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Elizabeth Smart Kidnapped Ruled Incompetent to Stand Trial; Discovery Astronauts Check for Damage; Utility Usage High Due to Heat

Aired July 27, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, ANCHOR: And oh, boy. It will be another scorcher along the East Coast today. Temperatures expected to be in the upper 90s. Officials across the United States investigating 40 deaths now believed to have been caused by the high temperatures and heat index over the past week.
But relief is on the way. A cold front is pushing through. We'll check in with Chad just in a minute.

And boy, that will make you smile. It's going to be a hot one today here in New York.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Sure will. What did they say, 93 or something?

COSTELLO: But it will feel like 320 degrees or something like that.

MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: That real feel thing.

S. O'BRIEN: It's all about the real feel.

M. O'BRIEN: It's going to be very real here.

COSTELLO: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Carol. Thanks.

Other news now. The accused kidnapper of teenager Elizabeth Smart will not be standing trial any time soon. A Utah judge has ruled that Brian David Mitchell is delusional and incompetent to take part in his own defense. He's going to be confined for treatment.

Mitchell is accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart from her bedroom and sexually assaulting the girl three years ago when she was 14 years old. Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, joins us from Salt Lake City in Utah.

It's nice to see you again, Ed. Thanks for being with us this morning. What's your reaction when you got this news?

ED SMART, ELIZABETH SMART'S FATHER: You know, I was surprised, because I thought it could go either way. And I -- you know, I thought, we're going to end up going to trial. I felt that way initially. But with the ruling happening the way it did, I really don't see him changing. S. O'BRIEN: I had heard that you described it as relief. And I would imagine that's because your daughter, who's now 17, doesn't have to go and testify against this guy. Would that be a fair assessment?

SMART: Absolutely. You know, I don't think any father would want their daughter to have to testify. But you know, I know that she's capable of doing it if she ever had to. But, you know, this guy is such a character. I can see this going on and on. So I think at this point our family hopes that he is at some point civilly committed.

S. O'BRIEN: So "such a character." I can't tell then if you think he's faking it. There were three psychiatrists who evaluated him. Two said that he was delusional and that he couldn't be competent. But there was a third who said, actually, he's not, and he is competent. Do you feel like somehow he's getting away with it?

SMART: You know, I think that all the antics that went on in the courtroom were just antics, and I thought the judge saw through that. I don't think that was really taken into consideration. Other than he -- he won't cooperate with his defense.

And so, yes, I think that was a whole act. I think the real issue goes back to, you know, whatever made him this way. How could he ever justify that, you know, being a father, that he could go out and do something as outrageous and horrible as this?

S. O'BRIEN: So then how's the family doing? Are you ultimately frustrated? Are you ultimately just moving past it?

SMART: You know, we've just been taking things as they've come. And you know, we're -- at this point it looks like this is how it's going to continue. I mean, it's been two plus years now, and so if this is the state that he's in now, I don't think he's going to be changing.

I mean, you look at his past. He severed his ties with his family. So if that was delusional, you know, and he's delusional still, I don't see that changing any time soon.

S. O'BRIEN: What's been Elizabeth's he reaction? Is she relieved? Or is she -- you sort of said she could testify and would be willing to if she had to.

SMART: She could testify if she had to. I think that Elizabeth just doesn't pay any attention to this, only at the point where she has to do something. So I don't think that -- I think to put it in terms that she hopes he enjoys the hospital as much as she enjoyed being with him.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, I was thinking about you the other day when they recovered that little girl, Shasta Groene, because you think, "Wow, what great relief for her father." I mean, on the other hand, you think what terrible things this child has clearly experienced and seen. What kind of advice do you give to the father, who I know you've spoken to? I mean, what do you do to make sure the child recovers as well, at least, as Elizabeth seems to have?

SMART: You know, I think the support of the community and being together with her family, trying to make things as normal as possible. I certainly hope that she recovers as well as Elizabeth has. It's just a nightmare to have lived through. And I -- you know, our prayers are with her family and hope that, you know, she continues to do well.

S. O'BRIEN: Gosh, we certainly join you in that. Ed Smart, nice to see you as always. Thanks for talking with us. We sure appreciate it.

SMART: Thank you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Astronauts on the Space Shuttle Discovery hard at work this morning. They've been up for quite some time. Today's task is an important one, a seven-hour inspection of the shuttle's wings and nose, leading edge of the wing.

These are pictures of yesterday's launch, which was, at least appeared to be, picture perfect. They're looking for some damage, though, that could have occurred during Tuesday's launch. And we spotted a couple of things of interest.

Check this out. First of all, this is a couple of minutes into the flight right after the solid rocket boosters come off. A piece breaks away from the external fuel tank. And there is another piece, as well, that caused a ding in one of the tiles.

