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Rick Perry's N Word Controversy; Amanda Knox Appeal Ruling; Occupy Wall Street Protest; GOP Voters Whiplash; Michael Jackson's Doctor on Trial; Recalling 1972 Hijacking; Biographer of Walter Payton Interviewed; Dick Cheney Discusses Obama Administration Terror Policies; Senate to Propose Bill Countering Chinese Monetary Policy; Man Found After Gong Missing for Days
Aired October 02, 2011 - 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: Right now on CNN, in just hours Amanda Knox takes the stand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The light is really on at the end of the tunnel.
LEMON: What the American college students says could set her free or send her away for murder for decades.
And Wall Street in chaos.
CROWD: All day, all week, how did you live Wall Street.
LEMON: Hundreds of protesters arrested. Police cracking down. It's spreading across the country. Is your town next?
Then fickle politics. First they loved Bachmann, Perry, then Cain. Now Christie?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I'm governor of New Jersey, I'm not running for national office.
LEMON: Will the real GOP candidate, please stand up?
And book of controversy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is it wrong to learn that our heroes, that the people we idolized were humans with shortcomings, with failings, with faults?
LEMON: A new biography drawing fire with potentially tainting the legacy of football great Walter Payton. We talk to the author coming up right here on CNN.
Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for joining us. We're going to start with a word that many of you may find uncomfortable. It is a controversy that is putting a Republican presidential hopeful in a very uncomfortable situation.
Tonight, Governor Rick Perry of Texas is having to respond to his association with the most poisonous word in the English language. Nigger. He didn't say it. It wasn't discovered in an e-mail. But the "Washington Post" is reporting at one point Perry and his family leased a hunting camp in his home state that went by the name "Niggerhead".
The word was supposedly painted in big letters on a huge rock near the camp's entrance. His campaign says Perry hasn't been there since 2006. The name has been changed and the rock painted over and obscured, but when it was painted over is a matter of dispute between Perry's people and the "Washington Post" which published its lengthy article just today.
The word "niggerhead" sounds outrageously backwards in today's world, but in era's past, it was used for land formations like hills and rocks, and was even the name for tobacco and golf products. Herman Cain, one of Perry's presidential rivals, the only African- American among the GOP hopefuls, didn't care for the connotation in any form.
Here's what he told FOX News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My reaction is that, that's just very insensitive. That is a much -- that is on a more vile negative word than the N-word and for him to leave it there as long as he did before I hear that they finally painted over it, is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I spoke about this with CNN contributor Will Cain, and LZ Granderson, a CNN.com contributor and senior writer at ESPN. And I asked, how much of a problem this is for the Perry campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LZ GRANDERSON, CNN.COM CONTRIBUTOR: I think it's huge. I don't see know how you can stand on a stage across from President Obama, the first African-American president, with nigger hanging over your head which is essentially what this story will be for him.
This is the reason why -- this is among other reasons that Chris Christie is still trying to be wooed, because Rick Perry has a lot of these types of skeletons in his closet and the GOP knows that once he gets in front of Obama by himself, these types of stories are going to come out and derail his campaign.
LEMON: OK. So we have said, you know, in the context of the "post" that it was used for rock formations and it is a part of our nation's history and there were other names that were -- that that word was used in.
So Will, I'm wondering, how does a candidate recover -- can a candidate recover once they have been associated with a controversy over the word nigger? WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't know if they can, Don. That's why I think we all need to be very careful here. It's so powerful, this word, that in 2006 when George Allen was running for Senator of Virginia, he used the word macaca, a word that nobody had ever heard of. That is basically some French derivation of an African slang term that has the same weight (INAUDIBLE), the same connotation.
So this word is so powerful, Don, it's such an atomic bomb on a campaign that I just think we need to be very careful and very responsible about how we treat this story. You know, that "Washington Post" story was full of anonymous sources. It was full of speculation and I just don't that I want to be a pundit that goes on TV and speculate about this any further. I think these are questions for Rick Perry to answer at this point.
LEMON: I think that's -- that is a good point of view to have, but the question was, even -- I just said being associated in a controversy whether it's true or not, I mean, that's tough to recover from?
CAIN: It's so tough to recover, Don, that it might not be able to be recoverable.
LEMON: Yes.
