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CNN Live At Daybreak
The President's Words; Standoff in Russia; Wanted: Single Women; The Path of Frances; The Underlying Message
Aired September 02, 2004 - 05:30 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's no surprise. But the U.N. proposal is also getting a positive response from Sudan's government and that was not expected.
Hurricane Frances is coming and thousands of Floridians are leaving. They are now under a mandatory evacuation order. Others are boarding up as the big storm lashes the Bahamas and heads towards Florida's Atlantic Coast.
For more specifics -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: In fact, Carol, my parents will be in a car in two hours heading back up here to Georgia trying to just get out of the way.
This thing is so big. We don't know where it's going to hit yet, and it's so big you just can't take a chance. If you are in one of those areas where you go, yes, I might stay, I might not, just go somewhere. Have a little vacation for the holidays and come back later on, because this thing is just so, so very large.
Winds at 145 miles per hour. It's almost the entire size of Texas as it moves over Florida. So even though we're talking about the eye or the center of this hurricane, anywhere from the northern side of this hurricane all the way up to about here, the winds are over 100 miles per hour, the entire area. That's 100 miles wide as it moves on in to Florida. So how do you get out of the way of that unless you leave, obviously, early enough.
There is the storm right now moving through the northern sections there of the Turks and Caicos, eventually into the southeastern Bahamas. Still about 500 miles away from the southeast coast of Florida, but it's moving at 15 miles per hour. Do the math, that's not all that long from now.
Hurricane watches from Flagler Beach right on down to Craig Key. And then hurricane warnings, obviously, in the Bahamas, because the storm is already in the Bahamas. Hurricane conditions already being experienced there.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: That is pretty nice weather.
MYERS: That's awesome stuff up there.
COSTELLO: Thank you -- Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: President Bush will accept his party's nomination tonight at the Republican National Convention. But for 15 minutes last night, Zell Miller was one Democrat among thousands of Republicans demanding everyone's attention. He got it, too, especially when he said no one should be commander in chief unless they see U.S. forces as liberators, not occupiers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ZELL MILLER (D), GEORGIA: But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking, America is the problem, not the solution. They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.
It is not their patriotism, it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Dick Cheney took on the Democrats, too, but narrowed his scope to one in particular, Democratic challenger John Kerry. The vice president accepted his party's nomination for a second term, portraying Kerry as someone far too indecisive to possess true leadership qualities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a "more sensitive war on terror"...
(LAUGHTER)
...as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Earlier in the day, the Massachusetts senator was getting in a few digs of his own. He had a captive audience, The American Legion National Convention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If there's one thing I learned from my service which was a difficult time, as we all know, I would never have gone to war without a plan to win the peace. That, I think, is critical.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Kerry also says with the right policies, the war on terror can be won. Earlier this week, President Bush said that might not be possible.
Chances are pretty good that if he's awake President Bush is putting some final polish on tonight's acceptance speech. Aides say in tonight's talk the president will look forward and outline an agenda for the next four years.
CNN's senior White House correspondent John King introduces us to the man in charge of putting the president's ideas on paper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain, freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
MICHAEL GERSON, CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHWRITER: Well it's interesting, I mean you learn early on that he has a certain set of rules and approaches that you have to respect. And he wants a speech to be certain things. He likes clear outlines, he likes short sentences, he likes active language not passive language. He likes to mix directness with a kind of element of elevation.
BUSH: We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while danger is gathering.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): How do you feel personally, as someone who helps this president communicate, when you see ads like MoveOn.org saying misleader, critics getting up to say that this president has deliberately misled the American people to take them to war? How does that affect you personally?
GERSON: Well the way it affects me personally is that at a certain level it is offensive, because I know the man in a lot of ways that you know most Americans don't. The fact of the matter is that the president puts a premium on forthrightness and honesty. He is occasionally blunt, but in public and in private, but I mean you know that's his style and approach. And so I think that's actually a fundamental misreading of the president.
BUSH: The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade.
GERSON: We have faced some difficult communications tasks, and we don't always get everything 100 percent right. But the president has been forthright in approaching matters and puts a premium on being honest.
KING: What makes him mad?
GERSON: What makes him mad? Well I guess I would say there are two answers to that question. He doesn't get mad about the big things. Actually there is a calmness in approaching major questions that, you know, I have found encouraging. I would say because in all honesty that he finds a typo in a speech, if he finds that something hasn't been adequately checked and we have to change it late in the process, he'll sometimes, you know, show that he doesn't like that.
KING: You see him in ways a lot of people don't. What are the one or two things that you think perhaps the American people, even people who might support this president, maybe just don't know about him?
