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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

China Launches Manned Space Flight; Interview With John Walters

Aired October 14, 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: (AUDIO GAP) Thank you, Miles. We'll get back to you pretty quick here.
Next stop Baghdad and another round of violence there, Harris Whitbeck with the headline -- Harris.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, lots of soft targets in Baghdad and seemingly lots of people willing to take their lives to stress a point, more suicide bombings on the minds of terrified Baghdad residents.

BROWN: Harris, thank you.

To the Pentagon next and the other side of the coin if you will; the continuing effort to look on the bright side in Iraq, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with us, Jamie a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, members of the Bush administration from the president on down have been complaining that the news coverage from Iraq is focusing too much on what's going wrong and not enough on what's going right. We'll look at why they might have a point.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you.

And finally, Virginia Beach, Virginia, a plea today in the first sniper trial, Jeanne Meserve is there for us, Jeanne a headline.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The plea from John Muhammad not guilty to all four charges against him. Meanwhile the very tough job of finding a fair and impartial jury to hear this case gets underway -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, the U.S. Supreme Court says doctors can now talk to their patients about medical marijuana without the fear of the federal government trying to take their license away. We'll get reaction from the president's drug czar and from the head of the California Medical Association as well.

Later tonight we get to the story of the curse and whether somewhere Babe Ruth is sticking pins in a Red Sox doll.

And, morning papers too, the rooster will crow and we'll take a look at what will be on your doorstep come tomorrow morning, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in space. For the first time in 42 years a nation has joined the exclusive club of having sent a person into space. The United States and the Soviet Union did it in the early 1960s. China did it tonight. They call their new astronaut a Taikonaut and it's a great leap forward for that nation in the world of technology and geopolitics.

We go to Jaime FlorCruz our Bureau Chief in Beijing -- Jaime.

JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, the first manned space flight blasted off about an hour ago and there is a lot of expectation and anticipation here in China. They hope that the astronaut Yang Lewei can safely pilot this capsule back to China about 20 hours from now.

The first words that came out from Yang Lewei talking to the control center about 30 minutes into the flight was (unintelligible). In Chinese that means I feel good. The Chinese officials also hope that the successful launch could help boost China's (unintelligible) and enhance patriotism in China. Also they hope that this will be good publicity for China's commercial launch service which brings a lot of money and employs a lot of people in China -- Aaron.

BROWN: Did the Chinese see this live on TV or did they see it on tape?

FLORCRUZ: They seeing it on tape. The Chinese canceled earlier plans to cover the launch live and instead they are now setting out drips and drabs of video and details through the official media.

BROWN: It's not, as you know, the sort of thing we do here. It's not sort of wall-to-wall coverage where that's the only thing that's on TV in China right now?

FLORCRUZ: (Unintelligible) here and a lot of people out in the streets in the traffic I see apparently are still oblivious of the fact that the launch was successful but we expect a media frenzy later in the day and especially after the successful return if indeed they successful return back somewhere in inner Mongolia in northwestern China.

BROWN: And is the program run by the Chinese military?

FLORCRUZ: Northwestern China.

BROWN: I'm sorry is the program run by the Chinese military or the army?

FLORCRUZ: It is part of the Chinese military program. It is. It's part of the Chinese military program. It has spun off a civilian part of it. That is why it's pretty much a very secretive institution.

BROWN: There has been a buildup of some days, even weeks, about this. The government gave a kind of general view of when it would be launched. I assume that people have had a great expectation about this moment even as they learn about it now, excitement.

FLORCRUZ: Indeed. It was quite an unusual in fact that the Chinese officials had earlier announced a window of three days starting from today through Friday as the provisional launch date so there has been a lot of anticipation.

A lot of reports have been written about this space launch but few details are known yet about the astronaut himself and about the actual space launch. But we expect more reports on TV and the Internet as well as in the newspapers and we expect a big celebration both officially organized as well as spontaneous in the next day or two.

BROWN: Jaime, stay with us for a bit.

Let's bring Miles O'Brien, Miles in Atlanta tonight, into the conversation. Miles, you know, to a certain extent we sit and look at this and it all looks sort of primitive in an odd way. I mean we've sent men to the moon and just a week or so ago we had an unmanned spaceship way out there in space. What's the significance of this?

O'BRIEN: Technologically there really isn't much significance. This particular rocket, a long march (ph) rocket is a rocket which the Chinese have been flying for quite some time and it in and of itself is kind of a proven launch vessel.

The capsule, which goes into space, is almost a direct knockoff, Aaron, of the Russia Soyuz. The Chinese essentially bought the plans from the Russians, sort of reverse engineered it and so what you're seeing here is not about technology. It's about a lot of other things. It's about national pride. It's about joining a club that to this point has only been entered into by super powers and it's a lot about national prestige.

BROWN: It's a Soviet design but it is truly made in China. It seems to me the Chinese have tried to make this point that it is their technology, their expertise, and so on that has brought us to this moment.

O'BRIEN: Well, yes, when you have a space program that costs about $2 billion a year and employs about 300,000 people you certainly want to crow about your own technology but the fact is the plans are the plans and this particular design is the Russian Soyuz design.

Nevertheless, you have to look at where they're headed. It is a modest first step technologically. The Chinese are vowing to build their own space station, not unlike the Russian space station Mir, which was deep-sixed a few years ago and they would also like to go to the moon and stay there, not just put prints down and leave a flag behind.

They'd like to actually establish a permanent lunar colony and given the Chinese track record for following through on such goals on a long range plan, look at the Great Wall after all, they might very well do it. BROWN: Do we know much about the facility that was used to launch the rocket tonight?

O'BRIEN: It's a very secretive place. I've talked to a fair number of western journalists who have done some reporting over there of the space program and no western journalist that I know of has ever even gotten to this place.

What is most interesting about it, as you look at these satellite images, Aaron, is that it's almost a direct knockoff of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the way the launch pad is situated from the vehicle assembly building.

So, not once again to minimize the Chinese accomplishment here but clearly they are borrowing some ideas that are tried and true and I guess if you think about it that makes a lot of sense.

BROWN: Well, it does to me. I mean there's no sense -- honestly, there's no sense reinventing the wheel or in this case the space capsule if you don't need to. These are very expensive programs. Is it realistic to think the Chinese will get to the moon in a decade?

O'BRIEN: Well, the date that they are saying is 2020 and some have said they might do it sooner than that. I suspect they will be true to their word and they will continue to launch people into space and they will attempt first of all the space station and then move onward.

What's interesting about this new space race, which it could very well become, is that when the Chinese get out there and get to the moon they'll be able to do it for pennies on the dollar for the cost of a U.S. rocket of a shuttle and the question is, is it possible for them to conduct manned missions that might be commercially viable? To this point, space involving human beings inside spacecraft has not been a business model.

BROWN: Miles, thank you for staying late tonight. Actually when you watch it, it is even 40 years after the Americans and the Russians did it, it's kind of exciting to see a new country get up there. Thank you and Jaime FlorCruz in Beijing thank you for your coverage today as well. China is in space.

Back on earth we are consumed by the more usual, some would say even the more mundane, another car bombing today in Iraq. Like all the rest, nobody knows for certain the who of the story. Who hatched the plot? Who made the bomb? Who drove the car?

The why, however, is simpler to explain, Turkey was the target and Turkey has agreed to send 10,000 troops to Iraq. The bombing sends a powerful message. Think about it.

Here's CNN's Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WHITBECK (voice-over): Once again chaos on a Baghdad street, another suicide bomber strikes this time in front of the Turkish Embassy.

"I saw a car drive very fast and hit a concrete block in front of the building" said this eyewitness.

Iraqi police on the scene said eight people were wounded, among them an embassy cook and a driver. Shortly after the blast, some 50 demonstrators appeared shouting slogans of support for Saddam Hussein. Their leader was detained by Iraqi police.

As U.S. soldiers established a security cordon around the scene it became clear that damage to the embassy building was minimal. Recently installed concrete barriers, known as blast defectors, absorbed much of the impact and it was intelligence work that led to the installation of those security walls just three days ago.

COL. PETER MANSOOR, U.S. ARMY: Based on this information we ramped up the security measures here at this embassy and these security measures succeeded in preventing any loss of life.

WHITBECK: This time success in mitigating the effects of an attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK: But more attacks seem inevitable and for the general population are impossible to predict which makes for a lot of unsettled nerves in the Iraqi capital -- Aaron.

