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On the Story
Stories of 2005
Aired December 31, 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 ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Carol Lin with a look at the headlines right "Now in the News."
Parts of Northern California are seeing more rain than they've had in years. At least one woman wound up in a hospital after a mudslide destroyed her home. Forecasters warn of possible flooding from the Pacific Coast all the way across the state.
And Baby Noor has arrived in the U.S. The Georgia National Guard worked to get the Iraqi girl here for medical care to treat her potentially fatal birth defect. A neurosurgeon in Atlanta will perform the surgery for free.
And preparations are well underway to drop the ball in the Big Apple tonight. You're looking at a live shot from Times Square, as well as London. There is Big Ben, at the stroke of midnight.
Now remember to ring in the New Year with Anderson Cooper, live from Times Square in New York, with Mayor Bloomberg and music from James Brown and the Barenaked Ladies and more. It all starts at 11:00 Eastern.
That's what's happening right "Now in the News." Next, "ON THE STORY." Our correspondents look at stories they've covered this year and tell us what they expect to see in 2006.
And at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, CNN PRESENTS: VOICES FROM THE TSUNAMI -- incredible tales of survival.
That's what's happening right "Now in the News." I'm Carol Lin. Now to "ON THE STORY" and a live shot from London.
ALI VELSHI, CNN HOST: This is CNN. 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 the stories behind the stories they're covering.
ANNOUNCER: Jamie McIntyre is ON THE STORY of the war in Iraq and what he hears at the Pentagon about withdrawing troops.
Candy Crowley brings her political experience to the story of elections in 2006, and the early presidential lineup.
Dana Bash is ON THE STORY of the year for President Bush. Political battles won and lost.
Joe Johns follows the fight over the Supreme Court and the confirmation debate ahead.
Plus, our correspondents look back at the devastation of New Orleans, and offer predictions for the coming year in Iraq, Washington, religion and entertainment.
VELSHI: Welcome to our special New Year's ON THE STORY. I'm Ali Velshi. I'll be talking about oil prices in 2005 and looking ahead to 2006.
Now with me here, Jamie McIntyre, Candy Crowley and Joe Johns, and our studio audience. Our correspondents will be taking questions from the studio audience, which is drawn from visitors, college students and Washingtonians.
Well, we're ON THE STORY of the war in Iraq: look back to last summer and see how Jamie McIntyre was reporting even then, talk at the Pentagon about when U.S. troops would leave Iraq and how many.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I'm told that -- by my sources both in the building and in Iraq, that we're talking about roughly 25 percent. A troop reduction of maybe 25-35,000 troops. Now that's reporting that you didn't see anywhere else.
VELSHI: Jamie?
MCINTYRE: Yeah?
VELSHI: You're looking at that from a few months ago: what do you think?
MCINTYRE: There's been no doubt that the whole -- the theme of this story this whole year has been how soon are U.S. troops going to come home, how many of them and how many will stay and how long will those stay there? And the whole tension between the Pentagon and the press corps during the whole course of the year has been, You guys are making things look much worse than they really are, we're on track, things are going okay, you guys are just focussing on the negative. And that's been sort of the push and pull at the Pentagon all year.
VELSHI: It's been a year of sort of stories underlie everything that's going on in Washington for the whole year.
Let's go out to the audience. We have a question there. Where are you from and what's your name?
QUESTION: Melody, from Arlington, Virginia. During chaotic events, how do you find a reliable source for body counts and for what really happened, and do all news agencies tend to rely on the same sources?
VELSHI: Good question.
MCINTYRE: Well, no, they don't rely on the same sources. And that's one of the things -- one of the things that CNN does is we rely on, not only a number of sources, but a number of reporters. When it comes to things like body counts, the U.S. military keeps track of what happens with U.S. personnel, but we still don't have a reliable count of what's happened to Iraqis.
I mean, the short answer is, that's kind of what we do; we wander around the building. The Pentagon is a building that you cover by walking around -- 17 and a half miles of corridor. We talk to as many people as we can, sort of cross reference what they're going to do, and then we have a reality check with what's happening on the ground from our people on the ground. And we try to piece together what's happening.
VELSHI: Interesting that you ask the question about body count -- those are the things that regular folks react to so much.
I want to look back to something that you weren't there for, but you can tell us how it relates to what you do. Let's listen to what happened right after the London bombings in July with Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, the reaction of the British people was the reaction of the British people. These are people who have gone through terror, war bombings, the Nazi bombings of World War II, known then as the blitz.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) tell the truth about why this war happened. (INAUDIBLE). Tell the truth about what happened.
