The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; then, the latest on Hurricane Charley as it hits western Florida; a presidential campaign roundup, with analysis of that and other matters by Mark Shields and William Kristol, filling in for David Brooks; and, from Jacques Pepin, memories of the great Julia Child, who died today.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Hurricane Charley stormed onto the western coast of Florida today, a category- four storm bringing torrential rain and 145-mile-per-hour winds. Terence Smith has our report.

TERENCE SMITH: Charley struck the Barrier Islands shortly before 4 oclock this afternoon near Ft. Myers. Forecasters warned that a massive storm surge of up to 15 feet threatens to swamp the Florida coastline from Tampa to Sarasota. A day after Tropical Storm Bonnie came ashore in the state's Panhandle, Florida Governor Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency. Officials ordered mandatory evacuations, which began yesterday for nearly two million people from the Florida Keys up through southwest Florida to the Tampa Bay area.

MAN: We're packing up everything we can and heading out because we are afraid of the tidal surge. If it comes in, were going to have six feet of water in the house.

TERENCE SMITH: Many took shelter took refuge in shelters. At a press conference this morning, the director of Florida Emergency Management said time was running out to seek higher ground.

CRAIG FUGATE: Whats most important is if you are in an area that has been ordered to evacuate on the southwest Florida coast, Panellis and Hillsboro County, you have minutes to less than the next hour or so to move to high ground. Quite honestly, we'll figure out how many people moved after the storm, but the primary focus is you have to move now. You cannot delay. Your options are running out. People that have waited and waited and waited, as the governor says, there will be no further time or messages to evacuate. It's too late.

TERENCE SMITH: Gusts of up to 17o miles per hour were reported this afternoon. Tornado warnings were also in effect in parts of Florida. The National Weather Service expects the storm to cross Florida and head up the East Coast.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary.

JIM LEHRER: An uncertain truce held today in Najaf. U.S. troops and militiamen have been fighting for control of the holy Shiite city for the last nine days. Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Iraq's government must resign and vowed to fight until "victory or martyrdom." We have a report from Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News.

LINDSEY HILSUM: The Americans remained in Najaf. But fighting ease today and negotiations started. Al-Sadrs people said their leader had been wounded but this wasn't confirmed. One of al-Sadr's associated led Friday prayers near at Kufah near Najaf. Senior members of the Iraqi government are negotiating militia's surrender. But the armed men say think will only leave the shrine in Najaf if those captured are released and all get amnesty.

ADNANA AL ZURUFI (Translated): The government is pursuing constructive efforts.

LINDSEY HILSUM: To some in Najaf the militia men are heroes. Elsewhere, crowds are rallying to al-Sadr's cause. More than that, they're taking out their frustrations on the interim government -- they attacked the offices of the Iraqi National Accord, Prime Minister Allawis party. In Fallujah, Sunni Muslims gathered for Friday prayers. Radicals despise Shias but today they wanted to show solidarity with their Shia brothers in Najaf.

JIM LEHRER: Official casualty figures from the Najaf offensive were not available, but hundreds of Iraqis are thought to have been killed since last week. Also today, kidnappers in Basra briefly held a British journalist hostage. He was freed after al-Sadr's office called for his release. President Bush's tax cutshave shifted part of the federal income tax burden from the rich to the middle class. That's the conclusion of a study released today by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. The analysis said tax rates declined for all income levels, but translated into more savings for the wealthy than for the middle class. The CBO is a non-partisan agency. The tax calculations had been requested by Democrats in Congress. Sen. Kerry used the CBO findings on the campaign today in Portland, Oregon. He told a rally the report "documented" what he's been saying all year about the Bush tax cuts. It was Kerry's last stop on a two-week cross-country tour. Across town, Mr. Bush defended his tax policy at a terminal near the city's main port. He told small business owners the economy was getting stronger because of his "well-timed" tax cuts. We'll have more on what both candidates said later in the program. Inflation at the wholesale level increased in July, but not by much. The Labor Department reported today the Producer Price Index rose 0.1 percent. That was less than analysts were expecting. Oil prices climbed higher today, gaining $1.08 to close at $46.58 a barrel; thats a new record. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than ten points to close at 9825. The NASDAQ rose more than four points to close at 1757. For the week, the Dow gained a fraction of a percent. The NASDAQ fell 1 percent. Julia Child died today at her home in Santa Barbara, California. She was the cooking icon who demystified French cuisine and brought it into American kitchens. She had a popular public television series and wrote ten cookbooks. She was 91 years old. And we'll have more on her life and her cooking later in the program. The 2004 summer Olympic Games in Athens drew thousands of spectators to opening ceremonies today. More than 10,000 athletes from a record 202 countries will compete under heavy security. Former President Bush and his wife, Barbara, led a U.S. delegation. Some prominent U.S. athletes stayed away to prepare for the competitions starting tomorrow. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: More on Hurricane Charley; the presidential campaign; Shields and Kristol; and memories of Julia.

