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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Supreme Court Rules on Affirmative Action; U.S. Troops Engage Syrian Border Guards; Dean Officially Announces Presidential Run

Aired June 23, 2003 - 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.

KATE SNOW, GUEST HOST: Good evening, everyone.
When the Supreme Court heard arguments this spring in the affirmative action cases decided today, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had sharp words for one lawyer. "You are speaking in absolutes" she said that it isn't quite that.

Today, the court echoed that distaste for absolutes. We do know today's decisions mean race can and will continue to be used as a factor in college admissions but how they go about it will face intense scrutiny from the courts. The decisions will be debated long after today's students graduate from college.

And the fate of affirmative action is where we begin the whip tonight. Bob Franken has been covering the story since the Supreme Court issued its decisions this morning -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, some people were expecting repudiation but instead the justices affirmed affirmative action sort of, and as one lawyer put it Bakke is back.

SNOW: Thank you, Bob.

To Iraq now and the latest on the hunt for Saddam Hussein, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre is on that tonight, Jamie the headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Kate, Pentagon officials are downplaying the idea that Saddam Hussein or his sons may have been killed in a raid by the highly secretive Task Force 20. The U.S. commandos apparently did cross into Syria and after an engagement five Syrians were wounded -- back to you.

SNOW: On to the race for 2004 and the latest Democrat to formally announce his candidacy. Candy Crowley is in Burlington, Vermont with the story tonight -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, more than a year ago when he first started running nobody could remember his name, but today as ex-Vermont Governor Howard Dean officially announced his candidacy he has already won candidate with the most buzz.

SNOW: Candy, thanks.

On to a murder case in Texas, a woman accused of a shocking crime. Ed Lavandera has that tonight from Dallas, Ed what's the headline?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate. A bizarre murder trial underway in Fort Worth this week, a 27-year-old Texas woman says it was an accident when she ran into a homeless man but prosecutors want her to spend the rest of her life in prison. They say her actions after the accident speak very loudly as to what should happen to her -- Kate.

SNOW: Back with all of you in just a moment.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, an enormous roadblock in the push for peace in the Middle East, how to convince Israeli settlers to leave what they believe is their God-given land. Jason Bellini tonight talked with settlers on the West Bank.

And, Jeff Greenfield on the highway maintenance guy in Long Island who has another job title as well, the all-purpose, ever present man on the street, all that to come.

But we begin with the Supreme Court's split decision on affirmative action. The issue has tied up court and country for generations. The decision's impact stretches far beyond who gets into which school and why. It touches business and politics and even national defense. We'll try to cover all the bases tonight.

First though the facts of the case, here again CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): The court upheld affirmative action but split on just how far it should go. In a case involving the University of Michigan Law School, the justices by the slimmest of margins, 5-4, sustained the notion, as Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that "the use of race is not prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution when officials consider the race of an individual applicant as one factor in a flexible effort to achieve meaningful diversity in education."

But at the same time, the court rejected a more structured admissions policy at Michigan's undergraduate school, one that automatically assigned extra points to minorities.

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that decision for the 6-3 majority. Such a program "violates the Equal Protection Clause. This went too far," he continued, "in considering race because it was the determining factor."

The split rulings allowed both sides to declare victory.

MARY SUE COLEMAN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: What it means is its core is that affirmative action may still be used and the court has given us a road map to get there and so we are very, very excited and very pleased.

TERRY PELL, PRESIDENT, CTR. OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: At the end of the day, the court raised the bar. The court made it harder for schools to take race into account.

FRANKEN: At the end of the day the outcome leaves a result many believe mirrors the so-called Bakke decision of 1978 in which the court said quotas were illegal but race could still be a consideration. This affects more than just school admissions.

TOM GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT APPELLATE ATTORNEY: Today's decisions are also a road map, not just for universities but affirmative action generally. The Supreme Court has told us that so long as you have a nuance to inquiry, one that looks not just at race but other factors.

FRANKEN: As for the president who earlier complained both Michigan programs amounted to a quota system now said these decisions "seek a careful balance between the goal of campus diversity and the fundamental principle of equal treatment under the law."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: But others saw it as confusion. In his dissent, Justice Scalia complained the split double-header seems perversely designed to prolong the controversy and the litigation, and Kate that seems like pretty much a sure thing.

SNOW: Absolutely. Bob, did we expect this? I mean is this exactly how opinion -- court watchers, rather, thought this was going to come down with Sandra Day O'Connor right in the middle?

FRANKEN: Well, because of that fact and because the court was split as it was, everybody did believe that there would be some sort of split result which would mirror Bakke, so this is what everybody got. There was concern among those who were supporters of affirmative action that this conservative court might dismantle it but things fell into place just as much as with hindsight now we can say it looked like they would do.

SNOW: And, any word on the other big question looming out there whether we're going to see any retirements before the end of this session?

FRANKEN: Well, that's one of the big questions and there's a split feeling about that. Of course, there have been rumors about that for a long time but some indications that it won't happen, particularly the fact that the justices have agreed to an extraordinary hearing in September to hear the campaign finance law discussion which, of course, wouldn't give much time for a replacement to be put in.

SNOW: And more decisions expected on Thursday, right Bob?

FRANKEN: One decision that everybody is looking for is the Texas sodomy case, whether or not sodomy laws can be applied strictly to homosexuals as they are in several states, including Texas.

SNOW: Bob Franken tonight with us, thank you so much. In her majority opinion, Justice O'Connor had this to say. "We expect that 25 years from now the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary." And perhaps the day will come when people aren't so divided and the issue isn't so corrosive but judging by the debate today on campus we're not quite there yet.

From Ann Arbor, Michigan, here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK (voice-over): We watch as Agnes Aleobua spreads the word on the Ann Arbor campus.

AGNES ALEOBUA, SUPPORTS DECISION: You didn't hear? Yes, yes, we won. They upheld the law school case so it's a victory.

FLOCK: The University of Michigan can consider race in deciding who it lets in.

ALEOBUA: I know that my test scores and G.P.A. is lower.

FLOCK: Without that affirmative action Agnes, a senior education major, admits to us she wouldn't be here. So, why do you belong here?

ALEOBUA: Black and minority students do score lower on those tests. They do score lower, have lower G.P.A.s but that doesn't say anything about their mental capacity, about their intelligence.

FLOCK: That's no fair, says junior business major and young Republican Mike Philips.

MIKE PHILIPS, OPPOSES DECISION: Eventually, you know, as people work up, the university will level out but, in general, people should be here based on what they've accomplished.

FLOCK: The court did throw out the undergraduate admissions policy that gave 20 extra points, out of 150, to students just for being Black, Hispanic, or Native American. It upheld the more subjective law school plan which new Dean Evan Caminker administers.

You don't have a point system. What do you do?

EVAN CAMINKER, DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL: That's correct. We look at every single application individually. We look at a student's objective as well as intangible factors, work experience, where they grew up, geography.

FLOCK: The court says race can be one of those factors but some say using race to either hurt or help minorities is wrong. Carl Cohen's taught here for 48 years.

PROF. CARL COHEN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: I think it is a fundamental principle of morality that people should be treated equally without regard to the color of their skin.

FLOCK: If you didn't get in even though you had better scores than somebody, wouldn't that make you mad?

ROB GOODSPEED, SUPPORTS DECISION: No, actually not. A majority of the students, I believe, who apply are qualified to come here, so it's not a matter of, you know, just picking the most qualified. It's a matter of building a good student body.

FLOCK: And, according to this and many other schools, the best student body is a diverse student body. I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: More on the court's decision a bit later in the program.

On now to a decision that essentially takes a suspected terrorist out of the normal U.S. legal system. President Bush today officially designated a Qatari man as an enemy combatant.

That distinction means he could be tried by a military tribunal without most of the legal rights defendants are normally entitled to. The man has been in custody since December, 2001. Prosecutors say he was caught with more than 1,000 credit card files on his laptop along with pictures of the 9/11 attacks and a loyalty oath to Osama bin Laden.

Now, to the hunt for Saddam Hussein and a battle that played out on the border between Syria and Iraq, are the two connected? Pentagon officials aren't quite sure. They have their doubts but tonight are considering the possibility.

Here again, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Pentagon sources say it was the capture of General Abid Hamid Mahmud last week, Saddam Hussein's closest confidante that led to the attack carried out by Task Force 20, a U.S. commando force whose existence was only recently acknowledged by the Pentagon.

It wasn't what Mahmud said, sources tell CNN, but other intelligence related to his capture that led the U.S. to target a convoy of a half dozen vehicles leaving a compound in the border town of Kaime (ph) Wednesday night believed to be carrying former senior leaders of the regime. There was at least a hope, said one Pentagon official that Saddam Hussein or his sons might be among them.

