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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Republicans say to expect surprise in WMD controversy; Newspaper Intern Gets Scoop On Patrick Dennehy's Alleged Murderer, Defense Not Happy; Media Lawyers Asking For Kobe Bryant's Trial Be Released To Public

Aired July 31, 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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Secretary of State Powell, the country's chief diplomat used decidedly undiplomatic language yesterday when talking about Saddam Hussein. "He's trash waiting to be collected" he said.

We are, I think, an impatient nation in so many ways. A war that lasted a month is dragging on. A peace that is imperfect to be sure and is only 90 days old is called by some, even many, a failure. We modestly suggest it is not a failure anymore than it is right now at least a success. It's too early to call it either.

There are considerable problems and the administration bears some responsibility for that but the game is early. The outcome is in doubt. Capturing Saddam would be a huge help and it's where we begin the whip tonight.

The search for Saddam, Harris Whitbeck is in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, Harris start us off with a headline.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the battlefield here has become an experimental laboratory as the U.S. military attempts to go high tech.

BROWN: Thank you, we'll get to you at the top tonight for more detail there.

The development in the case of the woman accused in this horrible hoax aimed at an Indiana family, David Mattingly still in Indianapolis tonight, David a headline.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the accused woman turns herself in to authorities tonight but is not admitting any guilt and is reportedly saying that she has nothing to hide -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you.

On to the hearing today in the Kobe Bryant case, the question of whether to release the court records to the media, the public, to you, Rusty Dornin is on in Eagle, Colorado, Rusty the headline.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To seal or to unseal that's the question. The arguments were constitutional in nature, namely the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, and Kobe Bryant's right to a fair trial. The judge says he'll think about it.

BROWN: Rusty, thank you.

And, to Waco, Texas and a controversy over an interview with the man accused of killing the Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy, Ed Lavandera has been working that and a busy week, Ed a headline from you.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. Well, in an interview published in a Texas newspaper today Carlton Dotson all but admits to killing Patrick Dennehy but Dotson's attorney isn't happy with the way this interview turned out and how it came about. We'll get into the controversy a little bit later -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much, back with you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, a new color-coded system to help fight terror, red, yellow, and green. We'll look at how the government is changing the way it prescreens airline passengers.

A very different controversy whether an openly gay man can become a bishop in the Anglican Church. We'll look at that and take a broader look at signs of a backlash in the push for gay rights in America.

And, the news you might find on your doorstep tomorrow morning, oh you certainly will, our nightly look through tomorrow morning's papers, can hardly wait for that, much more ahead to in the hour.

We begin with the six faces of Saddam Hussein. Sketches of what Saddam might look like if, as you might imagine, he's trying hard not to look like himself these days. There's a catch, however, we can't actually show them to you just yet.

Military commanders are handing them out only to troops and not to members of the press but CNN's Harris Whitbeck was given a brief look at them so we begin tonight with what he saw and those in pursuit of Saddam what they believe they are looking for -- Harris, good evening to you.

WHITBECK: Aaron, good evening.

We saw the pictures on a computer inside one of the tactical control centers here at a U.S. military base in Tikrit. It shows Saddam in various different states. In one of the pictures he has very, very white hair, snow white hair, a big bushy moustache. In another picture he shows graying hair. He doesn't look as old.

In the other one he's wearing a traditional Arab headdress, a long white piece of cloth with a black ring on top. And, in the last two pictures, he's shown wearing a bushy beard, very similar to the same type beard that his son Uday was wearing when he was killed up in Mosul a few weeks ago.

Now, these photographs were digitally enhanced and have been distributed to the troops here but the troops are also getting a lot of high tech gadgetry as they wage war in this country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Direction 0070.

WHITBECK (voice-over): A mortar unit on the grounds of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in Tikrit prepares to go into action launching preemptive strikes at a location from where their enemy has been firing a grove across the Tigris River. They set their target with infrared devices.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Begin your mission at my command. We're trying to get better (unintelligible).

WHITBECK: Communicating between spotters, controllers, and mortar men by radio and digital messaging, then the order to launch.

(on camera): These soldiers know exactly where they're firing because they're in constant communication with a control center located kilometers away. They use state of the art technology that is dramatically altering the way war is waged.

(voice-over): This is war in 2003, digitally controlled from field command centers where senior officers communicate with troops on the ground. The U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division is at the forefront of efforts to use the latest technology on the battlefield. Radar detects enemy fire and computers aid officers in ordering counterattacks.

STEVE HITE, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, U.S. ARMY: Digitization, as we call it, has really sped up the process. It's like when that radar finds that round flying through the air it can send it automatically to this computer, doesn't even have to think about it.

WHITBECK: Information and intelligence is received from mobile units throughout the field. All units equipped with onboard computers that transmit and centralize information.

STAN MURPHY, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, U.S. ARMY: Think of a business network. You have an office in a great big office building with multiple computers set into a network and that's - they all come together to form one picture on one system.

WHITBECK: It is one big pictures commanders use to direct battle. Using information is one of their most important weapons.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK: The U.S. Army's 4th ID is again the experimental laboratory for the application of this technology. They believe that information is power and they're trying to prove it here on the battleground - Aaron.

BROWN: Harris, go back to the pictures. Why is the Pentagon not releasing them? Why not show them to everybody? WHITBECK: Well, they haven't decided that they're not going to do that and there has been a big discussion here with the POs, the press officers, as to how to go about getting those pictures released. We expect to hear in a couple of hours whether they will be released but one would think that if you get those pictures out there you would get a lot more people knowing what they might be looking for -- Aaron.

BROWN: And, it's just, I mean from where we sit it's hard to figure out why not but, in any case, when you looked at them today was it clear to you who it was you were looking at?

WHITBECK: Absolutely. It certainly does look like Saddam Hussein. One of them look like what one would think Saddam Hussein father's looked like and I asked one of the intelligence officers what they based these changes in his physical appearance on or potential physical changes in his physical appearance on?

And, they said that they worked with the way some of the other people that had been high value targets had changed since the time they were last seen in public before the war until the time they were captured and I found that a little bit interesting that they could apply the changes seen in these people to Saddam Hussein.

BROWN: I agree. Thank you much, Harris Whitbeck in Tikrit tonight.

Tonight in addition to high technology and artist renderings, the Army is counting on other factors to get them closer to their quarry, greed and inside information to name just two.

Today the State Department formally announced that the man who dropped the dime on the sons of Saddam will, as expected, get the entire $30 million reward for doing so.

He's the man whose villa they holed up in for about three weeks. The man and his family had been moved to another country for their own safety. The hope is now that seeing how quickly and easily it was for someone to collect the money someone else will get the $25 million reward for turning in Saddam.

And, if that doesn't work there's a possibility, remote perhaps, that two of the daughters of Saddam Hussein might know something about his whereabouts. They and their nine children have turned up in Jordan.

You might recall they fled there once before with their husbands, that was 1995 but were lured back to Iraq, their husbands later killed on the orders of the old regime.

On now to a search that's proving trickier and politically stickier than just a simple manhunt or even a complicated one. Today in Washington the man charged with looking for weapons of mass destruction gave a progress report, the story from CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No solid proof yet but after six weeks of scouring Iraq, David Kay told Congress his team has uncovered solid evidence of a program to develop biological and chemical weapons.

DAVID KAY, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: We are gaining the cooperation, the active cooperation of Iraqis who were involved in that program. We are, as we speak, involved in sensitive exploitation of sites that we are being led to by Iraqis. There is solid evidence being produced. We do not intend to disclose this evidence.

KARL: In a closed briefing with Senators, Kay told reporters the search for weapons is still in the preliminary stage.

KAY: We're not at the final stage of understanding fully Iraq's WMD program or having found WMD weapons. It's going to take time. The Iraqis had over two decades to develop these weapons and hiding them was an essential part of their program.

KARL: As the U.S. has uncovered evidence of a program to create weapons without finding any actual weapons yet there's been a marked shift in the way the president and his team talk about the issue. Before the war the talk was about the weapons themselves.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

KARL: Now the talk is about programs, not weapons.

BUSH: And I'm confident that our search will yield that which I strongly believe that Saddam had a weapons program.

KARL: Democrats say the war wasn't fought over a program.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Programs don't do it. Programs cannot be fired. Programs don't get somewhere in 45 minutes. Programs are not weaponized and it was weapons that we were told about.

KARL: Senator Ted Kennedy offered a harsher assessment after listening to the three-hour briefing. "I heard nothing to suggest that we are any closer to finding any weapons of mass destruction. It's looking more and more like a case of mass deception. There was no imminent danger and we should never have gone to war."

