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Elizabeth Smart Kidnapper Guilty; Scathing Report on Virginia Tech; Bill Clinton Heads to White House; Parents Want to Take Over School; Sharing A Good Laugh

Aired December 10, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: It is 2:00.

Breaking news now. We are looking at cameras in front of the federal court in Salt Lake City brought to us by our affiliate KSL.

We are awaiting, we think, the arrival of members of the Smart family, possibly Elizabeth Smart; her father Ed; her mother, Lois; her sister, Mary Katherine; or a family spokesperson. We do not know whether they plan to offer comments at that setup with cameras and microphones, but if they do, we will go to that immediately.

All right. Ted Rowlands has been covering the story for us. He was in the court when the verdict was read. He joins us now from outside the courtroom.

Ted, all of the buzz this morning was whether or not that jury was going to find Brian David Mitchell guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. Obviously, they decided that he was not insane, he was of sound mind when he committed those crimes.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it took them five hours, three hours of deliberation last night, and then two hours here this morning. When Mitchell was brought into court before the verdict was read, he was singing. He has done this throughout the entire six-week trial. Today, he was singing a Mormon hymn. He was allowed to stay in court to hear the reading of the verdict.

I was watching Elizabeth Smart when the verdict was read, and she smiled immediately when she heard the guilty verdict on the first count. And then she smiled and the rest of her family smiled again when the second verdict of guilty was read.

Elizabeth Smart spent this entire six weeks in the front row during this trial, listening to every detail that was brought out in testimony. She also spent three days of riveting testimony on the stand telling jurors exactly what happened to her.

Outside court, just a few moments ago, prosecutors say Elizabeth Smart made the difference in this case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLIE CHRISTENSEN, PROSECUTOR: The beginning and the end of this story is attributable to a woman with extraordinary courage and extraordinary determination. And that's Elizabeth Smart. That young woman had the ability and the willingness to recall the graphic details of her nine-month captivity, and she did it with candor and clarity and a truthfulness that I think moved all of us and gave a very powerful and credible story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: As you mentioned, Ali, the decision that this jury had to make was not whether or not Brian David Mitchell did these horrible things, because the defense readily admitted that in court. It was whether or not he was sane.

Mitchell's stepdaughter was in the court throughout the process, too. She's very disappointed in the jury, saying that her stepfather is a sick man and needs medical treatment, not prison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REBECCA WOODRIDGE, BRIAN DAVID MITCHELL'S STEPDAUGHTER: I don't believe he knew -- I think he knew what he was doing, but not to the mental sense he could control what he was doing. And I think there's a difference from knowing what you're doing is wrong and continuing to, and knowing what you're doing could be wrong and not being able to stop doing it.

It's like a drug addict. You know your doing drugs is wrong, but you keep doing it because it's an addiction. Almost similar, except he's mentally ill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: And one thing to note, Ali, in this case is that the state court in Utah found that Mitchell was indeed insane and did not stand trial in state court. That's why it has taken almost eight years, and that's why we're in federal court. But today, this jury who made the decision -- not a judge. This jury decided that Brian Mitchell was indeed sane enough to pay for what he did to Elizabeth Smart so many years ago -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right, Ted. We'll stay on top of this. Thanks so much.

Ted Rowlands in front of the federal court in Salt Lake City, Utah. We're expecting the family of Elizabeth Smart to come out. If they do come out and say something, we will immediately interrupt whatever we're doing to go in and listen to them.

But listen to this. Talk about off the radar, this is a remarkable story.

It turns out that maybe one in three airplanes, private airplanes flying in the sky, in the United States, are -- may not be registered, at least not registered properly. And that means that at any given moment, the FAA may not be able to match tens of thousands of planes, big and small, with their legal owners. Now, if you're thinking, so what, think about your car. Every state keeps track of vehicle ownership for tax and insurance reasons. For airplanes, there are taxes as well. There are landing fees, safety notices.

The real big concerns these days are terrorism and crime. Planes with bogus tail numbers can and have been used to smuggle drugs. If you want to lose sleep tonight, I'm sure you can think of some more sinister scenarios than that.

