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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
New Round of Gruesome Pictures for Iraqis to Watch; U.S. Marines Steam Toward Liberia's Coast; Abbas Visits White House
Aired July 25, 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening everyone. Thanks for being with us.
It is a cliche of horror movies and strangely enough it applies to the week's biggest story as well. Monsters aren't all that easy to kill. Today, the U.S. went even further to try to convince Iraqis that Saddam Hussein's sons, men responsible for rapes, murders, unthinkable brutality, are really and true dead.
That meant another round of grisly images, graphic talk of how the bodies were prepared and firsthand accounts from journalists who saw it all close up, not easy to hear or watch but then again horror movies never are.
So, the whip begins tonight with the latest images and the reaction. Nic Robertson is in Baghdad with that, Nic the headline.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a new round of very gruesome pictures for Iraqis to watch on their televisions here. People's belief in whether or not Uday and Qusay are dead, division still on that issue here -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Nic back to you shortly.
A major development in the effort to stop the bloodshed in Liberia and the U.S. role in that, Pentagon Correspondent Chris Plante is on it, Chris the headline.
CHRIS PLANTE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Marines aboard ships are steaming toward the coast of Liberia. What remains to be seen is whether they'll become involved in the civil war there -- Anderson.
COOPER: Well, a landmark visit to the White House by a Palestinian prime minister. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King has that story tonight, John the headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, just the fact that Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas allowed into the White House is noteworthy. For 30 months, this president refused to meet with Yasser Arafat. The White House is somewhat optimistic more progress will be made, a better answer though next week after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes and visits as well -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, back to all of you in a moment. Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, images from a war zone, not Baghdad but Monrovia, Liberians trying to survive a civil war, their struggle as seen through the lens of a photographer for the "Los Angeles Times," remarkable images.
Also, could his next role be the "governator"? Candy Crowley looks at the speculation over Arnold, will he or won't he challenge California Governor Gray Davis and if he won't who will?
Also tonight, "Seabiscuit" barrels into theaters this weekend. We're going to look at a different kind of underdog, movies you may not have heard of that have made strong showings this summer. We're going to talk with film critic Harlan Jacobson, all that to come in the hour ahead.
We begin, however tonight with the stepped up effort to persuade Iraqis that yes seeing is believing so in a calculated risk the bodies of Uday and Qusay weren't washed, shrouded, and promptly buried as Islamic custom says they should be.
No, instead occupation authorities shaved, patched up, and put the pair on display for the media, rough stuff no doubt about it but in a rough neighborhood and for a skeptical crowd.
Our coverage begins with CNN's Nic Robertson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON (voice-over): As the first gruesome images appear on TV, waiters in this burger bar watch in silence, shock and surprise as they see the latest pictures of Uday and Qusay, grisly images the U.S.-led coalition decided were needed to convince skeptical Iraqis the brothers are dead.
"Yesterday the pictures were not clear" he says "but today we could make sure they are Uday and Qusay."
"We are not used to the long beard" this man says "but when it was returned to normal, we are sure."
At another Baghdad cafe, TV watchers equally attentive to the morticians' retouching that filled bullet holes and shaved beards, some still doubting.
"American technology can do everything" he says. "We saw a clear picture but they changed it. I'm not persuaded," suspicions some blame on years of Saddam Hussein's deceit.
SAMIR SHAKIR MAHMOOD SUMAIDY, MEMBER OF GOVERNING COUNCIL: In this case, where the fear is so deep and is ingrained it was, I think, very, very useful to show the photographs and, in fact, I would say it was necessary.
ROBERTSON: At a mosque in a neighborhood once staunchly loyal to Saddam Hussein, religious leaders accept the preparation of the bodies for identification, their only request: SHEIKH MU'AYAD IBRAHIM AL-A-DAMY, IMMAN A DAMIA MOSQUE (through translator): In a case like this where many people asked for the bodies to hack them, I would prefer that the Americans bury them in a place away from the eyes of people despite the crimes they committed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: U.S. officials say for now they'll hold onto the bodies until a relative comes forward to claim them and, while nobody expects their father to do that, nobody yet is ruling out a family burial either -- Anderson.
COOPER: Nic, are you hearing from coalition spokesmen that they feel there's a momentum building toward the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein? I mean do they seem more optimistic now than they have been in recent days?
ROBERTSON: Certainly when we were up in Mosul earlier in the week we were getting that impression from coalition officials. There was another raid when we were in Mosul. There was some talk that Saddam may have been in the area as well.
We also have seen those recent raids in Tikrit over the last couple of days arresting some of Saddam Hussein's former bodyguards. There's every indication that perhaps there is some momentum building that perhaps Saddam was caught on the hop, maybe is out on the run, so maybe something is going on, yes.
COOPER: Nic, I know there's a plane passing overhead but we'll just keep going anyway. You know it's amazing in your piece you hear some people saying well they're still not convinced even looking at these autopsies. Is there the sense that the coalition forces are going to continue showing these bodies or is this it? Is there any sense of what happens to them now?
ROBERTSON: No, I think for now they're going to be kept there at the mortuary at the airport. There's no indication the coalition is going to step this up further. It seems at the moment they've done as much as they can.
And, just in reference to those aircraft, Anderson, there's always aircraft here flying air cover but you never normally hear them. This is really unusual to hear them flying so low over Baghdad at this time in the morning, not clear what they'll be doing, maybe in support of troops on the ground somewhere.
COOPER: All right, Nic Robertson live in Baghdad thanks very much.
Well, a quick note now on the pair of $15 million rewards for dropping a dime on the Hussein brothers. Well, the word today from the State Department is that, yes, the tipster gets it all. We're prepared to move quickly on this one, said an official this afternoon, quickly because this bucks for bad guys program seems to be working and as Nic mentioned, it apparently worked again today, all of which has commanders on the ground aiming even higher, Saddam. Here's CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid the rubble of the Tuesday attack in Mosul that killed Uday and Qusay Hussein is there an answer to the question where is Saddam? From Baghdad a video press conference with tantalizing hints.
MAJ. GEN. RAY ODIERNO, COMMANDER, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION: We continue to tighten the noose and I believe that we continue to gain more and more information about where he might be.
STARR: General Odierno confirmed the U.S. has talked to one of Saddam's wives about where he might be hiding. Late Thursday a potential new lead, a tip from an Iraqi about a house near Tikrit and an overnight raid that may bring the U.S. closer to Saddam Hussein.
ODIERNO: Based on the informants south of Tikrit we detained 13 individuals. Somewhere between five and ten of those, we're still sorting through it, are believed to be Saddam Hussein's personal security detachment.
STARR: There is new concern, however, about more attacks against U.S. forces and other Iraqis.
ODIERNO: One thing we've talked about the last few days is maybe an increase in car bombing, suicide bombers, et cetera. We've had that discussion with all our soldiers and commanders.
STARR: Officials warn the attacks are getting more sophisticated with more ingenious use of remotely detonated explosives. The U.S. now believes there may be just a handful of expert bomb makers in Iraq who move around the country.
(on camera): U.S. troops, led by Special Forces, are stepping up the hunt for Saddam Hussein and, while they haven't found him yet, they believe they have him on the run and that fewer Iraqis will now be willing to protect him.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, next to Liberia where the dictator keeps saying he is leaving but hasn't yet gone anywhere, the Bush administration hasn't been willing to send in troops until he does but if the situation on the ground becomes even uglier, it took one step closer today.
Here again, CNN's Chris Plante.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PLANTE (voice-over): While pushing to have an African peacekeeping force go in to restore order ahead of any U.S. peacekeepers, President Bush has responded to pressure to do something about the simmering crisis there.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're deeply concerned that the condition of the Liberian people is getting worse and worse and worse. Aid can't get to the people. We're worried about the outbreak of disease.
PLANTE: Two ships loaded with nearly 2,000 Marines have been ordered to steam toward Liberia. The USS Iwo Jima and the USS Carter Hall are already in the Mediterranean Sea. A third ship, the USS Nashville is slated to follow on. Army forces may also become part of any task force, sources told CNN. At the Pentagon there is concern about being sucked into yet another military conflict.
GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Whatever we do that we have a very clear mission, we understand the mission we're asked to do, that we have an idea of when the mission is going to be over, in other words, when can we come out of the mission, and that we have sufficient force to deal with the security situation.
PLANTE: Under the plan and vision by the Pentagon, U.S. forces would only provide logistics, communications, and other non-combat support and that only after the fighting has stopped.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLANTE: With Liberian President Charles Taylor insisting that he won't leave until U.S. troops arrive, and the U.S. insisting they'll only put peacekeepers on the ground after Taylor is gone, the situation may have already encountered its first impasse -- Anderson.
COOPER: Chris, how long is it going to take to even get these forces I mean right off shore?
PLANTE: Well, the steaming time from where the to ships carrying the Marines are now is seven to eight days and what they do when they arrive offshore remains to be seen. If the situation is still unstable, well the Bush administration has said that they would be willing to put troops on the ground to keep the peace but not to make it -- Anderson.
COOPER: We heard in your piece General Richard Myers saying that the mission is clear, the time table is clear, those are things obviously the military likes to have, you know, all their ducks in a row but how clear really is the mission? I mean providing logistical support to Nigerian peacekeepers sounds kind of muddy to me.
