The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: On the NewsHour tonight: A look at the AMA decision to support unions for doctors; a report from Moscow on why Russians are turning anti- American; the launch of a special emphasis on asking what should the 2000 presidential race be about, with NewsHour regulars Beschloss, Johnson, and Goodwin, plus Linda Chavez and Shelby Steele; and finally a Jim Fisher essay about a clown school. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: NATO officials visited Kosovo today. They said they were optimistic Serbs and ethnic Albanians would make peace, even as KFOR troops uncovered more evidence of revenge attacks. Betty Ann Bowser has our Kosovo summary report.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In the Kosovo capitol of Pristina, a crowd estimated at 1,000 turned out to cheer NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana. Ethnic Albanians hugged and kissed him as he walked through a heavily bombed out section of the city. He was accompanied by KFOR Commander Brigadier General Sir Michael Jackson and NATO Supreme Commander in Europe General Wesley Clark. At a news conference, the three said they expected the Pristina airport to be open by the end of next week to receive shipments of humanitarian aid, and Clark said the unfolding magnitude of mass killings and war crimes show how organized Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was to carry out ethnic cleansing.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: He had a well-organized plan, he put it in high gear, and he pursued it in a criminal manner, certainly an inhumane and tragic manner, and now that everybody's on the ground here, every day we're discovering more and more evidence of this. So I think the responsibility for this purely rests on president Milosevic, his military and police generals, who planned this thing, and their forces, including the paramilitaries who executed it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Secretary-General Solana said he had met with both Serb and Albanian leaders, and said both sides said they would try to get along in post war Kosovo.

SECRETARY-GENERAL JAVIER SOLANA: After this conversation, I really think there is hope, and with that, with the guarantee that General Jackson is going to give for the security of Kosovo, I'm pretty sure that Kosovo has a future.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But revenge against Serbs by ethnic Albanians continued today. In the city of Pec, ethnic Albanians burned and looted homes of Serbs. And at Pristina University, British soldiers found the bodies of a Serb economics professor, a Serbian cafe owner, and a third man believed to be a night watchman, in the basement of a university building. They appeared to have been badly beaten and then shot. And American authorities confirmed that it was Serbs who fired from this house yesterday at a Marine checkpoint in the town of Zegra. The Americans killed one of the assailants and wounded two others. At the Pentagon in Washington, there was new light shed on the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the air war. Spokesman Kenneth Bacon said a CIA analyst questioned whether NATO had the right target, and called a mid level military official in Europe twice.

KENNETH BACON: At no time did he raise the possibility that this was the Chinese embassy. That -- you should be very clear about that. He was not saying, "you're about to bomb the Chinese embassy." All he said was, "I've looked at this, and I have some questions about whether you're aiming at the right target." He didn't say that he thought the building was.

REPORTER: But if he had, were the procedures - are you confident that the procedures you had and the command and control you had of the B-2 would have been able to stop it?

KENNETH BACON: I'm confident that we have shown many, many times that we were able to stop attacks at the last minute.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At the State Department, officials said the United States would pay up to $5 million to bring indicted Balkan war criminals, including Milosevic, to justice.

JIM LEHRER: The House of Representatives today passed a constitutional amendment banning desecration of the American flag. The vote was 305-124. It's aimed at voiding a Supreme Court decision, which struck down laws against flag burning. Here's a sampling of today's debate.

REP. CHARLES CANADY, [R] Florida: What we're talking about here is conduct of which attacks our national symbol. And what this amendment represents is the view that the people of the United States have a compelling interest in protecting our national symbol from that sort of physical act, which is intended to desecrate it.

REP. BARBARA LEE, [D] California: This amendment will weaken one of our most fundamental rights. Our government cannot, must not prohibit freedom of expression simply because it disagrees with its message. We condemn other countries for stifling dissent.

JIM LEHRER: This was the third time since 1995 the House has passed a flag burning amendment. It died in the Senate both times earlier. In economic news today, on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 132 points closing at 10,534. It's the fourth straight day the Dow has dropped. The NASDAQ Index fell 44 points to 2553. And the Commerce Department reported steel imports to the U.S. jumped 30 percent in May. Two days ago the Senate rejected the bill, slapping quotas on foreign steel imports. The World Bank approved a $40 million loan to China today. It'll be used to help resettle poor Chinese farmers on land Tibetans claim as their own. The bank delayed paying out the money until it can examine the project more closely. The U.S. opposes the plan for environmental reasons, and because of Tibet's claim of autonomy. NASA launched a universe-probing telescope today. It's called FUSE, for the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. A 12-story rocket thrust it into a 480-mile-high orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The telescope will measure elements believed to have been created shortly after the Big Bang, which scientists believe created the universe. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to unionizing doctors, anti-American Russians, and what should the 2000 presidential election be about, and a Jim Fisher essay.

FOCUS - UNIONIZING DOCTORS

JIM LEHRER: Susan Dentzer of our health unit begins the doctors' story. The unit is a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SPOKESPERON: It is clearly adopted. [Applause]

SUSAN DENTZER: The American Medical Association was founded back in 1847 to raise the professional and ethical standing of the nation's physicians. But yesterday, the AMA took a step that could drastically change its character and give new meaning to the phrase long used to describe it, organized medicine.

