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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

BBC Apologizes To Tony Blair, British Government; Democratic Debate "Tame"

Aired January 29, 2004 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Remember 9/11? I do. Do you wish you knew more about what happened that day what failed why it failed? I do too. We raise this because the independent commission looking into the attack says it needs more time to do its work and there is political opposition, at least it looks political, to giving them that time.

The commission is co-chaired by two distinguished people, one Republican, one Democrat. It does not seem to us their motives are political at all. They just want to do their job.

But unless people, unless the country demands that they be given the time and the resourced that may not happen and we may never know all we should know and all we need to know about the horrible day. The squabble, it's more than that isn't it, is one of the items in the program and in the whip.

But we begin in South Carolina where the Democrats dance again, another debate, Candy Crowley there, Candy a headline from you tonight.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, seven candidates have five days to convince voters in seven states that they are the one who should to up against George Bush their electability was on center stage tonight at this debate -- Aaron.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.

Back to the White House where, as we said the issue of getting to the bottom of what happened on September 11th just will not go away. Dana Bash has been working on this for us, Dana a headline.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the commission investigating 9/11 want two more months to finish their work. It's a request that sounds simple enough but it's run into a political headwind as things often do in an election year -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dana, thank you.

To New York, the Martha Stewart trial screeched to a halt today. Allan Chernoff was there, Allan the headline.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The judge imposes a delay in the trial of Martha Stewart and her broker just when the government's star witness was about to take the stand. It's a delay that could hurt the prosecution.

BROWN: And, finally -- Allan thank you.

And finally to Atlanta and our Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg keeping an eye on My Doom the virus, Daniel a headline.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Aaron the e-mail virus, My Doom, has already spelled doom for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and caused millions of dollars in damage but another attack is on the way. I'll tell you why and when it's scheduled to happen -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also ahead on the program tonight, the uproar over a job offer to a key Congressman who worked on the Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, a big bill that.

Later, the fascinating story of Nick Kristof of the "New York Times," who brought two young women out of sexual slavery in Cambodia.

And we'll end the evening with a jump on tomorrow, morning papers for Friday. It's already that late in the week, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the debate in South Carolina, the first since John Kerry emerged as the undisputed frontrunner. Political history and conventional wisdom suggest the Democratic nominee, whoever he ends up being, must be able to compete in the south, maybe not win it all but compete there and that alone made the debate tonight important if not in all honesty especially memorable.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): Given that seven states vote in five days and most of the candidates are running out of money it was a remarkably laid back debate save for the former frontrunner's assault on the man who took his place.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Just to make this a little less mellow when I was governor I got everybody in my state who was under 18 health insurance. I got a third of all our seniors prescription benefits.

Now, Senator Kerry is the frontrunner and I mean him no insult but in 19 years in the Senate, Senator Kerry sponsored nine -- eleven bills that had anything to do with healthcare. Not one of them passed.

CROWLEY: John Kerry, who has bested the field with two wins in the first two states spent much of his time attacking the president but would not let that one pass.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the things that you need to know as a president is how things work in Congress if you want to get things done and one of the things that happens in Congress is you can, in fact, write a bill but if you're smart about it you can get your bill passed on someone else's bill that doesn't carry your name.

CROWLEY: Well, that settles that. Mostly the candidates disagreed agreeably on everything except for their unanimous opinion that George Bush has handled the war in Iraq very badly.

Mostly though they spent the time touting their electability, Lieberman stressing his centrist views, Kerry his foreign policy credentials, Edwards his roots as a poor kid from the south.

JOHN EDWARDS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know 40 miles from here when I was born 50 years ago my parents brought me home to a mill village, to a textile mill village. I have seen this my entire life growing up. I've seen mills close. I've seen what it does to communities. I've seen what it does to families.

CROWLEY: Dean and Clark their life outside the beltway.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to make very clear that I'm not a career politician. I'm not a Washington insider. I am an outsider.

CROWLEY: A question about whether any of them can survive a shutout during next Tuesday's seven state contest produced the most harmonious responses.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Candidates who run for president are very optimistic people so I -- I intend to win some.

CROWLEY: So do they all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: But somewhere inside all those optimists are some realists. They know that come next Tuesday some of them may have the will to go on but not the money -- Aaron.

BROWN: Candy, stay with us.

We'll bring Jeff Greenfield into the conversation as well and, Jeff, we'll start with you. My that was a tame little affair today wasn't it?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Well, at the break, according to Tom Brokaw, Howard Dean said we're all so mellow. I mean one explanation may be simple exhaustion but I think there's another one.

I think that the candidates are all still in the shadow of Iowa when at least as perceived wisdom has it Dick Gephardt, remember him, and Howard Dean went at each other and as former campaign of Dean, Joe Trippi said it was a murder/suicide. But boy we'll get to this a little later but in past Democratic debates over the years, you know, they have really laid some heavy lumber on each other in other years. This time they really all seem almost gun shy.

BROWN: Candy, you spent a lot of time in and around the Dean campaign. Do they believe now they have a voice, they have the right voice, they have a voice that will get through again?

CROWLEY: Well they're hoping. I mean what they've done here is take the governor's message, I'm an outsider, the governor's message, I've got something done as a governor and his message that I'm the one who stands up even when it's not popular. Those are the three things he's going to hit on very hard trying to remind voters, you know, of why they liked him in the first place.

Having said that they know next Tuesday is very, very tough. In fact, Aaron, we have gone now to states that aren't even on that Tuesday list that are on the next Saturday list because they are looking for a place to start picking up a major load of delegates. No better place to go than Michigan.

BROWN: Candy, cough for a second. Jeff, go back to you and the thing, the notion you started. A political campaign you ought to be able to say, it seems to me in a respectful way, I'm better than he is.

GREENFIELD: Yes. This just -- what's happened I think is that -- and we the press bear some of this blame for using the word "negative" so indiscriminately. Negative can mean smearing a guy with, you know, vicious personal stuff as happened to John McCain from sources unknown in South Carolina. Or it can mean saying here's why I think I'm better at this job than you and here's why I think your record bears criticism.

In 1972, when Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern were debating, Humphrey basically said to McGovern you want to cut the muscle out of the defense budget. And, in 1988, it was Al Gore in his first presidential run who first raised the Willy Horton issue against Michael Dukakis.

Now maybe that's why they don't want to do it this time. In both those cases the Democrats lost but this notion that you can't say, look, I've got problems of why you should be president, you shouldn't be our nominee, this is just not the way I think politics, even clean politics ought to be run.

BROWN: The advantage in that case has to go to Kerry.

GREENFIELD: Yes and by the way I think one of the reasons why the Dean campaign, apart from the fact they don't have any money right now, is looking down the road is I think they think if John Kerry is out there as the undisputed frontrunner the same things that bothered people about him last summer and fall may come to the surface again, whether he's too elitist or too liberal and we're going to go in retreat for higher ground maybe in Michigan and Wisconsin. Two weeks down the road the rant will be forgotten, which is almost is. I think that's what's going on here. Right now John Kerry, nobody is laying a glove on him except for this, oh he's an insider. I'm an outsider. That's not going to do it.

BROWN: So that's their gamble in much the same way that the Kerry gamble earlier was to throw it all at Iowa and hope it bleeds into New Hampshire.

GREENFIELD: Yes, and by the way it's not crazy.

BROWN: Yes.

GREENFIELD: I mean given the Dean thing, you know, we've picked one percent of the delegates so far, OK.

BROWN: yes. That's a good thing to keep in mind. Candy, we'll give you the last word in all of this. Did anybody from your observation anybody do much good for themselves and conversely I suppose did anyone hurt themselves tonight?

CROWLEY: I don't think anyone hurt themselves. Al Sharpton as usual proved to be very quick on his feet, certainly has grown as a debater, is able to make sharp, humorous points.

He may be a factor down here so he may have done himself some good but largely I think you have to give it to Kerry simply because nobody laid a glove on anybody. In that case you kind of have to give it to the frontrunner if you give it to anybody.

BROWN: Candy, thank you for good, quick work tonight, Candy Crowley, Jeff Greenfield with us on the debate.

As the campaign moves on this next round of states is dovetailing with, of course, the provocative testimony by the former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq David Kay. He told the Senate yesterday, he's been telling lots of people that U.S. intelligence on WMDs was flat out wrong.

He called for an independent investigation to find out why. Several of the Democratic candidates today were calling on CIA Director George Tenet to resign. They did that months ago. They did it again.

Not many people paid attention when they first did it, paying a bit more attention now, including John Kerry, reporting for us tonight CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George Tenet and the issue of intelligence on Iraq before the war have now become a presidential election year issue with the current Democratic frontrunner calling for Tenet to resign.