GERSON: I would say probably the care that the president takes in the contents of speeches. He puts a lot of time into speeches in a way that not every president has. You know the fact of the matter is we'll go through 20, 25 drafts of major speeches, and that represents a lot of presidential time.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, we spent hours together on these speeches at a time when he was making fundamental decisions that were military decisions and other things. But he took the time, basically, because he knew it was important and he doesn't slight it or think that it's unimportant.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Again, that was CNN's senior White House correspondent John King's interview with the Chief Presidential Speechwriter Michael Gerson.
Get a ringside seat to all of tonight's action. CNN's prime time live coverage of the Republican National Convention begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern and takes you straight through to 1:00 a.m. Eastern.
It is day two of a tense standoff in southern Russia where gunmen are holding an unknown number of hostages at an elementary school.
Our senior international editor David Clinch joins us now with an update.
What's happening right now?
DAVID CLINCH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Hi, Carol.
Well, we've got two stories that we're covering today that intertwine terrorism and school children, really a terrible combination in any circumstance. And in Russia today, we have got our correspondent on the way to the scene of this school where 100-plus children, maybe as many as 300, 400 people in total, are being held inside this school in southern Russia by Chechen rebels.
We've already seen a number of people killed, as many as 12 killed. Bodies have been thrown out of the windows of the school. No children dead that we know of so far, but of course the parents, you see some of them there gathered nearby, very concerned. The outcome, of course, in either direction is uncertain.
If the Russians decide to go in in force, there's obviously the chance of children and others being caught up in the fire. If they don't decide to go in in force, and so far the officials who are there are saying that force is not on the table at the moment because they are entering negotiations. The children are still inside for today, for days on end. And the parents, of course, concerned about them.
We do not know yet whether they have been able to get any food or supplies into the school. So a very tense situation in Russia there.
COSTELLO: Any communication going on between...
CLINCH: We have been told there is some talks going on, but whether they are at the level of negotiation yet we do not know.
COSTELLO: And remind us again what these hostage takers want.
CLINCH: Well that's interesting. At first we were being told that they had issued a demand for fellow Chechen rebels to be released from prison and Russian troops to remove from Chechnya, standard demands. But now that's up to question. Actually, the Russians saying there is no specific demand yet, but that may become clearer during the day today. Big political problem for President Putin.
The other story of course we're covering for France. They are trying to get these hostages freed in Iraq. And this all relates to the terrorists that have taken them hostage and France demanding that President Chirac lifted the ban on French schoolchildren, Muslim French schoolchildren wearing their head scarves. Now this is part of a law that relates to schoolchildren not wearing any religious emblems, but the specific demand by the terrorists is a lift to this ban.
Well today is the first day of school in France, the schoolchildren are turning up and we're watching closely. For the most part, Muslim children not wearing their head scarves today in France, but whether that makes a difference or not we don't know.
COSTELLO: Yes, they keep extending the deadline, too. The hostage takers are restless (ph).
CLINCH: Well they do, but today is the first day of school, so we may see developments on that story today.
COSTELLO: Of course that brings us to our e-mail "Question of the Day," do you think that children should be banned from wearing any sort of religious symbol in schools? And we've gotten some responses.
This is from -- oh, you didn't give us your name. Laurel (ph) from Canada. He says taking hostages in response to a ban on head scarves is obviously overreacting, but I do believe the ban was wrong. Children should be allowed to wear religious symbols in schools. Having a symbol of your religion close to you is comforting and meaningful for many people, and religious freedom is a fundamental human right. This is from Dave from Maine. He says absolutely not. This is a step in the direction of all students wearing brown shirts.
This is from Jason (ph) from Cincinnati, Ohio. He says taking away someone's right to display their faith in public schools goes against everything we hold dear in free democratic societies. Anything that deviates from this becomes more like a Taliban-like state than a democracy.
Keep those e-mails coming, DAYBREAK@CNN.com.
If you don't have plans for this Labor Day weekend, we have some ideas for you. In the next hour of DAYBREAK, we'll tell you some deals to check out if you're able to get away for this holiday.
And call it the "Sex and the City" vote, how single women really feel about the upcoming presidential election and politics in general.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Wanted: Single Women Across America. No, not for a dating service ad, we're talking politics here. Single women are being sought by Republicans and by Democrats.
Our Dana Bash explains why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Call it the "Sex in the City" vote. Single women now form a voting block bigger than Jewish, African-American and Latino votes combined.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't believe you're dating a politician. You're not even registered to vote.
