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Paula Zahn Now

Interview With Senator John Kerry; Janet Jackson Super Bowl Controversy

Aired February 02, 2004 - 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: Good evening. I'm Paula Zahn.
The world, the news, the names, the faces, and where we go from here on this Monday, February 2, 2004.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Tonight, Senator John Kerry joins us. The polls show he is rising fast. But he faces new attacks and the biggest challenge yet in tomorrow's primaries.

Overexposure. Janet's Jackson's revealing finale, an innocent mistake or calculated career move?

No more secrets.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": I was very scared.

ZAHN: A media power couple reveals their private struggles with heart and humor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Our interview with Senator John Kerry in just a moment.

But just in tonight, Janet Jackson has issued a statement about that controversial halftime show. We're going to tell you what she said.

But, first, here's what you need to know right now.

President Bush says he will appoint a commission to investigate intelligence failures involving weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The president says he wants all the facts. And senior administration officials now tell CNN the president will personally select the members of the commission.

"In Focus" tonight, presidential candidate John Kerry goes into tomorrow's Democratic primaries and caucuses having won Iowa and New Hampshire. But the number of delegates at stake tomorrow is more than four times higher than those in either one of those two states. And it includes states much more representative of the U.S. as a whole in terms of income and racial mix, big city and suburban voters. Add to that the increasing attacks against Kerry from all sides.

And Senator John Kerry joins me tonight. Welcome, sir.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How are you?

ZAHN: I'm fine, thanks.

How does it feel to be the perceived front-runner at this stage?

KERRY: Well, I just keep plugging along, Paula. I'm not paying attention to labels or polls.

I'm just out there campaigning hard and asking votes to support me, because I think I'm the strongest candidate to beat George Bush. And I think I have the experience to make America safer and stronger and be fiscally responsible.

ZAHN: At this stage, do you believe any of the other Democratic candidates can beat you?

KERRY: Oh, that's not for me to judge. This is up to voters.

And I have too much respect for the voting process. I'm just going to be out there campaigning hard. I'm in Arizona now. I was in New Mexico earlier. I was North Dakota yesterday, Oklahoma. I'm just trying to appeal to the voters of our country to change the direction of our nation, to put people back to work, to be fiscally responsible.

We need health care that's affordable for all Americans. I have a plan to do that. It's not a big-government plan, but it's a sensible way of using the private-sector incentives to make it happen. We can do these things if we're responsible about it. But we have to roll back George Bush's irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and invest in education and health care to do it.

ZAHN: I know you don't want to buy into the perception that you're front-runner, but, of course, you no doubt have seen the "TIME" magazine cover saying, what kind of president would Mr. Kerry be?

But if you end up doing as well as you're expected to do tomorrow, what would be wrong with telling some of your fellow candidates later on in the week that it's time for them to drop out, so you can have a more united Democratic approach to the general election?

KERRY: Paula, that's not for me to make any judgment about at all, and it's certainly not for me to talk to them about.

I'm campaigning for the nomination. I'm focused on the voters. And I've got to keep my eye on the ball. That's what I did in Iowa. That's what I did in New Hampshire. And that's what I'm going to do every step of the way here. And the key here is appealing in these next hours to voters who haven't made up their mind to make it clear that I can beat George Bush, that I can take our country in a commonsense, mainstream-American-values direction that is fiscally responsible, puts people back to work, and fights against powerful interests that are walking away with the store right now. And that's what we need, someone who's going to fight for people to be able to take home a little more pay and get ahead a little bit more easily.

ZAHN: We have seen faint outlines of how you are going to be attacked, whether it's questions about fund-raising for your campaign or fund-raising in past campaigns. Where do you think President Bush, if you end up being the nominee, will attack you?

KERRY: I don't know. And that's for them to decide.

They're obviously throwing labels around right now. And that's because they don't want to talk about the real issues that face our country. The country wants leadership, not labels. The American people are tired of politics as usual. They want real conversation about the direction of our country.

ZAHN: Well, let's, speaking of the president, talk a little bit about the controversy surrounding him right now. Do you believe he was AWOL during his National Guard experience?

KERRY: Paula, I don't have the facts. I really don't. I don't have the answer to that question. But it is a question that's been raised and that ought to be answered. But I don't have the facts.

ZAHN: Well, here are the facts according to "The Boston Globe," your hometown newspaper, that the official record shows that Bush's service included no evidence of any service between May 1972 and October 1, 1973, the official date of his discharge. Does that trouble you, if it's true? And do you believe that to be true?

KERRY: Well, if it's true, it's a legitimate question. But I don't know whether it's true and I don't know the answer to that. And, obviously, it ought to be answered. The person who can answer it is the military and George Bush.

ZAHN: What would you do about the federal budget deficit? Are you going to cut federal spending, or what are you going to do?

KERRY: Well, I am going to cut some federal spending, yes.

I'm going to close some loopholes that are just horrendous that reward companies for taking jobs overseas. I'm also going to roll back George Bush's tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, because we can't afford it. It's not fiscally responsible. I will pledge to cut the deficit in half in my first four years. But I will do it in a way that allows us to grow our economy, to invest in jobs, education, health care, and do the things we need to do to raise the quality of life in America.

ZAHN: Will you raise taxes?

KERRY: Not on -- not on the middle class, absolutely, no, not at all. And I will not raise income tax rates above where they were when Bill Clinton left office. I don't want to do that. But I will roll back George Bush's tax cut for people earning more than $200,000 a year.

ZAHN: Let's talk about South Carolina for a moment. How do you think you're going to do there? Are you going to beat John Edwards?

KERRY: I don't know.

I don't have any idea, because the voters are going to make that decision for us. But we're campaigning hard. I'm proud to have the support of Senator Fritz Hollings, who served seven terms in the Senate. I'm proud to have Congressman Jim Clyburn and Representative James Smith, the minority leader of the House. And I think we've built a strong organization. And I hope we're going to do well there.

What's important is, you have to run nationally, Paula. You can't just cherry-pick one state here or one state there and pretend that you're really running for president of the United States. I think you have to run everywhere, and you have to run as well as you can.

ZAHN: There is a perception that you and John Edwards have been more civil to each other lately out there on the campaign trail. Is that a sign that, if you get the nomination, a Kerry-Edwards ticket is likely?

KERRY: I have great respect for John Edwards. He's a very competent individual. And he's been a very capable candidate through the course of this race. And, you know, it's not for me to think ahead about any kind of ticket. I'm trying to win the nomination right now.

ZAHN: Senator John Kerry, thanks for your time tonight.

KERRY: Thanks.

ZAHN: On a day after a great victory for the Patriots.

KERRY: Oh, it was wonderful to watch, Adam Vinatieri to the rescue. We love it.

ZAHN: Again, thanks for your time tonight.

KERRY: Thank you.

ZAHN: And we're on the trail with the candidates for tomorrow's big contest, as our team of political observers sound off on what you just heard from John Kerry, among other things.

And Janet Jackson's eye-popping moment at the Super Bowl, hear what the pop diva is saying about that tonight.

Plus, Meredith Vieira and her husband share a personal view. It's about his battle with disease and his family's struggle to beat it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VIEIRA: The cancer really threw me because -- I don't know, maybe because it's the big C. I don't know what it is, but I was mad. Why him? He's been through enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: If tomorrow helps make John Kerry's candidacy, it could also go a long way toward breaking some of the other Democrats' hopes for the White House, or are we in for more some surprises?

Joining us now from Washington, Peter Beinart, Editor of "The New Republic," "TIME" magazine columnist, regular contributor Joe Klein, racking up those bonus miles, having flown to Phoenix today, and CROSSFIRE co-host Paul Begala, who joins us from Charleston, South Carolina.

Welcome, gentleman.

ZAHN: Peter, I'm going to start with you this evening. Let's talk about the latest new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, basically showing that John Kerry would beat President Bush in a head-to-head matchup and has a higher approval rating than the president.

Is this just a post-Iowa/New Hampshire bounce?

PETER BEINART, EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Yes, I don't think that matters very much in terms of actually the election in November. It's way, way too early.

But it does matter amongst Democrats. And it reinforces the sense that Democrats have, rightly or wrongly, that John Kerry is the guy out there who has the best chance of beating George W. Bush, because of his national security experience. So it strengthens what has become his primary argument in these key election days.

ZAHN: And, Joe Klein, you heard Senator Kerry talking about where he expects the Bush administration to attack him if he ends up being the nominee. Give us some insights as to what kind of incoming fire he can expect and where.

JOE KLEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, and more liberal, Massachusetts liberal, defense liberal, domestic policy liberal.

They're going to try and roll out vote after vote after vote that he's taken over the last 20 years. And when you're a senator and you've been a senator for 20 years, there are a lot of votes in there that can be quite embarrassing.

ZAHN: So, Paul Begala, if you were building a war room to go after Senator Kerry, what would you strategize? And then turn around and tell us how you'd confront those attacks.

PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": Well, I think Joe's right. I mean, basically, there's three plays in the Bush playbook. Call your opponent a kook or a crook or a commie.

Well, they've called -- somebody called John McCain a kook here in South Carolina when Bush ran against him in 2000. I don't think they'll do that with Kerry, though. A crook, they tried that with Clinton on Whitewater. It didn't work. And I don't see any evidence that they're planning that with Kerry. That leaves commie, that is, liberal. And Joe's right, liberal, liberal, liberal.

How I would answer that, I'd go not in the linear, logical way. But I'd go to my national security, Vietnam experience, if I were Kerry. I would say, you know, they didn't ask me what state I was from or what my politics were when I signed up to enlist in the United States Navy and go to Vietnam. Now, I don't know what they asked Lieutenant Bush in the Texas Air National Guard. But all they asked me, Lieutenant Kerry, was, are you willing to fight for my country? And I told them I was. And I'm still willing to fight for my country.

That is, get it off of ideology and get it on to where he's strong, which the sense that he can compete on national security and he's ready to be president.