BROWN: How long does it take for people in the capital and I guess even outside the capital to hear about these attacks?

WHITBECK: It's pretty much instant, Aaron. As you know, CNN is usually out there shortly after they happen and, of course, a lot of people here now have access to the Al-Jazeera television network and people monitor Al-Jazeera specifically pretty much all the time so people hear about them pretty quickly.

BROWN: And is that true outside of the major cities also?

WHITBECK: No. I have to tell you that in other parts of the country the situation is much different, particularly in the south. There have been less attacks and really the only terrorist attacks that we've seen have been in the Iraqi capital. The violence in the rest of the country has to do more with direct attacks on the U.S. military.

BROWN: Harris, thank you, Harris Whitbeck in Baghdad.

All of this plays well into where we go now because next we take a look at the question of perception and coverage of Iraq. There is nothing new about this, about presidents and vice presidents grumping about how the news is covered. John Adams went so far as to muzzle newspapers that gave him trouble and you'll recall Spiro Agnew calling reporters nattering neigh bombs of negativism during the Vietnam era.

President Bush has taken a gentler attack but one no less tried and true. He's seeking out friendly media outlets and some would argue looking for easier questions. That said it doesn't mean there isn't an argument to be made about the balance of coverage and an argument that we and you ought to hear.

Here's CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Every day it seems brings more bad news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two American soldiers were killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The continuing bloodshed in Iraq.

DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: Tension and chaos mounted today in Iraq.

MCINTYRE: But the media's coverage is misleading according to the president.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a sense that people in America aren't getting the truth.

MCINTYRE: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complains nonstop news is harping on the failures.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With 24-hour news in our country it isn't like it's one problem. It's like that it's 24 problems, one every hour, even though it's the same one.

MCINTYRE: Media critics say the downbeat coverage is a case of live by the sword die by the sword.

TOM ROSENSTIEL, PROJECT FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM: It's the same 24-hour drumbeat that helped them build popular support for the war in the first place.

MCINTYRE: There is a lot of good news from Iraq, schools rebuilt, oil pumping, electricity boosted above pre-war levels, and there is good news in the media as well. Take this front page "Washington Post" account of how the U.S. has restored Iraq's wetlands and returned a way of life to grateful marsh Arabs. But the good news is constantly overshadowed by deadly attacks on U.S. forces and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

ROBERT LICHTER, CENTER FOR MEDIA AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS: I think the administration may have a valid complaint that the news tends to be unrelentingly bad. Reporters don't seem to be going out there and investigating to find positive things that are going on.

MCINTYRE: Simple things can account for news trends. Reporters tied down in Baghdad by the latest attacks have little time to pursue other more positive events. Stories about say an improving economy are harder to tell than a dramatic bombing but the main reason that bad pushes out the good news is that we expect things to go well.

ROSENSTIEL: You don't do a story about every plane that lands successfully but you do do a story about every plane that crashes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And then there's a suggestion by some media critics that perhaps the news media is being tougher now to compensate for failing to be as aggressive as it might have been about questioning the reasons for going to war -- Aaron.

BROWN: It strikes me as an odd question for me to ask a reporter of ours but I'll do it anyway. Any sense that this campaign the administration has been waging has affected news coverage?

MCINTYRE: Well, I think that news organizations are taking a look at their coverage. News organizations in general, although they may not seem at the time, are somewhat sensitive to criticism. If they're constantly criticized for something they tend to take a look at it and see if there's a way they could do things better.

I know that our reporters in Baghdad have talked about the fact that they really are sort of stuck in Baghdad because of the momentous events going on there and it hasn't given them the opportunity to travel outside the city and I know that CNN has been looking at that as a way to try to present more of a picture of what's going on in the rest of the country.

Iraq is a very big country and the argument the administration makes is if you just look at Baghdad you don't get the whole story. In the north and in the south things are actually much better.

BROWN: One of the arguments a member of Congress made here and I think there is some validity in this is that relative to the war itself we are not staffed anywhere near the way we were. It's very expensive to staff in Iraq these days. It's expensive to feed out of there and we just don't have as many bodies reporting as we once had.

MCINTYRE: And that's true but, of course, if the security situation in Baghdad was much better then the reporters would be much freer to move around. That explosion at the Baghdad Hotel the other day was just four blocks from where the CNN bureau is located in the Palestine Hotel and our people there told us that they could actually feel the blast and, of course, when the explosion happened they grabbed their body armor and ran out to the scene.

So it makes it harder to get out and do some of those stories like the one we saw in "The Washington Post" about the marshes being restored and the way of life being brought to a whole group of people in the south.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight. On we go, a photo caption on a "Washington Post" Web site caught our eye. "Many," it reads "hope to show Virginia Beach is more than a beach." We say be careful what you wish for.

Tonight, Virginia each is a venue the trial of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad and all the that entails. The trial technically began today and covering for us tonight, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Not guilty, John Muhammad's plea to the charges against him, charges that could lead to his execution. Muhammad told Judge Leroy Millett (ph) he fully understood the charges and was prepared for trial. His attorney Peter Greenspun said it was daunting to get started but good as well.

PETER GREENSPUN, MUHAMMAD ATTORNEY: We are and we're ready to go and we hope to have a good and a fair trial with tremendous jurors from the city of Virginia Beach.

MESERVE: The search for those jurors is now in full swing. One hundred and twenty-three people went through initial screening Tuesday completing biographical questionnaires and undergoing general questioning by the judge, defense, and prosecuting attorneys. The lead prosecutor said good progress was made.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully we'll get a jury tomorrow.

MESERVE: Intensive individual questioning Wednesday will probe the effect of a flood of pretrial publicity, whether potential jurors felt themselves to be potential victims during the sniper attacks and attitudes towards the death penalty.

CAROLYN KOCH, JURY CONSULTANT: We typically try and get death qualified jurors. By definition these are people who believe in the death penalty so what often happens is you have a pool of jurors who by definition believe in the death penalty making it all the more harder for a defense lawyer to find jurors who might be open minded.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: No family members of sniper victims were in court today. Some were marking an anniversary. It was one year ago tonight that FBI analyst Linda Franklin was gunned down in a Home Depot parking lot as she and her husband loaded shelving into their car -- Aaron.

BROWN: I remember that night. Thank you, Jeanne Meserve in Virginia Beach. The trial gets underway.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, medical marijuana, we'll hear from the nations' drug czar about today's Supreme Court ruling which affects doctors and so we'll also hear from the head of the California Medical Association.

And later, the story of a family fighting over a woman's right to die or right to live, a break first.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Anyone searching for consensus on the subject of medical marijuana probably ought to look elsewhere. People differ violently on this one. Their positions are deeply felt, strongly held, and bitterly fought it turns out. So, as quickly as states, especially in the west, have passed medical marijuana laws, the federal government has taken legal action.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt the federal government a setback on that score rejecting an appeal by the Bush administration which was seeking to overturn a lower court ruling. That court barred the federal government from punishing doctors for recommending pot to their patients.

We're joined -- we'll look at both sides of this, first with John Walters, the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Sir, it's nice to have you with us.

JOHN WALTERS, DRUG CZAR: Thank you.

BROWN: Is this a big deal to the administration to lose this one?

WALTERS: I won't change federal enforcement. As the case that was started in the last administration no one has sought to enforce serious enforcement actions against doctors in private conversations with parents; however, marijuana is a serious drug of abuse, the most serious cause of addiction among illegal drugs and that's the real issue that I think we have to focus on.

BROWN: Well, before we leave the case, we'll talk about that too, you could have I suppose just said look we have no intention of interfering with doctors and patients and withdrawn your briefs but you didn't. You aggressively argued the case.

WALTERS: Well, we did seek to make an appeal so that we could clarify the issues regarding what the regulatory authorities were under the law but, again, this has not changed the law that dispensing marijuana is a federal crime and we do intend to enforce the federal law here but it's not going to be focused on private conversations between doctors and patients.

BROWN: It does seem that state after state where this gets on the ballot people look at the issue. I assume to a certain extent they listen to the arguments. They have some in many cases personal experience. They make a judgment and time after time they pass these laws. Why is that?

WALTERS: Well, I think that's kind of the old story. The new story is last fall in the major states in the west where this was on the ballot, even some states that had previously passed smaller versions of limited distribution, it lost and it lost by wide margins in Nevada and Arizona.

