Return to Transcripts main page
Lou Dobbs Tonight
White House Wants Tougher Measures Against Illegal Aliens Abandoned in Congress; Another Mount St. Helens Eruption Could Be Imminent; Interview with Graydon Carter, author of "What We've Lost"
Aired October 04, 2004 - 18:00 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.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Is the Bush administration serious about border security and enforcement of immigration laws? The White House tells House Republicans to abandon proposals for much tougher measures against illegal aliens. Critics say the White House objections could make it easier for terrorists to operate in this country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEMARY JENKS, NUMBERS USA: If any illegal aliens can enter this country, so can terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Senator Kerry has closed the gap with President Bush in the latest opinion polls. Senator Kerry and President Bush open new fronts in their attacks on one another's policies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've lowered taxes, and my opponent wants to raise taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This president is making the wrong choice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: And tonight, a sweeping indictment of President Bush by one of this country's leading magazine editors. "Vanity Fair" editor Graydon Carter is the author of "What We've Lost." He's my guest tonight.
And a new eruption of steam and ash from Mount St. Helens. Scientists say an eruption could be imminent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When that magma gets to the surface, the gas within it will drive the eruption.
(END VIDEO CLIP) DOBBS: Tonight, volcanologist Charles Mandeville of the American Museum of Natural History is my guest.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, October 4. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening.
Tonight, the White House is demanding that House Republicans abandon their proposals for tough new measures against illegal aliens. The White House apparently wants Congress to remove all provisions in the new intelligence bill that would prevent illegal aliens from obtaining U.S. driver's licenses. Anti-terrorism experts say those House proposals would also help stop radical Islamist terrorists from launching more attacks in this country.
Lisa Sylvester reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The House Republican leadership has offered a sweeping bill that would reform the nation's immigration system.
It would restrict the use of foreign issued consular cards, set national standards for driver's licenses, increase the number of border agents and would expedite the deportation of illegal aliens who have entered the United States in the past five years.
They're provisions that would seal off the border to terrorists and shut the door on illegal aliens.
JENKS: If any illegal aliens can enter this country, so can terrorists. We can't distinguish between the two. We can't leave the borders open for illegal aliens and close them for terrorists.
SYLVESTER: But the White House has made it clear, it wants the House Republican leadership to remove the immigration provisions from the final House 9/11 bill.
Sources say the White House in particular wants stripped the driver's license standard and the restrictions on the consular card, saying, quote, "It's not a place they want to go."
DAN STEIN, FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM: If this administration guts these provisions, it's going to demonstrate to the whole country that they're not serious when it comes to actually determining who people are and in developing the documentary structures and the efficient immigration control system to finally get this nation's borders under control.
SYLVESTER: Pro-immigration groups argue the House language goes beyond the scope of the 9/11 commission report.
JEANNE BUTTERFIELD, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAW FOUNDATION: It doesn't reform in a good way our immigration laws. It merely piles in some measures that immigration restrictionists have long had on their agenda.
SYLVESTER: But the 9/11 commission report does call on the federal government to set standards for identification documents and to implement a system to know who is coming into the country. The commission left it up to Congress to work out details.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: The 9/11 commission members are worried that the immigration provisions could derail efforts to pass the bill in the House. So, last week, they held a news conference, asking that the immigration provisions be removed as well. So far, the House Republican leadership is holding firm, intent on passing a 9/11 bill that will make the country safer -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lisa Sylvester.
Thank you very much.
All of this coming on a year in which an estimated three million illegal aliens will enter the country.
President Bush today focused on tax cuts as he campaigned in the battleground state of Iowa. President Bush signed his fourth tax cut in four years in a ceremony in Des Moines. The bill extends tax breaks for individual taxpayers and revives another set of tax incentives for business.
White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reports -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, as you know, President Bush lost the State of Iowa by just 1 percentage point to Gore four years ago. They are adamant that that is not going to happen again.
The president using his 17th visit to this state to tout his fourth tax cut package in the last four years to effect 94 million Americans, a big victory for the Bush administration. The president certainly hoping to capitalize off of this in the final weeks of the election.
Now what this is -- it's a $146 billion tax cut package that was approved by Congress last month. It would extend the child tax credit of $1,000 for five years, allow more taxpayers' income to be taxed at 10 percent, the lowest rate, for six years, and also protect couples against the so-called marriage penalty tax. It's all a part of the president's economic plan, his policy that the president argues is turning the economy around.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: ... believe we passed since 2001 has helped our economy overcome a lot of challenges -- a stock market decline, a recession, terrorist attacks and war.
By extending key portions of that tax relief, we will leave close to $50 billion next year in the hands of the people who earned it, and that money will help keep the economy moving forward and result in even more new jobs for American workers.
This act of Congress is essential, but it's only a start.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now the Kerry campaign shot back saying that this is only going to increase the federal deficit. Kerry has proposed to roll back the tax cuts for those who are making more than $200,000 to better prepare for health care and education programs.
The president says that he believes that Kerry will extend it beyond those high-income earners. Both of the candidates, as you can imagine, Lou, of course, pushing for their economic plans in preparation for Friday's debate-- Lou.
DOBBS: You know, Suzanne, I can't imagine that at all!
Suzanne Malveaux, our White House correspondent.
Thank you.
Senator John Kerry tomorrow will be campaigning in Iowa. Today, Senator Kerry was in New Hampshire where he attacked President Bush on the issue of stem cell research. Senator Kerry accused President Bush of ignoring science that could help millions of people.
Frank Buckley reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: The next president of the United States, Senator John Kerry.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator John Kerry appeared with actor Michael J. Fox who suffers from Parkinson's disease, as Kerry took up the hottest social values issue of the campaign, stem cell research.
KERRY: When it comes to stem cell research, this president is making the wrong choice to sacrifice science for extreme right-wing ideology, and that's unacceptable.
BUCKLEY: Bush campaign officials point out the president was the first to fund any stem cell research, but federal funding was limited to existing stem cell lines, and critics say those limits have hindered potential breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and juvenile diabetes.
FOX: He decided to allow it to go forward, but he so restricted the stem cell lines available to us that it was kind of like he gave us a car and no gas and congratulated himself for giving us the car.
BUCKLEY: Kerry says he would expand the stem cell research and fund it with at least $100 million a year. KERRY: Right now, some of the most pioneering treatments that could transform lives are at our fingertips, but they're being withheld from people and they remain beyond our reach. I think that's the wrong choice for America's families.
BUCKLEY: As the Massachusetts senator stumped on the subject in New Hampshire, his campaign released a TV ad on stem cell research.
KERRY: It's time to lift the political barriers blocking the stem cell research that could treat or cure diseases like Parkinson's.
BUCKLEY: The double-barreled approach reflecting an increasing coordination between ad buys and candidate Kerry's daily activities, Kerry's strategists believing this particular issue is one that appeals to voters across party lines. Polling suggests a majority of Americans support stem cell research.
Later, Senator Kerry went to Philadelphia where he met with religious leaders on his way to Iowa and later to Colorado for debate prep in preparation for Friday's debate.
(on camera): As for the new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, Kerry advisers say it indicates the senator benefited from the debate last Thursday, but they're quick to point out that this race is far from over. On this, they agree with their Bush campaign counterparts. The race is going to be close right up to Election Day.
Frank Buckley, CNN, Hampton, New Hampshire.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: The vice presidential candidates today prepared for their one and only face-to-face showdown. Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards will deliver their presentations at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland tomorrow evening. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows voters divided as to which candidate they expect to do a better job.
John King is covering the Cheney campaign. Candy Crowley is covering the Edwards campaign. Both, naturally, in Cleveland tonight.
We begin with you, John King.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, Vice President Cheney preparing over the weekend at his home in Wyoming. He comes in here with a double-barreled mission. The Bush campaign concedes it did lose momentum after last week's presidential debate.
Vice President Cheney will continue what we saw today from the president, a new double-barreled administration strategy, a tax Senator John Kerry saying he would raise taxes and hurt the economy.
And also, Vice President Cheney, we are told, will repeatedly try to draw Americans back to what he will say are the vital lessons of September 11. Perhaps you might disagree with the war on Iraq, Mr. Cheney has been preparing to say, but this president will deal with any threats, Mr. Cheney will say, if he sees them around the world in the post-9/11 world.
They are hoping to inspire again confidence in the president's leadership ability in the broader war on terror, and, Lou, they also hope that sitting next to John Edwards, the Bush-Cheney campaign today calling him the senator with the golden tongue and a trial lawyer with a great deal of debating experience.
But they are hoping as Americans see this vice president side by side with a man who has served less than one term in the United States Senate that Americans also will say that Vice President Dick Cheney has far more experience, far better judgment, the Bush campaign hopes, to assume the presidency, if that were necessary.
So attacks on Senator Kerry's record, both on national security and on taxes, and the Bush campaign also hoping that, when you see the generational contrast between the two vice presidential candidates, they might benefit from that as well -- Lou.
DOBBS: John, thank you very much.
John King with the Cheney campaign.
And now let's turn to Candy Crowley covering Senator Edwards -- Candy.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: What the Edwards group wants to get out of this is to take what they admit is Cheney's edge on experience and turn it against him.
