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Martha Stewart Sentenced to Five Months in Prison, Five Months Confinement; Are Robots Getting a Bad Rap?

Aired July 16, 2004 - 13:35   ET

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

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


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what's happening right now, a fast-moving fire continues to threaten about 1,000 homes near Carson City, in western Nevada. And Firefighters say the weather is not helping their efforts to slow down the blaze. So far, 14 homes have been destroyed.
If federal court, former St. Louis Blues' hockey player Mike Danton pleads guilty to trying to have his agent killed. The plot unraveled when the would-be hitman turned out to be a police informant. Sentencing scheduled for October 22nd, and he could face up to 10 years in prison.

And Martha Stewart's former Merrill Lynch stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, is to be sentenced this afternoon. He was convicted, along with Stewart on four felony counts related to the sale of ImClone stocks. We're going to bring you his sentence when it comes down.

Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.

That bring us to our top story. As you've already heard on CNN today, Martha Stewart was sentenced this morning to five months in prison and five months home confinement. That'll be followed by two years probation. She was also fined $30,000 for lying about a stock sale. Just after the sentencing, though, Stewart called it a shameful day for herself and her family and plugged her products, saying she'll be back. Her sentence is on hold, pending an appeal.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And we want to look at how all these dramatic developments might affect Martha Stewart's business empire.

Joining me now from New York is Robbie Vorhaus, founder of the New York-based P.R. firm, Vorhaus & Company.

Good afternoon to you. Thanks for joining us.

ROBBIE VORHAUS, MEDIA STRATEGIST: It's good. Thank you. Nice to see you. I've never seen anyone quite plug a magazine like that before, but...

NGUYEN: Were you shocked by that at all. I think a lot of us, especially here in the newsroom, were going wow.

VORHAUS: I think everyone was surprise to see, first all, her talking about her family and then her beloved business. And then of course, to go right into a business plug. But that's Martha. I mean, that's -- you know, what she's doing right now is she's showing us that she's not about herself, that she's about her business, that she's about her magazine, about her brand, and that's what she's appealing to.

NGUYEN: Now shortly after the sentence, we want to get back to the business side of all of this, her stock shot up some 20 percent. Is it because the market has already accounted for this sentencing?

VORHAUS: It's discounted. Every bad news, everything is discounted out right now. This is a resurrection story. This is not a crucifixion story anymore. This is a resurrection story, and we're going to see a lot of good things, a lot of good results, a lot of people coming to her defense.

No, I mean, justice is when you get what you deserve. The American public, though, is going to show her mercy, which is when you show compassion and understanding, and they're going to vote with their pocketbook.

NGUYEN: Does it even have to do with the five-month sentence? Because at first, a lot of folks were expecting somewhere between 10 and 16 months.

VORHAUS: Yes, I think that the judge really did read the letters. I think this is another wonderful example of the Internet and the ability to communicate something that's from the heart, and no matter what she may or may not have done, on whatever level, she can't take away from the fact that Martha Stewart took this simplistic she took the mundane, and in the domestic world, she mastered that and made it beautiful. Now if she could do the same in her personal life, she would be a lot better.

NGUYEN: But it is the business that she loves. And you mentioned it just a little bit earlier. We want to listen to that little bit of sound for a moment, to hear how she plugs her magazine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA STEWART, DEFENDANT: Perhaps all of you out there can continue to show your support by subscribing to our magazine, by buying our products, by encouraging our advertisers to come back in full force to our magazines. Our magazines are great. They deserve your support. And whatever happened to me personally shouldn't have any affect whatsoever on the great company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Now how is that going to resonate with Wall Street, this plug?

VORHAUS: I think it's going to -- Wall Street doesn't care if people are buying. And certainly, if the product is good, and it is, and people love the Martha Stewart brand, and they do, Martha Stewart is going to continue to say, it's not about me, it's about this company that helps you raise yourself. It helps you to make your life better. It helps you to make your children happier, your husband, or your wife, your family, enjoy life more, and I think that people will vote with their pocketbooks.