CAIN: And that's why I'm saying we need to be careful about associating it. We just need to make sure we've got everything right there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, Perry says his father painted over the rocks sometime in 1983 or 1984, but the "Washington Post" cites a number of sources, some of them anonymous who claimed to have seen the word at the camp long after that.
In other news tonight, Monday is judgment day for Amanda Knox. The 24-year-old American will go before an Italian court to learn whether her 2009 murder conviction is overturned on appeal. Knox will speak to the court, pleading for mercy in a bit to sway the people who will decide her fate. It's no exaggeration to say her future depends on that speech.
CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance has more from Italy.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, this is likely to be the speech of Amanda Knox's life. For about 15 minutes the 24-year-old from Seattle will be able to stand up in this Italian court in Perugia and make an appeal in her own words to the judge and jury to overturn her murder conviction and to set her free.
Knox's parents who are in Perugia tell us their daughter has been working on what she's going to say for months. She's learned to speak Italian fluently in her four years in prison here. So it's likely she'll make the address in the local language.
Her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito also convicted in the 2007 murder of the British exchange student Meredith Kercher during what prosecutors said was a drug-fueled sex game gone wrong, will also have the opportunity to speak, although it's not altogether clear that he will, but shortly afterwards the jury will retire, consider all of the evidence in the case, but returning with their decision, we expect, Monday night local time.
So, obviously, a great deal of anticipation here and around the world, as we await the outcome of what has been one of the most lurid, scandalous and closely watched murder cases of recent years.
Back to you, Don.
LEMON: Thank you, Matthew Chance.
A fledgling movement known as "Occupy Wall Street" has hit a nerve. Boston, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, all have been taken -- all taken up this banner. The demonstrations began in New York back in July, but why? What do they want?
Our Susan Candiotti has been at the epicenter of this movement in lower Manhattan, and she's asking that very question.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Don, this protest has been set up in a public park all for about three weeks now, and they're trying to keep it as organized as possible. For example, there is this food line that's been here for several days where people have been donating food, people who live in the neighborhood, even businesses so that's where people come to get some water, to get some food.
But you also have some impromptu security here. People pitching in to kind of watch around first. I want to show, also, you see a lot of this going on. Be it guitars, be it saxophones, be it folk groups, be it rock groups, people just expressing their views. There is no, again, clear-cut goal for what is happening here, but many people have told us they are content to wait until that happens.
We even ran into, for ,example a group of teachers today who sat around grading papers saying they are here because they want to, in their part, do their part to try to protest cuts to education. So as you can see, that is just one example of many people who are represented here, as this protest goes on.
A pretty quiet day on Sunday. They are planning a huge protest in the middle of the week, a march on city hall, organizers say they could have as many as 20,000 people here.
Don, back to you.
LEMON: Susan, thank you. Susan Candiotti in lower Manhattan.
First it was Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry and Herman Cain, now the GOP is looking at a possible presidential who so far has said he is not running.
Will anyone make the Republicans happy? We're going to discuss that.
And a hijacker captured after nearly 40 years on the run. Tonight two passengers who are on that flight and the memories his capture brought back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Hey, it is time now to talk some politics with CNN contributor and political anchor for "New York 1" Errol Lewis.
So, Errol, good to see you. I want to talk about the Republican field in the 2012 battle for the White House. It would be easy to get whiplash if you are following this race closely and even if you're not following it that closely.
In the very early days we heard a lot about how Mitt Romney was the candidate to beat, but then Congresswoman Michele Bachmann won the Iowa's straw poll and she got a bump. The same weekend Rick Perry jumped in the race and before we knew it, he was a frontrunner.
Then last weekend Herman Cain won the straw poll in Florida. Now he is on the rise. And that is not stopping speculation over people like Chris Christie or Sarah Palin jumping into the race.
It seems to have changed by the week, Errol. And here now I want you to listen to Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace. This is how she put it on ABC today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLLE WALLACE, REPUBLICANS STRATEGIST: The Republican Party is, as you said, Mark, lurching from one crush to another and it is beginning to resemble a dysfunctional dating pattern where we pine for the ones we can't have and the ones who are available to us emotionally and otherwise are of no interest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, Errol, I'm not going to talk about Chris Christie, because he said he's not going to do it. This just brings me to this point. Back to Mitt Romney. A man a lot of pundits still believe will get the nod. So are the GOP voters having a hard time committing to him because they have a problem with him, and if so, what is it?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, that's right. They're having a hard time committing to him in part because there are -- look, there are look of movement conservatives who don't trust him. There are a lot of frankly political figures, former elected officials, existing elected officials, people I've talked to in fact who just don't like the guy personally.