KERRY: I think there's been a lack of accountability at the CIA. I regret it. I know him personally but that's the nature of responsibility.

ENSOR: On Capitol Hill, Democrats and others are calling for an independent probe into why U.S. intelligence may have gotten it so wrong and what role the administration played.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It's inevitable that there will be an outside commission appointed on an issue of this gravity.

ENSOR: Then there's a Senate Intelligence Committee report due out soon which congressional sources say will likely accuse the CIA of poor judgment in its pre-war analysis that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

And, the 9/11 commission report due in May expected to say the U.S. government could have, maybe should have stopped those terrorist attacks.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We simply didn't make the right investments. We weren't paying enough attention to the warnings.

ENSOR: But George Tenet is a survivor, appointed by Bill Clinton, kept on and trusted by his Republican successor.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've got great confidence in our intelligence community. These are unbelievably hard-working, dedicated people who are doing a great job for America.

ENSOR: At the CIA, officials say Kay is premature suggesting no weapons will be found. A U.S. official says there are millions of pages of documents yet to be translated, hundreds of suspect sites yet to be visited and thousands of Iraqi scientists and former officials yet to be interrogated about what they know.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I don't think one can draw conclusions at this point.

ENSOR: Tenet considered resigning more than a year ago, sources say, but the timing was never right. Now many expect him to stay on through the elections in November to keep up the search for weapons, the hunt for Osama bin Laden and to defend his legacy.

(on camera): The White House spokesman said this week that George Tenet retains the president's full confidence. As for Senator Kerry saying that he should go, one U.S. official said that just makes it even less likely.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Election years can complicate many things, large and small. This one is enormous. The 9/11 commission said this week it needs more time to complete its investigation of the terrorist attack. Its task has been and remains daunting as well as historic the sheer volume of witnesses and documents overwhelming. The deadline is soon, May 27th, and the White House doesn't want to budget on that deadline. Those who want more time, including the 9/11 families, say politics and the upcoming election are jeopardizing the search for truth.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): For more than a year, an independent commission has investigated what the government knew and did not know about the September 11th terrorist plot but they had a late start and months of wrangling with the administration for access to key information. Now they want Congress and the White House to extend their May 27th deadline by two months.

THOMS KEAN, CHAIRMAN 9/11 COMMISSION: To do the best possible report the staff would like another 60 days, so we decided simply, frankly to put politics aside.

BASH: But politics is why the commission's request is meeting resistance. The White House position get the report out as far before election day as possible for fear the findings will give Democrats fresh ammunition against the president.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There was a timetable that was agreed to and so we have been working in a way to help them move forward as quickly as they possibly can.

BASH: House Speaker Dennis Hastert also opposes an extension saying the commission's recommendations on how to avoid another attack should not be delayed. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are reluctant to say no.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: No one wants this to be prematurely stopped. We need to have all the facts that we can.

BASH: Senator John McCain says there's only one way to take the politics out of the process.

MCCAIN: The administration's concern is that this report could come out and be critical of the administration and then be part of the election year mix. I sympathize with that position so let's say their report will come out in January off 2005.

BASH: Family members of 9/11 victims say a longer, more thorough investigation is what they've wanted all along.

KRISTEN BREITWEISER, 9/11 FAMILY STEERING COMMITTEE: To take this into politics in an election year it's really an insult to the dead and it's a dishonoring of the dead and the victims' families have always wanted this investigation pure, transparent and removed from the political process.

BASH: But the commission vice-chair, a Democrat, warns there is a political danger in waiting. In Washington there are always leaks. LEE HAMILTON, VICE-CHAIR, 9/11 COMMISSION: The disadvantage is you have a report that might dribble out and you don't know what parts will dribble out and you could get a very distorted view of what the commission actually decided.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And, Aaron, whether or not they get an extension, commission sources say they are planning another round of public hearings later this winter and they say we'll see some familiar faces, high-ranking officials from administrations past and present but, of course, they want more time to have even more of those public hearings -- Aaron.

BROWN: Has the White House agreed that Dr. Rice testifies, that the vice president testifies, that the president testifies?

BASH: Well, according to commission sources we are told that Condoleezza Rice actually will go and be interviewed privately, in addition, so will the deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

That should happen in the next few weeks and commission sources say that they fully expect they will get some high-ranking officials, including perhaps Condoleezza Rice, perhaps some other cabinet officials.

But, of course, because there is a time crunch they say that they have a lot of work to do to keep gathering information, to keep investigating, to actually write a report and figure out what could be declassified.

So, the public hearings might have to be squeezed if they don't have an extension of the deadline. They have to keep doing their other work.

BROWN: Dana, thank you, Dana Bash at the White House tonight.

On to politics, this time overseas or perhaps more correctly political fallout. Things did not get better today for the BBC in the wake of a devastating report condemning its journalistic practices.

That same report absolved Tony Blair's government of allegations it relied on sexed up charges to make its case on WMDs and the case for war in Iraq, a good week for the prime minister it seems, a very bad one for the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation, reporting for us tonight CNN's Robin Oakley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wednesday, Hutton inquiry clears government, castigates BBC and BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies resigns. Thursday, BBC governors meet in crisis and Director General Greg Dyke decides to go too.

GREG DYKE, FORMER BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL: I am today announcing that I've resigned from the BBC. My position as director general has inevitably been compromised by the criticisms of BBC management in the Hutton report.

OAKLEY: Dyke added that he hoped a second departure would draw a line under the whole affair. So, was the bloodletting going to bring peace with the government and lift the climate of fear from the BBC? One more thing it seems was needed.

Tony Blair's spokesman said he wanted a formal apology too for the BBC report which accused him of lying over Saddam Hussein's weapons, cue for the BBC's acting chairman.

RICHARD RYDER, ACTING BBC CHAIRMAN: On behalf of the BBC, I have no hesitation in apologizing unreservedly for our errors and to the individuals whose reputations were affected by them.

OAKLEY: That sent Tony Blair significantly echoing Mr. Dyke's choice of phrase was all he'd ever wanted.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: But what this does now is it allows us to draw a line and move on, the BBC to get on with their job and the government to get on with ours.

OAKLEY: But if the government sees Hutton as a huge victory that view wasn't much shared by the British public or in the British media. Many papers accused Lord Hutton of a whitewash and the same message in the street.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know where the Hutton report stops and the Iraq question starts (unintelligible).

OAKLEY (on camera): For Tony Blair, the immediate political problems are over but with a growing backlash against Lord Hutton's inquiry report, which analysts say gave the government the benefit of every doubt, opposition parties are keeping up their pressure for another inquiry this time in to how Britain became embroiled in the war against Iraq.

Robin Oakley, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, questions of a conflict of interest being thrown at Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin for a job offer he says he's not even considering, hum.

And later a big pothole in the prosecution of Martha Stewart, a key witness who did not testify today.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are a number of stories that made news around the world today beginning in the Middle East. In Jerusalem, the deadliest attack in four months occurred when a suicide bomber blew up a bus packed with morning rush hour commuters. The blast killed ten, injured 50. The bomber was a policeman from Bethlehem who wrote he wanted to revenge, or avenge, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza. The bus blast was only 50 feet away from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's home, Sharon not home at the time.

And later in the day did attend a ceremony for the remains of three Israeli soldiers returned today as part of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. Under the deal, Israel released two dozen Lebanese and Arab prisoners, another 400 Palestinians were freed to the West Bank and Gaza. Hezbollah also freed an abducted Israeli businessman.

In Afghanistan, an explosion at a weapons cache today killed seven U.S. soldiers, wounded three others. The blast occurred about 60 miles southwest of Kabul, one of the deadliest days for GIs since the United States entered Afghanistan now more than two years ago.

And finally, Guantanamo Bay where three teenagers, young teenagers at that, were sent home after spending more than a year in military detention. The Defense Department said the juveniles no longer posed a threat and were not going to be tried for any crimes. The Defense Department would not reveal their identities or the countries they came from.

The White House said today that actuaries who crunched the numbers for the president's drug prescription plan for Medicare didn't have time to crunch all the data before Congress voted on the bill. It turns out they underestimated the cost by more than 30 percent. The price tag over ten years will be $540 billion not the $400 billion advertised.

This is not the only surprise stemming from the new law. Billy Tauzin, a powerful Republican who helped negotiate the prescription drug benefit has been offered a lucrative new job lobbying for the drug industry.

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Congressman Billy Tauzin played a leading role writing and selling the big new prescription drug plan that passed the Congress in November but now he's choosing his words carefully.

Now it's come out that PhRMA the drug company's powerful trade association has offered Tauzin well over $1 million to be their top lobbyist.

REP. BILLY TAUZIN (R), TENNESSEE: When I decide my future the folks of Louisiana will be the first to know not you and I'll know that in time. Right now I'm just doing my job.

