Anderson Cooper The Journalist

Welcome to the daily AC360 recap of Friday, 09/11/2009

I apologize for the watermarks on the videos as I’m using a new software and testing it to see if I’ll keep it. The marks will be gone this week. We’ll also have a much higher video quality.

Friday’s AC360 begins with John King filling in for Anderson Cooper.

WHAT WILL BE COVERED TONIGHT:

John King announces today’s big stories:

- New doubts at home about the war in Afghanistan

- Big money for the congressman who shouted at President Obama

Let’s get started !

STRATEGY SESSION

The program opens up with the strategy session segment. John King interviews Michael Ware and David Gergen:

Michael Ware: “They (The Afghan people) want more from America, and they want it quick and then they want you out.”

RAW POLITICS:

On to the raw politics segment of the show, ‘two words, big bucks’. Congressman Wilson picked up 700000 millions plus one million for a total of 1.7 millions for shouting ‘you lie’ at President Obama during a Congress speech. Joe Johns reports, and says Wilson isn’t sorry and uses this money as funds for ‘re-election’.

Joe Johns reports and talks to John King:

Here’s the specific video clip when congressman shouts ‘you lie’ at President Obama:

The next story is an interview by Jonathan Landae who is a correspondent for a newspaper. He talks about his account of being with the troops during deadly attacks in Afghanistan. As everyone knows, August was the deadliest month for American troops in Afghanistan.

Here’s Jonathan Interview in its integrality:

INSIDE THE BATTLE ZONE:

Moving on to the next segment of the AC360 show. Anderson Cooper and Peter Bergen discuss about Khandahar, the birth place of the taliban. Peter Bergen is one of the few journalists who’s ever spoken in person with Osama Bin Laden. You can view more about this at www.ac360.com. I think this makes Peter Bergen’s reporting the more interesting.

Anderson and Peter discuss about how the mission in Afghanistan has changed over the past 8 years. 2001 was all about overthrowing the taliban and getting rid of AL Qaeda. The base where Anderson and Peter are reporting from used to be an AL Qaeda base. Now, it has a population of 9000, and has places like Pizza Hut and Burger King. Clearly the place has drastically changed and the taliban has lost most of its power there. AL Qaeda is not today’s priority, in fact no marines ever spoke about it during all of AC360′s trip to Afghanistan. Peter Bergen says that in his opinion, the possibility of an eventual attack of Al Qaeda against America is low.

INSIDE THE BATTLE ZONE II

Anderson Cooper reports about the life of the Marines in Patrol Base Jaker. This is the 1st Batalion, 5th regiment and there are 50 of them in this base. Anderson reveals that their living conditions is less than glamourous and talks to a few marines there. For example, the temperature can go as high as 120 degrees and there is no air conditioning. There is dust all over the place, and food is pre-packaged. One sergeant describes life as being: “work all day and then sleep and then work again in the morning.”

A couple of photos from his report:

360 NEWS AND BUSINESS BULLETIN

Erica Hill brings us the news and business bulletin

I apologize but this video doesn’t want to upload to youtube…sorry ! I tried 3 times I don’t know what the problem is.

BEAT 360

Here are tonight’s winners:

THE SHOT

Tonight’s shot is a clip about Anderson’s journey in Afghanistan all throughout the past week. In his Reporter’s Notebook, Anderson Cooper remembers vividly and a little painfully his week spent in Afghanistan close to the combat and on patrol with the troops.

Here are a few pictures of his Reporter’s Notebook:

Thanks for tuning in and have a great weekend !!!