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Paula Zahn Now

Rookie Candidates Set to Debate; Interview With Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Aired September 24, 2003 - 20:00   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: In less than 48 hours, two rookie candidates, but no strangers to public life, take the stage in their first political debate. How will Wesley Clark and Arnold Schwarzenegger stack up against the competition?
As the U.S. focuses its attention on Iraq, is it neglecting Afghanistan? Thousands of troops are still on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and large portions of the country are in ruin. We'll ask Afghan President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview.

And from business and politics to marriage and sex, even his own presidential campaign, we'll check in with satirist Dave Barry.

Good evening. Welcome. Glad to have you with us tonight.

Also ahead, our debate tonight: Should it be against the law to sell violent video games to children? Also, we'll show you the horror of the modern slave trade highlighted by President Bush yesterday in his speech to world leaders.

Plus: Wal-Mart in court this week fighting to block a gigantic discrimination lawsuit by 1.5 million women. And does the media glare make it impossible to get a fair trial?

Now, here are some of the other headlines you need to know right now.

The man in charge of the weapons hunt in Iraq has handed over a progress report to CIA Director George Tenet. CIA official David Kay says his team has reach no firm conclusions about Iraq's alleged weapons programs. So far, no illegal weapons have been found.

At least two more members of the U.S. military are being looked at in an espionage investigation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Pentagon is looking into whether a conspiracy is involved. Two other U.S. servicemen have already been arrested, suspected of spying.

The do-not-call list is on hold tonight. The list, which would block telemarketers' calls, was supposed to take effect next week. But now a federal judge has ruled the Federal Trade Commission didn't have the authority to even create it. The FTC says it will appeal the ruling.

Now on to those two key debate debuts. Retired General Wesley Clark mixes it up with fellow Democrats in tomorrow's presidential debate. And tonight, of course, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. some of his rivals in the race to recall California Governor Gray Davis. It is a very important performance. According to a new poll, two- thirds of likely voters in California say tonight's debate will be very important in their own decision-making.

The debates are "In Focus" tonight. We start with the recall.

Joining us from Washington is our contributor Joe Klein from "TIME" magazine, from Sacramento, "Los Angeles Times" reporter Matea Gold.

Welcome to both of you.

JOE KLEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good to be here.

MATEA GOLD, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Thanks for having me.

ZAHN: Matea, let's talk a little bit about the expectations on Mr. Schwarzenegger. What can we expect?

GOLD: Sure.

Well, really, tonight, all eyes are really going to be trained on Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is the only debate he's agreed to participate in. And because of that, he's drawn a larger-than-usual spotlight onto this event. Many voters are waiting to see if he can present really clear, specific policy platforms. He's been trying to get away from a perception that he hasn't offered a lot of specific on the campaign trail.

And because the questions were provided ahead of time to the candidates, many people want to see if he can really think on his feet when it comes to the question-and-answer between the various conditions on the stage.

ZAHN: Well, Joe Klein, Arnold Schwarzenegger has certainly proven to all of us he knows to how to memorize lines, all the candidates going into this debate tonight, as Matea, knowing the questions ahead of time. So what kind of insights will these questions really yield, if any?

KLEIN: Well, we'll find out an awful lot about how Arnold Schwarzenegger's aides and policy people think about these issues.

The question is, how much crosstalk there's going to be and whether the other candidates are going to go at him. I think that one person to watch in this is going to be Arianna Huffington, who spends a good deal of her life as a talking head on TV arguing with people. And so she'll be pretty comfortable on that stage. I don't know how comfortable Schwarzenegger will be.

ZAHN: Matea, let's talk about some the questions that are going to be asked tonight. We're going to put one up on the screen now: "What do you expect to accomplish in the time remaining on Gray Davis' term that he could not? What should the top priority for California be right now?"

Not exactly you call a hardball question, is it, Matea?

GOLD: Well, we just heard from Stan Statham, the president of the California Broadcasters Association, who are sponsoring this debate. And he said, the point of these question are really to serve as jumping-off points in this forum.

He's really going to let the candidates go at each other. He said there's actually going to be a lot of crosstalk. He said he's looking for sizzle. And so while the candidates can prepare answers to these kinds of open-ended questions, it's really going to be a free-for-all after that.

ZAHN: I saw a smile of glee there, Joe, when we talked about the sizzle of crosstalk. Are you more cynical about the prospects of having that happen tonight?

KLEIN: Well, I would never consider myself cynical, skeptical, I think. And I'm a big fan of sizzle. I am a pro-sizzle journalist.

But California -- can I talk to the rest of the country for a second?

ZAHN: Sure.

KLEIN: Hey, guys, you may be wondering why this is important to you. California is on the brink of bankruptcy. Its bonds are near junk rated. And they have to find a governor who can actually handle this.

And so that's one reason. It could affect your economic future. The other is that this is another step in the further degradation of American politics, having this sort of circus going on. And so what I'd like to see is some steak along with the sizzle, some real answers to the question of what you could actually do, because the truth is that, given the referendum process and all the other kinds of -- the initiative process and the recall process, the politicians in Sacramento don't have all that much control over the budget and over the political future of California.

ZAHN: Well, you're going to be our eyes and ears for us tonight, the debate getting under way in just a shave less than an hour now.

Matea Gold, thanks for your time. Joe Klein's, yours as well.

Actually, Joe is going to be hanging around with us a little bit longer. A programming note: Once again, we will be carrying that debate live starting at 9:00.

Now we're going to move on to tomorrow's Democratic presidential debate. It is the first debate for retired General Wesley Clark, who announced his candidacy last week. And it will focus on economic issues, not the military and international policy discussions that are considered Clark's strong suit.

Also joining us tonight, retired General David Grange. We already know Joe's here. Welcome back, General Grange.

RETIRED BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.

ZAHN: General Grange, tell us a little bit about what you think Wesley Clark is made of. One of your colleagues, General Shelton, has talked about some integrity and character issues that General Wesley Clark has. And I think he meant that in a negative way. How do you view him?

GRANGE: Yes, I'm not really sure of the incidents that General Shelton was referring to.

My experience in service with General Clark, very smart, articulate, but then driven, persistent, determined general officer, always trying to accomplish the mission. And some of the times, this would cause a bit of friction with other senior military leaders in some of the areas of operation. My experience happened to be in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, that area. I personally never had that problem.

But I know that there was friction just from the talk that I've heard and some of the operations I participated in.

ZAHN: General Shelton said he would not vote for Wesley Clark. If given the opportunity, would you?

GRANGE: Well, I would not vote for General Clark or the rest of the candidates in that party that's shown right now. But, no, I would not.

ZAHN: Ah, see, he's come clean for us this evening.

Joe, back to you.

What is it, do you think, that Wesley Clark has to accomplish tomorrow night?

KLEIN: Well, some vague modicum of competence on economic and domestic policy issues. This is a really interesting test here.

The big question is Wes Clark's political temperament, whether he has the temper to be a politician. I know he has a serious temper. But it raises a really interesting question that General Grange and I were talking about before. In some ways, at this moment in history, generals in the Army and the other forces are better positioned to be politicians than many politicians are.

When Wes Clark was leading the effort in Kosovo, he had to deal with the NATO allies on a daily, sometimes an hourly basis. He had to negotiate bombing targets. And so he has a track record of success as a diplomat in dealing with our NATO allies that the current president can't match. Other generals, like David Petraeus in Iraq right now, are doing the work that a lot of governors of states do, getting highways built, hiring cops, that sort of thing. And so I think that the military is far more sophisticated and far more politically astute now than it was. The question is whether Wes Clark is politically astute.

ZAHN: Well, I guess that's my question for General Grange.

I'm sure you agree with the assessment that Joe had that military training is great preparation for a political candidate.

GRANGE: Well, I think it is.

And if I was a competitor, for instance, right now in that party's competition, I'd be a bit nervous. I'll tell you that General Clark, whether he's knowledgeable on certain domestic issues right now, he will take those issues, he will study them, take them apart and develop a plan to attack them. And so, if I was competing with General Clark, I'd be very concerned about that, because he'll do that very well, even if he doesn't have the experience in that area.

But the world does prepare you for these geopolitical and other issues that you deal with abroad. And some of the same issues you deal, reference quality of life in the United States, it's the same as overseas.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Joe, what do you think are some of the early lessons Wesley Clark has learned here, particularly the art of the flip-flop?

(CROSSTALK)

KLEIN: Well, politics is a really, really difficult game. And you can't tell whether you have the political gene until you get actually into the fray.

But I'd like to ask General Grange a question. And it's this. He said that he wouldn't vote for Wes Clark. And General Shelton has said pretty much the same thing. But given the degree of skepticism that we're hearing about in the armed forces right now about the operation in Iraq, do you think, General, that there may be a fair amount of military people who would support a Clark candidacy because of the skepticism that he's expressed about the war?

