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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Probe Into Outing of CIA Operative Continues; Investigation Into Gitmo Espionage Spreads to Boston; Huffington Drops Out of Recall Race

Aired September 30, 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.
We asked last night what it would take to keep the leak story from dying on the vine. Our intrepid Senior White House Correspondent John King responded, "it would take a statement by the Justice Department or the president at the very least."

One learns early on here that arguing with John King is foolish business for several reasons, not the least of which is he is generally right. Today, the president spoke. So did the Justice Department.

The leak story moved up another notch and it again leads the whip and, believe it or not, the whip is led by our senior White House correspondent, who I never argue with, John King, John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president said this White House would fully cooperate and he says he believes his attorney general is perfectly competent to lead the investigation, Democrats disagree, serious legal questions for the president's inner circle and a huge political debate brewing in Washington.

BROWN: John, thank you.

Next to Boston where the investigation into possible espionage at Guantanamo Naval Base appeared to spread today, Dan Lothian in our Boston Bureau, Dan a headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, federal authorities say this is a case where security worked at Logan. Now one person is behind bars. They have seized CDs and other documents and they are having an investigation now to figure out exactly what they have on their hands -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you.

And finally back to politics in California and the recall where the choices seem to get fewer by the day. Candy Crowley in Los Angeles tonight, Candy a headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Another candidate drops out and another day goes by. The recall beat goes on in California -- Aaron. BROWN: Candy, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight we'll talk with the governor of Illinois who's joined the chorus of those asking whether prescription drugs from Canada might help Americans lower their medical cost.

Meanwhile, the number of uninsured here in the United States is growing. We'll meet people struggling to deal with life without medical insurance.

Later, a look at a new invasion of Iraq, an invasion by auto, thousands and thousands of them flooding in to satisfy Iraqis desperate for something they found hard to get under Saddam.

And what NEWSNIGHT would be complete without something to crow about? Morning papers helps us get the jump-start on Wednesday, all that and more in the hour ahead.

But we begin with the leak. (Unintelligible) might have come up with something like this in one of his cold war novels, a CIA agent's identity is exposed, a furor results. The Justice Department is asked to order the FBI to investigate the White House to see whether anyone may have been responsible.

Mix into this a heaping helping of partisan politics and you've got yourself a pot boiler, though the administration seems to be presenting it as no such thing.

We begin tonight with our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): It began as so many other days, a supportive crowd at a campaign fund-raiser, but this was no ordinary day, the president's inner circle at the center of a criminal investigation, the president himself promising full cooperation.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And if there's a leak in my administration I want to know who it is and if the person has violated law that person will be taken care of.

KING: In this morning memo, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales told staffers the Justice Department is investigating "possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee" and told them, "you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department's investigation."

Democrats rushed to demand that Attorney General John Ashcroft name an independent special counsel, noting among other things that top White House adviser Carl Rove once worked for an Ashcroft Senate race.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), MINORITY LEADER: So, I think there is a real concern about objectivity.

KING: The president sees things differently.

BUSH: I'm actually confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job.

KING: Senior Justice Department officials say career prosecutors made the decision to launch the investigation not the attorney general. Ashcroft said he could not answer questions because it is a pending criminal case but he did read a statement defending the integrity of his investigators.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The prosecutors and agents who are and will be handling this investigation are career professionals.

KING: The CIA operative was identified by anonymous senior administration officials in this July Robert Novak newspaper column. She is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson who had angered the Bush White House by accusing it of exaggerating intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs. Democrats call it blatant and criminal political retaliation rivaling Richard Nixon's enemies list.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: But it's a signal that is sent really frankly to everyone in politics nothing is off limits if you cross us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now this follow-up memo went out from the White House counsel's office tonight to everyone who works at the White House. It spelled out the parameters of this investigation. It said go back to February, 2002.

Look at e-mails, computer records, phone logs, written hand diaries, any record at all that deals with Ambassador Wilson, his wife the CIA operative, or any contacts with the news media about them. This memo tells White House employees at the request of the Justice Department do not destroy those records -- Aaron.

BROWN: Why February of 2002? The article was July of this year.

KING: Ambassador Wilson's trip was back in February, 2002, that trip his took at the CIA's request to Niger to explore the allegation that Saddam Hussein was buying uranium, trying to buy uranium from African nations.

BROWN: Not to make your life unduly miserable but the same question I asked last night where does this thing go now do you think?

KING: Well, Democrats don't have many options because they don't control the committees on Capitol Hill so they are flooding the White House with letters. They are giving speeches and news conferences.

The White House, though, is borrowing a page from Bill Clinton's playbook. This White House is saying it is Ambassador Wilson, not the Bush White House that is engaged in partisan politics and many here at the White House think Ambassador Wilson is playing into their hands. He has given a number of speeches at Democratic events. Tomorrow he is giving -- going to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats and to come out for a news conference with the Democrats. The White House thinks that helps them say this is all politics and when the American people think something is all politics they tend not to pay close attention.

BROWN: What does Ambassador Wilson's politics have to do with either the leak or his wife's job?

KING: Well, one could say nothing at least in terms of the leak. Whether you like his politics or not it is against the law to leak that information, whether you like him, his wife, or anything so in terms of the leak nothing from a criminal standpoint.

From a political standpoint, the administration is trying to make the case that Ambassador Wilson went out and made all these public denouncements of the Bush administration's policy because he's a Democrat. He's given money to John Kerry who is running for the Democratic nomination. He's appearing with Democrats.

So, in one way it has absolutely nothing to do with the central allegation, a serious criminal allegation in the middle of all this but this is Washington and the Bush people know how Bill Clinton managed to survive. Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship in the oval office with a young woman and two Republican House Speakers lost their jobs. Explain how that works.

BROWN: We don't have enough time. John, thank you very much, our Senior White House Correspondent John King. Good to have you with us again, John thank you.

So, the White House and the GOP would have you think that this leak business is not, not a hot potato (unintelligible). The Democrats in Washington all seem pretty happy to be putting on their asbestos gloves to deal with it funny how that works.

Here's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats think they have finally found a scandal that will tarnish the Bush White House.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: This is not just a leak. This is a crime plain and simple.

KARL: They say the investigation cannot be done by the president's attorney general.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: An independent investigation of this despicable matter must be undertaken immediately.

KARL: And John Ashcroft's announcement of a full investigation by his Justice Department only fueled the Democratic fire.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Bush needs to start going after any traitors in his midst and that means more than an inside once over from his friend and Carl Rove's client, John Ashcroft.

KARL: Kerry is referring to top Bush political aide Carl Rove whose direct mail company did work on Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign. Ambassador Joseph Wilson has blamed Rove for at least condoning the leak of his wife's name.

(on camera): Ashcroft would not answer questions about those Democratic calls for the appointment of a special counsel but sources at the Justice Department say that the attorney general has not ruled out appointing one.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There's one more dimension to this story and that's the journalistic one. Should reporters give up the source? A little later in the hour we'll take a look at that question and more.

On to other matters first, even a week ago most Americans would have said the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay where hundreds of terrorist suspects are being held surely had to be one of the most secure facilities on the planet, no getting in, no getting out without authorization just for starters.

Then came the news that one and then another who were authorized are suspected of espionage. Today the number rose to three.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): Ahmed Mehalba arriving at Federal Court in Boston one day after landing at Logan International Airport from a trip to Egypt aboard Alitalia Flight 618. Federal authorities say a routine check led to a secondary examination. Why?

MICHAEL SULLIVAN, U.S. ATTORNEY: Good inspection work where the inspector looks the applicant in the eye and determines some suspicious items and further investigates it.

LOTHIAN: Mehalba who presented his ID badge as a translator at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay is then questioned by the FBI after officials say something suspicious is found among 132 compact discs in his bags.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One contained a document labeled "secret" as well as other documents.

LOTHIAN: Mehalba, who briefly appeared in court before his hearing was continued is now being held on suspicion of making false statements after allegedly repeatedly denying he was carrying government related documents from Guantanamo Bay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They appear to be classified documents. The bureau continues to examine the documents today. We're not going to describe what the documents were or under what circumstances he was able to get access to the documents.

LOTHIAN: His court-appointed attorney is Michael Andrews.

