The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; October 5, 2007

. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. I'm Jim Lara. Today's news. Shields and Brooks. Steroids and Marion Jones. And Republican Mike Huckabee. Tonight on The New's Hour. .. .. .. .. .. ... ... ...

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.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . equation, .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . divided by. Every day, it seems, talk of oil, energy, the environment. Where are the answers? Right now, we're producing clean, renewable, geothermal energy. Generating enough energy

to power 7 million homes. Imagine that, an oil company as part of the solution. This is the power of human energy. The new AT&T. Pacific Life. And the National Science Foundation, supporting education and research across all fields of science and engineering. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. President Bush today rejected new criticism of harsh interrogations in terror cases. That followed

reports of two Justice Department memos from 2005. They endorsed headslaps and simulated drowning, despite a 2004 policy against torture. But Mr. Bush told reporters today this government does not torture people. He also said appropriate members of Congress have been informed of all interrogation techniques. Secretary of State Rice ordered new measures today to oversee Blackwater security guards in Baghdad. That followed a shooting last month that killed at least 13 Iraqis. The new policy calls for diplomatic security agents to ride with the guards on diplomatic convoys. In addition, video cameras will be installed in Blackwater vehicles and radio traffic between the U.S. Embassy and the convoys will be recorded. State Department spokesman Sean McCormick said rice wants better control and accountability. It is not a matter of trust. One might say this is a good way to be able to protect all involved in the case that there is an incident that you do have at

the very least some objective baseline account of what went on. The FBI is now investigating the Baghdad shootings. McCormick said today the new measures are not meant to suggest anything about those findings of that investigation. In Iraq today, the U.S. military said American troops and planes killed at least 25 Shiite gunmen at happen about 50 miles north of Baghdad. U.S. officials said the militants were importing weapons from Iran. Iraqi officials said many of the victims were civilians. They said seven children were among those killed. And four U.S. soldiers were killed in and around Baghdad in the last 24 hours. 66 Americans died in Iraq in September. In U.S. economic news today, job growth got back on track last month. The Labor Department reported employers added 110,000 jobs in September, the most in four months. And a revised estimate for August showed a gain of 89,000 jobs instead of a job loss. The unemployment

rate actually rose at 10th of a point in September as more people started looking for work. Trackstar Marion Jones pleaded guilty today to line to federal agents about using steroids. She appeared in federal court in New York City. The Washington Post had reported Jones told friends she began using a substance called the clear in 1999. She won five medals at the 2000 Olympics and for years she flatly denied taking steroids. But after today's court session, Jones was in tears as she addressed supporters. And you have the right to be angry with me. I have let them down. I have let my country down and I have let myself down. Jones also pleaded guilty to line about a check fraud

scheme. She faces possible jail time plus the loss of her Olympic medals. She said today she is retiring from competition. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. The military crackdown in Myanmar went before the UN Security Council today. The UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gumbari said there's a historic opportunity for peaceful change in the country, also known as Burma. But he also warned of serious repercussions over the crackdown. The U.S. ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said it's time for the council to do more than talk. United States has done its part to back up its words with actions that will serve to ratchet that pressure on the regime. We're now exploring follow-up measures targeting the regime and those who provide financial support to it. The Security Council must not remain silent just because the people of Burma have been silenced by the violent oppression

carried out by the regime. But Myanmar's ambassador to the UN insisted the situation in his country had returned to normal. He said his government is committed to national reconciliation and he said what's needed is patience, not UN sanctions. Despite the recent tragic events, the situation in Myanmar is not and I repeat not a threat to either regional or international peace and security. I would therefore like to call on the Security Council to refrain from any action that would be detrimental to the good officer's role of the Secretary General mandated by the General Assembly. China's ambassador agreed he said UN pressure would not serve any purpose and instead would only lead to confrontation. In the wake of the crackdown, State Television and Myanmar showed the main opposition leader today. She's been under house arrest for years. We ever report narrated by an Ingo Gilmore of Independent Television News.

Their images, few expect you to see on Burma's rigidly controlled state television video of the country's leading opposition figure, meeting with the UN's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, during his recent visit there. It's the first time on Sansu Chi has been seen on MRTV for years, a rare acknowledgement of the iconic democracy leader by a regime under intense international pressure to move towards dialogue. If she declares to give them up, the senior general will personally meet her. It follows a dramatic announcement that the country's senior general, Tan Sui, might be prepared to meet the Nobel laureate if she met certain preconditions. Even this is a stunning development for a man who previously could not even bring himself to utter her name. International revulsion of the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations has forced

this isolated regime to respond to calls for dialogue. But some exiled opposition activists are wary that the government's apparent offer to talk could be yet another stalling tactic. The government also announced today 500 Buddhist monks were detained last week and said about 100 remain in custody. The Supreme Court of Pakistan refused today to delay tomorrow's presidential election, but it also ruled results will not be made official immediately after the vote. First, the court will decide a challenge to President Musharraf seeking reelection while he still army chief. A decision on that issue is not expected until later this month. There was word today of more trouble with goods from China this time involving the Boy Scouts of America. The organization announced its recalling more than one and a half million plastic badges used by cub scouts. Testing found paint on the badges contained high levels of lead. A wave of recalls involving Chinese products as prompted calls in

