Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Jury Recommends Death Penalty for Muhammad; Bodies of U.S. Soldiers Dragged Through Street Near Mosul; Democrats to Fight Medicare Overhaul

Aired November 24, 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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone.
You can mark the beginning of the holiday season in any number of ways, for example, when the President pardons the turkey, when they light the tree here in Rockefeller Center.

But in this business, the holidays truly begin today. Today starts the shuffle of anchors covering for anchors, not that I mind at all, Aaron. Correspondents are doing two beats at a time and most of the programs are just getting by on skeleton crews.

It's a TV news tradition because traditionally nothing much happens this week or this time of year. That's the tradition anyhow. We'll see what happens.

We've got a lot to get to starting with the sniper story, the ultimate punishment for John Muhammad. CNN's Jeanne Meserve is there and starts us off with a headline -- Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the jury says John Muhammad should die for his crimes because of his lack of remorse and the future danger he could pose and the public for the first time gets to see and hear some of the evidence that helped them make up their minds -- Carol.

LIN: Next to the capital and the big doings on Medicare. Jonathan Karl has that for us, Jon a headline from you.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Congress is on the verge of passing the $400 billion prescription drug bill paving the way for President Bush to sing into law the greatest expansion of the federal government since the 1960s -- Carol.

LIN: Jon thanks very much.

Finally, to the White House where all this is taking place against the backdrop of Campaign 2004. CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King has the watch and a headline -- John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Carol, many conservatives do not like this bill. They wish the president would not sign it but Mr. Bush already taking credit on the campaign trail even before the final vote. He says he'll be able to run for reelection next year telling senior citizens he kept a big promise -- Carol.

LIN: Thanks, John, back to all of you shortly.

Also ahead tonight the mania for covering celebrity stories, we'll talk with one man who thinks the Michael Jackson coverage in particular has gone too far.

And later, things aren't so happy in Happy Valley these days where the living football legend, Joe Paterno, has people calling for him to leave.

And, our on the rise segment returns with a look at a business that's rolling in the dough, all that is coming in this hour.

We begin though with the jury's decision in the case of John Allen Muhammad. A week after convicting him of capital murder of being what the prosecutor called the commander of a two man killing team, seven women and five men made the call.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Death the recommended penalty for a season of murder and terror.

JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD, DEFENDANT: Until then just follow the body bags.

MESERVE: Death for the ten lives lost and numerous others forever changed.

OPERATOR: Prince George's County Emergency Center, can I help you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God I think I'm going to be able to drive my nephew to the hospital but -

OPERATOR: What's the matter with him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just got shot.

OPERATOR: Your wife's been shot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

OPERATOR: Where has she been shot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's shot in the head.

PAUL EBERT, COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY: I think the jury got to see all the good there was in him and it wasn't enough.

MESERVE: The good the jurors saw video and photos of John Muhammad with his children and letters from them. For some it complicated the decision. HEATHER BEST-TEAGUE, JUROR: The hardest thing for me truthfully the fact that he has children.

MESERVE: But with the accumulation of evidence, the car, the murder weapon, maps of shooting scenes, the tarot card and notes, gruesome photographs and 911 tapes, jurors overcame reservations about the death penalty.

STEPHEN SATLZBURG, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: It's really hard to imagine that anything that the defense did was really going to change the result in this case.

MESERVE: Some jurors spoke about Muhammad's lack of remorse and a future danger he might pose.

DENNIS BOWMAN, JUROR: If he's locked up, you know, put in the deepest hole sooner or later he's going to fabricate something, find an opportunity to harm someone else whether it's prison personnel or another inmate.

MESERVE: Muhammad betrayed no reaction in the courtroom but his attorneys said they bitterly disappointed.

PETER GREENSPUN, MUHAMMAD'S ATTORNEY: There's been much pain and devastation. The sanction of yet another death by the government is not likely to come of any benefit to anyone.

MESERVE: Dean Meyers was by all accounts a generous man. He survived a sniper in Vietnam but another at a Manassas, Virginia gas station killed him. His murder was the centerpiece of this trial and for his family there is with this verdict some measure of closure.

BOB MEYERS, BROTHER OF DEAN MEYERS: This isn't a revenge thing not in any way, just feel like what was done was right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: There will be other trials and appeals as well but this jury has spoken and this jury says John Muhammad should die for his crimes -- Carol.

LIN: Jeanne you were actually inside the courtroom when the verdict came down. I'm just wondering give us a sense of what it was like to be in there.

MESERVE: Well, John Muhammad, as I mentioned in the piece, betrayed no emotion whatsoever. The jurors did however. There was one woman who came in clutching a Kleenex as she came in and through the entire procedure of reading out the verdict she was wiping her eyes and she kept her eyes averted from John Muhammad the entire time. Some of the other jurors were looking at him but she could not bring herself to do that.

There were no outbursts from the audience whatsoever. Only two family members, victim family members were present. They did not sob, cry, react in any way while we were in the courtroom -- Carol. LIN: Did you get a sense from the defense attorneys if they are planning on going ahead with an appeal on what basis they would make that appeal?

MESERVE: Well there will be an automatic appeal because it's a death sentence case. This will get kicked up to the Virginia Supreme Court and attorneys say they are investigating several avenues that they may pursue. One of them has to do with Virginia's new terrorism law.

This was the first prosecution under this law and they will argue that this crime did not fit that bill, that legislation that was passed. Secondly, they'll maintain that he was not the trigger man in any of these crimes that that was not proved and that would perhaps undermine his conviction on the capital murder count.

There also probably will be debate about some of the evidence that was introduced in this trial, the 911 tape of Ted Franklin for instance which you heard a little bit of in that piece that has been excluded from the trial of Lee Malvo because the judge there felt it would be too prejudicial so those are some of the things they'll be looking at as they move forward with their appeals.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Jeanne Meserve live in Virginia Beach.

More on what lies ahead for Mr. Muhammad and Lee Malvo. Robert Tarver joins us. He is a defense attorney and a court watcher. It is very good to have you on the program tonight.

ROBERT TARVER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me.

LIN: Robert less than six hours this jury deliberated. Is that a short a mount of time, not so short amount of time given the nature of the crime?

TARVER: Well, it may seem like a short period of time but don't forget this jury sat with the defendant over the days and days of this trial and this really wasn't a very big factual issue to be decided.

In other words, there wasn't a whole lot of deliberation on the facts of whether or not he did this. I suspect that they took a lot of time during that time period really gauging whether or not this was the type of case that someone should be put to death for within their own individual minds.

LIN: It seems though that the jury was highly influenced by emotion. They actually said that the fact that John Muhammad did not show remorse during the trial played into their sense that the deserved the death penalty.

TARVER: Yes, one of the things that people want to see they want to -- it's been my experience in dealing with these types of cases that they look for reasons to keep the person alive.

Now we heard one of the jurors say, look he's got children and that could be a very big reason but they want to hear something or feel something from the person. They just didn't get that feedback from Mr. Muhammad.

LIN: Do you think, an automatic appeal in this case do you think that the defense attorneys have a pretty good case? Are they going to be able to argue some of those points that Jeanne Meserve mentioned there effectively?

TARVER: Well, Jeanne is right in dealing with the points. The problem is that most of us saw most of this case and a lot of the factual issues and, you know, there was no real glaring type of error that stood out where you could say well this is really something that we need to look at or that the court will look at that might be a problem.

Now, we know that Virginia courts are rapidly moving as they go. It's called the rocket docket. It's not called that for nothing. They like to move forward fast so he'll have his appeals in the Virginia state courts and he'll have his appeals in the federal courts but I suspect that there's not a whole lot here for the defense to hang their hat on.

LIN: The prosecution made a point of saying that he was the commander of a two man killing team.

TARVER: Yes.

LIN: In Lee Boyd Malvo's case the prosecution has already rested. I'm wondering do you think that John Muhammad is going to be called to testify in that case and because John Muhammad has now gotten the death penalty, the death sentence here is that likely that Lee Boyd Malvo will also get the death penalty?

TARVER: Well, I don't think he'll be called to testify. I think the specter of Muhammad is better than having Muhammad himself.

LIN: What do you mean?

TARVER: Well, the idea is you're talking about the leader of a two man killing team and if you're talking about a team with a man and boy we know who's in charge and that's exactly what I think the defense in the Malvo case wants to leave out there, the idea that this was a two man killing team but it wasn't really a team. There was a guy in charge and a guy being led. That's the perception they'd like to have go along with this.

LIN: And a risky strategy to plead insanity in Malvo's case.

TARVER: Risky but there are so few options here. Because of the chilling confessions that he had, the descriptive confessions and again in the Malvo case just like the Muhammad case the seeming lack of remorse. That's going to be a very big problem so they've got to deal with the hand they're left with.