But there's the big picture. Three hundred and fifty-seven thousand private and commercial aircraft licensed in the United States. The FAA says about 119,000 of them have what they call questionable registration.

So what are they going to do? Well, they're going to cancel everybody's registrations on a rolling basis, make them re-file, make them renew those registrations every three years until they have got a database that is up to date.

And so we hit "Two at the Top" with Miles O'Brien. He's a journalist and pilot, an aerospace geek, former CNN colleague, a friend of mine. He joins me now on the phone from New York.

You are a pilot and plane owner, Miles. Good to talk to you, first of all. And what does this all mean?

MILES O'BRIEN, JOURNALIST & PILOT: Well, Ali, you know, it's interesting. This is being presented as addressing a security issue, which is to say the threat of terrorism. While there are really good reasons for the FAA to keep track of all the airplanes in this country and make sure the registrations are current and not stale data, it does nothing to stop a terrorist from repainting an airplane or, for that matter, using Duct tape and coming up with a phony N (ph) number, as they call it, and doing harm.

So, I think what the FAA is doing is something they should be doing. Just having registrations change whenever there is a transaction, whenever you sell an airplane, is not enough. Doing it every few years, more like the automobile model, is a good idea, but it's not going to stop terrorists.

VELSHI: Right. And I spoke to somebody an hour ago who said something similar. They said, look, this FAA system of registering planes is antiquated, it was built at a time when it was a paper-based system, and that you're only required to change your registration when you buy or sell an airplane. So that needs to be updated, but he, too, felt that connecting this to terrorism didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

O'BRIEN: No, no. There's a lot of good reasons you want to be able to get in touch on airplanes whenever there's an airworthiness matter (ph). You know (INAUDIBLE), you want to make sure that's in the hands (ph) of the owner of the airplane.

When there is a (INAUDIBLE) numbers. If there's a state tax that is charged on an airplane, they need to know where it is based. All that is perfectly valid, and we certainly want to keep track of the airplanes.

Now, the article that kind of spurred this talks about these 119,000 planes being missing. No one really knows what we're dealing with here. That was a pure you know, guess (ph), and maybe a third of the airplanes are not properly registered.

Who knows? Maybe it's more. Maybe it's less. We don't know.

VELSHI: It's entirely possible. What I was reading, Miles -- tell me if this is true -- it's entirely possible some of these planes are just out of service, they've been junked.

O'BRIEN: (INAUDIBLE) a farmer's farm, and he doesn't need to keep updating the FAA on exactly what's going on with it. So there's any number of things that can happen.

You know, it's a situation where stale data is never going to be a good situation, especially in this day and age. And as you say, what they had was kind of a relic of a bygone era. And these days, there's really no excuse for every three years or so, making somebody re-register.

VELSHI: All right.

Miles, good to talk to you, as always. Thanks very much.

Miles O'Brien, journalist. He's with PBS now, and he is a pilot.

Today's "Sound Effect" reminds us of the power of silence. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Chinese professor of literature Liu Xiaobo, but the same work that earned Liu recognition worldwide landed him in prison in China. He's serving an 11-year sentence for subversion, all because he wrote a manifesto promoting democracy.

Lou was represented in Oslo by an empty chair.

Beijing went to enormous lengths to protest, downplay and stifle news about Liu's honor. It pressured other countries to boycott the ceremonies, and 19 of them did, by the way, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: It was a day that brought death and overwhelming grief to the campus of Virginia Tech, and it shocked the nation -- the world, in fact. A student on that day, April 16, 2007, gunned down 32 other students and faculty and then killed himself. Now a scathing new report says -- the government report says the university broke the law by waiting two hours to warn the campus that a gunman was on the loose.

Chaos and fear ruled that day. Student Cho Seung-Hui struck first early in the morning, killing two students in their dorm. About two hours later, the university alerted the campus that two students had been shot. That's about when Cho chained the doors of a classroom building and went on a shooting rampage, killing 30 students and faculty before turning the gun on himself.

