Obama Strikes Back at Clinton; Clinton and Obama Spar During Talk on Faith; Married Couples Living Together in Battle Zone
CHETRY: Well, the army has a marriage problem. Fifteen-month war deployments are tearing marriages apart and making some people make the call to get out of the military. For the first time, the army is trying something unheard of, and that is letting married couples who are both soldiers live together even if they are in the war zone. Jill Dougherty takes a look.</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Romance on a military base in Baghdad? Well, not exactly. The electricity is out again, but these two officers are in love. Jessica and Brian Hegenbart, married for over three years, deployed together twice. Under traditional army rules, they wouldn't be allowed to live together. But under a policy quietly introduced in 2006, they can if the housing is available.</s>DOUGHERTY (on camera): Do you think there is an amount of jealous at all among people?</s>BRIAN HEGENBART, MARRIED COUPLE IN THE WAR ZONE: Definitely.</s>DOUGHERTY: How's that?</s>B. HEGENBART: Maybe not true jealousy, but in a joking manner.</s>DOUGHERTY (voice-over): But the mission of these two Blackhawk pilots is deadly serious. Brian flies infantry troops on air assault missions. Jessica transports military personnel.</s>JESSICA HEGENBART, MARRIED COUPLE IN THE WAR ZONE: I don't usually worry unless he's getting to the point where he should be home and it's going on a couple of hours. I feel like he should have been home by now. So I try not to think about it otherwise.</s>B. HEGENBART: So I'm going to call her right when I get back. I'll get back in the office and I'll pick up the phone and call her office just to let her know I'm back, so she doesn't have to worry.</s>DOUGHERTY: But army rules still apply. No public displays of affection.</s>DOUGHERTY (on camera): Do you ever hug, you know, each other or kiss each other in public?</s>B. HEGENBART: No ma'am.</s>J. HEGENBART: We can't.</s>B. HEGENBART: It's hard sometimes. It can wait until we get back to the room.</s>DOUGHERTY (voice-over): Tomorrow, the mission begins at daybreak. Lights out.</s>CHETRY: Well, the army says it doesn't keep track of how many couples are actually living together in the war zone. About 40 live- in trailers in so called couples row at Camp Striker in Iraq.</s>ROBERTS: It's almost 27 minutes after the hour. We're just eight days now until the crucial Pennsylvania primary. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama last night discussed their faith as part of CNN's "Compassion Forum." But there's little compassion between the two camps regarding controversial remarks made by Barack Obama last week. Joining me now from Houston is CNN contributor is Roland Martin. Roland, good to see you. Let's listen quickly to what Hillary Clinton's show of Barack Obama's remarks last night during that "Compassion Forum."</s>SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It did seem so much in line with what often we are charged with. Someone goes to a closed door fund-raiser in San Francisco and makes comments that do see elitist, out of touch and frankly patronizing.</s>ROBERTS: Elitist, out of touch and patronizing. Can she hurt him in Pennsylvania by bringing this up in the way that she is?</s>ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, bottom line is for the comments to come out so close to the election, when you have them within about four points and you have about nine or 12 percent of people of people who are unsure, of course it could backfire. But what's interesting is I get e-mails from people who say I disagree, it's come as wrong. Then I get people who are from small towns who say, you know what? He was actually right. And so, it was a very particularly interesting forum to have both of them discussing faith issues and so it would be interesting to see how he continues to drive home the point and say, look, folks are bitter, folks are angry. Sure, I may have said it, you know, in a different way, but as he keeps saying is the crux of my comments are pretty much the same.</s>ROBERTS: You know, he was fairly subdued in responding to it during the "Compassion Forum" last evening. But just before that at another political rally that he was at, he was much, much more articulated about it, much more worked up about it. Let's listen to how he put it there.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Shame on her, she knows better. She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She talking like she's Annie Oakley.</s>ROBERTS: So he was defending himself prior to this, now he's taking on her. Looks like he's going to be doing the same thing with John McCain later on today at the Newspapers Association. He has to make sure, doesn't he, Roland, that this doesn't become a defining moment in his campaign?</s>MARTIN: Well, absolutely, and I think what you have to do is also how do you gradually shift the conversation, because you see we're talking about the Annie Oakley comment, all of a sudden Senator Hillary Clinton, she's talking about hunting and she's talking about when she first fired a gun. Someone yesterday asked her when was the last time you fired a gun or the last time you went to church? And she said, hey, you know, we have time to answer those questions later. And so, that's pretty interesting how he said it, wait a minute, you know, you can't talk about gun control for years and all of a sudden you go to Pennsylvania talking about how wonderful it is to hunt. But also last night, John, I thought a couple of other issues that jumped out that frankly talked about policy. He praised President Bush's policies when it comes to some of efforts in Africa, cutting HIV and AIDS. But also, he said that if he was president, he will continue to have open the office of faith base initiatives. That was a substantive policy matter. To be frank, that speaks to a lot of whole issue of bitter. That says wait a minute, you're going to -- the faith-based initiative got a lot of criticism from Democrats.</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>MARTIN: If for him to say, we'll keep it open but if they follow the civil rights statute, I thought that was a very important distinction. Overall, John, to have the Democrats speaking about a faith was very interesting. Hillary Clinton admitted that for her, her faith was a lot more personal. Obama, I thought, was a lot more fluid in his conversations last night talking about issues of faith and values. But again, a different kind of conversation that we typically hear from Democrats and to hear them talking about abortion within the context of a faith prism, pretty interesting dialogue.</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: In fact, let's just take a moment and listen to a little bit of what they've said on the issue of faith last night.</s>SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In the face of suffering, there is no doubt in my mind that God calls us to respond.