LIN: You can imagine that Malvo's attorneys are taking notes very carefully. TARVER: Without a doubt.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Robert Tarver.

TARVER: Thank you.

LIN: All right well on to Iraq now and the ambush over the weekend in Mosul. Where it happened is significant. What happened and how even more so.

Here is CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): In a city that's been a military success story, two killings so disturbing the Army is having trouble talking about them.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. MILITARY SPOKESMAN: It is our policy that we do not go into the specific details on injuries sustained by soldiers and just as a matter of good taste we would suggest that the media does the same.

ARRAF: There's no question these two soldiers were shot on Sunday afternoon in the center of Mosul. The question is what happened afterwards. Witnesses say their throats were slashed as they lay bleeding.

Many hours later an Army official denied it saying there were no stab wounds or slash marks on the bodies but military sources acknowledge something almost equally horrifying. They were dragged from their vehicle after they were shot and their bodies looted by a crowd.

None of the bystanders would talk on camera but off camera they gave detailed descriptions of the swarm of children and adults taking anything they could, including watches and even a hand grenade.

The 101st Airborne says the soldiers were traveling in a convoy from one compound to another in uniform but in a civilian vehicle. The Army won't say where the other troops in the convoy were when the soldiers were dragged from the car.

For such a big city, Mosul had been relatively stable since the end of the war and the Army takes some credit for that. In the last month, however, attacks on U.S. targets have risen sharply. Many soldiers here felt that to make a difference they had to get close to the people. That may now be too dangerous.

Jane Arraf CNN, Mosul, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: For better or worse, fair or not, pictures do tell the story of war from Marines raising a flag on Mt. Suribachi to the Vietnamese girl caught in a napalm attack to the pictures today from Mosul. Experts and historians can argue over the message they send. What seems beyond dispute is that they do, in fact, send a powerful message.

Here is CNN's Chris Plante.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS PLANTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Images of war at its worst, its most horrible but these deaths, American soldiers lying in a Mosul street, their dead bodies picked over and vehicle looted by a frenzied mob were caught on tape pictures to be played out on television and in newspapers for the nation and the world to see again and again.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I don't think it's a change in tactics of the insurgents. I think this was a spontaneous incident from -- actually an assassination, gunmen hired probably to kill Americans for a bounty and the vehicle was then stuck there. People reacted. Possibly some ringleaders in the area that served as a catalyst to get the crowd in a frenzy that then did terrible things to these GIs.

PLANTE: Horrific images are part of war. In Somalia in 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers died. A celebrating mob dragged dead Americans through the streets of Mogadishu. The U.S. military left Somalia, largely because of what happened that day and the gut-wrenching images that Americans were forced to watch.

These are lessons that Osama bin Laden has long used to convince his followers that westerners can be driven from what he calls the holy land but will it be different now?

GRANGE: And this is a time for discipline and a time where the principles of the military that works for democratic governance comes in and that will prevail. The soldiers will contain this anger and it will be directed in a planned coordinated manner to go after those that actually did the act or supported the act and not a reaction to the people themselves.

PLANTE (on camera): In the post September 11 world it's not at all clear how the American public might respond to images like these but for now the Pentagon and the Bush administration insist that regardless of the mounting casualties they won't leave Iraq until the job is done.

Chris Plante, CNN, The Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the fallout from the latest attacks in Iraq.

Up next the Medicare vote and a potential fallout from that, both sides worry that seniors will be angry with them.

And later, the unhappiness in Happy Valley, what do you do when your legendary football coach is on a losing streak?

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: The biggest changes ever to Medicare now look like a done deal. The bill, a bill supported by the president passed in the House over the weekend. Today, opponents in the Senate admitted they don't have enough supporters to stop it.

A vote is planned for tomorrow morning, which means that sooner rather than later seniors will have a prescription drug benefit. Insurance companies will have new incentives and taxpayers will have a $400 billion price tag.

Two reports tonight, first CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ayes are 70, the nays are 29.

KARL (voice-over): Republicans steamrolled every Democratic effort to block the Medicare bill ensuring a new prescription benefit for seniors.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Today is a momentous day and a historic day.

KARL: But Democrats went down with a fight. They are all for prescription drug coverage but this bill will also eventually put Medicare in competition with private insurance companies and Democrats don't like that.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: It is the beginning of the unwinding of Medicare, the replacing of Medicare with the private sector and privatizing the Medicare system make no mistake about it.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I guess he wants to spend another 15 years trying to reform Medicare or trying to improve Medicare or trying to find a prescription drug benefit program. My gosh, we're putting up $400 billion over ten years.

KARL: But some of the loudest complaints came from prominent conservatives who say the bill adds a costly new benefit to a program that is already going broke.

SEN. JUDD GREGG (R), NEW HAMPSHIRE: It is a massive tax increase being placed on working young Americans and Americans who haven't yet been born in order to support a drug benefit for retired Americans.

KARL: The prescription drug benefit won't go into effect until the year 2006. When it does seniors will be able to buy coverage for $35 a month. There will be an annual deductible of $250. Medicare will pay 75 percent of drug costs from $250 to $2,250. There is no coverage of cost between $2,250 and $5,100 but 95 percent of drugs costs above that point will be covered. (END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: Democrats vowed to continue the fight next year making this an issue in next year's presidential campaign. Republicans say they're just fine with that. They believe that when the Senate votes tomorrow to finally approve this and send it down to the president to sign into law that they will also have sent him a major campaign issue that they can use in next year's election -- Carol.

LIN: More on that in just a moment but Jonathan the AARP represents some 35 million seniors across the country. How big a role did they play in this legislation?

KARL: Oh, huge Carol, absolutely huge. The AARP with the 35 million members a very powerful lobbying force here in Congress. They also spent or were talking about spending $7 million on radio ads, television ads and print ads making the case that now is the time for Congress to pass this bill.

The AARP has traditionally sided with Democrats on this issue by jumping onboard and siding with the Republicans. They gave this bill the critical momentum it needed in the final days. The AARP support really cannot be underestimated, it's importance.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Jonathan Karl live on Capitol Hill.

More now on what Medicare reform would mean to presidential politics. There is a cost in turning a potential political liability into a campaign year asset. Here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president's team sees the new Medicare legislation as a major political plus.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Modernizing Medicare will make the system better and will enable us to say to millions of seniors we kept our promise to America's seniors.

KING: But this victory comes at a price which some conservatives argue Mr. Bush is wrong to pay.

ROBERT MOFFIT, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The results will be a massive tax increase for younger working families or potentially in order to control cost savage benefit cuts in the future for senior citizens.

KING: The White House disputes that and says the new Medicare measure includes tough cost controls but the president nonetheless is facing more and more conservative criticism over federal spending.

The Medicare bill will cost at least $400 billion over ten years. Add in the energy bill Mr. Bush hopes to salvage this week, a $33 billion price tag over ten years including more than $20 billion in tax breaks for energy producers and the new defense budget Mr. Bush signed Monday carries a hefty price tag too.

BUSH: Four hundred billion dollars over the next fiscal year to prepare our military for all that lies ahead.

KING: When Mr. Bush took office the annual federal budget was in the black and the government projected a $4.6 trillion surplus over the next decade but now the government is back in the red, a record $374 billion deficit last year and more than $500 billion in red ink this year.

MOFFIT: The deficits are exploding. The Republicans are supposed to be a party of fiscal responsibility.

KING: Mr. Bush promises to cut the deficit in half by 2008 but he would have to be reelected first to deliver on that pledge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now, the White House acknowledges this conservative grumbling but it believes the bottom line is this that by telling senior citizens next year that he has delivered on a program the Democrats long promised but could not deliver that Mr. Bush will gain key votes next year and, Carol, they believe that giving that prize benefit, a prescription drug benefit to the elderly far outweighs any voter concerns over federal spending or the budget deficit.

LIN: But, John, do you think that the president is still going to have to come up with some sort of explanation as to how he's going to be able to cut the deficit in half by 2008? Those details might be important in the campaign next year.

KING: The Democrats will certainly press the president on that and that is one of the key questions. Can the president sustain the argument that the reason for the big deficit is because of the recession and then the September 11 attacks? That is the president's argument. The Democrats, of course, say no it is exacerbated at least by the big Bush tax cuts, a defining debate only intensifying.

LIN: All right thank you very much, John King live at the White House.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT the new shock and awe, will new attacks by insurgents shock and awe Americans into leaving?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: In a sobering op-ed piece recently in "The Los Angeles Times" Michael Keane recounts a conversation between an American officer and a North Vietnamese colonel just before the fall of Saigon. "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield" says the American. "That may be so" the colonel replied "but it is also irrelevant."

Now, I'm not saying that Iraq is Vietnam but that both turned into a guerrilla warfare and guerrilla wars are tough to fight. Michael Keane is the author of "The Dictionary of Strategy and Tactics" and he joins us tonight from Los Angeles. Good evening Michael.

