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On the Story

Correspondents Discuss Stories Behind the Stories

Aired October 29, 2005 - 19:00   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNNHN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Carol Lin with a look at what's happening right "Now in the News".
In India, a packed passenger train left the tracks before dawn Saturday. More than 100 people are dead. Nearly that many are hurt. Officials say the rails were washed away by flood waters.

And north of Baghdad, a bomb killed at least 25 people, all civilians. The truck bomb detonated in a Shiite village near Baquba.

The secretaries of State and Defense welcomed their counterparts from Japan today in Washington. They made a big announcement. The number of U.S. Marines on Okinawa will be cut in half over the next six years.

And coming up next, ON THE STORY, the Libby resignation, the Miers withdrawal. CNN correspondents discuss the political fallout from a bad week for the White House.

And later, CNN PRESENTS, THE GAP, more than 50 years after the historic Supreme Court decision desegregating American schools, we examine the academic gap between white and African-American students.

I'm Carol Lin at the CNN Center in Atlanta. Now ON THE STORY.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN and we're ON THE STORY. From the campus of the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital, our correspondents bring you the stories behind the stories they're covering.

Suzanne Malveaux is ON THE STORY on the White House digging out from the Harriet Miers withdrawal and the CIA leaks.

Candy Crowley looks at the political fallout with mid-term elections just a year away.

Abbi Tatton is ON THE STORY online, how the week's developments ripple across the Internet.

Barbara Starr is ON THE STORY of the Iraq war -- the U.S. military death toll at 2,000. She's got the view from inside the Pentagon.

Mark Biello is ON THE STORY on the hurricane, how he gets the pictures and how he gets them back to us.

And Tom Foreman tells how some Halloween haunted houses serve up religious messages.

Welcome. I'm Ali Velshi. With me are Tom Foreman, Candy Crowley and Barbara Starr. Our correspondents will be taking questions from our studio audience drawn from visitors, college students and people across the nation.

Now straight to the White House. We watched the surprise withdrawal of Harriet Miers, the president's nominee for the Supreme Court, this week and we saw the end of the week indictment of vice presidential adviser Scooter Libby.

Suzanne Malveaux was ON THE STORY of that and the tense wait for the results in the CIA leak probe. Here's her reporter's notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Waiting for announcement about any indictments for the CIA leak investigation really cast a dark cloud over the White House the whole week. It was something that everybody was paying attention to. And White House insiders say it was like the elephant in the room that no one could acknowledge or even wanted to acknowledge.

SCOTT McCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We got a lot of work to do and so we don't have a lot of time to sit back and think about those things.

MALVEAUX: The strategy for the administration was to act as business as usual and basically for everybody to stay busy.

The president as well as the White House was bracing itself for possible indictments out of the CIA leak investigation. Privately, what people were saying was that the whole waiting game was really torturous. I mean it was very, very difficult but there was also a sense not only of anxiety, but also resolve, people saying even the president just wanted to get on with it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Suzanne Malveaux joins us live. Suzanne, we have had our opportunity to talk to you through the course of this week. Now we're going to give it over to the audience. This gentlemen has a question first. Your name, where you're from and your question please.

QUESTION: Mike (INAUDIBLE) I'm from (INAUDIBLE) and Suzanne, how does it affect your reporting when you have the White House dealing with a scandal and dealing with other things that are out of the norm for them?

MALVEAUX: You know, it was very strange this week, because this really was a defining week for the president, and many people who we talked to behind the scenes say perhaps even one of the worst weeks for the president.

When it came at least to the CIA leak investigation, that story, we were on the phone asking a lot of people, what do you know? What do you know? What do you anticipate? And they said it was a very awkward reversal here, because they said often we knew more than they did when it came to the CIA leak investigation, that we were talking to more sources about that and that they pretty much were in the dark about a lot of those details and that's what made it so anxious around here. A lot of people very nervous, the tension very high and they would turn to us and ask us questions, what do you know? So it was a very strange week for this White House and in some ways it seemed as if almost everybody breathed a sigh of relief at the end.

VELSHI: And we've got people from the White House right here in this audience wondering (ph) how we cover these things. Are you one of them?

QUESTION: I don't know about that. Hi, Suzanne. My name's Madelaine. I'm from Meadowbrook (ph), Pennsylvania. My question is, after a difficult week, how will the Bush administration bounce back? And should we expect any drastic changes in the week ahead?

