Guest: Stephen Flynn, Pat Reavy, Daniel Cruise, G. Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter
JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: Tonight, former Kerry adviser Sandy Berger under fire. The “Real Deal,” the media continues to bury the real story.
Welcome to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY, where no passport is required and only common sense is allowed.
Day two of sockgate and still no charges against the former Clintonite. Why is the media giving Sandy Berger a free ride and trying to make Republicans the bad guys?
We are going to have the very latest also on the missing pregnant woman in Utah, plus, some shocking new details about her husband.
And on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, how vulnerable is America to terror attacks? Author Stephen Flynn enters SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY with a report that makes the government look like they are not doing their job.
ANNOUNCER: From the press room, to the courtroom, to the halls of Congress, Joe Scarborough has seen it all. Welcome to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.
SCARBOROUGH: Hey, welcome to the show. I‘m Joe Scarborough. Hope you and your family are having a great night.
Bill Clinton‘s national security kingpin illegally smuggled top secret documents out of a secured federal building. So what was former President Bill Clinton‘s response? Laughter. It‘s time for tonight‘s “Real Deal.”
As you know, I served on the Armed Services Committee in Congress during Bill Clinton‘s presidency. Now, Republicans and Democrats serving on that committee were always distressed by Bill Clinton‘s disregard for certain national security issues. During the China fund-raising scandal, Congress learned that Mr. Clinton tried to get an international fugitive cleared to attend a White House fund-raiser.
After being warned of the security dangers by the CIA and the NSA, Bill Clinton then got the international fugitive inside the White House gates anyway. The fugitive then called the White House a subway stop. He said, all you really needed were enough tokens to buy your way in. Mr. Clinton also fought to get approved the sale of advanced missile technology to communist China. Clinton asked the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and Congress for the OK. All agencies told the president no.
They considered the technology transfer to be a big threat to U.S. national security. But the missile-maker was one of Bill Clinton‘s biggest campaign contributors, so he got approval instead for the late Ron Brown‘s commerce department.
Now, Brown, who had previously been the DNC chairman, gave Bill Clinton all the cover he needed to transfer state secrets about missile technology to communist China. It seemed to be yet another example of Bill Clinton‘s blatant disregard for America‘s national security secrets.
So why do I bring this up to you tonight? Because the Sandy Berger scandal is reminding all of us who were in Congress once again about the worst part of the Clinton years, the administration‘s seemingly disregard for national security.
You know, when Bill Clinton was asked about Sandy Berger smuggling documents out of the National Archives, Clinton said he thought the security breach was a laughing matter. He said—quote—“We were all laughing about it on the way over here,” the former president said. “People who don‘t know him might find it hard to believe, but all of us who have been in his office have always found him buried beneath papers.”
Really? Even top secret documents involving the gravest threats to U.S. national security? If the 42nd president thinks that‘s a laughing matter, then Bill Clinton‘s disregard for America‘s safety is even more reckless than we were led to believe. It‘s a frightening thought, but it‘s tonight‘s “Real Deal.”
With me now to discuss the very latest sockgate and Sandy Berger and the media bias surrounding the investigation is G. Gordon Liddy. He‘s a nationally syndicated talk show host. We also have Ann Coulter, who is the author of “Treason.” Lawrence O‘Donnell is an MSNBC senior political analyst. And Daniel Cruise served with Sandy Berger at the National Security Council.
Lawrence O‘Donnell, let me begin with you. You are a Democrat. Now, you‘re fairly supportive of the Clinton administration. Do you think this is nothing more than a laughing matter?
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, MSNBC SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it‘s obviously not a laughing matter.
I predicted yesterday as soon as the story broke that Sandy Berger would not make it through the week as an adviser to the Kerry campaign. They were going to have to let him go. So it‘s serious enough to create a complete break from that campaign.
What he actually did is not clear yet. What is very clear is that there‘s absolutely no satisfactory explanation on the table from Sandy Berger. When you talk about someone keeping a very messy office, as Bill Clinton says about Sandy Berger, well, I do too. My office is a terrible mess. However, the National Archives is not. The National Archives is a pristine operation. If I were to go in there and work in there for a day, I would not be able to create a mess there, no matter how hard I tried.
And so there‘s nothing about it that makes sense. There‘s nothing about it in the Berger explanation that makes any sense. What seems likely, if we have to suppose about this, is that Berger saw some documents that were long enough and complex enough that he was unable to, in effect, memorize them or summarize them to prepare himself and perhaps prepare President Clinton for his 9/11 Commission testimony.
