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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bush Calls for End to 527 Activity; Standoff in Najaf Continues; A Look at New Overtime Regulations

Aired August 23, 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.
At some point it has to be about the truth. Veterans groups who have launched attacks against John Kerry have every right to claim he is not fit to lead. They can claim he's a jerk.

They can claim he dishonored fellow soldiers after the war. That is the stuff of opinion and they, like everyone else, are entitled to have their own opinions and entitled to have them respectfully heard.

But, as the late Senator Daniel Moynihan said, you are not entitled to your own facts and facts are where this whole messy affair gets dicey for those who launched the attack.

In my view, we've all been a bit slow in our business to look at the facts, enjoying the tussle over the story a bit too much. But "The Washington Post," "The New York Times," Knight Ridder and perhaps others have done a lot of looking at the facts and those facts raise a lot of questions about the accuracy of the attacks. The battle over Vietnam again tops the program and begins the whip.

And the whip begins in Crawford, Texas where CNN's Jill Dougherty starts us off with a headline -- Jill.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Bush says he wants an end to all of those attack ads and a key group responsible for one of those ads says, however, they have no intention of stopping -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jill, thank you.

Onto the political price of all of this what each candidate stands to gain or lose, Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield working on that, so Jeff a headline tonight.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Aaron, they talk about the fog of war on the battleground. In politics there's a fog of war not just about the truth but at who's been injured and who might be injured by this friendly fire, unfriendly fire or both. We'll see in a moment -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you.

Finally, Iraq, an especially nasty day in Najaf where the toll from the three-week standoff is mounting, CNN's John Vause with the watch in Baghdad, so John a headline please.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, for the third night, U.S. warplanes have been in action over Najaf. On the ground, U.S. tanks, troops and snipers have moved closer to the Imam Ali Mosque. Inside the shrine, it appears that Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters have dwindled in number but elsewhere across Iraq there appears to be no shortage of young, really young recruits for his Mehdi militia.

BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also on the program tonight, new overtime regulations, are they intended to strength the overtime rules as the administration says or do they weaken your opportunity for time and a half?

Also, will the CIA go MIA under a new plan to overhaul the intelligence community? Could this be the final chapter of America's infamous spy agency?

And later, the early editions are on the press, your morning papers at the end of the hour, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin once again tonight with the war of words over a war that ended nearly three decades ago. For the last five days the Kerry campaign has been running ads addressing not the economy or Iraq but a pair of attack ads slamming his actions during and after his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Yesterday, former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole joined the dog pile and the number of vets came forward in support of Senator Kerry. Today, the president weighed in.

We have several reports tonight beginning first in Texas with CNN's Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY (voice-over): President Bush at his ranch with top officials, discussed national security but fielding questions from reporters the subject turned once again to those TV attack ads, specifically one funded by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That means that ad, every other ad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

BUSH: Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527s. I can't be more plain about it and I wish, I hope my opponent joins me in saying, condemning these activities of the 527s. I think they're bad for the system.

DOUGHERTY: The Kerry campaign has challenged the president to condemn the swift boat ads. He didn't do it by name but this was the first time Mr. Bush used the words "that ad." The White House downplayed the remark claiming no change in the president's opposition to all soft money attack ads.

Mr. Bush was asked his opinion on intelligence reform and a proposal by Senator Pat Roberts to dismantle the CIA. The president was non-committal.

BUSH: I haven't seen his proposal. He was on TV yesterday morning talking about his ideas and I'm sure he's going to send it over to us to take a look at it. There's a lot of ideas moving around.

DOUGHERTY: Mr. Bush also fielded a question on skyrocketing oil prices and what he plans to do about them. Here the president got some welcome news from Russian President Vladimir Putin who told him by phone Russian oil companies are increasing production and exports and will continue to do so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY: So, the Kerry campaign jumped all over those comments by President Bush. The Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards saying he didn't go far enough and the Swift Boat Veterans for Peace (sic) saying that they have no intention of stopping and that they will continue to try to get their message out to the American people -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jill, in however long that session was between the president and the reporters today how much of the time was taken up by trying to get his reaction to the swift boat ad issue?

DOUGHERTY: Well, there was a bit. You'd have to say there were a number of issues that came up but there was specifically one question that for the first time really asked the president directly, putting a name to that ad, and that is where the president came in with those two words.

Now, the White House, again, says it's no change in policy. He has been saying this all along. He wants all of the ads stopped. But you'd have to say there was a bit of movement there with those two words.

BROWN: Thank you, Jill. Welcome too, Jill Dougherty in Texas tonight.

As Jill mentioned, Senator Kerry had no public comment on the president's remarks today but his running mate did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today, George Bush faced his moment of truth and he failed. He failed to condemn the specific attacks on John Kerry's military record. We didn't need to hear a politician's answer but unfortunately that's what we got. That's what the American people got today.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: Well, what they also didn't get and won't get from either side is an answer to the question that tends to get lost in all the back and forth, namely what are the facts here, not necessarily the whole gospel truth, given that memories fade and records don't tell an entire story but the facts as best we know them and nothing more. Here are a few facts that seem to matter most.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The available official record is unambiguous. John Kerry was a war hero. The citation that accompanies his bronze star speaks of his "professionalism, great personal courage under fire and complete dedication to duty." If you go by some of the witnesses to those events, like the young Special Forces soldier Kerry pulled from the river, there is no argument.

JIM RASSMANN, SERVED WITH KERRY IN VIETNAM: All these rounds kept coming in and John ran up, dropped down on his hands and knees and pulled me over and had he not come out on that bow like that I'd be dead.

BROWN: But others, as you now know, testify to a different John Kerry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Kerry has not been honest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he lacks the capacity to lead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the chips were down you could not count on John Kerry.

BROWN: Larry Thurlow, a fellow swift boat skipper back in '68, has claimed there was no enemy fire. There was no danger and there were no heroic actions by John Kerry.

LARRY THURLOW, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: I distinctly remember we weren't under fire from either bank.

BROWN: But Thurlow also received a bronze star for the same battle and his citation mentions "enemy bullets flying around him." When confronted with this, Thurlow insists it is not accurate and that Kerry wrote up the after action report but there are no documents, none that indicate John Kerry wrote that report.

George Elliott now criticizes Kerry for not being honest but, according to "The New York Times" while he was Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam gave him excellent ratings including, "not exceeded in moral courage."

In '96, Elliott and Adrian Lonsdale flew to Boston to appear with Kerry then in a tough reelection race. Lonsdale today quoted as saying Kerry is unfit to lead then called him among the finest of those swift boat drivers.

There are more documents, John Kerry's personal diaries for one, that might shed more light on all of this but they have not been released because the Kerry campaign says there is an exclusivity agreement with his biographer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That is not a fact check on every one of the allegations but the pattern is generally the same. The available public record supports by and large what the Senator says but there is another public record that is more complicated for the Democratic nominee and perhaps even more dangerous given that the country is currently at war.

That is the record of statements Kerry made when he returned from Vietnam and became a leader in the antiwar movement. Those comments, some of which Mr. Kerry now acknowledges were over the top, are the next phase in the swift boat attack.

Here's CNN's Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: John Kerry is running for president as a war hero but Kerry was also an antiwar hero. This week his critics are putting out a new ad attacking not his war record but his antiwar record.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam in the prison camps took torture (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It demoralized us.

SCHNEIDER: Kerry was actually quoting other veterans' reports of wartime atrocities but he endorsed those accusations at the time and he still does.

KERRY: All I know is that it happened as a matter of course.

SCHNEIDER: Kerry's defenders call his antiwar testimony an act of courage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew by this time that the war was a mistake. John was the one with the courage to come out and say it.

SCHNEIDER: But it remains a source of deep resentment to other veterans.

DAVID WALLACE, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: He told everyone I knew and everyone I'd ever know that I and my comrades had committed unspeakable atrocities, that we tortured people, raped women, burned villages without any reason.

SCHNEIDER: Kerry insists he was stating well documented facts that have been backed up by subsequent investigations. He has since expressed regret that his words were "a little bit over the top."

KERRY: I regret any feeling that anybody had that I somehow didn't embrace the quality of the service.

SCHNEIDER: And he claims he never blamed the soldiers.

KERRY: I asked where's the leadership of the country? I asked where the leaders were not the soldiers because it was the leaders in Washington who left the soldiers.

SCHNEIDER (on camera): Kerry believed then and now that he could criticize the mission without criticizing the troops, an issue that has emerged again in the Iraq debate, one side insisting the mission should be criticized, the other saying you can't do that without undermining the troops, new election, old debate.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Kate Zernike has been chasing that story for "The New York Times." She worked at "The Boston Globe" before that and covered the Senator then as well. It's nice to see you. The one issue the Senator has some problems on I think in this is Cambodia, fair?

