The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of today's news; Newsmaker interviews with House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle; a look at the wayreligion is covered as news, and an update interview with the man in charge of getting federal help to September 11 victims and families.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: This was the 100th day since September 11, and President Bush announced new steps against terrorism. He said the United States would move to freeze funds for two more groups. One, in Pakistan, allegedly gave nuclear weapons information to Osama bin Laden's network. The other was an extremist group in Kashmir accused of sponsoring terrorism against India. The President also offered this assessment of the war on terrorism.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Over the past 100 days we and our British allies and others in the coalition have destroyed at least 11 terrorist training camps inside Afghanistan -- Terrorist factories that produce thousands of trained operatives. We've also destroyed 39 Taliban command and control sites. Senior al-Qaida and Taliban officials have been captured or killed, and potential escape routes for the survivors constantly being blocked to prevent the cowards from running.

JIM LEHRER: In eastern Afghanistan today, U.S. Special forces searched cave by cave for Osama bin Laden and the remnants of his al-Qaida network. There were signs the U.S. Might beef up that effort. Kwame Holman has our report.

KWAME HOLMAN: As many as 500 U.S. Marines and army soldiers soon could be canvassing mountain caves in eastern Afghanistan. The "New York Times" reported today the Pentagon may send troops to search the Tora Bora region for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida fighters. The work could include digging out caves that have been bombed in U.S. air strikes. Bush administration officials did not confirm the report. In Pakistan, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said searching the caves was key to finding bin Laden.

KENTON KEITH: It is not finished. The process of looking through those caves in Tora Bora is not finished; the process of rounding up everybody who is on the run in the region is not finished. It is quite possible that he is still there. It is quite possible that he is holed up in one of those caves, and it is quite possible that he is not able to move out of one of those caves.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Pakistani border guards continued the search for al-Qaida fighters who tried to get away. At least 18 combatants have died since gun battles began yesterday between Pakistani forces and detainees who revolted. Of the 48 who escaped, most have been recaptured. In New York, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to back a multi- national peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital, Kabul. And the first peacekeepers arrived in Afghanistan. 53 British royal Marines landed at Bagram air base today. British troops will lead the force, expected to number between 3,000 and 5,000. One of their tasks is to help the interim Afghan government take power Saturday.

JIM LEHRER: In Northern Afghanistan today more than 100 people were wounded when an explosion ripped through the central market in Mazar-e Sharif event one witness said someone threw a fragmentation grenade. No word on who was responsible. The U.S. House passed a new version of an economic stimulus package early today. But Democratic leaders in the Senate said they would not bring up the Republican-written bill before adjourning for the year. The two sides remained deadlocked over healthcare for unemployed workers, and accelerated tax cuts, among other things. We'll have more on this from House Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Daschle, in just a few minutes. Congress did approve today the last spending bills for the fiscal year that began in October. They included nearly $320 billion for defense, with an added $20 billion in anti- terrorism funding and more than $120 billion for health, education, and labor programs. Final approval was also near on a foreign aid bill worth more than $15 billion. In Argentina, President Fernando de la Rua resigned late today in a crisis over the crumbling economy. He made his decision hours after declaring a state of siege. The resignation followed another day of violent protests in Buenos Aires and elsewhere. We have a report on the violence from Juliet Bremner of Independent Television News.

JULIET BREMNER: They cry for Argentina, a nation driven to the edge of despair as their country teeters towards bankruptcy. Rioters targeted the Pink Palace, home to a government that's blamed for a crisis that's left people hungry and angry. Protesters poured into the center of the capital demanding the resignation of the president. The crowds were forced back by tear gas, but this provoked only deeper outrage. Desperate to feed their families, looters climb over one another to reach food and drink in shops. Nearly half the population is now living below the poverty line and middle class people unable to find work have resorted to theft. The security clampdown has already left 16 people dead, but it's done nothing to quell the uprising. Under the state of emergency introduced yesterday, more than 1,200 people have been arrested. But the underlying problem remains; Argentina cannot service its 132 billion pound debt, and its electorate will no longer tolerate the austerity measures intended to cure the problem. Today, old ladies joined the unrest, determined to play their part in forcing out politicians accused of greed and corruption as Argentina slips closer to economic and political meltdown.

JIM LEHRER: In Washington, Treasury Secretary O'Neill dismissed the idea of giving direct U.S. Aid to Argentina. He said any moves to return to a sound financial footing has to come from inside the country. Relatives of those killed in the September 11 attacks will receive at least $300,000 each in federal aid. The man running the federal fund for the Justice Department made the announcement today. Kenneth Feinberg said actual compensation would depend on the victims' earning potential, among other factors. He warned against trying to sue for damages.

KENNETH FEINBERG: The likelihood of receiving a substantial award in court is substantially diminished by the statute, the liability caps placed on the airlines in the statute, the fact that the court, the proceeding will take years and years to litigate, liability of the airlines is extremely uncertain, and even if you receive an award it will be subject to an appeal. I mean on this particular set of facts, I do not believe the option of coming into this program or litigating is a level playing field.