FOCUS- CHARLEYS CHARGE

JIM LEHRER: Again to Terence Smith on the hurricane, who conducted two interviews earlier this evening.

TERENCE SMITH: Joining me first is Joe Bastardi. He's a meteorologist and chief hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather. Joe, thank you very much for joining us. What can you tell us at this point about this storm, the way it's developing, and the way it is likely to develop?

JOE BASTARDI: Well, at AccuWeather we've been talking about this since yesterday, the possibility of explosive development. In fact, our pre-season hurricane forecast talked about this year, Terry, being the kind of year, unlike several years ago where we had big storms that would weaken upon landfall, that we would have to watch out for the opposite effect this year. We saw that with Alex at Cape Hatteras, intensifying, and now, of course, with Charley has increased to a category-four hurricane, which is a hurricane with winds over 130 miles an hour at landfall. And it is moving off to the North-Northeast. And we expect this storm to bisect the state of Florida, get back out over the water near St. Augustine and then continue north-northeastward, probably making another landfall again in the Carolinas, and then hugging the coast much like Floyd in 1999. So this is going to be a big- ticket item even further up the coast, not as bad as a category- four. We're probably talking a category-one, perhaps two on the Carolina coast, and a minimal hurricane or strong tropical storm in the mid-Atlantic states, where the big emphasis will be along the beaches for wind and rain and tidal surge, and inland the threat of severe flooding. As you know, Terry, it has been an extraordinarily wet summer in the eastern part of the United States. People are almost growing immune to the flood watches and warnings that are issued, but this is the kind of situation where you have to take very... pay very close attention to what's going on. Rivers and streams are very high. People... it's a weekend. People are going to go camping. And there's a possibility of six to ten inches of rain being dumped on places where water levels are high. And in a worst-case scenario, that can lead to a disaster. So we are very concerned about that from the Carolinas, especially up in Eastern Pennsylvania, which has had one to two feet of rain over the past two months. Now, those beaches, we have a big holiday... not a holiday weekend, but a summer weekend coming up, and folks in the Carolina beaches and up the mid-Atlantic states were probably listening to other sources say, "well, it's just a tropical storm coming." This could indeed be a hurricane. And we're talking wind gusts perhaps to 80, 90 mile-an-hour on the Carolina beaches, and as high as 70 or 75 further north even into the mid-Atlantic states with this over the weekend.

TERENCE SMITH: What's the timing of this? It's already in Florida. What's the projection in terms of time as it goes on up?

JOE BASTARDI: Well, I think a second landfall will be made with hurricane conditions probably between noon and 3:00 tomorrow between Charleston and Cape Lookout. And then it's going to move rapidly north-northeastward. We'll probably find over Long Island, the center of the storm, or near New York City by Sunday at noontime. So it's a fast-moving storm. If you folks can remember Floyd a couple of years ago; the effects for the mid- and north- Atlantic states may be similar to Floyd. Not Isabel, though. We want to stress that. This is not the kind of storm that's coming in from Southeast and the mid-Atlantic states and taking off to the northwest. You remember the unique situation we had on the Chesapeake Bay: Water getting driven northwestward up the bay while heavy rainfall was draining into the Potomac and coming down. It led to the tremendous flooding. This is more the classic coastal runner that is moving north- northeastward up along the coast, maybe just offshore or just inland. And it's the kind of thing, it's a six- to hour-hour burst, but it comes hard and then it leaves.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay, Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather, thank you very much.

JOE BASTARDI: My pleasure, Terry.

TERENCE SMITH: Now, efforts on the ground in Florida. We're joined by lieutenant Governor Tony Jennings. Governor, thank you very much for joining us. Tell us what the situation is as we speak and as the hurricane, I guess, has made landfall in Florida.

LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS: Yes, it has. And, Terry, we're here at the emergency operation center that's located in Tallahassee Florida, which is not in any way in the path of the storm. But yes, it has hit; it has made landfall around the Sanibel, Captiva, Boca Grande area, for those who are familiar with southwest Florida. It is moving at about 140 miles per hour. It is a category-four, which has certainly increased over our expectation, and it is headed up through the state, through the central part of the state near Orlando, potentially coming out around the Volusia County, north of the Cape Canaveral for those of your viewers that would be familiar with the shots from Cape Canaveral, the missile shots.

TERENCE SMITH: Now, I know you have already carried out a very extensive mandatory evacuation. Any early reports of people being caught in the path of the storm?

LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS: Not at this time. And interestingly enough, of course, we were very focused on making sure that southwest Florida was evacuated. Probably upwards of over a million people did leave. We started early yesterday, even earlier than that with the special needs community and the elderly that perhaps were in nursing homes. We moved them out of the Tampa Bay area. Interestingly enough, as storms will do, the focus that we thought we were going to have in the Tampa Bay area changed, and it came in a little bit south of that and taking a different course. So obviously we've moved a lot of people that we may not have had to have moved, and yet without knowing, it was a precautionary measure. They've moved to central Florida, where the storm is now coming. But we've heard no information about any problems on the roads, and that was our major concern earlier today. We said "get off the roads. If you haven't moved by now, find shelter, find inland upwards of... from the coast."

TERENCE SMITH: And property damage? What are you looking at in terms of that?

LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS: You know, there has been some modeling earlier in the day. We haven't heard any factual other than anecdotal; well, a roof here or something there. We will be doing that tomorrow after the storm moves off. The first thing that will happen is we'll survey the area, the insurance companies will come in and do a run over the area and do a model there. Hopefully it will be minimal, but we do know it is coming into areas that are heavily populated, and so there is going to be damage. There is going to be a lot of power outages. We have areas in central Florida with lots of trees, so when those trees come down, roofs and cars and unprotected areas. We have a lot of mobile home communities, and obviously, they will be affected as well.

TERENCE SMITH: What are you telling people in the path of the storm, the path that still lies ahead across Florida, what are you telling them to do?

LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS: Well, of course, personal safety. Safety for our citizens and those who travel to Florida is of the utmost importance. We can fix buildings, we can fix roads, we can fix everything, but we can't do too well at replacing people. So personal safety is what is important to all of us. What we're telling them is to find a safe, secure location. If you are staying in your home, go to those interior locations away from windows in protected areas. If you've moved outside of your home, find a shelter. Get out of this weather. The storm will move quickly. And when it is over, we will be able to assess the damage and know how we're going to put people back in their homes quickly.

TERENCE SMITH: I expect that's advice that's going to apply to people further up the east coast as this storm goes on. Lieutenant Governor Toni Jennings, thank you very much for joining us.

LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS: Thank you so much.

FOCUS CAMPAIGN TRAIL

JIM LEHRER: Now Kwame Holman wraps up a very busy week in the presidential campaign.

KWAME HOLMAN: By plane, train, bus, and even helicopter, John Kerry and President Bush crossed the country this week in one of the busiest stretches yet this campaign season. The president began his push in Virginia on Monday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: There's a philosophical divide here in this campaign.

KWAME HOLMAN: While John Kerry already was traveling through the Southwest, stopping for a picturesque question-and-answer session with reporters at the Grand Canyon. Kerry responded to the president's challenge that he answer "yes" or "no" on whether he would have voted to authorize use of force in Iraq given the information available today.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have. I would have used that authority as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively.

KWAME HOLMAN: Tuesday in Florida, and teamed with former political rival Sen. John McCain, the president responded to Kerry.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Sen. Kerry now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we all believe were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power. I want to thank Sen. Kerry for clearing that up. (Cheers and applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Kerry was in Henderson, Nevada, criticizing the president for supporting plans to store the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: My message to Nevada is very simple: Yucca Mountain? Not on my watch -- will not happen. No!

KWAME HOLMAN: President Bush followed Kerry to the southwest on Wednesday, campaigning in Arizona and New Mexico before his own stop in Las Vegas. There the president picked up on Kerry's Yucca Mountain remarks.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Now, my opponent's trying to turn Yucca Mountain into a political poker chip. He says he's strongly against Yucca here in Nevada, but he voted for it several times. (Laughter and applause) And so did his running mate. My point to you is that if they're going to change, one day they may change again.