Here's the reaction of two students to the killings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN BLAUVELT, STUDENT: It was just really frightening. It was kind of surreal, knowing that someone who was seemingly like normal looking -- and if I had seen him in class, I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it.

BRITNEY ROCKWELL, STUDENT: It was absolutely terrible. For someone to purposely know what they were going to do to our school and the community is -- there's no words for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: In the aftermath, Virginia Tech's president said officials did all they could to protect the school.

The university today is sticking to its original position. Responding to the government report, the university said, "Virginia Tech administrators acted appropriately in their response to the tragic events based on the best information available to them."

As we mentioned, the government says Virginia Tech broke the law by waiting too long to alert the campus. The law at issue is the Clery Act. It was created in 1990. It requires colleges and universities to issue timely warnings of on-campus threats. The act was named in memory of Jeanne Ann Clery, who was raped and killed while sleeping in her dorm at Lehigh University.

Well, he's a man who can definitely relate to what President Obama is going through right now. Coming up next, President Clinton heads back to his old stomping ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Triangulation: Webster's defines it as any similar trigonomic operation for finding a position or a location by means of bearings from two fixed points, unknown distance apart. Today, that term is being thrown around as former President Clinton heads to the White House next hour for a meeting with President Obama.

Our chief political correspondent, Candy Crowley, joins me live now from Washington about this.

We've heard "triangulation." We've heard President Obama, in reference to his deal with Republicans, this deal to extend the tax cuts and extend unemployment benefits, talk about triangulating like President Clinton did. What are we talking about?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's what we're talking about. You know, it's exactly what it sounds like. You have the triangle.

And so when Bill Clinton got a beating in a midterm, his adviser at the time, Dick Morris, I think actually coined this term, triangulation. And basically, on the one side of the triangle, you have the far left. On the other side of the triangle, you have the far right. And the president wanted to run right up the middle of the triangle. And so you've got -- I think the most famous phrase I think right after that midterm was "The era of big government is over."

VELSHI: Right.

CROWLEY: That was from Bill Clinton. So it's a run up the middle to try to find that ground where people actually vote.

So that's -- it is interesting that President Clinton is appearing today, right when the president is getting a lot of flack, as you know, from the left wing of his own party, who thinks he sold out on this tax cut extension deal that he has with the Republicans. So I would love it if I could be in that meeting, because certainly Bill Clinton knows a thing or two about comebacks.

VELSHI: But Candy, there is no way that this transition from both houses being controlled by the Democrats to the House itself being controlled by Republicans in the new Congress -- there's no way that was going to come without some pain.

CROWLEY: Yes, absolutely. You're right. And let's remember, we're about to start a presidential election cycle, which makes it even more painful.

And the other thing about triangulation that a lot of people have pointed out and is true is that Bill Clinton's natural predisposition was in the middle. It is not as much President Obama's natural position. He is more left of center.

So whether you can apply the lessons of the Clinton administration after its drubbing to President Obama is really unclear. And, listen, it's a new reality. And they're already dealing with it, even though he's dealing with a lame duck that is the old Congress.

VELSHI: By the way, it seems to be a tradition of ex-presidents, ex-living presidents, not to give advice to current presidents. Is Bill Clinton of that ilk?

CROWLEY: I doubt it. And I think if he's asked he'll certainly give advice.

VELSHI: All right. Well, like you said, it would be good to be in that meeting. We'll find out what we will about it.

Candy, good to see you. Thank you.

CROWLEY: Nice to see you.

VELSHI: All right. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin will be on "STATE OF THE UNION" this Sunday to talk about President Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans. It airs this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Updating breaking news in the Elizabeth Smart case. A Utah jury has convicted Brian David Mitchell on both counts of kidnapping her and taking her across state lines for sexual purposes.

The defendant, Brian David Mitchell, loudly saying, "He died, the great redeemer died" as the verdict was read. Mitchell's defense tried to argue he was legally insane when he snatched the 14-year-old girl at knifepoint from her bedroom in 2002. Smart, now 23, testified that she was raped daily. Mitchell could be sentenced to life in prison.