MICHAEL ANDREWS, ATTORNEY FOR MEHALBA: He intends to vigorously defend himself. Obviously, anybody caught up or accused of something like this is, you know, nervous and bewildered and, you know, scared about the process but we're going to defend it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: The Pentagon is worried that there is a major security breach at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That is because, as you mentioned earlier Aaron, this is the third case in recent weeks and in two other cases, two other people are behind bars. One of them is a translator. The other is an army chaplain. Right now the Pentagon officials are investigating these cases individually but are checking out to find out if indeed they might be connected -- Aaron.

BROWN: At this point the guy you have in Boston is not accused of transmitting the information he had or allegedly had to anyone is that right?

LOTHIAN: That is correct and I kept pressing investigators today asking if they could tell us did have permission to carry this information? Did he have permission to have these discs or these documents? They would not say. All they would say at this point they're charging him with lying to them about not carrying any government information.

BROWN: Dan, thank you very much, Dan Lothian in Boston tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an issue on the minds of many Americans this evening, health care, first the growing number of Americans who are uninsured and some who are coping without the safety net at all.

We'll also talk with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich about his call for the federal government to improve importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, those stories and more as NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We return for a few minutes now to the question of the CIA agent whose identity the CIA analyst, the CIA employee whose identity was revealed in a newspaper column.

The FBI investigation, as we've told you, is just now beginning. It's supposed to determine where the information came from in the first place. The fact is a number of journalists, perhaps as many as seven already know so should they tell? That's one of the things we talked about earlier this evening with Jack Shafer of Slate.com in Washington, and in Springfield, Massachusetts tonight David Gergen of the Kennedy School of Government and here's how the conversation went.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: David, let me start with you. You've been on both sides of this. Should the reporter -- if a reporter came to you when you were editing the magazine and said I've got this story. I think they're trying to discredit or trash or punish Joe Wilson. Can I give up the source? What do you tell them?

DAVID GERGEN, THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well, I think that the story had great legitimacy. I think that more caution should have been shown about revealing a name. I think in this case, Bob Novak is a wonderful reporter, apparently did not know that she had this covert identity when he published her name.

But even so, you know, there are certain cases in journalism such as a rape story you don't reveal the name of the victim in almost all circumstances. And so, it seems to me in this case this woman has been done enormous harm. You know her career in the CIA as a covert agent has been ruined and as we now know it's a violation of criminal law.

BROWN: OK. Forgive me but I think that's the easy one, David. The harder one is should the reporter give up the source who contacted him or her and gave them the name?

GERGEN: Well, in this case I believe that in fact somebody should come forward and give up a name. Ordinarily in journalism, of course, the journalist protects the source but there are certain exceptions and one of them is if the source lies to you, as Ben Bradley has said many times, if the source lies to you, you unmask the source.

Now, why do we do that? Because the source has abused you; in this case, the source tried to use a journalist to abuse a third party and in the same process committed a crime and under those circumstances I think there's a very powerful argument that the source should be unmasked.

BROWN: Oh, I'm shocked. Mr. Shafer, can you imagine that a source in Washington had an ulterior motive for delivering a piece of information?

JACK SHAFER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "SLATE": No, no not at all, I mean every source in Washington, sources are always brokering their information. They're trying to promote a policy. They're trying to shoot down a policy. They're sending up trial balloons. It's the daily business of journalism in Washington to peddle stories to the press behind the mask of anonymity to advance your own interests. So...

GERGEN: Wait a minute. This is a crime. We are talking...

SHAFER: Who committed a crime?

GERGEN: ...about a violation of federal law. This is not an ordinary...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Wait, one at a time. David, go ahead.

GERGEN: The crime was committed by someone who was in possession of classified information who then either gave it to somebody on the staff to pass it to a journalist or, in fact, passed it directly to a journalist. That's what's at issue here. This is not an ordinary grassroots story.

SHAFER: But journalists are not in the business of being cops and going out and apprehending wrongdoers.

GERGEN: Journalists are not in the business of being accomplices either.

SHAFER: But in this case we know from the "Washington Post" that this story was shopped to six reporters and according to Joe Wilson four of those -- there are four broadcast journalists who told him that this information was being shopped to them.

One of those journalists could very well be CNN, a CNN correspondent. So, I would put the question to Aaron Brown do you think your organization should conduct some sort of investigation or put some sort of pressure on your correspondents to unmask who was the source of the leak?

BROWN: Well, the joy of this job is a) that's not a theoretical question since Mr. Novak has a relationship with CNN and to my knowledge no one in the organization is pressuring him to give up the source.

Are you surprised that no one -- none of the six reporters who was contacted has written a story saying based on information I have gathered it's clear that senior administration officials or the White House or some adjective or another is trying to trash or discredit or ruin the life of Joe Wilson without naming the source?

SHAFER: Right now we're in the position of watching a drama unfold behind -- on a stage where the curtain is drawn so we don't know exactly what happened. If we can believe the "Washington Post" and I do, six reporters had this story shopped to them.

Now, why didn't they come forward and write the story that I would have hoped I would have written that there was a campaign to discredit Joe Wilson? They probably didn't because in Washington sources are outnumbered by reporters by ten to one.

Reporters covet these sources, these inside sources, so they might look the other way. Rather than writing the trashing of the source story they might say I don't want to offend this source. I won't write anything about it and hope that he brings me a story the next time.

Another angle to the story is that this is a very, very peculiar leak. As Mr. Gergen knows because he's worked in four administrations and if things go really poorly he might find himself working in a fifth doing some damage control here, this is a very undisciplined leak.

We know one thing about the Bush administration. They don't leak very often and this particular leak at this particular time makes about as much sense as ordering a break-in of the Democratic National Committee when you're just about ready to win a landslide election as Richard Nixon did.

BROWN: Let me get -- thank you. Let me get to David -- David.

GERGEN: Yes. I think: a) It was a very intentional leak. They didn't call six reporters by accident. They called. They just picked up the phone and started dialing; b) and very, very importantly I think we're giving too little credit to journalists. This is a fine profession. There are a lot of good people in there.

I would imagine a lot of these people didn't know that the other ones had it shopped to them and it wasn't so obvious as all that this was just to discredit Mr. Wilson. It was to put them on a story. I mean I was told this story. I didn't have the name but people around Washington were being told this story that Mr. Wilson went to Niger because of this.

Now, it turns out, you know, it's a phony story and that makes it even worse but I think the president was right today. This president deserves credit for saying the journalist ought to come forward and name the person. He's not afraid. He's not afraid to have the person named.

BROWN: Right. Let's -- David still in your real house here what are the risks here for the president?

GERGEN: They're serious because not only is this a crime that may -- has led to a federal investigation inside the White House, that always becomes dangerous for a president but it comes on the heels of a lot of other stories about questioning the credibility of the administration.

Whoever did this, frankly, has a responsibility to the president to resign, to take this story outside the White House, to spare the president that. We have no indication -- this president has always run the White House within the rules.

We can disagree about his policies but he seems to be respectful of the rules. I think the person or persons who did this have an obligation to the president to consider resignations tonight.

BROWN: Just, I've got literally less than a minute and I want to try to do two things if I can. Number one, I don't mean this pejoratively of the president at all but it's a very easy thing to say the reporter should give up the source because he knows with some certainty that that's not going to happen.

GERGEN: I don't understand. Why does he know with some certainty it's not going to happen?

BROWN: Because reporters don't do that.

GERGEN: Reporters do do that under very limited circumstances. If the source tells you three things, one of which is a lie, you unmask that person. When a source comes to you and commits a crime is that a lesser offense than lying to you?

SHAFER: David if I...

BROWN: Last word, go ahead.

SHAFER: If I had to unmask a source every time they lied to me I'd be unmasking sources daily.

GERGEN: That may be a problem in the way you do journalism. If that's -- I don't happen to agree with that standard. I'll just tell you the Ben Bradley standard was the goal standard by my likes.

BROWN: Gentlemen, thanks a lot. I suspect this is a conversation that is just beginning. Good to you have with us tonight. Thank you.

GERGEN: Thank you.

SHAFER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A conversation just before we went on the air tonight.

When we come back we will look at health care as promised, the struggle of even working Americans who have no insurance coverage, a break first.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: To the matter of health insurance now and nationwide the news tonight, at least, is pretty stark. A new study by the Census Bureau shows that the number of uninsured Americans rose sharply in 2002 up nearly two and a half million people over the previous year.

Public programs like Medicaid are taking up a bigger and bigger share of overall insurance costs according to the government and the nation must do more that according to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.

But as CNN's Jeff Flock reports, even if you have a job that is no guarantee you'll get health insurance. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Gil Davis, 34 years old, full time job as a golf pro and one of 43 million Americans without health insurance.