ZAHN: All right, Peter, Paul just bringing up the National Guard experience, which is a charge that continues to dog the president. You probably saw, my last interview showed a "Boston Globe" clip, where they basically said that there was a period of time, or at least they allege, that he was out of action in the National Guard. Does that have much resonance to you at all?

BEINART: I happen to think it's an important story, that "The Globe" did remarkable reporting in 2000 and the rest of the press really didn't pick up on it. In fact, the Gore campaign didn't pick up on it as much as it deserved to.

The question now is, now that people have such a settled opinion of George W. Bush, particularly after September 11, can new information like this, even if there is new information, really change people's opinion of what -- it's pretty settled now about George W. Bush. Most people either really like him or don't really like him. And I think it may be hard to change that at this point.

ZAHN: Joe, let's talk about South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Howard Dean basically saying he doesn't expect to win anywhere tomorrow. Is he going to successfully play the low-expectations game here?

KLEIN: Well, I think he's going to successfully play the low- expectations game. That is, he's not going to do very well tomorrow. His gamble is that he's going to do well in Michigan and Wisconsin, but that's a long shot as well.

It's going to be interesting to see where Kerry is beaten tomorrow and by whom. Is there anybody who can win more than one primary? And, if so, who takes on Kerry down the road? Those are things that we don't know yet.

ZAHN: What does the road map look like come Wednesday morning, Paul? BEGALA: Well, it all depends on whether Wes Clark can take on Kerry successfully in Oklahoma, whether John Edwards here in South Carolina can beat Kerry here.

Kerry is playing hard and he's playing to win in all seven states tomorrow. But he can afford to lose one on either end, that is, Oklahoma out West or South Carolina here and still move on. Of course, he's the front-runner. But somebody's going to have to beat him on Tuesday if they want to be viable moving forward.

I think that Dean will continue to go forward, even after losing, because he says he will. And he can raise maybe enough money to keep doing it. But he doesn't look very credible once he loses nine in a row, which will be the likely outcome Tuesday night.

ZAHN: Joe Klein, a final thought on what happens to John Edwards. If he doesn't win South Carolina, he's pretty much told all of us that it's over for him, at least on the presidential front.

KLEIN: Well, we've been waiting for weeks for this race to be winnowed down. It was supposed to be winnowed down in Iowa. We just lost Gephardt. It wasn't winnowed at all in New Hampshire.

It's going to winnowed tomorrow. There are going to be two or three candidates who aren't going to make it. And anybody who doesn't win somewhere is going to have to make a really compelling argument if they want to stay in this race. And I don't see what that argument can be.

ZAHN: Joe Klein, Paul Begala, Peter Beinart, thank you all.

BEGALA: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Martha Stewart back in court. We're going to hear what a witness said about a critical phone conversation with the home decor maven.

Nasty girl -- Janet Jackson's topless trouble at the Super Bowl. We've got the controversy covered and whether Jackson is now taking responsibility.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: The case against Martha Stewart got under way again today and kicks into high gear tomorrow. That is when the prosecution's star witness is expected to take the stand in what could be a make-or- break day for both sides.

I don't know why that has Jeffrey Toobin chuckling.

What is so darn funny?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm thinking about Rosie O'Donnell in court today.

ZAHN: Yes, what was she there for? TOOBIN: You know what happened? It was kind of unusual. She walked up to Martha Stewart and ripped off her bustier, like right there in court.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Oh, come on.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Come on, come on, come on.

TOOBIN: No, no. She was there offering moral support, one kind of diva entrepreneur to another.

ZAHN: Do juries care about that stuff?

TOOBIN: I doubt the jury even recognized

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Didn't recognize her?

TOOBIN: Didn't recognize Rosie? I'm not sure. She -- I was surprised.

ZAHN: What, did she disguise herself?

TOOBIN: No. She just -- she didn't look

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: But she was not wearing what Janet Jackson was wearing last night?

TOOBIN: Interestingly, the jury is, I think, is going out of its way not to look at Martha Stewart. I think they are not -- they are trying not to seem starstruck. And it almost seems like an unnatural lack of attention.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Let's talk about a critical phone call that was discussed today, Sam Waksal's former assistant testifying about a call that Martha Stewart actually made to Waksal. What was the significance of that call?

TOOBIN: Right.

The prosecution claim, of course, is that Martha Stewart was tipped by Douglas Faneuil, the young assistant, that Sam Waksal was selling all his stock and that's why she sold her stock. So what happened was, Martha Stewart, from the tarmac, where she was in her private plane, she called Sam Waksal right after she made the stock trade. And the witness today was Sam Waksal's executive assistant, who took the call. And she testified on direct examination that Martha Stewart was very upset and demanding and direct. And that was supposed to show that Martha was agitated about the sale. But it was a great cross- examination. And it was as only Martha Stewart's lawyer could cross- examine, saying, isn't it true that Martha Stewart is always impatient? Isn't it true that she's always impossible?

And that's true. That's really how it was. And it actually diffused the...

ZAHN: So, what? The jury learned that they probably didn't want to work for her once the trial was over.

TOOBIN: Exactly. But it was actually kind of -- it was funny, but actually quite successful.

ZAHN: Let's talk about what the defense is going to try to do tomorrow, basically disparage the character of the prosecution's star witness. Is that going to be hard to do?

TOOBIN: I think, actually, we will see two different strategies tomorrow on the part of the defendants.

Peter Bacanovic has got to destroy the young Douglas Faneuil, because he buries Bacanovic. He's the main witness against Bacanovic. He will say Bacanovic really tried to get him to lay. Stewart's agenda, I think, will be slightly different. I think her lawyers will say, look, it was a one-minute phone call. Martha Stewart didn't have anything really to do with this guy. It was a brief phone call. She didn't remember what he said.

I think they will try to diminish his importance, whereas Bacanovic's lawyers will just go after him all-out.

ZAHN: So you're really dizzy as you're sitting there in the jury pool listening to this?

TOOBIN: Well, that's what's often interesting about multi- defendant cases, is that, sometimes, there are multiple agendas even among the defendants. The prosecution, of course, just wants them to believe that he's telling the truth.

ZAHN: I know you watched Martha Stewart pretty closely today.

TOOBIN: I did.

ZAHN: How did she seem to be bearing up?

TOOBIN: She seemed to be wearing a different outfit today. I know I'm not really good at the fashion thing.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Yes, you know nothing about purses. You've proven that.

TOOBIN: But she was wearing -- it's true -- bright colors, looking a little more -- but the thing about Martha Stewart in court, she is going out of her way, I think, to be completely no inflection, no rolling her eyes, no smiles, no frowns. She's been instructed, don't show a reaction. And she just gives away nothing in court.

ZAHN: Probably a pretty smart strategy to have.

TOOBIN: I think it's the right strategy, but it's got to take some effort.

ZAHN: All right, so did you like Janet Jackson's performance last night, Jeffrey?

TOOBIN: It was OK, OK. It was -- you know.

ZAHN: We're going to have a different kind of legal analysis of that performance later on, not with an attorney, but with a television critic.

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: This is not my department.

ZAHN: And what the FCC should be doing about it.

Jeffrey, thanks.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAHN: Janet Jackson's very revealing halftime show, what does she have to say for herself tonight? We're going to find out.

Intelligence breakdown in the search for weapons of mass destruction, could it have been avoided and who should be held responsible?

And Meredith Vieira's personal view. The talk show host joins me with her husband to talk about how their family is coping with cancer and chronic illness at the same time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Here's what you need to know right now at the bottom of the hour.

The Food and Drug Administration is grappling with whether popular adult antidepressants should be prescribed for children. Today, some parents told an FDA panel, the drugs improved their children's lives. Others blamed antidepressants for ending young lives by raising the risk of suicide and violence.

Dr. Harold Koplewicz, is a psychiatrist and director of New York University's Child Study Center. He joins us now.

Good of you to join us, Doctor.

Let's start off now by listening to some of this really emotional testimony from earlier today. We're going to listen to one mother's plea to get anti-depressants completely off the market for children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRI WILLIAMS, SON COMMITTED SUICIDE: My son took his life at 14 years old after being on Prozac for seven weeks. After four weeks of treatment, he began to show signs of agitation, which we were not aware that was a potential side effect. And after seven weeks of treatment, he hung himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: It just breaks your heart when you hear a story like this.

But is there an established linkage between prescribing of these antidepressants for kids and the suicide rate?

DR. HAROLD KOPLEWICZ, PSYCHIATRIST: I think we have to understand that suicide is, unfortunately, very common in teenagers.

No. 1, we know that about one million teenagers every year actually have a suicidal plan. And we lose 2,000 teenagers every year to suicide. That said, we also know that depression is associated with suicide. So, one of the most important things that you have to do before you give your teenager an antidepressant is to make sure they have depression, but also to make sure that someone is monitoring.

When we listen to this tragic story, we hear that this child started to have side effects. And while he was on that medicine, mom wasn't well informed about what the side effects were. And you have to start wondering where the physician was and who was making sure that the benefit was outweighing the side effects.

ZAHN: We're going to put a graphic back up on the screen that we had up for a second to help people better understand that the 3.7 percent of the children in the study taking Paxil actually had suicidal thoughts, compared to 2.5 percent of the children on the placebo.

Now, studies like this one actually led Great Britain to ban the use of all but one antidepressant, Prozac. Do you think the U.S. should follow suit?

KOPLEWICZ: No, I think that we can't throw out the baby with the bath water.

The fact is, these SSRIs have been shown to be effective in treating kids with depression. And teenagers with depression, they lose days in school. They actually become more socially isolated. They have family dysfunction. And many of them attempt suicide and many of them succeed at suicide.

So I think it's important to recognized that the depression is real, but they have to be properly diagnosed. And, importantly, we have to know that they're taking the right treatment, the right dosage, and it's being monitored. We also should be careful about what suicidal thoughts are. They're very, very common among teenagers. Sometimes, they're meaningful.

Sometimes, they're not. And so it's much more complicated. It needs further study. But, at this point, these medicines can, in many ways, be life savers. Do you know that, in every single study that's been done in teenagers and in adults, no one has ever committed suicide on those medicines?

