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Parker Spitzer

Shooting Victim Released from Hospital; Interview with the Unabomber's Brother

Aired January 14, 2011 - 20:00   ET

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

KATHLEEN PARKER, CO-HOST: Good evening. I'm Kathleen Parker.

ELIOT SPITZER, CO-HOST: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program.

Tonight, we continue our focus on the investigation into the Tucson shooting. We are learning more about shooter Jared Loughner's final actions that tragic morning and his brush with police just hours before he opened fire into a crowd.

Plus, the latest on the investigation into the DNA testing of the black bag found near Loughner's home.

But let's start with the questions we'll drill down on tonight. We are talking to David Kaczynski, who made the terribly difficult decision to turn in his brother, the Unabomber. David sees eerie similarities between Loughner and his brother. What does that tell us?

Plus, given that Loughner's writings and statements are dark and disturbed, many wonder why his family didn't seek help for him. We'll ask the Unabomber's brother how difficult it is for a family member to know when and how to intervene.

And one of the shooting victims is released from the hospital. She describes it a horrific scene to our Randi Kaye. How did she stay alive after being shot twice?

PARKER: Meanwhile, we now have a clearer picture of Jared Loughner's activities on the morning of the shooting. After spending the night at a Motel 6 about a mile from his home, Loughner was pulled over by police for running a red light at 7:30 a.m. Mountain Time. Loughner drove home and then left on foot with a black bag which the FBI is now testing for DNA. He then walked to a Circle K convenience store where he hailed the cab that brought him to the Safeway, the site of his attack.

PARKER: On the medical front, Congresswoman Giffords' condition remains critical. But doctors are still pleased with her progress. And today, we got our first information about the condition of Giffords aide, community outreach coordinator, Pam Simon. Simon was shot twice during the incident. Today, she was released from the hospital.

And CNN's Randi Kaye managed to get an interview with her. Randi joins us now from Tucson -- Randi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Considering that Pam Simon was shot twice, she's doing remarkably well. We asked her about her injuries today, and I can tell you that she was shot twice, once in the wrist and once in chest. And the bullet that lodged in her chest actually then made its way down to her thigh and that is where it remains. Doctors chose not to take that bullet out.

She will have full use of her hand, she told me. And she also said that after the surgery, the doctor said to her, "You are one lucky lady." While she was lying on the ground at that Safeway supermarket after she was shot, she said that she said to herself, "This is not your day to die."

Here's what else she told me about the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Do you remember when the shot was fired?

PAM SIMON, STAFFER FOR REP. GIFFORDS: It happened. Everything happened, probably in a matter of seconds. My feeling is that he was whirling his, his back was to me. I saw the congresswoman go down. I saw Ron go down.

And then, I think I must have been one of the next people hit. Because from that point on, I was -- I was laying on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Before she started doing community outreach for the congresswoman, she actually worked as a teacher. And she believes that she crossed over for four years in middle school and high school with the suspect in this case, Jared Lee Loughner, while she was teaching. He was a student at both of the schools. She told me that she never had any interaction with him, but she knows that they were in the same schools for about four years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARKER: All right. Thank you so much for joining us, Randi. We appreciate it.

And, now, we turn to David Kaczynski, who made the difficult decision to turn his brother Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. In September of 1995, when leading papers publish a manifesto by a serial killer known as the Unabomber, David Kaczynski recognized the writing as the work of his brother Ted. David eventually told the FBI and Ted Kaczynski is now serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.

David Kaczynski joins us tonight. He is executive director of New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and is focused extensively on questions of violence, mental health and the legal system.

Welcome, David.

DAVID KACZYNSKI, BROTHER OF UNABOMBER: A pleasure to be here, Kathleen.

SPITZER: All right, David, this is Eliot. I got to just ask you, what did it feel look when you first heard about the shooting in Tucson? Did that bring back awful memories? I mean, what was your visceral response?

KACZYNSKI: You know, in the first moment I just felt this awful sense of horror, understanding that the devastation that had been caused and, you know, having worked with murder victim family members and going through our own experience as a family, realizing that this wasn't going to be over in a day, that lives had been changed forever. And also, there was some sense of -- a kind of a bit of flashback to -- events 15 years earlier when my own brother was the focus of news stories about violence. So, it was a difficult day for me.