BASH: And a jaw-dropping 22 million single women did not vote in 2000. For some, it's apathy. Take 26-year-old Diana, one of five women we sat down with in Manhattan.
DIANA FUSCO, HOTEL SPECIAL EVENTS COORDINATOR: Right now I don't plan on voting. I feel like it takes a lot of energy and a lot of time to really get down to find out about each candidate and then to weigh the decision. And that's not what I want to spend my time doing right now.
BASH: Victoria, a 33-year-old lawyer, is disenfranchised. She tries but can't get answers to issues she cares about. She's not voting and blames the candidates.
VICTORIA MICHEL, LAWYER: They need to provide educated responses to the answers of the issues on their platform. And by -- I mean taking out all the propaganda in their answers. Answering real questions about women's issues. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, which district do you vote in?
SARA JESSICA PARKER, ACTRESS: Whichever one is near Barney's.
BASH: Unlike Carrie, many single females are less worried about Manolo Blahniks, more about basics.
ANNA GREENBERG, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: They tend to be more economically marginal. Fifty percent of them make under $30,000 a year. So they are diverse. They're racially diverse. They're ethnically diverse.
BASH: Yvette is a divorced mother of two. She doesn't vote because she feels powerless, ignored.
YVETTE HERNANDEZ, LEGAL ASSISTANT: I want to hear what's going to happen now, you know? What are you going to do for us now? Not what happened 30 years ago.
BASH: a turnoff for all, what they call dirty politics. Thirty- year-old Miria actually wants to vote this year.
MIRIA SPOONER, FUNDRAISER: I feel like politics in a sense, a lot of it is -- I don't know if I should swear, but B.S. And I feel like they -- all the candidates say things and who knows if they're really going to do it.
GREENBERG: You think about the kind of impact that group would have on a very, very close election. Historically this group has been ignored and continues to be ignored.
BASH: The candidates say they're waking up. The Bush campaign launched "W is for Women" to lure hem to the polls.
Democrats have the Women's Vote Center, a grassroots effort, now emphasizing single females.
Nonpartisan groups are springing up, too.
TORREY STROHMEYER, SHE 19: My experience with single women is that they are, to say the least, opinionated.
BASH: She 19, named for the amendment granting women the right to vote, throws cocktail parties. One group puts nail files in salons, encouraging women to register and vote. And there are a growing number of ads in women's magazines.
Single women are looking for more attention, more promises filled from politicians. But for some, just hearing they are one in 22 million may be enough to push them to the polls.
SPOONER: I mean, I feel like -- I mean, my friends, certainly, when they heard that I didn't vote in the last election were, like, "Are you insane? What's wrong with you?"
MELISSA MAUNDRELL, GRADUATE STUDENT: Made me realize even more if half of the 22 million women vote, how much of a difference that can make.
BASH (on camera): When single women do vote at the polls, they are much more likely to vote for a Democrat, a gender gap the Bush campaign is trying to shrink with the help of the first lady and maybe even her daughters.
Dana Bash, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:47 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.
Case dismissed. Rape charges against Kobe Bryant have been thrown out for good. The prosecution's case collapsed when Bryant's accuser refused to testify, but she is moving ahead with her civil suit against the NBA star.
Overnight, Israeli forces destroy two apartment buildings in a Gaza refugee camp. Israel says the buildings were being used to stage attacks on Israel. Palestinians say the operation left 40 families homeless. Comes two days after Palestinian suicide bombers blew up buses in Israel, killing 16 people and wounding 94 others.
In money news, Pfizer, the nation's largest pharmaceutical company, has reportedly ended its widely used discount card for seniors. According to the "New York Times," the move leaves more than half a million low income Medicare beneficiaries without access to discounts on popular medicines.
In culture, Maria Rita was one of the big winners at last night's Latin Grammys. She took home two statues, including the award for best new artist. But it was balladeer Alejandro Sanz who captured album, record and song of the year honors.
In sports, another New York quarterback is getting a huge contract. The Jets Chad Pennington signed a seven-year extension that could be worth as much as $64 million and some change -- Chad.
MYERS: Yes, last name's not Pennington though, it's Myers.
COSTELLO: Darn.
MYERS: Good morning, Carol.
Here we go. We have Frances moving through the Bahamas right now. We have Karl Penhaul in Freeport for a live shot later on in the day, and that's going to start going downhill rather quickly.