Dr. Norm Thagard is a former -- former retired -- a former NASA astronaut, but he's hardly retired. He's a very active guy. He joins us now from Tallahassee, Florida.

Norm, good to have you back with us. I know whenever you flew -- and you said this to me before -- it was very common to see things flying off that external fuel tank. So it should come as no surprise to us that there are some dings here.

DR. NORM THAGARD, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: No, it's no surprise at all, Miles. And it's good to see you too this morning. It's like a snowstorm, or used to be, with all the material coming off the external tank. But as I remember, at the most, it just made little smudges on the windscreen. But what we saw yesterday was not unusual.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Now that ding that we saw -- here we go. This is the ding in question here. There you see that little dot appear there. It's about an inch or an inch and a half.

And before we get too alarmed about this, first of all, there are upwards of 100 dings on the bottom of an orbiter after every flight. This is sort of just part of the drill, so to speak. But it is important to get a sense, get a handle on this, isn't it?

THAGARD: It is, and you're right. They replaced, I think, about 100 tiles every flight, and they have to repair even more than that. We were always told that you can lose any one tile or maybe even a couple on any area in the shuttle and not be in danger. That area up near the nose wheel door is one of the more critical areas, however. So I'm sure they'll look at that pretty closely.

M. O'BRIEN: and when you talk about these critical areas, we're talking about areas where there are key hydraulic lines, for example, ways which plasma, that 2,500 degree heat, could get inside a wheel well or something like that, which could cause a real problem, right?

THAGARD: That's right. And if you look at the shuttle, the leading edge of the wings and the nose cone, which are black, are that carbon composite material. Those are the highest temperature areas on the shuttle, about 3,000 degrees. And then the black tiles on the underside are also high temperature, not quite as hot as 3,000, but nonetheless, very hot. And then the white tiles and the fabric represent areas where they're even lower temperatures.

M. O'BRIEN: This puts -- potentially puts the engineers, puts the mission management team into a quandary, which I think they predicted, that they would see these kinds of things which are not clear-cut. They're kind of gray area decisions, and it forces them to make decisions with still limited information, because they are, after all, not there, able to poke their finger in it or whatever and take a real look at it.

So in a sense, is it almost too much information? Or is there such a thing in this business?

THAGARD: There's no such thing as too much information. But another problem here is they've never had a lot of this data before. They never had those camera views. So this is new territory, and it's going to take some time for them to sort it out.

I noticed that yesterday's post-launch press conference, they even were uncertain about the size of some of the material that was coming off, just because of the camera angles and they're unfamiliarity with those.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, and that does lead to the issue. You have a lot of information, but in a sense maybe some of it is deceiving. And that's an important point.

I know a few days down the road here they'll take a very close look. They'll train the camera at the end of that extended boom on that particular spot in the tiles that was dinged. I guess the presumption is we'll know a lot more then.

THAGARD: We'll know a lot more then. But I don't think anyone should be overly worried right now, because it -- in looking at it yesterday, if anything, I would suspect that's less debris than they normally see. And, again, it's extraordinarily unlikely that you're going to have the kind of damage -- obviously, it is, because we had 100 flights before Columbia. So even if they had done nothing, the chances would still be good that there were no serious damage.

M. O'BRIEN: Final thought as we look at that debris coming off. And NASA never promised it would be debris free, but just a final thought on the shuttle back in space, the second return to flight. You were at NASA all through that, the first accident, Challenger, and the return to flight then. What are the emotions?

THAGARD: Extraordinary. And I did stay on. In fact, I made it a point that I was going to stay on after Challenger. I'd already flown twice on Challenger before the accident. I flew three more times afterward.

When you get back to flying, it raises everyone's spirits. And I remember on that third -- my third flight, which was the third flight after we resumed flying post-Challenger, I had a few misgivings, maybe 20 minutes before launch. But as the clock ticked down, all I could think of was, "Let's go do this. This is great."

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Would you go again?

THAGARD: Absolutely. In a heartbeat.

M. O'BRIEN: Norm Thagard, always a pleasure.

S. O'BRIEN: I could have given you that answer. I knew he was going to say that.

M. O'BRIEN: You sort of saw that gleam in his eye, didn't you?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I did.

M. O'BRIEN: He didn't have to say anything.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, he did.

Let's talk a bit about the weather now. Near hurricane force winds tore up the Cleveland, Ohio, area. That was on Tuesday. The severe storms knocked down trees and power lines. At least 30,000 people lost power.

The National Weather Service reported wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour. One local airport -- look at these pictures -- took a real beating. That's a plane there if you can't recognize it. Wind gusts flipped over three small planes. They'd been tied down. And in fact, one of the planes was blown right into a fence. You can see the fence collapsing right there.