JIM LEHRER: In all, the September 11 attacks killed 3,225 people. The number missing or killed in New York has now fallen below 3,000. Estimates had climbed to 6,700 right after the attacks. We'll talk to Kenneth Feinberg later in the program. AT&T will sell its cable television unit to rival Comcast for $47 billion. They announced the deal last night. AT&T Broadband was already the nation's largest cable provider. The new company will have more than 22 million customers in 41 states. The merger will be completed late next year, if it wins federal approval.

NEWSMAKERS

JIM LEHRER: Now, as Congress is set to recess until mid-January, we have back-to-back Newsmaker interviews with the leaders of the two Houses of Congress: The Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and the Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota. I spoke with them earlier today, and here they are, in the order the interviews were taped, Speaker Hastert was first.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Speaker, welcome.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: The economic stimulus package that you all in the House passed early this morning was pronounced dead on arrival in the Senate. Did you expect that to happen?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: No, actually, I thought it was a shame because most of that stimulus package has been things that we had negotiated across the negotiation table. As you know, we passed an economic stimulus package several weeks ago. The Senate couldn't pass one. So we put together a quasi-conference so that we could negotiate those issues. We didn't have a success at that negotiation. So the President helped us. We brought in centrist Democrats and Republicans. They came forward on a proposal on healthcare. It was actually a Democrat proposal. Senator Breaux helped with that and others and put that on the table. That is what we passed in the House. I thought, I knew for a fact if you had the votes in the Senate to pass the bill, we passed it in the House. It didn't pass in the Senate and the consequences of that are you have literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country that lost jobs on September 11 that won't have that added health in their unemployment insurance, won't get the healthcare protection because they are unemployed that they could have had if we passed that bill. They won't get the consumer confidence, extra money in peoples' pocket, especially those who need it so that they can go out and buy things and know that the car payment will be made and the house payment will be made. We didn't get the pieces in the bill that will give confidence in our market system. Every American family that works has lost some value since September 11 in their wealth, in their savings plans, 401(k)'s, pension plans, mutual funds. They lost value. We need to get confidence and growth back in the markets. And, finally, there is 700,000 people that lost their jobs, and I'm sure it comforts some folks to have unemployment insurance but you know people want their jobs back. And the best way to create those jobs is to concentrate capital so that businesses will invest that capital, new buildings, new ideas and create those jobs, and that is what this bill did. We lost the opportunity to do that for the American people when the Senate refused to bring this bill up.

JIM LEHRER: Well, as I'm sure you know, Mr. Speaker, Senator Reed, the Democratic Whip, said what you did this morning was a charade. He said, "They knew, they know that it had no chance of passage over here." And he suggests that you went ahead and did it anyhow so you could be able to say what you just said.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: Well, Senator Reed is a Whip. I was a chief Deputy Whip in the House for a long time. Pretty simple math in the House. You had 48 Republicans that would support the bill. You had, I know, three Democrats. That is 51 votes. That bill would have passed if they would have brought it to the Senate floor, and I think a lot of other Senators would have joined with them. We passed it in the House. We passed it without a bipartisan basis, and I think Senator Reed in his heart knows that that the bill would have passed if they would have brought it to the floor.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see Senator Daschle, the Majority Leader, as the main culprit in this?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I mean maybe Senator Reed has his own reasons, but I don't know what Senator Daschle's reasons are or why he blocked this legislation, but I think it's something that we needed in the country. I think that we have gone a long way in compromise. There are $30 billion, new dollars for people with unemployment. There is $13 billion that we put in there in healthcare. That was negotiated. That was a bipartisan basis that Senator Daschle's people and our people sat together and actually negotiated out. There was no disagreement on that. The tax pieces were something that were negotiated out. The only difference in what they hung their hat on was the healthcare. The healthcare came from centrist Democrats in the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: He also -- as you know Senator Daschle says that your package, the Republican package that passed is... Helps corporate interests too much; and he mentions the healthcare issue and other elements that are not in there that would help people who needed it the most, unemployed people.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I'll tell you we had healthcare issues. We had people in the victims of New York disaster. We had unemployment insurance. All this was in the bill. And the things that they point at, the Republican things are things that came together, and I repeat it from centrists in the Senate -- Democrats and Republicans, Senator Breaux, Senator Miller, Senator Nelson, Democrats that said this is the best way to do it.

JIM LEHRER: What should the American people make of all this? Remember after September 11-in fact, you were on our program shortly after September 11-- with Democratic leaders -- and all of you talked about, a new dawn here has come. There is going to be bipartisanship and cooperation in the wake of September 11. And now three months later this. What happened?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: Well, Jim, I'm frustrated. I have to be honest with you -- we try to do what is right for the American people. I'm a believer that we ought to have policy over politics, and you ought to get things done because I know when I go back home to Illinois and I live near in Illinois. I don't live here in Washington so I don't read the "Washington Post" or the "New York Times" every day. I read our hometown papers. What people want is Congress to do something, to solve the problems out there, to do an honest endeavor to make the country better, and I think what happened here is a travesty. This doesn't reflect on Senator Daschle and the Senate. It reflects on the whole Congress and that is a sad situation.