ZAHN: But I'm also hearing that parents need to have a tremendous amount of responsibility in this equation. Is that letting doctors off the hook, Doctor?

KOPLEWICZ: No, no, no.

Well, I think, first of all, we should look at something else. There are all of 6,500 child psychiatrists in the United States. There's two million kids who have depression. Clearly, most of these medicines are being given by pediatricians and family practitioners. So parents have to ask very clearly, what makes my child depressed? What will happen if my child takes no treatment? And what are the costs if my child does take these medicines? What are the side effects? And they have to have a dialogue with the physician as well.

ZAHN: Do we know how many kids in America are on antidepressants right now?

KOPLEWICZ: No, we don't. And, in fact...

ZAHN: And why is that? Why -- we don't keep records like this?

(CROSSTALK)

KOPLEWICZ: I think we can tell you how many prescriptions have been written for certain medications for kids under a certain age. For instance, last year, more than 600,000 prescriptions were written for Prozac. If you figure out how few child psychiatrists there are, it's clear we have to train pediatricians and family practitioners how to use these medicines. But more importantly, they have to make the diagnosis. These medicines don't work unless you're truly depressed.

ZAHN: Doctor, if you don't mind standing by, we have breaking news out of Washington I'd like to report right now.

We have been told some workers in a Senate office building were told to leave their offices after some preliminary testing indicated the presence of a hazardous substance. Let's go straight to Jeanne Meserve in the Washington bureau for more details.

Jeanne, what have you learned?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A Homeland Security official tells me that that substance found in Senator Bill Frist's mail room this afternoon has tested positive for ricin with a field test. These field tests are not always reliable. The white substance has been sent for further analysis to Fort Detrick. Officials tell me they should have further analysis on what it might be as early as tomorrow morning. Now, ricin is a product of the processing of castor beans. It can be used as a poison. Back in 1978, a Bulgarian writer and journalist was assassinated when he was tapped with an umbrella which had some ricin embedded on that, so it can indeed be fatal. But Homeland officials tell me it is not an effective weapon of mass destruction. That it would take mass quantities of this in order to do much damage. Once again, a call came in at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon to Capitol Police from Senator Frist's mail room, in the Dirksen Building advising them that this substance has been found in preliminary field test has found it positive for ricin. Paula, back to you.

ZAHN: Jeanne, I know this is very early on in this investigation. Have you been given any indication that any other Senate office workers should be concerned about this, or does this seem to be limited to Senator Frist's office?

MESERVE: As far as I know -- and I must say the reporting on this is still in the preliminary stages -- that is the only location in which it's been found. The official with whom I spoke said he knew nothing about the delivery system, whether this came in the form of a letter or something else. The Capitol Police have said that no threatening phone calls have been received, no threatening letters.

ZAHN: Jeanne Meserve, thanks so much for the update.

We're going to change our focus completely, and it's a story that certainly has garnered a lot of attention today, particularly among adolescents in the country who have been surfing the Web all day. And that was the appearance of one of Janet Jackson's breasts during the Super Bowl halftime show. It generated an avalanche of apologies today, but it wasn't until tonight that Jackson herself issued a statement.

She said, "The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended, including the audience, MTV, CBS and the NFL."

Well, FCC commissioner Michael Powell Says he wants an immediate investigation into what he called a classless, crass, and deplorable stunt, and hundreds of stations that carry the broadcast could face millions of dollars in fines. All of this happened to coincide with the release of Jackson's new single today. Surprise, surprise. Let's discuss that. We'll get the view of some professionals who know the wily ways of show business.

Tom shales is the Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the "Washington Post."

Andy Greenwald, senior contributing writer for "Spin Magazine."

And Janice Min, the editor of "U.S. Weekly."

Good to see all of you.

First of all, Tom, let's talk about what business is the FCC has in even getting involved in this in the first place.

What's at stake here?

TOM SHALES, TV CRITIC, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, none. Actually, Congress has been thinking about looking into this already, and some sorts of hearings are on the way. But you know, looking in the television in the large amounts of sex and violence is an old political trick, and there's always a bet of demagoguery involved. If you go way back in television history, about every 15 years Congress gets into a lather and says we've got to look into this matter. Now, Janet Jackson's performance was particularly ill-timed because there's all this hullabaloo already going on about too much sex and violence on the air.

ZAHN: Janice, let's talk a little bit more about Janet Jackson's apology earlier today. I thought it was interesting, the one word she used. When she said it wasn't her intention it go as far as it did.

Now what does that mean?

What were we supposed to see, the red lace bra, part of her breast?

JANICE MIN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "US WEEKLY": Originally, people in her camp said viewers were only supposed to see her red lace bra. I think, if you read between the lines of that statement, I think she means I didn't people to be as upset as they ended up being over this. I don't think she could have predicted the FCC reaction, the reaction of the networks.

ZAHN: How could you not predict that?

Come on Andy.

ANDY GREENWALD, SENIOR CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "SPIN MAGAZINE": Yes, I think she's intentionally leaving everything vague because so many people's heads are on the line, so many jobs could roll because of this. I guess she -- I don't know what she thought, to be honest.

ZAHN: Do you think this was a way for her to sell a single?

It wasn't too long before that sort of ended up being released on the Internet, and the record company said, oh, I guess we'd better sell it after all.

One of the things that comes to mind since she last had an album out, which did not do well sales wise, the ante has been raised. You have pop stars like Christina Aguilera and you have pop stars like Brittany Spears tongue kissing Madonna. You have people baring a lot -- well certainly not as much as Janet bared, but coming close to it. On one hand you think she's getting up there in years compared to people nipping at her heels, and she had to jump back in front of the public in a pretty big way.

ZAHN: Tom, I want to give you a chance to parch Janet Jackson's statement. Does that -- based on what she said, does that take the NFL and MTV and CBS off the hook, if she's saying the stunt went too far?

SHALES: Not at all. It sounds like a board room fashioned statement to me. And someone saying to Janet, look, if you don't come out and say this, you know, this thing is going to go and be headlines for days and days and days. And Les Moonves, the head of CBS will be called in, and Sumner Redstone the head of Viacom. Viacom owns CBS and MTV. And you mentioned Michael Powell earlier, he's the FCC chairman who's a big advocate of those conglomerates getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, here's an example what happens when they get to big. As CBS hires MTV to do the halftime show. One good thing that's come out of this is an NFL official said never again is MTV going to produce the halftime show. It's going to go back to, you know, flag waving and balloons, and for me, that's fine because kids are watching with their parents.

ZAHN: How about Sponge Bob Square pants next year, Janice?

He wouldn't be very controversial, would he?

MIN: Not controversial, but, you know, the sex sells. This just went too far. You saw Nelly grabbing his crotch earlier in the performance.

ZAHN: That seemed to get less attention than the skin showing.

MIN: He definitely got upstaged by the breast at the end of the performance. I think the pressure to shock and win fans is enormous. I mean, Janet Jackson, as Andy was saying, is 37 years old. That is ancient in pop music. It's no coincidence she was dancing with a 23- year-old. She needs to have her career come back, and this was it.

ZAHN: Everybody looks at this through a different prism. Were you offended by anything you saw in the show?

GREENWALD: I was offended by some of the musical performances prior to that, yes, certainly, and the lip syncing. But no, the people that I was with -- I was sitting with a room of people who are pretty cynical I think about the media, and it was just mostly sort of an awkward, shocked silence. We couldn't believe what we'd seen. Not so much beyond the idea it was a publicity stunt, but it just seemed like such a bizarre and pretty wrong headed one.

ZAHN: And Tom, besides the fact you think this will have a dramatic effect on the talent we see in next year's halftime show, what are the implications for CBS short term?

SHALES: Short term, there will be more discussions like this on shows like this. But I don't think CBS will suffer any long term damage, I'm afraid. And god knows the profits from the Super Bowl will still pour in as they were expected to. So it's a bad public relations thing for CBS, and it will blow over, I think, fairly quickly.

ZAHN: It's interesting you say it's a bad PR thing, and yet their stock went up today. I find that kind of fascinating.

SHALES: How about that?

ZAHN: Yes, surprise, surprise.

SHALES: No bad deed goes unrewarded.

ZAHN: What are you hearing from relationship on the Web, I know you get...

MIN: Basicly -- yes, the parents are upset. She has to count on a lot of parents buying the CD, Janet's CD and her single for their kids. On Z-100, the biggest radio station here in New York had whole Janet Jackson day. They went back and played all her old singles, new singles. It was excitement. They had callers all day talking about it. This is just the kind of heat she wanted.

ZAHN: This is America, and I was at that game last night and sitting up so high, I actually thought she had got hit in the ribs and had gotten hurt sitting on that stage. I guess it depends where you looked at it today, on the Internet or a frozen image on TV.

Janice Min, Andy Greenwald, Tom Shale, thanks for joining us tonight.

Problems of intelligence in the war in Iraq. The president wants answers, so do many Americans.

Plus one man's decision to quit the U.S. We're going to hear from the author and activist who says the country's treatment of blacks made him leave.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: The president plans to appoint a commission to investigate why the U.S. was so wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Critics from both parties have been calling for that. But was it a failure of intelligence or policy? Joining me now from Washington, Frank Gaffney, former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan years, and Mike Baker, a former covert operations officer with the CIA. Is he is now CEO of Diligence, LLC. Welcome, gentleman.

Mike, I want to start with you. About a year ago Secretary Powell addressed the U.N. on the imminent threat of WMD, citing intelligence from inside Iraq to make the case for war. Today the president announced an investigation into that process. Was that a matter of intelligence or bad policy?

MIKE BAKER, CEO, DILIGENCE, LLC: Well, personally, I think calling it a policy failure or intelligence failure might be moving in the wrong direction. Our policy was and has been the protection of U.S. interests, U.S. lives. That hasn't changed. From an intelligence standpoint, no one is going to stand up and argue that we had all the intelligence we needed. But what we had, rather than an intelligence failure, I think, is more of just a lack of the quality, human source reporting, that can oftentimes put some of this into context.

