we begin tonight keeping them honest with a part of ron paul's past you might not know about. a part of his past we don't know fully about. that's because the congressman who is now leading the polls in iowa gets prickly when he's asked. his story appears to have changed over the year, as well. that's him today taking off his microphone cutting short the questioning from gloria borger. the questions have to do with racially inflammatory writings published in newsletters bearing his name to paid subscribers in the '80s and '90s. they were written in the first person and random publications such as ron paul's "freedom

report" and the ron paul "survival report." this flared up three years ago when "the new republic" did the story. the same reporter writing for "the weekly standard" fleshed out more details. what we've uncovered are items like this from a 1992 newsletter shortly after the l.a. riots titled special issue on racial terrorism. listen to this, one line reads "order was only restored in los angeles when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks." in fact, order was restored when the national guard moved in. two years earlier in another ron paul publication, an article criticized president reagan for signing legislation approving the creation of the federal martin luther king jr. holiday complaining "we can thank him for our annual hate whitey day." again, these newsletters were written in the '80s and '90s while he was out of congress and had several thousand subscribers.

a lot of this came to light in 2008 and wolf blitzer asked him about it back then. >> congressman, there is a lot of material there but let me try to figure out how did this stuff get in these ron paul newsletters? who wrote it? >> well, well, i have no idea. have you ever heard of a publisher of a magazine not knowing every single thing. responsible for the daily activities and people came and went. they were hired. i don't know any of their names. i do not honestly do not know who wrote those things. >> did you used to read these newsletters? congressman? >> not back then. there might have been at times i would at times but, you knowers i was in a medical practice, i traveled a lot, was doing speeches around the country so frequently i did not see these. some of these things you read, as a matter of fact, i wouldn't have recognized them. >> again, that was in 2008 but keeping them honest, in 1996 when he was running for congress, democrats dug up other passages from his newsletters

that he did not deny writing. one called late congresswoman barbara jordan, a half victimologist. what d.c. laughingly calls the criminal justice system, i think we can assume that 95% of black males are semi criminal or entirely crime. nor did he deny this, if you've ever been robbed by a black teenage male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot he can be. he was asked about that. the reporter writing "dr. paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. he said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation." at that time he did not deny writing them. five years later he backed away from all of that and changed his tune "they were never my words

but i had some moral responsibility for them." campaign aides told him your name was on that letter and, therefore, you have to live with it. so that's ten years ago. he seems to be saying he didn't write them but a staff made him take responsibility. fast forward ten years later he's now blaming the media for bringing it up again. but as you'll see he's not doing so much to clear the air, chief political analyst gloria borger spoke with the candidate today. >> let me ask you, you've been answering a lot of questions lately about the newsletters that were published under your name and some of the things contained in them were conspiracy theory, some of them are considered racist and you've, you know, you've disavowed them completely. but they were called the ron paul report and did you read them at all when they were published during those years? did you ever sort of take a look at it and say, this isn't what i tan for. >> not all the time. >> but you did read them. >> not all the time.

>> well -- ? on occasion, yes. >> did you ever object when you read them? >> you know, we talked about this twice yesterday, cnn has. why don't you go back and look at what i said on cnn and what i've said for 20 some year, 22 years ago? i didn't write them. i disavow them. that's it. >> but you made money off them? >> i was still practicing medicine. that's probably why i wasn't a very good publisher. >> would you give it back? if you had money -- >> to whom? >> well, charity. charity. if you made money off them and you disavow it -- >> i didn't write them and i don't endorse those views and i've explained it many times. >> so you read them but you didn't do anything about it at the time. >> i never read that stuff. i never read -- i was probably aware of it ten years after it was written and it's been going on 20 years that people have pestered me about this and cnn does it every single time so when are you going to wear yourself out. >> no. is it legitimate? i mean is it a legitimate