The movement conservatives have sort of an ideological grudge against him. They -- you know, they note things that most of us either never knew or didn't pay much attention to, things like catholic charities in Massachusetts, in Boston, stopped doing adoptions in 2006, why? Because they allowed same-sex adoptions to happen. They blamed that on Romney.
There are some people who have some real serious grudges. There are some politicians who -- you know, maybe they just don't care for the guy. There is the shadow of possible religious antipathy out there among some members of the evangelical establishment, the fact that he's a Mormon does show up in the polls. There are about 33 percent of people who say that it matters to them, and that they'd have a hard time voting for him because of that.
There were comparable numbers, you know, let's be clear, over 40 years ago for President Kennedy as a catholic.
LEMON: Catholics, yes.
LOUIS: But it's a hurdle he might have to overcome.
LEMON: Yes, it's interesting, because in all -- most polling, he is at the top of most polling and I don't understand why Republicans can't commit to him. So thank you very much for answering that.
I want to switch now and talk about President Obama's speech in front of thousands of gay activists at last night's human rights' campaign. He scolded the GOP candidates for not standing up for a gay soldier who was booed during a recent debate. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We don't believe in the kind of smallness that says it's OK for a stage full of political leaders, one of whom could end up being the president of the United States, being silent while an American soldier is booed. We don't believe in that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, Errol, playing to the base there?
LOUIS: Absolutely. And look, it's a wee bit unfair, Don. You know, you've been at these debates. There's sound bouncing all over the place. There's a million things going on. You don't really know what's going on, if it's a small boo, if it's a big boo, and to put that standard on people, you know, it sort of reminds me of something fairly minor of what happened, you know, the president bows to a Japanese dignitary, and the right-wing media runs off with it, saying, he's always bowing to the foreign dictators. It's a little bit of silliness but that is why they call politics the silly season.
LEMON: And they have been criticized, too, after finding out about it for their slow response.
But I want to play -- I want to play some of what the former Vice President Dick Cheney said early on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" about President Obama's stance on gay issues. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that it was the right decision to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I don't know where President Obama is on this issue, and I suspect that there are a lot of people who were watching his speech in that room last night wondering whether they could believe what he was saying, frankly.
His position on these issues hasn't been that different from where many of the Republican candidates are. He hasn't come out and advocate gay marriage, for example. I think this was sort of one more example where he's trying to have it both ways.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, does Cheney and the person there with Cheney, do they have a point? Do some gay activists would -- they might agree?
LOUIS: Yes, perhaps. It's extraordinary to hear her say that though sitting next to her father --
LEMON: Right.
LOUIS: The architect of a very divisive strategy in 2004 where they put all kinds of anti-same-sex marriage referenda out specifically on the -- on the agenda all across the country in order to win that reelection. I mean, it is a tough issue. And maybe the president is --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: But it does say something, because Lynne Cheney -- Lynne Cheney is there with her father, and she is making a point. And she is making a point, and she -- and quite frankly, she has a good one to make.
LOUIS: Well, look, she is absolutely right. I mean, look, she's absolutely right. The president has said, I'm evolving on this. He's not going to come out and call for same-sex marriage a day until -- at most a day after the election in 2012. I think that's a fair thing to say. That's how we reached the mood of the country.
Her father and other politicians at a national level have made sort of comparable sort of calculations about what they can say and where the country is, and you know, you might say that that's weakness or you could say that it's cowardice, and you could say it's a form of leadership trying to take the country in a particular direction but not trying to get too far ahead of it.
LEMON: OK. Let's move on now. I want to talk about this Occupy Wall Street protest. Hundreds of people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday.
You live in New York, Errol. When was the last time you saw something like this and it is spreading across the country. LOUIS: You know, the last time I saw something like this frankly was in 1999 and I wasn't working in journalism at the time. I went and got myself arrested with about 1,000 other people gathered around 1 Police Plaza and that was over a very specific policy involving the mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, and the killing of a man where the cops shot him 41 times and -- it was a really tense time in the city.