ZAHN: So, Frank, here's a situation where we've lost more than 500 soldiers, perhaps waged on faulty information. Who should pay the price for that?

FRANK GAFFNEY, FMR. ASST. SECY. OF DEFENSE: Well, Paula, I personally think the jury is still out whether the information was as faulty as some are now suggesting. I think we've got plenty of evidence of Saddam Hussein's activities that constituted a threat, not only to his own people and to his neighbors, but in fact, to us as well.

And what I believe is really going on here is mostly about politics, not so much either policy or intelligence. There are clearly are improvements that could be made to intelligence. I think one place that you could start would be by encouraging the resignation of George Tenet, and I would suggest as a substitute, a guy who's been much in the news and been seen as a pretty straight shooter, I think properly so, David Kay as his replacement.

ZAHN: Mike, your reaction to that?

BAKER: Yes. Having served under Mr. Tenet, I know he's an extremely honorable man. I know that, obviously, moving forward, who knows what's going to shake out of this.

ZAHN: But if it's not -- Mike, if it's not his fault, then should any heads roll at all?

BAKER: Well, of course, as head of the intelligence community, he has to shoulder a great deal of responsibility. We've seen that in the past, and we've seen him fall on his sword in the past and then find out that he was just being a team player when necessarily it wasn't actually his responsibility. I think one of the interesting points that was just raised about Mr. Kay -- and one of the things, I think, that's been confusing some people is the comments that have come out. And of some of this that's started this issue again recently.

It appears to be all over the map. Mr. Kay has indicated that, you know, the administration was not pushing analysts in one particular direction. He faults the intelligence and says that the intelligence was probably all wrong. Yet he himself was a very important part of the intelligence collection process for a number of years with the weapons inspections.

At the same time, I think a point that was raised was that we saw increasing threats here. We had an increasingly delusional leader, we had terrorists moving through the country, we had scientists, according to David Kay, who were out for money. And we had, up until March, according to Mr. Kay, an active weapons research program.

GAFFNEY: Paula, I understand...

ZAHN: All right, gentlemen, unfortunately, I have to cut you off. We need to move along on account of that breaking news out of Washington. Mike Baker, Frank Gaffney, I appreciate both your perspectives tonight.

We're going to be talking to writer/activist Randall Robinson who says he abandoned the country because it abandoned him and find out how the love of family helped Meredith Vieira and her husband face a life or death personal crisis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: You remember the 1960s bumper sticker, "America, love it or leave it?" Well, our next guest decided to leave it. Activist Randall Robinson gave up on the U.S. and moved with his family to St. Kitt's in 2001. And he explains why in his latest book, "Quitting America." Nice to see you.

I know you have strong feelings about whites and the kind of environment they've created for African Americans in this country but do you not acknowledge there have been some significant gains for African Americans? I have this one statistic I think is pretty amazing that 70 percent of African Americans now earn at least a bachelor's degree, up from 6 percent from 40 years ago. 30% of African American families now have incomes of $75,000 or more. A fraction of that 30 years ago. Haven't they made headway?

RANDALL ROBINSON, AUTHOR, "QUITTING AMERICA": Sure, there's headway. I'm an example of that headway. But at the end of slavery and the era of discrimination, a block of African Americans were left behind, bottom stock. We now have in the United States 1/20 of the world's population, but 1/4 of the world's prisoners, 2 million and climbing, half of whom are African Americans.

African Americans constitute 14 percent of American drug use, but 75 percent of prison admissions for drug use. So that African Americans are seven times more likely to go to prison for crimes than are there white counterparts, and when they are convicted, they will serve sentences twice as long. We are warehousing the future of young black African American males. Now, all of these things are consequences of 346 years of slavery and discrimination. America has a commitment to stop the active stage of a crime, but not to treat the consequences of the old devastating human rights crime.

ZAHN: What do you say to critics of your viewpoint, including some African Americans themselves, who say all you're doing is promoting the victimization of blacks?

ROBINSON: Promoting victimization? We're talking about people whose families were destroyed, people who have had no opportunity, people who were born out of wedlock, people who haven't had a chance since the Emancipation Proclamation. We start with what is given to us. I have been successful because I had an intact family and an opportunity to be successful. People inherit poverty as they do wealth, and most of us finish somewhere near where we start. Obviously, if you start higher up, you're better off, your chances are infinitely better that you will succeed.

ZAHN: But in "Quitting America," are you giving up on African- Americans? ROBINSON: No, I'm not giving up on African-Americans. But I have lost hope in America. I think America represents a danger to the world. It operates without checks and balances abroad. It operates without introspection at home. Americans are perhaps the most self- absorbed people in the entire world, inflated by arrogance. They never ask why, only what. Never why when something is wrong. How do we improve ourselves as a society? What ills do we have that could cripple us in a real measurable and permanent way?

ZAHN: Well, some of what you talk about, obviously, is a lightning rod, quite inflammatory to some people, but we appreciate your sharing your perspective with us this evening. Randall Robinson, author of "Quitting America."

Meredith Vieira and her husband's greatest battle against chronic illness and cancer. They will share their story of strength and hope.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: As co-host of ABC's "The View," Meredith Vieira has lately been sharing a very personal story with her audience. For 30 years, her husband, award-winning TV producer Richard M. Cohen, has battled multiple sclerosis. He's also struggled with colon cancer. He credits his wife and children with helping him through it all. It's part of his inspiring new book called "Blindsided." And Richard Cohen and Meredith Vieira join us now. Great to see the two of you. Congratulations.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": Great to see you too.

ZAHN: You talk about this being a reluctant book and a reluctant memoir. Why?

RICHARD M. COHEN, TV PRODUCER: I didn't want to reveal myself. I actually had no intention of writing a memoir, and it was only after the book was under way that I was dragged, kicking and screaming really, into believing that the only way to tell the story was to do a memoir and to use my life as the spine of the story. And it's very daunting, and I thought presumptuous, actually, to offer up your life as an example of anything. You know, so that was tough.

ZAHN: There are parts of the book that are incredibly raw, and I know, although you share some parts of your life on television, this is a part of your life you haven't talked with great detail about. Is there a part of you that's relieved now, that Richard has shared this experience through this book?

VIEIRA: Yeah. I think I'm relieved, especially for him, because I think it's been very cathartic for Richard. For many, many years he didn't talk about his own M.S., so it wasn't something that we really shared in any depth. We began to talk about it with our own kids, but still it wasn't -- I don't think he was very comfortable with it. So when he found himself writing the memoir, it gave him a chance to get out a lot of stuff. So in that sense, I'm glad for him and glad for us as a family. ZAHN: You're very direct and candid about all the stages you went through, particularly when you were diagnosed with colon cancer. And I think that's the point in which you as a reader get your first idea about how you might feel bitter about dealing with this lifelong illness and then having to confront another potential killer disease.

COHEN: But you just can't go there. I mean, in theory, you're right.

VIEIRA: I went there.

COHEN: No, but In theory, you're right.

ZAHN: You almost gave up on him, didn't you, Meredith?

VIEIRA: I didn't give up on him. I was very scared. As concerned as I've been in the past about M.S., I mean, we live with that every day, it's a chronic illness, but the cancer really threw me, because -- I don't know. Maybe it's because it's the big "C." I don't know what it was. But I was mad. Why him? He's been through enough. This is ridiculous. I was scared about whether or not he would live. And I was worried for us as a family. It was that straw on the camel's back to me.

COHEN: But the worst, really, was the second time, when the cancer came back.

ZAHN: Yeah. Because the first time you thought you got it licked, you conquered it early.

COHEN: Yes, really, and the second time was when I really thought this isn't supposed to happen.

ZAHN: What I found refreshing about your account is you didn't sugar-coat any of this. I mean, you talk very openly about how you found him an enormous pain in the...

VIEIRA: Oh, unbelievable.

ZAHN: And you thought that he was unnecessarily harsh with you and the children. How did you endure that?

VIEIRA: Well, because I love him, for one. And you know, I could understand it on one level. I was as angry, if not angrier, than him. So in that sense -- and you do endure. You're married, and that comes with the territory. And I had these kids to worry about. As much as I worry about him, there were three other people in that house. You know, every day, this was the home they came back to. So I think I did with Richard what we've always done. I was very direct. And when the anger started getting out of control, I called him on it. I said, you may not realize this, but you are driving us all away. Because that's what he was doing. We were trying to get closer, and he was getting further and further away, because he was in so much pain emotionally.

ZAHN: Did that snap you back into reality? VIEIRA: And I slapped him a couple of times.

COHEN: Of course it snapped me back into reality. I mean, I -- and I finally -- see, I hadn't seen this. Everybody else was saying this, and I just didn't see it. It crept over me. And I -- I think, due in no small part to what Meredith was saying, I think it suddenly dawned on me what it was like, what I had become. And that's when I sat down with the kids and I took out a tape recorder, and I said I want to interview them. And a lot of this I used for some columns in "The Times."

VIEIRA: One of the things people forget, or maybe that I didn't realize until I was in the situation, is that when there's a chronic illness in the family, it is a family affair. It wasn't just his illness, it was my illness and the kids'. So we were all feeling it. And sometimes you don't feel justified in having those emotions. They're really his and only supposed to be his, but that's not true. It bled over all of us.

ZAHN: Besides the deep love that is so obvious to the reader, as you read this book, the other thing that seems to me that's been indispensable to your family is a sense of humor.

COHEN: I think -- I think the ability to laugh is so central to coping. You know, this is not -- I really want people to understand this is not a book about suffering. This is not a book about illness. This is really a book about the search for emotional health. You know, and that's what coping is. We do it without even knowing that we're doing it.

ZAHN: It is simply that, right? The triumph of the spirit.

VIEIRA: Yes, absolutely.

COHEN: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

ZAHN: Well, I think we can all learn from what your family's been through. Thank you for sharing your story with us tonight.

VIEIRA: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Richard Cohen and Meredith Vieira.

And that wraps it up for all of us here this evening. Thanks so much for being with us tonight. "LARRY KING LIVE" is next. Have a good night.

