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Congress to Try Intel Bill in December; Jimmy Buffett Out With New Novel

Aired November 29, 2004 - 14:29   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.


TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is LIVE FROM. I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here is what is all new this half hour.

Roadblocks to reform. What's holding up Congress from making changes in American intelligence gathering based on the 9/11 Commission report. We're going to talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Start out with three hail (ph) calls and you work what we call "middle duck" and work down to the bottom, and then you do your feed call, then a transition, a triple comeback and then you do your feed call again and then you close out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Don't laugh, it's complicated. Quacking up for competition. We'll take you inside the call of the wild. First here's what's happening "Now in the News."

PHILLIPS: In Wisconsin, Chai Vang is expected to be charged with murder today. Vang, a Hmong immigrant, told police a group of hunters yelled racial slurs and then one shot at him after he accidentally wandered into private property November 21. But one of the survivors says Vang shot first, killing six people.

A new study suggests the brains of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may be slightly different from those of other children. ADHD was previously thought to be caused solely by a chemical imbalance. New research also suggests that with medication, the brain irregularities of children with ADHD diminished after about two-and-a-half years.

And the king of Bahrain is making the rounds in Washington. President Bush met just a little while ago with King Hamad Al Khalifa. Earlier, the king met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

HARRIS: Well, you know, it may be the holiday season, but when it comes to the intelligence reform bill, two key Republicans are in no mood to give. In early December, Congress will take one more swing at passing the bill which contains the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Elaine Quijano reports from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats and Republicans are sounding the same warning about what could happen if Congress doesn't approve intelligence reform legislation soon.

TOM KEAN, FMR. 9/11 COMMISSION CHMN.: This bill will pass. The question is whether it will pass now or after a second attack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I agree with the two chairman of the 9/11 Commission. If we don't do this now, we're going to really face the music.

QUIJANO: Even though there are enough votes in the House to pass the legislation now, Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert won't allow the bill to come to a vote because of some strong opposition within his own party. Duncan Hunter, head of the Armed Services Committee, whose son served in Iraq, speaks for Republicans who say the bill doesn't preserve the chain of command needed to keep intelligence flowing quickly to frontline troops.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: When the Department of Defense has to have a satellite over Falluja, for example, because they've got people being shot at on the ground, they need to know where the enemy is, you have to be able to control that agency.

QUIJANO: Top military leaders agree, saying the Pentagon, not a new national intelligence director, should keep control of satellite and communications programs. But other lawmakers say U.S. troops on the battlefield will get what they need.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But every bill that we have proposed preserves that tactical intelligence.

QUIJANO: Another leading holdout, Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner, wants to bar states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: And until we are able to make sure that drivers licenses are given only to people who are lawfully present in the United States, America is still at greater risk.

QUIJANO: The 9/11 Commission's vice chair says the risk is not passing reforms now.

LEE HAMILTON, FMR. 9/11 COMMISSION VICE CHMN.: I know the attention has been on the intelligence and the immigration provisions. They're important provisions but there are scores if not hundreds of provisions here which strengthen the counter-terrorism efforts of the United States.

QUIJANO (on camera): Democrats complain that the president, who has said he will sign the bill, has not put enough pressure on Republican holdouts. Now, the White House says the president has made it clear he wants the legislation to pass as quickly as possible. And officials say the president will continue working closely with Congress to make that happen.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And joining us to discuss the intelligence bill's difficult journey through the Congress is former Republican Congressman, Bob Barr.

Bob, good to see you.

BOB BARR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Always a pleasure.

HARRIS: All right, reality check time for us here. If the president wants intelligence reform, he'll get it.

BARR: If the president really wants intelligence reform, he has enough political capital, if he wants to expend it, to push Congress in the direction that he wants it to go. But of course, there would have to be compromises made. And I think that's what we'll finally wind up with, but I doubt seriously whether we'll see that before the new Congress convenes in January.

HARRIS: OK. So Bob, which bill -- do we know which bill the president wants? Does he want the House version with the recommendations from Congressmens Sensenbrenner and Hunter or does he want the Senate version of the intelligence reform bill that has bipartisan support?

BARR: The president has been very coy about all of this, and that reflects some of the debate that is still going on within the administration, within the White House itself. On the one hand, the president does recognize the need for intelligence reform, but on the other hand, he doesn't want to diminish the power of Donald Rumsfeld, his secretary of defense. He also does not want to anger -- at least doesn't appear to want to anger conservatives who have some serious problems with these bills, as well.

So there's a very delicate balancing act. And I suspect that when all the dust settles, we'll come up with a new version of the bill in January that the White House has put its imprimatur on from the beginning.

HARRIS: So you don't think we'll get a bill next month.

BARR: I don't think so. I think it will be January before we see a new bill that the -- that from the get-go the administration says this is our bill and this is what we want.