So he wanted to have actual copies to work with. Knowing that other people had copies of these documents, hiding them wouldn‘t have been an incentive. That would be impossible. So I can see a rational, not legal, explanation as to why he would want to have these documents and why he might do this. But he is not offering any explanation so far that holds any water at all or makes any sense.
SCARBOROUGH: Ann Coulter, Democrats have jumped on this, said that this is all a Republican plot to embarrass John Kerry before the Democratic National Convention. Of course, you have got newspapers like “The New York Times” circling the wagons, blaming it on the Republicans. You have the broadcast networks doing the same thing. Is this much ado about nothing? Is it a Republican hit job on Sandy Berger and John Kerry by extension, or is it something much more serious?
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR, “TREASON”: Well, as Lawrence just indicated, the fact that Kerry dropped him from the campaign the next day suggests that it‘s not Republicans who are the ones saying this is a big deal. It took exactly one day.
And up until a few weeks ago, Berger was being described as a chief national security adviser to Bill Clinton. It‘s only since the scandal broke that he is being described as an informal, part-time adviser. But I have to say, there isn‘t much I disagree with, with what Lawrence said, shockingly. There‘s only one thing I would say.
I mean, we don‘t know what the facts were. We don‘t know why Sandy Berger was doing this. We haven‘t gotten a satisfactory explanation, and I think Lawrence gives the most innocent explanation, that he needed to review this for the commission.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: What is the least innocent explanation, Ann? If that‘s the most innocent, what is the least innocent explanation? What could he have been doing with these documents that he reportedly was stuffing in his jacket, his pants, and his socks?
COULTER: That he didn‘t want people to notice these documents, that there is something that is a smoking gun in these documents. And I don‘t think it‘s enough to say, oh, well, these were just copies, and the commission still had access to all the million documents. I mean, I would assume the commission was alerted to the pilfered documents and took a look at them after they were pilfered.
But I have access to all of the books in every public library in America. If these were damning documents, then he might have wanted to remove them, hoping that the commission would not go looking for the—searching for the originals someplace.
SCARBOROUGH: G. Gordon Liddy, how does a former national security chief, the top guy on national security for the president of the United States of America, get painted by that president as some bumbling Inspector Clouseau, oh, he was never good with documents anyway, when you, me, Lawrence O‘Donnell, anybody who has ever worked in government, that‘s ever had a security clearance, understands when they put you in that little room and it‘s a spotless room and you are sitting at that table and they hand you folders, you are clearly told, you don‘t take this material out of the room?
You don‘t write notes verbatim on this material and take that out of the room. I mean, Sandy Berger had to know he was breaking the law, didn‘t he?
G. GORDON LIDDY, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Of course he did.
And I think what the Clinton administration people are banking on is the gullibility and lack of knowledge about this rather arcane subject matter amongst the general public. Look, here we are. You have got Martha Stewart going to jail for five months for lying about a noncrime. And Sandy Berger has been investigated for about a year now.
His own lawyer says he did it five separate times, so it was not inadvertent, could not be characterized as such. It is a crime. There are former naval officers in Leavenworth Prison serving their sentence who did accidentally leave covert material outside the safe, but not outside the room. Just what I want to know is, what‘s wrong with this picture?
Martha Stewart is in jail, or about to go to jail. Sandy Stewart is walking around free as a bird, like O.J. What is wrong with this picture? Democrats complain about John Ashcroft being a tough attorney general. He doesn‘t seem very tough to me.
SCARBOROUGH: What about Deutsch back in the 1990s? This is a guy that I worked with when I was on the Armed Services Committee. John Deutsch seemed like a nice guy. He mishandled some documents, got in big trouble for it. But it doesn‘t seem that Sandy Berger is going to get in trouble for this.
LIDDY: Well, that‘s what I think the American people should demand to know. Why is the Bush administration giving Sandy Berger a pass on what appear to be five felonies, intentional acts violating the law with respect to codeword material? There‘s no higher classification than this stuff. People die when it gets out.
Now, the question about the different documents having copies, remember, these were different drafts. Presumably, the drafts had different information in each one. And remember, two of them, we don‘t know what happened to them. Mr. Berger says that he may inadvertently destroyed them. What was on those documents? Will we ever know?