PLANTE: Well, the entire situation quite honestly is a bit muddy and the Pentagon is approaching it slowly which is why to some extent you see Marines traveling there by ship rather than Army troops traveling out of Europe by air. Pentagon officials certainly are in no rush to find themselves in the middle of a civil war in West Africa with all of the other issues they currently have on their plate.
COOPER: All right, interesting. Chris Plante thanks very much. Back at the White House another bolt of yarn for what by now is starting to resemble a foreign policy sweat shop. Iraq, Liberia, Korea, not to mention Syria and Iran and, today in the Rose Garden, the Israeli-Palestinian question. Mahmoud Abbas today made his first White House visit as the Palestinian prime minister. He got some of what he came for.
Here's CNN's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): The president welcomed his guest by embracing a key Palestinian demand that Israel dismantle a new security barrier walling off the Palestinian territories.
BUSH: It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank.
KING: Israel says the wall will help reduce attacks on its citizens but Mr. Bush says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has agreed to discuss the issue when they meet next week.
Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories are another roadblock in the peace process and the Palestinian prime minister made clear dismantling some is not enough.
MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER: For the sake of peace and for the sake of future Palestinian and Israeli generations all settlement activities must be stopped now and the wall must come down.
KING: Mr. Bush would not embrace another major Palestinian demand that Israel grant the blanket release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
BUSH: We ought to look at the prisoner issue on a case-by-case basis. Surely, nobody wants to let a cold blooded killer out of prison that would help derail the process.
KING: Israel on Friday pledged to take a few more steps called for in the so-called road map for peace transferring security control in two more West Bank cities back to the Palestinians and eliminating some of the security checkpoints Palestinians say make it difficult to get from their homes to their jobs and schools.
Only modest progress has been made in the seven weeks since Mr. Bush's Mid East summit but the level of violence is down significantly and just this picture is noteworthy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Noteworthy because for 30 months Mr. Bush outright shunned Yasser Arafat. He said today that Mr. Abbas was more than welcome at the White House but he also made clear the new Palestinian prime minister could earn even more trust if he can prove in the days and weeks ahead that he can keep Palestinian militant groups from launching fresh attacks -- Anderson. COOPER: John, as far as the White House is concerned what's the next step? I mean I think, we talked earlier, I think you said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is coming next week?
KING: He comes on Tuesday and the White House understands that both Prime Minister Sharon and Prime Minister Abbas are under some tough political circumstances back home. They are hoping though that Prime Minister Sharon comes with word that he is prepared to move even more on the settlements and prepared to release some of those Palestinian prisoners.
The whole discussion of that security wall though could be the first time we get the key test from the Palestinian perspective will Mr. Bush push Prime Minister Sharon if Prime Minister Sharon says no?
COOPER: And, John, just one question on Liberia. We just had a report about it. You know we talked about U.S. Marines, possibly even Army heading toward that country. Has the decision been made or are you hearing anything about whether or not a decision has been made to actually enter the country or is it still kind of a wait and see?
KING: We are told here at the White House that it is all but certain that U.S. troops will go in in some form but, as Chris Plante noted, as we've been noting for weeks, there's still quite a bit of tension between the State Department and the Pentagon, still a big question as to exactly what the deployment will look like.
The White House is hoping to keep it to logistics and communications and humanitarian efforts. The last thing they want are U.S. peacekeepers on the front lines. They want the West African nations to take the most dangerous role.
COOPER: All right, it looks like that's what's going to happen. John King thanks very much.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT more on the bodies, will showing the bodies of Saddam's sons to journalists prove that they are really dead to a skeptical Arab world?
Also, the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Liberia, we're going to have a firsthand account, some remarkable images as NEWSNIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, we said at the top of the program showing the dead bodies of the Hussein brothers is to take a chance. We want to explore a little more deeply now the benefits and the drawbacks of doing so.
Who is offended here? Who's persuaded? Who will be reassured? It cuts any number of ways. One thing you can't deny is it sends a powerful message. The question is how will it be seen?
We're joined tonight in Cairo, early morning there, by Hussein Amin, a professor of journalism and mass communications at the American University in Cairo and we're very pleased to have him with us. Mr. Amin thanks for being with us. How are the pictures in Cairo playing?
HUSSEIN AMIN, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO: Well, we have too many different opinions. Some they support the decision of showing the pictures because they say no more fear and no more of the Saddam regime in the future.
But others, and they are the majority, they have some strong points regarding the Geneva Convention that prohibits showing this kind of pictures and also the long history of the U.S. of not making public pictures of this kind shown to the public.
In addition, of course, the Islamic beliefs and traditions prohibits showing these kind of pictures and recommends that the dead should be buried regardless of religion.
COOPER: Well, those who are critical of showing these pictures, of coalition forces making these pictures available, I mean would they be critical of the U.S. no matter what they did do you feel or do you think it is, I mean is there a certain level of surprise that the U.S. has taken this step to show these pictures so widely?
AMIN: I'm really sorry. The audio is terrible and I cannot hear you well.
COOPER: The question was the large numbers of people who you said object to the U.S. showing these pictures, would they object to really any move the U.S. made or is there -- is it -- I mean is the objection a large amount of surprise the fact that the U.S. has taken the step to show these pictures?
AMIN: Now I cannot hear you at all.
COOPER: All right, we'll try it one more time and then we'll just give in to the technology gods. What -- I don't even know where to go. Do you think the reaction in Baghdad is far different than the reaction you're getting in Cairo?
All right, we're going to try to just move on anyway. What can you do? Sometimes live TV works this way.
Anyway, before we take a break a few more notes now from around the world starting with a rough and tumble debate over Iraq in Japan's parliament. I don't know if you saw these pictures, pretty remarkable. That's the rough and tumble part. There's the tumble part actually.
Tempers ran hot because the debate was over sending troops to Iraq, the first time Japanese soldiers would head into a combat zone since the Second World War. Lawmakers ended up giving Japan's prime minister the authority to do it.
All right, moving on now next to Seoul, South Korea, the veterans of the multi-national force that fought the Korean War gathering today to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of fighting, a reminder said one of the vets that freedom comes at a cost but sometimes the cost is worth bearing.
And, in Great Britain another anniversary, Louise Brown celebrated today with friends, family and her scientific fathers. Louise, now 25 years old, was the first person conceived by in vitro fertilization, a fancy way of saying she's the first test tube baby, and you've come a long way baby.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, are Americans looking for a real dose of reality? We're going to look at the surprising popularity of documentaries at the box office, no, not reality TV.
And next to Liberia for a compelling firsthand account of what life is like there in the middle of a civil war.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, of all the heartbreaking images from Liberia one of the most poignant to us was from a few weeks back, the Liberians celebrating when they thought American peacekeepers were en route. I'm sure you remember those pictures.
Well, they weren't en route so maybe it's no surprise that, as one journalist put it, there was no outbreak of joy at the news today that U.S. troops were now headed for Liberia's coast. In a way, we hope the Liberians are numb. What they are going through would seem too painful for any human to bear.
One photographer for the "Los Angeles Times" is in the capital of Monrovia, tried to give us a sense of daily life there, a daily fight for survival.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROLYN COLE, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": My name is Carolyn Cole. I'm a photographer for the "Los Angeles Times" and I'm in Monrovia covering the arrival of the U.S. peacekeepers and their mission.
In the meantime, I've been concentrating on the condition of the Liberian people and their struggle. In order to move around the city you have to at least come into contact with the soldiers. It's pretty striking when you see a nine or ten-year-old with a weapon that size.
A lot of them actually aren't doing direct fighting. Normally when there's a group of these guys around some will be more bold and run forward if there's actually an advance while many others will leave backward. So, not all of the men are actually going up to the front line.
As the rebels force people down out of their neighborhoods from one side of the city they're squeezed into the downtown thinking that's safest, so it's really just a constant movement of people trying to look for safety.
People are just becoming victims of random fire so most of the people who are dying are civilians. You just really don't know when or where it's coming from. You can think that you're in a safe area and then you'll start hearing little whizzing sounds that go by and everyone will be scrambling for the ground so it's very erratic.
The bodies of people who were killed in the shelling last Saturday were brought and placed in front of the embassy as a message to the Americans that people are very angry that peacekeepers haven't arrived.
The next day I went and watched as they loaded up the bodies and took them to be buried along the beachfront. One man showed up looking for his son and I watched as he dug a grave for his son and he and his other remaining sons buried the 22-year-old man.
I'm really focusing my coverage on the humanitarian side. Aid workers haven't been able to get out in the last seven days to distribute any food. She was at one of these schools and whenever a child is underweight they put the wrist band on hoping that a child will then get extra food.
She was eating dry cornmeal to try to get some calories into her but in the last seven days, as I mentioned, there really aren't any aid workers that are able to get out and distribute food.
The Masonic temple sits on the top of a hill that overlooks the whole city. Now, it's filled with thousands of refugees and the floor is just covered with people sleeping on foam pads and straw mats and plastic and every corner of it is filled with refugees.
The people who are late in arriving they're all just crammed into the schools and empty buildings and the stadium which is filled with something like 30,000 displaced people.
This is on a day when the Red Cross is finally getting into the stadium to deliver food and supplies and what struck me is she just was standing there all alone in the pouring rain without anything.
She did tell me that she hadn't eaten that day even though they were handing out food. The people here still are very hopeful and are begging for some aid to come to them to put an end to their miserable situation. I'm going to stay as long as there is still some doubt about the future of the people here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Some images from the conflict in Liberia.
