The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

PHIL PONCE: Good evening. I'm Phil Ponce. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, Jeffrey Kaye has the good and bad economic news rippling in from Asia this Christmas; health correspondent Susan Dentzer reports on the growing problem of people without health insurance; special correspondent Jennifer Griffin on murder and politics in Russia; David Gergen talks to Colin Murphy, author of "The Word According to Eve," and poet Laureate Robert Pinsky reflects on the impeachment of a president. It all follows our summary of the news this Christmas Eve.

NEWS SUMMARY

PHIL PONCE: Bad weather has stranded hundreds of holiday travelers across the country. Snow, ice, and freezing temperatures made highways treacherous and backed up air travel. A snowstorm in Seattle left passengers waiting at the airport. Takeoffs were limited to only one runway for much of the morning. At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport passengers spent the night on cots, chairs, or on the floor, after flight delays filled up all of the nearby hotels. Ice storms knocked down power lines in Virginia and left more than 200,00 customers without electricity. In Tennessee, the roads were so bad the Greyhound Bus Company stopped service from Nashville and Memphis. In New Jersey, eight passengers were killed - the driver and fourteen others injured when a tour bus en route from New York to Atlantic City overturned on the Garden Street Parkway. Emergency vehicles and crews on the scene backed up traffic for several miles. The bus company said a total of 23 people were on board. Police said plows had cleared two of the three lanes of the road after two inches of snow had fallen. They did not know which lane the bus was using. President Clinton will not resign, nor will he admit he lied under oath, according to Vice President Gore. He said the president has acknowledged he misled prosecutors in the Lewinsky investigation. But the Vice President said Mr. Clinton would not admit to perjury as part of a censure deal to avoid an impeachment trial in the Senate. Mr. Gore spoke in an interview with Jesse Jackson that airs this Sunday on CNN. On the octuplet story today in Houston doctors told reporters they were excited about progress the eight babies were making, but their conditions would still remain critical for several weeks.

DR. LEONARD WEISMAN, Neonatologist: Today we stopped their sedation; we gave them all caffeine, which is an effort to help them improve their breathing. And tomorrow we hope to - those who have had a good response to this - to take them off mechanical ventilation and see if they can breathe on their own.

PHIL PONCE: The father of the infants also met the press for the first time. He said he was stunned by the event and that he had not been able to attend his wife's delivery because he was at work as a life support technician at another hospital when she went into labor unexpectedly. The around-the-world balloonists soared over the Pacific Ocean today, marking the halfway point in their attempt to make the first non-stop balloon trip around the world. They're traveling at 150 miles an hour and headed toward North America. British crew member Richard Branson talked about the trip and the trouble they've had getting permission to enter restricted air space.

RICHARD BRANSON: Normally, we would have thought that the Pacific was going to be our biggest challenge and the most frightening part of the journey. Obviously, we've had so many diplomatic problems today that the Pacific seems almost friendly by contrast.

PHIL PONCE: The trio hopes to over Washington state or southern Canada tomorrow on their way to a destination point in Western Europe. In Russia today the lower house of Parliament, the human, quickly gave initial approval for an austere 1999 budget. The Communist dominated legislature voted for the plan by a vote of 303 to 65. It calls for government spending of just $29 billion next year. By contrast, the United States government spends $30 billion a week. Before the vote, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov threatened to resign if the budget were rejected. Will have more Russia later in the program. In other foreign news today, Serbian police and military forces attacked an ethnic Albanian rebel stronghold in Kosovo, some 20 miles north of Pristina. An organization representing the rebel movement said at least one person was killed when Serbs fired shots and set houses on fire in six villages. Hundreds of refugees fled into the surrounding hills to escape the gunfire. Serb officials defended the raid. They said they were searching for the killers of a Serbian policeman, who was murdered in the area on Monday. A truce had been in effect since October. Opposition to Saddam Hussein is growing in Iraq, according to US Marine General Anthony Zini. He directed the military strikes against Iraq last week. Zini said there were tentative but credible signs Saddam is experiencing more internal problems in his regime that could undermine his power, and that Saddam was reacting by restructuring his military, cracking down on dissent, and increasing internal security. Zini spoke to reporters aboard a US military plane returning from a two-day visit to the Gulf. That's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to economic pains and gains from Asia, an update on the nation's uninsured, murder politics and Russia, a David Gergen dialogue, and Pinsky on impeachment.