GRANGE: Well, my reason for not voting for General Clark is because there's going to be some other candidates that I'd rather vote for. I think he's a very proficient soldier and citizen of the United States of America, and he's very competent. So that's not the reason.

My reason will probably be a little different than General Shelton. But I think there will be some military, obviously, that will vote for General Clark.

ZAHN: You saw that the general didn't name any names there for you this evening, Joe Klein. Thank you for...

KLEIN: Should we hold his feet to the fire on that one? ZAHN: Well, I'd like to. The next appearance, we'll see what he has to say.

KLEIN: All right.

ZAHN: General David Grange, Joe Klein, thanks so much.

Coming up: my exclusive interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENT: The main problem, the problem that concerns us and the international community is, of course, terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Plus: Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in America, could soon face the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history. We're going to look at what's at stake.

And my conversation with humorist Dave Barry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: In the months after 9/11, Afghanistan was the central front in the war on terror. But these days, it's largely overshadowed by the war in Iraq.

And earlier today, in an exclusive interview, I had a chance to talk with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. I started off by asking him if the war in Iraq has compromised resources for Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARZAI: You just heard yesterday President Bush, in his address to the U.N., pledge $1.2 billion to Afghanistan. And he urged other nations to do the same. So Afghanistan is in focus and Afghanistan continues to receive assistance. And the attention is there.

ZAHN: In spite of what you are seeing as some rays of good news here, how concerned are you about the regrouping of the Taliban in your country?

KARZAI: I'm worried about that, and so are the Afghan people.

They have begun to have terroristic activities along the Afghan border. And they have also tried to do things inside the country. We launched an operation against them some days back that was very successful. For this, for terrorism to end in Afghanistan and in the region, I hope that the government of Pakistan will cooperate with us as strongly and sincerely, together with us and the United States, to find a lasting solution and the defeat of terrorism.

ZAHN: How would you characterize Pakistan's unwillingness to crack down on the Taliban before they cross over into the border into your country?

KARZAI: We are talking to them on this question.

There's a tripartite commission between Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan that's looking into this question. And our hope is that this activity will increase and that it will be sincere and that we all should see that extremism or the promotion of extremism is not going to be in anybody's interest. It will not be in the interest of Pakistan. It will not be in the interest of other countries in the neighborhood of Afghanistan to have terrorism operate in Afghanistan. And I'm very much hopeful that something will be done about it.

ZAHN: I want to make sure I understand clearly what you're saying. Are you solely pinning the blame on Pakistan for this regrouping of the Taliban?

KARZAI: No, ma'am, I'm not doing that.

I'm simply saying that we hope to have increased activity on all sides with regard to terrorism and the stopping of extremist activities. We do have difficulties inside Afghanistan, as well with regard to armed gangs and institutional difficulties in Afghanistan and the inability of the administration as well to reach parts of the country. So we have problems internally, too. But the main problem, the problem that concerns us and the international community is, of course, terrorism.

ZAHN: Do you think that the regrouping of the Taliban, then, in any way represents any kind of threat to Americans?

KARZAI: The regrouping or the reorganization or promotion to their reorganization is of concern to us. It is not a threat. It causes disruption.

They tried to kill aid workers. They tried to kill reconstruction activity. They tried to burn school, especially for little girls, in Afghanistan. Nobody likes that. And that's what we're trying to stop. But the country is going ahead. The country is seeing good days. There's a lot of progress. Roads are being rebuilt; 4.2 million children are going to school in Afghanistan. The country's economy is doing all right. So it's OK. It's not that we are very concerned.

ZAHN: And yet it wasn't all that long ago that you were a target of an assassination attempt. Do you fear for your life?

KARZAI: Well, I guess I should say no, because I believe God is there to look after us. And when he decides that we cease to exist, we cease to exist. Otherwise, we live.

ZAHN: Is it your belief that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar will either be captured or killed at some point?

KARZAI: Absolutely. Definitely yes. Sooner or later, we'll get them. They can't hide forever. ZAHN: President Karzai, again, thank you very much for joining us tonight. It was an honor to have you with us. And best of luck to you and the rest of your country.

KARZAI: Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Coming up:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM MINTIER, CNN BANGKOK BUREAU CHIEF: These are the victims of sexual slavery, a 10-year-old little girl sold into the sex trade by her father.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: The illegal sex trade in Thailand, a look at the crackdown to end this unspeakable horror.

And a little bit later on: Should it be against the law to sell violent video games to children? That's our debate tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: The horror of human trafficking, modern day slavery, is now getting global attention. President Bush highlighted it in his speech to the U.N. yesterday. And Thailand is one place where selling people has become a booming business. Thousands of young boys and girls have been sold into prostitution. And more are joining their ranks every day.

Bangkok bureau chief Tom Mintier reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MINTIER (voice-over): These are the victims of sexual slavery, a 10-year-old little girl sold into the sex trade by her father.

"They locked me inside a room with a padlock on the door," she says. "When customers arrived, I was sent out."

She was rescued from the brothel and has a new life as a schoolgirl living in a protected environment, but her innocence lost forever. This woman we call "Bande" (ph) was locked up in a brothel for three years and forced to have sex with more than 20 men each day. This is her mother. She sold her daughter into slavery for 200 U.S. dollars, thinking she would work as a made in Bangkok.

Sompak Dentraka (ph) runs this rescue center in northern Thailand. Both girls and boys seek refuge here. Prostitution is against the law in Thailand. But like many countries, the law is not enforced. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The law is the law. But when the people practice, they don't use the law. And because -- I have to tell you the truth, the corruption is everywhere.

MINTIER: Thailand's current prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has declared war, not only against drugs, but corruption and corrupt officials. He has ordered police to crack down, no matter who is involved or how high in society they are placed.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished. Those who patronize this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others.

MINTIER: But Radhika Coomaraswamy is the U.N. special representative of the secretary-general on violence against women. She says the U.S. president's comments will help, but she says most organized crime elements come after the trafficking begins.

RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY, U.N. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE: The tragedy of trafficking is, the actual recruitment is often by family members, friends. Then they are sold to brothels and all run by organized crime. But the actual recruitment procedure is not, as I said, abduction. It's by trust.

MINTIER: That trust may be an older sister or an aunt already working in a brothel. For many in this generation, the funds and the concern comes too late. Their lives are already ruined.

Here at the Child Protection Foundation Center in Bangkok, staff attempt to repair the damage already inflicted on these children. Some say they volunteer to work in the sex trade to make money.

"Even educated children want to be trendy," he says. "They want to have more money. They don't think about being a victim."

(on camera): Shining the spotlight on human trafficking may be a double-edge sword, according to one U.N. official. There's fear any crackdown will result in the enslaved being put in jail, instead of the enslavers.

Tom Mintier, CNN, Bangkok.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Coming up tonight: our debate. Some video games are bloodier than ever. But are they so violent that selling them to kids should be against the law?

And the legal system and the media: With such a glaring spotlight, can high-profile defendants like Scott Peterson even get a fair trial?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Here's a brief look at some stories you need to know right now. In just about 30 minutes, CNN will bring you coverage of the first California recall debate. The candidates arrived just a short while ago. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger squares off against four other candidates, including Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante and GOP rival Tom McClintock.

And the CIA is saying that poor audio quality makes it very hard to tell whether a recent audiotape purported to be Saddam Hussein is authentic. The tape surfaced last week and includes music in the background. The speaker calls on Iraqis to attack their American occupiers?

And remember Bob Stevens? He was the tabloid photo editor whose death ignited the anthrax scares from two years ago. Well, his widow is suing the federal government for $50 million. She says better security at the Army lab where the powder is suspected of coming from might have prevented her husband's death.

And we're going to move on now.

Gone are the days when the worst violence you saw in a video game was Pac-Man chomping down on ghosts. Well, times certainly have changed. But are video games so violent, that it should be against the law to sell them to children?

I'm joined from Miami tonight by attorney Jack Thompson. He's been asked to draft a ban for the city of New York. We're also joined tonight from San Francisco by Jennifer Tsao. She is the managing editor of "Electronic Gaming Monthly."

Welcome to both of you.

JACK THOMPSON, ATTORNEY: Thank you.

JENNIFER TSAO, MANAGING EDITOR, "ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY": Thank you.

ZAHN: So, Jack, we're going to start with you this evening.

If criminalizing the sale of video games to minors is such a great idea, why don't we see more of these laws on the books?

THOMPSON: Well, there were two laws, one in Saint Louis, one in Indianapolis, that were struck down for constitutional reasons.

We're not going to make that mistake in New York. And there is a Washington state ban on the sale of cop-killing games to minors which is now being challenged by the video game industry. I think that that law will survive, because it's a good law.