A few stories from around the country tonight beginning with the death of President Bush's nominee for Navy secretary, a state medical investigator in New Mexico ruled that this man, Colin McMillan committed suicide yesterday dying from a gunshot wound to the head. McMillan was a former Marine who became a powerful force in the oil business. President Bush described him as a public servant and patriot.
In Florida, a fire burned through a marina near the St. Johns River. Thirty boats were sunk and nearby cars, buildings destroyed. One man was seriously hurt. Damage was estimated at $5 million. Investigators do not know what started the fire.
And, terrible deja vu on this story also from Florida, a 79-year- old disabled man lost control of his car. * Damage was estimated at $5 million. Investigators do not know what started the fire.
And terrible deja vu in this story, also from Florida: A 79- year-old disabled man lost control of his car and -- you guessed the rest -- plowed into a farmer's market this morning. Three people were hurt. The driver says the car accelerator got stuck. The accident, of course, comes a week after an elderly driver plowed into a farmer's market in Santa Monica, California, killing 10 people there.
And for their obvious undeniable, unstoppable passion for each other, the burning love between Liza Minnelli and David Gest is apparently over. Minnelli and Gest, who married last year, have separated. And, sadly, that means they have canceled their Tuesday's appearance on "LARRY KING LIVE."
Well, coming up next on NEWSNIGHT: the GOP Fantasy. Will the Terminator run for governor in the coming recall election of Democrat Gray Davis?
And later, George's fantasy: Ali Wentworth on trying to do a daily talk show while married to Sunday talk show host George Stephanopoulos.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: All right, the California Supreme Court today struck down a legal challenge to this autumn's recall election. Now, it was the first, but almost certainly not the last. Expect to hear more on this as the vote draws closer. And when it happens, if it happens, there will be two questions on the ballot: Do you want to keep Governor Gray Davis? And who do you want instead?
It is the instead part that has people buzzing. Today, Michael Huffington -- remember him? Well, he ran and lost for the Senate. Well, he filed papers today. But just about anybody can run, any Tom, Dick, or Sally, or Jack, or Di, or Arnold.
The story now from Candy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No, he hasn't said yet. He's still working his day job.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ACTOR: I think it's very important that you send a message, which means that we're here to promote "Terminator 3." So that's all we want to talk about. I have no announcements to make, if that's your question.
CROWLEY: Well, yes, that is the question, everybody's question.
GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: The Terminator may be back, he may not be back, we'll see about that.
CROWLEY: As delicious as the prospect is, political oddsmakers are betting Arnold Schwarzenegger will turn down the role of Gray Davis slayer. The recall vote is guerrilla theater, anything can happen, and nobody knows what it will mean.
The theory is, if Schwarzenegger is serious about changing careers, his political debut is less likely to be panned in a more conventional election, say one everybody expects, where motives are less likely to be suspect. Besides, Schwarzenegger is not a template conservative in the mold envisioned by the folks who set up the recall scenario.
This man does not have a star on Hollywood Boulevard, but former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp is said to be pondering a go at the governor. He has pass for glamour for political circles, he played football for the Buffalo Bills and the San Diego Chargers. You see where this is going. Kemp is a Republican, has a House in California, need we say more? Although he has yet to say anything.
Speaking of not saying anything, what does this man think about efforts to replace a Democratic governor with a Republican one? Let's get to the point: 55 electoral votes, more than any other state. Win here, you are one-fifth of the way to the White House. Any political ripple in California registers in national politics. And this recall is pretty much a tsunami, but the White House is headed for high ground.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that this is an issue that the people of California are going to address, and that's where our position is. We're not involved in it at this point.
CROWLEY: Not a word, not in public, and if you can believe it, not in private."We had a meeting with White House types about '04, said one California Republican, "and they refused to talk about the recall."
Two words, explained one Bushie: Richard Riordan. Riordan was the White House fave to run for governor last year. He was defeated in the primary by Bill Simon. Then guess who had to fly to California and make nice?
Candy Crowley, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, whoever winds up running, the real terminator for Gray Davis could turn out to be something entirely: a hole in the budget that makes the one in the Titanic, well, look like a pinprick.
Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to live within our means.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This does not protect women and children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wasteful spreading.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Widespread suffering and disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't spend more money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is wrong with you people?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): They've been at it for weeks now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the Budget Committee.
GREENFIELD: California's state legislature, one of the best paid, most professional anywhere, still hasn't passed a state budget. Its credit rating is sinking and there is a two-year deficit that's reached $38 billion.
ELIZABETH HILL, CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE ANALYST: Oh, I think it's very serious.
GREENFIELD: And, says California's legislative analyst Elizabeth Hill, it's not your typical budget crisis.
HILL: Because of the unprecedented magnitude of the budget problem and our cash situation combined, this really is a daunting problem facing the state of California.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Part of what is ailing in California is local in nature: a tax structure uniquely vulnerable to the high-tech meltdown; rules that help guarantee political gridlock. But California is also exhibit A in a broader national dilemma. The states that provide most of the money for schools and cops and health care are in serious, even desperate financial trouble.
(voice-over): You can see it in the numbers: a federal budget deficit now estimated at more than $450 billion...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tax reductions.
GREENFIELD: ... means there will be no help from Washington to the states, which face a total deficit of their own of some $100 billion. You can see the consequences everywhere; 84 Oregon school districts shut down early. Kentucky released nonviolent prisoners ahead of schedule. In Colorado, there are no property tax breaks for 120,000 older residents. Missouri cut $210 million from schools and colleges.
Across the United States, students will be paying big tuition increases. And the question isn't whether there will be big layoffs of state workers, but how big. Adding to the dilemma is an immense gap of fundamental political philosophy about spending and taxes that's reached a peak, or a valley, in California. Senate Democrats there are led by John Burton, a 71-year-old man of the liberal left, for whom cutting government spending is like opening up a vein.
JOHN BURTON (D), CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR: Is the sky going to fall? I don't know. I know it won't fall on me. It won't fall on my kid. But I know it's going to fall on a lot of people in the state who are elderly, a lot of single mothers with kids.
GREENFIELD: Senate Republicans are led by Jim Brulte, a 48-year- old man of the conservative right, for whom raising taxes is like opening an artery.
JAMES BRULTE (R), CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR: If tax increases were the answer, we wouldn't have a deficit today. The core problem here is, we spend too much money. And the only reason we are not bankrupt today is because federal allow doesn't allow for states to go bankrupt.
GREENFIELD: And this divide, more like a chasm, says longtime California journalist Dan Walters, means the national dilemma over state budgets is much worse in the nation's biggest state.
DAN WALTERS, "SACRAMENTO BEE": A lot of this has to do with, essentially, very liberal Democrats, very conservative Republicans, seeing this as jihad war.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Even if California does find its way out of this current fiscal crisis, the bigger problem remains. In most of states, citizens will be paying more, maybe a lot more, for less, maybe a lot less. And that, in turn, is likely to produce a political climate in which it will be the winners who will be demanding recounts.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Sacramento, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT: a big dose of reality at the movies, where everything these days seems to be based on true stories.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, in the spirit of Seabiscuit, the scrappy underdog, we want to take a look at a few movies this summer that came out of nowhere to generate a lot of buzz in the theaters. One is an inspiring tale about young people striving for the American dream, with an absolute nail-biter ending. The other is a stunning drama about a family that implodes when father and son are accused of child sexual abuse. Neither of them stars Tobey or Reese or even my favorites, Mary-Kate and Ashley.
They're both documentaries, "Spellbound" and "Capturing The Friedmans," two of the films we want to talk about with film critic Harlan Jacobson. Thanks for being with us.
HARLAN JACOBSON, "TALK CINEMA": A pleasure.
COOPER: This was -- everyone always talks about the summer as being the blockbusters, "The Hulk" and the like. And, certainly, those movies opened big, though they quickly disappeared. But, really, so much attention this summer has been on these small films, like "Capturing the Friedmans."
JACOBSON: Well, that's the thing, Anderson, that there's this cycle of boom and bust going on in the major films, where they open, they do this terrific amount of business, and then they collapse. But down there in the lower register are films like these docs -- "Winged Migration" is another one, "Capturing the Friedmans" -- where they hover for weeks at a time, staying in theaters 11 weeks, 12 weeks, consistently performing.
COOPER: And it's not done by advertising. It's largely -- it's word of mouth. People see these. They tell their friends, this is great, and it just keeps going on and on and on. The theater I went to see "Capturing the Friedmans" at was sold out.
JACOBSON: Right.
If you look at per-screen averages, when you read "Variety," for instance, you will see that they are doing $20,000, $25,000 a week, whereas the bigger films, which open, of course, in 4,000 screens, they may roll up that kind of number for one week and then they are down to $3,000 a week after that.
COOPER: Let's talk about "Capturing the Friedmans," a fascinating film about a family basically dissolving.
JACOBSON: Yes. Yes, won the Sundance Film Festival.
It's set out here in Great Neck, New York. It's about a family -- exactly about a family that's dissolving. It's really kind of a Kafkaesque tangle in which a family -- allegations are that the father is a pederast. The sons are caught up in it. And the family really can't deal with the legal machinery. And once it begins, there is no end to it.
COOPER: And what's remarkable -- and some of the images we're showing right now -- once the arrests are made and the legal machinery begins, the family actually starts videotaping themselves going through all of this.
So you have not only the -- you see all the news footage from what was going on outside this house, but you have a view -- it's a very personal view of this family. And you're sort of left at the end not knowing -- well, I probably even shouldn't say what happens at end. It's just -- it's a remarkable film.
