Return to Transcripts main page

On the Story

The debate over "intelligent design" is causing tension on some university campuses, as well as in the schools. As residents return to parts of New Orleans, some are finding the bodies of relatives in their homes. Internet bloggers speculate on the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation

Aired November 19, 2005 - 19:00   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Carol Lin with a look at what's happening right now in the news. We're talking about bombings in Iraq tonight. They killed five U.S. soldiers today north of Baghdad. At least five others were hurt. It is the same day a suicide bomber killed at least two dozen people in a funeral procession.
And troubling times for the Ford Motor Company. About 4,000 Ford Motor employees in North America will be out of a job in the coming months, mostly white collar positions. That is what's happening right now in the news. I'm Carol Lin. Coming up next, CNN's ON THE STORY, President Bush is talking human rights in Asia. But it's the war in Iraq that's taking center stage.

And later, CNN PRESENTS has a dramatic inside look at North Korea. We are going to take you under cover for a rare glimpse of what daily life is like inside the communist state. That is at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Now, ON THE STORY.

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

Mike Chinoy is on the story with President Bush in Asia, pressure building back home over the war.

Tom Foreman talks about new claims of torture, competing accounts. Who's telling the truth?

Kelli Arena looks at how a suicide bombing in Jordan shifts the spotlight to women as terrorists.

Rusty Dornin is on the story in New Orleans, the painfully slow discovery of the dead.

Delia Gallagher looks at the national debate over religion and science. What should be taught in public schools?

And Internet reporter Jacki Scheckner is on the story online, how the bloggers are back on the CIA leak case.

Welcome. I'm Ali Velshi. With me here, Kelli Arena and Tom Foreman. Our correspondents will be taking questions from the studio audience drawn from visitors, college students and people across Washington. Now straight to President Bush on the road in Asia, on the griddle back here over the war, how he justified starting it, how he's waging it now. White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is part of our team of reporters keeping up with Mr. Bush. Let's look at her reporter's notebook.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The big challenge is that we're 14 hours ahead and so they're sleeping. We're awake. We're sleeping. They're awake and it's just ends up being 20 hour days. We're focusing on trade issues. At the same time a lot of people are talking about the Iraq war, so it really is like covering two different, two different sides of the universe really. We're on one side or the other and then they intersect on television.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vice President Cheney called it reprehensible for critics to question how you took the country to war.

MALVEAUX: This is something that President Bush simply cannot escape, the debate over pre-war intelligence, the controversy, but it's a debate the president and the vice president very much prepared for, part of an aggressive campaign to what they say is setting the record straight. To an outsider, it looks like it's all a big surprise, like it's an embarrassment to the president to ask these kinds of questions when he's with other world leaders. But these are questions that they're prepared for and they know they're coming.

VELSHI: We are lucky to have one of our most experienced reporters, CNN senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy. He's with us from Pousan (ph), South Korea, where President Bush attended the Asia Pacific summit. Mike, it's been a busy week for you. Thank you for joining us. It must have been tough for President Bush. He was there on a trade mission and it's been sidetracked by all of the stuff that's been going on here in America. What it tough for him? Did it detract from it? Did it weaken his message over there Mike?

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Ali. Well, it's hard to tell how much impact it had on the other world leaders but what I think is interesting is there were 20 other heads of government here for this Asian-Pacific economic conference and what I think for them must have really been striking was the way the intensity of this very, very sharp political battle in the United States over Iraq followed the president everywhere. The president couldn't hold any kind of meeting where reporters were present without Iraq coming up. It dominated all the coverage by the press corps who travel with the president and so it must have really shown to the other Asian leaders how overwhelming, how all-consuming the domestic fight over Iraq is in the United States. To that extent, it may affect their judgments of how in control the president is of his own agenda.

VELSHI: Mike, it's not often that our viewers get a chance to speak to somebody in South Korea. It's not often we do either, so we've got questions from the audience. What's your name and what's your question?

QUESTION: My name's (INAUDIBLE) from (INAUDIBLE) California. Although South Korea is a very small country, it's obvious that their role in the U.S. relations with the Asia-Pacific area is important. However, the younger generation has a huge wave of anti-Americanism. How is the best way for U.S. policy to deal with this problem?

