Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Steroid Use Of High School Athletes Reaching New Heights; Colorado Professor Ward Churchill Still Under Pressure To Resign

Aired February 09, 2005 - 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.
It was a combustible combination, 9/11 and the suggestion that the killers that day had a just grievance and that some of the victims were hardly innocent. Like all arguments, it could simply have been accepted or rejected, but Professor Ward Churchill's now infamous words have created controversy and questions well beyond the statements.

The first of them is simple: Does a college professor have a protected right to make such an argument? Should universities be places where even the most radical of thoughts find sanctuary in a free society? Should tenure protect even dumb comments, let alone highly controversial ones?

All questions on the table tonight and all beginning with a heretofore little known professor in Colorado; reporting for us CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Defiant and not deposed, University of Colorado's embattled professor Ward Churchill was back on campus yesterday, his opening salvo fired at the state's governor, who demanded Churchill resign or be fired.

WARD CHURCHILL, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Bill Owens, do you get it now?

CALLEBS: Churchill, an ethnic studies professor, is under fire after saying victims of the 9/11 attacks were not innocent bystanders. He called them "little Eichmanns" after the man who implemented the Nazi-driven genocide of Jews. Churchill is not offering any apologies and is vowing no retreat.

CHURCHILL: I have every right, indeed the obligation, not only as a citizen but under the terms of my contract and as a human being. I'm not backing up an inch. I owe no one an apology.

CALLEBS: And there are those on campus who are decidedly in his corner.

BEN BEALL, STUDENT: I feel energized by academics tonight because I feel like a great discourse is taking place. To shut this discourse down would be a true injustice. EILEEN SHENDO, STUDENT: I think we have to let those emotions go. This is a larger issue ahead and we do have to look at it critically and it does hurt to see that there's pain going on elsewhere.

CALLEBS: Adam Becenti is a 21-year-old and helped introduce Churchill to the crowd.

ADAM BECENTI, STUDENT: I really feel that what he said, you know his statements are just a self reflection. He wants everybody to self reflect and see are we doing the right, you know, for this country?

CALLEBS: Twenty-one-year-old Isaiah Lechowit couldn't disagree more. He's the head of the campus Young Republicans and wants Churchill muzzled.

ISAIAH LECHOWIT, STUDENT: What he's saying isn't simple freedom of speech. It's hate speech. It's a pro-terrorist view of America. It's him cheerleading for these people who wish us harm.

CHURCHILL: The Board of Regents should do its job and let me do mine.

CALLEBS: Churchill says he won't give an inch but he has resigned as chairman of the University of Colorado's Ethnic Studies Department. He wanted debate and he got it and its discussion that could eventually cost the professor his post.

Sean Callebs CNN, Boulder, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: More now on the immediate controversy, the larger questions it may or may not raise. Dahlia Lithwick writes for "Slate" magazine. We're always pleased to see her.

Just on the face of it academic freedom ought to embrace even dumb things I suppose, is that right?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, "SLATE" MAGAZINE: That's sort of the cornerstone of the notion of what university is about, Aaron. You know the idea behind the First Amendment has always been the cure for dumb speech is more speech, you know, that sunlight is the best disinfectant. You have to air stupid ideas and let students think critically about them.

BROWN: One of the young speakers in the piece that we just aired said "This isn't free speech or protected speech. It's hate speech." Did you see it as hate speech and, if it is in fact hate speech, I'm not precisely sure what that means, does that change the equation?

LITHWICK: It's really not hate speech. I mean certainly, you know different campus codes differ on what they call hate speech but unprotected speech really needs to be speech that incites violence towards some racial minority. There's no incitement in this comment. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it asking Americans to go with flaming torches and burn down anything? No, it's not. It simply doesn't rise to the level of any class of unprotected speech and, in fact, it's political speech. It's pure political speech, the most protected under the First Amendment.

BROWN: I want to get -- there's a larger question here I want to get to but you know what's -- I don't do this often but you know what's galling about this is that at a purely intellectual level you do, I find myself saying, look, I mean the guy's got the right to say it.

But at a personal level what he said really is stunningly offensive and there's guys like this and women like this, I presume, on college campuses all over the place and you find yourself having to defend a principle while you find the individual or the remarks of the individual, I don't know, patently offensive.

LITHWICK: Well, that's sort of the nut of the First Amendment and the nut of free speech, you know. I hate what you're saying but I'll fight to the death for the right.

BROWN: I know that but I -- but you know what it just doesn't feel right sometimes.

LITHWICK: You know I think what's really troubling about this case is that he made these comments three and a half years ago. The university had a lot of time to scrutinize his writings. If they wanted to, you know, revoke his contract, they should have done it back then.

To do it now because television pundits, conservative commentators, radio show hosts are mad, that's really problematic. That really says we're not upset about the substance of what you said. We're upset that the public knows about it and they're creeped out by it and I find that kind of heckler's veto such a dangerous yardstick to measure whether a person deserves to be a professor or not.

BROWN: Let me bring Paul Campos in to this. He is a law professor at the University of Colorado. He's in Denver tonight, writes a syndicated column as well and it's nice to see you. Your argument is an interesting one. It is basically the guy should go but not exactly for what he said.

PAUL F. CAMPOS, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW SCHOOL: That's right. I mean I think we should keep our eye on the ball here. I agree that Ward Churchill's 9/11 essay, as appalling as it was, it's certainly not grounds for dismissing him from his position on the faculty at the University of Colorado.

However, what that essay did was that it raised legitimate questions regarding whether, in fact, he has fallen below in his overall work, the level of professional competence necessary to keep his job.

And, in fact, the investigation that that properly triggered has turned up a bunch of extremely disturbing information about his work, including quite serious charges of academic fraud on his part and plagiarism among other things. And I believe that it's perfectly appropriate for the focus that his essay threw on the rest of his work to call his professional competence into question.

So, I agree he shouldn't be fired because he said appalling things about 9/11 but saying appalling things about 9/11 makes it perfectly appropriate for your employer, the University of Colorado, to look at the rest of your work and say is this characteristic of the kinds of things that this guys says?

BROWN: Well, here's the problem I think and I think Dahlia got to this that if you fire him now, no matter what the good reason maybe, that his academic record is shoddy or that he's a fraud or this or that, people are going to assume you fired him for what he said anyway.

CAMPOS: Well, that's true and that's a serious practical and legal problem, no question about it. But, on the other hand, if he is an academic fraud, if he has fraudulently claimed to be an Indian when, in fact, he isn't and that he has gotten academic advantages from that, then that's not something we can close our eyes to because some people, because many people are upset about the political content of something that he said in that 9/11 essay.

I mean if we've fallen down on the job in terms of having somebody who, in fact, is a fraud on our faculty, both academically and personally, then that's not something we should just close our eyes to and say, oh, just throw up our hands and say free speech and academic freedom and there's nothing that we can do about that.

BROWN: Professors both good to have you with us. Dahlia it's nice to see you again. Thank you.

LITHWICK: Thanks.

BROWN: Well, let's see how this one sorts out.

Moving on, President Bush wants to dramatically increase the amount the victims of the tsunami get from the United States. He'll ask Congress to approve a total relief package of $950 million. That's a big jump from the $350 million the administration had already pledged to pay South Asian countries as they try and recover from the tragedy.

The tsunami, of course, spawned by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on the 26th of December, day after Christmas, killed more than 160,000 people. Tens of thousands remain without homes still tonight.

Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton will visit the region later this month. They've been asked by the president to lead the effort to solicit private donations from Americans.

Here now a couple of other numbers to keep in mind, the number one as in one infant, and the number nine as in nine women who claim the Sri Lankan baby as their own. It's now up to a Sri Lankan court and science to sort out the truth, the story tonight from reporter Harry Smith.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRY SMITH, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Known to the world simply as Baby 81, he has an armed guard as he's moved from one hospital to another. Nine women have claimed him as their son. The authorities are now taking DNA tests to establish who he belongs to.