HARRIS: But given all of the debate over this, where we are right now, is there any guarantee that the president will get what he wants next year? BARR: I think his chances are actually improved that he'll get what he wants next year. Again, if he wants to really expend the political capital. But any White House and particularly this White House, they're very particular about their territory and they want the intelligence reauthorization bill, the restructuring bill to be their bill. The versions that are floating around the Hill right now are not theirs.

HARRIS: And the immigration issue and the whole license -- drivers license issue, there seems to be some way to approach this, a more common sense approach. And you've got some thoughts on it.

BARR: Well, first of all, drivers licenses have nothing to do with intelligence restructuring. And that's a problem that many folks have said, look, if the president really wants an intelligence restructuring bill, then have him tell the Congress to get rid of all of this other stuff as important as it might be.

The drivers licenses provisions, for example, upset a lot of conservatives and civil libertarians because it moves us very clearly in the direction of a national identification card for the first time in our history.

HARRIS: I see. OK. So Congressman Sensenbrenner, Congressman Hunter, very strong-minded congressmen.

BARR: That's an understatement.

HARRIS: So in January, do they move off the dime one way or the other to get the president's legislation passed?

BARR: A lot of times what happens when you reach this sort of impasse is it actually works out better to have everybody go home and start a few weeks later or a month later with a clean bill. This gives both sides -- all three sides, really, time to work out their differences rather than deal with a bill with regard to which everybody has already staked out their territory, so to speak.

HARRIS: The bill disappointed a lot of folks -- that this bill didn't get done now, and particularly the families of the 9/11 victims.

BARR: Well, I'm not sure that that's the best group that the president or the Congress ought to be turning to anyway. I'm not quite sure what their expertise is in all this. But yes, that does create a certain amount of political pressure, but in the great scheme of things, nobody is going to lose or win a seat in Congress or lose the White House over this issue.

HARRIS: Bob, good to see you. Happy holidays to you.

BARR: Thanks.

HARRIS: Take care.

PHILLIPS: The "Pretty Woman" star gives her new twins some pretty funky names.

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: While everyone focused on turkey, it was a stork that visited superstar Julia Roberts this weekend. I'll have all the details.

PHILLIPS: Also ahead, we're all around here nibbling on sponge cake. Stay tuned for Jimmy Buffett. The LIVE FROM interview is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Hollywood's pretty woman gives birth to twins and Alexander the Great fails to conquer the box office. CNN's Sibila Vargas has our entertainment news from Los Angeles. Sibila, hi.

VARGAS: Hollywood can now add two more America sweethearts to its roster. Pretty woman Julia Roberts has given birth to twins. The 37-year-old actress and husband Danny Moder became parents over the weekend to a baby boy and baby girl. Phinnaeus Walter and Hazel Patricia came a little earlier than expected. As you may recall Roberts was confined to bed rest after experiencing early contractions last month. In a call just moments Roberts' publicist told us mom and babies are doing great but wouldn't go into details about how the babies got their names.

Well, his name may have struck fear in the hearts of men but "Alexander" didn't quite cut it at the box office. The Oliver Stone biopic cost a reported $150 million to make but opened in a disappointing sixth place with about $21 million. "National Treasure" struck gold for the second time in a row taking in a little over $33 million. "The Incredibles" came in second followed by "Christmas with the Kranks," "The Polar Express," and "SpongeBob SquarePants" movie. Tony, back to you.

HARRIS: Thank you. I guess that "Alexander" is going to have to make some money overseas.

VARGAS: He's going to have to do that. Pretty disappointing.

HARRIS: Sibila, thank you.

VARGAS: I've got one more thing to talk to you about.

PHILLIPS: Don't let her go yet.

VARGAS: It was a movie, then a Broadway musical and now "Hairspray" is set to be a movie musical. Who can forget John Waters' classic 1988 film about a pleasantly plump girl's battle with '60s integration. Now New Line Cinema is hoping the Oscar-winning team, the producers of "Chicago" Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will make magic again with the musical film version of "Hairspray." No word yet on who will play the part of the cast but Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein is being eyed for the role of drag queen Edna.

And by the way, another larger than life star, Godzilla is 50 today. To celebrate the scale-tipping reptile received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He'll be in good company, too, with Mickey Mouse, Jack Nicholson and Barbra Streisand's stars as neighbors. His publicist says that he's ready to retire, but I don't know, you know. After getting stars -- exactly, after having stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the next thing you know, he wants an Oscar.

HARRIS: Like every start out there. He's got a three, four picture deal. It's not going to happen, Sibila. All right. Good to see you. Sorry about the confusion. It's -- my bad.