Congress for tougher safeguards. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 91 points to close at 14,066. The Nasdaq rose more than 46 points to close at 2780. For the week, the Dow gained more than 1 percent. The Nasdaq rose nearly 3 percent. And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now, Shields and Brooks, the Marion Jones story and Republican Mike Huckabee. An update of the story about secret Bush administration documents on interrogation with the analysis of Shields and Brooks. News are correspondent Kwame Holman begins. Force the fact. In again, defending as legal, the administration's policies for interrogating alleged terrorists, the president insisted today the controversial methods have saved lives. I have put this program in place for a reason. And that is to better protect the American people. And when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack

on America, you bet we're going to detain them. And you bet we're going to question them. Because the American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence, so we can help them, help protect them. That's our job. Secondly, this government does not torture people. But how torture is defined is at issue once again after the New York Times reported yesterday on two secret Justice Department memos leaked to the newspaper. In late 2004, the Justice Department publicly had called torture abhorrent, but according to the Times, Justice formulated a contradictory opinion in May 2005. Under the leadership of then-new Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the Department's Office of Legal Counsel authorized in a memo a combination of painful physical and psychological interrogation methods. Those methods included head-slapping, simulated drowning, and exposure

of detainees to frigid temperatures. A follow-up memo said those interrogation practices did not violate legislation then pending in Congress to outlaw cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Yesterday, Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy blasted the President and the Justice Department on the floor of the Senate. He sought to place the revelations in a year's long continuum of disclosures about administration efforts to authorize harsh interrogation and thereby redefine torture. We've been here before. It would be bad enough if this administration had disgraced itself in this country by engaging in cruel and degrading treatment of detainees. It's worse still that it enlisted the Justice Department in the effort to justify and cover up its activities. White House spokesperson Dana Perino said yesterday the newly disclosed memos did not conflict with the administration's previous disavals of torture. However, the White House rejected congressional Democrats' demands to release the documents, saying that certain members

of Congress had been notified of the administration's legal judgment. The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller issued a bluntly worded retort today, writing, The administration can't have it both ways. I'm tired of these games. They can't say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program. The reality is the administration refused to disclose the program to the full committee for five years, and they have refused to turn over key legal documents since day one. Other congressional leaders have demanded the administration hand over the memos and have promised hearings into the administration's handling of detainees and the methods it uses to interrogate them. And now the shields and Brooks syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks. Mark, what do you make of these interrogation memos? Well, I think Jim, we're going right back to where we're just two years ago. Two years ago we had a major showdown. Right on one side of the battle was the administration,

the White House, the Attorney General then, Alberta Gonzales, but the President, the Vice President. And on the other side, we're John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham in the Senate, Colin Powell, John Shelley Casvili, former General John Chiefs, General Johor, former Marine General and Chairman of Central Command. And on one side, with those who said, we're going to do this because it's extraordinary circumstance and we're going to take all these measures. This is like unlike any other throwaway we've ever had. And McCain and Powell and Warner and others just said, no, this is totally not only a relative of every American value, but it hurts our soldiers and troops in combat because it exposes them to greater possibility of torture. It gets unreliable information. And in the final analysis, John McCain made the strongest case, the member of the Senate, and he said, when we, when I was a prisoner and we were prisoners and we were tortured

and many of my comrades died, what sustained us was our belief that we were different, that our system and our values were better. Because the administration and these members taken the position, David, that speaking of different, that the CIA interrogating suspects is different than the military, which was, of course, what Mark was going through and what this legislation was all about. Yeah, there are sort of two issues here. One is a good idea to torture. Period. Right. And then the second is the more legal issue, which these competing members sort of we're talking about, which where does the president have the legal authority based on the president, and all that to let the CIA do what it wants to do. And to me, the political effect of this is a sense of elitism, a sense that people in the administration, some people in the administration think this war on terror is serious, a lot of people don't take it as seriously as we are. They're not as hard and tough as we are. So we're going to put out one thing for the country, but secretly, we tough guys are going to have another set of rules. And so I think the big damaging thing about this