AMANPOUR: And here we go, we have the British people intervening right here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) in Iraq, that's why. That's why it happened.
AMANPOUR: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was 50 killed in Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: It's that overlapping of stories. They were talking about the bombing in London, and there was somebody out there responding to how it's connected to what's going on in Iraq.
MCINTYRE: You know, the point of terrorism is to terrorize people and to try to influence the actions of people and governments. And we've certainly seen that in Iraq. That's been some of the strategy of the insurgents. And part of the strategy of the Bush administration is to try to convince countries not to react to that. I mean, there have been a number of countries that have been the subject of threats with the ultimatum that, You pull your troops out or we're going to kidnap and behead your people. And that's one of the dynamics that's going on here.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just want to ask you about force-feeding, a little bit. You just mentioned a moment ago how this is all about walking around in the Pentagon from corridor to corridor. How much access do you really get, and has it been limited as the news has gotten worse?
MCINTYRE: It's -- I have to say that the trend has been that it's harder to get information out of the Pentagon. Partly because the Bush administration has exercised such control over particularly the political appointees and civilians.
But the Pentagon's a wide open place -- 24,000 people work there. We do have amazing access in the building, and you can walk around from office to office and talk to people, And credibility is the coin of the realm, so people want to tell you things that are going to end up being true to boost their own credibility, and that's sort of how we piece the stories together. We get a considerable amount of access.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Can I ask you something that people ask me all the time: I watch Rumsfeld's news conferences a lot, and he can be very engaging, there's a lot of by- play, and when I'm covering a politician, I get a lot of letters saying, You like him, you know, I can tell you like him because you're laughing with him and you're -- tell people how you separate the guy from the story.
MCINTYRE: All right, well, I'll make a confession. I do kind of like Rumsfeld. He is fun to cover because he's an important person in the administration, and therefore that makes my beat more important. He is interesting to engage, it's verbal sparring all the time, you have to really be prepared when you're going to ask him a question because his typical response is to question the premise of your question, and then not answer the question.
In fact, I called him on this at a recent press conference. I said, Is this one of those times you're going to not answer my question? And he said, Well, it depends on the question. But he's a very interesting guy to cover. He is very smart, he's controversial, he's a lightning rod. And it is fun to interact with him. People have said, well you know, he has these theatrical press briefings, but compare that to say, the previous Defense secretary, William Cohen, who rarely had press conferences. At least we do have the access, we do get a chance to interact with him, even though a lot of times it seems like he's in control.
VELSHI: Now on most of the beats that we have, there are at least two people covering it, in some cases many more because CNN is on the air a lot and even though we sometimes feel like we have very long days -- Jamie has to take a vacation every now and then -- so often on this show and on CNN, you'll see Jamie's counterpart, Barbara Starr, who also works at the Pentagon. And I suppose in any beat, when you work with -- alongside other people, there's a little bit of -- you know, you want to do as well or better than the other person, and I think we may have an example where Barbara Starr trumped Jamie on something. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN HOST: Let's not forget: Barbara Starr also had many marriage proposals within the city also. BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON REPORTER: At least two.
PHILLIPS: At least two?
STARR: At least two: General Eichenberry (ph) was reluctant to tell me, but as we made our way down that street, apparently there were two inquiries, and that was about the nicest thing that's happened to me in a war zone lately.
PHILLIPS: No pen pals, though.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Am I right, she got you on that one?
MCINTYRE: Absolutely. Hopefully it's because I'm married. But no, I've yet to be proposed to, but --
VELSHI: Anybody else been proposed to here?
JOHNS: No, I've never been proposed to by a member of Congress, but I'm married too.
VELSHI: Anybody want to propose to anybody?
We're going to take a break on that note. From the military beat to politics, we're back talking to Candy Crowley in a moment.
First, another look back in our 2005 timeline. Andrea Koppel traveling with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Sudan -- a July meeting over violence and famine in the Darfur region became a clash with the secret police.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've been trying to get in for the last half an hour and for some reason, they're not letting us in.
(voice-over): Finally, after trying to ask President Omar El- Bashir a question about ongoing violence in Darfur, an American journalist was manhandled off camera.
(on camera): Now we have to leave.