JOHNS: Critics called the drug plan a gift. Watchdog groups are asking whether the drug companies are returning a favor.

CRAIG HOLMAN, PUBLIC CITIZEN: This certainly does not pass the smell test. I mean it reeks of an exchange of personal benefit for Representative Tauzin and direct benefits to the pharmaceutical industry and PHARMA.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: This is abuse of power. This is conflict of interest if it indeed is true.

JOHNS: Tauzin denies any impropriety. His spokesman says the job discussions began within the last week to ten days and that no one approached Tauzin during the Medicare debate. Democrats want to know when did the job talks start.

TAUZIN: I'm not personally discussing this with anybody.

JOHNS: The spokesman says Tauzin has twice been hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer in recent weeks and wants a lower stress job. Experts say taking a job with PhRMA is perfectly legal as long as Tauzin doesn't lobby the Congress for one year.

(on camera): PhRMA has declined to talk specifics about the offer. So far, Tauzin has not indicated whether he plans to accept it.

Joe Johns, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A couple of other stories that made news around the country today starting in Massachusetts where Terry Lee Sampson, a carjacker who murdered three men in a weeklong crime spree was sentenced to death by a federal judge today, the first federal death sentence handed down in the state in three decades. There is no state death penalty in Massachusetts.

In Florida on the eve of his 17th birthday, Lionel Tate pleaded guilty to second degree murder today, the final step in a deal that freed him from prison this week. The teenager, you'll recall, was sentenced to life without parole three years ago for killing a girl when he was 12. His conviction was overturned.

And Lloyd Pete Bucher of the USS Pueblo, the spy ship, had died. He was 76. The Pueblo, you'll recall, was monitoring communist ship movements, intercepting messages when it was captured by the North Koreans in 1968. The captain helped his crew survive months of brutal captivity. They nearly faced a court martial. In 1989 the Pentagon awarded him and his crew prisoner of war medals.

Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, the Martha Stewart case and the key witness who did not testify, the details when we come back.

And later tonight a story of freedom from sexual slavery, we'll be joined by Nick Kristof of the "New York Times" about his purchase of two slaves and what happened when he set them free.

That's coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: This was supposed to have been an important and juicy day at the obstruction of justice trial of Martha Stewart. The former assistant to her broker, the broker who is on trial with her, was to take the stand and tell all he knew about her plan, their plan to sell ImClone shares. A last-minute surprise delayed everything.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's financial correspondent, Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A forced shakeup in the prosecution's batting order against Martha Stewart and her co- defendant and stockbroker Peter Bacanovic. Star government witness government witness Douglas Faneuil, assistant to Bacanovic, may have to wait until next Thursday to testify.

Late last night prosecutors sent defense attorneys an FBI report of an interview with Faneuil's first attorney, a gentleman in his 80s who could not recall if it had been Bacanovic or Sam Waksal, former CEO of ImClone, who instructed Faneuil to pass information about ImClone to Martha Stewart.

The government alleges Stewart sold her shares after Bacanovic ordered Faneuil to share the tip that Waksal was trying to dump his stock. It's a story that Faneuil is expected to tell on the stand.

BENJAMIN BRAFMAN, ATTORNEY: If there is a reasonable doubt as to whether he was the source or not, the government's case against Bacanovic can be undermined just by that little piece of information.

CHERNOFF: Bacanovic's attorney, Richard Strassberg, says, "There is some chutzpah with giving us the documents last night at 10: 15."

Judge Cedarbaum said she found it troubling and granted Strassberg a week to investigate, a delay that would force the government to switch the order of its witnesses.

After court, Stewart's attorney was tight-lipped.

ROBERT MORVILLO, MARTHA STEWART'S ATTORNEY: It's not a big deal. I'm not going to be in a position to comment on what happens in the courtroom other than in the courtroom.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: Once Faneuil does take the stand, he's going to face a blistering cross-examination, as defense attorneys need to damage his credibility. They've already called him a liar in open court and they plan to ask him about possible drug use -- Aaron.

BROWN: Allan, thank you.

We're joined tonight to talk about all of this by John Coffee. He is the director of the Center of Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School.

It's good to have you with us.

One slightly off-point question, I fear. Why is someone's conversation with their lawyer in play at all? Why isn't that privileged?

JOHN COFFEE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Because the privilege has been waived. Mr. Faneuil has been cooperating with the government, telling them everything he knew. And the judge ruled on Monday that the attorney-client privilege has been waived by Mr. Faneuil.

BROWN: OK. But I was paying attention. Get a point for that.

COFFEE: OK.

BROWN: How big a deal do you think this is?

COFFEE: It's a pothole. It's not yet a roadblock. What we don't know at this point is whether the confusion is Mr. Faneuil, whether he made an inconsistent statement that suggested he wasn't sure and didn't recall who told him.

BROWN: In which case it's a pretty big deal.

COFFEE: This would be a big deal.

Or whether it's an 82-year-old lawyer who didn't keep accurate notes and can't seem to have kept a clear memory of what he heard from his client.

BROWN: Either way -- and maybe we'll never know which way it was. But, either way, is there -- if all you're going for here is the benefit of the doubt, a little bit of doubt here -- you just need one juror to doubt -- that's all will you need -- is this big enough to create that?

COFFEE: I don't think it creates a doubt on what will be the critical issue.

This may absolve Mr. Bacanovic of the charge that he was the person who called Faneuil and told Faneuil to call Stewart.

BROWN: Right.

COFFEE: But the real core of this trial is whether or not Stewart and Bacanovic arranged this fabricated story over a $60 stop- loss order and came in and told the government this concocted story. That's what the jury is going to have to ultimately decide is truth or false.

If they think that's a lie, then the two defendants will be convicted.

BROWN: Is there more to the government's case than sort of he said/she said/they said?

COFFEE: Yes, I think the government is going to try to corroborate their story, which Mr. Faneuil will tell, that this was all a made-up, fabricated story, with suspicious behavior that both Bacanovic and Stewart allegedly engaged in.

Martha Stewart appears to have altered the telephone logs of her secretary. That's an unusual thing for a chief executive officer to do, to go and play around with your secretary's telephone logs. Mr. Bacanovic is alleged to have altered Merrill Lynch's records to add in an after-the-fact reference to the stop-loss order. Both of those events, if the jury believes them, look suspicious and seem to suggest that there was a cover-up in progress.

BROWN: Without getting precisely into the question of whether Ms. Stewart is guilty or innocent, that's -- I think a lot of her supporters say, this whole thing is phony and there's nothing there.

Is there -- just, is there enough there, there to have proceeded this way enough to dispel the notion that if it were somebody Stewart, someone other than Martha Stewart, we wouldn't be going through this exercise at all?

COFFEE: Well, yes and no.

I think the government is always entitled to say anyone who comes into the U.S. attorney's office and tells them what they believe is a fabricated story and lies to them is someone they can take to trial, because you're obstructing a serious investigation. However, the securities fraud charge here has bothered lots of lawyers, because it essentially says, in saying that you're innocent, in saying you didn't do this crime, you were in effect manipulating the securities markets.

That's pushing the envelope quite far. And, on that part of the case, this does look a little bit like post-Enron jurisprudence, where we're interpreting the law very strictly against defendants.

But in the core part of the case, the simple part of the case, was she lying, that's going to be for the jury to decide.

BROWN: Well, we hope they get there eventually.

Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming in, sir, very much.

Still to come on the program, morning papers, of course, at the end, as always.

Up next, the dangers from the latest computer virus, what it does, how can you avoid it, if you're wise.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a warning. Beware, for the 100th time, of e- mails with attachments from people you don't know. It also turns out that you need to beware of e-mail with attachments from people you do know. Both could contain the latest virus, Mydoom, which is a nasty little thing attacking millions of computers and Web sites, some as far away as China and one really, really close to home.

Here's CNN's Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mydoom begin as a seemingly innocent e-mail that looks like an official error message. It might even appear to come from someone you know.

Clicking on the e-mail's attachment causes the virus to worm its way through your hard drive, searching for stored e-mail addresses in order to keep sending itself out. It then opens an electronic back door on your computer, allowing a hacker to return over the Internet later to steal personal information.

STEPHEN TRILLING, SYMANTEC CORP.: It's a little bit like somebody breaking in through the front door of your house. You come home, notice your front door lock has been opened, but you don't notice that the person on their way out left a window open in the basement allowing them to come back a week later without you realizing it.

SIEBERG: The virus is designed to target the Web site of a Utah- based company called the SCO Group. You can think of it as an army of computer slaves all set to attack this Sunday.

(on camera): The SCO Group is battling IBM in court over copyright issues relating to the operating system that is known as Linux. Now, that being said, there's no evidence yet that a Linux supporter is behind the worm.