is the difference between what we all thought was the administration, interpretation of what could be done, and what inside, apparently, this memo suggests they had agreed could be done. And it's the gap between the private and the public, that's, to me, is the most damaging thing about it. Is it a little bit extraordinary that they put it all in writing? No, I mean, they do go by the rules. And to be fair, one of the things the Times story made clear is that there's a group of lawyers that have been within the Justice Department, no matter who the Attorney General was. And they come from similar backgrounds, elite law schools, Supreme Court clerks, Federalist Society, and what was fascinating and was well described in the article was that this community of people who were friends split on this issue. And some of the lawyers decided this is within the president's rights. Some who have very similar political philosophies said, no, this is an overreach, this is poorly argued. And so it was that split within the communities, and it depended on who happened to be sitting in what chair, at what time, that determines, seemingly, how the administration

shifted. And of course, within other non-legal parts of the administration, they wanted certain lawyers over others. Now, Mark, we got here a case of two newspaper stories, a denial by the president, and a counter-argument from Senator Rockefeller. Is anything else going to happen, or is that the end of this story? No, I think in the right now talking to Democrats on the Hill today, in the appropriations, defensive appropriations bill, there are specific tough language prohibiting and outlawing any of these past activities. The cleavage gem, the fall line in this, is between those who won the uniform and those who haven't. It's just remarkable. I mean, not only in the Senate, but even in the administration. I mean, people who have been in combat, whether it's of power or McCain, or whoever, or have gorted people in combat, overwhelmingly, on one side against any of these practices. Even if others see, yeah. Well, the CIA, I think they're pushing on that side on the pro torture side, the pro tough side as well. And then they have bureaucratic

concerns. Is the stuff we did last year, suddenly be going to come, we're going to become legally culpable for this year, because the rules of change. The argument that's made is that even if they do put it in there, even if the president signs it, he's already demonstrated, even after a public sort of apomatics, if you would, with John McCain the first time, two years ago, that the gun ignored. Lindsey Graham said the administration has to understand there isn't one branch of government this three. And this is a perfect example, I think. The bottom line is that nobody can dispute is that we're in the middle of the war and we keep changing the rules in the middle of the war about what we can do. And the people who conduct these sorts of operations, the one thing they hate is gray areas. They want something that's black and white. So they know what they can do and can't do. And this line has been moving around for five years. I mean, manuals been there for a generation of what you can do. David, the black water story is a house here in this week. Does it emerge that it's the state department that has a bigger problem than the black water security group?

I think that is the story. I mean, I watched the hearings over the week. And to my point of view, they didn't only hand on prints, the CEO of Blackwater and all the blame, I think not all the blame, but much of the blame goes to the state department because these guys have been hired to do a job. Their job is to protect state department employees. They don't have to worry about fighting counterinsurgency. They even incentive to go off in an oil and rockies. That's not their job. And the problem has been that in all the things they've done and to be fair, black water is never allowed a state department employee to be killed. There's never been a criminal conviction. There's been loose regulations about how they can behave. The standards of the U.S. system of justice haven't applied there and sort of the gray zone float out there. So to me, the problem is not the company. The problem is the oversight that went with the contract. You agree, Mark? I think the problem is more basic than that. I think this is an administration gym that its philosophical core has an almost pathological hate of government. And their answer to virtually every problem is to privatize. I mean, the reason they're military

is so small is that they privatized all the duties and all the responsibilities traditionally associated with the military, whether it's providing food for the troops, whether it's doing the laundry, whatever it is. Now, all of that is privatized. And David's right, they privatized this in a way where there was no accountability, no responsibility. That wasn't black water writing those rules. That was the provisional authority originally, but it was the administration and the state department in particular. So they weren't a gray area. There were no area. There's no accountability. They're not under the uniform quote of military justice. If a PFC did what some of these fellows are charged with, they'd be face in serious time. But this structure's a clinton. I mean, the KBR and all those things came into the military and were vital in what we did in Bosnia and under the Clinton years. The subcontures were vital in what we did in fighting the tsunami. As the military changes, as you need highly skilled soldiers, it's just going to make a lot of sense to have subcontractors do some of the other work. And they do have certain rules

of engagement. They do have to obtain by, but this is a new situation and they were unregulated. I will say this about black water. They're in Mr. Prince. They did provide their troops, their employees with uparmored vehicles. They had mine resistant armored vehicles and to the point where our own military, those who volunteered to serve in a uniform, don't have. So they had better working conditions in many respects than their own troops. Some presidential politics. A new campaign contribution figures. What's the important news in those numbers to you, David? A couple things. One, the democratic numbers were much larger than the Republicans' numbers. Just the knowledge. Just the knowledge. Just the knowledge. Hillary Clinton has this dominating lead. It's not inevitable, but it's a dominating lead. Not only with money, but you mean everything. Every momentum, conventional wisdom. Obama is not closing the gap. The gap has been widening significantly over the period of months. So there's that thing. And then I think you'd have

