Stem Cells and Scandals: The Collision of the Personal and the Political
JEFF GREENFIELD, HOST: We're focusing on two topics tonight. The Chandra Levy/Gary Condit story, and we'll also going to look at the split over stem cell research. For some politicians, stem cells and other tough issues are a painful mix of policy and personal experience. When the political and personal collide, tonight on GREENFIELD AT LARGE. Two stories out of Washington, two stories that could not be more different, competed for our attention today. The tailor-made-for-the- tabloids story of a vanished young woman, linked to a congressman under fire. Second, a life-and-death controversy at the crossroads where science, morality and politics meet: the debate over stem cell research. We made a clear choice tonight: we're going to do both. We'll turn to the Chandra Levy story later, but first to what seems like a pretty straightforward question: Should federal money go for research using cells taken from certain embryos? What particularly intrigues us is that many of the advocates cite a personal involvement, a loved one with an illness that such research might help, as a source of their views. As CNN's Garrick Utley reports, this is hardly the first time in American life that the personal and political have met.</s>GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the very beginning, we have seen our nation's leaders balance personal beliefs against political necessity. The founding fathers invoked life, liberty and happiness, while accepting slavery, which was in the personal self-interest of many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, including its author. Granted, it is a long way from Thomas Jefferson to research on stem cells of embryos, but this debate shows again how personal interests can influence traditional politics. Senator Strom Thurmond's daughter has juvenile diabetes and could benefit from what stem cells offer. A strong opponent of abortion, he supports funding the research. As does Nancy Reagan, whose husband suffers from Alzheimer's. As do others who have broken ranks with those who oppose any destruction of an embryo.</s>SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I think the most pro-life position you can take is to use these cells that would be discarded or destroyed anyway to extend or to facilitate life.</s>UTLEY: But then, there are those like Senator Sam Brownback who oppose funding the research even though they have strong personal reasons to support it.</s>SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: Cancer is in my family. I've had it. We want to solve these problems, but there is a correct, there's a moral, right way of doing that.</s>UTLEY (on camera): Of course, the debate over what is the moral, right way is not limited to those invisible stem cells. There has also been the fight in Congress which gets very personal. It's about politics and money. (voice-over): In the struggle over campaign finance reform, several black and Hispanic Democrats in the House feared losing contributions. In fact, Democrat Albert Wynn has cosponsored the Republican-led legislation, which called for milder restrictions. Nothing gets more personal in politics than survival. But then, there is the story of Jeanette Rankin, who stands in marbled splendor in the Capitol, the first woman to be elected to Congress in 1916, just in time to vote against America's entry into World War I. She was voted out of office two years later, but returned to Congress in 1940, just in time for Pearl Harbor. When the vote was taken in Congress to declare war on Japan, Jeanette Rankin cast the only vote against it. Once again, she was not re-elected. Jeanette Rankin showed twice that perhaps you can vote strictly according to your personal beliefs and have a political career. For one term.</s>GREENFIELD: CNN's Garrick Utley. Joining us to talk about what happens when the political and personal meet are: D.L. Hughley, he is the star of "The Hughleys" on UPN. He is in the movie "The Brothers," and his stand-up comedy can be seen in "The Original Kings of Comedy." Heather Mac Donald is a scholar, a writer. She has contributed to "The Wall Street Journal," "The New York Times," "The Washington Post," and she is a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute in Manhattan. And William Saletan joins us from Washington, where he serves as senior editor at Slate.com. And his most recent article there is about stem cell politics, so let me start with you, Will. When you hear folks say, yes, I'm pro-life, but I know first hand that research will help people, is this a valid way for political folks to decide matters of great principle, through personal anecdotal references?</s>WILLIAM SALETAN, SENIOR EDITOR, SLATE.COM: Well, you know, there is a long-standing joke in the abortion issue, which is that every politician is in favor of three exception to an abortion ban, and those are rape, incest and me. And so, I think that's a valid point that politician shouldn't make exceptions for themselves if they have a principle. If you're pro-life, be a pro-life. If you believe that life starts at conception, hold to that principle when it gets to stem cell research. You shouldn't make exceptions to that principle because you have a relative, or if you have someone in your family that has cancer or something like that, and then turn around and ban abortion for other people. So, you should be consistent down the line.</s>GREENFIELD: But Heather, another way to put that is: politicians, we often hear that they're detached from real people, they don't know enough about how real people live. So, they have a personal experience, they see something that they hadn't realized before. And suddenly, they say, you know, I don't think this position adequately dealt with real life, what's wrong with politicians doing that?