SPOKESPERSON: We want the ability to negotiate here. That's the most important thing: Fair, unfettered, open communications. We want physician advocacy that keeps our patient at the forefront, where it must always stay.

SUSAN DENTZER: In a highly controversial move, the AMA's House of Delegates voted yesterday to form what was described as an affiliated national labor organization, also known as a union. Much like the umbrella national unions for autoworkers or pipe fitters, the new organization would help develop local collective bargaining units of doctors around the country. The ultimate aim is to give doctors more leverage in negotiating fees and other arrangements with HMO's and various health insurers. Recently many managed care organizations have been consolidating to beef up their ability to drive hard bargains with doctors. Dr. Nancy Dickey, the AMA's immediate past president, says unionizing is intended to do more than boost doctors' incomes.

DR. NANCY DICKEY: Now we have another tool to help define what's best for our patients.

SUSAN DENTZER: Under current federal law, the AMA's organizing efforts would be limited mainly to roughly 100,000 doctors who are employees of managed care companies, government hospitals, and the like. That's about one in seven of the nation's doctors. Roughly 40,000 of those physicians are already members of other unions such as the Service Employees International Union. But the AMA is also pushing for a broad change in federal law that would also allow it to organize another 300,000 physicians who are self-employed. As health professionals, these doctors currently cannot band together to negotiate fees without violating federal antitrust law. With the support of the AMA, Republican Representative Tom Campbell of California backs such a change in the law.

REP. TOM CAMPBELL: The HMO's right now do not like the fact that I am proposing somebody can bargain with them. This will cut into the HMO's profits.

SUSAN DENTZER: Meanwhile, doctors express varying views about the wisdom of the AMA'S move. And amid signs that the AMA's membership and board are also split, more fallout almost certainly lies ahead.

JIM LEHRER: And Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Joining me to debate yesterday's decision are Dr. Thomas Reardon, incoming president of the American Medical Association and a general practice physician in Portland, Oregon; Dr. John Harvey, a retired internist and former Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical School; Chip Kahn, president of the Health Insurance Association of America, which represents the nation's leading health insurance companies; and Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a national organization for health care consumers. Welcome, gentlemen.

Dr. Reardon, why does the AMA believe that doctors now need to be able to unionize?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: Well, I think in the lead-in the answer was obvious. The physicians feel very frustrated, very disenfranchised, very helpless individually dealing with large managed care organizations and dealing with patient care issues. Now, what we need is a collective voice to begin to represent our patients. I think a good example would be our works on the Patient Bill of Rights that we've done in Congress. Individually, no one hears us; collectively, we get some response.

MARGARET WARNER: But give us the bottom line for the viewer out there. Does this mean -- this doesn't mean now that most of their doctors will be able to join unions. Is it going to have any practical effect on the ability of doctors to unionize right now?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: Well, I think also -- let's break this down into residents, self-employed physicians, employed physicians. This would impact the potentially employed physician but we need the Campbell bill passed to affect the self-employed physician, so that they could come with a collective voice and have an impact for their patients.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And just one other question on the physicians already employed by a single employer, like an HMO, they're already free to organize now, aren't they?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: They are, except they oftentimes don't have the ability, or they don't have the guidance. What we would do is give them an option. We would create a collective bargaining unit, so if they ask us for help, we would give them the template, the guidance, the know-how of how to do it.

MARGARET WARNER: I see. Now, Dr. Harvey, you're a member of the AMA, and you oppose this. Why?

DR. JOHN HARVEY: Well, I think it's the very antithesis of what a physician has promised to do. We promise to take care of patients. A union and striking against patients, to me, would be the worst thing in the world a doctor could do. And what is collective bargaining, if it isn't to worry about your salary? I am totally opposed to it. I think it's a very, very sad day for American medicine. It's absolutely antithesis of what a physician should be. His patient, her patient comes first. And we do all we can. We made a promise to the public when we graduated from medical school that we would take care of sick people who are fragmented, who are fearful, who are vulnerable, who don't have the information we have. And what are we going to do? We're going to talk about how much salary we get paid. That's not for a doctor to be -- not at all. I'm totally opposed to it, and I'm really upset at the AMA. I've always had a love/hate relationship, as many doctors have. It's very good. It's a good organization. It helps us a lot. It's good in education and the activities and that kind, but I think when it gets into political organization of unionizing doctors, we've lost our mind.

MARGARET WARNER: I hate to say have you lost your mind, Dr. Reardon, so I'll --

DR. JOHN HARVEY: Maybe I should say soul.

MARGARET WARNER: Have you lost your soul?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: Absolutely not. We will continue to be guided by our medical ethics, our professionalism. We will not withhold patients; we will not strike. We will put the patient first in every circumstance, and Dr. Harvey, we are attempting to put the patient first with this effort, to advocate for our patients so they get the necessary and appropriate care which they need and they deserve.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you something, Dr. Reardon, because other members of the AMA have said you wouldn't strike. Is there anything in the resolution that says that, or is that a promise from the leadership?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: No. There is -- very clearly it says in the first resolve that we will follow our ethical principles and our professionalism. Our counsel in ethical judicial affairs has an opinion that it would be unethical to withhold care or strike with patients. So that is clearly -- we would not do that.