What's really different about this and noteworthy, Don, is that there is no specific policy. There's no specific person that's being targeted or institution even. They call it leaderless resistance, no spokesperson has emerged, and yet 700, 800 people got arrested yesterday. There is something very interesting going on here and frankly I'm going to go down and poke around in person and try and see if I can find out what the heck is going on down there.
LEMON: Yes. Hey, thank you. I misspoke. I said Liz Cheney -- Lynne Cheney, it's Liz Cheney, sorry. Just got their names confused.
Listen, thank you very much, Errol.
LOUIS: You got it.
LEMON: Always good to see you. Have a great week.
LOUIS: You, too.
LEMON: Coming up right after the break here on CNN, legal analyst Holly Hughes on what's ahead in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor blamed for the death of Michael Jackson.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Testimony resumes Monday in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. He was with Michael Jackson when he died and is blamed for his death.
I spent the past week in Los Angeles, in a courtroom there. It was like a Hollywood production and legal analyst Holly Hughes says there is a good reason for that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLY HUGHES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Look, a trial is a show.
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: And the most important audience is the folks sitting in the jury box. Those are the people you're playing to. You want it to be smooth, you want them to not just be confident of your performance as it were, but if they trust you and they think you're together in the way you present, they'll trust your witnesses and they'll trust your evidence.
LEMON: The prosecution is almost matter of a fact. What about they ask everything, what kind of medication did you observe. When he went to the doctor, did he do this? And straight forward questions, straight forward questions, and the defense comes back, and I think of Ed Chernoff as a Matlock-type.
HUGHES: Well, you know what he's doing, he's brilliant, because what the prosecution is doing is making a mountain.
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: They're piling up all these things that they hope will prove guilt. What Ed Chernoff is doing and even Flanagan is he's mining that mountain for nuggets. Little things that when you hear them you don't think they're a big deal, but when he weaves all those little things together --
LEMON: Together.
HUGHES: -- in a closing argument.
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: You're going to go -- I never thought of it like that.
LEMON: I never even thought of that. Yes. And little things --
HUGHES: That is what he's doing.
LEMON: If you mess up some word during your testimony or pretrial, he takes it all, so here's the thing, even -- you know, he's kind of trying to knock down the . You could not do that in this amount of time, get up to that bedroom and be on the phone with, you know, Amir, well, you couldn't do that. He was doing that to Alberto Alvarez.
HUGHES: Right. Absolutely.
LEMON: OK. So here's the thing. How do you -- how do you think the defense is doing? Because I've noticed there's been some back and forth with Ed Chernoff and the judge. They don't really get along that well. They've been butting heads.
HUGHES: But I'll tell you what. When you have an attorney as good as Ed Chernoff, you need to be careful because it looks like the judge is beating up on the defense, like he's taking sides. A jury is going to buck against that. A judge is supposed to be neutral. And it does look like he's being beat up. But Ed Chernoff can take it, because you know what he does?
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: He didn't blink, yes, your honor, moves right on, gets what he needs.
LEMON: OK. Listen. You said little things. You wrote an article. What was your article called? HUGHES: I did. It's called the "State of the Case," and it's everything we've seen so far, and how I think each side is doing. It's up on my Facebook page.
LEMON: Something that I noticed that people at home didn't notice.
HUGHES: What's that?
LEMON: We were talking about Nation of Islam?
HUGHES: Yes.
LEMON: Ed Chernoff keeps trying to bringing that up, and the prosecution keeps saying, objection, and the judge sustains it. What they're trying to say is that the Nation of Islam was involved in Michael Jackson's security and that in some way maybe they had a way to cover up or to set up.
HUGHES: Absolutely.
LEMON: That's what -- and all you need is reasonable doubt. Not that any of that is true.
HUGHES: Right.
LEMON: Because the company is owned by someone -- and little things like that, you don't see at home. You see the family reacting to it, like, here he goes again. Amir, are you referred to as brother Amir?
HUGHES: Right.
LEMON: What does that mean?
HUGHES: And so it only takes --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Yes. Yes.
HUGHES: Exactly right. Because then you'll take all those little nuggets that you have mined.
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: You weave them into this fantastic closing argument, and you say, this is a conspiracy. They are hanging this man out to dry, because something much more powerful is at play here. Absolutely.
LEMON: Because they have their own interest at heart.
