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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Debbie Schlussel, Mark Riley

Aired February 24, 2002 - 08:39   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's roll on with a segment that's become a regular routine for us on Sundays. Another big news week to talk about. And joining me to wrap it all up, two distinguished guests. Attorney Debbie Schlussel is with Townhall.com. She's in Detroit. Also joining us this morning, Mark Riley, who is the talk show host at WLIB in New York. Good to have you both with us this morning.

DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL, ATTORNEY: Thank you.

MARK RILEY, WLIB RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Olympics, shall we? You got the Olympics on your mind?

RILEY: Not really.

O'BRIEN: That's the point I wanted to make. Does anybody really care anymore?

SCHLUSSEL: No.

RILEY: I have to tell you...

O'BRIEN: Debbie -- go to ladies first. Let's let Debbie go.

RILEY: Sure.

SCHLUSSEL: I don't think people do really care anymore. Especially the winter Olympics, it's really boring. It's become very politicized. You know, this country's arguing about this judge and this country's whining about that judge. Most of the sports are subjective like that. The popular sports, anyway. And they're not really sports. I mean, nobody cares. And frankly...

O'BRIEN: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, are you talking about curling again? Be careful, Debbie. That's a sport.

SCHLUSSEL: Well, yeah, it is a sport. And they play it down in south Florida before the early bird special and there it's called shuffleboard.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: They can't (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the shuffleboard courts in St. Petersburg, can they? Go ahead, Mark.

RILEY: There's no more fitting climax to this Olympics that this beer riot in Salt Lake City last night. I mean, could there be anything that's more fitting to an Olympics, where everybody's complaining about judging, everybody's complaining about everybody else. People are being disqualified left and right. And now you have a beer riot in the most pious state in the union. I mean, it's totally fitting.

O'BRIEN: There's some interesting ironies there. A good thing that police nipped it in the bud, if you will. All right. Well let me just ask you this -- I -- my theory on this is that it's just so been bought and paid for by corporate America, and the way NBC broadcasts it, it's just not an inclusive event anymore, if it ever was. Do you agree with that, Debbie?

SCHLUSSEL: Oh, I agree with it 100 percent. You know, I must admit, I was an agent for several Olympic divers in the 1996 Olympics. But the fact is that it has become bought and paid for by corporations. It's not about amateurs. In 1980, you contrast that -- Mike Aruzioni (ph), who -- he and his team lit the Olympic cauldron in this Olympics. They were out of place, really, because they were amateurs in 1980 when they were playing against the professional Russians. And now they're all professionals; they're multimillionaire -- for example, in hockey, multimillionaire brat NHL players. And who cares? Who wants to see that? That's not fun.

O'BRIEN: Yeah. You know, Mark, that U.S.-Russian hockey game, it looked like an NHL all-star game to me.

SCHLUSSEL: That's what it is.

RILEY: Well, it is. It's essentially a group of very highly paid people. I find the absurdity of the Olympics is to have local television anchors from New York and from other parts of the country going out to Salt Lake, donning these Olympic ski jackets and reporting on local news from Salt Lake City. I mean, it was just extraordinary to me that people would go to that length to hype something that I'm not sure everybody wanted to see in the first place.

O'BRIEN: Yeah. I just wonder where it's headed. You know, to me, 1980 was the end of the games. That was the last real Olympic moment, and...

SCHLUSSEL: Well, you know, I agree with you, but I want to add one other thing. You know, one thing that the Olympic Committee -- the International Olympic Committee -- has refused continuously to do is to memorialize those Israeli athletes that were murdered in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. And, yet, at this Olympics, they spent millions of dollars for a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) choreographed memorial to Flo Jo, who's death had nothing to do with her sport or even with the Olympics. And I think it's about time for this stupid game -- these boring games to do something meaningful and help memorialize that were murdered because of their poor security. O'BRIEN: All right. I think we spent way too much time on this. I apologize for that, but, you know, we're just getting our personal vents out here. We do have to take a quick break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about Dick Cheney and the fact that the U.S. Congress is suing the vice president. Now that's interesting stuff. Stay with us for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The sun sets over Karachi, Pakistan and calls to prayer the tail end of the Hajj. We were talking just a little bit ago with some of our correspondents there in Karachi, as well as in Herat, about Daniel Pearl, a terrible tragedy. And really a moving phone call from a representative of the "Wall Street Journal" as we kind of left that.

I know you -- Mark and Debbie -- you had a chance to hear that. I just -- if you could pick up on that. First of all, Mark, are you concerned -- or put it this way, do you think the U.S. should change its policy as far as it is dealing with kidnappers? Or should it be the way it is as far as ransom and that kind of thing -- negotiations?