PARKER: Well, David, let's talk about your story for a minute. How did you come to realize your brother, Ted, was the Unabomber? What led you to turn him in?

KACZYNSKI: You know, it's so interesting. It was my wife Linda who actually suggested it. And at first, I dismissed it entirely. My brother had never been violent. We had known for -- maybe at least five years that he had mental problems. But it never had occurred to me that he would be violent.

But Linda urged me to read the manifesto. When it came out a few weeks later, I sat there reading the manifesto expecting that I would be able to tell Linda that it wasn't Ted who had written it. And instead having this awful sinking feeling and realizing it was just possible that she might be right.

PARKER: Well, you said that you knew for five years that he had had problems. Were you in touch with him during that period?

KACZYNSKI: Ted had estranged himself from the family beginning in around 1990. And, you know, was actually some letters that I had received from Ted and shown again to Linda that were fairly bizarre and I remember Linda telling me at the time, "You know, David, your brother is sick. He's mentally ill. You realize that, don't you?"

You know, at first I was kind of -- well, this is Ted. This is the way he is. No, that's normal behavior for Ted.

And I remember Linda pointing to a passage in one of these letters and saying, David, people who are healthy in their minds don't write like this. And so, at that point, we actually sought a consultation with a psychiatrist who did confirm Linda's impression that Ted probably was suffering from a mental illness. As it turned out, it was schizophrenia.

PARKER: Well, that's such an important point. And, you know, your brother's isolation is typical and resembles somewhat the characteristics that we now know about Loughner, he was retreating from social environments and seemed to be isolated, even though he lived with his family. At that point, was it -- did you not think that maybe you should go to your brother and try to -- I don't know -- do an intervention or something take him for help?

KACZYNSKI: Actually, back in 1990, when we talked to the psychiatrist, we realized that we were -- our hands were tied in some sense. We asked for advice on what we might be able to do. And it was very clear that Ted did not realize he was ill. And many people with serious and persistent mental illness don't understand that they're sick. And this was the case with Ted.

So, it would have been a matter of going to a court of law with legal evidence that Ted was in imminent danger to himself or others, not just a hypothetical danger, but an imminent danger. And, of course, we had no evidence of that sort. So, in some sense, all we could really do was try to keep contact with Ted and hope for the best.

SPITZER: I think, David, that is such a critically important point you just made. You were concerned. You did not have any precise evidence of imminent risk or violence, and so, you did not have the basis, you're saying, to do anything other than to recommend to him that he do something. You couldn't impose upon him the obligation to get care.

KACZYNSKI: Yes. You know, Eliot, I actually think we need some kind of a national project that would focus on ways to connect seriously mentally ill people with the help that they need. I mean, we need to balance civil rights concerns against compassionate concern for helping people who may be ill. And ultimately, with the public interest we have in preventing those rare cases when mentally ill people end up hurting others.

I should point out that -- violence in mentally ill people is actually very, very low. In fact, they're more likely to harm themselves or be victims of crime for that matter. My brother is not a poster boy for mental illness, but I am quite sure that if he had gotten into treatment, lives could have been saved.

SPITZER: And at the time when you reached out to see what your options were, there were no specific facts and no evidence of violence on his part at that point. I gather that's what you said bound your hands?

KACZYNSKI: Absolutely. He had never been violent. And in fact, my worst fear, just a vague fear was that I might learn someday that Ted had taken his own life. I knew he was in pretty deep despair. I didn't imagine that that would lead him to hurt others.

PARKER: One of the very tough things, is the family, having to live with something like this. And you have been through that in a very personal way, as you say. So, what has life been like for you and your family since this happened? KACZYNSKI: I remember in the first to days when we were -- our house was surrounded by the media. And here, I'm thinking of the Loughner family now. I have to say, while the world's attention was focused on us, we felt like the loneliest people on the planet probably. We didn't even have words for what we were feeling. We were truly in shock and in trauma.

It took a while for us to stabilize. I think one thing that helped us was letters we began receiving from people around the country who said that they were praying for us in some cases. They said they were praying for our brother.

It was a realization that other families are vulnerable and that we had struggled and done best we could under very difficult circumstances and ultimately, that we did the right thing in going to the authorities with our fears.

SPITZER: David, hold on a second, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll ask about your advice to Loughner family.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: We're back with David Kaczynski. David is the brother of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and knows firsthand about dealing with a violent, mentally ill family member.