MICHAEL KEANE, AUTHOR, "DICTIONARY OF STRATEGY AND TACTICS": Hi, how are you?

LIN: I'm doing just fine. The graphic pictures that we saw out of Mosul of these soldiers who were attacked, their bodies looted and dragged into the streets how powerful of a propaganda tool is that for the insurgents?

KEANE: Well, it's a powerful tool for them. The biggest concern is that the effect can be demoralizing on our troops. It's not actually the physical attack itself per se but the reaction of the crowd can have profound effect on our front line troops. It's demoralizing to them because they want to be a hero.

These are the people that they are hoping to provide a better life for and if the crowd reacts in such a hostile fashion eventually that can have a severe psychological effect on combat troops.

LIN: Yes. Well how do you think morale is now what are you hearing?

KEANE: Well, ironically the morale of the front line troops is actually relatively high. That is typically to be expected of our troops which are very good, fine, brave young men and that's typically what you'll see.

As long as they're engaging the enemy they're highly motivated but you can expect that to be degraded over time as these type of attacks continue and if the populations' reaction remains hostile that can have a corrosive effect on the morale of anyone's troops.

LIN: Do you think the attack that we saw in Mosul was it strategic? Was it strategic to attack in that manner, to drag the bodies out, possibly even knowing that the cameras would be recording the event?

KEANE: Well, I think you have to divide two events here. The first is the physical attack presumably by the insurgents and then the follow-on activity by the population. Was the attack strategic? Absolutely.

The U.S. military command keeps saying that these attacks have no military effect but they're really missing the point. Guerrillas typically are not trying to defeat us militarily.

They're trying to defeat us by attacking what (unintelligible) would call our center of gravity which is our political will. That is how they could potentially defeat us. They will never defeat the United States Army because of our superior troops, skill, as well as fire power.

LIN: But look what happened in Mogadishu. It was enough to drive U.S. forces out of Somalia.

KEANE: That's correct so it's not really the physical attack on the troops that has that effect but it's how that reverberates among the political leadership in Washington and how the impact that that can have on the American populous as well watching these events on the nightly news.

That's precisely what happened in Vietnam and that's really what the guerrillas are going to try to achieve here. Guerrillas are very sophisticated. There's kind of a misperception that guerrilla warfare is somehow primitive but most strategic commentators note that it's actually a much higher form of warfare, more sophisticated form of warfare than conventional warfare because it does try to strike at a higher target, if you will, than just the military troops on the ground. It tries to affect the political leadership.

LIN: Michael, it sounds like from what you're saying, though, it makes for an argument for U.S. troops to stay on the ground.

KEANE: As opposed to doing what, just withdrawing?

LIN: As opposed to withdrawing from Iraq and having an expedited plan to withdraw a majority of troops as soon as next June, as long as there is a new provisional government in place in Baghdad.

KEANE: Well, there are certainly no plans to withdraw troops now. In fact, over the weekend, I think there was some discussion of keeping -- that the military is planning on keeping our troops there until the end of 2006. So these

(CROSSTALK)

LIN: But in a reduced capacity and only at the invitation of the Iraqi government, whichever Iraqi government is elected in June.

KEANE: That's correct. So, certainly, we will only serve there at the pleasure of the government or of the Iraqi people.

LIN: All right, Michael Keane, well, we shall see what happens. Is your prediction that there will be more similar attacks, then?

KEANE: Oh, this is just going to continue. If anything, the guerrillas are going to be emboldened by the type of media attention, as well as the effect that this is going to have on the political leadership. So we can certainly continue -- expect to continue to see these type of attacks on our troops in Iraq.

LIN: Michael Keane in Los Angeles, thank you.

KEANE: Thank you.

LIN: Before we go to a break, something new tonight, The NEWSNIGHT "MONEYLINE Roundup," starting with the firing of Boeing's chief financial officer. According to the company, Michael Sears got the boot for violating ethical guidelines, that is, discussing a job with a future hire while she was still a Pentagon procurement officer. The woman, who ultimately got an executive position with Boeing, was also fired. Boeing's stock finished the day up just a sliver. A bankruptcy's auditor's final report blames Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling for much of the Enron mass. It slams the former top executives for not providing oversight of the company's use phantom businesses to move debt off the books. There is evidence, says the report, that Lay and Skilling were in possession of facts necessary to conclude that some of these transactions lacked any rational business purpose.

And Wall Street got off to a hot start for the week, the Dow rising nearly 120 points, the Nasdaq and S&P showing even greater gains.

And still to come: How much is too much? Has the media already overdone it with the coverage of Michael Jackson?

And later, we'll go "On the Rise" with a woman who is baking her mark on society.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Two essential truths about cable news: Viewers simply cannot stand the wall-to-wall coverage of villains and victims and suspects alike, except for all the viewers who can't get enough.

So, whenever a slow-speed chase gets going or cops search a celebrity mansion, there are tough decisions to make and frequently some tough words from those who say there are better things, more important things, to cover.

Eric Boehlert is senior writer at Salon.com. We are pleased to have him on the program.

And you are one of those people.

ERIC BOEHLERT, SALON.COM: I am one of those people.

LIN: He's a pop superstar, Michael Jackson here. He is charged with molesting a 12-year-old cancer patient.

BOEHLERT: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHLERT: It's got everything, right?

LIN: Why shouldn't the media just be all over this? It's a great story.

BOEHLERT: Well, for one thing, the idea that he's a big pop star, but this isn't really a fall from grace. He fell from grace 10 years ago. The idea that he was at the top of the game, sold-out tours, selling millions of C.D.s, he hasn't really been a player in pop culture in a decade. He fell from grace a long time ago. He's falling further and further. We've sort of gotten used to this -- people call it the freak show. You can call it that, of watching him sort of lose grasp of reality. I don't think any -- he goes on national television last year saying, I'm a 45-year-old man. I sleep with boys. So the idea that this is some sort of shocking revelation...

LIN: He didn't say he had sex with boys. He didn't say he molested boys.

BOEHLERT: No, he said he sleeps with -- right. But the idea that everyone just fell off their chair when they heard this allegation, I think, is false.

LIN: But there was always a feeling back in 1993, after the big multimillion dollar settlement that we were robbed of the opportunity to know whatever the truth was.

BOEHLERT: Right. Yes.

LIN: And here, there's a second chance. There's a second chance for this dogged district attorney to prosecute the case. There's a second chance for Michael Jackson to finally clear his name and for all of us to understand who this man really is and what he might be capable of doing with kids.

BOEHLERT: Yes, I don't think...

LIN: You don't buy into that, do you?

BOEHLERT: I don't buy any of it. The idea that we were robbed -- it was 10 years ago. I don't think people really want to know what's going on in Michael Jackson's

(CROSSTALK)

LIN: Then why do they watch? Why do the ratings go up

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHLERT: But do they? The cable ratings go up. But that's still a relatively small universe. It's a country of 250, 280 million people. Do we really know whether people are just dying to read about Michael Jackson and talk about Michael Jackson and just sort of this ad nauseam about Michael Jackson?

I'm not convinced. I don't care. I haven't talked to anyone who really has this passion about Michael Jackson and the sex charges.

LIN: But you think that Kobe Bryant and Laci Peterson's murder case, those two stories are actually more legitimate news stories to cover?

BOEHLERT: Well, yes. One, there is a murder. And Kobe Bryant, it's a very serious sex allegation. And if you go back to the startling aspect, watching the NBA finals last year, if you told fans that, next year, Kobe might be -- miss the season because he's going to be on trial for rape, that's shocking. That's interesting.

I don't think it's worth five months of nonstop coverage. But, in terms of sort of this media circus, the last few we have seen was Chandra Levy, the impeachment with Clinton and Lewinsky, O.J. Two of those cases were homicides, murders. The other was the impeachment of the president. So, at the core, there was a very important topic being discussed. It got wrapped up in sort of sleaze and insinuation.

But here, you have a fading pop star accused of essentially molesting or fondling a 12-year-old boy. If you just take that story, there is no way that stands as a news story to cover for months and months on end.

LIN: Do you think the media covers it because there's -- aside from the presumption that the public really is interested...

BOEHLERT: Right.

LIN: Is it because it's a cheaper story to cover? It's less expensive than sending lots of crews to Iraq and Afghanistan and all around the world or tackling -- doing a one-hour special on Medicare reform?

BOEHLERT: Yes, cable news shouldn't be all Medicare and the energy bill. There's got to be a mix. And this is going to be part of the mix.