DARL MCBRIDE, CEO, SCO GROUP: In an attempt to get us from winning through the court system, there appears to be an approach to intimidate us, to harass us, typical kinds of things you see with terrorists. In this case, we're dealing not with actual terrorists, but with cyber-terrorists.

SIEBERG (voice-over): The SCO Group is serious about catching whomever spawned the worm, offering a $250,000 bounty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: And at least one copycat version of the Mydoom virus is already circulating on the Internet. This one targets both the SCO Group and Microsoft's Web site. So, Microsoft is now offering a $250,000 reward as well. Federal authorities are investigating both cases, but, so far, no arrests have been made -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let's say, for example, just hypothetically, that one's spouse had this virus on her computer, hypothetically. How would she or anyone else get rid of that?

SIEBERG: Well, Aaron, in that particular hypothetical case...

BROWN: Right. It's just all hypothetical. SIEBERG: All hypothetical here.

In that particular case, or anyone's case, for that matter, the first thing is trace your Internet activity back over the last few days. Try and remember if you've clicked on something that might resemble this particular attachment. Once you do, you're going to need to scan your computer and see if that file exists. Then you need to go through the process of removing it.

Now, a lot of anti-virus companies make products available that do this automatically. In some cases, you have to do it manually and sort of poke around in your computer and try and remove it. But it can be a tricky process, but it can be done.

BROWN: That depends on by whom.

Thank you very much.

(LAUGHTER)

SIEBERG: Right.

BROWN: I think.

A quick look at some of the business stories that made news today. This is our "Moneyline Roundup," beginning with mad cow and the Bush administration's plan for a national cattle identification program. The proposal calls for $33 million to be spent to develop an identification system for the nation's 96 million cattle. Another $27 million -- a lot of numbers in this "Moneyline" thing -- would be spent on other programs to combat the spread of the disease.

For that and $60 million more, you could get one-seventh of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I get this one. Baseball owners today approved the sale of the team by the News Corp. to a Boston real estate developer, sale price, $430 million.

Huge moneymaking partnership between Disney and Pixar, which made movies like "Toy Story," will be no more, after their current deal expires in two years. Important talks broke off today. The five movies made under the partnership have earned more than $2.5 billion at the box office. Disney shares, as you might imagine, were down in after-hours trading.

Here's the rest of the market. Blue chips on the Dow rose after a choppy day. Tech stocks on the Nasdaq fell. And the S&P was up a skosh, a financial term, that.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an old friend of this program and his remarkable story, Nicholas Kristof of "The New York Times" and how he bought and freed two sex slaves and what happened to them.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: It is a fine line that journalists walk, getting close enough to a story, but not too close, earning the trust of your sources, but maintaining a professional distance. We're not supposed to become part of the story, which brings us to Nicholas Kristof of "The New York Times" and two young girls in Cambodian he met while reporting on the sex slave trade, an ugly, horrible story, and a chance to change its outcome for these two young girls.

We're pleased to have Nick with us, as we always are, to talk about the columns that he wrote for "The Times" over the last week.

Did you set out to do this story or did it find you?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I set out, in a sense, to do it, because I thought that the main moral challenge we face in this century is to address the plight of women in the Third World. And I think sex trafficking is a big part of that. And I had been to Cambodian before, had been horrified by what I'd seen.

BROWN: It is particularly horrible in Cambodia, isn't it?

KRISTOF: More than anywhere else I had seen.

I had gone there in 1996 and had not been able to shake the thought of 13- and 15-year-old girls whom I had seen who were really slaves, in a way that we think has been consigned to history.

BROWN: And sometimes, or maybe even often, sold into this by their families.

KRISTOF: Often by their parents, and often by their mothers.

And that was one thing that I really wanted to find, to talk to some of the parents who had done this. I didn't. I did talk to the girls. And for a 13-year-old girl to deal with having her own mother sell her is pretty excruciating.

BROWN: Yes. You find these two kids, these two children, and you make a decision.

KRISTOF: Which is to purchase their freedom.

It's not very journalistic. And yet, you know, here is -- one of the girls I met, the first one, she was stuck in the brothel for a debt of $150. And if she could pay that, if I could pay that, then she would be able to go back to her village and so on. She desperately wanted to go. The other one was stuck for $203. And, you know, what could I do?

BROWN: So, for 300 bucks, give or take, you bought these two girls out of slavery, and, in fact, got receipts to prove it.

KRISTOF: That's right. That's right.

It's -- yes. I mean, I don't think that buying the sex slaves is a solution to the problem. BROWN: Sure.

KRISTOF: Ultimately, it raises the market price for them and creates incentives to do that elsewhere.

BROWN: Right.

KRISTOF: On the other hand, it did transform the lives of these two individuals.

BROWN: Do you know that?

KRISTOF: No. And it will be very interesting to see how this goes.

I took them back to their villages. The first one, Srey Neth, was -- I set her up having a little grocery store in her village to make money as an alternative. The other one, Srey Mom, I set her up selling meat in the village. Srey Neth is still there with the grocery store. Unfortunately, Srey Mom, a few days, later disappeared.

BROWN: Why? Do you know?

KRISTOF: She had a blowup with her parents.

BROWN: She went back to the brothel.

KRISTOF: She went back to the brothel. She went back to the brothel. And she's there now.

And, you know, when I left Srey Mom in that village, it was so happy. Everybody was crying. They thought she was dead. And I've almost never been happier as a journalist at what I've done. And then, just a few days later, to hear from my translator that she had left and gone back to the brothel was just horrifying.

BROWN: It breaks your heart.

KRISTOF: It breaks your heart to have a kid make these decisions. But I think there aren't any fairy tale endings in this business. And it's more realistic, in that sense.

BROWN: Just one question on the journalism. You are a columnist for "The Times." You are not a reporter for "The Times," as such. Does that make a difference in how your bosses and our viewers and your readers ought to see what you did?

KRISTOF: I think it does.

The notion of entering a story, of paying money for a human being is obviously something that, you know, isn't customary journalistic practice. Columnists have more license to do things. And I think, you know, in that spirit, it made more sense. But, fundamentally, it made a huge difference for these two people. And I think especially for one, it has saved her life from dying of AIDS, stuck in a brothel. BROWN: Good for you.

KRISTOF: Thank you.

BROWN: Good to see you..

KRISTOF: Good to be back.

BROWN: Thank you.

Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: That thing hasn't made me laugh in a while.

Time to check morning papers from around the country. And I think they are around the country today. I don't see even a Canadian one in there.

If you're traveling, you might run into this under your hotel room doorstep. Doorstep? I'm not sure that's right. "USA Today" leads with the Super Bowl, with its official Super Bowl guide. "What it takes to win. Who gets a ticket? Not Joe fan. Celebs, corporate types land most of Super Bowl's pricey seats." But you could probably go and get one in the cheap seats with me. "Candidates Feel Cash Crunch" is their political story on the front page of "USA Today," the tonight's newspaper. It's also a great. It's a fun read, too.

"The Miami Herald." A couple good ones on the front page, I think. "Day of Fear and Freedom," two stories out of the Middle East, the horrible suicide bombing and the release of prisoners, a rather large prisoner release. Down at the bottom, "An Unblinking Tate Victim Hears Pleas of His Victim's Mother," as that case finally comes to an end, and a sad case all around.

"The Oregonian." Man, these guys turn this around really quickly out on the West Coast. "Dean Takes Issue With Kerry's Success in The Senate" is how they led the debate. "The former Vermont governor tries to reclaim his momentum with criticism of front-runner in debate in South Carolina." "The Oregonian" out of Portland, Oregon.

Pretty straightforward headline in tomorrow's "Boston Herald." "Hang Him. Judge: Noose or Needle for Killer Sampson." We told you about this story a little bit earlier in the program.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch" leads with this claim. "Bin Laden Will Be Caught Soon, Military Says, But Pakistan Says U.S. Troops Can't Cross Border to Hunt Him." Somebody in the Pentagon said today that they thought they'd get him within a year.

And, quickly, "The Chicago Sun-Times." I'm not sure what that picture is, but it's pretty cool. And the weather tomorrow is not. Well, actually, it's quite cool. "Putrid" is the weather word, four degrees. Yikes.

We'll wrap up the day in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Before we leave you, a quick recap of our top story tonight.

The seven Democratic candidates faced off in South Carolina, the debate important because of where it was, the South, where whoever wins the Democratic nomination will have to compete. Tonight, they just tried to connect, just five days until next Tuesday's seven states, including South Carolina.

Tomorrow, right here on this program, the uncanny connection between the Super Bowl and presidential politics. Jeff Greenfield reports on that -- all the day's news and other good stuff right here on NEWSNIGHT tomorrow.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next for most of you.