SCARBOROUGH: Daniel Cruise, let me bring you in here. You worked with Sandy Berger. You certainly understand the security clearance, that when you are led into these rooms, when you look at these documents, you know very well what the rules are. You know you don‘t take them out. How could your former—I guess he was your former boss. How could your former boss have done this, knowing what he was handling?
DANIEL CRUISE, SERVED WITH SANDY BERGER: I think—I worked with Sandy Berger. I respect Sandy Berger a tremendous amount. Sandy Berger is one of the rare people in Washington that has respect and admiration from people on both sides of the aisle.
And I think this is party politics at its best. This is a matter that‘s been going on for close to a year. It was going to be quietly resolved. And, sure enough, it was leaked to the press two days before the release of the 9/11 report, a week outside the convention, and two months into terrible news for the Bush administration.
I think what we should be focusing on tonight, what we should be talking about is what‘s coming out in the 9/11 report, this administration‘s disregard for terrorism, this administration‘s lack of increased home security, this administration‘s complete going to war on WMDs, when there was no WMDs.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Well, Daniel, we have been talking about that, Daniel. And let‘s just assume that everything that you have said is correct, that George Bush has just made a terrible mess of the war in Iraq, of the war on terror, of homeland security. Let‘s assume all that, for argument‘s sake.
The question I ask you again is, as somebody that worked with Sandy Berger, you understand this national security clearance stuff just like I do. When you are handling classified documents, it‘s extraordinarily important that you take care of them. How could Sandy Berger have stuffed classified documents into his clothes and left the National Archives with documents that he had to know he was illegally removing?
CRUISE: I think we have to wait until the facts are clear, as I think
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: But they have admitted that, though, Daniel. They have admitted that he did it.
CRUISE: I don‘t think the facts are clear. I think we have to wait until the investigation goes through.
I think there‘s a lot of innuendo out there. There‘s a story about
him putting things in his sock. Yet no one has been on the record talking
· or testifying that he had something in his socks. So I think we have to wait until the record is clear.
SCARBOROUGH: OK, Daniel, but I can tell you where the record is very clear right now.
Sandy Berger‘s own attorney admitted that he removed documents at least five different times, which he himself admitted to be five separate felonies. I just want to know, how does a former national security chief, the guy who is in charge of national security for the United States of America, how could he remove classified documents from an area where he knew it was illegal for him to do that? And they have admitted he has done that.
How could he do it? Give me a good explanation that I can believe.
CRUISE: I think that he may have been careless. I think he may have breached protocols of the National Archives.
But the rest yet has to be investigated. Let‘s focus on the real issues. Let‘s focus on the 9/11 report coming out tomorrow. Let‘s focus on having gone to war for WMDs that weren‘t there. Let‘s focus on going to war in this country against Iraq for al Qaeda, where we will see tomorrow in the 9/11 report there was no clear link between Iraq and al Qaeda. Let‘s focus on other shortcomings of this administration.
SCARBOROUGH: Daniel, you are sticking to your talking points. I commend you for that. And I will guarantee you, the media is going to follow your lead, because they don‘t want to report on this story. They are going to talk about the negative parts of the 9/11 Commission, try to point the fingers at George Bush, because that‘s what they have been doing.
But I am going to ask you to stay there, if you will. I‘m going to ask all my guests to stay with me.
Coming up next, I want to talk about how the media has been handling the Sandy Berger scandal. It could be a crime for the former Clinton adviser, so why are Republicans being painted as the bad guys? How can they do that? That‘s hilarious.
Plus, the latest on the missing pregnant woman in Utah. Suspicious details are beginning to emerge about her husband.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCARBOROUGH: John Kerry‘s former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, illegally lifts classified documents, and the media is blaming it on the Republicans. How can they do that? I don‘t know, but they do it every day.
We‘re talking about it, though, when SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCARBOROUGH: Hey, welcome back.
We are back with more on Sandy Berger with our panel, G. Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter, Lawrence O‘Donnell and Daniel Cruise.
Ann, I want to go to you. The “CBS Evening News” didn‘t lead with the Berger story last night. Instead, they led with the dramatic body count from Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “CBS EVENING NEWS”)
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: Almost two a day, that is the rate American troops are dying in Iraq, with the total now approaching 900 since the war began.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Well, when they did finally get around to reporting the Berger story, this is how Dan Rather introduced it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “CBS EVENING NEWS”)
RATHER: Sandy Berger, who was national security adviser under President Clinton, stepped aside today as an adviser to Senator John Kerry. CBS‘ John Roberts reports, this was triggered by carefully orchestrated leak about Berger, and the timing of it appears to be no coincidence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: You know what, Ann Coulter? It sounds like those mean Republicans were responsible for Sandy Berger lifting those documents. Are you surprised that Dan Rather appears to be circling the wagons for Sandy?