It's now quarter of ten and we're already sweaty and we haven't even gotten to the Abu Shook (ph) refugee camp.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
W. MARK FELT, "DEEP THROAT": Nice to see you, thanks for coming. CROWLEY: W. Mark Felt, looking much more like a grandfather next door than a dashing crime fighter-turned secret source that brought down a president.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: CNN is ON THE STORY. Our special 2005 and on to 2006 edition here at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Candy Crowley was already on the presidential story in 2005, watching potential candidates make the trek to New Hampshire. Dial up our timeline and see what she was talking about almost six months ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: That low-level hum right now on the Republican side is Mitt Romney. A funny story: there was a woman up there, when he came over to visit, who introduced him to a woman's group in New Hampshire. And so she said, he's the governor of Massachusetts, and he's this and he's that, and she starts to walk off, and then she says, And by the way, Governor, you're not hard on the eyes.
(LAUGHTER)
CROWLEY: Mitt Romney is kind of given that sort of movie star look over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Barbara Starr -- Barbara Starr is not with us right now.
Candy Crowley is with us right now. Candy -- sorry, I was just looking at Jamie and he was -- and his marriage proposals, that's where my mind is at the moment.
Candy, what happened to Mitt Romney? Where is that story now?
CROWLEY: Well, they're all still kind of out there percolating, and basically they're percolating below the radar screen. It's only wonks like me who know who's been to New Hampshire, who's been to South Carolina, who's been to Iowa. So -- but I mean it's getting more and more crowded. What's astounding is, when I did this trip, no one said to me, what are you doing here? It's three years to the -- everyone said, oh, you know who else has been up here? We've seen Romney, we've seen Biden, we've seen -- so this election of 2008, the presidential election, has been going on since the day after 2004.
VELSHI: We've got a question from the audience. What's your name and where are you from?
QUESTION: My name is Nelia (ph), I'm from Alexandria, Virginia. And my question is, who are some of the frontrunners we're going to see in the 2008 election?
CROWLEY: Well, all I can do is spout some conventional wisdom here. Right at this point in any election cycle, presidential election, it's about name recognition. So when you ask people, Who would you like to see run for president, they're going to say Hillary Clinton and John McCain, because those are the two best-known names out there. They're also very formidable candidates, so I don't want to take anything away from them, but the fact of the matter is that name recognition counts for so much in the polls right now.
Basically, what both parties look for is someone who can win, so they are definitely out there looking. There was a Florida State Party convention not too long ago. John Edwards was down there, Mitt Romney I think was down there, Tom Vilsack from Iowa -- some names that you wouldn't necessarily recognize. And when you talk to the delegates, what they say is, we're looking for someone who can win.
And despite the fact that Hillary Clinton always leads the polls among Democrats, the fact of the matter is there are some doubts out there, because they worry that she might be too polarizing and they would lose another close election. So they're all looking.
MCINTYRE: Candy -- not to cut you off, but -- I just cut you off. At the Pentagon, I'm often asked, does the Pentagon have a plan if the Iraq policy doesn't work out? And I just sort of wanted to turn that around and ask you, do the Democrats have a plan if the Iraq policy does work out, if things do fall into place in the next couple of years in Iraq and Iraq looks pretty good?
CROWLEY: Well, you know, what's been interesting is to -- you have watched, all along, the Democrats try to move around the Iraq policy. There are a number of Democrats who supported it to begin with, at least supported the resolution of war. If you talk to them now -- and I'll ask them that question -- so they think in 2006, Democrats think in 2006 it's going to be sort of their Newt Gingrich year, where the Democrats are going to come out and they're going to take control of the House and take control of the Senate and it's all because of the war. And I say, so let's say the president pulls out troops, it quiets down, it really begins to look like democracy is taking hold; what do you do?
Well what they do then is to say, well he's doing exactly what we told him to do, and it was too late. But we had told him to do that all along, and that's what he should have done from the beginning.
JOHNS: What are people saying -- is it more likely that we're going to see a presidential candidate who is extremely critical of Iraq, or a presidential candidate from the Democratic side who is more in the middle of things, not necessarily critical but, you know, sort of walking along?
CROWLEY: It's so hard to tell because this, as we all see, goes on tape and so in 2008 it gets played back and they say, See, she didn't know a thing. So let me just say that it's very hard to predict in 2005 who Democrats might pick in 2008. But as you know, Joe, very well, the Democratic Party is tagged with not being tough enough on security. It would be very difficult for them to get someone who was against the war to begin with, someone that could be tagged as not tough enough on American security. They've got to get someone in the middle. MCINTYRE: Is covering politics as much fun as it used to be?
