Qaeda operatives at work in this country? That's what investigators are trying to find out.
PAUL BREMER, MARSH CONSULTING CHAIRMAN: That involves things like 24-hour surveillance. It may involve where the courts will order it, wiretaps on people's phones, or Internet connections and so forth.
ARENA: FBI officials around the country, contacted by CNN, have said they don't feel they have an "accurate view of the full extent of possible terror suspects in the U.S," and some say the FBI doesn't even have the resources to keep an eye on the ones they do know about.
ARENA (on camera): Those officials also say making inroads into the Muslim community has been very difficult in some places. There remains an anti-government, anti-law enforcement sentiment among many American Muslims. Changing that is obviously a top FBI priority.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well also today, this from the special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle office, Charles Mandago (ph) told local lawmakers that terrorists may consider their city an easy target.
He gave a shortage of police as one reason, but also pointed to a number of potential collaborators who might be willing to help pull off an attack. No details on that bombshell. He did say the FBI is conducting a meaningful investigations in the Seattle area and considers several to be very significant.
On now to the Middle East, where explosions today rocked the West Bank city of Hebron, they came at Palestinian Security Headquarters, which Israel now calls a hotel for terror. Troops surrounded the compound early this week. They remain there tonight even though right now it looks like there is no longer much left for them to surround. For the latest, we go back to CNN's Wolf Blitzer in Jerusalem -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Anderson, by all accounts, there isn't anything left of what once was a huge fortress-like structure with a very rich history. It was under the control of the British, then the Jordanians, now the Palestinian Authority, a security compound.
But over the past four days, the Israelis, who have encircled that entire area, wanted Palestinian militants to leave. About 100 over the four days did leave but some 15 remained inside.
Earlier today, the Israelis did allow a Palestinian mediator to go inside to try to bring those Palestinians out. The mediator, though, came out empty-handed, saying he couldn't find anyone inside, although he did acknowledge that there were certain areas, certain rooms in that compound he couldn't get to.
By the end of the day, the Israelis decided they had no choice. They went inside. They went in with bags. They emerged themselves without those bags. Very shortly, within a matter of a few minutes, eyewitnesses said the explosions did occur, a series of explosions that lit up the skies over Hebron.
The Israelis are not commenting right now on the fate of anyone inside. Journalists can't get to that area. It's a sealed off area. The Israelis do say that it was done in order to try to prevent terrorist strikes against Israel.
The Israelis have gone into some seven West Bank towns. Some 700,000 Palestinians in the West Bank are living under Israeli military curfew right now. The Israelis say that following that back- to-back series of bus bombings here in Jerusalem last week, they say they have no choice but to take these kinds of measures -- Anderson.
COOPER: Obviously a difficult story to report on given the limited access we have. There is a photo that has been getting a lot of play today. It purports to show a Palestinian toddler dressed as a suicide bomber. It has been getting a lot of coverage, as I said. What do you know about this photo?
BLITZER: Well, there's no way we can determine, Anderson, whether the photo is authentic. The Israeli military did release the picture, a little baby with the explosive belts around the baby.
It was in all the Israeli newspapers today, was featured on Israel television. Israeli officials say it underscores Palestinian commitment to incite terror against the Israelis.
One of the relatives of the toddler was quoted as saying that it was just a joke at a party and shouldn't be taken seriously. Saeb Erakat, the Palestinian official, said it's an unacceptable joke, if in fact it was a joke, and it's something that the Palestinians don't support.
At the same time, it's the source of a lot of controversy. It's getting a lot of attention here. That photo, by the way was found, the Israeli military says, when they went into a home in Hebron.
COOPER: All right. Wolf Blitzer, thanks very much for joining us tonight.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll have the story of a small Colorado town dealing with an epidemic of sex abuse cases. But up next, a dramatic parole hearing for a one-time member of the Manson family.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, it was a gruesome crime by any standards a band of crazed young women, led by a wild-eyed drifter named Charles Manson went on a killing rampage through the Hollywood hills. The crimes and trial got wall-to-wall coverage for months, more than one book, the movie "Helter Skelter," and a number of songs on the Beatles "White" album.
