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Obama: We Stopped Paying Attention; Prominent Liberal Rebukes White Conservatives; Newly Elected Black Conservative Responds to Criticism

Aired November 07, 2010 - 22:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what you need to know for your week ahead.

A developing story bound to reverberate across the country. Four teenagers facing murder charges for beating and stomping an 18-year- old to death. We talked to the police about what happened.

Prominent liberal Tim Wise taking aim at white conservatives in an open letter saying, quote, "Your time is limited, real damn limited." It's firing up a whole lot of people on the left and on the right. What else did he have to say and why did he write it? We'll ask him.

And this just in. A new development in the Keith Olbermann suspension saga.

But first we start with this. President Obama making news on two continents tonight. Exploring India on a 10-day tour through Asia and a candid interview with "60 Minutes" about his tough two years in office. He didn't shy away from criticizing himself to CBS, giving a sober-eyed account of how he and his party lost the voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that over the course of two years, we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn't just legislation, that it's a matter of persuading people and giving them confidence and bringing them together in setting a tone. We haven't always been successful at that and I take personal responsibility for that, and it's something that I've got to examine carefully as I -- as I go forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And the president also addressed his difficulties in reaching across the aisle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Part of my promise to the American people when I was elected was to maintain the kind of tone that says we can disagree without being disagreeable, and I think over the course of two years there have been times where I've slept on that commitment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And in a revealing moment, the president reflected on the lessons that he's learned in the past two years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I think that I've learned that America is incredibly resilient. I think I've learned about myself that I'm pretty resilient, too. You know, that -- you know, I'll get knocked down a couple of times, but whatever I'm going through, it's nothing like what families around the country are going through, and if they are able to keep going, even when things don't go the way they want, then I sure can as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: This aired while President Obama is visiting India's capital, New Delhi. The president and the first lady will spend tomorrow there before hitting Indonesia on Tuesday.

But even overseas, the results of the midterms were on his mind, promising mid-course corrections to his agenda. The Republicans, though, would love nothing more than to dismantle one of the president's darlings, the health care reform law. And now that they have won control of the House, they may go for it. The GOP stood united on the issue on appearances today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), MINORITY WHIP: We've got to stop this bill from taking place, and we've got to go and reset the dial and insist that the American people are given a choice to have the kind of health care that they want and also to bring down costs. The Obama care bill will bankrupt states as well as this country and take people's health care away. We can't have that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: But repealing health care reform wouldn't be easy as long as Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. Many Dems still consider the law an achievement that will grow over time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), MAJORITY WHIP: That's why I say that when you get into what we really did and the American people understand what we really did, I think this health care plan is going to be with us for a long, long time, and it's something we'll be able to build upon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is adamant that her party's policies will not be rolled back. She wants to stay the top Democrat in the House by becoming minority leader now. I asked CNN's political editor Mark Preston whether it's really a good idea for House Dems to keep her after their losses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Don, you know, talking to her advisers just over the last couple of hours, spoke to several of them, they had the votes already in hand within an hour after she made the announcement, so she's not going to get any real challenge. She does have some centrists, some would say conservative Democrats that are upset she's going to run.

But let's not forget that Nancy Pelosi, even though she became the face of the Democratic Party, of congressional Democrats, all she was doing was enacting President Obama's agenda. And remember when President Obama ran in 2008, he said he was going to do all these things. Well, the only way you can get these things done is if you have a speaker willing to push them through and that's what we saw in Nancy Pelosi.

LEMON: And you can ask Democrat or Republican, they will tell you that she got his agenda through and she was second to him among raising money. So she will -- history will look at her as a very powerful speaker of the house.

Hey, Mark, let's talk about...

PRESTON: Sure.

LEMON: Go ahead. Finish your thought.

PRESTON: You can say also the first -- the first woman speaker, Don. I mean, let's not...

LEMON: Yes. OK.

PRESTON: Let's not forget that.

LEMON: Hey, listen, Mark, I've got 10 seconds here. 2012. Already people are like, Don, we just finished midterms and now we're looking forward to 2012, really?