FOCUS - RIPPLE EFFECT

PHIL PONCE: We begin tonight with a look at how the Asian economic crisis is hitting the United States for better and for worse. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports from Provo, Utah.

JEFFREY KAYE: This Christmas season is more difficult than usual for the Sperry family of Provo, Utah. Mike Sperry, father of two boys, has been out of work since September. To keep busy Sperry fixes cars out of his home. These days he's mostly in his garage, instead of the steel mill or he worked for 20 years.

MIKE SPERRY: It's tightened up big time. I mean, when you're used to eight/nine hundred every two weeks, bring home -- take home pay, you know, to pay your mortgage and utilities, and food, and things like that - you really tighten up when it goes from that to $284 a week.

JEFFREY KAYE: That's unemployment?

MIKE SPERRY: Yes. That's the unemployment.

JEFFREY KAYE: Sperry is one of 800 people to have lost jobs at Geneva Steel. That's 30 percent of the mills workforce. Geneva dominates the Utah Valley landscape 40 miles south of Salt Lake City. Until fairly recently when the area became home to many high-tech companies, steel production drove the local economy. The area is about as far away as you can get from Asia, culturally as well as geographically. Remote, the Utah Valley is surrounded by mountains and a lake. Its population is predominantly white and Mormon, but its economy buffeted by Asian financial storms is a reminder of the interconnectiveness of global finances, according to University of Utah economist Thayne Robson.

THAYNE ROBSON, Economist, University of Utah: Geographical isolation is now what he used to be - that is, with modern technology and transportation, information economy, the real question is: Are there any isolated places left on the globe?

JEFFREY KAYE: And Utah -- says Robson -- is feeling the effects of a wide trade deficit, as troubled nations sell more goods and services to the U.S. than they buy.

THAYNE ROBSON: Many are experiencing recessions, as in the case of Japan, and consequently, they are trying to work their way out of their difficulties by exporting more goods and services to the strongest market in the world, which is the United States, and of the same time they're curtailing their purchases from American firms.

JEFFREY KAYE: Case in point -- the American steel mill industry. Geneva Steel, where Mike Sperry worked, is the largest steel mill west of the Mississippi. Like other U.S. steel producers, it's spacing stiff price competition from abroad. The U.S. steel industry has complained foreign steel producers are selling steel for less than across them to make it. In last quarter Geneva lost $15 million. Timothy Clark, Geneva's vice president of manufacturing, says the price of steel plate - Geneva's main product - fell 60 to 70 dollars a ton, 15 percent, in the last few months.

TIMOTHY CLARK, Vice President of Manufacturing, Geneva Steel: The surge of and imports has blasted our markets. Our pricing's gone south, volume's gone south, and basically we're subsidizing the poor performance foreign economies.

JEFFREY KAYE: How so?

TIMOTHY CLARK: They got themselves into situation where they weren't consuming their own steel, so that steel has come to America's shores in an attempt to find a new home.

JEFFREY KAYE: In short, the global supply of steel is greater than the demand, so the price is down. Geneva has cut its production by two-thirds.

TIMOTHY CLARK: The worst noise, I guess, at a steel mill is no noise, and this place is awfully quiet right now, which is not a good thing. It's not what you want to hear.

JEFFREY KAYE: The story is much the same at the other end of the industrial revolution; in order to make computer memory chips, Micron Technology built a $600 million factory in the Utah Valley. That the plant is unfinished and the buildings are virtually empty. Micron vice president Kipp Bedard, standing in what was supposed to be a high-tech factory, says foreign oversupply has led to a price drop in memory from $50 a chip to $2.

KIPP BEDARD, Vice President, Micron: And because we're in a commodity business, in order for us to sell product to the same customer base that our competitors do, we have to match those prices. To

JEFFREY KAYE: And?

