The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; October 22, 2007

I'm Jim Lara, today's news, the Southern California fires, the scrapping Republicans, the rise of staff infections, and the publishing of poems, all tonight on the news hour. Good evening, I'm Jim Lara.

On the news hour tonight, the news of this Monday, then the latest on the wildfires sweeping across Southern California. Analysis of the warming of the Republican presidential nomination race, as seen by Linda Douglas of the National Journal and Jim Vanda High of political.com. New findings about a deadly bacteria spreading mostly in hospitals, and from our occasional series on poets and poetry, a look at how poems get published. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by.

Every day, it seems, talk of oil, energy, the environment. Where are the answers? Right now, we're producing clean, renewable, geothermal energy, generating enough energy to power seven million homes. Imagine that, an oil company as part of the solution. This is the power of human energy. The new AT&T, Pacific Life, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions

to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Wildfires forced massive accusations across Southern California today. Nearly 250,000 people had to flee in San Diego County alone. School buses moved hundreds of patients from the hospital and nursing homes. In all, more than a dozen fires, fan by high winds, burned from Malibu to San Diego County. Hundreds of homes and buildings were destroyed, and at least one person died. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared emergencies in seven counties. He spoke today in Malibu. We have to do everything we can to help this people to get back and to feed as quickly as possible. And I think that's why we all are here today so that we can work together and really provide us much help as possible. But first, we have to just pray that the wind slows down because the wind is our number one enemy right now and to dry weather, so we hope that this conditions where the conditions

change as quickly as possible. Later Schwarzenegger said he had spoken to President Bush and had been promised federal help. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. Wall Street studied itself today after last Friday's sell-off, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 45 points to close just under 13,567. The NASDAQ rose more than 28 points to close just under 2754. But concerns about economic growth pushed oil prices down to finish just over $87.50 a barrel in New York trading. The Federal Reserve sought to reassure the markets again today. A member of the Fed Board of Governors, Randall Krosner, said the central bank will try to limit damage from the credit crunch, but he warned the financial situation is fragile, and it will take time to fully recover. In recent weeks, the Fed has cut interest rates and pumped billions of dollars into the financial system.

The tension kept building today on the border between Turkey and Iraq. That followed a weekend of violence when Kurdish rebels killed a dozen Turkey soldiers. Turkey insisted the United States and Iraq reign in the rebels, known as the PKK. We have a report narrated by Chris Ship of Independent Television News. On its border with Iraq, today Turkey was massing thousands of troops, military hardware moving into position, as the country warned its threats to attack Kurdish rebels are not empty words. Attacked on Turkish troops are escalating in recent days, dozens have been killed, tonight at it being held hostage, kidnapped in an ambush near this bridge, which left 12 of their colleagues dead. Before he left for Britain for talks with Gordon Brown tomorrow, the Turkish Prime Minister warned he would defend his country. Mr Erdogan warned Turkey was ready to take the necessary steps and he would step back

from this point. The pressure on the Turkish government to respond is huge, protesters marching daily demanding the country strikes bank. Turkey is a crucial link between the West and the Muslim world that that relationship has been under strain today, as never before. The PKK has waged a long campaign of violence against Turkey. The group lays claim to land that used to be Kurdistan, but is now divided amongst Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. The Iraqi Kurdistan is the only region which has official recognition and is where most of the PKK militants are based. From there, they are making their raids over the border into Southeast Turkey, home to more than half of the world's 25 million Kurds. Late in the day, the PKK issued a statement saying it would extend the hand of peace to Turkey, but first it insisted the Turks halt military operations against Kurdish fighters. In Washington, U.S. officials put pressure on Turkey and the Kurds to head off military

action. President Bush spoke by phone with Turkish and Iraqi leaders. A day earlier, Secretary of State Rice telephoned both Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan and Masud Barzani, the leader of Iraq's Kurdish region. State Department spokesman Sean McCormick said the U.S. wants to eliminate the rebels, but not by Turkish invasion. What we want to see is we want to see action from the Iraqi government to prevent terrorist attacks, and any sort of actions that they may take cooperatively with the Turkish government or on their own to prevent terrorist attacks should in no way prejudice the long-term solution that is to get rid of the PKK. A White House spokesman also said there should be no wider military action on Iraq's northern border. Osama bin Laden appealed a day to insurgents in Iraq to unite. He spoke in an audio recording aired on Al Jazeera television. He said militant leaders should acknowledge mistakes and gather under a single banner.