MARGARET WARNER: Does that reassure you at all?

DR. JOHN HARVEY: Well, I'm not sure, because right here in Washington at George Washington Hospital the group from George Washington University went on strike one time, and weren't allowed to cross picket lines, et cetera. You know, I think there are two points that I would like to make. There have been two transforming happenings in American medicine in the 20th century. The first was in the Depression when a group of schoolteachers got together and gave 50 cents apiece to a fund and organized what ultimately was Blue Cross/Blue Shield and then the health insurance. The other transforming -- even Medicare/Medicaid was just the implementation of that. The other transforming was when the Clinton health administration bill failed and then the market forces took over and we got HMO's, PPO's and what not. At first, Blue Cross put one person in-between the doctor and the patient, and that was the payer. So no one paid any attention anymore to paying. Doctors used to be paid by chickens. One more thing and I'll keep quiet. The second was when the market forces took over and they put a second person between the doctor and the patient, namely an insurance worker who said to the patient what the doctor's ordered you can have but we won't pay for it, so effectively controlled the practiced medicine. We've got to get rid of the HMO's, the PPO's and what not and get back to practicing medicine the right way.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Ron Pollack, from the consumer's point of view, is this going to be good for patient care or not good for patient care?

RON POLLACK: I think, Margaret, it's a two-sided coin. Let me focus on one side. That is, I think there is an interest that consumers have with physicians to make sure good care is provided, and I think physicians, by and large, are driven to this process because they feel they don't control decision making processes about clinical issues, and patients, of course, are terribly worried about that. These decisions are being made by others who never, ever get to see the patient. So I think that impulse to organize -- I think that makes a great deal of sense, and from a consumer perspective, that's good. The other side of the coin is let's face it, there will be some negotiation about wages, and physicians are not exactly part of the downtrodden masses, and so that is going to increase costs for consumers. But I would say that, by and large, there is some sympathy about how the health care system has changed, and we want to make sure that decisions are kept in the hands of physicians and their patients.

MARGARET WARNER: From the insurance industry perspective, do you see this as a way for doctors to get more control over the health care decisions, or just a fee?

CHIP KAHN: Well, in terms of quality there's nothing stopping doctors from joining together and going to health plans and insurers and making their points and getting them to change whatever they want, but in terms of payment, this will increase costs, premiums by as much as 11 percent, and over time it could increase cost to the health care system $85 billion a year. The fact is particularly if there are changes take place that they want, independent practicing doctors can join together and collectively bargain -- they're going to be a 600-pound gorilla, and they're going to dictate to the consumer and the taxpayer, and it's going to cost all of us more money. We've made a lot of progress in the last few years in keeping health care costs down. This will not help that.

MARGARET WARNER: Dr. Reardon, will it increase costs?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: I don't think it will increase costs, and let me explain why. But first I'dlike to respond to Dr. Harvey, and that is Dr. Harvey, we are going to create an option so those physicians at George Washington don't have to join a union that will strike. We will have a no-strike clause, and we'll put the patient first. In response to the cost, that's a smokescreen and a facade that the insurance companies always throw up. They did it on the Patient Bill of Rights before Congress, and yet the Congressional Budget Office said it would be pennies per month to give patients' rights and protections of this health care system. This will not drive costs up the way Chip Kahn says.

CHIP KAHN: Let me just say that the anti-trust laws are there to protect the consumer, and there's a reason why this kind of unprecedented move has never been allowed before for professionals who are independent business people to gather together to, in a sense, dominate the market.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you feel about this, if private physicians also -- essentially most doctors in the country got this power?

RON POLLACK: Well, I agree in part and I disagree in part. Where I agree is the core concern, I think, for physicians is making sure that there's high quality care provided and that they and the patient make these decisions. I think moving in that direction is not going to be costly. Now, if, on the other hand, the negotiations focus on salaries and compensation, then it could be costly. So I think on the patients' rights side of that, that's not where the significant costs are going to be. Potentially, there could be costs when we deal with salaries.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, Dr. Harvey, that it's possible that -- at least on the patient care side -- it could be helpful for physicians to have an intermediary? I know you don't like intermediaries.

DR. JOHN HARVEY: I don't like intermediaries. That's what I was explaining. When you put people between the doctor and the patient, things bad happen. I want to bring up another point. Is it moral to make money out of health care. I don't believe it is. 30 to 40 percent of the costs now are the overhead of the HMO's, the insurers, the owners of the insurance companies, the stockholders in the various corporations. Let's get rid of that and get the doctor and the patient back together again.

CHIP KAHN: First, let met just say it isn't 35 percent. And, second, there are costs, most of the costs there are just the cost of administering insurance. We have a private health insurance system in this country for most Americans. And most Americans, despite whatever concerns they have with managed care, like their insurance. Survey after survey shows that.

DR. JOHN HARVEY: Forty million people are uninsured. That's not most Americans.

RON POLLACK: I must say I'm a little amused by this because this is a dispute on the one hand of those who have six-figure incomes and those who have seven-figure incomes.

MARGARET WARNER: The doctors are the six figures.