PRESTON: Yes, we are. And you know something? We're talking about it now because the midterms are passed. But, Don, honestly this has been going on since the last election. And in fact, I was out in Iowa in June. They were already talking about who is going to win the Iowa caucuses. So get used to it. We're going to be talking about it a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And speaking of the midterm elections, a letter aimed at white conservatives is setting off a political firestorm tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM WISE, AUTHOR, "COLORBLIND": The right wing's time is limited unless they can figure out, and I don't think they have figured out, how to appeal to people of color and young folks when your rhetoric is we want to take the country back. Black and brown folks don't want to go back for obvious reasons, by and large, and young people want to go forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Author and educator Tim Wise didn't hold back in his open letter to the white right. Coming up, he explains why he wrote it.

Plus, one of two African-American Republicans voted into the U.S. House last week. He has a fascinating resume and a strong reaction to Tim Wise's comments.

And a disturbing story that could happen in any neighborhood. A teen attending a house party. The apparent random victim of a beating. Tonight, four other teens are charged with murder. We'll update you on that.

And don't just sit there, we want you to be part of the conversation. You can send us a message on Twitter or Facebook. Check out our blog. It's at cnn.com/don and we're on Foursquare -- foursquare.com/donlemoncnn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: In tonight's "What Matters," our partnership with "Essence" magazine, two opposing and passionate views on last Tuesday's election. On one side, outspoken author Tim Wise's blistering rebuke of white conservatives, saying their moment in the sun will be brief. On the other side, a conservative African-American just elected to Congress who says Wise has it all wrong.

First my interview with Tim Wise. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WISE: I'm not a shill for the Democratic Party. I've been very critical of the Obama administration, as you know. I'm very critical of Democrats. What I'm saying is that the right wing's time is limited unless they can figure out, and I don't think they have figured out, how to appeal to people of color and young folks when your rhetoric is we want to take the country back. Black and brown folks don't want to go back for obvious reasons, by and large, and young people want to go forward. So I think it's a limited political trajectory.

LEMON: The reason I asked you about the satire part is because you usually blast people for language like that, and you've blasted people before. And here's -- let's read some of it.

You said, "I know you think you've taken your country back with this election, and, of course, you have always thought it was yours for the taking because that's what we white folks are bred to believe, that it's ours and how dare anyone else say otherwise, but you are wrong."

Tim? WISE: Yes. Well, that is -- now, look, I've been white a long time and I've got to tell you that white folks in this country have long been led to believe that this is our country, that we are the prototypical American.

I've done experiments with folks in workshops where you ask people to envision what's an all-American boy and all-American girl, and virtually everyone has this image in their head of a white person.

Now that may be changing, and I think there's some folks on the right who don't like the fact that they have to share the designation of American with folks who pray different, look different, have different cultural traditions, but that's the truth and that's the future...

LEMON: OK.

WISE: ...whether they like it or not.

LEMON: All right, let's go on. You said, "In the pantheon of American history, conservative old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms."

WISE: Right. And particular -- look, I think if you look at history, who are the folks who have been the most reactionary and aggressive? It's usually been older white folks. Younger white folks often are in the front lines of the fight for social justice and we should always remember that.

What I think is especially dangerous about the older folks in the tea party movement in the white community is they are the last generation of white Americans who can nostalgically look back on the pre-civil rights era and think those were the good old days. The reality is those of us in the post-civil war era thankfully can't remember those days enough to be gripped by nostalgia and longing for them.

LEMON: And you actually...

WISE: I think the country will be better off when we're in a position of multi-cultural, multi-racial America. That's the America of the future.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. That was author Tim Wise.

One of Tuesday's winners was Allen West, an African-American Republican from South Florida, and I asked him for his reaction to what Tim Wise had to say. He did not like what he heard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN WEST (R), FLORIDA CONG.-ELECT: I was very concerned about when he started with his taking our country back rhetoric that he was addressing. It is not time-oriented. It is not about going back to a certain period in the United States of America. But it's about going back to a constitutional principle, understanding the right and proper mandates of our federal government and the interaction of the federal government with life and society and how does it promote our free market and free enterprise.

LEMON: To you -- that's what it means to you, but do you understand to some people when you say take our country back, that they go back to where, back to a time when my people were enslaved or were subjugated. Do you understand to some people, when they hear those words, that's the meaning behind those words?