SPITZER: David, you had not only done what was unbelievably difficult, to turn in your own brother, which was an act of heroism, but you also had to suffer with the grief and knowledge that he had caused such harm. Your position in terms of the evidence, and what you tried to do is similar to what we have heard about the Pima community county professors -- Community College professors who also sensed there was something wrong with Jared Loughner but didn't have enough evidence of violence to really take it to the next step.

Do you see that analogy?

KACZYNSKI: I think there's a real analogy. Although the more I think about it, it occurs to me that part of what we end up doing with mentally ill people when we have concerns about them is pushing them out of our communities. Now, while it might be appropriate on one level, the end result is that the person who is already sort of distancing themselves, breaking relationships because of their illness, as a symptom of the illness, are pushed further into isolation.

And again, I think we need to find a way to compassionately and respectfully connect people who need help with available treatments.

PARKER: If you could send a message to Jared Loughner's parents, what would it be having lived through all of the traumas that you lived through?

KACZYNSKI: I hope they know that there are people there who are concerned about them, who are praying for them. Our family has been through a very similar and difficult situation, and in some sense we know what it's like. If they would ever want to talk, I'd be happy to make myself available.

You know, I think it's very unfair that we're expecting them to talk at this moment. I know what it was like to be in their situation, not having words for my feelings, being in utter shock, disbelief, trauma -- also knowing, frankly, how the media magnifies every little thing -- piece of information that they can find at this point.

So, I think they simply need to get some space and we should be giving them some space at this moment.

SPITZER: In an odd or perhaps not so odd coincidence, your brother and Jared Loughner actually will have the same defense attorney. Put aside whether there's going to be a finding of guilt, what do you think the appropriate sentence or sanction should be in the case of Jared Loughner?

KACZYNSKI: You know, Eliot, I've worked against the death penalty for quite a long time, especially since my brother's trial ended. My brother did escape the death penalty. I think it would have been very unjust if he had been sentenced to death and executed because he has a severe mental illness. I think that would be the first thing to understand, that our legal system really is not designed to deal with defendants who have serious mental illness. We presume that a defendant in such a case has, is rational, that they have a grasp, a firm grasp of their own self-interest. And when the defendant is seriously mentally ill, that's very unlikely to be true.

I think we really need to learn more about the severity of the illness here, the explicit diagnosis, before we can talk about whether Jared Loughner is competent or not. But I think there is some suggestion that he may be even legally insane and not competent to stand trial. But again, we need more information.

SPITZER: All right. David Kaczynski, thank you so much for joining us in this tough time.

PARKER: Thank you.

Coming up: Tucson has been the big story. But the world beyond has continued to spin. Ben Stein thinks this is no time for America to retreat from its obligations and we'll ask him about that. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: As all of us focus our attention on the massacre in Arizona this week, U.S. leaders were outside our borders, panning out to hot spots around the world.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the Middle East, telling leaders, quote, "to listen to their people" and warning the region and again, I quote, "sink into the sand if extremism is not stopped."

Vice President Joe Biden made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan and met with President Hamid Karzai.

And, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrapped up a five-day trip urging North Korea to end belligerent behavior and cooperate with the international community. Last week, Gates announced the defense budget will be cut $78 billion over five years. It's the biggest story we haven't been talking about this week.

And our next guest thinks slashing the military budget could prove disastrous. Ben Stein joins us tonight from Los Angeles.

Welcome back, Ben. Always great to have you on the show.

BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST: Always an honor to be here, Eliot.

SPITZER: Well, thank you. Now, let me frame the question for you this way. Everybody from the Bowles-Simpson bipartisan report about closing the deficit, to the secretary of defense is now saying, yes, we have to pare back on defense spending -- you are one of the few voices out there maybe saying, no, don't do it at all. Why not? Why not cut the defense budget?

STEIN: Because we are an under-defended, under-armed country. We have a defense budget which represents roughly 5 percent of the GDP. Included in that is an enormous amount for military pensions, military health care, housing, transportation.

We have a very small number of women and men under arms who are actually ready to take part in any combat. Just fighting a few thousand guerrillas in Afghanistan, basically, garrison duty, not entirely, but basically garrison duty in Iraq is using up most of our actual combat troops.