In New York, what I've submitted to the city council today, at the request of the city Councilwoman Gale Brewer is a law that criminalizes the sale of adult-rated video games to minors, gives a cause of action, a personal injury action, to anyone who is harmed as a result of violence that can be directly shown in a court of law was incited by the game, and also gives a personal injury action by any victim against a parent who would negligently give one of these adult- rated violent games to their child, putting, thereby, parents on notice that they shouldn't do that.

And, Paula, what prompts this is literally dozens of incidents around the world in which the police and others have been able to prove that these games have, in effect, been killing or murder simulators that train kids to kill. And, in fact, our Defense Department literally uses these same games to break down the inhibition of new recruits to kill. And so it has that effect on civilians.

ZAHN: All right, I can see Jennifer reacting quite skeptically to most of what you have just said.

Jennifer, give us your best argument tonight of why there should not be a law criminalizing the sale of these violent games to minors. What's wrong with Jack's idea?

TSAO: I think the first point is something that Jack tried to dismiss right away, but it's something you can't dismiss, which is that our Constitution protects free speech and that video games have been ruled in a federal court ruling in Missouri that video games do constitute protected speech, in the same way as movies, TV, paintings and other artistic expressions.

The other thing is, you really have to question whether criminalizing retailers selling and parents who might decide that their child is mature enough to handle a video game is really the right way we want to spend our tax dollars. I don't think it is.

ZAHN: Jack, why isn't this censorship, in your mind?

THOMPSON: Well, censorship is prior restraint. And that's not what this is.

And, in fact, the difference is that city of New York's bill, or law, when it's passed, will be based upon not upon the state or the city telling parents how to raise their children, but will in effect be looking at the innocent third-party bystanders that have been killed as a result of these games. And certainly a city and a state have a...

(CROSSTALK)

THOMPSON: Wait. Let me finish -- have a compelling interest, under our Constitution, to provide for the public safety.

And, indeed, the Supreme Court, in the Paladin Press case, Paula, has ruled that a widow whose husband was killed by a man who read a book on how to kill people has a wrongful death action against the publisher, Paladin Press. So how much more would a person injured have a cause of action against the maker of an adult video game marketed to children that they know is resulting in copycatting? Now, the Supreme Court's ruled on this issue.

ZAHN: All right, Jennifer, let's come back to the core point that Jack is making and has made in the past, the idea that there has been reputable studies or there have been reputable studies that would point out that these violent games do have impact on the thinking and behavior of young people.

Why wouldn't you want to limit their access to these games, particularly when parents aren't always at home monitoring what their kids are watching?

TSAO: It's true parents that can't necessarily keep control of everything that their kids say and do.

But I don't know if either of you have read a book by Steven Pinker called "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature," in which he quotes just as many studies that -- and he actually quotes psychologists who have researched the methods in which studies that Jack likes to quote are done and found that they are dubious, at best, in finding a direct link between video games and any form of media and actual violence.

The bottom line is, human beings have been violent for centuries, for millennia. Look at cave paintings. Picasso's "Guernica" shows you that. It's a statement on the human condition, that human beings are violent and there's not much you can do about it.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Jack, you get the last word. You get the last word tonight, because I've got to move on. I can only give you 10 seconds to close off the segment.

THOMPSON: If there's no causal link between these games and violent behavior, then I'll tell you what. The video game industry has nothing to fear in a courtroom in which a jury is asked whether or not that has occurred. So the video game industry can relax if I'm wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

TSAO: I'm just not sure a courtroom is the right place to decide these issues.

THOMPSON: It's the perfect place.

ZAHN: We are going to have to leave it there.

Jennifer Tsao and Jack Thompson, thank you for both of your perspectives.

TSAO: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Still ahead tonight: Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, in court to fight off a discrimination suit by as many as 1.5 million women.

And where else can you find social satire, political commentary and very bad potty humor all wrapped up in one person, in one book? Brace yourself for Dave Barry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Welcome back.

Wal-Mart is in federal court trying to fight off what could become a discrimination suit by 1.5 million women. The lawsuit claims the company has been discriminating against female workers for years. A judge will decide whether to grant class-action status to the suit. If he does, it will be the largest in U.S. history.

And our legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, has stopped by to put this legal dispute into plain English for us.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's a big one.

ZAHN: It's a big one.

TOOBIN: Maybe the biggest civil rights lawsuit, private civil rights lawsuit, in the history of the country.

ZAHN: Why don't we put up what the charges are on the screen right now and you'll help us analyze this.

Men who serve Wal-Mart as regional vice presidents have an average salary of a little more than $419,000 a year. Women who are regional vice presidents make, on average, nearly $280,000 a year. That's around a 50 percent difference in salary.

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: Big difference.

ZAHN: Now let's go to another category, cashiers. Male cashiers have an average salary of around $14,500, women cashiers a little over $13,800. Is this a classic case of discrimination?

TOOBIN: Well, the plaintiffs certainly say, look at the numbers, end of story.

Wal-Mart has a more complicated story. They say look at who actually applies, look at who stays in the job longer. Look at the pool of people who are trying to get ahead in the company. They say it's more men than women. And thus they do better in the work force.

Also, they say that each Wal-Mart is like a different small town, managed differently. So they say you can't have a class action with all these different plaintiffs. You need to have one per store, which, of course, the plaintiffs don't want to have thousands of lawsuits. They just want to do it once.

ZAHN: Well, let's read a little bit more of Wal-Mart's statement now. "Wal-Mart does not tolerate discrimination against women or anyone else. When you look at Wal-Mart's growth and the fact that we promote women at the same rate they apply for jobs or better, you can see that Wal-Mart provides more opportunities for women than any other employer in the country."

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: Notice the key word, at the same right. They say that they promote women at the same rate they apply. They say women don't apply as often as men, so more men get promoted, so more men do better.

ZAHN: So you're talking parsing of the English language there.

TOOBIN: Well, parsing of the English language.

And this is a tough case. This is a really -- both sides have pretty good arguments. I'm sorry to wimp out on you here, but I'm really telling you, I think this is a case that I think will proceed through the judicial system. It is good enough to move along. Whether they prove their case, I don't know. Wal-Mart may want to pay a large amount of money to make it all go away.

ZAHN: Well, that's what I'm wondering. So if a judge decides to go ahead and consider this a class-action suit, is that what happens? Wal-Mart writes a big check and...

TOOBIN: If they are looking at a class action with literally over one million plaintiffs, it will be very much in their interests. Even a company as big as Wal-Mart, the biggest private employer in the United States, will want to eliminate the risk, write a big check, I hope relook at its policies, make sure it doesn't discriminate. But they don't want to risk a jury verdict here where you could be talking billions and billions of dollars.

ZAHN: Before we let you, let's talk telemarketers.

TOOBIN: Unbelievable decision today.

ZAHN: What's with that judge's ruling?

TOOBIN: The judge in Oklahoma decided that the do-not-call list, perhaps the most popular government initiative of the past 10 years, will not go into effect. He says, Congress didn't specifically authorize it.

It seems to me an incomprehensible, ridiculous ruling. I think it will be overturned on appeal. But it is supposed to go into effect on October 1. So there's only a week to go. Expect a lot of legal scrambling. But this was completely unexpected. And it may -- unless it's overturned, it stands up.

ZAHN: Do you think this is a judge that likes to get these phone calls during the dinner hour?

TOOBIN: It's hard to imagine. But I'm biased here, because I signed up for the do-not-call list.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Oh. He exposes his bias right here on the air.

TOOBIN: So I'm one of the 50 million people who signed up for it. So I'm expecting it to go into effect October 1.

ZAHN: Well, you have a lot of company on that one, Jeffrey. Thanks.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Coming up next, we're going to stick to the legal theme with a look at high-profile court cases. Has the media spotlight made it impossible to get a fair trial?

Also, coming up tomorrow: Will Wesley Clark's performance in his first presidential debate stand up to all the hype?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Since the O.J. Simpson trial, the media feeding frenzy over high-profile cases has grown to seem normal. We have more to look forward to, with the Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant trials coming up.

Gerry Spence is a well-known defense lawyer and the author of the book "The Smoking Gun." And he joins us from Denver to talk about the media and the courts and whether intense coverage makes it impossible to get a fair trial.

Always good to see you, Gerry. Welcome.

GERRY SPENCE, AUTHOR, "THE SMOKING GUN": Thanks. Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: I want to make sure I understand your core argument here. Are you basically saying that, in a highly publicized trial, a defendant cannot get a fair trial?

SPENCE: I think that's right.

I think fairness is kind of a subjective word. But the defendant should go into the courtroom with the presumption of innocence. The Constitution says, we are presumed innocent. We don't have to prove ourselves innocent. We are presumed innocent. We can't prove ourselves innocent. And so the law presumes us innocent and requires the prosecution to prove us guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, when you have high-profile cases, well, everybody has their opinion. And it's a kind of silent prejudice, Paula, because the judge says to them -- or the opposing counsel says to a prospective jury, can you try this case fairly? Oh, yes. Do you have any prejudice? No, no.