CHINOY: Well, you're right that South Korean society is very deeply divided. The older generation which lived through the Korean War has active memories of it, much more supportive of the strong alliance with the United States. The younger generation with no memory of the war feels a little bit like they're treated kind of as a younger sibling by the United States and there's some resentment of that and there's also a lot of anxiety and distress here about President Bush's very tough line towards North Korea.

Many South Koreans see the North Koreans not as enemies, but as kind of a wayward cousin. So that's a fact of life here and South Korea's president when he met with President Bush the other day, they had a press conference afterwards and while the two of them stressed they were on the same page on North Korea, that the alliance was strong, you could see, you could almost see in the body language that they don't agree on, particularly on how to deal with North Korea and President Bush making very negative comments about North Korea. The South Korean president saying he's open to a summit with the North Korean leader. So the difference is there. It's a fact of life and it does affect the South Korean/U.S. relationship.

VELSHI: And Mike, I don't know if it's the same for you living in Asia but certainly over here, South Korea plays a very important role in my living room. A lot of appliances and electronics over the last few years have come from there. But we got another question from the audience. Sir, your name, where you're from and your question.

QUESTION: Hugh and I'm from Washington. My question is, what has been the Chinese government's reaction to President Bush's statement about Taiwan?

CHINOY: The president in his speech in Japan earlier in the week held up Taiwan as well as Japan as models of democracy that he suggested mainline China should follow and that was pointed criticism of China's human rights record. The Chinese don't like it when U.S. officials say anything about Taiwan and they responded immediately by saying, that's interference in our internal affairs. Certainly, privately I suspect Beijing is not happy with this. On the other hand, the president didn't really try and upset the whole apple cart. He committed the U.S. still to the (INAUDIBLE) one China policy. It's important for the Bush administration to keep relations with China on an even keel.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm curious. Right now we have a big debate over whether or not the U.S. should immediately pull troops out of Iraq and I'm just wondering what the consensus is in the region there.

CHINOY: Well, there isn't really a consensus. You've got governments like Japan and South Korea and Mongolia, all stops on the president's itinerary that have got troops in Iraq and that officially back his policy. I think what you do get is a sense of unease about where Iraq is going and I think people here have watched with some concern all the revelations in Washington, the allegations about playing games with intelligence. They're alarmed by the splits in the United States and by the sense that it's weakening the United States. It's making it harder for the United States to focus on other issues. At this APEC (ph) summit for example, the focus really was supposed to have been on trade, getting world trade talks going, working on issues like bird flu and terrorism. But Iraq overshadowed everything and so I think there is that concern that the U.S. is getting bogged down and preoccupied and it's affecting Washington's ability to manage its relations elsewhere.

VELSHI: Good to see you here on the story, Mike Chinoy from North, from South Korea. And from presidential travels to the gender of terrorism, CNN Justice correspondent Kelli Arena is back on the story of whether authorities are on guard against women suicide bombers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: CNN is on the story. Dramatic video out of Jordan at the start of the week. We all saw a woman showing off her belt of explosives and that image prompted Justice correspondent Kelli Arena to find out more about women as terrorists. Here's Kelli's notebook.

ARENA: Even though covering this beat, I knew that there were female suicide bombers. It really was amazing for me to see her very calmly talking about what she was about to do, what was she meant to do and that was very chilling. The fact is, women have been used as suicide bombers since the mid-1980s. (INAUDIBLE) who protects the U.S. Capitol says, while his force has taken the threat seriously for years, the public is not.

The point that Chief Gainer (ph) made is that the public doesn't look at women in the same way they look at men. I think that women are viewed as less of a threat. Law enforcement really need to get over that hurdle. We have done lots of reporting obviously on suicide bombers in the past. It was a good opportunity to go back and talk to (INAUDIBLE) about the history of female suicide bombers, remind viewers that wasn't a new phenomenon, talk to the people on the streets who are dealing with the threat.

VELSHI: That's Kelli Arena's notebook on a very interesting story. Let's go straight to our audience and see what they've got to say about this. We've got a question right here. Go ahead. Where are you from and what's your name?

QUESTION: I'm Maura from Orlando, Florida and I was wondering why specifically do you think there's an increase in female suicide bombers.