Look, let's put ourselves in Martha Stewart's shoes. Here's a woman who came from nothing who raised herself to the place where she believed that she is the company, and what she's doing is good, and a lot of people believe her, and so she's going to, unabashedly, plug her product and her brand every chance she can, and good for her. She's staying on point. That's Martha Stewart.

NGUYEN: Is this a company, in your eyes, that is on the way up?

VORHAUS: Oh, absolutely. That's what we need to be looking at. This is -- looking backwards is passe. That is a resurrection story, where we're going to see Martha Stewart coming back on the cover of her magazine. She'll be stepping into restaurants, and getting applause...

NGUYEN: We want to show some pictures. She's recently been out on the town. She's been at a New York Yankees' home opener game. She's been the daytime Emmy Awards. She's been at a fashion show. You've even seen her around town, haven't you?

VORHAUS: I have. I've seen her -- we've both gotten doughnuts at Dresen's (ph), in east Hampton, New York, and I've seen her walking down on Main Street, in Sag (ph) Harbor, looking in some of the shops. So, you know, Martha Stewart is out there. She's not ashamed of anything, nor should she be, and I think the American public is going to show her mercy, which is a wonderful virtue.

NGUYEN: All right, Robbie Vorhaus, thank you very much.

VORHAUS: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

Martha Stewart will sit down with CNN's Larry King Monday for her first and only live interview since her sentencing. Be sure to tune in at 9:00 Eastern for that.

LIN: A plug for Wolf there, too.

NGUYEN: Yes.

LIN: Helpers for humans, or mean machines? The movie's offered up some scary depictions of robots. We're going to check out how far reality is away from fiction. And up close and personal with Spike Lee, my conversation politician about film, politics and the comments of another African-American star.

Stay right there. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Turning now to homeland security and a multibillion- dollar missile defense system.

LIN: President Bush want to deploy it this fall to stop potential missile attacks by rogue states. And in the second of a two-part series, CNN's David Ensor look at how the system would work and why some critics say it won't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a remote Alaskan base, new underground silos in place for the nation's first ever defense against attack by enemy missiles. Tests so far have shown the system can track a missile...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Liftoff is confirmed...

ENSOR: Launch an Interceptor, capable of traveling at eight kilometers an second, and sometimes, more often than not, knock out the missile in space.

LT. GEN. RONALD KADISH, FMR. DIR. MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY: We do not choose to be vulnerable against someone like North Korea or Iran, who are trying to get weapons of mass destruction.

ENSOR: The system will use radars positioned around the world on land and at sea to track enemy missiles. Eventually, about 20 Interceptor missiles, tipped with sophisticated kill vehicles, to stop them.

This is just the ground-based portion of a multilayered missile defense system, which will eventually include space-based and sea launched intercepts.

Total projected price tag over the next five years: $53 billion. The cost of the giant radar that will sit atop a massive floating platform that can deploy at sea is, in itself, $815 million.

(on camera): President Bush is likely to point to it as a major accomplishment of his administration when the first missile defense capability comes online, which is expected to be toward the end of September. But critics charge that billions have been wasted, deploying a program that they say is undertested, and they say that 9/11 showed, will not address the main national security dangers to this country.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Even the CIA says that a missile attack is not a likely threat. Terrorists aren't going to use a missile, because you know where it comes from. Terrorist will use a truck, or a human being or a ship.

ENSOR: Advocates counter that the nation must protect against terrorists or rogue states with missiles at the same time.

SEN. WAYNE ALLARD (R-CO), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: It takes a combination of both. And that's my position. I think we need to do both.

ENSOR: But critics also charge President Bush is rushing to deploy a system that may not work. The tests so far have the not been in real-world conditions. LEVIN: It's got a beacon, in effect, on it, so it tells you here I am come and get me. Well, that's not what any potential enemy missile is going to be doing. So you have unrealistic tests.

KADISH: The implication is that somehow we're cheating on the tests, and I reject that out of hand.

ENSOR: The program's outgoing director, General Kadish, says now is the right time to get a rudimentary system deployed.

