The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER:Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the news of this day; then, a Newsmaker interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; a media unit report on the selling of Social Security reform; the analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; and a Clarence Page essay on what it means to be a man.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. economy added 262,000 jobs in February. That was twice the number added in January, and the most in four months. The U.S. Labor Department reported the figures today. But it said the overall unemployment rate went up 0.2 percent to 5.4 percent. That's because more people moved back into the job market. On Wall Street, the employment report lifted stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 107 points to close at 10,940, its highest close since June of 2001. The NASDAQ rose 12 points to close at 2070. For the week, the Dow gained about 1 percent. The NASDAQ rose 0.3 percent. Syrian officials said today President Assad is ready to order a troop pull-back in Lebanon. The deputy foreign minister said Assad would likely make the announcement tomorrow to his parliament. The troops would re-deploy into the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, but they would not leave the country. In response, President Bush insisted on a complete pull-out before Lebanon holds elections in May. He spoke in Westfield, New Jersey.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We want that democracy in Lebanon to succeed and we know it cannot succeed so long as she is occupied by a foreign power. And that power is Syria. There's no half measures involved and the United States and France and others say withdraw, we mean complete withdrawal, no half-hearted measures.

JIM LEHRER: Separately today, Secretary of State Rice said Syria must also withdraw its intelligence agents. She told the NewsHour they "cast a long shadow" and intimidate Lebanese voters. We'll have that interview in its entirety right after this News Summary. Kidnappers in Iraq freed an Italian journalist today after holding her a month, but she was then wounded later by U.S. troops. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said the troops shot at the journalist's car near Baghdad. She was hit in the shoulder. An Italian intelligence officer was killed. The U.S. Military said the vehicle ignored repeated signals to stop at a checkpoint. The soldiers then fired at the engine block. Al-Qaida's agents in Iraq warned today they're still strong. In a statement, the group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pointed to a series of car bombings this week. The worst, in Hilla, killed at least 125 people. The statement called the attacks "a response to infidel claims that the holy fighters are weaker and that their attacks have abated." Today, thousands of people took to the streets of Hilla to protest Monday's bombing. They demanded revenge on those behind it. Two leading members quit the main Shiite political alliance in Iraq today. They complained talks with Kurds were deadlocked more than a month after the elections. The groups have failed to reach agreement on forming a coalition government. Pentagon officials said today the rebuilding work in Iraq has gained momentum since the elections. But, they warned, the worst is not yet over. They spoke in a satellite hookup from Baghdad.

CHARLES HESS: My suspicion is that the insurgents will regroup and try and figure out other ways to get at the heart of the infrastructure and get at the heart of the democratic process that the Iraqis are trying to institute. But for right now, progress can be made and the environment is very conducive to doing work.

JIM LEHRER: Congress approved more than $18 billion in reconstruction aid in November of 2003. The U.S. officials said today they've now spent about $3.6 billion. Much of the money has gone to improve security for workers and projects. Back in this country, President Bush nominated Stephen Johnson today to run the environmental Protection Agency. He's been acting administrator since Michael Leavitt left to become Health and Human Services secretary in January. If confirmed by the Senate, Johnson would be the first professional scientist to run the EPA. Martha Stewart was released from prison today. She served five months at a federal women's facility in West Virginia. She left there shortly after midnight and then flew on a private jet to her estate in Bedford, New York. Later, she told reporters, "it feels great" to be free again. She'll spend the next five months under house arrest but will also return to work. Stewart was convicted last march of lying about a stock deal. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: Secretary of State Rice; the Social Security pitch; Shields and Brooks; and a Clarence Page essay.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: And to our Newsmaker interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I spoke with her at the State Department this morning.

JIM LEHRER: Madame Secretary, welcome.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Thank you. It's nice to be with you.

JIM LEHRER: Are you satisfied with Syria's reaction to calls for them to withdraw their troops from Lebanon?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The Syrians have not yet withdrawn their troops from Lebanon, and the international community will not be satisfied until Syria has done that. There is a United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and by France. There are now calls from important Arab countries like Saudi Arabia for Syria to withdraw. The Lebanese people, perhaps most importantly, have said that the Syrians should withdraw because the Lebanese people are demonstrating that they want to be able to carry out their political aspirations without foreign interference, and Syria should heed that call.

JIM LEHRER: President Assad, as I'm sure you know, has announced that he's going to address his parliament tomorrow and the expectation is that he's going to make an announcement that there is going to be a partial withdrawal and a redeployment of the rest of the Syrian troops near the Syrian border. Is that good enough?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Resolution 1559 says withdraw your troops. It is also the case, Jim, that they need to withdraw their security personnel because Syrian security personnel, their intelligence services, cast a long shadow over Lebanon, and it is going to be very difficult for the Lebanese people to exercise their franchise freely in the upcoming elections with Syrian personnel still there.

And so the Syrians need to withdraw their troops, they need to withdraw their security personnel, and they simply need to realize that they don't have any support in the international system any longer to maintain their presence there.