But, Republicans warn the critics will yet be proven wrong saying cryptically...

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: Don't be surprised if there is a surprise and it would be very positive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: And there's another program that David Kay said his team has uncovered. That is a program to deceive U.N. weapons inspectors and to conceal the weapons of mass destruction a program that may explain, at least in part, why they're having such a hard time finding those weapons now -- Aaron.

BROWN: You really have to go, Jon, word by word through what David Kay said today to figure out exactly what he is -- what they have found and what they have not found. When I listened to it, it sounded to me like they've got some interesting hints and little more.

KARL: Yes, it sounds like they've gotten some more evidence when it comes to the biological weapons program. He said there's been some more evidence there. He did say that there is some physical evidence that they have gotten.

Obviously, that's not the weapons themselves because we've been told he has explicitly said no weapons but he did say there is physical evidence he has found but it's also cryptic. I mean you have that kind of talk of, oh, be ready there may be some surprises. What are the surprises? Who knows?

BROWN: And the fact is that from the administration's point of view one good day, one major find over there and all the talk here stops.

KARL: That's right.

BROWN: But they haven't had that good day. Republicans before the microphones seemed pretty strong in their backing of the president. Are they less so away from the microphones?

KARL: No, I think that, you know, it depends. The usual suspects there are people like Senator Chuck Hagel who have raised some questions from the start raising concerns about this but those that you see before the microphones strongly defending the president are, when they get, you know, out of the microphones.

But it's very interesting to me that they are raising expectations so high by talking about this big surprise that's going to be coming down the road. They clearly seem pretty confident that something is going to be found.

BROWN: We will see, Jon thank you, Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl tonight.

Anyone shorting the career of retired Admiral John Poindexter is richer tonight. He'll be resigning his position with the uproar over the recent project he oversaw still ringing in his ears and ours. It would have created a sort of futures market in acts of terror, not a bad idea a number of experts believe but certainly politically unappetizing. The Pentagon office he worked for is supposed to think outside the box but perhaps not that far outside the box. The admiral also dreamed up a giant database for essentially every single transaction every person ever took part in, the idea being to search for patterns a terrorist might follow.

That one got the hook too in part because a similar but more limited system was already causing headaches at the nation's airports. People for seemingly no good reason were being turned away from flights or given the third degree because some computer program said so.

The program is called Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System and today the government announced plans to change it. Here's CNN's Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This investment banker says he was unfairly singled out at the Las Vegas Airport after the September 11th terror attacks.

MUHAMMAD ALI KHAN, AIRLINE PASSENGER: The guy looked at my driver's license. He saw my name, Muhammad Ali Khan on the driver's license and all of a sudden a chain reaction took place.

DAVIS: Police and the FBI interrogated Khan but let him go. Northwest wouldn't let him board his flight. A new government system to prescreen passengers is meant to fix problems like Khan's and hone in on real terrorists.

MUALA O'CONNOR KELLY, DEPAZRTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The new system is going to be so much more accurate than the current system that we should see a vast reduction in the number of people who are misidentified as a threat to passenger security.

DAVIS: Starting as early as next summer when passengers make a reservation they'll be asked to give their name, date of birth, address, and telephone number. That information will be checked against commercial databases and the government's terrorist watch list. Passengers who get a score of green are free to travel. A yellow subjects them to extra scrutiny.

ADMIRAL JAMES LOY, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: If you are a red you're not going to get on the plane.

DAVIS: Responding to criticism the government will not keep any data on most passengers for more than a few days, it had originally proposed to keep it for up to 50 years, nor will it use bank, medical, or credit histories to verify identity, but privacy groups are still concerned.

JAYU STANLEY, ACLU: This really is an unprecedented new infrastructure that puts the government into the business of making judgments about hundreds of millions of Americans and once this is put in place it's very likely that it will be expanded. DAVIS: It already has. The Transportation Security Administration plans to turn over to police anyone it determines is wanted for a violent crime.

(on camera): In another concession to privacy advocates, passengers will be able to find out just what information the government has about them and why they're considered a risk; that is, unless it's some matter of national security.

Patty Davis CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the latest in the Indiana hoax case as the woman accused of fabricating the story that she was the long lost daughter of an Indiana family turns herself into police.

And, the man accused of killing his teammate on the Baylor basketball team gives a jailhouse interview to a newspaper intern, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It wasn't hard to wonder what kind of person could perpetrate a fraud on people who didn't have much to begin with except the love they felt for a long lost daughter. The answer in this case is heartbreaking it seems someone with even less.

Tonight the woman, apparently a very troubled woman who allegedly tried to pass herself off as someone's missing child is in custody, the story from CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Attempting to cover her face to the cameras, Donna Walker turns herself in to police in Topeka, Kansas accused in what police call a cruel hoax.

DICK BARTA, SHAWNEE COUNTY SHERIFF: Because of the diligent work of the Topeka Police Department and trying to track her down, I think it was ultimately her decision to turn herself in to the authorities.

MATTINGLY: Members of the Sherrill family happy that the brief manhunt is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're excited.

DOROTHY SHERRILL, MOTHER: I know I'm excited in some ways but it still hasn't brought my daughter home or nothing but, no, I'm excited that she's been caught and everything.

MATTINGLY: Also, among her alleged victims Mike Sherrill, his wife and stepdaughter, believe they were taken in by a gifted liar. BECKY SHERRILL, WIFE OF MIKE SHERRILL: She sent a baby picture of her daughter which was identical to Shannon when she was a baby. It was so eerie. We were convinced.

MATTINGLY: They say the woman who gave them hope and made them think she was Mike Sherrill's daughter Shannon, who was abducted in 1986, did so with almost unquestionable sincerity fabricating detailed memories that made her story seem real.

KELLY CLARK, STEPDAUGHTER OF MIKE SHERRILL: She was very good. We were on the phone for quite a while and she just shared stories and shared stories and went into such detail.

MATTINGLY: Police say Walker for days impersonated three different people on the telephone including a man but when state police tracked down some of her information they realized she had done this before.

LT. JEFF HECK, INDIANA STATE POLICE: I think the thing that probably made her the most convincing is the types of cases or the background she does this. There's a very strong emotional tie to them.

MATTINGLY: According to court documents, Indiana state investigators cite FBI sources in California describing how Donna Walker was known to assume false identities, female and male, on the telephone. They claim she was also known to provide false information to police on high profile cases.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Donna Walker, however, not admitting any guilt tonight. In an interview with ABC News she's quoted saying that she turned herself in because it was the right thing to do, that she has nothing to hide, and that's she's confident everything will come out in court -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do you know what specific evidence there is that she in fact is the woman who did this?

MATTINGLY: Police were able to use information that she gave them, tracking down names and addresses to other locations. For instance, Virginia, Virginia Beach, Virginia, authorities there were able to provide them with information.

The FBI was able to provide them with information specific, however, specific information is probably going to come out in the courts but they say there was a pattern of this kind of behavior before she came to this family in Indiana.

BROWN: David, thank you very much, David Mattingly who's been in Indianapolis this week.

On now to another difficult one, the murdered Baylor basketball player, the accused teammate, and tonight the controversy over a newspaper intern who may have gotten the scoop of her very young career.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A reported jailhouse confession made banner headlines in Thursday's "Dallas Morning News." The story quotes Carlton Dotson as saying Patrick Dennehy betrayed him and that Dotson suggested he shot his basketball teammate in self defense.

Dotson reportedly said: "If someone points a gun at you and shoots and it doesn't go off, what would you do?" Dennehy's accused killer apparently told all of this to a 20-year-old intern for the newspaper who did not take notes during the interview but instead immediately dictated what was said during the ten minute meeting to the paper's editors. The intern Shani George says the numerous quotes in the article are accurate.

SHANI GEORGE, INTERN, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": And the conversations were really brief. I've never done an interview like this before and it was very memorable.

LAVANDERA: Carlton Dotson's attorney accuses the newspaper of using a bogus method of getting inside the jail. Grady Irvin tells CNN the intern did not identify herself as a reporter to Dotson. Instead, he says, she claimed to be part of a prayer group that was praying for him.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Did you say to Carlton Dotson that you represented a prayer group?

GEORGE: Oh, no.

COOPER: Or that you were praying for him?

GEORGE: No, I did not. He said pray for me and I said they're praying for you but there was no reference to me being a member of a prayer group.

LAVANDERA: The newspaper stands behind its reporting and insists that Carlton Dotson knew full well he was talking to a reporter for "The Dallas Morning News."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Carlton Dotson's attorney Grady Irvin says he's still investigating what happened during that jailhouse interview although he confronted -- is confronting the newspaper about exactly how that interview was gotten. Grady Irvin would not comment to us specifically today about the specific statements that Carlton Dotson reportedly gave the paper - Aaron.