Hurricane warnings in effect for the Bahamas this morning. Grand Turk Island really got smacked pretty good yesterday. The Turks and the Caicos, although the storm did go to the north, still there are winds over 100 miles per hour. The north side or the right side of the eye always the stronger side, and the good news is the right side moved over open water and not over those islands. The Bahamas, hurricane warnings. From Flagler Beach down to Craig Key, hurricane watches. There are your numbers from Hurricane Frances, 22.9, 73.0. There it is right now moving over the southern Bahamas. Not well populated down there. But then Nassau, then Freeport and then the southeastern coast there of Florida.
Landfall, very hard to say right now where it's going to be. Models are doing a little bit -- two things differently. One going north, one going south, but you get the idea somewhere around Fort Pierce, but don't count it as a point, it could go left, it could go right. It's done it all week long.
Carol, rain showers over Atlanta, also across parts of the upper Midwest.
COSTELLO: And you know, Chad, we've been trying to get Karl Penhaul on the phone live from the Bahamas,...
MYERS: Is that right?
COSTELLO: ... but his phone line keeps freezing up.
MYERS: Yes, you know the winds are already starting to pick up there in the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.
COSTELLO: Yes, but we're still efforting (ph) him. Hopefully we'll have him after this break.
MYERS: Fair enough.
COSTELLO: DAYBREAK will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The Bahamas have seen category four storms before, but the prime minister of the Bahamas says Hurricane Frances could be the worst storm in its history.
So let's get right to our Karl Penhaul. Yes, we managed to get him up there.
Good morning, Karl, tell us the situation there now.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol.
Well as you (INAUDIBLE), it's about an hour and a half before sunrise here at Freeport.
COSTELLO: Well, we're going to have continuing problems getting Karl.
Chad, how strong are the winds in the Bahamas right now?
MYERS: You know, Carol, somewhere around 35 miles an hour. The wind gusts around the storm itself not all that close to Florida at this potion in time and they're still moving there. There's a little stationary front that's moving through Florida and parts of southeastern Georgia, so even the temperatures in Miami today are going to be 91. And this is what we talked about with Charley.
Today, the Florida coast is absolutely a beautiful day. Think if you were a sailor 200, 300 years ago leaving for a shipment into Spain, you would have no idea that a category four hurricane was out there. Certainly not something that is as large almost as the Bahamas. And it's just one of those things where the day before a hurricane usually looks really great. Sailors used to set out and then their boats, obviously, used to crash.
And same this is going on here. A beautiful day, probably, in most of Freeport until it starts going downhill around 6:00 or 7:00 this afternoon. And a great day across the Florida beaches. Some rip currents and some rip tides though, may not be a great idea to get in the water but lots of sunshine.
COSTELLO: Bizarre, isn't it? Thank you -- Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: All right, we're going to try to get Karl Penhaul back. We haven't managed to do that yet. Are we going to the Jeanne Moos package now? We are not going to do that. Where are we going? We're going to go to a break. We're going to try to get it together. This is DAYBREAK. You stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Welcome back to DAYBREAK. At the Republican National Convention, thousands of protesters are wearing their feelings on their sleeves, their backs, their chests, not to mention their unmentionables.
CNN's Jeanne Moos takes a look at their underlying message.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They turn the body into a billboard that sometimes goes overboard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No more Bush. No more Bush.
MOOS: The T-shirts in New York this week were enough to encourage literacy, fight plaque, not Iraq.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would rather spend time in the bathroom with a toothbrush than you know fighting a war.
MOOS: There's no question the anti-Bush T-shirts were meaner. This seemingly incomprehensible one folds into something a little too comprehensible. And then there is Texas homegrown dope.
(on camera): Planting instructions: using a silver spoon, plant in shallow hole.
(voice-over): But the anti-Kerry crowd likewise had a laugh.
(LAUGHTER)
MOOS: With flip flopping ketchup completely free of all substance.
We glimpsed an anti-Kerry shirt calling him Osama's man. But most jives were gentle, John who? And then there was I'm with Arnold. No, that's not Arnold she's with, this Arnold.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is because I'm in the California delegation and we support Arnold.
MOOS: The Republicans turn the Democrat's symbol against them, while the Democrats turn President Bush's axis of evil phrase against him. But T-shirts pale compared to...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Panties with a purpose.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which side are you on? The panty lines are drawn.
MOOS: A group that calls itself Axis of Eve held what it called a mass flash.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The metaphor of exposure, that this is a president who has lied to the American people.
MOOS: But the panties are so risque that the only one we can risk is weapon of mass seduction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can't do this one either.
MOOS (on camera): No.
(voice-over): The group guesses it's sold around $50,000 worth of panties in three months. The NYPD didn't bother to go undercover at this underwear protest.