He was found among the debris in this Sri Lankan village. As the 81st survivor brought to the local hospital that's the name he was given but this couple say he's their son. They have no proof as all photographs and documents were washed away. United Nations officials say this is an extremely difficult situation.

GEOFF KEELL, UNICEF: It's a very sad case. This is a family that has lost everything, their home, their furniture, they've lost everything that they have and whether or not they are the actual parents of this child, it's important to remember that they've been through an incredible amount of trauma.

SMITH: Amid chaotic scenes, the couple have already tried to take the baby by force. Hospital staff had to step in to prevent them. The DNA tests will take about a week and Baby 81 may finally be reunited with his family.

Harry Smith, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's a heartbreaker isn't it?

Much more ahead on the program tonight starting with one place where steroid use is largely going unchecked, the one place and perhaps also the worst place.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The dark side of competing under the Friday night lights what some kids on some teams are doing to their bodies in the name of winning.

DR. JORDAN METZL, PEDIATRIC SPORTS MEDICINE: We're facing a steroid epidemic in kids right now, different than adults. Steroid use in kids can cause lifelong problems.

BROWN: Her ordeal began one cold winter night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And my last thoughts when I was -- when I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore let my children forgive me for dying here in this place. Let them have a good life.

BROWN: Two years after the fire that killed her fiance and 99 others, a badly injured woman struggles to heal and forgive.

From the president today a warning... GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message, don't develop the nuclear weapon.

BROWN: But how unified is the world? How credible the threat, a look at the options or the lack of them.

And you can curse the darkness or...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Soy wax is one of the cleanest burning waxes available.

BROWN: Bringing soy to the world by marketing his candles and himself. He's on the rise and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This story first caught our eye last night while we were doing morning papers, so much so we made space for it tonight with some additional reporting. It's about teenagers using steroids and the price they may be paying with their health, with their lives. The story begins with the "Dallas Morning News" and what that paper found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): High school football has always been a serious game in Texas but no one knew quite how serious and how dangerous until nine athletes, most of them football players at Colleyville Heritage High School outside Dallas, admitted to using steroids.

The "Dallas Morning News" has been investigating the story at Heritage High and beyond for four months now. The paper reported that one of the athletes, who had been injecting steroids last spring, said he had no fear of getting caught.

"Nobody's afraid of getting tested because they know the school can't afford it right now."

Well what's happening at Heritage High is not unique. Broadening the investigation, the paper talked to more than 100 students, coaches and parents about the abuse of steroids.

Some of its conclusions, steroids are easy for high school students to get, coaches rarely confront players or alert parents, many teenage users are non-athletes, and they often rely on the Internet to learn how to manage the drug's dangerous side effects. National statistics, the newspaper reports, suggest that more than 270,000 students from the eighth through the twelfth grade have used steroids.

METZL: We are facing an epidemic in the United States of steroid use in kids. The most pointed difference between kids and adults taking steroids is that kids' emotional psyche is so strongly affected by steroid use they're much more prone to mood instability and when they come off of the steroid they're much more prone to depression.

BROWN: Sports meant a lot to Taylor Hooton, so for a time did steroids. Taylor committed suicide in July of 2003 in Plano, Texas a death his family believes was linked to steroid withdrawal.

DON HOOTON, PRESIDENT, TAYLOR HOOTON FOUNDATION: I had the kids in our area, in Plano, tell me that at least a third of the young men that are showing up on Friday night to play football are juicing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was Don Hooton and Mr. Hooton joins us now from Dallas. And, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania we're joined by Buzz Bissinger, contributing editor at "Vanity Fair" and the author of "Friday Night Lights," a book that describes the pressures of one high school football team in Odessa, Texas in a single season, a terrific read. We're glad to have you both.

Don, do you think that it is conceivable that coaches, whether they be baseball coaches, your son played baseball, football coaches don't know the kids on those teams are juicing?

HOOTON: Well, I think it's conceivable, Aaron, but I think at a general level I like to say it's a policy of don't ask, don't tell. You know the kids know that their teammates are juicing and, if the coaches have been trained, which they have not, they would know that the kids are juicing, you know.

I can only speculate but it's difficult for me to believe that with as many kids juicing as we've learned in our part of the country and across the country are juicing that these coaches don't know anything about it.

BROWN: Buzz in the book you talk about, you don't really get into steroids, the issue of steroids.

BUZZ BISSINGER, AUTHOR, "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS": Right.

BROWN: But you do talk about what I would suggest here is a related cousin and that is the extraordinary pressure that is on these kids to perform.

BISSINGER: Well, I mean the pressure is just enormous, you know. When I wrote "Friday Night Lights" it was based on Odessa, Texas. You're playing in front of 20,000 people on a Friday night. You're the god of the town. The pressure on the kids is incalculable, the pressure on the coaches are incalculable.

If you don't win, it's not just in Odessa and it's gotten worse in the intervening 15 years, if you don't win in Texas high school football, you're going to be out. You're going to be fired.

Coaches know this. Kids know this. Parents know this and so the side effect is going to be pressure. How do I succeed? How do I get bigger? How do I get stronger? And, as Mr. Hooton says and what he's gone through is so horrific, they're going to use steroids and coaches and parents, it's going to be don't ask, don't tell.

BROWN: I want to get back to the steroid question in a second. Let me just talk about pressure. Where is the pressure coming from? Is it coming from parents? Is it coming from the coaches? Is it coming from the community? Is it coming from all of those groups?

BISSINGER: Well, I think it's coming from all those groups. I mean I can speak the best about Odessa, which is where "Friday Night Lights" took place. It's an isolated community. It's in West Texas. The one thing that community has had, it's an oil boom and bust town, the one thing that community has had for 50 years has been high school football, the Friday night lights.

It is beautiful. It is intense. They have a culture of winning. It lights up the night. It's the great source of entertainment and pride and people don't want to give it up. You know, at one point it was the winningest team in Texas high school history.

And when you have that tradition, when you have that responsibility, when you have an entire town on your shoulders, man I saw it firsthand, not in steroids but all sorts of other pressures, you are basically going to do anything to win because, if you don't, you're going to feel disgraced and, if you're a coach, you're going to be out.

You know Permian High School has gone through three coaches in seven years and you can't feel too sorry for them. They're making $95,000 to $100,000 a year. I mean high school football is big business now in the state of Texas.

BROWN: I guess, Don, let me go back to you then. You know don't ask, don't tell is one thing. Do you think these communities, Plano is a pretty good football area, the whole Texas area is, Oklahoma, a lot of the south, a lot of the country, do you think if these communities knew, literally knew that their kids were using steroids they would react differently than they do now?

HOOTON: Aaron, I hope so. I find amongst the parents, the general community a profound ignorance both of the fact that you know these steroids are dangerous but more importantly the fact that this stuff is as widespread as it is I think.

There was an editorial in the "Dallas Morning News" just this morning that I think hit the nail right on the head. Across the board there's a denial that this problem is going on and until we recognize that the steroid use is as high as I personally know it is, we can never get through to the point that we're going to tackle the problem.

BROWN: Well, we put the problem on the table. We appreciate both of you helping us to do that. Thanks for joining us tonight.

BISSINGER: Thank you.

HOOTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Imagine that high school kids like that. Coming up on the program still, Iran's president talks tough about his country's nuclear program and so does the White House, is it deja vu? Is it worse? We'll talk with an expert on the options open to the White House and to the world.

And later, a survivor of a fire that took 100 lives, her life two years later. We take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With Iraq as the backdrop, the message today from the president on down had to do with Iran. Today in Luxembourg, the Secretary of State sounded the warning. Iran, she said, needs to halt its nuclear program, which the United States believes is a nuclear weapons program.