BROWN: When she signed into the jail did she sign in as a reporter or an intern reporter for "The Dallas Morning News"?

LAVANDERA: No, she didn't. She says that she walked through the jail. Yesterday was a visiting day at the jail so anyone could have gone in there and requested to see Carlton Dotson.

Essentially it's up to him whether or not he would like to meet with you, although she does say that afterwards she did give the jailers there in Maryland her business card with her name on it identifying herself as a reporter for "The Dallas Morning News" and asked that that note be passed along to Carlton Dotson.

But she did say at the very beginning of the interview with Carlton Dotson that she did specify who she was at that time.

BROWN: So, you can walk into this jail and not have to identify yourself and your connection to the person you want to see?

LAVANDERA: Well, that's the understanding. A lot of times the way that this works is that there's a specific list and your name has to be on there. Now, we're not exactly clear her name was not on there, on this list, but Carlton Dotson essentially said that they introduced -- the jailers gave Carlton Dotson the name of the person that was there to see him and Carlton Dotson agreed to meet with her.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much, Ed Lavandera in Texas tonight.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, court battles are already underway as the lawyers in the Kobe Bryant rape case argue over the public's right to know versus the rights of the accused and the accuser, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When you look up Kobe Bryant, the basketball player, on the Internet you are reminded of what a life examined this has been, how many points per game, how many minutes played, every move a matter of public scrutiny.

Now, the focus of course is entirely on what he did one evening a month ago the night he's accused of raping a young woman in Colorado. The media wants the court records unsealed but this isn't Kobe Bryant the player. It's Kobe Bryant the defendant someone with a right to a fair trial and that clash of interest was at the heart of the hearing today in Eagle, Colorado.

Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): Prosecutors say already this case is being unfairly tried in the court of public opinion.

GREG CRITTENDEN, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Mr. Bryant is different. He is a high profile superstar known by the world and because of that his case, unlike all these cases, is reported daily. Because of that the abuse that can be, that can occur from the release of these records is enormous.

DORNIN: Media attorneys argued the ongoing investigation won't be harmed because Bryant has already been arrested and the public should learn how and why he was accused and whether the investigation was handled properly.

CHRISTOPHER BEALL, MEDIA ATTORNEY: Have the public officials charged with their duties here violated their duties, abrogated their responsibilities? The public has a need to know.

DORNIN: Media attorneys went on to say that Kobe Bryant waived his right to privacy when he made this statement on international television:

KOBE BRYANT, ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT: I didn't force her to do anything against her will. I'm innocent.

DORNIN: Bryant's defense team claimed, you can't put the genie back into the bottle. Once information is released, the damage would be done.

HAL HADDON, ATTORNEY FOR KOBE BRYANT: The Supreme Court has said time and time again, an impartial jury is a jury that hears the evidence for the first time on the witness stand and not from other sources.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Now, the documents will remain sealed for now. The judge could rule some time next week, perhaps during the hearing.

But sometimes during these hearings, we hear information we haven't heard before. Today, prosecutors were arguing for the accuser's right to privacy and said that she had received threatening letters and threatening phone calls. Also, the defense team asked the judge if the superstar could skip the proceedings next week. The judge said no. Kobe Bryant will be in court on August 6 -- Aaron.

BROWN: I suspect, Rusty, we are a million miles from this point, but is anybody guessing at when this trial, the actual trial, will start?

DORNIN: There have been guesses of up to a year or more in this case. First, of course, we will have to have this hearing. Then, he will be arraigned at a preliminary hearing. So that could even be three or four months down the line. Then, a trial would be even longer. So they are saying a year or more.

BROWN: It's going to be out there for a while. Rusty, thank you very much -- Rusty Dornin in Eagle, Colorado.

One of issues the case raises is the question of rape laws as they are now applied, as they are now written. We'll take a look at that after a break.

This is NEWSNIGHT around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And up next: the state of the law where rape is concerned; and a little later, morning papers, too.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There have been some provocative voices to come forward in the Kobe Bryant case. And Dahlia Lithwick, who writes legal matters for Slate, certainly qualifies as one of them. She argued in a piece the other day that rape laws have changed over the past few decades and that no one, not the accuser and not the accused, is better for it, says the Kobe Bryant case is proof of that. And she joins us from Charlottesville, Virginia, tonight.

It's nice to see you.

Do we need to break this in to a couple of parts, that there are rape cases, the drag her into the stairwell and rape her sort of case, and then there's this Kobe Bryant sort of case, and that, really, what you are writing about is the latter? Fair?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, "SLATE": Right.

I think that the law, as it stands now, does a pretty good job on stranger rape. I think it's acquaintance and date rape where we get hung up.

BROWN: And is what's happened here that an attempt has been made to make the law work better or be more reasonable where women are concerned, and, in fact, it's not had the desire effect for either women or men?

LITHWICK: Yes, I think that there's sort of a historic answer and then there's a sort of political answer.

And I think, historically, we need to understand -- and I don't think we always think about the fact -- that, until about 30 years ago in this country and in the Western legal system at large, the entire predicate belief in any rape trial was that women lied. There were 110 different rules, all of which sort of were based on the notion that women needed corroborated evidence. They needed witnesses. A woman needed to show that she fought nearly to the death. A woman needed to show that she was pure and had never even used birth control.

And on top of all of that, there was a jury instruction that essentially said, members of the jury, women lie. That was the state of the law until about 30 years ago. And that's what we were trying to correct for with the reforms of the last 30 years.

BROWN: And, in doing that, in the way you see this, where did it go wrong?

LITHWICK: Well, I think, when you get a sort of he says/she says question, like we do here, it's obvious that, if you want to correct for a system that's premised on the notion that women lie, you flip to a system premised on the notion that men lie. And that -- a lot of the sort reforms that have happened in the last couple of decades really do sort of rest on the notion that men are inherently less truthful than women. And so, for instance, in the Kobe Bryant case, we don't know if there's physical evidence. It doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of physical evidence. And so you really have a situation where a DA brought charges based on the notion that she's telling the truth and he's just not.

BROWN: And here is where it seems to me -- I am going to walk you through a couple of complications, I think. Where it gets even more complicated, I think, is if whatever happened started consensually and didn't end that way. I don't know that that happened in this case, and I don't know that it did not.

LITHWICK: Correct.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: But that makes it more complicated, doesn't it?

LITHWICK: Well, it shouldn't make it complicated.

I mean, people like Susan Estrich have been writing for decades that no means no. And simply because a woman started to have some sort of sexual activity doesn't mean she consented to intercourse. So, technically speaking, the answer is of course it shouldn't matter. But is a jury going to care? Oh, boy, are they going to care. We do care about things like that. And I think that's sort of a vestige of the way we have been putting women on trial for many, many, many centuries.

BROWN: Look, I don't know how you -- how you get to the truth here. What you have in these cases is a case where, literally, he says and she says and there may be no other compelling evidence. There may be a little here and a little there, but nothing that really shifts the balance.

And how do you get to a point in the law, if you can, where it doesn't come down to who the jury likes best?

LITHWICK: Well, that -- I mean, that's sort of problem that I have been having with this trial, is that -- and I did divorce law for several years, which is another realm where you see only he says/she says, no physical evidence, no corroborating witnesses.

And it does come down to who the jury likes, because law is a very blunt instrument, and these are extremely nuanced inquiries. This is an inquiry about what may have happened in a split-second in a hotel room in Colorado. And no doesn't necessarily even require the word no. No could mean a lot of nuanced acts or words. But how we're going to know, how anyone other than the two parties are going to know, I don't think the law is good at ferreting out that kind of truth.

BROWN: So is there a solution? Or are you smart enough to figure one out? I'm not. I don't know where this goes. If the law is not so good at dealing with the sort of nuance, is there a way to make it that?

LITHWICK: Well, I think the first thing that has to happen is that we need to bring rape penalties in line with other kinds of assault penalties.

I think one of reasons people are horrified by this case is that Kobe Bryant faces life in prison. And there is no other type of assault that is like that. And I don't mean to in any way minimize the severity of rape. But one of the things that feminist reformers have been trying to do for 30 years is recharacterize rape as an act of violence, not a special, different, more stigmatizing kind of crime.

If that's the case and if we're really going to believe that as a society, then I think that we need to think seriously about having rape penalties that are second only to murder penalties in this country.

BROWN: I was saying to people on our morning call today that I'm old enough to remember when rape was a death penalty charge in many states in the country.