JIM LEHRER: What do these security personnel do? You're talking about intelligence officers, right? What do they do?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Obviously, there are people there who are there, shall we say, not transparently, who are -- who interfere in Lebanese affairs, who probably cast a kind of chill over Lebanese affairs. We've seen this before when countries interfere in the affairs of others and do it surreptitiously, it's not a good thing, and the Syrians should withdraw that personnel as well.

JIM LEHRER: Madame Secretary, would any of this be happening if former Prime Minister Hariri had not been assassinated?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, it's difficult to say, but certainly the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri, the brutal assassination of this man, who stood for tolerance, who was a leader of the opposition, who was clearly willing to challenge Syrian power in Lebanon, was a spark that I believe really lit the desires of the Lebanese people, which had been there. They've been underneath. Perhaps there was some fear of expressing them, but now people are expressing them. And so, clearly, this had an effect.

JIM LEHRER: Many people believe Syria was responsible for assassination of Mr. Hariri. What do you believe?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We don't know whether the Syrians were somehow directly responsible for the Hariri assassination and we've never made such a charge. But the conditions that Syria has created in Lebanon with their presence there, with their efforts to destabilize, with their efforts to control the course of Lebanese affairs on a daily, hourly basis, has certainly created the circumstances in which the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri took place; and therefore, Syria needs to change its behavior, it needs to recognize that the time is up, that people are no longer willing to tolerate Syrian influence and Syrian forces there.

JIM LEHRER: The Syrian Ambassador to the United States was on our program a couple of nights ago, and he said that it's a terrible mistake for the United States to view Syria as an enemy. Is he right?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The United States views Syria as a problem in the Middle East, but the United States isn't the issue here. The Syrians have tried to make this an issue between the United States and Syria; it is clearly not.

When the Syrians used their territory or allow their territory to be used for Palestinian Islamic Jihad to plot and plan a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, that is clearly aimed right at the peace process and aimed at the aspirations therefore of the Palestinian people, the Syrians are in the way of Palestinian aspirations.

When the Syrians allow their territory to be used by insurgents, former regime elements of the old Saddam Hussein regime, to attack Iraqis who are trying to have a better future in Iraq, the Syrians are frustrating the aspirations of the Iraqi people.

When the Syrians have their forces and their security personnel in Lebanon and create conditions in which a respected former prime minister is assassinated, they are frustrating the aspirations of the Lebanese people who are in the streets in Beirut to say the Syrians must go home.

So the Syrians should not try and change the subject that this is somehow between the United States and Syria. This is evidence, clear evidence that Syria is now out of step with the region. It is a problem not just for the region, but for these people in Lebanon, in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories who are trying to find their way to a better future.

JIM LEHRER: Everything that you just said about Syria, have you communicated that directly to the Syrian Government?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We have communicated to the Syrian Government for so long, so many times, that they needed, for instance, to stop interfering in the affairs of the Iraqis, that, as the Iraqis themselves have said, that they needed to stop supporting from their territory former regime elements of the -- the worst elements of the old Baathist Party, who are trying to reestablish Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Iraq.

The Syrians have been told and told and told. I would remind people that not too long before he left, Deputy Secretary Armitage was there with a direct message to the Syrians. Prior to that, Secretary Powell had been there with a direct message to the Syrians. And every time, the Syrians did essentially nothing. They did as little as they could do, not as much as they could do.

But the Syrians now need to recognize that this is not a problem of the United States. It's obviously a problem with the Saudis. It's a problem with the French. It's a problem with the UN Security Council. It's time for the Syrians to change their behavior.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see any sign that they're going to?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We will see. I would hope thatthey recognize fully their isolation at this point. The United States and others have made common cause with now the Lebanese people because this really is, Jim, about the Lebanese people. We are seeing in the Middle East that people are losing their fear of expressing themselves, of expressing their desire for the same freedoms or the same human dignity that we all enjoy, those of us who happen to have been lucky enough to been born on the right side of freedom's divide, and we're seeing the people losing their fear of expressing themselves.

The Lebanese people are now in the streets. The Iraqi people went to the polls and voted, despite the threats and intimidation of terrorists. The Palestinian people voted for a man who says that it's time to end the armed Intifada and make peace with Israel so that two states -- Palestine and Israel -- can live side by side in peace.

The Middle East is changing. And those states that don't recognize that the Middle East is changing, and indeed try to halt that change -- states like Syria or Iran -- need now to be, by the international community, isolated and condemned for that.

JIM LEHRER: David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post, quoted a Lebanese leader the other day in his column as saying that what is going on in the Middle East that you just describe is comparable to the falling of the Berlin Wall. Do you see it as dramatically important as that?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I was around for the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was here in Washington, on the National Security Council staff. And it certainly has a feel of people gaining a sense of their own power to change things -- a sense of their own ability to chart a different course despite what just months ago had seemed to be a fairly implacable status quo.

