1. Hawking predicts genetically-engineered babies with enormous brains
2. DR. CRAIG VENTER of CELERA GENOMICS interview
3. Human Cloning: imminent?
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Note how Hawking's prediction in item 1 is completely contradicted by what Venter has to say in item 2. As Venter has famously remarked, "We don't know shit about biology." Some pundits clearly know even less!
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EXCERPTS from item 2: DR. CRAIG VENTER of CELERA GENOMICS interview
MCEDWARDS: So where is science on that? I mean, how much closer is science to getting to the point where a gene can actually accept new genetic material and be fixed?
VENTER: Well, I think that's a notion that probably is not going to really play out except in very rare circumstances. If we're not hard-wired, if we're not just the sum total of our genes, this notion we can just go in and repair a gene and change somebody's personality, change their behavior, change a disease, is not worked out too well. In fact, the problem is we have 100 trillion cells. And getting a repaired gene to the right cell has also proven to be very difficult. I think pharmaceutics, the way we know them, is what's going to drive the treatments for cancer and other diseases.... I don't think that's going to be cloning. It's not going to be designer babies. It's not going to be genetic engineering.
from item 3: Human Cloning: imminent?
"It's a market. There are parents out there who -- some of whom have a lot of money, especially infertile couples or couples who have lost a child have and who have the notion that they can in some way bring that child back by creating a new-born baby with the same DNA. Some of these parents have a lot of money and some may be willing to underwrite this kind of venture. That's certainly the market that these scientists who have announced their intentions are looking at."
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1. Hawking predicts genetically- engineered babies with enormous brains
Daily Record February 13, 2001
SCIENCE fiction will never become reality, according to genius Stephen Hawking. But the human brain will become bigger and bigger and we'll continue to explore space like Star Trek's Captain Kirk. And the wheelchair-bound scientist says genetically- engineered babies with enormous brains could be a reality within 100 years. Speaking at Lady Mitchell Hall in Cambridge, he said: "Many people will say genetic engineering in humans should be banned, but I rather doubt they will be able to prevent it."
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2. DR. CRAIG VENTER of CELERA GENOMICS interview
CNN SHOW: CNN EARLY EDITION 07:00 February 12, 2001
Advances Made in Mapping of Human Genome
GUESTS: Craig Venter
Colleen McEdwards
Scientists will announce today major advances in the mapping of the human genome. One of the most surprising findings is just how similar the human genetic code is to that of other species on the planet.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: A couple of major reports coming up today on the mapping of human genes. And Dr. Craig Venter is the president and chief scientific officer of Celera Genomics in Rockville, Maryland. And his company has mapped the body's genes. He's a big player in this issue. And he joins us from Washington to talk about the results of the study. Dr. Venter, one of things that catches my eye is that it appears we have fewer genes than originally thought: 30,000 or so instead of more than 100,000. How significant is it?
DR. CRAIG VENTER, PRESIDENT, CELERA GENOMICS: Well, it is one of the most exciting findings from both our analysis of the genome and the public project's analysis. There was great agreement on this. I think people wanted there to be a lot of genes because people thought there was one gene for every human trait. The fact that we have so few indicates and sort of proves long- held convictions that I've had and others had that we're not hard wired, that the next changes as we go up to proteins and then up to the cell level, all these interactions with the environment help form us as much as our genes do.
MCEDWARDS: So, Dr. Venter, what does it mean? Does the fact that there are fewer mean that it becomes easier for medicine and science to pinpoint genes and to heal disease?
VENTER: Well, the irony is that because, there's fewer genes, it means our physiology system is actually much more complex, because it's the regulation of these genes, but more importantly the expansion, maybe 10-fold into proteins. So, it means this next level of proteomics, where we interpret the sequence of all the proteins in the cells, are going to provide thousands of new targets for the pharmaceutical industry and I think give us all hope that we might really make advances on cancer and other disease in the next decade.
MCEDWARDS: So where is science on that? I mean, how much closer is science to getting to the point where a gene can actually accept new genetic material and be fixed?