If there were to be an invasion of the South Korean peninsula by North Korea, what would we do? If China decided to invade Taiwan, what would we do? If Iran decided to invade Saudi Arabia, what would we do?

We are an under-armed country. And we can easily afford to be better armed. And it is a myth that countries disappear because they spend on defense. I defy any historian to show me a country that disappeared because it spent too much on defense.

SPITZER: Well, let me first -- just to, sort of, put some numbers up on the screen so the public can see. Let's put up a chart that shows, and these are real dollars, our defense spending over the past couple years. It is really, in real dollars. And these are real dollars, inflation adjusted at its highest level ever, over about, you know, as you can see, that $700 billion a year, which is 55 percent of the discretionary budget. And this doesn't include the precise allocations for Afghanistan and, the Iraq wars, which are done separate.

So, you can see that steep increase, Ben. We've been spending a lot more. You don't think there's any waste in there that we can pare back on?

STEIN: Oh, I am positive there's waste in there. By the way, I think, with all due respect, Eliot, those numbers might include a good chunk of the Afghanistan and Iraq war spending. I think the basic military budget is around $560 billion before you put in those added war costs.

But, if you showed the graph going back a little farther, say, beginning in 1940, it would look entirely different. If you show the graph as percent of GDP, it would look completely different.

The real -- the real question is not how many dollars are we spending or if there's waste, but could we defend our vital interests around the world. I mean, the absolute number of dollars being spent is meaningless. How many men do you think the United States has under arms right now who can respond to a crisis in this world where there are 6 billion or 7 billion people? How many soldiers, marines, do you think are actually ready to go into combat right now?

SPITZER: Well, Ben, I think you're correct that the issue isn't: are we spending more? The question is: is it sufficient for the mission when it comes to defense. I think you and I would agree the premise: you've got to do what is necessary to accomplish the mission.

The mission here is protecting us. And I think from Bowles- Simpson to the secretary of defense, what they're saying is that what we should be able to do is withdraw, for instance, the 150,000 armed servicemen and women who are in Europe who've been there since World War II. That would save a great deal of both money and give us the resources you're talking about to deal with the eventuality of a Korean crisis, or any -- something that might erupt elsewhere in the world. And they're saying if we did that by pulling back from missions that are no longer necessary, then we could save and be sufficient.

Does that logic make sense to you? Troops in Europe --

STEIN: That's tremendous amount -- Eliot, that makes tremendous logical sense. And for some reason, we do not seem to want to take men and women out of the European theater. I'm not quite sure why.

I agree we could take them out of Germany. Well, we don't have that many in Germany anymore.

Anyway, look, the question is this: we have 38,500 roughly men and women in Korea. Many of whom are not in combat roles. The North Koreans have an army in excess of 700,000.

What would we do if one day Kim Jong-il woke up, got tired of watching his pornography for that day and said, let's go to war? What do we do then?

What do we do if one day, Ahmadinejad has one of his customary nervous breakdowns and decides he's going to invade Saudi Arabia? What do we do to protect our vital interest short of using nuclear weapons, which nobody wants to use? What would be better than to spend a little more and be sure we are safe?

SPITZER: Look, I think the argument from a military perspective is that if we were to take back the resources that we're spending where we don't them, such as troops in Europe. Many overseas missions that are simply not necessary, we have the battleships. We still -- we have, I think it is right now, 11 aircraft carrier task forces and they're planning to build a 12th when many think we only need 10. So we can make adjustments and still project all the military power we need.

Many people feel, for instance, that Afghanistan is simply not a war that should be fought. That would save only the $100 billion- plus, but also the enormity of the lives that are being lost. And then reallocate those resources to the sorts of missions you're talking about. And we can still do it tightening down on the budget and fulfill the mission you're talking about. And I think that's the balance many of us believe is appropriate.

STEIN: But you are making hypothetical assumptions, Eliot, which are a bit farfetched. One of which is that we're going to pull out of Afghanistan in any large numbers any time soon. Look, we've got quite a sizable force in Afghanistan now, between 150,000 and 220,000 men and women depending on how you count it. And we are still not winning that war.

SPITZER: Well --

STEIN: So, the question whether we're going to pull out any time soon in any large numbers seems to be extremely dubious. If we could streamline everything, if we could get an ironclad promise from Mr. Putin that he's going to never invade Western Europe, we could move things around. We don't have those promises.