Among those convicted in the killings, 19-year-old Leslie Van Houten. She spent the last 33 years in prison, been denied parole 13 times now. Van Houten is now 52. She's been a model prisoner and going to her 14th parole hearing today. Her supporters said if the idea of parole means anything at all, Van Houten ought to be judged on who she is now, not just who she was then. Here again, Charles Feldman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FELDMAN (voice over): With that, a California Parole Board denied 52-year-old Leslie Van Houten's parole for the 14th time in her 32 years in prison.
LESLIE VAN HOUTEN, CONVICTED MURDERER: I accept responsibility of both Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca's deaths legally but also morally, that I am responsible for both of their deaths, and I live with that, and I accept it fully. FELDMAN: It was 1969, the year men landed on the moon, the year Charles Manson and a rag-tag band of followers tried to start a race war by slaying eight people, including actress Sharon Tate, then plan to make it appear as if blacks had committed the murders.
While Van Houten was not present at the Tate murder, she was convicted for the murder of Rosemary La Bianca and her husband. The La Biancas were chosen at random to be bloody sacrifices for Manson's crazy plan. Van Houten stabbed Mrs. La Bianca some 16 times.
STEVEN RAY, PROSECUTOR: She told Diane Lake (ph) a family member that she felt like a shark just stabbing Rosemary over and over and over again.
FELDMAN: Van Houten claims she is now rehabilitated, a model prisoner, and no longer under Manson's spell.
VAN HOUTEN: It's a very difficult thing to live with what I did when I was 19 years old and be able to carry myself with any form of dignity as a woman of 52.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FELDMAN (on camera): This was considered Van Houten's best chance for parole, but the Parole Board says she is not remorseful enough and still needs therapy before her life sentence can ever be reconsidered. Anderson.
COOPER: Charles, where are all the other members of the Manson family, or then members of the Manson family? I take it they are all still in custody, yes?
FELDMAN: They are all still very much in custody, including of course Charles Manson. He has also tried many times to get out on parole but the chances of that ever happening are a big fat zero.
COOPER: All right. Charles Feldman, thanks very much for joining us.
It's our story. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, a devastating story, one I urge you not to miss, a small town story of child sexual abuse. The predators are not your usual suspects.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, it seems like we've gotten used to a certain kind of stereotype when we think about child sexual abuse. The image of the abuser is usually a middle-aged man with a long, sordid history as a predator. As with most stereotypes, it shatters with each new story that doesn't quite fit the mold. This is one of those stories where the threat in one small town was coming literally from the kid next door. Kathy Slobogin reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was known as a safe town, a good place to raise children. Erie, Colorado is the kind of small town where everybody knew each other, where baseball is a passion, where you didn't worry about sending your children out to play. That was all shattered last March when a mother walked in on her eight-year-old son and a 15-year-old neighbor.
DETECTIVE BRETT CALLAHAN, ERIE POLICE DEPARTMENT: She opened up the door and saw her eight-year-old son who was, you know, not fully clothed and being haste -- you know, the suspect in this case, the actual sexual act had just occurred but it was over at that point.
SLOBOGIN: Police eventually learned the eight-year-old and others had been sexually assaulted for a year by older kids in the neighborhood.
(on camera): That was just the beginning. A few weeks later, another 15-year-old and a 13-year-old were arrested. Then, an 11- year-old boy was charged with sexually assaulting two younger girls. And it didn't stop there. By the end of May, six kids between 11 and 15 were arrested for sexual crimes. The youngest victim was a seven- year-old girl.
DAVE SULLIVAN, ERIE PARENT: I remember thinking I didn't want to open the paper. Every morning, you'd open the paper and what's going to be next, or there it is again.
SLOBOGIN (voice over): Erie residents couldn't believe what had happened in their town.
LINNEA SPICER, ERIE PARENT: It was sickening. It just made me really heartbroken that I thought, well, here's just one more thing that I have to protect my kids from and talk to them about when I didn't want to have to share the truth about those ugly things that are out there.
SLOBOGIN: There are fewer children on the street now. As a precaution, the high school has stopped sending student aides to the elementary school. Parents are searching for answers, so are the police. They have no explanation for so many sexual assaults in such a short time.
One possible culprit: Police say many of the kids involved had sex videos and visited pornographic Web sites. These residents say if it can happen in Erie, it can happen anywhere.