LITHWICK: Well, and it's interesting, because, again, a lot of feminist reformers tried to bring those penalties way down, wanted juries to feel comfortable sentencing people. But it's just not happened. The sort of -- the sense that this is a particularly heinous crime has never diminished.

BROWN: Good to have you with us. I hope you will come back as this and other legal matters present themselves. Nice to talk to you.

LITHWICK: Well, thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: gays in America, questions of whether the new openness means a new backlash.

A break first. On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We read about a scene from about a month ago, the day the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the sodomy laws, a group of gay men in San Francisco taking down the rainbow flag and replacing it with an American flag. It went to the hope of many gays in the country that full acceptance, including gay marriage, was not just possible, but inevitable.

Since then, there have been unmistakable signs of a backlash. More on that in a minute from Jeff Greenfield.

First, a look at one fight playing out this week in Minneapolis, whether an openly gay man should be made a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If it weren't for cameras singling him out, Reverend Canon Gene Robinson would be just another priest in this procession.

Yet this openly gay New Hampshire priest, involved in a long-term relationship with another man, is grabbing most of the headlines at the triennial U.S. Episcopal Convention. Robinson might be voted the first gay bishop in the Anglican church.

BISHOP GAYLE HARRIS, MASSACHUSETTS: God has called a gifted, intelligent gay man, an advocate for justice for all, not just for himself, who is living his faith and his life truthfully in New Hampshire.

CANDIOTTI: Not everyone approves. The American Anglican Council is a leading critic.

REV. CANON DAVID ANDERSON, AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL: It will have a shattering impact upon the Episcopal Church.

CANDIOTTI: Some predict an exodus, a costly financial rift among more than 2.3 million American Episcopalians if a gay bishop were approved.

ANDERSON: He certainly cannot represent the apostolic understanding of how one is to life one's life in a disciplined manner, according to the dictates of the Gospel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body of Christ and the bread of heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

CANDIOTTI: Others find no objection in scripture and compare this controversy to the 1976 debate over admitting women as Episcopal priests.

REV. JUDY ZIEMANN, CALIFORNIA: We take pride in not parking our brains at the door.

CANDIOTTI: In England, a similar controversy this June when a gay celibate priest was appointed a bishop, then withdrew after a chat with the archbishop of Canterbury. Robinson has indicated he has no intention of backing down. His supporters insist, the church can withstand the heat.

REV. MICHAEL HOPKINS, INTEGRITY GROUP: People aren't going to speak to each other for a while in a family that has a disruption like that. But in the long run, just like most families, I think there's more that holds us together than is driving us apart.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Along with deciding on a gay bishop, the convention will also vote on whether to bless same-sex couples. No decision is expected before Monday, after days of debate and undoubtedly a lot of prayer.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It's not always easy to get a clear read on how the country feels about gay people and gay rights. Some insist that you only need to look at must-see TV or the latest hot show on cable to see how far Americans have come in accepting gay people as mainstream. But what people watch on TV doesn't necessarily reflect what they do at the polls or who they accept at their church or how they feel about something like marriage.

For all the push forward that gay activists have seen recently, there has also been plenty of pushback.

Here is CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It's front-page news: A gay couple from Queens, New York, was married last Sunday in Toronto. Its front-page news: The president is seeking ways to ensure that such marriages do not happen and are not sanctioned in the United States.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at best way to do that.

GREENFIELD: And today, the Vatican made more news, launching a global campaign against gay marriage. It's front-page news: Shows with gay themes are gaining more and a more of a foothold on television, from the prime-time hit "Will & Grace."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WILL & GRACE")

WOODY HARRELSON, ACTOR: Am I interrupting anything? Are you fellows having sex?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: To the more explicit "Queer As Folk" on pay cable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "QUEER AS FOLK")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You wanted me and I wanted you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: To the lighthearted "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy" on basic cable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go take a look at your couture. I just can't wait any longer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My what?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: All images lightyears away from the stereotypes of a few decades ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: White, white, white is the color of our carpet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: And this is front-page news: After years of steadily increasing acceptance of, or at least tolerance for, homosexuality, the latest CNN/"USA Today" poll shows a sharp spike in disapproval.

Last May, 60 percent said homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal. Now, only 48 percent say so; 54 percent said it was an acceptable lifestyle. Now, it's 46 percent. The country was split in May on the idea of civil unions for gays. Now, a clear majority says no.

(on camera): So what's changed? Well, almost surely, it was last June's Supreme Court decision that struck down state sodomy laws, whether aimed at gay or straight couples. Friend and foe alike after that decision agreed it made the possibility of gay marriage a lot more real.

(voice-over): In fact, it was Justice Antonin Scalia, in a blistering dissent from the court's sodomy decision, who raised doubts about whether states could now forbid gay marriages. And that, says scholar Stanley Kurtz, tests the limits of public tolerance.

STANLEY KURTZ, HOOVER INSTITUTION: I think the public in general hasn't thought through the gay marriage issue carefully. It's more of a feeling, a queasy feeling in the gut, that the institution of marriage has already been under a lot of change. It's weakened. And if we do something big to change marriage, people wonder what might happen.

GREENFIELD: It's a concern that Barney Frank, the first openly gay congressman, recognizes, but finds utterly puzzling.

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: You are a heterosexual. You want to get married. You are married. How could it possibly have any impact on you what two other people do who are not in any way affecting your life?

GREENFIELD: Maggie Gallagher, a conservative writer whose MarriageDebate.com Web site focuses on this issue, says the argument highlights the country's fundamental ambiguity. MAGGIE GALLAGHER, EDITOR, MARRIAGEDEBATE.COM: Yes we want to live in a country where people can disagree about sexual ethics and sexual practices, but a big chunk of Americans do not believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: It's clear this debate may well spill over into next year's presidential election. All the Democratic candidates, the major ones, favor civil unions for gays, but oppose gay marriage. President Bush may find himself, depending on what courts do, backing a constitutional amendment on this issue, just another example, Aaron, where Americans are looking over an increasingly widening cultural divide.

BROWN: He, the president, previously said he did not support a constitutional amendment. The White House, after his remarks yesterday, seemed to suggest that that still stands. You think not?

GREENFIELD: Well, the problem is that, after that sodomy decision constitutionalized, through privacy, private, consenting sexual act, if that then spills over to the marriage area, if they say, well, there is no reason -- states don't have any power to forbid gay marriages because it's a constitutional right, that Defense of Marriage Act that President Clinton signed six years ago is trumped. The only way you can overturn a constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court is with an amendment.

BROWN: Twenty seconds. Do you believe that, in these times, the economy shaky, post-9/11, a couple of wars, that this will be a voting issue?

GREENFIELD: Could be, because this goes to the heart of how people feel about themselves, about their neighbors, about what's right and wrong.

And we always make the mistake of reading polls and saying, people care most about the economy. Sometimes, these other issues are the ones that really motivate people. And we've got to keep an eye on this one for next year.

BROWN: And I expect we will.

Thank you. Good to have you with us tonight.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: I'm starting to get annoyed with the rooster.

Time to check morning papers around the country and around the world.

We don't often start with good news, do we? "The New York Times" does. Up in the corner, "Trade Center Wrangling Wanes and a Single Version is Emerging. Much of the Winning Design May Appear in the Plans." Nice when it works out that way, isn't it? That's a pretty good story. And in the middle of front page: "Judge Says IBM Pension Change Illegally Harmed Older Workers." A lot of companies did this. They changed the way they calculate pensions. And people who had been on the job a long time didn't benefit from it. So at least that's in court now.

"Chicago Sun-Times," where the weather tomorrow in Chicago will be spotty. "Pope Launches Global Campaign Vs. Gays," that's the story that makes the front page in a lot of papers. We appreciate this very much, up at the top: "Sox-Royals." Sox Vs. Royal result will go right here when game is over. I think they did that for us. And we appreciate that.

"The Miami Herald" tonight: "Repatriation of 12 Criticized by Governor Bush." Rarely does Governor Bush go after his brother's administration, but he did over 12 Cubans who were sent back to Cuba to a most -- well, actually, not to an uncertain future. They will get 10 years in prison. That was part of the negotiation, I guess.

"The Oregonian" in Portland. "Vatican Condemns Gay Marriage." We talked about that a little earlier today. How much time?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty-eight.

BROWN: Thirty-eight. Boy.

"The Detroit Free Press." I like this story. "Court Says Grandparents Have No Right to Visitation." I don't know if I agree or disagree with it, but it's an interesting case, a 6-1 ruling in the Michigan state Supreme Court today saying that grandparents are out of luck.

And "The San Francisco Chronicle," two stories on gay rights on the front page. "Storms Swirls Around Gay Marriage," the Vatican story and the president's comments of yesterday.