PHILLIPS: Give Jimmy Buffett an Oscar. He sings, he writes songs, he flies airplanes, writes books, created Margaritaville, has a beautiful wife, three gorgeous kids. Could life be more perfect? Jimmy Buffett is a cross between I guess a pirate and a renaissance man. Would that be fair? Now the leader of those crazy parrot heads is out with a novel titled "A Salty Piece of Land." Jimmy Buffett joins us live from New York. Hi, Jimmy.

JIMMY BUFFETT, SINGER: Hi, Kyra, how are you doing?

PHILLIPS: Great to have you today.

BUFFETT: It's Godzilla's birthday. I love following that.

PHILLIPS: Excellent. You, Godzilla, lot in common, right? You're really young. Where is your star on the Walk of Fame?

BUFFETT: I'm sorry I couldn't hear.

PHILLIPS: Where is your star on the Walk of Fame? Should I speak a little louder?

BUFFETT: Oh, no, no. I always try to keep under the radar. But this week I'm kind of popping up.

PHILLIPS: You always keep under the radar, sure. Let's talk about your book, speaking of radars or maybe lighthouses we should say. Metaphors actually shine as bright as a lighthouse in your book. But I want to ask you about Telly Mars (ph). Tell me about him and the inspiration behind this main character in your book.

BUFFETT: Well, Telly Mars is actually a character from an earlier book of mine of short stories called -- oh, my god. I can't remember the title now. "Tales from Margaritaville." I have a senior moment on national television.

PHILLIPS: I'll go ahead and go over all the books that you've written here including the children's books. One moment. No, go ahead.

BUFFETT: But he was one of fans' favorite characters. So I was looking for a character to put this story on. People have told me that I have kind of the idyllic life and I felt well, I should write about it a little bit in a fictitious manner and I was looking for somebody to come along on the journey. So Telly Mars seemed to be the prime candidate. So we resurrected him and his story wasn't quite finished. So he's back out on the trail from Heartache, Wyoming, to the coast of Alabama, to the Bahamas to Mexico. I don't go to the north pole with characters. I'll leave that to Santa Claus. We go south. So it's a good ride.

PHILLIPS: Interesting that you mention that. The south. I don't know if you have this picture ready or not. Jimmy, do you have a monitor in New York.

BUFFETT: Of course, I do. It's high tech here.

PHILLIPS: Very good. You're probably not going to believe this but my producer Vickie (ph) and I, she's very excited about having you today. We actually went to the South Pole on a trip together. And believe it or not, these parrot heads, every year, stand right there. I don't know if you can see in this picture at the south pole the bottom of the earth and Rhett Butler (ph) is his name, I'm not kidding, it's the next character for your book, has his conch shell and is standing there in his Margaritaville shirt. What do you think of that?

BUFFETT: That's the amazing thing about this. I want to go to Antarctica because I'm in touch with those folks down there. We have an Internet radio station because they are at the South Pole can only get it about an hour a day and they listen to Radio Margaritaville on the South Pole.

PHILLIPS: I got connections. I can hook you up.

BUFFETT: Good. I want to go. I was in Tierra del Fuego last year and almost took that last left on earth. But I want to go. It's just amazing when you run into people everywhere after doing this for 30 years, I think that what -- people ask me what keeps me going. It's these kind of stories and this kind of wonderful stuff. In these days and times it's quite refreshing to see people that enjoy it so much.

PHILLIPS: Well, you talk about the past 30 years and it's true. Let's go back to 1970. What the heck, "Down to Earth." We're going way back. I wonder if you can remember this far back here. Let's talk about this album. Describe to me, Jimmy Buffett then when this first album came out.

BUFFETT: "Down to Earth," that cover was taken actually in a dump on the Cumberland River in Tennessee because -- I had a friend of mine take the picture. We had no budget for anything. I believe we made the record for $10,000. And it was, let's say, way ahead of its time. You know, it's kind of funny now with my kind of resurgence after two or three failed country careers. We've kind of resurrected ourselves and are doing pretty good now.

PHILLIPS: I was going to say far from failed. From Martina to Allen to Clint to Toby, hit after hit after hit. It makes sense though. You're a songwriter. You tell real stories, you're down to earth. You sing about the truck and the dog and the wife that left you, right?

BUFFETT: It's come full circle, it really has from that "Down to Earth" cover to "Coming Back To Now," but it still has been fun. I don't think I've really changed that much. I've learned how to survive which is something you need to do in this business and things have worked out pretty good and it's a pleasant ride on the other side of 30 years of doing this.

PHILLIPS: Being from Mobile, Mississippi, Mobile, what about the Flora-Bama. Go wiped out during the hurricane. That was the worst news to come across.

BUFFETT: I got a hot tip for you. It's coming back. The Flora- Bama did not get destroyed. It was only buried under sand. So it's coming back.