KADISH: We've tested it enough to know that we can make it work. We have confidence in it working. We need now to put it in place, where we would actually use it to gain more experience.

ENSOR: And by the end of September, the beginnings of a missile defense system will be in place. Skeptics warn it could be a multibillion bust. But Bush administration officials say they believe something is better than nothing.

David Ensor, CNN, Corpus Christi, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Well, they are big trouble on the big screen. But are robots getting a bad rap?

LIN: They seem to be everywhere, from the assembly line to Afghanistan. We're going to have a reality a check on what they can actually do and what they can't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: The science-fiction thriller "I, Robot" opens in theaters today. So this is a good time to take a look at what robots can do in real life.

Our technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg has the real deal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The promise of technology. In 2035 "I, Robot" offers the world's first fully automated domestic assistant. And of course all is well until the robots try to kill you.

Fantasy can be frightening. But in reality, we can all breath easy. While bots can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks, most of them couldn't think themselves out of a wet paper bag.

Here's what they can do. Starting in the 1970s, robotic workers became ubiquitous on assembly lines. And later, we sent them out to explore other worlds and more of our own. Robots help doctors perform surgery and soldiers clear caves in Afghanistan.

And on to more important matters, domestic robots can vacuum your floors, mow your lawn and even keep you company without messing up the carpet.

But when autonomous bots, those are machines built to think for themselves, attempt more complex tasks, well that's where they run into problems. Not a single brainy bot in the DOD's million-dollar race last March completed the 150-mile trek through the Mojave Desert. The most successful machine made it a whopping seven miles. The bottom line, robots just aren't that smart yet.

Honda's ASIMO can dance and kick a ball, but most of its brain power is concentrated on keeping it upright and balanced. Balance is something we mere mortals take for granted, but it's no small feat for a robot. No, this bionic prototype won't be watching your kids anytime soon.

And do we even want robots to look human? Perhaps in the spirit of "Stepford Wives," in which deranged men replace their spouses with happy homemaker bots, graduate student David Hanson has created lifelike robotic heads that resemble his girlfriend, Kristen. The faces have 24 motors to generate countless expressions and cameras for eyes. The problem here of course is that they can be a little creepy.

So it's a debate among scientists whether human-like bots are repulsive or if machines that mimic our mortal movements put us at ease. But at the end of the day, no matter what the robot looks like, its promise depends on brainpower.

WILL SMITH, ACTOR: They don't get hungry, they don't sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do. I have even had dreams.

SIEBERG: And the brainiest bots are still on the big screen.

Daniel Sieberg, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Bet they can't report the news. Now Spike Lee has a new movie coming out called "She Hate Me." It -- OK, get this, it's the story of a failed executive who ends up making money by helping lesbian career women get pregnant. I think I've got your attention now. Spike Lee and I got together to talk movies and politic, and about his friend, Bill Cosby, who's telling African-Americans to stop blaming the white man for their problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPIKE LEE, DIRECTOR: I said bravo, Mr. Cosby, bravo. Yes. I think that -- I don't think it's a matter whether you agree with him or not. I think that he's addressing a very serious monumental problem amongst the African-American community. I think Bill Cosby deserves to say anything he wants to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Now, Spike Lee gets real about his films, his politics, and his family, with me on my primetime hour, CNN Sunday night. That's at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, of course on Sunday nights.

Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, did Martha Stewart receive a just punishment today for lying about her ImClone stock sale? Send us an e-mail. We're going to share some of your comments ahead, in LIVE FROM's hour of power.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: Today is a shameful day. It's shameful for me and for my family, and for my believed company.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Martha Stewart sentenced to prison, and vowing to press on. How will today's developments affect her business and her personal life?

LIN: And in the same New York courtroom this hour, Stewart's broker will find out the penalty for his part in the legal drama.

NGUYEN: Smoke-filled skies and charred homes on the ground. The west enters the wildfire season with a vengeance.

LIN: And have you seen this man? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, usually front and center, seems to be missing in action.