JIM LEHRER: Is it from your perspective, is this solely the fault of the Democrats in the Senate and Senator Daschle?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I didn't quite hear what you said.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see this as solely the fault of Senator Daschle and the Democrats in the Senate?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: You know, I think it's unfortunate. I'm not going to do any more finger-pointing. We need to get a stimulus package for the American people. There is other things that happened. I mean the Senate last night had been debating a farm bill that isn't up until next year. They basically subsidize every cow in the United States, and they couldn't pass the bill last night. They were doing that when we were trying to move other stuff. We haven't got an energy package; we haven't got a healthcare bill because Senator Daschle pulled it because of the interest of trial lawyers. So there is a lot of things we haven't gotten. I'm not sure what all the facts are, but we need to get productivity from the American people.

JIM LEHRER: Well, it sounds to me like you got a serious problem with the way the Senate is operating now.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: The House of Representatives and I work fairly close with Speaker or Leader Gephardt, and I as Speaker, we've produced a lot of stuff out of the House of Representatives, most of it in a bipartisan basis, and that stuff is just stalled. It's languished. Even things for reinsurance. We can go on and rebuild our cities and build projects. That hasn't come out of the Senate. Healthcare hasn't come out of the Senate. Energy policy hasn't come out of the Senate. TPA, or trade policy, hasn't come out of the Senate. I can go on and on but it does get frustrating.

JIM LEHRER: Have you gone and presented this case just the way you did to me to Senator Daschle and said, hey, what is going on?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: We meet on a weekly basis with the President. We talk all the time. I walked over to Senator Daschle just yesterday and said, "You know, I think we're gridlocked. It's up to us to try to move the bill." We have to move the bill first, according to law, Constitution, and we're going to do it and I would hope that we have his cooperation. That didn't happen.

JIM LEHRER: What did he say to you?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: He just said, "You are going to have to do what you have to do," and we did it.

JIM LEHRER: You know, Congressman Armey, your number two, the House Majority Leader, said the others say that Senator Daschle has - that presidential politics are involved in all of this - that he's decided to run against President Bush in the year 2004, and everything that he is doing is calibrated toward that. Do you see that the same way?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I think Dick Armey is certainly an economist and a political scientist, a professor. He may read that into those things. I haven't made that decision yesterday.

JIM LEHRER: What about Vice President Cheney's suggestion that Senator Daschle has become an obstructionist not only on the stimulus package, but he mentions also various nominations that are being held up in the Senate, et cetera?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I think Senator Daschle is in a tough position. All of us have to make sure that our conferences and our caucuses stay together. I think Senator Daschle has to play to an extreme group of radical left-wing Senators, a pocket full of them. And he needs to have them to keep his caucus together. Now I think he is hamstrung by these people who are extremists and won't let this legislation go forward.

JIM LEHRER: Now Democrats would say just the opposite about you, that you are hamstrung by a pocket of right-wing extremists in your party in the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay and others that force you to do certain things.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: Jim, I think you have to look. We've passed legislation. We passed legislation with the unanimous help of both moderates and conservatives in the US House of Representatives and the Republican side. Most bills we've passed on a bipartisan basis and certainly aren't reflective of any one extremist wing.

JIM LEHRER: The word "charade" that Senator Reed used has been used by others to characterize both what you, the Republicans, and they, the Democrats, are doing about stimulus packages, period because they say it's pointless. I mean, it's too late now. We don't even need a stimulus package how. How do you answer that?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I'm not sure that we don't need a stimulus package. I think I went through before and laid out why it was important and what we lose by not passing a stimulus package. I believe in my heart that it was the right thing to do. I believe we needed to take every bit of time, every ounce of effort down to the last minute to pass what was right for the American people and put it on, get it on to the House and put it on the Senate so they could pass it. You know, we did everything we could possibly do. You know, that is not a charade. I take my responsibilities as the Speaker of the House, and I think every elected member of the House of Representatives takes that responsibility. And we may disagree from time to time over policy or issues or politics, but I think when it comes to the welfare of this country, the reason that the House is acted because we thought it was the right thing to do.

JIM LEHRER: And the Senate has failed to act, and that is not in the interests of the American people.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: Well, I think it's unfortunate because when you don't act, we don't get things done and we don't get results.

JIM LEHRER: What about Senator Daschle's point, there was a Democratic stimulus plan that was proposed in the Senate, and no vote was ever allowed on it for procedural reasons because the Republicans wanted...

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: I hate to get into this but let's look at the facts. The Democrat stimulus plan gave subsidies to people who produce bison meat; it gave subsidies to people who try to create energy with chicken manure. I mean, that was a very... They were embarrassed to bring it up. They didn't bring it across the floor because they were embarrassed to bring it across the floor - quite frankly, that is the fact.

