Oct. 4, 2001
CNN Crossfire Looks for Answers
National Broadcasts from GW Marked By Large Crowds,
Prominent Figures, Pointed Questions
By Thomas
Kohout
The George Washington University became part of the country’s source
of information when CNN’s “Crossfire” broadcast two weeks
of live, nationally-televised programss from the MPA Building’s
Jack Morton Auditorium Sept. 17–28, following the tragic events
of Sept. 11, when terrorist-piloted airliners crashed into New York’s
World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
Each night, more than 300 students, faculty, and staff watched as a
parade of political figures, ranging from House Minority Leader Dick
Gephardt, (D–MO), to Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen.
John McCain (R–AZ), ranking member of the Congressional Working
Group on Terrorism Rep. Jane Harman (D–CA), former Secretary of
Transportation Rodney Slater, former CIA director James Woolsey, and
former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency James Lee
Witt, among many others, joined hosts Bill Press and Tucker Carlson
in an effort to make sense of what has happened. Throughout the first
week of programming, the broadcasts were special one-hour, town-hall-meeting
editions of the popular question-and-answer show. During the second
week, the show returned to its regular half-hour format in front of
the live audience.
In most cases it was the students who tackled the toughest issues of
the crisis, grilling the guests with questions such as: “What is
being done to protect Arab Americans within the United States? How can
we fight terrorists within other countries without fighting the countries
themselves? Given the understandable and forgivable intelligence failures
we saw on Sept. 11 when we orchestrate our response to this tragedy,
can we expect more intelligence failures? How will we know when we’ve
won?”
When asked where the balance between safety and civil liberty was, Sen.
McCain responded, “If you begin depriving the Americans of too
many civil liberties in the name of safety, then obviously, the terrorists
have succeeded.”
“The thing bin Laden would like to demonstrate to the poor and
dispossessed in Afghanistan,” said Sen. Joeseph Biden (D–DE),
explaining why attacks against Arab and Muslim Americans must stop,
“is that we really are not a multi-ethnic society. We really are
not tolerant.”
Apparently the questions also were on the minds of millions of viewers,
because during the first week of programs more than 1.6 million viewers
tuned in each night according to CNN staffers.
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