CROWLEY: It is in the beginning. In the beginning, it's a great time because it's you and the candidate and you're out in some no-name place in the middle of some state, and no one's paying attention and that's when you actually get to know who the person is. But the closer you get -- two years out, the crowd builds -- and not just the crowd of us, but the crowd around the candidate. Because the more successful they are, the more people they bring on and suddenly there's four people you have to go to to get to the candidate. Because before, you were riding in the car with him, you know, and he was telling you about his kids and you were getting a sense of it.
MCINTYRE: All right, I'll take that as a yes and no.
CROWLEY: Exactly. Sometimes.
VELSHI: One of the best things about ON THE STORY is that it's about showing the viewers out there what really goes on behind the scenes and the kind of tricky things in TV and if I'm right about this and the audience could just tell me, it is crazy hot in here. I don't know if everybody can see. We're all like sweating out here, and one of the best stories behind the scene I recall was Joe Johns --
JOHNS: Oh, no!
VELSHI: I'm sure we don't have this tape, but Joe Johns did this great story about sweating once.
We're going to talk about what Joe Johns has done in the past year when we come back. You're watching ON THE STORY -- stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: How bad is it? I think by being on the ground in Southeast Asia and seeing these chickens and these human beings and the doctors that are taking care of both, first hand, gives us a sense of how to get prepared.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We're ON THE STORY. Our special New Year's edition. I was just kidding a few minutes ago when I said that Joe Johns is going to be doing his story about sweating. But Joe Johns is with us today -- rare change at the Supreme Court over the past year. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor put that story in play by announcing her resignation. Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, and that intensified the drama. Check out our ON THE STORY timeline, back to July, and Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: Everyone was on high alert -- 9:27 about is when I think I got the call. And I was in front of a camera at about 9:57. The historic announcement today released in a statement -- "This is to inform you of my decision to retire from my position as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States."
It's blazing hot and I'm trying to hide the sweat on camera. There's absolutely no sense in me even trying to put on makeup because it will wash right off.
It's never just nice whenever there's a big story at the Supreme Court; it's always hot or cold.
You've got the nomination of John Roberts on the floor of the United States Senate; a historic moment. We're looking for the number of senators who are actually going to vote against this nomination.
Senator Leahy -- yoo hoo! Hey, Senator! Have you gotten any consultation on the next nominee?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: I still have the powderpuff --
VELSHI: Yeah, it's a little warm in here today. It really is.
MCINTYRE: What happened to the "never let'em see you sweat" thing?
VELSHI: That doesn't work for me, John.
JOHNS: That doesn't work.
VELSHI: No, it's crazy. so there we go, we got to combine both stories.
Sir, your name, and where you're from?
QUESTION: Michael from the University Writing Program right here at George Washington. When both parties control -- when one party controls both the executive and legislative branch, does the press, in your view, have a special obligation to check that power through more aggressive reporting?
JOHNS: I think we do, and we don't always succeed at that. There is an issue of accountability. It really came up this year, here in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. A lot of hard questions for the administration, a lot of hard questions for members of Congress.
Some people say it's sort of cyclical, that you go through these long honeymoons with the presidents, with the party in power, and everybody's hunky dory. Then all of a sudden the hammer drops. And that's kind of -- to some degree, that's what happened here. A lot of hard questions for the administration, lot of hard questions for the Republicans.
CROWLEY: One of the things, watching you up here outside the Supreme Court, is that as reporters, you very much hate being tethered to the live shot, because it inhibits who you can talk to and who's calling you, because you got to turn off your phones so it doesn't ring in the middle of the live shot. How do you both cover a story and -- I mean, I think they'd be interested in that, because I get a lot of people saying, well, you're on the air all the time.
JOHNS: It's true. You know, my greatest fascination just out in entertainment on the street is a juggler, a street juggler. You ever see them? Because I understand, you know? I get it. You have a telephone in one ear, you have the IFB -- this thing -- in the other, you have someone in the control room speaking to you, you have someone in a senator's office speaking to you. And all of this you have to try to get on the air and still be right. It's very difficult, as you know. I think the trick is to follow those hard and fast rules: have two sources at least before you go with something that is not common knowledge. And trust your instincts; be smart about it.