JACOBSON: Absolutely. COOPER: The next film let's talk about, "Spellbound." I have talked to the director of this film, another great film, about spelling bees.
JACOBSON: Well, you wouldn't think that a film about spelling bees would put you on the edge of your seat. But it actually does. And, in many respects, it almost mirrors the big film that's opening today, which is "Seabiscuit," because both of them really address questions of the aristocracy vs. the meritocracy.
Here in "Spellbound," you have kids using the mechanism of education to really move themselves ahead. And so, you see a cross- section of American kids, chosen almost picture-perfectly, to illustrate a particular class or an ethnic group or what have you who are using the spelling bee to spearhead their way into college.
COOPER: The other film that's gotten a lot of attention and a lot of people are seeing, "Winged Migration." I don't know anything about it.
JACOBSON: Well, it's the third in the troika of documentaries that are doing well. All of them were nominated for best picture in Oscar category this year.
"Winged Migration" is a French film. And it's about birds.
COOPER: Birds, dirty, rotten, stinking birds?
JACOBSON: Dirty, rotten, stinking birds and their migration patterns, etcetera. And it recalls the days of Cinerama in its cinematography. But it actually has a real theme and a real point of view. You will see this shot here, landing on a boat.
There are other shots, for instance, flying by the World Trade Center, when the film was shot. It's a French deal. It was a French producer, French narration. Jacques Perrin is an actor who worked for a lot of French directors. But he's spending the latter part of his career doing these kinds of documentaries.
COOPER: The other big movie, obviously, opening up this weekend, "Seabiscuit," which is, of course, based on just a remarkable story, is it good? Is it worth seeing?
JACOBSON: Well, it's not the book. And, in a way, it feels like "Rocky" on four legs. It's kind of hokey, in silks and satins, etcetera.
You get a lump in your throat. Of course, you get a lump in your throat when traffic moves like this on the George Washington Bridge.
(LAUGHTER)
JACOBSON: But is it affecting? Yes. Is it art? No. Will it be a crowd pleaser? I think a lot of people are looking to see that, because this is the one major, big film out of Hollywood that has some pretensions to an Oscar, that has ambitions, that has artistic drive behind it.
Laura Hillenbrand's own story is a better story perhaps than the movie that's filmed from it.
COOPER: Right. I saw actually a great documentary on -- I think it was public television, maybe "American Masters" -- about "Seabiscuit" that was just fantastic. So maybe stick with that.
Harlan Jacobson, thanks very much.
JACOBSON: Pleasure to be here.
COOPER: All right.
Well, still ahead on old NEWSNIGHT, friend -- I don't know what I just said. Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an old friend, Ali Wentworth, drops by. It's getting a little late, isn't it? She's got a new show, a new baby, a famous husband. What could we possibly talk about?
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Good posture, everyone.
All right, you never quite know where what Ali Wentworth is going to say next, do you, huh, which, when you think about it, is exactly what you want from the host of a morning TV show, someone who can jolt you out of bed, leave you wondering in your sleepy haze, did she just say that?
Ali Wentworth will co-host a show called "Living It Up With Ali and Jack" beginning this fall. She has already livened up her mornings this week by duking it out in the gossip columns over a few things written about her husband, who has his own talk show -- in case you don't know, George Stephanopoulos.
And Ali joins us now.
It is very nice to see you again. I haven't seen you for a long time.
ALI WENTWORTH, TALK SHOW HOST: So nice to see you, Anderson.
COOPER: We were once on a morning show together.
WENTWORTH: We were.
COOPER: I can't even remember how long ago it was.
WENTWORTH: A year ago.
(LAUGHTER)
WENTWORTH: I think I was just pregnant and vomiting. And now I am back and I've had the baby. And your career has surged, my friend!
COOPER: Oh, well, you know. But we won't talk about me. It's about you now.
WENTWORTH: Oh, please.
COOPER: First of all, so you are doing this morning show.
WENTWORTH: Yes, starting September 15.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: All right. Plug away.
WENTWORTH: I am not plugging it. I just don't want people to tune in tomorrow morning and say, that girl's a compulsive liar. It launches September 15.
COOPER: This is like a major launch. This is like there's big money riding on this. There's a huge company behind it.
WENTWORTH: Well, I haven't seen any coin, but, yes, they're spending a lot of money on the publicity.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Are you under a lot of pressure?
WENTWORTH: Not until you started asking me these questions. No, I'm excited.
COOPER: No, but putting together a major show, it has got to be a lot...
WENTWORTH: It's exciting, though. It's great to have your own show and it's great to have the best people in the business behind it. And...
COOPER: How do you put together a show like this? Because I am putting together my little own show here at 7:00 Eastern time.
WENTWORTH: Are you? In your living room?
COOPER: Right. But it's very hard getting people, putting together -- you see it on TV, you think, ah, it's no big whoop. But it's actually a hard thing, assembling...
WENTWORTH: It's really hard.
King World, they were incredibly smart, because they went out to all of the markets and did the research first and said, what do you guys need? What are you missing in your time slots? As opposed to taking a big star and just saying, here's a show.
COOPER: Right. So they said, we are missing someone named Ali.
WENTWORTH: Funny enough, they did.
No, they said, we want a male/female-driven daytime talk show that's very entertaining. And, like, 150 girls passed. And they finally called me.
COOPER: You call them girls?
WENTWORTH: Women, professional women.
COOPER: OK. OK.
WENTWORTH: So, anyway, they knew what was needed out there. And then I actually went in and met with King World. And I was eight months pregnant. And I thought, if they are looking for the sexy- legged blonde, it's not going to be the seahorse
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: This thing launches September...
WENTWORTH: Fifteenth.
COOPER: Fifteenth, right. And, what, you're going to be interviewing celebrities. You're going to be...
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: We're going to do the whole thing. We are going to come out. We're going to do host chat. We're going to talk about some news, but not kind of CNN news. You can do stars.
COOPER: How you do build chemistry? Because that's the big thing on all these shows. There's got to be chemistry.
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: You can't. The kind of thing that's happening right now is -- the energy.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: This is like -- you can print the money.
WENTWORTH: It just creates itself.
COOPER: If we were together, you could print the money.
WENTWORTH: Yes, you could. Yes, you could. So you can't -- either you have chemistry or you don't.
COOPER: It either works or it doesn't.
WENTWORTH: Yes.
COOPER: And that's what makes it so risky for all these companies. (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: They're giving huge sums of money.
WENTWORTH: Yes. Yes.
COOPER: And do you try out in advance to see if there's chemistry? Do you have lunch?
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: Yes. I was paired with people. Lunch. We took a weekend in the Bahamas, and whoever I liked when I got back.
COOPER: Hey, I don't know.
WENTWORTH: No, we were paired with different people. And some people, it was just -- that would that be the most obnoxious show in the world, me and him.
COOPER: So, when I knew you, you were a celebrity. But now, you are like a major, syndicated, huge celebrity. And you're in the gossip columns now.
WENTWORTH: Yes.
COOPER: I read in gossip columns.
WENTWORTH: Yes, I have read about you occasionally in the gossip columns myself.
COOPER: But you are far more interesting in the gossip columns. They are saying that there's like divisions between you and your husband, George Stephanopoulos. And then you have to respond in another gossip column. Why respond?
WENTWORTH: There's two reasons why I responded. And I learned my lesson. I will not comment on my personal life.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You responded. The thing was in, I don't know
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You responded in "The Washington Post."
WENTWORTH: I responded with humor.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: It was a good response.
WENTWORTH: And as somebody with a comedy background, that is usually our kind of mantra for the best comeback to anything.
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: So you sort of hit everything with comedy. But I guess a lot of the gossip columnists don't have a great sense of humor, or they do. And then you just sort of let it lie.
COOPER: So your strategy now would -- because, in some ways, there is the argument always that it just extenuates the story by commenting. And then it allows it to run.
WENTWORTH: It does. It does. But it also becomes a little laborious after a while. How long can me and "Page Six" go, woohoo, your turn?
But, basically, the only thing it said was that George and I have a 10-month-old baby.
COOPER: Uh-huh. OK.
WENTWORTH: Go ahead, open that closet, because I'll open yours, my friend. I'll open yours.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Oh, there's many skeletons in mine, I will tell you.
So the show starts and how do you prepare for it? Are you doing research now? What do you do?
WENTWORTH: Well, we have great, great, great segment producers. And so we kind of see what's in the news, again, not like Middle East, SARS news.
COOPER: Right. OK.
WENTWORTH: But a woman who is still breast-feeding her kid and he is still 8 years old.
COOPER: What?
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: Yes, there's a woman. There was this big controversy. She was still breast-feeding her kid at 8.
COOPER: I would tune in to watch that.
WENTWORTH: How are you doing with that, by the way?
(LAUGHTER)
WENTWORTH: So, anyway, we would talk about, is it -- some women think it's a great idea. Some women think it's a little -- I don't know. When your son comes home from Yale with his lacrosse stick and you whip out your teat, you know that things are in trouble.
COOPER: I don't think we can -- anyway, we are going to leave it right there.
(LAUGHTER)
WENTWORTH: We are not ending on that.
COOPER: We are ending on that.
Ali Wentworth, thanks very much. Good luck.
WENTWORTH: Thank you.
COOPER: Good night, everyone. That's NEWSNIGHT for this week.
