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NATO, Afghan Army Launch Offensive on Taliban Strongholds; Reinvent Yourself for Today's Job Market; Hospitals Ill-Prepared for Disaster
Aired February 15, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: That is good teamwork. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali Velshi.
ALI VELSHI, HOST: We're good teamwork. I'm Ali Velshi, and I'm here with you for the next two hours today and every weekday. I'm here to try and dig a little deeper into every one of the stories that's important to you. I'm going to try and give you information that will help you make decisions that will save you money, keep you safer, or at least give you some sense of what's going on out there.
We've got a lot on the rundown today. Let me tell you about what we've got.
Another Democrat about to bow out. We are waiting to hear from Indiana Senator Evan Bayh at the top of the next hour. One hour from now. A source close to the senator says he's going to be the third Democratic senator not to run in the upcoming midterm election, announcing his retirement from politics in the next hour.
Also in Alabama, a professor accused of gunning her colleagues down. The details get more bizarre in this story. Her history gets even more disturbing.
And in Utah, here's an idea to save some money in the state budget. How about cutting the 12th grade out altogether, entirely? You know that we've got to talk about this one.
But first, we want to tell you now we're 72 hours into a huge allied offensive in Afghanistan. It's called Operation Moshtarak. It means "together." And it aims to drive the Taliban from their last bastion in Helmand Province.
Marjah is the city we're looking at. It's the Taliban's poppy and opium and heroin hub. It's the seat of the Taliban's shadow government in Afghanistan.
Fifteen thousand allied and Afghan troops have seized 8.7 million dollars worth of raw opium and more than 2.5 tons of explosives. This is a major operation, and we have major coverage of it.
Atia Abawi is embedded with U.S. Marines. She's the tip of the spear. She's right there on the ground to tell us about this offensive. Frederik Pleitgen is in Kabul. He tells us how this fits into the bigger strategy of the war. Is this offensive, which has been billed to make such a difference, really going to make that kind of a difference? And at the Pentagon, our correspondent Chris Lawrence tells us what's gone right and what has gone wrong so far, three days in.
Let's start with Chris. He's in D.C.
Chris, how is this different from all of those offensives that have come before it?
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, if you take a look at, say, Fallujah, back -- I was in Anbar province in Iraq, the end of 2004, end of 2005. You know, there are some similarities in that they planned extensively for this mission as they did with Fallujah.
But there are some differences, too, in that they came in quickly into Fallujah. They wiped out about 4,000 enemy forces. They took control of that town. But in doing so, they pretty much wiped out the town, as well.
Senior military officials are telling us Fallujah is not the model here. They don't want to destroy Marjah in order to save it.
VELSHI: Chris, let's talk a little bit about something that happened yesterday, a NATO missile strike that killed 12 civilians. Was this errant? What do we know about this?
LAWRENCE: Yes, what happened was the U.S. Marines were taking fire from multiple directions. They say up to four or five directions at once. They targeted this one compound. Initially, the military said they called in this rocket strike from a highly sophisticated mobile artillery system. They initially said the rockets missed their target, hitting a home in which 12 civilians were killed.
Today they have backtracked on that completely, saying that was based on their first reports. Now they're telling us they did hit the target they were aiming for. There was nothing wrong with the rocket system, but they did not know that the civilians were inside.
And Ali, I got to tell you, these Marines down there are operating under very strict rules of engagement. If they think a civilian is inside a home, even if a Taliban fighter is...
VELSHI: Yes.
LAWRENCE: ... they're not supposed to fire.
VELSHI: All right. So your sense from your contacts at the Pentagon, it's three days in, 72 hours in. Is this too early to get some sense of who's getting the upper hand in this battle?
LAWRENCE: I think the U.S. military feels like they have the upper hand, but they say the going is slow, slow, slow. I mean, today, you had some units that maybe advanced a few hundred yards all day.
So this is a slog, block by block, taking fire from multiple directions, sometimes from snipers. And again, operating under those very strict rules of engagement which means this could be a long, slower process, you know, as we push through the end of the week.
What are your sources telling about the significance of this particular offensive? In other words, I'm calling it a battle, but what the NATO and international troops would like is that, if it did become a battle, as opposed to battling insurgents who can't be seen, do they really think that success in Marjah Operation Moshtarak is going to be a turning point for Afghanistan?
VELSHI: They seem to think it is. And what they're telling us is that, you know, this an area, Marjah, that never had an Afghan government. There's never been any control. So this is the first time they have pushed into this area.