</s>HEATHER MAC DONALD, SENIOR FELLOW, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: Well, it's inevitable that that will happen, but I think there's something troubling about that, Jeff, because it suggests that all policy might be just random an contingent based on what a politician happens to experience that day. For example, when Mayor Giuliani in New York withdrew from the Senate race and announced he had prostate cancer, he said: "My experience with cancer taught me all of sudden that life is short, that sickness is terrible. Therefore, we need a whole new government- supported insurance program." Now, leaving aside the merits of the program, I think it was not a good idea. It was worrisome that it took something like this to make Mayor Giuliani understand the value of the program. One would like to believe that our politicians would be able to decide things based on general truths, rather than simply their own personal experience.</s>GREENFIELD: But doesn't that ask an awful lot of -- even though they are politicians, they are also human beings, and if they didn't realize something in the first place, and they suddenly realized it because of a personal event, or they saw something they never saw, and they go, you know, my eyes are open now?</s>D.L. HUGHLEY, "THE HUGHLEYS": Ultimately, these politicians exist to represent their constituencies. They're not in Washington because of their personal views, they are in Washington -- or wherever they come from -- because they're there to represent the people that voted them into office. And to me, it's amazing that -- ultimately, we all are sum total of our life's experiences and I understand that somebody had a life- altering experience, but I have to agree with what Will said, character is what you do in the dark. You know, it's not -- you know, it's what you do in the dark, it's what you do when people aren't looking. And it's amazing how all these people who are pro-life and against abortion now ultimately when they see something that's affecting them so personally want to swing the vote. I mean, it's unfortunate that we have these sicknesses, but the right to life exists past the womb. I mean, we have to maintain life too.</s>GREENFIELD: Well, I gather now -- well, go ahead.</s>SALETAN: I think you were getting at a valid point before, which is that it is better for a politician to know what happens to real people when they implement the policy. It's good for them to have some personal experience with the consequences, with the issues. But the problem is, when they only look at one side of the personal experience. You know, if you are approving federal stem cell research because you have people in your family who need that research, who need the cells, you know, you're not looking at -- you should be looking at the people on the other side. You know, some of the right-to-life groups next week are going to bring in three kids who were born from these in vitro embryos that were frozen. Orrin Hatch thinks those embryos are not human, they are not people. Well, here we have three kids that were born from those embryos. Orrin Hatch should have to look at those kids. He should have to see the personal experience on the other side of the issue.</s>GREENFIELD: Heather, before we break, do you want to make a quick point on this?</s>MAC DONALD: Well, I would agree with Will and I think it's very much like rules against financial conflict of interest. We don't want a politician to be deciding a tax break for a company that he has investments in. It's the same thing if he has a personal stake, that that clouds his judgment, and he should be deciding on a more broad basis, not just how he feels about the question.</s>GREENFIELD: It's in my personal interest to take a break right now, so that CNN can make some money. But when we come back, this is a question that goes beyond stem cell research. What happens when the political and personal collide? And later, a congressman who may or may not have obstructed a criminal investigation. The real Gary Condit/Chandra Levy story. Maybe. Still ahead.</s>GREENFIELD: We are back, with comedian D.L. Hughley, Slate.com's Will Saletan and writer Heather Mac Donald. We are talking about the personal and political. D.L., let's broaden this out. You do not lead the kind of life you led when you were a young man. Your experiences are different. You're a dad. Do you look at things like discipline, education the same way now?</s>HUGHLEY: I grew up in the inner city in Los Angeles. I'm a high school dropout. Now I'm trying to raise three children and have them be precisely what I wasn't, growing up. So -- and I like to say that daddy used all the luck up in the family, now all y'all got left is hard work. But I think, yes, ultimately, like I say, when I was a kid, yes, I loved peanut butter and jelly, now as an adult, I can't stand it. I think we all have experiences that make us different. I lived in a very narrow box. I grew up in Los Angeles and didn't even know white people lived in that city until I was 19 years old. I didn't even know. I would see them on "The Price is Right" and go, "I never saw y'all before," so I think that we all have -- then having an experience where I get to travel all over the country and see the world, I certainly look at things a lot more differently than I did before.</s>GREENFIELD: Well, let me, Heather, take D.L.'s story and make it a little more political. Somebody supports bussing, and then this kid gets on the bus and he says, you know what, I never thought through the fact that this is an hour and a half trip each day. The kid, he's too young for this and he changes his mind. Now, some people might say that's hypocrisy -- or a pro-life person's daughter gets pregnant, and suddenly brings home to that person in a very clear way, just what's at stake with an unwanted pregnancy. Are we talking about hypocrisy, or are we talking about politicians learning from experience?