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In the Arena
Obama Outlines Vision for Middle East; Former IMF Chief Gets Bail; Hunting Osama bin Laden
Aired May 19, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN HOST: Good evening. Welcome to the program. I'm Eliot Spitzer.
President Obama brought out his famously soaring rhetoric today in an attempt to explain the role America can play in this storm of change that just keeps sweeping through the Arab world.
But it appears that the Arab spring may quickly turn into a long, hot summer, and Barack Obama may see his best laid plans hijacked by the seemingly endless Israeli-Palestinian morass.
It's our top story. We'll have more on it in a moment, but first a look at the other stories we're drilling down on tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: He's indicted, but he's getting out on bail. Details from Dominique Strauss-Khan's indictment for attempted rape.
And the politics of peace.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States of America was founded on the belief that people should governor themselves.
SPITZER: President Obama reaches out to the Middle East, but how is it playing here in the United States?
Then, does the truth has to hurt? E.D. Hill goes one-on-one with Bush's attorney general. Do we need torture to catch the next bin Laden?
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Now to our "Headliner" segment. A moment of opportunity. That's how Barack Obama described the chaotic and historic change we're witnessing in the Arab world.
In a speech the president meant to insert some good old American reason into the fever sweeping the region. Instead, he may have sent the temperature soaring.
Yesterday I heard something interesting in the White House briefing. The president's spokesman Jay Carney said we see -- and these are his words -- specific new ideas. But did we?
Joining me now to talk about it, James Traub, the contributing writer for the "New York Times" magazine, and Irshad Manji, the director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University and author of the book "Allah, Liberty, and Love" which comes out in June.
Guys, before we have our conversation, just listen to a few of the great Obama moments that we heard today. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow, and though these countries may be a great distance from our shores, we know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security, by history, and by faith.
We had the chance to show that America values the dignity and the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator. There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity.
Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Irshad, let me start with you. There were beautiful moments in that speech. The rhetoric was exquisite. The principles, the theory. Great to listen to. But did you hear in that speech anything that either explained why we're doing what we're doing in Libya, Egypt, Syria -- or not doing, or anything that told you what we would do differently in any of those countries now that we've heard the president speak?
IRSHAD MANJI, DIRECTOR, MORAL COURAGE PROJECT AT NYU: Of course not, and I say of course because this is vintage Obama. Heavy on loftiness and light on the details. You can hardly blame him. I mean this, you know, region is a morass of complexity.
But I would have liked Obama to take inspiration from the democracy activists in the region and actually say, I am inspired by them enough to speak truth to power, and here are some of the truths that we have to deal with. I'll get into some of those in just a moment.
SPITZER: OK, James, did you agree that this was beautiful rhetoric, short on details, short on explanations of the granularity on why our policy is what it is and also what it should be?
JAMES TRAUB, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Well, look, I think his options are limited. Within those limited options there were some things he said that actually were new and that I was very happy to hear. SPITZER: Such as?
TRAUB: On Bahrain, for example. I mean Bahrain is interesting for the following reason, that it's very easy for Obama to say, I'm with the people of Egypt and Tunisia. That one's over. The good guys we have will have won. It's very easy for Obama to say we stand against Gadhafi. Again, easy.
The hard one is where the United States has serious national security interests, but these democratic issues have arisen. Bahrain is a great example of that. We have the Fifth Fleet there. We have very a compliant leader.
For the first time at least that I'm aware of, he spoke quite bluntly about the failures of the Bahraini regime despite the fact that we have these interests. So I was pleased to hear that. That was at least something.
SPITZER: But let me push you a little bit. He certainly articulated, and I think I've heard this from the State Department before today, we are deeply troubled by the way the government there is repressing the opposition voices. But he didn't say we were going to do anything about it. Nor did he even mention Saudi Arabia in the speech --
MANJI: Exactly.
SPITZER: -- where there is the greatest tension, am I correct, between interests and principles?
MANJI: He didn't actually address realities on the ground, in my view, Eliot, and one of those realities -- for example, just going back to the sort of the center of much of the attention, namely Egypt, I mean, you know, he talked again in very sweeping terms about the wings of change.
But Amnesty International, you know, released a report -- and it's an open secret what this report confirmed -- that there continues to be great repression in Egypt by the authorities, that the detainees continue to be tortured and civilians are tried in military tribunals and courts.
Not much has changed for real people who are wanting democracy. This is not something that was addressed at all in President Obama's speech.
SPITZER: Let me say this in his defense. And you alluded to it. Maybe he couldn't.
And so, James, here's the thing. There are these inevitable tensions. He was trying to square a circle that perhaps can't be -- and it can't be done. The geometry simply isn't there. And so he gave us the rhetoric of yes, we are in front and sympathetic and supportive of this democracy movement that is the Arab spring, and yet he didn't give anybody who was over there any greater hope that if you are a Syrian dissident and you're standing up to Assad, what is the United States now going to do?