BROWN: But those weren't medical. I'm sorry, respectfully, those weren't medical marijuana cases.

WALTERS: Well, they grew out or medical marijuana cases. The one in Arizona was to allow expanded distribution. Again, look, here's the issue. I think it has to be clear from the point of view of federal enforcement. We're not talking about an issue of state's rights. We're not talking about an issue of changing the food and drug regulations that keep our food and medicine safe.

One substance is at issue and that's marijuana and that's because it's been funded by George (unintelligible) and some other wealthy people to put on and buy signatures and put on the ballot and run one- sided campaigns.

Where we have stood up and explained the issues here with public officials and stood up to the one-sided buying of advertising and corrected the ignorance about marijuana, more teenagers in this country seek treatment today for marijuana than for all other illegal drugs combined.

Most baby boomer parents and others believe marijuana is a soft drug, 60 percent of the calls for the need for treatment for illegal drugs today. It's not trivial and if you want to legalize marijuana let's have a debate about that because I don't think it's a close call.

But to use the suffering of people to advance a political agenda I think is reprehensible but that's what's been done by people who are desperate. I think in a couple of years we're going to find this is old history.

New medications using isolates of marijuana that may be proven efficacious are on the market. Smoked weed is not an efficacious medicine in modern terms, has not been proven to be more than smoked opium is.

BROWN: Mr. Walters, thank you for your time tonight. We appreciate that.

WALTERS: My pleasure.

BROWN: Quickly we'll look at the other side. Jack Lewin is the president of the California Medical Association. He joins us. I don't think the California Medical Association takes the position necessarily, does it, that marijuana is either good or bad?

DR. JACK LEWIN, CEO, CALIFORNIA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: No, as a matter of fact the California Medical Association didn't support the public ballot initiative that legalized marijuana for medical use because we think the science isn't in.

Actually, this administration in Washington has been very slow in promoting the science that's needed to help us understand the therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana and understand the patients who have exhausted all other remedies and who want this and their doctors in the conversation who want to talk to them about it.

But the legal action today was very positive because what it says is the sanctity of the patient/physician relationship has been protected. The Department of Justice is actually intruding into that relationship. If the attorneys in the Department of Justice, you had an assault on the attorney/client privilege I'm sure they'd be outraged.

Similarly, doctors feel that this was an overreaching of the administration. Our issue wasn't medical marijuana it was the ability to have the physicians speak frankly with their patients, advise them, and even recommend therapies and new research and new products as they emerge so we think the court's decision was the right one.

BROWN: I assume that, you know, doctors differ on this. In dealing with their patients they differ on this but it seems to me that there is a body of patient here that if you ask them say they feel better because, they eat better because, they feel less pain because, they feel less pressure from their glaucoma because of marijuana and whether that is in fact true or some odd placebo effect they continue to report it, don't they?

LEWIN: Well, this is exactly why, yes, and this is why I think we've asked that real research be done. A little bit of research is currently underway finally but in essence we might have been able to answer this question and move on to other means of administration of marijuana if we had gotten the research done earlier.

But the real core issue here is whether if, next week, the Justice Department decides that morphine is a controlled substance that's dangerous and doctors can't talk to their patients about that or prescribe it, we don't want that to happen. We think the relationship between physician and patient, like the relationship between attorney and client, is one that needs to be protected. This is a First Amendment, free speech issue.

And doctors need to be able to talk to their patients about whatever is important. The patients who really benefit from this are generally very sick people that have tried many other remedies. And for them, this is the way that they can overcome nausea or pain. We need the research. But this decision does protect the patient- physician relationship.

And we really ought to take the medical marijuana out of it and look at the overreaching of the Justice Department in terms of what it intended to do.

BROWN: Dr. Lewin, thank you for your patience and your time. Appreciate it very much.

LEWIN: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Good job by both.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT: a life-and-death question of a different sort. Does Terri Schiavo want to live or die? Should she be allowed to die? She can't say. And her family fights over the answer.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Barring a change of heart, doctors tomorrow will remove a feeding tube from a comatose woman. And about two weeks from now, she will die. Those are just about the only facts of this very painful case that are not in dispute tonight. This is one of those heart- wrenching cases that has become a cause.

The details from CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): For more than 13 years, Terri Schiavo has been like this, in what the Florida court calls a persistent vegetative state.

BOB SCHINDLER, FATHER OF TERRI: Terri, what are you doing?

ZARRELLA: And for the better part of those years, Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have been engaged in a nonstop legal fight to keep her from being removed from a feeding tube that keeps her alive.

MARY SCHINDLER, MOTHER OF TERRI: I have always thought there was hope. When I go in there and she responds to me, she knows I'm there.

ZARRELLA: On the other side of the battle, Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband. Although Terri did not leave written instructions, he insists she made it clear she would not want to live on life support.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, HUSBAND OF TERRI: I think Terri's wishes should be carried out. This is what she wanted. This is Terri's wish. It's not anybody's wish. It's her wish.

ZARRELLA: In 1990, Terri Schiavo collapsed at home from heart failure. Oxygen to her brain was temporarily cut off. Her husband charged that wellness checkups would have detected a potassium imbalance that he alleged led to the collapse.

Between settlements and court awards, Michael Schiavo received more than $1 million for himself and for Terri's care. Terri's parents charged, their son-in-law just wanted to end her life once he got the money. They have maintained that their daughter can be rehabilitated with therapy, therapy that they charge has been withheld. Now, with time running out, the parents are appealing to the governor.

B. SCHINDLER: I'm pleading that -- to Governor Bush from -- as one dad to another to save Terri.

ZARRELLA: Last week, the governor filed a friend-of-the-court brief, urging for Terri, but the court rejected Bush's appeal. And the governor's office says Governor Bush does not have the authority to overrule the courts.

(on camera): The battle over what's best for Terri has been through the state and federal courts. It's been through the appeals process. The Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts have refused to hear the case. And now, unless there is a last-minute surprise, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube will be removed at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday.

John Zarrella, CNN, Pinellas Park, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT: the curse. Will Babe Ruth play a role in the outcome of a baseball game a half-a-century after his death?

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Lots more news ahead tonight. We'll take a look at the curse. Ken Burns and Keith Hernandez join us. Morning papers, too. Lots to do.

Take a break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: World War I was over. Professional baseball was in its infancy. And the best player in the game, bar none, was a young pitcher named George Herman Ruth. Mr. Ruth played for the Boston Red Sox, a team that had won a very young World Series in 1918.

But over the winter of 1919, 1920, the man who owned the Red Sox needed cash, money, it is said, to finance a Broadway musical, "No, No Nanette." So he sold Mr. Ruth to the New York Yankees, got $100,000, a lot of money in that time. And, of course, even if you're not a great baseball fan, you know pretty much the rest. The Yankees have so far won 26 World Series titles, and the Red Sox, since 1918, not a one.

And so was born the curse of the Bambino, which so far this season seems to be working.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): There are some in Boston, the unfailingly optimistic ones, who believe the curse is history.

GREGG SLONE, RED SOX FAN: It's great, because we always dream about playing ball in October. And every time the Red Sox play in October, exciting things happen.

BROWN: But the man who made the curse live in all its infamy knows better.

DAN SHAUGHNESSY, COLUMNIST, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I've heard that before. They exercised when they beat California, which was an incredible comeback in 1986. That team was down three games to one, 5-2 in the ninth inning of game five and came back. They've had a lot of chances to throw this off.

BROWN: Dan Shaughnessy's book, "The Curse of the Bambino," written 13 years ago, gave a reality a name.

SHAUGHNESSY: The cycles of New England, which are all around us here, are very similar with the Red Sox. They fall in the fall. And then we think about them all in the long cold winter and how are they going to do next year. And then there's all this hope in the springtime. And you get the real hot summer and then you go back into the cycle again.

BROWN: Case in point -- and there are many -- Boston one out away from winning the World Series against the New York Mets in 1986.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Behind the bag! It gets through Buckner!

BROWN: They lost the game and they lost the next one. They lost the series.

DAVID WELLS, YANKEES PITCHER: It's still alive, man. The Boston people have been -- it's been wreaking havoc on them for a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being a Red Sox fan is like a Charles Dickens novel. Everyone is just trying to survive the situation.

BROWN: There is even a new HBO documentary about it all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the good guy dies in the end in every production since 1918, you might get a little fatalistic, don't you think?