RUTH SCHRICHTE, ERIE SCHOOL TEACHER: I don't know if there's a way to prevent it. That's what's really worrisome about this.
SLOBOGIN: Juveniles account for half of the child molestation committed in the United States each year according to a recent study.
GAIL RYAN, KEMPE CHILDREN'S CENTER: We have the culture containing so much more sexual information and nobody telling kids what the rules are.
SLOBOGIN: Gail Ryan treats adolescent sex abusers at the Kempe Center in Denver. She says the best anecdote is for grownups to be more open with kids.
RYAN: Children get messages very early in life from the adults in their lives that anything that has to do with sexuality, sexual questions, genitals that adults don't want to hear about it. They don't want to see anything and they don't want to answer questions.
SLOBOGIN: Secrecy, says Ryan, is the enemy. That's why one couple has decided to talk.
IAN STEVENSON, VICTIM'S FATHER: He appeared to be the All American kid, you know, straight A student, honor roll, Explorers, Boy Scouts.
SLOBOGIN: A year before the latest rash of sex abuse in Erie, Ian and Kiersten Stevenson's children were molested by their teenage babysitter. He lived down the street, went door-to-door handing out cards for his babysitting business. Police say there were at least a dozen victims. Their daughter, 11 months old at the time, has forgotten, but not their son, who's now four.
I. STEVENSON: It's an ongoing thing. He can't just -- they don't just turn it off like a switch. You don't take an aspirin and you're cured.
KIERSTEN STEVENSON, VICTIM'S MOTHER: It's almost like he was brainwashed. It almost is like having to deprogram him in a sense because he had internalized so deeply the sense of shame that he was worthless.
SLOBOGIN: The Stevensons want other parents to know. They're tortured by what they didn't know.
K. STEVENSON: People make the mistake of thinking of a predator, a child sex abuser as being some kind of a seasoned pedophile who has a long criminal history and you know entices the kids over to his house with bubble gum or something.
SLOBOGIN: People make the mistake of not realizing the danger could be next door.
Kathy Slobogin CNN, Erie, Colorado.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, more on what's going on in Erie. The toughest question, of course, why is it happening?
Kiersten Stevenson, the mother of two kids who were abused, you just heard her from that piece, from Kathy's piece, is here with us tonight. Also, Fred Diehl, spokesman for the Erie, Colorado police department. They are both in Denver. I appreciate both of you coming in.
Mrs. Stevenson, I don't really even know where to begin. I cannot imagine what this must be like for you, for your husband, for your children. How are you doing? K. STEVENSON: Well, it's something that we deal with on almost a day-to-day basis. Our son has been in therapy since this happened. He goes weekly and it's not -- it's something that we keep hoping we're going to turn the corner and start to see the end of it, and it's really not something that I think is going to be behind us for a long time.
COOPER: Did you have any indication? I mean, your son was three at the time, your daughter just 11 months old. Obviously, this I guess was going on previously to the incident when you finally discovered it. How did you finally discover it and did you get any indication from your son that it was going on?
K. STEVENSON: Well, it was another child involved in the case who disclosed to her mother, who was a therapist and knew that this was not something that a child of that age would make up. In hindsight, we had some indications, but not having dealt with babysitters very much, our children were very young. We really didn't -- we chocked a lot of his anxiety up to stranger anxiety, a developmental stage kind of a thing.
COOPER: You mean anxiety about when the babysitter would have come over?
K. STEVENSON: Right, and when we would leave and when we would go out, he would be anxious and not want us to leave. But again, we just thought that that was -- he did the same thing sometimes when we took him to our church and dropped him off in the daycare. So we didn't really think anything of it. But now that we look back, of course, the signs were there.
COOPER: Did you know at the time and I guess you did and certainly I didn't know until just now that 50 percent of child sex abuse is perpetrated by other young children?
K. STEVENSON: I didn't know that, but since we have come forward with our story, so many people have come to me and disclosed their own past history with sexual abuse and typically the perpetrators are teenagers, either members of their own family or extended family or kids in their neighborhood.
The prevalence of, you know, of this particular issue is really high and that's one of the reasons why we felt it was so important for us to talk about the issue because it thrives in secrecy.
I mean secrecy is the best friend to the perpetrator and it's no friend to the victim and so we feel it's a very important thing that parents need to start talking to their children about.