KIPP BEDARD: Well, we have, but what it's done is taken us from a profitable situation to the most severe losses that we've seen in our history as a company.

JEFFREY KAYE: The U.S. government estimates that 200,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since March. It's not just the companies, themselves, that are affected in the global economic turmoil; there's been a ripple effect throughout the Valley. Business for the truckers that ship Geneva's steel is off, as it for the company's other suppliers. Projects and services that expected to benefit from Micron's expansion have been placed on hold. Suppliers of farm equipment and chemicals are also hurting, as agriculture feels the pinch.

SPOKESMAN: Agricultural prices are very much depressed. The loss of foreign export markets to Asia has -- in the efforts of foreigners to import agricultural commodities -- farmers have had their incomes reduced substantially because of the decline in prices that have resulted from this - in this particular area and in parts of the West the apple growers have been hit quite hard.

JEFFREY KAYE: Prices for apples have declined so much the Utah Valley the Ercanbrack Brothers are plowing under acres of 16 year old apple trees. At current prices they figure it would cost more to care for and harvest the apples than they could make selling them. This year, they've let 120 acres of apples rot, 120 out of a total of 180 acres. Randall Ercanbrack reckons there are $2 million worth of rotting apples in his orchard.

RANDALL ERCANBRACK: It just breaks my heart to see apples - you know - on the ground. And I've sprayed this all season; I've watered it; and I've pruned it last year; and I've gotten no money at all for what I've done. And it just gets you in the heart.

JEFFREY KAYE: In a nearly empty packing shed Randall's brother, Sheldon, filled gift boxes purchased by a local bank for its customers.

SHELDON ERCANBRACK: We would probably have around 35 people in this building - three or four out here and the rest in the packing area working today. Today we have none.

JEFFREY KAYE: One person who has work is Haley Ercanbrack, Randall's 16-year-old daughter. She's needed every day after school.

HALEY ERCANBRACK: Because I'm his daughter and the - if he hired somebody else, he'd have to pay them more, and me, I'm just here because I want to be, and to help out my dad.

JEFFREY KAYE: Global economic conditions may have resulted in bad news for American producers of goods trying to sell the merchandise, but for consumers looking for bargains, it's another story. In furniture, in toys, and in clothes, shoppers, such as Haley Ercanbrack, have found that prices this holiday season have been flat compared to last year.

HALEY ERCANBRACK: Actually, last week I bought a dress for a dance.

JEFFREY KAYE: Uh-huh.

HALEY ERCANBRACK: It was about $40 and sold regularly $80 - really good sales.

JEFFREY KAYE: ZCMI, Utah's biggest department store chain, recently locked in prices of Asian made merchandise for next year. Buyer Joe Frodshom says he's made good deals with his suppliers.

JOE FRODSHOM, Buyer, ZCMI Department Stores: I think in most cases the price range will be 10 percent lower than the we've been getting.

JEFFREY KAYE: Why?

JOE FRODSHOM: They need cash flow, and they need to keep on going.

JEFFREY KAYE: Will you pass the savings along to the customers?

JOE FRODSHOM: Absolutely, because you would be kidding yourself. The competition will, and we definitely intend to.

JEFFREY KAYE: Already, prices of computer goods are down significantly because of cheap foreign components, and while price decreases threaten U.S. manufacturers, they've helped consumers in some U.S. businesses. The Utah Valley is a hub of high-technology. One of the area's largest employers is Novell. The company makes network software, programs that enable computers to hook up to each other.

ERIC SCHMIDT, Chairman and CEO, Novell: And from this site here Utah we manage all of our networks.

JEFFREY KAYE: Eric Schmidt, the firm's Chairman and CEO, says cheaper prices for computers and memory chips, none by the acronym DRAM, are good for his business.

ERIC SCHMIDT: As United States prices for DRAM and the computers that are around them get lower, more and more people buy computers, which is good for us, because our software runs on his computers.

JEFFREY KAYE: In addition, says Schmidt, he sees an improved market in Asia for his network software.

ERIC SCHMIDT: Asia has many, many computers, but most of them have not been networked. Once those computers get networked together, the company can take its business processes and make them more automated.