ARENA: Well, according to the people that I spoke to, it's that more and more terrorists organizations are allowing them to partake. I mean there used to be a day when Hamas for example would not allow women to be suicide bombers and then changed its mind. Now it seems that al Qaeda has started that same trend. Traditionally they did not allow women to take part in attacks like that and now they are. And there's just a need for bodies as well. So it's a very - it's a practical step.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How do you judge - let me ask you something about this, because you deal with these people all the time. And you talk to the police anywhere, they're going to say, oh, we take this just as seriously as we do males. I don't know if I buy that, because I've been through all these checkpoints and it doesn't look that way. How do you judge that?

ARENA: They do not see women as a threat and don't forget, some of these suicide bombers disguise themselves as pregnant women and here we tend to allow - wave them through security and so on. But this is something that's been going on for ages. I mean in 1991, India's prime minister was assassinated by a woman and it was because he waived his security away to allow her to approach him, to put a garland around him, but she pulled her belt and blew them both up.

VELSHI: Let's go back to the audience.

QUESTION: Hello, I'm Terry from Easton, Pennsylvania. I have two questions. Is the Islamic media making more of the women's role in the - as terrorist, suicide bombers than western media? And secondly, what role do the males in the women's family have in recruiting them to do this act of terrorism, suicide?

ARENA: This is not as big a phenomenon in the Middle East as it is here because they're very used to female suicide bombers. The Tamal Tigers of Sri Lanka, a third of their suicide bombers are women. You have the black widows in Chechnya, they're infamous (INAUDIBLE) suicide bombers. So it's not a new phenomenon. This has been going on since the mid 1980s. But we haven't really seen it here. Our point of reference is al Qaeda. There have been two female suicide bombers that have performed attacks on behalf of al Qaeda. So this is a new phenomenon here. So far as why they do it, how they're recruited, it's more personal instead of business. These are women who tend to have brothers, fathers, husbands that have been killed as part of the effort or in war-torn countries and they are personally moved to get involved.

VELSHI: Kelli, just as a reporter, when I watch this, when I watch you talking about this on TV, I make the assumption that well, there was a woman suicide bomber, so there's a story on women suicide bombers. But it's not that simple. When you decide that you're going to go after the story, where do you go, because as much as you've heard about this before and this is your beat and you know about it, who's your first call to? What do you do to find this out?

ARENA: Well, the first call was to people have written books about this and there are a lot of them, because as I said, this is not necessarily a new phenomenon. So turn to those people and then just law enforcement. I mean, Tom's point is a very good one. I really - in 2003, the FBI sent out a bulletin to all of its state and local law enforcement partners warning about women suicide bombers, not to just look at men, because people are starting to sort of profile on their own, but to remember that women posed a threat. So I wanted to know if that had really sunk in and so I called lots of local and state law enforcement people around the country and said, are you really looking at women differently? And many of them were very honest and said, we're not there yet.

VELSHI: Interesting, Kelli Arena, thank you so much for that. Kelli's work reminds us all to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

Well, part of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq are charges of mistreatment and even torture. Coming up, the story of two Iraqis claiming they were threatened with (INAUDIBLE) beaten and tortured in a variety of ways. We're back with Tom Foreman after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: CNN is on the story at the George Washington University and in Washington this week you probably saw the story. Two Iraqi men went public with a lawsuit and interviews, saying that they've been tortured, beaten, shocked and even threatened with a mauling by lions, all by the U.S. military. CNN's Tom Foreman in a long day of interviews, tried to figure out their stories. Here's his notebook.

FOREMAN: I've been in radio or television for 28 years and I've never encountered anything quite like this, where we had to wait for so many hours over something that seemingly is fairly simple. The lawyers behind this are pushing these guys forward. They're contacting news media agencies and saying, we would like you to talk to our clients and here their stories. One of your complaints is that you were (INAUDIBLE)

Whenever we ask questions about things that they really weren't sure they wanted to ask I think about the sexual abuse they alleged. No answers on that, about their political views, things that might speak to motivation as to why they might have complaints. No answers on that. My view is look, people have a right to do what they want to do. They can stay or go. I have a responsibility to show the truth of what happened.

There are many troubling issues raised by this lawsuit. In the end what we did was put a tremendous effort into making sure that the story was accurate and that it was fair.

VELSHI: Tom Foreman on the story of that lawsuit. Let's go straight to our audience and sure, we got a lot of questions. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Chris from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was wondering, due to lack of evidence, how do the two men plan to sue the U.S. military?