And they say it is really the key to controlling, eventually, the entire Helmand province and establishing that safe line all the way up to Kandahar, which is the second largest city in Afghanistan. They say clearing the Taliban out of this area and eventually getting a government in there and getting some security in there will eventually allow them to make that link all the way to Kandahar, and that, Ali, is the ultimate goal in this mission.
VELSHI: And of course, we talked at the beginning of this about how 8.7 million pounds in raw opium has been seized. This is -- this is quite central to this discussion, the fact that opium is grown there. There's a strong market for it. And the Taliban helps out in the -- in the purchase and marketing of that. If that is replaced, there's going to have to be something in its place to allow these -- these farmers to make some money.
LAWRENCE: That's right. They're hoping wheat, perhaps some other crops, but if you listen to some of the NATO commanders, they say some of the farmers have been hedging their bets already. You know, with the wheat crop, planting a wheat crop, waiting to see how this battle comes out, because if the U.S. and NATO forces do take control of the area, they'd be able to transition to a wheat crop. And they're trying to make that financially, a financial incentive for them to do so.
But they're hedging their bets. They're waiting and seeing if, indeed, the Taliban are going to move out, because if the Taliban end up back in control of this area, you can pretty much bet that the farmers are going to go right back to that opium crop.
VELSHI: Right. All right, and that's an important thing. This isn't just a military offensive. They've got to figure out some way to get the people of Afghanistan on their side.
Chris Lawrence, thanks very much for this. Chris Lawrence, our Pentagon correspondent in D.C.
When we come back, I'm going to talk to Frederik Pleitgen, who is in Kabul for the next step of this. If this Operation Moshtarak works, what's next for Afghanistan? How does it advance into becoming a viable society? And a lot of that depends on the economics of it: what are people going to do to make money in a post-war Afghanistan?
Stay with us. We're covering that here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We have a lot of news to tell you about, including some big political news coming up, but we're spending a lot of time on this Afghanistan story.
We're 72 hours into something called Operation Moshtarak, which is a joint offensive with Afghan troops and NATO troops, focusing on Marjah in Helmand province in Afghanistan.
In a moment we're going to go to Fred Pleitgen in -- in Kabul, who's going to tell us how important this is. Chris Lawrence at the Pentagon, our Pentagon correspondent, was just telling us about the importance of this particular offensive.
But first I want to go to Atia Abawi. You've seen her on TV a lot. She is embedded with Marines in -- as part of this offensive, which they are saying is so important to success in Afghanistan.
Atia, what's the story where you are?
ATIA ABAWI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, Ali, right now the importance is going to be both for the NATO side, as well as the Taliban side of the mission, because this is the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand province. It's a moneymaker for the Taliban. It's said that they make around $200,000 a month by taxing the narcotics industry alone.
And they're not going down without a fight. We've been here for the past three days. And it has been three days of sporadic fighting -- gun fighting, rockets, mortars, helicopters flying overhead. The Taliban popping up in various parts of the city, not knowing exactly where they are. Sometimes they can be just a few hundred meters away from the U.S. positions.
I have to say we've been out with the Marines a few times, and we have been shot at alongside the Marines, because really, you can't really find out where they're hiding. This is an -- this is an urban area. It's an area where there's a bazaar. It's called the Royal Cherry (ph) Bazaar. And they can be anywhere.
It's practically a ghost town right now when you look inside some of these store fronts. You notice that the store owners, the villagers, they left on short notice. You barely see any civilians come out until they come out with an injured family member, coming to the Marines, asking them for help. And they're saying that the Taliban are even using their compounds -- excuse me -- to target the Marines.
VELSHI: Atia, I'll just ask you a question while you're catching your breath there. It's -- typically when we have somebody embedded we don't have detailed discussions about what that unit is doing. But in this particular case, the NATO forces have gone out of their way to sort of announce their presence and almost sniff out the Taliban, almost as if they're asking for them to come out and face the NATO troops head-on. Is that -- is that the experience you've got there?
ABAWI: Absolutely. And really, what they're trying to do is get some moral ideological fighters to come out. They're hoping that the not-so-strong Taliban, say the villagers of Marjah who have been intimidated by the Taliban to fight, who are fighting for money, say, or are fighting for reasons that they don't even know why they're fighting, they're hoping that they'll be afraid, basically, by this important mission, by all these NATO troops coming into the region.
And that it will bring out the more extremist fighters, particularly the foreign fighters. They do expect many of the insurgency -- insurgent fighters that are within the city of Marjah right now to be those foreign fighters, whether they be Chechen, Uzbek, or fighters coming in from Pakistan.
It is abnormal to announce such an operation, such an offensive, and we're seeing results right now. It is sporadic fighting throughout the past several days. They don't expect it to die down anytime soon. They don't expect the Taliban or the insurgency to leave without Marjah a fight and some of them fight fighting to death.