Some Sunni tribes in Western Iraq have turned against al-Qaeda and begun helping American forces. Bombs killed at least seven Iraqis in Shiite parts of Baghdad today. The attacks followed a U.S. raid yesterday in the enclave known as Sutter City. The U.S. military said 49 militants were killed. Iraqi officials said there were 15 dead al-Savayans, Prime Minister Amalikhi protested the strike to the U.S. commander in Iraq General David Petraeus. Defense Secretary Gates charged today NATO allies have failed to keep their promises on Afghanistan. Last year European nations pledged additional troops and resources, but they have yet to deliver. Gates spoke in Kiev, Ukraine, today, after meeting with regional defense ministers. I am not satisfied that an alliance whose members have over 2 million soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen cannot find the modest additional resources that have been committed for

Afghanistan. Later this week, Gates is due to meet with all of the NATO defense ministers and the Netherlands. In Poland, a center-right block that wants Polish troops out of Iraq on Sunday's national elections. The winner said Poland has not gotten enough from its Iraq deployment. They also said they want more U.S. military aid and exchange for allowing a missile defense system on Polish soil. Pakistan today dismissed a call for outside help to investigate last Friday's suicide bombing. Former Prime Minister Bhutto escaped the attack on her convoy, but 139 others were killed. On Sunday, Bhutto said involving U.S. and British experts would ensure the investigation is fair. But today, Pakistan's interior ministers insisted their help won't be needed. I would categorically reject this. We are conducting the investigation in a very objective manner.

We have also asked the provincial government to do that. And we have good expertise as far as the investigation is concerned. The Pakistani government has blamed Taliban and al-Qaeda militants for the attack. Bhutto said Sunday that powerful figures in Pakistan were involved, but she did not name any names. In response, the head of the ruling party charged today, Bhutto's husband may have planned the bombing to gain sympathy for his wife. A survey of airline pilots in the United States has found near collisions and runway problems happen far more often than generally believed. The Associated Press reported that today. It said NASA interviewed some 24,000 pilots, but never released the findings. A senior official in the Space Agency said they could damage travelers' confidence. The head of NASA issued a statement today, saying officials will reconsider what to make public.

Microsoft agreed today to end a long-running legal battle with the European Union. The software giant dropped further appeals of a 2004 antitrust ruling. That ruling found the company abused its power by monopolizing server software. The announcement means Microsoft will cut royalty fees and share information with rivals. The goal is to make their programs run smoothly with Windows operating software. And that's it for the new summary tonight. Now the California fires. The Republican fights, staff infections, and poetry publishing. The latest on the wildfires in Southern California, news hour correspondent Jeffrey Kay of KCET Los Angeles, begins with this report. The winds blew the wildfires spread. And across Southern California, hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes.

The brush fires, which fled up over the weekend, are being stoked by dry Santa Ana winds. Some gusting as fast as 80 miles an hour. Combined with drought conditions, they are making it difficult for firefighters to contain the blazes. Fire crews got into that house, you've ever saw those pictures, and it looked like they were going to save it. So that's L.A. County supervisors, Zeb, Yara Slafsky, told reporters the conditions created a perfect storm. The winds are erratic. They are unpredictable. There is no telling where the fires will move and when. So until the fire departments tell us that it is safe and that it is contained, you have to assume that at any given moment, even where there's no fire, that something could pop up in your neighborhood. By this afternoon, the fires had engulfed more than a hundred thousand acres from Santa Barbara County, just north of Los Angeles, down to San Diego and the Mexican border. It's amazing.

I mean, that fire overtook everything. It's in a matter of hours. 250,000 people were forced to evacuate in San Diego County, where fires encroached on homes and new blazes continued to flare up. When one neighborhood firefighters were unable to stop the flames from spreading house to house, by this afternoon, one death had been reported in San Diego and officials warned many more homes would be lost. Jerry Sanders is the mayor of San Diego. This is an extremely quick moving fire, probably one like we've never seen before because of the strong winds and heavy smoke. Because of that, we're unable to use air assets because they can't get close enough. We can't see and it's hazardous. For that reason, we're trying to evacuate areas as quickly as we can, ahead of the fire, so that people will be out of that area by the time the fire comes through. San Diego fire chief Bill Metcalf also urged residents to heed evacuation warnings and said people staying behind were hindering firefighting efforts.

We've been unable to do any suppression efforts because in most cases, the fire resources are being used or having to pull off and do rescues. Rescues of people who in most cases were asked to evacuate and didn't evacuate at all or delayed until it was too late. And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources away from the fire suppression efforts where we might be able to slow this thing down. They expect the weather to continue for another couple of days and there's an awful lot of zero percent contained fire line out there. To the north in Malibu, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured some of the gutted structures. He has declared a state of emergency in the seven affected counties. Malibu suffered some of the worst destruction after embers blew across the Pacific Coast highway and set coastal mansions ablaze. It was getting pretty crazy and the smoke start coming in, we just took off.