FOREMAN: Well, here's the thing. You know the lion charge (INAUDIBLE) headlines, that's not in the lawsuit. They don't need any evidence on that because it's never going to come up in court. But that's the thing that grabbed all the headlines. This is the problem. There were several things they brought up which are not in the lawsuit. The things in the lawsuit by and large are similar to the charges you've heard before and there are some discrepancies in this. But I do want to explain a little bit about what happened here, the process, so you really understand. We were supposed to start talking to both of these guys at 9:00 in the morning. We waited 4 1/2 hours before the lawyers brought the first one forward. We asked him questions. As soon as we got into a tough area, they hustled him up and took him away. We waited another two, three hours. One of the lawyers came and did an interview with us while arguing with us, saying, no, no, no. You can't show the parts where he looked bad. You can't do this. You can't do this and we have to discuss ground rules for the second guy. I said, you know what the ground rules are, I'll ask questions. He'll answer. Take it or leave it. That's it. They didn't like it, but that's what we do and we didn't get the second guy until we'd been there nine, 10 hours. It was unbelievable.

VELSHI: Go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi. My name's Christy Bateto (ph). I'm a GW student from Hooks, New Hampshire and my question this evening is, how can the ACLU be supporting enemy soldiers who are clearly against every American ideal?

FOREMAN: Their argument in this is that they are going after the chain of military command because they feel that Donald Rumsfeld and the other officers down the line are promoting something that is against the U.S. Constitution and against international law, that they're promoting torture, torment of people in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's how they can do, because that's what they believe.

ARENA: And Tom, you said before, the thing that grabbed all the headlines was this lion claim. What's, the U.S. military supposed to have lions just waiting around to eat people.

FOREMAN: There are lions in many countries, there are, and the fact is, the Hussein family kept lions. But here's the thing. We called until we found the guy with the international fund for animal welfare who took care of the lions and he said, no, they didn't get to our lions. Most of them were transferred out beforehand. The others were under lock and key by them. Now, could there have been some other lions somewhere? Yeah, maybe. The problem is the fact that these interviews were so controlled and so strange in many ways. I mean they had the lawyer coming in, asked their guy six or eight times did they ask you any questions? Six, seven, eight times he said, no, they absolutely did not. He leaves the room and his lawyer comes back in and says, you know. He was mistaken. He was interrogated a lot. What are we supposed to do with that?

VELSHI: The other side of that...

FOREMAN: Could there be lions? Maybe, but we don't know.

VELSHI: The other side of Kelli's question is that there is this backdrop of the fact that the U.S. military has been accused of some misdeeds, Abu Ghraib, in other places. So there's this what they call reasonable doubt (INAUDIBLE) There's something there that forces you as a journalist to have to...

FOREMAN: We can't determine from this day of odd interviews, we cannot determine the utter truth or falsehood of what these men said. What they said, based - amidst that backdrop is that maybe some of the stuff happened. Maybe all of it happened and maybe none of it happened.

ARENA: And isn't this part of a tactic that...

FOREMAN: Well, yeah, this is -- one of the problems is, I mean military, our own military consultants in the Pentagon, some said, look, if you're training insurgents and they know this is true, one of the things they trained the insurgents to do is to come out and say, no matter what happened, I was abused. Again, it doesn't tell us about these gentlemen. They may have been. We don't know. But that's the situation we're dealing with here and the funny part is, when I asked their attorneys and I think they're in best heart (ph) trying to tell the story of their clients and what they believe to be true. Nonetheless, when I said to them, how do you know these guys aren't insurgents? Their answer was first, well, we've talked to them, which is no answer at all, because I can talk to any of you. I don't know your truth. But secondly, because the U.S. military let them go, that shows they're not dangerous. The whole lawsuit is about the incompetence of the military. You can't very well then turn around and say, that's the justification for them not being a problem.

VELSHI: That is a truly fascinating set of interviews.

FOREMAN: It was an amazing day in journalism.

VELSHI: Tom Foreman, thank you for that.

From allegations of torture to a national debate over religion, science and what to teach about evolution. CNN's faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher is back on the story of evolution versus intelligent design. CNN correspondents are on the story from here in Washington, New York and New Orleans, but also elsewhere. Take a look.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in the heart of Pakistan's earthquake zone, winter is closing in for the near three million who are still homeless.