RON POLLACK: The doctors have the six figures and the insurance executives have seven-figure incomes. But I think if the core of the focus turns to be on what a patient needs and making sure there's quality of care, and things like doctors not being penalized for taking more time with a patient, not being penalized when they advocate on behalf of a patient, either in a hearing or some other process, or they are not told you're seeing too many sick patients and it's driving costs up, then I think everyone is going to be winners. If on the other hand, the focus is going to be all on compensation, we're all going to be losers.

CHIP KAHN: These issues could be dealt with already so it has got to be compensation.

MARGARET WARNER: Then why aren't they dealt with now?

CHIP KAHN: I argue they are dealt with now.

MARGARET WARNER: All right.

DR. THOMAS REARDON: Let me respond to that Margaret, if I may, because an individual physician calls an insurance company to advocate for their patient. They say thank you, Doctor and they hang up. But when an organization or a collective voice of physicians calls that insurance company or that managed care organization, they respond, just as they responded in Congress to the Patient Bill of Rights issue. We are having that battle on who should make medical necessity determinations. The insurance companies would like to have that final rule. I as an individual physician can have no impact on that insurance company. But collectively if a group of physicians come forward and say we think that the medical necessity determination should be made by physicians and there should be an appeals process to protect the patient; that's what we're after.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And what about Dr. Harvey's idea, what we really need is to get rid of all the intermediaries, including the HMO's?

DR. THOMAS REARDON: I think we all agree with that but I'm not sure we're going to turn the clock back.

DR. JOHN HARVEY: Well, what we need is a national health program. We're the only first world country that doesn't have one and we need to have one.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We're just about out of time.

CHIP KAHN: Let me add that the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department says that doctors can join together collectively to work with insurance companies and health plans regarding quality. That's not the issue. The issue here is compensation.

DR. THOMAS REARDON: The issue -- you won't listen to us if we don't do it collectively.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. But, thank you all four very much.

DR. THOMAS REARDON: Thank you.

RON POLLACK: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, anti-American Russians, what should the 2000 presidential election be about, and a Jim Fisher essay.

FOCUS - RUSSIA'S ANGER

JIM LEHRER: Our Russian report is from special correspondent Paul Miller in Moscow.

PAUL MILLER: The 200 Russian paratroopers who raced to Pristina's airport before NATO and who were cheered by Serbs as they went, gave their country one of its few moments of glory in recent years.

ALAN ROUSSO, Carnegie Moscow Center: This operation has had a very positive effect on Russia's sense of its national importance on the importance of the Russian military.

PAUL MILLER: It had an opposite effect on the United States and its NATO allies, who were alarmed to find Russia acting unilaterally in Kosovo. Just who ordered in the troops is not clear. But the alternatives are equally alarming to the West. Either the military acted on its own, or it went around the chain of command to get President Yeltsin' approval. Igor Bunin, who has close ties to top officials, says it was the latter.

IGOR BUNIN, Political Analyst: [speaking through interpreter] The foreign minister and the special envoy to Yugoslavia were ignored. A group of generals avoiding the defense minister got to Yeltsin, who sanctioned the move. He thought it would compensate for the humiliation he suffered all this time.

PAUL MILLER: Russia's political leaders were deeply frustrated by the humiliation being unable to stop NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, and by being ignored, despite threats of dire consequences if NATO persisted. Sometimes the frustration showed. In a meeting with his foreign minister, Boris Yeltsin mockingly spoke of a rare phone call from President Clinton. "He called me, imagine that," Yeltsin said. Clinton said "I was a fine fellow and a diplomat and a jack of all trades." Alan Russo of Carnegie's Moscow Center, who keeps track of Russia's government, says the frustration may lead to more attempts at diplomatic one upsmanship along the lines of the paratroopers in Pristina.

ALAN RUSSO: Russia will continue in ways that may be perhaps more serious in this case to stick the thumb in the West's side whenever it can. And I think the long-term implications for U.S.-Russian or Russian-NATO relations are not terribly positive.

PAUL MILLER: For many Russians, those relations have changed fundamentally. They have had enough of the West. Analyst Sergei Rolov, who directs a government think tank, says Russians are turning from western values they eagerly embraced ten years ago when they rejected the Soviet order, values undermined by the bombing of Yugoslavia.

SERGEI ROGOV: They saw that the civilized West, which wanted to join and behave like civilized people, behaves like a Soviet caricature. The West is bombing and that might be something very dangerous for our society because we might conclude that this decision, which was made ten years ago, was wrong; that everybody does it; that market economy doesn't work, that political democracy doesn't work.

PAUL MILLER: Russians at all social levels have already given up on the market economy as parts of it have given up on Russia. Since last August, when Russia defaulted on its foreign debts and the economy collapsed, there's been a lot of finger pointing, much of it at the West. Some writers have suggested the West deliberately created the country's corruption, croney capitalism, and the punitive terms for loans as a way of bankrupting Russia. The NATO alliance was another source of irritation for many people here, even before Yugoslavia. The Warsaw Pact dissolved a decade a but NATO, its western counterpart, expanded into Central Europe and then changed its mission.

SERGEI ROGOV: We were told don't worry; NATO can use force only for self-defense. NATO never starts wars. But many in Russia didn't believe it. And what they saw in Yugoslavia was the worst case scenario. And that made many people here feel that our country's quite humiliated, that we excluded from crucial decisions concerning European security.