JEFFREY KAYE: Generating more business and more jobs for Novell, the Asia crisis is also helping at least one local car dealer. The Korean-made Hyundai Sonata is selling for $750 less than last year's version. That's a result - says dealer Ted Lassetter - of the devalued currency.

TED LASSETTER: Their economic demise has become our economic boon and has increased our fortune - that they're able to do a lot more things when you're talking about the dollar versus the wan, and so -

JEFFREY KAYE: The Korean currency.

TED LASSETTER: The Korean currency. So their situation is such that we're able to benefit from it.

JEFFREY KAYE: Some short-term benefits may have long-term consequences for the U.S. The American auto industry is having to compete with cheap cars from Korea.

TED LASSETTER: They want to put them in to this market and increase their sales dramatically. That puts a downward pressure on the price of automobiles generally. They do not have a very large share of the American market, but they're trying to increase their share at the expense of other manufacturers of automobiles.

JEFFREY KAYE: For now, U.S. made cars for selling well. In particular, sales of gas and guzzling sport utility vehicles and light trucks have benefited from relatively low gasoline prices, another byproduct of global economic conditions - reduced demand in Asia has led to an increase supply. Low interest rates on loans, spurred in part by the Asia crisis, have helped not only car dealers but also home buyers and the construction industry, were some laid off steel workers have found employment. Mike Sperry believes he has a future in automobiles; he studying to become a transmission mechanic and perhaps open his own shop. He is aware of the national trend reflected in the Utah Valley that workers who lose jobs in manufacturing have a hard time finding comparable paying jobs elsewhere. Jobs are plentiful, but wages are low.

MIKE SPERRY: You can go out and find menial jobs - five, six bucks an hour -- they're handing them out right and left. Me, personally, would rather tighten the belt - so to speak - extremely tighten the belt, maybe sell a few things, just really watch were every dime goes, go back to school, get some advanced technical training, and then go out the market, because I know the market that I'm going into is there.

JEFFREY KAYE: Sperry's optimism is not shared by many American unions and businesses facing stiff competition from abroad. There's a growing national debate over whether or not tariffs and quotas are necessary to protect U.S. industries - even in once remote areas like the Utah Valley, where international trade policies have very local consequences.

FOCUS - THE UNINSURED

PHIL PONCE: Now, a look at the growing problem of those without health insurance. It comes from Susan Dentzer of our health unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: The United States is in the midst of one of the longest periods of economic growth on record. Yet, even so, the number of Americans without health insurance keeps rising, and the tally has exploded or the past decade. Dr. Nancy Dickey is the president of the American Medical Association.

DR. NANCY DICKEY, American Medical Association: We have gone from 32 million uninsured to more than 44 million uninsured. More than a million people a year added to the ranks of the uninsured, and that is after a decade of the best economic times we've had that I remember.

SUSAN DENTZER: Solving that problem is one of the goals President Clinton had in mind back in 1993 and 1994, when he launched his ill-fated attempt to mount a government-led reform of health care.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If you send legislation that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can ever be taken away, you will force me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we'll come right back here and start all over again. [applause.]

SUSAN DENTZER: Although the president's perform attempt failed to pass Congress, the health-care system has been reforming itself ever since; as companies have sought to limit the growth of health-care costs, millions of Americans have been nudged into managed-care plans. Back, in turn, has prompted an effort in Congress and state legislatures to reform managed-care. But now the AMA is calling on Congress to pick up where the Clinton effort left off and pass broad measures to spread coverage among the uninsured.

DR. NANCY DICKEY: You know, those folks who are uninsured don't have a PAC; they don't have an organized voice. As physicians, it's up to us to be their voice. And I don't think any group needs our help, needs the nation's help more than those who are shut out of the system.

SUSAN DENTZER: Experts say that the official tallies of the uninsured may understate the severity of the problem. Millions more Americans may actually go without coverage from time to time. Health economist Deborah Chollet says the reason so many are being shut out of the system is simple.