American envoy Karen Hughes came to (INAUDIBLE), the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir to see the devastation and assess the urgent need for more help.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Egypt's Muslim brotherhood campaigned hard under the simple slogan, Islam is the solution. In the first of three stages of elections, the Muslim brotherhood has already doubled the number of seats they hold in parliament. They expect to capture about a third of the seats when all three rounds are over.

SOHN JIE-AE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tens of thousands of farmers demanded the government scrap a proposal to increase imports of rice, South Korea's food staple.

We're in a closed (ph) market, South Koreans pay as much as three times more for rice. Poor farmers say that if the market was opened, their industry would collapse.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We are ON THE STORY here on the campus of the George Washington University in the center of the nation's capital.

Science and religion can be a fiery combination. Look at the national debate over whether so-called "intelligent design" should be taught in addition to evolution in public schools. CNN's faith and values correspondent, Delia Gallagher, is on that story. Check out her "Notebook."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It involves Science and God, and those are age-old controversial questions and have been debated for centuries. How much can science explain? What does religion then explain? this is a debate which is being discussed throughout America. And it's not just in the schools, of course, it's also in universities.

(voice-over): We spoke with a number of scientists on both sides of the argument.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't consider intelligent design to be a science.

MICHAEL BEHE, LEHIGH UNIVERSITY: From the beginning, I've said that I think the designer is God.

GALLAGHER: There is a fairly well-known professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, Michael Behe. And he is sort of the spokesperson for (INAUDIBLE) It's very interesting to see how his views have sort of ostracized him from the rest of his colleagues.

Ultimately, this is not about whether we believe intelligent design to be a legitimate theory or not, it's about what are we teaching in the classroom?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Delia Gallagher, CNN's faith and values correspondent, great to see you, Delia. We normally are in the same place. We've got an audience full of questions for you.

Let's start with this gentleman. Your name, where you're from, and your question.

QUESTION: My name's Zach (ph). I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And the Vatican recently came out against the teaching of intelligent design in science classrooms, and I was wondering if there was any -- if this was going to have any implications in terms of how evolutionary theory is taught in areas that are predominantly Catholic.

GALLAGHER: Well, it's good that you bring that up. There is no official Vatican view on intelligent design. I mean, it's often rare that there is sort of official Vatican views on anything. You know, they have to go through years of coming up with documents and things. So what came out was a view from a Vatican official, and a valid one, at that. Of course, he works -- the Vatican has an academy of sciences, and so on. So it's an important viewpoint, but it doesn't necessarily represent the entire view of the Vatican or of the pope, as it were, and therefore doesn't really have any bearing on what they teach in the Catholic schools.

VELSHI: Delia, another question from the audience.

Your name, sir, where you're from and your question?

QUESTION: Yes. Jim from Arlington, Virginia. The debate between the proponents of intelligent design, or creationism, as it's sometimes called, and evolution is a very polarized one. People on one side or the other. And yet there are some people who believe there's no conflict between the two, that a higher power could have created the beginnings of life, and then that evolved over time into the humans and the world as we see it today.

I wonder if there's any possibility of that being a compromise approach that could be taught in at least some schools.

GALLAGHER: Well, that's interesting because it goes back to the question of the Vatican. That's exactly what is taught in a lot of schools, religious schools, that is, because, of course, you wouldn't teach that in the public schools because any reference -- and this is the problem with intelligent design -- any reference to God or even to a designer, sort of leaving out the name of who that designer might be, but the implication is there that it would be God, wouldn't -- or -- be mentioned in the public school. This is the argument right now with intelligent design. They don't want to mention this idea of a designer in a science class.

So let's be -- let's be clear about what this is involving. It's talking about bringing in this kind of a theory of intelligent design into a science class. So it certainly is taught in Catholic schools that, you know, there is room for a creator, God, and the theory of evolution both. That's science and religion for you. But the question here is whether that is something which should be introduced into the public classroom.

ARENA: Delia, what did you see on college campuses when you were talking with these authorities?

GALLAGHER: Well, the amazing thing that I saw was this -- this division between -- and you know, it's an academic question and a practical question. So on the academic side, it's quite normal and fair, and indeed, one wants it in a university. I think that -- that there is a division between what Professor A thinks and what Professor B thinks on any one thing. However, this, since it is a theory which brings in the supernatural and involves science, I found that it was really a sort of conflict there that went right to the core of some of these professors' belief. In the one hallway where the man in the piece, Professor Behe, is one of the main proponents in the contrary (ph) of intelligent design, works at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania -- right across the hall from him, his colleague had sort of pasted to the door anti- intelligent design articles with highlighted bits of where exactly the theory goes wrong.