That's morning papers. That's the program. Every one of us is back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll us for that.

Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

END

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







Aired July 31, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Secretary of State Powell, the country's chief diplomat used decidedly undiplomatic language yesterday when talking about Saddam Hussein. "He's trash waiting to be collected" he said.

We are, I think, an impatient nation in so many ways. A war that lasted a month is dragging on. A peace that is imperfect to be sure and is only 90 days old is called by some, even many, a failure. We modestly suggest it is not a failure anymore than it is right now at least a success. It's too early to call it either.

There are considerable problems and the administration bears some responsibility for that but the game is early. The outcome is in doubt. Capturing Saddam would be a huge help and it's where we begin the whip tonight.

The search for Saddam, Harris Whitbeck is in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, Harris start us off with a headline.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the battlefield here has become an experimental laboratory as the U.S. military attempts to go high tech.

BROWN: Thank you, we'll get to you at the top tonight for more detail there.

The development in the case of the woman accused in this horrible hoax aimed at an Indiana family, David Mattingly still in Indianapolis tonight, David a headline.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the accused woman turns herself in to authorities tonight but is not admitting any guilt and is reportedly saying that she has nothing to hide -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you.

On to the hearing today in the Kobe Bryant case, the question of whether to release the court records to the media, the public, to you, Rusty Dornin is on in Eagle, Colorado, Rusty the headline.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To seal or to unseal that's the question. The arguments were constitutional in nature, namely the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, and Kobe Bryant's right to a fair trial. The judge says he'll think about it.

BROWN: Rusty, thank you.

And, to Waco, Texas and a controversy over an interview with the man accused of killing the Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy, Ed Lavandera has been working that and a busy week, Ed a headline from you.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. Well, in an interview published in a Texas newspaper today Carlton Dotson all but admits to killing Patrick Dennehy but Dotson's attorney isn't happy with the way this interview turned out and how it came about. We'll get into the controversy a little bit later -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much, back with you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, a new color-coded system to help fight terror, red, yellow, and green. We'll look at how the government is changing the way it prescreens airline passengers.

A very different controversy whether an openly gay man can become a bishop in the Anglican Church. We'll look at that and take a broader look at signs of a backlash in the push for gay rights in America.

And, the news you might find on your doorstep tomorrow morning, oh you certainly will, our nightly look through tomorrow morning's papers, can hardly wait for that, much more ahead to in the hour.

We begin with the six faces of Saddam Hussein. Sketches of what Saddam might look like if, as you might imagine, he's trying hard not to look like himself these days. There's a catch, however, we can't actually show them to you just yet.

Military commanders are handing them out only to troops and not to members of the press but CNN's Harris Whitbeck was given a brief look at them so we begin tonight with what he saw and those in pursuit of Saddam what they believe they are looking for -- Harris, good evening to you.

WHITBECK: Aaron, good evening.

We saw the pictures on a computer inside one of the tactical control centers here at a U.S. military base in Tikrit. It shows Saddam in various different states. In one of the pictures he has very, very white hair, snow white hair, a big bushy moustache. In another picture he shows graying hair. He doesn't look as old.

In the other one he's wearing a traditional Arab headdress, a long white piece of cloth with a black ring on top. And, in the last two pictures, he's shown wearing a bushy beard, very similar to the same type beard that his son Uday was wearing when he was killed up in Mosul a few weeks ago.

Now, these photographs were digitally enhanced and have been distributed to the troops here but the troops are also getting a lot of high tech gadgetry as they wage war in this country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Direction 0070.

WHITBECK (voice-over): A mortar unit on the grounds of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in Tikrit prepares to go into action launching preemptive strikes at a location from where their enemy has been firing a grove across the Tigris River. They set their target with infrared devices.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Begin your mission at my command. We're trying to get better (unintelligible).

WHITBECK: Communicating between spotters, controllers, and mortar men by radio and digital messaging, then the order to launch.

(on camera): These soldiers know exactly where they're firing because they're in constant communication with a control center located kilometers away. They use state of the art technology that is dramatically altering the way war is waged.

(voice-over): This is war in 2003, digitally controlled from field command centers where senior officers communicate with troops on the ground. The U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division is at the forefront of efforts to use the latest technology on the battlefield. Radar detects enemy fire and computers aid officers in ordering counterattacks.

STEVE HITE, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, U.S. ARMY: Digitization, as we call it, has really sped up the process. It's like when that radar finds that round flying through the air it can send it automatically to this computer, doesn't even have to think about it.

WHITBECK: Information and intelligence is received from mobile units throughout the field. All units equipped with onboard computers that transmit and centralize information.

STAN MURPHY, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, U.S. ARMY: Think of a business network. You have an office in a great big office building with multiple computers set into a network and that's - they all come together to form one picture on one system.

WHITBECK: It is one big pictures commanders use to direct battle. Using information is one of their most important weapons.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK: The U.S. Army's 4th ID is again the experimental laboratory for the application of this technology. They believe that information is power and they're trying to prove it here on the battleground - Aaron.

BROWN: Harris, go back to the pictures. Why is the Pentagon not releasing them? Why not show them to everybody? WHITBECK: Well, they haven't decided that they're not going to do that and there has been a big discussion here with the POs, the press officers, as to how to go about getting those pictures released. We expect to hear in a couple of hours whether they will be released but one would think that if you get those pictures out there you would get a lot more people knowing what they might be looking for -- Aaron.

BROWN: And, it's just, I mean from where we sit it's hard to figure out why not but, in any case, when you looked at them today was it clear to you who it was you were looking at?

WHITBECK: Absolutely. It certainly does look like Saddam Hussein. One of them look like what one would think Saddam Hussein father's looked like and I asked one of the intelligence officers what they based these changes in his physical appearance on or potential physical changes in his physical appearance on?

And, they said that they worked with the way some of the other people that had been high value targets had changed since the time they were last seen in public before the war until the time they were captured and I found that a little bit interesting that they could apply the changes seen in these people to Saddam Hussein.

BROWN: I agree. Thank you much, Harris Whitbeck in Tikrit tonight.

Tonight in addition to high technology and artist renderings, the Army is counting on other factors to get them closer to their quarry, greed and inside information to name just two.

Today the State Department formally announced that the man who dropped the dime on the sons of Saddam will, as expected, get the entire $30 million reward for doing so.

He's the man whose villa they holed up in for about three weeks. The man and his family had been moved to another country for their own safety. The hope is now that seeing how quickly and easily it was for someone to collect the money someone else will get the $25 million reward for turning in Saddam.

And, if that doesn't work there's a possibility, remote perhaps, that two of the daughters of Saddam Hussein might know something about his whereabouts. They and their nine children have turned up in Jordan.

You might recall they fled there once before with their husbands, that was 1995 but were lured back to Iraq, their husbands later killed on the orders of the old regime.

On now to a search that's proving trickier and politically stickier than just a simple manhunt or even a complicated one. Today in Washington the man charged with looking for weapons of mass destruction gave a progress report, the story from CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No solid proof yet but after six weeks of scouring Iraq, David Kay told Congress his team has uncovered solid evidence of a program to develop biological and chemical weapons.

DAVID KAY, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: We are gaining the cooperation, the active cooperation of Iraqis who were involved in that program. We are, as we speak, involved in sensitive exploitation of sites that we are being led to by Iraqis. There is solid evidence being produced. We do not intend to disclose this evidence.

KARL: In a closed briefing with Senators, Kay told reporters the search for weapons is still in the preliminary stage.

KAY: We're not at the final stage of understanding fully Iraq's WMD program or having found WMD weapons. It's going to take time. The Iraqis had over two decades to develop these weapons and hiding them was an essential part of their program.

KARL: As the U.S. has uncovered evidence of a program to create weapons without finding any actual weapons yet there's been a marked shift in the way the president and his team talk about the issue. Before the war the talk was about the weapons themselves.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

KARL: Now the talk is about programs, not weapons.

BUSH: And I'm confident that our search will yield that which I strongly believe that Saddam had a weapons program.

KARL: Democrats say the war wasn't fought over a program.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Programs don't do it. Programs cannot be fired. Programs don't get somewhere in 45 minutes. Programs are not weaponized and it was weapons that we were told about.

KARL: Senator Ted Kennedy offered a harsher assessment after listening to the three-hour briefing. "I heard nothing to suggest that we are any closer to finding any weapons of mass destruction. It's looking more and more like a case of mass deception. There was no imminent danger and we should never have gone to war."

But, Republicans warn the critics will yet be proven wrong saying cryptically...