Gay rights group have just wrapped up their rally on Capitol Hill. They're trying to urge lawmakers to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" before this lame-duck session ends. But Senate Democrats failed to get enough votes yesterday to open debate on the policy which bans gays from serving openly in the military.

A Milwaukee interstate is reopened after a six-hour-long police standoff this morning. Our affiliate WTMJ reports deputies used a robot to break a window and smoke out two suspects in a stolen SUV on I-94 after trying to negotiate with them. Both of them are now in custody.

Look at this 840-pound little guy. He caught a flight to a new home with the Air Force. We'll hear his wild story in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: Pakistanis have protested drone attacks for quite a while, but now one civilian is fighting back. His bold strategy, coming up next in "Globe Trekking."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Happening right now, a Utah jury has convicted Brian David Mitchell on both counts of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart and taking her across state lines for sexual purposes. The defendant, Brian David Mitchell, loudly sang in the courtroom. He sang, "He died, the great redeemer died," as the verdict was read today.

We are awaiting response from the Smart family. It's raining now in front of the courthouse in Salt Lake City -- the federal courthouse. You can see our cameraman not knowing that he's on TV at the moment, so he's zipping up his camera to protect it from the rain. And now somebody just switched off the line. But actually, we have various signals coming in from there.

So we will stay on top of it. We are expecting Elizabeth Smart's family, her father, her mother, her sister, maybe her or a family spokesman, to come out and offer some comment. They haven't done that yet.

We'll keep you posted if anything happens there. We are ready and we have a dry camera, apparently.

A "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rally outside the Capitol just wrapped up. Gay rights groups are urging the Senate to remain in session to repeal the policy that bans openly gay and lesbian soldiers from serving in the military.

And at the top of the hour, Bill Clinton is going to be back at the White House to meet with President Obama. We don't know what the two guys are going to discuss, but the election and how Democrats should move forward after a devastating midterm is likely to come up.

Time for "Globe Trekking." First up, Pakistan.

Officials are reporting an apparent U.S. drone attack killed four suspects militants in the tribal region. Protests have been building for months over those drone attacks against suspected Taliban and al Qaeda militants.

Now for the first time, a Pakistani journalist, seen in these pictures, is suing the American government for $500 million claiming the drone attacks are killing innocent civilians. Kareem Khan says that a drone attack on New Year's Eve last year destroyed his home in north Waziristan and killed his teenage son and brother.

Pakistani officials say that this year alone U.S. drones have hit more than 100 alleged militant targets in the country's tribal region along the Afghan border. That's up from 52 last year.

U.S. officials tell CNN privately that the covert strikes are legal and have killed hundreds of militants.

Now to Haiti. Officials have ordered a recount of the top three candidates in the disputed presidential election. The decision follows violent protests that have swept through the capital Port-au- Prince and other cities since early this week. Most of the demonstrations have been carried out by supporters of the third-place candidate, the popular musician Michael Martelly. At least three have been killed in the unrest.

In another development, health officials say the strain of the country's deadly cholera epidemic has been traced to south Asia. Researchers came to that conclusion through DNA testing. Results of the study were published online in "The New England Journal of Medicine."

Another report by a French doctor suggests that the cholera strain may have originated with U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal. The U.N. says that report is inconclusive.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the death toll stands at more than 2,000 since the first case was reported in October.

When a school didn't perform the way some parents wanted it to, they did something about it. They made a move to take over the school and get some new leaders. We'll give you details on how they did it coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Parents of students attending McKinley Elementary School in Compton, California have pulled the trigger filing a petition to take over the school. They're testing a new California law called the parent trigger law, which allows parents to take over a failing school.

Take a look at these numbers. The Compton United School District, the graduation rate is 46.8 percent. And out of those who do graduate only 3.3 percent were eligible to attend public universities in 2008.

So is a takeover a legitimate way to fix over our schools? Casey Wian takes us to Compton for more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marlene Romero and Shemika Murphy seem unlikely revolutionaries. They're parents of students at McKinley Elementary in Compton, one of the worst performers in California.

SHEMIKA MURPHY, MCKINLEY ELEMENTARY PARENT: I'm here today because I care about my children and their education and their future.