to say, Rudy Giuliani has a lead, but the Republican race is entirely different. Republicans have not made up their minds. So it's wide open. And to that extent, I think the money makes less of a difference on the Republicans side. I happened to see Giuliani and Fred Thompson speak today. And Giuliani was given great speech. Fred Thompson was so boring. It was in violation of the Geneva Convention. And so that's going to match more. What convention? It was the most boring political speech I've ever seen. I'm still suffering from it. But that's going to matter a lot more than the money. The best thing Rudy Giuliani has going for in Miss Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is the nemesis in the nightmare of Republicans. And what sustains Rudy Giuliani. The better she does among Democrats and the more likely she looks as the nominee, the better Rudy's numbers. Why? The Wall Street Journal NBC poll said, who has the best chance of beating Hillary Clinton? Forty-seven percent of those. But probably what's the question? Well, I think why they see it and they see it in Miss Tuff. They see him as somebody who's already passed a crisis. I mean, that's one thing you hire in a prison. You want to know

how it's going to do in crisis. They see that. But the virtue, the value he has is they think he can beat her. And they think he will go after her. And they think he has an appeal beyond the base of the party to independence or whatever. And so that's the first irony. I agree with David that Senator Clinton had a wonderful week. We could go with what's known in the trade as the full Ginsburg. The full Ginsburg is named after the attorney for Monica Lewinsky was the only human being in history. We've done five Sunday shows, new shows. And she did that on her health plan. Then she had the good news. She bested Obama on the money. And then comes from a majority number of polls in the Washington Post, ABC. I would remind our viewers and my colleague that the national polls for presidential nominee fight our lagging political indicator and the two gatekeeper cleftists have historically been Iowa and New Hampshire and Iowa still remains very much competitive race. But I do think

that nobody has a lock in the Democratic nominee at all. What do you make of David's less than complimentary comments about Fred Thompson's friend? It's cranky-ass side of David, I've never seen before. I did hear Fred. He was a cure for Simon X. He really was. I mean, if you have problem sleeping, you ought to get a tape of foot. It was not a sterling performance. And I say that as an admirer of foot, don't you? And yet, David, that the polls, the national polls show Thompson still very strong. And it's true that when you leave Washington around the country, the country is all over all the years long as usual. But in the country, he has still has support. And in part because he's comfortable with himself, he's a great presence. And you can envision him as a great candidate. It's just the actual candidacy that isn't there yet. That's right. He's the kind of guy on paper looks like he has this guy hits and he throws

and, you know, somehow can he, but the question is, can those are baseball terms? Yes, can he hit a fastball? The money thing is fascinating, Jim, that David touched on. And I just point this out that quickly, please. Not only are the Democrats raising more money than other Republican presidential candidates, but at the congressional level, the Democratic House campaign committee has in the bank now $21 million. The Republican counterpart has one million. And Republican retirements are appearing almost weekly. Party of the rich. Party of the rich. Party of the rich. Speaking of retirement, we have to retire this segment for this night and only. Jeffrey Brown has our Marion Jones coverage. She was one of the world's most accomplished athletes with a big smile and huge talent. Marion Jones was the star of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the first woman to win five medals at a single Olympic Games, three of them gold.

But she was soon dogged by reports and rumors that she used illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Jones was formally linked to steroids during a federal probe that began in 2003 into a company called Balcom, the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative. Balco's owner and several others pleaded guilty to supplying athletes with a steroid THG, sometimes called the clear, which was touted as being undetectable. During the investigation, founder Victor Conte said he saw Jones using steroids. The purpose of telling the truth was not just simply to harm these athletes. The purpose was to bring focus and attention on the Olympic governing body officials, the owners of the professional sports teams, the player's union executives who have harbored, promoted and enabled this culture for decades. For years, Jones vehemently denied the charge. I know that I'm an athlete that has always been drug free. I am right now and I will always

be. Today, she had a different story, acknowledging in a New York federal court that she had lied to federal agents about using performance-enhancing drugs. Jones spoke outside the courthouse this afternoon, that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust, making these false statements to federal agents was an incredibly stupid thing for me to do and I am responsible fully for my actions. Jones could face up to six months in prison and could be stripped of her Olympic medals. Big Patrick has been covering this story for USA Today and joins us now. Well, Dick Patrick, is it known why after denying this for so long, very in Jones finally admitted it today? She hasn't said why, but the speculation is that maybe she was going to be charged by federal authorities and that behooved her to accept the plea bargain arrangement. The drug that she admits to using THD, what does it actually do, what kind of competitive