KWAME HOLMAN: The two running mates also were out campaigning. Yesterday in Dayton, Ohio, Vice President Cheney assailed John Kerry's statement that he would fight a "sensitive" war on terror in an effort to get other nations involved.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity.

KWAME HOLMAN: Today in Flint, Michigan, John Edwards accused Cheney of distorting Kerry's words and reminded the vice president that Kerry "spilled his blood" for the country during the Vietnam War. Kerry, too, was on the attack yesterday in Carson, California, zeroing in on the president's consideration of a national sales tax.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Thats going to hurt small businesses, its going to hurt jobs, and its going to hit the pocketbooks of those who need tax relief the most.

KWAME HOLMAN: Last night, President Bush was in nearby Santa Monica, attending a fundraiser with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. By today, the president had made it to Beaverton, Oregon, where he talked on stage with a group of small-business owners.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: When you reduce individual income taxes for SCorps and sole proprietorship, you are really saying we are going to stimulate the small business sector of America. It's paying off. I'm telling you it's paying off.

KWAME HOLMAN: Kerry was in Oregon as well, and at a neighborhood talk in Springfield, cited a newly released report that he says demonstrates the Bush tax cuts disproportionately benefit the rich.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Over the last four years, the burden of taxes has shifted from the wealthy to the middle class. The middle class is paying more taxes.

KWAME HOLMAN: After today, John Kerry will spend several days away from the campaign, while the president continues stumping through the weekend.

FOCUS SHIELDS & KRISTOL

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Kristol: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard. David Brooks is on vacation.

First in general terms, Mark, did you detect any movement in the presidential race this week? Is anything happening out there?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think if you read the numbers, Jim, the numbers are good for Kerry in places like Florida and Michigan and Pennsylvania, Ohio, those polls are very encouraging -- some daylight between him and the president. But what I found most fascinating this week was that at a time when Iraq is... remains a very, very dubious political proposition for the president, when the big majority or solid majorities of Americans say it wasn't worth it, he has decided to take John Kerry on directly on that issue. And it's a bold strategy. You could say it's one perhaps driven by necessity, but it is a bold strategy to make the case, look, I'm a man of principle and conviction says the Bush folks. And I'm decisive. Now you may question the decision, a lot of people do. But the other guy is indecisive and to make it almost into a character test between the two of them. I think that's dictated in part by the reality of the numbers but also the fact that at the Democratic Convention, that John Kerry did succeed in closing the national security gap, which has worked for Republicans over the years and the commander in chief gap that he has got a parity now with the president.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see it the same way, Bill, that this is what the president is up to, has been up to this week?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Yeah. I think the Bush White House thinks they had a good week and I rather agree. The last two national polls show Kerry up two points and Bush up two points, so a pretty even race. And they do feel like they're now on the offensive. They have challenged John Kerry on the issue that the president wants to go to the country on. Who will be the stronger commander in chief in the post-9/11 world? Who will be stronger in fighting the war on terror? Who has the character and consistency to lead us through the difficult times in Iraq and lead us out the other end and take on this global war on terror? I think -- the people Ive talked to in the Bush White House are in a much better mood today than they were a week ago.

JIM LEHRER: Is this flip-flop thing, of course, that has been an overreaching complaint about Kerry, that it applies... the president is trying to apply it specifically to the vote on going to war in the first place. Is that getting traction on Kerry, against him?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: I think so; I have been a little skeptical of it in the sense that I dont think people care much if he voted one way in 1987 and changed their mind in 1995. If there is a sense, though, that he is not strong in facing up to the fundamental threats facing the country, I think it could have an effect, and the president mentioned this Yucca Mountain issue, which is the nuclear waste --

JIM LEHRER: In Nevada.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Which basically everyone realizes has to be done and Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards voted for in the Senate and now Sen. Kerry has gone to Nevada and said, well, as president, Im not going to ship the waste to Yucca Mountain. I'm going to leave it in 103 different places around the country where it is much more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, et cetera, et cetera. The New York Times the Post so I don't think this is a terribly controversial thing. Kerry has gone to make a bid for Nevadas five electoral votes in Nevada. Needless to say, they don't want all the waste, nuclear waste in the country in Yucca Mountain even though there are scientific studies showing it is safe. It is a trivial issue in a sense except in Nevada. And maybe Kerry has made a smart move in going for Nevada's five electoral votes. But I wonder if that kind of thing, that the Bush campaign cant use pretty effectively to say this is a guy, Governor Bush ran for president in 2000 he had every incentive to get Nevadas electoral votes. He didn't say I'm not going to send the waste to Yucca Mountain. Sen. Kerry has pandered really to Nevada in this instance. And I wonder if that kind of thing wont have an effect.