COULTER: Oh, I am shocked, I am shocked there‘s gambling going on in this establishment.
I give them an A for effort. The mainstream media really can‘t get used to the fact that there‘s an Internet out there. But I have to say, even his tendentious report raises, I think, a more important question, as I was saying before. Senator John Kerry immediately removed Berger from his campaign. If, as Dan Rather and the occasional talking head on TV says, this is an orchestrated right-wing campaign, I think Berger ought to be a speaker at the Democratic National Convention talking about the perfidy of George Bush, rather than being laid off the next day by John Kerry.
I mean, John Kerry dropping Berger either says something about Sandy Berger and the scandal or it says something about John Kerry. So which is it?
SCARBOROUGH: Ann Coulter—is there any way, Ann Coulter, that John Kerry or any Republican or Democratic presidential candidate could have kept somebody on as their international security adviser that had so badly mishandled classified documents, top secret documents about national security?
COULTER: Well, not by my lights, but on the basis of Dan Rather‘s reports and what the talking heads are saying, that this is just a lovable old sloppy fellow—and, by the way, the sloppiness defense has its problems too.
Democrats are defending Berger by describing him basically as Uncle Billy in “It‘s a Wonderful Life.”
(LAUGHTER)
COULTER: I am not sure that is who we want as national security adviser.
SCARBOROUGH: Exactly. Tie the string around your finger to try and figure out, wait a second, was it Pakistan or Bulgaria that has a nuclear weapon? I just can‘t remember.
COULTER: And, moreover, he says he thinks he inadvertently discarded some of these documents. Well, did he throw them away? Did he inadvertently put them in the paper shredder, or did they fly out of the window at a 7/Eleven?
That‘s precisely why there are rules on documents that are marked top secret, classified, that you can‘t stroll out of the lending library, as he seems to think it is, with them.
SCARBOROUGH: Lawrence O‘Donnell, let me bring you in here. You can throw some cold water on those of us that believe the media is giving Sandy Berger a free pass.
I want to read for you what “The New York Times” said today about this. They characterized Sandy Berger‘s day on Tuesday this way—quote - - “Mr. Berger endured a day of furious criticism from Republican leaders.” And “The Times” went on to say: “Republicans accused him of stashing the material in his clothing, but Berger called that accusation ‘ridiculous‘ and politically inspired.”
And, Lawrence, I read “The Times” every day. I love the newspaper. But I saw the front page article on the left side. I flipped it over, where it jumped. I read through the entire—and at the very end, you finally got quotes from Republicans. But above that, it was Sandy Berger‘s spokespeople, his friends, his lawyers. It looked like a puff piece for Sandy Berger.
But it wasn‘t the Republicans who accused Berger. It was staffers at the National Archives. Is there a media bias here?
O‘DONNELL: Well, Joe, first of all, here‘s the best newspaper in America putting the story on the front page.
And, yes, everything in the story came from Sandy Berger and his lawyer. It was not leaked. What we know about this story was told to us by Sandy Berger. And every bit of it is nutty. There‘s not one piece of Sandy Berger or his lawyers‘ part in that story that doesn‘t sound crazy when you read it.
Now, the political motivation for this is an awful lot simpler than I am afraid Dan Rather is any longer capable of understanding.
(LAUGHTER)
O‘DONNELL: The big incentive to get this story out comes from the Kerry campaign, not the Bush campaign.
SCARBOROUGH: Why is that?
O‘DONNELL: If you have worked in campaigns, you know that, when you get a bomb that you can throw at the other side, you save it until October. You save it as late as possible.
Imagine, for example, even this story breaking a week later, breaking the day John Kerry was to give his speech in Boston. That is exactly what the Kerry campaign didn‘t want. I think, when we get the journalistic autopsy on this eventually, what you are going to find is Sandy Berger very slowly and very reluctantly and very, very recently told the Kerry campaign that he was being investigated by the FBI.