WEST: Well, that's one of the things that, you know, down here I use the phrase bayonets and everyone thought that I was wanting to go around and stick people and stab people. When the word bayonets came from the second day of Gettysburg and it was a rally cry from Colonel Joshua Chamberlain when he faced some very tough situations at little round top. So I think that people have an ability to take anything that they want and twist it and take it out of context for their own practical gain, and I think that's what Mr. Wise has done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Congressman-elect Allen West.

I have a disturbing story to tell you about from Georgia tonight that is bound to reverberate nationwide. A teenager beaten and stomped to death, apparently the random target of four other teenagers. I'll talk with investigators.

And just days after a piece of an engine tore off a Qantas Airlines jet in mid-flight, new information tonight about a new problem found with the airlines' A380 planes.

And from half a mile under the earth to 26 miles through a city, one of the rescued Chilean miners hits the streets for the New York City marathon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A Georgia teenager is dead tonight, the victim of an apparent ambush during a house party in a town about 20 miles west of Atlanta. And witnesses say party-goers watched it all go down. Now four teenagers, three pictured right here, are accused of murder. And what provoked them, according to the sheriff in Douglas County? Nothing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF PHIL MILLER, DOUGLAS COUNTY, GEORGIA: One of them made the statement that they were going to beat up the next guy that showed up, and this little 5'6", 125-pound 18-year-old kid with braces happened to come down. They beat him down on the ground and stomped him and killed him.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: Well, here's what the sheriff says. He says a house party in Douglasville got out of control with nearly 100 people showing up. A fight broke out leading to more confrontations. And that's when officials say the four men, now under arrest, attacked and killed Bobby Maurice Tillman who was 18.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA STEPHEN, WITNESSED BEATING: One fellow fell on the ground. Another fellow kicked them, but there was a whole lot of kids around them.

ED STEPHENS, WITNESSED BEATING: I just thought he was hurt. I never thought that his life was ending.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: No drugs or alcohol were involved, and the sheriff says homeowners tried to stop the violence. They will not be charged.

Let's check your top stories worldwide. Jurors in New Haven, Connecticut, return to work tomorrow in one of the most sensational murder trials in state history. After a rare weekend session, jurors have not decided if Steven Hayes should die. He was convicted of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters in a brutal home invasion in 2007. Mrs. Petit was raped and strangled and her daughters were burned alive in their beds.

Qantas Airlines says its fleet of A380 jumbo jets will remain grounded while investigators -- while it investigates new problems with the planes' engines uncovered over the weekend. Qantas grounded the fleet Thursday after an A380 made an emergency landing in Singapore. A piece of one of the engines tore off in mid-flight. Qantas says it has found slight anomalies in the engines of the new aircraft and wants to investigate further. The A380 is the world's largest airliner.

Iran has offered to sit down with the West and talk about controversial nuclear programs. The offer came today through Turkey which could act as host for the talks. The U.S. and other countries believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, but Iran has consistently denied that, saying its nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes.

Explosions from Indonesia's powerful Mount Merapi can be heard more than 12 miles away. The volcano continues to spit out scorching ash clouds, gas and rocks. The death toll from days of eruption has now climbed to 156 and some 200,000 people are on the run from that volcano.

What's left of Hurricane Tomas is weakening fast as it churns out to sea, but it cut a swath of destruction in Haiti. Floodwaters, homes in ruins and at least six people are dead. There are growing fears the storm could worsen Haiti's already deadly cholera outbreak.

Well, that didn't last long. MSNBC is reinstating primetime host Keith Olbermann. He was suspended Friday for donating to three Democratic candidates. At the time, the network said it -- that it was -- he was benched indefinitely, but he'll be back on the air come Tuesday night.

The star of this year's New York City marathon was in the spotlight today, not for his time, but for his endurance in the past year. Edison Pena survived more than two months trapped in a mine in Chile. Well today, he ran the marathon in about five hours, 40 minutes. Pena is a tri-athlete and says daily runs while underground helped him to survive.

A look ahead at the economy two years from now. Plus, cotton prices are up, and some happy meals may have to get a healthy makeover. Alison Kosik has this week's "Getting Down to Business."

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: The economy is still issue number one for voters and could be for the presidential election two years from now. The unemployment rate stands at 9.6 percent and economists expect it to stay above 9 percent into next year. But they are predicting the jobless rate will drop to about 8.1 percent by Election Day 2012. The latest unemployment numbers come out on Thursday.