VELSHI: Let's see what else isn't common knowledge. Let's go out there and get a question from our audience. Ma'am -- your name, and where you're from?
QUESTION: My name is Jessica, and I'm from Alexandria, Virginia. My question is, how important is to you as journalists to protect your sources? And do you feel threatened or feel like your ability to be a journalist is being impeded?
JOHNS: There's a lot of that going on. There's freezes and thaws for reporters and journalists. And right now, we're very much in a freeze. We're in a period where the courts are going more aggressively after journalists who have reported based on controversial information that may affect a legal case. The Scooter Libby indictment is one example of that.
So, sure, we do find ourselves having to protect the sources. It's one of the most important things we have to do in this business. Because without them, we can't do our jobs.
MCINTYRE: It became a little bit of a joke at the Pentagon, when you go in and talk to somebody and you ask for some information they're not supposed to give you, and a lot of times you want to clear up this whole source thing right at the beginning, you say something like, look. I just want to be clear that if the Justice Department comes after me, I'm giving you up, okay? I just want to make sure you know, I'm not going to jail over this, so let's just have that right out.
But this year, particularly in Congress, a lot of investigations this year.
JOHNS: Yeah.
MCINTYRE: Lot of --
JOHNS: And people opening the doors on investigating how a reporter got a particular piece of information, that makes it even harder for us because you see that kind of thing going on out there, then I call someone and ask about something that's sensitive or perhaps controversial or confidential even, and what they tell me is, you know, I don't want to find myself in the position of a prosecutor hauling me into court or hauling you into court, asking who gave you that information. So it's tough right now, but you know, reporters have to do what they have to do.
MCINTYRE: Who did give you the information?
JOHNS: I'll never tell.
VELSHI: Given how much we've discussed that, that was obviously a good question. And we couldn't do our jobs here without the help of our audience.
Now, our correspondents, no matter where they are, recognize a good question. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Yeah, Dave, that's a really good question.
BROOK ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really great question.
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's really tough; I mean, that's a great question.
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's actually an excellent question.
AMANPOUR: Another extremely good question.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: They're all good questions. We're back with more of them, and a check on what's making news right now. A look back ON THE STORY with Dana Bash as well, covering the president.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Carol Lin.
More of ON THE STORY in just a moment.
But first, this is what's happening right now.
Another day of heavy rain across Northern California. That's on the top of -- that's on top of storms that drenched the area earlier this week. And flooding has closed roads and caused mud slides. It's also led to helicopter rescues, including this one of a woman trapped in the back of her truck.
Now a 3-month-old Iraqi girl has finally arrived in the United States for medical treatment. The Georgia National Guard worked to get Baby Noor here to treat her potentially fatal birth defect. A neurosurgeon in Atlanta will perform the surgery for free.
And thousands of folks are already packing New York's Times Square. You can ring in the new year with Anderson Cooper live from Times Square. Music from James Brown, the Barenaked Ladies and more, and a look back at a turbulent year in the news.
"NEW YEAR'S EVE WITH ANDERSON COOPER" beginning tonight at 11:00 Eastern.
In the meantime, it's already the new year around the world. We want to show you the latest pictures out of Berlin, Russia and Sydney. In Sydney, security was really tight in that harbor. They had something like 1,700 police officers on hand.
Now, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, "CNN PRESENTS: VOICES FROM THE TSUNAMI." Incredible tales of survival.
That's what's happening right now in the news.
I'm Carol Lin.
Now back to ON THE STORY.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are ON THE STORY.
A special look back at 2005 and forward to 2006 here at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Well, the end of 2005 saw an uproar over news reports that President Bush had approved domestic spying, secret wiretapping, without congressional or court approval.
Dana Bash was traveling the world with Vice President Dick Cheney and talked to him about the spying decision and the reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is good, solid, sound policy. It is, I'm convinced, one of the reasons we have not been attacked for the last four years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Dana Bash joins us now from Crawford, Texas -- Dana, good to see you again.
Is this the story that they wanted to end the year on? And is it going to start things off in 2006?
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No and yes. Absolutely not. This is not a story that they wanted out there at all. The White House, as we've heard, toward the end of the year, has been very, very upset about this getting out there, primarily, they say, because they say it's like giving a battle plan to the enemy. They say it's about intelligence, that's why they're upset.
But politically, also, it is very, very difficult for the White House, particularly because it's not just Democrats, but even some Republicans, many Republicans who seem to be very uncomfortable with this idea. Not only do they think it's a violation of privacy, but they think perhaps it's a violation of the law.