PAUL MILLER: When the bombing began in Yugoslavia there, was an explosion of anger. And the American embassy in Moscow was attacked. The government was so alarmed, it sought to diffuse the anger. News reports of the displacement of Kosovars and atrocities against them were encouraged. But with the end of the war, NATO's occupation of Kosovo, some of the anger and distrust returned. It has been displayed on the street, such as at this demonstration of extreme nationalists in downtown Moscow.

FATHER NIKON, Faith and Fatherland Movement: I regard NATO as the main rival, not just of Russia and the Slavic world but all Europe. The late events in Kosovo destroyed NATO's image as a big respectable national organization that cares about global security.

PAUL MILLER: The extreme nationalists represent a tiny percentage of the population, but the anger and distrust are also voiced more quietly in communities such as Prisotiv, 20 miles West of Moscow, where workers and moderate income families spend weekends in modest cottages. Irina Abdalyan and Igor Yushmanov pass the time with friends. Irina says she used to respect the U.S. and other NATO countries, but no longer.

IRINA ABDALYAN: [speaking through interpreter] The world order has been changed completely. Who gives a country their right to send its planes over the territory of another state given that there has been no U.N. resolution to give it a go-ahead.

PAUL MILLER: Igor says there is a double standard in the way NATO uses its military.

IGOR YUSHMANOV: [speaking through interpreter] See what is happening in Turkey with the Kurds? Take the Chechen war in Russia. Why did they not interfere in these regions? Why Yugoslavia and what is so special about the Albanians?

PAUL MILLER: The distrust extends deeply into the military and has been expressed by some of the highest-ranking and most respected generals. These paratroopers are among 3500 peacekeepers Russia says it will send to Kosovo. The agreement worked out with NATO does not give the Russians a separate zone. It does put them under Russian commanders at several levels, although the troops are supposed to answer in tactical situations to NATO's orders. They have the right, however, to opt out of operations they disagree with, and several generals have said they will exercise that right. And this week Russia is conducting military exercises to repel an invasion from the West. The timing is a coincidence, the military says. It has nothing to do with NATO or Yugoslavia. Despite the disquiet among the military, the public and some members of parliament, Boris Yeltsin has made a point of renewing ties with the West, as he did in a meeting with President Clinton in Germany last weekend.

IGOR BUNIN: [speaking through interpreter] This distancing from the West has got its limits and the Russian political elite understands that. It also understands that Russia should make an entry into the western world, but it is very upset about the way this entry is happening.

PAUL MILLER: Officially Yeltsin's government says the meeting in Cologne of the leading industrial powers and Russia is an example of how Russia is not being ignored. It even claims a small victory in the meeting having a new name.

VLADIMIR RACHMANIN: It was positive, constructive and practical. So I believe we made the first step in developing cooperation with the West in the new circumstances. Nobody is talking anymore about G-7 plus one or something like that. Everybody is talking G-8, and that is very important for Russia.

PAUL MILLER: But many in the Russian political elite think despite the rhetoric, the agreements that came out of the G-8 meeting will not address the frustrations that have been developing for months and years.

SERGEI ROGOV: We need a strategy. Instead, we have zigzag tactics, and thus adding new problems on top of the existing ones. The G-8 meeting at least helped us to prevent the crisis with Russian-western relations to develop into a real confrontation. But key problems still remain.

PAUL MILLER: The zigzag tactics were certainly evident in Kosovo. Russia first froze relations with NATO, then helped it broker an agreement with Yugoslavia. Now, after the war, Russia's economic, political, and military weaknesses remain, and so does one constant: Anger at its own weakness, coupled with a pervasive tendency in many parts of society, to blame the weakness on the United States and the West.

EMPHASIS - ELECTION 2000 - CAMPAIGN AGENDA

JIM LEHRER: Next tonight, a launching of what we call a special emphasis related to the year 2000 campaign for President of the United States. Over the next several months we will ask, what should this election for President be about; what are the issues the candidates should be discussing and debating? We will ask these questions of various individuals and groups, beginning tonight with three NewsHour regulars, author/journalist Haynes Johnson, presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, joined by Linda Chavez, president the Center for Equal Opportunity and a former Reagan administration official; and Shelby Steele, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Okay, Michael, you get to go first. What should this campaign be about, sir?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, you know, I sort of think, Jim, of John Kennedy in 1960. He asked by James Reston of the "New York Times" in an interview, how should this country be different after four or eight years if you're President. And Reston was amazed. He said that Kennedy looked at me as if I was the man in the moon. He hadn't been thinking in those terms. And you know, in history, often times it's so often the case that a campaign is really shaped by a crisis; for instance, in 1860 there was no way that campaign was not going to be about slavery or 1980 there was no way that the campaign between Reagan and Carter was not going to be about 21 percent interest rates and the resurgence of Soviet power and the Iran hostage crisis. 2000 is different from that, and we've seen this also in history. It's a golden moment when things are going remarkably well internationally and also in domestic policy. So you have to ask presidential candidate number one, how will the country change if you get the White House, and also, what if things go wrong? This economic prosperity won't last forever. What are you going to do about taxes and spending if there is a new recession or, God forbid, a depression -- and also in foreign policy - if Russia and China begin to act up as powers that threaten us once again, what can we expect from you? If there is another Kosovo, does what President Clinton did this year provide a precedent? These are all kinds of things that we really have the right to know before we cast a vote.