According to sources, a U.S. Air Force Predator drone armed with Hellfire missiles tracked the vehicles which split into two groups. A Special Operations AC-130 gunship was called in. At some point, the Predator launched its Hellfire missiles. The AC-130 opened fire with its 105 mm canon and a commando team from Task Force 20 moved in.

According to sources, after the initial attack a person was spotted on foot near the border with Syria. U.S. Special Operations forces pursued the individual and some Syrian border guards showed up. Pentagon officials say at that point the U.S. troops may have crossed the border into Syria. In any event, there was an engagement and three Syrians were wounded and had to be given medical treatment by the U.S. military. It's not clear if they were shot from the ground or the air.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Now, some local villagers are claiming that the people that were attacked by the U.S. military were simply sheep smugglers. Well, Pentagon officials say they may have been smugglers but that U.S. intelligence strongly suggests that what they were smuggling was senior Iraqi regime members, not sheep.

Now, about 20 people were taken into custody and most of those have been let go according to Pentagon sources. Those sources also say that DNA tests will be conducted at the site to rule out the possibility that Saddam Hussein could have been among the dead -- Kate.

SNOW: Jamie, so if they took people in custody then not obviously not everyone was hurt in this convoy. What kind of damage did they do, though, do they know to the convoy?

MCINTYRE: Well, it looks like they destroyed some of the vehicles and they did kill a number of people including potentially some of these senior Iraqi officials, at least that's who they think they were.

The people that were captured were the ones that weren't necessarily in the vehicles that were hit and a lot -- again, they do believe that some of those might just be smugglers who were not senior regime members.

But again, this was based on intelligence that the U.S. gathered along with the capture of General Mahmud and Pentagon sources say that intelligence has given them many more leads to follow, so we can expect that there might be operations like this again in the near future.

SNOW: Was all of this happening in Iraq or did it cross over the border into Syria?

MCINTYRE: Well, there was a point, it's a little unclear, but there is a point where it appears that U.S. troops, Special Operations forces, did cross the border into Syria although that's still a matter of dispute. That's where the engagement came with the Syrian border guards and, again, still confusion about whether that was the result of ground fire or perhaps fire from the air.

SNOW: Jamie McIntyre, at the Pentagon for us tonight, thank you.

Still ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT more on today's Supreme Court rulings.

And later, do they help preserve peace or are they a roadblock to peace in the Mid East? We'll visit Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

And later, the man who has become the voice of the people Jeff Greenfield explains.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: More now on a landmark day at the Supreme Court but maybe not the most decisive one. The court, like the country, is deeply divided on many issues not just affirmative action. The split decision today reflected that.

With us to talk about it are Stuart Taylor of "The National Journal" and "Newsweek," and National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, both in Washington. Welcome to you both.

STUART TAYLOR, COLUMNIST "NATIONAL JOURNAL": Nice to be here.

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

SNOW: Let me start with how big a legal change this is going to be. Is this a big deal? Is this going to be a big change from what the court found about 25 years ago in the Bakke case?

Well, I think this not a big change from what the court found 25 years ago but it's a very big victory for the proponents of affirmative action. Twenty-five years ago, Justice Powell elaborated on the affirmative action rationale that you can't have rigid quotas but you can use race as a plus factor. But he wrote only for himself. He was the deciding vote but is opinion was only for himself.

And since then, there's been an increasingly raging battle as to whether that was really the law of the land and so these test cases went back up to the Supreme Court. We finally got the culmination point and today the court, by a 5-4 vote but I would say quite boldly and unblinkingly said affirmative action is perfectly permissible under certain circumstances.

Racial diversity is a compelling state interest that justifies considering race as a factor and as long as you don't have rigid quotas and you don't have a point system that just automatically and mechanistically gives points to people you can have a system such as the University of Michigan law school admissions program which will now become the model I suspect for every admissions program in the country. It will probably be the hottest selling thing in higher education is their very boring admission system.

SNOW: Stuart, it seemed like all sides claimed victory today though. You could sort of read it either way. Who do you think won?

TAYLOR: I think Nina is right. I think the people who support affirmative action won a huge victory and I think those who oppose it are kind of grasping for little straws. As Nina said, anyone who models their affirmative action program, their racial preference program on the University of Michigan law school, which is easy to do, can not only use racial preferences but can use very large ones. According to the lower court record, having a Black or Hispanic or Native American preference is worth more than a full grade point on your average. It's better than having, if you're got the right color skin plus a B average you beat out somebody with the wrong color skin plus an A average.

I think it is a big deal. It's not a big change but since the Bakke case 25 years ago, since affirmative action kind of got rolling, it's always been said by the court and others that well this is temporary.

Sooner or later it will fade away and what the court said today is well it's good for another 25 years at least and, although Justice O'Connor suggested in the majority opinion that she suspected after 25 years, expected that it would be phased out she seemed to be assuming something that's not true.

She was assuming that the academic cap, the racial gap between Black and Hispanic students on the one hand and Asian and White students on the other hand that leads to the use of racial preferences is the only way to get respectable numbers of Black and Hispanics into elite schools that that gap is narrowing and, in fact, since 1988 it hasn't narrowed a bit and it's been getting wider.

SAT score, average SAT gap between Blacks and Whites for example which has been very large all along has gotten larger, a little bit larger each of the last three years.

SNOW: Nina, go back to the implications here. This has broader implications does it not, not just for universities but also for businesses, for companies that might have practices that are affirmative action policies for hiring? Does it not have those implications as well?

TOTENBERG: Well, certainly the proponents and opponents of affirmative action will see this as having enormous implications for the workplace and for set asides in contracting and other things like that.

I think that that might be going too far because one of the things that Justice O'Connor said was essentially universities are the training ground for our elite classes, our leadership classes, you know Senators, governors, judges. The people who are the leaders in the country are trained at the most selective universities in the country by and large.

And, what she was saying was we've got to make sure that the path to leadership is open, is viewed as open. She said test scores aren't the be all and end all. There are many other things that are important.

She said that at the University of Michigan, in fact, to a little bit contradict what Stuart just said, she noted that there are cases at the University of Michigan, a number of cases, in which minorities had higher test scores than White students yet the minorities were rejected at the law school and the lower rated White applicants were accepted.

So, she said that you've got to consider all of the factors involving each applicant. You can't just automatically mechanistically give out points because you're a member of a race. But I'm not prepared to say myself that you could go much beyond this and say well this definitely applies to the workforce. I'm not sure it does.

SNOW: Let me ask you both about one of the other decisions that hasn't gotten nearly as much attention today. It came down from the Supreme Court. The federal government, they said, can tell public libraries to screen, to put screeners on, filters on computers that are used by the public to screen our pornography. That seems like it almost has even more, you know, more ramifications for real people out there.

TOTENBERG: It may although I'm not sure how many people are trying to look at dirty pictures on the Internet at the local library. They might be doing it at home or on daddy's computer.

I have to tell you since I always ask people to tell, be candid with me I have to be candid with you. There were 13 opinions in these affirmative action cases and 153 pages and to profess to you that I had read that pornography decision in any great detail would be a lie. I don't know about you Stuart, have you?

TAYLOR: I haven't either. I know that it's the latest and it's maybe the third decision in which they've struggled with the Internet and pornography and they have a basic problem which is it's very hard to filter pornography out of the Internet without filtering a whole lot of other stuff too and they've struck down a couple of laws in this area as saying no it makes it too hard for people to see what they want to see.

I think the fact that they upheld this one is not an enormous event, even the civil libertarians, although they said were disappointed said it's not, probably not that big a deal, some of them.

SNOW: Quickly, do either of you think we're going to hear a big announcement coming down about vacancies, about a retirement?

TOTENBERG: If I knew the answer to that I'd be putting money on it tonight. I don't know. I haven't a clue and, you know, I vacillated on this all year. Earlier, six weeks ago I thought definitely we were going to have a retirement. Last week I thought no way. Now, I'm just scared to death either way.

TAYLOR: I'll flip a coin but I think today's affirmative action decision dramatizes, especially if Justice O'Connor retires, there is just going to be a gargantuan battle if President Bush nominates someone who looks like he or she would go the other way on this issue.

SNOW: This becomes a potential litmus test, as it were. Stuart Taylor and Nina Totenberg, thank you so much for joining us from Washington, appreciate it. TOTENBERG: My pleasure.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

SNOW: As NEWSNIGHT continues, was it murder or an accident, the Texas hit-and-run case that turned into a murder trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: When the Supreme Court today said yes to affirmative action but no to schools that use numbers or points to get there, the justices made an already opaque process even murkier.

Jacques Steinberg is one of the few people outside of academia who has taken a close look at how the admissions process really works and how today's ruling might change it.