So this is absolutely what the White House is going to be dealing with at the beginning of 2006, no question.
VELSHI: Dana, I've got a question from the audience.
Stan is with us now.
Hi, Stan.
STAN: Stan of Arlington, Virginia.
Would you rate Iraq, Katrina or ethical problems as the primary cause of the decline in Bush's approval?
BASH: Well, you know, I personally don't even have to rate it. I can tell you what the president's aides themselves say. And they say that bar none, it is Iraq that really hovers over this White House. And it is something that, frankly, it took them a while this year to actually realize.
You remember, we started 2005 with elections, the first elections in Iraq that everybody thought were relatively good, were very good, and American support for Iraq went up.
The president turned his attention away from Iraq and really focused on Social Security, which didn't go very well. And it didn't -- it took months, really, six months, for the president to turn back to Iraq. And the White House recognizes that it's because the president didn't focus on what they do see as the number one issue, bar none, that really hurt his ratings.
Of course, Katrina, the fact that that really hit home for Americans didn't help things at all.
VELSHI: Let's take a look back.
You mentioned Social Security. It seems like years ago that they decided they'd focus on that.
Here's what the president had to say some months ago about Social Security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: President Bush Thursday night wanted to attract attention with a rare prime time news conference and he certainly whipped up some headlines with his call to cut Social Security benefits for higher income workers. And they would take the biggest hit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: And that was obviously not President Bush, but that was Dana talking about President Bush back in May.
It sounds like, I mean it feels like that didn't even happen this year.
Is that back on the agenda for 2006?
BASH: I don't think so, Ali, not at all. And I can tell you, I can't even tell you how many planes we were on, how many town hall meetings, carefully choreographed town hall meetings we were in for months. I think about 40, the president did. Really spent so much time on Social Security. And there just wasn't an appetite for it in the country.
You remember, the president started saying -- the year saying that he had political capital and he was going to spend it. That is what he decided to spend it on.
But now allies of the White House, people inside the White House realize that there just wasn't an appetite for that kind of big, bold domestic change, especially in something like Social Security.
So I think what we're going to see much more likely at the beginning of an improved 2006 are much smaller, baby steps on some domestic issues. Nothing like that kind of try.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Dana, the impression that we in the media have created over the end of the year here is that the Bush administration has embarked on sort of a course correction in Iraq, that they've admitted a few mistakes, that they've said they're making adjustments.
Is that the way is looked from there, from your vintage point, covering it?
BASH: You know, I think it's probably the best -- the best way to describe it is a course correction in rhetoric. You know better than I about the military aspect of it and how they've changed or adjusted that way.
But in terms of the way the White House is describing Iraq, it is really -- it has really changed dramatically. And I do think that perhaps Katrina had a part of it in that they realized, Bush aides tell us they realized that the president taking responsibility for that was a lesson for them, that perhaps he should be a little bit more candid, which, as, you know, Candy, who's covered President Bush for a long time, knows is not vintage Bush, not to elect admit mistakes or even adjustments along the way.
But the president has been doing a lot more of that in terms of Iraq, explaining how things maybe didn't go right at the beginning, maybe the way they changed it and even culminating with his Oval Office address. That really is a very, very different tactic from this Bush White House.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dana, they -- he's got the State of the Union coming up. That's always, you know, the first benchmark for the year. He's got three more years left in office.
do you get any sense from anyone what the it issue is? BASH: They say that they are really going to start the year focusing -- a command focus, they said, to use an old Lee Atwater term -- on Iraq and on the economy. You know, this is going to be an election year and there have been a lot of very upset Republicans in Congress who say that the economy is good, but they're just simply not getting credit for it.
So they really hope at the White House they can play those two issues up, particularly on the domestic side, the economy, because that is going to be a big, big issue in the midterm elections.
VELSHI: Hey, Dana, before we go, just a quick behind-the-scenes for you.
I keep hearing something that sounds like a saw going on while you're talking to us?
BASH: Well, you know, we're here in Crawford. We are not at the president's ranch, we're near the president's ranch. And what you see behind us is actually somebody's house. And so the man who owns this farm, if you will, behind us, he's sawing. He's taking his leisurely time here and doing some things around the house. And we're just next to him doing our live shot and he's not bothering us and we're not bothering him. At least that's how it's going right now.