MARLENE ROMERO, MCKINLEY ELEMENTARY PARENT: I think the district is -- their priority is not the kids. It's something else.

WIAN: Parents representing 62 percent of McKinley's students signed a petition to force the Compton School District to give up control of McKinley.

CROWD: Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

WIAN: Parents packed school buses headed for the district office to deliver their petition. It's the first attempted takeover under a new California law allowing parents to change leadership at failing public schools.

ISMENIA GUZMAN, MCKINLEY ELEMENTARY PARENT: And this is our petition, of the parents that really care for our kids' education.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. We all care for our kids' education.

WIAN: Organizers say they expect the district to fight the takeover, perhaps in court. The teachers union and some parents also are opposed.

LEE FINNIE, MCKINLEY ELEMENTARY PARENT: Well, they're doing great with my kids. I really don't have any complaints. I understand that the school was having problems previously, but they're actually making steps and strides for the benefit of the children.

WIAN: Test scores have improved, yet McKinley still ranks in the bottom 10 percent of even low-income area California schools.

(on camera): The takeover effort has created a rift among families here at McKinley Elementary. Opponents say they've been harassed by people gathering signatures for the petition, and supporters say they've been threatened by opponents. Latino families have even received flyers like this one warning they will be deported if they sign the petition.

(voice-over): Much of the anger is directed at Parent Revolution, a group that organized this takeover and lobbied for the law.

BEN AUSTIN, PARENT REVOLUTION: We're going to take a failing district school and turn it into a high-performing charter school.

By far, the biggest risk is the status quo.

WIAN: Charter school operator Celerity is slated to run McKinley.

VIELKA MCFARLANE, CEO, CELERITY EDUCATIONAL GROUP: We're here to follow the parents' will. And so, we know that we need to listen, we need to listen very carefully, and we need to also listen to the teachers and see which ones of them want to follow the will of the parents.

MURPHY: This could happen -- this Compton, other cities, other states, this could be something really big.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: No doubt it could be something really big. Casey Wian joins me now.

Casey, are parents who are not teachers, who are not educators and are not administrators, are they -- do they know what they're in for?

WIAN: Well, no one knows what they're in for in this case, Ali, because it's never been done this way before. The parents don't know, the teachers don't know, the organizers of this organizer don't know and the school district doesn't know.

What we do know is that the school district is now in the process of verifying those signatures. And what the parents know is that the track record of this charter school, Celerity, that is taking over or is scheduled to take over their elementary school is pretty darn good.

California grades its schools on a 1,000-point scale and Compton Elementary scores in the 600. The three schools that Celerity runs score between 100 and 250 points higher educating the same demographic, mostly Latino and African-American students, many English learners. So they have a track record of success in bringing up these test scores, Ali.

VELSHI: Interesting. In some places, we know that the lack of parental involvement is a contributing factor to unsuccessful kids. But at least in this case you have got the opposite problem, you have got total parental involvement.

WIAN: Absolutely. You have a lot of parental involvement. Also, some deep, deep rifts, though, as we mentioned in the piece, the community. Some parents that support the status quo, if you will, are trying to get parents to take the signatures back. They're passing out flyers at school this week.

But the parents trying to take control of this school have got some big support. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came out in support of their effort and so did Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

VELSHI: What's the best guess as to what happens?

WIAN: Well, I think it's going to end up in court is the best guess, because it's never been tried before. These teachers and the school administrator say this effort caught them by surprise. They say this elementary school just got a new principal less than two years ago, they've made improvements and want more time to try to -- try to improve things with the existing staff at the school.

VELSHI: Casey, good to see you. Thanks for bringing us this story, we appreciate it.

Casey Wian in Los Angeles, always, always with fantastic stories.

Latest on the hour's top stories right now.

Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper guilty in Salt Lake City. A federal jury has convicted Brian David Mitchell of holding Smart captive for nine months in 2002. Now 23 years old, Elizabeth Smart, who you see right there, testified that Mitchell raped her almost every day. He faces a maximum of life in prison.