We saw Mr. Putin invade Georgia just a couple of years ago, or a year and a half ago. We don't know he's not going to invade Ukraine next. We don't know what he's going to do there. There's some reason for U.S. troops to be in Europe.

SPITZER: Ben --

STEIN: The question is: why should we cut it thin?

SPITZER: Look, I understand your perspective. I disagree that the Defense Department could not simultaneously fulfill that mission and be slimmed down.

But let me ask you this question: doesn't our fiscal health also have a direct impact upon our long term security? And doesn't the need to close the budget deficit in the long run require that we re- evaluate virtually every piece of spending in the federal budget, including defense spending?

STEIN: No, it doesn't. You are an incredibly intelligent and a very well-educated gentleman. I'd like you to give me an example of a country in the industrial era that disappeared or subject to foreign domination because its budget deficits were too large. There are none that I could find. If you can find them, more power to you.

So, countries disappear because they take on commitments or they lose their elite status in the world because they take on commitments they can no longer fulfill. I would give you the example of Russia or Soviet Union. I'd give you the example of Great Britain. But countries don't disappear because their fiscal policies are poor. We can fix the policies simply by raising taxes at some point. And we can fix the fiscal policies simply by raising taxes at some point. I mean, the question for us Republicans is do we want more defense or higher taxes. For me, I'll take the higher taxes any day.

Look, we had higher taxes and much, much higher defense spending in the Eisenhower era and we had fantastic prosperity. Maybe we could do the same.

SPITZER: Look, Ben, our time is up. But we love having you on the show. We're going to have you on over and over so we'll have a chance to continue this, because you and I -- we'll do intellectual combat on this issue. But I love hearing your voice and your perspective on this. Thanks for being with us.

STEIN: Thank you very much. Thank you.

SPITZER: When we return, how this week of American tragedy is viewed from overseas. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: We've talked a lot this week about the societal implications and political ramifications of the deadly shooting in Arizona. But one perspective we haven't heard is from a voice from overseas.

PARKER: Bernard-Henri Levy writes commentary on the U.S. that is read around the world and Europeans praised him as an intellectual superstar. His latest international best seller, "Public Enemies," is an exchange of letters with fellow writer Michel Houellebecq and it was just released in America.

Welcome, Bernard-Henri.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY, FRENCH INTELLECTUAL: Thank you.

SPITZER: The American love for guns, I think those from Europe look at the way we deal with this gun issue kind of an amazement. How do you respond to it?

LEVY: I respond, I don't understand. Do you know that since '68, since the murder of Martin Luther King, you had more than one million victims of average citizens with guns, like poor little Christina Green, born on the very day of September 11. And then because guns are in free sale. I can go, when I go out of here, I can go in a shop and buy just filling a little form. I know exactly how it happens. I did it when I wrote this book. I tried.

PARKER: You bought a gun in the United States? LEVY: No, I tried. I tried. I did not, of course. I investigated how it can be done. I asked, I made my inquiry. I want to buy a gun, what should I do? Just fill a form. Just give a few information. This is crazy. It is a country, I think you are number -- I don't know, number high in the countries where you have free guns. So how don't you want to have such tragedy as the one you had in Arizona and other Christina Greens. You will have more.

PARKER: What about --

LEVY: This problem has to be controlled.

PARKER: But what about the argument that criminals will still be able to get guns and only law-abiding citizens won't have them?

LEVY: The guy who committed this crime was not a professional criminal. If guns had not been so easily bought, he would not have committed the crime. And Christina Green would be still alive. And we would not have to pray for Christina Green tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. You know that.

Of course, criminals have always guns. In France, they smuggle guns. And when they want they have. But just crazy citizen, unstable, will not have a gun sold to them.

SPITZER: And just because folks here don't know. Can you walk into a store and buy a gun in France?

LEVY: Of course not.

SPITZER: So who can? I mean, look, who can?

LEVY: Nobody.

You can if you have a special permit from the authorities.

SPITZER: Right.

LEVY: If you have a good reason to be afraid for your life, your people --

SPITZER: And somehow society continues even without guns everywhere?

LEVY: You have no guns. No weapons. And even if you have the right to purchase a gun, which a few people have, you have not the right to have it in your pocket in the street. You have a permit, an authorization of detention.