And as we were coming up PCH right here, it jumped the highway and there was flames we had to ride through the flames. Hundreds of firefighters battling the fire in Malibu were unable to save two landmarks, the Malibu Presbyterian Church, and this 10,000 square foot castle owned by the daughter of a former Iranian oil minister. Many residents were reminded of previous devastating fires that have swept through this community. The last major one in 2003. Today, many watched from their rooftops, Larry Lawson said that he was prepared for any eventualities. I'm probably prepared, I got 500 gallons of water, I got pumps, I got my own fire hydrant, I've got everything there is. Kids are here with me, they've got all the fire equipment, I even have foam, foam a doctor. I have as much as probably on some of the fire engines. So you figure you're not going any place you're staying here? Absolutely not. I didn't go in 93, didn't go now. Many residents were not taking any chances. Robert Garland left his house around noon carrying his two cats.

I think it's a more of a collective thing that we're all leaving together, but actually nobody came by and said a mandatory evacuation. At many canyon and hilltop homes, firefighters stood guard to provide structure protection. Now we've been reassigned to structure protection here on carbon mesa. The fire did burn through here yesterday, they still have some hot spots, so in case of wind shifts, we're looking for smokes and an act of fire that may begin to burn back up canyon towards us. So for right now you're essentially guarding this house. Correct, we've been assigned this structure here on carbon mesa, we will remain here until released by our division supervisor. Officials believe some of the fires may have been started by downed power lines, but there was confirmation of blaze in Orange County to the south of Los Angeles was arson. Judy Wooder spoke with Jeffrey Kay a short while ago while he was in Malibu. Jeffrey Kay tell us exactly where you are and what the situation is there.

Well, I'm in Malibu, just outside what used to be the Malibu Presbyterian church that was burned down. On a normal day this would be idyllic overlooking the ocean, but today this would be bustling, this would be bustling, there's a preschool here, there's no one around, there are helicopters picking up water from the ocean to go drop on the fires that are close by here. The streets of Malibu are deserted, normally crowded, busy streets of Pacific Coast Highway, which is generally jammed, didn't have the only vehicles on it were used vehicles and fire engines. Jeffrey, we are reading some accounts, this is the driest year on record in southern California. How much do they think the drought is contributing to this as well as the strong winds? Well, you've got one county official, as I said, called a perfect storm. You've got the drought, you've got very low humidity, you've got the winds, and of

course the problem with resources that really, a tremendous amount that would be needed to fight fires that are all over California. So to what extent the drought contribute, that the dryness contribute, that the winds contribute, as I say, a supervisor told me, a perfect storm. Jeffrey, you were saying to me just a moment ago about, we were talking about the strain on resources. Is there a concern that do they have enough firefighters, do they have enough firefighting equipment? There was definitely a very real concern last night. I heard a story about a fire captain who, a fire chief of LA County who decided he needed 1,200 firefighters to fight the fires in Los Angeles, but could get only 600, normally the adjacent communities and states share resources, but everyone's are fighting their fires.

And I was told that he was, quote, sweating bullets, as the fires sparked and he had to make a decision as to which of his favorite children he would try to protect. One fire in north of the county, another fire here in Malibu, both very serious. I'm told that the resource situation is not as bad now as it was, particularly with mutual aid coming in from around the area and surrounding states. There's assistance coming in from Nevada, from Oregon, but the big concern is the unpredictability. These winds are extremely erratic and firefighters are just standing around in some places just not knowing which way the winds are going to go and having to run off as sparks fly and fires crop up in unanticipated places. And any discussion of availability or lack of it of the water they obviously need to put out these fires? Well, at least in the San Diego and Malibu areas, we're right next to the ocean.

So water is availability is not a problem. They can just go dip their buckets in the ocean and take as much water as they need. I'm not sure that's the case in the inland areas. How are people dealing with this, Jeffrey? You've been out all day long. How much worry, how much anxiety? Well, the people we've run across, particularly here in Malibu, and particularly the old timers, are very philosophical about this. Many of them have been through this multiple times. They used to being evacuated either mandatory evacuations or used to having to fight fires with garden hoses if that need be. Many of them also well-prepared, having gone through this so many times. Many of the homes, the newer homes, are very well-protected. So as I say, a lot of the old timers in particular are philosophical and they know the next natural disaster they're going to have to contend with is when the rains, if they

do come and they generally do. Come in the winter, in February and March, and that would be a time to watch out for the inevitable floods because the grasses, the shrubbery, the trees holding back, the soils will not be there in place and so they're going to have to a new set of problems on their hands. So when people... It's very cyclical. So when people are asked to evacuate, are they saying they're going to tough it out? Are they cooperating? What are they doing? I guess to both of the above. Many of the people here are just saying, never mind, I know what I'm doing, I can fight this thing and others are just going along to make sure that they're obeying the orders to evacuate, but the fire officials and elected officials and others are stressing to people. They need to be on the lookout, they need to follow directions and evacuate when ordered to.