And this just in to CNN, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirms that Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was taken to hospital this morning after feeling ill at the State Department. Holbrooke is being evaluated, we'll bring you information as it comes in.

Just minutes from now, former President Bill Clinton will try to help President Obama get his groove back. The presidents will huddle at the White House at the end of a pretty dismal week for the current chief executive. His tax cut plan, the DREAM Act, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," all of them hitting brick walls in the lame duck Congress and the new Congress will have a lot more Republicans. Mr. Clinton, you'll recall, faced a similar scenario in 1994.

And more than 13 million packages of Rolaids are being recalled because they may contain metal and wood particles. The company says the health risks are remote, but if you have the soft chew kinds, throw them out.

There's a brand new career option in the Middle East: stand-up comic. Get some laughs from one of the Middle East's first ever comedy festivals ever on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: A little bit of comedy for you right now. We talk a lot in this country about changing hearts and minds in the Middle East. How specifically do we find common ground between two cultures that can sometimes seem so different?

One Arab-American comedian from New York says he has found a starting point and it's simply by sharing a good laugh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN OBEIDALLAH, COMEDIAN: My name is Dean Obeidallah, I'm a comedian and I'm also the executive producer of the Amman Stand-Up Comedy in Amman, Jordan.

I mean, I didn't really identify that strongly with being Arab before 9/11. You know, I went to sleep September 10th a white guy and I woke up September 11th an Arab.

I want to like see an Arab James Bonds. Instead of saying, "Bond, James Bond," he goes "Abdullah, Abdullah Abdullah."

Somebody offered me to do a show in the Middle East. I go, "Get out of here. Nobody's going to come to the show, they're not going to laugh at the jokes.

Before three years ago, there was no history of stand-up comedy in the region. In the last three years, the young people there have not only come out to the shows, they are now doing it more and more themselves.

A lot of them are now doing comedy in Arabic. This year, we have a comic from Egypt, a female comic, Ola Roshdy.

OLA ROSHDY, COMEDIAN: I was the first actually female Egyptian or Arab to do stand-up comedy in Arabic. It's challenging because of the subjects you talk about. You can't really -- some subjects, maybe the people would not really like accept it from a woman. But other than that, I think they find it like intriguing as well.

OBEIDALLAH: We have found out that the jokes we do that are more generic get about relationships or world events, they get laughs, but jokes about Arab culture get huge laughs way off the chart.

ARON KADER, COMEDIAN: Arab people know Arab house it's like food everywhere. You have to eat. You know, you're rude if you don't eat.

(LAUGHTER)

KADER: You know, and with Arabs, very thin line between, you know, accommodating and accosting, you know what I mean? There's hospitality and then there's hostage-taking. You know what I mean?

(LAUGHTER) OBEIDALLAH: That's something Americans never see, the idea of an Arab laughing at himself. It's so humanizing and it's something that's one of my passions to try to get this on American TV so the people in the West can see we have this common humanity.

There are express limits, though.

ROSHDY: Well, in general, there are three subjects you can't talk about anywhere. That's politics, sex and religion.

IBRAHEEM ALKHAIRALLAH, COMEDIAN: You cannot say something insult anyone or insult any country or any habits. You have to say it in a nice way just to talk about it.

OBEIDALLAH: In Lebanon, they said, "Say whatever you want. If you make fun of Hezbollah, you're on your own."

Until you cut away to the audience, they could be any American comedy club or theater. It's when you cut away to the audience and see only it filled with Arab men and women wearing Hijabs, the head coverings, sitting next to each other laughing that you realize you're not in America anymore. That's really the only way to tell.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Great story. Let's bring in a guy who can make people laugh just by looking into a camera, as he is doing right now, Pete Dominick. My good friend, Pete Dominick, host of -- what's it called, Pete? On Sirius XM?

PETE DOMINICK, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: "Stand Up With Pete Dominick." It's going to start in about 20 minutes on Sirius XM, my political show.

Ali Velshi, Dean Obeidallah, the comedian we just saw in that piece, is a great friend of mine and a great comedian. And the president of the United States, any president of the United States, would be doing him or herself a favor if they put a spotlight on what Dean is doing.