Nobody wants to admit that they can't be fair or they don't have prejudices. So what happens is that we put 12 jurors on there, all of whom have an opinion about the case, when they ought not to have any. ZAHN: All right, well, the Constitution certainly doesn't say anything about the presumption of innocence. And taking this argument a step further, how do you then explain the verdict in the O.J. Simpson case?

SPENCE: Well, it just means that he had lawyers that proved to the satisfaction of the jury, despite the failure of the presumption of innocence. It means that he had lawyers that were able to overcome that.

And that's not the way it should be. In my cases, when I defend somebody charged with a murder in a high-profile case, I have to prove my client is innocent. That really ought not to be my proof. The proof ought to be undertaken by the state to prove my client guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

ZAHN: Our legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, was just here. And he was also not only thinking of the O.J. Simpson as one that sort of portrays your logic here, but the William Kennedy Smith trial. And he says, without crunching the numbers here, he believes there actually have been more acquittals in high-profile cases than convictions.

SPENCE: Well, that's only because they have had better lawyers.

The lawyers in all of those cases have been masterpieces of trial lawyers, and masterfully done. And nobody could say that that wasn't the case. But you take the O.J. Simpson case and put a kid that's just out of law school who is a public defender, who is -- who are the kinds of defense lawyers that most people get in this country and see what the results would be.

ZAHN: I want to better understand, too, what you're saying about the media. Are you alleging that the media has more influence over a jury's thinking than what they hear from witnesses or what they hear from prosecutors?

SPENCE: Well...

ZAHN: And the defense?

SPENCE: It shouldn't be that way.

But, you see, when you come into the case and you've been saturated with ideas and you've talked about it with your neighbors and you've heard it over the media and you've discussed it and you've read about it in the newspaper, you have your head full of ideas that now the defense has to dispel, has to get out of your head. Well, your head should have been empty to start with.

So there's not much question about that. There's not much question about it in judges' minds, when changes of venue are granted in almost all of these cases. And in Kobe Bryant's case, where would you change the venue to some place where he could get a fair trial? You send him to South Africa or the Aleutian Islands or something?

ZAHN: So you don't think he's going to get a fair trial? SPENCE: I don't think either party can get a fair trial there.

I don't think the young woman who made the accusations can get a fair shake, nor can he, because everybody in that case, when it goes to trial, will have an opinion that somehow will have to be dispelled.

ZAHN: And the Scott Peterson case? I can only give you about 15 seconds to answer that. Same thing?

SPENCE: Same thing. And it's even getting worse now, because they're starting to bring in -- the prosecution's starting to bring in people that claim that they've heard Scott Peterson say things, snitches that the prosecution has likely made deals with. And that tells me something. It tells me that that the case of the prosecution isn't nearly as strong as they said it was. It sure isn't a slam dunk.

ZAHN: Well, it's always interesting to hear your theories. Thank you very much for dropping by. And best of luck to you with this new book.

SPENCE: Thank you.

ZAHN: Gerry Spence.

Coming up, think the presidential race is crowded enough? Well, add humorist Dave Barry to the list -- my conversation with him when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Columnist Dave Barry has no shortage of material these days, from the California recall, and, yes, to his own presidential campaign. He has plenty to talk about. And his new book, called "Boogers Are My Beat" -- yes, that's what it's called -- has hit the bookstores.

And I talked with Dave Barry yesterday and started off by asking him about his title.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVE BARRY, AUTHOR, "BOOGERS ARE MY BEAT": That really isn't the title of the book. We just wanted to see if we could get you to say that on the air.

ZAHN: Well, as a mother of three, I feel qualified to say, I probably know more about boogers than just about anyone.

BARRY: That's true.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Do you think you have the corner on the market here?

BARRY: Well, no, no. But I have a 3 1/2-year-old daughter. And at that age, they believe that the responsibility for the removal of the booger is the parents'. And so I'm sure you have had this happen.

ZAHN: Oh, of course, many

(CROSSTALK)

BARRY: And they act like kind of like it's an honor for you to be chosen to pick it out. I can't believe we're talking about this.

ZAHN: So the general idea is, once we get beyond the title of your book.

BARRY: Of the book, right.

ZAHN: While journalists are out interviewing important people about critical issues, you're at home in your underwear doing what?

BARRY: I'll give you an example.

I wrote a column just recently about telemarketers. And I -- the column was about -- are you familiar with the national do-not-call list?

ZAHN: Right. You really ticked these people off.

BARRY: Yes. Yes.

I put their phone number in my column. And it was inconvenient to them, as you can imagine. They got unwanted phone calls. Can you imagine how bad I felt?

ZAHN: Well, now they know what it's like to be on the receiving end of that.

BARRY: There you go.

ZAHN: Now, what's this thing about staking a claim for the presidency now? You're going to add your name to the list?

BARRY: I've been running for president for quite a number of years now. I'm not one of these weenie candidates that drop out just because the Electoral College votes. I keep going year in, year out. And, yes. So...

ZAHN: And could your share your party affiliation with us here this evening?

BARRY: I think that's kind of a personal question, Paula. That's kind of like asking me what kind of underwear I wear. Briefs. It's not something -- and I actually resent it when news media people, like yourself -- no offense -- start asking candidates where they stand on the issues, what party they belong to, and other personal information like that.

Just because I'm running for president doesn't mean anybody has to know what I think about anything.

ZAHN: Is there a line of questioning, then, you would prefer, Mr. presidential candidate?

BARRY: Yes.

I like more along the lines of what's your favorite color and stuff like that.

ZAHN: So how much pressure is there on you at home to be funny?

BARRY: Really none. There's more pressure on me at home to like remove my daughter's boogers.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: It always comes back to the title of this book.

BARRY: No, no. I'm more of a regular human at home, I like to think. The pressure on me is to like think of things to write about, but not necessarily go around trying to entertain people at home.

ZAHN: What do you think of that recall in California?

BARRY: I think it's a wonderful source of entertainment for us. I really think the solution to this thing is to allow the people of Florida to vote for the governor of California.

We finally figured out how to do it. It took us many months, but we now have our voting system worked out. Californians are having serious trouble with theirs. Let us vote. We screwed it up for president last time. Give us a shot to elect the governor of California.

ZAHN: How do you see Mr. Schwarzenegger doing?

BARRY: I think, if he learns to speak English, he has got a real chance.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAHN: We have to leave it there. Dave Barry, always good to see you.

BARRY: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Keep up the good work.

BARRY: Yes, you, too. You're shaking my hand, I noticed, despite what we've been talking about. But please...

ZAHN: Oh, please.

BARRY: No, I'm just kidding.

ZAHN: You didn't use any of that special antiseptic stuff before we came on? All of our guests use antiseptics before they come on.

(CROSSTALK) ZAHN: How did we miss that?

BARRY: They washed me down. "If you're going on with Paula, we have to wash you down, Dave."

(LAUGHTER)

ZAHN: Good luck to you.

BARRY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And we are just moments away from the California recall debate among candidates hoping to replace Governor Gray Davis.

Here to give us a preview of what we can all expect is national correspondent Kelly Wallace.

Good evening, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Paula.

Well, just moments from now , this debate gets under way. The candidates, as we have been reporting, have received the questions in advance. But the sponsors here say they expect a free-for-all, because, after the candidates answer their questions, the other candidates can challenge each other and ask other questions as well.

You can see, there's a pretty active crowd out here. You have supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger, supporters of the other major candidates. You also have supporters of Gray Davis, the embattled governor, who is not participating in tonight's debate. But he will be watching closely, Paula. His aides are here as well.

They know what happens inside this hall tonight could significantly impact his strategy from here on out in his efforts to defeat this recall -- Paula.

ZAHN: Kelly, probably the most interesting fact that I have heard that was in the newspapers out there, that there is a belief that two-thirds of the people who might vote in the California recall might make their decision based on what they hear tonight.

WALLACE: That is the key.

And this debate will be broadcast live throughout California on radio and television. There are a number of undecided voters out there. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cruz Bustamante, the major Democrat, are neck-and-neck right now. They are battling it out for those voters.

And so what they hear tonight could significantly impact what they decide to do, and, of course, what they decide to do when it comes to ousting Gray Davis or keeping him in office -- Paula. ZAHN: Kelly, we're just take the opportunity to pan off here a second, so we can get a better idea of what is behind you. And you can describe very quickly how many people have gathered at this point.

WALLACE: Yes, let's go ahead, Jim, and pan a little bit. You have crowds, I would say, of several dozen, maybe a hundred or so. Again, you have supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have other supporters of the other candidates, GOP candidate Tom McClintock.

Paula, let me throw it back to you.

ZAHN: Kelly Wallace, thanks so much.