He spent a year chronicling admissions at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and wrote a book about it called "The Gate Keepers." He's also a media critic at "The New York Times." Jacques Steinberg welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Thanks for being here.

What does this mean for universities? For the most part, I guess most universities weren't using a point system to begin with, were they?

JACQUES STEINBERG, REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, I mean for schools like Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth or Stanford, the really highly-selective privates this decision is an affirmation and a huge victory. It tells them that the way they pick classes, the way they screen their candidates is constitutionally permissible and it tells them this in a way that they've never really been told before.

SNOW: Does that apply to public universities though? What about the big schools like Michigan?

STEINBERG: It certainly applies to the big publics as well. Because the publics get so many candidates sometimes they have to use computers to screen kids. There are just so many applications and so few admissions officers.

The court was very clear that one of the things that was done at the University of Michigan where a kid is given 20 points on 150-point scale for being Black, Hispanic, or Native American, the court was very clear that you can't do that.

SNOW: But how many other schools are doing that that you know of?

STEINBERG: You know, it's hard to tell. My colleague, Greg Winter at "The New York Times" spent a lot of time today trying to figure out just how many there were.

SNOW: Yes.

STEINBERG: I'm certain the opponents of affirmative action complain that there's a bunch of them. We were only able to identify Ohio State and which uses it only in part. Another factor is that a lot of the colleges, the public universities that used to use this stopped using it.

SNOW: Is that because they don't want us to know exactly how they're weighing the factors?

STEINBERG: Well, one of the reasons that this process has been so secretive is that it was never clear to colleges from the 1978 Bakke decision whether they really could do this, whether a majority of the justices felt that way.

But in the time that I spent at Wesleyan for "The Gate Keepers" they used a very different process than Michigan did and they used a process very similar to Harvard and that is they factor in all these factors. Race is factored in as is athletic ability as is test scores as is your G.P.A., your class rank.

SNOW: Playing a musical instrument, whatever it is.

STEINBERG: And the court said today very clearly, Justice O'Connor said that's OK, if race is one of the factors even if it's given special preference in this huge mix that's OK.

SNOW: So, if I'm a parent or a student looking at this, you know, somebody who is watching that college admissions process looming ahead, what do you tell them? Should they do anything differently? Is there something they need to do to compete?

STEINBERG: You know it's a position that's sort of maddening to parents and to kids but you really can't do very much to out strategize this process, and I would argue that after today it's going to be even harder because what the court said is you can be very subjective. You don't have to take the kids with the highest test scores. You don't have to reject the kids with the lowest test scores.

That makes parents and kids crazy. And a better advice probably is to just sort of, you know, let the chips fall where they may. How could you possibly outthink the...

SNOW: And for kids' parents signing their kids up for every single class in the book.

STEINBERGER: And that doesn't necessarily do it either.

SNOW: You spent a year following the process. What did you learn from that year? What was the -- I know it's a long book, but in a message -- in a sentence, can you give us the message?

STEINBERGER: I just -- I think I learned -- and again, it's not always a message people always want to hear -- is just that how messy this process is, how hard it is to generalize, how two different admissions officers could have a totally different reaction to the same kid.

And I think that we as a society might like the idea that people are passing judgment on people and not computers. But if you're going to give this process to people, as the highly selective (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as the Ivys do, you have to let them be themselves and pick who they want, I think.

SNOW: Just finally, does this change anything for those states like, I think, Florida and Texas, where they take the top percentage of students? You know how to describe it. They take a top tier, right?

STEINBERGER: I think one of the ways that Florida and Texas and California responded to challenges to affirmative action was to say, You know what? We'll just take a set percentage of kids from every high school.

SNOW: And did this affect that at all?

STEINBERGER: The court is largely silent on it. It raises some questions about these programs. It also finds some things of values, but it ultimately seems to let these programs stand.

SNOW: OK, thank you so much, Jacques Steinberger. I appreciate you coming in and being with us tonight, give us some clarity on the issue. Thanks.

STEINBERGER: Thanks.

SNOW: There aren't that many crime stories that rise to the level of water cooler talk, the kind of case that is so shocking it gets swapped back and forth in e-mail under the heading of "Can you believe this?"

The story playing out in Texas right now certainly rises to that level, the trial in what's become known as the windshield murder case.

Once again, here is Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KEARNEY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Shante (ph) was totally messed up on ecstasy.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Shante Mallard's (ph) attorney says it was the cocktails and drugs that made her drive home with a 37-year-old homeless man impaled in her car windshield. After striking Greg Biggs, Mallard left the man dying in the garage, still stuck halfway in the car.

She tried to figure out what to do next. Mallard's attorney says she was a more than just a little dazed and confused.

KEARNEY: She's sitting there crying hysterically, and she's telling this body in her car, I'm sorry, it was an accident, I didn't mean to hit you. I didn't mean to hit you. I didn't mean to hurt you.

LAVANDERA: But prosecutors say Mallard showed her indifference about the accident in the hours after coming home. Medical experts believe that Greg Biggs could have survived the crash impact, but instead bled to death in the garage. It wasn't until her boyfriend saw the body a few hours later they realized Biggs had died.

CHRISTY JACK, PROSECUTOR: But just to make certain, they poked him with a rake. And you'll hear, ladies and gentlemen, that Shante wanted to burn the car and the body.

LAVANDERA: Instead, Mallard's boyfriend and another friend dumped the body in a park. Those two men have already pleaded guilty, and they're expected to testify against Shante Mallard.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Greg Biggs was hit by the car in October of 2001, but it wasn't until February 2002, five months later, that authorities connected the dots. Apparently Shante Mallard was at a party where she was talked about what had happened five months earlier. A friend overheard the conversation and then passed that information along to police. And that's how authorities connected the dots in this case, Kate.

SNOW: Ed Lavandera in Texas.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT for this Monday, in case you haven't heard, Howard Dean of Vermont says he is running for president. Candy Crowley has the story of his official announcement when we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Former Vermont governor Howard Dean has gone to great lengths to stand out from the rest the Democratic contenders for president. And we're not talking about the fact that he has a Ben and Jerry's sundae named after him, the Maple-Powered Howard, unveiled today in Vermont as Dean formally announced his candidacy.

Dean insists he stand out politically, that he comes from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and that's built a buzz among some of the party faithful.

CNN's senior political correspondent Candy Crowley reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He began more than a year ago, a lonely long shot, but Howard Dean isn't a alone anymore.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have the power to take back the Democratic Party. You have the power to take our country back. And you have the power to take the White House back in 2004.

CROWLEY: A Dean presidency is no longer no longer a laughable idea, thanks in no small part to his active Internet campaign, and in large part to his opposition to the war in Iraq. Activists came to listen and stayed to support. They were starving for any sign in life in the Democratic Party, and the doctor delivered.

DEAN: But most importantly, I wanted my party to stand up for what we believe again.

CROWLEY: Dean's long-shot odds are shorter now, but the top tier can be shaky. Dean is getting called on things nobody paid attention to when he was an asterisk. He shoots from the lip, has mischaracterized his opponents' positions and changed his own, on issues including the death penalty, defense funding, and raising the retirement age to 70 to bolster the Social Security system.

Dean's foreign policy credentials are slim to none, a gap that may seem glaring in a post-9/11 world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PRESS," NBC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many troops to do we -- how many men and women do we now have on active duty?

DEAN: I can't tell you the answer to that either. It's...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But as commander in chief, you should know that.

DEAN: As a -- someone who's running in the Democratic Party primary, I know that it's somewheres in the neighborhood of 1 to 2 million people, but I don't know the exact number, and I don't think I need to know that to run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: Dean's tough go on the Sunday talks, and the headline news that his 17-year-old son was cited by police for allegedly helping also-underaged buddies steal liquor from a country club, is in some sense a success story. Howard Dean is a major leaguer now, and it's a rough game.

The 17-year-old sat out Monday's announcement, but there was a Mrs. Dean sighting. Also a doctor, she is supportive, we are told, of her husband's campaign, but she is not active.

For activists, Dean is banking on an army of Deanies, people either too young or too disinterested to vote before.

DEAN: I speak for a new American century and a new generation of Americans, both young people and young at heart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All Internet, all the time.

CROWLEY: Anyone old enough to remember Eugene McCarthy's children's crusade will flash back inside Dean headquarters. It is peopled with first-timers, the young, the idealistic, the hopeful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I think he's going to beat the president.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: Dean's critics say he's irritating. His supporters say he's refreshing. Everybody agrees he has the buzz. Nobody knows whether he can turn that into votes, Kate.

SNOW: Candy, the buzz, I know, among political insiders in Washington is about that appearance that he made over the weekend and talking about the troops and not knowing how many troops are over serving in Iraq. Is that -- how's that played up where you are? I mean, does that -- do people even care about that?