SPITZER: So as an observer of American society, you have traveled. You are the (INAUDIBLE) of the modern era. How do you understand this? What does it speak to in our society or culture?

LEVY: It is in heritage of the past. Once upon the time, America at the time of the pioneers when everyone had to fight for his children and for his own house there was probably a legitimacy. But now, please, we are completely a different country and exemplary democracy is such a civilized and sophisticated place, so there is no way except the lobby.

You have a strong lobby, Charlton Heston, the National...

SPITZER: Right.

LEVY: The National Rifle Association. I want to see them once in the surroundings of Washington. They're crazy people defending some vested interest, the lobby of guns. You have to break the guns lobby in this country. If not, you will have other Christina Green, and other Gabrielle Giffords. You will have many others. You have to break this lobby. You have good lobbies in a democracy.

SPITZER: Right. You have strong feelings on this?

LEVY: And you are, by the way -- I have strong feelings because I am completely destroyed by the idea of this little girl, again, born the very day of September 11, proving as Obama said, her citizenship, in a way, her love for democracy, by being there and being killed in such an unfair way. Of course, I have strong feelings. As all the citizens who watch us today, we all have strong feelings in front of this absolute tragedy.

PARKER: As we all do. There's no question about it.

LEVY: I know.

PARKER: It's horrifying.

PARKER: I know, Kathleen, I know.

PARKER: But we know this particular gunman was not really -- he was obsessed with the congresswoman but he was not politically motivated. He was not making a political statement. He seems to have some serious mental health problems. And yet, this conversation has taken on political elements. And I'm sure you've heard that Sarah Palin was initially blamed because she had put some map up on, you know, of targets on the map saying these are the people we want to target to defeat in the next election. What do you make of all that?

LEVY: I am not -- I am not especially friendly to Sarah Palin, you know it. I said it on this very table last year. And, of course, Sarah Palin should watch her words. You cannot have a military language when you speak politics. You cannot draw a map or present a map of America with 20 targets, and you cannot -- when you are politically responsible you are the guardian of the word. For example, when Sarah Palin says that she is a victim of a blood libel, this is incorrect. She should not say that. It is felt as an insult by a lot of people who are themselves the inheritors of a people who was victim of blood libel.

You journalists, we intellectuals, they politically responsible have duties. Our main duty, either use we make of the words. We are guardians of the words. This is one of the lessons we tried to develop in our book. Writers, responsible we are guardian of the words.

SPITZER: So to come full circle, will the civility that the president so eloquently called for survive? Or will the use of guns and will Sarah Palin's type of language once again come to dominate our discourse, and why has it been there?

LEVY: It is really the stake of today. It is a stake of today. Maybe people like Sarah Palin will win. Then it will be very bad for this country. But maybe even Sarah Palin, which I suspect, is understanding because she is not -- she is not stupid. She is not -- she is not a bad woman, probably. I'm sure she is as horrified as us by the fate of Christina Green. And she is asking questions to herself. She knows that when she says that, you have to reach out. I don't know the word in English to reach out. The argument (ph) -- she knows.

SPITZER: Reload.

LEVY: Reload. Reload.

Speaking about politics by speaking of reloading.

SPITZER: Right.

LEVY: She knows that this is not the proper way to make politics in the countries of Abraham Lincoln, of George Washington and of Alexis de Tocqueville.

SPITZER: Right.

LEVY: So my guess is that the Obama line will win. If not, the country will be in very bad shape. And you know, Sarah Palin, all these Tea Party movement and so on, the victims of it are not the Democrats. It will be the Republicans themselves.

SPITZER: Yes.

LEVY: The decent Republicans who are such a tradition in this country which are half of the country and the -- and half of the honor of this country, they will be the victims of these indecent and uncivilized views of the world. That's why I'm pleading for guarding the words, civilizing the speech, what President Obama said in such an eloquent way. He re-found his great eloquence the day before yesterday. He is right.

SPITZER: Well, we hope you are correct and you do yourself speak very eloquently on the issue as always. Bernard-Henri Levy, as always, great to have you hear with us.

PARKER: Thanks so much.

LEVY: Thank you, Eliot. Thank you, Kathleen.