JIM LEHRER: What about the taxes thing, Mark? We just ran a clip of Kerry today picking up on the CBO report, the Congressional Budget Office report, saying that the tax cuts benefited the wealthy more than the middle class. Is there traction in that issue for Kerry against the president?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I think there is not only traction; I think there is open field.

JIM LEHRER: Open field?

MARK SHIELDS: Open field. I really do. And I don't think Bill disagrees with me on this. The only test... there are only two tests for an economic policy, a tax policy in a democracy. One is does it work? Does it extend prosperity? And two is, is it just, is it fair? The Bush policy fails on both grounds. It's not producing jobs. Its 32,000 jobs is just abysmal after turning the corner, after three tax cuts, after he got everything he wanted from the Congress. And reality is it turns out it is not fair; that the people at the very top, the top 1 percent get $78,000 back this year. And the reality is, Jim, that it has gone disproportionately. Two-thirds of all the tax cuts have gone to the top 20 percent. And that hasn't worked, the trickle down just hasn't worked.

JIM LEHRER: As a matter of politics, how do you see it, Bill?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Theres a policy defense which I won't bore people with here... I mean, the top 20 percent also pay more than two-thirds of the income tax. It's hard for them not to get that back on the tax cut. No, I think Republicans I've talked to are happy that we've had a debate over the war on terror and the war in Iraq over the last week and over Sen. Kerry's alleged flip-flops and not on economic policy. Remember a week ago last Friday, David Brooks was here with you. What was headlines? Very bad job creation, gas prices at the pump heading back up to $2 and a sense that the economy may be stalling out. The Bush campaign managed to have this last week, as we've just been discussing, focus more on the war than on the economy. So whatever the merits on the economy, I think it has been a political mistake by Sen. Kerry not to be able to focus in on that issue and really hammer the president on it.

MARK SHIELDS: Yeah, I mean, I just think it's there. I mean, this is one that is made to order for John Edwards. If there is anybody, this is the time....

JIM LEHRER: The two Americas...

MARK SHIELDS: Youd want to have John Edwards on every talk show, youd want to have him on -- from Larry King to DanceParty. I mean just talking about....

JIM LEHRER: Dance Party?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: A favorite of Mark's fifty or sixty years ago. The sound bite you had, you just showed

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: John Edwards -- theyve fallen for the bait again. John Edwards is attacking Dick Cheney because he didn't fight in Vietnam. Are we seriously now going to have a little Vietnam -- I'm not sure that's a good issue for Sen. Kerry, either, for that matter. I think it is a mistake to go for that bait with the Kerry campaign.

MARK SHIELDS: I disagree with you. I disagree with you. I think the one mistake... I agree with you when John Kerry was asked would you have voted for it, still voted for it, and went to the president's bait and said yes I would. Even J. Rockefeller, vice chairman -- co-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said, look, if I had the information, I wouldnt have voted to give the president that authority.

JIM LEHRER: On weapons of mass destruction.

MARK SHIELDS: On weapons of mass destruction, and John Kerry has a very nuanced answer. Im giving him the authority to put together a coalition and so forth. But he was -- he was very much on the defensive... but I really think I mean, the irony is, as my friend John Carr puts it, is that Bush and Kerry seem to be in total agreement on Iraq and total disagreement about Vietnam. I mean, I don't think... I don't want to go there if Im -- wanted George Bush to look for the records of my dental visits to Alabama.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Major story at the beginning of the week, Bill, of course was the nomination of Porter Goss to be the new head of the CIA. What are the politics of that after a few days? How do they look to you?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: I think it looks good for Bush. He can't be accused of leaving the CIA directorship vacant. I think Goss will be confirmed by the Senate; I suspect Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards will vote to confirm Porter Goss as CIA director in the middle of September. You know, they can be critical of Bush's management of the war on terror but, on the other hand, there they are confirming his new CIA director. So I think Bush Bush is president; he has a lot of disadvantages being president. You can blame him for everything that happens... one bad job creation number and suddenly it's Bush's fault. But there are advantages to being president. One advantage is that when you're a challenger, when youre the candidate, you can talk about a lot of things; when youre president, you can do things. And here he did something.