But it's also important to recognize that there is hard work ahead -- that this will not necessarily unfold easily. There are regimes that will try and frustrate these opportunities that are there for the people of the Middle East. They have a hard road ahead because democracy, while it is desirable, is never easy.

And what the international community needs to do -- and I have a sense is doing -- is to come alongside these people now who are feeling their sense of power to change events and to say to them, "We stand with you in the changes that you're trying to make."

There was so much talk before about whether, when the president talked about the spread of freedom and liberty, this was somehow going to be America imposing its will, imposing democracy. You don't have to impose democracy. You impose tyranny. And you're seeing people responding not just to the president's words -- although when the American president says things, it matters -- but responding to what they see as changed circumstances in which they may be able to chart a different kind of future. And as hard as it's going to be, the international community now needs to be completely united behind that.

JIM LEHRER: I'm sure you've noticed, too, that people have said it's very important that, at a time like this, that the United States not get into a "gloating" mode and not to be too far out in front of the people on the ground. Do you agree with that?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I agree completely that this is -- the locus of this is the indigenous sense of empowerment that we are seeing in so many places in the Middle East. We will need to -- the United States will need to continue to speak up for the regimes in the area, for the governments in the area, to be responsive to this new sense of empowerment of people. The United States, along with our European and other democratic allies, will need to provide mechanisms and forums for people to express themselves.

For instance, the Broader Middle East and North African Initiative has a Forum for the Future which met recently in Rabat. The idea behind the Forum for the Future is that civil society groups from the Middle East can be in contact and meet with civil society groups and women's groups and business groups from the democracies. We can sponsor those kinds of programs. We can help with resources for democracy training and all of that.

But this is not America's revolution. This is not America's sense of empowerment. In order for this to work, it has to be the sense of empowerment and change from the people of the region. And that is what we are starting to sense now, and of course there is no need for triumphalism because -- or no desire for it, because if there's a triumph here it's not America's triumph; it's the triumph of the human spirit; it's the triumph of human will to live in freedom.

JIM LEHRER: You mentioned Iran. Where do things stand today as to whether or not the United States is going to join the Europeans in negotiating with Iran about their nuclear program?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The president, when he was in Europe, and then my follow-on trips, we've had very good discussions with the European-3 and indeed others about how to deal with the problem of an Iran that will -- is not transparent about what it is doing with its nuclear programs. The President listened very carefully and now is examining with his foreign policy advisors how we might we be able to support the European-3 in their diplomacy.

This is not a matter, Jim, of the United States giving concessions to Iran. This is a matter of recognizing that the European-3 diplomacy needs to work, that the Iranians need to accept the path that is being presented to them by the Europeans and that we should try and support -- we've said all along that we support the diplomacy. We're looking now at how we might be able more actively to support that cause.

JIM LEHRER: But no decision has been made?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: No, no decision has been made and we're continuing to talk to our European friends. I talked to a couple of the foreign ministers just an hour or so ago and we're going to continue to do this because what we're trying to do is to forge a common direction in the policy toward Iran so that everybody understands clearly that there is unity of purpose and message that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, that Iran can -- must use every opportunity to be unambiguous about its activities, that it needs to give confidence to the international system that it is not trying to get a nuclear weapon under cover of civilian of nuclear power. And so far, Iran has not passed that test.

JIM LEHRER: And the Europeans want the United States to participate in offering incentives of some kind to Iran; in other words, if you will do all these things you just outlined, we -- the United States and Europe -- will do the following things?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I would think of it more that the Europeans are trying to give the Iranians reasons --

JIM LEHRER: Economic things?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: There are a number of things that the Europeans are considering. But they're trying to give them reason to do what the Iranians really ought to do, which is to show the world that they're prepared to live up to their international obligations.

Now, what we're considering is: How can we support that? Are there ways that we need to be responsive so that the Iranians -- so that the Europeans can demonstrate a different path to the Iranians?

But we need to keep the focus not on what Europe needs to give, not on what the United States needs to do with the Europeans, but on what the Iranians need to do. Again, there's a tendency with these countries to try to change the subject. What can Iran get? What should Iran get? Well, the international community is saying pretty clearly to the Iranians, "You need to show the world that you're serious about a message to the world that you don't intend to try and build a nuclear weapon." And so far, the Iranians just haven't been able to do that.

JIM LEHRER: Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have said in varying forms of words that Israel might want to take military action against Iran if it, in fact, does have a nuclear weapon or develops a nuclear weapon or is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and that they essentially said that should be expected. How should that be read?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, it should be read as a statement of how destabilizing it could be for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, I think, and nothing more than that. And everybody understands fully that it would be destabilizing for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

And by the way, the nuclear program gets a lot of attention and, of course, it is an immediate concern. But I sensed in Europe concern about other aspects of Iranian behavior as well when, at a time when we were at a conference called "Supporting the Palestinian Authority" in London, a very fine conference that Prime Minister Blair organized so that we can take advantage of this moment for, perhaps, real progress in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, to have the Iranians continue to support terrorist rejectionist groups is something that the international community has to be worried about.