VENTER: Well, I think that's a notion that probably is not going to really play out except in very rare circumstances. If we're not hard-wired, if we're not just the sum total of our genes, this notion we can just go in and repair a gene and change somebody's personality, change their behavior, change a disease, is not worked out too well. In fact, the problem is we have 100 trillion cells. And getting a repaired gene to the right cell has also proven to be very difficult. I think pharmaceutics, the way we know them, is what's going to drive the treatments for cancer and other diseases: maybe more protein therapeutics, antibody therapeutics. But it's going to be understanding our physiology and coming up with new pharmaceutical interventions to modify cell behavior, modify cancer, modify heart disease. I don't think that's going to be cloning. It's not going to be designer babies. It's not going to be genetic engineering.
These make great science fiction movies. But the genetic code and our first look at it says that's not how it's going to go forward.
MCEDWARDS: Another interesting part of the study: It says that human beings are, what, 99.9 percent genetically identical. What does that mean?
VENTER: Well, in fact, the genetic variations -- the chromosomes that you got from your mother and the ones you got from your father differ in around 800 letters per million base pairs. But what we found is only about 1 percent of our genetic code codes for the proteins, the genes that we think of. And only a few thousands of these letters that change in our genetic code probably explain all the biological differences at the genetic level between any two of us. So maybe we have 10,000 differences out of three billion. So we are virtually identical. But we're even closely related to the mouse. We've announced this morning that we've assembled the mouse genome. We found only 300 genes in the human genome that don't have a clear counterpart in the mouse genome. So it means it's the regulation, it's the timing, it's the interaction with the environment that truly is what makes us different, not hard-wired in the genetic code.
MCEDWARDS: You've been a little be controversial, Dr. Venter, in that you believe that this kind of research can be done in the private sector. And, indeed, you're doing it in the private sector ahead of government doing it. But what role do you think government and the private sector ought to be playing in the future of this kind of research?
VENTER: Well, in fact, we're seeing very good evidence of increased public- private collaboration. We've just announced a couple weeks ago a major collaboration with the Sandia Labs, Compaq Computers, and Celera to now try and build the world's largest supercomputer to analyze and interpret this data, far bigger than what's been needed for physics and nuclear weapons blast. And I think we're going to see more and more public-private cooperation. There are some things that just can be done far more efficiently in a private- enterprise formation. And I think Celera's example of doing world-class basic science research is helping to change the paradigm and the thinking.
MCEDWARDS: All right, Dr. Craig Venter, thanks very much for all of that.
VENTER: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com LOAD-DATE: February 12, 2001
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3. Human Cloning: imminent?
CNN SHOW: CNN THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN 20:30 February 12, 2001; Human Cloning: Scientific Marvel or Weird Science? GUESTS: Lisa Beyer, Lori Andrews, Gregory Pence Greta Van Susteren According to the cover story of the new issue of "Time" magazine, human cloning might be more imminent than suspected. Lisa Beyer, a senior editor at "Time" who worked on the article, discusses the logistics of cloning and Lori Andrews of the Chicago-Kent College of Law and Gregory Pence of the University of Alabama-Birmingham discuss the ethical implications.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: First, there was Dolly. But, oh, baby, are we ready for this? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there are some real fears around it. One is that we don't know whether it's safe or not. (END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are millions of human clones walking the face of the Earth as we speak and they called identical twins. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: THE POINT tonight: Human cloning. An ethical debate, before "The Boys from Brazil" becomes a fact of life. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You are the living duplicate of the greatest man in history. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Plus, Bill Clinton's possible change of address, and a change of heart on paying the former president to speak.
THE POINT: Now from New York, Greta Van Susteren.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Can you imagine two of me? Don't answer that. OK, how about two of you? Or an exact, genetic replica of a couple's only child who wants a twin? Or how would you feel about creating a ready-made human donor whose tissue can keep a cancer patient alive? And what about something really creepy, like in the movie "The Boys From Brazil," where the bad guys create clones of Adolf Hitler?
THE POINT tonight: Human cloning. The new issue of "Time" magazine says it's closer than you think. So maybe it's time we started thinking about the ethical, legal and practical issues as well as the scientific ones. Joining me here in New York is "Time" magazine senior editor Lisa Beyer, who edited this week's cover story on human cloning. OK, how close is it, Lisa?
LISA BEYER, SR. EDITOR, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, as we said on the cover, it's probably closer than you think. The technology certainly exists today. We know that we can clone mammals, and what prompted our cover story is that there are some scientists today, some more credible than others, who have announced their intention to start offering cloning as a service, producing new-born babies using the DNA of an individual, of an adult individual.