TRAUB: I think -- I have even another criticism, which is in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, those are countries where the United States actually at this point could do some good, but some of the good we have to do would cost some money, and if you listen to the part where he said these are the things I'm going to do with Egypt and Tunisia, it actually amounts to no new money, because he doesn't have any.
And so, for example, what did he say about Egypt? He said we will -- we are prepared to forgive up to $1 billion of Egypt's foreign debt. Well, Egypt's foreign debt is $31 billion. $1 billion doesn't get you very far, and the rest were a set of trade agreements.
MANJI: Exactly.
SPITZER: So this is kind of like Citibank -- saying we're not going to foreclose on a house that's worthless anyway.
TRAUB: Well, something. You know?
SPITZER: Something.
TRAUB: It's like we'll knock of $10 a month on your mortgage. He doesn't have any money, and money is one of the instruments in this case that can be useful.
SPITZER: I'm fascinated.
MANJI: Well, it can be, but it often hasn't been, and even in flush times, James, I think you'll agree because you've done a lot of reporting from that part of the world, that money has often been misused and misdirected.
And just as an example, over the years Egyptians far and wide have reported that much of U.S. foreign aid to their country has wound up in the hands of retiring military generals who have demanded hush money to shut up about the corruption that's happening within their midst.
How do we know, Eliot -- here's my question and this is what I mean in part by light on details. How do we know that what Obama is now redefining as investment rather than assistance -- how do we know that's going to wind up in the right hands now?
SPITZER: Look, Irshad, we don't. We don't
MANJI: Of course, we don't.
TRAUB: In that case, maybe he shouldn't be doing anything for Egypt.
MANJI: Well, maybe he shouldn't.
TRAUB: I mean that actually wouldn't be my argument. I wish that we could do more. I do think he's changing --
(CROSSTALK)
MANJI: But from an American taxpayers' point of view, and, again, for those who actually care about these issues, you know -- I mean, as a taxpayer, one would think that you would want to know this time what is the United States government going to be doing differently in light of the changed context.
Again, it is about, you know, sort of embracing the anti- corruption spirit that has suffused the Arab spring, and that's my point about taking inspiration from these democracy activists. He could have stepped it up and said, if we find as a government that our money is consistently misused going forward, we will pull back.
SPITZER: Well, on that stage, you know what?
(CROSSTALK)
TRAUB: That would be a negative message, not a positive message. That would be punitive.
MANJI: No.
TRAUB: I don't think that will be -- that's not what he needs to say at this point.
MANJI: No. But it's anti-corruption. And I can tell you from, again, a lot of contact with people on the ground in that part of the world, that it may not sound positive to your ears or mine, but they would embrace it exactly because --
TRAUB: I think it's a good message for Pakistan.
MANJI: -- this is what they are looking for.
TRAUB: I don't think that's the message --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Hold on one second, because I'm devastated. I had thought actually the one point where he succeeded was in aligning our interests theoretically with the dissident groups, even if we were not going to do something.
You're saying we failed there, and I also thought the $1 billion, maybe that's real nothing. You're saying that's nothing. So he is 0 for 2 on where I thought --
(CROSSTALK)
TRAUB: Well, the rest of it was possible trade agreements, but those may or may not happen. Congress has to approve those.
MANJI: The positive --
TRAUB: I think those are actually quite important if Congress would do it. Trade is a very big deal. MANJI: And speaking of trade and commerce, a positive message, which I think he tried to eke through, but frankly it didn't bust through, is that, you know, this is a part of world -- and I've said this to you before, Eliot, that, you know, 60 percent of people are under the age of 20.
So many of these young people aspire to be entrepreneurs, small business owners, and obviously achieve their individual dreams, and it is by monitoring where U.S. investment will be going that the positive message could have been given to young --
SPITZER: OK.
MANJI: -- aspiring entrepreneurs.
SPITZER: Our time is short. Who was his audience, very quickly? Was his audience the Arab youth? Was it the Arab leadership or was it domestic politics?
TRAUB: Well, the fact that it was given at 12:00 noon tells you, I think, that the audience was as much the Middle East as it was here. You don't give a speech at noon in order to reach an American audience.
SPITZER: I'm beginning to believe he's a morning guy. He gives most of his speeches in the morning.
(LAUGHTER)
SPITZER: Irshad, what do you think?
TRAUB: No, I do think that was a very -- the Arab world is a very important part of that audience.
SPITZER: Right.
TRAUB: And I don't think that they're going to be terribly overwhelmed.
SPITZER: Irshad, final word.