PHILLIPS: And for those that haven't been there, folks, this is a bar on the Alabama-Florida border and Jimmy knows it well as do a lot of his friends. Let's move on and talk about -- it's interesting. You talk about how you haven't changed and you've remained pretty much the same person and telling these stories. I'm curious to the spiritual side of you. Because going to "Down to Earth" a lot of the titles of your songs from that album and then reading this book, "A Salty Piece of Land" and sort of looking at the metaphor of the lighthouse and finding direction in life, maybe I'm reaching here but is there a spiritual side to Jimmy Buffett?

BUFFETT: Yes, it's called the ocean. You know?

PHILLIPS: Oh, yes, I hear you.

BUFFETT: That's where I go to church. It's always been kind of fun just to run along and go crazy. As you go on in this business, you figure out that there are certain priorities you need to get straightened out and if you live long enough and are lucky enough to still be here, hopefully it is happening to me and you know, kids and family come along, it changes your perspective on your gypsy attitudes. But if you still work that balance out -- I still try.

PHILLIPS: You still try. Final thought before we go. Key West. A lot of people see it as sort of a place to go and have the conch fritters and a couple margaritas and see "Margaritaville" and sloppy joes. But there's an affinity to Key West that you have that goes back to the days of the gypsies and the pirates and the treasure hunts.

BUFFETT: It is. And I mean, a lot of that stuff or -- a lot of those ingredients are in this book because that's basically what I do and that's my background. So you know, Key West has gone through a huge change in the almost 30 years I've been around there, but you know, I recorded "License to Chill" there last year. I still go and I can ride my bike around town at given times and still enjoy it.

There is still magic there for me, I don't know about everybody else. And a lot of these places, even from New Orleans to the Gulf Coast down into St. Bart's and other places, I still can find magic in most of those places where people think there isn't any left.

PHILLIPS: It does. It exists. That's a perfect way to place. And it's 5:00 somewhere in one of those places. Hopefully you'll come to Atlanta and we'll fire one up, Jimmy Buffet.

BUFFETT: All right, thank you guys.

PHILLIPS: And I'm talking about a cocktail.

BUFFET: All right.

PHILLIPS: All right, "A Salty Piece of Land" is the new novel. Jimmy, thank you so much.

BUFFET: Thank you all.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to take a -- we're all here, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, Kyra, according to the old expression, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a...

PHILLIPS: Be a duck.

HARRIS: It must be a duck. Unless, of course, you're from Stuttgart, Arkansas for the Annual World Championship Duck Calling Contest.

PHILLIPS: Yes, mallard-mannered contestants go all out in a bid to feather their nests with the $15,000 cash prize.

HARRIS: Wow.

PHILLIPS: Yes, it's pretty good, huh?

Reporter Win Noble of our affiliate KTHV with the story on these nerds of a feather that'll quack you up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WIN NOBLE, KTHV REPORTER (voice-over): It might seem like people who could call this well would have ducks flocking all over them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the equivalent of the Super Bowl in duck calling.

NOBLE: But in this duck calling battle, these guys say it's more about calling the judges than the ducks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wouldn't blow near as loud or near as long, near as high pitched. You sound a whole lot more like a duck. And this doesn't sound like a duck.

NOBLE: The 22 people who fought it out to be Arkansas state champion Saturday say this is more of a freestyle competition with very simple rules.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Start out with three hail (ph) calls, then you work what we call middle duck, you work down to the bottom, then you do your feed call, then a transition, a triple comeback and then you do your feed call again and then you close out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, contestant number six.

NOBLE: And for everyone in the competition, there's a different story about what brought them here.

TONY REYNOLDS, STATE CHAMPION DUCK CALLER: Originally, I wanted to learn how to call ducks so I could go hunting with my dad years ago. And I've got a kind of a competitive nature and I just kind of went stupid with it and got into contest calling.

NOBLE: For only being in his second year of competition, the state champ is Tony Reynolds from Austin, who gives credit where it's due.

REYNOLDS: My wife put up with a lot of practicing and I got lucky.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's give them all a round of applause.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: See, you can be good at anything.

PHILLIPS: I guess birds of a feather quack together? Just listen to this and I'm going to have you take a guess what this is from.

(MUSIC)

HARRIS: They're rapping?

PHILLIPS: This is absolutely no joke. This is the birds that are rapping in Ukraine. You know the protests going on for the election?

HARRIS: So they've flown in some entertainment, is that what you're telling me here?

PHILLIPS: Basically, these are entertainers from Ukraine, and they are out in the middle of this serious protest, OK? About who will be the next leader of Ukraine, a story we've obviously been covering. And...

HARRIS: Look at them. They're rapping.

PHILLIPS: They're rapping.

HARRIS: See, someone's got to stop hip-hop.

PHILLIPS: It's out of control.

HARRIS: It's just absolutely nuts. Someone has got to...

PHILLIPS: We're going to try and stay in control and bring you more LIVE FROM, minus the quacking birds.