Brings us to check the rest of the weather for the rest of the country. And Chad Myers, good morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: We were talking about how the high 70s is going to be a nice cool day.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: What a difference a couple of days makes. All right, Chad, thanks.

MYERS: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: There's more AMERICAN MORNING still to come.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN (voice-over): Ahead on "90 Second Pop."

Jane Fonda says she's ready to take on the war in Iraq. Plus, another show about dancing and another huge hit. A look at why, all of a sudden, America can't stop cutting a rug. That's later on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: You know, when I played "Monopoly," I never liked having the utilities. Did you like having the utilities?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE": Steady dividend. Steady.

M. O'BRIEN: It would apparently be a good buy right now, right, Andy Serwer?

SERWER: Absolutely. I'll tell you what's going on right now, is demand for electricity, because of the summer heat wave, is soaring. And that's good news for the utility companies, as Miles is suggesting.

Electricity usage is probably going to set a record for last week. The numbers not quite in. Breaking the readings set in August of '02. New York state has already set a record.

And, of course, the big thing on everyone's mind is going to be blackouts, because you remember a couple years ago in the northeast we had that terrible situation, and then in California in '01 those horrible brown outs and blackouts.

So far this summer, there really haven't been any to speak of. Chicago had a few scattered blackouts, and there were rumors of blackouts and brown outs in California that were supposed to occur, but have not. So interesting stuff.

And the other thing that's contributing to this is that the economy's in pretty good shape. So you have the economy kind of firing on, well, pretty much all cylinders, and then plus the heat. And that's going to make electricity usage soar. So that's what's going on there.

M. O'BRIEN: So we should buying utilities. SERWER: Yes, indeed. Let's talk about the markets, though. I'm supposed to get to that. And we had a mixed picture yesterday on Wall Street. It's earnings season, so DuPont dragged the Dow down a little bit, whereas Amazon.com had some good numbers that helped out the NASDAQ.

And futures are flat today. Big news. Oil inventories going to be reported later on. Price probably will drop, because I think inventories might be a little bit higher than people are expecting. A lot of energy news.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, sure. Andy, thanks. Have you guys seen this new show on FOX?

M. O'BRIEN: Which one?

S. O'BRIEN: The one about dancing.

SERWER: Yes, I have.

S. O'BRIEN: Have you? It's good, isn't it? Yet another one.

M. O'BRIEN: Another dance contest.

S. O'BRIEN: "So You Think You Can Dance"

SERWER: Yes, right.

S. O'BRIEN: They're knocking off, essentially, the "Dancing with the Stars" at ABC.

O'BRIEN: Oh, you mean, they're copying?

S. O'BRIEN: Kind of copying. Sort of copying. Anyway I mean, look, wouldn't you watch this?

M. O'BRIEN: I'm just watching now. Yes, I'm liking this.

S. O'BRIEN: Is this new dance craze catching on? Could you do that if you wanted to? A look at that's ahead on "90 Second Pop."

M. O'BRIEN: I'll try that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Could you see 90 Second Pop as a dance contest? Wait a minute. Right on is right. Welcome back, everybody. Time for another all new episode of "90 Second Pop."

We are starring this morning Karyn Bryant from "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," Andy Borowitz from BorowitzReport.com, Sarah Bernard from "New York" magazine. Good morning.

ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: How's everybody? I'm back from vacation and well rested and all.

Anyway, let's get right to it. Jane Fonda in the news because she's speaking out against the war again.

KARYN BRYANT, HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": Right.

S. O'BRIEN: The first time she did it, the Vietnam war, it earned the name Hanoi Jane from some very angry vets and other people too.

BRYANT: Exactly. And this time -- she's planning a trip in March. She's going to drive around the country in a bus powered by vegetable oil to protest the war in Iraq. She says that she will also have some families of veterans with her.

But it is definitely, definitely drawing some heat from veterans who are very sick of her, still you know, maintain that she's a traitor and that she's a disgrace to the country for all of the things that she said.

S. O'BRIEN: She told me, when I interviewed her, when her book was out, that that was the biggest miscalculation of her life.

BRYANT: Absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: So you sort of wonder why you'd kind of do it again.

BRYANT: No, she says it was an incredible lapse of judgment. So I don't know exactly why she's doing it again. Perhaps for...

SARAH BERNARD, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: Maybe because she has a book out this year.

BOROWITZ: I don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

BERNARD: She's got a lot of things going on. She's got -- you know, she had her movie with J. Lo this year. She's had her book. She's really been -- I mean, we haven't heard much from Jane Fonda the last couple years, and now it's like all of this.