JIM LEHRER: But when you say they were unwilling to compromise and make a deal, you were unwilling to accept their view of it as well, correct?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: Jim, look at the package we moved to the House of Representatives last night was a product of compromise. We cut our tax rates. We cut the amount of things that we thought were important. We beefed up the unemployment insurance from about $8 billion to $30 billion. We increased healthcare from about $3 billion to $13 billion. We moved a lot in the bill, and the fix for healthcare didn't come from Republicans. It came from centrist Democrats in the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: You leave here on this holiday, your conscience is clear that it's not your fault or the Republican's fault that there is no stimulus package?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: My conscience is not clear. My job is to be Speaker of the House. My job is to move an agenda. We did move an agenda but we haven't got results. And I feel remorse that we haven't got the results that we need to get for the American people. I think it's a travesty and I think it's a shame.

JIM LEHRER: You think the President should call the Congress back and work on this again?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: The President is going to have to work to decide what he wants to do. But I think there is a lot of things we need to get done. There is a lot of unfinished business in the Senate that we started and hasn't been finished in the Senate and we get... Need to get on with the work next session of Congress, and if he decides to bring us back we'll do it.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. Happy holidays.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT: My pleasure.

JIM LEHRER: Now to Senate Majority Leader Daschle. Senator Daschle welcome.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Thank you, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Speaker Hastert says he feels remorse over what happens about the stimulus package, how do you feel about it?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: I think this is a good word. I'm disappointed we weren't able to put the kind of compromise together that I thought was within our reach. There needed to be more give. There wasn't and that is unfortunate.

JIM LEHRER: He says there were votes, there were enough votes in the Senate to pass the Republican version that passed the House this morning, but you just wouldn't put it to a vote. Is he right?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, Jim that was exactly our situation several weeks ago. There were enough votes to pass the Democratic bill, too. The problem is that when you have controversial legislation it's subjects to a 60-vote threshold. Our bill didn't reach that threshold several weeks ago. Their bill didn't reach it today. That is the disappointment really. I thought there were many occasions when we could have found that agreement. It just wasn't, it wasn't to be.

JIM LEHRER: But he was right. I mean, there was a majority in the Senate for the bill; just not the 60 votes, the two-thirds required to... For procedural reasons, correct?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I don't know. There were a couple of Republicans and a couple of Democrats whose positions were a little unclear. But without a doubt, I think there could have been a good debate. The problem is, of course, there wasn't adequate time to complete our work prior to the end of the week. And of course, we had some very grave concerns about some of the features in this so-called compromise bill, especially its cost, its unfairness, and the little help it provided unemployed workers.

JIM LEHRER: Are you not concerned about the fact that people are going to say, "Well, Daschle wouldn't even put it to a vote to find out whether or not that it could get a majority"?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I think that we were definitely prepared to have votes. The problem is we weren't able to get the 60-vote threshold that is required in legislation of this controversy. We're prepared to support a lot of what the Republicans had proposed. The unfortunate thing is they weren't as willing to support the kinds of things that we felt we needed to be able to reach an agreement. We were prepared to support something. We weren't prepared to support just anything.

JIM LEHRER: When you say "required," just to make sure we understand what we're talking about here, that's required if somebody raises procedural points to avoid a up-or-down vote... up-or-down majority vote, and that's what you think would have happened in this case.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: That's right. You had some very controversial issues. Do we really want to spend, for example, $211 billion of Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund money to pay for an economic stimulus package? Jim, that was three times what the Republicans and Democrats had agreed to just a few weeks ago as to what the package would be. Do we really want to spend that money in the form of repealing the alternative minimum tax for the largest corporations in the country? That too is something that we didn't think justified support. So there are a number of issues, very controversial, that generated the kind of attention, the kind of clear debate that you would have on an issue of this import.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Speaker Hastert said several times that this was... That the House version was a compromise negotiated by centrist Democrats as well as Republicans. You take issue with that?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, there were compromises along the way, but I don't think it represented the kind of compromise that we thought you had to have in order to get thekind of agreement that can pass. As I said several weeks ago, you really needed two-thirds in both caucuses to be able to pass something under these conditions, and that wasn't met. We didn't have two-thirds in our caucus because of the AMT, because of the accelerated rate reduction, because of the cost, and really because we didn't treat unemployed workers with the kind of fairness and sensitivity that we felt was required.

JIM LEHRER: He said that you are hamstrung by the far left of your party, and you have to be careful what you do because of that.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I guess... I'm not going to get into finger- pointing and that kind of allegation. I... You could make the very same case about the far right in the Republican caucus, but that doesn't get us anywhere. I could say that they are captives of the far right and that they're victims are their own right-wing ideology. That isn't the kind of positive, conciliatory language that I think we really need if we're going to get the job done. I would like to come back whenever and make sure that we continue to work to find an agreement. I think it is within our reach. We have got to keep working until we are successful.