The Kerry campaign immediately said to him, you have got to make that public right away and we cannot let you go forward without making that public. He makes it public. You watch what happens to the story in 12 hours, and you cut him loose. And you want that to happen as soon as possible. You want it to happen this week, rather than next week. You want it to happen in July, rather than October.
All the incentive to push this story out and get it done with now comes from the Kerry campaign. The Bush campaign‘s incentive would be exactly the opposite.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, that is absolutely fascinating, Lawrence. That‘s why we love having you on this show, because, I will guarantee you, I haven‘t heard an analysis like that in the past couple of days since this story has broken. And I think you may be on to something.
G. Gordon Liddy, I want to play for you what Tom DeLay had to say about this entire episode. This is the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: As far as the Sandy Berger incident is concerned, all I know is what we read in the papers. But it looks like to me that this is just a third-rate burglary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: G. Gordon Liddy, that sounds familiar.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Do you think it‘s just a third-rate burglary?
LIDDY: No, I think it was a first-rate one, because, after all, he did it five times.
I find it very interesting Mr. Cruise‘s remarks about how this was all going to be quietly resolved. I would like to have quietly resolved Watergate. That would have a been great deal.
(LAUGHTER)
LIDDY: But, apparently, the old fixaroo is in here with the Bush Justice Department. Now, listen, suppose this were Condoleezza Rice. They would be all over this story and the mainstream media...
O‘DONNELL: Michael Moore would have made a movie about it already.
(LAUGHTER)
LIDDY: No question, no question about it.
SCARBOROUGH: So you think that there is a double standard, a media double standard here?
LIDDY: Well, there‘s a media double standard.
And what I want to know, what is wrong with the Ashcroft Department of Justice? They put Martha Stewart in jail for impersonating a human being or something like that, and Sandy Berger, five felonies, and we are going to resolve this quietly.
SCARBOROUGH: All right, G. Gordon Liddy, I appreciate you being here.
Ann Coulter, Lawrence O‘Donnell, also appreciate you being here.
I am going to ask Daniel Cruise if you will stick around, Daniel. I am going to give you the last word after the break. I think you deserve that.
And also coming up right after Daniel gets the last word, shocking details about a Utah missing pregnant woman, Lori Hacking. You are not going to want to miss the latest in this story.
And Stephen Flynn enters SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY to tell us why he says our government is failing to protect Americans.
That‘s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCARBOROUGH: A pregnant woman is missing in Utah and her husband is being caught in a web of lies. We‘re going to have the very latest on the story when SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY returns.
But first, let‘s get the latest headlines from the MSNBC News Desk.
(NEWS BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: From the press room, to the courtroom, to the halls of Congress, Joe Scarborough has seen it all. Welcome back to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, it‘s been three days since 27-year-old Lori Hacking vanished in Salt Lake City during a morning run. After she failed to show up at work on Monday, her husband called the police. They had just learned last week that she was five weeks pregnant. The couple was reportedly moving to Chapel Hill. Mark was supposed to be attending medical school there.
But now some surprising developments in the case. At a press conference, the focus shifted from the search for Lori to conflicting information about Mark Hacking‘s history. This is what was said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUGLAS HACKING, FATHER-IN-LAW OF LORI HACKING: Fifteen minutes ago, we were made aware of some information that we did not know, and we are trying to digest that information. He never even applied to medical school at North Carolina.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: With us now from Salt Lake City with the very latest on the search for Lori Hacking and with this new development and how it affects the investigation is Pat Reavy. He‘s a reporter covering the story for “The Deseret Morning News.” We also have Clint Van Zandt. He‘s an MSNBC analyst and a former FBI profiler.
Clint, I want to go to you fist. I want to show you some shocking statistics about homicide with young pregnant women. Statistics show that homicide of pregnant women is, if we can go ahead and put it up, please, is very common in America.
Let‘s put the statistics up. Pregnant woman are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die from any other cause.
Clint, who are these killers? Is it a serial killer? Is it stranger hiding in the bushes? Unfortunately, the killers are most often the fathers of the children. Out of 14,054 homicides in 2002, 32 percent of the women who knew their killers were murdered by their husband or their boyfriend.
Clint, those are some pretty shocking numbers, aren‘t they?
CLINT VAN ZANDT, MSNBC ANALYST: Well, and the numbers are even greater, Joe, when you look at the number of pregnant women that are the victims of assault up to and including murder. That statistic goes two, three times higher, where it‘s the significant other, it‘s the person that has impregnated the victim that is also the assailant.