GIL DAVIS, UNINSURED: It just doesn't seem to make sense.

FLOCK: The downtown Chicago course where he works scaled back to a driving range to make way for new condos cutting staff and eliminating employee health care.

DAVIS: You can do COBRA but, you know that's...

FLOCK (on camera): That's a lot of money right?

DAVIS: ...really a lot of money. It's a lot of money.

FLOCK: And you just finally couldn't afford it?

DAVIS: Yes, couldn't afford it.

FLOCK (voice-over): 1.3 million people who the government says lost employer sponsored health care in the U.S. last year. Now just over 60 percent of Americans get their insurance where they work.

DDR. CLAUDIA FEGAN, PHYSICIANS FOR NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM: People are really very angry and very frustrated.

FLOCK: Claudia Fegan is medical director for one of the county clinics in Chicago that (unintelligible) people who don't have insurance and have nowhere else to go.

FEGAN: Increasingly, we're seeing people who never thought that they would have to come to a public clinic to get care, people who have professional jobs but don't have health insurance.

FLOCK: The number of full time workers without insurance jumped 897,000 last year to nearly 20 million and it figures to get worse.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: The thing is it's been a brutal two years for American business.

FLOCK: University of Chicago economics professor Austan Goolsbee says businesses are just passing along the increased cost that they are paying.

GOOLSBEE: You've got thousands of businesses that are right on the margin of going under and they just say we can't cover those kind of costs and remain competitive or in many cases even remain in business.

FLOCK: Like Gil Davis' golf course.

DAVIS: It's tough, especially for small businesses.

FLOCK: Davis understands sort of.

DAVIS: We think we can come up with something out of all the governmental programs that we have to provide healthcare for everybody.

FLOCK: Nothing in Congress on universal health care right now but with an election ahead and outrage brewing it may become enough of an emergency to make it a campaign issue.

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN in Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Buying health insurance is one part of the problem, paying for prescription drugs is yet another. The Governor Illinois Rod Blagojevich is making news these days because he is considering trying to find a way to import drugs from Canada. They cost a whole lot less. These would be drugs for state employees, retirees.

Last year the state of Illinois spent roughly $380 million for prescription drugs and nearly $2 billion for the state's health programs combined. The governor figures costs would go down anywhere from 30 to 40 percent if he can find a way to get the Canadian drugs into his state, a lot of issues at play here, public policy, the safety of the drugs themselves.

The governor joins us tonight from Chicago. It's nice to see you sir. The problem is that the FDA has to sign off on this and the FDA has never signed off on importing these drugs from Canada or anywhere else.

GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D), ILLINOIS: Well, that is the challenge but I would remind the FDA that over the last year, two million Americans have crossed the border, gone to Canada, and purchased prescription drugs and they allowed them to do it and didn't stop them.

The AARP, an organization that insures tens of thousands of our senior citizens, are purchasing their prescription drugs from Canada, and the FDA doesn't stop them from doing it. And so, when they say there may be a safety issue, if there was in fact was one and they knew there was one, you would think they may do something to protect the American people who are already doing it.

We here in Illinois are asking the FDA to look at the results of a study that's being commissioned right now by my office. And if that study comes back and shows that we can do this safely -- and I have strong suspicions to think that we can, because we're not talking about Pakistan; we're talking about Canada -- then I think the FDA needs to take a good, hard look, have an open mind, and try to figure out ways where we can import prescription drugs from Canada safely and save consumers and taxpayers money, 40, 50, 60 percent in discounts.

Why can't the American consumer benefit, like the Canadian, French or German consumer does?

BROWN: Well, let me argue here gently a couple of points in that.

The reason the drugs are cheaper in Canada is because there are price controls on the drugs in Canada. And the industry would argue that, if such were the case in the United States, a lot of the research that goes on in a very research-intensive business would have to stop.

BLAGOJEVICH: Well, on the research point, currently, we, the taxpayers, fund a lot of the research that the big drug companies do and perform through the research and development tax credit that's already on the books and has been for years.

With regard to the other point, all we're saying is, you don't have to have price controls here in the United States. Just allow us to go to Canada to buy the same prescription drugs made by the exact same company for half the price, and then let the marketplace dictate where those prices in America go and where the prices ultimately go in places like France and in Germany.

Right now, the American consumer is essentially subsidizing the low prices that consumers in France, Germany and England pay. And the fact is that too many senior citizens and too many people in our state -- and I'm sure this is the case across America -- are struggling, can't afford their medicine. They're not taking care of their health. And it just isn't right. And if we can get the same drugs made by the same company cheaper, we ought to be able to do it.

BROWN: Have you tried negotiating with the drug companies themselves for sort of broad price relief?

BLAGOJEVICH: What we've done here in Illinois thus far is, we passed legislation that created the first-in-its-nation buyers club, allowing senior citizens, 1.5 million of them, here in Illinois to become part of a purchasing club and pool their purchasing power, so that we can leverage that with the pharmaceutical companies and try to bring down the prices and provide discounts. That's one thing we're doing.

Secondly, what we're doing in Illinois is, we're consolidating the purchasing of prescription drugs from state government. Nine separate agencies do it. We have it now in one place. We have the buying power of $1.4 billion. That, we think, will help us bring down the cost of prescription drugs.

But, still, it begs the question. If you can go to Canada and you're a woman with breast cancer and you can pay $33 for tamoxifen, but here in the United States, you have to pay $360, why can't you go to Canada, so long as we address the safety issue? And the FDA ought to at least look at ways to implement or evaluate whether there is a safe way in doing this.

BROWN: Governor, you make the case very well. We're very pleased to have us with us. We think this is one of the great and important issues of this time. And we appreciate your help on it tonight. Thank you very much, the governor of...

BLAGOJEVICH: Thanks for having me, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, sir -- governor of Illinois.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, a bit more politics: impulse voting, America's love affair with our hatred of politicians. It sounds like a Greenfield piece to me.

And later; the hottest little business in Iraq, used cars. Get them while they're hot.

We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Another candidate drops out in California; and the auto market in Iraq.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With all the talk about the vast number of candidates in the California recall election, it seems increasingly as if it will come down to only two choices. Throw the governor out or stop Arnold.

Here is CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON (I), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I want your voices to be heard. I will fight for you.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Arianna Huffington hit two percent in the latest CNN/Gallup poll. And that's only because the number was rounded up. This woman has been a Republican, an independent, and a progressive, but she has never been dumb.

HUFFINGTON: I'm pulling out. And I'm going to concentrate every ounce of time and energy over the next week working to defeat the recall, because I've realized that that's the only way now to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Interesting. Very interesting. It's too bad that she's dropping out.

QUESTION: Why?

SCHWARZENEGGER: She brought a lot of color and a lot of excitement to the whole process.

CROWLEY: Hard to know if this means a thing. If it's close, then Huffington's newly freed 2 percent, if they all vote the same way, could make a difference. Pretty iffy, but no sense in alienating anyone. Welcome aboard, Arianna. GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: I think Arianna Huffington has brought some wisdom and some clarity to the second question on this ballot.

CROWLEY: But the second question won't matter if Davis loses his job in the first question.

DAVIS: Hi, Doris (ph). This is Governor Davis. How you doing?

CROWLEY: The governor of California has six days to stop his time from running out.

DAVIS: I want to have the opportunity to serve out the term that you elected me to and help make things better for all Californians. I'm the governor of California, Gray Davis.

CROWLEY: Otherwise, it was a pretty good event.

Davis, dropping by a phone bank set up by organized labor, courted the party faithful, hauling in yet another national Democrat to stir the resentment of 2000.

TERRY MCAULIFFE, DNC CHAIRMAN: We've got to make sure that we stop them next week, that we vote no on the recall, and we send a message all over this country that we are tired of their power grabs. We know what they did to us in Florida.

DAVIS: Thank you so much for coming.

CROWLEY: The governor is spending his last week in all the natural habitats of a Democrat: minorities, senior, labor. It is get- out-the-vote time, because time is running out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: And when time gets short and the tide is running against you, you also bring out the big guns again. Tomorrow, the Davis campaign will release a radio ad starring former President Bill Clinton. What they really would like is a return by the real thing sometime before the polling begins -- Aaron.

BROWN: In 15 seconds or less, is there any major event in the next week that will change the dynamic here?

CROWLEY: Oh, always, yes. Don't ask me what, but you know as well as I do that anything -- outside things, a candidate -- Arnold Schwarzenegger could say something horrible. Gray Davis could do something to turn more voters off. I mean, lots of things can happen.