We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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






Democratic Debate "Tame">


Aired January 29, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Remember 9/11? I do. Do you wish you knew more about what happened that day what failed why it failed? I do too. We raise this because the independent commission looking into the attack says it needs more time to do its work and there is political opposition, at least it looks political, to giving them that time.

The commission is co-chaired by two distinguished people, one Republican, one Democrat. It does not seem to us their motives are political at all. They just want to do their job.

But unless people, unless the country demands that they be given the time and the resourced that may not happen and we may never know all we should know and all we need to know about the horrible day. The squabble, it's more than that isn't it, is one of the items in the program and in the whip.

But we begin in South Carolina where the Democrats dance again, another debate, Candy Crowley there, Candy a headline from you tonight.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, seven candidates have five days to convince voters in seven states that they are the one who should to up against George Bush their electability was on center stage tonight at this debate -- Aaron.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.

Back to the White House where, as we said the issue of getting to the bottom of what happened on September 11th just will not go away. Dana Bash has been working on this for us, Dana a headline.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the commission investigating 9/11 want two more months to finish their work. It's a request that sounds simple enough but it's run into a political headwind as things often do in an election year -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dana, thank you.

To New York, the Martha Stewart trial screeched to a halt today. Allan Chernoff was there, Allan the headline.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The judge imposes a delay in the trial of Martha Stewart and her broker just when the government's star witness was about to take the stand. It's a delay that could hurt the prosecution.

BROWN: And, finally -- Allan thank you.

And finally to Atlanta and our Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg keeping an eye on My Doom the virus, Daniel a headline.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Aaron the e-mail virus, My Doom, has already spelled doom for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and caused millions of dollars in damage but another attack is on the way. I'll tell you why and when it's scheduled to happen -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also ahead on the program tonight, the uproar over a job offer to a key Congressman who worked on the Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, a big bill that.

Later, the fascinating story of Nick Kristof of the "New York Times," who brought two young women out of sexual slavery in Cambodia.

And we'll end the evening with a jump on tomorrow, morning papers for Friday. It's already that late in the week, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the debate in South Carolina, the first since John Kerry emerged as the undisputed frontrunner. Political history and conventional wisdom suggest the Democratic nominee, whoever he ends up being, must be able to compete in the south, maybe not win it all but compete there and that alone made the debate tonight important if not in all honesty especially memorable.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): Given that seven states vote in five days and most of the candidates are running out of money it was a remarkably laid back debate save for the former frontrunner's assault on the man who took his place.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Just to make this a little less mellow when I was governor I got everybody in my state who was under 18 health insurance. I got a third of all our seniors prescription benefits.

Now, Senator Kerry is the frontrunner and I mean him no insult but in 19 years in the Senate, Senator Kerry sponsored nine -- eleven bills that had anything to do with healthcare. Not one of them passed.

CROWLEY: John Kerry, who has bested the field with two wins in the first two states spent much of his time attacking the president but would not let that one pass.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the things that you need to know as a president is how things work in Congress if you want to get things done and one of the things that happens in Congress is you can, in fact, write a bill but if you're smart about it you can get your bill passed on someone else's bill that doesn't carry your name.

CROWLEY: Well, that settles that. Mostly the candidates disagreed agreeably on everything except for their unanimous opinion that George Bush has handled the war in Iraq very badly.

Mostly though they spent the time touting their electability, Lieberman stressing his centrist views, Kerry his foreign policy credentials, Edwards his roots as a poor kid from the south.

JOHN EDWARDS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know 40 miles from here when I was born 50 years ago my parents brought me home to a mill village, to a textile mill village. I have seen this my entire life growing up. I've seen mills close. I've seen what it does to communities. I've seen what it does to families.

CROWLEY: Dean and Clark their life outside the beltway.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to make very clear that I'm not a career politician. I'm not a Washington insider. I am an outsider.

CROWLEY: A question about whether any of them can survive a shutout during next Tuesday's seven state contest produced the most harmonious responses.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Candidates who run for president are very optimistic people so I -- I intend to win some.

CROWLEY: So do they all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: But somewhere inside all those optimists are some realists. They know that come next Tuesday some of them may have the will to go on but not the money -- Aaron.

BROWN: Candy, stay with us.

We'll bring Jeff Greenfield into the conversation as well and, Jeff, we'll start with you. My that was a tame little affair today wasn't it?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Well, at the break, according to Tom Brokaw, Howard Dean said we're all so mellow. I mean one explanation may be simple exhaustion but I think there's another one.

I think that the candidates are all still in the shadow of Iowa when at least as perceived wisdom has it Dick Gephardt, remember him, and Howard Dean went at each other and as former campaign of Dean, Joe Trippi said it was a murder/suicide. But boy we'll get to this a little later but in past Democratic debates over the years, you know, they have really laid some heavy lumber on each other in other years. This time they really all seem almost gun shy.

BROWN: Candy, you spent a lot of time in and around the Dean campaign. Do they believe now they have a voice, they have the right voice, they have a voice that will get through again?

CROWLEY: Well they're hoping. I mean what they've done here is take the governor's message, I'm an outsider, the governor's message, I've got something done as a governor and his message that I'm the one who stands up even when it's not popular. Those are the three things he's going to hit on very hard trying to remind voters, you know, of why they liked him in the first place.

Having said that they know next Tuesday is very, very tough. In fact, Aaron, we have gone now to states that aren't even on that Tuesday list that are on the next Saturday list because they are looking for a place to start picking up a major load of delegates. No better place to go than Michigan.

BROWN: Candy, cough for a second. Jeff, go back to you and the thing, the notion you started. A political campaign you ought to be able to say, it seems to me in a respectful way, I'm better than he is.

GREENFIELD: Yes. This just -- what's happened I think is that -- and we the press bear some of this blame for using the word "negative" so indiscriminately. Negative can mean smearing a guy with, you know, vicious personal stuff as happened to John McCain from sources unknown in South Carolina. Or it can mean saying here's why I think I'm better at this job than you and here's why I think your record bears criticism.

In 1972, when Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern were debating, Humphrey basically said to McGovern you want to cut the muscle out of the defense budget. And, in 1988, it was Al Gore in his first presidential run who first raised the Willy Horton issue against Michael Dukakis.

Now maybe that's why they don't want to do it this time. In both those cases the Democrats lost but this notion that you can't say, look, I've got problems of why you should be president, you shouldn't be our nominee, this is just not the way I think politics, even clean politics ought to be run.

BROWN: The advantage in that case has to go to Kerry.

GREENFIELD: Yes and by the way I think one of the reasons why the Dean campaign, apart from the fact they don't have any money right now, is looking down the road is I think they think if John Kerry is out there as the undisputed frontrunner the same things that bothered people about him last summer and fall may come to the surface again, whether he's too elitist or too liberal and we're going to go in retreat for higher ground maybe in Michigan and Wisconsin. Two weeks down the road the rant will be forgotten, which is almost is. I think that's what's going on here. Right now John Kerry, nobody is laying a glove on him except for this, oh he's an insider. I'm an outsider. That's not going to do it.

BROWN: So that's their gamble in much the same way that the Kerry gamble earlier was to throw it all at Iowa and hope it bleeds into New Hampshire.

GREENFIELD: Yes, and by the way it's not crazy.

BROWN: Yes.

GREENFIELD: I mean given the Dean thing, you know, we've picked one percent of the delegates so far, OK.

BROWN: yes. That's a good thing to keep in mind. Candy, we'll give you the last word in all of this. Did anybody from your observation anybody do much good for themselves and conversely I suppose did anyone hurt themselves tonight?

CROWLEY: I don't think anyone hurt themselves. Al Sharpton as usual proved to be very quick on his feet, certainly has grown as a debater, is able to make sharp, humorous points.

He may be a factor down here so he may have done himself some good but largely I think you have to give it to Kerry simply because nobody laid a glove on anybody. In that case you kind of have to give it to the frontrunner if you give it to anybody.

BROWN: Candy, thank you for good, quick work tonight, Candy Crowley, Jeff Greenfield with us on the debate.

As the campaign moves on this next round of states is dovetailing with, of course, the provocative testimony by the former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq David Kay. He told the Senate yesterday, he's been telling lots of people that U.S. intelligence on WMDs was flat out wrong.

He called for an independent investigation to find out why. Several of the Democratic candidates today were calling on CIA Director George Tenet to resign. They did that months ago. They did it again.

Not many people paid attention when they first did it, paying a bit more attention now, including John Kerry, reporting for us tonight CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George Tenet and the issue of intelligence on Iraq before the war have now become a presidential election year issue with the current Democratic frontrunner calling for Tenet to resign.

KERRY: I think there's been a lack of accountability at the CIA. I regret it. I know him personally but that's the nature of responsibility.