But, yes, it is an easy story to cover. And I think it's a lazy story to cover. Michael Jackson has become a punching bag. You can just talk about him nonstop. You can make any accusation you want. Who is going to stand up for Michael Jackson? Last week, his magician was on TV standing up for Michael Jackson. There are no powerful forces that are going to call CNN or ABC or anyone else and say, you're giving Michael Jackson a hard time. You're not being fair to him.

So it's just -- you just beat up on him and you talk about it incessantly. And there is no pushback. There's no powerful forces. I'm not defending him. I'm not saying that the media has

(CROSSTALK)

LIN: So what do we lose by covering the story? It's a 24-hour cable universe now.

BOEHLERT: Yes.

LIN: So what's lost by covering it?

BOEHLERT: Well, you're supposed to be making decisions based on what's interesting or relevant. And journalism is not just picking the easiest story and just going with it nonstop.

There are other stories that have to be covered. And I think they're sort of -- Larry King did 60 minutes. He's going to do 60 minutes tomorrow night. There's other things going on in America and the world to cover.

LIN: And you don't buy the notion that it's an opportunity to discuss other relevant issues like pedophilia or fairness in the media, as we are right now?

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHLERT: Fairness in the media is fine.

Pedophilia, I don't think there is an epidemic in this country of pedophilia. I think most 12-year-old boys know you're not supposed to sleep with 40-year-old men. And if they don't, they're not going to learn about it from watching the cable news channels.

I think that it's sort of an easy excuse for people in the press to say, well, we're doing good. You're doing a very small sliver of good. And what you're doing is just sort of creating the circus that is going to go on for weeks and months on end.

LIN: All right, well, I guess we'll have to log on to Salon.com for more coverage of other, more relevant issues.

(LAUGHTER)

LIN: Thanks so much, Eric Boehlert.

(CROSSTALK) .

LIN: Well, ahead tonight, we'll go to Happy Valley, where things aren't so happy. And a football legend is under fire.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Some other stories making news around the country, starting in New York: rush hour at a subway station not far from where the World Trade Center once stood. When the towers fell, they buried the terminal handling subway traffic from New Jersey. The new one, costing more than $300 million, opened over the weekend, but saw its first morning rush today.

Remember Hurricane Isabel and the damage it caused? Officials in North Carolina now say some of the hardest-hit counties wound up getting less federal relief money than a county that barely suffered at all. New Hanover County got the most aid, but had the least damage. A spokeswoman for FEMA said she was surprised people are raising the possibility of fraud.

The winningest lefty in the history of baseball has died. Hall- of-Famer Warren Spahn pitched the Braves, the Milwaukee Braves, to pennant victories in 1948, 1957 and 1958. He played in 14 All-Star Games, had 13 20-game winning seasons. And he played until he was 46 years old. Spahn was 82.

And basketball great Alonzo Mourning is retiring. The decision comes just four months after joining the New Jersey Nets. He said his long-standing kidney ailment has gotten worse and will soon require a transplant. His doctor says it's no longer medically safe for him to play. Alonzo Mourning went out on a high note, scoring a season-high 15 points Saturday night in just 15 minutes of court time.

Since 1966, my alma mater, UCLA, has had seven football coaches who combined have won 269 games. Not bad. Well, in that same period, Penn state has had one coach, Joe Paterno, who has won 339 games, second best all-time. Yet Joe Paterno's job appears to be on the line.

Here is CNN's Bruce Burkhardt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four-Hundred and fifty times, Joe Paterno has made this run. And a month away from his 77th birthday, he's doing it again, on this day, leading his Nittany Lions against Indiana in the final home game of a dismal season.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love Joe. I'm not a see-Joe-go guy. But very honestly, they're just not doing a good job of coaching.

BURKHARDT: For Penn State fans, most of whom were born and bred that way, these are difficult times, not like the old days when JoePa, as he's known in these parts, compiled some astonishing records, five undefeated seasons in his 38 years here, two national champions, more bowl victories than any coach in history, and second in career wins, but in the last four years here, only one winning season.

(on camera): Three losing seasons in four years, it's unheard of here at Penn State. And now Joe Paterno is being chased by the monster he created, the expectation of winning.

RON BRACKEN, "CENTRE DAILY TIMES": They just have not been the kind of Penn State football team that we're used to seeing here.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): And Paterno is not used to seeing headlines like this and even a Web site, JoePaMustGo.com. But still, with a year left on his contract, Joe says he's coming back.

JOE PATERNO, PENN STATE FOOTBALL COACH: If the day comes that I just don't think I can do a good job for them, I don't need anybody to tell me anything.

BURKHARDT: And the diehards who come from all over week after week agree that it should be Joe's call. He's earned it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should have that option, because of what he's done for Penn State. He is Penn State.

BURKHARDT: It is not an exaggeration. From the time he took over in 1966, Joe Paterno fostered a set of values here that went way beyond winning on the football field.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's his hallmark, I think. How many coaches donate so many millions of dollars to a library?

BURKHARDT: Not only has Paterno donated $4 million of his own money to the university. As a tireless fund-raiser, he's brought in millions more, determined to elevate his university, as much as his football team, a coach who actually believes that the first priority here is education.

Even this week, with a win so desperately needed, Paterno suspended a key player, not for DUI or alleged rape, but for cutting classes.

PATERNO: I think he's got to take a look at himself as far as his education and so forth.

BURKHARDT: It's why Penn State has one of the highest graduation rates for its football players in the country, 86 percent. It's those values, those contributions over the years that these people appreciate. We didn't see many Joe-must-go types in this crowd.

A big win over Indiana, only their third of the year. As for the critics, Joe relies on some advice from his mother.

PATERNO: I was in the only Italian family on the block. And if somebody would call me a "wop," and I would come home, she said, hey, they can't make you feel inferior unless you let them.

CROWD: JoePa! JoePa! JoePa! JoePa!

BURKHARDT: Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, State College, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And still ahead, we'll go "On the Rise" at the Dancing Deer Bakery, a place that's in the dough in more ways than one.

For a Monday, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Sometimes, "On the Rise" means exactly what it says. That's what we call our segment on up-and-coming entrepreneurs. It also perfectly describes the business that producer Amanda Townsend (ph) discovered in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRISH KARTER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, DANCING DEER BAKING COMPANY: Dancing Deer Baking Company was incorporated in 1994. We're a baking company here in Boston, Massachusetts. And we make fresh from scratch all natural, really great quality cakes and cookies.

We bake to order. Your order comes in, we're going to bake it for you. Up until 2:00 today, we don't really know what's shipping out the door tomorrow. OK. Let's go.

I'm Trish Karter. Hello.

And I'm the president and chief executive officer and chief floor sweeper.

We started the baking company because we saw an opportunity to make higher quality food to go with the gourmet coffee trend.

This molasses clove cookie is what we came out with. And we thought it would be a two-month thing. And it made our company. We developed a whole line of cookies around it. We've won all sorts of awards, both -- sort of the food industry Oscars.

Every day, I would say sort of three-quarters of production is devoted to this line of cookies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty ounces of cookies, 20 cookies, individually wrapped, chocolate chip.

KARTER: Anyone can make a great cookie.

How are the cakes?

The rest of it is pulling together a team of people that like what they're doing and being able to run the business.

This is a different recipe. This is a recipe with raisin taste.

It's one thing to make a cookie. It's another thing to put them out 52 weeks a year and have them get to the customers in great shape and beautifully packaged.

I'm really not happy with that one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that we go back to the chocolate cookie shortbread and we look at size.

KARTER: Can I show you the rest of the bakery and what we do here?

This is actually a very small batch for us. It's about 100 cakes. But it's blueberry sour cream nut. It's handmade. It's a lot of trouble. It's not the most efficient way to produce it, but it makes the most beautiful cake.

We make money. We're growing at a pretty rapid clip. We improved 33 percent this year over last year. And we're shooting for 50 percent this coming year.

We think we can be in the $20 million to $50 million range in a two-to-five-year timeframe. And we want to do that without compromising anything about who we are. If it stops being fun, we'll get out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: That's a lot of dough.

Still ahead, we'll check our top story and preview tomorrow.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Before we go tonight, a quick recap of the day's top story.

Jurors in Virginia Beach, Virginia, taking less than six hours over two days to decide that convicted sniper John Muhammad deserves the death penalty. Mr. Muhammad showed little emotion when the decision was read. Said juror Dennis Bowman, "His prior courtroom demeanor and lack of remorse helped seal his fate." The judge today set a formal sentencing date for the 12th of February, at which time he could, if he wants, reduce the sentence. Virginia law gives him the final say.

Tomorrow night on the program: the under-recognized form of collateral damage in wartime. NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen reports on the trauma suffered by the families of the wounded and injured. Lives change. People adapt. This is a story of great difficulties, but a lot of courage, love, and hope.

And that's it for us here on NEWSNIGHT. I'm Carol Lin. We'll see you tomorrow.