They have spent the past couple of weeks -- even before that, Lou -- looking in to Dick Cheney's record as a congressman and as secretary of defense during the first Gulf War. They believe that are there many things in there, many statements that they have pulled out that they intend to bring up to Dick Cheney and compare them with his positions today.
They also believe that Cheney does have a tendency to have a dark side, as they put it. They believe he doesn't have that sort of sunny disposition that can come across in a debate.
Now, despite the fact that last time around when Dick Cheney was debating Senator Joe Lieberman, everyone thought that was a very friendly, very civil debate across the table, the Kerry campaign looks at that debate and says that basically Cheney ripped Lieberman's heart out. So they believe that Cheney will be very tough, and they believe that their guy will stand up and look very good up against that.
The other thing they want to use is Ohio itself, the setting. There are a number of things, including unemployment here, one of the highest in the country under George Bush, and health care. Those are the things that, while they are here, they might as well campaign on. So expect to hear that in the debate tomorrow night -- Lou.
DOBBS: Candy, thank you very much.
Candy Crowley also reporting from Cleveland tonight. Turning now to the war in Iraq, two American soldiers have been killed in combat. The military said insurgents shot those soldiers at a checkpoint yesterday.
In Baghdad today, at least 21 people were killed in two car bomb attacks. Those bombs exploded near one of the entrances to the so- called green zone, the heavily-guarded government area. No American troops were among those casualties.
Elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. aircraft again attacked suspected insurgent positions in Fallujah. Hospital officials said at least eight people were killed in those strikes.
Coming up next, Mount St. Helens blowing up more steam on her way to what could be a much larger eruption. I'll be joined by volcanologist Charles Mandeville of the American Museum of Natural History. He'll tell us what we should be expecting, what we're likely to see.
Also tonight, a startling lack of security puts the military food supply and the nation as a whole at risk. We'll have that shocking report for you.
And NASA, lost in space? Extended delays and skyrocketing costs plaguing the world's leader in space exploration. Can we remain the leader in space? We'll have that special report coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In Broken Borders tonight, disturbing new concerns about the millions of illegal aliens in this country and what some see as a potential threat to national security. Investigators in Texas discovered that illegal aliens are working for a company that supplies food to our military forces in Iraq.
Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Texas factory that feeds our troops literally. Wornick makes MREs, meals ready to eat, by the million.
MICHAEL SHELBY, U.S. ATTORNEY: This is literally the lifeblood of what our armed forces operates on in a hostile environment.
VILES: So investigators were shocked when an al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan indicated terrorists had their eye on this factory in McAllen Texas.
SHELBY: If you're al Qaeda and you want to figure out how to disable an entire division, you cannot take on an entire U.S. division and win in this world. I don't care what country you're from. You cannot engage a U.S. military action and expect to win. But if you've figured out a way to poison those individuals, you could absolutely accomplish what your military couldn't accomplish in 100 years. VILES: A lengthy investigation found no evidence that no MREs were poisoned or sabotaged, but it did find other troubling problems: illegal aliens working at the factory under false names. An indictment late last week found 10 workers were hired at the plant using false Social Security numbers. Nine are illegal aliens from Mexico.
The temporary help firm that hired them, Remedy Intelligence Staffing, was also indicted. The company last week pled not guilty.
The same day, the same prosecutors announced they had rounded up 41 illegals working at a shipyard 55 miles away in Brownsville. The troubling similarity? Those illegal aliens were also working on sensitive government contracts relating to national security.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: That Brownsville investigation continues. No employers have been charged there. The prosecutor down in Texas, Michael Shelby, says in both cases it's clear what's behind this, the pursuit of short-term profits at the expense, Lou, of national security -- Lou.
DOBBS: And in both cases, even though it goes to the very issue of national security, the fact is the United States government is not enforcing immigration laws nor discouraging employers from attracting those people who simply want to improve their lives, in most cases.
VILES: Certainly not on a national level, although this prosecutor said he did want to send that message to employers everywhere. They're responsible for verifying, not just getting the forms, but verifying that it's true what these people say when they apply for jobs.
DOBBS: Peter Viles.
Thank you very much for that concerning report.
That brings us to the subject of tonight's poll. The question: Do you believe illegal immigration should be one of the principle issues discussed by President Bush and Senator Kerry? Yes or no. Cast your vote at cnn.com/lou. We'll bring you the results later in the broadcast.
New volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens today, raising concerns the volcano could erupt at any moment. A large plume of steam and ash began rising from Mount St. Helens this morning 10,000 feet into the air, shortly before 10:00 a.m. local time. It was the second such eruption since last Friday.
Joining me now is Charles Mandeville. Charles is volcanologist at the American Museum of Natural History.
And it's good to have you with us.
This is an extraordinary site to be watching, Mount St. Helens and these -- what appears to be the preliminary stages leading up to an eruption. Do you expect to see here an imminent eruption as well?
CHARLES MANDEVILLE, VOLCANOLOGIST: Possibly. The signs, certainly with the seismicity and with the type of seismic events that we're see in many of the volcanoes, suggests that magma is involved here. So far, it hasn't manifested itself at the surface, but that may be coming within the next couple of weeks.
DOBBS: As coincidence would have it, I had the opportunity to fly over Mount St. Helens in the weeks leading up to the main eruption, was there when about a 25,000-foot eruption took place. That is startling. Boulders the sizes of garages flying through the air. That's just a steam and ash eruption. How strong an eruption are you expecting?
MANDEVILLE: Well, relative to the 1980 eruption, which put out about .2 cubic kilometers of material, these eruptions, it's -- so far, the seismic data is suggesting that we're dealing with shallow seismic events, no deep earthquakes like in the 1980 activity which spanned from 22 kilometers all the way up to four kilometers in depth, and so I think we're looking at...
DOBBS: You're saying down 22 kilometers.
MANDEVILLE: That depth. Correct.
DOBBS: So that would be -- let me figure that out quickly -- 13, 14 miles deep.
MANDEVILLE: Thirteen or 14 miles deep.
DOBBS: And with this activity that's going on, you said .2...
MANDEVILLE: .2 cubic kilometers.
DOBBS: And how much -- can you give -- and for those of us who cannot imagine volume on kilometers or 10ths of kilometers, can you give us a sense of the scale of that eruption then?
MANDEVILLE: Yes, that would probably cover, you know, most of the states of, you know, Oregon, Washington, Idaho.
DOBBS: Which, in point of fact, it did with pumice and ash.
MANDEVILLE: With pumice and ash.
DOBBS: Right. So, as we look at what's happening there now -- warnings have been put out. They moved the perimeter of access to Mount St. Helens -- shallow seismic activity -- is there any relationship between what is happening because, as I understand it, last week's initial seismic activity was tectonic in nature. That is, plates coming together, fault lines moving. There were also seismic activity earthquakes in central California. Is there any prospect that, any likelihood that those are related events?
MANDEVILLE: We're seeing plate tectonic activity in California, but those events that are occurring beneath Mount St. Helens are really probably due to magma movement than rock failure at depths, typically on the order of about three kilometers or about a mile-and- a-half down.
DOBBS: Now this dome has risen now, we're told, well over 50 feet, some estimates a little higher, but we know well over 50 feet, which is remarkable, this giant crater, the dome rising up. How high do you expect it to get before there is a literal magma eruption?
MANDEVILLE: Well, to put it in perspective, in 1980, we had a swelling on the order of about 450 feet on part of the bulge at the summit of the volcano or roughly about 140 meters. So we've been seeing 50 to 100 feet and then pressure released through the steam plumes, which have been erupted. So I don't think we've seen evidence for a large volume of magma at that depth yet.
DOBBS: But you and every vulcanologist in the country, I am sure, will be keeping a close eye and watch for all of us. We thank you very much.
Charles Mandeville.
MANDEVILLE: Thank you.
DOBBS: American Museum of Natural History.
Still ahead here, victory in the race for a highly coveted space prize. Why the breakthrough through private space couldn't come at a better time for NASA -- or perhaps a worst time.
And then, new tactics in the presidential campaign. How the candidates are trying to score early in a critical week. We'll be talking with three of the country's top political journalists next.
And then, "What We've Lost." It's a new book by "Vanity Fair"'s editor Graydon Carter, and he blasts the Bush administration. Graydon Carter is my guest.
All of that and a great deal more still ahead here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues. Here now for more news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Election Day is four weeks from tomorrow, and a new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds this presidential race a statistical dead heat. This week is critical in this election. The vice presidential candidates debate tomorrow in the battleground state of Ohio. The presidential candidates meet for their second so-called debate Friday.
And joining me now to assess the contest and the campaign, three of the country's best political journalists: from Washington, Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent, "TIME" magazine; Roger Simon, political editor, "U.S. News & World Report"; and joining me here in New York, Marcus Mabry, chief of correspondent, "NEWSWEEK" magazine.
Good to have you all here.
Karen, let's begin. This poll is remarkable in that it shows basically these two candidates, after the president was enjoying a significant lead, in a dead heat. This all off of a debate?