advantage would she have been seeking? Well, it would have made her stronger, it would have helped her recover more quickly from workouts and races and the importance of that drug is that it was a designer steroid, they stuck a little chemical in there that made it undetectable to drug testers until the US anti-doping agency was given a vial of this and they were able to establish a test for it. Now, she said today that she had been told by her coach originally that she was being given flaxseed oil, but at a certain point she realized what was happening. Yeah, that was the cover story. Barry Bond said the same thing and Victor Conte told the athletes to say if you were ever caught that you were just taking flaxseed oil. And why? Well, I don't think he wanted, he wanted to give his athletes a plausible cover story if they were ever caught with a substance. And, you know, they faced

penalties, at least the athletes in track and field, maybe not bonds before baseball finally instituted drug penalties, but they needed a cover story if they were ever exposed. I gather we still don't know from today if there were any other drugs involved that she was using. Right, she said nothing about the extent of her drug use today. The Washington Post and the San Diego Union Tribune alluded to a letter that she sent to family and friends. And in that letter, she confined her admission of drug use very narrowly saying it consisted of using THG, which she was told was flaxseed oil, from 99 into 01. You mentioned Barry Bond and we've mentioned the Balco investigation. That's where this is all coming from, right? Right. We're entering the last phase of the Balco case. The only people left unaccounted for right now are Trevor Graham, Marion's coach, who

is due to Stan trial in November. And then bonds is the big fish. Bonds has always been talked about, but never nothing resolved with him. Well, but in leaked grand jury transcripts, it appears that he acknowledged use of steroids, but without knowing them. Again, sort of the same approach as Marion saying, I thought I was taking flaxseed oil. Now, Marion Jones, the person, the athlete, I understand now that you've watched her since she was in high school. You were in Sydney. I remember those Olympics. She was on every magazine cover, the aura that she had. Tell us about her in her prime. Well, her prime lasted a long time. In 1991, she had just finished her sophomore year of high school. She was 15 years old and she finished fourth in the United States Championships in 200 meters. As a 15 year old. As a 15 year old, she did the same

thing in 16, finished fourth into 200, could have gone to the Olympic Games in Barcelona that year was a really alternate, but decided against it. I mean, she was a prodigious sprint talent who, as a teenager, could run with the best athletes in the world. And in 2000, that performance? Well, that was otherworldly. I think her winning margin there in Sydney was the greatest in the history of the race. And if you look at a photo finish of it, I mean, there's just a huge gap between Marion and everyone else. But, you know, now we know that she was on some rocket fuel on that race. But as others have pointed out, possibly others in that race, some of the also rants were using performance enhancing drugs too. Of course, she also had that personality. We got a glimpse of it today. Even at probably her low public moment, she is a charismatic and compelling person. She connects with the audience. She did everything of right today.

She was contrite. She was humble. She was sincere. You could feel her pain. But I don't know that she was entirely truthful. She didn't tell us exactly what she had done. She admitted to making mistakes. And her pain is obvious. And people who know that she's a mother of a four year old son, you know, can sympathize with what she must be going through and now facing possible time and prison. She announced her retirement. Now, as we said, she faces the loss of those metals. Who makes that decision? Well, that'll be a decision taken by the International Olympic Committee and the International Track Federation. The IOC for two or three years now has formed a committee to investigate the allegations against Jones. But that committee's done very little. Their work is actually being done by them, by the federal authorities now that Marion has pleaded guilty. And briefly, I think now, of course, everybody's looking at the next Olympics this summer.

It will be in Beijing. And, you know, obviously Marion won't be part of that. There's a crop of great young sprinters who are, I think, setting a great tone with their ability. And they, I think, also recognize their responsibility to the sport and take seriously trying to be clean because they know another high-profile positive could really spelt doom for the future of the sport. All right. Dick Patrick of USA Today. Thanks very much. Finally tonight, the next of our conversations with Democratic and Republican presidential nomination candidates who are competing in the primary contest. Tonight, Margaret Warner talks with Republican Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. Mike Huckabee, thank you for joining us. Now, you have won all kinds of accolades as

a governor, small G as a manager. You were once named by time magazine as one of the five top governors in the country. Do you think that's what the American voters looking for in a president? I think they want somebody who really believes in something and can stand by and articulate it. But they do want somebody who is a competent manager, a pragmatic person who understands that you're not elected to be an Ivy log and stand on the steps of the Capitol and just make speeches. They want you to be able to solve real problems. It touched them every day. So being a governor is a great advantage. You've run a government. You've balanced a budget. You've had to do things for which there were measurable results. People could see where schools better, where roads better, was healthcare better. Did we bring more jobs than we lost? Those are measurable things that I think best prepare someone to be president. So you've described yourself as a paradoxical or the paradoxical Republican. What do you mean by that?