DEBORAH CHOLLET, Health Economist, Alpha Center: Money, money, money - it's affordability. People don't have insurance because they can't afford to buy it.

SUSAN DENTZER: And, in fact, two out of three of the uninsured are in families with relatively low incomes - less than $32,000 a year for a family of four. Most of the uninsured aren't households headed by workers to simply don't have employer based coverage.

DEBORAH CHOLLET: The employer can't afford to buy the coverage, or the worker can't afford to take the coverage, given the amount the employer requires the worker to contribute.

SUSAN DENTZER: Since the collapse of Clinton's health performs, Congress has undertaken some steps to spread coverage. [Applause.] In 1997, Congress passed the Children's Health Insurance Program - or CHIP - as part of the Balanced Budget Act. The $24 billion, five-year program is aimed at expanding coverage among the nearly 11 million children without health insurance. So far, 45 states have received federal approval of there are CHIP plans. These programs are expected to cover just 2 1/2 million uninsured kids.

DEBORAH CHOLLET: The states had hoped that by opening the doors to children who are uninsured they would - you know - flock in those doors. And, in fact, the rate of take up in those plans is less than everyone had hoped.

SUSAN DENTZER: The AMA has called for lawmakers to make a concerted effort to tackle the problem of the uninsured. For example, it urged the creation of health insurance purchasing cooperatives. These would allow small businesses and others to buy coverage at attractive group rates. The AMA also proposed giving millions of America's tax credits based on their level of income to help pay for coverage. Forecasters say that unless action is taken, the number of uninsured will continue to rise, perhaps to as high as 53 million people by 2007.

PHIL PONCE: And with me is Susan Dentzer.

PHIL PONCE: Susan, give us a profile of the uninsured. Who are they?

SUSAN DENTZER: Phil, they really cut across a broad swathe of the U.S. population. They come from all different income groups, all different parts of the country, all different racial and ethnic groups as well, but, buy and large, they can be low-wage a minimum wage workers. For out of five of those without health insurance are actually in households headed by workers, and three out of five of the uninsured are full-time, full year workers, so again they tend to be people who are working but who are in low-wage jobs and in jobs that don't have - tend to have health insurance attached to it.

PHIL PONCE: This is a group that's been referred to as what, the working poor?

SUSAN DENTZER: The working poor and the working low income and the working low paid.

PHIL PONCE: So, folks say if you're elderly and poor, then you tend to be covered by Medicare, and if you're - and if you're very poor, then you tend to be covered by Medicaid. These are the folks that sort of fall in between.

SUSAN DENTZER: Very much so.

PHIL PONCE: And, again, all these folks that are working - employers are not required to give health insurance or provide health insurance?

SUSAN DENTZER: No, that's right. Of course, in the Clinton health-care reform proposals there was a proposed so-called employer mandate that would have required firms to provide insurance to their workers, but that collapsed along with the rest of the Clinton health reforms. And now whether you get health insurance are not along with your job is really appear employer's volition.

PHIL PONCE: And since the collapse of the Clinton health-care effort in the first term, what have people come to realize about the complexity of the system?

SUSAN DENTZER: That it's huge; that this represents one of the major public policy quandaries that lies in front of us. After the collapse of the Clinton reforms, there was a consensus that we would not solve the solution of the uninsured in a big government-wide system reform -- one fell swoop -- that any changes that would be made would have to be incremental. As a consequence, we have made incremental changes. It turns out of the problem incremental changes is that they are just that -- incremental. You can pick up a million people here, a million people there, but you can't really do something to -- in a concerted way -- get health insurance coverage into the hands of many people. This becomes particularly difficult in the current environment, where health insurance premiums are once again rising in many cases very steeply. If the primary reason people don't have health insurance is that they can't afford it, that problem is obviously not helped -- indeed, it's made much worse as health insurance continues to grow more and more expensive.