And thank you all for being with us tonight.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





President Hamid Karzai>


Aired September 24, 2003 - 20:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: In less than 48 hours, two rookie candidates, but no strangers to public life, take the stage in their first political debate. How will Wesley Clark and Arnold Schwarzenegger stack up against the competition?
As the U.S. focuses its attention on Iraq, is it neglecting Afghanistan? Thousands of troops are still on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and large portions of the country are in ruin. We'll ask Afghan President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview.

And from business and politics to marriage and sex, even his own presidential campaign, we'll check in with satirist Dave Barry.

Good evening. Welcome. Glad to have you with us tonight.

Also ahead, our debate tonight: Should it be against the law to sell violent video games to children? Also, we'll show you the horror of the modern slave trade highlighted by President Bush yesterday in his speech to world leaders.

Plus: Wal-Mart in court this week fighting to block a gigantic discrimination lawsuit by 1.5 million women. And does the media glare make it impossible to get a fair trial?

Now, here are some of the other headlines you need to know right now.

The man in charge of the weapons hunt in Iraq has handed over a progress report to CIA Director George Tenet. CIA official David Kay says his team has reach no firm conclusions about Iraq's alleged weapons programs. So far, no illegal weapons have been found.

At least two more members of the U.S. military are being looked at in an espionage investigation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Pentagon is looking into whether a conspiracy is involved. Two other U.S. servicemen have already been arrested, suspected of spying.

The do-not-call list is on hold tonight. The list, which would block telemarketers' calls, was supposed to take effect next week. But now a federal judge has ruled the Federal Trade Commission didn't have the authority to even create it. The FTC says it will appeal the ruling.

Now on to those two key debate debuts. Retired General Wesley Clark mixes it up with fellow Democrats in tomorrow's presidential debate. And tonight, of course, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. some of his rivals in the race to recall California Governor Gray Davis. It is a very important performance. According to a new poll, two- thirds of likely voters in California say tonight's debate will be very important in their own decision-making.

The debates are "In Focus" tonight. We start with the recall.

Joining us from Washington is our contributor Joe Klein from "TIME" magazine, from Sacramento, "Los Angeles Times" reporter Matea Gold.

Welcome to both of you.

JOE KLEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good to be here.

MATEA GOLD, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Thanks for having me.

ZAHN: Matea, let's talk a little bit about the expectations on Mr. Schwarzenegger. What can we expect?

GOLD: Sure.

Well, really, tonight, all eyes are really going to be trained on Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is the only debate he's agreed to participate in. And because of that, he's drawn a larger-than-usual spotlight onto this event. Many voters are waiting to see if he can present really clear, specific policy platforms. He's been trying to get away from a perception that he hasn't offered a lot of specific on the campaign trail.

And because the questions were provided ahead of time to the candidates, many people want to see if he can really think on his feet when it comes to the question-and-answer between the various conditions on the stage.

ZAHN: Well, Joe Klein, Arnold Schwarzenegger has certainly proven to all of us he knows to how to memorize lines, all the candidates going into this debate tonight, as Matea, knowing the questions ahead of time. So what kind of insights will these questions really yield, if any?

KLEIN: Well, we'll find out an awful lot about how Arnold Schwarzenegger's aides and policy people think about these issues.

The question is, how much crosstalk there's going to be and whether the other candidates are going to go at him. I think that one person to watch in this is going to be Arianna Huffington, who spends a good deal of her life as a talking head on TV arguing with people. And so she'll be pretty comfortable on that stage. I don't know how comfortable Schwarzenegger will be.

ZAHN: Matea, let's talk about some the questions that are going to be asked tonight. We're going to put one up on the screen now: "What do you expect to accomplish in the time remaining on Gray Davis' term that he could not? What should the top priority for California be right now?"

Not exactly you call a hardball question, is it, Matea?

GOLD: Well, we just heard from Stan Statham, the president of the California Broadcasters Association, who are sponsoring this debate. And he said, the point of these question are really to serve as jumping-off points in this forum.

He's really going to let the candidates go at each other. He said there's actually going to be a lot of crosstalk. He said he's looking for sizzle. And so while the candidates can prepare answers to these kinds of open-ended questions, it's really going to be a free-for-all after that.

ZAHN: I saw a smile of glee there, Joe, when we talked about the sizzle of crosstalk. Are you more cynical about the prospects of having that happen tonight?

KLEIN: Well, I would never consider myself cynical, skeptical, I think. And I'm a big fan of sizzle. I am a pro-sizzle journalist.

But California -- can I talk to the rest of the country for a second?

ZAHN: Sure.

KLEIN: Hey, guys, you may be wondering why this is important to you. California is on the brink of bankruptcy. Its bonds are near junk rated. And they have to find a governor who can actually handle this.

And so that's one reason. It could affect your economic future. The other is that this is another step in the further degradation of American politics, having this sort of circus going on. And so what I'd like to see is some steak along with the sizzle, some real answers to the question of what you could actually do, because the truth is that, given the referendum process and all the other kinds of -- the initiative process and the recall process, the politicians in Sacramento don't have all that much control over the budget and over the political future of California.

ZAHN: Well, you're going to be our eyes and ears for us tonight, the debate getting under way in just a shave less than an hour now.

Matea Gold, thanks for your time. Joe Klein's, yours as well.

Actually, Joe is going to be hanging around with us a little bit longer. A programming note: Once again, we will be carrying that debate live starting at 9:00.

Now we're going to move on to tomorrow's Democratic presidential debate. It is the first debate for retired General Wesley Clark, who announced his candidacy last week. And it will focus on economic issues, not the military and international policy discussions that are considered Clark's strong suit.

Also joining us tonight, retired General David Grange. We already know Joe's here. Welcome back, General Grange.

RETIRED BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.

ZAHN: General Grange, tell us a little bit about what you think Wesley Clark is made of. One of your colleagues, General Shelton, has talked about some integrity and character issues that General Wesley Clark has. And I think he meant that in a negative way. How do you view him?

GRANGE: Yes, I'm not really sure of the incidents that General Shelton was referring to.

My experience in service with General Clark, very smart, articulate, but then driven, persistent, determined general officer, always trying to accomplish the mission. And some of the times, this would cause a bit of friction with other senior military leaders in some of the areas of operation. My experience happened to be in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, that area. I personally never had that problem.

But I know that there was friction just from the talk that I've heard and some of the operations I participated in.

ZAHN: General Shelton said he would not vote for Wesley Clark. If given the opportunity, would you?

GRANGE: Well, I would not vote for General Clark or the rest of the candidates in that party that's shown right now. But, no, I would not.

ZAHN: Ah, see, he's come clean for us this evening.

Joe, back to you.

What is it, do you think, that Wesley Clark has to accomplish tomorrow night?

KLEIN: Well, some vague modicum of competence on economic and domestic policy issues. This is a really interesting test here.

The big question is Wes Clark's political temperament, whether he has the temper to be a politician. I know he has a serious temper. But it raises a really interesting question that General Grange and I were talking about before. In some ways, at this moment in history, generals in the Army and the other forces are better positioned to be politicians than many politicians are.

When Wes Clark was leading the effort in Kosovo, he had to deal with the NATO allies on a daily, sometimes an hourly basis. He had to negotiate bombing targets. And so he has a track record of success as a diplomat in dealing with our NATO allies that the current president can't match. Other generals, like David Petraeus in Iraq right now, are doing the work that a lot of governors of states do, getting highways built, hiring cops, that sort of thing. And so I think that the military is far more sophisticated and far more politically astute now than it was. The question is whether Wes Clark is politically astute.

ZAHN: Well, I guess that's my question for General Grange.

I'm sure you agree with the assessment that Joe had that military training is great preparation for a political candidate.

GRANGE: Well, I think it is.

And if I was a competitor, for instance, right now in that party's competition, I'd be a bit nervous. I'll tell you that General Clark, whether he's knowledgeable on certain domestic issues right now, he will take those issues, he will study them, take them apart and develop a plan to attack them. And so, if I was competing with General Clark, I'd be very concerned about that, because he'll do that very well, even if he doesn't have the experience in that area.

But the world does prepare you for these geopolitical and other issues that you deal with abroad. And some of the same issues you deal, reference quality of life in the United States, it's the same as overseas.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Joe, what do you think are some of the early lessons Wesley Clark has learned here, particularly the art of the flip-flop?

(CROSSTALK)

KLEIN: Well, politics is a really, really difficult game. And you can't tell whether you have the political gene until you get actually into the fray.

But I'd like to ask General Grange a question. And it's this. He said that he wouldn't vote for Wes Clark. And General Shelton has said pretty much the same thing. But given the degree of skepticism that we're hearing about in the armed forces right now about the operation in Iraq, do you think, General, that there may be a fair amount of military people who would support a Clark candidacy because of the skepticism that he's expressed about the war?