question to ask. >> when you get the answer it's legitimate you take the answers i give. you know what the answer is, i didn't write them, i didn't read them at the time and i disavow them. >> it's legitimate. it's legitimate. these things are pretty incendiary, you know -- >> to people like you. >> no, no, no. come on, some of this stuff was very incendiary, you know, saying that in 1993 the israelis were responsible for the bombing of the world trade center, that kind of stuff so all right. >> good-bye. >> all right. thank you, congressman. i appreciate your answering the questions and you understand it's our job to ask them. >> thank you. >> our gloria borger joins us now along with ari fleischer and redstate.com's erick erickson. gloria, looked like quite an interview there. you know, as the congressman said not the first time he faced

questions about this. but when you spoke to him today, he still doesn't seem quite ready to answer them obviously. did he? >> well, there seems to be a bit of a conflict. on the one hand he said that he read them on occasion and then on the other hand he said that he did not read the most incendiary ones, so it's really unclear what kind of editorial relationship, if any, ron paul had with this report that beared his name. he says it's irrelevant. that's 22 years ago, clearly doesn't want to talk about it but honestly that's the kind of scrutiny you have to expect if you're the front runner a presidential race. >> yeah, i mean it's politics, no question. and, eric, to that point, some people are hearing about this for the first time but these questions are not new. they don't seem to have had much of an impact on his presidential hopes until now. why not previously? >> well, because no one took him seriously previously and now he's in first place in iowa.

i got to tell you, i remember the good old days of 2008 when his supporters put his home address on a neothat is ski website. we don't have to go back to the letters, we can ask ron paul why four years ago he allowed neo-nazi websites to fund raise for him and ask him why years ago he went on iranian tv to say israelis set up concentration camps to kill palestinians. there's a lot we can ask him. a more relevant question, if we can't ask him these questions from the late '80s and earl early '90s why can he go back to the '90s and attack newt gingrich or rick perry for things they wrote. does he believe this is a double standard. >> so what does it all mean? what's the impact. let me ask you that. look at this poll. ron paul, as gloria pointed out, a top pick, 28% of the vote. gingrich is up there, 25%, romney an perry, the only two candidates who cracked double

digits. he has some of the most dedicated supporters out there. it a caucus tate like iowa that can make a big difference. if he wins iowa what do you think it means going forward for the whole field? >> i think if he does win iowa it doesn't mean much. mitt romney is probably cheering for him to win because it'll propel romney forward. nobody thinks ron paul can go anywhere. what happens is iowa being a small caucus state, 110,000 voters, 120,000 perhaps, a small energized plurality can make all the difference in the world that propels ron paul's candidacy. as anybody who read my tweets know i'm not a supporter of ron paul, not a fan of ron paul. as much as i'm neutral in the primary, ron paul is a fringe candidate and doesn't represent the republicans' best foot forward so i'm bothered by this, on the image and the impact it can have. but four years ago and i just looked this up, you got 10 percentage points in iowa, 8% in

new hampshire. 4%, south carolina, 3% in florida. iowa historically has been his strongest state. ran before, ron paul ran and iowa was his high water mark and plunged from there on. >> gloria, go ahead, erick. >> another relevant point that needs to be asked asked. if you go back to the writings, the ron paul freedom report, no byline, written in first person as if it was from ron pauline chiou. gay men were intentionally trying to infect the blood supply to infect the heterosexual population. they attacked barack obama for sitting in jeremiah wright's church and barack obama denies any hearing his sermons. how is his denial different from going after barack obama for the reverend wright matter? there is none. they can't defend ha. >> again, to be clear, the congressman has disavowed

these -- all of these remarks. i read some of those same remarks, as well. gloria, you talked to him today. let me ask you this, if you can comment on what erick said. what does it mean for the iowa caucus in general? he's at the top despite all of this news that said -- that is most recent. >> well, you know, spoke with the governor of the state of iowa, governor brand said yesterday and said what if ron paul wins because lots of establishment republicans are saying if ron paul wins the iowa caucuses are completely irrelevant, of course, he doesn't want that to be the case. so he says, what's important is who comes in second and who comes in third. of course, that's important. but as ari fleischer says, this is not the message the republican party wants to be sending. but i'll tell you this, i was at a ron paul event earlier. it was a full house and the message that resonates here is a message of anti-washington,