From the CNN center in Atlanta, I'm Carol Lin. Kyra and Miles are off today.

NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

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 July 16, 2004 - 13:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what's happening right now, a fast-moving fire continues to threaten about 1,000 homes near Carson City, in western Nevada. And Firefighters say the weather is not helping their efforts to slow down the blaze. So far, 14 homes have been destroyed.
If federal court, former St. Louis Blues' hockey player Mike Danton pleads guilty to trying to have his agent killed. The plot unraveled when the would-be hitman turned out to be a police informant. Sentencing scheduled for October 22nd, and he could face up to 10 years in prison.

And Martha Stewart's former Merrill Lynch stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, is to be sentenced this afternoon. He was convicted, along with Stewart on four felony counts related to the sale of ImClone stocks. We're going to bring you his sentence when it comes down.

Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.

That bring us to our top story. As you've already heard on CNN today, Martha Stewart was sentenced this morning to five months in prison and five months home confinement. That'll be followed by two years probation. She was also fined $30,000 for lying about a stock sale. Just after the sentencing, though, Stewart called it a shameful day for herself and her family and plugged her products, saying she'll be back. Her sentence is on hold, pending an appeal.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And we want to look at how all these dramatic developments might affect Martha Stewart's business empire.

Joining me now from New York is Robbie Vorhaus, founder of the New York-based P.R. firm, Vorhaus & Company.

Good afternoon to you. Thanks for joining us.

ROBBIE VORHAUS, MEDIA STRATEGIST: It's good. Thank you. Nice to see you. I've never seen anyone quite plug a magazine like that before, but...

NGUYEN: Were you shocked by that at all. I think a lot of us, especially here in the newsroom, were going wow.

VORHAUS: I think everyone was surprise to see, first all, her talking about her family and then her beloved business. And then of course, to go right into a business plug. But that's Martha. I mean, that's -- you know, what she's doing right now is she's showing us that she's not about herself, that she's about her business, that she's about her magazine, about her brand, and that's what she's appealing to.

NGUYEN: Now shortly after the sentence, we want to get back to the business side of all of this, her stock shot up some 20 percent. Is it because the market has already accounted for this sentencing?

VORHAUS: It's discounted. Every bad news, everything is discounted out right now. This is a resurrection story. This is not a crucifixion story anymore. This is a resurrection story, and we're going to see a lot of good things, a lot of good results, a lot of people coming to her defense.

No, I mean, justice is when you get what you deserve. The American public, though, is going to show her mercy, which is when you show compassion and understanding, and they're going to vote with their pocketbook.

NGUYEN: Does it even have to do with the five-month sentence? Because at first, a lot of folks were expecting somewhere between 10 and 16 months.

VORHAUS: Yes, I think that the judge really did read the letters. I think this is another wonderful example of the Internet and the ability to communicate something that's from the heart, and no matter what she may or may not have done, on whatever level, she can't take away from the fact that Martha Stewart took this simplistic she took the mundane, and in the domestic world, she mastered that and made it beautiful. Now if she could do the same in her personal life, she would be a lot better.

NGUYEN: But it is the business that she loves. And you mentioned it just a little bit earlier. We want to listen to that little bit of sound for a moment, to hear how she plugs her magazine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA STEWART, DEFENDANT: Perhaps all of you out there can continue to show your support by subscribing to our magazine, by buying our products, by encouraging our advertisers to come back in full force to our magazines. Our magazines are great. They deserve your support. And whatever happened to me personally shouldn't have any affect whatsoever on the great company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Now how is that going to resonate with Wall Street, this plug?

VORHAUS: I think it's going to -- Wall Street doesn't care if people are buying. And certainly, if the product is good, and it is, and people love the Martha Stewart brand, and they do, Martha Stewart is going to continue to say, it's not about me, it's about this company that helps you raise yourself. It helps you to make your life better. It helps you to make your children happier, your husband, or your wife, your family, enjoy life more, and I think that people will vote with their pocketbooks.

