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American Morning
'Here's What I Don't Get'
Aired November 28, 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, "THE DAILY SHOW": We begin tonight with a little fact about Afghanistan, although to be honest, before we started bombing them, any fact about Afghanistan was little known. I swear, we should have bombed them sooner. It's a fascinating country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, LATE NIGHT HOST: The category, top 10 ways Osama bin Laden can improve his image. Top 10 ways Osama bin Laden can improve his image.
Here we go, number 10: There is no way he can improve his image. He is a murdering soulless (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
There you go.
(APPLAUSE)
ZAHN: Hey, just said what all of us are thinking and we can't say out loud, and you and I can't stay up late enough every night to see that.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I know. I know. He's a very funny man, Letterman. He's good.
ZAHN: It's so interesting to see how many weeks it took for these comedians to be able to take on Osama bin Laden and then take on...
CAFFERTY: Remember "The Saturday Night Live" show when they first began to broach the subject of humor, and they had Mayor Giuliani on. And who is the executive producer of "Saturday Night Live?" Lorne Michaels. And he's talking to the mayor at the very start of their show, and he said, "Do you think enough time has passed? You think he can we be funny now." And the mayor said looked at him and said, "Why don't you start now?" And it was that kind -- and they did it very tastefully and gracefully, but it was awkward, tough for them.
"The Daily Show," I do watch that, because they have reruns on my cable system in New Jersey where I live, and it comes on like 7:00, and that's a very clever, well-done program. ZAHN: He's a smart guy. And you're a smart guy, too, because guess what, a story that you took on days ago was on the front page of the "Washington Post" this morning, folks. It says "Global Ridicule Extinguishes Montgomery's Antismoking Bill." This was a bill that you attacked for being absurd. Remind people what it would have done if it hadn't been shot down.
CAFFERTY: These morons on the Montgomery County Council passed this ordinance that would provide for a $750 fine if your neighbor complained about your smoking in your house.
(LAUGHTER):
ZAHN: I'm trying to figure how they would even know you're smoking in your house..
CAFFERTY: The outbreak of sanity is courtesy of a county executive down there, a guy named Douglas Duncan, who refused to sign it. But I mean, wouldn't you think these people would figure the kind of reaction that legislation would get before they voted on it. I mean, wouldn't you think?
ZAHN: Maybe they're public servants that are just trying to do the public good and not worried about public polling and that stuff, Jack. Is that possible in today's world? No.
CAFFERTY: No, it's not possible. Are you kidding? Absolutely not.
ZAHN: But the global ridicule I think was actually more like ridicule coming from CNN studios in New York City.
CAFFERTY: That had nothing to do with us. We just made a passing observation. It was a silly idea. But one of the members of the council, Michael Subin (ph), was quoted on the front page of the "Post" as saying, "We've become the laughingstock of the world." That was predictable, Michael, before the vote, you know.
There it is.
A couple of other things. I think it was "The New York Times," we've got pictures of truckloads of Taliban troops surrendering. Apparently, the Northern Alliance surrounded Konduz on the northern part of country, and eventually, a bunch of these troops, hundreds of them, decided to give up the ghost, lay down their arms, turn themselves in. Now unless I missed something, back at the start of this thing, isn't there divine mission in life to meet Allah?
ZAHN: Right.
CAFFERTY: I mean, isn't that what they want to do? They want to die in defense of the cause to get first-hand contact with Allah. These are people that used to interrupt soccer games at the stadium in Kabul to bring women into the stadium, put them on their knees and shoot them in the back of the head, lay men down who were accused of petty crimes on the turf and cut their throats while the assembled multitudes watched them bleed to death, hung people from the goalpost in the soccer stadium. But when they come face-to-face with their own moment of truth, it's mommy don't hurt me.
ZAHN: We're out of here.
CAFFERTY: You know, here's my gun, please don't hurt me. The people in the World Trade Center weren't given the option of surrendering. The people on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania weren't given the option of surrendering. The people at the Pentagon weren't given the option of surrendering. The sailors aboard the USS Cole weren't given the option of surrendering. The people who died in the bombing of the embassies in Africa weren't given the option of surrendering. But now they don't want anymore. They've had enough, and we're only 10 weeks into the war.
ZAHN: But what are you saying, though, Jack? Are you saying that Northern Alliance should have just blown them all away?
CAFFERTY: I don't know. I just...
ZAHN: No. It's stunning. What's also stunning to me is how quickly they change sides.
CAFFERTY: They switch sides like crazy. The hypocrisy of that is offensive me. All of this rhetoric about, you know, we are going to die for Allah. And yet when the chance comes, like, well, I change their mind.
The other thing, we'll do this tomorrow. The only dumber meeting perhaps in the Western world, except for that council meeting in the county of Maryland that passed that stupid ordinance is the meeting of the middle management marmots here at our company that produced this document.
ZAHN: I don't have one of those yet. You must be very special, Jack.
CAFFERTY: This is tomorrow's things. This is emergency procedures for all us who work here, and we are going to take a look at some of this tomorrow. It's mind boggling.
ZAHN: Are they not protecting our well-being here?
CAFFERTY: The idea -- anytime you see more than two middle management people go into a room and close the door, you've got trouble, because ain't nothing coming out of these meetings that's going to be beneficial to anybody, and...
ZAHN: It'd color-coded, though, Jack. It's makes it like so easy to synthesize.
CAFFERTY: We'll hold this for tomorrow, but believe me, it's worth a look.
ZAHN: Well, it does tell you if you have a partial electrical failure who to call. That's helpful. CAFFERTY: The one we're going to focus on is what to do if we get a bomb threat.
ZAHN: And just quickly, just reel off one of the pieces of advice. We've got it right here.
CAFFERTY: There's two pages of instructions.
ZAHN: Yes, like you are going to have to time go through with this.
CAFFERTY: And nowhere does it say, hang up the phone and get the hell out of the building, that isn't in the instructions. Instead, we're supposed to engage the caller in a lengthy enter interview. We will share it tomorrow.
ZAHN: I look forward to that one. I think that maybe our instincts should be run, run, run...
CAFFERTY: Absolutely.
ZAHN: ... if you knows there's a threat in the building. Thanks, Jack. Same time, same place tomorrow. Actually, you will be along a little bit later on to talk with Santa Claus? Is that true?
CAFFERTY: Yes, I missed my opportunity when I was young. I need to get caught up.
ZAHN: We are happy to give you payback time here many years later.
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