anti-big government, anti-debt, anti-deficit, anti-establishment and it works with voters who are angry about the economy, so there is a real connection here with the voters in iowa. >> i'll be interested to see where the ads go from here and certainly what happens. i wish we had pore time to talk about it. appreciate your time, erick, ari and gloria. let us know what you think at home, as well. add us to your circle. follow me on twitter. up next, ten days until your taxes go up and this guy here, and house republicans are getting thrown under the bus by other republicans. got the inside scoop on this and what the politics could mean for your paycheck. later, a deadly discovery. how to turn bird flu into a potential terrorist people killer. why that's got the scientific, the medical and national security community on edge. first though let's check in with isha sesay. >> the search is on for a

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payroll tax cut for millions of american. no action. president obama made a phone call to john boehner and harry reid in an effort to end this standoff. house republicans are feeling the heat for blocking legislation and it's coming from an unexpected source. their fellow republicans in the senate. there are the raw politics in a moment. first john king joins us with a look at what failing to stop the stalemate might mean for you. another childish you'll have to pay for it out of your wallet. maybe the one after that. if nothing is done here's what's going to happen. if you make 35,000 your taxes will go up 700 bucks a year. that's about $27 a paycheck. if you make $50,000 a year you'll pay 1,000 more in taxes. that means $38 a paycheck. come middle of january.

$75,000 a year, you'll pay 1,500 more. that means $58 a paycheck. $100,000 a year you'll lose more than $2100. $82 a paycheck. a lot of money. that still matters if you're on a family budget. if you're above $110,000 or more you'll lose $2,300 or more. maybe people think it's politicians in washington fighting. if they don't figure it out soon ten days -- a few hours this will come out of the paycheck at a time when a lot of people have put a lot of upon on the credit card for the holidays and have extra bills to pay. >> people are talking about this but give them a picture of what's at stake. we do want to talk more about the politics here and bring in dane ma bash on complapitol hil. and david gergen. you reported it all day. what are you hearing right now. >> reporter: the betting is if anybody will cave, give in on this standoff it's going to be

the house republicans because they have just been -- the pressure has been mounting on them in an unbelievable way, sanjay, especially today even more so from their fellow republicans in the senate. actually been stunning the conversations that i've been having with republicans about their fellow republicans in the house. really upset about the fact that they -- the senate republicans, the ones i talked to have given up ground on the basic issue, fundamental republican credo which is cutting tacks and feel that republicans who have really been hell bent on saying, no, we're not going to have a two-month extension, only stand up for one-year extension is they've given ground on their number one issue which is cutting taxes to democrats and democrats look like they're the ones who want tax relief. >> certainly seems to be the message a lot are hearing and, david, you say what's going on here is very significant in terms of the republican party's chances of taking the white house as well. is it because of the reasons dana has outlined?

>> it goes beyond. senior conservatives, sanjay, believe that there is a real danger the public will now blame the house republicans for breaking down and leading to this breakdown in washington and house republicans are being held hostage by the tea party and all of that from the point of view of senior republicans is raise the danger that it enhances president obama's chances for re-election and diminishes the chances for republicans taking the senate and may lose more house seats so people are looking for a way out and frankly there are two ways out of this. one is what the wall street giulia giulia journal is calling for. they could wait until -- look, when congress -- when the senate comes back we want to sit down in january and work out a one-year extension retroactive

to january 1 on everything. whether it's tax cuts or unemployment benefits, it'll all be retroactive. nobody will get hurt but we want a one-year extension. i think they could possibly make that work too. >> you know, john king, to summarize a little bit, seems to be a real sense reading the editorials that the leaders have made a mistake when it many coulds to this payroll tax. republicans in the senate as dana outlined allowed the democrats to look like they're the ones for tax relief while the republicans look like they're against it. how big a fiasco is this for the republicans in the house right now? >> well, right now it's a big deal. when you have your own party saying, hello, when you have "the wall street journal" editorial page, usually saying president obama is trying to raise your taxes. when the wall streul wall stree says that, it's a problem.