HARRIS: Hip-hop.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired November 29, 2004 - 14:29   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is LIVE FROM. I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here is what is all new this half hour.

Roadblocks to reform. What's holding up Congress from making changes in American intelligence gathering based on the 9/11 Commission report. We're going to talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Start out with three hail (ph) calls and you work what we call "middle duck" and work down to the bottom, and then you do your feed call, then a transition, a triple comeback and then you do your feed call again and then you close out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Don't laugh, it's complicated. Quacking up for competition. We'll take you inside the call of the wild. First here's what's happening "Now in the News."

PHILLIPS: In Wisconsin, Chai Vang is expected to be charged with murder today. Vang, a Hmong immigrant, told police a group of hunters yelled racial slurs and then one shot at him after he accidentally wandered into private property November 21. But one of the survivors says Vang shot first, killing six people.

A new study suggests the brains of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may be slightly different from those of other children. ADHD was previously thought to be caused solely by a chemical imbalance. New research also suggests that with medication, the brain irregularities of children with ADHD diminished after about two-and-a-half years.

And the king of Bahrain is making the rounds in Washington. President Bush met just a little while ago with King Hamad Al Khalifa. Earlier, the king met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

HARRIS: Well, you know, it may be the holiday season, but when it comes to the intelligence reform bill, two key Republicans are in no mood to give. In early December, Congress will take one more swing at passing the bill which contains the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Elaine Quijano reports from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats and Republicans are sounding the same warning about what could happen if Congress doesn't approve intelligence reform legislation soon.

TOM KEAN, FMR. 9/11 COMMISSION CHMN.: This bill will pass. The question is whether it will pass now or after a second attack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I agree with the two chairman of the 9/11 Commission. If we don't do this now, we're going to really face the music.

QUIJANO: Even though there are enough votes in the House to pass the legislation now, Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert won't allow the bill to come to a vote because of some strong opposition within his own party. Duncan Hunter, head of the Armed Services Committee, whose son served in Iraq, speaks for Republicans who say the bill doesn't preserve the chain of command needed to keep intelligence flowing quickly to frontline troops.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: When the Department of Defense has to have a satellite over Falluja, for example, because they've got people being shot at on the ground, they need to know where the enemy is, you have to be able to control that agency.

QUIJANO: Top military leaders agree, saying the Pentagon, not a new national intelligence director, should keep control of satellite and communications programs. But other lawmakers say U.S. troops on the battlefield will get what they need.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But every bill that we have proposed preserves that tactical intelligence.

QUIJANO: Another leading holdout, Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner, wants to bar states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: And until we are able to make sure that drivers licenses are given only to people who are lawfully present in the United States, America is still at greater risk.

QUIJANO: The 9/11 Commission's vice chair says the risk is not passing reforms now.

LEE HAMILTON, FMR. 9/11 COMMISSION VICE CHMN.: I know the attention has been on the intelligence and the immigration provisions. They're important provisions but there are scores if not hundreds of provisions here which strengthen the counter-terrorism efforts of the United States.

QUIJANO (on camera): Democrats complain that the president, who has said he will sign the bill, has not put enough pressure on Republican holdouts. Now, the White House says the president has made it clear he wants the legislation to pass as quickly as possible. And officials say the president will continue working closely with Congress to make that happen.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And joining us to discuss the intelligence bill's difficult journey through the Congress is former Republican Congressman, Bob Barr.

Bob, good to see you.

BOB BARR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Always a pleasure.

HARRIS: All right, reality check time for us here. If the president wants intelligence reform, he'll get it.

BARR: If the president really wants intelligence reform, he has enough political capital, if he wants to expend it, to push Congress in the direction that he wants it to go. But of course, there would have to be compromises made. And I think that's what we'll finally wind up with, but I doubt seriously whether we'll see that before the new Congress convenes in January.

HARRIS: OK. So Bob, which bill -- do we know which bill the president wants? Does he want the House version with the recommendations from Congressmens Sensenbrenner and Hunter or does he want the Senate version of the intelligence reform bill that has bipartisan support?

BARR: The president has been very coy about all of this, and that reflects some of the debate that is still going on within the administration, within the White House itself. On the one hand, the president does recognize the need for intelligence reform, but on the other hand, he doesn't want to diminish the power of Donald Rumsfeld, his secretary of defense. He also does not want to anger -- at least doesn't appear to want to anger conservatives who have some serious problems with these bills, as well.

So there's a very delicate balancing act. And I suspect that when all the dust settles, we'll come up with a new version of the bill in January that the White House has put its imprimatur on from the beginning.

HARRIS: So you don't think we'll get a bill next month.

BARR: I don't think so. I think it will be January before we see a new bill that the -- that from the get-go the administration says this is our bill and this is what we want.