RILEY: I am a person who believes that if you do change that policy, you open floodgates that -- and really end up dealing with a series of unintended consequences. I'm not sure it should be changed at all. I don't know that you negotiate with kidnappers. I don't know that had this country negotiated with the people who took Daniel Pearl that they would have gone out and done what the kidnappers asked. And Daniel Pearl might well have been killed anyway. So on that level, I'm not sure America's position should change one bit.

O'BRIEN: What do you think, Debbie?

SCHLUSSEL: I agree with him 100 percent. The fact is that you never give in to terrorists. I think that peace through strength, which was Ronald Reagan's policy, should be the policy of this country right now and forever. The fact is that September 11, for example, was used to effectuate certain U.S. policy changes towards Israel and the Middle East and also towards the Arab world. And if we gave into that, then they would win.

And the same thing goes with Daniel Pearl. And we never can give into that, because exactly like Mark said, you open up the floodgates and you're asking for more and more of this.

O'BRIEN: All right, here's the 800-pound gorilla in this discussion. And folks sent a few e-mails on this. We didn't get a chance to get them on. The question is the tape. Should that ever see the light of day? Debbie, you go first.

SCHLUSSEL: One hundred percent. I think all Americans need to see the kind of barbaric, radical Islamists that we are dealing with. I think that now that September 11 is behind people's memory for several months now, people think things are back to normal, and they are not back to normal. And people need to see these are the types of people that are in our midst. O'BRIEN: What about the family, though, and friends to have to endure that?

SCHLUSSEL: Well, you know, I feel badly for them, but the fact is he was a journalist. He did go to Karachi -- Karachi. He did meet with these people and this was the way he was treated. After he was their friend, he was helping to tell their side of the story. And I think all Americans need to see what these people do to both their friends and their enemies.

RILEY: I could not disagree more. I think that in this instance, this is a country that's built on individual liberties, individual rights. I think that the family's prerogatives are the most important. If Mariane Pearl doesn't want that tape shown, I don't think it should be. I think that in this case it is something that is so personal. I think you can tell the story of the barbarism that created Daniel Pearl's situation without having to show the tape.

Now I know there are a lot of people across the country that want to see it. As a journalist, you do want to see it because it's something that has a very direct impact on you. But I think in this instance, the family's prerogatives are the most important.

SCHLUSSEL: I'm sorry, the family does not own the tape. And we do live in an individual society, and the people who have the tape are the U.S. government. So it's subject to the Freedom of Information Act to requests and it should be released. And the other thing is that we need to see it. We are TV society. We are an MTV society, and we need to see the video. People don't read.

O'BRIEN: Debbie, just...

RILEY: I don't think we should cause that kind of pain. I don't think we should risk that kind of pain to this man's family. I think it's disrespectful...

SCHLUSSEL: Well I think the kind of pain this whole country is subject to when they forget that these types of people that we are dealing with and what they are like is the kind of pain we need to avoid. And that's why we need to see that video.

O'BRIEN: I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a lot of pain over this story, and I've just heard a description of that tape. I don't know that I need to see it to understand that barbarism.

SCHLUSSEL: Well...

RILEY: I think that there are ways to tell the story of the barbarism without using that tape. I think that...

O'BRIEN: Debbie...

SCHLUSSEL: You know, I think this shows the hypocrisy of the press. You know, when Dale Earnhardt died in an auto accident racing, everybody wanted his autopsy released. All of the press went to court fighting for it. But now this is a journalist, and suddenly we have to respect his individual rights and that of his family. And I'm sorry, but this -- in this case, especially, we all have a right and a need to see the kind of barbaric, radical Islamists we are dealing with who have not gone away, September 11 aside.

RILEY: See, that's the problem to me. If you're talking about September 11 not going away, I don't think you have to use Daniel Pearl's death to remind people that we're still at war. I think there are other things that the government can do, other things the government should do to remind us of the state that we're in. But showing people a videotape to get them angry and upset about the situation that we're in is not, in my judgment, the way to do that.

SCHLUSSEL: And I suppose we never should have seen the videotape of planes going into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Video works and it's important that we see it.

RILEY: I think that we should have seen the planes going in. The constant repetition of those planes going into the World Trade Center, as someone who watched the World Trade Center collapse on September 11, I'll tell you, I thought was overkill, quiet frankly.

O'BRIEN: All right. We're going to leave it at that. We didn't get to Dick Cheney, but this was more on our minds, anyway. So thank you very much, Debbie Schlussel. We'll do Dick Cheney next time.

SCHLUSSEL: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: That will still be in the news undoubtedly. Mark Riley, Debbie Schlussel, thanks for being with us. Thanks for sharing your insights as always, and in an ever so polite manner, which we appreciate.

SCHLUSSEL: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right. It's time for us to take a break. We'll be back with more in a moment.

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