they might not remember the specifics of this. but there is an narrative emerging, the reason the president keeps coming into the briefing room, he's trying to say i'm on the side of the middle class, the republicans who want -- won't raise taxes on millionaires want to on the middle class. president obama is not a natural populist. he is a professor. a lot complain he is aloof. to seize this issue and say i'm on your side and democrats are saying we're on your side. the details will likely be forgotten however, it does give the democrats control of the message at the moment, long way to go but the democrats are liking this. >> dana, david gergen brought this idea of possibly in january hammering out a deal and making it retroactive to january 1st. that obvious would buy some time as we're looking at the calendar, december 21st. are people talking about that? are your sources mentioning that as an option to you, as well. >> one idea i've heard floating around. others, basically just to get

the president and democrats to say, look, we promise that we are going to appoint conferees or negotiators to talk about a one-year extension and this is important that it will somehow get done before the president's state of the union because a big dynamic is republicans are very concerned that the president is going to use that big platform, the state of the union address, in january, to hammer republicans on this issue in general but the thing to keep in mind and i've been told this by several very smart republicans here on capitol hill, you got to watch john boehner because people can have all the ideas in the world, he is the one who has to make the decision because he is the one who has to navigate the unruly conference or republican caucus he is trying to navigate and this has been a pattern and hard for him to do it. he can't misread it again. >> everyone is talking about the presidential race obviously for good reason, john king, but what about the impact potentially of this issue on senate or house races in more moderate or

democratic leaning states. >> let me give you one race. scott brown, the surprise of last year, won ted kennedy's liberal democrat seat in massachusetts as a republican. the massachusetts version of the tea party backed him. he has a tough re-election campaign, 2012, president obama will carry massachusetts. i don't think any republican thinks they have a prayer. his opponent likely elizabeth warren, the president's consumer finance adviser. a lot wanted her to be the new watchdog. she is the ultimate i'm on your side candidate. i fight the big banks and fight for you the little guy. scott brown is appalled at this. would he like a one-year extension as opposed to a two- .extension and thinks washington is playing silly game, yes. but he is on the ballot, a tough enough election anyway. if he can't say i'm mr. bipartisan, i get things done, i'm on your side he's in more trouble. that's one race i would watch and there are many others. >> december 21st talking about ten days to the new year. dana bash, david gergen, john king, thanks so much. bio terrorism fears.

scientists in a lab create the strain of a bird flu virus that is both deadly and easily spread. now the question is this, should it stay under lock and key or be published and be a risk in the hands of the bad guys. a man wrongly convicted of killing a woman with bite mark testimony. stay with us. is having a trusted assistant. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above and still pay the mid-size price. here we are... [ male announcer ] and there you go, business pro. there you go. go national. go like a pro. there you go. i joined the navy when i was nineteen. i spent four years in the military and i served a tour in iraq. all the skills that i learned in the military are very transferable into the corporate and real world.

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as a doctor, nothing quite shakes you like encountering an

epidemic. something in it drags you straight back to your roots as a profession, back to smallpox, influenza, the plague, at a time doctors could offer little more than comforting words in the face of killers they could barely understand let alone treat. today we're learning how many of these bugs kill and also how they spread. if ignorance was the old nightmare, knowledge could be the new one. when i was in southeast asia during the bird flu outbreak, hundreds of people died. but we knew that it could have been much worse, as well. back then we knew what made bird flu so deadly but we also knew it didn't spread well person to person. that was an important fact. now we know how to change that. scientists have unlocked the recipe for bird flu that spreads like wildfire and they're being asked to keep quiet about it in the name of global security. here to talk about that, dr. nathan wolf, founder and ceo of the global viral forecasting initiative, also author of "the viral storm: the dawn of a new pandemic age" and fran townsend,