ENSOR: On Capitol Hill, Democrats and others are calling for an independent probe into why U.S. intelligence may have gotten it so wrong and what role the administration played.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It's inevitable that there will be an outside commission appointed on an issue of this gravity.

ENSOR: Then there's a Senate Intelligence Committee report due out soon which congressional sources say will likely accuse the CIA of poor judgment in its pre-war analysis that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

And, the 9/11 commission report due in May expected to say the U.S. government could have, maybe should have stopped those terrorist attacks.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We simply didn't make the right investments. We weren't paying enough attention to the warnings.

ENSOR: But George Tenet is a survivor, appointed by Bill Clinton, kept on and trusted by his Republican successor.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've got great confidence in our intelligence community. These are unbelievably hard-working, dedicated people who are doing a great job for America.

ENSOR: At the CIA, officials say Kay is premature suggesting no weapons will be found. A U.S. official says there are millions of pages of documents yet to be translated, hundreds of suspect sites yet to be visited and thousands of Iraqi scientists and former officials yet to be interrogated about what they know.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I don't think one can draw conclusions at this point.

ENSOR: Tenet considered resigning more than a year ago, sources say, but the timing was never right. Now many expect him to stay on through the elections in November to keep up the search for weapons, the hunt for Osama bin Laden and to defend his legacy.

(on camera): The White House spokesman said this week that George Tenet retains the president's full confidence. As for Senator Kerry saying that he should go, one U.S. official said that just makes it even less likely.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Election years can complicate many things, large and small. This one is enormous. The 9/11 commission said this week it needs more time to complete its investigation of the terrorist attack. Its task has been and remains daunting as well as historic the sheer volume of witnesses and documents overwhelming. The deadline is soon, May 27th, and the White House doesn't want to budget on that deadline. Those who want more time, including the 9/11 families, say politics and the upcoming election are jeopardizing the search for truth.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): For more than a year, an independent commission has investigated what the government knew and did not know about the September 11th terrorist plot but they had a late start and months of wrangling with the administration for access to key information. Now they want Congress and the White House to extend their May 27th deadline by two months.

THOMS KEAN, CHAIRMAN 9/11 COMMISSION: To do the best possible report the staff would like another 60 days, so we decided simply, frankly to put politics aside.

BASH: But politics is why the commission's request is meeting resistance. The White House position get the report out as far before election day as possible for fear the findings will give Democrats fresh ammunition against the president.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There was a timetable that was agreed to and so we have been working in a way to help them move forward as quickly as they possibly can.

BASH: House Speaker Dennis Hastert also opposes an extension saying the commission's recommendations on how to avoid another attack should not be delayed. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are reluctant to say no.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: No one wants this to be prematurely stopped. We need to have all the facts that we can.

BASH: Senator John McCain says there's only one way to take the politics out of the process.

MCCAIN: The administration's concern is that this report could come out and be critical of the administration and then be part of the election year mix. I sympathize with that position so let's say their report will come out in January off 2005.

BASH: Family members of 9/11 victims say a longer, more thorough investigation is what they've wanted all along.

KRISTEN BREITWEISER, 9/11 FAMILY STEERING COMMITTEE: To take this into politics in an election year it's really an insult to the dead and it's a dishonoring of the dead and the victims' families have always wanted this investigation pure, transparent and removed from the political process.

BASH: But the commission vice-chair, a Democrat, warns there is a political danger in waiting. In Washington there are always leaks. LEE HAMILTON, VICE-CHAIR, 9/11 COMMISSION: The disadvantage is you have a report that might dribble out and you don't know what parts will dribble out and you could get a very distorted view of what the commission actually decided.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And, Aaron, whether or not they get an extension, commission sources say they are planning another round of public hearings later this winter and they say we'll see some familiar faces, high-ranking officials from administrations past and present but, of course, they want more time to have even more of those public hearings -- Aaron.

BROWN: Has the White House agreed that Dr. Rice testifies, that the vice president testifies, that the president testifies?

BASH: Well, according to commission sources we are told that Condoleezza Rice actually will go and be interviewed privately, in addition, so will the deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

That should happen in the next few weeks and commission sources say that they fully expect they will get some high-ranking officials, including perhaps Condoleezza Rice, perhaps some other cabinet officials.

But, of course, because there is a time crunch they say that they have a lot of work to do to keep gathering information, to keep investigating, to actually write a report and figure out what could be declassified.

So, the public hearings might have to be squeezed if they don't have an extension of the deadline. They have to keep doing their other work.

BROWN: Dana, thank you, Dana Bash at the White House tonight.

On to politics, this time overseas or perhaps more correctly political fallout. Things did not get better today for the BBC in the wake of a devastating report condemning its journalistic practices.

That same report absolved Tony Blair's government of allegations it relied on sexed up charges to make its case on WMDs and the case for war in Iraq, a good week for the prime minister it seems, a very bad one for the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation, reporting for us tonight CNN's Robin Oakley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wednesday, Hutton inquiry clears government, castigates BBC and BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies resigns. Thursday, BBC governors meet in crisis and Director General Greg Dyke decides to go too.

GREG DYKE, FORMER BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL: I am today announcing that I've resigned from the BBC. My position as director general has inevitably been compromised by the criticisms of BBC management in the Hutton report.

OAKLEY: Dyke added that he hoped a second departure would draw a line under the whole affair. So, was the bloodletting going to bring peace with the government and lift the climate of fear from the BBC? One more thing it seems was needed.

Tony Blair's spokesman said he wanted a formal apology too for the BBC report which accused him of lying over Saddam Hussein's weapons, cue for the BBC's acting chairman.

RICHARD RYDER, ACTING BBC CHAIRMAN: On behalf of the BBC, I have no hesitation in apologizing unreservedly for our errors and to the individuals whose reputations were affected by them.

OAKLEY: That sent Tony Blair significantly echoing Mr. Dyke's choice of phrase was all he'd ever wanted.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: But what this does now is it allows us to draw a line and move on, the BBC to get on with their job and the government to get on with ours.

OAKLEY: But if the government sees Hutton as a huge victory that view wasn't much shared by the British public or in the British media. Many papers accused Lord Hutton of a whitewash and the same message in the street.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know where the Hutton report stops and the Iraq question starts (unintelligible).

OAKLEY (on camera): For Tony Blair, the immediate political problems are over but with a growing backlash against Lord Hutton's inquiry report, which analysts say gave the government the benefit of every doubt, opposition parties are keeping up their pressure for another inquiry this time in to how Britain became embroiled in the war against Iraq.

Robin Oakley, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, questions of a conflict of interest being thrown at Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin for a job offer he says he's not even considering, hum.

And later a big pothole in the prosecution of Martha Stewart, a key witness who did not testify today.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are a number of stories that made news around the world today beginning in the Middle East. In Jerusalem, the deadliest attack in four months occurred when a suicide bomber blew up a bus packed with morning rush hour commuters. The blast killed ten, injured 50. The bomber was a policeman from Bethlehem who wrote he wanted to revenge, or avenge, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza. The bus blast was only 50 feet away from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's home, Sharon not home at the time.

And later in the day did attend a ceremony for the remains of three Israeli soldiers returned today as part of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. Under the deal, Israel released two dozen Lebanese and Arab prisoners, another 400 Palestinians were freed to the West Bank and Gaza. Hezbollah also freed an abducted Israeli businessman.

In Afghanistan, an explosion at a weapons cache today killed seven U.S. soldiers, wounded three others. The blast occurred about 60 miles southwest of Kabul, one of the deadliest days for GIs since the United States entered Afghanistan now more than two years ago.

And finally, Guantanamo Bay where three teenagers, young teenagers at that, were sent home after spending more than a year in military detention. The Defense Department said the juveniles no longer posed a threat and were not going to be tried for any crimes. The Defense Department would not reveal their identities or the countries they came from.

The White House said today that actuaries who crunched the numbers for the president's drug prescription plan for Medicare didn't have time to crunch all the data before Congress voted on the bill. It turns out they underestimated the cost by more than 30 percent. The price tag over ten years will be $540 billion not the $400 billion advertised.

This is not the only surprise stemming from the new law. Billy Tauzin, a powerful Republican who helped negotiate the prescription drug benefit has been offered a lucrative new job lobbying for the drug industry.

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Congressman Billy Tauzin played a leading role writing and selling the big new prescription drug plan that passed the Congress in November but now he's choosing his words carefully.

Now it's come out that PhRMA the drug company's powerful trade association has offered Tauzin well over $1 million to be their top lobbyist.

REP. BILLY TAUZIN (R), TENNESSEE: When I decide my future the folks of Louisiana will be the first to know not you and I'll know that in time. Right now I'm just doing my job.