</s>MAC DONALD: Well, of course, I would hope that at least the anti-bussing convert would then oppose bussing for everybody. The problem we've got with many of our politicians in Washington and in New York is they continue to oppose vouchers or support bussing, when they send kids to private schools. Again, I think if a principle was right the first time, I think that's why a politician was elected to office. And as D.L. said, he's there to represent the constituents. And if you have a life-changing experience, it's almost like bait and switch, I think, with your constituents, to change in midterm. There was a congresswoman from Long Island whose husband was tragically gunned down on the Long Island Railroad. This gave a life experience, made her a rabid opponent of gun rights. She was elected on that platform. That's perfectly appropriate. But if she had, say, come in as an anti-NRA person and then had saved herself because she used a hand gun, and now all of a sudden is a big second amendment supporter, I think as a politician, that would be a problem.</s>GREENFIELD: But you know, Will, you and I both covered politics. I'm older than everybody, so probably longer, and you can't go to any political event without a politician trying to connect with the people by telling them an experience that changed his or her life. You know, I was visiting the inner city, I was in rural Kentucky, and this is what I learned that changed me. Do you give that credence when you hear a politician talking about how personal information has changed him, do you just chalk it up to hot air?</s>SALETAN: Well, sometimes it's hot air. A lot of the time it's sincere, but sincerity is not enough, because that politician shouldn't just be making a decision based a experience on one side of the equation. You know, Heather brought up the example earlier of Mayor Giuliani saying, you know, I have this disease so we need a new program. What happens is that politician is talking about the benefits to people like himself, people who might know as a result of this program. But there's experience on the other side of the equation. There's a cost to that program. You know, are we willing to pay for it? Who is going to suffer as a result of that? Whose programs are going to be cut as a result of that program being funded? So I think it's important to look at both sides, and maybe politicians can solve this problem. Maybe on one side, you have people saying let's spend on this program because it will help people I know. On the other side, you have President Bush going around with these tax families and saying, if we fund all these programs, these people here, the Smiths, the Joneses, the Browns are going to suffer. They're going to lose $1,000, $2,000 a year.</s>GREENFIELD: We need to take a break. I just want to let D.L. get in, and because we're going to change topics. So when you hear a politician come in to say -- an inner city where you used to live, and say: "Now I have learned the plight of these people, and I'm going to do something about it," do you say all right for him?</s>HUGHLEY: I think that what I've seen, just as it relates to this administration, George Bush's administration clearly is out of step, generally, in what a lot of us want. The energy policy, the environment, and so I think that those things are great ear candy, but they don't necessarily -- I don't think he cares any more about the inner city than -- you know, results speak louder than anything to me. And I watch this proposal on vouchers and I -- to make this short, those inner city kids are going to have to ride those buses for two hours to the suburbs. come back for two hours and everybody's going to wonder why Diondre can't read. It's not because he's illiterate, it's because he's exhausted. And so I think you have to look at the whole spectrum of all that.</s>MAC DONALD: Well, I just think it's brought out the problem of unintended consequences, that if you make policy based on the heart wrenching story -- like, here's a single mother, you know, lets give her money because she's needy. And who could have predicted that this would result in the breakdown of the inner city family? So I think we have to think more broadly than the individual anecdote.</s>HUGHLEY: I think you're right.</s>GREENFIELD: OK, on what is at least, in New York, as a note of unanimity, not anonymity, these are un-anonymous people, we're going to take a break. When we come back, guess what we're going to talk about? The missing intern story that has become much more than a tabloid scandal, maybe, and have the politicians reacted to it in the way we expect or want them to? After this.</s>GREENFIELD: And we're back, with D.L. Hughley from "The Hughleys," cleverly named show, Heather Mac Donald of "City Journal," and Will Saletan of Slate.com. And we are turning now to a story whose shape seems to have changed dramatically in the last week: from a sex scandal, who was doing what with whom, to a very different question: Did a congressman withhold information from police, and perhaps hamper an ongoing investigation? Bill Saletan, does this question make the story more legitimate as William Safire, among others has said, "New York Times," other columnists, or is it really a fig leaf, just permits us to put on the hip boots and wade deeper into the muck?</s>SALETAN: Well, I'm of the opinion that this entire media story is a circus and these are fig leaves for what is essentially a story about sex and power. First, there was the rationale that maybe he was involved in her disappearance. So far there's zero evidence he was involved in her disappearance. Then there was the rationale he withheld some information that could have helped solve the case. There is zero information that he had any such evidence. He did withhold the fact that he had this affair with her, but there's no evidence that had any resolve. And what we keep doing is descending to new rationales, but really at the bottom, there's only two things that Gary Condit had in common with Chandra Levy and that was sex and power. That's the reason why people are following him.