So I mean, they're perfectly civil to each other, of course, but -- but the debate rages within that kind of a community. And then, you know, you've got parents suing school boards in the school system. So it's an extremely important practical debate for parents and teachers in the school system.

VELSHI: Delia, I guess pretty much everything you cover has two distinct sides and probably several more in the middle.

We have another audience question for you. Your name and where you're from?

QUESTION: Hi. My name is Luke. I'm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And my question is -- is intelligent design a gateway to the reemergence of religion in the public school system?

GALLAGHER: Well, that's exactly what the opponents of it fear. Now, the proponents of intelligent design will tell you that they do not propose to say who the designer is, and yet they say there is a designer of these sort of complex systems. Now, they don't necessarily say that evolution has to be kicked out. They just want to add this claim that evolution doesn't explain everything, that there are some things in nature which seem to have been designed already complex, that couldn't have evolved from something more simple, and so they just want to say that this complexity must have been created from the very beginning, and therefore, there must be some kind of designer intelligence behind it.

But of course, on the other side, they say that is just an excuse to get some creationism idea into the schools.

VELSHI: Delia, it's a great story. Good to see you.

GALLAGHER: Thank you, Ali.

VELSHI: Feel free to use my fancy office until I get back.

GALLAGHER: Yes, I'm going to go check the computer now.

VELSHI: Don't do that! Delia Gallagher, CNN's faith and values correspondent.

Following Delia's report's not going to be tough for you on intelligent design. This debate is going to be seen. You'll see Delia talking about it on "PAULA ZAHN NOW" weeknights at 8:00 PM Eastern.

From religion to heartbreak and frustration in New Orleans over finding and identifying the dead. CNN's Rusty Dornin is back ON THE STORY in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: CNN is ON THE STORY, and we've been in New Orleans since before Katrina. We never left. This week, more dead bodies discovered, and relatives are angry about bodies and how they're misidentified and even unidentified. CNN's Rusty Dornin is following this in New Orleans. Let's look inside her "Notebook."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: People are still shocked that bodies are being found in New Orleans. A lot of people thought that it was over. The homes that were -- they had searched previously, they are coming back and people are finding bodies inside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I walked in here, I found my grandma on the floor.

DORNIN: Paul Murphy (ph) went inside his house. He was completely stunned to find his grandmother's body still there. In the case of Susie Eaton (ph), she ended up calling CNN because she thought she had nowhere to turn to. She felt her mother was inside a house that's only two blocks from here.

This is what's left of the block where Susie Eaton's mother lived. When we called Eaton, she said she was thankful to know that much but still wonders what happened to her mother.

This is something that they're very fearful, when the lower 9th ward, this area, opens up December 1, that other people are going to go into the houses, the very few houses that do remain, and find a dead body in there, someone that they love, their relative.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Hey, Rusty, good to see you. Thank you for joining us. This continues to be a really tough story. Kelli's got a question for you.

ARENA: This is -- I -- I am amazed, Rusty. What -- explain to me what is taking so long, in terms of finding the bodies and then identifying them. I mean, this is New Orleans.

DORNIN: Kelli, it's overwhelming. This is the first week I've been back since the storm, a few weeks right after the storm, and it is still overwhelming, the immensity of the destruction here. In the 9th ward, the ground zero, where the levee broke, I mean, there's debris everywhere, as you could see from that "Notebook" story, and they -- there's just piles. They had to take dogs to search through those piles to see if there are bodies in there.

Now, they had stopped going to houses on October 3. Then they resumed because there was such a backlash. But there are still so many houses, thousands of houses that they thought -- you know, knocked on the door, looked in, didn't see anybody but didn't go in. Now they're having to go back in and just break down the doors and see if anybody is in there.

VELSHI: Rusty, let's go to the audience for a question. Where are you from, sir, and what's your name?

QUESTION: Hi. I'm Nathan. I'm a student here at the George Washington University. Some have said that the money being spent to rebuild New Orleans would be better spent helping to rebuild the lives elsewhere, outside of New Orleans, of the victims of Katrina. Two- part question. How -- do you, as a journalist, just to remain independent, how do you cover something like that, and what are your thoughts on it? And also, the people you talk to in New Orleans, what are their thoughts on this?