But, certainly, there's a trajectory here that's hard to deny. And that is Gray Davis going down and Arnold Schwarzenegger going up.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much. I never argue with you either -- Candy Crowley in Los Angeles tonight.

If politics is war without bloodshed, as Chairman Mao said, or the art of the possible, as Bismarck opined, then what the heck is the California recall?

Jeff Greenfield is glad you asked.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Recall Gray Davis. No, not for you either. OK.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Here's the lazy way to cover this recall story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm running for governor because I love California.

GREENFIELD: Wacky, sun-drenched California, threatening to dump the guy they elected just a year ago, with a larger-than-life celebrity-turned-politician and 134 other candidates on the ballot. Only in crazy California, right?

After all, it is the state that turned song and dance man George Murphy into a U.S. senator, actor Ronald Reagan into a governor, and singer Sonny Bono into a congressman.

(on camera): But that easy analysis also misses the point. What this recall is really about is a recurring, even permanent presence in American life, an abiding mistrust of politicians and insiders that every so often bubbles to the surface in a way that defies conventional political thinking.

(voice-over): Distrust is as American as apple pie and as old as the republic. "I am not a politician and my other habits are good," Artemus Ward wrote more than 150 years ago. A century ago, Mark Twain wrote, "There is no distinctly native American criminal class except the Congress."

That distrust explains why Americans are so often attracted to the anti-politician, to generals like Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell, maybe Wesley Clark this time.

CROWD: Jesse! Jesse!

GREENFIELD: It's why an outsider like Jesse Ventura becomes governor, not in wacky California...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JESSE VENTURA, MINNESOTA: The American dream lives on in Minnesota.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: ... but in civic-minded Minnesota. It's why the business tycoon seems politically attractive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSS PEROT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's go do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: Ross Perot got more than 19 million votes in 1992. Henry Ford won the Michigan GOP presidential primary in 1916. And when the public senses that the insiders are trying to pull a fast one, as when the Congress tried to slip a pay raise through away from public eyes in 1989, that resentment boils over.

What does make California different is that voters there have mechanisms, the initiative, the referendum, now the recall, to turn this discontent into direct action. They abolished fair housing laws in 1964, slashed their property taxes in 1978, threw three judges off the Supreme Court in 1986, made three strikes and you're out state law in 1994.

And when public discontent is provoked by government action, look out. Proposition 13 won in part because the Los Angeles assessor mailed out tax bills just before that vote. This year, the car tax assessments will be in the mail just before the recall vote, not good news for Gray Davis, especially considering that, according to one recent poll, nearly three-fourths of Californians do not trust their government to do what's right all or most of the time.

(on camera): There is a common theme to these eruptions of popular discontent. They are almost always underestimated by the political class They are almost always seen as a danger to good government. And when they reach critical mass, they are almost always unstoppable.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A few other stories making news before we go to break.

In Florida tonight, another horror story involving a toddler. A 2-year-old girl in Jacksonville, Florida -- this is unbelievable -- was left alone for nearly three weeks, authorities say, while her mother served jail time. The girl was not under the care of the state's embattled Department of Children and Families. She survived by opening the refrigerator and eating dried macaroni, ketchup and mustard. She is said to be in good condition at a local hospital.

This is unbelievable, too. A high school band director in Paris, Texas, says he is sorry that students ran across the football field with a Nazi flag while playing the German anthem at halftime. The incident took place at a game last Friday night. The show was called "Visions of World War II." There were loud boos and things were tossed onto the field during the show. Said the band director, "We had an error in judgment."

And for all those wanna-be athletes out there, this news. The rap artist, record mogul and all-around celebrity Sean "P. Diddy" Combs is training for New York's New York marathon in November. He hopes to raise around $1 million for children's charities, a noble goal, that. He is up to 15 miles a day. He has a ways to go. The marathon, as you know, is a bit more than 26 miles.

As NEWSNIGHT continues: the newest invasion of Iraq. Forget tanks and APCs. The cars are coming by the tens of thousands. It's segment seven after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, here's a reminder for you. Even after a war, even with bombs still going off from time to time and shots being fired from time to time, even amid the chaos of the rubble and the confusion, people still have to get around. That is the reality.

And this is CNN's Michael Holmes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Driving in Baghdad was never a quiet, orderly affair. But since the fall of Saddam Hussein, things have become somewhat -- well, see for yourself.

"It's really bad," says Walid Kadham (ph). "There are traffic jams everywhere." Traffic cops are back on duty, but the sheer volume of cars is making their lives as tough as those of drivers.

(on camera): Iraqis used to buy the latest Mercedes, BMW and Lexus. But 10 years of sanctions and two Gulf Wars mean that most people are now forced to make do. These days, just about anything with wheels is considered acceptable transport.

(voice-over): And so, in the spirit of free market economics, used, sometimes very used, cars are pouring into Iraq, tens of thousands coming in from Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan, Turkey, even Libya. How many? No one knows. No one here is counting.

But car dealer Farouk al-Shakili (ph) has his own guess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There are about 250,000 to 300,000 cars that enter the country since the war ended, all kinds of makes and models from all kinds of countries.

HOLMES: One reason for the flood of vehicles is the breakdown of customs laws. Want a BMW from Dubai? Just bring it on. And if customs laws are hard to find, road-worthiness and emission laws are invisible. Unlike the air in Baghdad, never good, it's now on display for all to see, literally.

In Baghdad this week, a new system, new license plates. And soon, everyone will need to register their vehicle, partly to work out how many cars are here and insure they came here legally. For Iraqis struggling to find work, even feed their families, a car is fast becoming a necessity to get around and achieve those things. And, clearly, they're willing to drive whatever they can find or afford, whatever will spring to life when the key is turned.

Oh, and, by the way, this car was for sale. It was a bargain, too. Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Quickly, a few items from around the world making news tonight. In Brussels, a former soccer player from Tunisia was sentenced to 10 years in jail for his role in a failed attack on an American military base in Belgium. He was the principal defendant at this trial; 17 others already received jail terms ranging between two and six years.

Big story in Europe today: British Prime Minister Tony Blair again defending his role in the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. He told the Labor Party annual conference that he was ready for an unprecedented third term in office. He has public opinion problems.

First lady Laura Bush in Moscow today speaking at the Kremlin Library, taking the opportunity to chastise some American parents for letting their kids watch far too much television. I don't know that she excluded cable from that. She urged them to spend more time reading with their children. Not a bad idea, that.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll read the morning papers.

A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Ah, there you have it. Music to our ears, huh?

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the country, I think, tonight. We'll start with "The New York Times." We could do the whole segment on "The New York Times" tonight. There's that many good stories on the front page. As you would expect, "President Orders Full Cooperation in Leaking of Name." That makes the front page.

Over on the other side, a very good and powerful and important story, I think, "A Slowing Stream of New Jobs Gives a Full Picture of the Slump. U.S. Survey Shows Hiring is at its Lowest Since 1995." It might explain the dip in consumer confidence today. And also, just kind of they make note on the front page, kind of a little picture here. "Twins and Giants Win Playoff Games." They just kind of don't -- it's there. "Twins and Giants Win Playoff Games."

On the other hand, "The Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul." "Take That." That's the headline there. "Twins 3, Yankees 1. Twins Lead Best of Five Series 1-0." Same picture, but they do it in a way that you can actually see it. I wonder why. They also put the leak story on the front page. "Criminal Inquiry Launched Over Leak." "Take That."

"San Antonio Express-News." Big story, actually a sports story. "Spurs Put on New Game Face." They're the defending champs, right, defending NBC champs, San Antonio? I think so. Anyway, "Probe Targets White House" also their big front-page story. There was something else I liked there, but I don't remember what it was.

Good local story leads "The Oregonian" in Portland, Oregon. "Portland Loses L.P." That's Louisiana-Pacific, the big timber company base. And they follow that, "Tax Reform Proponent Points to L.P.'s Exit." That would be, I suspect, a lot of jobs in the area.

Thirty seconds left. Hardly enough to do all the things I wanted to do. What can you do?

"The Boston Herald." "Feds Nab Spy." The story took place in Boston. It belongs on the front page. And a baseball story with it.

Quickly on time, the weather tomorrow in Chicago is frosty. "I Want to Know Who the Leakers Are" is "The Sun-Times" headline.

That's the program, and not a bad one at that. Good to have you with us. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time.