BROWN: 1918, the last time Boston won the World Series. Woodrow Wilson was president. The inning-by-inning scores were sent to a waiting nation by carrier pigeon. To the experts, though, there is a real reason the Red Sox have been a study in baseball futility.

PETER GAMMONS, ESPN: If you believe in 'Casper the Friendly Ghost" and "Topper," that's all fine. You can believe in that stuff. But the curse has been bad ownership, bad management. And that's why they haven't won.

BROWN: Even so, at the grave of Babe Ruth himself, just 20 miles north of Yankees Stadium, some Red Sox fans are taking no chances. Pictures of the Babe in a Boston uniform, flowers, good-luck pennies, a Boston batting helmet all rest there, because, even after today's defeat at the hands of the Yankees, you never know.

MARIE JACOBSEN, RED SOX FAN: I think he's decided that it's time. It's time to break this curse. I really do. I really this that that's what's happening. And, hopefully, that is what's happening.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Well, not yet.

A little more baseball after the break. Keith Hernandez and Ken Burns join us.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Baseball is hallowed for the fables that run through it. Baseball players are certainly a superstitious lot. But, at the end of the day, if the Sox lose -- or when they lose, some might say -- is anybody going to be pacing the room muttering, "Curses, foiled again"? Maybe.

Ken Burns has produced the definitive documentary of the history of baseball, of course. And Keith Hernandez was in the dugout for the Mets back in '86, the last time the curse reared its ugly head, when the Red Sox were a strike away from winning the series. We're pleased to have them both with us tonight.

Keith, let's start with you. We're going to have to figure out how to deal with what's going on in Chicago, but let's deal with '86 and the curse and the rest first.

When you sat in the dugout, or during that series, I know you don't actually believe in the curse, but did it ever occur to you, my goodness, that's a very playable ball that just went through his legs?

KEITH HERNANDEZ, FORMER NEW YORK METS PLAYER: Well, one thing that people forget was that that game was tied. And everybody seems to think that we would have lost the series if Buckner makes that play down the line. We had tied the game. It would have gone into extra innings. So that's one point.

But the thought of the curse never entered my mind. And I made the second out in that inning. And I thought we were done. We scored three runs with two outs, nobody on.

BROWN: So you didn't think, we got this in the bag...

HERNANDEZ: No.

BROWN: ... because the gods of baseball are just not going to let them win?

HERNANDEZ: No. I thought we were in deep, deep trouble.

BROWN: Yes.

And, Ken, this is a particularly painful night for you, I know.

KEN BURNS, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: It's terrible. It's terrible.

(LAUGHTER) BURNS: When you're watching these playoff games, you set your peanuts, your beer, and, if you're a Red Sox fan, your defibrillator, just to keep yourself alive.

BROWN: This has been, as -- well, I would say I'm more than a casual fan, but I'm not like you guys -- this has been a great and wonderful playoff, Keith, hasn't it?

(CROSSTALK)

HERNANDEZ: Go ahead, Ken.

BURNS: No, I don't think I've ever had an October that's been as spectacular as this. These four teams that have survived, the most storied team in baseball, the Yankees, the two teams that show us how to lose in more poetic and novelistic ways than anyone could ever imagine, a spunky contender who is now snatching victory from the jaws of defeat this evening, my God, when will it end?

I guess the great fear of the gods of the whole universe -- forget the curse -- is that the Red Sox and the Cubs would end up in the World Series and you'd get to the seventh game and all time, I guess, would have to stop.

BROWN: As I was walking out of the green room just before I came on the air, you said to me -- it was 3-0 Cubs at the time. And you said, well, it's over. And I looked back and said, I don't know about that, right?

HERNANDEZ: You're right. Well, that's the one beauty of baseball. There's no time clock. And you have to get that last out. And like Yogi said, it's never over until it's over.

BROWN: Would you like to see a Cubs-Red Sox series?

HERNANDEZ: I would have loved to have seen a Cubs-Red Sox...

BROWN: Well, you're a New York broadcaster now.

HERNANDEZ: Yes, but the Yankees have won enough. And it would have been terrific to have two of the oldest ballparks and two franchises that haven't won in so long, so someone would have had the curse taken off their shoulder.

BROWN: Ken, do you think -- and this is one of those questions that really is "I think," but I'll ask it as a question anyway -- that, if you had -- if it works out so you -- and I'm not sure it's going to -- you're going to get the Cubs and the Sox in the series, it would help infect people with baseball who maybe have forgotten or never got it in the first place?

BURNS: Of course it would. It would be great. But it would also be great to watch the Marlins and the Yankees go at it, the biggest payroll, one of the smallest payrolls.

I don't believe in the curse. I believe in this game of baseball. Look at the ratings numbers. This game is going through the roof the last few weeks. And, to me, if you say, remember when Atlanta and Minnesota, San Francisco were involved in this? That, to me, seems like five years ago.

BROWN: Yes.

BURNS: I am living a different time right now. And I thank them all for the games we've had. I mean, this has just been amazing. There's no curse.

We just run out of air to fill and ink to lose. And so we have to talk about the curse. The Red Sox have this spectacular baseball history. They've been a particularly satisfying team, though, if you listen to baseball talk radio, these guys grouse all the time. I think that 99 percent of the baseball fans have loved every minute of this season. And if they go down before the end, we will still walk away with our heads high and saying that we have just had a great season.

I mean, Gammons is right. New ownership has brought this team to life in the best way.

BROWN: Half-a-minute. You're about -- you're days away from 50, so you're not going to go out and play ball.

HERNANDEZ: No.

BROWN: But in a month like this, when it means something and it does look like great fun, do you still wish were you out there playing ball?

HERNANDEZ: Of course. And I think what's been special about this playoff is, I like the fact that I think, since the expansion of the four teams and the advent of a lot of hitting and a lot of runs scored, I think the pitching now, at least on the good teams, upper division teams, have caught up. And it's been well pitched, like old time. And, hopefully, kids out there will say, hey, a 4-2 game, a 2-1 game is just as exciting as a slug fest.

BROWN: Well, those of us who live and die by the ratings that run opposite these baseball games will be glad when it's over.

Thank you. It's nice to meet you.

Ken, it's always good to have you with us. Thank you very much.

We'll take a break. I guess we'll look at morning papers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, kind of, sort of.

But we begin without a morning paper, actually. We go to the United Nations, because something has just happened. And we want to get it in before we go off the air.

Richard Roth is there -- Richard, details.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron.

Minutes ago, the United States vetoed a Arab-backed resolution denouncing Israel's building of the wall, the security wall on Palestinian West Bank territory. There you see U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte putting his hand in the air, second Mideast veto by the United States within weeks. There were four abstentions, including the United Kingdom and Germany -- Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Richard, thank you.

A few papers before we say good night.

We'll start with "The Burt County" -- I love this -- "The Burt County Plaindealer" out there in Burt County, Nebraska. You knew that, didn't you? This just shows you what a great -- I think why newspapers are wonderful. It's a great local story. "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning For Michelson (ph)." It's a story of a young man from the area of Burt County, Nebraska, who is an actor.

And down in the corner, "Sinatra Trivia to be Presented in Oakland." That would be Oakland, Nebraska, at the Oakland Craig Junior High. A tribute to Frank Sinatra going on. But, if you're in Burt County, you might want to check that out. I know I do, if I get back there. But I was just in Oklahoma and I don't think I'm getting back there soon.

"Washington Times" leads with the sniper trial. We've a minute left, huh? The sniper trial, local story. National story, too. It's a good lead. Where is it? Here we go. 'Most in Baghdad Want U.S. to Stay." This is based on a Gallup poll, the question; 71 percent of Baghdad residents believe U.S. troops should not leave within the next few months. They are going to get their wish. There is no plan to get them out within the next few months.

Also, we want to get this in, too. The court, as we expected, agreed to take the Pledge of Allegiance case, whether the words "under God" are appropriate in the Pledge of Allegiance or not.

Where did the Dallas paper go? Did you take the Dallas paper from me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Twenty.

BROWN: You didn't? Well, OK, here it is. Man, you can tell I've been out of town, huh?

"Dallas Morning News." "Sheriff:" -- that's why I liked it -- "'I'm Not For Sale.'" Man, if you're the sheriff, you do not want to have to come out and say that, do you?