I'm not an establishment Republican. There's so many people who think of Republicans as people who are properly pedigree within a political system and they can talk about, yes, my grandfather, he was elected to and then they fill in the blank. And my dad, he was very close to Eisenhower and to Nixon. And then I've come along. Well, you know, my dad was a fireman for the city of Hope, Arkansas, worked as a mechanic on his days off. I was the first male in my family, even graduate high school. I know what it's like to be the first sort of in the whole line to break the cycle of poverty and go into high school college and end up becoming a governor. But I think my experience really is far more common to the average American than those folks who have all the right things on their resume. America needs a president who understands what struggle is because most Americans experience it. Why is that paradoxical for a Republican? The perception of many people in America is that a Republican is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. And in some cases, it's probably true that the Republican tends to be more

connected to people of great wealth. Now, I think that that's not always the case. I think rank and file Republicans are, you know, small business owners, their factory workers, their, you know, moms and sometimes single moms and housewives, there are all kinds of people. But there is this perception that Republican equals privilege. And it certainly isn't the case. I think another thing that I would say kind of makes me the paradoxical Republican. I talk about things. I don't ever hear Republicans talk about my passion for music and art in school, which I think is critically important to the survival of our country, health care, the environment. I think we ought to be conservationist. This is a world in which we're not the owners. We're simply the temporary inhabitants. We're the guest. We ought to act like that. So there are some things that I believe as Republicans, we ought to be leading on and we're not. And so in some of those ways, I'm somewhat paradoxical. Do you think that the current administration hasn't led on those?

I think there's been some challenges and it's not that they don't care. I think particularly the president is a man of incredible integrity. I like him personally. I think he's genuine. I think he's also a man of deep conviction. And I respect that very much. But there's also a difference between, let's say, the way he grew up and the way that a guy like me grew up. And it does shape us, not just in how we would govern, but it shapes us in how we understand the impact of our decisions that reach out there and touch the ordinary family who's struggling not so much with where they're going to summer. But whether or not they're going to be able to pay the rent at the first of the month. Now you've spent a good part of your life actually as a preacher. You led Baptist congregations in Arkansas. How has that pastoral experience and background shaped both your approach to issues and also how you view the presidency? During my tenure as governor, I was often asked, you know, was this sort of unusual preparation. I said, no, it was a wonderful preparation. And here's why. There's no social pathology

that exists in this country that I couldn't put a name in a face to. I dealt with people to every level of life from the cradle to the grave and everything in between. And because of that, I know that there is an enormous level of human hurt, even deep beneath the surface of virtually everybody out there we see. I know that there are real challenges that people face. And I've seen them, again, not from reading about them, but from actually seeing them up close and personal, whether it's a 14 year old girl who's pregnant and hadn't told her parents, whether it's an elderly couple who are faced with cutting their medicine in half and having enough food to eat are that young couple just married and overwhelmed with debt because they made some really bad decisions. And now it's really putting a strain on their marriage. Again, there's nothing out there that I haven't seen up close and personal. And therefore, when I try to think in terms of public policy, I remind myself, there are very human people out there. They're going to be affected by this. How will they be affected?

And what can we do to make sure that it's a positive, not a negative impact? And what about the actually religious dimension? First of all, what drew you to the religious life? If I gather you didn't, as you said, your father was a fireman, I gather they weren't particularly religious-serve-serve-serve. You know, for me, it was a matter that as a teenager, my faith deepened as a young person around the age of 15. And I really became increasingly concerned that her whole world was really being challenged to sort of decide where it's going to go. I mean, I was a teenager in the 60s. So there was a lot of confusion about what was right, what was wrong. I think it deepened me in my own personal faith. I didn't expect actually to be a pastor. I was headed toward being in communications and being maybe in some type of religious broadcasting, because I've worked in radio since my teenage years and actually worked my way and paid my way through college doing that. The pastor, for me, was somewhat of a detour, the unexpected path. But it also was the most wonderful and greatest pilgrimage that I've been on. And again,

I think it uniquely prepared me to understand more than most people ever can. Just the whole, I think, frailty of humanity. Now, you also have very deeply held views about abortion, about same-sex marriage, premarital sex. A group of conservative leaders, religiously conservative leaders, announced last weekend that they simply will not support the Republican nominee if that nominee isn't anti-abortion. And I'm just wondering, less as a political figure, if you can do this and more as a religious conservative yourself, do you agree with that? Do you agree with what James Dobson, for instance, wrote that to support, for a Christian conservative to support someone who says pro-choice would just be an unacceptable compromise of your principles? I think if a person says my primary motivation for being involved or interested in politics would be the issues of the sanctity of life, or maybe the sacred nature, or traditional

marriage, or any of those issues, then, yeah, it sure has to matter. If it suddenly doesn't matter, it'd be like the NRA saying, well, historically, guns have been our issue, but this year, global warming is something we're going to really be focused on. So they're putting the Republican party on notice. Every special interest group puts their party on notice. The unions put the Democrats on notice. They do it every time they have an election. Men already tend to put the Democrats on notice. Wall Street puts Republicans sometimes on notice. So it's not uncommon. Any interest group, and again, I could point to whether it's PETA or move on.org. They put candidates on notice because that's what they're there for. But as a religious conservative, would you have a hard time voting for someone if he or she were not pro-life anti-abortion? I'd certainly like to see somebody like me get the nomination. And it's not that I'm anti-something. I'm for recognizing the intrinsic worth and value of every human being.