When you think about an Iran that, according to the Iraqis, is interfering in Iraq's affairs, that is something -- the Iranians should not interfere in the affairs of their neighbors.

And finally, when you look at where the Middle East is going, when you look at all these signs that people want to be empowered toward freedom, the Iranians are going in the opposite direction with a population that has clearly demonstrated that it wants a democratic future. You have an unelected few of mullahs who hold the future and the fate of their people in their hands and in the most limited numbers possible.

JIM LEHRER: But it's fair to say, based on what particularly the President has said more recently that no matter what happens with the Europeans, no matter what the incentive situation turns out to be, and if it works or doesn't work, the military option remains on the table; correct?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The President always keeps all options on the table. But he also emphasized that this is a time to think about the diplomacy, that we have a number of options available to us that are diplomatic options. We've made a lot of progress, Jim, over the last year or so in seeing an international community that's coming together around several very important principles.

You know that we do not believe that there's any reason that the Iranians need to go to nuclear power, given their significant energy reserves. But, for instance, when they recently did sign a cooperation agreement with the Russians, it included a number of -- or so the Russians say, we haven't gotten the details -- but it apparently included a number of anti-proliferation measures like the Russians' insistence that there would be an additional protocol with verification measures, that there would be a fuel take-back so that if Russia is providing the fuel, the Iranians cannot keep the fuel, which somewhat diminishes proliferation risk. You see the EU-3 talking to the Iranians about not enriching and not reprocessing.

People are coming together around a set of steps that the Iranians must take if they are going to increase confidence or if they are going to give any confidence to the international community that they intend to live up to their obligations.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, Madame Secretary, a personal question. It appears, just to outsiders watching you, that you enjoy being Secretary of State of the United States. Is that true?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I do enjoy it. It is a great job at a great time. This is a wonderful time for those of us who care about the spread of freedom and liberty and it's a great time for the Euro-Atlantic alliance and for other democratic friends --

JIM LEHRER: Is that in better shape now? Do you think that's in better --

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I think the Euro-Atlantic alliance is in great shape. We were joking with some of us saying -- in fact, some people repeated it publicly -- that we can stop talking about what is the health of the Euro-Atlantic alliance and we can start putting it to work for great causes. And in fact, because this is an alliance that has been so successful, the most successful alliance in history, an alliance that held together despite the threat of a huge super power with 30,000 nuclear weapons and 5 million men under arms --

JIM LEHRER: The Soviet Union, correct?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The Soviet Union -- held together to see a Europe whole and free and at peace, and now to see the members of that alliance speaking out in support of people to whom those freedoms have long been denied, to see people coming to understand that there is a possibility of a different kind of Middle East than we've all become accustomed to over the last 60 years --

JIM LEHRER: The Iraq breach has been --

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: -- is very exciting.

JIM LEHRER: The Iraq breach has been healed?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: People have moved on. We know that there were differences. Of course, there were differences about Iraq. But there is no difference on the following point, which is that Iraq must be stable; Iraqis deserve the support of the international community, given the risk that they have now demonstrated that they are willing to take; and that the world is going to be a much better place with Saddam Hussein gone; and with an Iraq in the middle of the Arab world that we now see is demonstrating to the Middle East and more broadly that people really do desire freedom, that it is a universal aspiration.

And if you take that in the context of what is happening in other parts of the Middle East, if you take that in the context of the beginnings of a democratic Palestinian state, if you take that in the context of people in the streets of Lebanon who have lost their fear of the Syrians, and on and on and on, this great alliance may say that its best days are still ahead of it.

JIM LEHRER: Madame Secretary, thank you very much.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Thank you.

SERIES - SALES PITCH

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Selling Social Security reform, Shields and Brooks, and a Clarence Page essay. President Bush was back on the road today, pushing his Social Security plan. Media correspondent Terence Smith has our story, part of our continuing coverage of the debate over changing the current system.

TERENCE SMITH: If George W. Bush's barnstorming for his Social Security initiative --

SPOKESMAN: We're with you, man.

TERENCE SMITH: -- Has the look of a political campaign...

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: It's nice to be in a part of the world where the cowboy hats outnumber the ties. (Laughter)

TERENCE SMITH: --.It's no accident.

SPOKESMAN: Folks, please stay in a single file line. Don't bunch up on us. Have your identification ready and your tickets please.

TERENCE SMITH: The president's road show is using the same techniques that were successful in his reelection bid...

WOMAN: I like the "love you, W."

WOMAN: And one of the "don't mess with W." ( Laughter )

TERENCE SMITH: ...Carefully choreographed events in front of handpicked, sympathetic, largely Republican audiences...

SPOKESPERSON: ...For the president's Social Security agenda.

TERENCE SMITH: ...There by invitation only.

SPOKESPERSON: We got an email the other night from the head of North Carolina College Republicans.