GRANGE: Well, my reason for not voting for General Clark is because there's going to be some other candidates that I'd rather vote for. I think he's a very proficient soldier and citizen of the United States of America, and he's very competent. So that's not the reason.

My reason will probably be a little different than General Shelton. But I think there will be some military, obviously, that will vote for General Clark.

ZAHN: You saw that the general didn't name any names there for you this evening, Joe Klein. Thank you for...

KLEIN: Should we hold his feet to the fire on that one? ZAHN: Well, I'd like to. The next appearance, we'll see what he has to say.

KLEIN: All right.

ZAHN: General David Grange, Joe Klein, thanks so much.

Coming up: my exclusive interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENT: The main problem, the problem that concerns us and the international community is, of course, terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Plus: Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in America, could soon face the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history. We're going to look at what's at stake.

And my conversation with humorist Dave Barry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: In the months after 9/11, Afghanistan was the central front in the war on terror. But these days, it's largely overshadowed by the war in Iraq.

And earlier today, in an exclusive interview, I had a chance to talk with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. I started off by asking him if the war in Iraq has compromised resources for Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARZAI: You just heard yesterday President Bush, in his address to the U.N., pledge $1.2 billion to Afghanistan. And he urged other nations to do the same. So Afghanistan is in focus and Afghanistan continues to receive assistance. And the attention is there.

ZAHN: In spite of what you are seeing as some rays of good news here, how concerned are you about the regrouping of the Taliban in your country?

KARZAI: I'm worried about that, and so are the Afghan people.

They have begun to have terroristic activities along the Afghan border. And they have also tried to do things inside the country. We launched an operation against them some days back that was very successful. For this, for terrorism to end in Afghanistan and in the region, I hope that the government of Pakistan will cooperate with us as strongly and sincerely, together with us and the United States, to find a lasting solution and the defeat of terrorism.

ZAHN: How would you characterize Pakistan's unwillingness to crack down on the Taliban before they cross over into the border into your country?

KARZAI: We are talking to them on this question.

There's a tripartite commission between Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan that's looking into this question. And our hope is that this activity will increase and that it will be sincere and that we all should see that extremism or the promotion of extremism is not going to be in anybody's interest. It will not be in the interest of Pakistan. It will not be in the interest of other countries in the neighborhood of Afghanistan to have terrorism operate in Afghanistan. And I'm very much hopeful that something will be done about it.

ZAHN: I want to make sure I understand clearly what you're saying. Are you solely pinning the blame on Pakistan for this regrouping of the Taliban?

KARZAI: No, ma'am, I'm not doing that.

I'm simply saying that we hope to have increased activity on all sides with regard to terrorism and the stopping of extremist activities. We do have difficulties inside Afghanistan, as well with regard to armed gangs and institutional difficulties in Afghanistan and the inability of the administration as well to reach parts of the country. So we have problems internally, too. But the main problem, the problem that concerns us and the international community is, of course, terrorism.

ZAHN: Do you think that the regrouping of the Taliban, then, in any way represents any kind of threat to Americans?

KARZAI: The regrouping or the reorganization or promotion to their reorganization is of concern to us. It is not a threat. It causes disruption.

They tried to kill aid workers. They tried to kill reconstruction activity. They tried to burn school, especially for little girls, in Afghanistan. Nobody likes that. And that's what we're trying to stop. But the country is going ahead. The country is seeing good days. There's a lot of progress. Roads are being rebuilt; 4.2 million children are going to school in Afghanistan. The country's economy is doing all right. So it's OK. It's not that we are very concerned.

ZAHN: And yet it wasn't all that long ago that you were a target of an assassination attempt. Do you fear for your life?

KARZAI: Well, I guess I should say no, because I believe God is there to look after us. And when he decides that we cease to exist, we cease to exist. Otherwise, we live.

ZAHN: Is it your belief that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar will either be captured or killed at some point?

KARZAI: Absolutely. Definitely yes. Sooner or later, we'll get them. They can't hide forever. ZAHN: President Karzai, again, thank you very much for joining us tonight. It was an honor to have you with us. And best of luck to you and the rest of your country.

KARZAI: Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Coming up:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM MINTIER, CNN BANGKOK BUREAU CHIEF: These are the victims of sexual slavery, a 10-year-old little girl sold into the sex trade by her father.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: The illegal sex trade in Thailand, a look at the crackdown to end this unspeakable horror.

And a little bit later on: Should it be against the law to sell violent video games to children? That's our debate tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: The horror of human trafficking, modern day slavery, is now getting global attention. President Bush highlighted it in his speech to the U.N. yesterday. And Thailand is one place where selling people has become a booming business. Thousands of young boys and girls have been sold into prostitution. And more are joining their ranks every day.

Bangkok bureau chief Tom Mintier reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MINTIER (voice-over): These are the victims of sexual slavery, a 10-year-old little girl sold into the sex trade by her father.

"They locked me inside a room with a padlock on the door," she says. "When customers arrived, I was sent out."

She was rescued from the brothel and has a new life as a schoolgirl living in a protected environment, but her innocence lost forever. This woman we call "Bande" (ph) was locked up in a brothel for three years and forced to have sex with more than 20 men each day. This is her mother. She sold her daughter into slavery for 200 U.S. dollars, thinking she would work as a made in Bangkok.

Sompak Dentraka (ph) runs this rescue center in northern Thailand. Both girls and boys seek refuge here. Prostitution is against the law in Thailand. But like many countries, the law is not enforced. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The law is the law. But when the people practice, they don't use the law. And because -- I have to tell you the truth, the corruption is everywhere.

MINTIER: Thailand's current prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has declared war, not only against drugs, but corruption and corrupt officials. He has ordered police to crack down, no matter who is involved or how high in society they are placed.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished. Those who patronize this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others.

MINTIER: But Radhika Coomaraswamy is the U.N. special representative of the secretary-general on violence against women. She says the U.S. president's comments will help, but she says most organized crime elements come after the trafficking begins.

RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY, U.N. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE: The tragedy of trafficking is, the actual recruitment is often by family members, friends. Then they are sold to brothels and all run by organized crime. But the actual recruitment procedure is not, as I said, abduction. It's by trust.

MINTIER: That trust may be an older sister or an aunt already working in a brothel. For many in this generation, the funds and the concern comes too late. Their lives are already ruined.

Here at the Child Protection Foundation Center in Bangkok, staff attempt to repair the damage already inflicted on these children. Some say they volunteer to work in the sex trade to make money.

"Even educated children want to be trendy," he says. "They want to have more money. They don't think about being a victim."

(on camera): Shining the spotlight on human trafficking may be a double-edge sword, according to one U.N. official. There's fear any crackdown will result in the enslaved being put in jail, instead of the enslavers.

Tom Mintier, CNN, Bangkok.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Coming up tonight: our debate. Some video games are bloodier than ever. But are they so violent that selling them to kids should be against the law?

And the legal system and the media: With such a glaring spotlight, can high-profile defendants like Scott Peterson even get a fair trial?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Here's a brief look at some stories you need to know right now. In just about 30 minutes, CNN will bring you coverage of the first California recall debate. The candidates arrived just a short while ago. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger squares off against four other candidates, including Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante and GOP rival Tom McClintock.

And the CIA is saying that poor audio quality makes it very hard to tell whether a recent audiotape purported to be Saddam Hussein is authentic. The tape surfaced last week and includes music in the background. The speaker calls on Iraqis to attack their American occupiers?

And remember Bob Stevens? He was the tabloid photo editor whose death ignited the anthrax scares from two years ago. Well, his widow is suing the federal government for $50 million. She says better security at the Army lab where the powder is suspected of coming from might have prevented her husband's death.

And we're going to move on now.

Gone are the days when the worst violence you saw in a video game was Pac-Man chomping down on ghosts. Well, times certainly have changed. But are video games so violent, that it should be against the law to sell them to children?

I'm joined from Miami tonight by attorney Jack Thompson. He's been asked to draft a ban for the city of New York. We're also joined tonight from San Francisco by Jennifer Tsao. She is the managing editor of "Electronic Gaming Monthly."

Welcome to both of you.

JACK THOMPSON, ATTORNEY: Thank you.

JENNIFER TSAO, MANAGING EDITOR, "ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY": Thank you.

ZAHN: So, Jack, we're going to start with you this evening.

If criminalizing the sale of video games to minors is such a great idea, why don't we see more of these laws on the books?

THOMPSON: Well, there were two laws, one in Saint Louis, one in Indianapolis, that were struck down for constitutional reasons.

We're not going to make that mistake in New York. And there is a Washington state ban on the sale of cop-killing games to minors which is now being challenged by the video game industry. I think that that law will survive, because it's a good law.