JIM LEHRER: You say "it's within our reach." If it was in your reach, why didn't you... Why wasn't it made? Why wasn't the deal finally struck?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, because of those features that I've already articulated. We didn't have agreement on those. Democrats can't support the permanent repeal of the AMT.

JIM LEHRER: AMT -- explain why that is a problem.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: The Alternative Minimum Tax. There were...

JIM LEHRER: Why... Why? Why can't you support that?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: We can't support it in large measure because we think there ought to be fairness-- that everybody ought to be willing to commit a certain amount of their income to the responsibilities of citizenship in this country. Whether it's a corporate entity or an individual, there ought to be some minimal responsibility for us pay to our fair share. It doesn't make a lot of sense, first, to borrow Social Security and Medicare dollars, and then to give away tax breaks to those who pay no tax whatsoever. That just didn't seem very fair to most Democrats.

JIM LEHRER: Now, some people have suggested, increasingly in the last few days, that this was all kind of a phony debate-- that in the final analysis, because it was three months ago when this whole thing started, that whether they had passed your version, the Democratic version, or the Republican version, that neither one were going to make any difference as far as stimulating the economy. How do you respond to that?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I don't know that anybody can say with authority that this will stimulate the economy. I do believe that we think in most cases that it can't hurt, unless you do things that are just wrong. If we exacerbate the debt, if we borrow money from Social Security and Medicare in ways that are problematic for the trust funds, if we create longer- term interest rate hikes down the road because of our lack of fiscal prudence-- if we do those kinds of things, I think that we ought to be subject to criticism. So I think we have to be careful about that. But I think the bottom line was if we did this right, most of us believe that you will have some positive effect on stimulating the economy.

JIM LEHRER: Now, when you say "do this right," you mean, "do it the way you Democrats wanted it done"; is that right?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: No, that's not true at all. We had already agreed with the Republican proposal on accelerating bonus depreciation, on... We took the Domenici proposal on payroll tax holidays; we've agreed to a number of things: A tax credit for healthcare coverage. There were a lot of recommendations made about Republican and Democratic proposals that showed movement, and I felt good about that. We felt we needed a compromise. We were prepared to do so on a number of things that were quite painful for us. But the bottom line was you can't go all the way and give up the principles upon which you believe really guide you in situations like this.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Speaker Hastert goes through a list of things that he says the Republicans gave to you all in terms of compromise, but you wouldn't go... But it wasn't enough. Every time they wanted... He would give in, you wanted more and more and more.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well that... I think you are going to get that back-and-forth as long as this debate goes on. I will acknowledge they were willing to show some movement, but I don't think they were nearly where we were with regard to the willingness that we demonstrated in coming to the middle and making some very hard compromises, some things that we felt that... were not necessarily things we felt were good public policy, but in the name of trying to reach an accomplishment, a compromise here that we could live with, we were prepared to do that. Unfortunately we just didn't get the kind of movement on the other side that made the difference.

JIM LEHRER: What should the American people make out of all of this? I asked the Speaker the same question. September... Both of you were on our program shortly after September 11, and a lot of talk about bipartisanship, corporation, a new spirit alive in the Congress, and yet we sit here three month later and you all can't even get together on stimulating the economy.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I wouldn't minimize the difficulties in getting together on economic policy, Jim. You know, we agreed on a lot. We agreed on airport security and airline bailouts, and counterintelligence, and we... counter-terrorism. We agreed on the use-of-force resolution. We've agreed on a huge supplemental; we just agreed this week on a major rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We have agreed on a lot. But as you know, when it comes to economic policy, you get to the very heart of what our parties are about. There are some fundamental differences, and it does take a good deal of effort to overcome philosophical and ideological impediments that are there historically and traditionally and philosophically that are of real consequence. That is what we tried to do here.

JIM LEHRER: Congressman Armey... Now, I asked Speaker Hastert about this, and he didn't take the bait, but at any rate, Congressman Armey suggested that you are being guided now, by what you do as Senate Majority Leader, by the fact that you have decided to challenge President Bush for the presidency in the year 2004, and that is what this is all about.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, Jim, I know that Dick Armey knows a lot of things, but the inside of my mind is something that I doubt very much that he or anybody would know. I haven't made any decisions politically, and I don't intend to. That isn't exactly a motivation for me or for anybody at this point. I think we've got to do the right thing, and the right thing has nothing to do with Presidential politics; it has nothing to do with elections. It has to do with exactly what we believe in and what we think is the right public policy for this country at a time ofgreat need. I think we've got to come together; we've got to quit the finger-pointing, the accusations, the political polarization, and see if we can get this job done. I've made a commitment to do that, and I would hope the other side would as well.

JIM LEHRER: What do you make of Vice President's Cheney suggestion that you are on obstructionist?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, again, those characterizations aren't very helpful. I try not to let them get in the way of our need to work together, our need to try to talk and communicate, cooperate. But obviously those things don't help.

