Empowering women worldwide is a priority for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said recently at the United Nations progress is coming, as long as women do their part.

C. BROWN: Tina Brown, founder and editor-in-chief of TheDailyBeast.com is doing her part, especially this weekend. She had this extraordinary conference that was focused on empowering women and finding solutions, hearing people's stories, full disclosure, I was part of it.

TINA BROWN, FOUNDER, DAILYBEAST.COM: You did great.

C. BROWN: I had the great opportunity to be a part of it. And it was fantastic.

T. BROWN: You did great.

C. BROWN: But let me - let me ask you, this has been a goal. Empowering women was laid out as a goal set by 189 countries 15 years ago with a platform for action. We're going to educate and improve human rights and help care for women and girls around the world. What has happened?

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This Saturday, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg hosted the first-ever DVF Awards to honor outstanding women from around the world. The DVF Awards recognized the courageous work of Sadiqa Basiri Saleem, Danielle Saint-Lot, Katherine Chon, and Ingrid Betancourt. Award recipients will also receive $50,000 from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to continue their projects.

Saleem has been working on creating schools in Afghanistan for young girls, and will use the award to form the first women’s university in Afghanistan. Saint-Lot, who formerly held positions in Haiti’s Ministries of Commerce and Industry, now works with a network of female, artists, designers and businesswomen to provide training and access to financing, and will continue her work there. Sadiqa Basiri Saleem, from Afghanistan, and Danielle Saint-Lot of Haiti were chosen from among Vital Voices Global Partnership’s emerging women leaders, an NGO on which von Furstenburg serves as a board member.

Melanne Verveer, Diane von Furstenberg, Meryl Streep, Christiane Amanpour, Robin Roberts, Danielle Saint Lot, Ingrid Betancourt, Sadiqa Basiri Saleem, and Katherine Chon at the DVF Awards at the United Nations.

The “People’s Voice Award” went to Katherine Chon from the Washington-based Polaris Project which is one of the largest anti-trafficking organizations in the United States. With the money she hopes to expand the national hotline to help victims of trafficking and to help the victim service program.

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While out in California for The Women's Conference, Campbell did an interview with Sirius radio.

Some of the most powerful, some of the most interesting women in the country have gathered here to tackle some of the most important issues facing not just women, all of us. Valerie Jarrett, is one of President Obama's senior advisors. She spoke about everything from health care reform, to White House accusations of media bias, to the war in Afghanistan.

BROWN: It's been more than a month since General McChrystal asked for more troops, more boots on the ground. And he said, if he doesn't get more troops in Afghanistan, more lives will be lost and the mission will fail.

What's taking so long?

JARRETT: Well, the president is engaged in a very thoughtful and deliberate process. Before he puts our men and women in harm's way, he wants to make absolutely sure, not just of the number of troops, but that there's an overall strategy for success.

And, so, he's had numerous meetings with his security team, his Defense Department team. And he will make the decision in the prudent amount of time. He's not going to be rushed into making a decision before he's sure that he and his team have thought it thoroughly.

And it will be part of a larger comprehensive strategy. So, he's not at any risk right now of anything going wrong by not having made the decision and he's going to do it in deliberate speed.

BROWN: Do you believe that, that the time it's taking is not endangering troops...

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In September, "Glamour" magazine's editor-in-chief Cindi Leive took what some considered a true fashion risk. Her magazine included a picture of a plus-sized woman, not just the thin beyond belief women that some consider a must in modeling. The overwhelmingly positive response inspired "Glamour" to take a closer look on complete with new images in its November issue.

BROWN: So there is a photo in the current issue of the magazine that people are just going crazy over. And we're going to show it to the audience right now. Why? Why, at first, why did it become so important for you to feature plus-sized models?

CINDI LEIVE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "GLAMOUR": Well, we've heard over and over and over again that this is what readers want. You know, they are fed up with seeing just one size body in magazines. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that women are built all different ways. Some are a size zero, some are size 10, some are size 20. And we wanted to do something that would show that, look, women of all shapes and sizes can be gorgeous.

We're a fashion magazine. We love the fantasy and the glamour of beauty and fashion photography, but I think it should be a fantasy that is accessible to a wider range of people.

BROWN: What's amazing to me is that anything larger than a size six is considered plus size in the fashion world. And the vast majority of us are larger than a size six.

LEIVE: It's one of the bizarre realities of the modeling industry that once you're over a size six, you're considered a "plus- sized model." Of course, you're not actually a plus-sized human until you're size 14 and over, and there are very few plus-sized models who are. But nonetheless, the women who you see in our magazine are all working as so-called plus-sized models and they are four to six sizes larger than most models you see in magazines.

BROWN: So is this a permanent change for "Glamour" going forward, that you really do want to embrace a little bit more on natural (ph), more akin to what women really look like?

LEIVE: What we're embracing is diversity. You know, we'll continue to use gorgeous so-called straight size models who are the smaller models but we'll use them alongside women you haven't seen before in magazines.

BROWN: And I know you wrote about a designer in London, this kind of amazed me too, who put three size ten models in his runway show and then some of the creative people quit in protest?

LEIVE: Apparently, there was some pushback from some people on his creative team. But the bottom line was the show looked gorgeous, the clothes looked amazing.