Aaron returns on Monday, you'll be glad to know.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Marines Steam Toward Liberia's Coast; Abbas Visits White House>
Aired July 25, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening everyone. Thanks for being with us.
It is a cliche of horror movies and strangely enough it applies to the week's biggest story as well. Monsters aren't all that easy to kill. Today, the U.S. went even further to try to convince Iraqis that Saddam Hussein's sons, men responsible for rapes, murders, unthinkable brutality, are really and true dead.
That meant another round of grisly images, graphic talk of how the bodies were prepared and firsthand accounts from journalists who saw it all close up, not easy to hear or watch but then again horror movies never are.
So, the whip begins tonight with the latest images and the reaction. Nic Robertson is in Baghdad with that, Nic the headline.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a new round of very gruesome pictures for Iraqis to watch on their televisions here. People's belief in whether or not Uday and Qusay are dead, division still on that issue here -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Nic back to you shortly.
A major development in the effort to stop the bloodshed in Liberia and the U.S. role in that, Pentagon Correspondent Chris Plante is on it, Chris the headline.
CHRIS PLANTE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Marines aboard ships are steaming toward the coast of Liberia. What remains to be seen is whether they'll become involved in the civil war there -- Anderson.
COOPER: Well, a landmark visit to the White House by a Palestinian prime minister. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King has that story tonight, John the headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, just the fact that Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas allowed into the White House is noteworthy. For 30 months, this president refused to meet with Yasser Arafat. The White House is somewhat optimistic more progress will be made, a better answer though next week after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes and visits as well -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, back to all of you in a moment. Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, images from a war zone, not Baghdad but Monrovia, Liberians trying to survive a civil war, their struggle as seen through the lens of a photographer for the "Los Angeles Times," remarkable images.
Also, could his next role be the "governator"? Candy Crowley looks at the speculation over Arnold, will he or won't he challenge California Governor Gray Davis and if he won't who will?
Also tonight, "Seabiscuit" barrels into theaters this weekend. We're going to look at a different kind of underdog, movies you may not have heard of that have made strong showings this summer. We're going to talk with film critic Harlan Jacobson, all that to come in the hour ahead.
We begin, however tonight with the stepped up effort to persuade Iraqis that yes seeing is believing so in a calculated risk the bodies of Uday and Qusay weren't washed, shrouded, and promptly buried as Islamic custom says they should be.
No, instead occupation authorities shaved, patched up, and put the pair on display for the media, rough stuff no doubt about it but in a rough neighborhood and for a skeptical crowd.
Our coverage begins with CNN's Nic Robertson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON (voice-over): As the first gruesome images appear on TV, waiters in this burger bar watch in silence, shock and surprise as they see the latest pictures of Uday and Qusay, grisly images the U.S.-led coalition decided were needed to convince skeptical Iraqis the brothers are dead.
"Yesterday the pictures were not clear" he says "but today we could make sure they are Uday and Qusay."
"We are not used to the long beard" this man says "but when it was returned to normal, we are sure."
At another Baghdad cafe, TV watchers equally attentive to the morticians' retouching that filled bullet holes and shaved beards, some still doubting.
"American technology can do everything" he says. "We saw a clear picture but they changed it. I'm not persuaded," suspicions some blame on years of Saddam Hussein's deceit.
SAMIR SHAKIR MAHMOOD SUMAIDY, MEMBER OF GOVERNING COUNCIL: In this case, where the fear is so deep and is ingrained it was, I think, very, very useful to show the photographs and, in fact, I would say it was necessary.
ROBERTSON: At a mosque in a neighborhood once staunchly loyal to Saddam Hussein, religious leaders accept the preparation of the bodies for identification, their only request: SHEIKH MU'AYAD IBRAHIM AL-A-DAMY, IMMAN A DAMIA MOSQUE (through translator): In a case like this where many people asked for the bodies to hack them, I would prefer that the Americans bury them in a place away from the eyes of people despite the crimes they committed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: U.S. officials say for now they'll hold onto the bodies until a relative comes forward to claim them and, while nobody expects their father to do that, nobody yet is ruling out a family burial either -- Anderson.
COOPER: Nic, are you hearing from coalition spokesmen that they feel there's a momentum building toward the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein? I mean do they seem more optimistic now than they have been in recent days?
ROBERTSON: Certainly when we were up in Mosul earlier in the week we were getting that impression from coalition officials. There was another raid when we were in Mosul. There was some talk that Saddam may have been in the area as well.
We also have seen those recent raids in Tikrit over the last couple of days arresting some of Saddam Hussein's former bodyguards. There's every indication that perhaps there is some momentum building that perhaps Saddam was caught on the hop, maybe is out on the run, so maybe something is going on, yes.
COOPER: Nic, I know there's a plane passing overhead but we'll just keep going anyway. You know it's amazing in your piece you hear some people saying well they're still not convinced even looking at these autopsies. Is there the sense that the coalition forces are going to continue showing these bodies or is this it? Is there any sense of what happens to them now?
ROBERTSON: No, I think for now they're going to be kept there at the mortuary at the airport. There's no indication the coalition is going to step this up further. It seems at the moment they've done as much as they can.
And, just in reference to those aircraft, Anderson, there's always aircraft here flying air cover but you never normally hear them. This is really unusual to hear them flying so low over Baghdad at this time in the morning, not clear what they'll be doing, maybe in support of troops on the ground somewhere.
COOPER: All right, Nic Robertson live in Baghdad thanks very much.
Well, a quick note now on the pair of $15 million rewards for dropping a dime on the Hussein brothers. Well, the word today from the State Department is that, yes, the tipster gets it all. We're prepared to move quickly on this one, said an official this afternoon, quickly because this bucks for bad guys program seems to be working and as Nic mentioned, it apparently worked again today, all of which has commanders on the ground aiming even higher, Saddam. Here's CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid the rubble of the Tuesday attack in Mosul that killed Uday and Qusay Hussein is there an answer to the question where is Saddam? From Baghdad a video press conference with tantalizing hints.
MAJ. GEN. RAY ODIERNO, COMMANDER, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION: We continue to tighten the noose and I believe that we continue to gain more and more information about where he might be.
STARR: General Odierno confirmed the U.S. has talked to one of Saddam's wives about where he might be hiding. Late Thursday a potential new lead, a tip from an Iraqi about a house near Tikrit and an overnight raid that may bring the U.S. closer to Saddam Hussein.
ODIERNO: Based on the informants south of Tikrit we detained 13 individuals. Somewhere between five and ten of those, we're still sorting through it, are believed to be Saddam Hussein's personal security detachment.
STARR: There is new concern, however, about more attacks against U.S. forces and other Iraqis.
ODIERNO: One thing we've talked about the last few days is maybe an increase in car bombing, suicide bombers, et cetera. We've had that discussion with all our soldiers and commanders.
STARR: Officials warn the attacks are getting more sophisticated with more ingenious use of remotely detonated explosives. The U.S. now believes there may be just a handful of expert bomb makers in Iraq who move around the country.
(on camera): U.S. troops, led by Special Forces, are stepping up the hunt for Saddam Hussein and, while they haven't found him yet, they believe they have him on the run and that fewer Iraqis will now be willing to protect him.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, next to Liberia where the dictator keeps saying he is leaving but hasn't yet gone anywhere, the Bush administration hasn't been willing to send in troops until he does but if the situation on the ground becomes even uglier, it took one step closer today.
Here again, CNN's Chris Plante.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PLANTE (voice-over): While pushing to have an African peacekeeping force go in to restore order ahead of any U.S. peacekeepers, President Bush has responded to pressure to do something about the simmering crisis there.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're deeply concerned that the condition of the Liberian people is getting worse and worse and worse. Aid can't get to the people. We're worried about the outbreak of disease.
PLANTE: Two ships loaded with nearly 2,000 Marines have been ordered to steam toward Liberia. The USS Iwo Jima and the USS Carter Hall are already in the Mediterranean Sea. A third ship, the USS Nashville is slated to follow on. Army forces may also become part of any task force, sources told CNN. At the Pentagon there is concern about being sucked into yet another military conflict.
GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Whatever we do that we have a very clear mission, we understand the mission we're asked to do, that we have an idea of when the mission is going to be over, in other words, when can we come out of the mission, and that we have sufficient force to deal with the security situation.
PLANTE: Under the plan and vision by the Pentagon, U.S. forces would only provide logistics, communications, and other non-combat support and that only after the fighting has stopped.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLANTE: With Liberian President Charles Taylor insisting that he won't leave until U.S. troops arrive, and the U.S. insisting they'll only put peacekeepers on the ground after Taylor is gone, the situation may have already encountered its first impasse -- Anderson.
COOPER: Chris, how long is it going to take to even get these forces I mean right off shore?
PLANTE: Well, the steaming time from where the to ships carrying the Marines are now is seven to eight days and what they do when they arrive offshore remains to be seen. If the situation is still unstable, well the Bush administration has said that they would be willing to put troops on the ground to keep the peace but not to make it -- Anderson.
COOPER: We heard in your piece General Richard Myers saying that the mission is clear, the time table is clear, those are things obviously the military likes to have, you know, all their ducks in a row but how clear really is the mission? I mean providing logistical support to Nigerian peacekeepers sounds kind of muddy to me.
PLANTE: Well, the entire situation quite honestly is a bit muddy and the Pentagon is approaching it slowly which is why to some extent you see Marines traveling there by ship rather than Army troops traveling out of Europe by air. Pentagon officials certainly are in no rush to find themselves in the middle of a civil war in West Africa with all of the other issues they currently have on their plate.