Europe needs to get tougher in negotiations with Iran." And she warned that if neither happens there are other steps the international community could take. It was a message repeated with minor variations at the Pentagon and at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message don't develop a nuclear weapon and the reason we're sending that message is because Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a very destabilizing force in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: As for the Iranians, who are currently negotiating with Britain, France and Germany on the nuclear question, there was another denial today from the country's president that it even wants nuclear weapons, coupled with a pledge to never give up its nuclear program.

So, in a phrase it works as well on the playground as it does on the world stage, what you going to do about it? Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He joins us tonight from Washington.

There seems to be a bit of good cop, bad cop going on between the Europeans and the Americans but you make an argument that the badder the bad cop gets the more inclined the Iranians are to actually want these weapons.

RAY TAKEYH, SR. FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, if you accept the fact that Iranians want these weapons for purposes of security and the principal threat to their security today, as they see it, is the United States, the more belligerent and bellicose the United States becomes, the more incentive they have to accelerate their nuclear program. So, the idea of bad cop becoming badder doesn't necessarily resolve the issue. BROWN: Do we -- by the way, is there any doubt in any smart person's mind here, as opposed to people like me, that the Iranians, in fact, do have a nuclear weapons program?

TAKEYH: Well, there's -- the judgment on this remains open but most people suggest that Iran does not really require nuclear energy given the fact that it has substantial oil and gas reserves and in the 1990s invested a considerable amount of money in hydroelectric power.

So, nuclear energy and the cost that nuclear energy entails doesn't make economic sense for Iran. So, if Iran is developing a civilian nuclear research program that could potentially be exploited for military purposes.

BROWN: All right. Now let's put this in the language that I really do understand. Let's assume that the Iranians are playing a game of poker here.

TAKEYH: Right.

BROWN: What is it they want?

TAKEYH: Well, it seems that Iranians want a number of things and a country that can deliver those would be the United States, first of all, economic concessions and again, economic concessions from the United States. They have recognized that they can't really be part of the global economy without the American sanctions being at least eased to some extent.

They would like to have some sort of security considerations and security dialog and security guarantees from the United States given the fact that the Americans occupy countries both to their left and their right. And, therefore, as I said, all roads lead to Washington. It is hard to see how the Europeans can resolve this issue in a conclusive, durable manner.

BROWN: Yes, we're a long way, one hopes we're a long way from a war with Iran.

TAKEYH: Right.

BROWN: Is it a realistic option for the Americans or for the world community to try and take on that country?

TAKEYH: War in terms of actually invading and occupying Iran is not an option. Iran is a big country. It's a vast country. It's 70 million people. It's a highly nationalistic population and an extraordinarily difficult terrain for conducting military operations, much less occupation of the country. The sort of military strikes that are being contemplated...

Iran is a big country. It's a vast country. It's 70 million people, this highly nationalistic population and an extraordinarily difficult terrain for conducting a military operation, much less occupation of the country.

The sort of military strikes that are being contemplated, at least the saber-rattling that you hear nowadays, well, for a military option to work in terms of surgical strike, you need very precise intelligence. And no one is suggesting that the United States or the international community fully understand how widespread Iran nuclear facilities are, where they are, and can be easily taken out in that sense.

So, military options both small and large are not realistic option, or options that can deal with this issue in an effective manner.

BROWN: Let me ask you one more thing from the Iranian point of view. Do the Iranians need a -- I'll put this in quotes -- a "belligerent" American government, in much the same way that Castro needs a belligerent American government?

TAKEYH: It doesn't play the same way in terms of their domestic politics, given the fact that the Iranian population is unique in terms of all other populations in the Middle East, that it is relatively pro-American.

It does look with favor toward the United States, at the political system and the culture of the United States. So, sort of the demonization of America as a means of gaining domestic political capital doesn't work that well. However, if an America actually becomes a country that strikes Iran's national facilities militarily, then I think the nationalistic opinion will change on America. And then the regime can effectively utilize that type of hostility to the United States as a means of deflecting attention from some of its own deficiencies.

BROWN: Ray, good to have you with us tonight. Thank you.

TAKEYH: Thanks. Thanks. Thank you very much. BROWN: Appreciate your help on this. I expect we'll be talking about this.

Some bit of history now before we go to break. About a year and a half ago, a building that's normally a symbol of justice became the scene of a violent crime, a shooting at a courthouse in California. And because a high-profile hearing was under way in that courthouse it was all caught on tape, as they say. A look back at this story as part of our anniversary series "Then and Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a shocking sideshow, captured by TV crews gathered at the L.A. County courthouse to cover the Robert Blake hearing in 2003.

Attorney Gerald Curry was at the courthouse for an unrelated case when William Strier approached him, asked his name and opened fire. Strier then calmly walked away. He was apparently angry that Curry was representing Strier's sister in a dispute over a trust fund. Curry was shot in the neck, both arms and shoulder and taken from the scene by paramedics. Curry survived, recovered completely and still lives and practices law in Southern California.

GERALD CURRY, ATTORNEY: When I leave the office, when I go to court, when I go to the parking structure, I tend to keep my eyes open, look around.

COOPER: Curry's shooter, William Strier, was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial and remains in a state hospital, but Curry says he doesn't harbor any bad feelings for Strier.

CURRY: The odds of this happening were probably one in a million. And so therefore, I try to not to let it affect my life or not have any bitterness and try to maintain a positive and optimistic outlook.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Throughout the year, as CNN marks its 25th year of reporting the news, we'll look back at stories that have impacted our lives, see what happened to the people who made news on those days.

Still to come from us tonight, a question that lives on the border between the United States and Mexico and the new normal. Who should be allowed to get a driver's license? Should the federal government get into the act in the name of homeland security?

And, later, the rooster gets no time off on New Year's Day. It is New Year's Day in the Chinese new year, the year of the rooster, a big year for morning papers. I'll tell you that.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The new normal has produced a long list of balancing acts. Tonight's "Security Watch" looks at yet another.

The rules for issuing driver's licenses vary by state, different states requiring different types of proof from drivers, different ages in some cases. Some members of Congress call it a loophole for terrorists. A law designed to close the loopholes could also have other consequences.

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Antonio. That's not his real name because he's not here legally and he's not alone.

"ANTONIO," ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: Everybody need immigrants. Look, you see? How many immigrants work? A lot.

JOHNS (on camera): Everywhere you look?

ANTONIO: Yes.

JOHNS: Do you think they're all legal? Do you think they're all documented?

ANTONIO: I don't think so. They need work, they work.

JOHNS (voice-over): Antonio is from Mexico. He doesn't have citizenship or a green card, but he does have a driver's license. And that's got some in Congress upset. They say if he could get a license, so could terrorists, like they did on 9/11.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Nineteen terrorists had 63 driver's licenses.

JOHNS: But Antonio says he's no terrorist.

ANTONIO: You are honest people. You work. You make -- you produce. You pay taxes. I don't know what is the real problem.

JOHNS: The problem is that driver's licenses are used for identification, for everything from getting onto a plane to buying a firearm. The congressional measure would require that all states get proof people are in the country legally before giving out licenses. At least 10 states don't do that now, including Maryland, where Antonio lives and works renovating homes.

(on camera): What would happen to your business if they took away your driver's license?

ANTONIO: I don't know exactly, because, if they take away my license driver, it's like he is taking off my hands.

JOHNS (voice-over): Backers of tougher rules insist they are not meddling in states' rights, just trying to create national standards, and they keep coming back to the 9/11 hijackers. REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: So they used a legitimately, legally issued state driver's license to get on the plane.

JOHNS: But even some supporters of national standards say the proposal could lead to one kind of license for people who prove their legal and a lower-level license for those who don't.

GEOFFREY TOBIAS, IMMIGRATION EXPERT: We called it the scarlet letter license. If you're here illegally and you're in an accident, do you want everybody to know that you're not here legally? I wouldn't think so.

