Transcripts For CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20101223

also tonight, bullied to death. we've been reporting on this issue all year long. tonight, new developments in two cases that have helped put a face on this deadly epidemic. and later, he claims he can heal the sick without touching him. his followers insist they've been cured. so are these medical miracles or is it all a sham? we'll take a look. we begin as we always do keeping them honest. tonight, the director of national intelligence, james clap ser facing tough questions about how clued in he really is to possible terrorist threats. clapper's job is to coordinate what the nation knows about terrorism and national security. he's paid to know what's going object all across the intelligence community and to make sure everyone else knows as well. he's supposed to know before we do. so how, then, did reporters scoop clapper on this? >> breaking news, holiday terror plot, british police arrest 12 men suspected of planning to detonate bombs or explosives in al qaeda-style terror attacks. 12 men of planning to set off a number of bombs now under arrest. 12 men in england have been arrested this morning in a large-scale counterterrorism sting operation. uk officials say the men have been detained for allegedly preparing to carry out an act of terrorism. they were arrested after dawn raids this morning, by unarmed officers. this is being described as a large-scale preplanned intelligence-led operation. >> a major news story monday morning and throughout the day. raids were carried out in the predawn hours in several cities by british intelligence agents. i guess you could assume director had been briefed long before reporters found out. but on monday afternoon, hours after the arrests, director clapper appeared totally in the dark during this interview with diane sawer. >> reporter: london. how serious is it? any implication it was coming here? any of the things they have seen were coming here? director clapper? >> the arrests of the 12 individuals by the british this morning. >> reporter: yes. >> oh. >> this is something the british informed us this morning. >> reporter: later in the interview, i came back to the director. did he really not know? i was a little surprised you didn't know about london, director clapper. >> oh. i'm sorry. i didn't. >> you referenced london but you didn't talk about the arrests. >> that was john brennan there, the president's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism who essentially bailed mr. clapper out. the interview was taped around 3:45 in the afternoon, yet you just heard clapper say he didn't know anything about the arrests. he clearly had never been briefed. once abc news released the clip, clapper's office went into sort of damage control mode. the statement released last night explained point blunder like this, the question about this specific news development was ambiguous. the dni's knowledge of the threat streams in europe is profound and multi dimensional. any suggestion otherwise is inaccurate. is that fair? let's go back and look at the tape. >> reporter: london. how serious is it? any implication that it was coming here? any of the things that they have seen were coming here? director clapper? >> all right. i mean, point taken, there, sawyer's wording may have been vague. instead of saying today's arrest of a dozen terror suspects in the united kingdom, she said london, not uk. but then again, mr. brennan clearly understood what she meant when he jumped in to save his colleague. by this morning, clapper's office had dropped the ambiguity defense. they said this, director clapper had not yet been briefed on the arrest in the united kingdom at the time of this interview taping. his spokeswoman said the dni was working throughout the day on important intelligence matters including military and political developments on the korean peninsula. providing answers to questions concerning the ratification of the s.t.a.r.t. nuclear treaty and other classified issues. okay. clapper was busy. on monday. there's a lot going on in the world, no question, and he didn't get briefed. period. but why not? they say this. he wasn't immediately briefed on london, clapper's spokeswoman said, because it didn't appear to have a homeland nexus and there was no immediate action by the dni. homeland nexus. that sounds kind of jargony. we weren't sure what that meant. are they trying to say the suspected plot posed no risk to americans? nevertheless, he should have been briefed on the arrest and steps should have been taken to ensure that he is in the future. the intelligence community as a whole was fully aware of this development and tracking it closely. now, john brennan, the guy who bailed out clapper in the abc interview base cliff said the same thing today. the other staffers in the intelligence community below clapper's rank were following the british investigation closely. he also said this. >> should he have been briefed by his staff on those arrests? yes. and i know there was breathless attention by the media about these arrests and there was constantly on the news networks, i'm glad that jim clapper is not sitting in front of the tv 24 hours a day and monitoring what's coming out of the media. >> well, you know, we kind of agree with you on that, mr. brennan. we don't want mr. clapper to be getting his briefings from us in the media either. i mean, we think he should be well aware of any terror threats or suspected plolts or planned arrests or anything for that matter long before we in the media are reporting the story. after all, the job clapper now holds director of national security was created in 2004 to prevent the kind of intelligence fame efailures that allowed 9/1 in the first place. clapper is to make sure all the dots are connected. joining us now, david gergen and former cia director james woolsy. thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> david gergen, let me start with you. obviously this was not a great event for him. do you find any sort of excuse or justification for what happened? >> no, not really. but i have to tell you, i'm sympathetic with him, and sanjay, how many great doctors do you know who have left a sponge behind in a patient at some point or made some other mistake? that's why we have medical mistakes, and we have mistakes in intelligence. having said that, i find it stunning this interview took place at 3:45 eastern time in the afternoon, and these british arrests occurred in early morning, british time. that means there were a lot of hours that passed in which his staff did not see fit to tell him. even though he was going on national television. and that part of it i think his staff blew it. i appreciate the fact he's got an extraordinarily busy life, the kind of life jim once led. >> you know, david, i agree with you, even on the sponge comment that you made about surgeons. but it's one of these things where if you read the newspaper or even watched a little bit of television, i mean, this is part of his job. i'm not saying 24/7, but, james, let me ask you. when you were in a job like this, how would you prep for a press interview? i mean, everyone keeps saying that they're glad he wasn't in front of the television all the time, me too, but couldn't he have been learning about this in other ways before the tv news conferences? >> you're not sitting around in that job with a channel changer sipping coffee and going from channel to channel. i mean, i think first of all, jim clapper's a real pro. and he i think had a right to expect somebody on his staff who is working on press issues would bring him up to speed before a meeting with the press on the highlights of the day, since maybe he saw a morning briefing or something. but this is -- this is a public relations glitch. this is not evidence of something fundamentally wrong. we don't spy on the british. we're not in the business of collecting intelligence from them. if we have a cooperative endeavor, if they needed some american help, some information from us somewhere down the line there could have well been some close cooperation. but that doesn't mean they're going to tell us exactly when they're going to make the bust. this is basically an internal british law enforcement matter, it sounds like. yes, it's terrorists, but that does not mean they tell us, you know, within the hour or whatever, that they're going to start arresting people. >> but i mean, people here did know. it wasn't that they didn't know, it's just that he wasn't briefed, right? >> maybe they knew exactly when. maybe what they knew was just the british were undertaking an investigation and it was going well. we have pretty close liaison with them, but this is not like, say, a cia/mi 6 cooperative efforts vis-a-vis some company in the developing world that's a rogue state or something. this is not something that jim clapper really needed to be orchestrating or running. and the other thing i'd say is i -- congress was in session 195 days my first year as director of central intelligence and i had 200 appointments on the hill. i was up there more than once a day on average and that's just one of the things you have to do. you also are meeting with visiting heads of state, you're doing a lot of things, and you count on your staff to say, hey, they made a bust this that british case yesterday, it was on the news this morning. >> i don't want to beat up on his staff because i mean, i imagine a lot of that is happening. david, i saw you nodding your head a couple times. i mean, was there something you disagreed wi disagreed with? do you think this was critical information for the director of national intelligence to have? >> i think we expect the director of national intelligence to know when some big operation is going down against al qaeda by one of our closest friends in the world. yes, i do think he should have known, but i think it's up to his staff and up to him to establish a system. but i wanted to distinguish something about what jim said, jim clapper is a good man, and i don't think this should reflect badly on him. i do think it's an embarrassment. he doesn't want another one like this because that really will be damaging. but there is a problem in this job and jim knows this better than anyone else. the way this is structured, this has been a snake bitten job. we just had a series of people who have had embarrassments or difficult times in this job and something about this is not properly structured. it's a fairly new job within the intelligence community and somehow, jim, it does not seem to be working out the way that anybody hoped. >> five years now, has it -- do we need this job? it's another layer, it seems, of democracy. >> that's what i thought at the time, and i don't really think they needed to make this change, but now that they've made it they ought to try to make it work. because constant reorganization is a really bad thing in the intelligence community. it jumbled everything up. i think that there's a reasonable likelihood that because the congress cut back on the authority of the dni when they finally got into the house of representatives and started redrafting the legislation that set this all up, they don't have as much authority in the hands of the dni as the initially they thought they should. but this