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's very hard to know what that means when life begins -- is it when a cell separates, is it when the soul stirs.</s>ROBERTS: Roland, you said it's important for Democrats to talk about faith. But will they ever rival the Republican Party when it comes to faith and values?</s>MARTIN: John, I think they can because, see, the problem is, for so many years -- and I've written about this on cnn.com since the onset of this election, that the issues of faith and politics goes beyond just abortion, homosexuality. Those are two of the many issues. What Democrats have to do is to give a talk about absolutely HIV AIDS. Begin the talk about, you want to talk about a prenatal care that in many inner cities across the country, the infant mortality rate that rivals that of some third world countries. Those are all faith issues, moral issues. And so, how do they embrace them? They have to be able to intertwine them in a conversation. And interesting, John McCain did not accept the invitation. Is that like evangelicals are knocking on his door? They must begin to talk about it over and over and over again and not see that ground. And if you watched the applause last, last night, the audience seemed to give a lot more to Obama with some of his comments than what Clinton said. They have an opportunity, but they cannot ignore people of faith. They will do so at their own peril.</s>ROBERTS: Well, we'll see if this ignites a greater conversation. Roland Martin for us this morning. Roland, good to see you, thanks.</s>MARTIN: Thanks, John.</s>ROBERTS: Kiran?</s>KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: A couple of other stories new this morning. President Bush will be getting a Cabinet-level briefing today on where the airline industry stands when it comes to safety inspections. American Airlines, as we know, a nightmare for passengers last week, is said to be back on schedule today. They had to ground 300 planes, cancel more than 3,000 flights and it left hundreds of thousands of passengers with major headaches at airports around the country. But there maybe more troubles soon. The federal government has recently ordered audits of maintenance records and analysts say that means older jets are more likely to be grounded for time-consuming inspections. American, United, and Northwest are flying the nation's oldest fleets on average. The mayor of Phoenix, Arizona wants to know if a crackdown on illegal immigrants is violating civil rights. He's now calling on the FBI to investigate. The patrols ordered by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who's no stranger to controversy, has sparked protests. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says it's discriminatory harassment. Officers are carrying out, he says, improper stops, searches and arrests. The patrols that have gained the support of people who don't think the government has done enough against illegal immigration. The sheriff also saying it's ironic the mayor wrote the letter on the same day that U.S. immigration agents approved the patrols. Aid workers fear there could be more deadly riots in impoverished Haiti over rising food prices. Now, the president of the World Bank is asking for global help. Robert Zoellick wants countries to pump $500 million into the United Nations' World Food Program. Protests and looting in Haiti have already left seven dead. Haiti's prime minister was removed for failing to increase food production.</s>ROBERTS: It's coming up on 34 minutes after the hour. Now, here's Alina Cho with other stories making headlines this morning. Good Monday morning to you.</s>ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good Monday morning to all of you. A little bit bleary-eyed this morning. Good morning, everybody. New this morning, the Dalai Lama says his representatives and the Chinese government are talking. The Tibetan Buddhist leader who's in Seattle right now for a conference would not give details about the talks, but the Chinese officials maintain that the Dalai Lama is behind the recent protests in Tibet. The Dalai Lama denies it. This morning, Beijing is announcing it's taking more steps to improve air quality during the summer Olympic Games in August. Officials say they plan to stop most construction in the weeks leading up to and during the Games. Also, 19 industries have been told to cut emissions by 30 percent. Beijing is one of the world's most polluted cities. 600 earthquakes in 10 days. That's what scientists at Oregon State University say happen off the Oregon Coast. It's the biggest seismic swarm ever recorded there in an area that's not typically known for this kind of seismic activity. Researchers say at least three of the quakes registered a magnitude 5.0 or higher but few if any could be felt onshore. And in case you haven't noticed, our very own Kiran Chetry is very pregnant.</s>CHETRY: You're kidding me.</s>ROBERTS: I thought it was the breakfast that she eats every day.</s>CHO: Well, you know, her appetite has been a little healthier lately.</s>ROBERTS: Is it that</s>CHO: Well, you know, those sausage biscuits are -- anyway, she's not -- lot of people don't even know she's pregnant, honestly. But anyway, we got together all of us here at CNN for a very special shower. There we are. With a very special theme that was eco-friendly. You can see all the girls there. And there on the right, we should mention, is the lovely wife of our fearless leader, Jen Kline, who was our hostess for the day. But we all had a great time. And it was eco-friendly as we mentioned. So, all of the gifts were green. I had no idea until I got this invitation how many green products were available for babies, you know. I mean, you name it, everything. Clothes and some kids stuff, too. We got some good gifts.</s>ROBERTS: I was going to say the potato salad was green too but for different reasons.</s>CHETRY: You have to look because that's my first born Maya. She's 2. Since she was born they've just made so many changes. And people have become more aware of -- you know, trying to avoid certain additives in plastics and try to do things the right way. But I got to tell you two things. First of all, Alina Cho impeccable taste, as everyone knows. I'm looking at the outfits this baby is going to wear for you know, a week until they grow out of them. It's going to be the most stylish little organic kid running around the place. I mean, mustard-colored</s>CHO: Yes, it's cool stuff. Very cool stuff.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, all we can guarantee, I don't know much about these things, but I can tell you that both Maya and the new one, by the time they're old enough to pay taxes, are going to be paying AMT because some of the reasons we're bleary-eyed is we've been preparing our taxes this weekend. For some of you, you've just got until tomorrow night. And many of you will be waking up to fact that for the first time, you're paying the alternative minimum tax. So, stay with us. It's not as much fun as the baby shower, but I will tell you a little bit about the alternative minimum tax when AMERICAN MORNING comes back. Stay with us.