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





Bowl Controversy>


Aired February 2, 2004 - 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: Good evening. I'm Paula Zahn.
The world, the news, the names, the faces, and where we go from here on this Monday, February 2, 2004.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Tonight, Senator John Kerry joins us. The polls show he is rising fast. But he faces new attacks and the biggest challenge yet in tomorrow's primaries.

Overexposure. Janet's Jackson's revealing finale, an innocent mistake or calculated career move?

No more secrets.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": I was very scared.

ZAHN: A media power couple reveals their private struggles with heart and humor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Our interview with Senator John Kerry in just a moment.

But just in tonight, Janet Jackson has issued a statement about that controversial halftime show. We're going to tell you what she said.

But, first, here's what you need to know right now.

President Bush says he will appoint a commission to investigate intelligence failures involving weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The president says he wants all the facts. And senior administration officials now tell CNN the president will personally select the members of the commission.

"In Focus" tonight, presidential candidate John Kerry goes into tomorrow's Democratic primaries and caucuses having won Iowa and New Hampshire. But the number of delegates at stake tomorrow is more than four times higher than those in either one of those two states. And it includes states much more representative of the U.S. as a whole in terms of income and racial mix, big city and suburban voters. Add to that the increasing attacks against Kerry from all sides.

And Senator John Kerry joins me tonight. Welcome, sir.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How are you?

ZAHN: I'm fine, thanks.

How does it feel to be the perceived front-runner at this stage?

KERRY: Well, I just keep plugging along, Paula. I'm not paying attention to labels or polls.

I'm just out there campaigning hard and asking votes to support me, because I think I'm the strongest candidate to beat George Bush. And I think I have the experience to make America safer and stronger and be fiscally responsible.

ZAHN: At this stage, do you believe any of the other Democratic candidates can beat you?

KERRY: Oh, that's not for me to judge. This is up to voters.

And I have too much respect for the voting process. I'm just going to be out there campaigning hard. I'm in Arizona now. I was in New Mexico earlier. I was North Dakota yesterday, Oklahoma. I'm just trying to appeal to the voters of our country to change the direction of our nation, to put people back to work, to be fiscally responsible.

We need health care that's affordable for all Americans. I have a plan to do that. It's not a big-government plan, but it's a sensible way of using the private-sector incentives to make it happen. We can do these things if we're responsible about it. But we have to roll back George Bush's irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and invest in education and health care to do it.

ZAHN: I know you don't want to buy into the perception that you're front-runner, but, of course, you no doubt have seen the "TIME" magazine cover saying, what kind of president would Mr. Kerry be?

But if you end up doing as well as you're expected to do tomorrow, what would be wrong with telling some of your fellow candidates later on in the week that it's time for them to drop out, so you can have a more united Democratic approach to the general election?

KERRY: Paula, that's not for me to make any judgment about at all, and it's certainly not for me to talk to them about.

I'm campaigning for the nomination. I'm focused on the voters. And I've got to keep my eye on the ball. That's what I did in Iowa. That's what I did in New Hampshire. And that's what I'm going to do every step of the way here. And the key here is appealing in these next hours to voters who haven't made up their mind to make it clear that I can beat George Bush, that I can take our country in a commonsense, mainstream-American-values direction that is fiscally responsible, puts people back to work, and fights against powerful interests that are walking away with the store right now. And that's what we need, someone who's going to fight for people to be able to take home a little more pay and get ahead a little bit more easily.

ZAHN: We have seen faint outlines of how you are going to be attacked, whether it's questions about fund-raising for your campaign or fund-raising in past campaigns. Where do you think President Bush, if you end up being the nominee, will attack you?

KERRY: I don't know. And that's for them to decide.

They're obviously throwing labels around right now. And that's because they don't want to talk about the real issues that face our country. The country wants leadership, not labels. The American people are tired of politics as usual. They want real conversation about the direction of our country.

ZAHN: Well, let's, speaking of the president, talk a little bit about the controversy surrounding him right now. Do you believe he was AWOL during his National Guard experience?

KERRY: Paula, I don't have the facts. I really don't. I don't have the answer to that question. But it is a question that's been raised and that ought to be answered. But I don't have the facts.

ZAHN: Well, here are the facts according to "The Boston Globe," your hometown newspaper, that the official record shows that Bush's service included no evidence of any service between May 1972 and October 1, 1973, the official date of his discharge. Does that trouble you, if it's true? And do you believe that to be true?

KERRY: Well, if it's true, it's a legitimate question. But I don't know whether it's true and I don't know the answer to that. And, obviously, it ought to be answered. The person who can answer it is the military and George Bush.

ZAHN: What would you do about the federal budget deficit? Are you going to cut federal spending, or what are you going to do?

KERRY: Well, I am going to cut some federal spending, yes.

I'm going to close some loopholes that are just horrendous that reward companies for taking jobs overseas. I'm also going to roll back George Bush's tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, because we can't afford it. It's not fiscally responsible. I will pledge to cut the deficit in half in my first four years. But I will do it in a way that allows us to grow our economy, to invest in jobs, education, health care, and do the things we need to do to raise the quality of life in America.

ZAHN: Will you raise taxes?

KERRY: Not on -- not on the middle class, absolutely, no, not at all. And I will not raise income tax rates above where they were when Bill Clinton left office. I don't want to do that. But I will roll back George Bush's tax cut for people earning more than $200,000 a year.

ZAHN: Let's talk about South Carolina for a moment. How do you think you're going to do there? Are you going to beat John Edwards?

KERRY: I don't know.

I don't have any idea, because the voters are going to make that decision for us. But we're campaigning hard. I'm proud to have the support of Senator Fritz Hollings, who served seven terms in the Senate. I'm proud to have Congressman Jim Clyburn and Representative James Smith, the minority leader of the House. And I think we've built a strong organization. And I hope we're going to do well there.

What's important is, you have to run nationally, Paula. You can't just cherry-pick one state here or one state there and pretend that you're really running for president of the United States. I think you have to run everywhere, and you have to run as well as you can.

ZAHN: There is a perception that you and John Edwards have been more civil to each other lately out there on the campaign trail. Is that a sign that, if you get the nomination, a Kerry-Edwards ticket is likely?

KERRY: I have great respect for John Edwards. He's a very competent individual. And he's been a very capable candidate through the course of this race. And, you know, it's not for me to think ahead about any kind of ticket. I'm trying to win the nomination right now.

ZAHN: Senator John Kerry, thanks for your time tonight.

KERRY: Thanks.

ZAHN: On a day after a great victory for the Patriots.

KERRY: Oh, it was wonderful to watch, Adam Vinatieri to the rescue. We love it.

ZAHN: Again, thanks for your time tonight.

KERRY: Thank you.

ZAHN: And we're on the trail with the candidates for tomorrow's big contest, as our team of political observers sound off on what you just heard from John Kerry, among other things.

And Janet Jackson's eye-popping moment at the Super Bowl, hear what the pop diva is saying about that tonight.

Plus, Meredith Vieira and her husband share a personal view. It's about his battle with disease and his family's struggle to beat it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VIEIRA: The cancer really threw me because -- I don't know, maybe because it's the big C. I don't know what it is, but I was mad. Why him? He's been through enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: If tomorrow helps make John Kerry's candidacy, it could also go a long way toward breaking some of the other Democrats' hopes for the White House, or are we in for more some surprises?

Joining us now from Washington, Peter Beinart, Editor of "The New Republic," "TIME" magazine columnist, regular contributor Joe Klein, racking up those bonus miles, having flown to Phoenix today, and CROSSFIRE co-host Paul Begala, who joins us from Charleston, South Carolina.

Welcome, gentleman.

ZAHN: Peter, I'm going to start with you this evening. Let's talk about the latest new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, basically showing that John Kerry would beat President Bush in a head-to-head matchup and has a higher approval rating than the president.

Is this just a post-Iowa/New Hampshire bounce?

PETER BEINART, EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Yes, I don't think that matters very much in terms of actually the election in November. It's way, way too early.

But it does matter amongst Democrats. And it reinforces the sense that Democrats have, rightly or wrongly, that John Kerry is the guy out there who has the best chance of beating George W. Bush, because of his national security experience. So it strengthens what has become his primary argument in these key election days.

ZAHN: And, Joe Klein, you heard Senator Kerry talking about where he expects the Bush administration to attack him if he ends up being the nominee. Give us some insights as to what kind of incoming fire he can expect and where.

JOE KLEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, and more liberal, Massachusetts liberal, defense liberal, domestic policy liberal.

They're going to try and roll out vote after vote after vote that he's taken over the last 20 years. And when you're a senator and you've been a senator for 20 years, there are a lot of votes in there that can be quite embarrassing.

ZAHN: So, Paul Begala, if you were building a war room to go after Senator Kerry, what would you strategize? And then turn around and tell us how you'd confront those attacks.

PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": Well, I think Joe's right. I mean, basically, there's three plays in the Bush playbook. Call your opponent a kook or a crook or a commie.

Well, they've called -- somebody called John McCain a kook here in South Carolina when Bush ran against him in 2000. I don't think they'll do that with Kerry, though. A crook, they tried that with Clinton on Whitewater. It didn't work. And I don't see any evidence that they're planning that with Kerry. That leaves commie, that is, liberal. And Joe's right, liberal, liberal, liberal.

How I would answer that, I'd go not in the linear, logical way. But I'd go to my national security, Vietnam experience, if I were Kerry. I would say, you know, they didn't ask me what state I was from or what my politics were when I signed up to enlist in the United States Navy and go to Vietnam. Now, I don't know what they asked Lieutenant Bush in the Texas Air National Guard. But all they asked me, Lieutenant Kerry, was, are you willing to fight for my country? And I told them I was. And I'm still willing to fight for my country.

That is, get it off of ideology and get it on to where he's strong, which the sense that he can compete on national security and he's ready to be president.