MAN: Just wanted to come and support President Bush. We were lucky enough to get tickets.

TERENCE SMITH: The object is to play, not to the national press, but to the local media, stick to a central theme, hammer away.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I like the idea of having an account where people say, "I own this."

DAVID GERGEN: This is the most sophisticated White House on communications that I think we have ever seen.

TERENCE SMITH: David Gergen is director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of government. He previously served as a White House advisor to four different presidents.

DAVID GERGEN: They have taken many elements of what Reagan did and brought them to an additional level of sophistication, certainly a discipline.

TERENCE SMITH: The White House declined to discuss its communications strategy, but the Social Security events have the same carefully coordinated look, from the patriotic music... (band playing ...to the banners, to the familiar phrases, used this morning in New Jersey.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I believe in order to make the system work better for younger workers, they ought to be able... be allowed to, at their choice, to take some of their own money and set it aside in a personal savings account.

DAVID GERGEN: There are code words that they have introduced into this campaign on Social Security, making sure it's not called private account, but called a personal retirement account. And they are using all of the political magic that they used in the campaign.

TERENCE SMITH: Republican leaders insist upon the term "personal accounts" as opposed to "private accounts," because the word "private" doesn't test well in focus groups. They believe it suggests the privatization of Social Security. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous signature slogan "strengthening Social Security" has its own implicit message. It's on the signs, on the White House web site, in the White House press secretary's briefings --

SPOKESMAN: We've expressed our views and our principles for moving forward to strengthen Social Security.

TERENCE SMITH: ...And in advertisements by lobby groups that are supportive of the president.

SPOKESPERSON: Call Congress now.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: All of it is very much tested through the funnels that the Republican Party uses, and they are very coordinated.

TERENCE SMITH: Alexis Simendinger covers the Bush White House for National Journal.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: The members of his party get talking points every day. They have meetings and strategy sessions. They allmeet together in Congress with White House representatives as well as those advocates who are out there with private groups that are privately funded but have sprung up to be supportive of personal accounts, private accounts.

TERENCE SMITH: The Treasury Department just announced the formation of a Social Security war room to help coordinate the Social Security effort but thus far, the most powerful weapon remains the presidential road trip.

DAVID GERGEN: I think that these -- these sort of staged events do give him one advantage

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes, ma'am?

SPOKESPERSON: Will this help me when I grow up? (Laughter)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: That's a loaded question. (Laughter) Yes.

DAVID GERGEN: The clips on the news show him in warm positive settings.

SPOKESPERSON: The President of the United States. (Cheers and applause)

DAVID GERGEN: You can create a sense, "well there is a lot more support for this than you may think."

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: The events that the president does around the country are not for the White House press corps that travels with him.

SPOKESMAN: Another day in paradise.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: They may be absolutely put to sleep by the repetition.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Some of you are beginning to glaze over. I understand. (Laughter)

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: The scene that they're setting is for the local reporters, especially television, because they treat the arrival of the president in these states as a very important thing, and he gets coverage leading up to the arrival --

SPOKESMAN: Air Force One touched down at the North Dakota air National Guard base...

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: ...He gets coverage of the event itself.

SPOKESMAN: The president comes to Arkansas selling his plan to overhaul Social Security.

SPOKESMAN: I think it means a tremendous amount. How often can you claim that the president was in your town?

TERENCE SMITH: Jim Defontes is news director of the Curtis Media Group, a chain of radio stations in North Carolina. He says the president has come often to his state, which supported Bush in both elections.

JIM DEFONTES: Our standing joke is, you know, "hey, he's looking for retirement property."

TERENCE SMITH: He says such appearances rally the faithful.

JIM DEFONTES: You could almost view this as a payback stop for the support the president's received from North Carolina back in the election and during the campaign season.

TERENCE SMITH: The events are long on style, short on specifics.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Thank you all for coming.

TERENCE SMITH: Ed Chen of the Los Angeles Times has covered George W. Bush since the 2000 campaign. He says a plan with few details is politically useful to Bush.

EDWIN CHEN: One of the things he is criticized for is not coming forth with more details about how he would change Social Security. And the reason he has not done that is he believes it would be strategically unwise to do so, to tell -- to play all his cards, if you will, this early in the game.

TERENCE SMITH: Chen believes the Bush White House will not make the same mistakes the Clinton administration did when they crafted a detailed plan for health care reform that was quickly dissected by critics.

EDWIN CHEN: It was dead on arrival -- it was dead before arrival on Capitol Hill. And it was so easy to pick apart by so many different people who would be affected and so many interest groups.

TERENCE SMITH: But in North Carolina, at least, the local media and the public appear to be hungry for more elaboration.

SPOKESMAN: Do you believe the substance was really there?

SPOKESMAN: All of these opinions are coming from a plan that doesn't exist.