PHIL PONCE: So, if incremental approach isn't working, as some people believe, does that mean that it's time for - that people are now being - are now being called upon to look at more of a systematic-wide - wide-ranging kinds of changes?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, that was exactly what lay behind the AMA's proposal. The AMA is concerned that this story has in a way become -- as journalists refer to it - an evergreen; it's out there, it's been around forever, it's at the point where it's so big and so omnipresent that the irony is people aren't dealing with it. The AMA wants to get this back on journalists' agenda, on the nation's agenda, and that's why they called for this broad systematic approach, basically going back and looking at some of the features of the Clinton health care reforms, putting them together with other proposals to come up with a concerted way of making sure that we - in effect - distributed the ability to pay for health insurance across the broad population.

PHIL PONCE: Well, because it's not on anyone's agenda, is it too early to say which of the AMA's proposals might garner the most support?

SUSAN DENTZER: I think the only thing that we can say is that if Washington ever digs its way out of some of the other issues that are uppermost on the agenda, and it gets around to looking at this, it will of necessity have to come back to looking at the grab bag of proposals that were on the table in 1993 and '94, and that the AMA has presented us with again. Again, the notion of creating some kind of voluntary health insurance purchasing cooperatives, where people could go and get group insurance rates, also in making a tax-based assistance, tax credits available to individuals, to help them purchase insurance, taking a look at some of the current tax breaks that we apply to insurance and redistributing the effects of those in some way, all of those are very obvious things that were on the table in '93 and '94, and must be on the table again and the AMA again wants that back on the agenda.

PHIL PONCE: What's the likelihood of any of those options being seriously explored the next year or so?

SUSAN DENTZER: Within the next year I think explored possibly. Dealt with and passed into law probably not very likely at all. If other issues come onto the agenda, like Social Security, those will be of such overwhelming magnitude that they'll drive things like this off the table. But what a lot of people are saying is, look, we're in a period of unprecedented economic expansion, yet, the number of health - of those without health insurance coverage has grown. What is going to happen if this trend continues, and if we get into another economic downturn, theoretically we're looking at perhaps 60 million people or more without health insurance coverage. At that time it will be virtually impossible to muster the funds to deal with the problem. So the time to deal with the problem is now when economic times are good.

PHIL PONCE: But, ironically, are some people worried that it's going to take a recession say to get this back on the agenda?

SUSAN DENTZER: It did in the early 1990s, and I think a lot of people's expectation is that's what it will take again to get people to focus on it, and get it to vault over the other list of problems that Washington has been front of it.

PHIL PONCE: Susan, thank you very much.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thanks, Phil.

FOCUS - UNSTEADY DEMOCRACY

PHIL PONCE: Still ahead on the NewsHour tonight murder and politics in Russia, a Gergen dialogue, and poetry about a president. The Russia story is next. The reporter is special correspondent Jennifer Griffin.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: In a land where people have grown used to Mafia violence and contract killings, the murder of Galina Staravoitova, a female member parliament, broad out deep emotion. [funeral dirge playing in background] Staravoitova was gunned down in the hallway of her St. Petersburg apartment in late November. So far police have made no arrests. Most Russians regard the killing of this pro democracy member of parliament as a political murder and as evidence that their country's post Soviet reform era is ending.

OKSANA MALYSHEVA, St. Petersburg Resident, Teacher: [speaking through interpreter] This death has become a symbol; it should call of Russia. Staravoitova was connected with the dawn of Perestroika, with the growth of our self-conscience, the feeling of freedom. But freedom costs too much in Russia. To live freely and say what you think is equal to death; there is a lot of history that revolutions swallow their children; Staravoitova was the child of Perestroika, and now democratic Russia has destroyed her.

LYUDMILA LAZAREVA, St. Petersburg Resident, Retired Nurse: [speaking through interpreter] I have been living in St. Petersburg for many, many years. Now, I'm so scared about what's happening. I have survived the blockade of Leningrad during the second world war. I buried my father without a coffin. I have seen a lot of difficult moments. Were so afraid of fascism, and now it is hard to believe was happening under a democracy.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: With all the crises Russia has endured recently, and in contrast to the cynicism so often expressed by ordinary Russians, more than 10,000 people showed up to walk past Staravoitova's coffin as a tribute her and to show support for democracy. Boris Altshuler represents what is left of Russia's intelligentsia - men and women who risked their lives fighting for civil and human rights for the past two decades. He, like Staravoitova, was friends with Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear scientist who became Russia's most outspoken rights campaigner in the 1970s and 80's, but who died before seeing the Soviet Union collapse. Altshuler said he fears Russia's entering in which the democratic gains he and Sakharov and the other dissidents fought for in danger of being lost.