KAREN TUMULTY, "TIME": A lot of it is off the debate, but the fact is that it basically brings this race back to where it's been up until the last month. I think that these polls basically reflect what has been probably all along the underlying state of this race.
Every now and then, you have an event -- the Republican Convention, the swift boat ads -- that throws things off for a few weeks, but it just keeps coming back to these very close numbers.
DOBBS: And your magazine had similar results in its poll. I can't recall a time when we saw this kind of bounce, if, indeed, this is the reason -- it's a little mysterious how we draw these causal relationships -- but this kind of bounce off a debate performance.
MARCUS MABRY, "NEWSWEEK": Well, it's pretty unprecedented. It's not exactly as dramatic as, you know, the effect the debate had of the Nixon-Kennedy debate, but, you know, it's coming in that kind of class of reaction.
What's extraordinary is -- and Karen's exactly right -- you know, this is exactly, I think, where the country has been, and most, you know, political observers, most pollsters think this is where the country has been from the beginning of this campaign.
The interesting thing is, however, if John Kerry had not performed well on Thursday night, what we all would be talking about today is the fact that when this race is over, it's inevitable that the president will win.
The fact that Kerry performed well, plus -- and this is the other outside factor, Lou -- Iraq -- it's gotten worse and worse, and you're showing it everyday on your program. You're showing it today. Everyone's showing it. Everyone's seen the newspapers. It's in American living rooms. That does not reflect well on the president. It doesn't help his chances of reelection.
DOBBS: Roger, your thoughts on this? And then we'll move on beyond polls, but to see this kind of tightening -- did it surprise you? Does it surprise you?
ROGER SIMON, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": No, I thought there would be some tightening. I wouldn't go too crazy for any one poll. I'm told the ABC News/"Washington Post" poll out tonight will show a 5 point race in Bush's favor, which is where the Bush people have said all along the race is. So basically who knows? I have just a general feeling as the other two ...
DOBBS: Roger Simon, an honest man, if there ever were one. SIMON: I mean, I just have the general feeling, as I think both Marcus and Karen have said, that the race has tightened. Where it is, I don't think we're going to know and I don't think it's important to know. The election isn't until November 2, and these polls will ping pong in a variety directions probably until then.
DOBBS: Iraq -- but then as Marcus is suggesting as we're all reporting and dealing with all of the difficulties in Iraq. We watched a debate last week on foreign policy in which China was not even mentioned by either candidate nor was it mentioned by the moderator. Are we really going down a peculiar road here on these debates in which there's no comprehensiveness to the issue and no real engagement on debate? Or do you think this format working, Karen Tumulty?
TUMULTY: Well, I think quite frankly that when the country is at war, when you have had more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in the last year and a half, it's hard for any other foreign policy issue to intrude just because this is so overwhelming, this is so dominating, the debate. I think where you see China and some of these other issues coming in is more likely to be in the domestic debates and possibly this Friday night when the candidates have the town hall format, when individual citizens will be allowed to ask questions. Because these issues will only intrude as they come in and people talk about how their own lives are being affected.
DOBBS: Well, Roger, the idea that Iraq is dominating, tomorrow the vice presidential candidates are going to go at it in Cleveland. Are you expecting one candidate or another as we go into that to have a decided edge, the vice president or Senator Edwards?
SIMON: The vice president is the more experienced debater. He's done a vice presidential debate before. John Edwards' peoples are quick to point out that he has never done any kind of debate in any of his campaign before. But I think they expect him as an experienced trial lawyer who's used to arguing to do very well indeed.
DOBBS: Should we take up a collection for the senator, Roger, as he tries to work his way through as a wordsmith?
SIMON: If he deserved it, he doesn't need the money so no collections are necessary! I suspect that it's going be a very vigorous debate, although I don't think either one of these guys wants to be snarling. There is -- at a point in which you can turn off the public if the debates get too negative.
DOBBS: Too negative and as Roger alluded, the reason obviously Senator Edwards doesn't need the collection, he was a very successful trial lawyer. Marcus, this debate format tomorrow, do you believe these two, if Roger's right, will be constrained and civil? Is the public really being served here where men are not allowed or if there were a woman president, to go at these issues doggedly with great freedom instead of all of this constraint? This seems in a time when we need maximum freedom of expression not constraint.
MABRY: That's probably true, Lou. But the fact is politics in America are what they are. And the place we turn and the place the American public turns to see politics that are not -- that are intemperate and immoderate is actually cable news world and where they find commentators who basically speak to right or left and who are men and women are great passion but not of great reason. What we saw in that debate were two men...
DOBBS: Wait a minute, Marcus. I have to take exception to that. Intemperate and immoderate. The fact of the matter is people are trying to speak plainly. This is a period of time in our history when frankly both political parties and just about everyone else involved in what is a corporately dominated media are trying to constrain and separate as broadly as they can word and language from meaning and truth.
MABRY: I disagree, Lou because we may be thinking about different people here. I'm talking about most popular commentators on the various cable news channels. I think -- Senator John McCain is one of those people who actually does speak with reason and speaks with moderation and reason. I think he's the kind of example. There are very few John McCains out there in the world right now.
TUMULTY: But might I add that I think that one of the things that was really shown in this last debate was I think that the president suffered because it has been not -- not because the format but because it's been so long since he's really been put in front of real questions. A real challenge. And I think that in situations like this and particularly when you're the president or the vice president, you almost lose your muscle tone if you're not put into situations regularly where you are actually challenged.
SIMON: And the president did not do particularly well in his last two press conferences when the questioning was reasonable tough. Most memorably at his formal East Room press conference when he was asked to name a single mistake he'd ever made and there was that long pause and he said, basically I will have to get back to you on that one. His rallies, as Karen has pointed out are...
DOBBS: Karen and Roger, we should say that Senator Kerry should have said, he'll get back to people on the blank response to the question as well. The fact of the matter is I take your point. But this is a president running for re-election. No excuses, no tears, isn't it, Karen?
TUMULTY: I think that's right and I think we're going to see the president try to rectify this mistake in the next debate.
DOBBS: All right, Karen Tumulty, Roger Simon, Marcus, thank you very much for being here with me in New York here, Marcus.
MABRY: Absolutely. You could have reached across from...
DOBBS: We'll get to that next week. But we're trying to constrain certain aspects of freedom of expression. Watch that stuff and moderate and intemperate. Good grief!
Taking a look at some of your thoughts on the new tax cut bill President Bush signed today.
Susan Riccio of Middlesex, New Jersey: "Tax relief is good but first you need a job. My husband's high tech job was outsourced to India working for so much less, the tax relief does not yield the intended benefit anyway."
And L. Rathbone in Manhattan, Kansas. "Lou, President Bush said people are better at spending their own money than the government. Considering that we have a $7.4 trillion national debt, it seems almost anyone would be better at spending money."
And on exporting America. Maureen Reid of Boca Raton, Florida asks, "when are America CEOs going to realize that the term copyright to China and India means the right to copy whatever they like."
Send us your thoughts at loudobbs@CNN.com. Send us your name and address with each e-mail. Each of you whose e-mail is read on this broadcast receives a free copy of my new book "Exporting America."
Coming up next here, sharp criticism of President Bush from one of the country's leading magazine editors "Vanity Fair" editor Graydon Carter will join me to talk about his new book "What We've Lost."
Also ahead. Exporting America. Why American companies could soon be exporting American jobs to Russia as well as India and China, and the list goes on unfortunately.
And new troubles for NASA. The shuttle program (UNINTELLIGIBLE) woefully. Of course the delays have lengthened. We'll have a special report on a space program in trouble. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: My next guest is the author of a new book that is highly critical of the Bush administration and that's something of an understatement. Graydon Carter says this country has lost its way under the leadership of George W. Bush. His book is entitled "What We've Lost, How the Bush Administration Has Curtailed our Freedom, Mortgaged our Economy, Ravaged our Environment and Damaged our Standing in the World." Other than that you can put Graydon Carter down as undecided in this election. He's the editor-in-chief of "Vanity Fair" magazine and joins us here.
This book has -- I think, probably is without question in my opinion, the best recount of, by the numbers, a section that you put in the book. I found it fascinating. It's decimating of course to the Bush campaign but I would think cheer the Kerry campaign. Is this really, in your judgment, a manifesto for John Kerry to be elected, or is it simply a manifesto not to elect George Bush?
GRAYDON CARTER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "VANITY FAIR": Well, I sort of put it together as basically a report card of the first -- or the first four years of the Bush administration. Under all the categories that an administration can look after, whether it's the environment or health care or our reputation, the two wars we've launched. Homeland security. The economy. And basically you grade them on each one of these areas, and you get a lot of F's and D's from this administration. It has not been a good period for America, and the Iraq war was the worst thing -- the worst aspect of the entire administration's program.
DOBBS: I thought, frankly, that you put a great deal on George Bush, as you should, since he is the president of the United States, but for me, one of the most -- to me the pivotal moment of the events leading up to, irrespective of what one considers the ideological framework or the strategic framework, or the issue of weapons of mass destruction was the February 5 United Nations appearance of Colin Powell, with George Tenet sitting off of his shoulder.