So I have seen other people say, well, why do the police always look at the husband? Well, you know, you take a rock, and you throw it in the pond, Joe, you don‘t go 50 yards away and look for the rock. You look for it where it first went into the water. And as an investigator, you start at ground zero. That‘s the husband. That‘s the significant other. You rule him in or you rule him out.
And, Joe, the police want to rule him out quickly, because they have got a finite amount of investigative resources, and they want to find this woman. But you either got to put this guy in or put this guy out. And because of issues in his life, like many other high-profile cases we have seen the last couple of years, the police aren‘t able to rule this guy out. And, therefore, a lot of significant investigative resources have to be centered on him until they can find out what role, if any, he played in her disappearance.
SCARBOROUGH: Now, Clint, you are a profiler. This guy, he has been accused now of lying about his life. He said he was going to be going to Chapel Hill to attend medical school. Lori‘s parent found out that was a lie. They found out he never even graduated from college.
As a profiler, does this raise red flags in your mind, or could it just be, hey, this guy was lying to impress friends?
VAN ZANDT: Yes, but it all comes back. Eventually, you start lying, you start going down that slippery slope, and you have got to do something to stop yourself from sliding.
Now, many times, it‘s just, let me tell you the truth. And many times, it‘s, let‘s have some other type of cataclysmic event in my life that will justify me not doing these other things. And in this particular case, the lies that are being told, and the timeline, Joe—when you look at the timeline, that she leaves at 5:30 in the morning, at 6:00, we have one witness that believes they may have seen her. She jogs. She is supposed to be home at 6:30, take a shower. He is supposed to get up and drive her to work.
No. 1, if, in fact, as I have been told, that he normally jogs with her, why didn‘t he jog that particular day? No. 2, she came home—if she came home at 6:30, he should have been there. If she didn‘t show up at 7:00 or 7:30, I would be up saying, hey, where is she? She is supposed to be here. It‘s still 10:45 before he finally raises the alarm. So there‘s problems with the timeline. There‘s problems with his story.
That doesn‘t make this guy a killer, but it means we got to take a hard look at him, as well as look at anybody else, from a transient to the type of guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart.
SCARBOROUGH: Yes.
Hey, Pat Reavy, let me bring you in here.
Now, during the latest press conference, Mark Hacking‘s father still tried to give his son the benefit of the doubt. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HACKING: I have no explanation for this new development. I just can‘t understand it. So I won‘t speculate beyond that. But we will keep you informed as we learn more. It still doesn‘t necessarily answer the question as to what happened to Lori.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Pat, tell me, has everybody turned their eyes toward Lori‘s husband, and is there a growing sense there that he has got to be the police‘s No. 1 suspect?
PAT REAVY, “DESERET MORNING NEWS”: Well, I think in the sense that, yes, he lied about his schooling and no other name has come up at this point, obviously, I think there‘s a lot of attention now on him.
Police still holding to their line about, hey, everybody is a suspect and nobody is a suspect at this point, police unwilling to call this anything more right now than a missing persons case, except with, of course, very suspicious circumstances. They are not calling him a suspect. But from what we have learned today, there aren‘t any other names being brought up except his.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, what about what Clint told us earlier, that he usually jogs with his wife? He didn‘t jog, though, this morning—that she was abducted.
(CROSSTALK)
REAVY: Right.
As I understand the timeline, she usually jogs with a female friend. He is not the one who usually jogs with her. However, her normal routine is jogging in the afternoon. She jogs three to five times a week sometimes. We are told it was usually in the afternoon in that area. She got there. Last she was seen, supposedly, between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning. Allegedly, a neighbor saw somebody stretching out that matched her description around 5:50. She was supposed to be at work at 7:00 that morning. Supposedly, her husband went on to work earlier.
It was around 10:00 that he tried to call her or contact her at work, he claimed, and she wasn‘t there. They began searching. They found her car parked at the entrance of the gate. And by 10:49 is when they contacted police through 911.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, the family of Elizabeth Smart were among the first to volunteer in the search for Lori Hacking. Ed Smart, Elizabeth‘s father, endured the same agony when his daughter went missing from the same town. And he offered his support to the family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED SMART, FATHER OF ELIZABETH SMART: The support of the community was really what helped keep us going. And to hear the outpouring of help and the numbers of people that are willing to come and help, I think, is something that brings great hope to the family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Clint, 15 seconds. What‘s the family going through right now?