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: Don't be surprised if there is a surprise and it would be very positive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: And there's another program that David Kay said his team has uncovered. That is a program to deceive U.N. weapons inspectors and to conceal the weapons of mass destruction a program that may explain, at least in part, why they're having such a hard time finding those weapons now -- Aaron.

BROWN: You really have to go, Jon, word by word through what David Kay said today to figure out exactly what he is -- what they have found and what they have not found. When I listened to it, it sounded to me like they've got some interesting hints and little more.

KARL: Yes, it sounds like they've gotten some more evidence when it comes to the biological weapons program. He said there's been some more evidence there. He did say that there is some physical evidence that they have gotten.

Obviously, that's not the weapons themselves because we've been told he has explicitly said no weapons but he did say there is physical evidence he has found but it's also cryptic. I mean you have that kind of talk of, oh, be ready there may be some surprises. What are the surprises? Who knows?

BROWN: And the fact is that from the administration's point of view one good day, one major find over there and all the talk here stops.

KARL: That's right.

BROWN: But they haven't had that good day. Republicans before the microphones seemed pretty strong in their backing of the president. Are they less so away from the microphones?

KARL: No, I think that, you know, it depends. The usual suspects there are people like Senator Chuck Hagel who have raised some questions from the start raising concerns about this but those that you see before the microphones strongly defending the president are, when they get, you know, out of the microphones.

But it's very interesting to me that they are raising expectations so high by talking about this big surprise that's going to be coming down the road. They clearly seem pretty confident that something is going to be found.

BROWN: We will see, Jon thank you, Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl tonight.

Anyone shorting the career of retired Admiral John Poindexter is richer tonight. He'll be resigning his position with the uproar over the recent project he oversaw still ringing in his ears and ours. It would have created a sort of futures market in acts of terror, not a bad idea a number of experts believe but certainly politically unappetizing. The Pentagon office he worked for is supposed to think outside the box but perhaps not that far outside the box. The admiral also dreamed up a giant database for essentially every single transaction every person ever took part in, the idea being to search for patterns a terrorist might follow.

That one got the hook too in part because a similar but more limited system was already causing headaches at the nation's airports. People for seemingly no good reason were being turned away from flights or given the third degree because some computer program said so.

The program is called Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System and today the government announced plans to change it. Here's CNN's Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This investment banker says he was unfairly singled out at the Las Vegas Airport after the September 11th terror attacks.

MUHAMMAD ALI KHAN, AIRLINE PASSENGER: The guy looked at my driver's license. He saw my name, Muhammad Ali Khan on the driver's license and all of a sudden a chain reaction took place.

DAVIS: Police and the FBI interrogated Khan but let him go. Northwest wouldn't let him board his flight. A new government system to prescreen passengers is meant to fix problems like Khan's and hone in on real terrorists.

MUALA O'CONNOR KELLY, DEPAZRTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The new system is going to be so much more accurate than the current system that we should see a vast reduction in the number of people who are misidentified as a threat to passenger security.

DAVIS: Starting as early as next summer when passengers make a reservation they'll be asked to give their name, date of birth, address, and telephone number. That information will be checked against commercial databases and the government's terrorist watch list. Passengers who get a score of green are free to travel. A yellow subjects them to extra scrutiny.

ADMIRAL JAMES LOY, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: If you are a red you're not going to get on the plane.

DAVIS: Responding to criticism the government will not keep any data on most passengers for more than a few days, it had originally proposed to keep it for up to 50 years, nor will it use bank, medical, or credit histories to verify identity, but privacy groups are still concerned.

JAYU STANLEY, ACLU: This really is an unprecedented new infrastructure that puts the government into the business of making judgments about hundreds of millions of Americans and once this is put in place it's very likely that it will be expanded. DAVIS: It already has. The Transportation Security Administration plans to turn over to police anyone it determines is wanted for a violent crime.

(on camera): In another concession to privacy advocates, passengers will be able to find out just what information the government has about them and why they're considered a risk; that is, unless it's some matter of national security.

Patty Davis CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the latest in the Indiana hoax case as the woman accused of fabricating the story that she was the long lost daughter of an Indiana family turns herself into police.

And, the man accused of killing his teammate on the Baylor basketball team gives a jailhouse interview to a newspaper intern, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It wasn't hard to wonder what kind of person could perpetrate a fraud on people who didn't have much to begin with except the love they felt for a long lost daughter. The answer in this case is heartbreaking it seems someone with even less.

Tonight the woman, apparently a very troubled woman who allegedly tried to pass herself off as someone's missing child is in custody, the story from CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Attempting to cover her face to the cameras, Donna Walker turns herself in to police in Topeka, Kansas accused in what police call a cruel hoax.

DICK BARTA, SHAWNEE COUNTY SHERIFF: Because of the diligent work of the Topeka Police Department and trying to track her down, I think it was ultimately her decision to turn herself in to the authorities.

MATTINGLY: Members of the Sherrill family happy that the brief manhunt is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're excited.

DOROTHY SHERRILL, MOTHER: I know I'm excited in some ways but it still hasn't brought my daughter home or nothing but, no, I'm excited that she's been caught and everything.

MATTINGLY: Also, among her alleged victims Mike Sherrill, his wife and stepdaughter, believe they were taken in by a gifted liar. BECKY SHERRILL, WIFE OF MIKE SHERRILL: She sent a baby picture of her daughter which was identical to Shannon when she was a baby. It was so eerie. We were convinced.

MATTINGLY: They say the woman who gave them hope and made them think she was Mike Sherrill's daughter Shannon, who was abducted in 1986, did so with almost unquestionable sincerity fabricating detailed memories that made her story seem real.

KELLY CLARK, STEPDAUGHTER OF MIKE SHERRILL: She was very good. We were on the phone for quite a while and she just shared stories and shared stories and went into such detail.

MATTINGLY: Police say Walker for days impersonated three different people on the telephone including a man but when state police tracked down some of her information they realized she had done this before.

LT. JEFF HECK, INDIANA STATE POLICE: I think the thing that probably made her the most convincing is the types of cases or the background she does this. There's a very strong emotional tie to them.

MATTINGLY: According to court documents, Indiana state investigators cite FBI sources in California describing how Donna Walker was known to assume false identities, female and male, on the telephone. They claim she was also known to provide false information to police on high profile cases.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Donna Walker, however, not admitting any guilt tonight. In an interview with ABC News she's quoted saying that she turned herself in because it was the right thing to do, that she has nothing to hide, and that's she's confident everything will come out in court -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do you know what specific evidence there is that she in fact is the woman who did this?

MATTINGLY: Police were able to use information that she gave them, tracking down names and addresses to other locations. For instance, Virginia, Virginia Beach, Virginia, authorities there were able to provide them with information.

The FBI was able to provide them with information specific, however, specific information is probably going to come out in the courts but they say there was a pattern of this kind of behavior before she came to this family in Indiana.

BROWN: David, thank you very much, David Mattingly who's been in Indianapolis this week.

On now to another difficult one, the murdered Baylor basketball player, the accused teammate, and tonight the controversy over a newspaper intern who may have gotten the scoop of her very young career.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A reported jailhouse confession made banner headlines in Thursday's "Dallas Morning News." The story quotes Carlton Dotson as saying Patrick Dennehy betrayed him and that Dotson suggested he shot his basketball teammate in self defense.

Dotson reportedly said: "If someone points a gun at you and shoots and it doesn't go off, what would you do?" Dennehy's accused killer apparently told all of this to a 20-year-old intern for the newspaper who did not take notes during the interview but instead immediately dictated what was said during the ten minute meeting to the paper's editors. The intern Shani George says the numerous quotes in the article are accurate.

SHANI GEORGE, INTERN, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": And the conversations were really brief. I've never done an interview like this before and it was very memorable.

LAVANDERA: Carlton Dotson's attorney accuses the newspaper of using a bogus method of getting inside the jail. Grady Irvin tells CNN the intern did not identify herself as a reporter to Dotson. Instead, he says, she claimed to be part of a prayer group that was praying for him.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Did you say to Carlton Dotson that you represented a prayer group?

GEORGE: Oh, no.

COOPER: Or that you were praying for him?

GEORGE: No, I did not. He said pray for me and I said they're praying for you but there was no reference to me being a member of a prayer group.

LAVANDERA: The newspaper stands behind its reporting and insists that Carlton Dotson knew full well he was talking to a reporter for "The Dallas Morning News."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Carlton Dotson's attorney Grady Irvin says he's still investigating what happened during that jailhouse interview although he confronted -- is confronting the newspaper about exactly how that interview was gotten. Grady Irvin would not comment to us specifically today about the specific statements that Carlton Dotson reportedly gave the paper - Aaron.