MOOS (on camera): Safe to assume this is not for personal use.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
MOOS (voice-over): But who needs panties when you're a 7-month- old Republican decked out in elephants and diapers.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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Aired September 2, 2004 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's no surprise. But the U.N. proposal is also getting a positive response from Sudan's government and that was not expected.
Hurricane Frances is coming and thousands of Floridians are leaving. They are now under a mandatory evacuation order. Others are boarding up as the big storm lashes the Bahamas and heads towards Florida's Atlantic Coast.
For more specifics -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: In fact, Carol, my parents will be in a car in two hours heading back up here to Georgia trying to just get out of the way.
This thing is so big. We don't know where it's going to hit yet, and it's so big you just can't take a chance. If you are in one of those areas where you go, yes, I might stay, I might not, just go somewhere. Have a little vacation for the holidays and come back later on, because this thing is just so, so very large.
Winds at 145 miles per hour. It's almost the entire size of Texas as it moves over Florida. So even though we're talking about the eye or the center of this hurricane, anywhere from the northern side of this hurricane all the way up to about here, the winds are over 100 miles per hour, the entire area. That's 100 miles wide as it moves on in to Florida. So how do you get out of the way of that unless you leave, obviously, early enough.
There is the storm right now moving through the northern sections there of the Turks and Caicos, eventually into the southeastern Bahamas. Still about 500 miles away from the southeast coast of Florida, but it's moving at 15 miles per hour. Do the math, that's not all that long from now.
Hurricane watches from Flagler Beach right on down to Craig Key. And then hurricane warnings, obviously, in the Bahamas, because the storm is already in the Bahamas. Hurricane conditions already being experienced there.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: That is pretty nice weather.
MYERS: That's awesome stuff up there.
COSTELLO: Thank you -- Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: President Bush will accept his party's nomination tonight at the Republican National Convention. But for 15 minutes last night, Zell Miller was one Democrat among thousands of Republicans demanding everyone's attention. He got it, too, especially when he said no one should be commander in chief unless they see U.S. forces as liberators, not occupiers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ZELL MILLER (D), GEORGIA: But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking, America is the problem, not the solution. They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.
It is not their patriotism, it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Dick Cheney took on the Democrats, too, but narrowed his scope to one in particular, Democratic challenger John Kerry. The vice president accepted his party's nomination for a second term, portraying Kerry as someone far too indecisive to possess true leadership qualities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a "more sensitive war on terror"...
(LAUGHTER)
...as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Earlier in the day, the Massachusetts senator was getting in a few digs of his own. He had a captive audience, The American Legion National Convention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If there's one thing I learned from my service which was a difficult time, as we all know, I would never have gone to war without a plan to win the peace. That, I think, is critical.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Kerry also says with the right policies, the war on terror can be won. Earlier this week, President Bush said that might not be possible.
Chances are pretty good that if he's awake President Bush is putting some final polish on tonight's acceptance speech. Aides say in tonight's talk the president will look forward and outline an agenda for the next four years.
CNN's senior White House correspondent John King introduces us to the man in charge of putting the president's ideas on paper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain, freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
MICHAEL GERSON, CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHWRITER: Well it's interesting, I mean you learn early on that he has a certain set of rules and approaches that you have to respect. And he wants a speech to be certain things. He likes clear outlines, he likes short sentences, he likes active language not passive language. He likes to mix directness with a kind of element of elevation.
BUSH: We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while danger is gathering.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): How do you feel personally, as someone who helps this president communicate, when you see ads like MoveOn.org saying misleader, critics getting up to say that this president has deliberately misled the American people to take them to war? How does that affect you personally?
GERSON: Well the way it affects me personally is that at a certain level it is offensive, because I know the man in a lot of ways that you know most Americans don't. The fact of the matter is that the president puts a premium on forthrightness and honesty. He is occasionally blunt, but in public and in private, but I mean you know that's his style and approach. And so I think that's actually a fundamental misreading of the president.
BUSH: The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade.
GERSON: We have faced some difficult communications tasks, and we don't always get everything 100 percent right. But the president has been forthright in approaching matters and puts a premium on being honest.
KING: What makes him mad?
GERSON: What makes him mad? Well I guess I would say there are two answers to that question. He doesn't get mad about the big things. Actually there is a calmness in approaching major questions that, you know, I have found encouraging. I would say because in all honesty that he finds a typo in a speech, if he finds that something hasn't been adequately checked and we have to change it late in the process, he'll sometimes, you know, show that he doesn't like that.
KING: You see him in ways a lot of people don't. What are the one or two things that you think perhaps the American people, even people who might support this president, maybe just don't know about him?