ZAHN: All right, Peter, Paul just bringing up the National Guard experience, which is a charge that continues to dog the president. You probably saw, my last interview showed a "Boston Globe" clip, where they basically said that there was a period of time, or at least they allege, that he was out of action in the National Guard. Does that have much resonance to you at all?

BEINART: I happen to think it's an important story, that "The Globe" did remarkable reporting in 2000 and the rest of the press really didn't pick up on it. In fact, the Gore campaign didn't pick up on it as much as it deserved to.

The question now is, now that people have such a settled opinion of George W. Bush, particularly after September 11, can new information like this, even if there is new information, really change people's opinion of what -- it's pretty settled now about George W. Bush. Most people either really like him or don't really like him. And I think it may be hard to change that at this point.

ZAHN: Joe, let's talk about South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Howard Dean basically saying he doesn't expect to win anywhere tomorrow. Is he going to successfully play the low-expectations game here?

KLEIN: Well, I think he's going to successfully play the low- expectations game. That is, he's not going to do very well tomorrow. His gamble is that he's going to do well in Michigan and Wisconsin, but that's a long shot as well.

It's going to be interesting to see where Kerry is beaten tomorrow and by whom. Is there anybody who can win more than one primary? And, if so, who takes on Kerry down the road? Those are things that we don't know yet.

ZAHN: What does the road map look like come Wednesday morning, Paul? BEGALA: Well, it all depends on whether Wes Clark can take on Kerry successfully in Oklahoma, whether John Edwards here in South Carolina can beat Kerry here.

Kerry is playing hard and he's playing to win in all seven states tomorrow. But he can afford to lose one on either end, that is, Oklahoma out West or South Carolina here and still move on. Of course, he's the front-runner. But somebody's going to have to beat him on Tuesday if they want to be viable moving forward.

I think that Dean will continue to go forward, even after losing, because he says he will. And he can raise maybe enough money to keep doing it. But he doesn't look very credible once he loses nine in a row, which will be the likely outcome Tuesday night.

ZAHN: Joe Klein, a final thought on what happens to John Edwards. If he doesn't win South Carolina, he's pretty much told all of us that it's over for him, at least on the presidential front.

KLEIN: Well, we've been waiting for weeks for this race to be winnowed down. It was supposed to be winnowed down in Iowa. We just lost Gephardt. It wasn't winnowed at all in New Hampshire.

It's going to winnowed tomorrow. There are going to be two or three candidates who aren't going to make it. And anybody who doesn't win somewhere is going to have to make a really compelling argument if they want to stay in this race. And I don't see what that argument can be.

ZAHN: Joe Klein, Paul Begala, Peter Beinart, thank you all.

BEGALA: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Martha Stewart back in court. We're going to hear what a witness said about a critical phone conversation with the home decor maven.

Nasty girl -- Janet Jackson's topless trouble at the Super Bowl. We've got the controversy covered and whether Jackson is now taking responsibility.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: The case against Martha Stewart got under way again today and kicks into high gear tomorrow. That is when the prosecution's star witness is expected to take the stand in what could be a make-or- break day for both sides.

I don't know why that has Jeffrey Toobin chuckling.

What is so darn funny?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm thinking about Rosie O'Donnell in court today.

ZAHN: Yes, what was she there for? TOOBIN: You know what happened? It was kind of unusual. She walked up to Martha Stewart and ripped off her bustier, like right there in court.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Oh, come on.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Come on, come on, come on.

TOOBIN: No, no. She was there offering moral support, one kind of diva entrepreneur to another.

ZAHN: Do juries care about that stuff?

TOOBIN: I doubt the jury even recognized

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Didn't recognize her?

TOOBIN: Didn't recognize Rosie? I'm not sure. She -- I was surprised.

ZAHN: What, did she disguise herself?

TOOBIN: No. She just -- she didn't look

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: But she was not wearing what Janet Jackson was wearing last night?

TOOBIN: Interestingly, the jury is, I think, is going out of its way not to look at Martha Stewart. I think they are not -- they are trying not to seem starstruck. And it almost seems like an unnatural lack of attention.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Let's talk about a critical phone call that was discussed today, Sam Waksal's former assistant testifying about a call that Martha Stewart actually made to Waksal. What was the significance of that call?

TOOBIN: Right.

The prosecution claim, of course, is that Martha Stewart was tipped by Douglas Faneuil, the young assistant, that Sam Waksal was selling all his stock and that's why she sold her stock. So what happened was, Martha Stewart, from the tarmac, where she was in her private plane, she called Sam Waksal right after she made the stock trade. And the witness today was Sam Waksal's executive assistant, who took the call. And she testified on direct examination that Martha Stewart was very upset and demanding and direct. And that was supposed to show that Martha was agitated about the sale. But it was a great cross- examination. And it was as only Martha Stewart's lawyer could cross- examine, saying, isn't it true that Martha Stewart is always impatient? Isn't it true that she's always impossible?

And that's true. That's really how it was. And it actually diffused the...

ZAHN: So, what? The jury learned that they probably didn't want to work for her once the trial was over.

TOOBIN: Exactly. But it was actually kind of -- it was funny, but actually quite successful.

ZAHN: Let's talk about what the defense is going to try to do tomorrow, basically disparage the character of the prosecution's star witness. Is that going to be hard to do?

TOOBIN: I think, actually, we will see two different strategies tomorrow on the part of the defendants.

Peter Bacanovic has got to destroy the young Douglas Faneuil, because he buries Bacanovic. He's the main witness against Bacanovic. He will say Bacanovic really tried to get him to lay. Stewart's agenda, I think, will be slightly different. I think her lawyers will say, look, it was a one-minute phone call. Martha Stewart didn't have anything really to do with this guy. It was a brief phone call. She didn't remember what he said.

I think they will try to diminish his importance, whereas Bacanovic's lawyers will just go after him all-out.

ZAHN: So you're really dizzy as you're sitting there in the jury pool listening to this?

TOOBIN: Well, that's what's often interesting about multi- defendant cases, is that, sometimes, there are multiple agendas even among the defendants. The prosecution, of course, just wants them to believe that he's telling the truth.

ZAHN: I know you watched Martha Stewart pretty closely today.

TOOBIN: I did.

ZAHN: How did she seem to be bearing up?

TOOBIN: She seemed to be wearing a different outfit today. I know I'm not really good at the fashion thing.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Yes, you know nothing about purses. You've proven that.

TOOBIN: But she was wearing -- it's true -- bright colors, looking a little more -- but the thing about Martha Stewart in court, she is going out of her way, I think, to be completely no inflection, no rolling her eyes, no smiles, no frowns. She's been instructed, don't show a reaction. And she just gives away nothing in court.

ZAHN: Probably a pretty smart strategy to have.

TOOBIN: I think it's the right strategy, but it's got to take some effort.

ZAHN: All right, so did you like Janet Jackson's performance last night, Jeffrey?

TOOBIN: It was OK, OK. It was -- you know.

ZAHN: We're going to have a different kind of legal analysis of that performance later on, not with an attorney, but with a television critic.

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: This is not my department.

ZAHN: And what the FCC should be doing about it.

Jeffrey, thanks.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAHN: Janet Jackson's very revealing halftime show, what does she have to say for herself tonight? We're going to find out.

Intelligence breakdown in the search for weapons of mass destruction, could it have been avoided and who should be held responsible?

And Meredith Vieira's personal view. The talk show host joins me with her husband to talk about how their family is coping with cancer and chronic illness at the same time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Here's what you need to know right now at the bottom of the hour.

The Food and Drug Administration is grappling with whether popular adult antidepressants should be prescribed for children. Today, some parents told an FDA panel, the drugs improved their children's lives. Others blamed antidepressants for ending young lives by raising the risk of suicide and violence.

Dr. Harold Koplewicz, is a psychiatrist and director of New York University's Child Study Center. He joins us now.

Good of you to join us, Doctor.

Let's start off now by listening to some of this really emotional testimony from earlier today. We're going to listen to one mother's plea to get anti-depressants completely off the market for children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRI WILLIAMS, SON COMMITTED SUICIDE: My son took his life at 14 years old after being on Prozac for seven weeks. After four weeks of treatment, he began to show signs of agitation, which we were not aware that was a potential side effect. And after seven weeks of treatment, he hung himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: It just breaks your heart when you hear a story like this.

But is there an established linkage between prescribing of these antidepressants for kids and the suicide rate?

DR. HAROLD KOPLEWICZ, PSYCHIATRIST: I think we have to understand that suicide is, unfortunately, very common in teenagers.

No. 1, we know that about one million teenagers every year actually have a suicidal plan. And we lose 2,000 teenagers every year to suicide. That said, we also know that depression is associated with suicide. So, one of the most important things that you have to do before you give your teenager an antidepressant is to make sure they have depression, but also to make sure that someone is monitoring.

When we listen to this tragic story, we hear that this child started to have side effects. And while he was on that medicine, mom wasn't well informed about what the side effects were. And you have to start wondering where the physician was and who was making sure that the benefit was outweighing the side effects.

ZAHN: We're going to put a graphic back up on the screen that we had up for a second to help people better understand that the 3.7 percent of the children in the study taking Paxil actually had suicidal thoughts, compared to 2.5 percent of the children on the placebo.

Now, studies like this one actually led Great Britain to ban the use of all but one antidepressant, Prozac. Do you think the U.S. should follow suit?

KOPLEWICZ: No, I think that we can't throw out the baby with the bath water.

The fact is, these SSRIs have been shown to be effective in treating kids with depression. And teenagers with depression, they lose days in school. They actually become more socially isolated. They have family dysfunction. And many of them attempt suicide and many of them succeed at suicide.

So I think it's important to recognized that the depression is real, but they have to be properly diagnosed. And, importantly, we have to know that they're taking the right treatment, the right dosage, and it's being monitored. We also should be careful about what suicidal thoughts are. They're very, very common among teenagers. Sometimes, they're meaningful.

Sometimes, they're not. And so it's much more complicated. It needs further study. But, at this point, these medicines can, in many ways, be life savers. Do you know that, in every single study that's been done in teenagers and in adults, no one has ever committed suicide on those medicines?

