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CNN Live At Daybreak

Sound Off: Are We Back to Normal?

Aired November 05, 2001 - 08:46   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to "Sound Off" on what it means to be normal. President Bush has been tellins us that the best way to fight terrorism is to go back to living our normal lives.

Despite the terror attacks and the anthrax outbreak over the past weekend, we have seen more signs that America really is willing to turn to diversions, the World Series, the Emmy Awards, movie premeires. Are we back to normal? Can we ever return to normalcy? And what is normal anway?

Well, P.J. O'Rourke is a well-known author and humorist. His latest book is "The CEO of the Sofa." He joins us from Washington this morning.

And Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnnist regular on many TV talk shows. Her opinions can be found at her Web site, www.ariannaonline.com.

She's in our Los Angeles bureau.

Welcome to the two of you. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

All right, Arianna, since you got up earlier than P.J., I'm going to start with you this morning. What is normal?

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I don't think anything is really normal after September 11th, and the idea that you can return to normal by taking our children to Disney World, and going out to restaurants, and going to the malls, if that's all that normal is, I don't think I buy that.

I mean, let me just start by saying, in my case, for for the first time in 12 years, ever since I became a mother, I'm not sending Christmas cards, because our relationship to the mail, what we receive and what send is not the same. I mean, opening up letters used to be something filled with anticipation. Now it's filled with free- floating anxiety. I don't want to add to to burden of those dealing with the mailk or to sense of anxiety with those opening the mail. That's just a small thing.

But beyond that, I think returning to normal also means returning to causes we believe in, returning to fighting about things, including things that are happening this washington, the missile-defense shield, drilling in the Arctic.

ZAHN: All right.

Let's bring P.J. into the discussion. Do you have any problem with what Arianna said? I mean, will you boycott sending out Christmas cards this year, P.J.?

P.J. O'ROURKE, AUTHOR AND HUMORIST: Oh, what a blessing, as it were. I mean, you know, I think is could without a silver lining. I've been wanting to get rid of Christmas cards for years and years, and what a good excuse to do it. Now we can send Christmas faxes or Christmas e-mails, or maybe just skip the whole thing put our time into cookies, which are much more delicious to eat than Christmas cards ever were, but I'm not doing this out of anxiety; I'm just cheap, and lazy.

ZAHN: I like that. I like that about you.

But, P.J., go back to the point that Arianna was -- I mean, do you think it is possible for America to establish normalcy, or do you believe that we never had normal life, that we were living in the clouds there, on borrowed time.

O'ROURKE: I believe This is normal. I'm sorry, this is normal. Obviously, an event like the attack on September 11th is abnormal in its scale, but it's not abnormal in its substance or in its occursence. It's an evil world out there. It's always been an evil world. Man is evil. That's what the doctrine of original sin is about. We spent a long time thinking maybe there is something we could do about evil, besidess fight it. Maybe we could invite it to dinner, or maybe we could have a U.N. conference, where we would talk to evil, and understand it better, but there is evil in world that has to be fought. This has always been the case. This is normal life.

ZAHN: All right.

So basically, Arianna, you guys are kind of agreeing on this premise, aren't you, that you have to accept it, life goes on?

HUFFINGTON: I think we are agreeing in that, as P.J. said, there are things we can change that can make our lives better. I mean, not getting too much inessential mail, or indeed junk mail, could improve our lives. I mean my favorite thing would be, if we put an end to direct political mail, which is filled with venom, trashing political opponents none, and filled our mailboxes before each election.

What about using that opportunity of all of us wanting to reduce the of mail we send and get to ask political candidates also to refrain from filling our mailboxes with their trash mail.

ZAHN: P.J., are you going to miss that direct mail, if anybody follows Arianna's lead here. Isn't that what you anticipated every day?

HUFFINGTON: I assume she's right about its contents. I've never read the stuff myself. I'm just worried children all over America are going to take this as a -- hopefully they are not watching. Hopefully, they are at school. Kids, you still have torie thank you notes, I'm sorry.

HUFFINGTON: You can e-mail them. You can send them by e-mail.

O'ROURKE: No. No, you cannot. It has to be in pen on nice paper, I'm sorry.

ZAHN: Before we let you two go, though, just Your reaction P.J. to these warnings that we havce heard repeated over the last several weeks from our government, Warning us potential terrorist attacks the road? Has that been responsible?

O'ROURKE: How am I supposed to get more alert, alert for what? I'm wondering if we haven't got a couple of people in our government who are sort of working for the dark side themselves. I mean, it's OK, be more alert, we can't tell you about what, something is coming, something big, mums the word about who it is. I think this is a lot of nonsense. This is nagging mom school of showing how much you care -- we're going pester you to death, and therefore, you know we love you.

ZAHN: Arianna, are you a member of that nagging moms school?

O'ROURKE: Well, I agree with B.J. that general alerts don't mean anything. If they're specific, fine, I mean, I didn't have any problem with Gray Davis telling us that our bridges here in California were problematic and maybe we should avoid them, fine. That was at least something specific we could do or not do, but general alert, no, please, no more.

ZAHN: All right, there you have it. Arianna Huffington P.J. O'Rourke, thank you both for your time this morning. Appreciate it.

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