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

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





Investigation Into Gitmo Espionage Spreads to Boston; Huffington Drops Out of Recall Race>


Aired September 30, 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.
We asked last night what it would take to keep the leak story from dying on the vine. Our intrepid Senior White House Correspondent John King responded, "it would take a statement by the Justice Department or the president at the very least."

One learns early on here that arguing with John King is foolish business for several reasons, not the least of which is he is generally right. Today, the president spoke. So did the Justice Department.

The leak story moved up another notch and it again leads the whip and, believe it or not, the whip is led by our senior White House correspondent, who I never argue with, John King, John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president said this White House would fully cooperate and he says he believes his attorney general is perfectly competent to lead the investigation, Democrats disagree, serious legal questions for the president's inner circle and a huge political debate brewing in Washington.

BROWN: John, thank you.

Next to Boston where the investigation into possible espionage at Guantanamo Naval Base appeared to spread today, Dan Lothian in our Boston Bureau, Dan a headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, federal authorities say this is a case where security worked at Logan. Now one person is behind bars. They have seized CDs and other documents and they are having an investigation now to figure out exactly what they have on their hands -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you.

And finally back to politics in California and the recall where the choices seem to get fewer by the day. Candy Crowley in Los Angeles tonight, Candy a headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Another candidate drops out and another day goes by. The recall beat goes on in California -- Aaron. BROWN: Candy, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight we'll talk with the governor of Illinois who's joined the chorus of those asking whether prescription drugs from Canada might help Americans lower their medical cost.

Meanwhile, the number of uninsured here in the United States is growing. We'll meet people struggling to deal with life without medical insurance.

Later, a look at a new invasion of Iraq, an invasion by auto, thousands and thousands of them flooding in to satisfy Iraqis desperate for something they found hard to get under Saddam.

And what NEWSNIGHT would be complete without something to crow about? Morning papers helps us get the jump-start on Wednesday, all that and more in the hour ahead.

But we begin with the leak. (Unintelligible) might have come up with something like this in one of his cold war novels, a CIA agent's identity is exposed, a furor results. The Justice Department is asked to order the FBI to investigate the White House to see whether anyone may have been responsible.

Mix into this a heaping helping of partisan politics and you've got yourself a pot boiler, though the administration seems to be presenting it as no such thing.

We begin tonight with our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): It began as so many other days, a supportive crowd at a campaign fund-raiser, but this was no ordinary day, the president's inner circle at the center of a criminal investigation, the president himself promising full cooperation.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And if there's a leak in my administration I want to know who it is and if the person has violated law that person will be taken care of.

KING: In this morning memo, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales told staffers the Justice Department is investigating "possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee" and told them, "you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department's investigation."

Democrats rushed to demand that Attorney General John Ashcroft name an independent special counsel, noting among other things that top White House adviser Carl Rove once worked for an Ashcroft Senate race.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), MINORITY LEADER: So, I think there is a real concern about objectivity.

KING: The president sees things differently.

BUSH: I'm actually confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job.

KING: Senior Justice Department officials say career prosecutors made the decision to launch the investigation not the attorney general. Ashcroft said he could not answer questions because it is a pending criminal case but he did read a statement defending the integrity of his investigators.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The prosecutors and agents who are and will be handling this investigation are career professionals.

KING: The CIA operative was identified by anonymous senior administration officials in this July Robert Novak newspaper column. She is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson who had angered the Bush White House by accusing it of exaggerating intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs. Democrats call it blatant and criminal political retaliation rivaling Richard Nixon's enemies list.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: But it's a signal that is sent really frankly to everyone in politics nothing is off limits if you cross us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now this follow-up memo went out from the White House counsel's office tonight to everyone who works at the White House. It spelled out the parameters of this investigation. It said go back to February, 2002.

Look at e-mails, computer records, phone logs, written hand diaries, any record at all that deals with Ambassador Wilson, his wife the CIA operative, or any contacts with the news media about them. This memo tells White House employees at the request of the Justice Department do not destroy those records -- Aaron.

BROWN: Why February of 2002? The article was July of this year.

KING: Ambassador Wilson's trip was back in February, 2002, that trip his took at the CIA's request to Niger to explore the allegation that Saddam Hussein was buying uranium, trying to buy uranium from African nations.

BROWN: Not to make your life unduly miserable but the same question I asked last night where does this thing go now do you think?

KING: Well, Democrats don't have many options because they don't control the committees on Capitol Hill so they are flooding the White House with letters. They are giving speeches and news conferences.

The White House, though, is borrowing a page from Bill Clinton's playbook. This White House is saying it is Ambassador Wilson, not the Bush White House that is engaged in partisan politics and many here at the White House think Ambassador Wilson is playing into their hands. He has given a number of speeches at Democratic events. Tomorrow he is giving -- going to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats and to come out for a news conference with the Democrats. The White House thinks that helps them say this is all politics and when the American people think something is all politics they tend not to pay close attention.

BROWN: What does Ambassador Wilson's politics have to do with either the leak or his wife's job?

KING: Well, one could say nothing at least in terms of the leak. Whether you like his politics or not it is against the law to leak that information, whether you like him, his wife, or anything so in terms of the leak nothing from a criminal standpoint.

From a political standpoint, the administration is trying to make the case that Ambassador Wilson went out and made all these public denouncements of the Bush administration's policy because he's a Democrat. He's given money to John Kerry who is running for the Democratic nomination. He's appearing with Democrats.

So, in one way it has absolutely nothing to do with the central allegation, a serious criminal allegation in the middle of all this but this is Washington and the Bush people know how Bill Clinton managed to survive. Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship in the oval office with a young woman and two Republican House Speakers lost their jobs. Explain how that works.

BROWN: We don't have enough time. John, thank you very much, our Senior White House Correspondent John King. Good to have you with us again, John thank you.

So, the White House and the GOP would have you think that this leak business is not, not a hot potato (unintelligible). The Democrats in Washington all seem pretty happy to be putting on their asbestos gloves to deal with it funny how that works.

Here's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats think they have finally found a scandal that will tarnish the Bush White House.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: This is not just a leak. This is a crime plain and simple.

KARL: They say the investigation cannot be done by the president's attorney general.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: An independent investigation of this despicable matter must be undertaken immediately.

KARL: And John Ashcroft's announcement of a full investigation by his Justice Department only fueled the Democratic fire.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Bush needs to start going after any traitors in his midst and that means more than an inside once over from his friend and Carl Rove's client, John Ashcroft.

KARL: Kerry is referring to top Bush political aide Carl Rove whose direct mail company did work on Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign. Ambassador Joseph Wilson has blamed Rove for at least condoning the leak of his wife's name.

(on camera): Ashcroft would not answer questions about those Democratic calls for the appointment of a special counsel but sources at the Justice Department say that the attorney general has not ruled out appointing one.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There's one more dimension to this story and that's the journalistic one. Should reporters give up the source? A little later in the hour we'll take a look at that question and more.

On to other matters first, even a week ago most Americans would have said the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay where hundreds of terrorist suspects are being held surely had to be one of the most secure facilities on the planet, no getting in, no getting out without authorization just for starters.

Then came the news that one and then another who were authorized are suspected of espionage. Today the number rose to three.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): Ahmed Mehalba arriving at Federal Court in Boston one day after landing at Logan International Airport from a trip to Egypt aboard Alitalia Flight 618. Federal authorities say a routine check led to a secondary examination. Why?

MICHAEL SULLIVAN, U.S. ATTORNEY: Good inspection work where the inspector looks the applicant in the eye and determines some suspicious items and further investigates it.

LOTHIAN: Mehalba who presented his ID badge as a translator at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay is then questioned by the FBI after officials say something suspicious is found among 132 compact discs in his bags.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One contained a document labeled "secret" as well as other documents.

LOTHIAN: Mehalba, who briefly appeared in court before his hearing was continued is now being held on suspicion of making false statements after allegedly repeatedly denying he was carrying government related documents from Guantanamo Bay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They appear to be classified documents. The bureau continues to examine the documents today. We're not going to describe what the documents were or under what circumstances he was able to get access to the documents.

LOTHIAN: His court-appointed attorney is Michael Andrews.

MICHAEL ANDREWS, ATTORNEY FOR MEHALBA: He intends to vigorously defend himself. Obviously, anybody caught up or accused of something like this is, you know, nervous and bewildered and, you know, scared about the process but we're going to defend it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: The Pentagon is worried that there is a major security breach at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That is because, as you mentioned earlier Aaron, this is the third case in recent weeks and in two other cases, two other people are behind bars. One of them is a translator. The other is an army chaplain. Right now the Pentagon officials are investigating these cases individually but are checking out to find out if indeed they might be connected -- Aaron.