MALVEAUX: It's very interesting that you bring that up, because actually there are a lot of people inside the White House and also Republicans who we speak to who actually strategize for the White House who say, we think a shake up is necessary. If it doesn't come overnight, perhaps wait the next couple of months, that this in some ways is a good opportunity to let go some of the people who've been here for a long time. They say quite frankly are getting tired and bring in some new blood. They say that the president's circle really is much too small, the advice that he's getting, that perhaps he needs some fresh voices there and the president actually addressed this, saying that he wants to move forward. I think we have some sound on that.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Scooter's worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people and sacrificed much in the service to this country. He served the vice president and me through extraordinary times in our nation's history. As special counsel Fitzgerald's investigation and ongoing legal proceedings are serious. And now the proceedings, the process moves into a new phase.

MALVEAUX: And really what he's talking about is the strategy here, the White House strategy short-term and long-term, and that is to just jump for it here, to say, look, this investigation happened. We're now moving forward.

Interestingly enough, two things happened here at the White House. Two memos that went out, one from the chief of staff Andy Card to all the staffers saying look, our primary goal here of course is that you've got to focus on your jobs. The second letter, the memo that came out to the White House counsel, to all White House staff was simply saying you must not reach out or talk to Scooter Libby regarding this investigation. It's a legal matter, so don't expect the White House or their aides to talk much about that.

VELSHI: Suzanne, no surprise, we've got a lot of questions on this. We've got another one from the audience. Your name and where you're from. QUESTION: I'm Tim from Kansas City. My question is, will Scooter Libby, in an effort to strike a deal with the prosecution, divulge information on the case that could lead to further investigation and/or indictments of other White House officials, specially Karl Rove?

MALVEAUX: That's a very good question and I just don't have the answer for that of course. We don't know exactly what he's going to do. What we do know is that he's severed ties with the White House at least when it comes to discussing this investigation. We know that they took his badge, that his security clearance has been terminated, that of course he has legal counsel and he's going to be looking forward to the next step and that next step is defending, making his case in a possible trial.

As far as Karl Rove is concerned, there seems to be a sense of optimism among his legal team and his associates that perhaps he is in the clear. The investigation is not over we have been told, but at the same time, they feel if after two years they don't have really something that sticks, they don't think that they're going to have something in the next couple of months.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Suzanne, like you, I heard a lot of people say we just would like to get this over with, but the fact is, it's not really over with. It's in some ways just kind of starting certainly as concerned Scooter, but also as concerns Karl. There kind of is a little bit of a kiss your sister with Karl, wasn't it? I mean it was neither fish nor fowl. They just are still waiting, so how do they feel about that?

MALVEAUX: And you know, you're right Candy, because they're really just kind of throwing it forward and see what happens. Perhaps it's too soon for them to feel optimistic, but we did get a sense that there was really a sigh of relief at the White House, particularly among those who were watching what was going to happen with Karl Rove.

But you're right. I mean, he still is in possible legal jeopardy here and we don't know what the outcome is going to be. But people feel at least when you talk to them that it could have been a lot worse, that of course you've got that void when it comes to Scooter Libby. They believe that they're going to be able to try to fill that void at least with a couple of people, but that if Karl Rove had gone down, that that would have been a really serious problem for the White House. Now we'll see how it goes.

VELSHI: Suzanne Malveaux, if it does come to pass that Scooter Libby cuts some sort of a deal, consider yourself booked for ON THE STORY. Suzanne Malveaux is live for us. More on the political impact of what is playing out in the White House inside the presidency of George. W. Bush. Candy Crowley, who you just heard from is back on that story after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We are ON THE STORY. The president and his administration were hit hard this week. It was a combination punch of a Supreme Court nominee pulling out and the indictment of a senior White House aide in the leak investigation.

Our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley has been ON THE STORY of presidential popularity, friction with Congress and how this is all going to play out in the political arena starting with the Harriet Miers withdrawal. Let's take a look at Candy's reporter's notebook.

CROWLEY: I think this is just more proof that the White House had had a tin ear where it didn't used to have. Those who had opposed Miers had also foreseen that she would withdraw, not necessarily like this. But what they had said and what they had outlined to Bush supporters is, listen. We're not going to go to mat for this woman. Movement conservatives do not care if a conservative is put up and defeated. In fact, they say, we'll take it to the next election. The same can be said for those who are running. They are happy to take that to the election. It is a different way to look at it than the way the president's looking at it.