COOPER: The perpetrator in your case was 16 years old. What has happened to him now?
K. STEVENSON: He's currently in a juvenile treatment facility. He's turning 18 this August and there's some question as to whether or not he's going to remain in some kind of custody or be released at that time. COOPER: He might actually be released?
K. STEVENSON: Yes. Yes, because he's a juvenile.
COOPER: Mr. Diehl, I'd like to bring you in here. How widespread is this probably in Erie, Colorado and do you have any idea why this is going on?
FRED DIEHL, SPOKESMAN, ERIE, COLORADO POLICE DEPARTMENT: You know, that obviously is the question of the night and there's no good answer as to why. We do know nationally the statistics are staggering as far as the sex abuse cases are concerned, and it's shocking to the community as you've heard in that piece by Kathy Slobogin.
But, if there's any positive that's coming out of this perhaps, perhaps Erie is a community that's well equipped to deal with this situation based on the strength of our community and police partnership. We know in at least one instance, it was a student who tipped an officer, an officer who's situated in our schools.
COOPER: Well, how many cases have there been to this date? I mean, do you know how many perpetrators there have been?
DIEHL: Yes. Since March -- through March 25 through May 31, we've have had 12 investigations. There has been six arrests of juvenile males, two arrests of adult males, and we believe there has been 15 victims involved with those cases.
COOPER: Do you believe there are victims that you do not yet know about?
DIEHL: Our investigations have been complete and thorough, and there is no reason to believe that's the case.
COOPER: Is there any connection between these perpetrators? I mean, these are teenagers who I guess at times live in the same neighborhood. I mean, did they talk about this? Was this some sort of group activity?
DIEHL: This was not a group activity. This was not a gang activity. In the initial three cases that led to three arrests, they knew each other in the sense that they lived in the same neighborhood.
COOPER: What -- I mean, some parent listening to this who, you know, every parent has babysitters. Maybe I should ask you, Mrs. Stevenson, what should a parent look for? What should a parent watch out for?
STEVENSON: Well, I think you definitely have to know and trust the people that you are bringing into your home. I certainly don't think that all teenage males are bad kids or possible perpetrators, but I personally would never have a male babysitter again for my children. I think that the potential for problems there is just too great, unfortunately, and I think that you really have to trust that inner voice, whatever kind of signal you are getting that is telling you that something is off kilter. You really need to listen to that. I think in our case we maybe sensed that something was amiss, and because we were so trusting, we just kind of suppressed that.
I really think it's important to listen to your children and to encourage them to have frank conversation with them and tell them that if they ever have anybody who inappropriately touches them or makes them feel uncomfortable, that they need to come forward and they need to tell an adult.
COOPER: Mr. Stevenson, we only have about a minute left. But I read that you said that perhaps one of the most difficult things about this is that it's made you and your husband look at your children through a different lens. How so?
STEVENSON: Well, it has. I mean, our son had some issues with boundaries. He wouldn't tell us if other kids were hurting him. He had been told that he was such a bad kid, and to keep everything quiet. If anybody disturbed him or hurt him, not to say anything. And so it's been very difficult to try and get him more normalized in his behavior. And it makes us question things that we never really had reason to question before.
It's difficult, because now we read everything through this different scenario, and it's really made life a lot more difficult than it should be in raising our kids.
COOPER: Mrs. Stevenson, I very much appreciate you being with us tonight. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances. And Fred Diehl as well, thank you very much for coming in, both of you.
DIEHL: Thank you very much for having me. If I may, Anderson, Kiersten did touch on some excellent points, and that's what many parents are going through in Erie right now. A few weeks after the initial investigations, we have had a community forum. We are continuing that outreach with videotape education and getting people in contact, if they choose, to the right child advocacy groups here in our area, and we're following up with another community forum at the beginning of the school year, which we hope will help again answer some of these questions they have.
COOPER: OK. Well, thank you very much for adding that. And both of you, again, thank you for being with us tonight.
STEVENSON: Thank you.