JOHNS: And that could result in some immigrants too scared to even get a license. But they would drive anyway, with no test and no insurance. Without a license on file, the state might not even know their names.

ANTONIO: Exactly.

JOHNS (on camera): And where you are.

ANTONIO: Exactly.

JOHNS: And how to find you.

ANTONIO: Very simple.

JOHNS (voice-over): It's a tough choice, balancing public safety with the risk of driving illegal immigrants further into the shadows.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, she barely survived the fire that killed 100 other people, including her fiance. Two years later, her struggle to forget and to forgive.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Two years ago this month, a pyrotechnics display in a packed Rhode Island nightclub sparked a fire that killed 100 people. The fireworks were part of the band's act. The band's former tour manager and the club's owners were indicted on numerous counts of involuntary manslaughter. More than a half a dozen civil suits are now pending in federal court.

Tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE," a survivor of the fire and members of the band, The Great White Way, sat down together. One survivor who turned down the offer to join them says she's not ready to forgive, not yet, not nearly.

Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She walks among the headstones, Gina Russo remembering clearly the nightclub fireworks that went wrong.

GINA RUSSO, NIGHTCLUB FIRE SURVIVOR: Because we were so close to the stage, you could see the base of where the fireworks were set up. And it just kept going and going.

FEYERICK: Remembering, she says, the bouncer who blocked the exit door four feet from the stage where she and her fiance had settled in to hear the band, Great White.

RUSSO: We're screaming, there's a fire. Please open the door. Open the door. There's a fire. And he just, you know, arms crossed, very adamantly, club policy, band only. It's for the band only.

FEYERICK: Remembering how Fred Crisostomi, the love of Russo's life, pushed her to safety before being overwhelmed by smoke.

RUSSO: After he pushed me, I had made it to the doorway, but turned around to try to find him. And I was screaming, Fred, where are you? Where are you? But everybody was screaming. And he was just gone. It was just all these heads and a sea of people on fire.

And my last thoughts when I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore, I remember just praying to God to let my children forgive me for dying here in this place, and let them have a good life.

FEYERICK: Russo, who's 37, woke from a coma three months later.

(on camera): When your eyes opened, what did you see and what did you remember?

RUSSO: I remember being in a plastic bubble. They had me in an oxygen tent. My lungs were very, very bad.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Russo's hands, head, and back were severely burned, her left ear completely gone. The former hospital secretary has had more than 30 operations, followed by long months of recovery and rehab.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will get one last X-ray.

FEYERICK: Most recently, doctors removed a knuckle so she can bend her index finger. And surgeons took out part of a rib to try to reconstruct her ear. Her hair is gone, and it's not likely to grow back. Russo blames the owners, the building inspectors, and the band's lead singer.

RUSSO: It's just truly, honest to God, amazes me how he can walk around and not accept some type of responsibility.

FEYERICK: Despite it all, she still sees miracles, the biggest, that she's alive to see her two boys grow up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as she's here, that's all I care about. I don't care about her hair, what she looks like.

FEYERICK: Russo still goes to clubs, but she stays near the door. She thinks about Fred all the time, wondering what life might have been had the bouncer stepped aside and let them out.

RUSSO: Had he opened the door, my life would be completely different. I'd be married by now. And, you know, life would be very different.

FEYERICK: Life redefined.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, West Warwick, Rhode Island.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Fair to say we've covered wide and varied ground tonight. We began with free speech and end with the free market. Soy is good for our diet. We've all heard that. But is it also good for the soul? We're about to meet an entrepreneur who is absolutely sure that it is. At the very least, it appears to be good for his company's bottom line.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIMMY BELASCO, FOUNDER, ER'GO CANDLES: Hi. I'm Jimmy. Welcome to Er'go.

Er'go Candle is -- I call it the original premium fragrance soy candle. Soy wax is one of the cleanest-burning waxes available. I really think of myself as a premium fragrance company. Soy wax just was the medium to showcase the fragrance.

I started this company in 1999, the fall of '99. Two years into it, we just exploded. And I feel that we're right on the verge of taking that next step. We have 25 employees now, roughly. Attitude is absolutely everything. My theory is, be happy. Be happy at what you're doing. If you're not happy, then go home and get happy. I fully believe in energy transference.

So, what we're doing here is sending love through our product. And if I'm sending love through the product, it really does, I believe, affect the end consumer. We do all the work basically by hand. This is the way it's been done for hundreds of years. And we are sticking with that to this point.

The wax is delivered to us in these boxes in a flake form. It's actually edible. You can eat it. This vat here is about ready to be mixed with fragrance. Once it is ready, we will put in the appropriate amount of fragrance for the candle that we are pouring at that moment. Kiwi is actually one of the top new ones that was introduced pretty recently. It is one that grabs your nose.

In the burn, I want it to have...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More of a punch.

BELASCO: Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

BELASCO: My main job is developing the product, taking it to fruition, and making sure that it burns.

Is this the font?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is the font.

BELASCO: That's the font?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BELASCO: And even working on the packaging and marketing.

Years ago, I was impressed with what Dave Thomas did for Wendy's and the man behind the product. So I am presenting myself as the man behind the candle. We're introducing the Jimmy's all-time favorites, which is a collection that selects the all-time favorites from the over 100 fragrances that we offer.

We don't really advertise. I believe more in publicity. You know, you make enough noise, people start to notice. I don't want to decorate someone's home. That's why we've never added color. I don't want to match someone's sofa or their drapes. I really want to be what is fragrancing the home. So, really, that's what my main goal would be. I want someone to walk in and say, wow, what is that?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break. Wow. What was that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers.

It is the year of the rooster. "The Shanghai Daily" leads that way, actually. "Rooster to Crow in the Rain." I guess it was kind of a sloppy day. And in honor of it being the year of the rooster, we have this quick Chinese new year video interlude.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING CHINESE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: OK. This was one of those things that came across. And we saw it and we thought we'd run it. "Christian Science Monitor" down here. "Across U.S., Locals Rebel Against Noise." All sorts of things annoying people. In New York, it's the Mr. Softy truck, or whatever they call that, the little ice cream guy, people all upset over that.

"The Dallas Morning News," bless them for the story they did on steroids. This is a good newspaper. And I like this story, too. "There's Never a Line. It's Open 24/7. It's as Close as Your Desk. Online Banking Is So Big, It's Striking a New Balance." Get the joke there? A new balance. I don't remember the last time I wrote a check. I do it all by computer. Hope it works, though.

"San Antonio Express-News," staying in Texas. This is a very good story out there, too, today. "Your Heart Really Can Break. A study finds that it's possible for a sudden breakup or other dramatic event to stop your ticker," as they say. And, for some reason -- I don't know -- I haven't read enough about this -- for some reason, this affects women more than men. I don't know why that is.

"Boston Herald." "Who Am I?" -- a question I've asked myself many times here. "Cops: This Man's Life is a Total Blank." If you know who this gentleman is, call "The Boston Herald" or the Boston police or somebody in Boston.

"The Guardian," British paper. I can't leave this alone. "Why Underpants" -- can't we just say underwear? Underpants just sounds goofy to me. "Why Underpants Must Stay Under in the State Of Virginia." We told you about this last night, $50 fine if your underwear shows. Probably a guy who objects to big government, too. You know how that works?

"The Miami Herald." "Cost of Medicare Benefit Likely to Soar." Remember when it only cost $400 billion? Well, it turns out it's going to cost about $724 billion. But, you know, what's $300 billion between friends?

How much time do we have? Twenty now. OK.

"The Detroit News." I love the papers today. I could have done the whole program this way, but you wouldn't have stayed that long, would you? "NHL" -- remember that? That was the league that played hockey. "Deal Now or Forget the Season. If we're not working on a written document by this weekend, I don't see how we can play a semblance of a season." Honestly, no one cares anymore, OK?

Weather in Chicago, "monotonous."