ZAHN: But I'm also hearing that parents need to have a tremendous amount of responsibility in this equation. Is that letting doctors off the hook, Doctor?

KOPLEWICZ: No, no, no.

Well, I think, first of all, we should look at something else. There are all of 6,500 child psychiatrists in the United States. There's two million kids who have depression. Clearly, most of these medicines are being given by pediatricians and family practitioners. So parents have to ask very clearly, what makes my child depressed? What will happen if my child takes no treatment? And what are the costs if my child does take these medicines? What are the side effects? And they have to have a dialogue with the physician as well.

ZAHN: Do we know how many kids in America are on antidepressants right now?

KOPLEWICZ: No, we don't. And, in fact...

ZAHN: And why is that? Why -- we don't keep records like this?

(CROSSTALK)

KOPLEWICZ: I think we can tell you how many prescriptions have been written for certain medications for kids under a certain age. For instance, last year, more than 600,000 prescriptions were written for Prozac. If you figure out how few child psychiatrists there are, it's clear we have to train pediatricians and family practitioners how to use these medicines. But more importantly, they have to make the diagnosis. These medicines don't work unless you're truly depressed.

ZAHN: Doctor, if you don't mind standing by, we have breaking news out of Washington I'd like to report right now.

We have been told some workers in a Senate office building were told to leave their offices after some preliminary testing indicated the presence of a hazardous substance. Let's go straight to Jeanne Meserve in the Washington bureau for more details.

Jeanne, what have you learned?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A Homeland Security official tells me that that substance found in Senator Bill Frist's mail room this afternoon has tested positive for ricin with a field test. These field tests are not always reliable. The white substance has been sent for further analysis to Fort Detrick. Officials tell me they should have further analysis on what it might be as early as tomorrow morning. Now, ricin is a product of the processing of castor beans. It can be used as a poison. Back in 1978, a Bulgarian writer and journalist was assassinated when he was tapped with an umbrella which had some ricin embedded on that, so it can indeed be fatal. But Homeland officials tell me it is not an effective weapon of mass destruction. That it would take mass quantities of this in order to do much damage. Once again, a call came in at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon to Capitol Police from Senator Frist's mail room, in the Dirksen Building advising them that this substance has been found in preliminary field test has found it positive for ricin. Paula, back to you.

ZAHN: Jeanne, I know this is very early on in this investigation. Have you been given any indication that any other Senate office workers should be concerned about this, or does this seem to be limited to Senator Frist's office?

MESERVE: As far as I know -- and I must say the reporting on this is still in the preliminary stages -- that is the only location in which it's been found. The official with whom I spoke said he knew nothing about the delivery system, whether this came in the form of a letter or something else. The Capitol Police have said that no threatening phone calls have been received, no threatening letters.

ZAHN: Jeanne Meserve, thanks so much for the update.

We're going to change our focus completely, and it's a story that certainly has garnered a lot of attention today, particularly among adolescents in the country who have been surfing the Web all day. And that was the appearance of one of Janet Jackson's breasts during the Super Bowl halftime show. It generated an avalanche of apologies today, but it wasn't until tonight that Jackson herself issued a statement.

She said, "The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended, including the audience, MTV, CBS and the NFL."

Well, FCC commissioner Michael Powell Says he wants an immediate investigation into what he called a classless, crass, and deplorable stunt, and hundreds of stations that carry the broadcast could face millions of dollars in fines. All of this happened to coincide with the release of Jackson's new single today. Surprise, surprise. Let's discuss that. We'll get the view of some professionals who know the wily ways of show business.

Tom shales is the Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the "Washington Post."

Andy Greenwald, senior contributing writer for "Spin Magazine."

And Janice Min, the editor of "U.S. Weekly."

Good to see all of you.

First of all, Tom, let's talk about what business is the FCC has in even getting involved in this in the first place.

What's at stake here?

TOM SHALES, TV CRITIC, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, none. Actually, Congress has been thinking about looking into this already, and some sorts of hearings are on the way. But you know, looking in the television in the large amounts of sex and violence is an old political trick, and there's always a bet of demagoguery involved. If you go way back in television history, about every 15 years Congress gets into a lather and says we've got to look into this matter. Now, Janet Jackson's performance was particularly ill-timed because there's all this hullabaloo already going on about too much sex and violence on the air.

ZAHN: Janice, let's talk a little bit more about Janet Jackson's apology earlier today. I thought it was interesting, the one word she used. When she said it wasn't her intention it go as far as it did.

Now what does that mean?

What were we supposed to see, the red lace bra, part of her breast?

JANICE MIN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "US WEEKLY": Originally, people in her camp said viewers were only supposed to see her red lace bra. I think, if you read between the lines of that statement, I think she means I didn't people to be as upset as they ended up being over this. I don't think she could have predicted the FCC reaction, the reaction of the networks.

ZAHN: How could you not predict that?

Come on Andy.

ANDY GREENWALD, SENIOR CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "SPIN MAGAZINE": Yes, I think she's intentionally leaving everything vague because so many people's heads are on the line, so many jobs could roll because of this. I guess she -- I don't know what she thought, to be honest.

ZAHN: Do you think this was a way for her to sell a single?

It wasn't too long before that sort of ended up being released on the Internet, and the record company said, oh, I guess we'd better sell it after all.

One of the things that comes to mind since she last had an album out, which did not do well sales wise, the ante has been raised. You have pop stars like Christina Aguilera and you have pop stars like Brittany Spears tongue kissing Madonna. You have people baring a lot -- well certainly not as much as Janet bared, but coming close to it. On one hand you think she's getting up there in years compared to people nipping at her heels, and she had to jump back in front of the public in a pretty big way.

ZAHN: Tom, I want to give you a chance to parch Janet Jackson's statement. Does that -- based on what she said, does that take the NFL and MTV and CBS off the hook, if she's saying the stunt went too far?

SHALES: Not at all. It sounds like a board room fashioned statement to me. And someone saying to Janet, look, if you don't come out and say this, you know, this thing is going to go and be headlines for days and days and days. And Les Moonves, the head of CBS will be called in, and Sumner Redstone the head of Viacom. Viacom owns CBS and MTV. And you mentioned Michael Powell earlier, he's the FCC chairman who's a big advocate of those conglomerates getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, here's an example what happens when they get to big. As CBS hires MTV to do the halftime show. One good thing that's come out of this is an NFL official said never again is MTV going to produce the halftime show. It's going to go back to, you know, flag waving and balloons, and for me, that's fine because kids are watching with their parents.

ZAHN: How about Sponge Bob Square pants next year, Janice?

He wouldn't be very controversial, would he?

MIN: Not controversial, but, you know, the sex sells. This just went too far. You saw Nelly grabbing his crotch earlier in the performance.

ZAHN: That seemed to get less attention than the skin showing.

MIN: He definitely got upstaged by the breast at the end of the performance. I think the pressure to shock and win fans is enormous. I mean, Janet Jackson, as Andy was saying, is 37 years old. That is ancient in pop music. It's no coincidence she was dancing with a 23- year-old. She needs to have her career come back, and this was it.

ZAHN: Everybody looks at this through a different prism. Were you offended by anything you saw in the show?

GREENWALD: I was offended by some of the musical performances prior to that, yes, certainly, and the lip syncing. But no, the people that I was with -- I was sitting with a room of people who are pretty cynical I think about the media, and it was just mostly sort of an awkward, shocked silence. We couldn't believe what we'd seen. Not so much beyond the idea it was a publicity stunt, but it just seemed like such a bizarre and pretty wrong headed one.

ZAHN: And Tom, besides the fact you think this will have a dramatic effect on the talent we see in next year's halftime show, what are the implications for CBS short term?

SHALES: Short term, there will be more discussions like this on shows like this. But I don't think CBS will suffer any long term damage, I'm afraid. And god knows the profits from the Super Bowl will still pour in as they were expected to. So it's a bad public relations thing for CBS, and it will blow over, I think, fairly quickly.

ZAHN: It's interesting you say it's a bad PR thing, and yet their stock went up today. I find that kind of fascinating.

SHALES: How about that?

ZAHN: Yes, surprise, surprise.

SHALES: No bad deed goes unrewarded.

ZAHN: What are you hearing from relationship on the Web, I know you get...

MIN: Basicly -- yes, the parents are upset. She has to count on a lot of parents buying the CD, Janet's CD and her single for their kids. On Z-100, the biggest radio station here in New York had whole Janet Jackson day. They went back and played all her old singles, new singles. It was excitement. They had callers all day talking about it. This is just the kind of heat she wanted.

ZAHN: This is America, and I was at that game last night and sitting up so high, I actually thought she had got hit in the ribs and had gotten hurt sitting on that stage. I guess it depends where you looked at it today, on the Internet or a frozen image on TV.

Janice Min, Andy Greenwald, Tom Shale, thanks for joining us tonight.

Problems of intelligence in the war in Iraq. The president wants answers, so do many Americans.

Plus one man's decision to quit the U.S. We're going to hear from the author and activist who says the country's treatment of blacks made him leave.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: The president plans to appoint a commission to investigate why the U.S. was so wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Critics from both parties have been calling for that. But was it a failure of intelligence or policy? Joining me now from Washington, Frank Gaffney, former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan years, and Mike Baker, a former covert operations officer with the CIA. Is he is now CEO of Diligence, LLC. Welcome, gentleman.

Mike, I want to start with you. About a year ago Secretary Powell addressed the U.N. on the imminent threat of WMD, citing intelligence from inside Iraq to make the case for war. Today the president announced an investigation into that process. Was that a matter of intelligence or bad policy?

MIKE BAKER, CEO, DILIGENCE, LLC: Well, personally, I think calling it a policy failure or intelligence failure might be moving in the wrong direction. Our policy was and has been the protection of U.S. interests, U.S. lives. That hasn't changed. From an intelligence standpoint, no one is going to stand up and argue that we had all the intelligence we needed. But what we had, rather than an intelligence failure, I think, is more of just a lack of the quality, human source reporting, that can oftentimes put some of this into context.