Now, the question is whether they can actually pull it off. The technology is there, but at what cost. If they could somehow manage to get, say, 40 women to donate eggs, another 50 women to serve as surrogate mothers, and we know that that's hard to do. Certainly couples who have tried to reproduce a child through IVF know it's very hard to get egg donors and it's very hard to get surrogate moms. But if you could do that and if you were willing to sustain lots of miscarriages, lots of forced abortions because many of the fetuses would be deformed; if you were willing to risk the almost certain fate that some of these children would be born and would die soon after; that any of the children who were born and who were viable might suffer all sorts of ill effects like the mammals that have been cloned so far; if you're willing to go into this very uncertain world -- we don't know if Dolly, for example, or any of the other mammals who have been cloned so far are mentally retarded.
We don't know if they're going to have shortened life spans. If you are willing to take all of those risks, you could probably clone someone pretty soon.
VAN SUSTEREN: And by pretty soon, do you mean that we could maybe do it tomorrow if people are willing to volunteer and if people are willing to take the risks? I mean is it really the technology is there?
BEYER: The technology certainly is there. I mean, we couldn't do it tomorrow if we started today because you'd have to get the donor eggs and you'd have to impregnate a lot of woman. Presumably, you wouldn't do it all at one time because then you might wind up with more than one of the individual who was being cloned. It's a market. There are parents out there who -- some of whom have a lot of money, especially infertile couples or couples who have lost a child have and who have the notion that they can in some way bring that child back by creating a new-born baby with the same DNA. Some of these parents have a lot of money and some may be willing to underwrite this kind of venture. That's certainly the market that these scientists who have announced their intentions are looking at.
VAN SUSTEREN: Lisa, what kind of money are we talking about? Has anyone tried to quantify it, what it would cost if someone wants to be in the forefront and start this?
BEYER: Some of the scientists who aren't offering it as a service have said that it might take $50,000. The scientists who are offering it as a service have gone up to as much as one million to two million dollars. It depends at what point in the process you'd become success. Obviously, you'd have to pay donors for their eggs. You'd have to pay surrogate mothers for their expenses. It took more than 200 attempts to clone Dolly the sheep, the original clone. Our record in cloning mammals hasn't gotten much better since then. So, there's a lot of trial and effort involved and that's obviously very costly.
VAN SUSTEREN: How sophisticated is the process? Do you have to be a great scientist or have, you know, the right technology? Will ordinary people like the two of us be able to do this?
BEYER: I don't think so, but your ordinary IVF specialist ought to be able to do it. I mean, we spoke to people in our story who said that -- scientists who were close to IVF specialists who said that IVF specialists will tell them -- they won't tell us as reporters, obviously -- that they're basically prepared to do this. It's not a hard technique. You take a donor egg. You suck the nucleus out of it, therefore the DNA of the donor mother. You take a cell from the adult that's going to be cloned. It can be a skin cell. You put them next to one another. You shock it, and it begins to divide and at certain point, you implant it in woman's womb and you hope that it takes. IT's pretty simple technology from that point of view.
VAN SUSTEREN: Who's leading the race?
BEYER: Excuse me.
VAN SUSTEREN: Who is leading this race? I mean, who is the front? Which countries are moving forward the fastest on this or which scientists or which educational institutions?
BEYER: Well, we don't know what's going on underground. There's great reason to suspect that a lot of this is going on underground because it's not the sort of thing that scientists who are involved in this field want a lot of public attention on. It freaks people out. There's a really large yuck factor. They know that people don't like it.
They know that many legislatures will pounce on it and try to abolish all of these technologies, the ability to pursue any these technologies. But of the groups that have publicly announced that they're going to do this, one is a religious organization in Canada called the Raelians, who believe, among other things, that we are -- we human beings are cloned from aliens who are going to come back at some point to reconnect with us. They're an unusual organization, but they do have the advantage in this race that they've got a lot of followers who are willing to donate eggs and to serve as surrogate mothers. So, from that point of view, they've got the resources. A more legitimate or credible or mainstream effort is being conducted by a University of Kentucky scientist named Panos Zavos and his Italian partner, whose name is Severino -- I forget his last name, but he's the man who a few years ago took a 67-year-old woman who was past menopause and was able to assist her in giving birth. So, these are real guys. These are real scientists.