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





Soldiers Dragged Through Street Near Mosul; Democrats to Fight Medicare Overhaul>


Aired November 24, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone.
You can mark the beginning of the holiday season in any number of ways, for example, when the President pardons the turkey, when they light the tree here in Rockefeller Center.

But in this business, the holidays truly begin today. Today starts the shuffle of anchors covering for anchors, not that I mind at all, Aaron. Correspondents are doing two beats at a time and most of the programs are just getting by on skeleton crews.

It's a TV news tradition because traditionally nothing much happens this week or this time of year. That's the tradition anyhow. We'll see what happens.

We've got a lot to get to starting with the sniper story, the ultimate punishment for John Muhammad. CNN's Jeanne Meserve is there and starts us off with a headline -- Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the jury says John Muhammad should die for his crimes because of his lack of remorse and the future danger he could pose and the public for the first time gets to see and hear some of the evidence that helped them make up their minds -- Carol.

LIN: Next to the capital and the big doings on Medicare. Jonathan Karl has that for us, Jon a headline from you.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Congress is on the verge of passing the $400 billion prescription drug bill paving the way for President Bush to sing into law the greatest expansion of the federal government since the 1960s -- Carol.

LIN: Jon thanks very much.

Finally, to the White House where all this is taking place against the backdrop of Campaign 2004. CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King has the watch and a headline -- John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Carol, many conservatives do not like this bill. They wish the president would not sign it but Mr. Bush already taking credit on the campaign trail even before the final vote. He says he'll be able to run for reelection next year telling senior citizens he kept a big promise -- Carol.

LIN: Thanks, John, back to all of you shortly.

Also ahead tonight the mania for covering celebrity stories, we'll talk with one man who thinks the Michael Jackson coverage in particular has gone too far.

And later, things aren't so happy in Happy Valley these days where the living football legend, Joe Paterno, has people calling for him to leave.

And, our on the rise segment returns with a look at a business that's rolling in the dough, all that is coming in this hour.

We begin though with the jury's decision in the case of John Allen Muhammad. A week after convicting him of capital murder of being what the prosecutor called the commander of a two man killing team, seven women and five men made the call.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Death the recommended penalty for a season of murder and terror.

JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD, DEFENDANT: Until then just follow the body bags.

MESERVE: Death for the ten lives lost and numerous others forever changed.

OPERATOR: Prince George's County Emergency Center, can I help you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God I think I'm going to be able to drive my nephew to the hospital but -

OPERATOR: What's the matter with him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just got shot.

OPERATOR: Your wife's been shot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

OPERATOR: Where has she been shot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's shot in the head.

PAUL EBERT, COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY: I think the jury got to see all the good there was in him and it wasn't enough.

MESERVE: The good the jurors saw video and photos of John Muhammad with his children and letters from them. For some it complicated the decision. HEATHER BEST-TEAGUE, JUROR: The hardest thing for me truthfully the fact that he has children.

MESERVE: But with the accumulation of evidence, the car, the murder weapon, maps of shooting scenes, the tarot card and notes, gruesome photographs and 911 tapes, jurors overcame reservations about the death penalty.

STEPHEN SATLZBURG, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: It's really hard to imagine that anything that the defense did was really going to change the result in this case.

MESERVE: Some jurors spoke about Muhammad's lack of remorse and a future danger he might pose.

DENNIS BOWMAN, JUROR: If he's locked up, you know, put in the deepest hole sooner or later he's going to fabricate something, find an opportunity to harm someone else whether it's prison personnel or another inmate.

MESERVE: Muhammad betrayed no reaction in the courtroom but his attorneys said they bitterly disappointed.

PETER GREENSPUN, MUHAMMAD'S ATTORNEY: There's been much pain and devastation. The sanction of yet another death by the government is not likely to come of any benefit to anyone.

MESERVE: Dean Meyers was by all accounts a generous man. He survived a sniper in Vietnam but another at a Manassas, Virginia gas station killed him. His murder was the centerpiece of this trial and for his family there is with this verdict some measure of closure.

BOB MEYERS, BROTHER OF DEAN MEYERS: This isn't a revenge thing not in any way, just feel like what was done was right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: There will be other trials and appeals as well but this jury has spoken and this jury says John Muhammad should die for his crimes -- Carol.

LIN: Jeanne you were actually inside the courtroom when the verdict came down. I'm just wondering give us a sense of what it was like to be in there.

MESERVE: Well, John Muhammad, as I mentioned in the piece, betrayed no emotion whatsoever. The jurors did however. There was one woman who came in clutching a Kleenex as she came in and through the entire procedure of reading out the verdict she was wiping her eyes and she kept her eyes averted from John Muhammad the entire time. Some of the other jurors were looking at him but she could not bring herself to do that.

There were no outbursts from the audience whatsoever. Only two family members, victim family members were present. They did not sob, cry, react in any way while we were in the courtroom -- Carol. LIN: Did you get a sense from the defense attorneys if they are planning on going ahead with an appeal on what basis they would make that appeal?

MESERVE: Well there will be an automatic appeal because it's a death sentence case. This will get kicked up to the Virginia Supreme Court and attorneys say they are investigating several avenues that they may pursue. One of them has to do with Virginia's new terrorism law.

This was the first prosecution under this law and they will argue that this crime did not fit that bill, that legislation that was passed. Secondly, they'll maintain that he was not the trigger man in any of these crimes that that was not proved and that would perhaps undermine his conviction on the capital murder count.

There also probably will be debate about some of the evidence that was introduced in this trial, the 911 tape of Ted Franklin for instance which you heard a little bit of in that piece that has been excluded from the trial of Lee Malvo because the judge there felt it would be too prejudicial so those are some of the things they'll be looking at as they move forward with their appeals.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Jeanne Meserve live in Virginia Beach.

More on what lies ahead for Mr. Muhammad and Lee Malvo. Robert Tarver joins us. He is a defense attorney and a court watcher. It is very good to have you on the program tonight.

ROBERT TARVER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me.

LIN: Robert less than six hours this jury deliberated. Is that a short a mount of time, not so short amount of time given the nature of the crime?

TARVER: Well, it may seem like a short period of time but don't forget this jury sat with the defendant over the days and days of this trial and this really wasn't a very big factual issue to be decided.

In other words, there wasn't a whole lot of deliberation on the facts of whether or not he did this. I suspect that they took a lot of time during that time period really gauging whether or not this was the type of case that someone should be put to death for within their own individual minds.

LIN: It seems though that the jury was highly influenced by emotion. They actually said that the fact that John Muhammad did not show remorse during the trial played into their sense that the deserved the death penalty.

TARVER: Yes, one of the things that people want to see they want to -- it's been my experience in dealing with these types of cases that they look for reasons to keep the person alive.

Now we heard one of the jurors say, look he's got children and that could be a very big reason but they want to hear something or feel something from the person. They just didn't get that feedback from Mr. Muhammad.

LIN: Do you think, an automatic appeal in this case do you think that the defense attorneys have a pretty good case? Are they going to be able to argue some of those points that Jeanne Meserve mentioned there effectively?

TARVER: Well, Jeanne is right in dealing with the points. The problem is that most of us saw most of this case and a lot of the factual issues and, you know, there was no real glaring type of error that stood out where you could say well this is really something that we need to look at or that the court will look at that might be a problem.

Now, we know that Virginia courts are rapidly moving as they go. It's called the rocket docket. It's not called that for nothing. They like to move forward fast so he'll have his appeals in the Virginia state courts and he'll have his appeals in the federal courts but I suspect that there's not a whole lot here for the defense to hang their hat on.

LIN: The prosecution made a point of saying that he was the commander of a two man killing team.

TARVER: Yes.

LIN: In Lee Boyd Malvo's case the prosecution has already rested. I'm wondering do you think that John Muhammad is going to be called to testify in that case and because John Muhammad has now gotten the death penalty, the death sentence here is that likely that Lee Boyd Malvo will also get the death penalty?

TARVER: Well, I don't think he'll be called to testify. I think the specter of Muhammad is better than having Muhammad himself.

LIN: What do you mean?

TARVER: Well, the idea is you're talking about the leader of a two man killing team and if you're talking about a team with a man and boy we know who's in charge and that's exactly what I think the defense in the Malvo case wants to leave out there, the idea that this was a two man killing team but it wasn't really a team. There was a guy in charge and a guy being led. That's the perception they'd like to have go along with this.

LIN: And a risky strategy to plead insanity in Malvo's case.

TARVER: Risky but there are so few options here. Because of the chilling confessions that he had, the descriptive confessions and again in the Malvo case just like the Muhammad case the seeming lack of remorse. That's going to be a very big problem so they've got to deal with the hand they're left with.

LIN: You can imagine that Malvo's attorneys are taking notes very carefully. TARVER: Without a doubt.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Robert Tarver.