Good to be back with you. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us.

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





Walters>


Aired October 14, 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: (AUDIO GAP) Thank you, Miles. We'll get back to you pretty quick here.
Next stop Baghdad and another round of violence there, Harris Whitbeck with the headline -- Harris.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, lots of soft targets in Baghdad and seemingly lots of people willing to take their lives to stress a point, more suicide bombings on the minds of terrified Baghdad residents.

BROWN: Harris, thank you.

To the Pentagon next and the other side of the coin if you will; the continuing effort to look on the bright side in Iraq, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with us, Jamie a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, members of the Bush administration from the president on down have been complaining that the news coverage from Iraq is focusing too much on what's going wrong and not enough on what's going right. We'll look at why they might have a point.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you.

And finally, Virginia Beach, Virginia, a plea today in the first sniper trial, Jeanne Meserve is there for us, Jeanne a headline.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The plea from John Muhammad not guilty to all four charges against him. Meanwhile the very tough job of finding a fair and impartial jury to hear this case gets underway -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, the U.S. Supreme Court says doctors can now talk to their patients about medical marijuana without the fear of the federal government trying to take their license away. We'll get reaction from the president's drug czar and from the head of the California Medical Association as well.

Later tonight we get to the story of the curse and whether somewhere Babe Ruth is sticking pins in a Red Sox doll.

And, morning papers too, the rooster will crow and we'll take a look at what will be on your doorstep come tomorrow morning, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in space. For the first time in 42 years a nation has joined the exclusive club of having sent a person into space. The United States and the Soviet Union did it in the early 1960s. China did it tonight. They call their new astronaut a Taikonaut and it's a great leap forward for that nation in the world of technology and geopolitics.

We go to Jaime FlorCruz our Bureau Chief in Beijing -- Jaime.

JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, the first manned space flight blasted off about an hour ago and there is a lot of expectation and anticipation here in China. They hope that the astronaut Yang Lewei can safely pilot this capsule back to China about 20 hours from now.

The first words that came out from Yang Lewei talking to the control center about 30 minutes into the flight was (unintelligible). In Chinese that means I feel good. The Chinese officials also hope that the successful launch could help boost China's (unintelligible) and enhance patriotism in China. Also they hope that this will be good publicity for China's commercial launch service which brings a lot of money and employs a lot of people in China -- Aaron.

BROWN: Did the Chinese see this live on TV or did they see it on tape?

FLORCRUZ: They seeing it on tape. The Chinese canceled earlier plans to cover the launch live and instead they are now setting out drips and drabs of video and details through the official media.

BROWN: It's not, as you know, the sort of thing we do here. It's not sort of wall-to-wall coverage where that's the only thing that's on TV in China right now?

FLORCRUZ: (Unintelligible) here and a lot of people out in the streets in the traffic I see apparently are still oblivious of the fact that the launch was successful but we expect a media frenzy later in the day and especially after the successful return if indeed they successful return back somewhere in inner Mongolia in northwestern China.

BROWN: And is the program run by the Chinese military?

FLORCRUZ: Northwestern China.

BROWN: I'm sorry is the program run by the Chinese military or the army?

FLORCRUZ: It is part of the Chinese military program. It is. It's part of the Chinese military program. It has spun off a civilian part of it. That is why it's pretty much a very secretive institution.

BROWN: There has been a buildup of some days, even weeks, about this. The government gave a kind of general view of when it would be launched. I assume that people have had a great expectation about this moment even as they learn about it now, excitement.

FLORCRUZ: Indeed. It was quite an unusual in fact that the Chinese officials had earlier announced a window of three days starting from today through Friday as the provisional launch date so there has been a lot of anticipation.

A lot of reports have been written about this space launch but few details are known yet about the astronaut himself and about the actual space launch. But we expect more reports on TV and the Internet as well as in the newspapers and we expect a big celebration both officially organized as well as spontaneous in the next day or two.

BROWN: Jaime, stay with us for a bit.

Let's bring Miles O'Brien, Miles in Atlanta tonight, into the conversation. Miles, you know, to a certain extent we sit and look at this and it all looks sort of primitive in an odd way. I mean we've sent men to the moon and just a week or so ago we had an unmanned spaceship way out there in space. What's the significance of this?

O'BRIEN: Technologically there really isn't much significance. This particular rocket, a long march (ph) rocket is a rocket which the Chinese have been flying for quite some time and it in and of itself is kind of a proven launch vessel.

The capsule, which goes into space, is almost a direct knockoff, Aaron, of the Russia Soyuz. The Chinese essentially bought the plans from the Russians, sort of reverse engineered it and so what you're seeing here is not about technology. It's about a lot of other things. It's about national pride. It's about joining a club that to this point has only been entered into by super powers and it's a lot about national prestige.

BROWN: It's a Soviet design but it is truly made in China. It seems to me the Chinese have tried to make this point that it is their technology, their expertise, and so on that has brought us to this moment.

O'BRIEN: Well, yes, when you have a space program that costs about $2 billion a year and employs about 300,000 people you certainly want to crow about your own technology but the fact is the plans are the plans and this particular design is the Russian Soyuz design.

Nevertheless, you have to look at where they're headed. It is a modest first step technologically. The Chinese are vowing to build their own space station, not unlike the Russian space station Mir, which was deep-sixed a few years ago and they would also like to go to the moon and stay there, not just put prints down and leave a flag behind.

They'd like to actually establish a permanent lunar colony and given the Chinese track record for following through on such goals on a long range plan, look at the Great Wall after all, they might very well do it. BROWN: Do we know much about the facility that was used to launch the rocket tonight?

O'BRIEN: It's a very secretive place. I've talked to a fair number of western journalists who have done some reporting over there of the space program and no western journalist that I know of has ever even gotten to this place.

What is most interesting about it, as you look at these satellite images, Aaron, is that it's almost a direct knockoff of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the way the launch pad is situated from the vehicle assembly building.

So, not once again to minimize the Chinese accomplishment here but clearly they are borrowing some ideas that are tried and true and I guess if you think about it that makes a lot of sense.

BROWN: Well, it does to me. I mean there's no sense -- honestly, there's no sense reinventing the wheel or in this case the space capsule if you don't need to. These are very expensive programs. Is it realistic to think the Chinese will get to the moon in a decade?

O'BRIEN: Well, the date that they are saying is 2020 and some have said they might do it sooner than that. I suspect they will be true to their word and they will continue to launch people into space and they will attempt first of all the space station and then move onward.

What's interesting about this new space race, which it could very well become, is that when the Chinese get out there and get to the moon they'll be able to do it for pennies on the dollar for the cost of a U.S. rocket of a shuttle and the question is, is it possible for them to conduct manned missions that might be commercially viable? To this point, space involving human beings inside spacecraft has not been a business model.

BROWN: Miles, thank you for staying late tonight. Actually when you watch it, it is even 40 years after the Americans and the Russians did it, it's kind of exciting to see a new country get up there. Thank you and Jaime FlorCruz in Beijing thank you for your coverage today as well. China is in space.

Back on earth we are consumed by the more usual, some would say even the more mundane, another car bombing today in Iraq. Like all the rest, nobody knows for certain the who of the story. Who hatched the plot? Who made the bomb? Who drove the car?

The why, however, is simpler to explain, Turkey was the target and Turkey has agreed to send 10,000 troops to Iraq. The bombing sends a powerful message. Think about it.

Here's CNN's Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WHITBECK (voice-over): Once again chaos on a Baghdad street, another suicide bomber strikes this time in front of the Turkish Embassy.

"I saw a car drive very fast and hit a concrete block in front of the building" said this eyewitness.

Iraqi police on the scene said eight people were wounded, among them an embassy cook and a driver. Shortly after the blast, some 50 demonstrators appeared shouting slogans of support for Saddam Hussein. Their leader was detained by Iraqi police.

As U.S. soldiers established a security cordon around the scene it became clear that damage to the embassy building was minimal. Recently installed concrete barriers, known as blast defectors, absorbed much of the impact and it was intelligence work that led to the installation of those security walls just three days ago.

COL. PETER MANSOOR, U.S. ARMY: Based on this information we ramped up the security measures here at this embassy and these security measures succeeded in preventing any loss of life.

WHITBECK: This time success in mitigating the effects of an attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK: But more attacks seem inevitable and for the general population are impossible to predict which makes for a lot of unsettled nerves in the Iraqi capital -- Aaron.