It's said that two to three insurgents are killed in each clash in the last several days. And I've got to tell you, Ali, there have been a lot of clashes.
VELSHI: Yes, and it's well suited to the tough men and women of the Marines.
Atia, I know you're tough, and you've been covering this for a long time. Be careful. It sort of worries us that you are in your unit taking fire, as well. So please be careful.
Atia Abawi is embedded with the Marines as part of Operation Moshtarak.
Now, what does this mean for Afghanistan? This is why we're having this discussion. Because a lot of people say this could be decisive.
Let's go to Frederik Pleitgen. He's in Kabul with some sense of what happens if this is decisive.
Fred, most experts we've talked to have said, even if this works as NATO would like it to work, it doesn't solve the problem in Afghanistan. The problems are well beyond military victory over the Taliban. Tell us more about this.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly one of the things that NATO is hoping is that it might be a turning point or at least something that could turn the tide a little bit, this battle for Marjah. They certainly are banking a lot on this.
I mean, the new strategy that they're trying right now is, you know, on the one hand, trying to take the fight on -- to the Taliban, but on the other hand also bringing in that civilian administration as fast as possible is certainly a very new approach and one that they hope to do in other places, as well.
But you're absolutely right. There are a lot of people here in Afghanistan who believe it might be too late, who believe that there's other, much bigger problems that need to be solved, as well.
One of those being, for instance, government corruption, not just here in Kabul but also in a lot of other provinces. There's a lot of people who, for instance, will tell you that you're looking at the drug trade there in Marjah but that the Taliban are really only a small part of the drug trade that's going on in Afghanistan. It's a multibillion-dollar industry. The Taliban are only making a little bit of money off that.
But the bigger picture is -- is that there's a lot of bigger problems in Afghanistan that many people feel need to be solved before Afghans will actually trust their government as a whole. One of them is corruption. The other is providing basic services.
If you look at something like the police force here in Afghanistan, if you ask any Afghan in this country whether or not he'll trust a police officer, he would much rather run from a police officer than actually ask the police officer for help.
Well, certainly, there are a lot of other problems that this offensive won't solve, but certainly, NATO seems to believe that, if it works right here, that they might have a chance to at least plant the seed of what could turn the tide in this country, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. But that's interesting how you hedge that: plant the seed of what could turn the tide. So nobody is thinking that success on Operation Moshtarak, this three-day-old operation, means success for NATO troops over the Taliban in Afghanistan, or over -- over whatever problems they're dealing with in Afghanistan?
PLEITGEN: No, certainly not. And I mean, one of the things that they're also saying is that, by no means is Moshtarak a success yet. I mean, we're three days into this operation. Yes, the fighters that went in there, the forces that went in there, do seem to have a foothold in most parts, or maybe even in almost all parts there of Marjah.
That's not to say, however, that the Taliban, who at this point Atia is saying are still putting up very stiff resistance. That's not to say they won't come back after international forces are gone. The big question in Marjah is going to be, is the Afghan government going to be able to hold onto this?
And yes, NATO has put together a transition team. They've put together a whole civil administration that they are going to implant in there. You're talking about thousands of civil servants...
VELSHI: Right.
PLEITGEN: ... that are supposed to take over there, provide services to the people, a police force, everything. But that's just one place in all of Afghanistan. There's a lot of other places where the Taliban can still retreat to, where they can still regroup. So certainly, it really is planting the seed, Ali.
VELSHI: Yes, all right. As you and Atia and Chris have all outlined, this is a remarkably complicated issue. But we're going to take this piece by piece and describe what's going on like we've done today.
Fred Pleitgen, thanks very much. Stay safe. Fred is in Kabul.
But we'll continue to cover Operation Moshtarak in Afghanistan.
When we come back, we're going to talk about one of the biggest issues facing Americans right now, and that is unemployment. Pamela Mitchell is joining us. She is going to give us some very specific advice on how you reinvent your career and yourself. It might sound tough, especially with the job market the way it is. But if you've got a plan, you can do it. We're going to tell you how.
So get a pen and a paper. We're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Nobody needs to tell you it's a tough economy out there, particularly with respect to jobs. In fact, other parts of the economy are starting to do a little better, but we still see people losing jobs and trying to get new jobs.
So we thought about how to talk about this in a way that might appeal to you when it comes to reinventing yourself. You may have lost a job in an industry where those kind of jobs aren't coming back any time soon.
We invited Pamela Mitchell onto the show. She's the founder of the Reinvention Institute. What could be better suited to this discussion than reinvention? Pamela advises individuals and corporations how to transform themselves.