DORNIN: Just a lot of folks -- there's a lot of battles over money right now. I mean, I think the thing I have to address is what I've been working on this week, in terms of the bodies. I mean, there's a battle over the money, the DNA testing, that the government said initially that they were going to pay for, it was a priority. This week, I talked to FEMA several times this week, and every day, it was a different story. We're going to pay for it. We told the state we're not going to pay for it.

It was a struggle and a negotiation over money. And finally, they've agreed to pay for it. That's $13 million. The families, meantime, have loved ones who are in this morgue. Hundreds of bodies are in this morgue, unidentified and unclaimed, and there's been this battling over money. So that's been the issue for so many people here, is we need to have things done now. Quit arguing about the money.

VELSHI: What's your name, and where are you from?

QUESTION: Hi. I'm Catherine Siturney (ph) from the University of Maryland. We've seen a lot of reporters lose their composure while reporting on the Hurricane Katrina devastation. How do you keep your composure? And have you ever lost it?

DORNIN: There were a few times after the storm, seeing things, that it -- it is -- as I said, it's just the immensity of this. And it's just -- it's so incredible because we end up talking to people whose lives have been so destroyed by this. And just in the 9th ward, I've never seen the bottom line. And it just -- to see that was just so overwhelming.

VELSHI: Rusty, sort of following on both of our audience questions, there's -- there's this feeling of, How do you stay industry? How do you follow these stories? And that's been very hard for journalists. We saw in your "Notebook," we saw in your story a woman asking you for help, asking CNN for help.

DORNIN: The interesting thing is, Ali, she asked us for help. It just happened the day I was going to do this story, she called CNN in Atlanta. They transferred the call here. She said no one had called her about her mother, who was in the 9th ward. And she had no idea about the house. As you saw, we went to the house. The house was not there. But as it turns out, after our story aired, someone from the state called her and asked her for a DNA sample, and that was the first time anyone has called this woman in two-and-a-half months.

This is also a woman who -- the only thing she did receive was a death certificate for someone who was not her mother.

VELSHI: After all that loss, to have that happen to you -- Rusty, good to see you. Thank you so much. Rusty Dornin in New Orleans.

Well, from New Orleans struggling, we're going to switch back to politics. Internet reporter Jacki Schechner is back ON THE STORY on line about how the bloggers are on the CIA leak story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, we're ON THE STORY at the George Washington University in the District of Columbia. And our Internet reporter, Jacki Schechner, is ON THE STORY on line. Jacki, what have you been seeing and hearing this week?

JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN INTERNET REPORTER: Well, Ali, people ask me all the time why do we care about blogs? Well, I'll tell you, the CIA leak investigation is a really good story to take a look at for the answer to this question because the blogs can do some things the mainstream media can't do. They can speculate.

For example, Bob Woodward came out this week and talked about how he had a source in the Bush administration. Well, I can tell you who I think that is, but I can't say it on CNN. And the bloggers can talk about it all they want. It's kind of like talking to people around the water cooler at work, except they really know what they're talking about.

Let's bring them in right now and talk about this. First we have Jeralyn Merritt from Talkleft.com, a liberal blog. Over on the right, we have Tom Maguire from Justoneminute.typepad.com. And I will say that if you are going to have any two blogs that you read on this topic, these are the guys that you want to read.

Jeralyn, let's start with you, first of all. You are a criminal defense attorney, so what do you bring to this story as a blogger, as a criminal defense attorney?

JERALYN MERRITT, TALKLEFT.COM: Well, it's one of the first stories that I've gotten to do some original reporting on because every day at work with my cases, they've all started with federal grand juries. So it's actually something I know about. So that makes it fun. And then to -- you know, as a lawyer, I also have access to Lexis, which means that I can do -- you know, find more information there. And then what we do is, you know, we hook up with the other bloggers who are, as we call it, Plamegate-obsessed, you know, who are just parsing every single word that's out there on the story.

SCHECHNER: I know that you and Tom read each other on occasion. Tom, let's go over to you. Now, I know you have been digging into "The New York Times" from the very beginning, when this case started years ago, every little detail. You've been paying attention to what happened with Judith Miller and her departure. In light of what Bob Woodward said this week, what do you think this is going to mean for "The Washington Post"?