KATE ZERNIKE, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Right. Right.

BROWN: he says he was there on Christmas and the record doesn't seem to support that.

ZERNIKE: No. In fact, if you look in "Tour of Duty" by Douglas Brinkley, which is his biography, or a biography of the Senator, he's somewhere else on December 25th, on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.

Brinkley himself says there's some question Kerry may have been in Cambodia later. These vets are saying Kerry was never in Cambodia and that, if you tried to go there, there were huge signs on the part of the river saying "do not enter."

BROWN: Now, I want to go back to some of the things you reported last week. When you talk, when you say to some of the swift boat guys, "You said this in '96" or "You said this last year and now you're saying something completely different," how do they respond?

ZERNIKE: What they said was, you know, in '96 we didn't know this about John Kerry. Nobody told us this about John Kerry. In 1969, when we wrote this the first time we didn't know this about John Kerry.

What happened was these veterans got together. This admiral called them all and said, hey, you know, "Have you read this biography? This is really damning." They all got together in this meeting and I think what happened is something, something akin to a game of telephone, where you -- where one person says something and someone else says, "Yes, that's sort of like what I heard too," and "Oh, yes, and I heard it."

The next thing you know they've got this case against John Kerry. I think a lot of them are now -- there were some in the Portland "Oregonian" over the weekend saying, "Well, I have to admit I have no personal knowledge of this" even though this is a man who signed an affidavit saying that John Kerry had a self-inflicted wound for his first purple heart.

BROWN: This may be farther than you want to go. Is there a factual case on the question of his service in Vietnam, not the antiwar stuff after, separate issue, is it crumbling?

ZERNIKE: Is the record crumbling?

BROWN: Is there -- are their accusations crumbling under the weight of the evidence?

ZERNIKE: I think their accusations don't hold up. The one thing, as you mentioned, and this is the thing that they are emphasizing now as this other stuff -- as there have been so many questions about their initial allegations, is Cambodia.

But on a question of did John Kerry deserve these three medals, was there accurate documentation for these medals, the Navy record is very clear. The eyewitnesses are very clear and some of these men's statements from 30 years ago are very clear that John Kerry did deserve these medals. So, I think on that point they're having a hard time proving their case.

BROWN: Is there -- can you say that the Bush campaign is somehow connected to these ads or is it much more tangential than that?

ZERNIKE: I think it's much more tangential. What we see is that a lot of people who have been long associated with the Bush family, with Carl Rove who is President Bush's chief political strategist, a lot of these people who were involved in this ad, the people who gave most of the money, someone -- Bob Perry, who is a big donor in Texas politics, a big Bush donor, they're the same people who are now funding the swift boats ads.

The political consultant who's working with the swift boats is someone who coached George H.W. Bush for his debate against Gerri Ferraro in '84, so there are a lot of connections. I think they are probably more -- you'd probably call them circumstantial connections.

BROWN: But there's no direct evidence?

ZERNIKE: No. There's nothing to say, and I think this is what everyone's looking for, something to say President Bush or Carl Rove told the swift boats to go out and say this. We haven't seen that so far.

BROWN: Where are you going with this, do you know? Do you know where the story is going?

ZERNIKE: I think -- I think the story moving forward is what is the connection there? I mean I think it's interesting today that Bush came out and talked about this and had to defend himself about whether there was a connection. I also think it's interesting that the Bush campaign seems to at the same time want to keep this alive and say that they want it to go away.

BROWN: Good to have you with the program. Nice work on that.

ZERNIKE: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

Ahead on the program caught in the crossfire, children on the frontlines in the battle for Najaf.

And later, the new poor, a record number of Americans lining up at food banks, their story too as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the last three days, seven Americans have died in Iraq and, according to a report in today's edition of "USA Today," it hasn't gotten much safer there for coalition forces since the political handover earlier this summer. Attacks are averaging 49 a day over the last two months.

Meantime in Najaf, some of the fiercest fighting in the three- week standoff with followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, American forces pounding sections of the old city tonight pushing closer to the Imam Ali shrine now just a few hundred yards away.

How many militants they are facing no one is certain, no question, however, in Najaf and on the streets of Sadr City that many are young and indeed some are very, very young, from Baghdad for us CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE (voice-over): With a grenade in one hand and a brand new AK-47 in the other, Karrar Nouri is a volunteer in Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. He's just ten years old.

KARRAR NOURI, CHILD SOLDIER (through translator): I am a guard with the Mehdi Army against the Americans.

VAUSE: He's spending school vacation manning a checkpoint in Sadr City, a sprawling slum in Baghdad and stronghold for the rebellious cleric. The boy's father says Karrar has taken part in the fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

FALAN NOURI, KARRAR'S FATHER (through translator): I taught him how to shoot. He can now shoot by himself.

VAUSE: He's not the only boy with a gun in Sadr City. There are many others, most in their teens, but a few are younger than Karrar. The U.S. military says they've been fired on by boys. They return with warning shots to try and scare them off.

CAPT JOHN MERIDITH, U.S. ARMY: Just the fact that they would resort to those kind of tactics kind of tells you who we're fighting. VAUSE: The Iraqi government says just two children have been killed, 20 wounded in Sadr City during the recent outbreak of violence. No one knows how many were actually fighting and how many were caught in the crossfire.

But local doctors say the number is much higher on the day we spoke with Dr. Adel Mezher he says eight bodies were brought to his hospital, six of them children.

DR. ADEL MEZHER, SADR CITY HOSPITAL (through translator): They were all civilians. Most died inside their homes killed by mortars and rockets. We don't know who fired at them.

VAUSE: Here the so-called Mehdi Army holds almost mythical status.

ABU ZAHRA, BAGHDAD UNIVERSITY (through translator): The Mehdi Army is composed of the orphans of those who were murdered in the prisons of Saddam Hussein. They now chant "We are the Mehdi Army." This is the pride for us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Much of Muqtada al-Sadr's support is the legacy of his late father, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, admired and respected for his opposition to Saddam Hussein who was shot dead five years ago.

And it seems it's that family reputation for defiance which is now inspiring a new young generation of the Mehdi Army, this time its defiance of the U.S. and the Iraqi government -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's a picture in that piece, as you know, you put it together, of that boy holding that gun when he looks every bit of ten and not a day older than that. Do you have any sense that he's actually been fighting or is it at least possible that that's a -- that that was a kind of, I don't know, posed moment?

VAUSE: Yes. We asked ourselves this question over and over and over yesterday when we were putting that story together. We don't know. We didn't see him. We weren't there. It's a dangerous place to go to Sadr City. We didn't stay long.

But we can only believe what his father was telling us, what he was telling us and what the U.S. has also been telling us as well that young boys, really, really, really young boys are sent out in the streets with guns and with grenades and they shoot at the U.S. soldiers and then they run away and the U.S. is in a quandary here.

They can't kill these boys so they try and scare them off with these warning shots but it does happen. Whether or not that boy that we spoke to, Karrar, is in fact involved in the shooting we cannot be 100 percent sure. We can only go by what he says and what his father and what his friends say and that is, yes, he has been.

BROWN: John, thank you, John Vause in Baghdad. Thank you very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, in the spy world the CIA is often ahead of the class. Now in the battle to reform intelligence, the agency could go missing in action. At least there's a plan out there for that.

Also, new overtime rules, what do they mean and how will they impact your bottom line? We'll take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Given both the attack on 9/11 and the intelligence failures leading to the war with Iraq, it seems certain that the country's intelligence system will get a going over and an overhaul.

But few would have expected the massive changes proposed by Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He proposes not a simple reorganization but essentially dismantling of the CIA. You could hardly find a more radical solution.

Here's our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Serving CIA officials are calling the plan "reckless" and predicting it would hurt national security. One former agency official predicts it would also hurt morale.

JACK DEVINE, FORMER SENIOR CIA OFFICIAL: It is going to be very demoralizing. We are going to lose people. We are going to not have some of the best and brightest apply to us. It's like taking the Marine Corps and saying now we're going to call you something else. It is not a trivial event and I caution those to do this to think long and hard about the full implications of it.

ENSOR: Former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was even tougher on the proposal calling it "yet another episode in the mad rush to rearrange wiring diagrams in an attempt to be seen as doing something. It is time" Tenet said, "for someone to say, "Stop!"

But Roberts says he wanted to lay down a marker, a plan to enact the proposals of the 9/11 Commission. The plan would fold the other big intelligence agencies under a national intelligence director, taking the huge National Security Agency and others out from under the Pentagon's wing in terms of budget and personnel.