In a lot of ways, Pamela, corporations pay people like to you advise them, but individuals kind of need to think of transformation strategy for themselves, particularly if they work in industries where there isn't going to be a comeback anytime soon.
PAMELA MITCHELL, FOUNDER/CEO, REINVENTION INSTITUTE: That's absolutely right, Ali, because in this day and age, really the ability to reinvent yourself is the new form of job security.
VELSHI: Yes.
MITCHELL: It's really the only way that you're going to be able to assure that you'll say competitive and be able to find employment in the coming era.
So basically, I've made it my mission. I basically left my whole career to come and to teach people how to reinvent themselves. VELSHI: Yes.
MITCHELL: This is just a life skill that can and should be learned.
VELSHI: And I looked at some of your tips. And, you know, some of them seem so remarkably obvious. But when you're mired in the situation of being out of a job, and particularly for a long time, it seems less obvious.
I want to run through a few of them that we picked out.
MITCHELL: OK.
VELSHI: One of them is to try a mini reinvention. Sounds good, but it makes a lot of sense. Tell me about it.
MITCHELL: Well, yes, the thing about it is, Ali, is that reinvention can feel very overwhelming. If you try to think about changing your whole career in one day, you basically won't get started.
So what you want to do is you want to actually start small. You want to maybe a job, throw your hat in the ring and just volunteer for a project that's outside your normal scope of expertise, or take a class, or even volunteer at a nonprofit, again, outside your scope of expertise.
VELSHI: Right.
MITCHELL: But taking these little steps can help you build your confidence and actually get those skills starting to develop so that these little steps, taken over time, can result in a career reinvention.
VELSHI: And volunteering in a no-profit is also a remarkably good networking opportunity.
Here's another one. Know your plan B. This is interesting, because so many people associate determination with getting their next job as being single minded about it and not necessarily having a plan B.
MITCHELL: Well, the thing about it is, is that we're talking about realistic life. And in order to really reinvent yourself, you've got to have a plan B, because life doesn't go, always, the way that you plan. Determination isn't enough. There are all kinds of outside forces that can come into play.
The thing that you think you might want to do, you get down the path and you find out, guess what? I'm not really liking this. So having a plan B in your back pocket really helps you.
Also the other thing about a plan B is that it gives you a cushion. It forces to you think about what kind of financial security am I going to having throughout this process? VELSHI: Right.
MITCHELL: So that you give yourself the time and the space to let your reinvention play out.
VELSHI: All right. Your next one is surveying your skills. Pretty straightforward. Analyze the talents that you brought to bear in your current career and brainstorm about how they might help you in a new field.
But I want to just -- because that's pretty self-explanatory. I want to go your final point here because you just talked about time. Giving yourself some time. It sound -- it seems very urgent when you've lost your job and you need to get a new one. Tell me how you reconcile that with giving yourself time.
MITCHELL: Well, the thing about it is, Ali, is that you only control 50 percent of your reinvention. You control the effort that you put into it, the things that you do on a day-by-day basis, but you don't control when opportunity shows up. And that's why, actually, having a plan B can help you, because it buys you some time. But really, you have to give yourself time. I can't tell you how many clients come in to me, and they've got this reinvention date in their head...
VELSHI: Right.
MITCHELL: ... that says, "I'm going to be done in six months." Well, it doesn't work like that. Because again, you can place yourself in a milieu that brings opportunity, but you don't control...
VELSHI: Right.
MITCHELL: ... when that opportunity shows up.
VELSHI: So why give yourself a reason to be disappointed for something artificial?
Pamela, people must come into you for advice and just feel great when you come out, because you've got great energy about it. Thanks for being with us on today's show.
MITCHELL: Thanks so much, Ali.
VELSHI: Pamela Mitchell is the founder and the CEO of the Reinvention Institute.
OK. Let me give you some top stories right now.
Belgian authorities now put the death toll in today's train crash at 18, with 55 people hurt. They still don't know what caused the collision, which happened during the morning rush. The accident has disrupted rail service in much of northern Europe.
New information on the Alabama college professor accused of killing three of her colleagues on Friday. The "Boston Globe" reports Amy Bishop and her husband were questioned extensively in an attempted pipe bomb attack in 1993. The target: one of Bishop's superiors. No one was hurt or arrested in that case.
And after months of hints and preparation, a former Arizona congressman says he will go for Senator John McCain's seat in the primary. Republican J.D. Hayworth plans a three-day campaign swing through the state starting tomorrow. We'll have much more of that over the course of the next couple hours, including a major announcement from -- from Indiana Senator Evan Bayh that we believe is going to be his retirement from politics.