HARRIS: But given all of the debate over this, where we are right now, is there any guarantee that the president will get what he wants next year? BARR: I think his chances are actually improved that he'll get what he wants next year. Again, if he wants to really expend the political capital. But any White House and particularly this White House, they're very particular about their territory and they want the intelligence reauthorization bill, the restructuring bill to be their bill. The versions that are floating around the Hill right now are not theirs.

HARRIS: And the immigration issue and the whole license -- drivers license issue, there seems to be some way to approach this, a more common sense approach. And you've got some thoughts on it.

BARR: Well, first of all, drivers licenses have nothing to do with intelligence restructuring. And that's a problem that many folks have said, look, if the president really wants an intelligence restructuring bill, then have him tell the Congress to get rid of all of this other stuff as important as it might be.

The drivers licenses provisions, for example, upset a lot of conservatives and civil libertarians because it moves us very clearly in the direction of a national identification card for the first time in our history.

HARRIS: I see. OK. So Congressman Sensenbrenner, Congressman Hunter, very strong-minded congressmen.

BARR: That's an understatement.

HARRIS: So in January, do they move off the dime one way or the other to get the president's legislation passed?

BARR: A lot of times what happens when you reach this sort of impasse is it actually works out better to have everybody go home and start a few weeks later or a month later with a clean bill. This gives both sides -- all three sides, really, time to work out their differences rather than deal with a bill with regard to which everybody has already staked out their territory, so to speak.

HARRIS: The bill disappointed a lot of folks -- that this bill didn't get done now, and particularly the families of the 9/11 victims.

BARR: Well, I'm not sure that that's the best group that the president or the Congress ought to be turning to anyway. I'm not quite sure what their expertise is in all this. But yes, that does create a certain amount of political pressure, but in the great scheme of things, nobody is going to lose or win a seat in Congress or lose the White House over this issue.

HARRIS: Bob, good to see you. Happy holidays to you.

BARR: Thanks.

HARRIS: Take care.

PHILLIPS: The "Pretty Woman" star gives her new twins some pretty funky names.

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: While everyone focused on turkey, it was a stork that visited superstar Julia Roberts this weekend. I'll have all the details.

PHILLIPS: Also ahead, we're all around here nibbling on sponge cake. Stay tuned for Jimmy Buffett. The LIVE FROM interview is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Hollywood's pretty woman gives birth to twins and Alexander the Great fails to conquer the box office. CNN's Sibila Vargas has our entertainment news from Los Angeles. Sibila, hi.

VARGAS: Hollywood can now add two more America sweethearts to its roster. Pretty woman Julia Roberts has given birth to twins. The 37-year-old actress and husband Danny Moder became parents over the weekend to a baby boy and baby girl. Phinnaeus Walter and Hazel Patricia came a little earlier than expected. As you may recall Roberts was confined to bed rest after experiencing early contractions last month. In a call just moments Roberts' publicist told us mom and babies are doing great but wouldn't go into details about how the babies got their names.

Well, his name may have struck fear in the hearts of men but "Alexander" didn't quite cut it at the box office. The Oliver Stone biopic cost a reported $150 million to make but opened in a disappointing sixth place with about $21 million. "National Treasure" struck gold for the second time in a row taking in a little over $33 million. "The Incredibles" came in second followed by "Christmas with the Kranks," "The Polar Express," and "SpongeBob SquarePants" movie. Tony, back to you.

HARRIS: Thank you. I guess that "Alexander" is going to have to make some money overseas.

VARGAS: He's going to have to do that. Pretty disappointing.

HARRIS: Sibila, thank you.

VARGAS: I've got one more thing to talk to you about.

PHILLIPS: Don't let her go yet.

VARGAS: It was a movie, then a Broadway musical and now "Hairspray" is set to be a movie musical. Who can forget John Waters' classic 1988 film about a pleasantly plump girl's battle with '60s integration. Now New Line Cinema is hoping the Oscar-winning team, the producers of "Chicago" Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will make magic again with the musical film version of "Hairspray." No word yet on who will play the part of the cast but Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein is being eyed for the role of drag queen Edna.

And by the way, another larger than life star, Godzilla is 50 today. To celebrate the scale-tipping reptile received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He'll be in good company, too, with Mickey Mouse, Jack Nicholson and Barbra Streisand's stars as neighbors. His publicist says that he's ready to retire, but I don't know, you know. After getting stars -- exactly, after having stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the next thing you know, he wants an Oscar.

HARRIS: Like every start out there. He's got a three, four picture deal. It's not going to happen, Sibila. All right. Good to see you. Sorry about the confusion. It's -- my bad.