JIM LEHRER: Linda, what would you add or subtract from that?

LINDA CHAVEZ: Well, I think ironically what most of the American people are interested in right now has very little to do with some of the issues that presidents could do much about. The future of foreign policy is certainly something the campaign should be about. There are some domestic issues it should be about. But what is most on people's minds today is what's happened to our society. I think there is a tremendous amount of concern among the American people that despite our prosperity, despite the fact we're the leader of the world, no longer fighting a Cold War, something is amiss, and people are feeling very insecure about what's happened to families. They are concerned about the values and the traditions of our society. And so I think you're going to see a hungering on the part of the people to hear about things that you can't come up with a ten-point program to fix.

JIM LEHRER: But should the candidates -- the people who want to be President of the United States -- be forced to talk about these things?

LINDA CHAVEZ: Well, I think they are already talking about them. I think we see it both in Vice President Gore's campaign; we certainly see it in George W. Bush. We've heard it from Elizabeth Dole and others. They are talking about some of these issues. What's interesting is they are not talking in big terms about some of the major issues that Presidents can do something about, for example, in the foreign policy arena. Michael mentioned China. China is the great challenge of the 21st century to the United States. And yet we are not hearing a lot of very specific about what the United States' relationship with China should be and that, of course, ought to be something that helps us determine whom we want to support in this presidential election.

JIM LEHRER: Haynes, first would you agree with Michael that the slate is cleaner now than it has ever been, at least in modern times, in a presidential election?

HAYNES JOHNSON: My friend took my words. This is a golden moment for the country. And it really is a remarkable time. There are no crises visible for us. We don't have a civil war. We don't have the racial revolution and turmoil. We don't have Vietnam, we don't have assassinations. The economy's the best it's ever been in the longest boom in all of American history. And we really have no enemies that charge us in the way the bomb and Russia or World War II and Hitler. So the question is, and Michael's right -- 100 years ago a great scientist made a tour of the United States -- Sir Thomas Huxley. He got on the boat in New York to go back home; he looked at America and the reporters of the day, Jim, asked a lot of stupid questions, which reporters do. And they said, Sir Thomas, aren't you impressed with how big we are and powerful and rich we are? And he said no, I'm not impressed with those things. The question is what do you Americans want to do with all the great things you have? And that's preparing the people for a very different future. Remarkable. We're in the middle of a scientific, technological, medical, demographic revolution. We have problems, as you said, around the world -- I mean here at home and around the world. So that the test of an election is to lay out where we think how the society should be prepared to deal with very real but different questions.

JIM LEHRER: Shelby Steele, where would you come down on what this election should be about?

SHELBY STEELE: Well, I think one thing certainly that I'd like to see it be about is the issue of responsibility. I think this relates to what Linda was saying about our concern about society. It seems to me that there are some really unresolved -- responsibility remains a rather unresolved issue in American life.

JIM LEHRER: Excuse me. Are you talking about individual responsibility?

SHELBY STEELE: I'm talking about responsibility in terms of bringing about social change. There's still great inequities in our society. There are still racial tensions. We have public policies likes affirmative action that are still hotly debated. We have welfare reform that people pay a great deal after attention to. And I think we have one of the issues that came out of the 60's is that the government was the seat of responsibility, the agent of social change. And I think that in American society, there's been a sort of countervailing movement to have the individuals who actually suffer the problems, social problems, be the agents of change and primarily responsible and then maybe supported by government, but that they themselves should be the people who take responsibility in transforming themselves and becoming a part of the American mainstream. On the other hand, politically, any mention of responsibility suggests ideology, and so I think candidates have been very reluctant to get into that area. On the other hand, George Bush has, in his idea of compassionate conservatism, seems to me to be the candidate so far who has come closest toactually trying to engage this deeper issue of responsibility.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think that presidential candidates should be forced to talk about this kind of thing whether they want to or not?

SHELBY STEELE: I'm not saying they should be -- it seems to me that if you are going to lead the country, it is -- this is a great opportunity, since so many other issues are resolved, to say what our democracy stands for, because responsibility is the agent for social change. So far we have, in the past 30 years, certainly, we've asked the government to take that agency almost entirely. And that's been sort of modern liberalism. Now it seems to me that the society is asking us to move in another direction. George Bush is saying in compassionate conservatism, I can make both social responsibility and individual responsibility compatible. And I think that's something that Americans actually want of all backgrounds.

JIM LEHRER: Whether they want George W. Bush to do it or not.