COOPER: All right, interesting. Chris Plante thanks very much. Back at the White House another bolt of yarn for what by now is starting to resemble a foreign policy sweat shop. Iraq, Liberia, Korea, not to mention Syria and Iran and, today in the Rose Garden, the Israeli-Palestinian question. Mahmoud Abbas today made his first White House visit as the Palestinian prime minister. He got some of what he came for.
Here's CNN's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): The president welcomed his guest by embracing a key Palestinian demand that Israel dismantle a new security barrier walling off the Palestinian territories.
BUSH: It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank.
KING: Israel says the wall will help reduce attacks on its citizens but Mr. Bush says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has agreed to discuss the issue when they meet next week.
Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories are another roadblock in the peace process and the Palestinian prime minister made clear dismantling some is not enough.
MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER: For the sake of peace and for the sake of future Palestinian and Israeli generations all settlement activities must be stopped now and the wall must come down.
KING: Mr. Bush would not embrace another major Palestinian demand that Israel grant the blanket release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
BUSH: We ought to look at the prisoner issue on a case-by-case basis. Surely, nobody wants to let a cold blooded killer out of prison that would help derail the process.
KING: Israel on Friday pledged to take a few more steps called for in the so-called road map for peace transferring security control in two more West Bank cities back to the Palestinians and eliminating some of the security checkpoints Palestinians say make it difficult to get from their homes to their jobs and schools.
Only modest progress has been made in the seven weeks since Mr. Bush's Mid East summit but the level of violence is down significantly and just this picture is noteworthy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Noteworthy because for 30 months Mr. Bush outright shunned Yasser Arafat. He said today that Mr. Abbas was more than welcome at the White House but he also made clear the new Palestinian prime minister could earn even more trust if he can prove in the days and weeks ahead that he can keep Palestinian militant groups from launching fresh attacks -- Anderson. COOPER: John, as far as the White House is concerned what's the next step? I mean I think, we talked earlier, I think you said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is coming next week?
KING: He comes on Tuesday and the White House understands that both Prime Minister Sharon and Prime Minister Abbas are under some tough political circumstances back home. They are hoping though that Prime Minister Sharon comes with word that he is prepared to move even more on the settlements and prepared to release some of those Palestinian prisoners.
The whole discussion of that security wall though could be the first time we get the key test from the Palestinian perspective will Mr. Bush push Prime Minister Sharon if Prime Minister Sharon says no?
COOPER: And, John, just one question on Liberia. We just had a report about it. You know we talked about U.S. Marines, possibly even Army heading toward that country. Has the decision been made or are you hearing anything about whether or not a decision has been made to actually enter the country or is it still kind of a wait and see?
KING: We are told here at the White House that it is all but certain that U.S. troops will go in in some form but, as Chris Plante noted, as we've been noting for weeks, there's still quite a bit of tension between the State Department and the Pentagon, still a big question as to exactly what the deployment will look like.
The White House is hoping to keep it to logistics and communications and humanitarian efforts. The last thing they want are U.S. peacekeepers on the front lines. They want the West African nations to take the most dangerous role.
COOPER: All right, it looks like that's what's going to happen. John King thanks very much.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT more on the bodies, will showing the bodies of Saddam's sons to journalists prove that they are really dead to a skeptical Arab world?
Also, the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Liberia, we're going to have a firsthand account, some remarkable images as NEWSNIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, we said at the top of the program showing the dead bodies of the Hussein brothers is to take a chance. We want to explore a little more deeply now the benefits and the drawbacks of doing so.
Who is offended here? Who's persuaded? Who will be reassured? It cuts any number of ways. One thing you can't deny is it sends a powerful message. The question is how will it be seen?
We're joined tonight in Cairo, early morning there, by Hussein Amin, a professor of journalism and mass communications at the American University in Cairo and we're very pleased to have him with us. Mr. Amin thanks for being with us. How are the pictures in Cairo playing?
HUSSEIN AMIN, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO: Well, we have too many different opinions. Some they support the decision of showing the pictures because they say no more fear and no more of the Saddam regime in the future.
But others, and they are the majority, they have some strong points regarding the Geneva Convention that prohibits showing this kind of pictures and also the long history of the U.S. of not making public pictures of this kind shown to the public.
In addition, of course, the Islamic beliefs and traditions prohibits showing these kind of pictures and recommends that the dead should be buried regardless of religion.
COOPER: Well, those who are critical of showing these pictures, of coalition forces making these pictures available, I mean would they be critical of the U.S. no matter what they did do you feel or do you think it is, I mean is there a certain level of surprise that the U.S. has taken this step to show these pictures so widely?
AMIN: I'm really sorry. The audio is terrible and I cannot hear you well.
COOPER: The question was the large numbers of people who you said object to the U.S. showing these pictures, would they object to really any move the U.S. made or is there -- is it -- I mean is the objection a large amount of surprise the fact that the U.S. has taken the step to show these pictures?
AMIN: Now I cannot hear you at all.
COOPER: All right, we'll try it one more time and then we'll just give in to the technology gods. What -- I don't even know where to go. Do you think the reaction in Baghdad is far different than the reaction you're getting in Cairo?
All right, we're going to try to just move on anyway. What can you do? Sometimes live TV works this way.
Anyway, before we take a break a few more notes now from around the world starting with a rough and tumble debate over Iraq in Japan's parliament. I don't know if you saw these pictures, pretty remarkable. That's the rough and tumble part. There's the tumble part actually.
Tempers ran hot because the debate was over sending troops to Iraq, the first time Japanese soldiers would head into a combat zone since the Second World War. Lawmakers ended up giving Japan's prime minister the authority to do it.
All right, moving on now next to Seoul, South Korea, the veterans of the multi-national force that fought the Korean War gathering today to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of fighting, a reminder said one of the vets that freedom comes at a cost but sometimes the cost is worth bearing.
And, in Great Britain another anniversary, Louise Brown celebrated today with friends, family and her scientific fathers. Louise, now 25 years old, was the first person conceived by in vitro fertilization, a fancy way of saying she's the first test tube baby, and you've come a long way baby.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, are Americans looking for a real dose of reality? We're going to look at the surprising popularity of documentaries at the box office, no, not reality TV.
And next to Liberia for a compelling firsthand account of what life is like there in the middle of a civil war.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, of all the heartbreaking images from Liberia one of the most poignant to us was from a few weeks back, the Liberians celebrating when they thought American peacekeepers were en route. I'm sure you remember those pictures.
Well, they weren't en route so maybe it's no surprise that, as one journalist put it, there was no outbreak of joy at the news today that U.S. troops were now headed for Liberia's coast. In a way, we hope the Liberians are numb. What they are going through would seem too painful for any human to bear.
One photographer for the "Los Angeles Times" is in the capital of Monrovia, tried to give us a sense of daily life there, a daily fight for survival.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROLYN COLE, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": My name is Carolyn Cole. I'm a photographer for the "Los Angeles Times" and I'm in Monrovia covering the arrival of the U.S. peacekeepers and their mission.
In the meantime, I've been concentrating on the condition of the Liberian people and their struggle. In order to move around the city you have to at least come into contact with the soldiers. It's pretty striking when you see a nine or ten-year-old with a weapon that size.
A lot of them actually aren't doing direct fighting. Normally when there's a group of these guys around some will be more bold and run forward if there's actually an advance while many others will leave backward. So, not all of the men are actually going up to the front line.
As the rebels force people down out of their neighborhoods from one side of the city they're squeezed into the downtown thinking that's safest, so it's really just a constant movement of people trying to look for safety.
People are just becoming victims of random fire so most of the people who are dying are civilians. You just really don't know when or where it's coming from. You can think that you're in a safe area and then you'll start hearing little whizzing sounds that go by and everyone will be scrambling for the ground so it's very erratic.
The bodies of people who were killed in the shelling last Saturday were brought and placed in front of the embassy as a message to the Americans that people are very angry that peacekeepers haven't arrived.
The next day I went and watched as they loaded up the bodies and took them to be buried along the beachfront. One man showed up looking for his son and I watched as he dug a grave for his son and he and his other remaining sons buried the 22-year-old man.
I'm really focusing my coverage on the humanitarian side. Aid workers haven't been able to get out in the last seven days to distribute any food. She was at one of these schools and whenever a child is underweight they put the wrist band on hoping that a child will then get extra food.
She was eating dry cornmeal to try to get some calories into her but in the last seven days, as I mentioned, there really aren't any aid workers that are able to get out and distribute food.
The Masonic temple sits on the top of a hill that overlooks the whole city. Now, it's filled with thousands of refugees and the floor is just covered with people sleeping on foam pads and straw mats and plastic and every corner of it is filled with refugees.
The people who are late in arriving they're all just crammed into the schools and empty buildings and the stadium which is filled with something like 30,000 displaced people.
This is on a day when the Red Cross is finally getting into the stadium to deliver food and supplies and what struck me is she just was standing there all alone in the pouring rain without anything.
She did tell me that she hadn't eaten that day even though they were handing out food. The people here still are very hopeful and are begging for some aid to come to them to put an end to their miserable situation. I'm going to stay as long as there is still some doubt about the future of the people here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Some images from the conflict in Liberia.
A few stories from around the country tonight beginning with the death of President Bush's nominee for Navy secretary, a state medical investigator in New Mexico ruled that this man, Colin McMillan committed suicide yesterday dying from a gunshot wound to the head. McMillan was a former Marine who became a powerful force in the oil business. President Bush described him as a public servant and patriot.