JIM LEHRER: What about the outsiders, some of the commentators and the columnists and editorial writers are saying that what's really at work here is a kind of a contest of wills between you and President Bush. Does that make sense to you?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: It doesn't have to be contest of wills. The President and I have a cordial relationship. We recognize that there is a need to work together on these things if they are going to be accomplished. As long as I'm Majority Leader and he is President, there is no other choice but to try to find common ground. I want to do that. I think in some cases the administration wants to do that.

JIM LEHRER: Speaker Hastert... I think anybody who saw the interview just now with speaker Hastert would have to... Any fair-minded person would say he is a little exasperated with the United States Senate in this moment, in terms of cooperation, and he kept saying, "We have legislation that... We had it at the door of the Senate; the Senate won't take it up," et cetera-- then of course the stimulus thing. Do you think he has reason to be exasperated with the US Senate right now?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I guess I would go back to a lot of bills that we've passed that haven't been acted upon in the House. We all have our lists of examples. I would go to the campaign finance reform bill. You know that has been pending for months, and I'm exasperated that that legislation hasn't been passed. I'm disappointed it hasn't been passed. You know, it's supported by a majority of the members of the House, and I could use the very same arguments used by some House leadership today about situations involving legislation here in the Senate, on that very issue and others. And so we have to be very careful, very wary about this tendency to be accusatory and to point fingers. What we've got to do is try to find a way to work together. I hope I can do that. I'm just as hopeful that House leadership can demonstrate that too.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, the nominations issue. Eugene Scalia to be Labor Department Solicitor; Otto Reich to be an Assistant Secretary of State. In both those cases, you said they are not going to come to a vote. Why is that?

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: No, I think what I've said, Jim, is that they are not going to... It is not likely that they're going to pass because I don't think the votes are there. There will be votes on a relation to these nominees. In some cases with controversial legislation, as we've just indicated, or with controversial nominees, it takes a super majority. That is what the Founding Fathers expected of us. That's what they designed into our system. And so those super majorities will be required anytime you have a controversy reaching this level. And that certainly involves Mr. Scalia and Mr. Reich, and so I would expect that we'll have votes eventually, and my guess is that neither of them have the votes today to be successful.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Senator Daschle, thank you very much.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: My pleasure.

FOCUS - RELIGION IS NEWS

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight religion as news, and federal help for September 11 victims. Since the terrorist attacks, houses of worship have been a source of strength for many. Terence Smith looks at the news coverage of religion in America.

(Choir music playing)

RAY SUAREZ: In a nation struggling to understand religion's role in terrorism, new age spiritualism, the ethics of scientific advances, and the motives of born-again politicians, religion is news.

S. BOB LICHTER, Center for Media and Public Affairs: God didn't die in the 1970s; the media just stopped covering Him. And I think they've rediscovered Him as a force in American society.

TERENCE SMITH: Bob Lichter is president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a research organization that conducts scientific studies of the media.

S. BOB LICHTER: America has long been, by far, the most religiously oriented country in the western world. The last quarter century or so, religion has become less important among political elites in America, but it has always been important at the grass roots. (Music playing)

TERENCE SMITH: Politicians have long understood the power of religion with rank-and-file voters. During the 2000 election campaign, presidential hopefuls were not shy about espousing their religious beliefs.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: When you accept Christ as the Savior, it changes your heart; it changes your life. (Music playing)

TERENCE SMITH: But even before the attacks in New York and Washington, the media were beginning to recognize religion's impact outside the realm of politics. Coverage of religion by the major media in this country doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s. Here in Los Angeles, for example, the "LA Times" has four fill-time reporters assigned to the beat. Since surveys show that six out of ten Americans say that religion is very important in their lives, the news organizations may simply be catching up with the interests of their readers and viewers.

LARRY STAMMER, Los Angeles Times: This is more than Sunday school, or covering the bishop's tea party.

TERENCE SMITH: Larry stammer is a religion writer for the "Los Angeles Times." He says the "Times" must cover faith to understand its readers.

LARRY STAMMER: There are 600 distinct religious expressions in the city of Los Angeles alone. I know, it's an amazing figure-- 600. How does a newspaper, worth its salt, ignore that kind of influence?

TERENCE SMITH: Houses of worship, he says, have more regular attendees than sporting events. New immigrant groups may be more comfortable at their churches and temples than with the government. And trend-setting Angelinos have embraced new forms of spirituality.

LARRY STAMMER: Los Angeles has the reputation as being the epitome of the secular city. And there is much talk about Hollywood and its impact on the larger culture. But there is another side to the city, sort of the interior landscape of the soul, and it just vibrates and convulses with all sorts of beliefs. (Music playing) They bring with them those values into their daily lives, into the workplace. And so a newspaper's job is really to try to understand how those values influence the larger culture.

TERENCE SMITH: Religious expression has even made its way into the entertainment industry.