CROWLEY: Well, remember, I'm in Vermont, so it's sort of baited pond here. I think they like him a lot in Vermont, and he's -- you know, was their ex-governor, so no, there was none of that talk.

However, if you are Howard Dean, you want that sort of thing to happen early on. But it certainly was the talk among journalists. It was, you know, if not quite a mauling, it was quite a roughing up.

So obviously not a great couple of days for him with his son and then that appearance, but up here, it was all about, you know, Howard Dean and how great he is.

SNOW: But he's getting a lot of attention.

CROWLEY: He is.

SNOW: Thank you. Candy Crowley in Vermont, thanks a lot.

A few stories from around the nation tonight, beginning with the latest on the Arizona wildfire. Authorities said today that the wildfire near Tucson is only 5 percent contained. As one fire official put it, "I think everything that hasn't burned is still at risk."

The fire has scorched more than 12,000 acres of land and destroyed more than 200 homes.

A funeral today for the man on a motorcycle whose death during a police chase set off two nights of rioting in Benton Harbor, Michigan. More than 500 turned out to pay their respects to Terrence Shurn, whose nickname was T-shirt. At least 21 homes were destroyed in the rioting, and several people were hurt.

And former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson is dead at the age of 65 after a heart attack at Reagan Washington National Airport. Jackson became the first African-American mayor of a major Southern city when he was elected in 1973. He served two consecutive terms and later won a third term in 1989.

The current mayor, Shirley Franklin, said today, "He was a lion of a man, a champion of inclusion for all people, who never wavered in his commitment to Atlanta."

And NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment with the story on the front lines of the battle from peace in the Mideast. Are Israeli settlements helping or hurting?``

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: re there few questions more explosive in the push for peace in the Middle East than what to do about the Israeli settlements. Many families, some there for decades, will have to leave if there is to be a Palestinian state. And imagine trying to convince them to leave willingly.

These are people who believed that the land was given to them by a higher power, and his name is not Ariel Sharon.

CNN's Jason Bellini met with some settlers facing an uncertain fate and ready for a fight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An illegal outpost sounds like something more substantial in terms of architecture than what it really is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks very poor.

BELLINI: Mickey Wasserteil (ph), who founded this one only a week ago, sounds like a real nuisance for the Israeli army should it come here to take him and his outpost down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going to walk. If they want to carry us, they will have to carry thousands of us.

BELLINI (on camera): There aren't thousands of you up here right now. There are probably less than 20.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will be right on time in here. We have our scouts and our information.

BELLINI: Up here on this hilltop, these outpost settlers are living the hippie lifestyle, right-wing hippies. Perhaps they are looking forward to the Israeli military coming up here to try to remove them so they can make their point.

(voice-over): Their point, this land was given to the Jews by God. No Israeli leader, they say, has the right to give it away for the sake of any peace agreement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody has to say, what is the justice in this world and what is not justice. We didn't take any land from any country. Nobody was here till today.

BELLINI: On the next hill in Beit Al (ph), which means House of God, a settlement sanctioned by the Israeli government some 25 years ago is now home to three generations of Israelis. Today, the 900 families living here, like Rachel Heller's, have a lot to lose should Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decide to sacrifice this place in a final peace bid.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it's a matter of me being thrown out, and then you'll maybe give me peace, you know the joke, they say Arafat wants piece -- a piece of this, and a piece of this, and a piece of this.

BELLINI (on camera): Well, fair enough. Then let's say this was then made part of a Palestinian state, you could be a Palestinian citizen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, I couldn't be a Palestinian citizen for -- I wouldn't be interested in being a Palestinian citizen. But besides the fact that I couldn't live safely, and my children couldn't live safely under a Palestinian state in this area.

BELLINI (voice-over): No peace agreement would be without pain for both sides. But for thousands of Israeli settlers, even the possibility of losing land they consider to be theirs is unthinkable.

(on camera): But again, my question, if he says you've got to go, you've got to go, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First of all, I don't think we will come to that point. So I don't foresee that point. I can't (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BELLINI: And if it does come to that point?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I cannot accept that as a reality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the army would succeed to remove us away from this place, we'll be back here. We will be back, by tents, by (UNINTELLIGIBLE), by -- we will have to build it again. We will be here forever.

BELLINI (voice-over): If these settlers are beginning to lose faith in their long-term patron Ariel Sharon, they seem to be depending on a greater power from above.

Jason Bellini, CNN, the Tel Kaim (ph) outpost on the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And before we go to break, a few more headlines from around the world, starting in Nairobi, Kenya. Authorities there say at least four men will be charged in connection with the suicide bombing last fall at an Israeli-owned hotel. Thirteen people were killed. Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attack on an Islamic Web site.

And tonight the American embassy in Kenya remains closed due to threat of new terrorism.

Authorities in Greece have filed charges against the crew of a freighter that was stopped in Greek waters over the weekend. The ship stuffed to the gunwales with TNT, had been going from port to Mediterranean port. Nobody knows why or where the cargo was ultimately headed.

And it took a giant to slay a giant, but anything can happen at Wimbledon. And today, it did. Six foot, 10-inch Ivo Karlovic clobbering the defending champion, Lleyton Hewitt, in four sets. This was only the second time a defending champion has been eliminated in the first round since 1877.

And still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the story of the man who has become the voice of the people under the noses of the press.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: He has a big show coming up at a festival in Scotland called "Osama Likes It Hot," but a guy who calls him a comedy terrorist decided to give the British royals a preview.

He crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party this weekend at Windsor Castle. That meant scaling an embankment, climbing a tree, and, the greatest feat of all, convincing police that just maybe he was another fun-loving friend of the royal family.

British authorities called it an appalling security breach. Others called it a publicity coup d'etat for the comedy terrorist.

Which brings us to the final story of the program, about someone who seeks publicity in a far more subtle way. His name is Greg Packer, but you may know him simply as the man on the street.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST (voice-over): If there's one thing we media types love, it's talking to the man on the street. Person on the street is probably better these days. You know, the salt of the earth regular Joe and Janes, those folks who offer up those pithy observations about life and stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do think it's a good idea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't like it.

GREENFIELD: But it turns out when it comes to the man on the street, some men are more equal than others. Specifically, this one, 39-year-old Long Island highway maintenance guy Greg Packer. He may look pretty ordinary, but as a man on the street quote artist, Packer is the Picasso, the Heifetz, the Barry Bonds of field.

GREG PACKER, MAN ON THE STREET: The media always comes to me, because I'm going to have an answer for everything that nobody else is going to have an answer for. So that -- so what I've become is, the man on the street, at, like, various events. GREENFIELD: And that is no accident. Packer spends just about every nonworking moment of his life making sure he's first in line for -- well, the event doesn't really matter that much. Here, it's a fund-raising event put on by World Wrestling. He got here hours and hours and hours ago.

PACKER: It's been a long night.

GREENFIELD: But whether it's opening day at Yankee Stadium, or an N'Sync concert, or a Thanksgiving Day parade, Greg Packer will be front and center, no matter what it takes.

PACKER: The furthest back it's been, Jeff, is two days early.

GREENFIELD: And Packer has grown media-savvy enough to use the journalist's name in every answer. Like when he's asked how he finds time for this life.

PACKER: Sick time, personal time, off-hours. Call it what you want, Jeff.

Because, Jeff -- they do, Jeff.

GREENFIELD: Maybe that's because he's talked to so many reporters. Starting in the mid-'90s, Packer, according to conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who discovered this phenomenon, Packer has been quoted more than 100 times by outlets from "The New York Times," to the Associated Press, to London's "Independent" on matters that range from Hillary Clinton's new book to the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

To keep him in shape, we asked Packer to offer up a rapid-fire series of views on the Thanksgiving Day parade.

PACKER: Just brings out, you know, the little kids at heart that, you know, we all are.

GREENFIELD: On baseball's opening day.

PACKER: Jeff, I'm happy I'm at the ball game today. I know the Yankees are going to win.

GREENFIELD: On New York's smoking ban.

PACKER: It shouldn't be as strict as it is now.

GREENFIELD: Packer says, to anyone who asks, that he doesn't know when it started. Maybe when his parents gave him autographs of celebrities. And he's so committed to this work that he may never get married, because not that many women will understand him bolting from home at 1:00 in the morning for a book signing.

(on camera): But it may be that Packer's new-found fame will prove his undoing. Now that journalists know his name, face, and preoccupation, can he really qualify as a typical man on the street? On the other hand, Packer says there has been talk about a book deal. And it's probably only a matter of time until cable TV comes calling.

Is this a great country, or what?

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Hey, but Greg, we all know what you look like now.