The other thing we're going to talk to you about is whether your hospital, your local hospital, or our country's hospitals, are able and ready to handle a major disaster. You may not like the answer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Let's pop in on Jeanne Meserve. She's at CNN the security desk in D.C.
Jeanne, interesting story. This one doesn't strike everybody as a security story, but if there is some kind of a national -- natural disaster, whether it's natural or whether it's a terrorist threat, I think most people want to know: are our hospitals prepared to handle it?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, according to this new report, Ali, they are not.
You know, we've just seen a catastrophic health event down in Haiti, where you had tens of thousands of people who were injured in that earthquake. And the local system, the health-care system was completely overwhelmed.
According to this report from the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, this country has never seen anything along those lines, nothing that catastrophic, but they say it could happen. It could be a natural catastrophe like an earthquake, or it could be something related to terrorism, like a nuclear detonation.
And they say, although there has been significant improvement in preparedness in the health-care system, we still aren't ready to handle something like that, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. What -- does it make recommendations as to what we have do? Is it straightforward as to what -- is it obvious?
MESERVE: Well, one of the things is pretty obvious. It's about building coalitions. They say some of these coalitions do exist now, but they're not strong enough; they're not broad enough. They say we need to have coalitions that go across state lines that are perhaps national.
So in those critical hours right after a catastrophe, the right decisions are being made about where to put people and how to treat people. Because you have to expect in a situation like this, that some of the local health-care infrastructure is going to be taken out. The rest of it will be totally overwhelmed, Ali.
VELSHI: Yes. It's interesting that you brought this up and you found it, because we don't think -- we probably think of our health- care systems as well equipped for that sort of thing, but they've done -- they've handled sort of larger-scale emergencies in individual centers. But we're talking about preparation on a national basis.
MESERVE: That's right. I mean, we've seen 9/11. We've seen Katrina.
VELSHI: Yes.
MESERVE: They both taxed the health-care system.
VELSHI: Sure.
MESERVE: But nothing -- nothing like what they saw in Haiti. One of the things they say we really ought to address is transportation. That although there are some plans in place, it's nothing near enough to deal with an event of a very large magnitude. They say we have to even look at things like using private cars and buses to move patients, if there's something big enough.
VELSHI: All right, Jeanne. Thanks very much.
MESERVE: Yes.
VELSHI: Jeanne Meserve on our security desk in Washington.
Let's go over to the weather center. Chad Myers is here.
Chad, I'm hoping, because every time I see you on a Monday, you've got bad news for me for the rest of the week somewhere in the country. Where are we now?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's what I am: Mr. Bad News.
VELSHI: You really area.
MYERS: I mean, if I was going to tell you 70 and sunny...
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: ... they would say you don't have two minutes. You go sit down.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: We're not talking to you today. So that's why it's always bad news.
You never want me to talk about your town.
VELSHI: That's right. MYERS: If I'm talking about your town, something's bad is going on.
Here's Columbus, Ohio.
VELSHI: Wow.
MYERS: That's the 70/71 split there on this I-70. Yes, snow coming down, and there's going to be five to 10 inches before it actually stops. We've seen some seven-inch snowfall totals already across parts of northern Kentucky, across parts of southern Indiana, Salem and places up near -- towards Cincinnati already seeing the snow. Here's where it is at this point in time.
We talked the other day about how many states have had snow.
VELSHI: Sure.
MYERS: I mean, just -- and -- it's just been a winter that you're going to tell your kids about, probably.
VELSHI: Yes, yes.
MYERS: One of those, "Man, I had to walk both ways up hill, you know, in the snow without shoes."
From Columbus all the way back down to Cincinnati, that's where the snow is now. That's where the heaviest, brightest white bands are. It was supposed to be some type of a snow event across parts of the south, but it just didn't work out, because...
VELSHI: The temperature is a little higher here, right?
MYERS: The energy was too far north.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: It didn't -- when I looked at it, it tried to snow, and it was snowing at 4,000 feet.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: But nobody lives at 4,000 feet.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: We live down here. And when the snow got down here, it was...
VELSHI: Just melted, so...
MYERS: Yes.
(WEATHER REPORT)
VELSHI: All right. We'll be back with "Off the Radar" in just a little bit.