I think that's a key element of what makes us a unique civilization, and what truly does mark America as a nation that has a special place in the world, where we treat each individual as having that worth and value. That's intrinsic to them. It's not because of who their parents are, and it's not because of what their last name or their bloodline is. It's because whether it's a 12-year-old boy lost in the woods, whether it's three hikers that have gotten separated out in Mount Hood, or coal miners, and Huntington, Utah, we care about them, because they represent us. Now, you have made your mark, of course, in domestic policy. But what do you say to voters out there who express concern that in the post-9-11 world, we can't afford a president who doesn't have experience in foreign affairs and or defense? Franklin Roosevelt didn't have experience in foreign affairs, neither the Donald Reagan. Many of our great presidents who dealt with the greatest challenges of history, the same thing

could have been said of them. What they did have, they had convictions, they had creativity, they had leadership skills. You don't like the president to know everything. You'll like the president to make tough decisions in a crisis. Frankly, from having been a governor, I can tell you that every day you have a lot of things that are planned and are on your schedule. You don't get paid to do those. You get paid for the exceptions. You get paid for the things that nobody could have imagined happening, whether it's a school shooting or a tornado or a hurricane. All right, let's take the front and center issue, a rock. Now, you have said you support the surge, you think it's working. How would a hucka be policy in a rock going forward be different from Bush administration policy? I would make sure that we really listen to our military leaders about what they need to get this job finished and get it done quickly and get us out of there so that hopefully we don't stay any longer than we have to. But I would make sure that we stayed until that we had victory and that we had it with honor. We can't afford to lose an Iraq. And I know a lot of people that are just frustrated and they're tired of it. We all are. But

war is about will. Whoever gives up loses. And if we lose, two things happen. We embolden our enemy. We give them a sense that they have outlasted us. They have with a ragtag approach. They have been able to beat the big guys. And the second thing, we break the spirit of our own military in a way that will take generations to rebuild and recover. You gave a speech a couple of weeks ago in which you said that America's problem, that wasn't your word. But as a superpower in the world was that had been undercut, I'm going to quote you here, by the manner in which we handle that power. What do you mean by that? There's a great scene in Schindler's List. You may remember that the commandant is talking about that he has the power to just basically take a life at will and they were target shooting almost at some of the, it was a horrible scene. And Oscar Schindler steps in and he says, you know what real power is? Real power is when you have every right to kill, but you don't. And the next day when the commandant had an opportunity to pull the trigger on someone,

he purposely pulled back and said, that's power, isn't it? It was as if Oscar Schindler had reminded him that the power to restrain is as powerful sometimes as the power to do. My point is this, if America is the superpower, it has to be careful that it uses that power very carefully and effectively. Margaret, there was a time in this world when people around the world wanted to be like the Americans. They emulated this. They admired us. Right now, they hate us. And we've got to fix that. We don't fix that by coming a weaker nation. I want us to be the strongest nation economically, militarily, diplomatically, every way in which we can be measured. But I want us to also use our strength and power to encourage other countries to be their best because with a rising tide, all boats flow at higher. Let's take an issue that has been splitting the Republican Party immigration. Now, when you were governor, you actually advocated making the children of illegal immigrants

eligible for state tuition and states and state scholarships. Yet you didn't support the Bush administration bill, creating guest worker program and so on. Where are you on immigration? Well, I think the failure of the government has been they haven't sealed the border. It's harder for me to get on an airplane in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas than it is for illegal to cross the border. That's what makes Americans mad. They're not mad at immigrants. They understand immigrants want to come here for the same reason their ancestors did. But here's where the failure is. You can't allow people to break the law and then have no consequence. My reasons for supporting the idea that if a student had been in our schools had performed academically and behaved and had done everything that we ask of one of the students in our school to qualify for a scholarship, then it's in our best interest to let the student apply for the scholarship because they would part of the provision was they have to apply for citizenship. But here's the other part. You don't punish the child for the parents having broken the law. We don't do that. We don't

say, okay, your parents broke a law. So we're going to punish you for it. I just don't understand why anybody would think that that's a good thing to do. That's not a popular position on a lot of public... No, it isn't. It's not very popular at all and I took a lot of heat for it. It still do. I still get criticized. But I'm a person who believes in strong border security. I don't believe in amnesty. But neither do I believe in doing something that is ultimately harmful to a person who didn't break the law. You know, kid who comes here is three years old. I don't think he had a whole lot of choice about saying, hey, dad, let's break the law. Let's cross the border. You didn't even know where he's going. So let's not punish him. Health care. Now here's another issue where the president and some Republican senators have been at odds and that's over this S-chip program. The president just vetoed it, which would have extended health care, health insurance to uninsured kids. You pushed and we're very proud of a program of our kids in Arkansas that extended health insurance to 70,000 kids. If you've been president today, would you veto that bill?