Much depends on the view of President Bush. Standing next to a less-than-enthusiastic Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, he was non- committal.

BUSH: Senator Roberts is a good, thoughtful guy. He came up with an idea and we'll look at it. We'll take a look at it and determine, you know, whether or not it works or not.

ENSOR (on camera): Hardly a ringing endorsement but Roberts hopes to build a coalition for the kind of dramatic change he's proposing starting with the families of 9/11 victims. Interestingly, his proposal got a quick positive comment too from the Kerry campaign.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined from Los Angeles now by Amy Zegart, a political scientist, a professor at UCLA's School of Public Affairs and the author of "Flawed by Design," a look at the CIA and the intelligence community of which she has studied and written extensively. We're glad to have her with us.

You've called for bold and I think this is bold, is it not?

AMY ZEGART, UCLA SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS: It's absolutely bold. It's one of the boldest proposals for reform that we've seen in the 57 years of the intelligence community.

BROWN: If you started with a blank piece of paper and you drew up America's intelligence needs, would it look like what Senator Roberts is proposing?

ZEGART: It would look a lot like it. I think it's -- it's a great analogy that you use. I think one of the critical differences between Senator Roberts' proposal and the 9/11 Commission is the 9/11 Commission essentially said, "Look at the pieces we have here. How can we make these work better?" Senator Roberts' proposal actually takes out that blank sheet of paper and says, "How could we actually redesign the entire intelligence system to work better?"

BROWN: And what is it, you know, some of this stuff gets pretty arcane but what is it in what the Senator has proposed that in your view makes it better?

ZEGART: I think there are three major differences that make it better than, for example, the 9/11 Commission proposal. The first is that the national intelligence director has even more power in Senator Roberts' proposal than in the 9/11 Commission.

Now, bear in mind that the details of this proposal of Senator Roberts' proposal are not widely known but my understanding is the national intelligence director would have hiring and firing power that goes far deeper in agencies that now reside in the Pentagon, like the National Security Agency.

The second change is, as you mentioned, dismantling the CIA, separating in particular the clandestine side of the CIA from the analytic side of the CIA.

But there's a third change. And I think it is harder to see and equally important. And that's Senator Roberts' proposal tries to get at cultural changes inside the community. The 9/11 Commission identified critical cultural pathologies in our intelligence system, but really put off proposals for solving them and put them in the hands of the national intelligence director.

Senator Roberts' proposal actually goes much farther than that. For example, you'll notice the language refers to a national intelligence service. Dismantling the CIA is part of creating that one-team approach. And there are also requirements in this proposal to, for example, require the rotation of intelligence officials to different agencies outside their own, which is crucial for getting them to trust and understand each other and share information better.

BROWN: I want to try to get a couple more in.

When you talk about culture here, are you saying that one of the problems is that, in some ways, intelligence in the country is too balkanized. You've got a group over here that is beholden to itself, presumably to everyone else, too, but doesn't necessarily talk to the group over here? Is that what you mean?

ZEGART: Absolutely.

BROWN: OK.

ZEGART: I say that the 11th commandment in intelligence is, thou shalt not share.

BROWN: And why is it helpful to separate the information gathering from the analysis of that information?

ZEGART: Well, interestingly, if you go back and look at the history of the CIA, it was never supposed to be a collection agency to begin with. It was only supposed to be, as it name suggests, a central intelligence agency, to bring together different pieces of information and analyze them.

And so we've had these two sides of the CIA coexisting in a kind of schizophrenic way for these past 50-some-odd years. And so it didn't make a lot of sense to begin with. And so it makes some sense to actually separate those functions, so you have the analytic horsepower in one place.

BROWN: And since you're a political scientist, we can ask this. Given all the little fiefdoms there in Washington, the Pentagon, the CIA, this group, that group, what are the chances you think that anything this dramatic, this radical will become law?

ZEGART: Well, I think history shows that the opportunities for intelligence reform are very few and fleeting. It is no coincidence that we've had the same system for 57 years with no overhaul. And there have been more than 40 studies suggesting reform.

I think there could be a perfect storm here, a perfect storm that favors intelligence reform. And the greatest danger of all is that we get caught up in debating the details of these proposals and end up with a system that is essentially the same flawed structure that we've lived with for quite some time now. BROWN: Professor, good to see you. Thank you.

ZEGART: My pleasure.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still on the program tonight, the battle over Vietnam, again, looking back on history, as George Bush and John Kerry look to make history. We'll look at the politics of it all. Also coming up, the new poor, American families working hard to put food on the table while standing in line at the food bank.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We return now to the swift boat ad controversy, which has effectively eclipsed most everything else in the presidential race over the last week or so. There's been little talk of Iraq or the economy or health care or much of anything else.

Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, joins us to talk about the politics of this moment.

Let's run down a few things here, if we can, in four or five minutes.

How does this hurt Kerry, if it hurts Kerry?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Well, by some accounts, it already has.

And the first thing I think is that it muddles the message. You just listed some of them. If Kerry's campaign is forced to defend his time in Vietnam, it means less time to talk about economic anxiety, health care costs, job losses, what's gone wrong in Iraq, where the polls suggest he has running room.

Second, by undermining the thematic foundation of the Kerry campaign. That Democratic Convention, the whole theme was strength, essentially argued Kerry could better defend the country in large measure because of what he had done in combat. More doubts about that record, the more doubts about the fundamentals of the campaign.

And, third, you've talked about this earlier, Aaron. The new wave of anti-Kerry ads focusing on his 1971 critique of the war at a Senate hearing where he recounted claims of war atrocities, I think you have to see that through the prism of today, 140,000 troops in Iraq, thousands more in Afghanistan. It's not just that many Vietnam veterans have long resented what Kerry said 33 years ago.

Is it how today's soldiers and their families might hear it. So those are problems for him.

BROWN: Setting aside the anti-war stuff, just dealing with the other stuff, does it matter what the truth is? GREENFIELD: To some extent it does. And that's why I think this could potentially hurt Bush.

There is this old notion, if you throw dirt, some of it sticks. But it seems to me that the idea of Bush as a dirty trickster could wind up really biting the president in a very sensitive part of the anatomy. And that's why the Kerry campaign is arguing so much about the linkage between the Bush campaign and these ads, although they haven't demonstrated any real linkage, because one of Bush's great strengths is that he's seen as the straight-shooter, a stand-up guy.

And that's why the Kerry campaign is going back to 2000, reminding people of similar attacks aired against John McCain. They're putting out that about 10 days ago, a supporter of Bush at one of those town meeting things said -- referred to Kerry getting self- inflicted wounds and the president said, well, I appreciate that. I don't know that he was paying attention.

But, clearly, the Kerry campaign thinks there's mileage here in saying Bush is not a regular guy. He's a dirty player. I also think that if Kerry's Vietnam service is fair game, the Alabama National Guard comes up again. Maybe there will be National Guard Veterans For Truth. And other aspects of George Bush's youth, which he says, when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. Lord knows where they could lead.

BROWN: There are -- a viewer I like a lot who writes from time to time argued, among other things, that Kerry essentially brought this on himself.

GREENFIELD: Well, one of the things I think this eliminates -- if you want to talk about damage, the polls don't show that much. There's a small tightening in the national polls. The battleground state polls so far don't show any real change.

But there's a broader issue that your viewer has touched on that James Carville and Stan Greenberg, two prominent Democrats -- you know Carville -- Greenberg is a pollster -- they helped Clinton get elected -- have pointed out, namely that structuring the entire campaign message around Kerry's Vietnam service put that front and center. And, second, and this is something that may survive after this dust-up goes away, is, it took him away from the message of change and here's how I want to change the country. Here's what I mean to do as president.

So, to that extent, you could say even if it is demonstrated that most of these attacks are false -- and certainly the press coverage of it is indicating that on the combat service Kerry is looking pretty good -- the broader problem remains. Can you run for president based on what you did in Vietnam?

BROWN: A couple more. In the middle of August, with the Olympic Games going on and people on vacation, getting ready for Labor Day and all the rest, is this a big deal, a medium deal or a small deal?

GREENFIELD: I think it's a medium deal. You know, we have talked about this a lot. And I hope we may have to continue it. There's an obsession in the press corps with finding in every moment a big deal.

BROWN: Right.

GREENFIELD: But this one, because it sucked all the oxygen out of the coverage and it did push Kerry off message and it did raise some doubts among some people, and how many times are we going to be talking about how close this campaign is and how things at the margin can change, so it matters.

Do I think at the end of next week we will be talking about this after the acceptance speech of the president at the Republican Convention? Not unless there's some more stuff that we don't know about.