MANJI: Important part, yes, but certainly not as we -- I think all agree the only audience. The 2012 campaign, as we all know, is already well underway. Americans were and are a huge part of this audience, and in part that is why the coming week is going to be so interesting to see how he deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly with former Israeli lobbyists in this country.
SPITZER: All right. We'll need to continue this some other day. I just want to say, let's give the guy A for effort on an impossible issue. He's trying desperately -- he's trying to square a circle, as I said, maybe he just can't do it. All right.
MANJI: Maybe he didn't need to deliver the speech at all.
SPITZER: Maybe he shouldn't have given the speech at all. TRAUB: I think it was maybe an unnecessary speech.
SPITZER: You're right. What a tough work. You guys are a tough audience.
Irshad Manji, James Traub, thanks for being with us.
Coming up, the case against Dominique Strauss-Khan, but first, E.D. Hill is here.
E.D., you're talking torture with Bush's attorney general.
E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales helped draft the way that we have pursued the war on terror. And in an exclusive interview with us, he's going to talk about the techniques that we are using and whether it was legal to kill an unarmed Obama. And that's coming up.
SPITZER: Alberto Gonzales describing the techniques of torture. I do not want to miss that. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Dominique Strauss-Khan accused of assaulting a maid in a New York luxury hotel will be out on bail starting tomorrow. But the conditions are strict. $1 million bail, a $5 million bond, 24- hour camera monitoring, and a full-time ankle bracelet.
All this as his accuser spent a second day talking to a grand jury which then indicted Strauss-Khan on seven counts, including felony sexual assault and attempted rape.
A few minutes ago we spoke to a woman who wrote the book on prosecuting sex crimes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPITZER: We are joined by Linda Fairstein.
And if there's anybody who understands sex crimes prosecutions it is you, you have created this whole area of prosecution. So let's begin with the two big headlines of the day.
First, he was granted bail. Did that surprise you?
LINDA FAIRSTEIN, FORMER SEX CRIME PROSECUTOR: It didn't surprise me. The prosecutor in me wanted to make the argument, you know, you keep him in, but really, as you and I know from our days together, it's a first offense of a man his age with -- although not residential roots in this community. He has a home in America. He has been asked to put up a lot of bail. There's going to be an ankle bracelet. It's not shocking to me.
SPITZER: And bail at the end of the day isn't about the severity of the crime. It's about, will this guy come back for trial? FAIRSTEIN: Absolutely. Is he a flight risk? Will he return? And the likelihood that he wants to return to clear his name, if that's --
SPITZER: Right.
FAIRSTEIN: Needs to happen.
SPITZER: And also the likelihood that he could walk out of his apartment and go anywhere pretty slim because one of the other things they added was there will be a security blanket around him that he will have to pay for, I presume, cameras everywhere he goes. This guy really can't go anywhere.
FAIRSTEIN: I think he can't. I think that's a pretty safe bet.
SPITZER: Now the second big headline, of course, he was indicted.
FAIRSTEIN: Yes.
SPITZER: Maybe no surprise. But what does that mean procedurally, then let's talk about substance.
FAIRSTEIN: So the woman who's made the allegations literally had to appear and testify through a prosecutor before a grand jury, and this is the test of independent citizens who hear this evidence and determine if they believe that a crime has been committed.
And I understand she testified yesterday, and a little surprising, understand that she testified again today.
SPITZER: Let's actually talk about that for a minute. Most of the times that I would do a grand jury presentation and I'm sure the same with you, you would try to do it in one sitting, keep it brief, and the reason to keep it brief is the defense will get a copy of her testimony. So what do you think it means to have to bring her back a second day?
FAIRSTEIN: It puzzles me. It could be because the grand jurors, as you know, had questions, and there were unresolved things that they wanted answered. It could be some that of the forensic evidence was analyzed, good for the prosecution perhaps, good for the witness.
And they wanted more detailed testimony about it. It could be worst-case scenario that Ben Brafman, the defense attorney, who's very skilled, presented the prosecutors with some evidence that might have required them to go deeper in, but you and I were trained, I think, on the bare bones presentation.
SPITZER: Right.
FAIRSTEIN: Make it quick so I was quite surprised that she's back.
SPITZER: Explain that, when you say bare bones. Prosecutors understand mean you put in as little as possible into the grand jury for a simple reason. The defense will get a copy of that testimony and can use it to cross-examine and to do its own investigation.
So do you think they pr sued that or was there another theory to get more from her?
FAIRSTEIN: That's what puzzles me at this point. I mean whether there was something unclear that they wanted to make a clearer record. Again, it gets precisely more to the defense to work with, more to cross-examine ultimately.
SPITZER: Yes. Now the other side of the coin, of course, is that the more you lock in your witness -- and now she is now under oath answering all these questions.
FAIRSTEIN: Correct.
SPITZER: It makes it harder for her to change her story later on.