Chad was talking about Indiana minute ago. We're going to go to Indiana very shortly and discuss an announcement coming up at the top of the hour, half an hour from now. Indiana senator Evan Bayh is expected to announce that he is not running again. That would make him the third Democratic senator not to participate in the upcoming midterm elections. We'll talk about the impact for Indian and for the country and the Democratic party when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Announcement we're expecting in less than 30 minutes from Indiana senator Evan Bayh. He's a two-term Indiana Democratic senator, was the governor of Indiana, follows in his father's footsteps. Expecting to hear at the top of the hour that he will not run for a third term. So, he will serve his term out, not run again in November, according to the Associated Press.
Let's bring in Gloria Borger in D.C. with more on this topic. First of all, you're hearing things about this from your colleagues. We believe this is the case.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and our own Mark Preston broke the story this morning too, Ali. From sources close to Evan Bayh that I'm talking to, he has made the decision to leave the Senate. I think this is a decision that he's been talking about to people in Indiana over some time, but it's clearly a decision he made very, very recently. He only told the Democratic campaign committee of it apparently today.
And he was all set to film some commercials for his Senate run. But I think he just decided in the end that he was kind of frustrated by the politics of Washington, Ali, particularly when the Senate couldn't get together on that deficit commission. And all the problems they've been having with this jobs bill. I think he finally said you know, as a centrist Democrat, not working out for me.
VELSHI: The Bayhs are an Indiana institution and a Democratic party institution. In fact, Evan Bayh was thought of as a finalist as a running mate for President Obama, and I've heard anecdotally that it might have been a coin toss that decided it was Joe Biden.
BORGER: In fact, the three Democratic presidential elections, he's always been the bridesmaid but never the bride. He's always been considered as a vice presidential running mate. He's a rising star. Always has been.
Was first elected governor of the state of Indiana when he was 32 years old. He's been in the Senate for 12 years. I think he's figured, you know, enough is enough now. He does tell people, and he's always said it to me when I've spoken with him, that he really liked being governor a lot more than he liked being senator...
VELSHI: Interesting.
BORGER: ... because you're a chief executive. You actually get to get things done. And I wouldn't be surprised, Ali, if he has a bit of detox here getting out of politics, maybe go run a charitable organization and then at some point, the governor of Indiana who's a Republican, Mitch Daniels, he's term limited in 2012. So, maybe you'll see Evan Bayh running for governor again.
VELSHI: Is this the kind of guy we could see running for president again?
BORGER: I think he's tried some times. And he made a brief bid in 2008, you'll recall, and he pulled out very, very early. I think he found that stage very difficult. And I don't know, you know, never say never because if people want independents, if people want centrists, that defines who Evan Bayh is. He wins in a state, for example, overwhelmingly last time that George Bush won, right? He is a Democrat who can get elected in Republican states. So, that's something people have always found very appealing to him. Never quite so much at the top of the ticket, always being considered for the number two.
VELSHI: If you're a Democrat or you're people who know the Democratic party well right now, you're seeing there are cleavages between liberal and centrist Democrats. What does this do to that balance, if anything, both in Congress and in the Democratic party?
BORGER: I think there are a lot of the Democrats who are nervous that this sends the wrong signal about the Democratic party, that the Democratic party no longer knows how to talk to centrist, no longer knows how to talk to those all-important independent voters. And that if they lose someone like Evan Bayh, this is a problem for a party that was supposed to be moving to the center with the election of Barack Obama.
Now, people close to Bayh have told me this morning don't read this as a rejection of the Democratic party. This is not. It's a rejection of Republican partisanship. But I also do believe that that's a little bit of spin there, Ali and that the truth of the matter is that Evan Bayh found himself less and less comfortable in his own caucus, particularly when you talk about House Democrats who are a lot more liberal, for example, than Evan Bayh.
VELSHI: We will continue and have you back here, Gloria, at about less than half an hour. About 20 minutes, we're going to start this conversation because he will be making the announcement we expect him to make. And we'll get some more analysis on that.
Also some other big developments. John McCain is going to have a competitor from his own party. We'll talk about that with Gloria Borger when we come back.
The other thing we're going to talk about is the Olympics under way in Vancouver. You probably watched a lot of coverage on Friday including the death of a competitor before the Games got underway. We'll bring you up to date on the medal count, what's going on on that luge and sliding track and everything else that's happening at the Olympics when we come back.
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VELSHI: Day three of competition at Vancouver Winter Games in Canada. Let's take a look where the countries stand, where the competition for medals stand. The USA has one gold, two silver, three bronze for a total of six, which puts them in the lead. Germany, which had the most medals in the last Winter Olympics, has four. France has three, two gold and one bronze. And Canada, the host country, has one of each, gold, silver and bronze.
Let's go to Mark McKay is covering it for us in Vancouver. First of all, Mark, let's talk about this, the fallout from the death of the Georgian luger. You reported on this first here on CNN on Friday afternoon. We had reported there was an accident and subsequently found out it was a tragic death. What's happened since then?