BROWN: Stuff on what he did in Vietnam or didn't do in Vietnam or stuff on what he did after? Because the after stuff I think he's got -- I think there are some issues there. He's got problems there.

GREENFIELD: That's -- and I think -- I'll just briefly repeat this. It is also because we have soldiers in combat today.

BROWN: Yes.

GREENFIELD: So the resonance of that. The fact that these are documented atrocities that happened in Vietnam in 1971, I think people are hearing this as a guy who is criticizing comrades in arms, when we've got 150,000 -- that is a problem, I think. And that one I don't think is going away.

BROWN: Thank you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

BROWN: We'll talk tomorrow, I hope.

It has been said before here, but it bears repeating that all of this began with a very small ad buy, half-a-million dollars or so, in just three states, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Ohio, not chosen at random, not nearly. They all belong to a bloc of 17 states, give or take, that the polls show as up for grabs, or at least in play.

And of that group, Ohio is seen as a bellwether. The president won it narrowly in 2000. It is, if you will, a red state with a blue collar and a declining labor market, about 250,000 jobs lost in the last three years and a growing number of people sinking into a life they never imagined living.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): A humid Thursday morning at a food bank in Canton, Ohio. More than 1,000 people will go through this line today.

LISA HAMLER PODOLSKI, OHIO ASSOCIATION OF SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANKS: We're seeing unprecedented increase in demand for emergency food assistance in the state of Ohio. We've experienced over a 40 percent increase in demand for assistance.

BROWN: They are the new poor, many of them here for the first time, people who in their whole lives never imagined they would line up at a food bank. Michelle McCollister was laid off by her software company in April. Her husband, a carpenter, hasn't worked for two months.

MICHELLE MCCOLLISTER, OHIO RESIDENT: We had savings. And now we're just down to the bottom of it. So once that's gone and the unemployment runs out, I'm not sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In this state, we've had over 60,000 individuals exhaust their unemployment benefits without securing new jobs over a period of the past four months.

DEBBI SEDEY, OHIO RESIDENT: I have already worked 35 out of the 51 years that I've lived on this planet. And I have nothing to show for it. It's totally not how I saw my life.

BROWN: Debby Sedey, a graphic artist, was laid off more than two years ago right after she closed on her first home, right before she found out she had a tumor.

SEDEY: But when it came down to it, it was a choice between paying my medical bills or paying my house payment. So I started paying my medical bills.

BROWN: Debbi lost her house, then spent three months at a homeless shelter with her teenage daughter before moving into low- income housing. She works 129 hours at the food pantry in exchange for $340 a month in public assistance.

SEDEY: When the chuck comes in, we pay the rent. We pay the phone bill. And then we take care of necessities. My van right now costs me about $25 to fill it up. And that lasts for about a week. So now I'm down to $30. If my daughter needs something, she can just forget it.

BROWN: In Clark County alone, 7,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in just the last two years. Carl McGinnis lost his last job making car parts when work at the factory slowed down.

CARL MCGINNIS, OHIO RESIDENT: I have no income whatsoever. I have no savings, no checking. I've lost my house. I've lost my truck. I'm behind on just about everything. If it wasn't for my parents, I'd be living in a box.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we see now is the total loss of the manufacturing base. Those factories are gone and they're never coming back.

TAMMY HEDGE, OHIO RESIDENT: You get to choose two items off of the top shelf. BROWN: Tammy Hedge, a single mom, lost her job at a leather factory when the company started outsourcing the work to China. She recently found a new job, but the take-home pay is not enough to live on.

HEDGE: Seven an hour and 40 hours a week. And they take the taxes and what they do out of it, it is not enough to live on. Somebody's got to change what's happening to us people here. We just don't not exist anymore just because the company's moved to Mexico and China and all them. We're still here. We've still got groceries to buy and kids to raise.

BROWN: Everyday responsibilities that are now an everyday challenge to the new poor.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And who those people decide is best able to solve their problems may well determine who the next president of the United States is.

Ahead on the program tonight, millions of Americans enjoy the benefits of overtime pay. Could new federal regulations could exempt you from earning extra money? Your time and a half may be on the line.

And at the end of the hour, your local news, sort of, morning papers, for sure.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Starting today, new federal regulations go into effect governing who is and who is not entitled to overtime pay. It's something the business community wanted and the administration formulated. No one disagrees with that. But just about everything else is in dispute, including will it cost millions of people their time and a half?

Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the nation, the new federal overtime pay rules are generating equal measures of hope and fear.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

FREED: The new regulations replace those first written when Franklin Roosevelt was president. Business and labor have long agreed that new ones are needed, but unions like the AFL-CIO are among those alleging that as many as six million workers could now lose their overtime because of the new scheme. Just click on the Labor Department's Web site, though, to hear the secretary herself spinning a similar number from the opposite point of view.

ELAINE CHAO, LABOR SECRETARY: This will strengthen overtime rights for 6.7 million American workers.

FREED: Under the new rules, like before, you are not eligible for overtime if you are not paid on an hourly basis. But the salary cutoff has now been tripled to nearly $24,000 a year, which the Labor Department claims will boost the number of people who do qualify for overtime.

Bill Schurgin is a labor lawyer representing employers and doesn't agree with the doomsayers.

BILL SCHURGIN, LABOR LAWYER: There are 90 percent of the folks that are either truly hourly, eligible for overtime, or truly exempt and not eligible for overtime. And then there's that kind of 5 percent gray area range.

FREED: That gray area centers on job descriptions and whether because of revised definitions your job could be reclassified as either administrative, professional or executive.

James Ware worries that he falls into that gray zone. He's a hotel chef with some administrative duties. And he depends on his overtime.

JAMES WARE, CHEF: In a regular week, I work at least 10 hours of overtime.

FREED: Some experts insist that people like James Ware won't know where they really stand until the new regulations are tested in court.

SHERI ROTHENBERG, LABOR LAWYER: These are all subject to interpretation by not only the Department of Labor, but by the courts. And what weight the courts will give to the Department of Labor's new interpretations remains to be seen.

FREED: But the Labor Department insists the new rules will actually reduce the number of overtime-related lawsuits.

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BELL RINGING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world. As per usual -- I've never understood that expression, but, as per usual, we'll begin with "The International Herald Tribune."

"Bush Calls For Halt To Anti-Kerry Ad. He Says Senator Served Admirably. Specific Charges Are Not Addressed." Now front-page news. Go figure. But, hey, we led with it. What am I talking about?

"The Washington Times." "Bush Raps Anti-Bush Ads On Vietnam, Rival Dem Attacks Funded By Soros." That's George Soros, who is a -- donates to Democratic causes. This is a story I actually like best of all the stories today. "On Softball Diamond, Gold For U.S. Team Takes Third Straight Games." They outscored their opponents 51-1, the women's softball team.

And then I don't know if you can see this, but this is Jeremy Wariner -- I think I pronounced that right -- who won the gold in the 400 meters. And here's the cut line. "Is the First White Male U.S. Sprinter to Medal in 40 years." Isn't that an odd cut line? I'm sure it is true. It just seemed like an odd way to -- anyway, that's me.

"Christian Science Monitor." "Why More Races Are Coming Down to a Whisker" down here. I have no idea of the answer, but I would spend the buck to buy "The Christian Science Monitor" to find out. That's on their front page tomorrow.

"Philadelphia Inquirer," "Inquirer," not "Enquirer," Aaron. Come on. "Political Ad War, No Truce." Here is a story, actually, we ought to pay attention to. "Dealer Settles Suit Over Gunplay." He sold a revival to a straw buyer who sold it on the street. A 7-year- old boy was killed. This goes on actually a fair amount. And the guy, the gun dealer, coughed up $850,000 to settle the suit.

"Detroit News" leads auto. That's local for them. "U.S. Automakers Slip in Owner Satisfaction," not good news there.

We'll quickly go to "The Chicago Sun-Times," because we do. "Gold Standard." They do the women's softball team. And the weather tomorrow in Chicago -- ring the bell, please.

(CHIMES)

BROWN: Thank you -- is a "mishmash."

We'll wrap it up in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Probably 50 or more good things coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow. Here is Bill Hemmer with a quick look at one or two of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," Republicans getting ready for the convention here in New York. And so, too, are the protesters, as many as 250,000 expected. And that is said to be just for one demonstration. If those numbers hold, how do the Republicans stay on message while the president's opponents try to steal the spotlight? We'll talk to Ed Gillespie, chairman of the RNC, about the convention planing tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time right here. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, they could ignore the protesters. That would be one way to stay on message. And I suspect they'll stay on message pretty well. They're pretty good at that. That's "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow, 7:00 Eastern.