FAIRSTEIN: Absolutely. And again, that's why we were taught to just get the essentials out. So she's locked into whatever -- however much time she spent in. Whatever she's been asked. It's under oath.
SPITZER: Now the defendant and his lawyers, obviously, will get a copy of the indictment. No surprises. The counts here, you know, sexual assault, attempted any -- did the counts themselves surprise you in any way?
FAIRSTEIN: Not at all. They seem very consistent with what the story, as I know it, that's been released so far is.
SPITZER: Now play defense lawyer for -- I know this is completely against your DNA, but play defense lawyer for a minute.
(LAUGHTER)
FAIRSTEIN: OK.
SPITZER: It seems to me there have been two theories floated by the defense. Maybe because it's all they have. One was alibi. I wasn't there. The second was it was consensual.
Now you can't do both of those, obviously.
FAIRSTEIN: No. But what always happens in my end of the business, you were a white collar, and this is what I did, was I wasn't there, didn't do it, don't know the woman. The minute you say -- the prosecutor says we've got DNA.
SPITZER: Right.
FAIRSTEIN: And it's yours, then OK, I was there, but she wanted to be there with me.
SPITZER: Right. Right. FAIRSTEIN: So that was no surprise to me at all.
SPITZER: But once he acknowledges a sexual relationship, then the issues has become much more complex.
FAIRSTEIN: Much more complex. Much more complex. Because then how did it start? Now she's -- while she's the victim, and she is presumed, when he comes to the prosecutor's office, to be telling the truth. You know the hard look that we have to give at everything, and how did this encounter begin. And already people are saying and especially come to me because of my experience, well, if the door was open, why didn't she turn around and walk out of the room?
SPITZER: Precisely.
FAIRSTEIN: Why didn't she scream? I mean -- and so you find yourself defensively as a prosecutor having to make her explain why.
SPITZER: And her life will be examined top to bottom. Has she ever made allegations like this before? Her entire work record. If she accused her sister 30 years ago of stealing her shirt falsely, that will come in on her credibility. This is what victims go through, unfortunately.
FAIRSTEIN: This is what they go through. And you know that started already in this process.
SPITZER: Yes. Right.
FAIRSTEIN: And there's a very good defense team here, and I am sure that's well underway already.
SPITZER: Last question. She has a lawyer.
FAIRSTEIN: Yes.
SPITZER: Does that matter?
FAIRSTEIN: Oh, yes. As you know and many of your viewers do, there's the criminal prosecution, and any victim is entitled if there's a third party responsible for -- to have a civil suit. They proceed in entirely separate directions.
Nightmare to me for a prosecutor is to have the civil lawyer in early. There may be very legitimate reasons. This woman is being attacked everywhere, including -- I don't mean attacked by the media.
SPITZER: Right.
FAIRSTEIN: But they're going to her home, they're talking to neighbors and relatives.
SPITZER: She's being (INAUDIBLE). Right.
FAIRSTEIN: She's being pursued. And there may or -- this may or may not be about money in a civil lawsuit. You've got to defend it with a deep pocket, but if it is about money, that becomes an issue at the trial.
I always preferred for my victims if they were in a civil lawsuit to wait until the case was disposed of and then go on, because the defense can argue that these are motives to lie, and one motive, one dollar -- one motive for every dollar that she's seeking.
SPITZER: First question on cross-examination, isn't it that the case you have filed a civil lawsuit, you hope to recover millions of dollars from this defendant?
FAIRSTEIN: Absolutely. And that's not necessarily helpful to either the prosecution or certainly to the woman herself.
SPITZER: All right. Linda Fairstein, thank you so much for your wisdom on this very tough issue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SPITZER: Coming up, is the war on terror less effective now than it was during the Bush administration? E.D. Hill talks about Alberto Gonzales, the man who ran Bush's Justice Department. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: The war on terror brought America to a place that it had not been before, and the man who helped draft the rules on how we wage the war on terror is former attorney general Alberto Gonzales. And he is a visiting professor at Texas Tech University right now and joins us here for an exclusive interview.
Thanks so much for being with us.
ALBERTO GONZALES, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's good to see you again.
HILL: You know, I was intrigued by the fact that President Bush was likened to sort of this lone gunman, you know, gunslinger. Yet, it was President Obama who decided to unilaterally to go into an allied country with a lethal military operation deep inside that country and, you know, with -- not even inform the ally.
Did that surprise you?
GONZALES: Not at all. In fact, we had quiet communications with the Pakistan government during the Bush administration, and we were pretty clear that if we as a government had actual intelligence as to where bin Laden was that we would take him. We would take him out.
And so I was not surprised that once we got that actual intelligence -- it takes a long time to develop that -- that in fact we took -- did take the action that we did. It was not surprising to me at all.