GERSON: I would say probably the care that the president takes in the contents of speeches. He puts a lot of time into speeches in a way that not every president has. You know the fact of the matter is we'll go through 20, 25 drafts of major speeches, and that represents a lot of presidential time.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, we spent hours together on these speeches at a time when he was making fundamental decisions that were military decisions and other things. But he took the time, basically, because he knew it was important and he doesn't slight it or think that it's unimportant.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Again, that was CNN's senior White House correspondent John King's interview with the Chief Presidential Speechwriter Michael Gerson.
Get a ringside seat to all of tonight's action. CNN's prime time live coverage of the Republican National Convention begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern and takes you straight through to 1:00 a.m. Eastern.
It is day two of a tense standoff in southern Russia where gunmen are holding an unknown number of hostages at an elementary school.
Our senior international editor David Clinch joins us now with an update.
What's happening right now?
DAVID CLINCH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Hi, Carol.
Well, we've got two stories that we're covering today that intertwine terrorism and school children, really a terrible combination in any circumstance. And in Russia today, we have got our correspondent on the way to the scene of this school where 100-plus children, maybe as many as 300, 400 people in total, are being held inside this school in southern Russia by Chechen rebels.
We've already seen a number of people killed, as many as 12 killed. Bodies have been thrown out of the windows of the school. No children dead that we know of so far, but of course the parents, you see some of them there gathered nearby, very concerned. The outcome, of course, in either direction is uncertain.
If the Russians decide to go in in force, there's obviously the chance of children and others being caught up in the fire. If they don't decide to go in in force, and so far the officials who are there are saying that force is not on the table at the moment because they are entering negotiations. The children are still inside for today, for days on end. And the parents, of course, concerned about them.
We do not know yet whether they have been able to get any food or supplies into the school. So a very tense situation in Russia there.
COSTELLO: Any communication going on between...
CLINCH: We have been told there is some talks going on, but whether they are at the level of negotiation yet we do not know.
COSTELLO: And remind us again what these hostage takers want.
CLINCH: Well that's interesting. At first we were being told that they had issued a demand for fellow Chechen rebels to be released from prison and Russian troops to remove from Chechnya, standard demands. But now that's up to question. Actually, the Russians saying there is no specific demand yet, but that may become clearer during the day today. Big political problem for President Putin.
The other story of course we're covering for France. They are trying to get these hostages freed in Iraq. And this all relates to the terrorists that have taken them hostage and France demanding that President Chirac lifted the ban on French schoolchildren, Muslim French schoolchildren wearing their head scarves. Now this is part of a law that relates to schoolchildren not wearing any religious emblems, but the specific demand by the terrorists is a lift to this ban.
Well today is the first day of school in France, the schoolchildren are turning up and we're watching closely. For the most part, Muslim children not wearing their head scarves today in France, but whether that makes a difference or not we don't know.
COSTELLO: Yes, they keep extending the deadline, too. The hostage takers are restless (ph).
CLINCH: Well they do, but today is the first day of school, so we may see developments on that story today.
COSTELLO: Of course that brings us to our e-mail "Question of the Day," do you think that children should be banned from wearing any sort of religious symbol in schools? And we've gotten some responses.
This is from -- oh, you didn't give us your name. Laurel (ph) from Canada. He says taking hostages in response to a ban on head scarves is obviously overreacting, but I do believe the ban was wrong. Children should be allowed to wear religious symbols in schools. Having a symbol of your religion close to you is comforting and meaningful for many people, and religious freedom is a fundamental human right. This is from Dave from Maine. He says absolutely not. This is a step in the direction of all students wearing brown shirts.
This is from Jason (ph) from Cincinnati, Ohio. He says taking away someone's right to display their faith in public schools goes against everything we hold dear in free democratic societies. Anything that deviates from this becomes more like a Taliban-like state than a democracy.
Keep those e-mails coming, DAYBREAK@CNN.com.
If you don't have plans for this Labor Day weekend, we have some ideas for you. In the next hour of DAYBREAK, we'll tell you some deals to check out if you're able to get away for this holiday.
And call it the "Sex and the City" vote, how single women really feel about the upcoming presidential election and politics in general.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Wanted: Single Women Across America. No, not for a dating service ad, we're talking politics here. Single women are being sought by Republicans and by Democrats.
Our Dana Bash explains why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Call it the "Sex in the City" vote. Single women now form a voting block bigger than Jewish, African-American and Latino votes combined.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't believe you're dating a politician. You're not even registered to vote.
BASH: And a jaw-dropping 22 million single women did not vote in 2000. For some, it's apathy. Take 26-year-old Diana, one of five women we sat down with in Manhattan.