In Florida, a fire burned through a marina near the St. Johns River. Thirty boats were sunk and nearby cars, buildings destroyed. One man was seriously hurt. Damage was estimated at $5 million. Investigators do not know what started the fire.
And, terrible deja vu on this story also from Florida, a 79-year- old disabled man lost control of his car. * Damage was estimated at $5 million. Investigators do not know what started the fire.
And terrible deja vu in this story, also from Florida: A 79- year-old disabled man lost control of his car and -- you guessed the rest -- plowed into a farmer's market this morning. Three people were hurt. The driver says the car accelerator got stuck. The accident, of course, comes a week after an elderly driver plowed into a farmer's market in Santa Monica, California, killing 10 people there.
And for their obvious undeniable, unstoppable passion for each other, the burning love between Liza Minnelli and David Gest is apparently over. Minnelli and Gest, who married last year, have separated. And, sadly, that means they have canceled their Tuesday's appearance on "LARRY KING LIVE."
Well, coming up next on NEWSNIGHT: the GOP Fantasy. Will the Terminator run for governor in the coming recall election of Democrat Gray Davis?
And later, George's fantasy: Ali Wentworth on trying to do a daily talk show while married to Sunday talk show host George Stephanopoulos.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: All right, the California Supreme Court today struck down a legal challenge to this autumn's recall election. Now, it was the first, but almost certainly not the last. Expect to hear more on this as the vote draws closer. And when it happens, if it happens, there will be two questions on the ballot: Do you want to keep Governor Gray Davis? And who do you want instead?
It is the instead part that has people buzzing. Today, Michael Huffington -- remember him? Well, he ran and lost for the Senate. Well, he filed papers today. But just about anybody can run, any Tom, Dick, or Sally, or Jack, or Di, or Arnold.
The story now from Candy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No, he hasn't said yet. He's still working his day job.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ACTOR: I think it's very important that you send a message, which means that we're here to promote "Terminator 3." So that's all we want to talk about. I have no announcements to make, if that's your question.
CROWLEY: Well, yes, that is the question, everybody's question.
GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: The Terminator may be back, he may not be back, we'll see about that.
CROWLEY: As delicious as the prospect is, political oddsmakers are betting Arnold Schwarzenegger will turn down the role of Gray Davis slayer. The recall vote is guerrilla theater, anything can happen, and nobody knows what it will mean.
The theory is, if Schwarzenegger is serious about changing careers, his political debut is less likely to be panned in a more conventional election, say one everybody expects, where motives are less likely to be suspect. Besides, Schwarzenegger is not a template conservative in the mold envisioned by the folks who set up the recall scenario.
This man does not have a star on Hollywood Boulevard, but former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp is said to be pondering a go at the governor. He has pass for glamour for political circles, he played football for the Buffalo Bills and the San Diego Chargers. You see where this is going. Kemp is a Republican, has a House in California, need we say more? Although he has yet to say anything.
Speaking of not saying anything, what does this man think about efforts to replace a Democratic governor with a Republican one? Let's get to the point: 55 electoral votes, more than any other state. Win here, you are one-fifth of the way to the White House. Any political ripple in California registers in national politics. And this recall is pretty much a tsunami, but the White House is headed for high ground.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that this is an issue that the people of California are going to address, and that's where our position is. We're not involved in it at this point.
CROWLEY: Not a word, not in public, and if you can believe it, not in private."We had a meeting with White House types about '04, said one California Republican, "and they refused to talk about the recall."
Two words, explained one Bushie: Richard Riordan. Riordan was the White House fave to run for governor last year. He was defeated in the primary by Bill Simon. Then guess who had to fly to California and make nice?
Candy Crowley, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, whoever winds up running, the real terminator for Gray Davis could turn out to be something entirely: a hole in the budget that makes the one in the Titanic, well, look like a pinprick.
Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to live within our means.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This does not protect women and children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wasteful spreading.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Widespread suffering and disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't spend more money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is wrong with you people?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): They've been at it for weeks now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the Budget Committee.
GREENFIELD: California's state legislature, one of the best paid, most professional anywhere, still hasn't passed a state budget. Its credit rating is sinking and there is a two-year deficit that's reached $38 billion.
ELIZABETH HILL, CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE ANALYST: Oh, I think it's very serious.
GREENFIELD: And, says California's legislative analyst Elizabeth Hill, it's not your typical budget crisis.
HILL: Because of the unprecedented magnitude of the budget problem and our cash situation combined, this really is a daunting problem facing the state of California.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Part of what is ailing in California is local in nature: a tax structure uniquely vulnerable to the high-tech meltdown; rules that help guarantee political gridlock. But California is also exhibit A in a broader national dilemma. The states that provide most of the money for schools and cops and health care are in serious, even desperate financial trouble.
(voice-over): You can see it in the numbers: a federal budget deficit now estimated at more than $450 billion...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tax reductions.
GREENFIELD: ... means there will be no help from Washington to the states, which face a total deficit of their own of some $100 billion. You can see the consequences everywhere; 84 Oregon school districts shut down early. Kentucky released nonviolent prisoners ahead of schedule. In Colorado, there are no property tax breaks for 120,000 older residents. Missouri cut $210 million from schools and colleges.
Across the United States, students will be paying big tuition increases. And the question isn't whether there will be big layoffs of state workers, but how big. Adding to the dilemma is an immense gap of fundamental political philosophy about spending and taxes that's reached a peak, or a valley, in California. Senate Democrats there are led by John Burton, a 71-year-old man of the liberal left, for whom cutting government spending is like opening up a vein.
JOHN BURTON (D), CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR: Is the sky going to fall? I don't know. I know it won't fall on me. It won't fall on my kid. But I know it's going to fall on a lot of people in the state who are elderly, a lot of single mothers with kids.
GREENFIELD: Senate Republicans are led by Jim Brulte, a 48-year- old man of the conservative right, for whom raising taxes is like opening an artery.
JAMES BRULTE (R), CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR: If tax increases were the answer, we wouldn't have a deficit today. The core problem here is, we spend too much money. And the only reason we are not bankrupt today is because federal allow doesn't allow for states to go bankrupt.
GREENFIELD: And this divide, more like a chasm, says longtime California journalist Dan Walters, means the national dilemma over state budgets is much worse in the nation's biggest state.
DAN WALTERS, "SACRAMENTO BEE": A lot of this has to do with, essentially, very liberal Democrats, very conservative Republicans, seeing this as jihad war.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Even if California does find its way out of this current fiscal crisis, the bigger problem remains. In most of states, citizens will be paying more, maybe a lot more, for less, maybe a lot less. And that, in turn, is likely to produce a political climate in which it will be the winners who will be demanding recounts.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Sacramento, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT: a big dose of reality at the movies, where everything these days seems to be based on true stories.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, in the spirit of Seabiscuit, the scrappy underdog, we want to take a look at a few movies this summer that came out of nowhere to generate a lot of buzz in the theaters. One is an inspiring tale about young people striving for the American dream, with an absolute nail-biter ending. The other is a stunning drama about a family that implodes when father and son are accused of child sexual abuse. Neither of them stars Tobey or Reese or even my favorites, Mary-Kate and Ashley.
They're both documentaries, "Spellbound" and "Capturing The Friedmans," two of the films we want to talk about with film critic Harlan Jacobson. Thanks for being with us.
HARLAN JACOBSON, "TALK CINEMA": A pleasure.
COOPER: This was -- everyone always talks about the summer as being the blockbusters, "The Hulk" and the like. And, certainly, those movies opened big, though they quickly disappeared. But, really, so much attention this summer has been on these small films, like "Capturing the Friedmans."
JACOBSON: Well, that's the thing, Anderson, that there's this cycle of boom and bust going on in the major films, where they open, they do this terrific amount of business, and then they collapse. But down there in the lower register are films like these docs -- "Winged Migration" is another one, "Capturing the Friedmans" -- where they hover for weeks at a time, staying in theaters 11 weeks, 12 weeks, consistently performing.
COOPER: And it's not done by advertising. It's largely -- it's word of mouth. People see these. They tell their friends, this is great, and it just keeps going on and on and on. The theater I went to see "Capturing the Friedmans" at was sold out.
JACOBSON: Right.
If you look at per-screen averages, when you read "Variety," for instance, you will see that they are doing $20,000, $25,000 a week, whereas the bigger films, which open, of course, in 4,000 screens, they may roll up that kind of number for one week and then they are down to $3,000 a week after that.
COOPER: Let's talk about "Capturing the Friedmans," a fascinating film about a family basically dissolving.
JACOBSON: Yes. Yes, won the Sundance Film Festival.
It's set out here in Great Neck, New York. It's about a family -- exactly about a family that's dissolving. It's really kind of a Kafkaesque tangle in which a family -- allegations are that the father is a pederast. The sons are caught up in it. And the family really can't deal with the legal machinery. And once it begins, there is no end to it.
COOPER: And what's remarkable -- and some of the images we're showing right now -- once the arrests are made and the legal machinery begins, the family actually starts videotaping themselves going through all of this.
So you have not only the -- you see all the news footage from what was going on outside this house, but you have a view -- it's a very personal view of this family. And you're sort of left at the end not knowing -- well, I probably even shouldn't say what happens at end. It's just -- it's a remarkable film.