There are two George Bush's in some ways. He's stubborn. He can get his back up. And then there's a George Bush that goes, cut it off. This was the George Bush that can turn on a dime. It did come at a really bad time. We are believe it or not about to start into an election year. It is also just bad timing for the president in general.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Candy, the Miers nomination clearly done in by the president's own political base of Republicans but where does this now leave the Democrats?

CROWLEY: Well, the Democrats concerned about the next Supreme Court nominee feel like they didn't have to put a chip in the ante. They didn't have to do a thing, so they feel like -- I mean they are loaded for bear at this point. They just feel like they have all the ammunition they need and they can say, well, it wasn't us and so they can be ornery. They've also begun to frame it -- and you saw this very clearly -- saying, well, you know that radical right, they did it in. The president better pick someone moderate, otherwise it'll show that he's captive of the radical right. So they've already begun to set the stage and the parameters, trying to push him obviously toward the middle.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How did this happen with Republicans though, because look, for really a number of years now, they've been the machine. They get it right. They get their plan. That's been their thing, organization, not making those big public missteps.

CROWLEY: A lot of people think that part of the problem is that over the first five years of the president's administration, some of the people that he used to listen to have gone on. They used to have what they call the iron triangle which was Joe Albaugh, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes. Karen has gone or with the State Department. Joe's gone into private business for himself. That leaves Karl. He's been distracted.

The feeling among Republicans was that the president was too insular, that he was hearing his own voice come back. There wasn't anyone going, no, no, no. This won't work. The conservatives, the movement conservatives won't like this pick.

FOREMAN: Is he willing though with the temperament and the personality that he has, is he willing to hear the people who will tell him otherwise if he doesn't already know them for 15 years back?

CROWLEY: Well, again, a lot of people have said you need to expand this insular little circle that you have because you're not hearing what's actually going on out there. That would explain Katrina. It would explain Harriet Miers, explain a lot of things that he wasn't -- no one saying Mr. President, this is a huge big deal. You've got to get out there and do something about it.

And a lot of people said, yes, he doesn't like -- you know, his comfort zone. This is a gut player. He likes his comfort zone around him. But what he might be able to do is he's got a cabinet. And this president has used his cabinet as spokespeople less than any other president I've known. So he's got people already in his circle that he could bring a little into the inner, inner circle, because right now the inner circle is Karl.

VELSHI: We're going to bring another voice into our circle here. We have a question from the audience. Go ahead, sir.

QUESTION: Hi. My name is Andrew. I'm from Washington, D.C. My question is, is it possible for George Bush to salvage his plummeting approval rating without another preemptive strike? If so, how?

CROWLEY: Well, Ronald Reagan did it in Iran-Contra. His ratings dipped to 37 percent. He brought in a new team, fresher, big bold ideas, trying to capture the attention of people. Bill Clinton did it. Post Monica, he didn't go quite as high in the polls when he left office.

But second term presidents tend to get in trouble. And first of all, they have a record and so people are beating them up about it. But beyond that, things start to come out. Can he recover? Absolutely. But he needs to, I think that the advice that he's getting is on the mark. Bring in some fresh people, get yourself back on track. And I think it's actually as Suzanne said to you. Look, what they're trying to do is say, this is horrible. It's a judicial proceeding that's going on now with Scooter Libby. On with the business of the country, because that's what the people want.

VELSHI: The stakes are high, you better have a fresh idea.

QUESTION: I hope I do. I'm Max from (INAUDIBLE) Massachusetts. And I was just wondering how you thought the CIA leak might influence the Republican Party's chances for picking up some seats in Congress in 2006?

CROWLEY: Might enhance the Republican Party's chances to pick up...

QUESTION: ... or lose their chances. CROWLEY: Well, I hate to say the obvious, but we're talking a year away and so much can change. I will tell you that Republicans are quite worried, but it's not so much this, it's been Chinese water torture. You know, it has been, this has been this week just a nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue. It has been horrible for George Bush. Other than 9/11, which was horrible in a different way, this really is the worst week of his political career, bar none. So -- and Republicans are looking at this, thinking, but it's mostly what's driving it is the war. It's not so much the leak thing, which hasn't yet taken hold, insofar as Democrats can attach it to the war. Then they feel they have a real problem.