HILL: Do you think it was legally justifiable, killing bin Laden the way we did, unarmed? GONZALES: Absolutely. He was a military target. As a military target, you know, you're going to get killed in an armed conflict. The only question in my mind, it seems to me, is whether or not did he try to surrender? If he tries to surrender, you have an obligation not to execute him, but again in the circumstances as I understand it -- and let's be very clear here, you know, I don't know what I don't know about what really happened.
We're -- you know, we're still unraveling, and the facts seem to change daily, but based on what I have observed and based on what I know, this seems to be a totally justified killing.
HILL: If we had been able to take him alive -- say, they go up the stairs, and he's standing there, hand in the air, waving a white flag, hands in the air, where would we have taken him?
GONZALES: Well, I'm assuming he would have been taken to some kind of military -- U.S. facility, and then we would get into the discussion about, OK, what do we do with him? Do we bring him to justice immediately? Do we simply detain him as an enemy combatant, which we're entitled to detain someone indefinitely during an armed conflicted?
Or do we -- you know, do we bring him to justice in a military commission? Do we bring him to justice in a military court in the United States?
HILL: Right.
GONZALES: Do we bring him to justice in an international tribunal? So these are all the difficult questions that we're avoided by the actions of the SEALs.
HILL: Yes. CIA Director Panetta said that the initial information about the courier's, you know, code name was obtained in part through the enhanced interrogation techniques.
Now most people assume that was waterboarding. Waterboarding, per President Obama, is banned right now. Do we have other enhanced interrogation techniques that we can use to get solid information that you think are effective?
GONZALES: Well, in fact, waterboarding was banned by the U.S. Congress in passing legislation before President Obama became president. As to whether or not we have additional techniques, those techniques would be classified, I think, and obviously had to be consistent with the standards of which it now have been laid down by the U.S. Congress.
You know, and again, in every conflict, every country has to -- has to develop a set of rules in which they're going to collect information or deal with detainees that are captured, and so we've got those sets of rules in place now, and we have an obligation to follow them. Like we follow the rules that existed at the time President Bush was president. HILL: You know, I was reading an article that was in "GQ" just at the end of last year, and in it the current attorney general, Eric Holder, told the reporter that when he was able to look at what occurred during the war on terror under President Bush, that, quote, "Our agents strangled prisoners, held power drills to their heads, and threatened to rape their wives and children."
Did you ever see any reports of that?
GONZALES: I never did, and if anyone ever did that, they would have been prosecuted. Because that goes well beyond anything the Department of Justice ever authorized. What we -- what the Department of Justice authorized was a number of techniques closely supervised by medical officers, by trained interrogators, and so the kinds of conduct that you just described go well beyond what was authorized by the Department of Justice.
HILL: But Holder is making a statement that he becomes attorney general, he is privy to these documents, and he claims this is true.
GONZALES: Well, again, to the extent there are allegations that someone did this, there may have, in fact, been allegations. And perhaps there was an investigation, and the investigation showed that, in fact, these allegations were not true. But again any kind of conduct like that, or coming close to that, would have been unlawful and would have been prosecuted under the Bush administration.
HILL: Someone said that when you're running for president, you say things that are different than what you actually do once you become president. And we look at now President Obama had promised to close Gitmo, and he promised we're going to have -- you know federal courts handling terrorist trials, presumably here in New York.
Gitmo is open. Military tribunals are out there. Were you sort of surprised that he did come around to that, or were you expecting that we were going have to come up with a whole new set of rules on how we deal with terrorists in America?
GONZALES: I'm not surprised. You know we looked at these issues very hard in the Bush administration. We knew these were tough measures we're putting in place. We knew they would be controversial. It was important, though, for the security of our country to put these measures in place.
We tried to do some away that would institutionalize this framework for future commanders in chief, and President Obama now having seen the intelligence now understanding the depths of which this enemy will go to hurt U.S. interests. He now appreciates that these policies have been totally effective and that they need to continue for the national security of our country.
HILL: Do you feel vindicated?
GONZALES: I don't know if I feel -- I think this is -- I think it's a reaffirmation of the courage and the wisdom of President Bush. And he understood how dangerous this enemy was and that we had to take extraordinary steps -- extraordinary but lawful, constitutional steps. But, you know, we knew it would be controversial, and we're gratified that President Obama has continued many of these same policies for the best interest of our country.
HILL: Alberto Gonzales, thank you so much for joining us, former attorney general, and professor at Texas Tech University.
GONZALES: Thank you.
HILL: Thank you.