is -- this is not the kind of issue that gave rise to the not connecting the dots before 9/11. that was a matter of the law enforcement community and the intelligence community being barred by a justice department policy for dealing with one another on important matters. this is not that. >> but, jim, there's another question here that many are asking, and that is whether in fact mr. brennan, who is terrific working for the president and white house, whether he has centralized the intelligence operation so much in the white house that someone like clapper may be a little bit out of the loop on something like this. >> well, that's not impossible. the -- that happens. i mean, sometimes you get squeezed to the outside when that little airplane crashed into the lawn of the white house in the fall of 1994, the white house staff joke was that must be woolsy trying to get an appointment with clinton. >> i remember that. it was, i think. >> yeah, that was me. >> no, i think we're in a -- i think we're in a three strikes and you're out. i think this is just the first strike. i think he's fine now, but again, he does not want another episode like this. >> and i know you agree with that as well. >> oh, sure. >> he and panetta are doing a good job. >> they are, they're real pros and we ought to give them the chance to get the job done. >> both of you, happy holidays. thanks for joining us. join the live chat now under way. up next, we're still going to keep them honest, updates on a couple of stories about bullying, a topic we've been following quite closely. in one case, the mother of a california teen who took his own life is finally getting attention from the federal government. we'll see why. also tonight, it's called faith healing. we're going to meet two people who say they've seen it work firsthand and we'll talk about whether a man named john of god has the power to cure what modern medicine cannot. ugh, my sinuses... the congestion... it's your fault. naturally, blame the mucus. well, i can't breathe. did you try blowing your nose? of course. [ both ] and nothing came out. instead of blaming me, try new advil congestion relief. what you probably have is swelling due to nasal inflammation, not mucus. and this can help? it treats the real problem of your sinus symptoms, reducing swelling due to nasal inflammation. so i can breathe. [ mucus ] new advil congestion relief. the right sinus medicine for the real problem. get great last minutenta?ine gifts wednesday through friday at sears! save fiftyo sixty percent off coats, sweaters fleece and sleepwear fothe family. this keurig brewer is one, oh nine, ninety-nine. plus, ve sixty percent off fine jewelry. be the san you want to be. find your santaatears.com but i knew that i was going to need a day job. we actually have a lot of scientists that play music. the creativity, the innovation, there's definitely a tie there. one thing our scientists are working on is carbon capture and storage, which could prevent co2 from entering the atmosphere. we've just built a new plant to demonstrate how we can safely freeze out the co2 from natural gas. it looks like snow. it's one way that we're helping provide energy with fewer emissions. yes! yes, yes, yes! [ laughs ] ♪ [ male announcer ] you know her. we know diamonds. and with 25% off our best selling jewelry, together we'll find the perfect gift, right down to the wire. that's why only zales is the diamond store. together we'll find the perfect gift, right down to the wire. boss: and now i'll turn it over gecko: ah, t, ecko. as we all know, geico has been saving people money on rv, camper and trailer insurance... ...as well as motorcycle insurance... gecko: oh...sorry, technical difficulties. boss: uh...what about this? gecko: what's this one do? gecko: um...maybe that one. ♪ dance music boss: ok, let's keep rolling. we're on motorcycle insurance. vo: take fifteen minutes to see how much you can save on motorcycle, rv, and camper insurance. we have keeping them honest updates now on a couple of stories now, teens bullied by others at school and online. it's an ongoing problem we've been following closely for a long time here on "360" and in many cases the bullying is made worse due to cell phones and internet. tonight, two developments involving gay teens, first the case of 13-year-old seth walsh, an openly gay student who hanged himself in september because he could no longer take the verbal and physical abuse from other teens. now the united states department of education's office of civil rights has opened an investigation into his case. seth has been teased since the fifth grade and the abuse only got worse when he announced he was gay in the sixth grade. his mother wendy says she informed school officials of the attacks against seth but says they didn't seem to care. she home-schooled him for a while in the seventh grade but seth eventually returned to school. after being harassed by a group of teens in a local park three months ago, seth killed himself. wendy walsh contacted the aclu for assistance and together they posted a video of wendy on youtube reading seth's suicide note. >> mom, amanda, shane, shawn, i love you. thank you for having me. it's been a pleasure. i know this will bring you much pain, but i will hopefully be in a better place than this [ bleep ] hole. please, put my body in burial and visit my body. and make sure to make the school feel like [ bleep ] for bringing you this sorrow. this life was a pleasure. mostly having you guys to pull me through the pain. hopefully i become the universe. seth. >> it is hard to hear, obviously wendy, seth's mother there. the aclu sent a letter to the school district superintendant stating its their understanding that, quote, despite being notified of the harassment and despite the clear obligations under state and federal law to protect students from such harassment, neither the school nor the district took adequate measures to protect seth. the letter went on to suggest that since seth died, little has been done in the school or district to address an environment of what they call hostility. the aclu offered a list of actions the district could take. we tried to reach both the superintendant and the president of the school board for reaction but were unsuccessful. and there's a development as well another story we followed closely, the case of tyler clementi. he committed suicide in september. his parents have put rutgers on notice they may file lawsuit. he took his own life after two students, including his room made, allegedly used a web camera to record a sexual encounter tyler had with another man and streamed it online. rutgers says it's not responsible for tyler's suicide. we'll continue to follow these stories as they develop but it's not just teens who harass gay students. incredibly, in october, a man named clint mccance, the vice president of the midland school district in arkansas posted a series of anti-gay remarks on his facebook page. he said he likes gay people give each other aids and die and he would disown his own kids if they were gay. he said, seriously, they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide? direct quote. the only way i'm wearing it is if they all commit suicide, he wrote. i can't believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. two of the five people he was referring to, seth walsh and tyler clementi. when mccance's remarks were made public, people across the country expressed their outrage at him and their immediate calls for his resignation. we at "360" wanted answers as well to find out if he stood by his remarks. keeping them honest, anderson kont fronted clint mccance and he got some action. >> you've written some really terrible things. you called gay kids who killed themselves because of bullying fags and queers, you wrote you like to see gay people die. do you really hate gay people that much that you like to see them die? >> anderson, i made some very ignorant comments. did not realize just how ignorant they were. i've -- you know, went back and looked over the -- i would never support suicide of any kids. i don't support bullying of any kids. i posted that on down further in my post, that i hated it, you know, for those kids, that they felt so hopeless. >> but you sound -- but as you know, in the writing, you sound like a bully yourself. i mean, calling -- using, you know, calmiling kids fags and queers, those are words of a bully. >> i was, you know, like i said, i used some really strong language that -- and it wasn't correct. and, you know, the words i used were unfortunate. and they're -- you know, i should have picked different ones. but it can't be taken back. and all i can do now is extend my apologies for my poor -- my poor speech. >> what do you feel like you're apologizing for, exactly? >> it was over the top, anderson. it was -- i just went too far with it. i don't really believe anyone should commit suicide. i don't feel that way. >> but do you have any idea of the pain that you may have caused not just to families and friends of kids who have killed them selves, but the pain and fear you've caused in your own school district who are bullied, who don't feel safe telling anyone they're gay. >> you know, anderson, that's a what-if. i don't know. i know it was a -- like i said before, i know my statements were too harsh. i don't -- i don't agree with the language i used. it was out of control. and it does look like i was -- that i'm a hate monger, i'm a horrible person, and that's not me at all. >> because you did say you like it when gay people get aids and die. do you want gay people to die? >> no, i don't. >> some of the -- clearly you know the response to this isn't just because you said these words, it's because of who you are. you're the vice president on a school board. i mean, you oversee kids in your school district, and i think that's clearly what's at the core of the reaction to this. are you going to resign from the school board? >> i am going to resign from the school board. it is to help my community, to help my school. i don't want them to receive bad press or have a distraction because of some ignorant comments that i made. >> do you have anything specifically you want to say to parents of kids and friends of kids who have committed suicide after being bullied? >> yes, i would like to extend an apology especially to those -- to those families that have lost children, not just gay, heterosexual, all, all children that feel like suicide's the only way out. it's a -- it saddens me, but especially for those five family that's have just recently lost children, you know, i have -- i've brought more hurt on them with these comments, and that was never my intention. and i apologize for that. because they don't deserve that. and i do feel genuinely bad for that. for them. >> moving forward, are you going to use those words in the future? >> that's in the future. i would hope not. you know, i've learned a very valuable lesson over the last week and number one on this suicide issue. my core beliefs don't change as far as, you know, my -- what i read in the bible and what i read to be true. but this has opened my eyes to a lot of different things. i hope it makes me more sensitive to other people's feelings and what they're going through and, you know, this was a -- it was a hateful, hurtful