That's NEWSNIGHT for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm Kate Snow. Aaron is back tomorrow night. Have a good night.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Engage Syrian Border Guards; Dean Officially Announces Presidential Run>

Aired June 23, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATE SNOW, GUEST HOST: Good evening, everyone.
When the Supreme Court heard arguments this spring in the affirmative action cases decided today, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had sharp words for one lawyer. "You are speaking in absolutes" she said that it isn't quite that.

Today, the court echoed that distaste for absolutes. We do know today's decisions mean race can and will continue to be used as a factor in college admissions but how they go about it will face intense scrutiny from the courts. The decisions will be debated long after today's students graduate from college.

And the fate of affirmative action is where we begin the whip tonight. Bob Franken has been covering the story since the Supreme Court issued its decisions this morning -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, some people were expecting repudiation but instead the justices affirmed affirmative action sort of, and as one lawyer put it Bakke is back.

SNOW: Thank you, Bob.

To Iraq now and the latest on the hunt for Saddam Hussein, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre is on that tonight, Jamie the headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Kate, Pentagon officials are downplaying the idea that Saddam Hussein or his sons may have been killed in a raid by the highly secretive Task Force 20. The U.S. commandos apparently did cross into Syria and after an engagement five Syrians were wounded -- back to you.

SNOW: On to the race for 2004 and the latest Democrat to formally announce his candidacy. Candy Crowley is in Burlington, Vermont with the story tonight -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, more than a year ago when he first started running nobody could remember his name, but today as ex-Vermont Governor Howard Dean officially announced his candidacy he has already won candidate with the most buzz.

SNOW: Candy, thanks.

On to a murder case in Texas, a woman accused of a shocking crime. Ed Lavandera has that tonight from Dallas, Ed what's the headline?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate. A bizarre murder trial underway in Fort Worth this week, a 27-year-old Texas woman says it was an accident when she ran into a homeless man but prosecutors want her to spend the rest of her life in prison. They say her actions after the accident speak very loudly as to what should happen to her -- Kate.

SNOW: Back with all of you in just a moment.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, an enormous roadblock in the push for peace in the Middle East, how to convince Israeli settlers to leave what they believe is their God-given land. Jason Bellini tonight talked with settlers on the West Bank.

And, Jeff Greenfield on the highway maintenance guy in Long Island who has another job title as well, the all-purpose, ever present man on the street, all that to come.

But we begin with the Supreme Court's split decision on affirmative action. The issue has tied up court and country for generations. The decision's impact stretches far beyond who gets into which school and why. It touches business and politics and even national defense. We'll try to cover all the bases tonight.

First though the facts of the case, here again CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): The court upheld affirmative action but split on just how far it should go. In a case involving the University of Michigan Law School, the justices by the slimmest of margins, 5-4, sustained the notion, as Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that "the use of race is not prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution when officials consider the race of an individual applicant as one factor in a flexible effort to achieve meaningful diversity in education."

But at the same time, the court rejected a more structured admissions policy at Michigan's undergraduate school, one that automatically assigned extra points to minorities.

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that decision for the 6-3 majority. Such a program "violates the Equal Protection Clause. This went too far," he continued, "in considering race because it was the determining factor."

The split rulings allowed both sides to declare victory.

MARY SUE COLEMAN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: What it means is its core is that affirmative action may still be used and the court has given us a road map to get there and so we are very, very excited and very pleased.

TERRY PELL, PRESIDENT, CTR. OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: At the end of the day, the court raised the bar. The court made it harder for schools to take race into account.

FRANKEN: At the end of the day the outcome leaves a result many believe mirrors the so-called Bakke decision of 1978 in which the court said quotas were illegal but race could still be a consideration. This affects more than just school admissions.

TOM GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT APPELLATE ATTORNEY: Today's decisions are also a road map, not just for universities but affirmative action generally. The Supreme Court has told us that so long as you have a nuance to inquiry, one that looks not just at race but other factors.

FRANKEN: As for the president who earlier complained both Michigan programs amounted to a quota system now said these decisions "seek a careful balance between the goal of campus diversity and the fundamental principle of equal treatment under the law."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: But others saw it as confusion. In his dissent, Justice Scalia complained the split double-header seems perversely designed to prolong the controversy and the litigation, and Kate that seems like pretty much a sure thing.

SNOW: Absolutely. Bob, did we expect this? I mean is this exactly how opinion -- court watchers, rather, thought this was going to come down with Sandra Day O'Connor right in the middle?

FRANKEN: Well, because of that fact and because the court was split as it was, everybody did believe that there would be some sort of split result which would mirror Bakke, so this is what everybody got. There was concern among those who were supporters of affirmative action that this conservative court might dismantle it but things fell into place just as much as with hindsight now we can say it looked like they would do.

SNOW: And, any word on the other big question looming out there whether we're going to see any retirements before the end of this session?

FRANKEN: Well, that's one of the big questions and there's a split feeling about that. Of course, there have been rumors about that for a long time but some indications that it won't happen, particularly the fact that the justices have agreed to an extraordinary hearing in September to hear the campaign finance law discussion which, of course, wouldn't give much time for a replacement to be put in.

SNOW: And more decisions expected on Thursday, right Bob?

FRANKEN: One decision that everybody is looking for is the Texas sodomy case, whether or not sodomy laws can be applied strictly to homosexuals as they are in several states, including Texas.

SNOW: Bob Franken tonight with us, thank you so much. In her majority opinion, Justice O'Connor had this to say. "We expect that 25 years from now the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary." And perhaps the day will come when people aren't so divided and the issue isn't so corrosive but judging by the debate today on campus we're not quite there yet.

From Ann Arbor, Michigan, here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK (voice-over): We watch as Agnes Aleobua spreads the word on the Ann Arbor campus.

AGNES ALEOBUA, SUPPORTS DECISION: You didn't hear? Yes, yes, we won. They upheld the law school case so it's a victory.

FLOCK: The University of Michigan can consider race in deciding who it lets in.

ALEOBUA: I know that my test scores and G.P.A. is lower.

FLOCK: Without that affirmative action Agnes, a senior education major, admits to us she wouldn't be here. So, why do you belong here?

ALEOBUA: Black and minority students do score lower on those tests. They do score lower, have lower G.P.A.s but that doesn't say anything about their mental capacity, about their intelligence.

FLOCK: That's no fair, says junior business major and young Republican Mike Philips.

MIKE PHILIPS, OPPOSES DECISION: Eventually, you know, as people work up, the university will level out but, in general, people should be here based on what they've accomplished.

FLOCK: The court did throw out the undergraduate admissions policy that gave 20 extra points, out of 150, to students just for being Black, Hispanic, or Native American. It upheld the more subjective law school plan which new Dean Evan Caminker administers.

You don't have a point system. What do you do?

EVAN CAMINKER, DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL: That's correct. We look at every single application individually. We look at a student's objective as well as intangible factors, work experience, where they grew up, geography.

FLOCK: The court says race can be one of those factors but some say using race to either hurt or help minorities is wrong. Carl Cohen's taught here for 48 years.

PROF. CARL COHEN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: I think it is a fundamental principle of morality that people should be treated equally without regard to the color of their skin.

FLOCK: If you didn't get in even though you had better scores than somebody, wouldn't that make you mad?

ROB GOODSPEED, SUPPORTS DECISION: No, actually not. A majority of the students, I believe, who apply are qualified to come here, so it's not a matter of, you know, just picking the most qualified. It's a matter of building a good student body.

FLOCK: And, according to this and many other schools, the best student body is a diverse student body. I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: More on the court's decision a bit later in the program.

On now to a decision that essentially takes a suspected terrorist out of the normal U.S. legal system. President Bush today officially designated a Qatari man as an enemy combatant.

That distinction means he could be tried by a military tribunal without most of the legal rights defendants are normally entitled to. The man has been in custody since December, 2001. Prosecutors say he was caught with more than 1,000 credit card files on his laptop along with pictures of the 9/11 attacks and a loyalty oath to Osama bin Laden.

Now, to the hunt for Saddam Hussein and a battle that played out on the border between Syria and Iraq, are the two connected? Pentagon officials aren't quite sure. They have their doubts but tonight are considering the possibility.

Here again, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Pentagon sources say it was the capture of General Abid Hamid Mahmud last week, Saddam Hussein's closest confidante that led to the attack carried out by Task Force 20, a U.S. commando force whose existence was only recently acknowledged by the Pentagon.

It wasn't what Mahmud said, sources tell CNN, but other intelligence related to his capture that led the U.S. to target a convoy of a half dozen vehicles leaving a compound in the border town of Kaime (ph) Wednesday night believed to be carrying former senior leaders of the regime. There was at least a hope, said one Pentagon official that Saddam Hussein or his sons might be among them.