HUGHES: Absolutely.
LEMON: It's going to be so much people at home are going to go, what the heck? HUGHES: That's exactly right.
LEMON: But when you're sitting there in that courtroom, you notice all the little things, all the body language.
HUGHES: Yes.
LEMON: And I have to say that what I have been saying all along is that not to say anything about Conrad Murray's guilt or innocence, but can you imagine a family having to sit through that and listen to that audiotape and see their loved one up on a gurney. For the mom -- my heart just went out to the mom.
HUGHES: Right. Well, you know, Don, by the time we get to trial, it's always so cold and clinical, we don't have a crime scene anymore, we don't have the blood.
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: But the prosecution is doing in this case, as they should in every case, is painting the picture. A lot of people were upset about showing Michael in that bed so weak.
LEMON: Yes. Yes.
HUGHES: You have to.
LEMON: You got to --
HUGHES: It's their burden to prove that he has passed away, and they are bringing it home for that jury. They're making them feel it just like you felt then.
LEMON: And the family is there right every day and they're sitting right in front of that jury.
HUGHES: Yes.
LEMON: And they know that -- they want the jury to see them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Criminal defense attorney, Holly Hughes, thank you.
A hijacker's 40-year run from the law comes to an end and in the process brings back a flood of memories for a couple who was on board that flight. They share their memories right after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: In Portugal an extradition hearing two weeks from now will begin the lengthy process of trying to return longtime American fugitive George Wright back here to the U.S. Wright, now 68, had been on the run for more than 40 years after allegedly helping to hijack a Delta airliner back in 1972. He was picked up a week ago in this picturesque Portuguese town by the ocean. Judge Dalton Roberson and his pregnant wife, the little girl were on that hijacked flight. I spoke with the Robersons about the experience and Mrs. Roberson said she immediately noticed that something odd was odd about the passenger who turned out to be George Wright.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEARL ROBERSON, PASSENGER ON HIJACKED FLIGHT: I only thought that after we had gotten on the plane. I didn't -- and he stood up. And I thought, that's strange that he didn't look like a priest, and I don't know what priests always look like, but he didn't -- it was something very strange. He was surveying the passengers on the plane. And I said to my husband, I said, that doesn't look right.
LEMON: Yes.
P. ROBERSON: So he made some comment. He said relax.
LEMON: What did you say, Judge?
JUDGE DALTON ROBERSON, PASSENGER ON HIJACKED FLIGHT: Well, when she said it to me, she said, he really doesn't look like a priest, I said, oh, you are just pregnant, don't worry about. We'll be OK.
P. ROBESON: Right.
D. ROBERSON: And then he -- she said to me, there he goes with her up to the cockpit, and I said, well, they will let anybody go up to the cockpit, because back then, you know, pilots would let you come -- they'd let children come into the cockpit, remember that was when they used to give them the little wings when they flew.
LEMON: Yes.
D. ROBERSON: And I just thought that he was somebody inquiring about the airplane and she says, now he is going into the cockpit with her, and at that point, we started -- I started and joining her in feeling that something was wrong. And when the plane landed, we didn't go into the terminal, we stayed out on the tarmac.
And eventually, the pilot came on and told us that he had two young men who wanted to go to Algeria, and that he was going to take them to Algeria, but that the problem was that they wanted $1 million in $20 bills.
P. ROBERSON: And we were all looking around puzzled and really terrified to tell you the truth.
LEMON: Did you think that you were going to survive it?
P. ROBERSON: We weren't sure. I wasn't sure. But I was trying to keep our daughter calm, and trying to entertain her and have her not know how frightened we all were.
D. ROBERSON: And we must have stayed sitting on the tarmac for about two hours.
P. ROBERSON: Yes.
D. ROBERSON: At least. And then we saw people coming to the plane, who I presumed to be FBI agents coming to the plane in bikini bathing suits, and they were bringing the million dollars out to the airplane. They hoisted the money up on the rope into the plane, and then they let us off out on the tarmac. And back then they gave us the black power sign as the plane took off.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, the Robersons told me that after more than 40 years they had almost forgotten about the hijacking until news broke that Wright he had been found living in Portugal.
