[Aaron Brown, Cnn Anchor:] Good evening again everyone. On the eve of the Wisconsin primary the story of the day seems not to be John Kerry's ascent but when Howard Dean will drop out. Now, in truth this story is fueled in large part by a key member of the Dean campaign, Steve Grossman, who has now left the campaign after asserting that after tomorrow's expected loss, Dr. Dean should drop out as well. We ask why? Win or lose he has millions of supporters. His message in many ways laid the groundwork for all the other Democratic candidates who have run against him. If you are a Democrat, and we are not, you could argue that staying in the race actually helps the party by keeping the media focused on the race. Dr. Dean isn't going to win, we don't think, but whether he stays in the race or not, whether he continues to trumpet the causes he believes in, whether he stays should be something he and his team and his followers decide, not us, or anyone else, politics in a moment. But we lead tonight with a new report on abuse in the Catholic Church, Jason Carroll has gotten an exclusive look at the report so he starts us off with a headline Jason.
[Jason Carroll, Cnn Correspondent:] Aaron, it is a draft of the report and it details the number of priests accused of abuse since 1950 as well as the number of victims but there are critics who say it still does not go far enough Aaron.
[Brown:] Jason, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight. Next to Wisconsin on the eve of primary day, CNN's Kelly Wallace logged in a few more miles. She's in Milwaukee tonight, Kelly a headline.
[Kelly Wallace, Cnn National Correspondent:] Aaron, a co-headline tonight going to John Kerry's rivals. Number one what will Howard Dean decide to do? And, number two, could John Edward pull off another Iowa surprise Aaron?
[Brown:] Kelly, thank you. Finally, the White House and whether Friday's document dump put questions of the president's guard duty to rest, CNN's Dana Bash with the watch tonight, Dana a headline.
[Dana Bash, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Despite the hundreds of documents released on the president's National Guard service more than 30 years ago, there are still a number of unanswered questions but perhaps the most important question here at the White House is how much all of this matters to voters Aaron.
[Brown:] Dana, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly. Also ahead on the program tonight, the rich do get richer and everyone else curses the Yankees. We'll tell you the story of Arod and Ken Burns joins us as well and we'll cry together. In Segment 7 tonight a tiny corner of Arizona where polygamy and an outcast group of Mormons rule. And back for the weekend and the Catskills, I'm sure that's where he was, the rooster will be here to check your morning papers for a Tuesday, all that and more in the hour ahead. We begin with the priest sex abuse scandal, a report commissioned by the Conference of Catholic Bishops is due out at the end of this month. If nothing else, it is ambitious in scope covering a half a century of accusations and wrongdoing and suffering. What it may not be for some though is enough, not thorough enough, not critical enough, not nearly independent enough to earn the trust of those who believe the church has broken faith with them time and again. With it, though, is the first major effort by the church to assess the dimensions of the problem. We'll have a discussion on this later in the program, first the details of the report from CNN's Jason Carroll.
[Carroll:] The report attempts to shatter the secrecy surrounding priestly sexual abuse for the past 50 years. CNN saw a draft of the report put together by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the request of the U.S. Conference of Bishops. Preliminary numbers, based on church records, show 11,000 allegations of abuse nationwide between 1950 and 2002. Seventy-eight percent of victims were ages 11 to 17, 16 percent 8 to 10, and slightly less than 6 percent were 7 years old or younger. Of the 11,000 allegations, 6,700 were substantiated by church records. One thousand were unsubstantiated. The remaining 3,300 were not investigated because the priests who were accused were already dead by the time allegations surfaced. The president of the bishops' conference, who has not seen the draft, says: "These reports will be a very sobering and important milestone. My heart goes out to all who have suffered." Victims like David Cerulli who say as staggering as these numbers are the real number could be even higher.
[David Cerulli, Alleged Sex Abuse Victim:] Victims have a hard time coming forward. We believe that there are more victims out there who haven't reported their abuse.
[Carroll:] The research also found 4,460 priests were accused of sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002. That number represents about four percent of the 110,000 priests who were in active ministry. More than half of the accused had one allegation against them. A little more than 25 percent had two or three. About 13 percent four to nine, three percent had ten or more allegations involving minors. That three percent accounts for 147 priests but those priests were responsible for abusing nearly 3,000 victims, included in that group priests like Father Paul Shanley in Boston who is accused of molesting 30 children since 1967.
[Father Thomas Reese, "america" Magazine:] I think what it shows is that, you know, a few priests can be a terrible plague on people, on children.
[Carroll:] The report suggests the abuse increased in the '60s, peaked in the '70s and fell off in the '80s and '90s. Why? Some clergy say the church got a wake-up call in the mid-1980s when a priestly abuse scandal erupted in Lafayette, Louisiana. And there are some critics who say that, again, this report does not go far enough because researchers relied on church documents instead of looking for outside sources of information. The report also explores why the abuse went on for so long. It cited several reasons, including the church's failure to grasp the gravity of the problem and the priority the church placed on avoiding scandal. Again, Aaron, this is a draft report. Expect there to be more changes in the final report that is scheduled to be released to the public on February 27 Aaron.
[Brown:] We talked about changes in the final report. We have some fairly specific numbers. People can quarrel about the accuracy of those numbers but they're fairly specific. So, where are we going to see changes?
[Carroll:] Unknown at this point. Again, it's a draft version that I had an opportunity to look at, my source simply telling me that there is the possibility because it is a draft that there might be other changes. But in terms of specifically where those changes will be made, I'm going to have to wait for February 27th like everyone else.