BROWN: How long does it take for people in the capital and I guess even outside the capital to hear about these attacks?

WHITBECK: It's pretty much instant, Aaron. As you know, CNN is usually out there shortly after they happen and, of course, a lot of people here now have access to the Al-Jazeera television network and people monitor Al-Jazeera specifically pretty much all the time so people hear about them pretty quickly.

BROWN: And is that true outside of the major cities also?

WHITBECK: No. I have to tell you that in other parts of the country the situation is much different, particularly in the south. There have been less attacks and really the only terrorist attacks that we've seen have been in the Iraqi capital. The violence in the rest of the country has to do more with direct attacks on the U.S. military.

BROWN: Harris, thank you, Harris Whitbeck in Baghdad.

All of this plays well into where we go now because next we take a look at the question of perception and coverage of Iraq. There is nothing new about this, about presidents and vice presidents grumping about how the news is covered. John Adams went so far as to muzzle newspapers that gave him trouble and you'll recall Spiro Agnew calling reporters nattering neigh bombs of negativism during the Vietnam era.

President Bush has taken a gentler attack but one no less tried and true. He's seeking out friendly media outlets and some would argue looking for easier questions. That said it doesn't mean there isn't an argument to be made about the balance of coverage and an argument that we and you ought to hear.

Here's CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Every day it seems brings more bad news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two American soldiers were killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The continuing bloodshed in Iraq.

DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: Tension and chaos mounted today in Iraq.

MCINTYRE: But the media's coverage is misleading according to the president.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a sense that people in America aren't getting the truth.

MCINTYRE: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complains nonstop news is harping on the failures.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With 24-hour news in our country it isn't like it's one problem. It's like that it's 24 problems, one every hour, even though it's the same one.

MCINTYRE: Media critics say the downbeat coverage is a case of live by the sword die by the sword.

TOM ROSENSTIEL, PROJECT FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM: It's the same 24-hour drumbeat that helped them build popular support for the war in the first place.

MCINTYRE: There is a lot of good news from Iraq, schools rebuilt, oil pumping, electricity boosted above pre-war levels, and there is good news in the media as well. Take this front page "Washington Post" account of how the U.S. has restored Iraq's wetlands and returned a way of life to grateful marsh Arabs. But the good news is constantly overshadowed by deadly attacks on U.S. forces and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

ROBERT LICHTER, CENTER FOR MEDIA AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS: I think the administration may have a valid complaint that the news tends to be unrelentingly bad. Reporters don't seem to be going out there and investigating to find positive things that are going on.

MCINTYRE: Simple things can account for news trends. Reporters tied down in Baghdad by the latest attacks have little time to pursue other more positive events. Stories about say an improving economy are harder to tell than a dramatic bombing but the main reason that bad pushes out the good news is that we expect things to go well.

ROSENSTIEL: You don't do a story about every plane that lands successfully but you do do a story about every plane that crashes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And then there's a suggestion by some media critics that perhaps the news media is being tougher now to compensate for failing to be as aggressive as it might have been about questioning the reasons for going to war -- Aaron.

BROWN: It strikes me as an odd question for me to ask a reporter of ours but I'll do it anyway. Any sense that this campaign the administration has been waging has affected news coverage?

MCINTYRE: Well, I think that news organizations are taking a look at their coverage. News organizations in general, although they may not seem at the time, are somewhat sensitive to criticism. If they're constantly criticized for something they tend to take a look at it and see if there's a way they could do things better.

I know that our reporters in Baghdad have talked about the fact that they really are sort of stuck in Baghdad because of the momentous events going on there and it hasn't given them the opportunity to travel outside the city and I know that CNN has been looking at that as a way to try to present more of a picture of what's going on in the rest of the country.

Iraq is a very big country and the argument the administration makes is if you just look at Baghdad you don't get the whole story. In the north and in the south things are actually much better.

BROWN: One of the arguments a member of Congress made here and I think there is some validity in this is that relative to the war itself we are not staffed anywhere near the way we were. It's very expensive to staff in Iraq these days. It's expensive to feed out of there and we just don't have as many bodies reporting as we once had.

MCINTYRE: And that's true but, of course, if the security situation in Baghdad was much better then the reporters would be much freer to move around. That explosion at the Baghdad Hotel the other day was just four blocks from where the CNN bureau is located in the Palestine Hotel and our people there told us that they could actually feel the blast and, of course, when the explosion happened they grabbed their body armor and ran out to the scene.

So it makes it harder to get out and do some of those stories like the one we saw in "The Washington Post" about the marshes being restored and the way of life being brought to a whole group of people in the south.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight. On we go, a photo caption on a "Washington Post" Web site caught our eye. "Many," it reads "hope to show Virginia Beach is more than a beach." We say be careful what you wish for.

Tonight, Virginia each is a venue the trial of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad and all the that entails. The trial technically began today and covering for us tonight, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Not guilty, John Muhammad's plea to the charges against him, charges that could lead to his execution. Muhammad told Judge Leroy Millett (ph) he fully understood the charges and was prepared for trial. His attorney Peter Greenspun said it was daunting to get started but good as well.

PETER GREENSPUN, MUHAMMAD ATTORNEY: We are and we're ready to go and we hope to have a good and a fair trial with tremendous jurors from the city of Virginia Beach.

MESERVE: The search for those jurors is now in full swing. One hundred and twenty-three people went through initial screening Tuesday completing biographical questionnaires and undergoing general questioning by the judge, defense, and prosecuting attorneys. The lead prosecutor said good progress was made.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully we'll get a jury tomorrow.

MESERVE: Intensive individual questioning Wednesday will probe the effect of a flood of pretrial publicity, whether potential jurors felt themselves to be potential victims during the sniper attacks and attitudes towards the death penalty.

CAROLYN KOCH, JURY CONSULTANT: We typically try and get death qualified jurors. By definition these are people who believe in the death penalty so what often happens is you have a pool of jurors who by definition believe in the death penalty making it all the more harder for a defense lawyer to find jurors who might be open minded.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: No family members of sniper victims were in court today. Some were marking an anniversary. It was one year ago tonight that FBI analyst Linda Franklin was gunned down in a Home Depot parking lot as she and her husband loaded shelving into their car -- Aaron.

BROWN: I remember that night. Thank you, Jeanne Meserve in Virginia Beach. The trial gets underway.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, medical marijuana, we'll hear from the nations' drug czar about today's Supreme Court ruling which affects doctors and so we'll also hear from the head of the California Medical Association.

And later, the story of a family fighting over a woman's right to die or right to live, a break first.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Anyone searching for consensus on the subject of medical marijuana probably ought to look elsewhere. People differ violently on this one. Their positions are deeply felt, strongly held, and bitterly fought it turns out. So, as quickly as states, especially in the west, have passed medical marijuana laws, the federal government has taken legal action.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt the federal government a setback on that score rejecting an appeal by the Bush administration which was seeking to overturn a lower court ruling. That court barred the federal government from punishing doctors for recommending pot to their patients.

We're joined -- we'll look at both sides of this, first with John Walters, the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Sir, it's nice to have you with us.

JOHN WALTERS, DRUG CZAR: Thank you.

BROWN: Is this a big deal to the administration to lose this one?

WALTERS: I won't change federal enforcement. As the case that was started in the last administration no one has sought to enforce serious enforcement actions against doctors in private conversations with parents; however, marijuana is a serious drug of abuse, the most serious cause of addiction among illegal drugs and that's the real issue that I think we have to focus on.

BROWN: Well, before we leave the case, we'll talk about that too, you could have I suppose just said look we have no intention of interfering with doctors and patients and withdrawn your briefs but you didn't. You aggressively argued the case.

WALTERS: Well, we did seek to make an appeal so that we could clarify the issues regarding what the regulatory authorities were under the law but, again, this has not changed the law that dispensing marijuana is a federal crime and we do intend to enforce the federal law here but it's not going to be focused on private conversations between doctors and patients.

BROWN: It does seem that state after state where this gets on the ballot people look at the issue. I assume to a certain extent they listen to the arguments. They have some in many cases personal experience. They make a judgment and time after time they pass these laws. Why is that?

WALTERS: Well, I think that's kind of the old story. The new story is last fall in the major states in the west where this was on the ballot, even some states that had previously passed smaller versions of limited distribution, it lost and it lost by wide margins in Nevada and Arizona.