JOHNS: Critics called the drug plan a gift. Watchdog groups are asking whether the drug companies are returning a favor.

CRAIG HOLMAN, PUBLIC CITIZEN: This certainly does not pass the smell test. I mean it reeks of an exchange of personal benefit for Representative Tauzin and direct benefits to the pharmaceutical industry and PHARMA.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: This is abuse of power. This is conflict of interest if it indeed is true.

JOHNS: Tauzin denies any impropriety. His spokesman says the job discussions began within the last week to ten days and that no one approached Tauzin during the Medicare debate. Democrats want to know when did the job talks start.

TAUZIN: I'm not personally discussing this with anybody.

JOHNS: The spokesman says Tauzin has twice been hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer in recent weeks and wants a lower stress job. Experts say taking a job with PhRMA is perfectly legal as long as Tauzin doesn't lobby the Congress for one year.

(on camera): PhRMA has declined to talk specifics about the offer. So far, Tauzin has not indicated whether he plans to accept it.

Joe Johns, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A couple of other stories that made news around the country today starting in Massachusetts where Terry Lee Sampson, a carjacker who murdered three men in a weeklong crime spree was sentenced to death by a federal judge today, the first federal death sentence handed down in the state in three decades. There is no state death penalty in Massachusetts.

In Florida on the eve of his 17th birthday, Lionel Tate pleaded guilty to second degree murder today, the final step in a deal that freed him from prison this week. The teenager, you'll recall, was sentenced to life without parole three years ago for killing a girl when he was 12. His conviction was overturned.

And Lloyd Pete Bucher of the USS Pueblo, the spy ship, had died. He was 76. The Pueblo, you'll recall, was monitoring communist ship movements, intercepting messages when it was captured by the North Koreans in 1968. The captain helped his crew survive months of brutal captivity. They nearly faced a court martial. In 1989 the Pentagon awarded him and his crew prisoner of war medals.

Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, the Martha Stewart case and the key witness who did not testify, the details when we come back.

And later tonight a story of freedom from sexual slavery, we'll be joined by Nick Kristof of the "New York Times" about his purchase of two slaves and what happened when he set them free.

That's coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: This was supposed to have been an important and juicy day at the obstruction of justice trial of Martha Stewart. The former assistant to her broker, the broker who is on trial with her, was to take the stand and tell all he knew about her plan, their plan to sell ImClone shares. A last-minute surprise delayed everything.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's financial correspondent, Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A forced shakeup in the prosecution's batting order against Martha Stewart and her co- defendant and stockbroker Peter Bacanovic. Star government witness government witness Douglas Faneuil, assistant to Bacanovic, may have to wait until next Thursday to testify.

Late last night prosecutors sent defense attorneys an FBI report of an interview with Faneuil's first attorney, a gentleman in his 80s who could not recall if it had been Bacanovic or Sam Waksal, former CEO of ImClone, who instructed Faneuil to pass information about ImClone to Martha Stewart.

The government alleges Stewart sold her shares after Bacanovic ordered Faneuil to share the tip that Waksal was trying to dump his stock. It's a story that Faneuil is expected to tell on the stand.

BENJAMIN BRAFMAN, ATTORNEY: If there is a reasonable doubt as to whether he was the source or not, the government's case against Bacanovic can be undermined just by that little piece of information.

CHERNOFF: Bacanovic's attorney, Richard Strassberg, says, "There is some chutzpah with giving us the documents last night at 10: 15."

Judge Cedarbaum said she found it troubling and granted Strassberg a week to investigate, a delay that would force the government to switch the order of its witnesses.

After court, Stewart's attorney was tight-lipped.

ROBERT MORVILLO, MARTHA STEWART'S ATTORNEY: It's not a big deal. I'm not going to be in a position to comment on what happens in the courtroom other than in the courtroom.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: Once Faneuil does take the stand, he's going to face a blistering cross-examination, as defense attorneys need to damage his credibility. They've already called him a liar in open court and they plan to ask him about possible drug use -- Aaron.

BROWN: Allan, thank you.

We're joined tonight to talk about all of this by John Coffee. He is the director of the Center of Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School.

It's good to have you with us.

One slightly off-point question, I fear. Why is someone's conversation with their lawyer in play at all? Why isn't that privileged?

JOHN COFFEE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Because the privilege has been waived. Mr. Faneuil has been cooperating with the government, telling them everything he knew. And the judge ruled on Monday that the attorney-client privilege has been waived by Mr. Faneuil.

BROWN: OK. But I was paying attention. Get a point for that.

COFFEE: OK.

BROWN: How big a deal do you think this is?

COFFEE: It's a pothole. It's not yet a roadblock. What we don't know at this point is whether the confusion is Mr. Faneuil, whether he made an inconsistent statement that suggested he wasn't sure and didn't recall who told him.

BROWN: In which case it's a pretty big deal.

COFFEE: This would be a big deal.

Or whether it's an 82-year-old lawyer who didn't keep accurate notes and can't seem to have kept a clear memory of what he heard from his client.

BROWN: Either way -- and maybe we'll never know which way it was. But, either way, is there -- if all you're going for here is the benefit of the doubt, a little bit of doubt here -- you just need one juror to doubt -- that's all will you need -- is this big enough to create that?

COFFEE: I don't think it creates a doubt on what will be the critical issue.

This may absolve Mr. Bacanovic of the charge that he was the person who called Faneuil and told Faneuil to call Stewart.

BROWN: Right.

COFFEE: But the real core of this trial is whether or not Stewart and Bacanovic arranged this fabricated story over a $60 stop- loss order and came in and told the government this concocted story. That's what the jury is going to have to ultimately decide is truth or false.

If they think that's a lie, then the two defendants will be convicted.

BROWN: Is there more to the government's case than sort of he said/she said/they said?

COFFEE: Yes, I think the government is going to try to corroborate their story, which Mr. Faneuil will tell, that this was all a made-up, fabricated story, with suspicious behavior that both Bacanovic and Stewart allegedly engaged in.

Martha Stewart appears to have altered the telephone logs of her secretary. That's an unusual thing for a chief executive officer to do, to go and play around with your secretary's telephone logs. Mr. Bacanovic is alleged to have altered Merrill Lynch's records to add in an after-the-fact reference to the stop-loss order. Both of those events, if the jury believes them, look suspicious and seem to suggest that there was a cover-up in progress.

BROWN: Without getting precisely into the question of whether Ms. Stewart is guilty or innocent, that's -- I think a lot of her supporters say, this whole thing is phony and there's nothing there.

Is there -- just, is there enough there, there to have proceeded this way enough to dispel the notion that if it were somebody Stewart, someone other than Martha Stewart, we wouldn't be going through this exercise at all?

COFFEE: Well, yes and no.

I think the government is always entitled to say anyone who comes into the U.S. attorney's office and tells them what they believe is a fabricated story and lies to them is someone they can take to trial, because you're obstructing a serious investigation. However, the securities fraud charge here has bothered lots of lawyers, because it essentially says, in saying that you're innocent, in saying you didn't do this crime, you were in effect manipulating the securities markets.

That's pushing the envelope quite far. And, on that part of the case, this does look a little bit like post-Enron jurisprudence, where we're interpreting the law very strictly against defendants.

But in the core part of the case, the simple part of the case, was she lying, that's going to be for the jury to decide.

BROWN: Well, we hope they get there eventually.

Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming in, sir, very much.

Still to come on the program, morning papers, of course, at the end, as always.

Up next, the dangers from the latest computer virus, what it does, how can you avoid it, if you're wise.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a warning. Beware, for the 100th time, of e- mails with attachments from people you don't know. It also turns out that you need to beware of e-mail with attachments from people you do know. Both could contain the latest virus, Mydoom, which is a nasty little thing attacking millions of computers and Web sites, some as far away as China and one really, really close to home.

Here's CNN's Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mydoom begin as a seemingly innocent e-mail that looks like an official error message. It might even appear to come from someone you know.

Clicking on the e-mail's attachment causes the virus to worm its way through your hard drive, searching for stored e-mail addresses in order to keep sending itself out. It then opens an electronic back door on your computer, allowing a hacker to return over the Internet later to steal personal information.

STEPHEN TRILLING, SYMANTEC CORP.: It's a little bit like somebody breaking in through the front door of your house. You come home, notice your front door lock has been opened, but you don't notice that the person on their way out left a window open in the basement allowing them to come back a week later without you realizing it.

SIEBERG: The virus is designed to target the Web site of a Utah- based company called the SCO Group. You can think of it as an army of computer slaves all set to attack this Sunday.

(on camera): The SCO Group is battling IBM in court over copyright issues relating to the operating system that is known as Linux. Now, that being said, there's no evidence yet that a Linux supporter is behind the worm.