JIM LEHRER: The Democrats in a bind on this?

MARK SHIELDS: I think they are. I think the administration wanted to change the subject on the 9/11 Commission, but the lack of preparation and all that that involved and the failed intelligence, and this is the way of changing that subject. We are now... we don't have to... we had Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld both making critical assessments and knocking the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. This is a nice way of postponing that, Jim. Now the focus becomes Porter Goss and throwing down the challenge to the Democrats that just not unlike 2002, you recall when the Homeland Security Department was being created and putting in the poison pill that there be no union contracts for the workers and making Democrats oh, theyre not real patriots. I think Bills right theyre not going to go for the bait but I think the hearings will be interesting because it looks like frankly Porter Goss is an able guy and backed by both Bill Nelson and Bob Graham, two Democratic senators from Florida. It kind of switched. He sort of went from being a cheerleader for the CIA, where....

JIM LEHRER: Where he used to work.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: Worked there for eight years --

MARK SHIELDS: Once it looked like there was a job opening, he became a vocal critic. It is one thing to criticize candidate Kerry as he has done. How is going to he work for President Kerry in January if that's the eventuality?

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. There was some suggestion even on this program, the night it was... the night the nomination was announced by a former CIA man and others that just the fact that Porter Goss being a Republican member of Congress politicizes this situation immediately.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: I don't know how it could get much more politicized than it has been given the last couple of years. Look, I myself might prefer someone who might be more of a reformer at the CIA, but maybe Goss will turn out to be a reformer. But he is a decent person; I think he will be supported, as Mark says, by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. So I dont know that that charge really goes anywhere.

JIM LEHRER: Do you accept the premise, though, that most people suggest that if Kerry wins, Goss is out?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Yeah.

JIM LEHRER: So ipso facto, it's a political appointment.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Yes, but I think that's appropriate, incidentally. Aside from the 9/11 Commissions recommendations, which I don't agree with entirely, that the guy be a cabinet member would suggest to me that of course the new president, and any new president is going to able to support, to announce, to nominate a new director of central intelligence or national intelligence if that's what it becomes. But look, I think it is good for Bush politically to look as if hes confident that hes going to be president for another four years. He is governing the country. He wants Porter Goss there to help him. He is not worried about losing the election in November. That's the impression thats conveyed I think.

MARK SHIELDS: I dont know if thats the impression -- if were talking about perceptions rather than reality, I think Acting Director McLaughlin, by most lights and most sources, is fully competent on handling the job for the next three months and that somehow there isn't a vacancy that has to be filled by Porter Goss overnight. I think its an obvious political move but I think its one that worked for the president.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you both very much, Bill, delighted to have you sit in for David, and well see you next week here as well.

FINALLY A TASTE FOR LOVE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, remembering Julia Child, and to Margaret Warner.

JULIA CHILD: Welcome to The French Chef. I'm Julia Child. Today, we're going to do breast of chicken in the French manner.

MARGARET WARNER: She was the debonair on-air cook who taught Americans that classic French cuisine was not only delicious, but not the slightest bit intimidating to make. Her show, The French Chef, debuted on public television in 1963 and became the longest- running cooking series ever. At 6'2", Julia Child was an imposing figure in the kitchen, always in control, but never pretentious about her art.

JULIA CHILD: Then you taste it to see if it has enough salt and pepper in. Very good. It's really one of the nicest ways of making rice, and you can see it isn't difficult at all.

MARGARET WARNER: Her lilting voice made her sound British, but in fact, she was born in Pasadena in 1912. She'd never cooked at all until she married at the age of 34, but she trained at the Cordon Bleu in Paris while her husband worked at the U.S. Embassy there. Her kitchen was a simple, functional workspace. There she instructed viewers on how to properly wield a rolling pin, a cleaver, a mallet, even a blowtorch, and this classic chef was a champion of such modern inventions as the food processor.

JULIA CHILD: You don't want to leave it on. You want to pulse it.

MARGARET WARNER: Always, she said, use the freshest ingredients. And don't shy away from butter or fat.

JULIA CHILD: You've got to have enough fat, 20 percent to 25 percent, because the fat makes for juiciness and also adds to the meat flavor. Tastes pretty good to me.