COOPER: Still to come on "NEWSNIGHT," the uncanny connection between today's world of technology and stories written decades ago.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the story of Philip K. Dick, the man you didn't know you knew. Nearly 50 years ago, he penned a story that's now a blockbuster. The man behind "Minority Report" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We want to spend a few minutes on a new Hollywood hot shot, the visionary behind the hit movie "Minority Report" and a few others. He's not lunching at the Ivy or any other industry hang-out with some agent from William Morris. In fact, he's been dead for 20 years. Sounds like a Beth Nissen kind of story? That's because it is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You probably know something of the work of Philip K. Dick, without knowing that you do. Have you seen the new movie "Minority Report?" It's based on a 1954 story by Philip K. Dick. Did you see the classic sci-fi film "Blade Runner?" That was based on Dick's 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" How about "Total Recall?" That's based on a Dick short story, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale."
Philip K. Dick was an almost compulsive writer. Before his death in 1982, he wrote 40 novels and 120 short stories, most all of them set in the future and seeming to describe it.
RUSSELL GALEN, LITERARY AGENT FOR PHILIP K. DICK: He's thought of as a writer who somehow predicted the future or rather predicted the moment that we are living in now.
NISSEN: His many avid readers cite dozens of uncanny connections between Dick's fiction and real life. The most timely, in "Minority Report," Dick imagined a government authority that works to prevent crimes before they have been committed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MINORITY REPORT")
TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: I'm placing you under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marks.
Give the man (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NISSEN: In the minds of many of Dick's readers, that's not so far removed from actual homeland security measures, and the detention by U.S. authorities of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.
GALEN: I can't channel him, but I can absolutely imagine the telephone calls and letters I'd be getting right now, where he would be saying, can you believe what's happening in the news? That's what I wrote about 50 years ago.
NISSEN: Dick often wrote worriedly about technology out of control. In a story on which "Blade Runner" is based, Dick imagined an over-mechanized world in which live animals are nearly extinct and people keep robotic animals. In 2002, dozens of animals are near extinction, and robotic animals are not only exist but are programmed to interact with humans and each other.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are now entering a safety zone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NISSEN: In many of his stories, including the one on which "Total Recall" is based, Dick wrote about technology that is hyper- vigilant, disturbingly invasive. More and more, real humans live under surveillance, peered at by peers, their movements watched, their purchases, their preferences tracked.
GALEN: He saw a world in which humans were losing their power over machines and the machines were gaining more and more power. I mean, if he lived today in the world of cell phones and the Internet and computers, library computers where you can go in certain places and can't go in other places, he literally would have felt that he was beginning to live inside of one of his own novels, and it would have disturbed him immensely.
NISSEN: In most book stores, the works of Philip K. Dick are on the science fiction shelves, but they could just as well be in the philosophy section. Dick struggled with big questions. How do you know what is real? What does it mean to be human?
GALEN: He was someone who loved to think. He loved to wrestle with philosophical ideas. And his unique achievement, or almost unique, is that he found a way to do that in literature, but in a way that was also very entertaining.
NISSEN: Writing of clarity and brilliance. Might be ideal for reading on a clear, bright summer's day.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, some anchoring advice from an expert. But first, road food.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: OK. Full disclosure here. Aaron Brown would demand no less. I live in New York, pizza capital of the world, but order Domino's pizza three times a week. It's true. What can I do? To me, road food means beef jerky. So chow hound I'm not, but hey, I'm willing to learn. And last night, I sat down with two great teachers, Jane and Michael Stern. Their latest book, "Road Food," is a guide to the best local eats from Maine to Miami, and the variety is something to see and to eat.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: So, Jane and Michael, so how did you start in this line of work? I mean, this is an ideal job for people who love food.
MICHAEL STERN, CO-AUTHOR, "ROAD FOOD": Twenty-five years ago, we were playing hookie and decided to see America. We started driving around the country and kept looking for that guidebook that would tell us where to eat the great local food. We never found it. And finally decided somebody should write that guidebook, and that was the first edition of "Road Food."
JANE STERN, CO-AUTHOR, "ROAD FOOD": You know, twenty-five years ago America really had sort of a culinary inferiority complex about our regional food. Back in the '70s when we started writing "Road Food," the White House had a French chef. So you know, nobody thought American food was really worth eating.
And I guess somehow we kind of knew on some intuitive level that if we just got out there and hit the road and got off at exits and just went around little towns like Uncertain, Texas or Gnaw Bone, Indiana that we would find something good to eat.