PARKER: Ahead, he has been at her side ever since she came out of surgery. Gabrielle Giffords's husband is an officer and a gentleman. A very real love story when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: What an incredible week, shock, horror, tears, inspiration. A relatively unknown congresswoman from Arizona has become part of our national family and now we're beginning to learn more about her husband, Captain Mark Kelly.

SPITZER: Captain Kelly was in Houston when he learned of the shooting. Houston is where he works as an astronaut, three-time veteran of shuttle missions. He and his twin brother Scott are the only siblings to have been in space. Before that, Mark Kelly was a Navy fighter pilot. He flew 39 combat missions in the gulf war.

PARKER: Gabrielle and Mark give new meaning to the term "power couple." She's the only member of Congress whose spouse is on active service. She met -- they met in China. And it wasn't until she was running for Congress that Mark began to show up at her rallies, like the one in Tucson. She came to one of his shuttle launches. And after that it was liftoff. At their wedding, Mark's shuttle crew formed the traditional military arch of cross sabers.

SPITZER: No wonder one of Giffords' first movements was to reach for Mark and try to hug him. Her doctors believe that having her husband and friends there prompted her to open her eyes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL LEMOLE, CHIEF OF NEUROSURGERY: Yes, miracles happen every day. And in medicine we like to very much attribute them to either what we do or others do around us. But a lot of medicine is outside of our control. We're wise to acknowledge miracles.

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PARKER: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: Finally tonight, a hero of a different sort than we've been hearing about out of Tucson. This hero is a decorated Iraq war veteran who's choosing to return to active duty in Afghanistan in the coming months.

SPITZER: Captain Pete Hegseth will be entering Afghanistan at a time more deadly and violent than ever before, an Afghanistan that is expected to get worse before it gets better. Listen to the Joint Chiefs chairman this past Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: A relatively mild winter through which the enemy has continued fighting will give way to spring. Poor governance will, where it persists, encourage Taliban intimidation. And now with 100,000 more coalition and Afghan forces on the ground than last year, we will expand our presence into areas the enemy still wishes to control. As difficult as it may be to accept, we must prepare ourselves for more violence and more casualties in coming months. The violence will be worse in 2011 than it was in 2010 in many parts of Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: Captain Hegseth is the executive director of Vets for Freedom, the position he's stepping down from to go back to war.

Welcome, Captain. And thank you for your service.

PETE HEGSETH, EXEC. DIR., VETS FOR FREEDOM: Thanks for having me.

SPITZER: First question for you, what is your assessment of how the war in Afghanistan is going? And what does victory look like? How do you define what victory will be if it's attainable in Afghanistan?

HEGSETH: Well, I agree with what the chairman just said. As we push out into remote villages in the Taliban-held areas, violence is going to go up and the casualties, unfortunately, for the U.S. are going to go up. But progress will be measured in sympathies and local sympathies and training of Afghan security forces. And that's what we'll need to look at.

As far as going forward, I agree with the president and his tragedy. It's defeat Al Qaeda, reverse the momentum of the Taliban, and train Afghan security forces and try to create an Afghan, viable Afghan government that can take over so we can bring our guys home. It's the same playbook we brought with the surge in Iraq. Much very -- you know, very different as far as the details. But, protect the population, bring the violence down, you have to secure the area first. And when you do that, then you can expect local Afghans to step up and security forces to take over which is how we eventually pull ourselves out.

PARKER: Pete, Kathleen Parker here. I want to ask you just a personal question. But first, I want to personally thank you for your service. You have a 7-month-old child. And you are reenlisting, going back into the war. Why are you doing that?

HEGSETH: Well, I'm doing it because it's what I believe in. It's what millions of Americans believe in. We've seen this enemy firsthand. We understand what's at stake.

This is a war that's gone on almost a decade since 9/22, but it doesn't mean it goes away. A lot of people don't see it on a daily basis and don't interact with the realities. But we're at war. And we're in a very vicious war with a vicious enemy who seeks to defeat us. And as someone who's gone through the training and is qualified, I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to contribute. So it's hard to leave family, it's hard to leave loved ones, but there are so many more who have done more tours than I have, who have spent more time overseas, more time in harm's way. And they do it for all of us. They do this because, you know, if we can get this thing right, if we can get Afghanistan to a place like where Iraq is right now, where we've got stable governments and security forces that can do it themselves, that lowers the threat to us and our people here in the United States and around the world.