VELSHI: That's a good point too to end that part of the discussion. On top of the political troubles at home, dramatic reminders this week of the cost of that war that Candy was talking about in Iraq. The U.S. military death toll moved to 2,000 men and women killed in Iraq.

Barbara Starr is back on that story in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: CNN is ON THE STORY. This week, the U.S. military death toll in Iraq war climbed to 2,000.

Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has been on that story all week, as well as how the military honors each of its fallen heroes. Here's Barbara's reporter's notebook.

STARR: When the military death count in Iraq finally reached 2,000, it was something the Pentagon did not want to talk about. They considered it not a milestone, not something to be recognized. To the military, every death was equally significant. At every funeral for every soldier who dies in Iraq, there is an Army general at the funeral if the family wants one. It had always been in the back of my mind that that was an important story to tell.

How do you say that final good bye?

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: It's a very solemn moment for anyone that is here, because we know that that could be our son or our daughter.

STARR: It took me two years to find the right peg, the right time to do the story. We talked to a number of Army generals who have done these missions very quietly, very privately to continue and question, what now? What now for the war? What now for dealing with the still very violent ongoing insurgency in Iraq.

VELSHI: And Barbara touched on something that Candy had said, that as tough a week as this has been, this is what sort of underlying it. This is behind what everybody thinks.

Let's go straight to the audience with a question.

QUESTION: Hi. I'm Sophie from St. Louis and I was just wondering, how do you feel people are reacting to the recent death toll rise as far as how Americans are reacting to it and how are Iraqis reacting to it?

STARR: Well, you know, in Iraq, they are acknowledging it, but what Iraqis are saying of course is, as sad and tragic as the 2,000 U.S. service members are, the Iraqis have lost so much more. Thousands and thousands of Iraqis of course have now died in this war, their security personnel, their civilians. In the United States, I think it gets very tough. It's out there, but no one is going to say anything certainly about the families who have lost their loved ones. It's a very, very delicate issue.

QUESTION: My name's David (INAUDIBLE). I'm from (INAUDIBLE) Washington State. The question is in regards to the 2,000 death toll. Should the United States have ended the Normandy invasion of France, German-occupied France in World War II after the first 2,000 soldiers had died? Or is the death toll important or is it what's being accomplished that's important?

STARR: Well, you know, that is, that's the question facing the Bush administration. How do they frame this debate? What they are saying, the reason they don't want to address the question of 2,000 is because number one is important. Number 500 is important. Number 2,000 is important. Every one is absolutely as important to each and every family that has lost their loved one.

The question on Iraq policy is however, that there's no indication the administration plans to make any change. They will stay until the job is done they say, but how they define that will be crucial. Will we see troop reductions this coming year in 2006? Will it go on without any troop reductions? How do you know when Iraq turns out to be a success? That's the question no one can answer.

VELSHI: You know what we've heard on television in the course of the last week in relation to this number is that as you said, the number -- the death number one is as important as death number 2,000. And there's some sense that they are downplaying that.

What do you really hear when you're in the halls of the Pentagon? They must be concerned. The number may not be as significant as the fact that people continue to die.

STARR: The most remarkable thing is I would say -- and I can't prove it, it's just a feeling -- that in the last three or four months, the generals, the military leadership, the men, largely men in uniform are becoming much more reflective, much more analytical about this war, much more introspective about it.

It does not mean they don't support it. It doesn't mean there isn't unqualified support for the troops. It doesn't mean that they think there's any other option but to stay the course and finish the job under their terms. But the conversations that I have with general are no longer sort of the unquestioning. These are very smart people. They think. They know and they are beginning to think, how long is this really going to last?

CROWLEY: I think Barbara (INAUDIBLE) it sort of comes off this young man's question which is that George Bush's task, if he's going to help save Republicans next year is to say the sacrifice is worth it, that there is the goal that he has to say, this was awful, but these lives were sacrificed for the greater good and something good will come out of it. At the Pentagon, do they look at the political cost of what's going on?

STARR: That is the other change. It's remarkable. In the last three to four months, we now have generals who in front of the TV camera -- General Abizaid, General Casey, Secretary Rumsfeld -- they talk about the political polls. They publicly talk about the declining support for the war. And they express their concern in terms of, they say it will be very bad if that declining support for the war goes back and becomes a repeat of the Vietnam era of declining support for the individual soldier. Because right now most Americans I think do support the young people out there who are in uniform who are doing this work. But a lot of concern about where it's all headed, 2006 is coming. It's an election year.