BROWN: At this point the guy you have in Boston is not accused of transmitting the information he had or allegedly had to anyone is that right?

LOTHIAN: That is correct and I kept pressing investigators today asking if they could tell us did have permission to carry this information? Did he have permission to have these discs or these documents? They would not say. All they would say at this point they're charging him with lying to them about not carrying any government information.

BROWN: Dan, thank you very much, Dan Lothian in Boston tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an issue on the minds of many Americans this evening, health care, first the growing number of Americans who are uninsured and some who are coping without the safety net at all.

We'll also talk with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich about his call for the federal government to improve importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, those stories and more as NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We return for a few minutes now to the question of the CIA agent whose identity the CIA analyst, the CIA employee whose identity was revealed in a newspaper column.

The FBI investigation, as we've told you, is just now beginning. It's supposed to determine where the information came from in the first place. The fact is a number of journalists, perhaps as many as seven already know so should they tell? That's one of the things we talked about earlier this evening with Jack Shafer of Slate.com in Washington, and in Springfield, Massachusetts tonight David Gergen of the Kennedy School of Government and here's how the conversation went.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: David, let me start with you. You've been on both sides of this. Should the reporter -- if a reporter came to you when you were editing the magazine and said I've got this story. I think they're trying to discredit or trash or punish Joe Wilson. Can I give up the source? What do you tell them?

DAVID GERGEN, THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well, I think that the story had great legitimacy. I think that more caution should have been shown about revealing a name. I think in this case, Bob Novak is a wonderful reporter, apparently did not know that she had this covert identity when he published her name.

But even so, you know, there are certain cases in journalism such as a rape story you don't reveal the name of the victim in almost all circumstances. And so, it seems to me in this case this woman has been done enormous harm. You know her career in the CIA as a covert agent has been ruined and as we now know it's a violation of criminal law.

BROWN: OK. Forgive me but I think that's the easy one, David. The harder one is should the reporter give up the source who contacted him or her and gave them the name?

GERGEN: Well, in this case I believe that in fact somebody should come forward and give up a name. Ordinarily in journalism, of course, the journalist protects the source but there are certain exceptions and one of them is if the source lies to you, as Ben Bradley has said many times, if the source lies to you, you unmask the source.

Now, why do we do that? Because the source has abused you; in this case, the source tried to use a journalist to abuse a third party and in the same process committed a crime and under those circumstances I think there's a very powerful argument that the source should be unmasked.

BROWN: Oh, I'm shocked. Mr. Shafer, can you imagine that a source in Washington had an ulterior motive for delivering a piece of information?

JACK SHAFER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "SLATE": No, no not at all, I mean every source in Washington, sources are always brokering their information. They're trying to promote a policy. They're trying to shoot down a policy. They're sending up trial balloons. It's the daily business of journalism in Washington to peddle stories to the press behind the mask of anonymity to advance your own interests. So...

GERGEN: Wait a minute. This is a crime. We are talking...

SHAFER: Who committed a crime?

GERGEN: ...about a violation of federal law. This is not an ordinary...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Wait, one at a time. David, go ahead.

GERGEN: The crime was committed by someone who was in possession of classified information who then either gave it to somebody on the staff to pass it to a journalist or, in fact, passed it directly to a journalist. That's what's at issue here. This is not an ordinary grassroots story.

SHAFER: But journalists are not in the business of being cops and going out and apprehending wrongdoers.

GERGEN: Journalists are not in the business of being accomplices either.

SHAFER: But in this case we know from the "Washington Post" that this story was shopped to six reporters and according to Joe Wilson four of those -- there are four broadcast journalists who told him that this information was being shopped to them.

One of those journalists could very well be CNN, a CNN correspondent. So, I would put the question to Aaron Brown do you think your organization should conduct some sort of investigation or put some sort of pressure on your correspondents to unmask who was the source of the leak?

BROWN: Well, the joy of this job is a) that's not a theoretical question since Mr. Novak has a relationship with CNN and to my knowledge no one in the organization is pressuring him to give up the source.

Are you surprised that no one -- none of the six reporters who was contacted has written a story saying based on information I have gathered it's clear that senior administration officials or the White House or some adjective or another is trying to trash or discredit or ruin the life of Joe Wilson without naming the source?

SHAFER: Right now we're in the position of watching a drama unfold behind -- on a stage where the curtain is drawn so we don't know exactly what happened. If we can believe the "Washington Post" and I do, six reporters had this story shopped to them.

Now, why didn't they come forward and write the story that I would have hoped I would have written that there was a campaign to discredit Joe Wilson? They probably didn't because in Washington sources are outnumbered by reporters by ten to one.

Reporters covet these sources, these inside sources, so they might look the other way. Rather than writing the trashing of the source story they might say I don't want to offend this source. I won't write anything about it and hope that he brings me a story the next time.

Another angle to the story is that this is a very, very peculiar leak. As Mr. Gergen knows because he's worked in four administrations and if things go really poorly he might find himself working in a fifth doing some damage control here, this is a very undisciplined leak.

We know one thing about the Bush administration. They don't leak very often and this particular leak at this particular time makes about as much sense as ordering a break-in of the Democratic National Committee when you're just about ready to win a landslide election as Richard Nixon did.

BROWN: Let me get -- thank you. Let me get to David -- David.

GERGEN: Yes. I think: a) It was a very intentional leak. They didn't call six reporters by accident. They called. They just picked up the phone and started dialing; b) and very, very importantly I think we're giving too little credit to journalists. This is a fine profession. There are a lot of good people in there.

I would imagine a lot of these people didn't know that the other ones had it shopped to them and it wasn't so obvious as all that this was just to discredit Mr. Wilson. It was to put them on a story. I mean I was told this story. I didn't have the name but people around Washington were being told this story that Mr. Wilson went to Niger because of this.

Now, it turns out, you know, it's a phony story and that makes it even worse but I think the president was right today. This president deserves credit for saying the journalist ought to come forward and name the person. He's not afraid. He's not afraid to have the person named.

BROWN: Right. Let's -- David still in your real house here what are the risks here for the president?

GERGEN: They're serious because not only is this a crime that may -- has led to a federal investigation inside the White House, that always becomes dangerous for a president but it comes on the heels of a lot of other stories about questioning the credibility of the administration.

Whoever did this, frankly, has a responsibility to the president to resign, to take this story outside the White House, to spare the president that. We have no indication -- this president has always run the White House within the rules.

We can disagree about his policies but he seems to be respectful of the rules. I think the person or persons who did this have an obligation to the president to consider resignations tonight.

BROWN: Just, I've got literally less than a minute and I want to try to do two things if I can. Number one, I don't mean this pejoratively of the president at all but it's a very easy thing to say the reporter should give up the source because he knows with some certainty that that's not going to happen.

GERGEN: I don't understand. Why does he know with some certainty it's not going to happen?

BROWN: Because reporters don't do that.

GERGEN: Reporters do do that under very limited circumstances. If the source tells you three things, one of which is a lie, you unmask that person. When a source comes to you and commits a crime is that a lesser offense than lying to you?

SHAFER: David if I...

BROWN: Last word, go ahead.

SHAFER: If I had to unmask a source every time they lied to me I'd be unmasking sources daily.

GERGEN: That may be a problem in the way you do journalism. If that's -- I don't happen to agree with that standard. I'll just tell you the Ben Bradley standard was the goal standard by my likes.

BROWN: Gentlemen, thanks a lot. I suspect this is a conversation that is just beginning. Good to you have with us tonight. Thank you.

GERGEN: Thank you.

SHAFER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A conversation just before we went on the air tonight.

When we come back we will look at health care as promised, the struggle of even working Americans who have no insurance coverage, a break first.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: To the matter of health insurance now and nationwide the news tonight, at least, is pretty stark. A new study by the Census Bureau shows that the number of uninsured Americans rose sharply in 2002 up nearly two and a half million people over the previous year.

Public programs like Medicaid are taking up a bigger and bigger share of overall insurance costs according to the government and the nation must do more that according to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.

But as CNN's Jeff Flock reports, even if you have a job that is no guarantee you'll get health insurance. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Gil Davis, 34 years old, full time job as a golf pro and one of 43 million Americans without health insurance.

GIL DAVIS, UNINSURED: It just doesn't seem to make sense.