BRYANT: Well, plus the fact that they're talking about this, and it's not till next March, the bus tour.

BERNARD: Right.

BOROWITZ: Right.

BRYANT: So it is, perhaps, a way to sort of get your name out there.

BOROWITZ: Do these bus tours work, though? The only successful one I can think of is the Partridge Family. I can't...

S. O'BRIEN: I thought you meant does the vegetable oil actually power the bus?

BOROWITZ: That would be fascinating, too.

BERNARD: The bus might not go anywhere. It might just sort of putter along. Very short ride.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll have to wait till March to see.

OK, can I tell you, I am so loving "So You Think You Can Dance."

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: It's like a train wreck. It's so messy.

BOROWITZ: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that a little bit. The premise, of course, is to have people who can dance, but in all different kinds of ways, come in and tryout.

BERNARD: That's right. And so dancing is the new singing, apparently, this season. It's the same people who put together "American Idol," but it doesn't exactly have the catchy title and the three judges, which is really the important part.

S. O'BRIEN: There's that one guy. There's...

BERNARD: There's one guy, Nigel Lythgoe who's also a producer of "American Idol," and he's playing the Simon Cowell role. Although he's not nearly as mean or as clever. He'll insult people and then tell them that they get to go to Hollywood. And you're like, wait a minute. You can't do that.

BRYANT: Yes.

BERNARD: You just told him that he's terrible, but you'd like to see what he can do later. It's very strange.

S. O'BRIEN: And the rules are kind of complicated. I mean, you have people doing, like, ethnic dancing and break dancing.

BERNARD: There was a woman who was doing some very interesting ballet dancing and then there was a woman who was doing an Irish jig. There was one woman who was so nervous that they had to call the paramedics, because she was crying so hard.

BRYANT: But she won.

BERNARD: But she had made it to the next round. There's some very confusing things going on.

BOROWITZ: I'm excited because I spent so much time in the '80s break dancing. I never thought I'd get to use that skill again. It's very exciting.

(CROSSTALK) S. O'BRIEN: First a movie role for you, and now you're going to be on a reality TV show.

BOROWITZ: Spin around on my back.

S. O'BRIEN: I knew it.

Let's talk about this "Doonesbury" comic strip. It came out yesterday and today. Gary Trudeau actually -- some people have taken exception to it, great exception to it. And some people are either not running the strip itself or even editing the strip.

BOROWITZ: Right. Right.

S. O'BRIEN: The center of controversy, of course, is Karl Rove.

BOROWITZ: Right. Well, Gary Trudeau in this comic strip makes reference to -- I guess it's a nickname that the president uses for Karl Rove, which I've been told by my executive producer I can say on television, which is Turd Blossom. That is the nickname that the president uses for Karl Rove?

S. O'BRIEN: And so it's in -- you can see it in the...

BOROWITZ: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: He says it in the strip.

BOROWITZ: And I think Gary Trudeau's point is this isn't something he came up with. They're editing, really, the president of the United States. Because that's his -- as we know, President Bush has all kinds of nicknames for everybody. I mean, he calls Karl Rove "Turd Blossom." He calls Dick Cheney "Mr. President." He has all kinds of -- he has all kinds of nicknames. So it's really -- it's just Gary Trudeau sort of reporting the news. And he's being edited.

BRYANT: And he's a little frustrated, Gary Trudeau, because some newspapers have decided not to run it at all. But more offensive to him is the fact that they've edited it.

BOROWITZ: Right.

BRYANT: And he's OK with the fact that, you know, it's syndicated. Some people aren't going to run it. It's more sensitive -- being sensitive to their audiences. But editing the words and changing them, I don't think that's...

S. O'BRIEN: I would imagine that that actually is, to some degree he could almost sue over that. Because that's his -- as an artist, that's his words.

BRYANT: Right. And like Andy said, I mean, he didn't make up the nickname.

BOROWITZ: Right.

BRYANT: It's out there. It had already been apparent.

S. O'BRIEN: Gosh, you hate to find out what some of the other nicknames are.

(CROSSTALK)

All right, guys. We're going to leave it at that. Exactly. We don't want to know. We're going to leave it there, thanks. Karyn Bryant and Andy, and of course, Sarah Bernard.

You don't want to forget to watch Karyn on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" on Headline Prime. Tonight they've got a special series that's called "iPod Nation." It continues with a look at iPod alternatives. That's on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," 7 and 11 p.m. Eastern Time -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: In a moment, today's top stories, plus a new drama brings the war in Iraq to the small screen. Does it hit too close to home for military families, however? That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning to you. Also ahead, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Iraq today, paying an unannounced visit on the country's leaders.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll have a live report from Baghdad coming up.

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