former homeland security adviser in the bush administration. nathan, you and i have talked about this, traveled around the world talking about this for some time. it's pretty frightening to read about, talk about a virus that could kill a lot of people and also spread easily. how dangerous is this virus? >> from my perspective, one of the most interesting elements of this research and, of course, we're all waiting to see the results and the papers is that we didn't know that could be transmitted in at least one mammal. it is ferrets and ferrets generally are a very good model for understanding both disease and transmission in humans, but this doesn't necessarily tell us exactly how effective this virus would be at transmitting in humans. >> people are putting this in a national security sense as well, fran. this is one of those things where you think about viruses and national security, it doesn't come up that often. i mean what is your assessment

of what this advisory panel is claiming? do you think this could be a national security threat? >> i absolutely think it could be a national security threat, sanjay. let's remember, you know, recently, secretary of state clinton was over in geneva at the world health organization and talked about in her remarks the ease with which because of public information now that someone with some science background can take public information, get basic genetic material and make a bio weapon. so this really is a threat. now, we have to balance that, of course, against the need for academic and scientific freedoms but i think there are ways doing that. this was a concern going back to the bush administration. i can remember talking to dr. tony fauci of nih and i'm getting his advice of that balancing. >> because we are talking again about a virus, nathan, that potentially kills people and spreads through the air more quickly, something that the

h5n1 that you and i studied in the past could not do, at the heart of that, do you believe whether it's in the lab documents or published studies, whatever, does it need to be out there? do labs like yours need to be able to see this to help combat a potential pandemic? >> look, what we do at global viral forecasting, a number of our partners do, we do surveillance. biological surveillance around the world trying to detect pandemics before they occur. clearly understanding what particular elements of a virus can cause it to spread, cause it to be deadly are very, very pivotal to us. we're sitting with hundreds of thousands of specimens and part of our challenge, how do we go through the specimens when we see an outbreak occurring in the field, how do we know whether it's going to spread. and there is a very important element. you are talking about really sort of this careful balance between risk and benefit and i think there's clear agreement with everyone that we completely underestimate the importance of purposeful biological attacks.

bioterror is something that we because we haven't seen huge examples of it in the last five years or so, sort of people don't pay attention to it. these are huge risks. there's a lot of agents out there that could be used in a very, very negative way and we basically need to sort of balance the risk and reward of this kind of research but from our perspective, the kind of data that lets us know which specimens are important and key for the kind of surveillance we do around the world. >> fran, we talked about this theoretically so much over the last couple of years. but now when you listen to nathan, a scientist out in the field who says i need the information because i'm the guy who is tracking this potential pathogen spreading around the world. if i don't know what it is exactly, i haven't seen the published studies on it, it makes it harder for me to do my job. i need this information. fran, how do you balance nathan's desires with, again, some sort of national security policy? >> sanjay, nathan and i agree. i do think nathan and people like nathan need access to these sorts of reports. but what you need to do is make sure people with a legitimate

reason and a legitimate use do get the access while not making it widely and publicly available in the way that the internet permits you to do if you just nearly allow it to be published. i do think it requires stewardship on the part of scientists and researchers to make sure that there's a process in place that allows them to disseminate it and get the benefit of that dissemination to folks like nathan without putting it in the hands and making it available to bad guys who would use it against us. >> it's one of those things. okay, go ahead, nathan. >> no, i was just going to add is i do think that to a certain extent what you're looking at is a bunch of folks that are doing their jobs very well. you've got individuals who are doing this pivotal science to help us understand the factors that lead to transmissions of a potentially deadly virus. you have editors who are taking very seriously the important recommendations of the nasab and that we basically have to

consider exactly what the nature of this information is and i think to a certain extent these are all obviously important features. >> and talking about a real-life -- this has been theoretical for so long, now this is the real world now. i appreciate dr. nathan wolf and fran townsend, thanks a lot. they call him the snaggletooth killer, convicted of murder by the forensic science of the science known as bite mark analysis. after he spent more than ten years in prison that science was proved wrong. we'll tell you a story and how an amazing forensic breakthrough turned out to be nothing more than junk science. also the mystery of missing baby ayla. her dad said he put her to bed last friday night and never saw her again. we'll have the latest on that investigation. re. nice work, team. i'm heading home. vaaa vrooom! need some help, ma'am? grrrrrrr! [ in high voice ] oh thank you. [ imitating engine ]