FLOCK: The downtown Chicago course where he works scaled back to a driving range to make way for new condos cutting staff and eliminating employee health care.

DAVIS: You can do COBRA but, you know that's...

FLOCK (on camera): That's a lot of money right?

DAVIS: ...really a lot of money. It's a lot of money.

FLOCK: And you just finally couldn't afford it?

DAVIS: Yes, couldn't afford it.

FLOCK (voice-over): 1.3 million people who the government says lost employer sponsored health care in the U.S. last year. Now just over 60 percent of Americans get their insurance where they work.

DDR. CLAUDIA FEGAN, PHYSICIANS FOR NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM: People are really very angry and very frustrated.

FLOCK: Claudia Fegan is medical director for one of the county clinics in Chicago that (unintelligible) people who don't have insurance and have nowhere else to go.

FEGAN: Increasingly, we're seeing people who never thought that they would have to come to a public clinic to get care, people who have professional jobs but don't have health insurance.

FLOCK: The number of full time workers without insurance jumped 897,000 last year to nearly 20 million and it figures to get worse.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: The thing is it's been a brutal two years for American business.

FLOCK: University of Chicago economics professor Austan Goolsbee says businesses are just passing along the increased cost that they are paying.

GOOLSBEE: You've got thousands of businesses that are right on the margin of going under and they just say we can't cover those kind of costs and remain competitive or in many cases even remain in business.

FLOCK: Like Gil Davis' golf course.

DAVIS: It's tough, especially for small businesses.

FLOCK: Davis understands sort of.

DAVIS: We think we can come up with something out of all the governmental programs that we have to provide healthcare for everybody.

FLOCK: Nothing in Congress on universal health care right now but with an election ahead and outrage brewing it may become enough of an emergency to make it a campaign issue.

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN in Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Buying health insurance is one part of the problem, paying for prescription drugs is yet another. The Governor Illinois Rod Blagojevich is making news these days because he is considering trying to find a way to import drugs from Canada. They cost a whole lot less. These would be drugs for state employees, retirees.

Last year the state of Illinois spent roughly $380 million for prescription drugs and nearly $2 billion for the state's health programs combined. The governor figures costs would go down anywhere from 30 to 40 percent if he can find a way to get the Canadian drugs into his state, a lot of issues at play here, public policy, the safety of the drugs themselves.

The governor joins us tonight from Chicago. It's nice to see you sir. The problem is that the FDA has to sign off on this and the FDA has never signed off on importing these drugs from Canada or anywhere else.

GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D), ILLINOIS: Well, that is the challenge but I would remind the FDA that over the last year, two million Americans have crossed the border, gone to Canada, and purchased prescription drugs and they allowed them to do it and didn't stop them.

The AARP, an organization that insures tens of thousands of our senior citizens, are purchasing their prescription drugs from Canada, and the FDA doesn't stop them from doing it. And so, when they say there may be a safety issue, if there was in fact was one and they knew there was one, you would think they may do something to protect the American people who are already doing it.

We here in Illinois are asking the FDA to look at the results of a study that's being commissioned right now by my office. And if that study comes back and shows that we can do this safely -- and I have strong suspicions to think that we can, because we're not talking about Pakistan; we're talking about Canada -- then I think the FDA needs to take a good, hard look, have an open mind, and try to figure out ways where we can import prescription drugs from Canada safely and save consumers and taxpayers money, 40, 50, 60 percent in discounts.

Why can't the American consumer benefit, like the Canadian, French or German consumer does?

BROWN: Well, let me argue here gently a couple of points in that.

The reason the drugs are cheaper in Canada is because there are price controls on the drugs in Canada. And the industry would argue that, if such were the case in the United States, a lot of the research that goes on in a very research-intensive business would have to stop.

BLAGOJEVICH: Well, on the research point, currently, we, the taxpayers, fund a lot of the research that the big drug companies do and perform through the research and development tax credit that's already on the books and has been for years.

With regard to the other point, all we're saying is, you don't have to have price controls here in the United States. Just allow us to go to Canada to buy the same prescription drugs made by the exact same company for half the price, and then let the marketplace dictate where those prices in America go and where the prices ultimately go in places like France and in Germany.

Right now, the American consumer is essentially subsidizing the low prices that consumers in France, Germany and England pay. And the fact is that too many senior citizens and too many people in our state -- and I'm sure this is the case across America -- are struggling, can't afford their medicine. They're not taking care of their health. And it just isn't right. And if we can get the same drugs made by the same company cheaper, we ought to be able to do it.

BROWN: Have you tried negotiating with the drug companies themselves for sort of broad price relief?

BLAGOJEVICH: What we've done here in Illinois thus far is, we passed legislation that created the first-in-its-nation buyers club, allowing senior citizens, 1.5 million of them, here in Illinois to become part of a purchasing club and pool their purchasing power, so that we can leverage that with the pharmaceutical companies and try to bring down the prices and provide discounts. That's one thing we're doing.

Secondly, what we're doing in Illinois is, we're consolidating the purchasing of prescription drugs from state government. Nine separate agencies do it. We have it now in one place. We have the buying power of $1.4 billion. That, we think, will help us bring down the cost of prescription drugs.

But, still, it begs the question. If you can go to Canada and you're a woman with breast cancer and you can pay $33 for tamoxifen, but here in the United States, you have to pay $360, why can't you go to Canada, so long as we address the safety issue? And the FDA ought to at least look at ways to implement or evaluate whether there is a safe way in doing this.

BROWN: Governor, you make the case very well. We're very pleased to have us with us. We think this is one of the great and important issues of this time. And we appreciate your help on it tonight. Thank you very much, the governor of...

BLAGOJEVICH: Thanks for having me, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, sir -- governor of Illinois.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, a bit more politics: impulse voting, America's love affair with our hatred of politicians. It sounds like a Greenfield piece to me.

And later; the hottest little business in Iraq, used cars. Get them while they're hot.

We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

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BROWN: Another candidate drops out in California; and the auto market in Iraq.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With all the talk about the vast number of candidates in the California recall election, it seems increasingly as if it will come down to only two choices. Throw the governor out or stop Arnold.

Here is CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON (I), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I want your voices to be heard. I will fight for you.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Arianna Huffington hit two percent in the latest CNN/Gallup poll. And that's only because the number was rounded up. This woman has been a Republican, an independent, and a progressive, but she has never been dumb.

HUFFINGTON: I'm pulling out. And I'm going to concentrate every ounce of time and energy over the next week working to defeat the recall, because I've realized that that's the only way now to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Interesting. Very interesting. It's too bad that she's dropping out.

QUESTION: Why?

SCHWARZENEGGER: She brought a lot of color and a lot of excitement to the whole process.

CROWLEY: Hard to know if this means a thing. If it's close, then Huffington's newly freed 2 percent, if they all vote the same way, could make a difference. Pretty iffy, but no sense in alienating anyone. Welcome aboard, Arianna. GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: I think Arianna Huffington has brought some wisdom and some clarity to the second question on this ballot.

CROWLEY: But the second question won't matter if Davis loses his job in the first question.

DAVIS: Hi, Doris (ph). This is Governor Davis. How you doing?

CROWLEY: The governor of California has six days to stop his time from running out.

DAVIS: I want to have the opportunity to serve out the term that you elected me to and help make things better for all Californians. I'm the governor of California, Gray Davis.

CROWLEY: Otherwise, it was a pretty good event.

Davis, dropping by a phone bank set up by organized labor, courted the party faithful, hauling in yet another national Democrat to stir the resentment of 2000.

TERRY MCAULIFFE, DNC CHAIRMAN: We've got to make sure that we stop them next week, that we vote no on the recall, and we send a message all over this country that we are tired of their power grabs. We know what they did to us in Florida.

DAVIS: Thank you so much for coming.

CROWLEY: The governor is spending his last week in all the natural habitats of a Democrat: minorities, senior, labor. It is get- out-the-vote time, because time is running out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: And when time gets short and the tide is running against you, you also bring out the big guns again. Tomorrow, the Davis campaign will release a radio ad starring former President Bill Clinton. What they really would like is a return by the real thing sometime before the polling begins -- Aaron.

BROWN: In 15 seconds or less, is there any major event in the next week that will change the dynamic here?

CROWLEY: Oh, always, yes. Don't ask me what, but you know as well as I do that anything -- outside things, a candidate -- Arnold Schwarzenegger could say something horrible. Gray Davis could do something to turn more voters off. I mean, lots of things can happen.