BROWN: When she signed into the jail did she sign in as a reporter or an intern reporter for "The Dallas Morning News"?

LAVANDERA: No, she didn't. She says that she walked through the jail. Yesterday was a visiting day at the jail so anyone could have gone in there and requested to see Carlton Dotson.

Essentially it's up to him whether or not he would like to meet with you, although she does say that afterwards she did give the jailers there in Maryland her business card with her name on it identifying herself as a reporter for "The Dallas Morning News" and asked that that note be passed along to Carlton Dotson.

But she did say at the very beginning of the interview with Carlton Dotson that she did specify who she was at that time.

BROWN: So, you can walk into this jail and not have to identify yourself and your connection to the person you want to see?

LAVANDERA: Well, that's the understanding. A lot of times the way that this works is that there's a specific list and your name has to be on there. Now, we're not exactly clear her name was not on there, on this list, but Carlton Dotson essentially said that they introduced -- the jailers gave Carlton Dotson the name of the person that was there to see him and Carlton Dotson agreed to meet with her.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much, Ed Lavandera in Texas tonight.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, court battles are already underway as the lawyers in the Kobe Bryant rape case argue over the public's right to know versus the rights of the accused and the accuser, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When you look up Kobe Bryant, the basketball player, on the Internet you are reminded of what a life examined this has been, how many points per game, how many minutes played, every move a matter of public scrutiny.

Now, the focus of course is entirely on what he did one evening a month ago the night he's accused of raping a young woman in Colorado. The media wants the court records unsealed but this isn't Kobe Bryant the player. It's Kobe Bryant the defendant someone with a right to a fair trial and that clash of interest was at the heart of the hearing today in Eagle, Colorado.

Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): Prosecutors say already this case is being unfairly tried in the court of public opinion.

GREG CRITTENDEN, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Mr. Bryant is different. He is a high profile superstar known by the world and because of that his case, unlike all these cases, is reported daily. Because of that the abuse that can be, that can occur from the release of these records is enormous.

DORNIN: Media attorneys argued the ongoing investigation won't be harmed because Bryant has already been arrested and the public should learn how and why he was accused and whether the investigation was handled properly.

CHRISTOPHER BEALL, MEDIA ATTORNEY: Have the public officials charged with their duties here violated their duties, abrogated their responsibilities? The public has a need to know.

DORNIN: Media attorneys went on to say that Kobe Bryant waived his right to privacy when he made this statement on international television:

KOBE BRYANT, ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT: I didn't force her to do anything against her will. I'm innocent.

DORNIN: Bryant's defense team claimed, you can't put the genie back into the bottle. Once information is released, the damage would be done.

HAL HADDON, ATTORNEY FOR KOBE BRYANT: The Supreme Court has said time and time again, an impartial jury is a jury that hears the evidence for the first time on the witness stand and not from other sources.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Now, the documents will remain sealed for now. The judge could rule some time next week, perhaps during the hearing.

But sometimes during these hearings, we hear information we haven't heard before. Today, prosecutors were arguing for the accuser's right to privacy and said that she had received threatening letters and threatening phone calls. Also, the defense team asked the judge if the superstar could skip the proceedings next week. The judge said no. Kobe Bryant will be in court on August 6 -- Aaron.

BROWN: I suspect, Rusty, we are a million miles from this point, but is anybody guessing at when this trial, the actual trial, will start?

DORNIN: There have been guesses of up to a year or more in this case. First, of course, we will have to have this hearing. Then, he will be arraigned at a preliminary hearing. So that could even be three or four months down the line. Then, a trial would be even longer. So they are saying a year or more.

BROWN: It's going to be out there for a while. Rusty, thank you very much -- Rusty Dornin in Eagle, Colorado.

One of issues the case raises is the question of rape laws as they are now applied, as they are now written. We'll take a look at that after a break.

This is NEWSNIGHT around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And up next: the state of the law where rape is concerned; and a little later, morning papers, too.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There have been some provocative voices to come forward in the Kobe Bryant case. And Dahlia Lithwick, who writes legal matters for Slate, certainly qualifies as one of them. She argued in a piece the other day that rape laws have changed over the past few decades and that no one, not the accuser and not the accused, is better for it, says the Kobe Bryant case is proof of that. And she joins us from Charlottesville, Virginia, tonight.

It's nice to see you.

Do we need to break this in to a couple of parts, that there are rape cases, the drag her into the stairwell and rape her sort of case, and then there's this Kobe Bryant sort of case, and that, really, what you are writing about is the latter? Fair?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, "SLATE": Right.

I think that the law, as it stands now, does a pretty good job on stranger rape. I think it's acquaintance and date rape where we get hung up.

BROWN: And is what's happened here that an attempt has been made to make the law work better or be more reasonable where women are concerned, and, in fact, it's not had the desire effect for either women or men?

LITHWICK: Yes, I think that there's sort of a historic answer and then there's a sort of political answer.

And I think, historically, we need to understand -- and I don't think we always think about the fact -- that, until about 30 years ago in this country and in the Western legal system at large, the entire predicate belief in any rape trial was that women lied. There were 110 different rules, all of which sort of were based on the notion that women needed corroborated evidence. They needed witnesses. A woman needed to show that she fought nearly to the death. A woman needed to show that she was pure and had never even used birth control.

And on top of all of that, there was a jury instruction that essentially said, members of the jury, women lie. That was the state of the law until about 30 years ago. And that's what we were trying to correct for with the reforms of the last 30 years.

BROWN: And, in doing that, in the way you see this, where did it go wrong?

LITHWICK: Well, I think, when you get a sort of he says/she says question, like we do here, it's obvious that, if you want to correct for a system that's premised on the notion that women lie, you flip to a system premised on the notion that men lie. And that -- a lot of the sort reforms that have happened in the last couple of decades really do sort of rest on the notion that men are inherently less truthful than women. And so, for instance, in the Kobe Bryant case, we don't know if there's physical evidence. It doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of physical evidence. And so you really have a situation where a DA brought charges based on the notion that she's telling the truth and he's just not.

BROWN: And here is where it seems to me -- I am going to walk you through a couple of complications, I think. Where it gets even more complicated, I think, is if whatever happened started consensually and didn't end that way. I don't know that that happened in this case, and I don't know that it did not.

LITHWICK: Correct.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: But that makes it more complicated, doesn't it?

LITHWICK: Well, it shouldn't make it complicated.

I mean, people like Susan Estrich have been writing for decades that no means no. And simply because a woman started to have some sort of sexual activity doesn't mean she consented to intercourse. So, technically speaking, the answer is of course it shouldn't matter. But is a jury going to care? Oh, boy, are they going to care. We do care about things like that. And I think that's sort of a vestige of the way we have been putting women on trial for many, many, many centuries.

BROWN: Look, I don't know how you -- how you get to the truth here. What you have in these cases is a case where, literally, he says and she says and there may be no other compelling evidence. There may be a little here and a little there, but nothing that really shifts the balance.

And how do you get to a point in the law, if you can, where it doesn't come down to who the jury likes best?

LITHWICK: Well, that -- I mean, that's sort of problem that I have been having with this trial, is that -- and I did divorce law for several years, which is another realm where you see only he says/she says, no physical evidence, no corroborating witnesses.

And it does come down to who the jury likes, because law is a very blunt instrument, and these are extremely nuanced inquiries. This is an inquiry about what may have happened in a split-second in a hotel room in Colorado. And no doesn't necessarily even require the word no. No could mean a lot of nuanced acts or words. But how we're going to know, how anyone other than the two parties are going to know, I don't think the law is good at ferreting out that kind of truth.

BROWN: So is there a solution? Or are you smart enough to figure one out? I'm not. I don't know where this goes. If the law is not so good at dealing with the sort of nuance, is there a way to make it that?

LITHWICK: Well, I think the first thing that has to happen is that we need to bring rape penalties in line with other kinds of assault penalties.

I think one of reasons people are horrified by this case is that Kobe Bryant faces life in prison. And there is no other type of assault that is like that. And I don't mean to in any way minimize the severity of rape. But one of the things that feminist reformers have been trying to do for 30 years is recharacterize rape as an act of violence, not a special, different, more stigmatizing kind of crime.

If that's the case and if we're really going to believe that as a society, then I think that we need to think seriously about having rape penalties that are second only to murder penalties in this country.

BROWN: I was saying to people on our morning call today that I'm old enough to remember when rape was a death penalty charge in many states in the country.

LITHWICK: Well, and it's interesting, because, again, a lot of feminist reformers tried to bring those penalties way down, wanted juries to feel comfortable sentencing people. But it's just not happened. The sort of -- the sense that this is a particularly heinous crime has never diminished.