VAN SUSTEREN: And the end of an intriguing article in this week's "Time" magazine. My thanks to "Time" magazine editor Lisa Beyer.
BEYER: You're welcome.
VAN SUSTEREN: Human cloning may be closer than we think, but a new CNN/"Time" poll shows most people don't like the idea of cloning period. Only 29 percent of those polled think cloning animals is a good idea. Two-thirds say it's a bad idea. And only 7 percent like the idea of cloning humans. A whopping 90 percent of those polled say cloning humans is a bad idea. Well, let's explore the many challenges presented by human cloning with two guests who have written books on the subject. In Chicago is Lori Andrews, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Her books include "The Clone Age" and "Body Bazaar." And in Birmingham is philosophy professor Gregory Pence. He teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And his book is called "Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?" Lori, first to you. What's wrong with cloning?
LORI ANDREWS, CHICAGO-KENT COLLEGE OF LAW: Well, right now, there are enormous physical risks for the children that are created.
Thirty percent of the animals die before or shortly after birth when you clone them. Now, if that were happening with children, we'd consider it an epidemic, not a cure for infertile couples. In addition, even if it could be done safely physically, there are enormous psychological risks.
I'm in Chicago. Everybody wants to clone Michael Jordan, but pity the poor clone if he breaks knee at age 10. Will he consider himself a failure? And what if the original Michael Jordan dies early of an inheritable cancer. His clones will become uninsurable. It's not like twins because these children are living with a hand-me down genome and could be discriminated against based on facts found about the genes from the original.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let's get the other point of view. Greg, what's right with cloning?
GREGORY PENCE, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA-BIRMINGHAM: I have to object to language here. The word that Lori just used, clone, is inherently pejorative. It's like talking about chicks or queers. I mean I just can't agree to that language...
ANDREWS: It's a scientific term. It's used in the literature itself. It's not pejorative at all. (CROSSTALK)
PENCE: It's inherently negative. ANDREWS: I mean, we cloned plants. Am I talking down about plants when I say clone?
PENCE: Cloning as a process is one thing, but to talk about the clone. That's negative. It implies a zombie. It's a prejudicial term the same way that chick or queer would be. I just don't want that accept that term. (CROSSTALK)
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, Greg -- go ahead, but let me ask you, Greg, what's right with cloning? Why do you support the cloning?
PENCE: Twenty-five years ago, I was teaching bioethics. I heard all the same arguments about assisted reproduction, test tube babies, and the very same people that are criticizing cloning are now saying, you know, said the same thing 25 years ago. So, been there, done that. I just don't think it's as dangerous as people think. I don't buy psychological arguments. I also don't think you can cite the fact that people will be prejudiced as a reason in ethics for being against something. You can't cite prejudice as a justification. You attack prejudice.
VAN SUSTEREN: Lori, is cloning sort of the test tube baby debate of the year 2001?
ANDREWS: I don't think so. In fact, I litigated legal cases to give people the right to use in vitro fertilization. Cloning is much different. If you look at that "Time" poll, actually, fewer people thought it should be used for infertility than is should be used to create duplicate so that if they run themselves down in a lifestyle like they had a lot to drink, they could get a new kidney from their clone. (CROSSTALK)
PENCE: You cannot use...
ANDREWS: It shows we're doing this for improper motives. If a person could have a child for whatever reason they want, then logically, taking Gregory's possession, you could have child to harvest organs from them, and in fact, more people want to do that than use it for infertility purposes. (CROSSTALK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Go ahead, Greg.
PENCE: You cannot do anything to a person originated by cloning that you couldn't do to an identical twin. Once we have a principle of ethics, it doesn't matter how you originate.
Whether your parents were married, whether you used assisted reproduction, whether your parents were different races; once you come into this world as a person, both ethically and under the Constitution, you're person. If you walk like a person, talk like a person, you're a person.
You cannot kill somebody and take their organs. We've got to get past that. (CROSSTALK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Greg, let me ask you a question. I read a lot of the literature on the topic of cloning in the past couple of days, and one is the issues of the reproductive cloning and the other is cloning for medical research. What is meant by the medical research? Is that harvesting organs, almost?