Your top stories straight ahead. the death toll rising from the tainted batch of cantaloupes. And should the man who tried to kill President Reagan get more freedom? A request tonight coming from an interesting place.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: I want to check some headlines for you and the death toll is climbing from the listeria outbreak caused by contaminated cantaloupes. As many as 17 people have died and 84 people in 19 states have gotten sick. The melons are from a Colorado-based Jensen Farms. The CDC says there could be more people affected since there is a lag time between eating the bad cantaloupes and actually becoming ill.
Six Supreme Court justices were at the dignities at the annual red mass today in Washington. The Catholic Church service is held every year before the opening of the Supreme Court's term. It is called the "red mass" because of the color of the robes worn by clergy. Hundreds of Washington dignitaries were also at the service. Critics say that the attendance is inappropriate and an unhealthy mix of politics and law and religion.
A new California law will prevent local governments from banning the practice of male circumcision. Governor Jerry Brown signed the legislation today. The bill is in response to a group that has been trying to get a proposal on the ballot to outlaw circumcision in San Francisco. The court has already rule the state and not municipalities regulate the services because they are a medical service.
Possible freedom is back on the front burner for John Hinkley, Jr., the man who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan. The government mental hospital where Hinkley has spent much of the last 30 years is asking a federal court to let him go live with or near his aging mother in Virginia. The prosecution says Hinkley is still capable of great violence and should not be released. The 56-year-old Hinkley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982. Financial Parks Service has halted work assessing earthquake damage to the Washington Monument. Live pictures tonight from the National Mall -- officials are waiting for high winds to subside after a gust Friday blew a worker 30 feet while he was hanging at rope at the top of the monument. The man is OK, but the Park Service says it will be Monday the earliest before teams can work again. The quake hit the monument on August 23rd.
For the first time in 15 years, Tiger Woods has fallen out of the top 50 in the world golf rankings. This ends his streak of 778 consecutive weeks in the top 50. Woods hasn't won a tournament in two years while battling personal and professional problems, also some injuries.
(WEATHER BREAK)
LEMON: We want to go now no the big stories of the week ahead, from the White House to Hollywood. Our correspondents tell you what you need to know. We begin tonight with the president's plan for the week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Brianna Keilar at the White House. President Obama heads to Texas on Tuesday to tout his jobs plan. He will also do some fundraising in Missouri. And the back half of the week is all about sports here. He is going to be welcoming to 2011 NCAA basketball champs, the women's team from Texas A&M to the White House. And on Friday he will welcome the 1985 super bowl champs, the Chicago bear, and their trip to the White House more than 25 years ago was cancelled because of the "Challenger" explosion.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kate Bolduan on Capitol Hill. The House early this week is expected to take up the short-term spending bill that threatened a government shutdown here this past week, and the Senate has already approved that measure.
The Senate is likely to focus on China and trade with many lawmakers accusing China of manipulating the currency and keeping the wages low and making exports cheaper and thus giving China an unfair advantage. The Senate will likely take up a bill with bipartisan support that attempts to crackdown on Chinese currency manipulation.
The House, in the House, House Republicans will continue their efforts to roll back what they view as burdensome federal regulations that hinder job creation. The focus this week is environmental rules.
A.J. HAMMER, HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": I'm "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" A.J. Hammer. Here's what's coming up this week. I will be in Los Angeles covering the Jackson death trial and the debate over the M.J. tribute concert. Is the timing all wrong with this?
LEMON: All right, thank you, guys. In the week ahead this is really a big week here at CNN, too. We are excited to welcome Erin Burnett to the fold. Her show "OUTFRONT" debuts Monday at 7:00 eastern. Howard Kurtz of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" asked her about the new gig and moving from exclusively reporting on business to anchoring a news show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD KURTZ, CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": By doing a more general show here at CNN, are you to some extent giving up your business brand? You are so closely identified with market reporting and associated with Goldman Sachs, and is that a difficult transition for you?
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, "OUTFRONT": Well, I thank you the first answer to that is it's still important for me in the sense that the economy is the most important issue in the elections. And I believe in general that money and where money is going and who is getting money is central to every story.
And I think that is an important angle that we can bring to all stories. But a lot of the things they love in terms of the foreign reporting and some of the issues that I really care about that have a financial aspect, but also a much broader aspect which I did at CNBC is not the core of what I did, but it is now the core. So I think it is the perfect fit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Erin Burnett "OUTFRONT" debuts Monday night at 7:00 p.m. right here on CNN. Her first interview is an exclusive with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
The legend of an American sports icon could be tainted by a new book. Did the running back nicknamed "Sweetness" have a dark side? We will talk to the biographer of Walter Payton.