Look, let's put ourselves in Martha Stewart's shoes. Here's a woman who came from nothing who raised herself to the place where she believed that she is the company, and what she's doing is good, and a lot of people believe her, and so she's going to, unabashedly, plug her product and her brand every chance she can, and good for her. She's staying on point. That's Martha Stewart.

NGUYEN: Is this a company, in your eyes, that is on the way up?

VORHAUS: Oh, absolutely. That's what we need to be looking at. This is -- looking backwards is passe. That is a resurrection story, where we're going to see Martha Stewart coming back on the cover of her magazine. She'll be stepping into restaurants, and getting applause...

NGUYEN: We want to show some pictures. She's recently been out on the town. She's been at a New York Yankees' home opener game. She's been the daytime Emmy Awards. She's been at a fashion show. You've even seen her around town, haven't you?

VORHAUS: I have. I've seen her -- we've both gotten doughnuts at Dresen's (ph), in east Hampton, New York, and I've seen her walking down on Main Street, in Sag (ph) Harbor, looking in some of the shops. So, you know, Martha Stewart is out there. She's not ashamed of anything, nor should she be, and I think the American public is going to show her mercy, which is a wonderful virtue.

NGUYEN: All right, Robbie Vorhaus, thank you very much.

VORHAUS: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

Martha Stewart will sit down with CNN's Larry King Monday for her first and only live interview since her sentencing. Be sure to tune in at 9:00 Eastern for that.

LIN: A plug for Wolf there, too.

NGUYEN: Yes.

LIN: Helpers for humans, or mean machines? The movie's offered up some scary depictions of robots. We're going to check out how far reality is away from fiction. And up close and personal with Spike Lee, my conversation politician about film, politics and the comments of another African-American star.

Stay right there. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Turning now to homeland security and a multibillion- dollar missile defense system.

LIN: President Bush want to deploy it this fall to stop potential missile attacks by rogue states. And in the second of a two-part series, CNN's David Ensor look at how the system would work and why some critics say it won't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a remote Alaskan base, new underground silos in place for the nation's first ever defense against attack by enemy missiles. Tests so far have shown the system can track a missile...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Liftoff is confirmed...

ENSOR: Launch an Interceptor, capable of traveling at eight kilometers an second, and sometimes, more often than not, knock out the missile in space.

LT. GEN. RONALD KADISH, FMR. DIR. MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY: We do not choose to be vulnerable against someone like North Korea or Iran, who are trying to get weapons of mass destruction.

ENSOR: The system will use radars positioned around the world on land and at sea to track enemy missiles. Eventually, about 20 Interceptor missiles, tipped with sophisticated kill vehicles, to stop them.

This is just the ground-based portion of a multilayered missile defense system, which will eventually include space-based and sea launched intercepts.

Total projected price tag over the next five years: $53 billion. The cost of the giant radar that will sit atop a massive floating platform that can deploy at sea is, in itself, $815 million.

(on camera): President Bush is likely to point to it as a major accomplishment of his administration when the first missile defense capability comes online, which is expected to be toward the end of September. But critics charge that billions have been wasted, deploying a program that they say is undertested, and they say that 9/11 showed, will not address the main national security dangers to this country.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Even the CIA says that a missile attack is not a likely threat. Terrorists aren't going to use a missile, because you know where it comes from. Terrorist will use a truck, or a human being or a ship.

ENSOR: Advocates counter that the nation must protect against terrorists or rogue states with missiles at the same time.

SEN. WAYNE ALLARD (R-CO), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: It takes a combination of both. And that's my position. I think we need to do both.

ENSOR: But critics also charge President Bush is rushing to deploy a system that may not work. The tests so far have the not been in real-world conditions. LEVIN: It's got a beacon, in effect, on it, so it tells you here I am come and get me. Well, that's not what any potential enemy missile is going to be doing. So you have unrealistic tests.

KADISH: The implication is that somehow we're cheating on the tests, and I reject that out of hand.

ENSOR: The program's outgoing director, General Kadish, says now is the right time to get a rudimentary system deployed.