DARL MCBRIDE, CEO, SCO GROUP: In an attempt to get us from winning through the court system, there appears to be an approach to intimidate us, to harass us, typical kinds of things you see with terrorists. In this case, we're dealing not with actual terrorists, but with cyber-terrorists.

SIEBERG (voice-over): The SCO Group is serious about catching whomever spawned the worm, offering a $250,000 bounty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: And at least one copycat version of the Mydoom virus is already circulating on the Internet. This one targets both the SCO Group and Microsoft's Web site. So, Microsoft is now offering a $250,000 reward as well. Federal authorities are investigating both cases, but, so far, no arrests have been made -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let's say, for example, just hypothetically, that one's spouse had this virus on her computer, hypothetically. How would she or anyone else get rid of that?

SIEBERG: Well, Aaron, in that particular hypothetical case...

BROWN: Right. It's just all hypothetical. SIEBERG: All hypothetical here.

In that particular case, or anyone's case, for that matter, the first thing is trace your Internet activity back over the last few days. Try and remember if you've clicked on something that might resemble this particular attachment. Once you do, you're going to need to scan your computer and see if that file exists. Then you need to go through the process of removing it.

Now, a lot of anti-virus companies make products available that do this automatically. In some cases, you have to do it manually and sort of poke around in your computer and try and remove it. But it can be a tricky process, but it can be done.

BROWN: That depends on by whom.

Thank you very much.

(LAUGHTER)

SIEBERG: Right.

BROWN: I think.

A quick look at some of the business stories that made news today. This is our "Moneyline Roundup," beginning with mad cow and the Bush administration's plan for a national cattle identification program. The proposal calls for $33 million to be spent to develop an identification system for the nation's 96 million cattle. Another $27 million -- a lot of numbers in this "Moneyline" thing -- would be spent on other programs to combat the spread of the disease.

For that and $60 million more, you could get one-seventh of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I get this one. Baseball owners today approved the sale of the team by the News Corp. to a Boston real estate developer, sale price, $430 million.

Huge moneymaking partnership between Disney and Pixar, which made movies like "Toy Story," will be no more, after their current deal expires in two years. Important talks broke off today. The five movies made under the partnership have earned more than $2.5 billion at the box office. Disney shares, as you might imagine, were down in after-hours trading.

Here's the rest of the market. Blue chips on the Dow rose after a choppy day. Tech stocks on the Nasdaq fell. And the S&P was up a skosh, a financial term, that.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an old friend of this program and his remarkable story, Nicholas Kristof of "The New York Times" and how he bought and freed two sex slaves and what happened to them.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: It is a fine line that journalists walk, getting close enough to a story, but not too close, earning the trust of your sources, but maintaining a professional distance. We're not supposed to become part of the story, which brings us to Nicholas Kristof of "The New York Times" and two young girls in Cambodian he met while reporting on the sex slave trade, an ugly, horrible story, and a chance to change its outcome for these two young girls.

We're pleased to have Nick with us, as we always are, to talk about the columns that he wrote for "The Times" over the last week.

Did you set out to do this story or did it find you?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I set out, in a sense, to do it, because I thought that the main moral challenge we face in this century is to address the plight of women in the Third World. And I think sex trafficking is a big part of that. And I had been to Cambodian before, had been horrified by what I'd seen.

BROWN: It is particularly horrible in Cambodia, isn't it?

KRISTOF: More than anywhere else I had seen.

I had gone there in 1996 and had not been able to shake the thought of 13- and 15-year-old girls whom I had seen who were really slaves, in a way that we think has been consigned to history.

BROWN: And sometimes, or maybe even often, sold into this by their families.

KRISTOF: Often by their parents, and often by their mothers.

And that was one thing that I really wanted to find, to talk to some of the parents who had done this. I didn't. I did talk to the girls. And for a 13-year-old girl to deal with having her own mother sell her is pretty excruciating.

BROWN: Yes. You find these two kids, these two children, and you make a decision.

KRISTOF: Which is to purchase their freedom.

It's not very journalistic. And yet, you know, here is -- one of the girls I met, the first one, she was stuck in the brothel for a debt of $150. And if she could pay that, if I could pay that, then she would be able to go back to her village and so on. She desperately wanted to go. The other one was stuck for $203. And, you know, what could I do?

BROWN: So, for 300 bucks, give or take, you bought these two girls out of slavery, and, in fact, got receipts to prove it.

KRISTOF: That's right. That's right.

It's -- yes. I mean, I don't think that buying the sex slaves is a solution to the problem. BROWN: Sure.

KRISTOF: Ultimately, it raises the market price for them and creates incentives to do that elsewhere.

BROWN: Right.

KRISTOF: On the other hand, it did transform the lives of these two individuals.

BROWN: Do you know that?

KRISTOF: No. And it will be very interesting to see how this goes.

I took them back to their villages. The first one, Srey Neth, was -- I set her up having a little grocery store in her village to make money as an alternative. The other one, Srey Mom, I set her up selling meat in the village. Srey Neth is still there with the grocery store. Unfortunately, Srey Mom, a few days, later disappeared.

BROWN: Why? Do you know?

KRISTOF: She had a blowup with her parents.

BROWN: She went back to the brothel.

KRISTOF: She went back to the brothel. She went back to the brothel. And she's there now.

And, you know, when I left Srey Mom in that village, it was so happy. Everybody was crying. They thought she was dead. And I've almost never been happier as a journalist at what I've done. And then, just a few days later, to hear from my translator that she had left and gone back to the brothel was just horrifying.

BROWN: It breaks your heart.

KRISTOF: It breaks your heart to have a kid make these decisions. But I think there aren't any fairy tale endings in this business. And it's more realistic, in that sense.

BROWN: Just one question on the journalism. You are a columnist for "The Times." You are not a reporter for "The Times," as such. Does that make a difference in how your bosses and our viewers and your readers ought to see what you did?

KRISTOF: I think it does.

The notion of entering a story, of paying money for a human being is obviously something that, you know, isn't customary journalistic practice. Columnists have more license to do things. And I think, you know, in that spirit, it made more sense. But, fundamentally, it made a huge difference for these two people. And I think especially for one, it has saved her life from dying of AIDS, stuck in a brothel. BROWN: Good for you.

KRISTOF: Thank you.

BROWN: Good to see you..

KRISTOF: Good to be back.

BROWN: Thank you.

Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: That thing hasn't made me laugh in a while.

Time to check morning papers from around the country. And I think they are around the country today. I don't see even a Canadian one in there.

If you're traveling, you might run into this under your hotel room doorstep. Doorstep? I'm not sure that's right. "USA Today" leads with the Super Bowl, with its official Super Bowl guide. "What it takes to win. Who gets a ticket? Not Joe fan. Celebs, corporate types land most of Super Bowl's pricey seats." But you could probably go and get one in the cheap seats with me. "Candidates Feel Cash Crunch" is their political story on the front page of "USA Today," the tonight's newspaper. It's also a great. It's a fun read, too.

"The Miami Herald." A couple good ones on the front page, I think. "Day of Fear and Freedom," two stories out of the Middle East, the horrible suicide bombing and the release of prisoners, a rather large prisoner release. Down at the bottom, "An Unblinking Tate Victim Hears Pleas of His Victim's Mother," as that case finally comes to an end, and a sad case all around.

"The Oregonian." Man, these guys turn this around really quickly out on the West Coast. "Dean Takes Issue With Kerry's Success in The Senate" is how they led the debate. "The former Vermont governor tries to reclaim his momentum with criticism of front-runner in debate in South Carolina." "The Oregonian" out of Portland, Oregon.

Pretty straightforward headline in tomorrow's "Boston Herald." "Hang Him. Judge: Noose or Needle for Killer Sampson." We told you about this story a little bit earlier in the program.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch" leads with this claim. "Bin Laden Will Be Caught Soon, Military Says, But Pakistan Says U.S. Troops Can't Cross Border to Hunt Him." Somebody in the Pentagon said today that they thought they'd get him within a year.

And, quickly, "The Chicago Sun-Times." I'm not sure what that picture is, but it's pretty cool. And the weather tomorrow is not. Well, actually, it's quite cool. "Putrid" is the weather word, four degrees. Yikes.

We'll wrap up the day in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Before we leave you, a quick recap of our top story tonight.

The seven Democratic candidates faced off in South Carolina, the debate important because of where it was, the South, where whoever wins the Democratic nomination will have to compete. Tonight, they just tried to connect, just five days until next Tuesday's seven states, including South Carolina.

Tomorrow, right here on this program, the uncanny connection between the Super Bowl and presidential politics. Jeff Greenfield reports on that -- all the day's news and other good stuff right here on NEWSNIGHT tomorrow.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next for most of you.

We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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