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>> they call it the csi effect, the forensic science that seems to solve every crime in television dramas and prosecutors and juries rely on them more and more to convict in the real world. in "crime & punishment" we've been putting those methods to the test. we're finding out they're not always as reliable as on tv. tonight we look at something known at bite mark analysis and the case of ray krone. he was once dubbed the snaggletooth killer because of his bad teeth. krone was accused of the murder of a bartender and convicted on the basis of bite marks left on her body. he spent more than ten years in prison before they found out the science in this case was just plain wrong. here is gary tuchman. >> reporter: ray krone lives on a farm in pennsylvania. he has lots of space, 27 acres. a far cry from where he used to live.

on arizona's death row. >> kim was an outgoinger. a good bartender, bubbly, energetic. a real nice person to know and be around. >> reporter: 36-year-old kim ancona was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in a bathroom in this phoenix bar back in 1991. ray krone was a customer at the bar. some people thought he was kim's boyfriend. so detectives talked to him and asked him to participate in a strange procedure. >> they put a plastic apparatus in my mouth that spread my lips back and took pictures of my teeth and had me snarl and grin taking pictures for about two hours. >> reporter: what krone didn't know was bite marks had been found on the victim's breast and neck. a day after his teeth were compared to the marks -- >> i heard the screech of brakes, the sounds of people yelling, freeze, don't move, you're under arrest. there was a van load of police officers in riot gear and guns drawn, threw me on the ground and handcuffed me and arrested me for murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. >> reporter: prosecutors hired a so-called bite mark expert for the trial. the primary evidence, his testimony which led to a murder conviction. because of his bad teeth at the time, krone became known as the

snaggletooth killer. >> i basically told the judge you have the wrong person. i was called a monster, an unremorseful killer, and sentenced to death, shackled and taken straight to death row in florence, arizona. >> reporter: for almost three years he sat on death row. >> i made plans for my last meal, whatever i was going to have. in order to survive on death row you have to survive with being executed. >> reporter: but then to his elation he won a new trial on appeal. however, with the same bite mark expert testifying, he was convicted again. >> it hurt. it was way more painful than the first time. >> reporter: this time the judge said he had doubts about the conviction. he gave krone 25 years to life, but took him off death row. as it turns out the judge was right to be queasy. years later dna evidence from the crime scene matched someone else, the real killer of kim ancona was this man, kenneth phillips, who accepted a plea bargain in her murder. after more than a decade the one time snaggletooth killer was now

a free man. >> hi. >> reporter: he was reunited with his family, who never stopped believing in him and always doubted the validity of bite analysis. the national academy of sciences now very publicly agrees. seven years after his release the nas released a very critical report which says in part "the scientific basis is insufficient to conclude that bite mark comparisons can result in a conclusive match." >> if someone would say this is junk science, your answer to that would be? >> it's not junk science. >> reporter: is it insulting to you? >> i think so. >> reporter: dr. lowell levine is a renowned forensic scientist and he has frequently utilized bite evidence. he was not involved in the krone case. >> we basically make an exemplar or a bite mark in wax. and this will give you all the unique individual characteristics of these teeth. >> reporter: he says by comparing bite wounds of the victim to the molds taken of a

suspect's teeth, he has helped convict suspects and helped to free the innocent. he believes the expert messed up in the ray krone case. and acknowledges more work needs to be done with the science. so you're saying that although you believe it's a viable and important science there's really not a way to do kind of the standard scientific research in this field? >> i sure can't think of it. >> reporter: ray krone says he's never received apologies from prosecutors or prosecution witnesses. he does say that two detectives involved in the case said they were sorry but asked him why he didn't tell the truth from the beginning. krone says he told them, i did. without the impassioned support of his family and friends, krone believes he would have lingered longer in prison and possibly been executed. this article is from when you came home, more than 100 people attend a party for freed man. big smile on your face. must have been an amazing day. >> this was one of the best days of my life. >> reporter: ray krone lives with his girlfriend, cheryl, and works as an advocate against the death penalty. and what did he name his pennsylvania farm?