</s>GREENFIELD: And yet, it does seem to me that -- maybe it was a fig leaf that the media people picked up and said oh, goody! We have a rationale for doing this story. But if you listen to the argument, says excuse me, this is a United States congressman, the police wanted to ask him some questions, if he'd level with them, if he owed them an obligation to tell them everything that he knew. So they could check out every conceivable lead as possible -- does that have the ring of plausibility, or are with you Will and say no, that's the excuse, now let's go play?</s>DONALD: I'm basically on Will's side because I think, up until now, why we weren't we caring about the other 140 missing persons in Washington? It really was this incredible self-indulgence of once again another Clinton escapade, and I also wonder, if he had been a Republican, if talk shows would have been quite as obsessed about this. On the other hand, I do think that the obstruction of justice question is a serious one. And he should be held accountable for that, but basically the media lucked out. Now this justifies everything leading up to it, but I think before it was truly absurd.</s>GREENFIELD: You're not buying it. I want to turn to your career</s>HUGHLEY: You know, as unpopular as this is -- my father told me you had to laugh to keep from crying, I think that absolutely every subject has an element of irony in it, that can be extracted for humor. Like I was on a panel, I told you, with Joan Rivers and Robber Kline. And Robert Kline was going on about how</s>GREENFIELD: We have a minute or so left, and I want to ask you a political question. First to you in Washington, Will: the reaction of House Democrats to this story, are you surprised that nobody's flat out said, you know, he ought to resign? Or he may have to resign? Or this is a terrible breach of the trust? What do you think accounts for that relative quiet?</s>SALETAN: You know the last politician who said that another politician should come clean about something like this was Gary Condit talking about Bill Clinton. And now Gary Condit is being raked over the coals for that hypocrisy. Who knows how many other congressman are engaging in adultery like this? Maybe not serial adultery, but maybe they don't want to step forward, because do we want to have a precedent where the media go around and investigate the sex lives of all these congressman?</s>GREENFIELD: Do you think, Heather, this will be political fodder for the Republican Party if Democrats don't say anything? I mean, they didn't have too much good luck going after another Democratic politician in this kind of an area. Granted, there wasn't a...</s>DONALD: That's obviously the big difference I think with a missing person there. I think the notion of privacy perhaps then disappears, and I think Condit's obligation at this point is to do everything he can to help the investigation. So if he stonewalls further he then legitimately becomes a political target.</s>GREENFIELD: D.L. you spoke rather candidly, I think, about the fact that you can extract humor from any situation. When you look at a story like this and watch it played out in the news in the late- night shows, do you get the sense that whatever the tragic possible end to this that America is having fun with the story?</s>HUGHLEY: No, I certainly think that in and of itself the event is not funny, but this man lied about what other men from -- he didn't have to be a politician, there's a plumber right now lying to his wife about whether he cheated or not. We are all like so similar and all the same and I think that we all see the irony in so many situations. We all see the ironic quotient in it.</s>GREENFIELD: What the plumber's probably lying about is what time he's going to show up at your house, but that's a different subject. We are out of time. I want to thank my guests, comedian D.L. Hughley from "The Hughleys," slate.com senior editor, Will Saletan, and "City Journal" contributing editor Heather Mac Donald. When we come back, how the Chandra Levy story has turned some in the press upside down.</s>GREENFIELD: And another thing: Sharks got to swim, bats got to fly, and the media got to wring their collective hands every time they plunge into a story where sex, politics, and a potential crime combine. You can normally figure out which media outlets are eager to embrace a story, and which ones approach it as if investigating the source of a powerfully distasteful aroma somewhere in the basement. But today, two of the more visible media players appear to have swapped uniforms. "The New York Times" today features a big picture above the fold, as they say, of police searching Representative Condit's apartment. Not only that, three of its columnists, Maureen Dowd, Joyce Purnick, William Safire, had each weighed in with columns defending this as a legitimate, big story about potential misconduct by a public official. Meanwhile, "The New York Daily News," a tabloid that literally invented scandal coverage in America, has an editorial cartoon we are going to show you, aimed specifically at this network for overplaying the story. It's an amusing swipe at overcoverage of the story. But we couldn't help wondering whether the folks on the editorial page of "The Daily News" have actually looked at their own paper the last couple weeks. Say, this copy, or this copy, or that copy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when you hear someone talking about a media circus, remember: you're listening to one of the clowns. I'm Jeff Greenfield. Tomorrow, comedian Martin Mull helps out with our week-in-review. "SPORTS TONIGHT" is next. Thanks for watching. ... TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com