MARGARET WARNER: The first of her ten books, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," became and remained a classic.

JULIA CHILD: I'm not going to go into this onion peeling because we've done it so much.

MARGARET WARNER: Her energy and good humor made her shows seemed unscripted. One of her trademark rules was that in the privacy of your own kitchen there's no disaster that can't be remedied.

MAN: Mine's not going to come off.

JULIA CHILD: Well, we have a whole lot. We have a whole lot more anyway.

MAN ( Laughs )

JULIA CHILD: Throw it on the floor.

MARGARET WARNER: By the 1970s, Child was such a recognizable figure that she was spoofed on Saturday Night Live.

ACTOR: (Saturday Night Live) Welcome. I'm Julia Child and today we're going to make a holiday feast or les fetes d'holidaes.

JULIA CHILD: Welcome to my house. What fun we're going to have.

MARGARET WARNER: She continued hosting TV cooking shows until recently. But two years ago, at the age of 90, she let her kitchen be disassembled and reinstalled at the Smithsonian, where it remains on exhibit. Julia Child died in California today, two days shy of her 92nd birthday.

JULIA CHILD: So that's all for today on The French Chef. This is Julia Child. Bon appetit.

MARGARET WARNER: And for more on Julia Child, her life and her influence, we turn to Jacques Pepin, an acclaimed French chef, food columnist and host of award-winning TV cooking shows of his own. Lifelong friends, he and child collaborated in the 1990s on a number of books and cooking shows, including the PBS series and book "Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home."

Welcome Jacques Pepin. Thanks for being with us.

JACQUES PEPIN: Thank you for having me.

MARGARET WARNER: In the world of great chefs and great cooks, what made Julia Childs special?

JACQUES PEPIN: Her character. I mean her physical appearance, her voice, but more than anything else, her kindness, you know, because people could feel through that little screen how genuine and how true she was. There was no two Julias the one on television and the one in real life; she was just the way she was on television: Unpretentious, ready to help, ready to have fun and interested in great food but simple food to be partaken with friends, and to be shared with family, friends with a glass of wine. That was her.

MARGARET WARNER: All part of the picture. I read today that you actually met her or at least her work before she ever went on television. You were already an acclaim French chef in New York and you got the manuscript of her cookbook?

JACQUES PEPIN: Well actually through Helen McCullough, Helene McCullough was the food editor of McCall's and was quite known at that time in the food world. She died in 1976. And I came here at the end of 1959 and by the end of 1960, I knew James Ville, Julia and Craig through Helen who was kind of my surrogate mother.

MARGARET WARNER: Well you

JACQUES PEPIN: The food world was much smaller at that point. I remember in 1961, yes, Julia sent a manuscript of mastering the art of French cooking to Helen who showed it to me and yes, absolutely.

MARGARET WARNER: But you were quoted as saying that it was amazing, what made it amazing?

JACQUES PEPIN: What was amazing, I was kind of jealous of it because this is the type of book that I would have wanted to do, you know, explaining and showing how to demystify French cooking to a certain extent in a simpler way and a very American very enthusiastic way which is what Julia did. We always joke that we started cooking together because she started cooking at the Cordon Bleu in Paris in his 1949 and entered apprenticeship in 1939 when I was 13 years old. So we started together and many times people also joke on the fact that when we were cooking together in the series, she ended up being more French than I was, I mean, being very strict about the recipe, the way it was to be done. So she liked the kind of discipline, the kind of stricture, the kind of French cuisine, and this is what she liked and what she cooked until the end of her life.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, I'm going to show a clip of the show in a minute, the one you did together but first remind us now when she started her own show in 1963 what American cooking was like for most Americans.

JACQUES PEPIN: Oh, my God. At the supermarket, you know, there were only two types of salad, there was iceberg and romaine. There was no leak; there was no shallot; none of the vegetables. To get mushroom, I remember going to the market and they would say aisle five, canned mushrooms. You had to go to a specialty store at that time in New York to get just regular white button mushrooms. It was another world.

MARGARET WARNER: Tuna casserole was the classic.

JACQUES PEPIN: Right.

MARGARET WARNER: Did she see herself as being on a mission to change American taste or to educate American taste? Or was she just having fun?