freebird. gary tuchman, cnn, york, pennsylvania. >> absolutely fascinating stuff. i mean so bite mark analysis, is it a valuable crime fighting tool or is it junk science? digging deeper i spoke with cnn's senior an analyst jeffrey toobin and larry kobilinsky, a professor in criminal justice. dr. kobilinsky, ray krone's story is absolutely heartbreaking. i think what most people see and worry about is there could be others like him that were convicted on this sort of science that got it wrong and those people are still sitting in jail. so how much faith specifically do you have in bite mark analysis? >> bite mark ivery difficult to understand because a bite on human skin -- skin is elastic. it goes through a movement when you try to pince it or bite it. you have trauma to the skin and it changes color over time. what you're doing is comparing

one's dentition, a suspect's dentition to a cellulose acetate overlay on top of the skin and try to determine a common origin. it's a very difficult area. it's impression evidence. there are definitely problems with it. it's much, much too subjective. it needs to be computerized into a more objective way of looking at things and also, remember, there's no database. there are no national standards, and the big problem is you have an individual that goes to court and says i looked at that bite mark. i looked at the suspect's dentition and there's a common origin and i'm sure of it, 99.99%. what a terrible statement when you don't have databases and there are really no statistics. >> i'm amazed by that part. there are no or hardly any national standards for most of the things we're discussing and, jeff, as dr. k. pointed out, the evidence of the bite mark itself on someone's skin is changing. as a lawyer, what is the faith

that people put on bite mark analysis and evidence? >> well, it's supposed to be up to the judge. the judge is supposed to exercise a screening function and examine the science and determine whether it's worthy of being presented to the jury. but a lot of judges don't do this. they simply pass -- let the jury decide. and there's one word that leads to a lot of injustice in these cases and that's match. you have an expert get up there and say this bite mark matches the suspect's teeth. that word match can be so misleading because we don't know how many matches there are. we don't know if bite marks are unique. we don't know what the standards are. but jurors who watch "csi" or are just impressed by the credentials of an expert think match and they think guilty, and that has really led to a lot of injustice. >> sanjay, it could be used perhaps for exclusionary

purposes but to include a suspect as the biter, that's dangerous. >> jeff, so there is no board certification to this or governing body that oversees this. you said it relies sort of on the discretion of the judge but the judge is not often a forensic expert. i mean, how are they to decide by looking at something like this if the forensic experts can't agree? >> well, that's the problem and judges operate by, you know, different jurisdictions, have different traditions and i think, in fairness, i've been very critical of this science, but i also think there was a lot of good faith here. you have terrible crimes. you have victims with -- who have been left unconscious and all they have is a bite mark on their arm and you can see, well, why don't you look into it and see if you can draw some forensic guidance? but the problem is when prosecutors and police officers sort of fall in love with this form of evidence, you can have too much trust in it and innocent people go to prison.

>> the nice thing about a bite mark, jeff, is that you can actually swab the area of the bite and hopefully there's dna there. in fact, there was a case like that -- >> if you can, then everybody's happy. >> there was a case like that, and the person who said that you have the biter, the dentition proves that the suspect is the biter. when you do dna they get exonerated, so we know which of the two sciences is more reasonable and reliable. >> jeff toobin, dr. lawrence kobilinsky, thank you very much. the latest search for a 20-month-old girl who vanished from her crib. plus, president obama takes a break from the payroll tax fight to do a little holiday shopping. we'll tell you what's on his list. also, as you know by now we're cutting down the best ridiculist of 2011. [ child ] it's so cool!