That's when you've got people who vow that they can take care of themselves as not much anyone can do in a situation like that. And just quickly, Jeffrey, you live in the Los Angeles area. You've seen fires year after year, does this situation have a different feel to it? How would you compare it? Well, the difference, I guess, is they are all over the place. If someone put it Southern California, California is on fire, other than that, I think if you live here, you get used to these kinds of disasters, season in and season out. Well, Jeffrey Kay, we thank you for reporting for us from Malibu in the Los Angeles area. Thanks very much. You're very welcome, Judy. Now the latest on those Republicans who want to be president, Ray Suarez, has the story. The Republican presidential candidates auditioned for Christian conservatives this weekend

in Washington looking to answer the big question of the race, who's the real conservative, the most anticipated remarks at what the family research council called, the Value Voters Summit, were from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Isn't it better that I tell you what I really believe instead of pretending to change all of my positions to fit the prevailing wins? Giuliani's views on abortion and gay marriage are contrary to those of Christian conservatives and much of the party's base. I told the crowd that honesty was more important than changing his views to score political points, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, told the crowd he was one of them. I come today as one not who comes to you, but as one who comes from you. You are my roots. Huckabee's strong showing carried the straw pole convincingly among those in the room to hear him, and gave him second place when combined with online balloting.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney finished first, evangelical leaders have publicly debated whether a Mormon could carry Christian conservative voters. They were followed by Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, and Congressman Duncan Hunter of California, and Tom Tan Crado of Colorado. Giuliani finished just ahead of Arizona Senator John McCain, who came in last. Sunday, the candidates met again in Orlando, Florida, Giuliani's conservative credentials came under scrutiny, again, under questioning from Fox News's Chris Wallace. Mayor Giuliani, Senator Thompson says that you're a soft on abortion, that you're soft on gun control, and that you've never claimed to be a conservative. Who is more conservative? You are Fred Thompson. I brought down crime more than anyone in this country, maybe in the history of this country while I was mayor of New York City. I brought down taxes, $9 billion, cut them 23 times. I balanced the budget that was perennially out of balance, removed $2.3 billion surpluses,

and deficits and replaced them with surpluses. So I think that was a pretty darn good conservative record. I think in every case you can always find one exception or two to someone being absolutely conservative or absolutely this or absolutely that. But I think I had a heck of a lot of conservative results. Thompson didn't back down. Mayor Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion. He believes in sanctuary cities. He's for gun control. He's supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat against the Republican who's running for governor, then opposed the governor's tax cuts when he was there. So I simply disagree with him on those issues, and he sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues I just mentioned. You know, Fred has his problems too. Fred was the single biggest obstacle to tort reform in the United States Senate. He stood with Democrats over and over again. Romney was asked to defend his recent comment that he represented the Republican wing of the Republican Party.

Now I'm proud of my record, not just of the words, but of the record of the governor of Massachusetts. Like Mayor Giuliani, I had a tough state to be running in. I was a conservative Republican in a very Democrat state. My legislature, 85% Democrat, we faced a $3 billion budget gap. We solved it without raising taxes, without adding debt. We solved the problem in health care in our state, not by having government take it over the way Hillary Clinton would with private free enterprise approaches. My approach, I believe, is best for our nation. Romney then came under attack from McCain. All right, Governor Romney, you've been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. You can't, I don't want you to start fooling them about mine. I stand on my record. I stand on my record of a conservative, and I don't think you can fool the American people. I think the first thing you'd need is their respect. I intend to earn their respect because they may not agree with me on a couple of issues, but they don't know I'm telling the truth and what I believe in my steadfast positions

on these issues for more than 20 years, and I know that the transcendent challenge, I have the qualifications to lead, to grapple with, and to emerge victorious. Huckabee, meanwhile, tried to remain above the fray. I'm more than intent to let you let them fight all they want tonight, shed each other's blood, and then I'll be ready to run for president because I'm not interested in fighting these guys. What I'm interested in is fighting for the American people, and I think they're looking for a presidential candidate who's not so interested in a demolition derby against the other people in his own party. There was one presidential candidate they all agreed on, Senator Hillary Clinton. She hasn't run a corner store, she hasn't run a state, she hasn't run a city. She has never run anything, and the idea that she can learn to be president as an internship just to make any sense, quote, Hillary Clinton, I have a million ideas America cannot afford them all.

In case you missed it, a few days ago, Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum. Now my friends, I wasn't there, I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time, but the fact is, but the often humorous huckaboo struck a serious tone when asked about a Clinton president. What, I like to be funny, let me be real honest with you. There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president, let me tell you why. If she's president, taxes go up, health care becomes the domain of the government. Spending goes out of control.