VAN ZANDT: The family is going through absolute hell right now. They have searched the area where she ran. They haven‘t come up with her. They don‘t have any suspects. There‘s no indication of violence at the crime scene there. It‘s like aliens took her. And we know, Joe, aliens didn‘t take her. Some other monster had something to do with it.
SCARBOROUGH: All right, thanks so much.
Now, tomorrow night, we are going to be talking to Ed Smart about Lori Hacking and about what it‘s like to have someone close to you disappear. That‘s tomorrow night right here on SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.
But I want to thank Clint and also Pat Reavy for being with us tonight. We greatly appreciate it.
Now, if you have any information about Lori‘s disappearance or her whereabouts, please call the Salt Lake City Police at 801-799-3000 or 801-799-INFO.
And coming up next, I have got issues with one journalist getting in trouble with his newspaper because he gave money to John Kerry‘s campaign. I thought they were all for Kerry.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight‘s SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY challenge: What‘s the maximum an individual can give to a presidential candidate? Is it, A, $1,000, B, $2,000, or, C, $500? The answer coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: In tonight‘s SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY challenge, we asked, what‘s the maximum an individual can give to a presidential candidate? The answer is B, $2,000. Any donor must also be 18 years old.
Now back to Joe.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, earlier in the show, we were going to have Daniel Cruise come on to get the last word in the Sandy Berger story. Unfortunately, because of a problem on our part, he wasn‘t able to do that.
But I am sure we are going to be talking about Sandy Berger tomorrow night. We will get him back on, give him the first word and the last word. And I am sure he will say something like Sandy Berger is a good guy and we should talk about George W. Bush‘s failures in homeland security.
But, anyway, sorry, Daniel, but we will get you back on tomorrow night.
Now, if you are stuffing secret documents in your pants, you have got issues. But I am Joe and I have got issues tonight.
And one of the first ones has to do with out West in the land of the Grateful Dead and Nancy Pelosi, where vegan and fine dining are used in the same sentence, headlines tomorrow will scream the horrible truth that a local newspaper editor gave money to, gasp, John Kerry‘s campaign.
An editor at “The San Francisco Chronicle” who had been with the paper for 35 years was placed on leave for giving the Kerry campaign $400. “The San Francisco Chronicle” backed Al Gore in 2000, and it‘s hardly a secret who the paper is going to support in this year‘s election. In fact, I will eat my Red Sox cap if it gives Bush its coveted Bay area endorsement.
That‘s why the newspaper‘s action was such a joke. Who other than Ivory Tower elites would suggest that editors for newspapers like “The Chronicle,” “The New York Times,” or “The L.A. Times” don‘t support John Kerry with millions of dollars of in-kind contributions every day with their slanted news coverage of Iraq, the economy, and the presidential campaign?
Now, “The Chronicle” editors may be upset that one of their own has revealed a dirty little secret. But it‘s no secret that papers like “The Chronicle” are dominated by editors and writers who will never pull a lever for a Republican like George W. Bush. So, hey, give the guy his job back and stop insulting our intelligence. The elite media isn‘t fair or balanced, and it‘s never been that way.
Second issue tonight, Matt Damon. Now, with all the issues I have about big Hollywood hot shots, this might be considered good news. Matt Damon, who is star of the upcoming thriller “The Bourne Supremacy,” revealed that he has never voted before. I wish more people in Hollywood could say that.
The talented Mr. Damon said he didn‘t have good excuse for his voter apathy. And he said this—quote—“I‘m from Massachusetts. Everyone I would have voted for didn‘t need my vote.” But Matt added that this year‘s election is so important that he is going to head to the polls for the very first time and he will cast his vote for John Kerry. Hey, that‘s great news for John Kerry. He is going to probably carry the Bay State by 30 percentage points.
By the way, if you have not caught Matt‘s first flick, “Bourne Identity,” you need to go rent it before the new movie comes out. It rocks.
Issue No. 3, for the past two nights, we have told you about Annie and Kevin Jacobsen, who believe they saw suspicious activity while on Northwest Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles.
Now, we asked you to write in with your stories, and the response has been overwhelming. And here‘s one from a former federal air marshal. He says—quote—“The importance of exposing the ongoing lack of aviation security within the U.S. can‘t be overstated. I, along with hundreds of others, made the conscious decision to leave the agency as a direct result of the issues raised on your show. The refusal to address this real and present danger has led directly to the federal air marshal ranks being decimated by departures.”