COOPER: There's good food in Gnaw Bone, Indiana?
M. STERN: Actually, there is.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Only in the spring?
M. STERN: It's true.
(CROSSTALK)
J. STERN: Of course.
M. STERN: The point is that like the great American food is not necessarily the fancy, deluxe food where you need a reservation.
COOPER: Well, I was going to say, what do you look for? I mean, what, you know, in some places you look for where all the police officers go or where the construction workers go. What do you look for?
M. STERN: Good sign. We actually roll down the window and sniff. That's the best way to find a great restaurant. You're driving in a strange town, you smell the biscuits, you smell the country ham sizzling in the skillet.
COOPER: So you drive very slowly.
M. STERN: Yes, we do. And we keep the windows open. And we found some of the best road food restaurants just by using our noses.
J. STERN: We got a weird tip, which I don't know why it always works, but it does. If you find a restaurant with either a cow or a pig statue on the roof, the food is always good. And if the pig is dancing, if it's like, you know, Joe Bubba barbecue and the pig is just dancing around, four-star barbecue. And if it's a steak house, look for a big cow -- bull.
M. STERN: Or, for that matter, a chicken or a crab.
J. STERN: That's true.
M. STERN: They're indicators of a good restaurant too. (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: So, you know, everyone knows New Orleans and Buffalo for wings. Is there a regional delicacy that people don't know about that you would recommend?
J. STERN: Persimmons in Gnaw Bone, Indiana.
COOPER: Other than persimmons, yes, in Gnaw Bone, Indiana.
M. STERN: Virtually every city and every region has its own unique specialty. For example in Northern Michigan, especially in the summer, you go there, you eat the best sweet bing cherries right off the tree. There are roadside stands where you get washed cherries ready to eat. There is nothing as good as that.
J. STERN: Or in Western Iowa, a specialty with the unfortunate name of loose meats.
M. STERN: It's better than it sounds.
J. STERN: And in Nebraska, there are runses (ph), which are sort of little turnovers with meat in them. And Upper Peninsula of Michigan has pasties, which are...
M. STERN: Spelled like pasties, but it's pasties. It's actually a Cornish dish that the miners brought there.
COOPER: You must get this question all the time. What, bar none, your favorite place? I mean, is there one place or there are 10 that you can pick out?
J. STERN: Oh, God. Peppy's (ph) Pizza in New Haven, Connecticut is our, you know...
M. STERN: Speak for yourself, Jane. I personally...
J. STERN: If I was on death row and you know, I had my last meal, it would be a white clam pizza from Peppy's (ph).
COOPER: This is so sad, because, as I told you, I went to school in New Haven for four years, and I never ate at Peppy's.
M. STERN: This is sacrilegious, you know.
J. STERN: I think they should take your diploma back.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Where were we?
M. STERN: No, I would go to Bluff City, Tennessee to the Ridgewood (ph) Barbecue. You know, every part of the United States has its own distinct style of barbecue. They hills of Tennessee in the eastern part of the state have the most delicious barbecue. This is long-smoked pork shoulders that are just fall-apart tender, bathed in a kind of tangy, spicy, hot but not too hot sauce that just makes your mouth water to smell it.
J. STERN: You look like you're going to pass out.
(CROSSTALK)
M. STERN: No, the Ridgewood (ph) Barbecue has been great for the last 30 years. And it's actually one of those places that has been passed down to a second generation, which I love seeing, because a lot of these places, you know, were established by somebody 30, 40, 50 years ago and now a second or even third generation has taken them over. Because I think there's a sense of respect for this food as a real part of our culture.
COOPER: Are these roadside places going away? I mean, more and more you strip malls, you see McDonald's, you see...
J. STERN: They are endangered.
M. STERN: It happens.
J. STERN: You know, as the strip goes up and McDonald's and Applebee's and Outback and all the franchise places come in, the mom- and-pop restaurants are finding it harder and harder to stay in business. But we have over 500 restaurants in "Road Food," and they have managed not to just stay in business but improve over the years.
M. STERN: And the thing is, for a lot of people, especially in small towns, these restaurants are not just places to eat. They are places they go every morning at 6:00 o'clock and trade news, gossip, information and friendship over coffee.