MARK MCKAY, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's happened since then is a number of changes have been made, Ali, to that luge track.
We've also heard from the father of the 21-year-old who was killed Friday, just six hours before the start of the opening ceremony here in Vancouver. The father of Nodar Kumaritashvili talking to the "Wall Street Journal." He said he spoke to his son, Ali, in the days leading up to his fatal crash on the whistler sliding centre. His son told him he was terrified of the track and quote, "scared of one of the turns." His father said that he -- his childhood dream of becoming an Olympian since childhood and he felt he could have competed in at least two Olympics.
A tragic set of circumstances to open the Olympics here in Vancouver. And really, Ali, a real roller coaster of emotions throughout the weekend leading into this Monday morning.
VELSHI: Interesting. They've changed a lot of things, including making it a shorter track for both men and women. Everybody gets a little bit of a shorter track. There's mixed responses to that. There are some lugers who, I understand, were feeling this track was a little dangerous and others who were saying they shouldn't be changing it.
MCKAY: Yes, and all the talk going in, Ali, was of the fact that this is the fastest track in the world. A lot of these races were coming down, the competitive nature in you will probably say let's do this, let's deal with the fastest track and not necessarily think so much about safety. Although truth be said, before Friday's tragedy, there were some lugers that came down and did say that they were worried about the safety of this.
But yes, after Friday, the official investigation found that there were no deficiencies in the track, although they did put up a wall in that turn where the 21-year-old lost his life. As he came off there and hit an unpadded pole, there's a wall there now. The men's start was moved to the ladies start, the ladies start moves to the juniors. And really, not everybody happy with the situation, but I would think understanding considering what transpired on Friday. VELSHI: Sure. That event that he was to compete in did take place yesterday -- Germany I guess getting a gold and the silver there and the bronze going to Italy. That track will be used for many other sports. We'll check in with you again, Mark. Thanks very much. Mark Mckay in Vancouver for us on the Olympics.
Let's take a look at some headlines.
In Marjah, Afghanistan, gun battles have been erupting between NATO troops and Taliban insurgents as coalition forces try to take back the town. It's day three of a massive offensive there. Troops have already made some headway, reportedly recovering millions of dollars worth of opium.
The Internet is abuzz with privacy complaints about Google's new social networking service. Google Buzz was supposed to be easy with access to your most frequent contacts right from your Gmail account. But users were furious over their contacts going public before they even created a Buzz profile. Google is now working to address those complaints. We'll keep you posted.
In Haiti, commercial flights are expected to resume soon. It's been more than a month since the earthquake crippled the nation and severely damaged the control tower at Port-au-Prince airport.
When we come back, a new proposal to deal with budget shortfalls in Utah involves cutting the 12th grade for some students. Is that a smart way to save money, or is it a recipe for academic disaster? We'll discuss that.
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VELSHI: A strange story. Lots of states have budget shortfalls. More so now because of this recession as individuals and businesses don't make as much money, they don't remit as much to the state. So, if you're a state, here's an idea. Let's put a dent in the state budget by cutting the 12th grade or at least making it optional.
Sound crazy? Well, that's the proposal that one Utah state senator, Chris Butters, has come up with to help make up the state's $700 million budget shortfall. In fact, it will only save up to about $60 million of it according to his plan, but is this a good idea?
Joining us now, CNN education contributor Steve Perry from Hartford, Connecticut. Steve, this is puzzling at best to me. One of the things we know about -- you don't have to know much about education in this country to know we have issues with being an competitive in public high schools, junior schools. Does it make sense to cut the education that people get to save state budgets?
STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR: Makes absolutely no sense. This is an absurd notion. It's bad enough they get the summers off. It's bad enough that our children are performing behind virtually every industrialized nation, and now we're going to give them one less year of school? I the issue is one that the senior year is not productive, then that sounds like a education reform issue, not a budgetary issue. If it's a budgetary issue, then we can take care of that this way. Only give teachers and principals raises who perform. Then you'll take care of some of the budgetary issues.
VELSHI: This is an issue that's come up many, many times across the nation in every state. Paying for performance. What's the complexity there? Because businesses employ this all the time. What is stopping us from being able to do that with teachers and principals?
PERRY: Teachers unions. Very simply. They don't want us to use data or the performance of the students, which is the data, to determine whether or not they're doing their job. So, it would be like a professional football player not wanting you to check how he does in terms of performing to determine whether or not you're going to give him a bonus.
It doesn't make sense anywhere in the -- anywhere in the industrialized world and doesn't make sense in ours. I can't make sense out of nonsense.