I think the president let that thing get way out of hand. It became a political issue. And a lot of Americans thought that the veto was that he was against coverage for kids. He was proposing additional coverage under S-chip. What he didn't propose was the expansion that would take it to that even couples making 80,000 a year would be moved from private insurance that they already had to government insurance. I think the president's concern and it's an understandable one is that if you move more people to a government system away from a private-based system, you're only exacerbating what is an underlying problem. Democrats have to be given credit. They did a great job of politically making this about kids when it was a little more complicated than that. I have to ask you the question, everyone will be dying to hear your answer to and that is your incredible weight loss. You lost 110 pounds while you were governor. You became a marathon runner. Did it change you on a personal level? Most certainly. Not only did I have more stamina, I'm less expensive to my employer. I certainly have more energy and I have a longer lifespan. I'm going to

not live a lot of those people that thought they were going to be rid of me pretty soon. But I'll tell you another way it changed me. It reminded me that the real challenge in this country is not a health care crisis. It's a health crisis. We have a system that's upside down. It's based on waiting until people are really, really catastrophically ill and then we intervene. What we need to do is to put the focus on prevention. We don't cover $150 visits to a podiatrist, but we'll cover $30,000 foot amputation. I mean, there's so many things in our system that have to be rerouted because right now we spend just over 75% of our all our health care dollars on chronic disease. So we don't have a health care crisis. We've got health care. We have a health crisis and that's what's driving the health care crisis. As governor, you actually got the state government in the business of encouraging healthy behavior. Is that a model for what you would do as president? Absolutely. You have to create an example. Ending the copays and deductibles for mammography, colonoscopy, and prostate cancer exams. You want the screenings. You want people to get

screened early detection, early treatment. We did weight loss programs. We covered those because we found that even at the point of bariatric surgery, which is pretty expensive, most people can't afford it, scare me to death, but you know, still a lot of people, they're morbidly obese. They need it. There's a 60 to 80% financial return in terms of fewer health care cost after the surgery than there were with a person who has a situation of being morbidly obese. The same thing happens when you get people off to back. We paid for the smoking cessation programs. We gave employees up to $500 discount on their health insurance if they would do a health risk assessment and not smoke. So what we found was if we want to drive better behavior and lower health care cost, you got to create some incentive. It's not enough to just say you ought to, say if you do, here are the benefits that you get, not just the employer, the employee gets. So when you talk about this on the campaign trail, and I gather you do quite a bit, your own personal experience, what do you think it's saying to voters that's important to them

in choosing a president? I'm trying to find different ways of solving this problem other than just raising taxes and spending money, and that I've been there myself. I'm not asking them to do something I haven't done. You know, I think the first quality of the leaders, leaders never ask of others what they're unwilling to do themselves. I had to make a complete lifestyle change. And frankly, if this southern fried boy who ate everything in the world, battered, fried and gravied before he ate it, if I can make a change in my lifestyle, I think it's proof positive that it's possible. And if we don't do it, we don't just lose the economics of this nation, and we do. It'll bankrupt us. But we're now seeing the first generation of young Americans who are being born, who are expected to live a shorter lifespan than their parents and grandparents, largely because of obesity and all the resultant health problems from it. So can the campaign trail is a lot about food, whether it's pie bake-offs or corn cookouts, how do you stay slim?

I, first of all, don't have time to eat a lot of the times, but a lot of it is that you can politely say, oh, that looks very nice, but I think I'm going to have to pass. I guess they understand. Mike Huckabee, thank you so much. Thank you, Margaret. For more about Mike Huckabee, you can visit our Vogue 2008 website at PBS.org. All of our candidate interviews and campaign updates are available there. And in addition, on our insider forum, Democratic and Republican strategists will answer your questions on the new fundraising numbers and the presidential campaign so far. And again, the major developments of the day, President Bush rejected new criticism of harsh interrogations and terror cases. He said this government does not torture people. Secretary of State and Rice ordered new measures to oversee black water security guards and Baghdad and trackstar Marion Jones pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about using steroids. Washington, we can be seen later this evening, almost PBS stations. We'll

see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice Columbus Day weekend. I'm Jim Lyra, thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by... Now headquarters is wherever you are, with AT&T data, video voice and now wireless, all working together to create a new world of mobility. Welcome to the new AT&T, the world delivered. Pacific Life, Chevron, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world.

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