You give Colin Powell light treatment there.
CARTER: Well, I think Colin Powell was playing along. I think if you are a member of the administration, you have to go along with kind of the majority. And if you've got a vice president and the president who are moving in this direction, I think it's very difficult to maintain your job and not go along with them. And I think the country's probably better off having Colin Powell in the job, as a moderate force in that administration.
DOBBS: The reason I bring it up, it was in that he enumerated each of the biological mobile laboratories. There was great certainty about the explanation of all of it is the reason I bring it up.
I think one of best treatments that you do is on the environment, in which you -- the recitation of the failures, the failures make it sound as if it's simply misfeasance. It's far more aggressive than that.
CARTER: No, no, from the first day they went into office, the administration has worked to roll back 30 years worth of environmental protections. Some 200 environmental laws have been either rolled back or eliminated altogether, and it covers all kinds of areas of American public health and American public parks. It is almost -- because partly, the oil, logging and gas industries are -- were the largest campaign contributors to the Republican Party in the 2000 election, and they're getting a great payback from it, from this administration.
DOBBS: I thought that, frankly, in terms of the No Child Left Behind, in terms of education, I personally hold both parties so responsible for the state of public education. But on a nonpartisan basis, let me say, your indictment of the administration's fascination, enthusiasm for vouchers -- the vouchers system to replace the public education system in this country, I had to cheer.
But what I don't hear is the commitment from either one of these candidates to public education. There's all sorts of lip service paid to No Child Left Behind from both parties. The fact is, we have a horrible situation in our public schools, and we need a -- we need a commitment to public education. Do you hear that from Senator Kerry? You also mentioned free trade...
CARTER: Well, first of all, education is largely a local matter, but the No Child Left Behind thing, it sounds great in its concept. You know, holding schools to higher standards, holding teachers to higher standards. But the Bush administration demanded this of all of these local municipalities without giving them any money to -- or anywhere near enough money...
DOBBS: Near enough, right.
CARTER: ... to actually meet those goals.
DOBBS: The funding...
CARTER: It was a very clever, underhanded way of gradually getting the voucher system going, but just enough money that children can be sent to, not to private schools but to religious schools.
DOBBS: And religious schools, as you point out, are costing quite a bit less than public schools in many cases, to fund, to operate.
Going to the issue of the economy, free trade. You hit this administration harder, and I think personally, appropriately. You failed to hit, however, the Clinton administration appropriately, in my judgment.
CARTER: I wasn't writing about the Clinton administration.
DOBBS: I know you weren't.
CARTER: That is somebody else's job.
DOBBS: But fact is, as the saying goes there, there is so much responsibility for failures of policy in this country. Whether it be economics, whether it be free trade. It's very difficult, except for a partisan, and as you're certainly an energetic...
CARTER: In a sense, somewhere, but you know.
DOBBS: Exactly. But the fact is there are voters out there who are not being represented right now, the middle class, who can't find a sensibly policy in Congress to represent their interests, whether it's in free trade, whether it's in education. What in the world -- as you step back from your very good book, and a real indictment of the Bush administration, and partisan as it can be, do you have a sense of what has to be done to get this country back on its course?
CARTER: I just -- I actually don't. I'm not a politician. But I do think that the -- as you say, the middle class has been left out of all of this. Their health care is going to go up. Their education system is not going to improve. I think they feel slightly disenfranchised. You lose manufacturing jobs, you rarely ever get them back again. And I think that the -- but the government, the administration has used fear as a great tool for these people. Because it is -- the politics of fear have dictated this election right up until the debates the other night. It was never about any kind of issue. It was like, does this man make you feel safe? Does this man make you feel unsafe? Do you like this man? Do you dislike this man? And there were really no issues until last week. And now all of a sudden, I think when people -- when they start going through the domestic issues, I think people realize, my God, it's not the greatest situation in the world.
DOBBS: Graydon Carter, author of "What We've Lost," thank you very much. A terrific read. And I can say this, Democrats will love this book. I think Republicans, it's safe to say, will hate it.
CARTER: Maybe.
DOBBS: But perhaps there is room to think as a result of what you have written.
CARTER: I hope.
DOBBS: I certainly do. Thank you very much, Graydon.
CARTER: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Still ahead here, a surprising new destination for American jobs. We'll tell you how another massive cheap overseas labor market is attracting American jobs, just what we needed. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In "Exporting America" tonight, a new outsourcing giant trying to emerge as more American jobs are being shipped to cheap overseas labor markets. The new outsourcing giant is Russia, or at least it wants to be. Russia's half a billion dollars in software exports don't compare to India's estimated $10 billion. But Russia will likely close the gap within the next five years. Ryan Chilcote reports from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some of Russia's brightest minds are quietly programming their way into jobs outsourced from the United States and Western Europe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been doubling the size of the company every year.
CHILCOTE: In just four years in the outsourcing market, Luxoft has designed business software for the likes of Boeing, Microsoft, Dell, IBM and a lot of other corporations that insist their Russian partner not identify them.
Managements says the high quality and low cost of their programs overpower concerns about its consequences to the American labor market.
This American even joined them.
ROBERT MORRISON, MARKETING MANAGER, LUXOFT: If the Americans don't take advantage of this model, which is more efficient and gives companies more flexibility and cost savings, then someone else will. CHILCOTE: Luxoft says its Russian programmers get an average of $12,000 a year, one-fifth what a standard American programmer makes. The next step, getting those Russian programmers to work like their Western corporate counterparts.
DMITRY LOSCHININ, LUXOFT CEO: We're trying to cultivate Western culture here for our clients.
CHILCOTE: Bridging the communication gap is done using new, Western approaches. These Luxoft employees are practicing teamwork, a leadership program in the woods outside of Moscow. It was all paid for by Dell, the emphasis on the goals. Luxoft rents space at a research institute where the Soviets secretly designed part of their atomic bomb half a century go.
Luxoft has inherited some of that scientific culture characterized by innovation and security. A few years back, Luxoft says one of its employees tried to steal a western client intellectual property but gave it back after, quote, "Negotiations." Their top security official tells me their client's information is now probably at least as safe here as at their client's home office.
(on camera): There may be no end to outsourcing the very beneficiaries of those jobs that are outsourced here to Moscow, may see their jobs outsourced to Russian cities where the programmers are willing to work for even less.
Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: A reminder now to vote in "Tonight's Poll."
Do you believe illegal immigration should be one of the principal issues discussed by President Bush and Senator Kerry, yes or no. Cast your vote at cnn.com/lou. We'll have the results a little later here.
Still ahead, a disappointing announcement from NASA. Why a wave of delayed hurricanes is just the latest in a string of problems for our troubled space agency. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: A milestone tonight in private space travel. SpaceShipOne blasted beyond the earth's atmosphere for the second time in a week. Pilot Brian Binnie, flew the craft to 368,000 feet, returning safely earth with his historic accomplishment. The feat captures the $10 million X-Prize for two manned space flights within 14 days. That money to be presented in a ceremony in November.
The success of SpaceShipOne comes at however a discouraging team for NASA. The space agency just announced it must delay the first space shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster almost 2-years-ago. Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's no question that Hurricanes Frances, Charley and Jeanne left their marks on Cape Canaveral home of NASA's launch site. Even Ivan which threatened before turning away caused work delays in the shuttle's redesign fuel tanks. The damage and the work delays means a planned early spring launch of shuttle is delayed until mid-May, early June.
GEN. MICHAEL KOSTELNIK, NASA: There was very credible window that we were shooting for planning purposes and hoping to make, and we would have stayed on that track had it not been from the hurricanes.
TUCKER: The shuttle program has been grounded since February 2003, after the shuttle Columbia, disintegrated on re-entry, killing the seven astronauts on board. In the eyes of NASA critics weather's only part of a bigger problem. They say NASA is a large government bureaucracies, which is increasingly risk adverse.
EDWARD HUDGINS, CATO INSTITUTE: Of course the irony is that the more they delay, the higher the real costs go, and the more uneconomical the shuttle is shown to be.
TUCKER: In the costs are rising for the shuttle program. Just last month, the head of NASA, Sean O'Keefe, told a Senate panel that the cost of making the shuttle safer will be more than $2 billion, or twice what NASA originally estimated.
(on camera): But even NASA's toughest critics admit that the goals and purposes of the shuttle program are very different from the private programs. One simple difference, SpaceShipOne travels at a speed mach at three. The space shuttle of mach 23 and actually goes into orbit.
Bill Tucker, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Tonight, one of the nation's first astronauts has died. Leroy Gordon Cooper one of the original Mercury 7 died today in his California home at the age of 77. In 1963, Cooper circled the earth 22 times in Faith 7, the last of the Mercury manned space flights. He retired from NASA in 1970. Cooper logged more time in space than all five of the previous Mercury astronauts combined.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results of "Tonight's Poll," 88 percent of you say that illegal aliens -- illegal immigration should be one of the principal issues discussed by President Bush and Senator Kerry, 12 percent do not.
Principal, principal in that instance should be spelled -- P-A-L. We apologize for the error.