TOM MAGUIRE, JUSTONEMINUTE.TYPEPAD.COM: I don't think there's a very good comparison between the Judith Miller situation and the Bob Woodward situation. In Bob Woodward's case, like any investigative reporter, he did not want to get involved in a court fight with a special prosecutor. (INAUDIBLE) reporters who did won their fights. In his mind, the best way to keep his source protected was just to keep quiet.

Now, Judith Miller was identified over a year ago by her source, Lewis Libby, as being involved in the case. She spent over a year fighting her subpoena. Woodward was identified by his source on November 3, and had given testimony to Fitzgerald on three sources by November 11, I think. I don't think you can fault him for not cooperating, and it's hard to fault him for not wanting to be involved in this case.

SCHECHNER: Let me ask you both...

(CROSSTALK)

SCHECHNER: Let me ask you both -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, real quick, but let me ask you this question. The blogs are known for piling on the mainstream media and being very critical of the mainstream media, right? That's what you guys are known for doing. Here we have an investigative story where journalists are all wrapped up in it. What do you think this means for the mainstream media and the way the blogs address the mainstream media on a story like this? Tom, we'll start with you.

MAGUIRE: I think this has been a very painful and schizophrenic process for the media because they're trying to investigate a story (INAUDIBLE) play a central role. I think, for example, that a number of reporters might very well have said to themselves, you know, Let's chase down Bob Woodward's sources and see if he's involved in this story. It's just not done.

SCHECHNER: Jeralyn, do you have a thought?

MERRITT: Yes. And I think, Jacki, you hit the nail on the head a few minutes ago, when -- because right now, what's happening is the reporters, such as Bob Woodward, are becoming the story. They're involved in the story. And when they report on the story, just like you're not supposed to have an opinion, they're really not supposed to have an opinion, or if they do express one, it should be one based on the facts and not on their own personal experience.

Now we know that Bob Woodward has actually been deeply involved in the story and that someone told him about Valerie Plame two years ago. And yet he has been criticizing Fitzgerald's investigation. And as bloggers, we speculate, you know? We link to other sources, and we show how we got there, but we don't really expect that from mainstream media.

VELSHI: Your name and where you're from and your question?

QUESTION: Hi. My name's Tim Sikosha (ph). I'm a GW student. I'm from West Greenwich, Rhode Island. My question for you is, with the rise of different partisan blogs, how difficult has it become, as a member of the mainstream media, to report the news fairly and with many people listening to the partisan blogs on such cases as the leak story?

SCHECHNER: It's an interesting question. Covering it is definitely challenging. You want to get a fair and balanced opinion on all of this. But let me throw it to the bloggers and ask them. Jeralyn, to you, quickly, how do you feel about that? Did you hear the question?

MERRITT: Well, you know, I think that the -- I think we're (INAUDIBLE) We're starting to feed off each other, the mainstream media and blogs, and I think it's great.

MAGUIRE: I think it's -- it's -- would be like playing a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. You know, there are people booing and cheering, whichever side you pick. I think reporters have to challenge themselves to say, I'm going to do what I set out to do, which is report the story as I see it, understanding I'm going to get a lot more criticism from either side, whatever I report.

SCHECHNER: Oh, thank you guys so much for joining us. Ali, we send it back to you.

VELSHI: If my career needs resurgence, I might just do a blog. It sounds like that's where a lot of the future of where we get stuff from is going to be. Jacki, thanks for that, and thanks to both of our bloggers. It's been fun talking to you.

Well, what we are going to cover next ON THE STORY is coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, let's take a quick look ahead ON THE STORY. Kelli, what are you working on next week?

ARENA: Well, for sure, continuing to follow the CIA leak investigation. Who else knows what? OK, I showed you mine. You show me yours.

VELSHI: I am going to be back here in Washington. I'll be working on "THE SITUATION ROOM" and back here ON THE STORY. And Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year, so I'll be following that and seeing...

ARENA: They hope.

VELSHI: ... how it -- we hope. Exactly.

ARENA: OK. VELSHI: Well, thank you. Good to see you. And hopefully, I'll see you next week. Thanks to my colleagues and our audience here at the George Washington University. And thank you for watching ON THE STORY. We're back each week Saturday night, Sunday afternoon.

Straight ahead, a check on what's making news right now.