Good to have you with us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Good night for all of us.

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


Aired February 9, 2005 - 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.
It was a combustible combination, 9/11 and the suggestion that the killers that day had a just grievance and that some of the victims were hardly innocent. Like all arguments, it could simply have been accepted or rejected, but Professor Ward Churchill's now infamous words have created controversy and questions well beyond the statements.

The first of them is simple: Does a college professor have a protected right to make such an argument? Should universities be places where even the most radical of thoughts find sanctuary in a free society? Should tenure protect even dumb comments, let alone highly controversial ones?

All questions on the table tonight and all beginning with a heretofore little known professor in Colorado; reporting for us CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Defiant and not deposed, University of Colorado's embattled professor Ward Churchill was back on campus yesterday, his opening salvo fired at the state's governor, who demanded Churchill resign or be fired.

WARD CHURCHILL, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Bill Owens, do you get it now?

CALLEBS: Churchill, an ethnic studies professor, is under fire after saying victims of the 9/11 attacks were not innocent bystanders. He called them "little Eichmanns" after the man who implemented the Nazi-driven genocide of Jews. Churchill is not offering any apologies and is vowing no retreat.

CHURCHILL: I have every right, indeed the obligation, not only as a citizen but under the terms of my contract and as a human being. I'm not backing up an inch. I owe no one an apology.

CALLEBS: And there are those on campus who are decidedly in his corner.

BEN BEALL, STUDENT: I feel energized by academics tonight because I feel like a great discourse is taking place. To shut this discourse down would be a true injustice. EILEEN SHENDO, STUDENT: I think we have to let those emotions go. This is a larger issue ahead and we do have to look at it critically and it does hurt to see that there's pain going on elsewhere.

CALLEBS: Adam Becenti is a 21-year-old and helped introduce Churchill to the crowd.

ADAM BECENTI, STUDENT: I really feel that what he said, you know his statements are just a self reflection. He wants everybody to self reflect and see are we doing the right, you know, for this country?

CALLEBS: Twenty-one-year-old Isaiah Lechowit couldn't disagree more. He's the head of the campus Young Republicans and wants Churchill muzzled.

ISAIAH LECHOWIT, STUDENT: What he's saying isn't simple freedom of speech. It's hate speech. It's a pro-terrorist view of America. It's him cheerleading for these people who wish us harm.

CHURCHILL: The Board of Regents should do its job and let me do mine.

CALLEBS: Churchill says he won't give an inch but he has resigned as chairman of the University of Colorado's Ethnic Studies Department. He wanted debate and he got it and its discussion that could eventually cost the professor his post.

Sean Callebs CNN, Boulder, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: More now on the immediate controversy, the larger questions it may or may not raise. Dahlia Lithwick writes for "Slate" magazine. We're always pleased to see her.

Just on the face of it academic freedom ought to embrace even dumb things I suppose, is that right?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, "SLATE" MAGAZINE: That's sort of the cornerstone of the notion of what university is about, Aaron. You know the idea behind the First Amendment has always been the cure for dumb speech is more speech, you know, that sunlight is the best disinfectant. You have to air stupid ideas and let students think critically about them.

BROWN: One of the young speakers in the piece that we just aired said "This isn't free speech or protected speech. It's hate speech." Did you see it as hate speech and, if it is in fact hate speech, I'm not precisely sure what that means, does that change the equation?

LITHWICK: It's really not hate speech. I mean certainly, you know different campus codes differ on what they call hate speech but unprotected speech really needs to be speech that incites violence towards some racial minority. There's no incitement in this comment. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it asking Americans to go with flaming torches and burn down anything? No, it's not. It simply doesn't rise to the level of any class of unprotected speech and, in fact, it's political speech. It's pure political speech, the most protected under the First Amendment.

BROWN: I want to get -- there's a larger question here I want to get to but you know what's -- I don't do this often but you know what's galling about this is that at a purely intellectual level you do, I find myself saying, look, I mean the guy's got the right to say it.

But at a personal level what he said really is stunningly offensive and there's guys like this and women like this, I presume, on college campuses all over the place and you find yourself having to defend a principle while you find the individual or the remarks of the individual, I don't know, patently offensive.

LITHWICK: Well, that's sort of the nut of the First Amendment and the nut of free speech, you know. I hate what you're saying but I'll fight to the death for the right.

BROWN: I know that but I -- but you know what it just doesn't feel right sometimes.

LITHWICK: You know I think what's really troubling about this case is that he made these comments three and a half years ago. The university had a lot of time to scrutinize his writings. If they wanted to, you know, revoke his contract, they should have done it back then.

To do it now because television pundits, conservative commentators, radio show hosts are mad, that's really problematic. That really says we're not upset about the substance of what you said. We're upset that the public knows about it and they're creeped out by it and I find that kind of heckler's veto such a dangerous yardstick to measure whether a person deserves to be a professor or not.

BROWN: Let me bring Paul Campos in to this. He is a law professor at the University of Colorado. He's in Denver tonight, writes a syndicated column as well and it's nice to see you. Your argument is an interesting one. It is basically the guy should go but not exactly for what he said.

PAUL F. CAMPOS, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW SCHOOL: That's right. I mean I think we should keep our eye on the ball here. I agree that Ward Churchill's 9/11 essay, as appalling as it was, it's certainly not grounds for dismissing him from his position on the faculty at the University of Colorado.

However, what that essay did was that it raised legitimate questions regarding whether, in fact, he has fallen below in his overall work, the level of professional competence necessary to keep his job.

And, in fact, the investigation that that properly triggered has turned up a bunch of extremely disturbing information about his work, including quite serious charges of academic fraud on his part and plagiarism among other things. And I believe that it's perfectly appropriate for the focus that his essay threw on the rest of his work to call his professional competence into question.

So, I agree he shouldn't be fired because he said appalling things about 9/11 but saying appalling things about 9/11 makes it perfectly appropriate for your employer, the University of Colorado, to look at the rest of your work and say is this characteristic of the kinds of things that this guys says?

BROWN: Well, here's the problem I think and I think Dahlia got to this that if you fire him now, no matter what the good reason maybe, that his academic record is shoddy or that he's a fraud or this or that, people are going to assume you fired him for what he said anyway.

CAMPOS: Well, that's true and that's a serious practical and legal problem, no question about it. But, on the other hand, if he is an academic fraud, if he has fraudulently claimed to be an Indian when, in fact, he isn't and that he has gotten academic advantages from that, then that's not something we can close our eyes to because some people, because many people are upset about the political content of something that he said in that 9/11 essay.

I mean if we've fallen down on the job in terms of having somebody who, in fact, is a fraud on our faculty, both academically and personally, then that's not something we should just close our eyes to and say, oh, just throw up our hands and say free speech and academic freedom and there's nothing that we can do about that.

BROWN: Professors both good to have you with us. Dahlia it's nice to see you again. Thank you.

LITHWICK: Thanks.

BROWN: Well, let's see how this one sorts out.

Moving on, President Bush wants to dramatically increase the amount the victims of the tsunami get from the United States. He'll ask Congress to approve a total relief package of $950 million. That's a big jump from the $350 million the administration had already pledged to pay South Asian countries as they try and recover from the tragedy.

The tsunami, of course, spawned by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on the 26th of December, day after Christmas, killed more than 160,000 people. Tens of thousands remain without homes still tonight.

Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton will visit the region later this month. They've been asked by the president to lead the effort to solicit private donations from Americans.

Here now a couple of other numbers to keep in mind, the number one as in one infant, and the number nine as in nine women who claim the Sri Lankan baby as their own. It's now up to a Sri Lankan court and science to sort out the truth, the story tonight from reporter Harry Smith.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRY SMITH, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Known to the world simply as Baby 81, he has an armed guard as he's moved from one hospital to another. Nine women have claimed him as their son. The authorities are now taking DNA tests to establish who he belongs to.