According to sources, a U.S. Air Force Predator drone armed with Hellfire missiles tracked the vehicles which split into two groups. A Special Operations AC-130 gunship was called in. At some point, the Predator launched its Hellfire missiles. The AC-130 opened fire with its 105 mm canon and a commando team from Task Force 20 moved in.

According to sources, after the initial attack a person was spotted on foot near the border with Syria. U.S. Special Operations forces pursued the individual and some Syrian border guards showed up. Pentagon officials say at that point the U.S. troops may have crossed the border into Syria. In any event, there was an engagement and three Syrians were wounded and had to be given medical treatment by the U.S. military. It's not clear if they were shot from the ground or the air.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Now, some local villagers are claiming that the people that were attacked by the U.S. military were simply sheep smugglers. Well, Pentagon officials say they may have been smugglers but that U.S. intelligence strongly suggests that what they were smuggling was senior Iraqi regime members, not sheep.

Now, about 20 people were taken into custody and most of those have been let go according to Pentagon sources. Those sources also say that DNA tests will be conducted at the site to rule out the possibility that Saddam Hussein could have been among the dead -- Kate.

SNOW: Jamie, so if they took people in custody then not obviously not everyone was hurt in this convoy. What kind of damage did they do, though, do they know to the convoy?

MCINTYRE: Well, it looks like they destroyed some of the vehicles and they did kill a number of people including potentially some of these senior Iraqi officials, at least that's who they think they were.

The people that were captured were the ones that weren't necessarily in the vehicles that were hit and a lot -- again, they do believe that some of those might just be smugglers who were not senior regime members.

But again, this was based on intelligence that the U.S. gathered along with the capture of General Mahmud and Pentagon sources say that intelligence has given them many more leads to follow, so we can expect that there might be operations like this again in the near future.

SNOW: Was all of this happening in Iraq or did it cross over the border into Syria?

MCINTYRE: Well, there was a point, it's a little unclear, but there is a point where it appears that U.S. troops, Special Operations forces, did cross the border into Syria although that's still a matter of dispute. That's where the engagement came with the Syrian border guards and, again, still confusion about whether that was the result of ground fire or perhaps fire from the air.

SNOW: Jamie McIntyre, at the Pentagon for us tonight, thank you.

Still ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT more on today's Supreme Court rulings.

And later, do they help preserve peace or are they a roadblock to peace in the Mid East? We'll visit Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

And later, the man who has become the voice of the people Jeff Greenfield explains.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: More now on a landmark day at the Supreme Court but maybe not the most decisive one. The court, like the country, is deeply divided on many issues not just affirmative action. The split decision today reflected that.

With us to talk about it are Stuart Taylor of "The National Journal" and "Newsweek," and National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, both in Washington. Welcome to you both.

STUART TAYLOR, COLUMNIST "NATIONAL JOURNAL": Nice to be here.

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

SNOW: Let me start with how big a legal change this is going to be. Is this a big deal? Is this going to be a big change from what the court found about 25 years ago in the Bakke case?

Well, I think this not a big change from what the court found 25 years ago but it's a very big victory for the proponents of affirmative action. Twenty-five years ago, Justice Powell elaborated on the affirmative action rationale that you can't have rigid quotas but you can use race as a plus factor. But he wrote only for himself. He was the deciding vote but is opinion was only for himself.

And since then, there's been an increasingly raging battle as to whether that was really the law of the land and so these test cases went back up to the Supreme Court. We finally got the culmination point and today the court, by a 5-4 vote but I would say quite boldly and unblinkingly said affirmative action is perfectly permissible under certain circumstances.

Racial diversity is a compelling state interest that justifies considering race as a factor and as long as you don't have rigid quotas and you don't have a point system that just automatically and mechanistically gives points to people you can have a system such as the University of Michigan law school admissions program which will now become the model I suspect for every admissions program in the country. It will probably be the hottest selling thing in higher education is their very boring admission system.

SNOW: Stuart, it seemed like all sides claimed victory today though. You could sort of read it either way. Who do you think won?

TAYLOR: I think Nina is right. I think the people who support affirmative action won a huge victory and I think those who oppose it are kind of grasping for little straws. As Nina said, anyone who models their affirmative action program, their racial preference program on the University of Michigan law school, which is easy to do, can not only use racial preferences but can use very large ones. According to the lower court record, having a Black or Hispanic or Native American preference is worth more than a full grade point on your average. It's better than having, if you're got the right color skin plus a B average you beat out somebody with the wrong color skin plus an A average.

I think it is a big deal. It's not a big change but since the Bakke case 25 years ago, since affirmative action kind of got rolling, it's always been said by the court and others that well this is temporary.

Sooner or later it will fade away and what the court said today is well it's good for another 25 years at least and, although Justice O'Connor suggested in the majority opinion that she suspected after 25 years, expected that it would be phased out she seemed to be assuming something that's not true.

She was assuming that the academic cap, the racial gap between Black and Hispanic students on the one hand and Asian and White students on the other hand that leads to the use of racial preferences is the only way to get respectable numbers of Black and Hispanics into elite schools that that gap is narrowing and, in fact, since 1988 it hasn't narrowed a bit and it's been getting wider.

SAT score, average SAT gap between Blacks and Whites for example which has been very large all along has gotten larger, a little bit larger each of the last three years.

SNOW: Nina, go back to the implications here. This has broader implications does it not, not just for universities but also for businesses, for companies that might have practices that are affirmative action policies for hiring? Does it not have those implications as well?

TOTENBERG: Well, certainly the proponents and opponents of affirmative action will see this as having enormous implications for the workplace and for set asides in contracting and other things like that.

I think that that might be going too far because one of the things that Justice O'Connor said was essentially universities are the training ground for our elite classes, our leadership classes, you know Senators, governors, judges. The people who are the leaders in the country are trained at the most selective universities in the country by and large.

And, what she was saying was we've got to make sure that the path to leadership is open, is viewed as open. She said test scores aren't the be all and end all. There are many other things that are important.

She said that at the University of Michigan, in fact, to a little bit contradict what Stuart just said, she noted that there are cases at the University of Michigan, a number of cases, in which minorities had higher test scores than White students yet the minorities were rejected at the law school and the lower rated White applicants were accepted.

So, she said that you've got to consider all of the factors involving each applicant. You can't just automatically mechanistically give out points because you're a member of a race. But I'm not prepared to say myself that you could go much beyond this and say well this definitely applies to the workforce. I'm not sure it does.

SNOW: Let me ask you both about one of the other decisions that hasn't gotten nearly as much attention today. It came down from the Supreme Court. The federal government, they said, can tell public libraries to screen, to put screeners on, filters on computers that are used by the public to screen our pornography. That seems like it almost has even more, you know, more ramifications for real people out there.

TOTENBERG: It may although I'm not sure how many people are trying to look at dirty pictures on the Internet at the local library. They might be doing it at home or on daddy's computer.

I have to tell you since I always ask people to tell, be candid with me I have to be candid with you. There were 13 opinions in these affirmative action cases and 153 pages and to profess to you that I had read that pornography decision in any great detail would be a lie. I don't know about you Stuart, have you?

TAYLOR: I haven't either. I know that it's the latest and it's maybe the third decision in which they've struggled with the Internet and pornography and they have a basic problem which is it's very hard to filter pornography out of the Internet without filtering a whole lot of other stuff too and they've struck down a couple of laws in this area as saying no it makes it too hard for people to see what they want to see.

I think the fact that they upheld this one is not an enormous event, even the civil libertarians, although they said were disappointed said it's not, probably not that big a deal, some of them.

SNOW: Quickly, do either of you think we're going to hear a big announcement coming down about vacancies, about a retirement?

TOTENBERG: If I knew the answer to that I'd be putting money on it tonight. I don't know. I haven't a clue and, you know, I vacillated on this all year. Earlier, six weeks ago I thought definitely we were going to have a retirement. Last week I thought no way. Now, I'm just scared to death either way.

TAYLOR: I'll flip a coin but I think today's affirmative action decision dramatizes, especially if Justice O'Connor retires, there is just going to be a gargantuan battle if President Bush nominates someone who looks like he or she would go the other way on this issue.

SNOW: This becomes a potential litmus test, as it were. Stuart Taylor and Nina Totenberg, thank you so much for joining us from Washington, appreciate it. TOTENBERG: My pleasure.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

SNOW: As NEWSNIGHT continues, was it murder or an accident, the Texas hit-and-run case that turned into a murder trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: When the Supreme Court today said yes to affirmative action but no to schools that use numbers or points to get there, the justices made an already opaque process even murkier.

Jacques Steinberg is one of the few people outside of academia who has taken a close look at how the admissions process really works and how today's ruling might change it.

He spent a year chronicling admissions at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and wrote a book about it called "The Gate Keepers." He's also a media critic at "The New York Times." Jacques Steinberg welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Thanks for being here.