Up next, remember when you could open a bottle of aspirin without consulting a how-to manual? Well, then seven people died from laced Tylenol, and it all changed. Now the surprising person who may have done it. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ELIOT SPITZER, HOST: In tonight's "Law and Disorder" segment, it was a crime that shook the nation 29 years ago. Panic spread after a wave of deaths in Illinois all tied to off the shelf bottles of the pain medicine Tylenol. Now, the FBI is taking a fresh look at the crimes, and they've zeroed in on one of America's most notorious criminals. Brian Todd joins us now.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eliot, we had a hard time believing the name when we first saw it linked to this case. It is Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. It's not clear if he's a genuine suspect at the moment in the Tylenol murders. All the FBI is saying about it right now is that in the reopening of the Tylenol probe, they are trying to get DNA from several people, including Ted Kaczynski. It's a chilling connection between two cases that still haunt investigators.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice-over): It's one of the FBI's most notorious unsolved cases, the 1982 Tylenol murders. Seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol laced with potassium cyanide. Now, the bureau is hinting at a possible link to one of America's most feared domestic terrorists, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
MARK OLSHAKER, AUTHOR, "UNABOMBER": I think it's kind of a dragnet broad brush approach. I don't think he is good for it.
TODD: Mark Olshaker co-wrote a book on the Unabomber with a former FBI agent. Ted Kaczynski is serving a life sentence at the super max prison in Florence, Colorado, for killing three people and wounding nearly two dozen others in a string of bombings from 1978 to 1995. The FBI in a statement says in re-examining the Tylenol case, it's attempted to secure DNA samples from numerous individuals, including Ted Kaczynski.
In a handwritten court filing, Kaczynski says he won't give them a sample voluntarily unless the FBI meets a certain condition that neither he nor the bureau have disclosed. Kaczynski says his detailed journals establish his whereabouts and activities in 1982, and he writes, "I have never even possessed any potassium cyanide."
(on camera): Kaczynski then asks a judge to block the auction of some of the possessions that were taken from this cabin when he was arrested in 1996. The cabin now sits here in the museum in Washington. Kaczynski says some of the stuff that was taken from here should be preserved as possible evidence to exonerate him in the Tylenol case.
(voice-over): But the auction started this week with the proceeds to go to his victims. On the block? His clothes, sunglasses, his infamous manifesto, and his journals, which according to a lead investigator, Kaczynski wrote in secret code.
TERRY TURCHIE, FORMER FBI OFFICIAL: He recorded everything. There are over 30,000 pages of documents that he had and that he wrote over the years in his cabin.
TODD: But no evidence has surfaced linking Kaczynski to the Tylenol plot, and prosecutors say no prosecution of him is currently planned.
(on camera): The Tylenol case, is that Ted Kaczynski's M.O.?
OLSHAKER: No, it's not. First of all, we think it's an extortion case rather than some kind of wild self-aggrandizing scheme to alter society. And also, we find that extortionists, bombers, assassins and arsonists all tend to stick with what they know and what they feel comfortable with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD: Olshaker says he does not think Ted Kaczynski would have been comfortable going into drug stores and tampering with Tylenol bottles. An attorney for Kaczynski tells CNN he's persuaded that Ted Kaczynski had absolutely no involvement in any aspect of the Tylenol case -- Eliot.
SPITZER: Brian Todd, thanks for that report. Shocking, indeed.
Up next, did the Wall Street bailout teach us anything? Ed Asner, the star of the new HBO movie "Too Big to Fail" says not so much. Stay with us.
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SPITZER: A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. We all know that. But since the economic meltdown of 2008 when banks failed and the government used your money to bail them out, did we learn anything? Has anything changed?
Those questions are at the heart of the new HBO movie "Too Big to Fail" based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's terrific book. In this scene, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, played by William Hurt, calls for help from the world's richest man, Warren Buffett. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WILLIAM HURT, AS HANK PAULSON: I understand you've been talking to Dick Volcker (ph).
ED ASNER, PLAYING WARREN BUFFETT: You know my misgivings, Hank, about investment banks. As soon as they started trading for themselves, the risk managers lost control. I had a very unpleasant time at Solomon Brothers.
HURT: That's fair enough. But we both know that investment banking is a profitable business.
ASNER: I figure it brings you $1 billion or so, huh?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Buffett is played by none other than the legendary Ed Asner who we loved as Lou Grant on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and as the voice of Carl in the Pixar and movie "Up".
Welcome, Mr. Asner. It is an honor to have you here. A legend of the TV world.
ED ASNER, PLAYS WARREN BUFFETT IN HBO'S "TOO BIG TO FAIL": Glad to be with you.
SPITZER: So I just got to ask you, this book "Too Big to Fail" and the movie, why is it important?
ASNER: Well, it talks about a big goof-up in the process of our country and our financial circles. It demonstrates how the problems took place, why they took place, what it fails to achieve, as well as not been achieved in real life a solution to preventing it from happening again.
