Investing in an Athlon 64 based PC will make your PC "future proof" - although you won't get any advantages right NOW, you will be able to take advantage of sofware specifically written for 64bit CPUs. But then you'll STILL have to but this software anyway. All in all, if your son wants "bragging rights", he'll want an Athlon 64 based system.
You really should dissuade him from the Mac option. I know professionals rave about their video editing performance, but what happens when he gets bored of video editing and wants to play games? On top of that, there's some excellent freeware/shareware available for the PC. I don't beleive the Mac community can compete with this. Upgrading a PC is also part of the fun - something you can't really do with a Mac!
I'd advise against an external harddrive for anything other than storage - the typical external drive won't really be upto video editing. Make sure you get a couple of fast, high capacity Serial ATA drives (7,200RPM with an 8MB cache).
If you want analogue inputs, opt for a PC with an ATI all in wonder card. These combine powerful graphics cards with both video in and outputs and a TV card (so you'll turn your PC into a very expensive TV).
As for Premiere - if you have a copy already, let him loose on it straight away. No point in starting small in my opinion. He'll pick it up in no time using the help files (an maybe a quick start book).
I'm from the UK, and if we go with the assumption that something costing a dollar in the states would cost a pound here (yep, they don't call us rip-of-britain for nothing - us Brits pay waaaaaaay much more than you for stuff) a $1000/£1000 would buy you a mid range PC. You won't be getting an Athlon 64 for your bucks, but you can expect a system based around an AMD Barton (probably an XP 3200+) or a P4 3.2. You'll probably be limited to 512 RAM at this price point and you'll do well to get a DVD Burner (but I've seen sub £1000 systems bundled with DVD burners), but you'll certainly get a CD-burner.
Shop around is my best advice. Make sure your armed with a bit of technical jargon so you can make a fair comparison between the two (e.g knowing which has the better processor, speed and type of RAM, harddrive etc.
My final word would be to avoid a laptop at this price point - you won't get value for money.
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