SHELBY STEELE: Whether they want him or not, they certainly seem to want that. And I think that explains a good deal of his popularity. But he certainly needs to go a great deal further in explaining exactly what that means.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Doris, what would be -- if you were the great issue god in the sky, what would you want the candidates for President of the United States to discuss, however you wanted them to come down, what would you want them to talk about over the next several months?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, domestically there are two huge issues that would I love them to talk about. One is as old as the country itself, and that's economic justice. Despite this golden moment, despite the booming prosperity, ordinary Americans are not that much better off than they were when the boom started. We look at income statistics and it takes two people working in the family to just keep going lots of hours. Poverty is almost as bad as it was before, if not worse. So I think economic justice, the oldest theme absolutely should be at the center of this campaign. And secondly, I think there is something that leaders and government can do about the cultural issue because the real question is how do we restore parental authority and parental presence back into the homes without losing the liberating impulses of women going to work in the 20th century. And that means that government and business and the working world alike has to figure out how to better balance family and working life. And that means huge changes in flexible hours, in job sharing, substantial changes in day care, figuring out how to make it easier for our country to bring up its kids, bring childhood back to our children. In World War II, when they needed women to work in the factories, somehow government and business got together and they created this incredible day care system operating 24 hours a day, even providing hot meals for the women to take home at the end of the day so they wouldn't have to shop and cook. Well, we need to figure out ways to ease that transition for people who have young children, and government and business better be together in that. I think those are huge issues and they are very important.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, Linda.

LINDA CHAVEZ: Well, it is interesting because I think we do see an issue in which we could have some definitions between the parties because certainly the Democratic Party has been the party of government solutions like day care centers -- to deal and cope with problems of women in the work force. I think this would be one of the issues where you wouldfind more Republicans saying why not make it possible for women to choose to stay home if they want to by changing the tax structure, by making opportunities available for families to chip in. And I think you do see a divide here. Interestingly, I think the whole question of women's role, Haynes and I were talking about this before the show started, in the last half of the 20th century, there probably hasn't been a single event that has been more significant than the mass movement of women into the labor force. This is a grand social experiment and we don't have the foggiest idea how it's going to turn out. And by the way, I don't think that two male candidates are going to find it very comfortable to talk about this because if you want to be honest you're going to have on to say some things that are going to ruffle some feathers.

JIM LEHRER: Haynes.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Absolutely. We talk about this golden moment but underneath it are real problems -- economic justice, social justices, the old concepts are very much there -- but there is even one more than that. Health care, for instance, we had this session about the doctors, size of American life, the impersonality of it. So the doctors are now joining unions because the health system is too big, so we can't get into it. People feel that, they feel the size in their lives and are disconnected from it. But there is something else about the election. I hope what comes out of it is a rekindling of belief in our political and public purpose. Now, I don't know care you define it, ideological or the rest, because there is a deep cynicism. We are voting less and less and less, all for the last 30 years, going down and down and down, and the public is like this; and you can't deal with long-term problems unless you have a people that believes in the purposes of the society.

JIM LEHRER: Michael, what does history tell us, if anything, about the public's ability to grab hold of a presidential election and force candidates to talk about what matters to them, the things that you all have been talking about?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: You know, it's very tough, Jim, in the absence of some kind of a crisis or overwhelming issue, and it's even harder when you have a golden moment like this. I've often thought, you know, what was the happiest year to be an American in this century? And I always thought it was 1956 because had you a wonderful economy and the Cold War was relatively at bay. 2000 -- if things stay the same the way they are now -- will put 1956 in the shade. And what '56 showed was Eisenhower and Stevenson, it's a rather vapid campaign. Eisenhower and Stevenson should have been talking about civil rights, certain of the issues that would flare up in the next few years and anticipating those things. And what history suggests is that too often in years like this, you don't have a presidential candidate who has a vision, takes some risky positions, creates some kind of controversy. And the sad thing is that it's exactly that kind of controversy, the sense of a campaign and election that really is about things that people care about. That's what brings back trust in government and gets people to vote in big numbers.

JIM LEHRER: Shelby Steele. Yes, go ahead.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I disagree, Jim. I mean, I think that we have had two periods of time in the 20th century, absent a crisis, when were able to mobilize the citizenry. The turn of the century was one, during the Progressive Era; the 60's was another. And look at the 60's - it was a time of equal prosperity but we did so many things that had large public purposes. Now part of it was we had the civil rights movement, part of it was that we had unions that were stronger than they were, and the citizenry was activated; but you can't just depend on a crisis. We have got to hope that these social movements can force government to act on these issues. And we've done it before and we can do it again.

JIM LEHRER: Shelby Steele, do you have a suggestion as to how the collective we keep the year 2000 from being a vapid campaign?

SHELBY STEELE: Well, I think that, you know, we do have areas, as I think everybody is agreeing with, of very serious social problems. I mean, the inner city school systems are an absolute wreck. Poverty is still a problem, certainly in black America and minority America we have a racial identity politics that are completely unresolved. And so I think, you know -- and I'm certainly not against the idea of us discussing the matter of government action and so forth you, but I think what would really be valuable right now is if we would, in some way, have the campaign adjudicate this matter of responsibility for social change. There are certain things government can do. There are certain things that individuals must do, and in terms of those inner city chronic sorts of ongoing seemingly intractable problems, this society has been unable to ask to apply individual responsibility to those problems. And I think that's what's exacerbated them and would I certainly love to see the candidates address that. I think George W. Bush has done a bit more of that to this point than the others.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask Doris about that. What do you think about that as a centerpiece for a campaign debate or a campaign discussion -- just what Shelby Steele just said?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Oh, I think there is something to the idea that we need to figure out especially in the cynicism people have now about government, what government's role can be, what individuals can do, what families can do. But that doesn't mean that you can abdicate responsibility. What does government mean, after all? It means our collective impulses as a nation to care about problems that may not affect us personally, the inner city, some of those people in poverty, but we can care about them at certain eras in our destiny, and I think that's what we need to recall back to the citizenry now -- not just what we are individually responsible for but what as a nation do we care about. And if we don't start feeling that collective sense, then I think we're just going to be having a dialogue. We've talked too much in the last eight years. Every time we talk, we sort of name a problem and then we think it's over with. We have got to do stuff and we have got to start quickly.