I participated in the Arab-American comedy festival for the last five years. Comedy brings people together. It brings cultures together. It's a great idea.

There was just a -- one of the WikiLeaks things, it says that apparently David Letterman is an agent of influence in Saudi Arabia. How about that, Ali Velshi?

VELSHI: Because he's -- and let me just -- this is an interesting thing. Comedians are always at the front end, the front lines of changing popular culture, of changing government rules, of changing whether people can laugh at themselves.

DOMINICK: That's right. I mean, Saudi Arabia is not you know -- and a lot of the Middle East -- they could use their version of a Lenny Bruce, of America's Lenny Bruce, or George Carlin and that's probably not going to happen. It's a different culture, it's a different set of rules. You can't say certain things, obviously.

But, yes, we are on the front lines of free speech at least in making people think and making people laugh. I mean, comedy really does bring people who otherwise disagree even on cultural ways together. I see it every night with what I do for a living, Ali Velshi.

VELSHI: What do you think about those comments that we heard there from a few of the different Arab comedians who said there are still rules about what you can and can't do, but one of them said, you have to say it very nicely.

Is there room for these stand-up comics to actually change cultural norms and prohibitions by being funny in a nice way?

DOMINICK: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, it's tough to play it by the rules. I can't tell you how many times, just before I walk on stage, Ali, the person organizing the gig says, "Oh, by the way, no jokes about sex, religion or drugs," and I say there goes my whole entire act.

But you know, you have got to be careful. If you're professional, you can do that.

But it's really exciting to see females in the Arab world doing comedy and just people in general doing comedy in different languages. And one could argue they're behind us culturally or in the roles that women play. This is the kind of thing that made the difference in America and it's the kind of thing that will make the difference, I think, in the Arab world and the Middle East.

And again, the president of the United States should give an award to Dean Obeidallah and all the people who organized this tour. And I'm hoping myself to go to Amman, Jordan next year. It's just a little bit of a long flight, Ali.

And before we leave, I want to show you my home studio. So let me get a chance.

VELSHI: Yes, absolutely. Show me, show me. I see that you've got the fancy books that you want people to think you read piled up behind you. Where are the comics?

DOMINICK: I just put all the books up there. I don't know what any of these books are. But I wanted to -- I don't know if you can see my screen saver. I'm home today doing my radio show. But can you see that?

VELSHI: Wow, that looks like many versions of me.

DOMINICK: That is correct.

VELSHI: I'm glad to see I inspire you.

DOMINICK: My screen saver is and always be, Ali Velshi, my hero and CNN, sir.

VELSHI: We guys at CNN have to stick together, Pete. I love your show, I love being on your show. I love it when you're on CNN, I love it when you join me. And with all that stuff going on around us, it's nice that comedy gets a little respect.

Pete, good to see you, my friend.

DOMINICK: Comedy is the answer, sir. We'll talk to you later.

VELSHI: All right, Pete Dominick.

President Obama, as Pete was just talking about, President Obama has got some of the huge challenges that Bill Clinton faced in the 1990s. Those two guys are about to get together to talk it over just minutes from now. I'll tell you more about it on the other side.

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VELSHI: Hey, I've been telling you about the Elizabeth Smart -- the case about Brian David Mitchell who was convicted of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart earlier today. We are still waiting for the smart family to come out of had the courtroom in Salt Lake City there. You can see it started to rain. We are still on that and when it happens, we'll bring it to you.

Until then, we have some big news in our CNN Political Update. President Obama and former President Clinton will sit down for a meeting at the White House at the top of the hour. Our chief national correspondent John King live in Washington right now with as many details as one can have not being in that meeting, I suppose.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boy, would you love to be in that meeting, Ali. You know, Bill Clinton could have some helpful advice, perhaps, he went through this back in 1994. You remember, he was a Democratic president, had a Democratic Congress and then boom, the voters decided to elect the Republicans. In Bill Clinton's case, the Republicans took both the House and the Senate. Under President Obama, the Democrats will narrowly hold the Senate.