VELSHI: It's, any way you look at it, it is hard to see those images. And from the violence of the war to the devastation of the hurricanes, to Hurricane Wilma, with hundreds of thousands of people without power, without water fuel, CNN photojournalist Mark Biello is back on the Wilma story after this.

We're ON THE STORY here in Washington and Atlanta, but also elsewhere this week, Moscow, Nigeria and the Middle East. Take a look.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's Russia's most controversial corpse. For more than eight decades since his death, time may have finally come for Lenin to be laid to rest. But opinions are bitterly divided. For a generation of old communists, removing their mummified hero would be sacrilegious.

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nigeria's agency for food and drug administration control or NAFDAC clamping down on counterfeit drugs, trying to rid the streets of little packets of pills said to be responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of Nigerians. But for the people who can only afford the cheaper fake drugs, that remains a bitter pill to swallow.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On the streets on Tehran, they have been burning Israeli flags and chanting death is Israel loudly and often (INAUDIBLE) different manner altogether when the recently elected head of state says that Israel should be quote, wiped off the map.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: More of ON THE STORY in just a moment, but first a look at what's happening right "Now in the News".

A lawyer for Vice President Cheney's top aide is defending his client against charges he lied to federal investigators. Lewis Scooter Libby's attorney said Libby simply forgot details of certain conversations from long ago. Libby is accused of lying during a federal probe into who leaked the name of a CIA operative. And a reminder that Daylight Savings Time ends tonight. Dr. Time, who owns a repair shop in Sacramento, California, is going to be busy turning back 4,000 clocks in his shop. And don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour before going to sleep tonight.

Coming up next, CNN PRESENTS: "The Gap," more than 50 years after the historic Supreme Court decision desegregating American schools, we are going to examine the academic gap between whites and African American students. That's coming up tonight at 8:00 Eastern.

That's what's happening right "Now in the News". I'm Carol Lin. Now back to ON THE STORY.

VELSHI: CNN is ON THE STORY here on the campus of the George Washington University in the nation's capital. And we are ON THE STORY of the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma.

Now, there was plenty of warning as Wilma took her time getting to Florida. There were plenty of preparations -- local, state and federal. But damage and disruption were severe. Millions without power, thousands struggling to find food and fuel and shelter.

CNN photojournalist Mark Biello was on the Wilma story. Check out his notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK BIELLO, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: I think some of the biggest challenges we have when we cover these hurricanes are you have to deal with the elements. You have to deal with a lot of torrential rain. You have to deal with the high winds that could blow over the equipment.

A lot of our equipment goes down in the elements. We have to keep stuff wrapped up in plastic bags. The dangers of the satellite trucks, especially at the height of the storm, is the wind is just so high and the rains are so bad that you can rip the dish right off the top of the truck.

We were traveling from the west coast to the east coast and we got to the town in the storm.

When we arrived at the Tropical mobile park, these trailer homes were completely ripped off their foundations and turned upside down and on their sides and the devastation in the park was severe.

A lot of the survivors were traumatized but you just talk to them, you tell them the story. Most of the people that you come across are willing to tell their stories because they're so relieved and thankful that they're still alive and that they survived the storm.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Mark Biello joins us now from Atlanta and he is a veteran of these things. He has been through Katrina and Wilma. And he will tell you, too, he is one of a band of unsung members of our team who do this all the time. Mark, thank you for being with us. We have an audience question.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Katie (ph), I'm from Baton Rouge, and I go to Southern Methodist University. And I would like to know what lessons you learned while you were covering Katrina that helped you cover Rita and most recently Hurricane Wilma?

BIELLO: Well, Katie, I think some of the factors, especially with Katrina was you are sometimes unprepared and don't realize how many people stayed behind in these storms or they feel it's safe enough to weather the storm out. And after Katrina, when Wilma came ashore and came in, we knew that there would probably be people that stayed behind in the small towns, especially the ones in the interior of Florida and in some of rural areas and the farmland areas.

FOREMAN: Mark. You know something, you've been hammered here by various storms for a couple of months now. Is this the point at which you are saying to yourself, I need actually decompression time to come out of this thing?