BROWN: Good to have you with us. I hope you will come back as this and other legal matters present themselves. Nice to talk to you.

LITHWICK: Well, thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: gays in America, questions of whether the new openness means a new backlash.

A break first. On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We read about a scene from about a month ago, the day the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the sodomy laws, a group of gay men in San Francisco taking down the rainbow flag and replacing it with an American flag. It went to the hope of many gays in the country that full acceptance, including gay marriage, was not just possible, but inevitable.

Since then, there have been unmistakable signs of a backlash. More on that in a minute from Jeff Greenfield.

First, a look at one fight playing out this week in Minneapolis, whether an openly gay man should be made a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If it weren't for cameras singling him out, Reverend Canon Gene Robinson would be just another priest in this procession.

Yet this openly gay New Hampshire priest, involved in a long-term relationship with another man, is grabbing most of the headlines at the triennial U.S. Episcopal Convention. Robinson might be voted the first gay bishop in the Anglican church.

BISHOP GAYLE HARRIS, MASSACHUSETTS: God has called a gifted, intelligent gay man, an advocate for justice for all, not just for himself, who is living his faith and his life truthfully in New Hampshire.

CANDIOTTI: Not everyone approves. The American Anglican Council is a leading critic.

REV. CANON DAVID ANDERSON, AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL: It will have a shattering impact upon the Episcopal Church.

CANDIOTTI: Some predict an exodus, a costly financial rift among more than 2.3 million American Episcopalians if a gay bishop were approved.

ANDERSON: He certainly cannot represent the apostolic understanding of how one is to life one's life in a disciplined manner, according to the dictates of the Gospel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body of Christ and the bread of heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

CANDIOTTI: Others find no objection in scripture and compare this controversy to the 1976 debate over admitting women as Episcopal priests.

REV. JUDY ZIEMANN, CALIFORNIA: We take pride in not parking our brains at the door.

CANDIOTTI: In England, a similar controversy this June when a gay celibate priest was appointed a bishop, then withdrew after a chat with the archbishop of Canterbury. Robinson has indicated he has no intention of backing down. His supporters insist, the church can withstand the heat.

REV. MICHAEL HOPKINS, INTEGRITY GROUP: People aren't going to speak to each other for a while in a family that has a disruption like that. But in the long run, just like most families, I think there's more that holds us together than is driving us apart.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Along with deciding on a gay bishop, the convention will also vote on whether to bless same-sex couples. No decision is expected before Monday, after days of debate and undoubtedly a lot of prayer.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It's not always easy to get a clear read on how the country feels about gay people and gay rights. Some insist that you only need to look at must-see TV or the latest hot show on cable to see how far Americans have come in accepting gay people as mainstream. But what people watch on TV doesn't necessarily reflect what they do at the polls or who they accept at their church or how they feel about something like marriage.

For all the push forward that gay activists have seen recently, there has also been plenty of pushback.

Here is CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It's front-page news: A gay couple from Queens, New York, was married last Sunday in Toronto. Its front-page news: The president is seeking ways to ensure that such marriages do not happen and are not sanctioned in the United States.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at best way to do that.

GREENFIELD: And today, the Vatican made more news, launching a global campaign against gay marriage. It's front-page news: Shows with gay themes are gaining more and a more of a foothold on television, from the prime-time hit "Will & Grace."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WILL & GRACE")

WOODY HARRELSON, ACTOR: Am I interrupting anything? Are you fellows having sex?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: To the more explicit "Queer As Folk" on pay cable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "QUEER AS FOLK")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You wanted me and I wanted you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: To the lighthearted "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy" on basic cable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go take a look at your couture. I just can't wait any longer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My what?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: All images lightyears away from the stereotypes of a few decades ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: White, white, white is the color of our carpet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: And this is front-page news: After years of steadily increasing acceptance of, or at least tolerance for, homosexuality, the latest CNN/"USA Today" poll shows a sharp spike in disapproval.

Last May, 60 percent said homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal. Now, only 48 percent say so; 54 percent said it was an acceptable lifestyle. Now, it's 46 percent. The country was split in May on the idea of civil unions for gays. Now, a clear majority says no.

(on camera): So what's changed? Well, almost surely, it was last June's Supreme Court decision that struck down state sodomy laws, whether aimed at gay or straight couples. Friend and foe alike after that decision agreed it made the possibility of gay marriage a lot more real.

(voice-over): In fact, it was Justice Antonin Scalia, in a blistering dissent from the court's sodomy decision, who raised doubts about whether states could now forbid gay marriages. And that, says scholar Stanley Kurtz, tests the limits of public tolerance.

STANLEY KURTZ, HOOVER INSTITUTION: I think the public in general hasn't thought through the gay marriage issue carefully. It's more of a feeling, a queasy feeling in the gut, that the institution of marriage has already been under a lot of change. It's weakened. And if we do something big to change marriage, people wonder what might happen.

GREENFIELD: It's a concern that Barney Frank, the first openly gay congressman, recognizes, but finds utterly puzzling.

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: You are a heterosexual. You want to get married. You are married. How could it possibly have any impact on you what two other people do who are not in any way affecting your life?

GREENFIELD: Maggie Gallagher, a conservative writer whose MarriageDebate.com Web site focuses on this issue, says the argument highlights the country's fundamental ambiguity. MAGGIE GALLAGHER, EDITOR, MARRIAGEDEBATE.COM: Yes we want to live in a country where people can disagree about sexual ethics and sexual practices, but a big chunk of Americans do not believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: It's clear this debate may well spill over into next year's presidential election. All the Democratic candidates, the major ones, favor civil unions for gays, but oppose gay marriage. President Bush may find himself, depending on what courts do, backing a constitutional amendment on this issue, just another example, Aaron, where Americans are looking over an increasingly widening cultural divide.

BROWN: He, the president, previously said he did not support a constitutional amendment. The White House, after his remarks yesterday, seemed to suggest that that still stands. You think not?

GREENFIELD: Well, the problem is that, after that sodomy decision constitutionalized, through privacy, private, consenting sexual act, if that then spills over to the marriage area, if they say, well, there is no reason -- states don't have any power to forbid gay marriages because it's a constitutional right, that Defense of Marriage Act that President Clinton signed six years ago is trumped. The only way you can overturn a constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court is with an amendment.

BROWN: Twenty seconds. Do you believe that, in these times, the economy shaky, post-9/11, a couple of wars, that this will be a voting issue?

GREENFIELD: Could be, because this goes to the heart of how people feel about themselves, about their neighbors, about what's right and wrong.

And we always make the mistake of reading polls and saying, people care most about the economy. Sometimes, these other issues are the ones that really motivate people. And we've got to keep an eye on this one for next year.

BROWN: And I expect we will.

Thank you. Good to have you with us tonight.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: I'm starting to get annoyed with the rooster.

Time to check morning papers around the country and around the world.

We don't often start with good news, do we? "The New York Times" does. Up in the corner, "Trade Center Wrangling Wanes and a Single Version is Emerging. Much of the Winning Design May Appear in the Plans." Nice when it works out that way, isn't it? That's a pretty good story. And in the middle of front page: "Judge Says IBM Pension Change Illegally Harmed Older Workers." A lot of companies did this. They changed the way they calculate pensions. And people who had been on the job a long time didn't benefit from it. So at least that's in court now.

"Chicago Sun-Times," where the weather tomorrow in Chicago will be spotty. "Pope Launches Global Campaign Vs. Gays," that's the story that makes the front page in a lot of papers. We appreciate this very much, up at the top: "Sox-Royals." Sox Vs. Royal result will go right here when game is over. I think they did that for us. And we appreciate that.

"The Miami Herald" tonight: "Repatriation of 12 Criticized by Governor Bush." Rarely does Governor Bush go after his brother's administration, but he did over 12 Cubans who were sent back to Cuba to a most -- well, actually, not to an uncertain future. They will get 10 years in prison. That was part of the negotiation, I guess.

"The Oregonian" in Portland. "Vatican Condemns Gay Marriage." We talked about that a little earlier today. How much time?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty-eight.

BROWN: Thirty-eight. Boy.

"The Detroit Free Press." I like this story. "Court Says Grandparents Have No Right to Visitation." I don't know if I agree or disagree with it, but it's an interesting case, a 6-1 ruling in the Michigan state Supreme Court today saying that grandparents are out of luck.

And "The San Francisco Chronicle," two stories on gay rights on the front page. "Storms Swirls Around Gay Marriage," the Vatican story and the president's comments of yesterday.

That's morning papers. That's the program. Every one of us is back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll us for that.

Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

END

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