DIANA FUSCO, HOTEL SPECIAL EVENTS COORDINATOR: Right now I don't plan on voting. I feel like it takes a lot of energy and a lot of time to really get down to find out about each candidate and then to weigh the decision. And that's not what I want to spend my time doing right now.
BASH: Victoria, a 33-year-old lawyer, is disenfranchised. She tries but can't get answers to issues she cares about. She's not voting and blames the candidates.
VICTORIA MICHEL, LAWYER: They need to provide educated responses to the answers of the issues on their platform. And by -- I mean taking out all the propaganda in their answers. Answering real questions about women's issues. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, which district do you vote in?
SARA JESSICA PARKER, ACTRESS: Whichever one is near Barney's.
BASH: Unlike Carrie, many single females are less worried about Manolo Blahniks, more about basics.
ANNA GREENBERG, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: They tend to be more economically marginal. Fifty percent of them make under $30,000 a year. So they are diverse. They're racially diverse. They're ethnically diverse.
BASH: Yvette is a divorced mother of two. She doesn't vote because she feels powerless, ignored.
YVETTE HERNANDEZ, LEGAL ASSISTANT: I want to hear what's going to happen now, you know? What are you going to do for us now? Not what happened 30 years ago.
BASH: a turnoff for all, what they call dirty politics. Thirty- year-old Miria actually wants to vote this year.
MIRIA SPOONER, FUNDRAISER: I feel like politics in a sense, a lot of it is -- I don't know if I should swear, but B.S. And I feel like they -- all the candidates say things and who knows if they're really going to do it.
GREENBERG: You think about the kind of impact that group would have on a very, very close election. Historically this group has been ignored and continues to be ignored.
BASH: The candidates say they're waking up. The Bush campaign launched "W is for Women" to lure hem to the polls.
Democrats have the Women's Vote Center, a grassroots effort, now emphasizing single females.
Nonpartisan groups are springing up, too.
TORREY STROHMEYER, SHE 19: My experience with single women is that they are, to say the least, opinionated.
BASH: She 19, named for the amendment granting women the right to vote, throws cocktail parties. One group puts nail files in salons, encouraging women to register and vote. And there are a growing number of ads in women's magazines.
Single women are looking for more attention, more promises filled from politicians. But for some, just hearing they are one in 22 million may be enough to push them to the polls.
SPOONER: I mean, I feel like -- I mean, my friends, certainly, when they heard that I didn't vote in the last election were, like, "Are you insane? What's wrong with you?"
MELISSA MAUNDRELL, GRADUATE STUDENT: Made me realize even more if half of the 22 million women vote, how much of a difference that can make.
BASH (on camera): When single women do vote at the polls, they are much more likely to vote for a Democrat, a gender gap the Bush campaign is trying to shrink with the help of the first lady and maybe even her daughters.
Dana Bash, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:47 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.
Case dismissed. Rape charges against Kobe Bryant have been thrown out for good. The prosecution's case collapsed when Bryant's accuser refused to testify, but she is moving ahead with her civil suit against the NBA star.
Overnight, Israeli forces destroy two apartment buildings in a Gaza refugee camp. Israel says the buildings were being used to stage attacks on Israel. Palestinians say the operation left 40 families homeless. Comes two days after Palestinian suicide bombers blew up buses in Israel, killing 16 people and wounding 94 others.
In money news, Pfizer, the nation's largest pharmaceutical company, has reportedly ended its widely used discount card for seniors. According to the "New York Times," the move leaves more than half a million low income Medicare beneficiaries without access to discounts on popular medicines.
In culture, Maria Rita was one of the big winners at last night's Latin Grammys. She took home two statues, including the award for best new artist. But it was balladeer Alejandro Sanz who captured album, record and song of the year honors.
In sports, another New York quarterback is getting a huge contract. The Jets Chad Pennington signed a seven-year extension that could be worth as much as $64 million and some change -- Chad.
MYERS: Yes, last name's not Pennington though, it's Myers.
COSTELLO: Darn.
MYERS: Good morning, Carol.
Here we go. We have Frances moving through the Bahamas right now. We have Karl Penhaul in Freeport for a live shot later on in the day, and that's going to start going downhill rather quickly.
Hurricane warnings in effect for the Bahamas this morning. Grand Turk Island really got smacked pretty good yesterday. The Turks and the Caicos, although the storm did go to the north, still there are winds over 100 miles per hour. The north side or the right side of the eye always the stronger side, and the good news is the right side moved over open water and not over those islands. The Bahamas, hurricane warnings. From Flagler Beach down to Craig Key, hurricane watches. There are your numbers from Hurricane Frances, 22.9, 73.0. There it is right now moving over the southern Bahamas. Not well populated down there. But then Nassau, then Freeport and then the southeastern coast there of Florida.