MELINDA NEWMAN, Billboard Magazine: God never went away, but he has made a bit of a comeback.

TERENCE SMITH: Melinda Newman is west coast bureau chief for "billboard" magazine. She says music with uplifting or spiritual themes has an increasing appeal.

MUSIC PLAYING: Till I am more like you, Jesus.

MELINDA NEWMAN: Where the industry is having a little bit of a struggle, in the face of that, contemporary Christianity is doing extraordinarily well.

TERENCE SMITH: Even groups like u2, on the mainstream rock charts, are more open about their spiritual needs.

MELINDA NEWMAN: It's a tough time to be growing up now. So a lot of kids are looking for something that makes the passage easier for them. Something that they can get some hope from; songs about love and acceptance, as opposed to about violence and guns.

TERENCE SMITH: So God is box office?

KENNETH WOODWARD, Newsweek Magazine: Oh, very much so. You want to put Jesus on the cover, you know you are going to have a boffo newsstand sale.

TERENCE SMITH: Kenneth Woodward is religion editor for "Newsweek" magazine. Covers about God are among their best newsstand sellers. He says faith in America is more about experience than theology.

SPOKESMAN: Whether or not you believe in a personal Satan, in personal demons, do you know those experiences that the ancients referred to as Satan?

KENNETH WOODWARD: The young people today have a low tolerance for abstract ideas, and therefore for doctrines. But they have a great, great interest in experiencing something.

TERENCE SMITH: Woodward says that religious discourse is more acceptable among the nation's media establishment. Many are baby boomers, now middle aged, losing their parents and contemplating their own mortality.

KENNETH WOODWARD: Now a person who has been immersed in a religious tradition in a reflective way, can get up, as I have, and write essays from a religious perspective that are considered as contributions to the ethical discourse and the political discourse. That is brand new.

TERENCE SMITH: But critics argue that most coverage of religion leaves the audience with little understanding of the basic tenets of a faith. Bob Lichter found that only one in 20 stories in the major media on religion said anything about theology.

S. ROBERT LICHTER: Journalists look at religion and cover it in terms of conflicts and scandals and battles, instead of the substance of religious beliefs or theology.

TERENCE SMITH: President Bush has met repeatedly with Islamic leaders in the U.S., to help forestall animosity toward American Muslims, animosity that may be fostered, in part, by Americans lack of knowledge of other faiths.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that.

TERENCE SMITH: Television coverage of religious ideas is tangential at best. While the amount of religion on television evening news shows has doubled over the last ten years, there is still not much of it.

BOB ABERNETHY, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: As far as news is concerned, it remains a pretty neglected area.

TERENCE SMITH: Bob Abernethy is host and executive editor of "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly" on PBS. He thinks religion isn't covered on commercial television because it is expensive to produce.

BOB ABERNETHY: They take a little more time to tell, and require a little more background, but come on, so does stem cell research or cloning. You have to be willing to broaden your definition of news to include trends and conditions, not just what happened today. (Music playing)

TERENCE SMITH: In a shaken and diverse American society, the search for meaning and common ground seems more important than ever.

UPDATE - COMPENSATINGVICTIMS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a look at today's word on help for September 11 victims, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The terms of the compensation fund for victims' families and survivors were announced today. The special master in charge of the fund said that those eligible will receive at least $300,000 in aid. The average award would be about $1.6 million. The compensation formulas take a range of factors into account: The victims' age, salary, earning potential, and number of dependents, as well as pain and suffering. Charitable contributions will not be factored into the final total survivors are paid, but insurance and other benefits will. We get more on the terms of the fund from the special master, Kenneth Feinberg. Welcome back.

KENNETH FEINBERG: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: You said your watchwords were fairness, consistency, and speed. How does the program you announce today answer those requirements?

KENNETH FEINBERG: Claims can be immediately filed beginning tomorrow at 1:00 in the afternoon. They will be processed... Emergency benefits of $50,000 for the families of the dead, $25,000 for the seriously injured, will go out forthwith as soon as the claim form is filled out. After that, upon filling out a form, a complete form with your income... With the decedent's income record, et cetera, within 120 days, the claim will be processed and a check cut. And we use every effort: Hearings, the opportunity for claimants to come in and present their case and have an opportunity for a face-to-face meeting with the special master or he's designee to make sure that everybody has an individual opportunity to be heard before the checks are cut.

RAY SUAREZ: Who is eligible to ask for compensation?

KENNETH FEINBERG: Eligibility requires three things: First, physical injury-- physical injury; second, in the vicinity of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, or Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the plane crashed; and as a result of the September 11 attacks or its immediate aftermath. Now, physical injuries, vicinities, immediate aftermath-- these are questions, words of interpretation. But we are confident that the number of dead and injured will be encompassed within that eligibility definition.

RAY SUAREZ: But who has got the relationship to the victim-- either the seriously injured person or someone killed on September 11, to have standing in this application?