SPITZER: You know, but Pete, when I heard you describe what victory meant, and what the objective was, you put it, I think quite properly, I think we would almost all agree with this in the context of Al Qaeda. The question we have and the question that I think that we keep bumping into is, isn't Al Qaeda now in Pakistan or Somalia or Yemen, not so much in Afghanistan? And so, aren't we fighting an illusory enemy that has moved elsewhere and by putting at risk our brave soldiers, such as you whom we all honor, aren't we in essence fighting in the wrong place? And wouldn't a strategy that Joe Biden supported more counterterrorism drones perhaps be more successful at pursuing Al Qaeda?

HEGSETH: Well, Al Qaeda, when we focus on the war front, Al Qaeda is oftentimes going to follow that path of least resistance. So just because we focused on Afghanistan and they move into Pakistan, the Obama administration has done the right thing by increasing drone attacks and drone strikes. We need to keep the pressure on there. But what leads us to believe that if we abandon Afghanistan that Al Qaeda wouldn't go back and use it again? So, I don't think just saying they're not there anymore means we shouldn't finish the job properly in Afghanistan and put something in its place that doesn't allow us to go back to a pre-9/11 reality where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are able to collaborate or any entity are able to collaborate. It's an unstable place. So abandoning Afghanistan doesn't help the equation in taking on Al Qaeda. You've got to do it in Afghanistan. You've got to do in Pakistan, like the Obama administration is doing it in Yemen and elsewhere. But getting rid of not committing sufficiently to completing the job in Afghanistan, I just don't think it helps us get where we want to be.

PARKER: Well, Pete, what is your assessment of the Karzai government? You know, we've heard lots of stories about how corrupt the government is taking money from Iran, et cetera, et cetera. What's your appraisal?

HEGSETH: Well, I haven't had any firsthand interaction with the Karzai government. So I'm getting exactly what you're hearing. Obviously, corrupt services aren't reaching the people where they need to be. That is a very, very big problem. But I would rewind back. It's not a perfect analogy but I think it fits to the Maliki government in Iraq.

A lot of people said they were corrupt, incapable of governing, unwilling to take on the Shia militias, and a lot of that was true in 2007. But once you saw the security environment change, that government moved and changed with it. And I think the same could happen in Afghanistan. If we're able to really beat back the Taliban and deny Al Qaeda haven, you're going to see some of these governors in these provinces switch their allegiances and their calculations back towards the Karzai government. I think you would force the Karzai government to really try to represent more and all the people. It's not going to fix the problem. But you can't expect the political -- you can't always expect the political environment to move the security environment. The security environment is the necessary precondition for political progress. That's why it's so important what we're doing on the ground with these soldiers and Marines down in the south and the east in Afghanistan. You beat back that enemy, it creates the space for Karzai and others to actually provide the kind of government we're all looking for.

SPITZER: You know, Pete, change gears on you just a little bit. You had an article in "The Wall Street Journal" yesterday, suggesting that General Petraeus get a fifth star. Right now, he's a four star general. Go move him up to five. Why is that? And what historical context would that put him in?

HEGSETH: Well, historical context, General Washington led the Continental Army for eight years. And many of the other folks that have worn the fifth star served much shorter than that. General Petraeus is going on his eighth year of a combatant command. He's the guy who's the architect of the turnaround in Iraq. He's now leading the fight in Afghanistan having stepped down as the CENTCOM commander and has really demonstrated we believe embodies the success and the initiative and the resolve of our generation of warriors. And he's very, just as deserving as any of those previous generals of that fifth star.

Logistically, it's a difficult thing. I think a lot of people raise their eyebrows and say, well, wait, wouldn't he outrank the CENTCOM commander? Wouldn't he -- I think it could be a temporary wartime rank to both recognize what he has accomplished and recognize what the men and women underneath him have accomplished, and really demonstrate a commitment to the fight in Afghanistan which I think would do a whole lot of good for our fighting men and women, our allies and the folks in Afghanistan.

PARKER: All right. Captain Pete Hegseth, thank you so much again for spending time with us. And again, for your service to the country. And good luck. You stay safe.

HEGSETH: Thanks for having me.

SPITZER: And thanks to you for joining us tonight. Enjoy your weekend.

PARKER: Good night from New York. Special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360" starts right now.