Thanks for being with us here tonight. Please join us tomorrow, we will have our spelling caps on, rest assured. For all of us here, good night from New York. "ANDERSON COOPER 360" is next.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 4, 2004 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Is the Bush administration serious about border security and enforcement of immigration laws? The White House tells House Republicans to abandon proposals for much tougher measures against illegal aliens. Critics say the White House objections could make it easier for terrorists to operate in this country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEMARY JENKS, NUMBERS USA: If any illegal aliens can enter this country, so can terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Senator Kerry has closed the gap with President Bush in the latest opinion polls. Senator Kerry and President Bush open new fronts in their attacks on one another's policies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've lowered taxes, and my opponent wants to raise taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This president is making the wrong choice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: And tonight, a sweeping indictment of President Bush by one of this country's leading magazine editors. "Vanity Fair" editor Graydon Carter is the author of "What We've Lost." He's my guest tonight.
And a new eruption of steam and ash from Mount St. Helens. Scientists say an eruption could be imminent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When that magma gets to the surface, the gas within it will drive the eruption.
(END VIDEO CLIP) DOBBS: Tonight, volcanologist Charles Mandeville of the American Museum of Natural History is my guest.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, October 4. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening.
Tonight, the White House is demanding that House Republicans abandon their proposals for tough new measures against illegal aliens. The White House apparently wants Congress to remove all provisions in the new intelligence bill that would prevent illegal aliens from obtaining U.S. driver's licenses. Anti-terrorism experts say those House proposals would also help stop radical Islamist terrorists from launching more attacks in this country.
Lisa Sylvester reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The House Republican leadership has offered a sweeping bill that would reform the nation's immigration system.
It would restrict the use of foreign issued consular cards, set national standards for driver's licenses, increase the number of border agents and would expedite the deportation of illegal aliens who have entered the United States in the past five years.
They're provisions that would seal off the border to terrorists and shut the door on illegal aliens.
JENKS: If any illegal aliens can enter this country, so can terrorists. We can't distinguish between the two. We can't leave the borders open for illegal aliens and close them for terrorists.
SYLVESTER: But the White House has made it clear, it wants the House Republican leadership to remove the immigration provisions from the final House 9/11 bill.
Sources say the White House in particular wants stripped the driver's license standard and the restrictions on the consular card, saying, quote, "It's not a place they want to go."
DAN STEIN, FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM: If this administration guts these provisions, it's going to demonstrate to the whole country that they're not serious when it comes to actually determining who people are and in developing the documentary structures and the efficient immigration control system to finally get this nation's borders under control.
SYLVESTER: Pro-immigration groups argue the House language goes beyond the scope of the 9/11 commission report.
JEANNE BUTTERFIELD, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAW FOUNDATION: It doesn't reform in a good way our immigration laws. It merely piles in some measures that immigration restrictionists have long had on their agenda.
SYLVESTER: But the 9/11 commission report does call on the federal government to set standards for identification documents and to implement a system to know who is coming into the country. The commission left it up to Congress to work out details.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: The 9/11 commission members are worried that the immigration provisions could derail efforts to pass the bill in the House. So, last week, they held a news conference, asking that the immigration provisions be removed as well. So far, the House Republican leadership is holding firm, intent on passing a 9/11 bill that will make the country safer -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lisa Sylvester.
Thank you very much.
All of this coming on a year in which an estimated three million illegal aliens will enter the country.
President Bush today focused on tax cuts as he campaigned in the battleground state of Iowa. President Bush signed his fourth tax cut in four years in a ceremony in Des Moines. The bill extends tax breaks for individual taxpayers and revives another set of tax incentives for business.
White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reports -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, as you know, President Bush lost the State of Iowa by just 1 percentage point to Gore four years ago. They are adamant that that is not going to happen again.
The president using his 17th visit to this state to tout his fourth tax cut package in the last four years to effect 94 million Americans, a big victory for the Bush administration. The president certainly hoping to capitalize off of this in the final weeks of the election.
Now what this is -- it's a $146 billion tax cut package that was approved by Congress last month. It would extend the child tax credit of $1,000 for five years, allow more taxpayers' income to be taxed at 10 percent, the lowest rate, for six years, and also protect couples against the so-called marriage penalty tax. It's all a part of the president's economic plan, his policy that the president argues is turning the economy around.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: ... believe we passed since 2001 has helped our economy overcome a lot of challenges -- a stock market decline, a recession, terrorist attacks and war.
By extending key portions of that tax relief, we will leave close to $50 billion next year in the hands of the people who earned it, and that money will help keep the economy moving forward and result in even more new jobs for American workers.
This act of Congress is essential, but it's only a start.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now the Kerry campaign shot back saying that this is only going to increase the federal deficit. Kerry has proposed to roll back the tax cuts for those who are making more than $200,000 to better prepare for health care and education programs.
The president says that he believes that Kerry will extend it beyond those high-income earners. Both of the candidates, as you can imagine, Lou, of course, pushing for their economic plans in preparation for Friday's debate-- Lou.
DOBBS: You know, Suzanne, I can't imagine that at all!
Suzanne Malveaux, our White House correspondent.
Thank you.
Senator John Kerry tomorrow will be campaigning in Iowa. Today, Senator Kerry was in New Hampshire where he attacked President Bush on the issue of stem cell research. Senator Kerry accused President Bush of ignoring science that could help millions of people.
Frank Buckley reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: The next president of the United States, Senator John Kerry.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator John Kerry appeared with actor Michael J. Fox who suffers from Parkinson's disease, as Kerry took up the hottest social values issue of the campaign, stem cell research.
KERRY: When it comes to stem cell research, this president is making the wrong choice to sacrifice science for extreme right-wing ideology, and that's unacceptable.
BUCKLEY: Bush campaign officials point out the president was the first to fund any stem cell research, but federal funding was limited to existing stem cell lines, and critics say those limits have hindered potential breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and juvenile diabetes.
FOX: He decided to allow it to go forward, but he so restricted the stem cell lines available to us that it was kind of like he gave us a car and no gas and congratulated himself for giving us the car.
BUCKLEY: Kerry says he would expand the stem cell research and fund it with at least $100 million a year. KERRY: Right now, some of the most pioneering treatments that could transform lives are at our fingertips, but they're being withheld from people and they remain beyond our reach. I think that's the wrong choice for America's families.
BUCKLEY: As the Massachusetts senator stumped on the subject in New Hampshire, his campaign released a TV ad on stem cell research.
KERRY: It's time to lift the political barriers blocking the stem cell research that could treat or cure diseases like Parkinson's.
BUCKLEY: The double-barreled approach reflecting an increasing coordination between ad buys and candidate Kerry's daily activities, Kerry's strategists believing this particular issue is one that appeals to voters across party lines. Polling suggests a majority of Americans support stem cell research.
Later, Senator Kerry went to Philadelphia where he met with religious leaders on his way to Iowa and later to Colorado for debate prep in preparation for Friday's debate.
(on camera): As for the new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, Kerry advisers say it indicates the senator benefited from the debate last Thursday, but they're quick to point out that this race is far from over. On this, they agree with their Bush campaign counterparts. The race is going to be close right up to Election Day.
Frank Buckley, CNN, Hampton, New Hampshire.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: The vice presidential candidates today prepared for their one and only face-to-face showdown. Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards will deliver their presentations at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland tomorrow evening. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows voters divided as to which candidate they expect to do a better job.
John King is covering the Cheney campaign. Candy Crowley is covering the Edwards campaign. Both, naturally, in Cleveland tonight.
We begin with you, John King.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, Vice President Cheney preparing over the weekend at his home in Wyoming. He comes in here with a double-barreled mission. The Bush campaign concedes it did lose momentum after last week's presidential debate.
Vice President Cheney will continue what we saw today from the president, a new double-barreled administration strategy, a tax Senator John Kerry saying he would raise taxes and hurt the economy.
And also, Vice President Cheney, we are told, will repeatedly try to draw Americans back to what he will say are the vital lessons of September 11. Perhaps you might disagree with the war on Iraq, Mr. Cheney has been preparing to say, but this president will deal with any threats, Mr. Cheney will say, if he sees them around the world in the post-9/11 world.
They are hoping to inspire again confidence in the president's leadership ability in the broader war on terror, and, Lou, they also hope that sitting next to John Edwards, the Bush-Cheney campaign today calling him the senator with the golden tongue and a trial lawyer with a great deal of debating experience.
But they are hoping as Americans see this vice president side by side with a man who has served less than one term in the United States Senate that Americans also will say that Vice President Dick Cheney has far more experience, far better judgment, the Bush campaign hopes, to assume the presidency, if that were necessary.
So attacks on Senator Kerry's record, both on national security and on taxes, and the Bush campaign also hoping that, when you see the generational contrast between the two vice presidential candidates, they might benefit from that as well -- Lou.
DOBBS: John, thank you very much.
John King with the Cheney campaign.
And now let's turn to Candy Crowley covering Senator Edwards -- Candy.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: What the Edwards group wants to get out of this is to take what they admit is Cheney's edge on experience and turn it against him.