JACQUES PEPIN: Yeah, she was having fun but mostly Julia, through fun, wanted to teach. She was a very serious teacher. But of course the way her personality was, she was funny without wanting to be funny. She projected well her voice and all that makes her the ideal teacher that people could relate to. But she was not on a mission. Her mission was to enjoy life, to cook with friends, to share food with friends was very important. And when we cooked together certainly, she always insists on the best quality ingredients. Certainly the taste was more important than the appearance, you know, in place and the sharing with friends was maybe the most important of all.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, we do have a short clip of your show together which we'd like to show right now and I want to ask you about.

JACQUES PEPIN: I will cook mine in the oven.

JULIA CHILD: In the oven?

JACQUES PEPIN: Yes.

JULIA CHILD: I'm going to finish mine in the oven so I hope you leave me a little bit of room.

JACQUES PEPIN: There will be some room.

JULIA CHILD: I don't need too much.

JACQUES PEPIN: I'm putting a piece of gruyere here.

JULIA CHILD: Really nice. A really nice piece of ham.

JACQUES PEPIN: That ham really look good. Chicken, when you have chicken leftovers, its a good way of using it. Cook chicken. I like to put a bit of Tabasco on mine.

JULIA CHILD: You're great one for hot stuff.

JACQUES PEPIN: Hot stuff, yes. I like herbs, you know.

MARGARET WARNER: How was your approach different? I've heard from friends who watched it a lot that you had a running debate about using butter and cream and cheese, for instance.

JACQUES PEPIN: Well, not really, you know. Too much is probably being made of the small differences that we had. For example, Julia liked white pepper and I liked black pepper. I use salt she wanted regular salt; you know, small details. But she loved to argue and see we didn't have any recipes in that series which is quite unusual. We had an idea what we would cook. So it was like being with a friend or with a spouse and start, you know, arguing

MARGARET WARNER: Improvising.

JACQUES PEPIN: -- and sharing a glass of wine and cooking together. But we could add more or less because we didn't have any recipes. We had a great time in the kitchen.

MARGARET WARNER: So what would you say is her legacy?

JACQUES PEPIN: Her legacy is to have demystified, as I've said, French cuisine as well as bring a lot of press pleasure and brightness into the kitchen. I mean our lives will be duller because of Julia being gone, you know, because she was so great at making people happy and bringing happiness in your kitchen.

MARGARET WARNER: She also showed, did she not, a whole world or a whole generation of women that women could be great chefs?

JACQUES PEPIN: Absolutely. That was very important. Remember in the '60s when she started, first it was one of the first cooks on television. In addition, she was a woman so it did a great deal I think for the woman chef who, at the time there was not that many females in the professional world of cooking. And which now there is a lot and conversely, actually, the home cook, there was not that many men who would go into the kitchen. It was domain of the woman. But now you had that type of crisscrossing. A lot of home cooks are male; a lot of professional cooks are female now. So she was very good at that. Certainly we all should be thankful for that.

MARGARET WARNER: So if Julia Childs materialized at your door tonight and offered to make you dinner, your favorite dinner, what would you have her make?

JACQUES PEPIN: She would not. She would tell me, what are you cooking tonight? Each time I went to her house -- I have been teaching at Boston University for 23 years and when I would go to her house two or three times a year, we cooked together and the first thing she said, what do you want to cook, whether I went there for breakfast, lunch or dinner, I always cooked at her house. It was a shared experiment and her husband would do drink. We would cook together, eat together, wed share food and she would enjoy a glass of burgundy and I would have a glass of Bordeaux. She was the anti-snub, you know, if anyone -- eat anything. She was great to be with.

MARGARET WARNER: Jacques Pepin, it has been great being with you. Thank you.

JACQUES PEPIN: Thank you very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: Hurricane Charley struck the west coast of Florida with torrential rain and 145-mile- per-hour winds. U.S. forces suspended their offensive in Najaf, Iraq, while talks were held to end the nine days of fighting there, and oil prices rose a dollar to a record high of more than $46 a barrel.

JIM LEHRER: And again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 11 more.

JIM LEHRER: A small piece of in- house news before we go. The commission on presidential debates today announced the moderators for their four fall debates. And they include Gwen Ifill and me. Gwen will do the vice- presidential debate in Cleveland on Oct. 5. I will do the first presidential debate in Miami Sept. 30. Charles Gibson of ABC News and Bob Schiefer of CBS News with handle the other two. A reminder: Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.