He was found among the debris in this Sri Lankan village. As the 81st survivor brought to the local hospital that's the name he was given but this couple say he's their son. They have no proof as all photographs and documents were washed away. United Nations officials say this is an extremely difficult situation.

GEOFF KEELL, UNICEF: It's a very sad case. This is a family that has lost everything, their home, their furniture, they've lost everything that they have and whether or not they are the actual parents of this child, it's important to remember that they've been through an incredible amount of trauma.

SMITH: Amid chaotic scenes, the couple have already tried to take the baby by force. Hospital staff had to step in to prevent them. The DNA tests will take about a week and Baby 81 may finally be reunited with his family.

Harry Smith, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's a heartbreaker isn't it?

Much more ahead on the program tonight starting with one place where steroid use is largely going unchecked, the one place and perhaps also the worst place.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The dark side of competing under the Friday night lights what some kids on some teams are doing to their bodies in the name of winning.

DR. JORDAN METZL, PEDIATRIC SPORTS MEDICINE: We're facing a steroid epidemic in kids right now, different than adults. Steroid use in kids can cause lifelong problems.

BROWN: Her ordeal began one cold winter night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And my last thoughts when I was -- when I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore let my children forgive me for dying here in this place. Let them have a good life.

BROWN: Two years after the fire that killed her fiance and 99 others, a badly injured woman struggles to heal and forgive.

From the president today a warning... GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message, don't develop the nuclear weapon.

BROWN: But how unified is the world? How credible the threat, a look at the options or the lack of them.

And you can curse the darkness or...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Soy wax is one of the cleanest burning waxes available.

BROWN: Bringing soy to the world by marketing his candles and himself. He's on the rise and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This story first caught our eye last night while we were doing morning papers, so much so we made space for it tonight with some additional reporting. It's about teenagers using steroids and the price they may be paying with their health, with their lives. The story begins with the "Dallas Morning News" and what that paper found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): High school football has always been a serious game in Texas but no one knew quite how serious and how dangerous until nine athletes, most of them football players at Colleyville Heritage High School outside Dallas, admitted to using steroids.

The "Dallas Morning News" has been investigating the story at Heritage High and beyond for four months now. The paper reported that one of the athletes, who had been injecting steroids last spring, said he had no fear of getting caught.

"Nobody's afraid of getting tested because they know the school can't afford it right now."

Well what's happening at Heritage High is not unique. Broadening the investigation, the paper talked to more than 100 students, coaches and parents about the abuse of steroids.

Some of its conclusions, steroids are easy for high school students to get, coaches rarely confront players or alert parents, many teenage users are non-athletes, and they often rely on the Internet to learn how to manage the drug's dangerous side effects. National statistics, the newspaper reports, suggest that more than 270,000 students from the eighth through the twelfth grade have used steroids.

METZL: We are facing an epidemic in the United States of steroid use in kids. The most pointed difference between kids and adults taking steroids is that kids' emotional psyche is so strongly affected by steroid use they're much more prone to mood instability and when they come off of the steroid they're much more prone to depression.

BROWN: Sports meant a lot to Taylor Hooton, so for a time did steroids. Taylor committed suicide in July of 2003 in Plano, Texas a death his family believes was linked to steroid withdrawal.

DON HOOTON, PRESIDENT, TAYLOR HOOTON FOUNDATION: I had the kids in our area, in Plano, tell me that at least a third of the young men that are showing up on Friday night to play football are juicing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was Don Hooton and Mr. Hooton joins us now from Dallas. And, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania we're joined by Buzz Bissinger, contributing editor at "Vanity Fair" and the author of "Friday Night Lights," a book that describes the pressures of one high school football team in Odessa, Texas in a single season, a terrific read. We're glad to have you both.

Don, do you think that it is conceivable that coaches, whether they be baseball coaches, your son played baseball, football coaches don't know the kids on those teams are juicing?

HOOTON: Well, I think it's conceivable, Aaron, but I think at a general level I like to say it's a policy of don't ask, don't tell. You know the kids know that their teammates are juicing and, if the coaches have been trained, which they have not, they would know that the kids are juicing, you know.

I can only speculate but it's difficult for me to believe that with as many kids juicing as we've learned in our part of the country and across the country are juicing that these coaches don't know anything about it.

BROWN: Buzz in the book you talk about, you don't really get into steroids, the issue of steroids.

BUZZ BISSINGER, AUTHOR, "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS": Right.

BROWN: But you do talk about what I would suggest here is a related cousin and that is the extraordinary pressure that is on these kids to perform.

BISSINGER: Well, I mean the pressure is just enormous, you know. When I wrote "Friday Night Lights" it was based on Odessa, Texas. You're playing in front of 20,000 people on a Friday night. You're the god of the town. The pressure on the kids is incalculable, the pressure on the coaches are incalculable.

If you don't win, it's not just in Odessa and it's gotten worse in the intervening 15 years, if you don't win in Texas high school football, you're going to be out. You're going to be fired.

Coaches know this. Kids know this. Parents know this and so the side effect is going to be pressure. How do I succeed? How do I get bigger? How do I get stronger? And, as Mr. Hooton says and what he's gone through is so horrific, they're going to use steroids and coaches and parents, it's going to be don't ask, don't tell.

BROWN: I want to get back to the steroid question in a second. Let me just talk about pressure. Where is the pressure coming from? Is it coming from parents? Is it coming from the coaches? Is it coming from the community? Is it coming from all of those groups?

BISSINGER: Well, I think it's coming from all those groups. I mean I can speak the best about Odessa, which is where "Friday Night Lights" took place. It's an isolated community. It's in West Texas. The one thing that community has had, it's an oil boom and bust town, the one thing that community has had for 50 years has been high school football, the Friday night lights.

It is beautiful. It is intense. They have a culture of winning. It lights up the night. It's the great source of entertainment and pride and people don't want to give it up. You know, at one point it was the winningest team in Texas high school history.

And when you have that tradition, when you have that responsibility, when you have an entire town on your shoulders, man I saw it firsthand, not in steroids but all sorts of other pressures, you are basically going to do anything to win because, if you don't, you're going to feel disgraced and, if you're a coach, you're going to be out.

You know Permian High School has gone through three coaches in seven years and you can't feel too sorry for them. They're making $95,000 to $100,000 a year. I mean high school football is big business now in the state of Texas.

BROWN: I guess, Don, let me go back to you then. You know don't ask, don't tell is one thing. Do you think these communities, Plano is a pretty good football area, the whole Texas area is, Oklahoma, a lot of the south, a lot of the country, do you think if these communities knew, literally knew that their kids were using steroids they would react differently than they do now?

HOOTON: Aaron, I hope so. I find amongst the parents, the general community a profound ignorance both of the fact that you know these steroids are dangerous but more importantly the fact that this stuff is as widespread as it is I think.

There was an editorial in the "Dallas Morning News" just this morning that I think hit the nail right on the head. Across the board there's a denial that this problem is going on and until we recognize that the steroid use is as high as I personally know it is, we can never get through to the point that we're going to tackle the problem.

BROWN: Well, we put the problem on the table. We appreciate both of you helping us to do that. Thanks for joining us tonight.

BISSINGER: Thank you.

HOOTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Imagine that high school kids like that. Coming up on the program still, Iran's president talks tough about his country's nuclear program and so does the White House, is it deja vu? Is it worse? We'll talk with an expert on the options open to the White House and to the world.

And later, a survivor of a fire that took 100 lives, her life two years later. We take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With Iraq as the backdrop, the message today from the president on down had to do with Iran. Today in Luxembourg, the Secretary of State sounded the warning. Iran, she said, needs to halt its nuclear program, which the United States believes is a nuclear weapons program.