SPITZER: Now, when you look at the movie, does the movie -- and you had to get into the mind of Warren Buffett and your colleague, William Hurt, had to get into the mind of Hank Paulson. Do you like the characters you're playing at the end of the day?
ASNER: Well, I've always liked Warren Buffett. I feel we have the -- so many similar traits, bank accounts, acumen, self-respect. We have all of those together.
SPITZER: We'll start investing with you just the way we want to invest with him shortly.
ASNER: I'm like a clone.
SPITZER: Right.
ASNER: In terms of William Hurt, Paulson has such an off-putting appearance that I was quite surprised and intrigued of the fact William Hurt playing that role. It creates a totally different person while he's performing the life-saving function for the banks that he did in this movie. At the same time, I'll bend over and give him the credit that maybe he wasn't just saving the banks. Maybe he was trying to save the country.
SPITZER: Well, here's the question. Who were the government folks trying to save? Were they saving the banks, or were they saving the economy? Were they saving the nation? What do you think they thought?
ASNER: That's a question where you can only give them the benefit of the doubt.
SPITZER: Right.
ASNER: But I think we have a history in this country. Katrina showed one failure. The BP thing showed another failure, all tracing back to regulation. The bank failures, the housing failures, all lack a regulation and carrying out official duties by government people. In some cases, they have been deprived of the legs to stand on. But in those cases where they had legs to stand on, they were deficient. They were deficient.
SPITZER: The critical moment to me was when all this money was given back to the banks.
ASNER: Yes.
SPITZER: The banks came saying we need help and they got what they wanted. Not Lehman Brothers, but all the others, from AIG to G.E., Goldman Sachs and on down the line. Was enough asked of them in return for the money they got?
ASNER: Well, I'm a devotee of Paul Krugman.
SPITZER: Right.
ASNER: And, of course, he blew the whistle immediately and I think that that was all. It still has a shriek to it. They did not, they didn't get enough guarantees from them as to what they'd do with the money. The people did not get the money that the banks that was not distributed to the people.
SPITZER: By the people, you mean, for instance, the homeowners whose mortgages were under water.
ASNER: Homeowners or I suppose even those coming to borrow a couple of money so that our unemployment still stinks in this country. It shows no sign of recovery so far. And the banks are still giving out their bonuses.
SPITZER: You were Lou Grant as a journalist.
ASNER: Yes.
SPITZER: If you were a journalist, would you be out there going after these guys?
ASNER: I would hope so. I should turn in my card if whatever card I'm carrying. SPITZER: Right.
SPITZER: If I didn't pursue that -- I'm a very simple man. I read my "People" and then I form my opinion, hopefully. And I -- you know, for instance, I saw what the "New York Times" did with Iraq and how they were all part of the juggernaut that brought us into Iraq and how that stunk, and sitting where I was, I'm saying the "New York Times" stinks as well.
SPITZER: At the end of the day, is this movie a tragedy? Is it a comedy? Is it straight history?
ASNER: I think it's the biggest warning sign you could get, and that the American people and those people who can move them and shake them don't respond to this movie and act accordingly. But I'm a leftist Democrat.
SPITZER: Right.
ASNER: And I see every day I read in the paper -- by the way, I indicted "New York Times" for Iraq and after Iraq they smelled the flowers and changed --
SPITZER: Sure.
ASNER: -- enormously, and I give them credit for that. And every day they blow the whistle on the Republican obstinacy and refusal to perform life-saving ventures through Congress and through investment. So, I mean, if they don't start smelling the flowers, we have to have Democrats stand up for the first time in a long time. We have to find the Roosevelt.
SPITZER: Right. Well, I think we have found him in you. I don't know whether to call you FDR, Ed Asner, Lou Grant. You are a legend. It is a joy to have you here, and this movie is well worth seeing, in part, of course, because you're in it.
ASNER: Thank you.
SPITZER: Sir, what a pleasure to have you here.
ASNER: Thank you.
SPITZER: Thank you.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: In a speech at the State Department today, the president laid out a vision for an American role in the Arab world's upheaval, and he used some stirring words to do it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Those words must guide our response to the change that is transforming the Middle East and North Africa. Words which tell us that repression will fail and the tyrants will fall. That every man and woman is endowed with certain inalienable rights.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: But did he outline a change in American policy?
David Gergen, thank you so much for joining us.
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you, Eliot. It's good to be with you.
SPITZER: So I listened to the president's speech today. I thought it was a brilliant articulation of principles guiding ideas that should dominate and should be the guide post for our foreign policy. But then when it came to the part of the speech where I expected him to say now here is what we're doing in each of these countries, it seemed a little thin.