Our military loses its morale, and I'm not sure we'll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country's ever faced in his limo fascism. The Republican candidates are scheduled to meet again this Thursday in Iowa for a forum sponsored by the AARP and Iowa Public Television. We're now on the race toward the Republican nomination from Jim Van Dehi, executive director, executive editor of political.com, and Linda Douglas, contributing editor at National Journal. A weekend arguing about who's more conservative, Linda Douglas in 2007, eight, is that how you win the Republican nomination? Well, apparently it is, because the people who really identify with the Republican Party, the people who are going to be voting in the Republican primaries are the conservatives. They are the ones who, thanks to the efforts of Karl Rove, have been the most motivated voters in past elections, and it's clearly the consensus of all of these candidates that it is essential to move as far to the right, even if it means moving away from your own record as possible to win these primaries.

And Jim, who had a good shot at making that argument? I'm the most conservative. Well the truth is, they're all fundamentally flawed in the eyes of conservatives, and that's why this race is so wide open. Unlike the Democratic race, which really has come down to Obama vs. Clinton, you could sketch out a plausible scenario where any of five candidates, and I'd put Huckabee in that group right now, could win the nomination, and what they're all trying to do is lock down the conservative base. Well, they know they can't do that alone, so they're all trying now to make a twin argument. Yes, I'm conservative, but I'm also electable. In the first person that can make that argument and make it in a compelling way, I think that they will be able to solidify their position with Republicans, but right now none of them have done it. Rudy Giuliani can make the case that, yes, he's electable, they think that because he's moderate on social issues, he might appeal in places like California that are not traditionally in play, but he's a social liberal, and that's why, as your is a clip showed, when you're at the value summit, he gets barely any votes. You've added gelical Christians, a lot of them do not want to support him right now.

Can he make himself plausible to those voters? Even though he came in behind undecided in the value voter's straw poll, he got a standing ovation, a very healthy applause all during his speech as well. Well, there was a lot of appreciation. We have reporters who follow them very closely and who were there and interviewed a lot of people in the crowd afterwards, and there was appreciation for the fact that he even came. He didn't win converts necessarily, but one of the things Rudy Giuliani is trying to do in this race is redefine what being a conservative is, and a conservative, the way it is defined by Rudy Giuliani, starts with national defense, starts with, you know, standing up to the, what they're calling the is a llamo fascist threat. And so he's trying to do two things. He's trying to neutralize the hostility of the social conservatives by saying, we may not agree, but I'll always listen to you, and he's trying to redefine what it is. You have to say to be a successful Republican candidate in the general. And that's a very, that's a very powerful point to a lot of conservatives.

In 2011, Republicans put a lot of stock in being a party of strength, the candidate that can project strength. And that's why Rudy Giuliani does quite well, and it is a very open question right now. Is there a big group of people inside the Republican party that are shifting to where they care more about who can fight terrorism and who can solve the crisis in the Middle East more than they care about who's going to cut down on abortions in gay marriage. There is some shift. I don't know how big that shift is at this point. Bill Jim, my concubate, the former governor of Arkansas, has been one of the most lightly funded candidates, but he's been by all accounts performing well in these candidates' forms and debates. He won the room at the Value Voters Summit, is rising in Iowa. Is he becoming a serious contender? We certainly have to take him seriously. He does quite well. Whenever he gets in front of a Republican audience, and then you talk to that Republican audience, they like him. They authentically connect with him. They feel like he truly is committed, conservative.

Linda and I have talked about this before. I think his weakness is going to be that he does not necessarily project that image of strength. He does not have a big background in foreign policy, and he's not as articulate when it comes to talking about terrorism as maybe Giuliani is. And I think that is the weakness in that argument when he talks about being both conservative and electable. Well, I think that Republicans, as Democrats this year, want a winner. I think that certainly it's clear that many of the Christian conservatives' hearts are with my Huckabee. He's very appealing to Christian conservatives. And he's very appealing to lots of people because he is so likable, and his message is very interesting this year, because if you remember the economics debate that the Republicans had, he was the one Republican on the stage who said, there are lots of people out there who are hurting financially, I feel their pain. He is running as the real compassionate conservative in this race. So it makes him a very interesting candidate with a new message, and certainly Republicans are trying to find a new message right now.