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LEMON: He was known as "Sweetness," one of the greatest football players ever to play the game and a Chicago icon long before Michael Jordan came to town. But there was another side to hall of famer Walter Payton that was carefully hidden from the public, a side that Jeff Pearlman spent two and a half years uncovering. It is called "Sweetness, the Enigmatic life of Walter Payton."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF PEARLMAN, AUTHOR, "SWEETNESS -- THE ENIGMATIC LIFE OF WALTER PAYTON: When I got to know him, to be honest, it was sort of after his career ended, he retired and really looking for meaning in his life. It was looking for something to do like a lot of former athletes do. And he became the front man in an effort to bring an NFL expansion franchise to St. Louis. And he spent basically two and a half to three years working on this effort and putting everything into the effort because he wanted to be the first minority owner in the NFL, and it completely fell through.
When that happened, and it was not his fault at all, he got extremely depressed and extremely despondent, started questioning his purpose in life. There is a sort of image of Walter Payton as a happy-go-lucky, gregarious guy. And lo and behold he was a human being with emotions and occasional heartbreak that we all had.
I pictured him incredibly happy and upbeat guy, and to hear that he was a human being who hurt and had feelings and was really crushed after this happened to him, and I know it sounds pretty basic, but it was remarkable for me.
LEMON: I want the ask you, because he has been gone for 12 years, and did you find that people were still trying to protect his image, because you highlight some of the shortcomings in the book. You talk about his womanizing and the out of wedlock son, the depression, and the suicide, abuse of pain medications. And you talked about the suicide and all of that and you talked about those things, so I am wondering if people are still trying to protect him even 12 years after the death?
PEARLMAN: Well, from the reaction in Chicago, I have to say yes. "Sports Illustrated" ran an excerpt pertaining to the years after retirement, and people were very, very taken aback by that and I understand it on the one hand, and I really do, because he is a beloved figure and a reputation cultivated, and he is almost a myth in his greatness across the board.
I come from the sort of perspective why is it wrong to learn that our heroes or the people we idolize were humans with shortcomings and faults? I would not say he was a womanizer. He was separated from his wife for the last 10 years of his life. When people say he was a drug addict, and that term has been used in a lot of the headlines, and I understand it. But if you poll the former NFL players from that era and a guy who played 13 years and missed one game, how many of those guys need painkillers to get through the day, I think you will find an enormous percentage.
So some is of the negatives I think have been hyped up a little bit, but I understand the protection because the guy was so beloved, and rightfully so.
LEMON: So compare this then to writing biographies about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and how this would compare?
PEARLMAN: It is totally different. When I wrote the Barry Bonds' biography years ago I was begging for people, and begging for somebody to tell me a positive story about Barry Bonds. And it was like looking for a nugget of gold in a toilet. You can't find it. It was so hard.
And Walter Payton was an amazing man and again, I understand why people are so prospective because he is amazing and the goodness is incredible.
LEMON: Jeff, there one incident that jumps out to everybody that occurred at the hall of fame introduction and tell us about it.
PEARLMAN: Well, when he was -- you know, hall of fame is the, of course, biggest moment in a football player's life, and Walter Payton was miserable. He had four days of misery. And he had his wife, Connie, who had he been married to for a long time and separated from at this time was in the first row of the induction, and his girlfriend was in the second row.
And, you know, Connie had known about the girlfriend, but there was this real tension in Walter for the entire time and he kept worrying, are they going to meet, are they going to meet. And they actually did meet at the end later on and it was not nearly the big deal that Walter Payton thought it would be, primarily because he was not with his wife, and you know, living with his wife at that point. But it kind of ruined the four days and the four amazing great days of your football life.
LEMON: The book is called "Sweetness" and thank you. The pictures are amazing and alone just for the pictures. Thank you, Jeff Pearlman, for coming on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Former Vice President Dick Cheney praises a move by president Obama, but don't think he is a fan now of the president. That story is just ahead.
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LEMON: A vote of confidence for the Obama administration from an unlikely source. Ever since former vice president Dick Cheney left office in 2009 he has rarely had anything nice to say about the current White House. But on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" with Candy Crowley, Cheney backed President Obama's decision to kill radical American-born cleric Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen. But as Candy reports, the praise was not without qualifications.