They have spent the past couple of weeks -- even before that, Lou -- looking in to Dick Cheney's record as a congressman and as secretary of defense during the first Gulf War. They believe that are there many things in there, many statements that they have pulled out that they intend to bring up to Dick Cheney and compare them with his positions today.
They also believe that Cheney does have a tendency to have a dark side, as they put it. They believe he doesn't have that sort of sunny disposition that can come across in a debate.
Now, despite the fact that last time around when Dick Cheney was debating Senator Joe Lieberman, everyone thought that was a very friendly, very civil debate across the table, the Kerry campaign looks at that debate and says that basically Cheney ripped Lieberman's heart out. So they believe that Cheney will be very tough, and they believe that their guy will stand up and look very good up against that.
The other thing they want to use is Ohio itself, the setting. There are a number of things, including unemployment here, one of the highest in the country under George Bush, and health care. Those are the things that, while they are here, they might as well campaign on. So expect to hear that in the debate tomorrow night -- Lou.
DOBBS: Candy, thank you very much.
Candy Crowley also reporting from Cleveland tonight. Turning now to the war in Iraq, two American soldiers have been killed in combat. The military said insurgents shot those soldiers at a checkpoint yesterday.
In Baghdad today, at least 21 people were killed in two car bomb attacks. Those bombs exploded near one of the entrances to the so- called green zone, the heavily-guarded government area. No American troops were among those casualties.
Elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. aircraft again attacked suspected insurgent positions in Fallujah. Hospital officials said at least eight people were killed in those strikes.
Coming up next, Mount St. Helens blowing up more steam on her way to what could be a much larger eruption. I'll be joined by volcanologist Charles Mandeville of the American Museum of Natural History. He'll tell us what we should be expecting, what we're likely to see.
Also tonight, a startling lack of security puts the military food supply and the nation as a whole at risk. We'll have that shocking report for you.
And NASA, lost in space? Extended delays and skyrocketing costs plaguing the world's leader in space exploration. Can we remain the leader in space? We'll have that special report coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In Broken Borders tonight, disturbing new concerns about the millions of illegal aliens in this country and what some see as a potential threat to national security. Investigators in Texas discovered that illegal aliens are working for a company that supplies food to our military forces in Iraq.
Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Texas factory that feeds our troops literally. Wornick makes MREs, meals ready to eat, by the million.
MICHAEL SHELBY, U.S. ATTORNEY: This is literally the lifeblood of what our armed forces operates on in a hostile environment.
VILES: So investigators were shocked when an al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan indicated terrorists had their eye on this factory in McAllen Texas.
SHELBY: If you're al Qaeda and you want to figure out how to disable an entire division, you cannot take on an entire U.S. division and win in this world. I don't care what country you're from. You cannot engage a U.S. military action and expect to win. But if you've figured out a way to poison those individuals, you could absolutely accomplish what your military couldn't accomplish in 100 years. VILES: A lengthy investigation found no evidence that no MREs were poisoned or sabotaged, but it did find other troubling problems: illegal aliens working at the factory under false names. An indictment late last week found 10 workers were hired at the plant using false Social Security numbers. Nine are illegal aliens from Mexico.
The temporary help firm that hired them, Remedy Intelligence Staffing, was also indicted. The company last week pled not guilty.
The same day, the same prosecutors announced they had rounded up 41 illegals working at a shipyard 55 miles away in Brownsville. The troubling similarity? Those illegal aliens were also working on sensitive government contracts relating to national security.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: That Brownsville investigation continues. No employers have been charged there. The prosecutor down in Texas, Michael Shelby, says in both cases it's clear what's behind this, the pursuit of short-term profits at the expense, Lou, of national security -- Lou.
DOBBS: And in both cases, even though it goes to the very issue of national security, the fact is the United States government is not enforcing immigration laws nor discouraging employers from attracting those people who simply want to improve their lives, in most cases.
VILES: Certainly not on a national level, although this prosecutor said he did want to send that message to employers everywhere. They're responsible for verifying, not just getting the forms, but verifying that it's true what these people say when they apply for jobs.
DOBBS: Peter Viles.
Thank you very much for that concerning report.
That brings us to the subject of tonight's poll. The question: Do you believe illegal immigration should be one of the principle issues discussed by President Bush and Senator Kerry? Yes or no. Cast your vote at cnn.com/lou. We'll bring you the results later in the broadcast.
New volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens today, raising concerns the volcano could erupt at any moment. A large plume of steam and ash began rising from Mount St. Helens this morning 10,000 feet into the air, shortly before 10:00 a.m. local time. It was the second such eruption since last Friday.
Joining me now is Charles Mandeville. Charles is volcanologist at the American Museum of Natural History.
And it's good to have you with us.
This is an extraordinary site to be watching, Mount St. Helens and these -- what appears to be the preliminary stages leading up to an eruption. Do you expect to see here an imminent eruption as well?
CHARLES MANDEVILLE, VOLCANOLOGIST: Possibly. The signs, certainly with the seismicity and with the type of seismic events that we're see in many of the volcanoes, suggests that magma is involved here. So far, it hasn't manifested itself at the surface, but that may be coming within the next couple of weeks.
DOBBS: As coincidence would have it, I had the opportunity to fly over Mount St. Helens in the weeks leading up to the main eruption, was there when about a 25,000-foot eruption took place. That is startling. Boulders the sizes of garages flying through the air. That's just a steam and ash eruption. How strong an eruption are you expecting?
MANDEVILLE: Well, relative to the 1980 eruption, which put out about .2 cubic kilometers of material, these eruptions, it's -- so far, the seismic data is suggesting that we're dealing with shallow seismic events, no deep earthquakes like in the 1980 activity which spanned from 22 kilometers all the way up to four kilometers in depth, and so I think we're looking at...
DOBBS: You're saying down 22 kilometers.
MANDEVILLE: That depth. Correct.
DOBBS: So that would be -- let me figure that out quickly -- 13, 14 miles deep.
MANDEVILLE: Thirteen or 14 miles deep.
DOBBS: And with this activity that's going on, you said .2...
MANDEVILLE: .2 cubic kilometers.
DOBBS: And how much -- can you give -- and for those of us who cannot imagine volume on kilometers or 10ths of kilometers, can you give us a sense of the scale of that eruption then?
MANDEVILLE: Yes, that would probably cover, you know, most of the states of, you know, Oregon, Washington, Idaho.
DOBBS: Which, in point of fact, it did with pumice and ash.
MANDEVILLE: With pumice and ash.
DOBBS: Right. So, as we look at what's happening there now -- warnings have been put out. They moved the perimeter of access to Mount St. Helens -- shallow seismic activity -- is there any relationship between what is happening because, as I understand it, last week's initial seismic activity was tectonic in nature. That is, plates coming together, fault lines moving. There were also seismic activity earthquakes in central California. Is there any prospect that, any likelihood that those are related events?
MANDEVILLE: We're seeing plate tectonic activity in California, but those events that are occurring beneath Mount St. Helens are really probably due to magma movement than rock failure at depths, typically on the order of about three kilometers or about a mile-and- a-half down.
DOBBS: Now this dome has risen now, we're told, well over 50 feet, some estimates a little higher, but we know well over 50 feet, which is remarkable, this giant crater, the dome rising up. How high do you expect it to get before there is a literal magma eruption?
MANDEVILLE: Well, to put it in perspective, in 1980, we had a swelling on the order of about 450 feet on part of the bulge at the summit of the volcano or roughly about 140 meters. So we've been seeing 50 to 100 feet and then pressure released through the steam plumes, which have been erupted. So I don't think we've seen evidence for a large volume of magma at that depth yet.
DOBBS: But you and every vulcanologist in the country, I am sure, will be keeping a close eye and watch for all of us. We thank you very much.
Charles Mandeville.
MANDEVILLE: Thank you.
DOBBS: American Museum of Natural History.
Still ahead here, victory in the race for a highly coveted space prize. Why the breakthrough through private space couldn't come at a better time for NASA -- or perhaps a worst time.
And then, new tactics in the presidential campaign. How the candidates are trying to score early in a critical week. We'll be talking with three of the country's top political journalists next.
And then, "What We've Lost." It's a new book by "Vanity Fair"'s editor Graydon Carter, and he blasts the Bush administration. Graydon Carter is my guest.
All of that and a great deal more still ahead here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues. Here now for more news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Election Day is four weeks from tomorrow, and a new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds this presidential race a statistical dead heat. This week is critical in this election. The vice presidential candidates debate tomorrow in the battleground state of Ohio. The presidential candidates meet for their second so-called debate Friday.
And joining me now to assess the contest and the campaign, three of the country's best political journalists: from Washington, Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent, "TIME" magazine; Roger Simon, political editor, "U.S. News & World Report"; and joining me here in New York, Marcus Mabry, chief of correspondent, "NEWSWEEK" magazine.
Good to have you all here.
Karen, let's begin. This poll is remarkable in that it shows basically these two candidates, after the president was enjoying a significant lead, in a dead heat. This all off of a debate?
KAREN TUMULTY, "TIME": A lot of it is off the debate, but the fact is that it basically brings this race back to where it's been up until the last month. I think that these polls basically reflect what has been probably all along the underlying state of this race.