BROWN: But what's this mentality in the fashion world that you would have people say, oh, no, no, no, I can't do this, I can't be a part of it.

LEIVE: You know, I think a lot of it is just tradition. This is not the way fashion has looked historically. But bottom line, designers are in this to make money. They want to sell their clothes. And particularly at this economic moment, if a larger-sized woman or even a size 10 or 12 woman has good money that she's going to pay for your clothing, of course, you're going to market to her. And I think things are changing.

BROWN: And you also, I know "Glamour" has also been opposed to photo shopping actresses or models and, you know, making that a part of your sort of standard, we're not going to go there. Why did you make that decision and should that be the norm for other magazines, do you think?

LEIVE: The main reason we're making that decision is that women like it. Readers relate to it.

I mean, listen, we all know that sometimes the moment that you look your most beautiful is not when you're looking your most "perfect." And we find that readers respond to images that, yes, are gorgeous but also have a little bit of difference in them. So, you know, gap teethed, freckles, all those things that sometimes go away in pictures, we believe that they look pretty cool.

BROWN: Should that be the norm? No more air brushing it out?

LEIVE: You know, listen, I'm not making decisions for anybody else's magazine. This is what our readers seem to respond to and we're excited about giving it to them.

BROWN: Well, we're excited about the changes.

She's a swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Dara Torres. 42 years old, she has remained a force to be reckoned with in the pool, even after competing in five Olympics going back to 1984. Some wonder if she can do it again in 2012 after recently undergoing knee surgery.

Along with her feats in the water, Torres also wrote a book, "Age is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams at Any Stage in Your Life."

BROWN: You did your first Olympics at 17 years old, the last when you were 41. Does winning feel different for you?

DARA TORRES, SWIMMER: You're more appreciative of it. You know, when you're 17 years old, you take things for granted. You're kind of more in awe of everyone else that was there. This is not a big deal. You go back to high school and do your thing. But when you're 41 years old and winning medals, even if it's a silver or whatever it is, you're just more appreciative of it. You don't take things for granted.

BROWN: What keeps you motivated? I mean, you've broken world records, you've got the medals. How do you maintain that desire to win?

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Campbell sat down with Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State from and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to talk about The Women’s Conference and the current situation in the Middle East.

By Joe Von Kanel
Writer/Editor

White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett tells CNN’s Campbell Brown that the Obama Administration is “calling everybody out” when it comes to “patterns of distortion.”

At The Women’s Conference in California, Jarrett told Campbell, “What we’re saying is that we want the public to understand what’s going on: When we saw the kind of distortions this summer – particularly directed at seniors over health care reform – it was really outrageous. And I think what the President said in his message before Congress is we’re going to speak directly to the American people so they understand the truth.” Jarrett continued, “And so, certainly, if we see somebody distorting the truth we’re going to call them on the carpet for that but we don’t want to take our focus away from the core issues that are so important to the American people. Now, when there’s all that chatter and distortion and false information we have to distinguish between truth and fiction.”

Campbell asked, “Do you think Fox News is biased?” Jarrett answered, “Well, of course they’re biased. Of course they are.”

But when Campbell followed up by asking Jarrett if she thinks MSNBC is biased, she replied, “Actually, I don’t want to generalize all of Fox is biased or that another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case by case basis. When we see a pattern of distortion, we’re going to be honest about that pattern of distortion. “

Jarrett continued, “I think what the Administration has said very clearly is that we’re going to speak truth to power. We saw all the distortions in the course of the summer when people were coming down to town hall meetings and putting up signs that were scaring seniors to death. We’ve seen commercials go up on television that are distorting the truth.

We’re actually calling everybody out,” said Jarrett, “So this isn’t anything that’s simply directed at Fox. We just want the American people to have a really clear understanding.”

Jarrett concluded, “We really don’t have a lot of time for nonsense and distortions. The American people are smarter than that. Let them reach their own judgment based on the facts.”

After an emotional year for her family, Maria Shriver is now able to focus on the future of women, hosting as she does every year, The Women's Conference. Thousands of prominent and interesting women, as well as a few men, gather with the hope of transforming women's lives. She spoke about just how she hopes to achieve what is a pretty lofty goal.

MARIA SHRIVER, CALIFORNIA FIRST LADY: Well, I'm trying to get women of all walks of life to see themselves as capable of being architects of change. I think so often we think someone else is going to change the world for us, someone else is going to run for office, someone else is going to change the company. And I really try to encourage women that they have their own voices and that they can be who they think someone else is.

And so I try to really mix up the lineup. You get people here that, you know, you would never expect to be in the same place at the same time because I'm really a strong believer that women have multiple voices. We don't speak with one voice. We don't look the same. We come from different backgrounds and we've made very different decisions that I'm trying to honor as many of them as possible.

BROWN: Let me mention some of the panels that you have here. You put together an interesting mix of people, I think. One, for example, Cindy and Meghan McCain are together with race car driver Danica Patrick and her father, talking about how to raise strong kids. I mean, is that kind of the goal, I guess, in turning out strong, powerful women? It's parenting and what goes in to it.

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Campbell just spoke with Senior White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett.

They talked about a wide variety of topics including Afghanistan and the Administration’s contention that Fox News is “distorting the truth.”