BIELLO: Yes, it's very difficult. You see a lot of the misery and catastrophe. You see a lot of good stories come out of it, too -- rescues, the -- but yeah. It is hard psychologically and physically on us, all the crews, all the people, reporters, producers, sound people, everybody.

We're up 'round the clock. We're fighting the elements. We're fighting fatigue. You have to do a lot of driving. You have to worry about flat tires from all the debris in the streets, the flying debris during the storms. But then you also have to deal with a lot of the misery and pain and suffering that a lot of people go through when they're confronted with these catastrophes.

VELSHI: And Mark, I want to pick up on that. You've talked about a lot of good stories. One of those good stories is something you did. I don't want to put you in an uncomfortable situation but you also made a choice to put your camera down at one point and in some ways become part of the story.

BIELLO: Well, yeah, during the first night of Katrina with Jeanne Meserve, we came across the Ninth Ward and I came across a couple gentlemen, Michael Tasshuray (ph) and Chris Mercadol (ph) and his son. And they were just private citizens that took their boat out. And we were there literally hours after the storm hit and there were hundreds that were trapped and a lot of people that were drowning and needed to be rescued.

Now, granted, we -- I wouldn't have joined in and helped rescue people if there were enough resources there, but there just wasn't anyone on the scene. There were a few Coast Guard helicopters and a few Coast Guard around in a small whaler boat, but that was it at the time.

So I made the decision to put the camera down and help these people because they didn't ask for my help to pull these people. They needed the physical strength to pull them and rescue these people from drowning from the waters.

VELSHI: Mark, we had another question from our audience.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Tabari Stillman (ph) from Miami, Florida, I attend Southern Methodist University. I noticed you said that a lot of people didn't leave because they probably didn't have the resources to do so, but do you think that there are those that stay to receive free federal government aide?

BIELLO: Do I think some people stay for a free ride? No. I think a lot of people are just caught off guard. Maybe there were a few in the bunch but I think a lot of people realize that if you do get out and you can't get back into your area and you run out of money, what do you do then, especially if you don't have resources or family members anywhere else in the country.

VELSHI: Mark, good to have you with us. Thank you very much for being with us. Mark Biello ON THE STORY of the hurricanes.

We'll see you back ON THE STORY, Mark.

We're going now online with Internet reporter Abbi Tatton. How are the White House stories doing on the Web? Two bloggers join us from their home computers right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We are ON THE STORY and the story of the CIA leak investigation, the story of the Harriet Miers withdrawal were buzzing on the Internet this week and our Internet reporter Abbi Tatton joins us now.

Abbi, you are going to take us into the blogosphere, I understand.

ABBI TATTON, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: I am indeed, Ali. Well, the big blog stories this fall have been on the left, the CIA leak investigation, on the right the Harriet Miers nomination. And we saw them explode within a day of each other this week.

On Thursday, the story was about the conservative opposition online to the Harriet Miers nomination. And when the withdrawal happened, we saw relief and celebration amongst those conservative bloggers and a lot of looking ahead. What's next? That was Thursday.

On Friday, all eyes were here. This is the Web site of the Office of the Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and a Web site that was set up just over a week ago. We were all trying to read into what that meant then. Today it was the place to go to read those indictments -- the indictment of Scooter Libby. So you saw lots and lots of people linking to this site today.

And we've got two bloggers here joining us who have been hard at work on these two stories this week. We have Jeralyn Merritt from TalkLeft.com. She is an attorney out in Denver, Colorado, joining us via Webcam. And also Edward Morrissey. He is at CaptainsQuartersBlog.com and he is a conservative blogger who is in Minnesota. Thank you very much for joining us.

JERALYN MERRITT, TALKLEFT.COM: Hi, Abbi.

TATTON: Hi, there. Jeralyn, I'm going to start with you. On the CIA leak case, I have been looking at your blog, your archives, here's TalkLeft. At last count some 300 posts, I think, that you've written about this -- I think it's probably a shock to you -- going back to July of 2003. Today with the indictment, do you feel any sense of resolution at all? Are you going to let up?

MERRITT: Not at all. We only have a fraction of the answers, I think, that we need. To me the whole thing has just been this Rubik's Cube, this puzzle of trying to put all the pieces together of who did what and I don't think we got many answers today at all.

TATTON: So how many hours -- did you work today? Was this all you did today?

MERRITT: Today this was all I did, full time.