But, certainly, there's a trajectory here that's hard to deny. And that is Gray Davis going down and Arnold Schwarzenegger going up.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much. I never argue with you either -- Candy Crowley in Los Angeles tonight.

If politics is war without bloodshed, as Chairman Mao said, or the art of the possible, as Bismarck opined, then what the heck is the California recall?

Jeff Greenfield is glad you asked.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Recall Gray Davis. No, not for you either. OK.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Here's the lazy way to cover this recall story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm running for governor because I love California.

GREENFIELD: Wacky, sun-drenched California, threatening to dump the guy they elected just a year ago, with a larger-than-life celebrity-turned-politician and 134 other candidates on the ballot. Only in crazy California, right?

After all, it is the state that turned song and dance man George Murphy into a U.S. senator, actor Ronald Reagan into a governor, and singer Sonny Bono into a congressman.

(on camera): But that easy analysis also misses the point. What this recall is really about is a recurring, even permanent presence in American life, an abiding mistrust of politicians and insiders that every so often bubbles to the surface in a way that defies conventional political thinking.

(voice-over): Distrust is as American as apple pie and as old as the republic. "I am not a politician and my other habits are good," Artemus Ward wrote more than 150 years ago. A century ago, Mark Twain wrote, "There is no distinctly native American criminal class except the Congress."

That distrust explains why Americans are so often attracted to the anti-politician, to generals like Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell, maybe Wesley Clark this time.

CROWD: Jesse! Jesse!

GREENFIELD: It's why an outsider like Jesse Ventura becomes governor, not in wacky California...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JESSE VENTURA, MINNESOTA: The American dream lives on in Minnesota.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: ... but in civic-minded Minnesota. It's why the business tycoon seems politically attractive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSS PEROT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's go do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: Ross Perot got more than 19 million votes in 1992. Henry Ford won the Michigan GOP presidential primary in 1916. And when the public senses that the insiders are trying to pull a fast one, as when the Congress tried to slip a pay raise through away from public eyes in 1989, that resentment boils over.

What does make California different is that voters there have mechanisms, the initiative, the referendum, now the recall, to turn this discontent into direct action. They abolished fair housing laws in 1964, slashed their property taxes in 1978, threw three judges off the Supreme Court in 1986, made three strikes and you're out state law in 1994.

And when public discontent is provoked by government action, look out. Proposition 13 won in part because the Los Angeles assessor mailed out tax bills just before that vote. This year, the car tax assessments will be in the mail just before the recall vote, not good news for Gray Davis, especially considering that, according to one recent poll, nearly three-fourths of Californians do not trust their government to do what's right all or most of the time.

(on camera): There is a common theme to these eruptions of popular discontent. They are almost always underestimated by the political class They are almost always seen as a danger to good government. And when they reach critical mass, they are almost always unstoppable.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A few other stories making news before we go to break.

In Florida tonight, another horror story involving a toddler. A 2-year-old girl in Jacksonville, Florida -- this is unbelievable -- was left alone for nearly three weeks, authorities say, while her mother served jail time. The girl was not under the care of the state's embattled Department of Children and Families. She survived by opening the refrigerator and eating dried macaroni, ketchup and mustard. She is said to be in good condition at a local hospital.

This is unbelievable, too. A high school band director in Paris, Texas, says he is sorry that students ran across the football field with a Nazi flag while playing the German anthem at halftime. The incident took place at a game last Friday night. The show was called "Visions of World War II." There were loud boos and things were tossed onto the field during the show. Said the band director, "We had an error in judgment."

And for all those wanna-be athletes out there, this news. The rap artist, record mogul and all-around celebrity Sean "P. Diddy" Combs is training for New York's New York marathon in November. He hopes to raise around $1 million for children's charities, a noble goal, that. He is up to 15 miles a day. He has a ways to go. The marathon, as you know, is a bit more than 26 miles.

As NEWSNIGHT continues: the newest invasion of Iraq. Forget tanks and APCs. The cars are coming by the tens of thousands. It's segment seven after the break.

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BROWN: Well, here's a reminder for you. Even after a war, even with bombs still going off from time to time and shots being fired from time to time, even amid the chaos of the rubble and the confusion, people still have to get around. That is the reality.

And this is CNN's Michael Holmes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Driving in Baghdad was never a quiet, orderly affair. But since the fall of Saddam Hussein, things have become somewhat -- well, see for yourself.

"It's really bad," says Walid Kadham (ph). "There are traffic jams everywhere." Traffic cops are back on duty, but the sheer volume of cars is making their lives as tough as those of drivers.

(on camera): Iraqis used to buy the latest Mercedes, BMW and Lexus. But 10 years of sanctions and two Gulf Wars mean that most people are now forced to make do. These days, just about anything with wheels is considered acceptable transport.

(voice-over): And so, in the spirit of free market economics, used, sometimes very used, cars are pouring into Iraq, tens of thousands coming in from Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan, Turkey, even Libya. How many? No one knows. No one here is counting.

But car dealer Farouk al-Shakili (ph) has his own guess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There are about 250,000 to 300,000 cars that enter the country since the war ended, all kinds of makes and models from all kinds of countries.

HOLMES: One reason for the flood of vehicles is the breakdown of customs laws. Want a BMW from Dubai? Just bring it on. And if customs laws are hard to find, road-worthiness and emission laws are invisible. Unlike the air in Baghdad, never good, it's now on display for all to see, literally.

In Baghdad this week, a new system, new license plates. And soon, everyone will need to register their vehicle, partly to work out how many cars are here and insure they came here legally. For Iraqis struggling to find work, even feed their families, a car is fast becoming a necessity to get around and achieve those things. And, clearly, they're willing to drive whatever they can find or afford, whatever will spring to life when the key is turned.

Oh, and, by the way, this car was for sale. It was a bargain, too. Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Quickly, a few items from around the world making news tonight. In Brussels, a former soccer player from Tunisia was sentenced to 10 years in jail for his role in a failed attack on an American military base in Belgium. He was the principal defendant at this trial; 17 others already received jail terms ranging between two and six years.

Big story in Europe today: British Prime Minister Tony Blair again defending his role in the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. He told the Labor Party annual conference that he was ready for an unprecedented third term in office. He has public opinion problems.

First lady Laura Bush in Moscow today speaking at the Kremlin Library, taking the opportunity to chastise some American parents for letting their kids watch far too much television. I don't know that she excluded cable from that. She urged them to spend more time reading with their children. Not a bad idea, that.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll read the morning papers.

A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Ah, there you have it. Music to our ears, huh?

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the country, I think, tonight. We'll start with "The New York Times." We could do the whole segment on "The New York Times" tonight. There's that many good stories on the front page. As you would expect, "President Orders Full Cooperation in Leaking of Name." That makes the front page.

Over on the other side, a very good and powerful and important story, I think, "A Slowing Stream of New Jobs Gives a Full Picture of the Slump. U.S. Survey Shows Hiring is at its Lowest Since 1995." It might explain the dip in consumer confidence today. And also, just kind of they make note on the front page, kind of a little picture here. "Twins and Giants Win Playoff Games." They just kind of don't -- it's there. "Twins and Giants Win Playoff Games."

On the other hand, "The Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul." "Take That." That's the headline there. "Twins 3, Yankees 1. Twins Lead Best of Five Series 1-0." Same picture, but they do it in a way that you can actually see it. I wonder why. They also put the leak story on the front page. "Criminal Inquiry Launched Over Leak." "Take That."

"San Antonio Express-News." Big story, actually a sports story. "Spurs Put on New Game Face." They're the defending champs, right, defending NBC champs, San Antonio? I think so. Anyway, "Probe Targets White House" also their big front-page story. There was something else I liked there, but I don't remember what it was.

Good local story leads "The Oregonian" in Portland, Oregon. "Portland Loses L.P." That's Louisiana-Pacific, the big timber company base. And they follow that, "Tax Reform Proponent Points to L.P.'s Exit." That would be, I suspect, a lot of jobs in the area.

Thirty seconds left. Hardly enough to do all the things I wanted to do. What can you do?

"The Boston Herald." "Feds Nab Spy." The story took place in Boston. It belongs on the front page. And a baseball story with it.

Quickly on time, the weather tomorrow in Chicago is frosty. "I Want to Know Who the Leakers Are" is "The Sun-Times" headline.

That's the program, and not a bad one at that. Good to have you with us. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time.

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

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Investigation Into Gitmo Espionage Spreads to Boston; Huffington Drops Out of Recall Race>