And the cost of a t-shirt or a pair of jeans is going up. The price of cotton has jumped almost 80 percent since July, and apparel makers are going to be raising prices to follow suit. Look for more on import and export prices this week.

Finally, kids in San Francisco may not be so happy with their McDonald's Happy Meal. The city board of supervisors voted to ban restaurants from giving away toys with kids' meals that are high in calories, sugar and fat. The ordinance would also require fruits and vegetables be included with any meal for children containing a toy.

That's this week's "Getting Down to Business." Alison Kosik, CNN, New York.

LEMON: We're looking ahead to the stories making news this coming week from the president's next stop on his visit to Asia to Oprah's next big get.

And this isn't just any driver taking a Formula One race car out for a spin at more than 150 miles an hour. In this case, it is a world leader.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Let's take a look now at what the week ahead will bring from Asia to Washington to Hollywood. These are the stories expected to grab the headlines. We begin tonight with what's on the horizon for the president.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ed Henry in Mumbai, India, where the president is starting his four-country tour. The White House knows he may get some heat leaving the country so quickly after those disastrous midterm elections where it was all about jobs.

But the White House is basically saying every stop of the way the president will be talking about the American economy. Here in India, for example, U.S. exports have quadrupled in recent years. He's going to talk about expanding those markets even more.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I'm Chris Lawrence at the Pentagon where we are keeping our eyes on three things for next week. First up, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in both Australia and Malaysia, meeting with his defense counterparts over there.

The Log Cabin Republicans have taken their fight to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell to the Supreme Court. We may be hearing word from the court next week.

And on Veterans Day Thursday, the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps will participate in a special Veterans Day breakfast at the White House and then go on to a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown.

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. This week, Wall Street will be eyeing a number of corporate earnings reports. We'll hear from technology giant Cisco as well as Viacom, Disney, Kohl's and J.C. Penney. The stock market is open for Veterans Day on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, the G-20 summit of leaders from across the globe gets under way in South Korea. And on Friday, we'll get the latest report on consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan.

A lot ahead. We'll track it all for you on CNNMoney.

BROOKE ANDERSON, HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": I'm "Showbiz Tonight's" Brooke Anderson and here's what we're watching this week -- Oprah's big sit-down with Michael Jackson's mom Katherine and Michael's kids, plus, Marie Osmond's first TV interview since her son's suicide.

"Showbiz Tonight" is live at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on HLN and still TV's most provocative entertainment news show at 11:00 p.m.

LEMON: All right. On Sundays, we always want to try to catch you up on some of the news you might have missed this past week.

First up, what would you do with $11 million? Well, for most us, that amount of money could buy a whole lot of happiness. Not for one Canadian couple though.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN LARGE, GAVE AWAY $11,200,000: It made us feel good that we could do something to help other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Allen and Violet Large said their big lottery win was just a big old headache so they gave it away, more than $11 million in just four months. Fire departments, churches, cemeteries, family members, charities, all benefited from their generosity. Even though Violet Large was undergoing chemotherapy, they didn't spend a penny on themselves, and they are still buying lottery tickets.

A collector says this card is, quote, "the Mona Lisa of baseball cards." And boy, has it made some nuns smile. The school sisters of Notre Dame just made $220,000 after this Honus Wagner card sold at auction. There are only 50 to 60 of the cards around. Wagner was a Hall of Famer with the Pittsburgh Pirates. A brother of one of the nuns bequeathed the card to them.

In Russia, inside the bright yellow racing suit is none other than, guess who it is. Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, took a Renault Formula One racer for a spin on a special course near St. Petersburg. He likes being pictured doing manly stuff. He didn't break any speed records though but he reportedly got up to about 150 miles per hour. Formula One racers go a lot faster than that.

Near Seattle, minor flooding sent migrating salmon scooting across the road trying to get back into the river but they weren't counting on this obstacle. It was a doggie from a nearby house. He took advantage of the easy pickings to grab a big fish, then she -- it's a she -- trotted off to enjoy her catch. Good for her. A lot of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, so there you go.

I'm Don Lemon at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Thanks for watching. Have a great week, everyone. I'll see you back here next weekend.