[Brown:] Unless you get your hands on it beforehand. Thank you, Jason. It worked once. Later in the program we'll talk a bit about the conclusions and the methodology here. Both are somewhat in play tonight and there's some contentiousness about both of them and we'll get to that a little later in the program. We'll finish the news of the day first. Politics next, a day away from the primary in Wisconsin, John Kerry looks like he's about to chalk up another one. Howard Dean, who has an awful lot riding on tomorrow, some would say everything, spent the day trying to put a good face on the departure of Steve Grossman his campaign manager, so much to talk about for CNN's Kelly Wallace.
[Wallace:] Will he stay or will he go? Howard Dean gives a very Dean-like response.
[Howard Dean , Presidential Candidate:] I think it is possible for us to win and I think it's possible for us to do well if we don't win.
[Wallace:] But there are signs, smaller crowds, a national chairman who has already left, and a candidate saying nice things in Sunday's debate about front-running John Kerry after attacking him just a few days ago.
[Unidentified Male:] What happened to the tone? You almost over moderated. Have you figured out where it's headed yet?
[Dean:] Sure. We're going to change this country one way or the other.
[Wallace:] Dean and Kerry chatted briefly at the debate. A senior Kerry adviser said if Dean decides to leave the race, Kerry would try to get him and his grassroots thousands strong organization onboard as quickly as possible, for now, Kerry's goal trying to score his 16th victory.
[Sen. Edward Kennedy , Massachusetts:] Hello Green Bay. Now are you glad to see old Kennedy? Are you glad I'm back out here?
[Wallace:] Forty-four years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, pulled off an upset here, Senator Ted Kennedy asked the state to deliver a victory for another Senator from Massachusetts.
[Kennedy:] Do for him what you did for my brother. He'll be a great president.
[Wallace:] But the endorsement of the state's largest newspaper was delivered not to John Kerry but to Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who took Kerry on in Sunday's debate and plans to keep it up.
[Sen. John Edwards , Presidential Candidate:] I think as the race is narrowing to two people it will be clear what the differences are between us.
[Wallace:] And in an ironic twist, in his speech Edwards is also reminding voters of the Kennedy upset asking people in Wisconsin to do for him what they did for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and an adviser to Senator Edwards telling CNN tonight that no matter what happens tomorrow, Senator Edwards is staying in this race Aaron.
[Brown:] What are they saying about turnout tomorrow?
[Wallace:] They expect it to be quite high, Aaron. They definitely do. There's been a lot of attention, a lot of people tuning in to this debate. The candidates have all been here, Edwards, Dean, John Kerry have been campaigning over the past few days, so they expect a high turnout and we'll see what happens tomorrow.
[Brown:] Talk to you tomorrow then, Kelly Wallace in Milwaukee, Wisconsin tonight. A quick update now, on Friday Senator Kerry categorically denied rumors of an affair with a young woman. Today she came forward to deny it completely as well. In a statement issued to the Associated Press, her former employer by the way, she said this: "I've never had a relationship with Senator Kerry and the rumors in the press are completely false. Whoever is spreading these rumors and allegations does not know me but they should know the pain they have caused me and my family." She adds, "It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them." We've said before that in an odd way this race, if it does come down to John Kerry and George W. Bush, will have at least a chapter dealing with Vietnam. Just last week there was a doctored photo of Senator Kerry sitting next to Jane Fonda. The photo was a phony. There are questions about the president's National Guard service and we'll deal with that again in a few moments. So, Vietnam is still out there, especially where Senator Kerry is concerned.
[Candy Crowley, Cnn Sr. Political Correspondent:] This is the story of Kerry versus Kerry. A step ahead of the draft, John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in 1966. That spring he spoke against the war at his Yale graduation. Within two years he was in Vietnam.
[Kerry:] And I went feeling like I wanted to win. You know I felt that this was something we had a legitimate purpose in trying to achieve.
[Crowley:] By 1969, Kerry had a silver medal, a bronze star, three purple hearts and a change of mind.
[Kerry:] When I got there I began to see the extraordinary contradictions, the ways in which the Vietnamese were not supportive, the ways in which there was corruption, the ways in which our strategy simply couldn't work.
[Crowley:] He asked for an early discharge and joined Vietnam Vets against the war. At 27, Kerry was testifying for the group on Capitol Hill detailing stories of crimes committed by U.S. troops. They had, he said "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, poisoned food stocks." It was horrific stuff but Kerry was passionate and articulate. A star was born and along with it Kerry got a rep. He was lampooned as a showboat in an early Doonesbury strip. Others saw him as a political opportunist changing sides with changing tides. Many vets were incensed over his allegations of routine atrocities. One took his case to a debate on the Dick Cavett show.
[Unidentified Male:] I think there is something particularly pathetic about me having to appear on nationwide television and trade polished little phrases with you to defend the honor of the 55,000 people that died there, the two and a half million of us that served there.
[Crowley:] Fueling the political inferno of Vietnam, Kerry and other vets tossed medals over a capitol fence into a bin marked trash.
[Kerry:] This administration forced us to return our medals because beyond the perversion of the war these leaders themselves denied us the integrity those symbols supposedly gave our lives.
[Crowley:] Later, it came to light Kerry had not thrown his own medals over the fence.
[Kerry:] I didn't have them with me. It was very simple. I hadn't had time to go home.
[Crowley:] He has the medals to this day. When Kerry arrived in the Senate in 1985, the sting of Vietnam had dissipated. In 1992, the junior Senator from Massachusetts had the military and political credentials to defend Bill Clinton, criticized by rival Democrats for avoiding Vietnam.
[Kerry:] We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways.
[Crowley:] It was President Bill Clinton who normalized relations with Vietnam after a push from John Kerry. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
[Brown:] Still ahead on the program tonight, the document dump, what the military records released by the White House do and don't tell us about the president's time in the National Guard back during the Vietnam Era. And later, the place where polygamy is still a way of life, a way of life being challenged, at long last, by the law. From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.