COOPER: Well, I was going to say, I mean, why, and I guess this answers this question, but why is road food important? Why is it bad that there are just more and more strip malls? I mean, why is it important to try to keep these places?
J. STERN: Well, because you don't taste the food of the region if you go to a fast-food restaurant. You taste the same McBurger or, you know, whatever just from coast to coast. So how would you know you are in Arkansas, or Texas, or Montana? I mean, you want the food of its place.
And people do that when they go to Italy or they go to France. They eat regionally, but in America, people don't think that we have strong regional food, but we do.
M. STERN: We do. And it's more than food. It's really a part of the culture. It's really an expression of who people are. It's like folk art, but it's edible.
COOPER: Even better. All right. Well, something to keep in mind for the 4th of July. Thanks very much.
M. STERN: Thanks.
J. STERN: Bye-bye. COOPER: Bye-bye.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, next on NEWSNIGHT, "Segment Seven." It's all about me. Who said anchors are egomaniacal?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So "Playboy's" women of Enron finally strode onto the newsstands today. I admit, the pictures were captivating, but it was the women's word, their insights that really stayed with me. Carey Lorenzo wants to become an elementary school teacher. I'm sure parents across America will be thrilled to hear one of the profound truths she might share with the kids. "We were born nude." That's deep.
Courtnie Parker, posing with a saddle, learned a key lesson while at Enron. Quote: "With men," she says, "size matters, but with companies, it doesn't." The young have such wisdom.
Vanessa Schulte seemed most damaged by her brush with Enron. Now confronted with the desk, she apparently finds the need to mount it while nibbling on a pen wearing nothing but a pin-striped blouse and a garter belt. Her turn-ons? A solid retirement plan. Her turn-offs? Hairy backs and accountants.
I should point out that I was recently offered a spread in "Playgirl" magazine. I kid you not. Naturally, I turned them down. I don't think America needs to see my pale, skinny little chicken leg sprawled out on some shag carpet, but still I dream of what might have been.
Speaking of me, did you see what Harry Rosenberg of the "L.A. Times" said about me? Well, in all honesty, he was reviewing Connie Chung's news program, but way down at the very bottom of the review, he does talk about me.
He says I was picked to fill in for Aaron because Carrot Top was not available. And he's right. Carrot Top is very busy, but Carrot Top knows how important mentoring is, and he's always willing to lend a hand to anchors in need.
I talked with him earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, Mr. Top, I appreciate you coming in to speak with me tonight. I know you have a show at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, but I know how important mentoring young anchors is to you. What's your advice? How can I get better as an anchor?
CARROT TOP, ENTERTAINER: You. Oh, my goodness, like I'm going to give you advice. Hold on a second, I'm getting word from Connie's people, hold on a second. No, I don't know. I don't know how to help you. I think the hair. You need some hair like this. You know? I don't know about that bow tie. The guy that wears the bow tie on "CROSSFIRE"...
COOPER: Tucker Carlson? You don't like him?
CARROT TOP: I like him. I don't know -- the bow tie. It's kind of, you know...
COOPER: So I should go for more of a Tucker Carlson look?
CARROT TOP: Well, maybe. He looks very distinguished. He looks like he's 12, that guy, but he has got the bow tie, so it kind of gets a little, you know, people will probably listen to him.
COOPER: Well, in your opinion, what do you think makes a good anchor?
CARROT TOP: I like when they do this: With Anderson Cooper on sports. Little promos. I like that when they turn and they -- with Margaret on news.
COOPER: Do you think if I really practiced hard, I can be as good an anchor as you?
CARROT TOP: Probably not. Yeah. Stay in school. That's what I say. And do this a lot. They always -- I work for a bad news program. They don't even clean my paper. I get the rough edges here.
COOPER: Let me see if I can do this. Hold on, hold on, let me try this.
CARROT TOP: Are you doing it? There you go.
You'll always do better than me. I'm a comedian, for God's sakes, you know.
COOPER: All right. Well, Carrot, I never thought I would actually be saying this sentence, but thank you, Carrot Top.
CARROT TOP: No, thank you. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That's NEWSNIGHT for tonight, and for those of you who were concerned, I put everything back in Aaron's office just as it was. I promise.
I'm Anderson Cooper. I've got two more days at this if they'll let me. I will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend.
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