Europe needs to get tougher in negotiations with Iran." And she warned that if neither happens there are other steps the international community could take. It was a message repeated with minor variations at the Pentagon and at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message don't develop a nuclear weapon and the reason we're sending that message is because Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a very destabilizing force in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: As for the Iranians, who are currently negotiating with Britain, France and Germany on the nuclear question, there was another denial today from the country's president that it even wants nuclear weapons, coupled with a pledge to never give up its nuclear program.

So, in a phrase it works as well on the playground as it does on the world stage, what you going to do about it? Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He joins us tonight from Washington.

There seems to be a bit of good cop, bad cop going on between the Europeans and the Americans but you make an argument that the badder the bad cop gets the more inclined the Iranians are to actually want these weapons.

RAY TAKEYH, SR. FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, if you accept the fact that Iranians want these weapons for purposes of security and the principal threat to their security today, as they see it, is the United States, the more belligerent and bellicose the United States becomes, the more incentive they have to accelerate their nuclear program. So, the idea of bad cop becoming badder doesn't necessarily resolve the issue. BROWN: Do we -- by the way, is there any doubt in any smart person's mind here, as opposed to people like me, that the Iranians, in fact, do have a nuclear weapons program?

TAKEYH: Well, there's -- the judgment on this remains open but most people suggest that Iran does not really require nuclear energy given the fact that it has substantial oil and gas reserves and in the 1990s invested a considerable amount of money in hydroelectric power.

So, nuclear energy and the cost that nuclear energy entails doesn't make economic sense for Iran. So, if Iran is developing a civilian nuclear research program that could potentially be exploited for military purposes.

BROWN: All right. Now let's put this in the language that I really do understand. Let's assume that the Iranians are playing a game of poker here.

TAKEYH: Right.

BROWN: What is it they want?

TAKEYH: Well, it seems that Iranians want a number of things and a country that can deliver those would be the United States, first of all, economic concessions and again, economic concessions from the United States. They have recognized that they can't really be part of the global economy without the American sanctions being at least eased to some extent.

They would like to have some sort of security considerations and security dialog and security guarantees from the United States given the fact that the Americans occupy countries both to their left and their right. And, therefore, as I said, all roads lead to Washington. It is hard to see how the Europeans can resolve this issue in a conclusive, durable manner.

BROWN: Yes, we're a long way, one hopes we're a long way from a war with Iran.

TAKEYH: Right.

BROWN: Is it a realistic option for the Americans or for the world community to try and take on that country?

TAKEYH: War in terms of actually invading and occupying Iran is not an option. Iran is a big country. It's a vast country. It's 70 million people. It's a highly nationalistic population and an extraordinarily difficult terrain for conducting military operations, much less occupation of the country. The sort of military strikes that are being contemplated...

Iran is a big country. It's a vast country. It's 70 million people, this highly nationalistic population and an extraordinarily difficult terrain for conducting a military operation, much less occupation of the country.

The sort of military strikes that are being contemplated, at least the saber-rattling that you hear nowadays, well, for a military option to work in terms of surgical strike, you need very precise intelligence. And no one is suggesting that the United States or the international community fully understand how widespread Iran nuclear facilities are, where they are, and can be easily taken out in that sense.

So, military options both small and large are not realistic option, or options that can deal with this issue in an effective manner.

BROWN: Let me ask you one more thing from the Iranian point of view. Do the Iranians need a -- I'll put this in quotes -- a "belligerent" American government, in much the same way that Castro needs a belligerent American government?

TAKEYH: It doesn't play the same way in terms of their domestic politics, given the fact that the Iranian population is unique in terms of all other populations in the Middle East, that it is relatively pro-American.

It does look with favor toward the United States, at the political system and the culture of the United States. So, sort of the demonization of America as a means of gaining domestic political capital doesn't work that well. However, if an America actually becomes a country that strikes Iran's national facilities militarily, then I think the nationalistic opinion will change on America. And then the regime can effectively utilize that type of hostility to the United States as a means of deflecting attention from some of its own deficiencies.

BROWN: Ray, good to have you with us tonight. Thank you.

TAKEYH: Thanks. Thanks. Thank you very much. BROWN: Appreciate your help on this. I expect we'll be talking about this.

Some bit of history now before we go to break. About a year and a half ago, a building that's normally a symbol of justice became the scene of a violent crime, a shooting at a courthouse in California. And because a high-profile hearing was under way in that courthouse it was all caught on tape, as they say. A look back at this story as part of our anniversary series "Then and Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a shocking sideshow, captured by TV crews gathered at the L.A. County courthouse to cover the Robert Blake hearing in 2003.

Attorney Gerald Curry was at the courthouse for an unrelated case when William Strier approached him, asked his name and opened fire. Strier then calmly walked away. He was apparently angry that Curry was representing Strier's sister in a dispute over a trust fund. Curry was shot in the neck, both arms and shoulder and taken from the scene by paramedics. Curry survived, recovered completely and still lives and practices law in Southern California.

GERALD CURRY, ATTORNEY: When I leave the office, when I go to court, when I go to the parking structure, I tend to keep my eyes open, look around.

COOPER: Curry's shooter, William Strier, was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial and remains in a state hospital, but Curry says he doesn't harbor any bad feelings for Strier.

CURRY: The odds of this happening were probably one in a million. And so therefore, I try to not to let it affect my life or not have any bitterness and try to maintain a positive and optimistic outlook.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Throughout the year, as CNN marks its 25th year of reporting the news, we'll look back at stories that have impacted our lives, see what happened to the people who made news on those days.

Still to come from us tonight, a question that lives on the border between the United States and Mexico and the new normal. Who should be allowed to get a driver's license? Should the federal government get into the act in the name of homeland security?

And, later, the rooster gets no time off on New Year's Day. It is New Year's Day in the Chinese new year, the year of the rooster, a big year for morning papers. I'll tell you that.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The new normal has produced a long list of balancing acts. Tonight's "Security Watch" looks at yet another.

The rules for issuing driver's licenses vary by state, different states requiring different types of proof from drivers, different ages in some cases. Some members of Congress call it a loophole for terrorists. A law designed to close the loopholes could also have other consequences.

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Antonio. That's not his real name because he's not here legally and he's not alone.

"ANTONIO," ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: Everybody need immigrants. Look, you see? How many immigrants work? A lot.

JOHNS (on camera): Everywhere you look?

ANTONIO: Yes.

JOHNS: Do you think they're all legal? Do you think they're all documented?

ANTONIO: I don't think so. They need work, they work.

JOHNS (voice-over): Antonio is from Mexico. He doesn't have citizenship or a green card, but he does have a driver's license. And that's got some in Congress upset. They say if he could get a license, so could terrorists, like they did on 9/11.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Nineteen terrorists had 63 driver's licenses.

JOHNS: But Antonio says he's no terrorist.

ANTONIO: You are honest people. You work. You make -- you produce. You pay taxes. I don't know what is the real problem.

JOHNS: The problem is that driver's licenses are used for identification, for everything from getting onto a plane to buying a firearm. The congressional measure would require that all states get proof people are in the country legally before giving out licenses. At least 10 states don't do that now, including Maryland, where Antonio lives and works renovating homes.

(on camera): What would happen to your business if they took away your driver's license?

ANTONIO: I don't know exactly, because, if they take away my license driver, it's like he is taking off my hands.

JOHNS (voice-over): Backers of tougher rules insist they are not meddling in states' rights, just trying to create national standards, and they keep coming back to the 9/11 hijackers. REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: So they used a legitimately, legally issued state driver's license to get on the plane.

JOHNS: But even some supporters of national standards say the proposal could lead to one kind of license for people who prove their legal and a lower-level license for those who don't.

GEOFFREY TOBIAS, IMMIGRATION EXPERT: We called it the scarlet letter license. If you're here illegally and you're in an accident, do you want everybody to know that you're not here legally? I wouldn't think so.