TERENCE SMITH: And a new Pew Research Center poll shows only 29 percent of the public approve of the president's handling of Social Security. This time the magic may not be working.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: If the Social Security project was an airplane, it would kind of be stuck at the gate. That's where we are right now, and that's where the White House knows it is, too.

TERENCE SMITH: Where tax cuts were an easy sell during the president's first term, Social Security reform is more difficult.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: This particular issue is working two demographics against one another. The president is trying to reassure seniors that nothing will change and lure younger workers that he's got this great idea, private accounts, that will change their security forever, and why not sign on with him? That is a very difficult thing to do: To be persuasive with one demographic, gain their support, without losing the support of older Americans.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: No matter what the rhetoric might be, no matter what the mailers may say, nothing changes for people who have retired or near retirement.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Why are older Americans really important? Because they vote and one of the reasons the president is having a tough time is because he faces with his House Republicans the idea, the prospect of a midterm election next year.

TERENCE SMITH: And there is organized opposition that is mounting a vigorous and noisy defense...

SPOKESPERSON: A town meeting with no dissent!

SPOKESPERSON: What a cowardly president!

TERENCE SMITH: ...Which is not being ignored by the local media.

SPOKESPERSON: Protesters lined Capitol Avenue in front of the federal building.

SPOKESPERSON: Hands off...

SPOKESPERSON: And while protesters worked the streets, the president worked the audience.

TERENCE SMITH: The White House may already be regrouping.

DAVID GERGEN: They realize that this is such an uphill fight, they'll conduct a vigorous campaign to be sure, but they're going to find a way to get out of this.

TERENCE SMITH: Alexis Semindinger says this president knows when to compromise.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: The president initially talked about passing this this year, 2005, now suddenly its become an 18-month project or maybe by next year, or "gee, we'd like to do this in this term." This president has a history of compromising and then calling it victory, so there are many opportunities for this president to take something that has a nugget of an idea, private investment accounts, and apply it, maybe layer it on with some other ideas in Congress.

TERENCE SMITH: Perhaps, but the White House has announced that the president, vice president and cabinet officials will make 60 appearances over the next 60 days beating the Social Security drum.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I'm going to continue traveling over and over and over again.

TERENCE SMITH: And needless to say...

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Okay, let's get to work.

TERENCE SMITH: ...The White House communications apparatus will continue full throttle.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

JIM LEHRER: And to Shields and Brooks: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

David, do you agree that the president's plan is stuck at the gate?

DAVID BROOKS: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the Republican opinion polls, what's selling the s the idea is a problem and the current system is unsustainable. What's not selling is person accounts, private accounts,intimate accounts I like to call it, it's nicer. So the president is going to spend 60 days trying to reverse those numbers. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the Republicans are doing sort of a mating dance like a bird trying to get some Democrats to get on board. We'll raise the caps, the payroll caps. We'll cut the benefits on the rich. They're trying to get four or five Democrats to come on board. So far it's not working.

JIM LEHRER: Stuck at the gate too? Do you agree?

MARK SHIELDS: I do, Jim. Come on board what? I mean, there's no train here. I mean, there's no locomotive, they don't have -- they've missed their schedule, they don't have a track. I mean, this thing is not -- I'm not saying it's dead but it's on life support systems right now.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree Ed Chen of the LA Times that the president has intentionally kept this vague, that he's trying to avoid what happened to the Clinton health care plan?

MARK SHIELDS: He has intentionally kept it vague. That's going to break on Monday when Sen. Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, maverick Republican, is going to introduce his own plan. This will be the first time...

JIM LEHRER: Very specific.

MARK SHIELDS: Very specific. The first time anybody has. And Chuck Hagel today was very blunt about it. He said "I think the mistake that has been made is talking about personal accounts." He said "what you've go to do is you've got to reassure people that Social Security," which is the most enduring, probably the most universally popular government program that touches the lives of people, never missed a payday, never bounced a check, lifted half of its recipients out of poverty "that that's going to be solid." And that's one of the real problems that they have.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree that if a mistake has been made, that's where it was made, that they didn't make that case strong enough before they started, okay, let's tinker with it, but we are it but we're not going to tinker with --

DAVID BROOKS: I think the president said privately he didn't nurture the program enough and show how popular it was. I think the second thing they've done is they didn't show how much people, not just rich people, should have assets, poor people should have assets. It's sort of an egalitarian case to be made, to me a philosophical case -- that in this age, in this information age, people should have more control over their own lives. Politically I think they're right not to have a plan, mostly because I think the president's plan would not have passed. I think they were right to send it to the Senate and say "you guys figure it out." There are really three levers here if you want to make this thing sustainable. You can cut benefits, you can raise taxes or you can do a mixture of both. And I think they're right to let the legislative process work at will to figure out some solution. The problem politically is that no Republican wants to get out on the train to get out in front to champion this thing because they don't know what this thing is.

JIM LEHRER: And what you just outlined is separate and apart from personal savings accounts.