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

And we are all back -- I do mean we are all back -- 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


Aired August 23, 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.
At some point it has to be about the truth. Veterans groups who have launched attacks against John Kerry have every right to claim he is not fit to lead. They can claim he's a jerk.

They can claim he dishonored fellow soldiers after the war. That is the stuff of opinion and they, like everyone else, are entitled to have their own opinions and entitled to have them respectfully heard.

But, as the late Senator Daniel Moynihan said, you are not entitled to your own facts and facts are where this whole messy affair gets dicey for those who launched the attack.

In my view, we've all been a bit slow in our business to look at the facts, enjoying the tussle over the story a bit too much. But "The Washington Post," "The New York Times," Knight Ridder and perhaps others have done a lot of looking at the facts and those facts raise a lot of questions about the accuracy of the attacks. The battle over Vietnam again tops the program and begins the whip.

And the whip begins in Crawford, Texas where CNN's Jill Dougherty starts us off with a headline -- Jill.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Bush says he wants an end to all of those attack ads and a key group responsible for one of those ads says, however, they have no intention of stopping -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jill, thank you.

Onto the political price of all of this what each candidate stands to gain or lose, Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield working on that, so Jeff a headline tonight.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Aaron, they talk about the fog of war on the battleground. In politics there's a fog of war not just about the truth but at who's been injured and who might be injured by this friendly fire, unfriendly fire or both. We'll see in a moment -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you.

Finally, Iraq, an especially nasty day in Najaf where the toll from the three-week standoff is mounting, CNN's John Vause with the watch in Baghdad, so John a headline please.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, for the third night, U.S. warplanes have been in action over Najaf. On the ground, U.S. tanks, troops and snipers have moved closer to the Imam Ali Mosque. Inside the shrine, it appears that Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters have dwindled in number but elsewhere across Iraq there appears to be no shortage of young, really young recruits for his Mehdi militia.

BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also on the program tonight, new overtime regulations, are they intended to strength the overtime rules as the administration says or do they weaken your opportunity for time and a half?

Also, will the CIA go MIA under a new plan to overhaul the intelligence community? Could this be the final chapter of America's infamous spy agency?

And later, the early editions are on the press, your morning papers at the end of the hour, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin once again tonight with the war of words over a war that ended nearly three decades ago. For the last five days the Kerry campaign has been running ads addressing not the economy or Iraq but a pair of attack ads slamming his actions during and after his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Yesterday, former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole joined the dog pile and the number of vets came forward in support of Senator Kerry. Today, the president weighed in.

We have several reports tonight beginning first in Texas with CNN's Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY (voice-over): President Bush at his ranch with top officials, discussed national security but fielding questions from reporters the subject turned once again to those TV attack ads, specifically one funded by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That means that ad, every other ad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

BUSH: Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527s. I can't be more plain about it and I wish, I hope my opponent joins me in saying, condemning these activities of the 527s. I think they're bad for the system.

DOUGHERTY: The Kerry campaign has challenged the president to condemn the swift boat ads. He didn't do it by name but this was the first time Mr. Bush used the words "that ad." The White House downplayed the remark claiming no change in the president's opposition to all soft money attack ads.

Mr. Bush was asked his opinion on intelligence reform and a proposal by Senator Pat Roberts to dismantle the CIA. The president was non-committal.

BUSH: I haven't seen his proposal. He was on TV yesterday morning talking about his ideas and I'm sure he's going to send it over to us to take a look at it. There's a lot of ideas moving around.

DOUGHERTY: Mr. Bush also fielded a question on skyrocketing oil prices and what he plans to do about them. Here the president got some welcome news from Russian President Vladimir Putin who told him by phone Russian oil companies are increasing production and exports and will continue to do so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY: So, the Kerry campaign jumped all over those comments by President Bush. The Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards saying he didn't go far enough and the Swift Boat Veterans for Peace (sic) saying that they have no intention of stopping and that they will continue to try to get their message out to the American people -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jill, in however long that session was between the president and the reporters today how much of the time was taken up by trying to get his reaction to the swift boat ad issue?

DOUGHERTY: Well, there was a bit. You'd have to say there were a number of issues that came up but there was specifically one question that for the first time really asked the president directly, putting a name to that ad, and that is where the president came in with those two words.

Now, the White House, again, says it's no change in policy. He has been saying this all along. He wants all of the ads stopped. But you'd have to say there was a bit of movement there with those two words.

BROWN: Thank you, Jill. Welcome too, Jill Dougherty in Texas tonight.

As Jill mentioned, Senator Kerry had no public comment on the president's remarks today but his running mate did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today, George Bush faced his moment of truth and he failed. He failed to condemn the specific attacks on John Kerry's military record. We didn't need to hear a politician's answer but unfortunately that's what we got. That's what the American people got today.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: Well, what they also didn't get and won't get from either side is an answer to the question that tends to get lost in all the back and forth, namely what are the facts here, not necessarily the whole gospel truth, given that memories fade and records don't tell an entire story but the facts as best we know them and nothing more. Here are a few facts that seem to matter most.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The available official record is unambiguous. John Kerry was a war hero. The citation that accompanies his bronze star speaks of his "professionalism, great personal courage under fire and complete dedication to duty." If you go by some of the witnesses to those events, like the young Special Forces soldier Kerry pulled from the river, there is no argument.

JIM RASSMANN, SERVED WITH KERRY IN VIETNAM: All these rounds kept coming in and John ran up, dropped down on his hands and knees and pulled me over and had he not come out on that bow like that I'd be dead.

BROWN: But others, as you now know, testify to a different John Kerry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Kerry has not been honest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he lacks the capacity to lead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the chips were down you could not count on John Kerry.

BROWN: Larry Thurlow, a fellow swift boat skipper back in '68, has claimed there was no enemy fire. There was no danger and there were no heroic actions by John Kerry.

LARRY THURLOW, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: I distinctly remember we weren't under fire from either bank.

BROWN: But Thurlow also received a bronze star for the same battle and his citation mentions "enemy bullets flying around him." When confronted with this, Thurlow insists it is not accurate and that Kerry wrote up the after action report but there are no documents, none that indicate John Kerry wrote that report.

George Elliott now criticizes Kerry for not being honest but, according to "The New York Times" while he was Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam gave him excellent ratings including, "not exceeded in moral courage."

In '96, Elliott and Adrian Lonsdale flew to Boston to appear with Kerry then in a tough reelection race. Lonsdale today quoted as saying Kerry is unfit to lead then called him among the finest of those swift boat drivers.

There are more documents, John Kerry's personal diaries for one, that might shed more light on all of this but they have not been released because the Kerry campaign says there is an exclusivity agreement with his biographer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That is not a fact check on every one of the allegations but the pattern is generally the same. The available public record supports by and large what the Senator says but there is another public record that is more complicated for the Democratic nominee and perhaps even more dangerous given that the country is currently at war.

That is the record of statements Kerry made when he returned from Vietnam and became a leader in the antiwar movement. Those comments, some of which Mr. Kerry now acknowledges were over the top, are the next phase in the swift boat attack.

Here's CNN's Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: John Kerry is running for president as a war hero but Kerry was also an antiwar hero. This week his critics are putting out a new ad attacking not his war record but his antiwar record.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam in the prison camps took torture (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It demoralized us.

SCHNEIDER: Kerry was actually quoting other veterans' reports of wartime atrocities but he endorsed those accusations at the time and he still does.

KERRY: All I know is that it happened as a matter of course.

SCHNEIDER: Kerry's defenders call his antiwar testimony an act of courage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew by this time that the war was a mistake. John was the one with the courage to come out and say it.

SCHNEIDER: But it remains a source of deep resentment to other veterans.

DAVID WALLACE, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: He told everyone I knew and everyone I'd ever know that I and my comrades had committed unspeakable atrocities, that we tortured people, raped women, burned villages without any reason.

SCHNEIDER: Kerry insists he was stating well documented facts that have been backed up by subsequent investigations. He has since expressed regret that his words were "a little bit over the top."

KERRY: I regret any feeling that anybody had that I somehow didn't embrace the quality of the service.

SCHNEIDER: And he claims he never blamed the soldiers.

KERRY: I asked where's the leadership of the country? I asked where the leaders were not the soldiers because it was the leaders in Washington who left the soldiers.

SCHNEIDER (on camera): Kerry believed then and now that he could criticize the mission without criticizing the troops, an issue that has emerged again in the Iraq debate, one side insisting the mission should be criticized, the other saying you can't do that without undermining the troops, new election, old debate.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Kate Zernike has been chasing that story for "The New York Times." She worked at "The Boston Globe" before that and covered the Senator then as well. It's nice to see you. The one issue the Senator has some problems on I think in this is Cambodia, fair?