TATTON: Ed, I'm going to go across to you. And I know you've written about the CIA leak case, but I really want to ask you about the withdrawal of Harriet Miers. You were one of the conservative bloggers who opposed this nominee and you're actually -- you've gotten on the radar of the establishment, Republicans who were reaching out to you, the Republican National Committee in a conference call, trying to win you guys over, didn't really work.

What do you want to hear now, now you've got on their radar screen?

EDWARD MORRISSEY, CAPTAINSQUARTERSBLOG.COM: Well, what I want to hear is I want to hear that they're going to fulfill the promise that they made during the election, which was that they were going to be bold, they were going to nominate somebody with a solid track record of conservative though, of - actually, more originalist thought on the Supreme Court.

The whole idea here is to try to tame the Supreme Court down from being a super legislature back to where conservatives feel the correct role of the Supreme Court should be. And getting a nominee with -- Harriet Miers is obviously a very accomplished attorney but didn't have any sort of track record along those lines.

We are in a position where we have the White House and we have the Senate, and we want to see a nominee who reflects that. We want to see a nominee whose work reflects that philosophy.

VELSHI: From the blogosphere back to the audience in just a second. We have a question from the audience.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Austin and I am from Dallas, Texas. I was just wondering whether you think the emergence of blogs is helping or hurting the profession of journalism?

TATTON: I think we can get a lot more. We can add to a story by looking at the blogosphere. We can take the pulse of the public. We can also find stories that maybe we're not noticing. It's a definite addition as long as you're careful of what you read. No one should be trusting anything online, and everything should be investigated and looked into.

But I'm also going to throw it to the two bloggers. What would you say about that? Ed, you've been critical of the mainstream media. What do you think your role in the blogosphere -- what's the balance here?

MORRISSEY: Well, I think you have to look at the blogosphere as the power consumers of the mainstream media. I mean, we are the ones who are probably the best readers of newspapers. We probably read several newspapers a day. We go through several different other types of media sources a day. And what we do is we reflect what we're seeing. We give our opinions as to whether or not we're getting the entire truth here or if there's pieces left out there, inaccuracies, and what we do is we link to our root sources so that people can see where it is that we're getting our information from.

And Jeralyn and I do pretty much the same thing, it's just that we come from a couple of different viewpoints. Jeralyn does a fine job coming from a more liberal perspective and I'd like to think that I do pretty decent job coming from a more conservative perspective. And that way I think everybody wins, including the mainstream media.

TATTON: Jeralyn, a response from you?

MERRITT: You know, I love the mainstream media. That's where I start out getting all of my information and then I take what I get from them and then I analyze it and everything, for example, just as Ed said, we root source our stuff. Everything Ed puts on his blog or I put on my blog has a link in there where you can go to the actual source of that information.

Can you trust every blog? No, they're read at your own risk. And do we have a point of view? Yes, I definitely am a liberal and I'm trying to promote that agenda. But what I'm also doing is using the facts I get from the mainstream media.

VELSHI: Jeralyn, Edward, Abbi, thank you so much. Great discussion.

Coming up, Tom Foreman is ON THE STORY of a haunted house filled with ghosts, goblins and God. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We are ON THE STORY. Haunted houses are a Halloween fixture. Often just a few thrills for the neighborhood kids, but in some places haunted houses are something different, a way for fundamentalist Christians to get their social and religious views across.

CNN correspondent Tom Foreman went to Plainview, Texas. Here's his notebook. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: We went down to see Hell House, which is a Christian version of a haunted house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not steal.

FOREMAN: They depict various activities that they believe to be various sins. If you abuse your family, this is what happens. If you drink too much, this is what happens.

The really controversial part to this has been their depiction of gay lifestyles and the abortion scenes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand why you took my life away. Whatever you felt the problem was, you could have overcome and gotten help.

FOREMAN: One thing you're struck by when you're around these places is that these people take it very seriously.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have an obligation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To stand for what we believe in.

FOREMAN: What's so upsetting about this? We had children coming out that were just in tears.

I think Christians, and in particular, fundamentalists, have been oversimplified in the news for quite some time now. These are people who believe they are doing God's work.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Wow, that's a powerful story. That's a tough one to do as a journalist.