DAVID BROOKS: And I would say what's about to happen is it's going to get split. We won't have one vote on Social Security; we're going to have two votes, one on solvency, one on personal accounts, and we may end up with only this first half. But that first half is important. The thing we really have to fear is that nothing happens because that would be a disaster. We'd have increasing debt; we'd never get to Medicare. We'd have a big entitlements problem.

MARK SHIELDS: The biggest worry that I have as a citizen is they'll just get personal accounts, they'll get some sort of, you know, a bigger 401(k) for people who can invest. And -- the investor class. Jim, Republicans are delusional about this investor class thing; they talk about 17 percent of American families got dividends in the stock market last year. That's all. I mean, 4 percent of American families got 83 percent of all the dividends. I mean, this is not something that - and the people who object most strenuously to this, the greatest resistance, it's not generational. Part of it's old/young, but the biggest group, Jim, are the three out of five American households that earn $50,000 or less a year; three out of five. These people don't hold big fund-raisers, they don't sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom or go to the Crawford Ranch. These are the people for whom Social Security has been the life source system of their retirement in dignity and not in poverty. They're neighbors, they're relatives. They were overwhelmingly against. And why this is important politically, they've been the Reagan Democrats. They're the people who split from the Democrats on the issues of same-sex marriage, on guns and hunting in many cases, on abortion. But on this one, Social Security has become a value -- a value.

DAVID BROOKS: One party has been flexible. Not to get too partisan but why not. One party has been flexible here. The Republicans talk about raising the payroll caps, the payroll caps so the rich would pay much more, a big tax hike for the rich.

JIM LEHRER: It's now $90,000.

DAVID BROOKS: And it would go up maybe to $120,000. Then they've talked about cutting the benefits only on the rich, keeping the benefits for the poor. Then they've talked about giving personal accounts so the poor could have their own personal assets and take advantage of compound interest. So there's been a lot of flexibility on one side. And while the Democrats benefit if this thing goes down, they are not benefiting in the polls right now because they seem to be the party that has no plan, that's just no, no, no.

MARK SHIELDS: I disagree. I think, Jim, what we have here...

JIM LEHRER: Well, there is no Democratic plan.

MARK SHIELDS: There is no Democratic plan. The point of -- I mean the Democrats are the minority party. The Democrats, they're the opposition party. The majority proposal proposes. It is the responsibility of the Republican Party to introduce a bill. They don't have a bill. Chuck Hagel has a bill. David says Republicans have talked about raising the caps; one Republican has talked, Lindsay Graham and he has been attacked by the right wing of the Republican Party for even suggesting that. Tom DeLay was set to personally accost him for even suggesting that people above $90,000 ought to pay at the same rate as people who make $45,000 all the way up in their income. I mean, so there's hypotheticals out there, David, but there aren't Republicans saying "let's negotiate." And Bush says "I'm not going to negotiate with myself."

DAVID BROOKS: Well, the president talked about raising the caps. So there are two Republicans, Lindsay Graham and George W. Bush.

MARK SHIELDS: He said he wouldn't rule it out.

JIM LEHRER: New subject. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan mentioned consumption taxes this week. What's that all about?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, that's about the tax reform proposal. If they'd listened to me in the White House, they'd be doing tax reform first and Social Security reform second because this is something you really can get bipartisan support. There's a broad consensus in the country and in the world among economists that a consumption tax is something that encourages savings, builds growth, would be a real big change in the way we do our taxes. And Greenspan was caution about it but says we should move some part of the income tax to a consumption tax.

JIM LEHRER: He didn't give it a blanket endorsement. And say --

DAVID BROOKS: I think in Europe, the U.S., around the world, economists generally agree we want people to save and a consumption tax helps people do that.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree?

MARK SHIELDS: It's interesting to see the Republicans endorse old Europe and borrow their tax plans. I mean, the stagnant economy --

DAVID BROOKS: It's an open-minded group of people.

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, the biggest problem, the Treasury Department studied this in 2002 and the biggest problem it would face is it would raise taxes on the middle-class and cut taxes on the upper class. That's what a consumption tax does.

JIM LEHRER: Because the percentages -- if you have less money and you have to buy things you're spending a bigger percentage.

MARK SHIELDS: You have to live. That's right. All of your income goes to rent and food.

JIM LEHRER: Politically, is this going anywhere?

MARK SHIELDS: I would say that the Republicans would be best off if they followed Bill Thomas' advice which is to put it all together. The only way they're going to --

JIM LEHRER: You mean put tax reform with Social Security?

MARK SHIELDS: Social Security. I think the only way they'll pick up Democrats is not on Social Security. They're just not boarding right now, there's nothing to board. But if they put in tax reform -- hey, I don't think anybody can defend changes that have been made in the -- each one of them you can make a case for over the last 20 years since Ronald Reagan's tax reform of 1986. That made it simpler, it made it fairer, it made it more understandable to Americans. The tax code today is more complex, less fair, and less understandable.

JIM LEHRER: That's what you're talking about, too, right, David? Reform for you two means make it simpler, right?