TARVER: Thank you.

LIN: All right well on to Iraq now and the ambush over the weekend in Mosul. Where it happened is significant. What happened and how even more so.

Here is CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): In a city that's been a military success story, two killings so disturbing the Army is having trouble talking about them.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. MILITARY SPOKESMAN: It is our policy that we do not go into the specific details on injuries sustained by soldiers and just as a matter of good taste we would suggest that the media does the same.

ARRAF: There's no question these two soldiers were shot on Sunday afternoon in the center of Mosul. The question is what happened afterwards. Witnesses say their throats were slashed as they lay bleeding.

Many hours later an Army official denied it saying there were no stab wounds or slash marks on the bodies but military sources acknowledge something almost equally horrifying. They were dragged from their vehicle after they were shot and their bodies looted by a crowd.

None of the bystanders would talk on camera but off camera they gave detailed descriptions of the swarm of children and adults taking anything they could, including watches and even a hand grenade.

The 101st Airborne says the soldiers were traveling in a convoy from one compound to another in uniform but in a civilian vehicle. The Army won't say where the other troops in the convoy were when the soldiers were dragged from the car.

For such a big city, Mosul had been relatively stable since the end of the war and the Army takes some credit for that. In the last month, however, attacks on U.S. targets have risen sharply. Many soldiers here felt that to make a difference they had to get close to the people. That may now be too dangerous.

Jane Arraf CNN, Mosul, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: For better or worse, fair or not, pictures do tell the story of war from Marines raising a flag on Mt. Suribachi to the Vietnamese girl caught in a napalm attack to the pictures today from Mosul. Experts and historians can argue over the message they send. What seems beyond dispute is that they do, in fact, send a powerful message.

Here is CNN's Chris Plante.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS PLANTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Images of war at its worst, its most horrible but these deaths, American soldiers lying in a Mosul street, their dead bodies picked over and vehicle looted by a frenzied mob were caught on tape pictures to be played out on television and in newspapers for the nation and the world to see again and again.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I don't think it's a change in tactics of the insurgents. I think this was a spontaneous incident from -- actually an assassination, gunmen hired probably to kill Americans for a bounty and the vehicle was then stuck there. People reacted. Possibly some ringleaders in the area that served as a catalyst to get the crowd in a frenzy that then did terrible things to these GIs.

PLANTE: Horrific images are part of war. In Somalia in 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers died. A celebrating mob dragged dead Americans through the streets of Mogadishu. The U.S. military left Somalia, largely because of what happened that day and the gut-wrenching images that Americans were forced to watch.

These are lessons that Osama bin Laden has long used to convince his followers that westerners can be driven from what he calls the holy land but will it be different now?

GRANGE: And this is a time for discipline and a time where the principles of the military that works for democratic governance comes in and that will prevail. The soldiers will contain this anger and it will be directed in a planned coordinated manner to go after those that actually did the act or supported the act and not a reaction to the people themselves.

PLANTE (on camera): In the post September 11 world it's not at all clear how the American public might respond to images like these but for now the Pentagon and the Bush administration insist that regardless of the mounting casualties they won't leave Iraq until the job is done.

Chris Plante, CNN, The Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the fallout from the latest attacks in Iraq.

Up next the Medicare vote and a potential fallout from that, both sides worry that seniors will be angry with them.

And later, the unhappiness in Happy Valley, what do you do when your legendary football coach is on a losing streak?

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: The biggest changes ever to Medicare now look like a done deal. The bill, a bill supported by the president passed in the House over the weekend. Today, opponents in the Senate admitted they don't have enough supporters to stop it.

A vote is planned for tomorrow morning, which means that sooner rather than later seniors will have a prescription drug benefit. Insurance companies will have new incentives and taxpayers will have a $400 billion price tag.

Two reports tonight, first CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ayes are 70, the nays are 29.

KARL (voice-over): Republicans steamrolled every Democratic effort to block the Medicare bill ensuring a new prescription benefit for seniors.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Today is a momentous day and a historic day.

KARL: But Democrats went down with a fight. They are all for prescription drug coverage but this bill will also eventually put Medicare in competition with private insurance companies and Democrats don't like that.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: It is the beginning of the unwinding of Medicare, the replacing of Medicare with the private sector and privatizing the Medicare system make no mistake about it.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I guess he wants to spend another 15 years trying to reform Medicare or trying to improve Medicare or trying to find a prescription drug benefit program. My gosh, we're putting up $400 billion over ten years.

KARL: But some of the loudest complaints came from prominent conservatives who say the bill adds a costly new benefit to a program that is already going broke.

SEN. JUDD GREGG (R), NEW HAMPSHIRE: It is a massive tax increase being placed on working young Americans and Americans who haven't yet been born in order to support a drug benefit for retired Americans.

KARL: The prescription drug benefit won't go into effect until the year 2006. When it does seniors will be able to buy coverage for $35 a month. There will be an annual deductible of $250. Medicare will pay 75 percent of drug costs from $250 to $2,250. There is no coverage of cost between $2,250 and $5,100 but 95 percent of drugs costs above that point will be covered. (END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: Democrats vowed to continue the fight next year making this an issue in next year's presidential campaign. Republicans say they're just fine with that. They believe that when the Senate votes tomorrow to finally approve this and send it down to the president to sign into law that they will also have sent him a major campaign issue that they can use in next year's election -- Carol.

LIN: More on that in just a moment but Jonathan the AARP represents some 35 million seniors across the country. How big a role did they play in this legislation?

KARL: Oh, huge Carol, absolutely huge. The AARP with the 35 million members a very powerful lobbying force here in Congress. They also spent or were talking about spending $7 million on radio ads, television ads and print ads making the case that now is the time for Congress to pass this bill.

The AARP has traditionally sided with Democrats on this issue by jumping onboard and siding with the Republicans. They gave this bill the critical momentum it needed in the final days. The AARP support really cannot be underestimated, it's importance.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Jonathan Karl live on Capitol Hill.

More now on what Medicare reform would mean to presidential politics. There is a cost in turning a potential political liability into a campaign year asset. Here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president's team sees the new Medicare legislation as a major political plus.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Modernizing Medicare will make the system better and will enable us to say to millions of seniors we kept our promise to America's seniors.

KING: But this victory comes at a price which some conservatives argue Mr. Bush is wrong to pay.

ROBERT MOFFIT, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The results will be a massive tax increase for younger working families or potentially in order to control cost savage benefit cuts in the future for senior citizens.

KING: The White House disputes that and says the new Medicare measure includes tough cost controls but the president nonetheless is facing more and more conservative criticism over federal spending.

The Medicare bill will cost at least $400 billion over ten years. Add in the energy bill Mr. Bush hopes to salvage this week, a $33 billion price tag over ten years including more than $20 billion in tax breaks for energy producers and the new defense budget Mr. Bush signed Monday carries a hefty price tag too.

BUSH: Four hundred billion dollars over the next fiscal year to prepare our military for all that lies ahead.

KING: When Mr. Bush took office the annual federal budget was in the black and the government projected a $4.6 trillion surplus over the next decade but now the government is back in the red, a record $374 billion deficit last year and more than $500 billion in red ink this year.

MOFFIT: The deficits are exploding. The Republicans are supposed to be a party of fiscal responsibility.

KING: Mr. Bush promises to cut the deficit in half by 2008 but he would have to be reelected first to deliver on that pledge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now, the White House acknowledges this conservative grumbling but it believes the bottom line is this that by telling senior citizens next year that he has delivered on a program the Democrats long promised but could not deliver that Mr. Bush will gain key votes next year and, Carol, they believe that giving that prize benefit, a prescription drug benefit to the elderly far outweighs any voter concerns over federal spending or the budget deficit.

LIN: But, John, do you think that the president is still going to have to come up with some sort of explanation as to how he's going to be able to cut the deficit in half by 2008? Those details might be important in the campaign next year.

KING: The Democrats will certainly press the president on that and that is one of the key questions. Can the president sustain the argument that the reason for the big deficit is because of the recession and then the September 11 attacks? That is the president's argument. The Democrats, of course, say no it is exacerbated at least by the big Bush tax cuts, a defining debate only intensifying.

LIN: All right thank you very much, John King live at the White House.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT the new shock and awe, will new attacks by insurgents shock and awe Americans into leaving?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: In a sobering op-ed piece recently in "The Los Angeles Times" Michael Keane recounts a conversation between an American officer and a North Vietnamese colonel just before the fall of Saigon. "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield" says the American. "That may be so" the colonel replied "but it is also irrelevant."

Now, I'm not saying that Iraq is Vietnam but that both turned into a guerrilla warfare and guerrilla wars are tough to fight. Michael Keane is the author of "The Dictionary of Strategy and Tactics" and he joins us tonight from Los Angeles. Good evening Michael.