What does this mean for universities? For the most part, I guess most universities weren't using a point system to begin with, were they?

JACQUES STEINBERG, REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, I mean for schools like Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth or Stanford, the really highly-selective privates this decision is an affirmation and a huge victory. It tells them that the way they pick classes, the way they screen their candidates is constitutionally permissible and it tells them this in a way that they've never really been told before.

SNOW: Does that apply to public universities though? What about the big schools like Michigan?

STEINBERG: It certainly applies to the big publics as well. Because the publics get so many candidates sometimes they have to use computers to screen kids. There are just so many applications and so few admissions officers.

The court was very clear that one of the things that was done at the University of Michigan where a kid is given 20 points on 150-point scale for being Black, Hispanic, or Native American, the court was very clear that you can't do that.

SNOW: But how many other schools are doing that that you know of?

STEINBERG: You know, it's hard to tell. My colleague, Greg Winter at "The New York Times" spent a lot of time today trying to figure out just how many there were.

SNOW: Yes.

STEINBERG: I'm certain the opponents of affirmative action complain that there's a bunch of them. We were only able to identify Ohio State and which uses it only in part. Another factor is that a lot of the colleges, the public universities that used to use this stopped using it.

SNOW: Is that because they don't want us to know exactly how they're weighing the factors?

STEINBERG: Well, one of the reasons that this process has been so secretive is that it was never clear to colleges from the 1978 Bakke decision whether they really could do this, whether a majority of the justices felt that way.

But in the time that I spent at Wesleyan for "The Gate Keepers" they used a very different process than Michigan did and they used a process very similar to Harvard and that is they factor in all these factors. Race is factored in as is athletic ability as is test scores as is your G.P.A., your class rank.

SNOW: Playing a musical instrument, whatever it is.

STEINBERG: And the court said today very clearly, Justice O'Connor said that's OK, if race is one of the factors even if it's given special preference in this huge mix that's OK.

SNOW: So, if I'm a parent or a student looking at this, you know, somebody who is watching that college admissions process looming ahead, what do you tell them? Should they do anything differently? Is there something they need to do to compete?

STEINBERG: You know it's a position that's sort of maddening to parents and to kids but you really can't do very much to out strategize this process, and I would argue that after today it's going to be even harder because what the court said is you can be very subjective. You don't have to take the kids with the highest test scores. You don't have to reject the kids with the lowest test scores.

That makes parents and kids crazy. And a better advice probably is to just sort of, you know, let the chips fall where they may. How could you possibly outthink the...

SNOW: And for kids' parents signing their kids up for every single class in the book.

STEINBERGER: And that doesn't necessarily do it either.

SNOW: You spent a year following the process. What did you learn from that year? What was the -- I know it's a long book, but in a message -- in a sentence, can you give us the message?

STEINBERGER: I just -- I think I learned -- and again, it's not always a message people always want to hear -- is just that how messy this process is, how hard it is to generalize, how two different admissions officers could have a totally different reaction to the same kid.

And I think that we as a society might like the idea that people are passing judgment on people and not computers. But if you're going to give this process to people, as the highly selective (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as the Ivys do, you have to let them be themselves and pick who they want, I think.

SNOW: Just finally, does this change anything for those states like, I think, Florida and Texas, where they take the top percentage of students? You know how to describe it. They take a top tier, right?

STEINBERGER: I think one of the ways that Florida and Texas and California responded to challenges to affirmative action was to say, You know what? We'll just take a set percentage of kids from every high school.

SNOW: And did this affect that at all?

STEINBERGER: The court is largely silent on it. It raises some questions about these programs. It also finds some things of values, but it ultimately seems to let these programs stand.

SNOW: OK, thank you so much, Jacques Steinberger. I appreciate you coming in and being with us tonight, give us some clarity on the issue. Thanks.

STEINBERGER: Thanks.

SNOW: There aren't that many crime stories that rise to the level of water cooler talk, the kind of case that is so shocking it gets swapped back and forth in e-mail under the heading of "Can you believe this?"

The story playing out in Texas right now certainly rises to that level, the trial in what's become known as the windshield murder case.

Once again, here is Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KEARNEY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Shante (ph) was totally messed up on ecstasy.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Shante Mallard's (ph) attorney says it was the cocktails and drugs that made her drive home with a 37-year-old homeless man impaled in her car windshield. After striking Greg Biggs, Mallard left the man dying in the garage, still stuck halfway in the car.

She tried to figure out what to do next. Mallard's attorney says she was a more than just a little dazed and confused.

KEARNEY: She's sitting there crying hysterically, and she's telling this body in her car, I'm sorry, it was an accident, I didn't mean to hit you. I didn't mean to hit you. I didn't mean to hurt you.

LAVANDERA: But prosecutors say Mallard showed her indifference about the accident in the hours after coming home. Medical experts believe that Greg Biggs could have survived the crash impact, but instead bled to death in the garage. It wasn't until her boyfriend saw the body a few hours later they realized Biggs had died.

CHRISTY JACK, PROSECUTOR: But just to make certain, they poked him with a rake. And you'll hear, ladies and gentlemen, that Shante wanted to burn the car and the body.

LAVANDERA: Instead, Mallard's boyfriend and another friend dumped the body in a park. Those two men have already pleaded guilty, and they're expected to testify against Shante Mallard.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Greg Biggs was hit by the car in October of 2001, but it wasn't until February 2002, five months later, that authorities connected the dots. Apparently Shante Mallard was at a party where she was talked about what had happened five months earlier. A friend overheard the conversation and then passed that information along to police. And that's how authorities connected the dots in this case, Kate.

SNOW: Ed Lavandera in Texas.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT for this Monday, in case you haven't heard, Howard Dean of Vermont says he is running for president. Candy Crowley has the story of his official announcement when we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Former Vermont governor Howard Dean has gone to great lengths to stand out from the rest the Democratic contenders for president. And we're not talking about the fact that he has a Ben and Jerry's sundae named after him, the Maple-Powered Howard, unveiled today in Vermont as Dean formally announced his candidacy.

Dean insists he stand out politically, that he comes from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and that's built a buzz among some of the party faithful.

CNN's senior political correspondent Candy Crowley reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He began more than a year ago, a lonely long shot, but Howard Dean isn't a alone anymore.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have the power to take back the Democratic Party. You have the power to take our country back. And you have the power to take the White House back in 2004.

CROWLEY: A Dean presidency is no longer no longer a laughable idea, thanks in no small part to his active Internet campaign, and in large part to his opposition to the war in Iraq. Activists came to listen and stayed to support. They were starving for any sign in life in the Democratic Party, and the doctor delivered.

DEAN: But most importantly, I wanted my party to stand up for what we believe again.

CROWLEY: Dean's long-shot odds are shorter now, but the top tier can be shaky. Dean is getting called on things nobody paid attention to when he was an asterisk. He shoots from the lip, has mischaracterized his opponents' positions and changed his own, on issues including the death penalty, defense funding, and raising the retirement age to 70 to bolster the Social Security system.

Dean's foreign policy credentials are slim to none, a gap that may seem glaring in a post-9/11 world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PRESS," NBC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many troops to do we -- how many men and women do we now have on active duty?

DEAN: I can't tell you the answer to that either. It's...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But as commander in chief, you should know that.

DEAN: As a -- someone who's running in the Democratic Party primary, I know that it's somewheres in the neighborhood of 1 to 2 million people, but I don't know the exact number, and I don't think I need to know that to run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: Dean's tough go on the Sunday talks, and the headline news that his 17-year-old son was cited by police for allegedly helping also-underaged buddies steal liquor from a country club, is in some sense a success story. Howard Dean is a major leaguer now, and it's a rough game.

The 17-year-old sat out Monday's announcement, but there was a Mrs. Dean sighting. Also a doctor, she is supportive, we are told, of her husband's campaign, but she is not active.

For activists, Dean is banking on an army of Deanies, people either too young or too disinterested to vote before.

DEAN: I speak for a new American century and a new generation of Americans, both young people and young at heart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All Internet, all the time.

CROWLEY: Anyone old enough to remember Eugene McCarthy's children's crusade will flash back inside Dean headquarters. It is peopled with first-timers, the young, the idealistic, the hopeful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I think he's going to beat the president.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: Dean's critics say he's irritating. His supporters say he's refreshing. Everybody agrees he has the buzz. Nobody knows whether he can turn that into votes, Kate.

SNOW: Candy, the buzz, I know, among political insiders in Washington is about that appearance that he made over the weekend and talking about the troops and not knowing how many troops are over serving in Iraq. Is that -- how's that played up where you are? I mean, does that -- do people even care about that?