In New York, what I've submitted to the city council today, at the request of the city Councilwoman Gale Brewer is a law that criminalizes the sale of adult-rated video games to minors, gives a cause of action, a personal injury action, to anyone who is harmed as a result of violence that can be directly shown in a court of law was incited by the game, and also gives a personal injury action by any victim against a parent who would negligently give one of these adult- rated violent games to their child, putting, thereby, parents on notice that they shouldn't do that.

And, Paula, what prompts this is literally dozens of incidents around the world in which the police and others have been able to prove that these games have, in effect, been killing or murder simulators that train kids to kill. And, in fact, our Defense Department literally uses these same games to break down the inhibition of new recruits to kill. And so it has that effect on civilians.

ZAHN: All right, I can see Jennifer reacting quite skeptically to most of what you have just said.

Jennifer, give us your best argument tonight of why there should not be a law criminalizing the sale of these violent games to minors. What's wrong with Jack's idea?

TSAO: I think the first point is something that Jack tried to dismiss right away, but it's something you can't dismiss, which is that our Constitution protects free speech and that video games have been ruled in a federal court ruling in Missouri that video games do constitute protected speech, in the same way as movies, TV, paintings and other artistic expressions.

The other thing is, you really have to question whether criminalizing retailers selling and parents who might decide that their child is mature enough to handle a video game is really the right way we want to spend our tax dollars. I don't think it is.

ZAHN: Jack, why isn't this censorship, in your mind?

THOMPSON: Well, censorship is prior restraint. And that's not what this is.

And, in fact, the difference is that city of New York's bill, or law, when it's passed, will be based upon not upon the state or the city telling parents how to raise their children, but will in effect be looking at the innocent third-party bystanders that have been killed as a result of these games. And certainly a city and a state have a...

(CROSSTALK)

THOMPSON: Wait. Let me finish -- have a compelling interest, under our Constitution, to provide for the public safety.

And, indeed, the Supreme Court, in the Paladin Press case, Paula, has ruled that a widow whose husband was killed by a man who read a book on how to kill people has a wrongful death action against the publisher, Paladin Press. So how much more would a person injured have a cause of action against the maker of an adult video game marketed to children that they know is resulting in copycatting? Now, the Supreme Court's ruled on this issue.

ZAHN: All right, Jennifer, let's come back to the core point that Jack is making and has made in the past, the idea that there has been reputable studies or there have been reputable studies that would point out that these violent games do have impact on the thinking and behavior of young people.

Why wouldn't you want to limit their access to these games, particularly when parents aren't always at home monitoring what their kids are watching?

TSAO: It's true parents that can't necessarily keep control of everything that their kids say and do.

But I don't know if either of you have read a book by Steven Pinker called "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature," in which he quotes just as many studies that -- and he actually quotes psychologists who have researched the methods in which studies that Jack likes to quote are done and found that they are dubious, at best, in finding a direct link between video games and any form of media and actual violence.

The bottom line is, human beings have been violent for centuries, for millennia. Look at cave paintings. Picasso's "Guernica" shows you that. It's a statement on the human condition, that human beings are violent and there's not much you can do about it.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Jack, you get the last word. You get the last word tonight, because I've got to move on. I can only give you 10 seconds to close off the segment.

THOMPSON: If there's no causal link between these games and violent behavior, then I'll tell you what. The video game industry has nothing to fear in a courtroom in which a jury is asked whether or not that has occurred. So the video game industry can relax if I'm wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

TSAO: I'm just not sure a courtroom is the right place to decide these issues.

THOMPSON: It's the perfect place.

ZAHN: We are going to have to leave it there.

Jennifer Tsao and Jack Thompson, thank you for both of your perspectives.

TSAO: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Still ahead tonight: Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, in court to fight off a discrimination suit by as many as 1.5 million women.

And where else can you find social satire, political commentary and very bad potty humor all wrapped up in one person, in one book? Brace yourself for Dave Barry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Welcome back.

Wal-Mart is in federal court trying to fight off what could become a discrimination suit by 1.5 million women. The lawsuit claims the company has been discriminating against female workers for years. A judge will decide whether to grant class-action status to the suit. If he does, it will be the largest in U.S. history.

And our legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, has stopped by to put this legal dispute into plain English for us.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's a big one.

ZAHN: It's a big one.

TOOBIN: Maybe the biggest civil rights lawsuit, private civil rights lawsuit, in the history of the country.

ZAHN: Why don't we put up what the charges are on the screen right now and you'll help us analyze this.

Men who serve Wal-Mart as regional vice presidents have an average salary of a little more than $419,000 a year. Women who are regional vice presidents make, on average, nearly $280,000 a year. That's around a 50 percent difference in salary.

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: Big difference.

ZAHN: Now let's go to another category, cashiers. Male cashiers have an average salary of around $14,500, women cashiers a little over $13,800. Is this a classic case of discrimination?

TOOBIN: Well, the plaintiffs certainly say, look at the numbers, end of story.

Wal-Mart has a more complicated story. They say look at who actually applies, look at who stays in the job longer. Look at the pool of people who are trying to get ahead in the company. They say it's more men than women. And thus they do better in the work force.

Also, they say that each Wal-Mart is like a different small town, managed differently. So they say you can't have a class action with all these different plaintiffs. You need to have one per store, which, of course, the plaintiffs don't want to have thousands of lawsuits. They just want to do it once.

ZAHN: Well, let's read a little bit more of Wal-Mart's statement now. "Wal-Mart does not tolerate discrimination against women or anyone else. When you look at Wal-Mart's growth and the fact that we promote women at the same rate they apply for jobs or better, you can see that Wal-Mart provides more opportunities for women than any other employer in the country."

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: Notice the key word, at the same right. They say that they promote women at the same rate they apply. They say women don't apply as often as men, so more men get promoted, so more men do better.

ZAHN: So you're talking parsing of the English language there.

TOOBIN: Well, parsing of the English language.

And this is a tough case. This is a really -- both sides have pretty good arguments. I'm sorry to wimp out on you here, but I'm really telling you, I think this is a case that I think will proceed through the judicial system. It is good enough to move along. Whether they prove their case, I don't know. Wal-Mart may want to pay a large amount of money to make it all go away.

ZAHN: Well, that's what I'm wondering. So if a judge decides to go ahead and consider this a class-action suit, is that what happens? Wal-Mart writes a big check and...

TOOBIN: If they are looking at a class action with literally over one million plaintiffs, it will be very much in their interests. Even a company as big as Wal-Mart, the biggest private employer in the United States, will want to eliminate the risk, write a big check, I hope relook at its policies, make sure it doesn't discriminate. But they don't want to risk a jury verdict here where you could be talking billions and billions of dollars.

ZAHN: Before we let you, let's talk telemarketers.

TOOBIN: Unbelievable decision today.

ZAHN: What's with that judge's ruling?

TOOBIN: The judge in Oklahoma decided that the do-not-call list, perhaps the most popular government initiative of the past 10 years, will not go into effect. He says, Congress didn't specifically authorize it.

It seems to me an incomprehensible, ridiculous ruling. I think it will be overturned on appeal. But it is supposed to go into effect on October 1. So there's only a week to go. Expect a lot of legal scrambling. But this was completely unexpected. And it may -- unless it's overturned, it stands up.

ZAHN: Do you think this is a judge that likes to get these phone calls during the dinner hour?

TOOBIN: It's hard to imagine. But I'm biased here, because I signed up for the do-not-call list.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Oh. He exposes his bias right here on the air.

TOOBIN: So I'm one of the 50 million people who signed up for it. So I'm expecting it to go into effect October 1.

ZAHN: Well, you have a lot of company on that one, Jeffrey. Thanks.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Coming up next, we're going to stick to the legal theme with a look at high-profile court cases. Has the media spotlight made it impossible to get a fair trial?

Also, coming up tomorrow: Will Wesley Clark's performance in his first presidential debate stand up to all the hype?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Since the O.J. Simpson trial, the media feeding frenzy over high-profile cases has grown to seem normal. We have more to look forward to, with the Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant trials coming up.

Gerry Spence is a well-known defense lawyer and the author of the book "The Smoking Gun." And he joins us from Denver to talk about the media and the courts and whether intense coverage makes it impossible to get a fair trial.

Always good to see you, Gerry. Welcome.

GERRY SPENCE, AUTHOR, "THE SMOKING GUN": Thanks. Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: I want to make sure I understand your core argument here. Are you basically saying that, in a highly publicized trial, a defendant cannot get a fair trial?

SPENCE: I think that's right.

I think fairness is kind of a subjective word. But the defendant should go into the courtroom with the presumption of innocence. The Constitution says, we are presumed innocent. We don't have to prove ourselves innocent. We are presumed innocent. We can't prove ourselves innocent. And so the law presumes us innocent and requires the prosecution to prove us guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, when you have high-profile cases, well, everybody has their opinion. And it's a kind of silent prejudice, Paula, because the judge says to them -- or the opposing counsel says to a prospective jury, can you try this case fairly? Oh, yes. Do you have any prejudice? No, no.