thing, and it's been -- it's been hurtful for my family as well. and my community. so i -- you know, i'm going to watch what i say. >> well, still ahead, an impasse is broken, a major development today in the battle over the 9/11 health care bill. plus a chilling letter from an american aid worker who's been jailed in haiti's most notorious prison. a lot more news we're following tonight, joe johns joins us now with the bulletin. >> we begin with an incident near the home of former president george w. bush. cnn confirms a suspect was detained tonight outside bush's home in preston hollow. they say the suspect was driving a muscle car through the former president's neighborhood. the former president was at home at the time and was not harmed. a follow, a u.s. aid worker being held in a haitian prison writes in a letter that he's scared he'll never be released. paul wagoner was jailed last week under suspicion of kidnapping a baby boy, even though no official charges were brought against him. the boy died at a hospital in february. the u.s. house and senate have approved a $4.2 billion bill to give compensation and free medical treatment to first responders to the 9/11 attacks. the bill now goes to president obama to sign into law. two chicago firefighters were killed when a wall and roof collapsed in an abandoned building on the city's south side. 17 others were injured. and broadway's "spider-man" musical is set to resume tomorrow night. performer christopher tierney is in serious condition after falling more than 20 feet. human error was responsible for the fall. hope he's okay. >> i don't know if you've seen any of that, it's quite a show, but you can tell where obviously some of those risks might come from. they're really -- those people are coming across the audience and certainly hope that he recovers well. joe, stick around, it's time for tonight's shot. joe, you may have seen this. i hadn't up until today, but antoine dot son has a new song. a bit of background, this past july he gave a sort of animated interview to a tv news crew in his hometown of huntsville, alabama, about the would-be rapist in his sisters room. after the video went viral, it was auto tuned to the "bad intruder song." >> he's climbing in your windows snatching your people, hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife. >> there's a christmas version, joe, of this song which first aired last night on tbs on "lopez tonight." take a listen. ♪ he's climbing in your chimney, snatching your cookies up ♪ ♪ so hide your gifts, hide your trees, hide your gifts, hide your trees ♪ >> what do you think, joe? instant classic? >> how many million hits do you think it took to get these guys on tv? >> right. it's the amazing thing about the internet. it goes viral and everyone around the world knows this guy all of a sudden. >> i've seen that and i laughed out loud the first time i saw it. it's just amazing, it's still alive. >> that's right. maybe he'll have more tunes to come even. >> we'll see. >> all right, joe. you'll want to hear this story as well. in a small town in brazil, there is a man known to the local as many somewhat of a miracle man. ahead, two people who met him. his name is john of god and they say they witnessed his miracle healing claims. also all the best and worst in pop culture, california girl katy perry has been on the top of the list, who else is there? if you have gout, high uric acid can lead to more attacks. ♪ to help reduce attacks, lower your uric acid. uloric lowers uric acid levels in adults with gout. it's not for the treatment of high uric acid without a history of gout. uloric reduces uric acid to help you reach a healthy level. [ female announcer ] don't take uloric if you are taking azathioprine, mercaptopurine, or theophylline. gout may flare when starting uloric. don't stop taking it. your doctor may give you other medicines to help prevent flares. a small number of heart attacks, strokes, and heart-related deaths were seen in studies. it's not certain uloric caused them. certain tests to check liver function may be required. tell your doctor about liver or kidney problems, or history of heart disease or stroke. the most common side effects are liver problems, nausea, gout flares, joint pain, and rash. [ male announcer ] if you have gout, ask your doctor about uloric. in western medicine, the kind of medicine that i practice, we are used to counseling patients, running tests, prescribing medicine and if necessary performing operations. but in a small town in brazil, a man named john of god is practicing a different kind of medicine. he says he's a faith healer and people from all over the world flock to him. he claims to heal patients without even touching them. he was featured on "the oprah winfrey show" and this month's "o magazine" featured him. dr. jeff red iger, a harvard trained psychiatrist witnessed john of god's healing. i spoke with both of them earlier this evening. susan, let's start with you. you went down to brazil on assignment from the magazine to see what all the hype was about. as a journalist, obviously you try to be objective. you must have had some sort of preconceived notion going into this. >> well, i was just curious. i was plain and simple, incredibly curious. because when i first heard of john of god, there was always an aura of respect and, you know, gravitas around it. it was clear that he had helped tremendous amounts of people already. i wanted to know, really, even if one person who was in some way terminally ill and couldn't be helped in conventional ways had been helped by this man, really, what was going on? so to me as a journalist, that was what impelled me down there. >> i was sorry to hear about the loss of your dad quite suddenly two years before going to see john of god. you talked about that you still obviously were carrying a lost emotional weight around. were you hoping to get some kind of healing as well? >> well, i feel like when -- in a story like this, one of the best things i could do for the readers would be to take them through the process and actually going through it myself was one way to do that. so yes, absolutely i was. i think when i heard his name and something kind of clicked with me, that was because i was seeking help myself. and, you know, i really felt as though i was in a hole that i couldn't get out of alone and he definitely helped me. >> jeff, dr., like susan's experience being many of the healing rituals john of god practices are so-called psychic surgeries, psychic operations where he purportedly operates on a patient without touching them. but i understand there are some hands on procedures as well, jeff. is that right? eye scraping, nasal probing, is that right? >> that's right. >> can you just describe what you saw? >> well, that was certainly something i was very interested to observe. a number of people told me down there that they believed they sustained a healing from that kind of experience and i was skeptical. i think if people do have healings from that, that is a result of belief and that it does illustrate perhaps the power of belief. but physiologically that's possible, it's possible for the human body to take an instrument into the nose, probably four inches or so. >> you've probably done a lot of reading like i did, a lot of people claim that these types of things that john of god are doing is just quackery, just slight of hand. is -- are they even scraping the cornea when they do this? >> i do believe that some of what goes on down there is slight of hand. i also believe, however, there are things that happen that cannot be explained by slight of hand. so i have come to believe somewhat reluctantly and figuring out how to accommodate this in my world view that the world is a more mysterious place than i had understood. >> i approached this from my background as a surgeon, i find it intriguing. i want to read something you said while in brazil, quote, it's asking a lot of people to believe that this man is able to do this but at the same time it appears that he is. like jeff, maybe in some ways, it's just hard for me to believe, it's not just thinking it's woo, woo, just being skeptical. you talk about being transformed in some ways. what do you have make of this and what is the message you think for other people? >> i agree with jeff that the world is a mysterious place. just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it's not happening and just because we can't explain it doesn't mean it's not happening. and there is a lot of power in love and faith. people have taken for centuries on faith, the power of prayer and sort of a way that people know. so i don't really think that, you know, you need to one way or another prove ordisprove. i think all in our hearts we know there's more out there than we can explain. maybe 100 years from now energy healing will be a fore front of medicine. >> the concern, i agree, there are a lot of things we don't understand. but the consequences of sometimes going with something despite understanding it or despite being able to prove it might have some dangers. i understand jeff, for example, i understand john of god tells his patients to continue on with their doctor-prescribed treatments. i think that's a good thing, but could john of god be endangering people by possibly giving them false hope? >> that wasn't how i perceived the environment there. i don't know what the danger is in false hope. i -- you know, let's just say some of this is placebo effect and has to do with the force of belief of an individual, is that bad? i mean, as far as i could tell, and i didn't find in my research instances of infection, instances of things gone wrong. i think not everybody gets the sort of happy perfect ending that they might hope for and my own personal experience was that it was a powerful thing and a very good thing, and i would like to hear what jeff thought of it. but i can't see anything bad about what's going on there, myself. >> jeff, i'll let you weigh in on that, but let me ask you as a harvard-trained doctor, did you look at scans of people or try and do, you know, medical confirmations of some of these things as well? >> yes, i did. i went down there after initially resisting the idea of going down there and just tried to see what was true. i tried to collect ct scans, laboratory tests and data from before and after these healing events just to see what the evidence said was going on. i do believe that this kind of research is complicated. >> i think susan makes a good point. just because we can't always explain things doesn't make them not true but to be real honest about that, i think is very important. a respected physician, and respected journalist, very glad you could both weigh in. thank you very much. i'm honestly not sure what to make of this, but maybe it's something i should see for myself. to try and better understand what's happening here. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, all the best, all the worst of 2010. lady gaga is on our list of pop culture favorites this year. who else, what else made the cut? we'll show you. plus a gallery of not so smart thieves taking aim at a big-named rapper and landing on our ridiculist. s event and receive the gift of asphalt. experience the exhilarating cadillac cts with a direct injection v6. it's the one gift you can open up all year long. see your cadillac dealer for this attractive offer. backed by the peace of mind that only comes from cadillac premium care maintenance. the season's best sales event. from cadillac. let's raise a glass to cookies just out of the oven. to the morning bowl of cereal. and to lactaid® milk. easy to digest and with all the calcium and vitamin d of regular milk. [ female announcer ] lactaid®. the original lactose-free milk. [ man ] i thought our family business would always be boots. until one day, my daughter showed me a designer handbag. and like that, we had a new side to our business. [ male announcer ] when businesses see an opportunity, the hartford is there. protecting their employees and property and helping them prepare for the future. nice boots. nice bag. [ male announcer ] see how the hartford helps businesses at achievewhatsahead.com. could it be watching "jersey shore" is a lot like eating cheesecake? something to think about. most people love it but refuse to admit they sneak a piece. or in this case, a peek. love it or hate it, even people who don't watch "jersey shore" probably know who snooki is and know all about the situation and his famous abs. then again, no better reality tv than a real story. many were riveted by the saga of conan o'brien who was fired from "the tonight show" but then started a new show on tbs and betty white one of the busiest actresses this year. next month she turns 89 years old. 2010 was a big year at the box office. tom foreman has all the best, all the worst. >> reporter: best money maker. "avatar" was released late in 2009 but this year reigned supreme as the biggest box office winner, being the first to gross more than $2 billion billion. >> we went home and connected our tails together. >> i don't want to see a bunch of blue people running around. i like movies where people look like me pretty much. >> to me it was "dances with wolves" in a different galaxy. >> kick. kick. nari. nari. >> reporter: other big openings? "toy story 3." "iron man 2." "alice in wonderland." >> i'm in love with you and i want you to pick me instead of him. >> reporter: and the saga "eclipse." >> i know how to search your mind and find your secrets. >> reporter: worst disappointment? "wall street, money never sleeps." maybe it should. >> ready for the grand finale? >> reporter: "easy a" a reality play for amoral times. >> talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online. >> reporter: best thing on screen about people online. >> i loved the social network. i thought that was fantastic. >> your best friend is suing you for $600 million. >> i don't know how accurate it was about the founding of facebook, but i just thought it was kind of a fascinating story. >> reporter: best alternative to wasting your time online? wasting it on the sofa. >> i'm a tv junkie. i love "the good wife." i love "dexter." that show is brilliant. >> i am a sap for "glee." >> glee club is fun. >> i'm surprised eliot watches that. >> my favorite tv show is modern family. >> breaking bad is my favorite television show. that is just genius. >> i still like "law & order." >> let's all from bread bowls for lunch. >> reporter: best show to air while you were sleeping, comedy central's "tosh.0." >> i think the guy and the web videos are amazing. >> reporter: music. the best reason to buy a neck brace, willow's whip your hair. >> i'm not listening to a lot of music right now. i'm kind of lame in that way. >> i have no idea what i'm listening to. isn't that terrible? ♪ walk this world together, >> i will say you downloaded eminem. i thought it was really good. >> if you listen to his lyrics, he has a lot to say. >> reporter: worst wardrobe malfunction, lady gaga who reached for a dress and grabbed an entre. >> the meat dress? you know, that's lady gaga. >> that was kind of revolting. that was just awful. >> it was a medium rare dress, which is the way i like them. >> she gets on every magazine cover in america. if i put on a meat suit i'd be lucky to get attacked by my neighbor's dog. >> as long as the meat dress doesn't touch me and no one around her got salmonella or microbes from the meat dress, then we're all right. >> what a smart chick. my hat's off to her. >> reporter: hats off, too, for the best song of the year in terms of sheer popularity. ♪ >> reporter: california girls. >> i have to admit i know it's bubble gum, but i love that katy perry. >> reporter: then she came up with the worst way to tickle elmo. >> are you ready to play dressup? >> dressup? >> reporter: her steamy visit to sesame street was dropped after parents saw too much. >> who gets bounced off "sesame street?" wow. ♪ you want to play, so i wore dressup clothes. >> i'm the father of two little girls. i have to watch thousands of hours of sesame street. i think i'm entitled to a little cleavage shot that does not include miss piggy. >> i was hoping to see the katy perry segment over and over again. >> my. learned a lot about my colleagues watching these tom foreman segments. you can see all the best, all the worst 2010 as part of cnn's new year's eve coverage. elliott spitzer's favorite show is "glee." who knew? anderson and kathy griffin are together again new year's eve, counting down to 2011. ahead, flthe latest on philp greaves' legal fight. plus two men accused of breaking into a rapper's mansion. wait until you hear what the cops say they did next. control my asthma symptoms all day and night. [ man ] symbicort improves my lung function, starting within 15 minutes. symbicort will not replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. it is a combination of two medicines and should not be taken more often than prescribed. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems, and children and adolescents may have an increased risk of being hospitalized for asthma problems. symbicort is not for people whose asthma is well controlled with a long-term asthma control medicine like inhaled corticosteroids. once your asthma is well controlled, your doctor will decide if you can stop symbicort without loss of control, and prescribe a long-term asthma control medicine. be sure to see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. symbicort is a good choice to help control my asthma all day and night. [ inhales ] [ exhales ] ask your doctor if symbicort is a good choice for you. [ male announcer ] if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. i can get a cc for just my signature? that's right, right now you can take home a volkswagen for just your signature. like the cc, or the tiguan. huh. yeah, plus every vw includes scheduled carefree maintenance. really? that's great. there you go. oh, that guy's pretty good too. yeah, he's ok. [ male announcer ] it's amazing what you can do with a pen. sign then drive is back. for a limited time get any 2011 volkswagen for practically just your signature. for a limited time get any 2011 volkswagen [ malhis day starts thwith his arthritis pain.. that's breakfast with two pills. the morning is over, it's time for two more pills. the day marches on, back to more pills. and when he's finally home... but hang on; just two aleve can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is steven, who chose aleve and 2 pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. coming up, two accused robbers target a rapper's mansion, one with a love for wine, that's going to get them on our ridiculist. first, joe johns has the bulletin. president obama has signed the repeal of the military's don't ask, don't tell into law, but it will take months for it to take effect. a florida judge has set bail at $15,000 for the man who wrote a controversial book considered a how-to guide for pedophiles. the book was sold on amazon but taken off last month. phillip greaves is charged with distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in harmful conduct. greaves said he's a target of entrapment. the judge disagreed. a state of emergency for six southern california counties, monsoon-look conditions are creating flash floods, forecasters predicting as much as two inches of rain an hour. should outlaw billy the kid get a pardon? the governor of new mexico has received about 400 responses on a special website dedicated to answering a generations old question. >> i don't even understand that one. that was like 1880s that he died. >> right. why is it still a controversy? who knows. >> apparently a lot of people think so judging by his e-mail response. >> i'll read up on it. time for the ridiculous tonight, two additions, two men suspected of braking into 50 cent's mansion. the local newspaper reports one of the suspects was found in a closet drinking a bottle of wine he had taken from the home. you heard me right. he was found in one of the rapper's closets. 50 cent is trying to sell the home for a billion cents, that's $10 million. we did the math. we don't think he was home at the time. as a brain surgeon, what were these suspects thinking? i've got to think in a 52-room mansion there must have been a better place to drink that way too early celebratory toast. also if you're going to party like it's your birth dat a 50's home, don't park in the driveway. a security guard spotted the suspicious wheels and called police. what were you thinking? not the brightest move by these specks. this might explain a little. the men are charged with marijuana possession, along with burglary and criminal trespass. now, 50 isn't the only celebrity turned victim this holiday season. thieves broke into a rental storage facility and store more than 50 trophies and other items from pete sampras. for pete's sake, that's not the best place for your prized goods. among the missing items, his 1994 australian grand slam trophy. as for the fate of that hat, that's still unclear tonight. the good news, one of the stolen trophies and other items were found at a los angeles park this week. there's probably not much of a market for stolen tennis trove fifs, but i could be wrong. did you hear what happened to famed cook paula deen? her exhousekeeper was sentenced to prison for stealing jewelry from deen's home. deen told the judge the scars she left behind emotionally can't begin to be measured. interesting choice of words from the cook. we could also say she got burned. there you go. paula deen. pete sampras. and 50 cent. three celebrities hit by crime this holiday season. but 50 cent's theft suspects, especially the wine lover in the clos closet, you're at the top of santa's naughty list and tonight's ridiculist. well ahead at the top of the hour, a dozen arrests in the uk but more than 12 hours later the director of national intelligence for the united states didn't have a clue that it even happened. what else is he in the dark about? we're asking the questions and keeping them honest. said "sure." "well, let's grow some algae." and that's what started it. exxonmobil and synthetic genomics have built a new facility to identify the most productive strains of algae. algae are amazing little critters. they secrete oil, which we could turn into biofuels. they also absorb co2. we're hoping to supplement the fuels that we use in our vehicles, and to do this at a large enough scale to someday help meet the world's energy demands. good evening, again, i'm dr. sanjay gupta. anderson has the night off. tonight is the director of national intelligence being left in the dark? is he getting the briefing for you and your family to stay safe this holiday season? we're keeping them honest. also tonight, bullied to death. we've been reporting on this issue all year long. tonight, new developments in two cases that have helped put a face on this deadly epidemic. and later, he claims he can heal the sick without touching him. his followers insist they've been cured. so are these medical miracles or is it all a sham? we'll take a look. we begin as we always do keeping them honest. tonight, the director of national intelligence, james clapper is facing pretty tough questions about how clued in he really is to possible terrorist threats. clapper's job is to coordinate what the nation knows about terrorism and national security. he's paid to know what's going on all across the intelligence community and to make sure everyone else knows as well. he's supposed to know before we do. so how, then, did reporters scoop clapper on this? >> breaking news, holiday terror plot, british police arrest 12 men suspected of planning to detonate bombs or explosives in al qaeda-style terror attacks. 