JIM LEHRER: Haynes, is there -

SHELBY STEELE: I could have a great dialogue precisely along those lines because I think government should be involved. But where do you bring in individual responsibility? It seems to me that's the ingredient that has been missing for 30 years and that's exacerbated the very problems that you want to get to so much, that you and I want to get to so much.

JIM LEHRER: Is there a danger, Haynes that this -- there could be too much talk here?

HAYNES JOHNSON: Yes, sure. And I'd like to see the candidates be very specific. Take science, medicine and technology, these are all very different questions that affect privacy, the role of computers, how you're connected or not connected, medicine, cloning. I mean food, agriculture, these are huge. But they are very specific and they are affecting people's lives now. Let's talk about that.

JIM LEHRER: And, as I said earlier, we will be talking about all of this because we're going to be asking similar year 2000 issue questions of a variety of people over the next many months. You may offer an answer as well, if you'd like, by visiting our web site.

ESSAY - SEND IN THE CLOWNS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, Essayist Jim Fisher of the "Kansas City Star" visits a school for clowns.

JIM FISHER: This is Houston, in the Missouri Ozarks; familiar, since like a thousand other places, it's split by a highway that's become a strip mall for fast food and franchise businesses. Over there is the old Brown Shoe Company Factory, deserted these past eight years since closing and taking 400 jobs overseas. There? That's the Lee Jeans Factory. It's closed, also going overseas with 300 jobs. The booming economy? The 10,000 Dow? Not here. Hope for any new jobs depends on the opening next year of a 1,600-bed maximum security state prison up the road at Licking, Missouri, which says something about 1999 America. Bad went to worst: A good part of downtown Houston burned, five buildings gone due to an electrical short, which may not sound like much, but in a town of 2,200, that's a nightmare. No insurance. Rents in out-state Missouri don't begin to cover premiums. So you'd expect a lot of long faces around Houston.

CLOWN: Hey, hey! Hey, look at all those neat people out there. Aren't they neat? Wow! Hey, everybody! Wave!

JIM FISHER: Well, not the first weekend in May. Bring in the clowns is taken literally here: Clowns performing, clowns in parades, clowns mugging for children, clowns everywhere. And the residents, somehow, are smiling, too, which also says something about 1999 America, and the resiliency of ordinary people. Hard times come and go. The trick is to survive. Who knows that better than these hill people of Texas County, Missouri? Probably only a clown. And one in particular. Houston is the hometown of Emmett Kelly. Remember? Weary Willie, America's most famous clown, with his woeful, joyless face, tattered outfit, and his cachet of attempting to sweep away spotlights with his broom. Weary Willie, the one clown under the big top who didn't paint a smile on his face. Years with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circuses; parts in the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth;" stints on television and in nightclubs; commercials for Coke.

SINGING IN COMMERCIAL: Get king size Coca-Cola!

JOHN FISHER: Dead now 20 years. Ironically, the fire downtown brought back to some one of history's most famous news photographs: A shot of the 1944 Hartford, Connecticut, circus fire which killed 168 people, many of them kids. In the background, the big top burns. In the foreground, vainly carrying a bucket of water, is a clown: Weary Willie, AKA Emmett Kelly, a Missouri farm kid who joined the circus and saw the world -- and horror -- but went on with the show.

MARK FORBES: Well, you'll need to take it for seven days. You'll need to take it four times a day.

JIM FISHER: Mark Forbes, a druggist who went away to the big city, then came back, said there was never any thought of canceling the Emmett Kelly Clown Festival.

MARK FORBES: Oh, we've spent too much time and effort into getting it going to just say, "eh." You know? And that was the beauty of Emmett Kelly. No matter how bad it got, Emmett always was still standing after it was done. We're starting to develop a little bit of a name for ourselves as a festival. We're working on a circus for the next year. "EK2K: Emmett Kelly 2000." So everybody else is worried about Y2K, we're getting ready for the E2K thing.

JIM FISHER: Hope for the future. And this spring, clowns, as they have for 12 years, filled a little Missouri town, brought here by the memory of an American original, and their love of the craft.

MARK FORBES: Some people are very liberated by putting on a little makeup. Oh-ho-ho! Golly gee! You can get up, act in ways that you maybe wouldn't otherwise. It's a freeing experience.

JIM FISHER: Clowns amid the ruins-- odd, perhaps, yet better than only silence.

CLOWN: Hi, mom, how you doing?

JIM FISHER: I'm Jim Fisher.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday: NATO officials visited Kosovo, and said they were optimistic Serbs and ethnic Albanians would make peace, even as KFOR troops uncovered more evidence of revenge attacks. And the State Department offered a $5 million reward for the capture of Yugoslav war criminals, including president Milosevic. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening, with Shields and Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.