ZAHN: So, Frank, here's a situation where we've lost more than 500 soldiers, perhaps waged on faulty information. Who should pay the price for that?

FRANK GAFFNEY, FMR. ASST. SECY. OF DEFENSE: Well, Paula, I personally think the jury is still out whether the information was as faulty as some are now suggesting. I think we've got plenty of evidence of Saddam Hussein's activities that constituted a threat, not only to his own people and to his neighbors, but in fact, to us as well.

And what I believe is really going on here is mostly about politics, not so much either policy or intelligence. There are clearly are improvements that could be made to intelligence. I think one place that you could start would be by encouraging the resignation of George Tenet, and I would suggest as a substitute, a guy who's been much in the news and been seen as a pretty straight shooter, I think properly so, David Kay as his replacement.

ZAHN: Mike, your reaction to that?

BAKER: Yes. Having served under Mr. Tenet, I know he's an extremely honorable man. I know that, obviously, moving forward, who knows what's going to shake out of this.

ZAHN: But if it's not -- Mike, if it's not his fault, then should any heads roll at all?

BAKER: Well, of course, as head of the intelligence community, he has to shoulder a great deal of responsibility. We've seen that in the past, and we've seen him fall on his sword in the past and then find out that he was just being a team player when necessarily it wasn't actually his responsibility. I think one of the interesting points that was just raised about Mr. Kay -- and one of the things, I think, that's been confusing some people is the comments that have come out. And of some of this that's started this issue again recently.

It appears to be all over the map. Mr. Kay has indicated that, you know, the administration was not pushing analysts in one particular direction. He faults the intelligence and says that the intelligence was probably all wrong. Yet he himself was a very important part of the intelligence collection process for a number of years with the weapons inspections.

At the same time, I think a point that was raised was that we saw increasing threats here. We had an increasingly delusional leader, we had terrorists moving through the country, we had scientists, according to David Kay, who were out for money. And we had, up until March, according to Mr. Kay, an active weapons research program.

GAFFNEY: Paula, I understand...

ZAHN: All right, gentlemen, unfortunately, I have to cut you off. We need to move along on account of that breaking news out of Washington. Mike Baker, Frank Gaffney, I appreciate both your perspectives tonight.

We're going to be talking to writer/activist Randall Robinson who says he abandoned the country because it abandoned him and find out how the love of family helped Meredith Vieira and her husband face a life or death personal crisis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: You remember the 1960s bumper sticker, "America, love it or leave it?" Well, our next guest decided to leave it. Activist Randall Robinson gave up on the U.S. and moved with his family to St. Kitt's in 2001. And he explains why in his latest book, "Quitting America." Nice to see you.

I know you have strong feelings about whites and the kind of environment they've created for African Americans in this country but do you not acknowledge there have been some significant gains for African Americans? I have this one statistic I think is pretty amazing that 70 percent of African Americans now earn at least a bachelor's degree, up from 6 percent from 40 years ago. 30% of African American families now have incomes of $75,000 or more. A fraction of that 30 years ago. Haven't they made headway?

RANDALL ROBINSON, AUTHOR, "QUITTING AMERICA": Sure, there's headway. I'm an example of that headway. But at the end of slavery and the era of discrimination, a block of African Americans were left behind, bottom stock. We now have in the United States 1/20 of the world's population, but 1/4 of the world's prisoners, 2 million and climbing, half of whom are African Americans.

African Americans constitute 14 percent of American drug use, but 75 percent of prison admissions for drug use. So that African Americans are seven times more likely to go to prison for crimes than are there white counterparts, and when they are convicted, they will serve sentences twice as long. We are warehousing the future of young black African American males. Now, all of these things are consequences of 346 years of slavery and discrimination. America has a commitment to stop the active stage of a crime, but not to treat the consequences of the old devastating human rights crime.

ZAHN: What do you say to critics of your viewpoint, including some African Americans themselves, who say all you're doing is promoting the victimization of blacks?

ROBINSON: Promoting victimization? We're talking about people whose families were destroyed, people who have had no opportunity, people who were born out of wedlock, people who haven't had a chance since the Emancipation Proclamation. We start with what is given to us. I have been successful because I had an intact family and an opportunity to be successful. People inherit poverty as they do wealth, and most of us finish somewhere near where we start. Obviously, if you start higher up, you're better off, your chances are infinitely better that you will succeed.

ZAHN: But in "Quitting America," are you giving up on African- Americans? ROBINSON: No, I'm not giving up on African-Americans. But I have lost hope in America. I think America represents a danger to the world. It operates without checks and balances abroad. It operates without introspection at home. Americans are perhaps the most self- absorbed people in the entire world, inflated by arrogance. They never ask why, only what. Never why when something is wrong. How do we improve ourselves as a society? What ills do we have that could cripple us in a real measurable and permanent way?

ZAHN: Well, some of what you talk about, obviously, is a lightning rod, quite inflammatory to some people, but we appreciate your sharing your perspective with us this evening. Randall Robinson, author of "Quitting America."

Meredith Vieira and her husband's greatest battle against chronic illness and cancer. They will share their story of strength and hope.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: As co-host of ABC's "The View," Meredith Vieira has lately been sharing a very personal story with her audience. For 30 years, her husband, award-winning TV producer Richard M. Cohen, has battled multiple sclerosis. He's also struggled with colon cancer. He credits his wife and children with helping him through it all. It's part of his inspiring new book called "Blindsided." And Richard Cohen and Meredith Vieira join us now. Great to see the two of you. Congratulations.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": Great to see you too.

ZAHN: You talk about this being a reluctant book and a reluctant memoir. Why?

RICHARD M. COHEN, TV PRODUCER: I didn't want to reveal myself. I actually had no intention of writing a memoir, and it was only after the book was under way that I was dragged, kicking and screaming really, into believing that the only way to tell the story was to do a memoir and to use my life as the spine of the story. And it's very daunting, and I thought presumptuous, actually, to offer up your life as an example of anything. You know, so that was tough.

ZAHN: There are parts of the book that are incredibly raw, and I know, although you share some parts of your life on television, this is a part of your life you haven't talked with great detail about. Is there a part of you that's relieved now, that Richard has shared this experience through this book?

VIEIRA: Yeah. I think I'm relieved, especially for him, because I think it's been very cathartic for Richard. For many, many years he didn't talk about his own M.S., so it wasn't something that we really shared in any depth. We began to talk about it with our own kids, but still it wasn't -- I don't think he was very comfortable with it. So when he found himself writing the memoir, it gave him a chance to get out a lot of stuff. So in that sense, I'm glad for him and glad for us as a family. ZAHN: You're very direct and candid about all the stages you went through, particularly when you were diagnosed with colon cancer. And I think that's the point in which you as a reader get your first idea about how you might feel bitter about dealing with this lifelong illness and then having to confront another potential killer disease.

COHEN: But you just can't go there. I mean, in theory, you're right.

VIEIRA: I went there.

COHEN: No, but In theory, you're right.

ZAHN: You almost gave up on him, didn't you, Meredith?

VIEIRA: I didn't give up on him. I was very scared. As concerned as I've been in the past about M.S., I mean, we live with that every day, it's a chronic illness, but the cancer really threw me, because -- I don't know. Maybe it's because it's the big "C." I don't know what it was. But I was mad. Why him? He's been through enough. This is ridiculous. I was scared about whether or not he would live. And I was worried for us as a family. It was that straw on the camel's back to me.

COHEN: But the worst, really, was the second time, when the cancer came back.

ZAHN: Yeah. Because the first time you thought you got it licked, you conquered it early.

COHEN: Yes, really, and the second time was when I really thought this isn't supposed to happen.

ZAHN: What I found refreshing about your account is you didn't sugar-coat any of this. I mean, you talk very openly about how you found him an enormous pain in the...

VIEIRA: Oh, unbelievable.

ZAHN: And you thought that he was unnecessarily harsh with you and the children. How did you endure that?

VIEIRA: Well, because I love him, for one. And you know, I could understand it on one level. I was as angry, if not angrier, than him. So in that sense -- and you do endure. You're married, and that comes with the territory. And I had these kids to worry about. As much as I worry about him, there were three other people in that house. You know, every day, this was the home they came back to. So I think I did with Richard what we've always done. I was very direct. And when the anger started getting out of control, I called him on it. I said, you may not realize this, but you are driving us all away. Because that's what he was doing. We were trying to get closer, and he was getting further and further away, because he was in so much pain emotionally.

ZAHN: Did that snap you back into reality? VIEIRA: And I slapped him a couple of times.

COHEN: Of course it snapped me back into reality. I mean, I -- and I finally -- see, I hadn't seen this. Everybody else was saying this, and I just didn't see it. It crept over me. And I -- I think, due in no small part to what Meredith was saying, I think it suddenly dawned on me what it was like, what I had become. And that's when I sat down with the kids and I took out a tape recorder, and I said I want to interview them. And a lot of this I used for some columns in "The Times."

VIEIRA: One of the things people forget, or maybe that I didn't realize until I was in the situation, is that when there's a chronic illness in the family, it is a family affair. It wasn't just his illness, it was my illness and the kids'. So we were all feeling it. And sometimes you don't feel justified in having those emotions. They're really his and only supposed to be his, but that's not true. It bled over all of us.

ZAHN: Besides the deep love that is so obvious to the reader, as you read this book, the other thing that seems to me that's been indispensable to your family is a sense of humor.

COHEN: I think -- I think the ability to laugh is so central to coping. You know, this is not -- I really want people to understand this is not a book about suffering. This is not a book about illness. This is really a book about the search for emotional health. You know, and that's what coping is. We do it without even knowing that we're doing it.

ZAHN: It is simply that, right? The triumph of the spirit.

VIEIRA: Yes, absolutely.

COHEN: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

ZAHN: Well, I think we can all learn from what your family's been through. Thank you for sharing your story with us tonight.

VIEIRA: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Richard Cohen and Meredith Vieira.

And that wraps it up for all of us here this evening. Thanks so much for being with us tonight. "LARRY KING LIVE" is next. Have a good night.

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