PHILLIPS: Give Jimmy Buffett an Oscar. He sings, he writes songs, he flies airplanes, writes books, created Margaritaville, has a beautiful wife, three gorgeous kids. Could life be more perfect? Jimmy Buffett is a cross between I guess a pirate and a renaissance man. Would that be fair? Now the leader of those crazy parrot heads is out with a novel titled "A Salty Piece of Land." Jimmy Buffett joins us live from New York. Hi, Jimmy.

JIMMY BUFFETT, SINGER: Hi, Kyra, how are you doing?

PHILLIPS: Great to have you today.

BUFFETT: It's Godzilla's birthday. I love following that.

PHILLIPS: Excellent. You, Godzilla, lot in common, right? You're really young. Where is your star on the Walk of Fame?

BUFFETT: I'm sorry I couldn't hear.

PHILLIPS: Where is your star on the Walk of Fame? Should I speak a little louder?

BUFFETT: Oh, no, no. I always try to keep under the radar. But this week I'm kind of popping up.

PHILLIPS: You always keep under the radar, sure. Let's talk about your book, speaking of radars or maybe lighthouses we should say. Metaphors actually shine as bright as a lighthouse in your book. But I want to ask you about Telly Mars (ph). Tell me about him and the inspiration behind this main character in your book.

BUFFETT: Well, Telly Mars is actually a character from an earlier book of mine of short stories called -- oh, my god. I can't remember the title now. "Tales from Margaritaville." I have a senior moment on national television.

PHILLIPS: I'll go ahead and go over all the books that you've written here including the children's books. One moment. No, go ahead.

BUFFETT: But he was one of fans' favorite characters. So I was looking for a character to put this story on. People have told me that I have kind of the idyllic life and I felt well, I should write about it a little bit in a fictitious manner and I was looking for somebody to come along on the journey. So Telly Mars seemed to be the prime candidate. So we resurrected him and his story wasn't quite finished. So he's back out on the trail from Heartache, Wyoming, to the coast of Alabama, to the Bahamas to Mexico. I don't go to the north pole with characters. I'll leave that to Santa Claus. We go south. So it's a good ride.

PHILLIPS: Interesting that you mention that. The south. I don't know if you have this picture ready or not. Jimmy, do you have a monitor in New York.

BUFFETT: Of course, I do. It's high tech here.

PHILLIPS: Very good. You're probably not going to believe this but my producer Vickie (ph) and I, she's very excited about having you today. We actually went to the South Pole on a trip together. And believe it or not, these parrot heads, every year, stand right there. I don't know if you can see in this picture at the south pole the bottom of the earth and Rhett Butler (ph) is his name, I'm not kidding, it's the next character for your book, has his conch shell and is standing there in his Margaritaville shirt. What do you think of that?

BUFFETT: That's the amazing thing about this. I want to go to Antarctica because I'm in touch with those folks down there. We have an Internet radio station because they are at the South Pole can only get it about an hour a day and they listen to Radio Margaritaville on the South Pole.

PHILLIPS: I got connections. I can hook you up.

BUFFETT: Good. I want to go. I was in Tierra del Fuego last year and almost took that last left on earth. But I want to go. It's just amazing when you run into people everywhere after doing this for 30 years, I think that what -- people ask me what keeps me going. It's these kind of stories and this kind of wonderful stuff. In these days and times it's quite refreshing to see people that enjoy it so much.

PHILLIPS: Well, you talk about the past 30 years and it's true. Let's go back to 1970. What the heck, "Down to Earth." We're going way back. I wonder if you can remember this far back here. Let's talk about this album. Describe to me, Jimmy Buffett then when this first album came out.

BUFFETT: "Down to Earth," that cover was taken actually in a dump on the Cumberland River in Tennessee because -- I had a friend of mine take the picture. We had no budget for anything. I believe we made the record for $10,000. And it was, let's say, way ahead of its time. You know, it's kind of funny now with my kind of resurgence after two or three failed country careers. We've kind of resurrected ourselves and are doing pretty good now.

PHILLIPS: I was going to say far from failed. From Martina to Allen to Clint to Toby, hit after hit after hit. It makes sense though. You're a songwriter. You tell real stories, you're down to earth. You sing about the truck and the dog and the wife that left you, right?

BUFFETT: It's come full circle, it really has from that "Down to Earth" cover to "Coming Back To Now," but it still has been fun. I don't think I've really changed that much. I've learned how to survive which is something you need to do in this business and things have worked out pretty good and it's a pleasant ride on the other side of 30 years of doing this.

PHILLIPS: Being from Mobile, Mississippi, Mobile, what about the Flora-Bama. Go wiped out during the hurricane. That was the worst news to come across.

BUFFETT: I got a hot tip for you. It's coming back. The Flora- Bama did not get destroyed. It was only buried under sand. So it's coming back.