PENCE: No. I have a couple I know who's Orthodox Jewish. They've have two or three tesox (ph). They have to have a baby. They don't believe in preimplantation, that's abortion to them.
It's very important in their tradition to have a child. They are willing to clone a gene type of the man's family, you know, that's free of the disease. There are people that are infertile that have no sperm or no eggs. It's the only way they can have a genetic connection to a child. So there are medical reasons. For some people, it's only way they can have a child.
VAN SUSTEREN: Lori, is that true that, you know, there's the reproductive cloning issue but there's also medical research cloning issue. Is there a difference and is that different to you?
ANDREWS: Well, yes I think there's a big difference, cloning to create a child. And in fact, most European countries, other places in the world have banned reproductive cloning. The risks are just too high, physical risks to the children. But some countries do allow people to clone an embryo of themselves with the thought that they could them turn that embryo into a source of heart cells or nerves cells. In the future, we might use embryonic stem cells to create cures for certain diseases. And least in the policy sphere, many countries think that is distinguishable, that the problem is creating a child with the hand-me-down genome, and yet doing embryonic cloning and creating a source for cells is appropriate
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, we're going to take a short break. But my guests and I will continue our discussion about human cloning when THE POINT returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Welcome back to THE POINT. I'm talking about human cloning with Chicago-Kent Law School professor Lori Andrews and University of Alabama at Birmingham philosophy professor Gregory Pence. Lori, back to you. Is there any risk of some sort of weird science, renegade science, something we that need to be terrified about in connection with cloning?
ANDREWS: Well, I think one of the issues is that nobody actually wants to clone themselves. The majority of people want to clone themselves but with a different nose or not their weight problem. So, I think this does lead to genetic engineering. After all, that's what's happening in the cattle industry, with sheep. They're putting enhanced traits into the offspring and to me it's a part of this whole move toward designer babies and I wonder what will happen when parents don't get what they expect. You know, what if they clone a celebrity, a cello player and the child doesn't evince those abilities? Will they sue the clinic? I'm already starting to see cases that like product liability cases.
VAN SUSTEREN: But besides the issues of lawsuits and someone complaining that you don't look like, you know, Cindy Crawford or whoever you want to look like, are there any sort of freakish, nightmarish things that we as a society need to face or is this simply whether we're for cloning and the concept or not? Are there like nightmares out there associated with it?
ANDREWS: Well, I mean, I think it's a nightmare that one-third of the children die shortly before or shortly after birth. I mean, that is not -- it's reckless to go forward in this. It's a major issue of human experimentation that we just should not allow at this point. There are important biological reasons for having a male and female parent. There are issues of imprinting where the genes from each side have a different role. For example, the father's genes are in favor of making the fetus really big so that the fetus will survive. The mother's genes keep it in check so that she will survive. Some of things we've seen are in the animal industry, the mothers who are carry this die because the fetus just gets so big in only having only male genes.
VAN SUSTEREN: Greg, you know, when Lori uses the term human experimentation that certainly -- I mean, that stops me in my tracks. That sounds much different than sort of, you know, scientific advancement or whatever. Is this human experimentation?
PENCE: I think that Lori's figures are a little bit out of date. I think...
ANDREWS: It's not out of date. They've been rereleased by...
(CROSSTALK)
PENCE: The Japanese with the calves who are about 17 times more efficient then the...
ANDREWS: I'm not talking about efficiency, I'm talking about risk.
PENCE: Well, let's do talk about risk. I mean, I think we tend to take a sensationalized case of cloning, which at best will only affect a few dozen kids, and at the same time there are millions of teenage girls that are pregnant and smoking and drinking and we know they're harming babies, but we don't do anything about it. This morning we were talking about the Human Genome Project.
Very soon, people will go to the doctor and they'll take a blood test. The doctor will say, look, you have 50 percent risk of having a very impaired baby or with this embryo, a 100 percent. You shouldn't have that baby, but people are going to go ahead and have that baby, and we're not going to criminalize that behavior. So, I think we're just beginning to see...
ANDREWS: But Gregory, as a bioethicist, how can you argue that two wrongs make a right? Bad things are happening in another area and so we should allow bad things to happen here. I don't think that follows. (CROSSTALK)
PENCE: Well, number one, I don't think it's going to be the kind of risk because if you look back 25 years ago, there was never a time when we would have said OK. It's OK to do IVF.