But the hesitation that one encounters when talking to various Republicans is the fear that he just can't win, that he can't run a strong campaign, that he can't stand up to someone like Hillary Clinton who's such an experienced campaigner, and that he can't raise the money. That shift gears to the Sunday debate in Florida, a tougher tone on the part of all the candidates. Really taking, as we saw in the introduction, some pretty hard wax at each other. It was very interesting. I mean, this was the antithesis of what Ronald Reagan would have wanted with his 11th commandment thou shall not speak ill of another Republican. And Thompson was by far and away Fred Thompson, the most aggressive in personally attacking Rudy Giuliani. And if one is on the receiving end of the press releases that come out of all the campaigns, you would, I'm sure agree with this. One is bombarded by the Thompson campaign, attacking Giuliani, attacking Romney. And it's a function of there being so closely, not at the top, such a tight little group at the top with no clear front runner emerging, one would think.

But again, this is where Mike Huckabee might have done himself some good, because he was the one who wouldn't get into that fight. Just Thompson have to do that in part because of the late entry. He's still establishing himself in the field and showing himself in a group of other candidates. I mean, one of the reasons that politicians attack is to clarify. They want to be able to show sharp distinctions between themselves and the other candidates. And what he's trying to do is say, you know, I really am the committed conservative here. And he can only do that by taking down Giuliani. I mean, all the joys of being the front runner, everybody starts taking a whack at you and they try to figure your weaknesses, Giuliani's are obvious, so everyone keeps hitting him on conservatism. I think there's a danger here. I mean, beyond just appearing like there's infighting and you're violating the Reagan 11th commandment, the danger is is that Republicans have not yet engaged in a very serious discussion about their policy ideas. How would they really shift the Republican Party in the country away from where Bush has taken the country, given that most voters are not happy with that direction, and sort of engage in the issues that people really care about now, because it's a different

issue matrix that we're dealing with this election than we've dealt with in the past. You're dealing with global warming, you're dealing with really serious discussions about lessening or dependence on foreign oil, and you're dealing with terrorism and Iraq. And there hasn't been as much substantive discussion as I think some voters would like, but it's still some time until the first votes are canceled. Well, that's why it's such an unusually fluid situation where any of these candidates we've been talking about could emerge, but Jim is making such an important point, which is this is, it seems to be that this is the year when the Republican Party has to redefine itself in some way, with some fresh definition of what being a Republican is, what Republicans stand for. And there has been a lot of time spent at this point by, certainly by Romney, certainly by Giuliani to a certain extent, and to some extent McCain in reminding voters why they are connected to past Republicans, why they are like Reagan, why they can defend Georgia Bush's policies.

One wonders if that's a good idea. Linda Douglas, Jim Van Hike, thank you both. Thank you. Now, new concerns about the dangers of a staff bacteria. Margaret Warner has that story. There were reports this weekend of more outbreaks of a dangerous staff bacteria infecting students in several states. The bacteria, which is resistant to common antibiotics, is known as MRSA. It most commonly appears in hospital patients. The school cases, with three recent reported student deaths, come on the heels of new findings, showing MRSA is now causing more deaths annually in the U.S. than AIDS. According to the new calculations by the Centers for Disease Control, MRSA is responsible for nearly 19,000 deaths a year and more than 90,000 serious infections. The figure suggests the infection is twice as common as previously thought.

For more about MRSA, we turn to Dr. Richard Shannon, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. And Professor Shannon, welcome, first of all, what does MRSA stand for and what is it? Well, it's good to be with you, Margaret. MRSA stands for Methicillin-Resistant Staff-Orius. It's a type of bacteria related to a very common bacteria, typically known as staff, that has you have said becomes resistant over time to the use of conventional or first line antibiotics. So penicillin is a commonly used antibiotic to treat staff infections. This particular strain has become resistant to that antibiotic. And then we're seeing a growth not only in the antibiotic-resistant strain, but in this particularly invasive form that can get what from the skin into the body. Well, that's right. I think what we're really seeing is that MRSA has typically been confined to hospitalized patients whose immune systems were weakened by another illness or who may have had a surgical

wound that became infected. But now we're seeing these strains emerging in the community, and in particular there are some variations in the strain that as you say tend to cause very serious skin infections that if it gets into your blood, can cause a life-threatening illness. So how does a healthy person know, what are the first signs or symptoms that a healthy person, a student, or anyone else out in the community, has this? Well, I think at first it's important to know that about 25% of the population carries staff bacteria on their skin normally. And about 1% of the population has this antibiotic-resistant form of staff called MRSA. But the first signs in a patient or in an individual in the community who is otherwise healthy is typically a redness of the skin and the development of a pimple or a blister that can sometimes be swollen and also quite painful. Now, I noticed in the CDC figures, the greatest fatalities were among the elderly and actually African-Americans.