KATE ZERNIKE, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Right. Right.

BROWN: he says he was there on Christmas and the record doesn't seem to support that.

ZERNIKE: No. In fact, if you look in "Tour of Duty" by Douglas Brinkley, which is his biography, or a biography of the Senator, he's somewhere else on December 25th, on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.

Brinkley himself says there's some question Kerry may have been in Cambodia later. These vets are saying Kerry was never in Cambodia and that, if you tried to go there, there were huge signs on the part of the river saying "do not enter."

BROWN: Now, I want to go back to some of the things you reported last week. When you talk, when you say to some of the swift boat guys, "You said this in '96" or "You said this last year and now you're saying something completely different," how do they respond?

ZERNIKE: What they said was, you know, in '96 we didn't know this about John Kerry. Nobody told us this about John Kerry. In 1969, when we wrote this the first time we didn't know this about John Kerry.

What happened was these veterans got together. This admiral called them all and said, hey, you know, "Have you read this biography? This is really damning." They all got together in this meeting and I think what happened is something, something akin to a game of telephone, where you -- where one person says something and someone else says, "Yes, that's sort of like what I heard too," and "Oh, yes, and I heard it."

The next thing you know they've got this case against John Kerry. I think a lot of them are now -- there were some in the Portland "Oregonian" over the weekend saying, "Well, I have to admit I have no personal knowledge of this" even though this is a man who signed an affidavit saying that John Kerry had a self-inflicted wound for his first purple heart.

BROWN: This may be farther than you want to go. Is there a factual case on the question of his service in Vietnam, not the antiwar stuff after, separate issue, is it crumbling?

ZERNIKE: Is the record crumbling?

BROWN: Is there -- are their accusations crumbling under the weight of the evidence?

ZERNIKE: I think their accusations don't hold up. The one thing, as you mentioned, and this is the thing that they are emphasizing now as this other stuff -- as there have been so many questions about their initial allegations, is Cambodia.

But on a question of did John Kerry deserve these three medals, was there accurate documentation for these medals, the Navy record is very clear. The eyewitnesses are very clear and some of these men's statements from 30 years ago are very clear that John Kerry did deserve these medals. So, I think on that point they're having a hard time proving their case.

BROWN: Is there -- can you say that the Bush campaign is somehow connected to these ads or is it much more tangential than that?

ZERNIKE: I think it's much more tangential. What we see is that a lot of people who have been long associated with the Bush family, with Carl Rove who is President Bush's chief political strategist, a lot of these people who were involved in this ad, the people who gave most of the money, someone -- Bob Perry, who is a big donor in Texas politics, a big Bush donor, they're the same people who are now funding the swift boats ads.

The political consultant who's working with the swift boats is someone who coached George H.W. Bush for his debate against Gerri Ferraro in '84, so there are a lot of connections. I think they are probably more -- you'd probably call them circumstantial connections.

BROWN: But there's no direct evidence?

ZERNIKE: No. There's nothing to say, and I think this is what everyone's looking for, something to say President Bush or Carl Rove told the swift boats to go out and say this. We haven't seen that so far.

BROWN: Where are you going with this, do you know? Do you know where the story is going?

ZERNIKE: I think -- I think the story moving forward is what is the connection there? I mean I think it's interesting today that Bush came out and talked about this and had to defend himself about whether there was a connection. I also think it's interesting that the Bush campaign seems to at the same time want to keep this alive and say that they want it to go away.

BROWN: Good to have you with the program. Nice work on that.

ZERNIKE: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

Ahead on the program caught in the crossfire, children on the frontlines in the battle for Najaf.

And later, the new poor, a record number of Americans lining up at food banks, their story too as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the last three days, seven Americans have died in Iraq and, according to a report in today's edition of "USA Today," it hasn't gotten much safer there for coalition forces since the political handover earlier this summer. Attacks are averaging 49 a day over the last two months.

Meantime in Najaf, some of the fiercest fighting in the three- week standoff with followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, American forces pounding sections of the old city tonight pushing closer to the Imam Ali shrine now just a few hundred yards away.

How many militants they are facing no one is certain, no question, however, in Najaf and on the streets of Sadr City that many are young and indeed some are very, very young, from Baghdad for us CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE (voice-over): With a grenade in one hand and a brand new AK-47 in the other, Karrar Nouri is a volunteer in Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. He's just ten years old.

KARRAR NOURI, CHILD SOLDIER (through translator): I am a guard with the Mehdi Army against the Americans.

VAUSE: He's spending school vacation manning a checkpoint in Sadr City, a sprawling slum in Baghdad and stronghold for the rebellious cleric. The boy's father says Karrar has taken part in the fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

FALAN NOURI, KARRAR'S FATHER (through translator): I taught him how to shoot. He can now shoot by himself.

VAUSE: He's not the only boy with a gun in Sadr City. There are many others, most in their teens, but a few are younger than Karrar. The U.S. military says they've been fired on by boys. They return with warning shots to try and scare them off.

CAPT JOHN MERIDITH, U.S. ARMY: Just the fact that they would resort to those kind of tactics kind of tells you who we're fighting. VAUSE: The Iraqi government says just two children have been killed, 20 wounded in Sadr City during the recent outbreak of violence. No one knows how many were actually fighting and how many were caught in the crossfire.

But local doctors say the number is much higher on the day we spoke with Dr. Adel Mezher he says eight bodies were brought to his hospital, six of them children.

DR. ADEL MEZHER, SADR CITY HOSPITAL (through translator): They were all civilians. Most died inside their homes killed by mortars and rockets. We don't know who fired at them.

VAUSE: Here the so-called Mehdi Army holds almost mythical status.

ABU ZAHRA, BAGHDAD UNIVERSITY (through translator): The Mehdi Army is composed of the orphans of those who were murdered in the prisons of Saddam Hussein. They now chant "We are the Mehdi Army." This is the pride for us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Much of Muqtada al-Sadr's support is the legacy of his late father, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, admired and respected for his opposition to Saddam Hussein who was shot dead five years ago.

And it seems it's that family reputation for defiance which is now inspiring a new young generation of the Mehdi Army, this time its defiance of the U.S. and the Iraqi government -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's a picture in that piece, as you know, you put it together, of that boy holding that gun when he looks every bit of ten and not a day older than that. Do you have any sense that he's actually been fighting or is it at least possible that that's a -- that that was a kind of, I don't know, posed moment?

VAUSE: Yes. We asked ourselves this question over and over and over yesterday when we were putting that story together. We don't know. We didn't see him. We weren't there. It's a dangerous place to go to Sadr City. We didn't stay long.

But we can only believe what his father was telling us, what he was telling us and what the U.S. has also been telling us as well that young boys, really, really, really young boys are sent out in the streets with guns and with grenades and they shoot at the U.S. soldiers and then they run away and the U.S. is in a quandary here.

They can't kill these boys so they try and scare them off with these warning shots but it does happen. Whether or not that boy that we spoke to, Karrar, is in fact involved in the shooting we cannot be 100 percent sure. We can only go by what he says and what his father and what his friends say and that is, yes, he has been.

BROWN: John, thank you, John Vause in Baghdad. Thank you very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, in the spy world the CIA is often ahead of the class. Now in the battle to reform intelligence, the agency could go missing in action. At least there's a plan out there for that.

Also, new overtime rules, what do they mean and how will they impact your bottom line? We'll take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Given both the attack on 9/11 and the intelligence failures leading to the war with Iraq, it seems certain that the country's intelligence system will get a going over and an overhaul.

But few would have expected the massive changes proposed by Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He proposes not a simple reorganization but essentially dismantling of the CIA. You could hardly find a more radical solution.

Here's our National Security Correspondent David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Serving CIA officials are calling the plan "reckless" and predicting it would hurt national security. One former agency official predicts it would also hurt morale.

JACK DEVINE, FORMER SENIOR CIA OFFICIAL: It is going to be very demoralizing. We are going to lose people. We are going to not have some of the best and brightest apply to us. It's like taking the Marine Corps and saying now we're going to call you something else. It is not a trivial event and I caution those to do this to think long and hard about the full implications of it.

ENSOR: Former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was even tougher on the proposal calling it "yet another episode in the mad rush to rearrange wiring diagrams in an attempt to be seen as doing something. It is time" Tenet said, "for someone to say, "Stop!"

But Roberts says he wanted to lay down a marker, a plan to enact the proposals of the 9/11 Commission. The plan would fold the other big intelligence agencies under a national intelligence director, taking the huge National Security Agency and others out from under the Pentagon's wing in terms of budget and personnel.