BROWN: But those weren't medical. I'm sorry, respectfully, those weren't medical marijuana cases.

WALTERS: Well, they grew out or medical marijuana cases. The one in Arizona was to allow expanded distribution. Again, look, here's the issue. I think it has to be clear from the point of view of federal enforcement. We're not talking about an issue of state's rights. We're not talking about an issue of changing the food and drug regulations that keep our food and medicine safe.

One substance is at issue and that's marijuana and that's because it's been funded by George (unintelligible) and some other wealthy people to put on and buy signatures and put on the ballot and run one- sided campaigns.

Where we have stood up and explained the issues here with public officials and stood up to the one-sided buying of advertising and corrected the ignorance about marijuana, more teenagers in this country seek treatment today for marijuana than for all other illegal drugs combined.

Most baby boomer parents and others believe marijuana is a soft drug, 60 percent of the calls for the need for treatment for illegal drugs today. It's not trivial and if you want to legalize marijuana let's have a debate about that because I don't think it's a close call.

But to use the suffering of people to advance a political agenda I think is reprehensible but that's what's been done by people who are desperate. I think in a couple of years we're going to find this is old history.

New medications using isolates of marijuana that may be proven efficacious are on the market. Smoked weed is not an efficacious medicine in modern terms, has not been proven to be more than smoked opium is.

BROWN: Mr. Walters, thank you for your time tonight. We appreciate that.

WALTERS: My pleasure.

BROWN: Quickly we'll look at the other side. Jack Lewin is the president of the California Medical Association. He joins us. I don't think the California Medical Association takes the position necessarily, does it, that marijuana is either good or bad?

DR. JACK LEWIN, CEO, CALIFORNIA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: No, as a matter of fact the California Medical Association didn't support the public ballot initiative that legalized marijuana for medical use because we think the science isn't in.

Actually, this administration in Washington has been very slow in promoting the science that's needed to help us understand the therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana and understand the patients who have exhausted all other remedies and who want this and their doctors in the conversation who want to talk to them about it.

But the legal action today was very positive because what it says is the sanctity of the patient/physician relationship has been protected. The Department of Justice is actually intruding into that relationship. If the attorneys in the Department of Justice, you had an assault on the attorney/client privilege I'm sure they'd be outraged.

Similarly, doctors feel that this was an overreaching of the administration. Our issue wasn't medical marijuana it was the ability to have the physicians speak frankly with their patients, advise them, and even recommend therapies and new research and new products as they emerge so we think the court's decision was the right one.

BROWN: I assume that, you know, doctors differ on this. In dealing with their patients they differ on this but it seems to me that there is a body of patient here that if you ask them say they feel better because, they eat better because, they feel less pain because, they feel less pressure from their glaucoma because of marijuana and whether that is in fact true or some odd placebo effect they continue to report it, don't they?

LEWIN: Well, this is exactly why, yes, and this is why I think we've asked that real research be done. A little bit of research is currently underway finally but in essence we might have been able to answer this question and move on to other means of administration of marijuana if we had gotten the research done earlier.

But the real core issue here is whether if, next week, the Justice Department decides that morphine is a controlled substance that's dangerous and doctors can't talk to their patients about that or prescribe it, we don't want that to happen. We think the relationship between physician and patient, like the relationship between attorney and client, is one that needs to be protected. This is a First Amendment, free speech issue.

And doctors need to be able to talk to their patients about whatever is important. The patients who really benefit from this are generally very sick people that have tried many other remedies. And for them, this is the way that they can overcome nausea or pain. We need the research. But this decision does protect the patient- physician relationship.

And we really ought to take the medical marijuana out of it and look at the overreaching of the Justice Department in terms of what it intended to do.

BROWN: Dr. Lewin, thank you for your patience and your time. Appreciate it very much.

LEWIN: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Good job by both.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT: a life-and-death question of a different sort. Does Terri Schiavo want to live or die? Should she be allowed to die? She can't say. And her family fights over the answer.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Barring a change of heart, doctors tomorrow will remove a feeding tube from a comatose woman. And about two weeks from now, she will die. Those are just about the only facts of this very painful case that are not in dispute tonight. This is one of those heart- wrenching cases that has become a cause.

The details from CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): For more than 13 years, Terri Schiavo has been like this, in what the Florida court calls a persistent vegetative state.

BOB SCHINDLER, FATHER OF TERRI: Terri, what are you doing?

ZARRELLA: And for the better part of those years, Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have been engaged in a nonstop legal fight to keep her from being removed from a feeding tube that keeps her alive.

MARY SCHINDLER, MOTHER OF TERRI: I have always thought there was hope. When I go in there and she responds to me, she knows I'm there.

ZARRELLA: On the other side of the battle, Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband. Although Terri did not leave written instructions, he insists she made it clear she would not want to live on life support.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, HUSBAND OF TERRI: I think Terri's wishes should be carried out. This is what she wanted. This is Terri's wish. It's not anybody's wish. It's her wish.

ZARRELLA: In 1990, Terri Schiavo collapsed at home from heart failure. Oxygen to her brain was temporarily cut off. Her husband charged that wellness checkups would have detected a potassium imbalance that he alleged led to the collapse.

Between settlements and court awards, Michael Schiavo received more than $1 million for himself and for Terri's care. Terri's parents charged, their son-in-law just wanted to end her life once he got the money. They have maintained that their daughter can be rehabilitated with therapy, therapy that they charge has been withheld. Now, with time running out, the parents are appealing to the governor.

B. SCHINDLER: I'm pleading that -- to Governor Bush from -- as one dad to another to save Terri.

ZARRELLA: Last week, the governor filed a friend-of-the-court brief, urging for Terri, but the court rejected Bush's appeal. And the governor's office says Governor Bush does not have the authority to overrule the courts.

(on camera): The battle over what's best for Terri has been through the state and federal courts. It's been through the appeals process. The Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts have refused to hear the case. And now, unless there is a last-minute surprise, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube will be removed at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday.

John Zarrella, CNN, Pinellas Park, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT: the curse. Will Babe Ruth play a role in the outcome of a baseball game a half-a-century after his death?

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Lots more news ahead tonight. We'll take a look at the curse. Ken Burns and Keith Hernandez join us. Morning papers, too. Lots to do.

Take a break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: World War I was over. Professional baseball was in its infancy. And the best player in the game, bar none, was a young pitcher named George Herman Ruth. Mr. Ruth played for the Boston Red Sox, a team that had won a very young World Series in 1918.

But over the winter of 1919, 1920, the man who owned the Red Sox needed cash, money, it is said, to finance a Broadway musical, "No, No Nanette." So he sold Mr. Ruth to the New York Yankees, got $100,000, a lot of money in that time. And, of course, even if you're not a great baseball fan, you know pretty much the rest. The Yankees have so far won 26 World Series titles, and the Red Sox, since 1918, not a one.

And so was born the curse of the Bambino, which so far this season seems to be working.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): There are some in Boston, the unfailingly optimistic ones, who believe the curse is history.

GREGG SLONE, RED SOX FAN: It's great, because we always dream about playing ball in October. And every time the Red Sox play in October, exciting things happen.

BROWN: But the man who made the curse live in all its infamy knows better.

DAN SHAUGHNESSY, COLUMNIST, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I've heard that before. They exercised when they beat California, which was an incredible comeback in 1986. That team was down three games to one, 5-2 in the ninth inning of game five and came back. They've had a lot of chances to throw this off.

BROWN: Dan Shaughnessy's book, "The Curse of the Bambino," written 13 years ago, gave a reality a name.

SHAUGHNESSY: The cycles of New England, which are all around us here, are very similar with the Red Sox. They fall in the fall. And then we think about them all in the long cold winter and how are they going to do next year. And then there's all this hope in the springtime. And you get the real hot summer and then you go back into the cycle again.

BROWN: Case in point -- and there are many -- Boston one out away from winning the World Series against the New York Mets in 1986.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Behind the bag! It gets through Buckner!

BROWN: They lost the game and they lost the next one. They lost the series.

DAVID WELLS, YANKEES PITCHER: It's still alive, man. The Boston people have been -- it's been wreaking havoc on them for a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being a Red Sox fan is like a Charles Dickens novel. Everyone is just trying to survive the situation.

BROWN: There is even a new HBO documentary about it all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the good guy dies in the end in every production since 1918, you might get a little fatalistic, don't you think?