JOHNS: And that could result in some immigrants too scared to even get a license. But they would drive anyway, with no test and no insurance. Without a license on file, the state might not even know their names.

ANTONIO: Exactly.

JOHNS (on camera): And where you are.

ANTONIO: Exactly.

JOHNS: And how to find you.

ANTONIO: Very simple.

JOHNS (voice-over): It's a tough choice, balancing public safety with the risk of driving illegal immigrants further into the shadows.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, she barely survived the fire that killed 100 other people, including her fiance. Two years later, her struggle to forget and to forgive.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Two years ago this month, a pyrotechnics display in a packed Rhode Island nightclub sparked a fire that killed 100 people. The fireworks were part of the band's act. The band's former tour manager and the club's owners were indicted on numerous counts of involuntary manslaughter. More than a half a dozen civil suits are now pending in federal court.

Tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE," a survivor of the fire and members of the band, The Great White Way, sat down together. One survivor who turned down the offer to join them says she's not ready to forgive, not yet, not nearly.

Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She walks among the headstones, Gina Russo remembering clearly the nightclub fireworks that went wrong.

GINA RUSSO, NIGHTCLUB FIRE SURVIVOR: Because we were so close to the stage, you could see the base of where the fireworks were set up. And it just kept going and going.

FEYERICK: Remembering, she says, the bouncer who blocked the exit door four feet from the stage where she and her fiance had settled in to hear the band, Great White.

RUSSO: We're screaming, there's a fire. Please open the door. Open the door. There's a fire. And he just, you know, arms crossed, very adamantly, club policy, band only. It's for the band only.

FEYERICK: Remembering how Fred Crisostomi, the love of Russo's life, pushed her to safety before being overwhelmed by smoke.

RUSSO: After he pushed me, I had made it to the doorway, but turned around to try to find him. And I was screaming, Fred, where are you? Where are you? But everybody was screaming. And he was just gone. It was just all these heads and a sea of people on fire.

And my last thoughts when I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore, I remember just praying to God to let my children forgive me for dying here in this place, and let them have a good life.

FEYERICK: Russo, who's 37, woke from a coma three months later.

(on camera): When your eyes opened, what did you see and what did you remember?

RUSSO: I remember being in a plastic bubble. They had me in an oxygen tent. My lungs were very, very bad.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Russo's hands, head, and back were severely burned, her left ear completely gone. The former hospital secretary has had more than 30 operations, followed by long months of recovery and rehab.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will get one last X-ray.

FEYERICK: Most recently, doctors removed a knuckle so she can bend her index finger. And surgeons took out part of a rib to try to reconstruct her ear. Her hair is gone, and it's not likely to grow back. Russo blames the owners, the building inspectors, and the band's lead singer.

RUSSO: It's just truly, honest to God, amazes me how he can walk around and not accept some type of responsibility.

FEYERICK: Despite it all, she still sees miracles, the biggest, that she's alive to see her two boys grow up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as she's here, that's all I care about. I don't care about her hair, what she looks like.

FEYERICK: Russo still goes to clubs, but she stays near the door. She thinks about Fred all the time, wondering what life might have been had the bouncer stepped aside and let them out.

RUSSO: Had he opened the door, my life would be completely different. I'd be married by now. And, you know, life would be very different.

FEYERICK: Life redefined.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, West Warwick, Rhode Island.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Fair to say we've covered wide and varied ground tonight. We began with free speech and end with the free market. Soy is good for our diet. We've all heard that. But is it also good for the soul? We're about to meet an entrepreneur who is absolutely sure that it is. At the very least, it appears to be good for his company's bottom line.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIMMY BELASCO, FOUNDER, ER'GO CANDLES: Hi. I'm Jimmy. Welcome to Er'go.

Er'go Candle is -- I call it the original premium fragrance soy candle. Soy wax is one of the cleanest-burning waxes available. I really think of myself as a premium fragrance company. Soy wax just was the medium to showcase the fragrance.

I started this company in 1999, the fall of '99. Two years into it, we just exploded. And I feel that we're right on the verge of taking that next step. We have 25 employees now, roughly. Attitude is absolutely everything. My theory is, be happy. Be happy at what you're doing. If you're not happy, then go home and get happy. I fully believe in energy transference.

So, what we're doing here is sending love through our product. And if I'm sending love through the product, it really does, I believe, affect the end consumer. We do all the work basically by hand. This is the way it's been done for hundreds of years. And we are sticking with that to this point.

The wax is delivered to us in these boxes in a flake form. It's actually edible. You can eat it. This vat here is about ready to be mixed with fragrance. Once it is ready, we will put in the appropriate amount of fragrance for the candle that we are pouring at that moment. Kiwi is actually one of the top new ones that was introduced pretty recently. It is one that grabs your nose.

In the burn, I want it to have...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More of a punch.

BELASCO: Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

BELASCO: My main job is developing the product, taking it to fruition, and making sure that it burns.

Is this the font?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is the font.

BELASCO: That's the font?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BELASCO: And even working on the packaging and marketing.

Years ago, I was impressed with what Dave Thomas did for Wendy's and the man behind the product. So I am presenting myself as the man behind the candle. We're introducing the Jimmy's all-time favorites, which is a collection that selects the all-time favorites from the over 100 fragrances that we offer.

We don't really advertise. I believe more in publicity. You know, you make enough noise, people start to notice. I don't want to decorate someone's home. That's why we've never added color. I don't want to match someone's sofa or their drapes. I really want to be what is fragrancing the home. So, really, that's what my main goal would be. I want someone to walk in and say, wow, what is that?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break. Wow. What was that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers.

It is the year of the rooster. "The Shanghai Daily" leads that way, actually. "Rooster to Crow in the Rain." I guess it was kind of a sloppy day. And in honor of it being the year of the rooster, we have this quick Chinese new year video interlude.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING CHINESE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: OK. This was one of those things that came across. And we saw it and we thought we'd run it. "Christian Science Monitor" down here. "Across U.S., Locals Rebel Against Noise." All sorts of things annoying people. In New York, it's the Mr. Softy truck, or whatever they call that, the little ice cream guy, people all upset over that.

"The Dallas Morning News," bless them for the story they did on steroids. This is a good newspaper. And I like this story, too. "There's Never a Line. It's Open 24/7. It's as Close as Your Desk. Online Banking Is So Big, It's Striking a New Balance." Get the joke there? A new balance. I don't remember the last time I wrote a check. I do it all by computer. Hope it works, though.

"San Antonio Express-News," staying in Texas. This is a very good story out there, too, today. "Your Heart Really Can Break. A study finds that it's possible for a sudden breakup or other dramatic event to stop your ticker," as they say. And, for some reason -- I don't know -- I haven't read enough about this -- for some reason, this affects women more than men. I don't know why that is.

"Boston Herald." "Who Am I?" -- a question I've asked myself many times here. "Cops: This Man's Life is a Total Blank." If you know who this gentleman is, call "The Boston Herald" or the Boston police or somebody in Boston.

"The Guardian," British paper. I can't leave this alone. "Why Underpants" -- can't we just say underwear? Underpants just sounds goofy to me. "Why Underpants Must Stay Under in the State Of Virginia." We told you about this last night, $50 fine if your underwear shows. Probably a guy who objects to big government, too. You know how that works?

"The Miami Herald." "Cost of Medicare Benefit Likely to Soar." Remember when it only cost $400 billion? Well, it turns out it's going to cost about $724 billion. But, you know, what's $300 billion between friends?

How much time do we have? Twenty now. OK.

"The Detroit News." I love the papers today. I could have done the whole program this way, but you wouldn't have stayed that long, would you? "NHL" -- remember that? That was the league that played hockey. "Deal Now or Forget the Season. If we're not working on a written document by this weekend, I don't see how we can play a semblance of a season." Honestly, no one cares anymore, OK?

Weather in Chicago, "monotonous."

Good to have you with us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Good night for all of us.

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