MICHAEL KEANE, AUTHOR, "DICTIONARY OF STRATEGY AND TACTICS": Hi, how are you?

LIN: I'm doing just fine. The graphic pictures that we saw out of Mosul of these soldiers who were attacked, their bodies looted and dragged into the streets how powerful of a propaganda tool is that for the insurgents?

KEANE: Well, it's a powerful tool for them. The biggest concern is that the effect can be demoralizing on our troops. It's not actually the physical attack itself per se but the reaction of the crowd can have profound effect on our front line troops. It's demoralizing to them because they want to be a hero.

These are the people that they are hoping to provide a better life for and if the crowd reacts in such a hostile fashion eventually that can have a severe psychological effect on combat troops.

LIN: Yes. Well how do you think morale is now what are you hearing?

KEANE: Well, ironically the morale of the front line troops is actually relatively high. That is typically to be expected of our troops which are very good, fine, brave young men and that's typically what you'll see.

As long as they're engaging the enemy they're highly motivated but you can expect that to be degraded over time as these type of attacks continue and if the populations' reaction remains hostile that can have a corrosive effect on the morale of anyone's troops.

LIN: Do you think the attack that we saw in Mosul was it strategic? Was it strategic to attack in that manner, to drag the bodies out, possibly even knowing that the cameras would be recording the event?

KEANE: Well, I think you have to divide two events here. The first is the physical attack presumably by the insurgents and then the follow-on activity by the population. Was the attack strategic? Absolutely.

The U.S. military command keeps saying that these attacks have no military effect but they're really missing the point. Guerrillas typically are not trying to defeat us militarily.

They're trying to defeat us by attacking what (unintelligible) would call our center of gravity which is our political will. That is how they could potentially defeat us. They will never defeat the United States Army because of our superior troops, skill, as well as fire power.

LIN: But look what happened in Mogadishu. It was enough to drive U.S. forces out of Somalia.

KEANE: That's correct so it's not really the physical attack on the troops that has that effect but it's how that reverberates among the political leadership in Washington and how the impact that that can have on the American populous as well watching these events on the nightly news.

That's precisely what happened in Vietnam and that's really what the guerrillas are going to try to achieve here. Guerrillas are very sophisticated. There's kind of a misperception that guerrilla warfare is somehow primitive but most strategic commentators note that it's actually a much higher form of warfare, more sophisticated form of warfare than conventional warfare because it does try to strike at a higher target, if you will, than just the military troops on the ground. It tries to affect the political leadership.

LIN: Michael, it sounds like from what you're saying, though, it makes for an argument for U.S. troops to stay on the ground.

KEANE: As opposed to doing what, just withdrawing?

LIN: As opposed to withdrawing from Iraq and having an expedited plan to withdraw a majority of troops as soon as next June, as long as there is a new provisional government in place in Baghdad.

KEANE: Well, there are certainly no plans to withdraw troops now. In fact, over the weekend, I think there was some discussion of keeping -- that the military is planning on keeping our troops there until the end of 2006. So these

(CROSSTALK)

LIN: But in a reduced capacity and only at the invitation of the Iraqi government, whichever Iraqi government is elected in June.

KEANE: That's correct. So, certainly, we will only serve there at the pleasure of the government or of the Iraqi people.

LIN: All right, Michael Keane, well, we shall see what happens. Is your prediction that there will be more similar attacks, then?

KEANE: Oh, this is just going to continue. If anything, the guerrillas are going to be emboldened by the type of media attention, as well as the effect that this is going to have on the political leadership. So we can certainly continue -- expect to continue to see these type of attacks on our troops in Iraq.

LIN: Michael Keane in Los Angeles, thank you.

KEANE: Thank you.

LIN: Before we go to a break, something new tonight, The NEWSNIGHT "MONEYLINE Roundup," starting with the firing of Boeing's chief financial officer. According to the company, Michael Sears got the boot for violating ethical guidelines, that is, discussing a job with a future hire while she was still a Pentagon procurement officer. The woman, who ultimately got an executive position with Boeing, was also fired. Boeing's stock finished the day up just a sliver. A bankruptcy's auditor's final report blames Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling for much of the Enron mass. It slams the former top executives for not providing oversight of the company's use phantom businesses to move debt off the books. There is evidence, says the report, that Lay and Skilling were in possession of facts necessary to conclude that some of these transactions lacked any rational business purpose.

And Wall Street got off to a hot start for the week, the Dow rising nearly 120 points, the Nasdaq and S&P showing even greater gains.

And still to come: How much is too much? Has the media already overdone it with the coverage of Michael Jackson?

And later, we'll go "On the Rise" with a woman who is baking her mark on society.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Two essential truths about cable news: Viewers simply cannot stand the wall-to-wall coverage of villains and victims and suspects alike, except for all the viewers who can't get enough.

So, whenever a slow-speed chase gets going or cops search a celebrity mansion, there are tough decisions to make and frequently some tough words from those who say there are better things, more important things, to cover.

Eric Boehlert is senior writer at Salon.com. We are pleased to have him on the program.

And you are one of those people.

ERIC BOEHLERT, SALON.COM: I am one of those people.

LIN: He's a pop superstar, Michael Jackson here. He is charged with molesting a 12-year-old cancer patient.

BOEHLERT: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHLERT: It's got everything, right?

LIN: Why shouldn't the media just be all over this? It's a great story.

BOEHLERT: Well, for one thing, the idea that he's a big pop star, but this isn't really a fall from grace. He fell from grace 10 years ago. The idea that he was at the top of the game, sold-out tours, selling millions of C.D.s, he hasn't really been a player in pop culture in a decade. He fell from grace a long time ago. He's falling further and further. We've sort of gotten used to this -- people call it the freak show. You can call it that, of watching him sort of lose grasp of reality. I don't think any -- he goes on national television last year saying, I'm a 45-year-old man. I sleep with boys. So the idea that this is some sort of shocking revelation...

LIN: He didn't say he had sex with boys. He didn't say he molested boys.

BOEHLERT: No, he said he sleeps with -- right. But the idea that everyone just fell off their chair when they heard this allegation, I think, is false.

LIN: But there was always a feeling back in 1993, after the big multimillion dollar settlement that we were robbed of the opportunity to know whatever the truth was.

BOEHLERT: Right. Yes.

LIN: And here, there's a second chance. There's a second chance for this dogged district attorney to prosecute the case. There's a second chance for Michael Jackson to finally clear his name and for all of us to understand who this man really is and what he might be capable of doing with kids.

BOEHLERT: Yes, I don't think...

LIN: You don't buy into that, do you?

BOEHLERT: I don't buy any of it. The idea that we were robbed -- it was 10 years ago. I don't think people really want to know what's going on in Michael Jackson's

(CROSSTALK)

LIN: Then why do they watch? Why do the ratings go up

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHLERT: But do they? The cable ratings go up. But that's still a relatively small universe. It's a country of 250, 280 million people. Do we really know whether people are just dying to read about Michael Jackson and talk about Michael Jackson and just sort of this ad nauseam about Michael Jackson?

I'm not convinced. I don't care. I haven't talked to anyone who really has this passion about Michael Jackson and the sex charges.

LIN: But you think that Kobe Bryant and Laci Peterson's murder case, those two stories are actually more legitimate news stories to cover?

BOEHLERT: Well, yes. One, there is a murder. And Kobe Bryant, it's a very serious sex allegation. And if you go back to the startling aspect, watching the NBA finals last year, if you told fans that, next year, Kobe might be -- miss the season because he's going to be on trial for rape, that's shocking. That's interesting.

I don't think it's worth five months of nonstop coverage. But, in terms of sort of this media circus, the last few we have seen was Chandra Levy, the impeachment with Clinton and Lewinsky, O.J. Two of those cases were homicides, murders. The other was the impeachment of the president. So, at the core, there was a very important topic being discussed. It got wrapped up in sort of sleaze and insinuation.

But here, you have a fading pop star accused of essentially molesting or fondling a 12-year-old boy. If you just take that story, there is no way that stands as a news story to cover for months and months on end.

LIN: Do you think the media covers it because there's -- aside from the presumption that the public really is interested...

BOEHLERT: Right.

LIN: Is it because it's a cheaper story to cover? It's less expensive than sending lots of crews to Iraq and Afghanistan and all around the world or tackling -- doing a one-hour special on Medicare reform?

BOEHLERT: Yes, cable news shouldn't be all Medicare and the energy bill. There's got to be a mix. And this is going to be part of the mix.

But, yes, it is an easy story to cover. And I think it's a lazy story to cover. Michael Jackson has become a punching bag. You can just talk about him nonstop. You can make any accusation you want. Who is going to stand up for Michael Jackson? Last week, his magician was on TV standing up for Michael Jackson. There are no powerful forces that are going to call CNN or ABC or anyone else and say, you're giving Michael Jackson a hard time. You're not being fair to him.