GERGEN: I agree with that assessment, Eliot, and a surprise. Normally, you know, presidential speeches, especially the ones that are labeled big as this one was, Cairo 2 in effect, they do have this sort of preamble. Here's how we got here, and here are the principles that are going to guide our policy in this very complex situation. And now, therefore, I am now announcing the following three, four, five things the United States is going to do. And the surprise was after the preamble, which was wonderful, I thought he did a beautiful job laying out the principles.
There was no therefore. There was no follow lines. Almost everything he announced especially with regard to the Middle East countries and North Africa was all pretty much a continuation of where we have been.
SPITZER: What is the domestic political impact of this speech? The president now since the killing of bin Laden obviously has a new surge of respect in terms of his handling of foreign policy. Does this diminish because people will say, ah, this is reversion to the pre-bin Laden Obama where really he doesn't advance the ball, there is no grand architecture to what we're doing?
GERGEN: Eliot, my sense is that he avoided taking on the -- the Jewish community on this. They're going to come out of this, I think, OK, we can live with it. He could have had them up in arms, and I think that was one of the debates within the administration. How far are we going to go on the Israeli-Palestinian given the fact that 2012 elections are right around the corner now? And he clearly, I think -- a lot of critics will say 2012 was heavily on his mind as he worked this through. But I also feel that because he didn't break a lot of new ground, this is a speech that's not going to have a long shelf life here in the United States, at least in terms of its operational impact. That people are going to say, listen, can we please come back here and get the focus on jobs and deficits --
SPITZER: Right.
GERGEN: -- which is what people really care about in this country, and really the president of the United States spending as much of his time as he is on these problems that seem to have complicated and for which we don't have, seem to have really good answers.
SPITZER: You know, I think that's exactly right. I think this speech will disappear into the ether pretty quickly because there is nothing really to hang your hat on other than the very nice statement to principles.
GERGEN: Right.
SPITZER: It doesn't move the needle in Libya. It doesn't move the needle in Syria. We give Egypt a little bit of money. The Mideast peace talks will go nowhere, unfortunately, for the next couple of months. Afghanistan is a quagmire, and so, as you say, jobs, jobs, jobs, it is the economy stupid, and pretty soon that's what we're going to be talking about.
GERGEN: Well, I would think so and the deficits. You know, those two things are looming. The speech may have -- people may look back upon this some years from now and say it was the foundation for a shift in American foreign policy. The principles of a much more forthright support of Democratic movements in that region of the country, but I think operationally right now, I am not sure that this speech is going to generate much excitement in Arab countries, and it's certainly not going to generate much excitement back here.
SPITZER: You know, I would agree with you with one footnote. Maybe it's a big footnote.
GERGEN: OK.
SPITZER: It's hard to see this as a big shift towards support of Democratic principles when the nation there that is the largest oil exporter to us simply wasn't mentioned. Saudi Arabia was notably absent from the speech, so at that moment, at that point in our foreign policy where there's the most direct clash between principles and interest, really the president punted. I'm not saying that critically. There may be no good answer to it. But it really is in a way a good statement to principles, but a status quo speech.
GERGEN: Well, I -- but, Eliot, I'll come back to you on one aspect of this. I would think of all the people in the Middle East who would be unhappy with the speech would be the Saudis, because he was -- I thought he was very tough on the Bahrainian government which the Saudis have come to support. And he basically, I think for the gulf states this didn't offer an awful lot of sense of sympathy for what they're facing, and the Iranian challenge that they face just across the water. So I don't think he helped himself very much on those relationships.
SPITZER: That is true. He was tough on the Bahrainian government but then, again, there was no next step. There was no and now we're going to do next.
GERGEN: There's no next step.
SPITZER: Right.
GERGEN: Yes, I don't understand that. And I wasn't quite sure given all that why we had the drumbeat and why this came up as sort of Cairo 2.
SPITZER: Yes.
GERGEN: I wasn't quite sure in retrospect. I wasn't sure what was it they were trying to do here. What was the administration trying to accomplish in a speech? I couldn't quite get it.
SPITZER: You know, I think the answer is that the drumbeat began before the speech was written and after the speech was written, they said, oops, the drumbeat is too loud.
Anyway, David, always enjoying chatting with you, and enjoy next time we're going to be talking about deficits, jobs, and the economic issues here at home.
GERGEN: Well, OK.
SPITZER: All right. Thanks a lot, David.
All right. It was, indeed, a fascinating speech to listen to, and great rhetoric and wonderful principles, but the amazing thing is I don't think any of us sitting here today who watched it and have been watching the response to the speech know anything more today about what we will do in our foreign policy in Libya, in Syria, in even Yemen, or Bahrain or certainly Saudi Arabia. So a speech that was brilliant in terms of putting a marker in the ground in terms of principles that guide our foreign policy, but I don't think we know yet how we're going to displace either Assad or Gadhafi.
We'll be right back to have that conversation.
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SPITZER: Good night from New York. "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.