But they're going to have a meeting. The White House says President Obama requested it and it's just to get a sense of maybe how he should proceed, to get some advice from a guy who has been through divided government here in Washington to see how to go forward. So that's perhaps the biggest political drama here in Washington today.

Another political drama, we talked about this yesterday, will the Senate get around to voting on the DREAM Act? That immigration reform legislation allows younger people who came into the country as illegal immigrants but under the age of 16, if they go to college, join the military, should they be able to stay? A new Gallup poll today, "Would you vote for the DREAM Act?" And 54 percent say yes, 42 percent say no. So majority support there, but clearly, a divided public there.

And also, Ali, if you've been online today, you see a big debate about does Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, does he think he's about to be indicted here in the United States. His legal team had some words earlier today that has some people think they had some contact with the United States government. One of his attorneys, Jennifer Robinson, is going to join us on "JOHN KING, USA" tonight so we can talk about potential U.S. legal action against the WikiLeaks founder.

VELSHI: Earlier I spoke with Sheila Bair, the head of the FDIC, and that will be on my weekend show, "YOUR $$$$$" this weekend, but she said she would be very surprised if Julian Assange has anything she doesn't know on a major U.S. bank. As you know, the FDIC follows that very closely.

But back to this meeting. President Bush -- President Clinton and President Obama. I asked Candy earlier, do you think Clinton predisposed to giving advice or is he just going to listen and they're going to talk?

KING: I think without a doubt the former president would love to give some advice to President Obama on how to deal with this, because he watched this playing out. He has to negotiate with Republicans, now that's a fact of life, he has to negotiate with Republicans. But right now on the Senate floor, for example, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is about five-odd hours into a filibuster. He's representing the complaints of the left against this tax cut deal.

And you know, they knocked the Senate server down a little bit because people were logging on to try to watch it. A filibuster, one of the oldest words in our language, is a trending topic right now online. So this is the meets new.

VELSHI: Tell me what he's doing, John. We have live pictures of him up right now. Five hours he's been talking, making the point that this deal is flawed.

KING: He says it's a raw deal. Now, Bernie Sanders is about as far left as you can get. He was a socialist at one point and he would say proudly that he was the socialist mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats.

He thinks it's wrong to extend those tax cuts for the more wealthy Americans. He thinks it's wrong to have the estate tax provisions in this deal. He says, essentially, that President Obama negotiated a Republican deal with the Republicans.

So he is railing against it, he's using his rights under the Senate rules and he is giving voice right now to the complaints of the left that the president should have fought for a better deal.

So one of the questions President Obama might have for President Clinton is, "You know what? You knew you had to do business with the Republicans, but you also knew when you did so, you were going to anger your own base. How about some advice, buddy?"

VELSHI: All right, well we e will keep an eye on that and see what we can get out of it. John, good to see you, as always. Look forward to seeing you tonight on "JOHN KING, USA." Your next update from "The Best Political Team On Television" is just an hour away.

Buying gas is taking a much bigger bite out of your wallet all of a sudden. So when is it going to ease up? I've got some news you probably don't want to hear in my "XYZ" coming up next.

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VELSHI: Time now for "The XYZ of It."

You don't need us to report on the rising price of gas, you see it and feel it when you fill up your car. There's no complexity to this. Gas comes from oil, oil prices are rising and all because demand for oil is increasing.

America is still the world's thirstiest when it comes to oil, consuming almost 19 million barrels of oil per day during 2009, more than twice that of China, but the growing demands is coming from the world. A new report says worldwide oil demand hit its highest level ever in the last three months of 2010. Demand for gasoline in China was up 8 percent, 11 percent in India.

The Chinese are expected to buy 18 million cars this year, that's a 32 percent jump over last year. By contrast, only 11.5 million cars will be sold in the U.S. next year. That's why 85 percent of the growth in worldwide gasoline demand and consumption is expected to come from the developing world.

What's my point? The steady climb of gas prices is not going away soon. So just buckle up and understand it's going to be an expensive ride.

That's my "XYZ." That's it for me for the week. Don Lemon takes it away with NEWSROOM -- Don.