What determines whether this MRSA is fatal? Well, I think typically whether the infection is fatal or not is predicated upon whether the antibiotics are administered rapidly when the infection is diagnosed, but also depending upon what systems of the body become infected. So when MRSA infects the lungs, for example, it causes a very serious pneumonia that may take much longer to treat and respond to antibiotics because of its resistance. When it causes infections in the bloodstream, other organs like the heart and the liver can become infected and this can lead to multi-organ failure, which really is what causes individuals to die. Now, give us the scenario for how it is spread first in hospitals. Well, I think that one of the most disturbing things about MRSA is that it is spread almost exclusively by person-to-person contact. So in a hospital, that would mean most typically contact between a patient who was colonized with MRSA and a health worker who is taking care of that patient plus several other patients.

And the failure to wash hands in the hospital or to adhere to contact precautions such as wearing a gown or wearing gloves really leads to the ability for this bacteria to be spread from patient to patient. And I gather studies have found that more than 50% of hospital workers or rather hospital workers, more than 50% of the time, disregard the standard, which is you have to wash your hands between each patient and clean whatever equipment you've used. That's exactly right. I think that we are becoming increasingly concerned that very simple measures that could really help us to control this simply health care workers don't appreciate how important they are. So in a high-tech intensive care unit with lots of equipment, it's much easier to think about using some technological approach than really just good hand hygiene and barrier precautions. All right, now how is it being spread in the schools and why are we seeing more incidents in schools?

Well, I think the spread among healthy individuals is basically the same and that is it's usually skin-to-skin contact. And so typically where this is being seen is in daycare centers where kids are playing together or on sports teams where individuals are huddled together and may come into contact such as wrestlers would during the course of a meet. So the mode of spread is exactly the same. It's skin-to-skin contact. I think the reason we're seeing more of this is that now we've had unfortunately three cases in the last week of otherwise young healthy individuals developing very serious staff infections due to this resistant MRSA and their deaths have really raised public awareness to a new level. Now we read stories about schools scrubbing down their gyms or showers. People talk about if they go to a gym, a regular workout place, rubbing down the equipment before they use it. Are those necessary precautions or overkill? Well, I think they're good, hygienic precautions that people should take.

But I think it's important to know that while MRSA can live on those surfaces, it is still much more likely that the organism is spread from person-to-person contact. So really the message should be that individuals should engage in very good personal hygiene. They should wash their own hands. They should make sure that their workout clothes are washed on a regular basis. And athletes should avoid sharing equipment like towels and razors in the locker room. So bottom line, how worried should parents be? Well, I think this is a concern, but I wouldn't be an alarmist about this. Most of the community-acquired infections cause skin infections, and many of those can simply be treated with topical measures. I think the real message for parents is to really help their children understand the importance of personal hygiene, and I think in the school systems and in daycare facilities, the importance is to recognize that students should engage in those practices at school as well as at home.

And very briefly, in hospitals, is screening an isolation of patients who are carrying this bacteria and option? Well, I think that's been controversial. Mounting evidence suggests that screening of individuals when they're admitted to high-risk areas of the hospital and absolute adherence to isolation procedures can really help to control the spread of MRSA. All right, Professor Richard Chan, and thank you so much. Thank you, Margaret. Two doctors will take your questions about the drug-resistant staff infection in our online insider forum to participate. Go to pbs.org. And finally tonight from our occasional series on poets and poetry, the ups and downs of the poetry publishing business, Jeffrey Brown has our story. It's no surprise that there's not much money to be made in poetry, so how in a commercial culture like ours does so much of it get published? One answer can be found here in a beautiful setting in an old fork a few hours outside

of Seattle, where Copper Canyon has been putting out books for 35 years. The press first started, we would do all the printing by hand, the binding by hand, and there was even the sales were done out of the trunks of cars. They don't sell books out of their cars anymore, but Michael Uyghurs and his colleagues still have one thing in common with their predecessors. It's all about the poetry. The poem is something to be shared. It's a gift from the poet to the reader. And so we want to make certain that that gift was being received. The poems are all listed and all marked up to be lowercase. With a million dollar budget and a staff of eight, Copper Canyon relies on foundation and government grants and private donors to publish about 20 poetry books a year. In this business, 5,000 sales is a best seller, but every so often there's a blockbuster that brings in real money.

Ted Kuzer, the lights and shadows is probably one of our best, but to give you an example, I think the initial print run on that book was around 2,500 copies. Then he was named the poet laureate, and we had to go back and print 20,000 copies. And then he wins the Pulitzer Prize. And suddenly, we're getting closer to having printed 100,000 copies. Those kinds of sales allow Copper Canyon to publish lesser known names as well. It brought to a wider audience, Ta-Hamu Hamid Ali, a Palestinian poet we met in Nazareth earlier this year. So is everybody seeing Valerie's mock-up? And on the day we visited over some end of the week wine and cheese. The staff talked of doing the same for a young Belarusian poet named Valzina Muert, whose first book Copper Canyon will publish early next year. God tossed a heart like a coin inside me. When I read it, I have to admit that that okay, a Belarusian poet, and it's her first book. In this country, this is going to be tough, but then I read the poems and I was charmed