KENNETH FEINBERG: Seriously injured presents his or her own case. The decedent, the dead, we look to state law of the domicile of the descendant or the victim, and we'll be governed by state law as to who will represent the victim and who will take as beneficiary under the victim's will or the law of intestacy or no will in particular domiciles.

RAY SUAREZ: That is going to open up a can of worms for you. These people come from a lot of different jurisdictions, a lot of different countries, in fact.

KENNETH FEINBERG: Yes, it will open up a can of worms, but there are cans of worms and cans of worms. The alternative would be in the special master sitting in Washington or New York or Philadelphia, would trump local jurisdictions' laws as to how wills should be interpreted, estates should be distributed, unjust awards for physical injury, pain, death. I cannot be in a position where I have to decide local family disputes as to who should get what. I will look to local law. If the local law is... Results in litigation, I will cut the check, put it in the bank, and wait for a resolution.

RAY SUAREZ: This was a very democratic mass murder, an encompassing mass murder. Millionaires and people who lived the finest kind of life, and minimum wage and undocumented workers were killed in the same instant. How do you craft a package that answers the needs of their survivors and recognizes who they were in life?

KENNETH FEINBERG: That is a real challenge, the problem of disparity among victims. Now we do this two ways. Frankly, the statute that creates this fund tells us how to do this. First, economic loss has to be computed. Now the bondholder or the bond trader has economic loss much greater than the window washer or the dishwasher or the bellboy or what have you. And that is a reality. The economic loss determination will vary substantially from the top to the bottom. The non-economic loss-- pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of consortium-- that we treat across the board, we treat all lives equally. There is no distinction other than the number of dependents left by the victim. So on the non-economic side, what is a life worth? The bondholder or the bond trader and the dishwasher have the same non-economic value. We put those two together. We come up with a series of presumptive awards. We discount collateral offsets like life insurance and Social Security, and cut the check.

RAY SUAREZ: So the law said that you had to discount things like life insurance and Social Security, but there was a bit of an argument about whether the tremendous outpouring of charity for these victims and their families would be recognized as being part of their compensation package. Where did you finally come down?

KENNETH FEINBERG: On charity we finally decided not to offset any charitable contributions. There were arguments on both sides. The reason we didn't offset charity was a very practical reason. When we talked to the charities about the possibility of an offset, they warned the special master that if I ever attempted to offset charity, they would simply hold back the funds, not distribute to the victims till I cut my checks under the federal program, and then they would distribute. Well, the idea of further delay in charitable distribution made such little sense to me that we finally decided to let the charities do their thing without any charitable offset in the hope they would accelerate their... The distribution of charity funds.

RAY SUAREZ: So if someone is awarded, let's say the figure that you gave as an average today, $1.6 million; if they got a $500,000 life insurance settlement, that will be counted against it? In effect, you'll only give them $1.1 million; but if they got $300 grand from a charity, that is not touched?

KENNETH FEINBERG: That is why this job required Solomon. That is right. $500,000 of life insurance would be offset from the $1.6 million, leaving you $1.1 million-- tax- free, I might add-- that would go to that victim. But the charitable contribution $500,000, $600,000, $300,000, that would be separate, that would be added to their own award.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, you said this afternoon when announcing the terms of the program that you hoped that people wouldn't initiate their own lawsuits, and then beyond that, you counseled them they might not be very successful. What led to you give that advice?

KENNETH FEINBERG: The statute. The statute makes it very, very clear nobody has to participate in this program. But if they decide not to participate and decide to litigate against the airlines, for example, the airlines' liability is capped at $1.5 billion per plane. But out of that money per plane must come payment of all personal injury or death claims, claims of all property damage, claims of business interruption loss, subrogation or the United States Department of Justice has a right to seek reimbursement out of that money for any money it pays in this program. The likelihood that anybody who litigates will ever succeed in achieving as much as is available under my program, I think, is very, very minimal. And they will have to litigate for five years, pay their lawyers 33% to 40% -- hope that they win. I mean the liability question is very, very uncertain in a case like that -- survive an appeal when the airlines or some other party decides to appeal. They could wait, like with the Lockerbie disaster, a decade and still end up with nothing. Under this program, within 120 days they would receive their funds. And most important, I think, when you litigate these cases, there is no closure. You are never free from September 11. The depositions, the cross examination, the trial -- you are constantly reliving the horror. My program, the program that Congress asked me to implement: File your claim, give us your documentation, within 120 days you get your check.

RAY SUAREZ: Special Master Kenneth Feinberg, thank you for joining us.

KENNETH FEINBERG: Thank you very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of the day. The U.S. moved to freeze funds for two more groups with alleged ties to terrorists. Congress neared adjournment without approving an economic stimulus plan. On the NewsHour this evening, House Speaker Hastert said it was a "travesty" the Senate refused to act on a Republican bill that passed the House. Senate Majority Leader Daschle said the bill was bad policy on taxes and spending. And the president of Argentina resigned in a crisis over the country's economy. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with Shields and Brooks, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer, thank you and good night.