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CANDY CROWLEY, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": No qualms about a U.S. drone strike into Yemen that killed a top Al Qaeda operative who also an American. Thumbs up from the former vice president.
DICK CHENEY, (R) FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I think the president ought to have that authority to order that kind of strike even when it involves an American citizen if there is clear evidence that he's part of Al Qaeda and supporting and planning attacks against the United States.
CROWLEY: OK by the former head of the CIA.
MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: We are a nation at war and as a belligerent have a right to capture or kill enemy combatants trumps the fact that one or another of those combatants might have American personhood wrapped around them.
CROWLEY: In fact, two Americans were killed in the U.S. attack, the target was Anwar al Awlaki, a master recruiter linked to several plots against the U.S. including the Fort Hood shootings, and Samir Khan. And still, an Al Qaeda propagandists.
Despite his approval of the U.S. strikes, something eats at Dick Cheney, something President Obama said in Cairo in 2009 about the U.S. reaction to the 9/11 attacks.
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States.
CROWLEY: Cheney says now that the Obama administration, trying to protect the country, approved the killing of an American citizen, the president should rethink his suggestion that the Bush administration's tactics were un-American.
CHENEY: They said that in effect we had walked away from the ideals or taken policies contrary to the ideals when we had enhanced interrogation techniques. But they have clearly moved to the way of taking robust action when they feel it is justified.
CROWLEY (on camera): You would like an apology, it sounds like.
CHENEY: Well, not for me, but for the Bush administration.
CROWLEY, (voice-over): Still, the larger picture is worth noting again. Asked if the Obama administration is waging a successful war against terror, Cheney says yes.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right, Candy, thank you.
A man lost and missing, trapped for nearly a week after his car plunged in a ravine. He is found and alive to tell what happened.
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LEMON: A story of determination, survival, and luck has thrust a California family into the national spotlight. The dad was missing somewhere in the thousands of square miles of the Angeles National Forest, and the four children found them. Plus, they have helped another family in distress. CNN's Tina Kim, has the remarkable details.
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TINA KIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two cars mangled at the bottom of the a ravine -- that was the sight of a family reunion unlike any other, one that has likely solved a missing persons case and saved a father's life, as this video shows. The worry began when the man being airlifted did not call his kids.
LISA LAVAU, CRASH SURVIVOR'S DAUGHTER: My dad would not call his kids. There are four of us and by the fourth day and the fifth a day and the sixth day, and we knew that something was wrong.
KIM: And so that the children of David Lavau started to search on their own, pinpointing an area after law enforcement helped them track his cell phone activity.
LISA LAVAU: We stopped at every ravine and looked over every hill.
SEAN LAVAU, CRASH SURVIVOR'S SON: All of a sudden, I thought I heard a cat or a dog and enough where I said, hello, and it echoed down.
KIM: Sean Lavau found his father. The 67-year-old man had been missing for six days.
SEAN LAVAU: We hugged him, and we both cried. I said, you know, how did you make it? And he said, I drank the water in the river and I ate leaves and bugs.
JESSIE HOOKER, CRASH SURVIVOR'S SON-IN-LAW: He was heading this direction and another car was heading towards him and had bright lights on, so he flashed the lights at the car, I believe at that point probably swerved and went off of the road.
KIM: David Lavau ended up right near another wrecked car with a decomposing body inside. As the children worried about him, Lavau worried, too, how the kids would find him. The "Los Angeles Times" reports that he wrote on his car's dirty trunk, quote, "I love my kids. Dead man was not my fault. Love dad."
The dead man likely to be 88-year-old Melvin Gelfand who has been missing since September 14th. His daughter says she is thankful for the answers.
JOAN MATLOCK, MELVIN GELFAND'S DAUGHTER: We may have never found him. We tried to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
KIM: The authorities have yet to confirm the body's identity. What is certain, David Lavau raised some determined kids.
Tina Kim, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: You cannot write that if you were writing a Hollywood script. That is unbelievable. We are glad he is OK, and we're at least glad that the other family found out about their loved one possibly.
I'm Don Lemon at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Thank you so much for watching. Make sure you have a great evening, have a great week. I will see you back here next week. Goodnight.