FOREMAN: It can be, yeah, because here's one of the things that is different about a religious story compared to most stories. We attach religion so intrinsically to who we are. You can go cover Democrats and Republicans and say, well, I won't talk about my political views. When you talk about your religion, it is who you are. And when you encounter other people, it is reasonable that people put a test to you as a reporter and say, who are you? What is your faith? How much do you believe in? If you're a Christian, are you my kind of Christian?

And that's what you encounter when you do these stories, particularly with groups who take their religion very seriously.

VELSHI: And there are a lot of people in this country who take their religion very seriously.

FOREMAN: Oh yeah, seriously, sure.

VELSHI: Let's go to the audience. QUESTION: Hi. I'm Nita (ph) from Fayetteville, Arkansas. And I was just wondering -- this has just been such a busy news week. Why do think this is such an important story to cover right now when there are so many other important things? And do you think that there is a threat to America because of what fundamentalist Christians are doing to celebrate Halloween?

FOREMAN: You know what I think this story is? I think the fact that we can have a debate about this sort of thing a little bit is a conceit of a very comfortable and wealthy society. If you are worried about having wheat next year or water, you can't really have this discussion. But we're doing pretty well as a society, so we do have these discussions.

The interesting link here is between this, which is very showy and very easy to look at and say, ah, it's either funny or it moves me or it does whatever people think. And what happened in Washington this week? What happened in Washington this week was the political arm of many people who have some of these very serious views. I talked to a lot of them this week about politics here and they were saying, look, what's happening in Washington is this. We cozied up to the Republicans years ago because they shared our views, and now on Harriet Miers at the Supreme Court, we're not so sure they share our views. That is serious.

This is serious because it is one of those indicators of what people think, at least some portion of the population.

CROWLEY: I still think religion to a lot of people in this country -- and I'm interested in how you -- do you find that they just sit down and talk about their religion and their religious belief just -- I came from the Midwest, where you didn't talk about how much you made, you didn't talk about your religion, there are just certain things that you didn't ever talk about. And now everybody talks about how much they make and what their beliefs ...

FOREMAN: I think a lot of people are talking about religion now. A lot of you are here from Southern Methodist University, is that right? How many?

A lot of them. I think a lot of people feel not only comfortable with talking about religion now, but feel like they have to in part because we are having a giant public debate about what we stand for. We don't know as a nation right now exactly how we feel about certain issues.

You can do polls. They will tell you about how we feel about gay marriage, for example, or about abortion or other things and they will tell you something. But you know from your friends and your families and your lives, we wrestle with these things, we wrestle with our faith.

VELSHI: Are you one of our audience members from Southern Methodist University?

QUESTION: Yes. FOREMAN: Welcome.

QUESTION: Hi. I'm Reinie, I'm from Sugar Land, Texas. And my question is, is this only found in the Bible Belt or small-town Texas?

FOREMAN: No, it's found in every state of the country right now. What's interesting about this is, I covered these people 10 years ago when there were about 200 of these hell houses, as they call them. At the time, I thought, interesting thing, flash in the pan, it will go a couple of years, the novelty will wear off and it will go away. Now there are like 3,500 of them. They're in every state.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that people like this who believe this way should be marginalized, should be forgotten about, or shouldn't be taken seriously, because they believe very strongly in what they're doing it and they don't like it, like none of us like it, when we're pushed aside and treated as if somehow our faith, because it's different, doesn't belong.

VELSHI: Well, Halloween is not the only thing coming up. We're going to take a look at what's ON THE STORY next week, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Let's take a quick look ahead ON THE STORY. Tom, you know what you're working on this week?

FOREMAN: Yeah. We're going to have the whole hell house story on NEWSNIGHT this coming week and I'm going to be looking into why all those Southern Methodist students are here and not at school.

VELSHI: Candy Crowley?

CROWLEY: I suspect that we'll get a Supreme Court nominee and that's what I'll work on.

VELSHI: And you'll be busy with that. Barbara?

STARR: A man that survived the Holocaust and then became a prisoner, a POW during the Korean War, got his Medal of Honor 50 years later.

VELSHI: Wow.

STARR: And what about you?

VELSHI: I'm going to China. I am going to be spending the week figuring out why China is as big a story as it is in business news, which is what I cover.

Look forward to seeing you guys again, look forward to seeing you all. Thanks for being with us.

Thanks to my colleagues and my audience here at the George Washington University and thank you for watching ON THE STORY. We'll be back each week, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Straight ahead, a check on what's making news right now.

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