CROWLEY: Well, remember, I'm in Vermont, so it's sort of baited pond here. I think they like him a lot in Vermont, and he's -- you know, was their ex-governor, so no, there was none of that talk.

However, if you are Howard Dean, you want that sort of thing to happen early on. But it certainly was the talk among journalists. It was, you know, if not quite a mauling, it was quite a roughing up.

So obviously not a great couple of days for him with his son and then that appearance, but up here, it was all about, you know, Howard Dean and how great he is.

SNOW: But he's getting a lot of attention.

CROWLEY: He is.

SNOW: Thank you. Candy Crowley in Vermont, thanks a lot.

A few stories from around the nation tonight, beginning with the latest on the Arizona wildfire. Authorities said today that the wildfire near Tucson is only 5 percent contained. As one fire official put it, "I think everything that hasn't burned is still at risk."

The fire has scorched more than 12,000 acres of land and destroyed more than 200 homes.

A funeral today for the man on a motorcycle whose death during a police chase set off two nights of rioting in Benton Harbor, Michigan. More than 500 turned out to pay their respects to Terrence Shurn, whose nickname was T-shirt. At least 21 homes were destroyed in the rioting, and several people were hurt.

And former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson is dead at the age of 65 after a heart attack at Reagan Washington National Airport. Jackson became the first African-American mayor of a major Southern city when he was elected in 1973. He served two consecutive terms and later won a third term in 1989.

The current mayor, Shirley Franklin, said today, "He was a lion of a man, a champion of inclusion for all people, who never wavered in his commitment to Atlanta."

And NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment with the story on the front lines of the battle from peace in the Mideast. Are Israeli settlements helping or hurting?``

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: re there few questions more explosive in the push for peace in the Middle East than what to do about the Israeli settlements. Many families, some there for decades, will have to leave if there is to be a Palestinian state. And imagine trying to convince them to leave willingly.

These are people who believed that the land was given to them by a higher power, and his name is not Ariel Sharon.

CNN's Jason Bellini met with some settlers facing an uncertain fate and ready for a fight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An illegal outpost sounds like something more substantial in terms of architecture than what it really is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks very poor.

BELLINI: Mickey Wasserteil (ph), who founded this one only a week ago, sounds like a real nuisance for the Israeli army should it come here to take him and his outpost down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going to walk. If they want to carry us, they will have to carry thousands of us.

BELLINI (on camera): There aren't thousands of you up here right now. There are probably less than 20.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will be right on time in here. We have our scouts and our information.

BELLINI: Up here on this hilltop, these outpost settlers are living the hippie lifestyle, right-wing hippies. Perhaps they are looking forward to the Israeli military coming up here to try to remove them so they can make their point.

(voice-over): Their point, this land was given to the Jews by God. No Israeli leader, they say, has the right to give it away for the sake of any peace agreement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody has to say, what is the justice in this world and what is not justice. We didn't take any land from any country. Nobody was here till today.

BELLINI: On the next hill in Beit Al (ph), which means House of God, a settlement sanctioned by the Israeli government some 25 years ago is now home to three generations of Israelis. Today, the 900 families living here, like Rachel Heller's, have a lot to lose should Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decide to sacrifice this place in a final peace bid.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it's a matter of me being thrown out, and then you'll maybe give me peace, you know the joke, they say Arafat wants piece -- a piece of this, and a piece of this, and a piece of this.

BELLINI (on camera): Well, fair enough. Then let's say this was then made part of a Palestinian state, you could be a Palestinian citizen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, I couldn't be a Palestinian citizen for -- I wouldn't be interested in being a Palestinian citizen. But besides the fact that I couldn't live safely, and my children couldn't live safely under a Palestinian state in this area.

BELLINI (voice-over): No peace agreement would be without pain for both sides. But for thousands of Israeli settlers, even the possibility of losing land they consider to be theirs is unthinkable.

(on camera): But again, my question, if he says you've got to go, you've got to go, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First of all, I don't think we will come to that point. So I don't foresee that point. I can't (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BELLINI: And if it does come to that point?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I cannot accept that as a reality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the army would succeed to remove us away from this place, we'll be back here. We will be back, by tents, by (UNINTELLIGIBLE), by -- we will have to build it again. We will be here forever.

BELLINI (voice-over): If these settlers are beginning to lose faith in their long-term patron Ariel Sharon, they seem to be depending on a greater power from above.

Jason Bellini, CNN, the Tel Kaim (ph) outpost on the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And before we go to break, a few more headlines from around the world, starting in Nairobi, Kenya. Authorities there say at least four men will be charged in connection with the suicide bombing last fall at an Israeli-owned hotel. Thirteen people were killed. Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attack on an Islamic Web site.

And tonight the American embassy in Kenya remains closed due to threat of new terrorism.

Authorities in Greece have filed charges against the crew of a freighter that was stopped in Greek waters over the weekend. The ship stuffed to the gunwales with TNT, had been going from port to Mediterranean port. Nobody knows why or where the cargo was ultimately headed.

And it took a giant to slay a giant, but anything can happen at Wimbledon. And today, it did. Six foot, 10-inch Ivo Karlovic clobbering the defending champion, Lleyton Hewitt, in four sets. This was only the second time a defending champion has been eliminated in the first round since 1877.

And still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the story of the man who has become the voice of the people under the noses of the press.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: He has a big show coming up at a festival in Scotland called "Osama Likes It Hot," but a guy who calls him a comedy terrorist decided to give the British royals a preview.

He crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party this weekend at Windsor Castle. That meant scaling an embankment, climbing a tree, and, the greatest feat of all, convincing police that just maybe he was another fun-loving friend of the royal family.

British authorities called it an appalling security breach. Others called it a publicity coup d'etat for the comedy terrorist.

Which brings us to the final story of the program, about someone who seeks publicity in a far more subtle way. His name is Greg Packer, but you may know him simply as the man on the street.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST (voice-over): If there's one thing we media types love, it's talking to the man on the street. Person on the street is probably better these days. You know, the salt of the earth regular Joe and Janes, those folks who offer up those pithy observations about life and stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do think it's a good idea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't like it.

GREENFIELD: But it turns out when it comes to the man on the street, some men are more equal than others. Specifically, this one, 39-year-old Long Island highway maintenance guy Greg Packer. He may look pretty ordinary, but as a man on the street quote artist, Packer is the Picasso, the Heifetz, the Barry Bonds of field.

GREG PACKER, MAN ON THE STREET: The media always comes to me, because I'm going to have an answer for everything that nobody else is going to have an answer for. So that -- so what I've become is, the man on the street, at, like, various events. GREENFIELD: And that is no accident. Packer spends just about every nonworking moment of his life making sure he's first in line for -- well, the event doesn't really matter that much. Here, it's a fund-raising event put on by World Wrestling. He got here hours and hours and hours ago.

PACKER: It's been a long night.

GREENFIELD: But whether it's opening day at Yankee Stadium, or an N'Sync concert, or a Thanksgiving Day parade, Greg Packer will be front and center, no matter what it takes.

PACKER: The furthest back it's been, Jeff, is two days early.

GREENFIELD: And Packer has grown media-savvy enough to use the journalist's name in every answer. Like when he's asked how he finds time for this life.

PACKER: Sick time, personal time, off-hours. Call it what you want, Jeff.

Because, Jeff -- they do, Jeff.

GREENFIELD: Maybe that's because he's talked to so many reporters. Starting in the mid-'90s, Packer, according to conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who discovered this phenomenon, Packer has been quoted more than 100 times by outlets from "The New York Times," to the Associated Press, to London's "Independent" on matters that range from Hillary Clinton's new book to the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

To keep him in shape, we asked Packer to offer up a rapid-fire series of views on the Thanksgiving Day parade.

PACKER: Just brings out, you know, the little kids at heart that, you know, we all are.

GREENFIELD: On baseball's opening day.

PACKER: Jeff, I'm happy I'm at the ball game today. I know the Yankees are going to win.

GREENFIELD: On New York's smoking ban.

PACKER: It shouldn't be as strict as it is now.

GREENFIELD: Packer says, to anyone who asks, that he doesn't know when it started. Maybe when his parents gave him autographs of celebrities. And he's so committed to this work that he may never get married, because not that many women will understand him bolting from home at 1:00 in the morning for a book signing.

(on camera): But it may be that Packer's new-found fame will prove his undoing. Now that journalists know his name, face, and preoccupation, can he really qualify as a typical man on the street? On the other hand, Packer says there has been talk about a book deal. And it's probably only a matter of time until cable TV comes calling.

Is this a great country, or what?

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Hey, but Greg, we all know what you look like now.

That's NEWSNIGHT for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm Kate Snow. Aaron is back tomorrow night. Have a good night.

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Engage Syrian Border Guards; Dean Officially Announces Presidential Run>