And the mother of a federal air marshal wrote in to say this: “Being a mother of an air marshal, I‘m terrified every time my son flies because of the way he has to dress and how he and his partners stand out wearing suits while others are dressed in jeans and sports clothes,” signed, “A Concerned Mother.”
Now, if you are concerned or outraged about this e-mail issue, we would like you to keep all your e-mails coming to Joe@MSNBC.com. And we promise you, we are going to stay on top of this story about the safety in our skies.
As you know, terrorists have shown that they won‘t just use planes to attack Americans. They are going to use any means anywhere anytime. President Bush signed a bill today to combat bioterrorism. He discussed lessons learned since September 11.
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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those attacks revealed the depth of our enemy‘s determination, but not the extent of their ambitions. We know that the terrorists seek an even deadlier technology. And if they acquire chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, we have no doubt they will use them to cause even greater harm.
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SCARBOROUGH: With me now is Stephen Flynn. He‘s the author of
“America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from
Terrorism”
Stephen, thanks so much for being with us.
I know you served 20 years as a United States Coast Guard officer and served in national security roles for both Bush 41 and President Clinton. I saw you on “Meet the Press” this weekend. You have got a very frightening story to tell us. Tell us, why should Americans be concerned that the Bush administration and the entire federal government isn‘t doing enough to protect Americans, not only in the skies, but on the ground?
STEPHEN FLYNN, AUTHOR, “AMERICA THE VULNERABLE”: Well, I have written this book, which is a scary book, but it‘s also a book that I think offers hope.
What is scary is that we are a very soft target. This should come as a surprise to no American. We have lived in the most peaceful corner of the planet for two centuries. There haven‘t certainly been any boots on our grounds since the War of 1812. And that‘s allowed us to essentially deal with national security as an away game, as something we deal with on the shores of allies and the bases over there or on the battlefields of our adversaries.
But the core reality of 9/11, I think we are still struggling with trying to come to grips with. The terrorists were here. They used our infrastructure against us. They didn‘t have to import a weapon of mass destruction. They turned a commercial airline into one. And most of the costs that came out of 9/11 were things that we imposed on ourselves because we got spooked.
And those are issues that I think we are struggling to come to grips with. We have a lot of effort overseas, but we‘re still struggling with, how do we really address this vulnerability of being a modern society that is wide open?
SCARBOROUGH: But, Stephen, taxpayers have spent $200 billion this year on the war on terror. Where is the money going?
FLYNN: Well, the bulk of our money—by comparison, for instance, I worry very much about our commercial seaports. These are the economic lifelines that connect us to the world. Many of the things that come into our country, about 90 percent of all general cargo, in a box.
They‘re 40-foot-by-8-foot-by-8-foot boxes that sit on trains and trucks and are coming in huge quantities on ships. We have very little idea what‘s in them until they arrive and we open them up, usually by the final customer. The problem is, the system is wide open and could be used as a poor man‘s missile. This is something the Central Intelligence Agency has said is the most likely way in which they would come in.
And yet we have provided since 9/11 in just over the last three years in grants supports to address big security problems what we spend every three days in Iraq. Now, I am not making the case it‘s an either/or issue. But I‘m saying, a country as big and powerful as this one has to think about its defense as well as its offense, when its adversaries are coming at the nonmilitary elements of our power. They‘re coming after the things that we value and are so important to our way of life.
And we are just barely cobbling together the kinds of preventative measures to protect those things.
SCARBOROUGH: Stephen, stay with us. We‘ll be right back after this short break.
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SCARBOROUGH: I am back with Stephen Flynn. He‘s author of “America the Vulnerable,” an extremely important book for you to read.
Stephen, when did you first decide to write this book?
FLYNN: Well, its origins predate 9/11.
But let me say, this is not a Democratic issue. This is not a Republican issue. This is an American issue. And I have written this book in the hopes that the American people will be equipped with questions to ask the candidates for this next election about what can be done and what must be done to make ourselves less of a target. We have our young men and women in uniform overseas dying for the war on terrorism. I want to make sure that we are all pitching in.
SCARBOROUGH: All right, Stephen, you are exactly right. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It‘s an issue that affects all Americans.
Stephen, a great book. Thanks for being here tonight.
We will see all of you tomorrow night on SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.
END
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