Much depends on the view of President Bush. Standing next to a less-than-enthusiastic Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, he was non- committal.

BUSH: Senator Roberts is a good, thoughtful guy. He came up with an idea and we'll look at it. We'll take a look at it and determine, you know, whether or not it works or not.

ENSOR (on camera): Hardly a ringing endorsement but Roberts hopes to build a coalition for the kind of dramatic change he's proposing starting with the families of 9/11 victims. Interestingly, his proposal got a quick positive comment too from the Kerry campaign.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined from Los Angeles now by Amy Zegart, a political scientist, a professor at UCLA's School of Public Affairs and the author of "Flawed by Design," a look at the CIA and the intelligence community of which she has studied and written extensively. We're glad to have her with us.

You've called for bold and I think this is bold, is it not?

AMY ZEGART, UCLA SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS: It's absolutely bold. It's one of the boldest proposals for reform that we've seen in the 57 years of the intelligence community.

BROWN: If you started with a blank piece of paper and you drew up America's intelligence needs, would it look like what Senator Roberts is proposing?

ZEGART: It would look a lot like it. I think it's -- it's a great analogy that you use. I think one of the critical differences between Senator Roberts' proposal and the 9/11 Commission is the 9/11 Commission essentially said, "Look at the pieces we have here. How can we make these work better?" Senator Roberts' proposal actually takes out that blank sheet of paper and says, "How could we actually redesign the entire intelligence system to work better?"

BROWN: And what is it, you know, some of this stuff gets pretty arcane but what is it in what the Senator has proposed that in your view makes it better?

ZEGART: I think there are three major differences that make it better than, for example, the 9/11 Commission proposal. The first is that the national intelligence director has even more power in Senator Roberts' proposal than in the 9/11 Commission.

Now, bear in mind that the details of this proposal of Senator Roberts' proposal are not widely known but my understanding is the national intelligence director would have hiring and firing power that goes far deeper in agencies that now reside in the Pentagon, like the National Security Agency.

The second change is, as you mentioned, dismantling the CIA, separating in particular the clandestine side of the CIA from the analytic side of the CIA.

But there's a third change. And I think it is harder to see and equally important. And that's Senator Roberts' proposal tries to get at cultural changes inside the community. The 9/11 Commission identified critical cultural pathologies in our intelligence system, but really put off proposals for solving them and put them in the hands of the national intelligence director.

Senator Roberts' proposal actually goes much farther than that. For example, you'll notice the language refers to a national intelligence service. Dismantling the CIA is part of creating that one-team approach. And there are also requirements in this proposal to, for example, require the rotation of intelligence officials to different agencies outside their own, which is crucial for getting them to trust and understand each other and share information better.

BROWN: I want to try to get a couple more in.

When you talk about culture here, are you saying that one of the problems is that, in some ways, intelligence in the country is too balkanized. You've got a group over here that is beholden to itself, presumably to everyone else, too, but doesn't necessarily talk to the group over here? Is that what you mean?

ZEGART: Absolutely.

BROWN: OK.

ZEGART: I say that the 11th commandment in intelligence is, thou shalt not share.

BROWN: And why is it helpful to separate the information gathering from the analysis of that information?

ZEGART: Well, interestingly, if you go back and look at the history of the CIA, it was never supposed to be a collection agency to begin with. It was only supposed to be, as it name suggests, a central intelligence agency, to bring together different pieces of information and analyze them.

And so we've had these two sides of the CIA coexisting in a kind of schizophrenic way for these past 50-some-odd years. And so it didn't make a lot of sense to begin with. And so it makes some sense to actually separate those functions, so you have the analytic horsepower in one place.

BROWN: And since you're a political scientist, we can ask this. Given all the little fiefdoms there in Washington, the Pentagon, the CIA, this group, that group, what are the chances you think that anything this dramatic, this radical will become law?

ZEGART: Well, I think history shows that the opportunities for intelligence reform are very few and fleeting. It is no coincidence that we've had the same system for 57 years with no overhaul. And there have been more than 40 studies suggesting reform.

I think there could be a perfect storm here, a perfect storm that favors intelligence reform. And the greatest danger of all is that we get caught up in debating the details of these proposals and end up with a system that is essentially the same flawed structure that we've lived with for quite some time now. BROWN: Professor, good to see you. Thank you.

ZEGART: My pleasure.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still on the program tonight, the battle over Vietnam, again, looking back on history, as George Bush and John Kerry look to make history. We'll look at the politics of it all. Also coming up, the new poor, American families working hard to put food on the table while standing in line at the food bank.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We return now to the swift boat ad controversy, which has effectively eclipsed most everything else in the presidential race over the last week or so. There's been little talk of Iraq or the economy or health care or much of anything else.

Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, joins us to talk about the politics of this moment.

Let's run down a few things here, if we can, in four or five minutes.

How does this hurt Kerry, if it hurts Kerry?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Well, by some accounts, it already has.

And the first thing I think is that it muddles the message. You just listed some of them. If Kerry's campaign is forced to defend his time in Vietnam, it means less time to talk about economic anxiety, health care costs, job losses, what's gone wrong in Iraq, where the polls suggest he has running room.

Second, by undermining the thematic foundation of the Kerry campaign. That Democratic Convention, the whole theme was strength, essentially argued Kerry could better defend the country in large measure because of what he had done in combat. More doubts about that record, the more doubts about the fundamentals of the campaign.

And, third, you've talked about this earlier, Aaron. The new wave of anti-Kerry ads focusing on his 1971 critique of the war at a Senate hearing where he recounted claims of war atrocities, I think you have to see that through the prism of today, 140,000 troops in Iraq, thousands more in Afghanistan. It's not just that many Vietnam veterans have long resented what Kerry said 33 years ago.

Is it how today's soldiers and their families might hear it. So those are problems for him.

BROWN: Setting aside the anti-war stuff, just dealing with the other stuff, does it matter what the truth is? GREENFIELD: To some extent it does. And that's why I think this could potentially hurt Bush.

There is this old notion, if you throw dirt, some of it sticks. But it seems to me that the idea of Bush as a dirty trickster could wind up really biting the president in a very sensitive part of the anatomy. And that's why the Kerry campaign is arguing so much about the linkage between the Bush campaign and these ads, although they haven't demonstrated any real linkage, because one of Bush's great strengths is that he's seen as the straight-shooter, a stand-up guy.

And that's why the Kerry campaign is going back to 2000, reminding people of similar attacks aired against John McCain. They're putting out that about 10 days ago, a supporter of Bush at one of those town meeting things said -- referred to Kerry getting self- inflicted wounds and the president said, well, I appreciate that. I don't know that he was paying attention.

But, clearly, the Kerry campaign thinks there's mileage here in saying Bush is not a regular guy. He's a dirty player. I also think that if Kerry's Vietnam service is fair game, the Alabama National Guard comes up again. Maybe there will be National Guard Veterans For Truth. And other aspects of George Bush's youth, which he says, when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. Lord knows where they could lead.

BROWN: There are -- a viewer I like a lot who writes from time to time argued, among other things, that Kerry essentially brought this on himself.

GREENFIELD: Well, one of the things I think this eliminates -- if you want to talk about damage, the polls don't show that much. There's a small tightening in the national polls. The battleground state polls so far don't show any real change.

But there's a broader issue that your viewer has touched on that James Carville and Stan Greenberg, two prominent Democrats -- you know Carville -- Greenberg is a pollster -- they helped Clinton get elected -- have pointed out, namely that structuring the entire campaign message around Kerry's Vietnam service put that front and center. And, second, and this is something that may survive after this dust-up goes away, is, it took him away from the message of change and here's how I want to change the country. Here's what I mean to do as president.

So, to that extent, you could say even if it is demonstrated that most of these attacks are false -- and certainly the press coverage of it is indicating that on the combat service Kerry is looking pretty good -- the broader problem remains. Can you run for president based on what you did in Vietnam?

BROWN: A couple more. In the middle of August, with the Olympic Games going on and people on vacation, getting ready for Labor Day and all the rest, is this a big deal, a medium deal or a small deal?

GREENFIELD: I think it's a medium deal. You know, we have talked about this a lot. And I hope we may have to continue it. There's an obsession in the press corps with finding in every moment a big deal.

BROWN: Right.

GREENFIELD: But this one, because it sucked all the oxygen out of the coverage and it did push Kerry off message and it did raise some doubts among some people, and how many times are we going to be talking about how close this campaign is and how things at the margin can change, so it matters.

Do I think at the end of next week we will be talking about this after the acceptance speech of the president at the Republican Convention? Not unless there's some more stuff that we don't know about.