So it's just -- you just beat up on him and you talk about it incessantly. And there is no pushback. There's no powerful forces. I'm not defending him. I'm not saying that the media has

(CROSSTALK)

LIN: So what do we lose by covering the story? It's a 24-hour cable universe now.

BOEHLERT: Yes.

LIN: So what's lost by covering it?

BOEHLERT: Well, you're supposed to be making decisions based on what's interesting or relevant. And journalism is not just picking the easiest story and just going with it nonstop.

There are other stories that have to be covered. And I think they're sort of -- Larry King did 60 minutes. He's going to do 60 minutes tomorrow night. There's other things going on in America and the world to cover.

LIN: And you don't buy the notion that it's an opportunity to discuss other relevant issues like pedophilia or fairness in the media, as we are right now?

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHLERT: Fairness in the media is fine.

Pedophilia, I don't think there is an epidemic in this country of pedophilia. I think most 12-year-old boys know you're not supposed to sleep with 40-year-old men. And if they don't, they're not going to learn about it from watching the cable news channels.

I think that it's sort of an easy excuse for people in the press to say, well, we're doing good. You're doing a very small sliver of good. And what you're doing is just sort of creating the circus that is going to go on for weeks and months on end.

LIN: All right, well, I guess we'll have to log on to Salon.com for more coverage of other, more relevant issues.

(LAUGHTER)

LIN: Thanks so much, Eric Boehlert.

(CROSSTALK) .

LIN: Well, ahead tonight, we'll go to Happy Valley, where things aren't so happy. And a football legend is under fire.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Some other stories making news around the country, starting in New York: rush hour at a subway station not far from where the World Trade Center once stood. When the towers fell, they buried the terminal handling subway traffic from New Jersey. The new one, costing more than $300 million, opened over the weekend, but saw its first morning rush today.

Remember Hurricane Isabel and the damage it caused? Officials in North Carolina now say some of the hardest-hit counties wound up getting less federal relief money than a county that barely suffered at all. New Hanover County got the most aid, but had the least damage. A spokeswoman for FEMA said she was surprised people are raising the possibility of fraud.

The winningest lefty in the history of baseball has died. Hall- of-Famer Warren Spahn pitched the Braves, the Milwaukee Braves, to pennant victories in 1948, 1957 and 1958. He played in 14 All-Star Games, had 13 20-game winning seasons. And he played until he was 46 years old. Spahn was 82.

And basketball great Alonzo Mourning is retiring. The decision comes just four months after joining the New Jersey Nets. He said his long-standing kidney ailment has gotten worse and will soon require a transplant. His doctor says it's no longer medically safe for him to play. Alonzo Mourning went out on a high note, scoring a season-high 15 points Saturday night in just 15 minutes of court time.

Since 1966, my alma mater, UCLA, has had seven football coaches who combined have won 269 games. Not bad. Well, in that same period, Penn state has had one coach, Joe Paterno, who has won 339 games, second best all-time. Yet Joe Paterno's job appears to be on the line.

Here is CNN's Bruce Burkhardt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four-Hundred and fifty times, Joe Paterno has made this run. And a month away from his 77th birthday, he's doing it again, on this day, leading his Nittany Lions against Indiana in the final home game of a dismal season.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love Joe. I'm not a see-Joe-go guy. But very honestly, they're just not doing a good job of coaching.

BURKHARDT: For Penn State fans, most of whom were born and bred that way, these are difficult times, not like the old days when JoePa, as he's known in these parts, compiled some astonishing records, five undefeated seasons in his 38 years here, two national champions, more bowl victories than any coach in history, and second in career wins, but in the last four years here, only one winning season.

(on camera): Three losing seasons in four years, it's unheard of here at Penn State. And now Joe Paterno is being chased by the monster he created, the expectation of winning.

RON BRACKEN, "CENTRE DAILY TIMES": They just have not been the kind of Penn State football team that we're used to seeing here.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): And Paterno is not used to seeing headlines like this and even a Web site, JoePaMustGo.com. But still, with a year left on his contract, Joe says he's coming back.

JOE PATERNO, PENN STATE FOOTBALL COACH: If the day comes that I just don't think I can do a good job for them, I don't need anybody to tell me anything.

BURKHARDT: And the diehards who come from all over week after week agree that it should be Joe's call. He's earned it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should have that option, because of what he's done for Penn State. He is Penn State.

BURKHARDT: It is not an exaggeration. From the time he took over in 1966, Joe Paterno fostered a set of values here that went way beyond winning on the football field.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's his hallmark, I think. How many coaches donate so many millions of dollars to a library?

BURKHARDT: Not only has Paterno donated $4 million of his own money to the university. As a tireless fund-raiser, he's brought in millions more, determined to elevate his university, as much as his football team, a coach who actually believes that the first priority here is education.

Even this week, with a win so desperately needed, Paterno suspended a key player, not for DUI or alleged rape, but for cutting classes.

PATERNO: I think he's got to take a look at himself as far as his education and so forth.

BURKHARDT: It's why Penn State has one of the highest graduation rates for its football players in the country, 86 percent. It's those values, those contributions over the years that these people appreciate. We didn't see many Joe-must-go types in this crowd.

A big win over Indiana, only their third of the year. As for the critics, Joe relies on some advice from his mother.

PATERNO: I was in the only Italian family on the block. And if somebody would call me a "wop," and I would come home, she said, hey, they can't make you feel inferior unless you let them.

CROWD: JoePa! JoePa! JoePa! JoePa!

BURKHARDT: Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, State College, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And still ahead, we'll go "On the Rise" at the Dancing Deer Bakery, a place that's in the dough in more ways than one.

For a Monday, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Sometimes, "On the Rise" means exactly what it says. That's what we call our segment on up-and-coming entrepreneurs. It also perfectly describes the business that producer Amanda Townsend (ph) discovered in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRISH KARTER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, DANCING DEER BAKING COMPANY: Dancing Deer Baking Company was incorporated in 1994. We're a baking company here in Boston, Massachusetts. And we make fresh from scratch all natural, really great quality cakes and cookies.

We bake to order. Your order comes in, we're going to bake it for you. Up until 2:00 today, we don't really know what's shipping out the door tomorrow. OK. Let's go.

I'm Trish Karter. Hello.

And I'm the president and chief executive officer and chief floor sweeper.

We started the baking company because we saw an opportunity to make higher quality food to go with the gourmet coffee trend.

This molasses clove cookie is what we came out with. And we thought it would be a two-month thing. And it made our company. We developed a whole line of cookies around it. We've won all sorts of awards, both -- sort of the food industry Oscars.

Every day, I would say sort of three-quarters of production is devoted to this line of cookies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty ounces of cookies, 20 cookies, individually wrapped, chocolate chip.

KARTER: Anyone can make a great cookie.

How are the cakes?

The rest of it is pulling together a team of people that like what they're doing and being able to run the business.

This is a different recipe. This is a recipe with raisin taste.

It's one thing to make a cookie. It's another thing to put them out 52 weeks a year and have them get to the customers in great shape and beautifully packaged.

I'm really not happy with that one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that we go back to the chocolate cookie shortbread and we look at size.

KARTER: Can I show you the rest of the bakery and what we do here?

This is actually a very small batch for us. It's about 100 cakes. But it's blueberry sour cream nut. It's handmade. It's a lot of trouble. It's not the most efficient way to produce it, but it makes the most beautiful cake.

We make money. We're growing at a pretty rapid clip. We improved 33 percent this year over last year. And we're shooting for 50 percent this coming year.

We think we can be in the $20 million to $50 million range in a two-to-five-year timeframe. And we want to do that without compromising anything about who we are. If it stops being fun, we'll get out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: That's a lot of dough.

Still ahead, we'll check our top story and preview tomorrow.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Before we go tonight, a quick recap of the day's top story.

Jurors in Virginia Beach, Virginia, taking less than six hours over two days to decide that convicted sniper John Muhammad deserves the death penalty. Mr. Muhammad showed little emotion when the decision was read. Said juror Dennis Bowman, "His prior courtroom demeanor and lack of remorse helped seal his fate." The judge today set a formal sentencing date for the 12th of February, at which time he could, if he wants, reduce the sentence. Virginia law gives him the final say.

Tomorrow night on the program: the under-recognized form of collateral damage in wartime. NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen reports on the trauma suffered by the families of the wounded and injured. Lives change. People adapt. This is a story of great difficulties, but a lot of courage, love, and hope.

And that's it for us here on NEWSNIGHT. I'm Carol Lin. We'll see you tomorrow.

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





Soldiers Dragged Through Street Near Mosul; Democrats to Fight Medicare Overhaul>