Landfall, very hard to say right now where it's going to be. Models are doing a little bit -- two things differently. One going north, one going south, but you get the idea somewhere around Fort Pierce, but don't count it as a point, it could go left, it could go right. It's done it all week long.
Carol, rain showers over Atlanta, also across parts of the upper Midwest.
COSTELLO: And you know, Chad, we've been trying to get Karl Penhaul on the phone live from the Bahamas,...
MYERS: Is that right?
COSTELLO: ... but his phone line keeps freezing up.
MYERS: Yes, you know the winds are already starting to pick up there in the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.
COSTELLO: Yes, but we're still efforting (ph) him. Hopefully we'll have him after this break.
MYERS: Fair enough.
COSTELLO: DAYBREAK will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The Bahamas have seen category four storms before, but the prime minister of the Bahamas says Hurricane Frances could be the worst storm in its history.
So let's get right to our Karl Penhaul. Yes, we managed to get him up there.
Good morning, Karl, tell us the situation there now.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol.
Well as you (INAUDIBLE), it's about an hour and a half before sunrise here at Freeport.
COSTELLO: Well, we're going to have continuing problems getting Karl.
Chad, how strong are the winds in the Bahamas right now?
MYERS: You know, Carol, somewhere around 35 miles an hour. The wind gusts around the storm itself not all that close to Florida at this potion in time and they're still moving there. There's a little stationary front that's moving through Florida and parts of southeastern Georgia, so even the temperatures in Miami today are going to be 91. And this is what we talked about with Charley.
Today, the Florida coast is absolutely a beautiful day. Think if you were a sailor 200, 300 years ago leaving for a shipment into Spain, you would have no idea that a category four hurricane was out there. Certainly not something that is as large almost as the Bahamas. And it's just one of those things where the day before a hurricane usually looks really great. Sailors used to set out and then their boats, obviously, used to crash.
And same this is going on here. A beautiful day, probably, in most of Freeport until it starts going downhill around 6:00 or 7:00 this afternoon. And a great day across the Florida beaches. Some rip currents and some rip tides though, may not be a great idea to get in the water but lots of sunshine.
COSTELLO: Bizarre, isn't it? Thank you -- Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: All right, we're going to try to get Karl Penhaul back. We haven't managed to do that yet. Are we going to the Jeanne Moos package now? We are not going to do that. Where are we going? We're going to go to a break. We're going to try to get it together. This is DAYBREAK. You stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Welcome back to DAYBREAK. At the Republican National Convention, thousands of protesters are wearing their feelings on their sleeves, their backs, their chests, not to mention their unmentionables.
CNN's Jeanne Moos takes a look at their underlying message.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They turn the body into a billboard that sometimes goes overboard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No more Bush. No more Bush.
MOOS: The T-shirts in New York this week were enough to encourage literacy, fight plaque, not Iraq.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would rather spend time in the bathroom with a toothbrush than you know fighting a war.
MOOS: There's no question the anti-Bush T-shirts were meaner. This seemingly incomprehensible one folds into something a little too comprehensible. And then there is Texas homegrown dope.
(on camera): Planting instructions: using a silver spoon, plant in shallow hole.
(voice-over): But the anti-Kerry crowd likewise had a laugh.
(LAUGHTER)
MOOS: With flip flopping ketchup completely free of all substance.
We glimpsed an anti-Kerry shirt calling him Osama's man. But most jives were gentle, John who? And then there was I'm with Arnold. No, that's not Arnold she's with, this Arnold.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is because I'm in the California delegation and we support Arnold.
MOOS: The Republicans turn the Democrat's symbol against them, while the Democrats turn President Bush's axis of evil phrase against him. But T-shirts pale compared to...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Panties with a purpose.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which side are you on? The panty lines are drawn.
MOOS: A group that calls itself Axis of Eve held what it called a mass flash.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The metaphor of exposure, that this is a president who has lied to the American people.
MOOS: But the panties are so risque that the only one we can risk is weapon of mass seduction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can't do this one either.
MOOS (on camera): No.
(voice-over): The group guesses it's sold around $50,000 worth of panties in three months. The NYPD didn't bother to go undercover at this underwear protest.
MOOS (on camera): Safe to assume this is not for personal use.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
MOOS (voice-over): But who needs panties when you're a 7-month- old Republican decked out in elephants and diapers.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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