Every now and then, you have an event -- the Republican Convention, the swift boat ads -- that throws things off for a few weeks, but it just keeps coming back to these very close numbers.
DOBBS: And your magazine had similar results in its poll. I can't recall a time when we saw this kind of bounce, if, indeed, this is the reason -- it's a little mysterious how we draw these causal relationships -- but this kind of bounce off a debate performance.
MARCUS MABRY, "NEWSWEEK": Well, it's pretty unprecedented. It's not exactly as dramatic as, you know, the effect the debate had of the Nixon-Kennedy debate, but, you know, it's coming in that kind of class of reaction.
What's extraordinary is -- and Karen's exactly right -- you know, this is exactly, I think, where the country has been, and most, you know, political observers, most pollsters think this is where the country has been from the beginning of this campaign.
The interesting thing is, however, if John Kerry had not performed well on Thursday night, what we all would be talking about today is the fact that when this race is over, it's inevitable that the president will win.
The fact that Kerry performed well, plus -- and this is the other outside factor, Lou -- Iraq -- it's gotten worse and worse, and you're showing it everyday on your program. You're showing it today. Everyone's showing it. Everyone's seen the newspapers. It's in American living rooms. That does not reflect well on the president. It doesn't help his chances of reelection.
DOBBS: Roger, your thoughts on this? And then we'll move on beyond polls, but to see this kind of tightening -- did it surprise you? Does it surprise you?
ROGER SIMON, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": No, I thought there would be some tightening. I wouldn't go too crazy for any one poll. I'm told the ABC News/"Washington Post" poll out tonight will show a 5 point race in Bush's favor, which is where the Bush people have said all along the race is. So basically who knows? I have just a general feeling as the other two ...
DOBBS: Roger Simon, an honest man, if there ever were one. SIMON: I mean, I just have the general feeling, as I think both Marcus and Karen have said, that the race has tightened. Where it is, I don't think we're going to know and I don't think it's important to know. The election isn't until November 2, and these polls will ping pong in a variety directions probably until then.
DOBBS: Iraq -- but then as Marcus is suggesting as we're all reporting and dealing with all of the difficulties in Iraq. We watched a debate last week on foreign policy in which China was not even mentioned by either candidate nor was it mentioned by the moderator. Are we really going down a peculiar road here on these debates in which there's no comprehensiveness to the issue and no real engagement on debate? Or do you think this format working, Karen Tumulty?
TUMULTY: Well, I think quite frankly that when the country is at war, when you have had more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in the last year and a half, it's hard for any other foreign policy issue to intrude just because this is so overwhelming, this is so dominating, the debate. I think where you see China and some of these other issues coming in is more likely to be in the domestic debates and possibly this Friday night when the candidates have the town hall format, when individual citizens will be allowed to ask questions. Because these issues will only intrude as they come in and people talk about how their own lives are being affected.
DOBBS: Well, Roger, the idea that Iraq is dominating, tomorrow the vice presidential candidates are going to go at it in Cleveland. Are you expecting one candidate or another as we go into that to have a decided edge, the vice president or Senator Edwards?
SIMON: The vice president is the more experienced debater. He's done a vice presidential debate before. John Edwards' peoples are quick to point out that he has never done any kind of debate in any of his campaign before. But I think they expect him as an experienced trial lawyer who's used to arguing to do very well indeed.
DOBBS: Should we take up a collection for the senator, Roger, as he tries to work his way through as a wordsmith?
SIMON: If he deserved it, he doesn't need the money so no collections are necessary! I suspect that it's going be a very vigorous debate, although I don't think either one of these guys wants to be snarling. There is -- at a point in which you can turn off the public if the debates get too negative.
DOBBS: Too negative and as Roger alluded, the reason obviously Senator Edwards doesn't need the collection, he was a very successful trial lawyer. Marcus, this debate format tomorrow, do you believe these two, if Roger's right, will be constrained and civil? Is the public really being served here where men are not allowed or if there were a woman president, to go at these issues doggedly with great freedom instead of all of this constraint? This seems in a time when we need maximum freedom of expression not constraint.
MABRY: That's probably true, Lou. But the fact is politics in America are what they are. And the place we turn and the place the American public turns to see politics that are not -- that are intemperate and immoderate is actually cable news world and where they find commentators who basically speak to right or left and who are men and women are great passion but not of great reason. What we saw in that debate were two men...
DOBBS: Wait a minute, Marcus. I have to take exception to that. Intemperate and immoderate. The fact of the matter is people are trying to speak plainly. This is a period of time in our history when frankly both political parties and just about everyone else involved in what is a corporately dominated media are trying to constrain and separate as broadly as they can word and language from meaning and truth.
MABRY: I disagree, Lou because we may be thinking about different people here. I'm talking about most popular commentators on the various cable news channels. I think -- Senator John McCain is one of those people who actually does speak with reason and speaks with moderation and reason. I think he's the kind of example. There are very few John McCains out there in the world right now.
TUMULTY: But might I add that I think that one of the things that was really shown in this last debate was I think that the president suffered because it has been not -- not because the format but because it's been so long since he's really been put in front of real questions. A real challenge. And I think that in situations like this and particularly when you're the president or the vice president, you almost lose your muscle tone if you're not put into situations regularly where you are actually challenged.
SIMON: And the president did not do particularly well in his last two press conferences when the questioning was reasonable tough. Most memorably at his formal East Room press conference when he was asked to name a single mistake he'd ever made and there was that long pause and he said, basically I will have to get back to you on that one. His rallies, as Karen has pointed out are...
DOBBS: Karen and Roger, we should say that Senator Kerry should have said, he'll get back to people on the blank response to the question as well. The fact of the matter is I take your point. But this is a president running for re-election. No excuses, no tears, isn't it, Karen?
TUMULTY: I think that's right and I think we're going to see the president try to rectify this mistake in the next debate.
DOBBS: All right, Karen Tumulty, Roger Simon, Marcus, thank you very much for being here with me in New York here, Marcus.
MABRY: Absolutely. You could have reached across from...
DOBBS: We'll get to that next week. But we're trying to constrain certain aspects of freedom of expression. Watch that stuff and moderate and intemperate. Good grief!
Taking a look at some of your thoughts on the new tax cut bill President Bush signed today.
Susan Riccio of Middlesex, New Jersey: "Tax relief is good but first you need a job. My husband's high tech job was outsourced to India working for so much less, the tax relief does not yield the intended benefit anyway."
And L. Rathbone in Manhattan, Kansas. "Lou, President Bush said people are better at spending their own money than the government. Considering that we have a $7.4 trillion national debt, it seems almost anyone would be better at spending money."
And on exporting America. Maureen Reid of Boca Raton, Florida asks, "when are America CEOs going to realize that the term copyright to China and India means the right to copy whatever they like."
Send us your thoughts at loudobbs@CNN.com. Send us your name and address with each e-mail. Each of you whose e-mail is read on this broadcast receives a free copy of my new book "Exporting America."
Coming up next here, sharp criticism of President Bush from one of the country's leading magazine editors "Vanity Fair" editor Graydon Carter will join me to talk about his new book "What We've Lost."
Also ahead. Exporting America. Why American companies could soon be exporting American jobs to Russia as well as India and China, and the list goes on unfortunately.
And new troubles for NASA. The shuttle program (UNINTELLIGIBLE) woefully. Of course the delays have lengthened. We'll have a special report on a space program in trouble. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: My next guest is the author of a new book that is highly critical of the Bush administration and that's something of an understatement. Graydon Carter says this country has lost its way under the leadership of George W. Bush. His book is entitled "What We've Lost, How the Bush Administration Has Curtailed our Freedom, Mortgaged our Economy, Ravaged our Environment and Damaged our Standing in the World." Other than that you can put Graydon Carter down as undecided in this election. He's the editor-in-chief of "Vanity Fair" magazine and joins us here.
This book has -- I think, probably is without question in my opinion, the best recount of, by the numbers, a section that you put in the book. I found it fascinating. It's decimating of course to the Bush campaign but I would think cheer the Kerry campaign. Is this really, in your judgment, a manifesto for John Kerry to be elected, or is it simply a manifesto not to elect George Bush?
GRAYDON CARTER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "VANITY FAIR": Well, I sort of put it together as basically a report card of the first -- or the first four years of the Bush administration. Under all the categories that an administration can look after, whether it's the environment or health care or our reputation, the two wars we've launched. Homeland security. The economy. And basically you grade them on each one of these areas, and you get a lot of F's and D's from this administration. It has not been a good period for America, and the Iraq war was the worst thing -- the worst aspect of the entire administration's program.
DOBBS: I thought, frankly, that you put a great deal on George Bush, as you should, since he is the president of the United States, but for me, one of the most -- to me the pivotal moment of the events leading up to, irrespective of what one considers the ideological framework or the strategic framework, or the issue of weapons of mass destruction was the February 5 United Nations appearance of Colin Powell, with George Tenet sitting off of his shoulder.
You give Colin Powell light treatment there.