Nobody wants to admit that they can't be fair or they don't have prejudices. So what happens is that we put 12 jurors on there, all of whom have an opinion about the case, when they ought not to have any. ZAHN: All right, well, the Constitution certainly doesn't say anything about the presumption of innocence. And taking this argument a step further, how do you then explain the verdict in the O.J. Simpson case?

SPENCE: Well, it just means that he had lawyers that proved to the satisfaction of the jury, despite the failure of the presumption of innocence. It means that he had lawyers that were able to overcome that.

And that's not the way it should be. In my cases, when I defend somebody charged with a murder in a high-profile case, I have to prove my client is innocent. That really ought not to be my proof. The proof ought to be undertaken by the state to prove my client guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

ZAHN: Our legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, was just here. And he was also not only thinking of the O.J. Simpson as one that sort of portrays your logic here, but the William Kennedy Smith trial. And he says, without crunching the numbers here, he believes there actually have been more acquittals in high-profile cases than convictions.

SPENCE: Well, that's only because they have had better lawyers.

The lawyers in all of those cases have been masterpieces of trial lawyers, and masterfully done. And nobody could say that that wasn't the case. But you take the O.J. Simpson case and put a kid that's just out of law school who is a public defender, who is -- who are the kinds of defense lawyers that most people get in this country and see what the results would be.

ZAHN: I want to better understand, too, what you're saying about the media. Are you alleging that the media has more influence over a jury's thinking than what they hear from witnesses or what they hear from prosecutors?

SPENCE: Well...

ZAHN: And the defense?

SPENCE: It shouldn't be that way.

But, you see, when you come into the case and you've been saturated with ideas and you've talked about it with your neighbors and you've heard it over the media and you've discussed it and you've read about it in the newspaper, you have your head full of ideas that now the defense has to dispel, has to get out of your head. Well, your head should have been empty to start with.

So there's not much question about that. There's not much question about it in judges' minds, when changes of venue are granted in almost all of these cases. And in Kobe Bryant's case, where would you change the venue to some place where he could get a fair trial? You send him to South Africa or the Aleutian Islands or something?

ZAHN: So you don't think he's going to get a fair trial? SPENCE: I don't think either party can get a fair trial there.

I don't think the young woman who made the accusations can get a fair shake, nor can he, because everybody in that case, when it goes to trial, will have an opinion that somehow will have to be dispelled.

ZAHN: And the Scott Peterson case? I can only give you about 15 seconds to answer that. Same thing?

SPENCE: Same thing. And it's even getting worse now, because they're starting to bring in -- the prosecution's starting to bring in people that claim that they've heard Scott Peterson say things, snitches that the prosecution has likely made deals with. And that tells me something. It tells me that that the case of the prosecution isn't nearly as strong as they said it was. It sure isn't a slam dunk.

ZAHN: Well, it's always interesting to hear your theories. Thank you very much for dropping by. And best of luck to you with this new book.

SPENCE: Thank you.

ZAHN: Gerry Spence.

Coming up, think the presidential race is crowded enough? Well, add humorist Dave Barry to the list -- my conversation with him when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Columnist Dave Barry has no shortage of material these days, from the California recall, and, yes, to his own presidential campaign. He has plenty to talk about. And his new book, called "Boogers Are My Beat" -- yes, that's what it's called -- has hit the bookstores.

And I talked with Dave Barry yesterday and started off by asking him about his title.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVE BARRY, AUTHOR, "BOOGERS ARE MY BEAT": That really isn't the title of the book. We just wanted to see if we could get you to say that on the air.

ZAHN: Well, as a mother of three, I feel qualified to say, I probably know more about boogers than just about anyone.

BARRY: That's true.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Do you think you have the corner on the market here?

BARRY: Well, no, no. But I have a 3 1/2-year-old daughter. And at that age, they believe that the responsibility for the removal of the booger is the parents'. And so I'm sure you have had this happen.

ZAHN: Oh, of course, many

(CROSSTALK)

BARRY: And they act like kind of like it's an honor for you to be chosen to pick it out. I can't believe we're talking about this.

ZAHN: So the general idea is, once we get beyond the title of your book.

BARRY: Of the book, right.

ZAHN: While journalists are out interviewing important people about critical issues, you're at home in your underwear doing what?

BARRY: I'll give you an example.

I wrote a column just recently about telemarketers. And I -- the column was about -- are you familiar with the national do-not-call list?

ZAHN: Right. You really ticked these people off.

BARRY: Yes. Yes.

I put their phone number in my column. And it was inconvenient to them, as you can imagine. They got unwanted phone calls. Can you imagine how bad I felt?

ZAHN: Well, now they know what it's like to be on the receiving end of that.

BARRY: There you go.

ZAHN: Now, what's this thing about staking a claim for the presidency now? You're going to add your name to the list?

BARRY: I've been running for president for quite a number of years now. I'm not one of these weenie candidates that drop out just because the Electoral College votes. I keep going year in, year out. And, yes. So...

ZAHN: And could your share your party affiliation with us here this evening?

BARRY: I think that's kind of a personal question, Paula. That's kind of like asking me what kind of underwear I wear. Briefs. It's not something -- and I actually resent it when news media people, like yourself -- no offense -- start asking candidates where they stand on the issues, what party they belong to, and other personal information like that.

Just because I'm running for president doesn't mean anybody has to know what I think about anything.

ZAHN: Is there a line of questioning, then, you would prefer, Mr. presidential candidate?

BARRY: Yes.

I like more along the lines of what's your favorite color and stuff like that.

ZAHN: So how much pressure is there on you at home to be funny?

BARRY: Really none. There's more pressure on me at home to like remove my daughter's boogers.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: It always comes back to the title of this book.

BARRY: No, no. I'm more of a regular human at home, I like to think. The pressure on me is to like think of things to write about, but not necessarily go around trying to entertain people at home.

ZAHN: What do you think of that recall in California?

BARRY: I think it's a wonderful source of entertainment for us. I really think the solution to this thing is to allow the people of Florida to vote for the governor of California.

We finally figured out how to do it. It took us many months, but we now have our voting system worked out. Californians are having serious trouble with theirs. Let us vote. We screwed it up for president last time. Give us a shot to elect the governor of California.

ZAHN: How do you see Mr. Schwarzenegger doing?

BARRY: I think, if he learns to speak English, he has got a real chance.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAHN: We have to leave it there. Dave Barry, always good to see you.

BARRY: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Keep up the good work.

BARRY: Yes, you, too. You're shaking my hand, I noticed, despite what we've been talking about. But please...

ZAHN: Oh, please.

BARRY: No, I'm just kidding.

ZAHN: You didn't use any of that special antiseptic stuff before we came on? All of our guests use antiseptics before they come on.

(CROSSTALK) ZAHN: How did we miss that?

BARRY: They washed me down. "If you're going on with Paula, we have to wash you down, Dave."

(LAUGHTER)

ZAHN: Good luck to you.

BARRY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And we are just moments away from the California recall debate among candidates hoping to replace Governor Gray Davis.

Here to give us a preview of what we can all expect is national correspondent Kelly Wallace.

Good evening, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Paula.

Well, just moments from now , this debate gets under way. The candidates, as we have been reporting, have received the questions in advance. But the sponsors here say they expect a free-for-all, because, after the candidates answer their questions, the other candidates can challenge each other and ask other questions as well.

You can see, there's a pretty active crowd out here. You have supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger, supporters of the other major candidates. You also have supporters of Gray Davis, the embattled governor, who is not participating in tonight's debate. But he will be watching closely, Paula. His aides are here as well.

They know what happens inside this hall tonight could significantly impact his strategy from here on out in his efforts to defeat this recall -- Paula.

ZAHN: Kelly, probably the most interesting fact that I have heard that was in the newspapers out there, that there is a belief that two-thirds of the people who might vote in the California recall might make their decision based on what they hear tonight.

WALLACE: That is the key.

And this debate will be broadcast live throughout California on radio and television. There are a number of undecided voters out there. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cruz Bustamante, the major Democrat, are neck-and-neck right now. They are battling it out for those voters.

And so what they hear tonight could significantly impact what they decide to do, and, of course, what they decide to do when it comes to ousting Gray Davis or keeping him in office -- Paula. ZAHN: Kelly, we're just take the opportunity to pan off here a second, so we can get a better idea of what is behind you. And you can describe very quickly how many people have gathered at this point.

WALLACE: Yes, let's go ahead, Jim, and pan a little bit. You have crowds, I would say, of several dozen, maybe a hundred or so. Again, you have supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have other supporters of the other candidates, GOP candidate Tom McClintock.

Paula, let me throw it back to you.

ZAHN: Kelly Wallace, thanks so much.

And thank you all for being with us tonight.

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