KADISH: We've tested it enough to know that we can make it work. We have confidence in it working. We need now to put it in place, where we would actually use it to gain more experience.

ENSOR: And by the end of September, the beginnings of a missile defense system will be in place. Skeptics warn it could be a multibillion bust. But Bush administration officials say they believe something is better than nothing.

David Ensor, CNN, Corpus Christi, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Well, they are big trouble on the big screen. But are robots getting a bad rap?

LIN: They seem to be everywhere, from the assembly line to Afghanistan. We're going to have a reality a check on what they can actually do and what they can't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: The science-fiction thriller "I, Robot" opens in theaters today. So this is a good time to take a look at what robots can do in real life.

Our technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg has the real deal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The promise of technology. In 2035 "I, Robot" offers the world's first fully automated domestic assistant. And of course all is well until the robots try to kill you.

Fantasy can be frightening. But in reality, we can all breath easy. While bots can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks, most of them couldn't think themselves out of a wet paper bag.

Here's what they can do. Starting in the 1970s, robotic workers became ubiquitous on assembly lines. And later, we sent them out to explore other worlds and more of our own. Robots help doctors perform surgery and soldiers clear caves in Afghanistan.

And on to more important matters, domestic robots can vacuum your floors, mow your lawn and even keep you company without messing up the carpet.

But when autonomous bots, those are machines built to think for themselves, attempt more complex tasks, well that's where they run into problems. Not a single brainy bot in the DOD's million-dollar race last March completed the 150-mile trek through the Mojave Desert. The most successful machine made it a whopping seven miles. The bottom line, robots just aren't that smart yet.

Honda's ASIMO can dance and kick a ball, but most of its brain power is concentrated on keeping it upright and balanced. Balance is something we mere mortals take for granted, but it's no small feat for a robot. No, this bionic prototype won't be watching your kids anytime soon.

And do we even want robots to look human? Perhaps in the spirit of "Stepford Wives," in which deranged men replace their spouses with happy homemaker bots, graduate student David Hanson has created lifelike robotic heads that resemble his girlfriend, Kristen. The faces have 24 motors to generate countless expressions and cameras for eyes. The problem here of course is that they can be a little creepy.

So it's a debate among scientists whether human-like bots are repulsive or if machines that mimic our mortal movements put us at ease. But at the end of the day, no matter what the robot looks like, its promise depends on brainpower.

WILL SMITH, ACTOR: They don't get hungry, they don't sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do. I have even had dreams.

SIEBERG: And the brainiest bots are still on the big screen.

Daniel Sieberg, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Bet they can't report the news. Now Spike Lee has a new movie coming out called "She Hate Me." It -- OK, get this, it's the story of a failed executive who ends up making money by helping lesbian career women get pregnant. I think I've got your attention now. Spike Lee and I got together to talk movies and politic, and about his friend, Bill Cosby, who's telling African-Americans to stop blaming the white man for their problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPIKE LEE, DIRECTOR: I said bravo, Mr. Cosby, bravo. Yes. I think that -- I don't think it's a matter whether you agree with him or not. I think that he's addressing a very serious monumental problem amongst the African-American community. I think Bill Cosby deserves to say anything he wants to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Now, Spike Lee gets real about his films, his politics, and his family, with me on my primetime hour, CNN Sunday night. That's at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, of course on Sunday nights.

Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, did Martha Stewart receive a just punishment today for lying about her ImClone stock sale? Send us an e-mail. We're going to share some of your comments ahead, in LIVE FROM's hour of power.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: Today is a shameful day. It's shameful for me and for my family, and for my believed company.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Martha Stewart sentenced to prison, and vowing to press on. How will today's developments affect her business and her personal life?

LIN: And in the same New York courtroom this hour, Stewart's broker will find out the penalty for his part in the legal drama.

NGUYEN: Smoke-filled skies and charred homes on the ground. The west enters the wildfire season with a vengeance.

LIN: And have you seen this man? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, usually front and center, seems to be missing in action.

From the CNN center in Atlanta, I'm Carol Lin. Kyra and Miles are off today.

NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com