12 men of planning to set off a number of bombs now under arrest. 12 men in england have been arrested this morning in a large-scale counterterrorism sting operation. uk officials say the men have been detained for allegedly preparing to carry out an act of terrorism. they were arrested after dawn raids this morning, by unarmed officers. this is being described as a large-scale preplanned intelligence-led operation. >> those arrests were a major news story monday morning and all throughout the day. raids were carried out in the predawn hours in several cities by british intelligence agents. i guess you could assume director had been briefed long before reporters found out. but on monday afternoon, hours after the arrests, director clapper appeared totally in the dark during this interview with diane sawyer. >> reporter: london. how serious is it? any implication it was coming here? any of the things they have seen were coming here? director clapper? >> the arrests of the 12 individuals by the british this morning. >> reporter: yes. >> oh. >> this is something the british informed us this morning. >> reporter: later in the interview, i came back to the director. did he really not know? i was a little surprised you didn't know about london, director clapper. >> oh. i'm sorry. i didn't. >> you referenced london but you didn't talk about the arrests. >> that was john brennan there, the president's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism who essentially bailed mr. clapper out. the interview was taped around 3:45 in the afternoon, yet you just heard clapper say he didn't know anything about the arrests. he clearly had never been briefed. once abc news released the clip, clapper's office went into sort of damage control mode. the statement released last night explained the blunder like this, the question about this specific news development was ambiguous. the dni's knowledge of the threat streams in europe is profound and multi dimensional. any suggestion otherwise is inaccurate. is that fair? was the question ambiguous? let's go back and look at the tape. >> reporter: london. how serious is it? any implication that it was coming here? any of the things that they have seen were coming here? director clapper? >> all right. i mean, point taken, there, sawyer's wording may have been vague. instead of saying today's arrest of a dozen terror suspects in the united kingdom, she said london, not uk. but then again, mr. brennan clearly understood what she meant when he jumped in to save his colleague. by this morning, clapper's office had dropped the ambiguity defense. they said this, director clapper had not yet been briefed on the arrest in the united kingdom at the time of this interview taping. his spokeswoman said the dni was working throughout the day on important intelligence matters including military and political developments on the korean peninsula. providing answers to questions concerning the ratification of the s.t.a.r.t. nuclear treaty and other classified issues. okay. clapper was busy. on monday. there's a lot going on in the world, no question, and he didn't get briefed. period. but why not? they say this. he wasn't immediately briefed on london, clapper's spokeswoman said, because it didn't appear to have a homeland nexus and there was no immediate action by the dni. homeland nexus. that sounds kind of jargony. we weren't sure what that meant. are they trying to say the suspected plot posed no risk to americans? nevertheless, he should have been briefed on the arrest and steps should have been taken to ensure that he is in the future. the intelligence community as a whole was fully aware of this development and tracking it closely. now, john brennan, the guy who bailed out clapper in the abc interview basically said the same thing today. the other staffers in the intelligence community below clapper's rank were following the british investigation closely. he also said this. >> should he have been briefed by his staff on those arrests? yes. and i know there was breathless attention by the media about these arrests and there was constantly on the news networks, i'm glad that jim clapper is not sitting in front of the tv 24 hours a day and monitoring what's coming out of the media. >> well, you know, we kind of agree with you on that, mr. brennan. we don't want mr. clapper to be getting his briefings from us in the media either. i mean, we think he should be well aware of any terror threats or suspected plots or planned arrests or anything for that matter long before we in the media are reporting the story. after all, the job clapper now holds director of national security was created in 2004 to prevent the kind of intelligence failures that allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen in the first place. in other words, clapper is supposed to make sure all the dots get connected. joining us now, david gergen and former cia director james woolsy. thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> david gergen, let me start with you. obviously this was not a great event for him. do you find any sort of excuse or justification for what happened? >> no, not really. but i have to tell you, i'm sympathetic with him, and sanjay, how many great doctors do you know who have left a sponge behind in a patient at some point or made some other mistake? that's why we have medical mistakes, and we have mistakes in intelligence. having said that, i find it stunning this interview took place at 3:45 eastern time in the afternoon, and these british arrests occurred in early morning, british time. that means there were a lot of hours that passed in which his staff did not see fit to tell him. even though he was going on national television. and that part of it i think his staff blew it. i appreciate the fact he's got an extraordinarily busy life, the kind of life jim once led. >> you know, david, i agree with you, even on the sponge comment that you made about surgeons. but it's one of these things where if you read the newspaper or even watched a little bit of television, i mean, this is part of his job. i'm not saying 24/7, but, james, let me ask you. when you were in a job like this, how would you prep for a press interview? i mean, everyone keeps saying that they're glad he wasn't in front of the television all the time, me too, but couldn't he have been learning about this in other ways before the tv news conferences? >> you're not sitting around in that job with a channel changer sipping coffee and going from channel to channel. i mean, i think first of all, jim clapper's a real pro. and he i think had a right to expect somebody on his staff who is working on press issues would bring him up to speed before a meeting with the press on the highlights of the day, since maybe he saw a morning briefing or something. but this is -- this is a public relations glitch. this is not evidence of something fundamentally wrong. we don't spy on the british. we're not in the business of collecting intelligence from them. if we have a cooperative endeavor, if they needed some american help, some information from us somewhere down the line there could have well been some close cooperation. but that doesn't mean they're going to tell us exactly when they're going to make the bust. this is basically an internal british law enforcement matter, it sounds like. yes, it's terrorists, but that does not mean they tell us, you know, within the hour or whatever, that they're going to start arresting people. >> but i mean, people here did know. it wasn't that they didn't know, it's just that he wasn't briefed, right? >> maybe they knew exactly when. maybe what they knew was just the british were undertaking an investigation and it was going well. we have pretty close liaison with mi 5, but this is not like, say, a cia/mi-6 cooperative efforts vis-a-vis some company in the developing world that's a rogue state or something. this is not something that jim clapper really needed to be orchestrating or running. and the other thing i'd say is i -- congress was in session 195 days my first year as director of central intelligence and i had 200 appointments on the hill. i was up there more than once a day on average and that's just one of the things you have to do. you also are meeting with visiting heads of state, you're doing a lot of things, and you count on your staff to say, hey, they made a bust in that british case yesterday, it was on the news this morning. >> i don't want to beat up on his staff because i mean, i imagine a lot of that is happening. david, i saw you nodding your head a couple times. i mean, was there something you disagreed with? do you think this was critical information for the director of national intelligence to have? >> i think we expect the director of national intelligence to know when some big operation is going down against al qaeda by one of our closest friends in the world. yes, i do think he should have known, but i think it's up to his staff and up to him to establish a system. but i wanted to distinguish something about what jim said, jim clapper is a good man, and i don't think this should reflect badly on him. i do think it's an embarrassment. he doesn't want another one like this because that really will be damaging. but there is a problem in this job and jim knows this better than anyone else. the way this is structured, this has been a snake bitten job. we just had a series of people who have had embarrassments or difficult times in this job and something about this is not properly structured. it's a fairly new job within the intelligence community and somehow, jim, it does not seem to be working out the way that anybody hoped. >> five years now, has it -- do we need this job? it's another layer, it seems, of democracy. >> that's what i thought at the time, and i don't really think they needed to make this change, but now that they've made it they ought to try to make it work. because constant reorganization is a really bad thing in the intelligence community. it jumbles everything up. i think that there's a reasonable likelihood that because the congress cut back on the authority of the dni when they finally