BROWN: Stuff on what he did in Vietnam or didn't do in Vietnam or stuff on what he did after? Because the after stuff I think he's got -- I think there are some issues there. He's got problems there.

GREENFIELD: That's -- and I think -- I'll just briefly repeat this. It is also because we have soldiers in combat today.

BROWN: Yes.

GREENFIELD: So the resonance of that. The fact that these are documented atrocities that happened in Vietnam in 1971, I think people are hearing this as a guy who is criticizing comrades in arms, when we've got 150,000 -- that is a problem, I think. And that one I don't think is going away.

BROWN: Thank you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

BROWN: We'll talk tomorrow, I hope.

It has been said before here, but it bears repeating that all of this began with a very small ad buy, half-a-million dollars or so, in just three states, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Ohio, not chosen at random, not nearly. They all belong to a bloc of 17 states, give or take, that the polls show as up for grabs, or at least in play.

And of that group, Ohio is seen as a bellwether. The president won it narrowly in 2000. It is, if you will, a red state with a blue collar and a declining labor market, about 250,000 jobs lost in the last three years and a growing number of people sinking into a life they never imagined living.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): A humid Thursday morning at a food bank in Canton, Ohio. More than 1,000 people will go through this line today.

LISA HAMLER PODOLSKI, OHIO ASSOCIATION OF SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANKS: We're seeing unprecedented increase in demand for emergency food assistance in the state of Ohio. We've experienced over a 40 percent increase in demand for assistance.

BROWN: They are the new poor, many of them here for the first time, people who in their whole lives never imagined they would line up at a food bank. Michelle McCollister was laid off by her software company in April. Her husband, a carpenter, hasn't worked for two months.

MICHELLE MCCOLLISTER, OHIO RESIDENT: We had savings. And now we're just down to the bottom of it. So once that's gone and the unemployment runs out, I'm not sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In this state, we've had over 60,000 individuals exhaust their unemployment benefits without securing new jobs over a period of the past four months.

DEBBI SEDEY, OHIO RESIDENT: I have already worked 35 out of the 51 years that I've lived on this planet. And I have nothing to show for it. It's totally not how I saw my life.

BROWN: Debby Sedey, a graphic artist, was laid off more than two years ago right after she closed on her first home, right before she found out she had a tumor.

SEDEY: But when it came down to it, it was a choice between paying my medical bills or paying my house payment. So I started paying my medical bills.

BROWN: Debbi lost her house, then spent three months at a homeless shelter with her teenage daughter before moving into low- income housing. She works 129 hours at the food pantry in exchange for $340 a month in public assistance.

SEDEY: When the chuck comes in, we pay the rent. We pay the phone bill. And then we take care of necessities. My van right now costs me about $25 to fill it up. And that lasts for about a week. So now I'm down to $30. If my daughter needs something, she can just forget it.

BROWN: In Clark County alone, 7,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in just the last two years. Carl McGinnis lost his last job making car parts when work at the factory slowed down.

CARL MCGINNIS, OHIO RESIDENT: I have no income whatsoever. I have no savings, no checking. I've lost my house. I've lost my truck. I'm behind on just about everything. If it wasn't for my parents, I'd be living in a box.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we see now is the total loss of the manufacturing base. Those factories are gone and they're never coming back.

TAMMY HEDGE, OHIO RESIDENT: You get to choose two items off of the top shelf. BROWN: Tammy Hedge, a single mom, lost her job at a leather factory when the company started outsourcing the work to China. She recently found a new job, but the take-home pay is not enough to live on.

HEDGE: Seven an hour and 40 hours a week. And they take the taxes and what they do out of it, it is not enough to live on. Somebody's got to change what's happening to us people here. We just don't not exist anymore just because the company's moved to Mexico and China and all them. We're still here. We've still got groceries to buy and kids to raise.

BROWN: Everyday responsibilities that are now an everyday challenge to the new poor.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And who those people decide is best able to solve their problems may well determine who the next president of the United States is.

Ahead on the program tonight, millions of Americans enjoy the benefits of overtime pay. Could new federal regulations could exempt you from earning extra money? Your time and a half may be on the line.

And at the end of the hour, your local news, sort of, morning papers, for sure.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Starting today, new federal regulations go into effect governing who is and who is not entitled to overtime pay. It's something the business community wanted and the administration formulated. No one disagrees with that. But just about everything else is in dispute, including will it cost millions of people their time and a half?

Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the nation, the new federal overtime pay rules are generating equal measures of hope and fear.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

FREED: The new regulations replace those first written when Franklin Roosevelt was president. Business and labor have long agreed that new ones are needed, but unions like the AFL-CIO are among those alleging that as many as six million workers could now lose their overtime because of the new scheme. Just click on the Labor Department's Web site, though, to hear the secretary herself spinning a similar number from the opposite point of view.

ELAINE CHAO, LABOR SECRETARY: This will strengthen overtime rights for 6.7 million American workers.

FREED: Under the new rules, like before, you are not eligible for overtime if you are not paid on an hourly basis. But the salary cutoff has now been tripled to nearly $24,000 a year, which the Labor Department claims will boost the number of people who do qualify for overtime.

Bill Schurgin is a labor lawyer representing employers and doesn't agree with the doomsayers.

BILL SCHURGIN, LABOR LAWYER: There are 90 percent of the folks that are either truly hourly, eligible for overtime, or truly exempt and not eligible for overtime. And then there's that kind of 5 percent gray area range.

FREED: That gray area centers on job descriptions and whether because of revised definitions your job could be reclassified as either administrative, professional or executive.

James Ware worries that he falls into that gray zone. He's a hotel chef with some administrative duties. And he depends on his overtime.

JAMES WARE, CHEF: In a regular week, I work at least 10 hours of overtime.

FREED: Some experts insist that people like James Ware won't know where they really stand until the new regulations are tested in court.

SHERI ROTHENBERG, LABOR LAWYER: These are all subject to interpretation by not only the Department of Labor, but by the courts. And what weight the courts will give to the Department of Labor's new interpretations remains to be seen.

FREED: But the Labor Department insists the new rules will actually reduce the number of overtime-related lawsuits.

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BELL RINGING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world. As per usual -- I've never understood that expression, but, as per usual, we'll begin with "The International Herald Tribune."

"Bush Calls For Halt To Anti-Kerry Ad. He Says Senator Served Admirably. Specific Charges Are Not Addressed." Now front-page news. Go figure. But, hey, we led with it. What am I talking about?

"The Washington Times." "Bush Raps Anti-Bush Ads On Vietnam, Rival Dem Attacks Funded By Soros." That's George Soros, who is a -- donates to Democratic causes. This is a story I actually like best of all the stories today. "On Softball Diamond, Gold For U.S. Team Takes Third Straight Games." They outscored their opponents 51-1, the women's softball team.

And then I don't know if you can see this, but this is Jeremy Wariner -- I think I pronounced that right -- who won the gold in the 400 meters. And here's the cut line. "Is the First White Male U.S. Sprinter to Medal in 40 years." Isn't that an odd cut line? I'm sure it is true. It just seemed like an odd way to -- anyway, that's me.

"Christian Science Monitor." "Why More Races Are Coming Down to a Whisker" down here. I have no idea of the answer, but I would spend the buck to buy "The Christian Science Monitor" to find out. That's on their front page tomorrow.

"Philadelphia Inquirer," "Inquirer," not "Enquirer," Aaron. Come on. "Political Ad War, No Truce." Here is a story, actually, we ought to pay attention to. "Dealer Settles Suit Over Gunplay." He sold a revival to a straw buyer who sold it on the street. A 7-year- old boy was killed. This goes on actually a fair amount. And the guy, the gun dealer, coughed up $850,000 to settle the suit.

"Detroit News" leads auto. That's local for them. "U.S. Automakers Slip in Owner Satisfaction," not good news there.

We'll quickly go to "The Chicago Sun-Times," because we do. "Gold Standard." They do the women's softball team. And the weather tomorrow in Chicago -- ring the bell, please.

(CHIMES)

BROWN: Thank you -- is a "mishmash."

We'll wrap it up in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Probably 50 or more good things coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow. Here is Bill Hemmer with a quick look at one or two of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," Republicans getting ready for the convention here in New York. And so, too, are the protesters, as many as 250,000 expected. And that is said to be just for one demonstration. If those numbers hold, how do the Republicans stay on message while the president's opponents try to steal the spotlight? We'll talk to Ed Gillespie, chairman of the RNC, about the convention planing tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time right here. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, they could ignore the protesters. That would be one way to stay on message. And I suspect they'll stay on message pretty well. They're pretty good at that. That's "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow, 7:00 Eastern.

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

And we are all back -- I do mean we are all back -- tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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