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hi, i'm isha sesay with the "360" bulletin. the father of ayla is speaking out tonight. the 20-month-old last seen friday when put to bed. waterville police are following up on more than 16 aleads. eight olders facing a variety of charges involving bullying and hazing. his body was found with a self-inflicted gun wound, danny chen. bank of america will pay $335 million to settle discriminatory lending claims. a federal investigation found countrywide financial bought by the bank in 2008 steered african-americans toward subprime mortgages when they qualified for less risky prime

loans. president obama did pet shopping with his dog in tow and surprised customers at a best buy where he picked up gifts for his daughter. sanjay? thanks, our top ten ridiculist count down continues. a flashback to the third eig of the apocalypse. forty years ago, he wasn't worried about retirement.

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>> we're counting down the top ridiculists of 2011, based on your votes, incidentallily. tonight in at number eight one of our staff favorites featuring the guy who calls himself the third eagle of the apocalypse. here is anderson. tonight we have what i believe is the first ever ridiculist threepeat and who better to make ridiculist history than our friend william tap ll lly known as -- >> the third eagle of the apocalypse and the co-prophet of the end times. >> how do you get to be the co-prophet of the end times? i mean, is it such a sought after position that they had to divide it up? as any fan of the third eagles youtube videos knows he is for some inexplicable reason kind of obsessed with hidden

phallic symbols that he sees all over the denver international airport. >> they are evil. they are signs of satanism. and on this program i will point out many are phallic symbols. >> a box on the penguin, that is the box on the penguin as a prominent penguin penis. he has highlighted for your enjoyment. i put him on the ridiculist. this is on a painting at the denver international airport. now i put him on the ridiculist and now he responded. like manna from heaven, if you mean man parts here responded again. >> i guess you could call this the rubber match. well, maybe that's not quite the correct term. >> saucy! who knew the co-prophet of the end times would have such a naughty sense of humor. i'm starting to see how he got to be the co-prophet after all. although i think his presentation was a little stiff and perhaps premature. >> i honestly believe that mr. cooper is beginning to agree with me. >> not so fast, third eagle. do you mind if i call you third eagle? i try to keep an open mind. but you lose me when you claim there is a horse at the airport

covered in phalluses. in order to prove it, i would need a closer look. >> let's take a closer look at the mane on this blue demon horse. this sure look like phallic symbols to me. i don't know. what do you think, mr. cooper? maybe you think they're ice cream cones. >> note to self, don't ever go to baskin-robbins with the third eagle of the apocalypse. the ice cream parlor is satan's snack bar. now longtime followers of the co-prophet will already know it is not just the horse and the penguin and the horse that are the problem but it is the denver international airport's entire outdoor baggage handling area. >> the outdoor baggage handling area is in the shape of a phallus. let's take a closer look. >> and that is what he does. mr. tapley has taken his philosophy to a whole new level. it's not just the phallus shaped

baggage area that now concerns him. it's also salacious surrounding street names. >> what do you suppose this street name is that runs right down the center? you guessed it. that's pena boulevard. >> i'm sorry. actually i did not guess that. i was hoping for urethra boulevard. pena is named for frederico pena, the former mayor of denver. but anyway, that's just one street. it's not like there's others. >> i guess you could call this the pubic hair area. so what do you suppose the name of this street is right here? this is the harry b. combs parkway. >> harry b. combs was an aviator and a writer -- who cares? it doesn't matter. >> this street right here, this is shady grove street. i guess that's because that's where the sun don't shine. >> the sun don't -- i think he's getting his anatomical references confused now.

>> if they ever cut the flow of traffic on this little street leading down to pena boulevard, i bet they will call that a vasectomy. >> that is just a fallacy. anyway, say what you will about the co-prophet. he cares about people almost as much as he cares about phalluses. >> as for you, mr. cooper, do you want to be remembered as the most naive reporter in the history of television? >> well, no, i wanted to be remembered as third eagle of the apocalypse but that name was already taken. >> and, mr. cooper, i am going to send you a copy of my free book. i hope this address is correct. >> i got the book. thank you kindly. that was a very nice gesture. so you know what, let's just end this whole war of words. i'm officially extending the olive branch. oh, no. he's not going to like that, is he? got to work on that. please don't get too testy. william tapley, it has indeed