VELSHI: All right, may 2006 be that harmonious.
Dana Bash in Crawford, Texas.
Well, from the presidential story to the hurricane story, coming up, CNN correspondent Jeanne Meserve put out the initial word of how New Orleans was flooded.
But first, a reminder that we were on the story with producers and photojournalists behind the camera.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM SPELLMAN: Early on, we were in the floodwaters and at the Superdome. But it became ever more difficult to get around through these floodwaters. We had -- we lost about, I think, five vehicles we had abandoned, just that were dying in floodwaters.
MARK BIELLO: We're up around 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We're looking back and looking forward ON THE STORY.
And we won't forget how our Jeanne Meserve brought us all the first word of devastation in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, as the water rushed in.
Dial back that time line.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The emotional experience of being out there and seeing something none of us had ever seen before.
As I left tonight, darkness, of course, had fallen and you could hear people yelling for help. You could hear the dogs yelping, all of them stranded, all of them hoping someone will come.
People coming through their roofs onto their rooftops, screaming for help, waving their arms, watching people trying to stagger through the water that even in the shallowest places was up to their chests.
I have a little bit of difficulty making you out given all the turmoil around me.
We lost electrical power where we were. We were firing everything off of our car batteries. And we were terrified we were going to run out of gas and lose that source of power.
It is just unbelievable. I told you earlier today I didn't think that this turned out to be Armageddon. I was wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS: We want help! We want help!
MESERVE: As I sat there on that interstate highway and people were being unloaded from the boats and they were coming up that ramp, most of them totally silent, totally shell-shocked, I had to speak to them. I had to say I'm glad you're out, I'm so glad you're safe. And it was a purely personal reaction, one that as a professional, I wouldn't -- something as a professional I wouldn't have ordinarily done. But I felt, in this instance, sometimes you're more than a reporter.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
VELSHI: And this year saw a lot of that happening, a lot of stories and hurricanes sort of affected all of our beats in ways that we might not have normally expected.
Candy, let's start with you.
What kind of things did you see?
How did this hurricane affect how you did your job?
CROWLEY: Basically I covered this hurricane from the political viewpoint and who, you know, then the blame game started. And it started pretty early on.
But one of the trips I took was down to Mississippi, where we went to North Gulfport, which is an impoverished area of Mississippi, to a Red Cross center there, and there are some historical free slave neighborhoods.
It -- this was maybe two weeks after, where we're thinking OK, well, now they're getting their act together and everything is fine. It was so astonishing to see the incredible need that still existed from people who -- I mean the Red Cross was literally just sitting there writing checks, no questions asked, no nothing. Just people lined up from four in the morning for an opening at six, and they were there until six at night.
It was -- I've just never -- I think we had, when we had our foreign reporters that came over and covered New Orleans, they said it just looks like a Third World down here, the devastation is so much. And it still is.
MCINTYRE: It was interesting, the hurricane hit the Sunday night/Monday morning. I remember being at the Pentagon on Monday. The Pentagon was putting out routine press releases about what the military was doing in support of the hurricane, as they do with every hurricane.
And the day went by and there wasn't much interest in CNN about that. It looked like the hurricane had sort of come and gone. And then, of course, the levees broke, things got really bad.
And by the next day, the military response -- suddenly, never had there been, a hurricane had been as much of a Pentagon story. And, as you mentioned, my colleague, Barbara Starr, jumped down to go down to be with General Honore. And I remember when she left, I'm thinking, well, you know, I hope she doesn't get stuck in some military headquarters away from where the real story is.
And, of course, General Honore became a big part of the story, and CNN was the only one that was with him.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From the congressional perspective, that blame game, you're right, it just started so quick. The first question was about Michael Brown, the FEMA director who sort of got an "atta boy" from the administration even though so many people said so much went wrong.
I remember personally, after he testified on Capitol Hill and got quite a grilling, I literally chased him around a hearing room with a microphone in my hand, trying to get a couple more questions from him.
After that, there was a question where's the money? Where is the money going? Where is the money going to come from to try to pay for the repairs to New Orleans?
So -- and that's a question that continues.
I also went to Mississippi. I was in Jackson two or three weeks ago. There were still all the hotels filled with evacuees trying to figure out where they're going next.
VELSHI: Let's take a break.
we'll come back with more of our retrospective on the year ON THE STORY.
Coming up, more on how the hurricane winds whipped up oil prices to record levels.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: CNN is ON THE STORY.