JACOBSON: Absolutely. COOPER: The next film let's talk about, "Spellbound." I have talked to the director of this film, another great film, about spelling bees.
JACOBSON: Well, you wouldn't think that a film about spelling bees would put you on the edge of your seat. But it actually does. And, in many respects, it almost mirrors the big film that's opening today, which is "Seabiscuit," because both of them really address questions of the aristocracy vs. the meritocracy.
Here in "Spellbound," you have kids using the mechanism of education to really move themselves ahead. And so, you see a cross- section of American kids, chosen almost picture-perfectly, to illustrate a particular class or an ethnic group or what have you who are using the spelling bee to spearhead their way into college.
COOPER: The other film that's gotten a lot of attention and a lot of people are seeing, "Winged Migration." I don't know anything about it.
JACOBSON: Well, it's the third in the troika of documentaries that are doing well. All of them were nominated for best picture in Oscar category this year.
"Winged Migration" is a French film. And it's about birds.
COOPER: Birds, dirty, rotten, stinking birds?
JACOBSON: Dirty, rotten, stinking birds and their migration patterns, etcetera. And it recalls the days of Cinerama in its cinematography. But it actually has a real theme and a real point of view. You will see this shot here, landing on a boat.
There are other shots, for instance, flying by the World Trade Center, when the film was shot. It's a French deal. It was a French producer, French narration. Jacques Perrin is an actor who worked for a lot of French directors. But he's spending the latter part of his career doing these kinds of documentaries.
COOPER: The other big movie, obviously, opening up this weekend, "Seabiscuit," which is, of course, based on just a remarkable story, is it good? Is it worth seeing?
JACOBSON: Well, it's not the book. And, in a way, it feels like "Rocky" on four legs. It's kind of hokey, in silks and satins, etcetera.
You get a lump in your throat. Of course, you get a lump in your throat when traffic moves like this on the George Washington Bridge.
(LAUGHTER)
JACOBSON: But is it affecting? Yes. Is it art? No. Will it be a crowd pleaser? I think a lot of people are looking to see that, because this is the one major, big film out of Hollywood that has some pretensions to an Oscar, that has ambitions, that has artistic drive behind it.
Laura Hillenbrand's own story is a better story perhaps than the movie that's filmed from it.
COOPER: Right. I saw actually a great documentary on -- I think it was public television, maybe "American Masters" -- about "Seabiscuit" that was just fantastic. So maybe stick with that.
Harlan Jacobson, thanks very much.
JACOBSON: Pleasure to be here.
COOPER: All right.
Well, still ahead on old NEWSNIGHT, friend -- I don't know what I just said. Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an old friend, Ali Wentworth, drops by. It's getting a little late, isn't it? She's got a new show, a new baby, a famous husband. What could we possibly talk about?
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Good posture, everyone.
All right, you never quite know where what Ali Wentworth is going to say next, do you, huh, which, when you think about it, is exactly what you want from the host of a morning TV show, someone who can jolt you out of bed, leave you wondering in your sleepy haze, did she just say that?
Ali Wentworth will co-host a show called "Living It Up With Ali and Jack" beginning this fall. She has already livened up her mornings this week by duking it out in the gossip columns over a few things written about her husband, who has his own talk show -- in case you don't know, George Stephanopoulos.
And Ali joins us now.
It is very nice to see you again. I haven't seen you for a long time.
ALI WENTWORTH, TALK SHOW HOST: So nice to see you, Anderson.
COOPER: We were once on a morning show together.
WENTWORTH: We were.
COOPER: I can't even remember how long ago it was.
WENTWORTH: A year ago.
(LAUGHTER)
WENTWORTH: I think I was just pregnant and vomiting. And now I am back and I've had the baby. And your career has surged, my friend!
COOPER: Oh, well, you know. But we won't talk about me. It's about you now.
WENTWORTH: Oh, please.
COOPER: First of all, so you are doing this morning show.
WENTWORTH: Yes, starting September 15.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: All right. Plug away.
WENTWORTH: I am not plugging it. I just don't want people to tune in tomorrow morning and say, that girl's a compulsive liar. It launches September 15.
COOPER: This is like a major launch. This is like there's big money riding on this. There's a huge company behind it.
WENTWORTH: Well, I haven't seen any coin, but, yes, they're spending a lot of money on the publicity.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Are you under a lot of pressure?
WENTWORTH: Not until you started asking me these questions. No, I'm excited.
COOPER: No, but putting together a major show, it has got to be a lot...
WENTWORTH: It's exciting, though. It's great to have your own show and it's great to have the best people in the business behind it. And...
COOPER: How do you put together a show like this? Because I am putting together my little own show here at 7:00 Eastern time.
WENTWORTH: Are you? In your living room?
COOPER: Right. But it's very hard getting people, putting together -- you see it on TV, you think, ah, it's no big whoop. But it's actually a hard thing, assembling...
WENTWORTH: It's really hard.
King World, they were incredibly smart, because they went out to all of the markets and did the research first and said, what do you guys need? What are you missing in your time slots? As opposed to taking a big star and just saying, here's a show.
COOPER: Right. So they said, we are missing someone named Ali.
WENTWORTH: Funny enough, they did.
No, they said, we want a male/female-driven daytime talk show that's very entertaining. And, like, 150 girls passed. And they finally called me.
COOPER: You call them girls?
WENTWORTH: Women, professional women.
COOPER: OK. OK.
WENTWORTH: So, anyway, they knew what was needed out there. And then I actually went in and met with King World. And I was eight months pregnant. And I thought, if they are looking for the sexy- legged blonde, it's not going to be the seahorse
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: This thing launches September...
WENTWORTH: Fifteenth.
COOPER: Fifteenth, right. And, what, you're going to be interviewing celebrities. You're going to be...
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: We're going to do the whole thing. We are going to come out. We're going to do host chat. We're going to talk about some news, but not kind of CNN news. You can do stars.
COOPER: How you do build chemistry? Because that's the big thing on all these shows. There's got to be chemistry.
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: You can't. The kind of thing that's happening right now is -- the energy.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: This is like -- you can print the money.
WENTWORTH: It just creates itself.
COOPER: If we were together, you could print the money.
WENTWORTH: Yes, you could. Yes, you could. So you can't -- either you have chemistry or you don't.
COOPER: It either works or it doesn't.
WENTWORTH: Yes.
COOPER: And that's what makes it so risky for all these companies. (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: They're giving huge sums of money.
WENTWORTH: Yes. Yes.
COOPER: And do you try out in advance to see if there's chemistry? Do you have lunch?
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: Yes. I was paired with people. Lunch. We took a weekend in the Bahamas, and whoever I liked when I got back.
COOPER: Hey, I don't know.
WENTWORTH: No, we were paired with different people. And some people, it was just -- that would that be the most obnoxious show in the world, me and him.
COOPER: So, when I knew you, you were a celebrity. But now, you are like a major, syndicated, huge celebrity. And you're in the gossip columns now.
WENTWORTH: Yes.
COOPER: I read in gossip columns.
WENTWORTH: Yes, I have read about you occasionally in the gossip columns myself.
COOPER: But you are far more interesting in the gossip columns. They are saying that there's like divisions between you and your husband, George Stephanopoulos. And then you have to respond in another gossip column. Why respond?
WENTWORTH: There's two reasons why I responded. And I learned my lesson. I will not comment on my personal life.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You responded. The thing was in, I don't know
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You responded in "The Washington Post."
WENTWORTH: I responded with humor.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: It was a good response.
WENTWORTH: And as somebody with a comedy background, that is usually our kind of mantra for the best comeback to anything.
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: So you sort of hit everything with comedy. But I guess a lot of the gossip columnists don't have a great sense of humor, or they do. And then you just sort of let it lie.
COOPER: So your strategy now would -- because, in some ways, there is the argument always that it just extenuates the story by commenting. And then it allows it to run.
WENTWORTH: It does. It does. But it also becomes a little laborious after a while. How long can me and "Page Six" go, woohoo, your turn?
But, basically, the only thing it said was that George and I have a 10-month-old baby.
COOPER: Uh-huh. OK.
WENTWORTH: Go ahead, open that closet, because I'll open yours, my friend. I'll open yours.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Oh, there's many skeletons in mine, I will tell you.
So the show starts and how do you prepare for it? Are you doing research now? What do you do?
WENTWORTH: Well, we have great, great, great segment producers. And so we kind of see what's in the news, again, not like Middle East, SARS news.
COOPER: Right. OK.
WENTWORTH: But a woman who is still breast-feeding her kid and he is still 8 years old.
COOPER: What?
(CROSSTALK)
WENTWORTH: Yes, there's a woman. There was this big controversy. She was still breast-feeding her kid at 8.
COOPER: I would tune in to watch that.
WENTWORTH: How are you doing with that, by the way?
(LAUGHTER)
WENTWORTH: So, anyway, we would talk about, is it -- some women think it's a great idea. Some women think it's a little -- I don't know. When your son comes home from Yale with his lacrosse stick and you whip out your teat, you know that things are in trouble.
COOPER: I don't think we can -- anyway, we are going to leave it right there.
(LAUGHTER)
WENTWORTH: We are not ending on that.
COOPER: We are ending on that.
Ali Wentworth, thanks very much. Good luck.
WENTWORTH: Thank you.
COOPER: Good night, everyone. That's NEWSNIGHT for this week.
Aaron returns on Monday, you'll be glad to know.
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Marines Steam Toward Liberia's Coast; Abbas Visits White House>