got into the house of representatives and started redrafting the legislation that set this all up, they don't have as much authority in the hands of the dni as the initially they thought they should. but this is -- this is not the kind of issue that gave rise to the not connecting the dots before 9/11. that was a matter of the law enforcement community and the intelligence community being barred by a justice department policy for dealing with one another on important matters. this is not that. >> but, jim, there's another question here that many are asking, and that is whether in fact mr. brennan, who is terrific working for the president and white house, whether he has centralized the intelligence operation so much in the white house that someone like clapper may be a little bit out of the loop on something like this. >> well, that's not impossible. the -- that happens. i mean, sometimes you get squeezed to the outside when that little airplane crashed into the lawn of the white house in the fall of 1994, the white house staff joke was that must be woolsy trying to get an appointment with clinton. >> i remember that. it was, i think. >> yeah, that was me. >> no, i think we're in a -- i think we're in a three strikes and you're out. i think this is just the first strike. i think he's fine now, but again, he does not want another episode like this. >> and i know you agree with that as well. >> oh, sure. >> he and panetta are doing a good job. >> they are, they're real pros and we ought to give them the chance to get the job done. >> both of you, happy holidays. thanks for joining us. join the live chat now under way at ac360.com. up next, we're still going to keep them honest, updates on a couple of stories about bullying, a topic we've been following quite closely. in one case, the mother of a california teen o took his own life is finally getting attention from the federal government. we'll see why. also tonight, it's called faith healing. we're going to meet two people who say they've seen it work firsthand and we'll talk about whether a man named john of god has the power to cure what modern medicine cannot. three. two. one. ♪ don't cha wish your work phone was hot like me?... ♪ the droid pro by motorola knows you need business on the go. with its powerful 1 gigahertz processor... ♪ da da da don't cha... ♪ its globetrotting wi-fi hotspotting swagger... it knows you want a rich web experience with adobe flash and access to over 100,000 android apps. finally a work phone worth taking home. [ male announcer ] an everyday moment can turn romantic anytime. and when it does, men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. ♪ cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day so you can be ready anytime the moment's right. ♪ tell your doctor about your medical condition and all medications, and ask if you're healthy enough for sexual activity. don't take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. [ man ] do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache, or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than 4 hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, stop taking cialis and call your doctor right away. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if cialis for daily use is right for you. for a 30-tablet free trial offer, go to cialis.com. we have keeping them honest updates now on a couple of stories now, teens bullied by others at school and online. it's an ongoing problem we've been following closely for a long time here on "360" and in many cases the bullying is made worse for victims due to the prevalence of cell phones and easy access to the internet. tonight, two developments involving gay teens, first the case of 13-year-old seth walsh, an openly gay student who hanged himself in september because he could no longer take the verbal and physical abuse from other teens. now the united states department of education's office of civil rights has opened an investigation into his case. seth has been teased since the fifth grade and the abuse only got worse when he announced he was gay in the sixth grade. his mother wendy says she informed school officials of the attacks against seth but says they didn't seem to care. she home-schooled him for a while in the seventh grade but seth eventually returned to school. after being harassed by a group of teens in a local park three months ago, seth killed himself. wendy walsh contacted the aclu for assistance and together they posted a video of wendy on youtube reading seth's suicide note. >> mom, amanda, shane, shawn, i love you. thank you for having me. it's been a pleasure. i know this will bring you much pain, but i will hopefully be in a better place than this [ bleep ] hole. please, put my body in burial and visit my body. and make sure to make the school feel like [ bleep ] for bringing you this sorrow. this life was a pleasure. mostly having you guys to pull me through the pain. hopefully i become the universe. seth. >> it is hard to hear, obviously wendy, seth's mother there. the aclu sent a letter to the school district superintendant stating its their understanding that, quote, despite being notified of the harassment and despite the clear obligations under state and federal law to protect students from such harassment, neither the school nor the district took adequate measures to protect seth. the letter went on to suggest that since seth died, little has been done in the school or district to address an environment of what they call hostility. the aclu offered a list of actions the district could take. we tried to reach both the superintendant and the president of the school board for reaction but were unsuccessful. and there's a development as well another story we followed closely, the case of tyler clementi. he committed suicide in september. his parents have put rutgers on notice they may file lawsuit. for failing to protect their son. tyler was an 18-year-old rutgers student who took his own life after two other students, including his roommate allegedly used a web camera to record a sexual encounter tyler had with another man. and then streamed it online. rutgers says it's not responsible for tyler's suicide. we'll continue to follow these stories as they develop but it's not just teens who harass gay students. incredibly, in october, a man named clint mccance, the vice president of the midland school district in arkansas posted a series of anti-gay remarks on his facebook page. he said he likes gay people give each other aids and die and he would disown his own kids if they were gay. he said, seriously, they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide? direct quote. the only way i'm wearing it is if they all commit suicide, he wrote. i can't believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. two of the five people he was referring to, seth walsh and tyler clementi. when mccance's remarks were made public, people across the country expressed their outrage at him and their immediate calls for his resignation. we at "360" wanted answers as well to find out if he stood by his remarks. keeping them honest, anderson confronted clint mccance and he got some action. >> you've written some really terrible things. you called gay kids who killed themselves because of bullying fags and queers, you wrote you like to see gay people die. do you really hate gay people that much that you like to see them die? >> anderson, i made some very ignorant comments. did not realize just how ignorant they were. i've -- you know, went back and looked over the -- i would never support suicide of any kids. i don't support bullying of any kids. i posted that on down further in my post, that i hated it, you know, for those kids, that they felt so hopeless. >> but you sound -- but as you know, in the writing, you sound like a bully yourself. i mean, calling -- using, you know, calling kids fags and queers, those are words of a bully. >> i was, you know, like i said, i used some really strong language that -- and it wasn't correct. and, you know, the words i used were unfortunate. and they're -- you know, i should have picked different ones. but it can't be taken back. and all i can do now is extend my apologies for my poor -- my poor speech. >> what do you feel like you're apologizing for, exactly? >> it was over the top, anderson. it was -- i just went too far with it. i don't really believe anyone should commit suicide. i don't feel that way. >> but do you have any idea of the pain that you may have caused not just to families and friends of kids who have killed themselvesing a themselvesing are but the pain and fear you've caused in your own school district, who are bullied, who don't feel safe telling anyone they're gay. >> you know, anderson, that's a what-if. i don't know. i know it was a -- like i said before, i know my statements were too harsh. i don't -- i don't agree with the language i used. it was out of control. and it does look like i was -- that i'm a hate monger, i'm a horrible person, and that's not me at all. >> because you did say you like it when gay people get aids and die. do you want gay people to die? >> no, i don't. >> some of the -- clearly you know the response to this isn't just because you said these words, it's because of who you are. you're the vice president on a school board. i mean, you oversee kids in your school district, and i think that's clearly what's at the core of the reaction to this. are you going to resign from the school board? >> i am going to resign from the school board. it is to help my community, to help my school. i don't want them to receive bad press or have a distraction because of some ignorant comments that i made. >> do you have anything specifically you want to say to parents of kids and friends of kids who have committed suicide after being bullied? >> yes, i would like to extend an apology especially to those -- to those families that have lost children, not just gay, heterosexual, all, all children that feel like suicide's the only way out. it's a -- it saddens me, but especially for those five family that have just recently lost children, you know, i've -- i've brought more hurt on them with these comments, and that was never my intention. and i apologize for that. because they don't deserve that. and i do feel genuinely bad for that. for them. >> moving forward, are you going to use those words in the future? >> that's in the future. i would hope not. you know, i've learned a very valuable lesson over the last week and number one on this suicide issue. my core beliefs don't change as far as, you know, my -- what i read in the bible and what i read to be true. but this has opened my eyes to a lot of different things. i hope it makes me more sensitive to other people's feelings and what they're going through and, you know, this was a -- it was a hateful, hurtful thing, and it's been -- it's been hurtful for my family as well. and my community. so i -- you know, i'm going to watch what i say. >> well, still ahead, an impasse is broken, a major development today in the battle over the 9/11 health care bill. plus a chilling letter from an american aid worker who's been jailed in haiti's most notorious prison. but that's not the only story. it's got turn-by-turn navigation, onstar, an available six-speed automatic transmission, remote keyless entry, and 10 air bags. it's a big story for a compact car. the all-new chevrolet cruze. get used to more. very well-qualified lessees can get a low-mileage lease on a 2011 chevrolet cruze ls for around $159 a month. call for details. ♪ but i really love my bank ♪ i hate-- didn't quite catch that last bit. i said i really love my bank. right... is there a problem ? it's not really raging, man. uh, we were hoping for more raging ? well, you said write from the heart. yeah... don't do that. at ally, you'll love our online savings account. named the best of 2010 by money magazine. ally. do you love your bank ? having an insurance agent costs you more money. the truth: an allstate agent can save you a bundle, by helping you get all the discounts you deserve. discounts for safe driving, antilock brakes, owning a new car, paying electronically, having more than one policy -- and more. all told, the good hands offer more than 30 different car and home insurance discounts. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. ♪ yeah. aww...that oj needs alka-seltzer plus. fast powder packs are a taste-free fizz-free way to transform your drink into a powerful cold fighter! there's a cold front moving in, but relief is on the way. a lot more news we're following tonight, joe johns joins us now with the bulletin. a u.s. aide worker being held in a haitian prison writes in a letter that he's scared he'll never be released. paul wagoner was jailed last week under suspicion of kidnapping a baby boy, even though no official charges were brought against him. the boy died at a hospital in february. the u.s. house and senate have approved a $.2 billion bill to give compensation and free medical treatment to first responders to the 9/11 attacks. the bill now goes to president obama to sign into law. two chicago firefighters were killed when a wall and roof collapsed in an abandoned building on the city's south side. 17 others were injured. and broadway's "spider-man" musical is scheduled to resume tomorrow night to give the show more time to rehearse new safety measures. performer christopher tierney is in serious condition after falling more than 20 feet. the actor's union says human error was responsible for the fall. scary stuff. hope he's okay. >> i don't know if you've seen any of that, it's quite a show, but you can tell where obviously some of those risks might come from. they're really -- those people are coming across the audience and certainly hope that he recovers well. joe, stick around, it's time for tonight's shot. joe, you may have seen this. i hadn't, but antoine dotson is getting into the christmas spirit with a new version of his hit song. in case you have no idea who he is, a bit of background. this past july he gave a very sort of animated interview to a news crew in his hometown of huntsville, alabama, about the would-be rapist he chased out of his sister's room. after the video went viral, it was auto tuned to the "bad intruder song." >> he's climbing in your windows snatching your people, hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife. >> there's a christmas version, joe, of this song which first aired last night on tbs on "lopez tonight." take a listen. ♪ he's climbing in your chimney, snatching your cookies up ♪ ♪ so hide your gifts, hide your trees, hide your gifts, hide your trees ♪ >> what do you think, joe? instant classic? >> how many million hits do you think it took to get these guys on tv? >> right. it's the amazing thing about the internet. it goes viral and everyone around the world knows this guy all of a sudden. >> i've seen that and i laughed out loud the first time i saw it. it's just amazing, it's still alive. >> that's right. maybe he'll have more tunes to come even. >> we'll see. >> all right, joe. you'll want to hear this story as well. in a small town in brazil, there is a man known to the locals as being somewhat of a miracle man. ahead, two people who met him. his name is john of god and they say they witnessed his miracle healing claims. also all the best and worst in pop culture, california girl katy perry has been on the top of the list, who else is there? [ s. greenlee ] i would love to have been a musician but i knew that i was going to need a day job. we actually have a lot of scientists that play music. the creativity, the innovation, there's definitely a tie there. one thing our scientists are working on is carbon capture and storage, which could prevent co2 from entering the atmosphere. we've just built a new plant to demonstrate how we can safely freeze out the co2 from natural gas. it looks like snow. it's one way that we're helping provide energy with fewer emissions. rheumatoid arthritis going? they're discovering simponi®, the first self-injectable r.a. medicine you take just once a month. taken with methotrexate, simponi® helps relieve the pain, stiffness and swelling of r.a. with one dose once a month. visit 4simponi.com to see if you qualify for a full year of cost support. simponi® can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious and sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, cancer in children and adults, heart failure, nervous system disorders, liver or blood problems, and allergic reactions. before starting simponi®, your doctor should test you for t.b. and assess your risk of infections, including fungal infections and hepatitis b. ask your doctor if you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you're prone to infections, or develop symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough or sores. you should not start simponi® if you have an infection. [ woman ] ask your rheumatologist about simponi®. just one dose, once a month. in western medicine, the kind of medicine that i practice, we are used to counseling patients, running tests, prescribing medicine and if necessary performing operations. but in a small town in brazil, a man named john of god is practicing a different kind of medicine. he says he's a faith healer and people from all over the world flock to see him. he claims to heal patients without even touching them. john of god was recently featured on the hooprah winfrey show and this month's "o magazine" featuring him. dr. jeff red iger, a harvard trained psychiatrist witnessed john of god's healing. i spoke with both of them earlier this evening. susan, let's start with you. you went down to brazil on assignment from the magazine to see what all the hype was about. as a journalist, obviously you try to be objective. you must have had some sort of preconceived notion going into this. >> well, i was just curious. i was plain and simple, incredibly curious. because when i first heard of john of god, there was always an aura of respect and, you know, gravitas around it. it was clear that he had helped tremendous amounts of people already. i wanted to know, really, even if one person who was in some way terminally ill and couldn't be helped in conventional ways had been helped by this man, really, what was going on? so to me as a journalist, that was what impelled me down there. >> i was sorry to hear about the loss of your dad quite suddenly two years before going to see john of god. you talked about that you still obviously were carrying a lot of emotional weight around. were you hoping to get some kind of healing as well? >> well, i feel like when -- in a story like this, one of the best things i could do for the readers would be to take them through the process and actually going through it myself was one way to do that. so yes, absolutely i was. i think when i heard his name and something kind of clicked with me, that was because i was seeking help myself. and, you know, i really felt as though i was in a hole that i couldn't get out of alone and he definitely helped me. >> jeff, like susan's experience, many of the healing rituals john of god practices are so-called psychic surgeries, psychic operations, where he purpose portedly operates on a patient without touching them. but i understand there are some hands on procedures as well, jeff. is that right? eye scraping, nasal probing, is that right? >> that's right. >> can you just describe what you saw? >> well, that was certainly something i was very interested to observe. a number of people told me down there that they believed they sustained a healing from that kind of experience and i was skeptical. i think if people do have healings from that, that is a result of belief and that it does illustrate perhaps the power of belief. but physiologically that's possible, it's possible for the human body to take an instrument into the nose, probably four inches or so. >> you've probably done a lot of reading like i did, a lot of people claim that these types of things that john of god are doing is just quackery, just slight of hand. is -- are they even scraping the cornea when they do this? >> i do believe that some of what goes on down there is slight of hand. i also believe, however, there are things that happen that cannot be explained by slight of hand. so i have come to believe somewhat reluctantly and with difficulty figuring out to accommodate this in my world view that the world is a more mysterious place than i had understood. >> i approached this from my background as a surgeon, i find it intriguing. i want to read something you said while in brazil, quote, it's asking a lot of people to believe that this man is able to do this but at the same time it appears that he is. like jeff, maybe in some ways, it's just hard for me to believe, it's not just thinking it's woo-woo, just being skeptical. you talk about being transformed in some ways. what do you have make of this and what is the message you think for other people? >> i agree with jeff that the world is a mysterious place. just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it's not happening and just because we can't explain it doesn't mean it's not happening. and there is a lot of power in love and faith. people have taken for centuries on faith, the power of prayer and sort of a way that people know. so i don't really think that, you know, you need to one way or another prove or disprove that this is going on. i think all in our hearts we know there's more out there than we can explain. maybe 100 years from now energy healing will be one of the forefronts of medicine. >> the concern, i agree, there are a lot of things we don't understand. but the consequences of sometimes going with something despite understanding it or despite being able to prove it might have some dangers. i understand jeff, for example, i understand john of god tells his patients to continue on with their doctor-prescribed treatments. i think that's a good thing, but could john of god be endangering people by possibly giving them false hope? >> that wasn't how i perceived the environment there. i don't know what the danger is in false hope. i -- you know, let's just say some of this is placebo effect and has to do with the force of belief of an individual, is that bad? i mean, as far as i could tell, and i didn't find in my research instances of infection, instances of things gone wrong. i think not everybody gets the sort of happy perfect ending that they might hope for and my own personal experience was that it was a powerful thing and a very good thing, and i would like to hear what jeff thought of it. but i can't see anything bad about what's going on there, myself. >> jeff, i'll let you weigh in on that, but let me ask you as a harvard-trained doctor, did you look at scans of people or try and do, you know, medical confirmations of some of these things as well? >> yes, i did. i went down there after initially resisting the idea of going down there and just tried to see what was true. i tried to collect ct scans, laboratory tests and data from before and after these healing events just to see what the evidence said was going on. i do believe that this kind of research is complicated. >> i think susan makes a good point. just because we can't always explain things doesn't make them not true but to be real honest about that, i think is very important. a respected physician, and respected journalist, very glad you could both weigh in. thank you very much. i'm honestly not sure what to make of this, but maybe it's something i should see for myself. to try and better understand what's happening here. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, all the best, all the worst of 2010. lady gaga is on our list of pop culture favorites this year. who else, what else made the cut? we'll show you. plus a gallery of not so smart thieves taking aim at a big name rapper and landing on our ridiculist. while going shoeless and metal-free in seconds. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. now this...will work. [ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. just like you. go national. go like a pro. another heart attack could be lurking, waiting to strike. a heart attack that's caused by a clot, one that could be fatal. but plavix helps save lives. plavix, taken with other heart medicines, goes beyond what other heart medicines do alone, to provide greater protection against heart attack or stroke and even death by helping to keep blood platelets from sticking together and forming dangerous clots. ask your doctor if plavix is right for you. protection that helps save lives. certain genetic factors and some medicines, such as prilosec, reduce the effect of plavix leaving you at greater risk for heart attack and stroke. your doctor may use genetic tests to determine treatment. don't stop taking plavix without talking to your doctor as your risk of heart attack or stroke may increase. people with stomach ulcers or conditions that cause bleeding should not use plavix. taking plavix alone or with some other medicines, including aspirin, may increase bleeding risk, so tell your doctor when planning surgery. tell your doctor all medicines you take, including aspirin, especially if you've had a stroke. if fever, unexplained weakness or confusion develops, tell your doctor promptly. these may be signs of ttp, a rare but potentially life-threatening condition, reported sometimes less than 2 weeks after starting plavix. other rare but serious side effects may occur. could it be watching "jersey shore" is a lot like eating cheesecake? something to think about. most people love it but refuse to admit they sneak a piece. or in this case, a peek. love it or hate it, even people who don't watch "jersey shore" probably know who snooki is and know all about the situation and his now famous abs. then again, no better reality tv than a real story. many americans were riveted by the saga of conan o'brien, who was fired from "the tonight show" but then started a new show on our sister station tbs, and betty white, one of the busiest actresses this year. next month she turns 89 years old. 2010 was a big year at the box office. tom foreman has all the best, all the worst. >> reporter: best money maker. "avatar" was released late in 2009 but this year reigned supreme as the biggest box office winner ever. becoming the first film to gross more than $2 billion. >> before seeing avatar i was an atheist. after seeing it with my wife, we actually went home and connected our tails together. >> i don't want to see a bunch of blue people running around. i like movies where people look like me pretty much. >> to me it was "dances with wolves" in a different galaxy. >> kick. kick. nari. nari. >> reporter: other big openings? "toy story 3." "iron man 2." "alice in wonderland." >> i'm in love with you and i want you to pick me instead of him. >> reporter: and the saga "eclipse." >> i know how to search your mind and find your secrets. >> reporter: worst disappointment? >> why don't you start calling me gordon? "wall street, money never sleeps." maybe it should. best surprise? >> ready for the grand finale? >> what? >> reporter: "easy a" a reality play for amoral times. >> talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online. >> reporter: best thing on screen about people online. >> i loved the social network. i thought that was fantastic. >> your best friend is suing you for $600 million. >> i don't know how accurate it was about the founding of facebook, but i just thought it was kind of a fascinating story. >> reporter: best alternative to wasting your time online? wasting it on the sofa. >> i'm a tv junkie. i love "the good wife." i love "dexter." that show is brilliant. >> i am a sap for "glee." >> glee club is fun. >> i'm surprised eliot watches that. >> my favorite tv show is modern family. >> "breaking bad" is my favorite television show. that is just genius. >> i still like "law & order." >> let's all have bread bowls for lunch. >> reporter: best show to air while you were sleeping, comedy central's "tosh.0." >> i think the guy is really funny and i think the videos they pick and find, the web videos are amazing. >> reporter: on to music. ♪ i wave my hair back and forth. >> reporter: the best reason to buy a neck brace, willow smith's "whip my hair." >> i just worry about people's health. whipping your hair back and forth, you should be careful. >> i'm not listening to a lot of music right now. i'm kind of lame in that way. >> i have no idea what i'm listening to. isn't that terrible? ♪ walk this world together, >> i will say you downloaded eminem. i thought it was really good. ♪ it was my decision to get clean, i did it for me ♪ >> if you listen to his lyrics, he has a lot to say. >> reporter: worst wardrobe malfunction, lady gaga who reached for a dress and grabbed an entree. >> the meat dress? you know, that's lady gaga. >> that was kind of revolting. wasn't it? that was just awful. >> it was a medium rare dress, which is the way i like them. >> she gets on every magazine cover in america. if i put on a meat suit i'd be lucky to get attacked by my neighbor's dog. >> as long as the meat dress doesn't touch me and no one around her got salmonella or microbes from the meat dress, then i think we'll be all right. >> what a smart chick. my hat's off to her. >> how are you doing times square? >> reporter: hats off, too, for the best song of the year in terms of sheer popularity. ♪ >> reporter: "california girls." >> i have to admit i know it's bubble gum, but i love that katy perry. >> reporter: then she came up with the worst way to tickle elmo. >> are you ready to play dressup? >> dressup? >> reporter: her steamy visit to sesame street was dropped after parents saw too much. >> who gets bounced off "sesame street?" wow. ♪ you want to play, so i wore dressup clothes ♪ >> i'm the father of two little girls. i have to watch thousands of hours of sesame street. i think i'm entitled to a little cleavage shot that does not include miss piggy. >> i was hoping to see the katy perry segment over and over again. >> oh, my. learned a lot about my colleagues watching these tom foreman segments. see much more of them, all the best, all the worst 2010, part of cnn's new year's eve coverage. eliot spitzer's favorite show is "glee." who knew? anderson and kathy griffin are together again new year's eve, counting down to 2011. up next, the man facing charges for his book on pedophilia heads to court. phillip greaves' legal fight. plus two men accused of breaking into a rapper's mansion. wait until you hear what the cops say they did next. coming up, two accused robbers target a rapper's mansion, one with a love for wine, that's going to get them on our ridiculist. first, joe johns has the bulletin. president obama has signed the repeal of the military's don't ask, don't tell into law, but it will take months for it to take effect. a florida judge has set bail at $15,000 for the man who wrote a controversial book considered a how-to guide for pedophiles. the book was sold on amazon but taken off last month. phillip greaves is charged with distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in harmful conduct. greaves said he's a target of entrapment. the judge disagreed. a state of emergency for six southern california counties, monsoon-look conditions are creating flash floods, forecasters predicting as much as two inches of rain an hour. should outlaw billy the kid get a pardon? the governor of new mexico has received about 400 responses on a special website dedicated to answering a generations old question. >> i don't even understand that one. that was like 1880s that he died. >> right. why is it still a controversy? who knows. >> apparently a lot of people think so judging by his e-mail response. >> i'll read up on it. >> maybe that will get him on the ridiculist some other time, but time for the ridiculist tonight. two additions, two men suspected of breaking into 50 cent's mansion. the local newspaper reports one of the suspects was found in a closet drinking a bottle of wine he had taken from the home. you heard me right. he was found in one of the rapper's closets. 50 cent is trying to sell the home for a billion cents, that's $10 million. we did the math. we don't think he was home at the time. as a brain surgeon, what were these suspects thinking? i've got to think in a 52-room mansion there must have been a better place to drink that way too early celebratory toast. also if you're going to party like it's your birthday at 50's home, don't park in the driveway. a security guard spotted the suspicious wheels and called police. what were you thinking? not the brightest move by these suspects. this might explain a little. the men are charged with marijuana possession, along with burglary and criminal trespass. now, 50 isn't the only celebrity turned victim this holiday season. thieves broke into a rental storage facility and stole more than 50 trophies and other items from pete sampras. for pete's sake, that's not the best place for your prized goods. among the missing items, his 1994 australian grand slam trophy. as for the fate of that hat, that's still unclear tonight. the good news, one of the stolen trophies and other items were found at a los angeles park this week. there's probably not much of a

Related Keywords

Haiti ,United States ,Arkansas ,Alabama ,Australia ,Israel ,Brazil ,Florida ,California ,Midland School ,New Mexico ,Jersey ,Chicago ,Illinois ,London ,City Of ,United Kingdom ,Americans ,Australian ,America ,British ,American ,Haitian ,Wendy Walsh ,Elliott Spitzer ,A Los Angeles ,Shane Shawn ,Katy Perry ,Antoine Dotson ,John Brennan ,Paul Wagoner ,Pete Sampras ,Celine Dion ,Diane Sawyer ,Joe Johns ,Seth Walsh ,Oprah Winfrey ,Christopher Tierney ,Al Qaeda ,George W Bush ,Cook Paula Deen ,Paula Deen ,Eliot Spitzer ,Kathy Griffin ,Phillip Greaves ,Iger A Harvard ,Sanjay Gupta ,Tyler Clementi ,David Gergen ,