PHILLIPS: And for those that haven't been there, folks, this is a bar on the Alabama-Florida border and Jimmy knows it well as do a lot of his friends. Let's move on and talk about -- it's interesting. You talk about how you haven't changed and you've remained pretty much the same person and telling these stories. I'm curious to the spiritual side of you. Because going to "Down to Earth" a lot of the titles of your songs from that album and then reading this book, "A Salty Piece of Land" and sort of looking at the metaphor of the lighthouse and finding direction in life, maybe I'm reaching here but is there a spiritual side to Jimmy Buffett?

BUFFETT: Yes, it's called the ocean. You know?

PHILLIPS: Oh, yes, I hear you.

BUFFETT: That's where I go to church. It's always been kind of fun just to run along and go crazy. As you go on in this business, you figure out that there are certain priorities you need to get straightened out and if you live long enough and are lucky enough to still be here, hopefully it is happening to me and you know, kids and family come along, it changes your perspective on your gypsy attitudes. But if you still work that balance out -- I still try.

PHILLIPS: You still try. Final thought before we go. Key West. A lot of people see it as sort of a place to go and have the conch fritters and a couple margaritas and see "Margaritaville" and sloppy joes. But there's an affinity to Key West that you have that goes back to the days of the gypsies and the pirates and the treasure hunts.

BUFFETT: It is. And I mean, a lot of that stuff or -- a lot of those ingredients are in this book because that's basically what I do and that's my background. So you know, Key West has gone through a huge change in the almost 30 years I've been around there, but you know, I recorded "License to Chill" there last year. I still go and I can ride my bike around town at given times and still enjoy it.

There is still magic there for me, I don't know about everybody else. And a lot of these places, even from New Orleans to the Gulf Coast down into St. Bart's and other places, I still can find magic in most of those places where people think there isn't any left.

PHILLIPS: It does. It exists. That's a perfect way to place. And it's 5:00 somewhere in one of those places. Hopefully you'll come to Atlanta and we'll fire one up, Jimmy Buffet.

BUFFETT: All right, thank you guys.

PHILLIPS: And I'm talking about a cocktail.

BUFFET: All right.

PHILLIPS: All right, "A Salty Piece of Land" is the new novel. Jimmy, thank you so much.

BUFFET: Thank you all.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to take a -- we're all here, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, Kyra, according to the old expression, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a...

PHILLIPS: Be a duck.

HARRIS: It must be a duck. Unless, of course, you're from Stuttgart, Arkansas for the Annual World Championship Duck Calling Contest.

PHILLIPS: Yes, mallard-mannered contestants go all out in a bid to feather their nests with the $15,000 cash prize.

HARRIS: Wow.

PHILLIPS: Yes, it's pretty good, huh?

Reporter Win Noble of our affiliate KTHV with the story on these nerds of a feather that'll quack you up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WIN NOBLE, KTHV REPORTER (voice-over): It might seem like people who could call this well would have ducks flocking all over them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the equivalent of the Super Bowl in duck calling.

NOBLE: But in this duck calling battle, these guys say it's more about calling the judges than the ducks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wouldn't blow near as loud or near as long, near as high pitched. You sound a whole lot more like a duck. And this doesn't sound like a duck.

NOBLE: The 22 people who fought it out to be Arkansas state champion Saturday say this is more of a freestyle competition with very simple rules.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Start out with three hail (ph) calls, then you work what we call middle duck, you work down to the bottom, then you do your feed call, then a transition, a triple comeback and then you do your feed call again and then you close out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, contestant number six.

NOBLE: And for everyone in the competition, there's a different story about what brought them here.

TONY REYNOLDS, STATE CHAMPION DUCK CALLER: Originally, I wanted to learn how to call ducks so I could go hunting with my dad years ago. And I've got a kind of a competitive nature and I just kind of went stupid with it and got into contest calling.

NOBLE: For only being in his second year of competition, the state champ is Tony Reynolds from Austin, who gives credit where it's due.

REYNOLDS: My wife put up with a lot of practicing and I got lucky.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's give them all a round of applause.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: See, you can be good at anything.

PHILLIPS: I guess birds of a feather quack together? Just listen to this and I'm going to have you take a guess what this is from.

(MUSIC)

HARRIS: They're rapping?

PHILLIPS: This is absolutely no joke. This is the birds that are rapping in Ukraine. You know the protests going on for the election?

HARRIS: So they've flown in some entertainment, is that what you're telling me here?

PHILLIPS: Basically, these are entertainers from Ukraine, and they are out in the middle of this serious protest, OK? About who will be the next leader of Ukraine, a story we've obviously been covering. And...

HARRIS: Look at them. They're rapping.

PHILLIPS: They're rapping.

HARRIS: See, someone's got to stop hip-hop.

PHILLIPS: It's out of control.

HARRIS: It's just absolutely nuts. Someone has got to...

PHILLIPS: We're going to try and stay in control and bring you more LIVE FROM, minus the quacking birds.

HARRIS: Hip-hop.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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