CARTER: Well, I think Colin Powell was playing along. I think if you are a member of the administration, you have to go along with kind of the majority. And if you've got a vice president and the president who are moving in this direction, I think it's very difficult to maintain your job and not go along with them. And I think the country's probably better off having Colin Powell in the job, as a moderate force in that administration.
DOBBS: The reason I bring it up, it was in that he enumerated each of the biological mobile laboratories. There was great certainty about the explanation of all of it is the reason I bring it up.
I think one of best treatments that you do is on the environment, in which you -- the recitation of the failures, the failures make it sound as if it's simply misfeasance. It's far more aggressive than that.
CARTER: No, no, from the first day they went into office, the administration has worked to roll back 30 years worth of environmental protections. Some 200 environmental laws have been either rolled back or eliminated altogether, and it covers all kinds of areas of American public health and American public parks. It is almost -- because partly, the oil, logging and gas industries are -- were the largest campaign contributors to the Republican Party in the 2000 election, and they're getting a great payback from it, from this administration.
DOBBS: I thought that, frankly, in terms of the No Child Left Behind, in terms of education, I personally hold both parties so responsible for the state of public education. But on a nonpartisan basis, let me say, your indictment of the administration's fascination, enthusiasm for vouchers -- the vouchers system to replace the public education system in this country, I had to cheer.
But what I don't hear is the commitment from either one of these candidates to public education. There's all sorts of lip service paid to No Child Left Behind from both parties. The fact is, we have a horrible situation in our public schools, and we need a -- we need a commitment to public education. Do you hear that from Senator Kerry? You also mentioned free trade...
CARTER: Well, first of all, education is largely a local matter, but the No Child Left Behind thing, it sounds great in its concept. You know, holding schools to higher standards, holding teachers to higher standards. But the Bush administration demanded this of all of these local municipalities without giving them any money to -- or anywhere near enough money...
DOBBS: Near enough, right.
CARTER: ... to actually meet those goals.
DOBBS: The funding...
CARTER: It was a very clever, underhanded way of gradually getting the voucher system going, but just enough money that children can be sent to, not to private schools but to religious schools.
DOBBS: And religious schools, as you point out, are costing quite a bit less than public schools in many cases, to fund, to operate.
Going to the issue of the economy, free trade. You hit this administration harder, and I think personally, appropriately. You failed to hit, however, the Clinton administration appropriately, in my judgment.
CARTER: I wasn't writing about the Clinton administration.
DOBBS: I know you weren't.
CARTER: That is somebody else's job.
DOBBS: But fact is, as the saying goes there, there is so much responsibility for failures of policy in this country. Whether it be economics, whether it be free trade. It's very difficult, except for a partisan, and as you're certainly an energetic...
CARTER: In a sense, somewhere, but you know.
DOBBS: Exactly. But the fact is there are voters out there who are not being represented right now, the middle class, who can't find a sensibly policy in Congress to represent their interests, whether it's in free trade, whether it's in education. What in the world -- as you step back from your very good book, and a real indictment of the Bush administration, and partisan as it can be, do you have a sense of what has to be done to get this country back on its course?
CARTER: I just -- I actually don't. I'm not a politician. But I do think that the -- as you say, the middle class has been left out of all of this. Their health care is going to go up. Their education system is not going to improve. I think they feel slightly disenfranchised. You lose manufacturing jobs, you rarely ever get them back again. And I think that the -- but the government, the administration has used fear as a great tool for these people. Because it is -- the politics of fear have dictated this election right up until the debates the other night. It was never about any kind of issue. It was like, does this man make you feel safe? Does this man make you feel unsafe? Do you like this man? Do you dislike this man? And there were really no issues until last week. And now all of a sudden, I think when people -- when they start going through the domestic issues, I think people realize, my God, it's not the greatest situation in the world.
DOBBS: Graydon Carter, author of "What We've Lost," thank you very much. A terrific read. And I can say this, Democrats will love this book. I think Republicans, it's safe to say, will hate it.
CARTER: Maybe.
DOBBS: But perhaps there is room to think as a result of what you have written.
CARTER: I hope.
DOBBS: I certainly do. Thank you very much, Graydon.
CARTER: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Still ahead here, a surprising new destination for American jobs. We'll tell you how another massive cheap overseas labor market is attracting American jobs, just what we needed. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In "Exporting America" tonight, a new outsourcing giant trying to emerge as more American jobs are being shipped to cheap overseas labor markets. The new outsourcing giant is Russia, or at least it wants to be. Russia's half a billion dollars in software exports don't compare to India's estimated $10 billion. But Russia will likely close the gap within the next five years. Ryan Chilcote reports from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some of Russia's brightest minds are quietly programming their way into jobs outsourced from the United States and Western Europe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been doubling the size of the company every year.
CHILCOTE: In just four years in the outsourcing market, Luxoft has designed business software for the likes of Boeing, Microsoft, Dell, IBM and a lot of other corporations that insist their Russian partner not identify them.
Managements says the high quality and low cost of their programs overpower concerns about its consequences to the American labor market.
This American even joined them.
ROBERT MORRISON, MARKETING MANAGER, LUXOFT: If the Americans don't take advantage of this model, which is more efficient and gives companies more flexibility and cost savings, then someone else will. CHILCOTE: Luxoft says its Russian programmers get an average of $12,000 a year, one-fifth what a standard American programmer makes. The next step, getting those Russian programmers to work like their Western corporate counterparts.
DMITRY LOSCHININ, LUXOFT CEO: We're trying to cultivate Western culture here for our clients.
CHILCOTE: Bridging the communication gap is done using new, Western approaches. These Luxoft employees are practicing teamwork, a leadership program in the woods outside of Moscow. It was all paid for by Dell, the emphasis on the goals. Luxoft rents space at a research institute where the Soviets secretly designed part of their atomic bomb half a century go.
Luxoft has inherited some of that scientific culture characterized by innovation and security. A few years back, Luxoft says one of its employees tried to steal a western client intellectual property but gave it back after, quote, "Negotiations." Their top security official tells me their client's information is now probably at least as safe here as at their client's home office.
(on camera): There may be no end to outsourcing the very beneficiaries of those jobs that are outsourced here to Moscow, may see their jobs outsourced to Russian cities where the programmers are willing to work for even less.
Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: A reminder now to vote in "Tonight's Poll."
Do you believe illegal immigration should be one of the principal issues discussed by President Bush and Senator Kerry, yes or no. Cast your vote at cnn.com/lou. We'll have the results a little later here.
Still ahead, a disappointing announcement from NASA. Why a wave of delayed hurricanes is just the latest in a string of problems for our troubled space agency. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: A milestone tonight in private space travel. SpaceShipOne blasted beyond the earth's atmosphere for the second time in a week. Pilot Brian Binnie, flew the craft to 368,000 feet, returning safely earth with his historic accomplishment. The feat captures the $10 million X-Prize for two manned space flights within 14 days. That money to be presented in a ceremony in November.
The success of SpaceShipOne comes at however a discouraging team for NASA. The space agency just announced it must delay the first space shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster almost 2-years-ago. Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's no question that Hurricanes Frances, Charley and Jeanne left their marks on Cape Canaveral home of NASA's launch site. Even Ivan which threatened before turning away caused work delays in the shuttle's redesign fuel tanks. The damage and the work delays means a planned early spring launch of shuttle is delayed until mid-May, early June.
GEN. MICHAEL KOSTELNIK, NASA: There was very credible window that we were shooting for planning purposes and hoping to make, and we would have stayed on that track had it not been from the hurricanes.
TUCKER: The shuttle program has been grounded since February 2003, after the shuttle Columbia, disintegrated on re-entry, killing the seven astronauts on board. In the eyes of NASA critics weather's only part of a bigger problem. They say NASA is a large government bureaucracies, which is increasingly risk adverse.
EDWARD HUDGINS, CATO INSTITUTE: Of course the irony is that the more they delay, the higher the real costs go, and the more uneconomical the shuttle is shown to be.
TUCKER: In the costs are rising for the shuttle program. Just last month, the head of NASA, Sean O'Keefe, told a Senate panel that the cost of making the shuttle safer will be more than $2 billion, or twice what NASA originally estimated.
(on camera): But even NASA's toughest critics admit that the goals and purposes of the shuttle program are very different from the private programs. One simple difference, SpaceShipOne travels at a speed mach at three. The space shuttle of mach 23 and actually goes into orbit.
Bill Tucker, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Tonight, one of the nation's first astronauts has died. Leroy Gordon Cooper one of the original Mercury 7 died today in his California home at the age of 77. In 1963, Cooper circled the earth 22 times in Faith 7, the last of the Mercury manned space flights. He retired from NASA in 1970. Cooper logged more time in space than all five of the previous Mercury astronauts combined.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results of "Tonight's Poll," 88 percent of you say that illegal aliens -- illegal immigration should be one of the principal issues discussed by President Bush and Senator Kerry, 12 percent do not.
Principal, principal in that instance should be spelled -- P-A-L. We apologize for the error.
Thanks for being with us here tonight. Please join us tomorrow, we will have our spelling caps on, rest assured. For all of us here, good night from New York. "ANDERSON COOPER 360" is next.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