Committees are very conservation. The AMA is very conservative, and I think we ignore all these terrible risks and harms that occur every day all around us. You know, there's a teenage girl sitting across from me, pregnant and smoking. We ignore her and we want talk about cloning off in the future. I mean, we just have to have some perspective on risk here.
VAN SUSTEREN: Lori, in terms of the law, Lori, where is law? The law is typically out of step with any sort of science and technology? What about the law in terms of cloning? Is there any law to give us guidance?
ANDREWS: Well, there is an issue because the law tends to look backward and rely on precedent and science looks forward. Right now, four states California, Michigan, Louisiana and Rhode Island do ban human cloning, but there are a whole variety of other legal issues. What if Bill Gates' barber wanted to take a follicle of Bill Gates' hair, clone Gates, and sue Gates for child support. In my recent book "Body Bazaar," I show how there aren't adequate legal precedents to protect people from being cloned against their will. We don't have...
(CROSSTALK) VAN SUSTEREN: Who is the parent? Who is the parent in that situation? Does the law have any sort of direction?
ANDREWS: You know, it varies from state to state. One of the issues is if I clone myself, I might say, OK, that's my daughter. But traditional DNA testing will say that my parents are the parents of the clone, and I have created a twin sister. In two states, in fact, if the clone is carried by a surrogate mother, the surrogate and her husband are the parents, even though they have no genetic relationship. So, if we go forward we do have to solve the legal issues. (CROSSTALK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Greg, what about the religious issue? How does -- the religious leaders, how do they come down on this issue?
PENCE: Well, the Christians are generally have a kind of negative response, but surprisingly Orthodox rabbis have said, you know, it says in Genesis be fruitful and multiply. Probably the first place cloning will occur is in a Muslim country.
It's very important for -- to have heir there and many Muslim clerks have been in favor. So, you know, in other countries have ancestor worship in Shinto. It may resonate differently in other countries. Probably won't occur first in America.
VAN SUSTEREN: Lori, in the 20, 30 seconds we have left, what is Capitol Hill doing about this, if anything?
ANDREWS: There was a bill introduced to ban human cloning, but we're culture where science has a lot of value, and so it had been knocked out at this point. I think it will be reintroduced.
PENCE: I'm not sure the Constitution gives us a right...
(CROSSTALK) VAN SUSTEREN: And Greg, you will get last word on this. Obviously, a fascinating discussion. We're out of time. My thanks to Lori Andrews and Gregory Pence. Next, a possible change of address and a definite change of heart.
Bill Clinton keeps stirring up controversy. I'll get to my "Final Point" after a quick break and our "MONEYLINE" update. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Could Bill Clinton be part of Harlem's renaissance? CNN has learned the former president is thinking about moving the location of his New York office from near Carnegie Hall to Harlem. Congressman Charles Rangel tells us the former president may rent a full floor in this 12-story building on 125th Street near Fifth Avenue. Space in the Harlem location would cost less than half the price tag of setting up shop in the posh midtown Manhattan Carnegie Towers. Clinton's caught a lot of flack because those digs would cost $700,000 a year.
Perhaps office space for less than half the price will result in less than half the criticism. And then there's this: If the winds of public opinion turn the slightest bit chilly, watch out for your fair-weather friends. Tonight's "Final Point": The courage of your convictions, or at least, the courage of your contributions. One week ago, Bill Clinton made his first paid speech as a former president. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter paid him around $100,000 to address a group of junk- bond investors in Florida. News of the Clinton speech aroused a great deal of anger in some Morgan Stanley shareholders, who called the firm to complain about the choice of the controversial ex-president as a speaker. Some even threatened to stop doing business with the company. At first, Morgan Stanley stood by its decision. But just days later, the firm's chief executive, Philip Purcell, sent a very unusual e-mail to clients, saying, quote: "We clearly made a mistake," unquote, in hiring the former president to speak. My take: It sounds like Morgan Stanley management is talking out of both sides of its proverbial mouth. It was happy to get the first crack at Bill Clinton on the lecture circuit, but then turned tail and ran when the going got tough. Let me know what you think. Send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
That's one word, askgreta. I'm Greta Van Susteren in New York. Next, Chris Rock for the full hour on "LARRY KING LIVE."
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