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American Morning
'Here's What I Don't Get'
Aired November 16, 2001 - 08:37 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Times for today's edition of "Here's What I Don't Get" with Jack Cafferty.
Well, yesterday, Jack was on a tear over delays in passing an aviation security bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It has 65 days since the terrorist attacks on America -- the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane crash in Pennsylvania. The Congress has not passed an airline security measure. The Congress has not passed an economic stimulus package. The Congress is going to go on vacation next week. And my question is, how will we know they are gone?
ZAHN: Should we put a little clock up every morning.
CAFFERTY: I think everyday. Tomorrow is day 66, right?
ZAHN: All right.
CAFFERTY: And we'll just do it until something happens, come on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: All right, so look what happened. You make your little point yesterday, and hours afterwards, Congress comes to some kind of compromise on aviation security.
CAFFERTY: Who says the news media has no power?
ZAHN: Cause and effect, with Jack Cafferty.
CAFFERTY: You know, what was great was watching them break their arms patting themselves over the back over this thing yesterday. They'll all out there, and this is a great victory for...
ZAHN: It's better than nothing, Jack, isn't it?
CAFFERTY: Barely, just barely. The Republicans lose bigtime. They get nothing out of this. The Republicans wanted the screeners to remain private sector employees. They will be federal employees. The Transportation Department is going to over see this. It was preferred maybe that the Justice Department oversee this. Less than 10 percent of all the checked-in baggage gets screened for bombs and explosives, less than 10 percent, even though there are pieces of sophisticated X-ray equipment that exists that will do this. They create delays, and sometimes they give false-positive readings, so a lot of airlines choose not to use them.
ZAHN: And these machines are hugely expensive. They've already made the capital investment, they're there.
CAFFERTY: They're expensive, they work. You are dead a long time if you're dead, so if you have to wait an extra 10 minutes to get on the plane, what's the big deal? Ninety percent of the baggage that's not checked, they have a year to implement the screening of all checked luggage. I just think that's kind of a watered-down deal.
On another subject, because I want to get to chestnuts. The essence of what I have to do this morning is about chestnuts.
The other deal is Putin and Bush finished up this love-in down in Texas. They're going to cut the nuclear weapons arsenal, that's a good thing. Russia's not going to cut oil production to appease OPEC, and I just wonder if the president, our president said something to their president, hey look, we could really use $15 oil, this economy is in trouble. Apparently the Russians are not going to go along with the requested cutbacks that OPEC would like in order to boost prices.
Whether Bush had anything to do with that, we will probably never know, but it's a nice development that maybe has something to do with this.
The one thing they didn't agree on is this missile shield that President Bush wants to go ahead with and the scrapping of the ABM Treaty. This dates back to 1972. But these guys have become so close that I can see them doing that AOL Instant Messaging late at night -- Hey, Vladimir, what do you think, what about if we do -- you know, back and forth.
Chestnuts -- sitting in a makeup chair in a TV studio -- you've been here -- the damndest things. And this morning I heard a conversation, two of my colleagues discussing the proper way to prepare roasted chestnuts. We have holidays coming up.
ZAHN: And did you learn anything, Jack?
CAFFERTY: I learned a great deal. To wit, if you don't properly prepare the chestnuts before you expose them to the fire, they explode and become mini artillery shells that will ricochet around your kitchen.
ZAHN: I didn't know that.
CAFFERTY: And so to save our viewers from the chore of watching Martha Stewart later in the day, let me just suggest that if you going to prepare roasted chestnuts, before you put your chestnuts in the fire, hit them with a hammer, in order to break that external shell.
ZAHN: You see everybody walking around with Band-Aids on their thumbs, you know they had some problems following your instructions.
So what would you do with these almonds, Jack. Would you like a little treat? We have these everyday on standby.
CAFFERTY: That's health food, right?
ZAHN: Yes, we don't have to take a hammer to these, right, we can just throw them in the fire.
CAFFERTY: They grown those in California, right?
ZAHN: They do, indeed. Hope you have a good weekend.
CAFFERTY: You, too.
ZAHN: Can I come to your house for Thanksgiving?
CAFFERTY: Sure. And bring the kids. Yes, absolutely. Nobody will be there, but you are welcome to come to my house.
ZAHN: You are so generous. All right, thanks, Jack. See you Monday.
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