I believe a good teacher wants to be paid based upon what they can and cannot do. One of the problems with our states' budgets is we're paying everyone as if they've all performed. And we know both domestically and internationally, that's not the case. So, we shouldn't be giving people raises unless they earn them. It's a very simple American concept.
VELSHI: I'm going to take you further down this road. Then we'll pull back and talk about the 12th grade thing. In terms of teachers -- or unions not wanting to use data on teachers, isn't there some argument teachers can only do so much with the time they've got with the student in the classroom? A lot of environmental factors, including what the parents are doing at home, influence how a child performs at school.
PERRY: If teachers are important, they're important. If they're unimportant, then they're unimportant. If I pay somebody to teach someone a subject -- when we pay someone to teach a child chemistry -- we expect the child to learn chemistry.
It's a really basic concept. Either teachers can teach or they can't. If you are so impacted by the environmental factors, maybe you're not good at your job. And that's OK. But do something else. Don't blame it on the profession of teaching. It's you may not be good at your job.
VELSHI: All right. Let's come back. We're going to take a break, come back and talk specifically about the idea of compressing a student's high school career, getting rid of 12th grade, whether you replace it with something else, you fulfill the requirements elsewhere or you actually just cut the year out. We're going to talk about that with Steve Perry when we come back. This is about a Utah proposal to cut the 12th grade. (MUSIC PLAYING)
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VELSHI: This kicked off a discussion in Utah about cutting the 12th grade. Eighty-eight percent of Utah's high school students graduated 2007 to 2009. Pretty high numbers. The state actually has a lower unemployment rate than the nation at 6.7 percent. The highest in 23 years, but the nation's unemployment rate is about 10 percent.
Steve Perry joins me now. He's an education contributor for CNN.
Steve, let's talk about this on another front. There are discussions about whether college should actually take four years with summer breaks, because that was a system based on the harvest and having to be free during the summer months. Should we, particularly in a challenging economic climate and competitive world, be doing college in less than four years? A lot of students do that of their own accord.
Does that discussion transfer over to high school? I'm not talking about the work you do in 12th grade; I'm talking about compressing high school education.
PERRY: We actually compress it at our school. We are a year- round school at Capital Prep. So, our students go to school more days than the traditional American school year. We don't subscribe to the agrarian calendar.
As long as the rigor and amount of work is the same, then who can argue against that? Removing a year, making less information available to our children, is problematic.
VELSHI: Why is it problematic? Because of the argument this Utah senator and others make is sometimes people waste the 12th grade. It's not a competitive year. It's not a rigorous year for some people. So, he's arguing those people can make it optional.
PERRY: And what I say to that is that is an education reform issue.
At our school, one of the things we do to make the school year more meaningful, the senior year, is we have a senior social justice project. It's a Capstone project. It's a year-long project. Students take college courses while still in high school. We have them involved in outside -- externships. There are other opportunities to create a meaningful experience.
Those are just the strongest students. Some students need all four years. This is the last year that we get to determine whether or not they as students are going to be performing. This is our last- ditch effort to touch them as students.
VELSHI: After that, they're on their own. They can agree to go work or do something else.
There are, in Utah, many states have an early graduation program. In Utah, about 200 students a year take advantage of that. That's for the strongest students, not necessarily something we should do for an entire student body.
PERRY: No. All students can't do it. Very few have the capacity -- this year, ironically, we're graduating a 16-year-old. We haven't done it before, and it will be a long time before we graduate another one. This is a very special child. Very special. However, even that comes with great consternation to him and his family.
VELSHI: Because at 16, you may not be ready to make the decisions you have to make?
PERRY: Right. At 16 and in many cases, 19. Let's think about it. Many of the students who go off their freshman year come back home because they don't have the capacity to perform on their own. There are developmental issues we don't often consider. And because we don't often consider them, we are taking it for granted.
Again, this is a political decision. It should not be confused as an educational decision. Educational decisions are based upon sound educational thought. Politics is politics, and the two should not meet.
VELSHI: All right. Steve Perry, you're always passionate about education issues. It's been great to have this discussion with you. Thank you very much. Steve Perry is a CNN education contributor and an educator joining from Hartford, Connecticut.
Big issue affecting not just the state of Indiana but national politics and, hence, you. We're coming to it in a few minutes. In Indiana, there are our cameras. We expect Indiana senator, Democratic senator Evan Bayh to announce that he will step down. He will not run again. That would make him the third Democratic senator and eleventh senator to announce he is not competing in the November mid-term elections. Stay with us. We'll bring you all that in a moment.
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