MARK SHIELDS: Simpler and just - and based on the ability to pay. That's where the difference is between Democrats and Republicans.

DAVID BROOKS: I agree and I think it's politically --they're different propositions. The Social Security debate has been so polarized for decades, the tax reform debate is much more fluid and the thing we're seeing in Social Security, I've been up on the Hill all week, I know more about the Democrats than the Republicans do. I know more about the Republicans than the Democrats do because they don't talk to one another. And on tax reform, it's different. They do actually. There's actually much more common ground there.

MARK SHIELDS: I'll tell you how dumb Republicans are. They had a retirement party for Tom Daschle this Thursday night, a man who had been the Democratic leader, had been a very important leader, had reached across the aisle in many cases worked cooperatively and not a single Republican senator even dared to show up.

JIM LEHRER: Were they invited?

MARK SHIELDS: Sure they were invited. The idea of putting your arm around him and saying "Tom Daschle, we disagreed but you're a good guy." That would have been so smart. I mean, that's what David's talking about being polarized.

DAVID BROOKS: It's a symptom of the times.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see it the same way. Should the Republicans have gone?

DAVID BROOKS: Sure. I'm sure the food would have been inferior to a Republican event but you go.

JIM LEHRER: I mean, do you agree with Mark that that's a symptom of where we are now?

DAVID BROOKS: As reporters, we talk to both parties. The politicians don't talk to both parties so they're asking us.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Well, I've asked you and we've all enjoyed it very much. Thank you both very much.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.

ESSAY - BE A MAN

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune wonders what it means to be a man.

CLARENCE PAGE: "What a piece of work is man," Shakespeare wrote. Yeah, we are a piece of work, especially sportsmen. Look at the NBA, for example: Running, jumping, dunking, and dancing on air with gravity- defying grace. Yet how quickly the grace of the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons collapsed one night, as sportsmen and sports fans reverted to caveman, pounding and pummeling their fellow man. This, too, is the world of men, responding with fists to a perceived dis.

SPOKESMAN: You knew this was going to happen sooner or later.

CLARENCE PAGE: It's not just the NBA. One day after the Detroit disaster, we saw the South Carolina football game erupts into an ugly ten-minute brawl. And then there's hockey, which often has been described as a fight interrupted by outbreaks of hockey. Sometimes I think that the trouble with men is that we aren't women. You almost never see women athletes fight, at least not in front of the cameras. No, that's a guy thing, a manly thing, seemingly, that also raises disturbing questions about what it means to be a man these days. By almost every measure young women are on the rise while young men are in decline. Since they received equal opportunity under American law in the '60s, they have excelled, while our young men in many ways have slipped backwards. No wonder men held women back so long. Coast to coast, high school girls have taken over the honor rolls, the valedictorian honors, the class presidencies, and student newspaper editorships. Women occupy more than 55 percent of college enrollment and 60 percent of Bachelor's and Master's degrees, and their percentage is still growing. Business Week Magazine called it the new gender gap. To buck up their gender ratios, to 50/50, Business Week said, some Ivy League schools are practicing a stealth affirmative action for guys. Other educated women, especially black women, across America increasingly find themselves marrying down, as the popular phrase goes, to less well- educated men. Like the lovely and charming women on Joe Millionaire, who compete for a supposedly rich guy who turned out to be a construction worker. "This is a man's world," James Brown once sang, but women are moving up fast and surging ahead. More power to 'em, but more questions for us. Nobody says men have to be better educated than women, but the numbers make you wonder. As women are moving up, why are men sliding back? What's the matter with guys? From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex, except in prisons, where the male lead stays way ahead. The women's movement, quite properly, rose up in protest over the narrow roles that society assigned to them, but how about the narrow, one- dimensional roles that society assigns to men? As boys, we learn that power comes on the playground, in sports. As teens, we are empowered by James Bond's standards of cool: Our appeal to the ladies. As men, we are empowered by standards of wealth. Money, as the saying goes, is how we keep score. We place our male icons on a pedestal, the way men like to put women. But a pedestal is a very narrow place to stand.

SPOKESMAN: Wow!

CLARENCE PAGE: As certain over-pampered athletes show us, when testosterone overwhelms their better judgment, a satisfying life requires more from a man than money, muscle or a great slap shot. It also requires a wisdom, an understanding about others, a wisdom that we don't always appreciate until long after our testosterone-crazed playing years are over. We need to pass this wisdom onto the young, assuming we can figure it out for ourselves. "What a piece of work is man," Hamlet exclaimed, "and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?" We still wonder, we men. We're a piece of work all right, a work in progress. I'm Clarence Page.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: The U.S. economy added 262,000 jobs in February, the most in four months. Syria said President Assad is ready to order a troop pull-back in Lebanon, but President Bush demanded a complete withdrawal. And on the NewsHour, Secretary of State Rice said Syria has lost all international support for staying in Lebanon. 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.