BROWN: 1918, the last time Boston won the World Series. Woodrow Wilson was president. The inning-by-inning scores were sent to a waiting nation by carrier pigeon. To the experts, though, there is a real reason the Red Sox have been a study in baseball futility.

PETER GAMMONS, ESPN: If you believe in 'Casper the Friendly Ghost" and "Topper," that's all fine. You can believe in that stuff. But the curse has been bad ownership, bad management. And that's why they haven't won.

BROWN: Even so, at the grave of Babe Ruth himself, just 20 miles north of Yankees Stadium, some Red Sox fans are taking no chances. Pictures of the Babe in a Boston uniform, flowers, good-luck pennies, a Boston batting helmet all rest there, because, even after today's defeat at the hands of the Yankees, you never know.

MARIE JACOBSEN, RED SOX FAN: I think he's decided that it's time. It's time to break this curse. I really do. I really this that that's what's happening. And, hopefully, that is what's happening.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Well, not yet.

A little more baseball after the break. Keith Hernandez and Ken Burns join us.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Baseball is hallowed for the fables that run through it. Baseball players are certainly a superstitious lot. But, at the end of the day, if the Sox lose -- or when they lose, some might say -- is anybody going to be pacing the room muttering, "Curses, foiled again"? Maybe.

Ken Burns has produced the definitive documentary of the history of baseball, of course. And Keith Hernandez was in the dugout for the Mets back in '86, the last time the curse reared its ugly head, when the Red Sox were a strike away from winning the series. We're pleased to have them both with us tonight.

Keith, let's start with you. We're going to have to figure out how to deal with what's going on in Chicago, but let's deal with '86 and the curse and the rest first.

When you sat in the dugout, or during that series, I know you don't actually believe in the curse, but did it ever occur to you, my goodness, that's a very playable ball that just went through his legs?

KEITH HERNANDEZ, FORMER NEW YORK METS PLAYER: Well, one thing that people forget was that that game was tied. And everybody seems to think that we would have lost the series if Buckner makes that play down the line. We had tied the game. It would have gone into extra innings. So that's one point.

But the thought of the curse never entered my mind. And I made the second out in that inning. And I thought we were done. We scored three runs with two outs, nobody on.

BROWN: So you didn't think, we got this in the bag...

HERNANDEZ: No.

BROWN: ... because the gods of baseball are just not going to let them win?

HERNANDEZ: No. I thought we were in deep, deep trouble.

BROWN: Yes.

And, Ken, this is a particularly painful night for you, I know.

KEN BURNS, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: It's terrible. It's terrible.

(LAUGHTER) BURNS: When you're watching these playoff games, you set your peanuts, your beer, and, if you're a Red Sox fan, your defibrillator, just to keep yourself alive.

BROWN: This has been, as -- well, I would say I'm more than a casual fan, but I'm not like you guys -- this has been a great and wonderful playoff, Keith, hasn't it?

(CROSSTALK)

HERNANDEZ: Go ahead, Ken.

BURNS: No, I don't think I've ever had an October that's been as spectacular as this. These four teams that have survived, the most storied team in baseball, the Yankees, the two teams that show us how to lose in more poetic and novelistic ways than anyone could ever imagine, a spunky contender who is now snatching victory from the jaws of defeat this evening, my God, when will it end?

I guess the great fear of the gods of the whole universe -- forget the curse -- is that the Red Sox and the Cubs would end up in the World Series and you'd get to the seventh game and all time, I guess, would have to stop.

BROWN: As I was walking out of the green room just before I came on the air, you said to me -- it was 3-0 Cubs at the time. And you said, well, it's over. And I looked back and said, I don't know about that, right?

HERNANDEZ: You're right. Well, that's the one beauty of baseball. There's no time clock. And you have to get that last out. And like Yogi said, it's never over until it's over.

BROWN: Would you like to see a Cubs-Red Sox series?

HERNANDEZ: I would have loved to have seen a Cubs-Red Sox...

BROWN: Well, you're a New York broadcaster now.

HERNANDEZ: Yes, but the Yankees have won enough. And it would have been terrific to have two of the oldest ballparks and two franchises that haven't won in so long, so someone would have had the curse taken off their shoulder.

BROWN: Ken, do you think -- and this is one of those questions that really is "I think," but I'll ask it as a question anyway -- that, if you had -- if it works out so you -- and I'm not sure it's going to -- you're going to get the Cubs and the Sox in the series, it would help infect people with baseball who maybe have forgotten or never got it in the first place?

BURNS: Of course it would. It would be great. But it would also be great to watch the Marlins and the Yankees go at it, the biggest payroll, one of the smallest payrolls.

I don't believe in the curse. I believe in this game of baseball. Look at the ratings numbers. This game is going through the roof the last few weeks. And, to me, if you say, remember when Atlanta and Minnesota, San Francisco were involved in this? That, to me, seems like five years ago.

BROWN: Yes.

BURNS: I am living a different time right now. And I thank them all for the games we've had. I mean, this has just been amazing. There's no curse.

We just run out of air to fill and ink to lose. And so we have to talk about the curse. The Red Sox have this spectacular baseball history. They've been a particularly satisfying team, though, if you listen to baseball talk radio, these guys grouse all the time. I think that 99 percent of the baseball fans have loved every minute of this season. And if they go down before the end, we will still walk away with our heads high and saying that we have just had a great season.

I mean, Gammons is right. New ownership has brought this team to life in the best way.

BROWN: Half-a-minute. You're about -- you're days away from 50, so you're not going to go out and play ball.

HERNANDEZ: No.

BROWN: But in a month like this, when it means something and it does look like great fun, do you still wish were you out there playing ball?

HERNANDEZ: Of course. And I think what's been special about this playoff is, I like the fact that I think, since the expansion of the four teams and the advent of a lot of hitting and a lot of runs scored, I think the pitching now, at least on the good teams, upper division teams, have caught up. And it's been well pitched, like old time. And, hopefully, kids out there will say, hey, a 4-2 game, a 2-1 game is just as exciting as a slug fest.

BROWN: Well, those of us who live and die by the ratings that run opposite these baseball games will be glad when it's over.

Thank you. It's nice to meet you.

Ken, it's always good to have you with us. Thank you very much.

We'll take a break. I guess we'll look at morning papers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, kind of, sort of.

But we begin without a morning paper, actually. We go to the United Nations, because something has just happened. And we want to get it in before we go off the air.

Richard Roth is there -- Richard, details.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron.

Minutes ago, the United States vetoed a Arab-backed resolution denouncing Israel's building of the wall, the security wall on Palestinian West Bank territory. There you see U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte putting his hand in the air, second Mideast veto by the United States within weeks. There were four abstentions, including the United Kingdom and Germany -- Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Richard, thank you.

A few papers before we say good night.

We'll start with "The Burt County" -- I love this -- "The Burt County Plaindealer" out there in Burt County, Nebraska. You knew that, didn't you? This just shows you what a great -- I think why newspapers are wonderful. It's a great local story. "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning For Michelson (ph)." It's a story of a young man from the area of Burt County, Nebraska, who is an actor.

And down in the corner, "Sinatra Trivia to be Presented in Oakland." That would be Oakland, Nebraska, at the Oakland Craig Junior High. A tribute to Frank Sinatra going on. But, if you're in Burt County, you might want to check that out. I know I do, if I get back there. But I was just in Oklahoma and I don't think I'm getting back there soon.

"Washington Times" leads with the sniper trial. We've a minute left, huh? The sniper trial, local story. National story, too. It's a good lead. Where is it? Here we go. 'Most in Baghdad Want U.S. to Stay." This is based on a Gallup poll, the question; 71 percent of Baghdad residents believe U.S. troops should not leave within the next few months. They are going to get their wish. There is no plan to get them out within the next few months.

Also, we want to get this in, too. The court, as we expected, agreed to take the Pledge of Allegiance case, whether the words "under God" are appropriate in the Pledge of Allegiance or not.

Where did the Dallas paper go? Did you take the Dallas paper from me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Twenty.

BROWN: You didn't? Well, OK, here it is. Man, you can tell I've been out of town, huh?

"Dallas Morning News." "Sheriff:" -- that's why I liked it -- "'I'm Not For Sale.'" Man, if you're the sheriff, you do not want to have to come out and say that, do you?

Good to be back with you. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us.

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