Ari & I: Russell Mokhiber, Editor of Corporate Crime Reporter describes what it's like to cover the White House: They keep you at the gate. They don't let you in. They don't give you a press pass. If they let you in, they let you in late. If you get in, they don't call on you. If they call on you, they don't answer the question; Why I refused to testify against the Clintons & What I learned in Jail: An Interview with Susan McDougal
9:00-9:01 Billboard: 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:07 One Minute Music 9:07-9:20 Polls indicate that most Americans are opposed to war, yet there are few questions at the White House Press Briefings with Ari Fleischer representing that point of view. Occasionally though, some tough questions are asked: how many convicted criminals are on the White House staff?....what was the President thinking when he appointed an alleged war criminal to investigate a war crime?... ..the President wants regime change in Iraq, ..Why don't you just say the President wants to overthrow the government in Iraq?... These are just a few of the questions that have been asked by Russell Mokhiber, the editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. He co-authors the weekly Focus on the Corporation column with Robert Weissman which Common Dreams publishes and attends daily White House press briefings with Ari Fleischer. Transcripts of his interviews with Ari Fleischer are highlighted under Ari & I on the Common Dreams website. Contact: www.commondreams.org 9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break 9:21-9:30 ARI AND I, CONT D 9:30-9:40 Susan McDougal, grew up in a small Arkansas town, one of seven children of a US army sergeant and his Belgian bride. In her teens, she made patriotic speeches at her local American Legion hall. In 1976, she married Jim McDougal, a mercurial entrepreneur, who soon turned their life into a rolling sideshow of bank acquisitions and real estate deals including one fatefully dubbed Whitewater. She was imprisoned after refusing to testify against the Clintons during the Whitewater trial. A recent article in the Washington Post discussed the case of Susan McDougal. It will forever be the question people ask her. Why? Why didn't Susan McDougal just answer the questions? Why on earth would anyone choose to spend two years in jail, when all it took to be free was to provide a few simple, incriminating sentences? The offer was there: The Office of the Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr, would give her immunity from any charges related to the failed 1980s Whitewater real-estate venture, in which she and her husband, Jim McDougal, were business partners with President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, if only she would connect the Clintons to the deal. She said no. And she went to jail. The pictures are hard to forget: McDougal on the day she went to prison, a woman in chains, taken away wearing black stockings. She served the maximum 18 months for civil contempt of court for her refusal to testify, and three and a half months of a two-year term for fraud in a 1996 Whitewater case brought by Starr's office. Her husband, also convicted of fraud, cooperated with the Starr investigation. He died of a heart attack while in prison. Today we talk to McDougal about her new book The Woman Who Wouldn t Talk and about her experiences in seven different prisons during her eighteen month incarceration. 9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break 9:41-9:58 MCDOUGAL, CONT D 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogiera and Alex Wolfe. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer and webmaster.
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