We saw oil prices spike to record levels in 2005.
Ali Velshi dug out the props.
Check out our time line, going back to August.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
VELSHI: This is what it's come down to with me, getting the oil prices up for u. I've got a big drum here, a barrel, the kind of barrel that oil would be in.
That's crude oil. That's the stuff that our economy runs on. That's the stuff that our cars run on.
This is coal. Coal still accounts for most of the electricity that's generated in the United States.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
JOHNS: So I guess the question is what are we going to see in 2006?
VELSHI: Well, we have continued to see these record prices for oil and natural gas. One of the things that's kind of tricky for us is covering the idea that oil goes up one day because it's warm and it's expected to be warm. And then next week it goes down because it's warm and then it goes up because we're expected to have a cooler winter.
But it's really still tight. We are, you know, this is a year we've seen much higher energy costs, despite all the repairs in the Gulf Region. We're still paying a lot for gas. And it doesn't go down the way it goes up.
MCINTYRE: Well, one thing people keep asking me about is who is getting all the extra money? I mean was there price gouging going on? Were there excess profits?
You looked into this one.
VELSHI: You know, yes, I did. And price gouging has a specific legal term. And in most cases, none of what we saw met that term, that it was gouging.
But we did see, after the hurricanes, profits like you had never, ever seen before. The oil companies made more money in that quarter, that three month period of the hurricanes, than had ever been made by any industry ever in that time in life.
MCINTYRE: You're going to have come up with some props and some cheap theatrics to illustrate that.
VELSHI: Yes, yes.
I couldn't get the props that would make up for the amount of money that they actually made.
MCINTYRE: Stacks of -- we can't get you a stack of dollar bills?
VELSHI: Stacks and stacks of dollar bills.
Well, coming up, how some of our correspondents here and around the globe are looking ahead to their assignments in the new year.
Among them, our faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher, who took us through the drama and the ritual of the death of the pope.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What really stands out in my mind is the time leading up to the death of the pope. We had a press conference with the pope's press spokesperson and he, at a certain point, started to choke up, started to cry. And we realized that this was the end for the pope.
Once the death was actually announced, the streets just exploded with people that had come from all over the world, people standing in line for hours and hours.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We are ON THE STORY, turning from 2005 to 2006, with predictions from our correspondents around the world.
Let's start with our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'll be on the story tracking what happens when Iraq's new government is formed. Will it be dominated by the religious parties or will it be secular in nature? Will it help undermine the insurgency and help speed U.S. troops returning home? Or will the new government simply fuel a civil war?
GALLAGHER: We're going to try and do two main things.
One, follow the national conversation on some of those issues of church and state. Those are very important to a lot of Americans and require a lot of in depth reporting on Washington, on government, on the Supreme Court. So we're going to follow that very closely.
But we're also going to look at what people are doing at a grassroots level in their churches and in their religious lives. BROOKE ANDERSON, ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: There is some controversy surrounding a number of films.
"Brokeback Mountain" -- some conservatives think there is an agenda here to market homosexuality.
The film "Munich" from Steven Spielberg. He hopes it helps with the Middle East peace process.
I will be on the story of Tinseltown's most talked about issues.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
VELSHI: Well, let's take a quick look ahead ON THE STORY with our correspondents here.
Jamie, what do you think you're working on next week?
MCINTYRE: All right, I'll make three predictions.
One, 2006 will be the pivotal year in Iraq.
Two, I predict that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld will not resign, retire or otherwise leave office.
And, three, I predict that the Congress will pass a law barring the wearing of checked shirt and a striped vest on television.
And we'll come back here (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and see.
VELSHI: But that is on tape. We're going to check back with him.
Candy?
CROWLEY: You know, if it's 2006, 2008 can only be two years away. And big elections coming up, all of the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, a bunch of governors, a bunch of state legislatures, all of which are really part of the rollout for 2008. So we're watching those candidates.
VELSHI: Joe?
JOHNS: Investigations. Watching the investigations of various members of Congress, the possibility of an expanding investigation with the so-called Abramoff scandal here. And how will that affect the midterm elections?
What about you?
VELSHI: Well, I will be following house prices this year. We're going to be following the corporate trial of the century when Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling of Enron go on trial later in January. And all those kind of business stories.
Thank you to all of you. Thank you to 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.
Happy New Year to you all.
And straight ahead, a check on what's making news right now.
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