by them. When I read a poem, something happens that I don't get anywhere else in the world. And to be a part of that making is terrific, you know, I think the best job in the world. Rigors, in fact, is exceedingly fortunate to make a living, even a modest one, from publishing poetry. According to everyone we talk to, Seattle is a great city for books, with a vibrant poetry scene, but most everyone involved is struggling to survive. Presses like floating bridge, for example. 13 years ago, Jeff Crandall and five other Seattle poets put up $50 each to start their own press. $300 is enough to get going. And a lot of hard work. The idea was to sponsor a contest to publish one local poet a year. We founded the press in order to give local poets a chance to get published and have successes here in Washington State without having to compete on a national level.

Everyone involved volunteers his or her time and has a separate day job to survive. Kendall is a glass artist. The press now operates with a $10,000 budget, most of which comes from grants. The future is far less certain for editor Phoebe Beauche at Raven Chronicles, a literary magazine published in Seattle for the last 10 years. The most important mission that we have in most small presses is to show the work or give a voice to people whose work would never be published. Some writers will never be heard from again, but some go on to larger careers. Beauche says Raven was one of the first to publish work by Sherman Alexi, who later became a well-known author and screenplay writer. Beauche says escalating costs for postage and office space and problems with distribution may signal the end of her journal. More and more publications that have been publishing for decades are no longer going to be able to financially make it.

In every case, the poets that we've approached have had ones that we believe deeply and across town, Charlie Wright doesn't worry quite so much about money. A Seattle businessman and philanthropist, he founded Wave Books two years ago as a for-profit business, even though he doesn't expect any profits. That way he says he answers to no boards or grant organizations. We asked ourselves a question, can we afford to lose this many dollars every year for twenty years? That's quite a business plan. Twenty years of losses. Yeah, it doesn't get any better than that. Wright who hasn't dropped his day job can afford to subsidize his press, but is realistic about the prospects. I don't think it's possible to make money as a pure poetry press. I think it's possible to make money if you mix in other kinds of publishing. I think it's possible to lose less money if you're willing to publish material that you

know will sell well because there are poets that sell well. But I think if you're committed first as the aesthetic, whatever that aesthetic is, I think that you are doomed to some subsidy every year. Our final stop, a bookstore, but a rather unusual one. Open books is one of just two poetry only stores in the country. No cushion chairs, no lattes, not even any employees. You want to clear a space for them somewhere? Just the owners husband and wife John Marshall and Christine Deval. What do people say to you when you tell them what you do? They usually say, oh, that's brave. And I usually say, you mean, that's foolish. We do have people stick their heads in the door and say, is it really all poetry? But we do know that the subtext means you people are nuts. She's most well known for the wild iris. Marshall and Deval had run a general bookstore for seven years until a Barnes and Noble opened

not far away. And I know I just saw it. The two then did something that does sound nuts. Rather than fold their tent and find a new business, they went into an even smaller niche. All poetry all the time. You do best selling something you love. It's a worthwhile transaction. Yes, there's money involved, but I'm also happy if you're happy with this book and that I've introduced you to someone or you've introduced me to someone. I mean, that's the other thing. The store goes both ways. And maybe that's why the energy is in the poetry section. That's where the dialogues were happening. Marshall and Deval actually make money on poetry. Not much, but enough to have the life they want for now. I don't want to shy away from the economic model because we do make money. I mean, it's not strictly a labor of love. It needs to support itself. If it can't, we'll move on. The culture will have told us something. It can't sustain this kind of endeavor. All right, then we'll do something else.

But a lot of people would have thought the culture has already said that. Well, culture whispers into us every now and then. In spite of all the difficulties in getting poetry published, Deval and Marshall like everyone we talk to, say they're convinced that art will find its way. The poets will keep writing and they hope the public will keep buying. Again on our website, you can read poems by Copper Canyon authors, see and hear other poets and sign up for our poetry podcast, go to PBS.org. And again, the major developments of this day, wildfires fanned by high winds burned across Southern California. The fires destroyed 128 homes near Lake Arrowhead and authorities in San Diego County urged nearly 250,000 people to flee. Wall Street studied itself after last Friday's sell-off.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq index posted modest gains. Intention kept building on the border between Turkey and Iraq, but Turkey's leaders promised to exhaust diplomatic options before invading to strike at Kurdish rebels. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lara, thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by retirement. It may be a long way off or another adventure waiting just ahead. Life can help provide income you can enjoy for the rest of your life. Because retirement could be a very long ride. Pacific life.

The power to help you succeed. Chevron. The new AT&T. The Atlantic philanthropies and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. To purchase video of the news hour with Jim Lara, call 1-866-678-News.

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