BORIS ALTSHULER, Moscow Research Center for Human Rights: For Russian people democracy is synonym of criminal - they never saw democracy as working rules or mechanisms; they don't know what it is. History is a chain of missed opportunities. Only stupidity of some people in 1970 in Russia permitted Bolsheviks to come to power. Only stupidity of Western politicians in 30s brought to power Hitler; only stupidity of Russian Democrats and missed opportunities by them will bring this danger of restoration of totalitarianism.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: There is a growing feeling that Russia's democracy is fragile and under siege. President Boris Yeltsin, the founder of modern democratic Russia, spends most of his days in the hospital. A former communist spy Chief, Yevgeny Primakov, is prime minister and critical of most recent free market economic reforms. Crime and corruption are rampant; millions are falling into poverty. And the communists who control Russia's parliament are pushing laws to curb recently gained liberties -- like one that would give the government control of the media -- legislation inspired by press attacks on the Communists who failed to rein in one of their lawmakers, after he said all Jews should be driven from the country. The Communist Parliament also passed a resolution to resurrect in central Moscow the statue of the Soviets' first secret police chief, Felix Derginski, which was torn down by pro democracy demonstrators in 1991. The communists say the statue represents the iron fist needed to clamp down on lawlessness. Their critics say it symbolizes fear and dictatorship. And even more democracy is working, like in recent local elections in St. Petersburg, there are strong efforts to subvert it. The recent campaign there was filled with well organized dirty tricks designed to prevent the re-election of local Democrats. To confuse voters, candidates with the same names as the Democrats were listed on the ballot. But the trick failed and a record high turnout of voters returned many Democrats to office. It was that kind of anti-democratic corruption that Staravoitova warned against in an interview taped shortly before her death.

GALINA STARAVOITOVA, Murdered Member of RussianParliament: This campaign already had some difficulties when the supporters of campaign were collecting the signatures before the registration of the candidates - some of them were beaten by the competitors, and there were ready several small clashes, and within the campaign it will be very, very tensionable, and everybody should be very careful.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: [funeral dirge in background] Her funeral brought out the leaders of Russia's democratic and reform-minded parties, people like Anatoly Chubais, one of the authors of Russia's privatization, and Boris Nemtsov, a former first deputy prime minister under Yeltsin. These reformers are now out of power and their proposed free market economic reforms tarnished in the minds of many voters by the collapse of the Russian economy. And some of them are personally shadowed by allegations of corruption. The problem is any so-called democratic reformer who has served in Boris Yeltsin's cabinet has been largely discredited. Many Russians associate democracy and Yeltsin's reforms with the fact that their lives have grown so much worse since the end of the Soviet Union. In Russia, the average pension is worth around $20 per month, hardly enough to live on. For the older generation, democracy has meant an end to the free apartments, the subsidized food, and guaranteed jobs that existed under communism. Some analysts blame Yeltsin's young reformers for economic policy mistakes that have led many Russians to think that democracy has failed.

ANDREI KORTUNOV, President Moscow Public Science Foundation: They came to power as outsiders. They didn't have experience; they didn't have contacts; sometimes they didn't even know the country too well. Second, most of them have retrained and socialized fighting the system, therefore, for many of them destruction was the name of the game, not creation.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Former First Deputy Prime Minister Nemtsov admits mistakes were made, but says politicians like himself are being blamed for reforms that never happened.

BORIS NEMTSOV, Former First Deputy Prime Minister, Russia: We made a lot of mistakes; that's true - concerning not privatization but concerning a lot of compromises with communists and with nationalists and others. And frankly, reforms didn't proceed in this country for the last six years because we have communist-oriented parliament.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Young people like these who recently attended a job fair in search of work used to trust Nemtsov and the other reformers. They bought into their program; they put their money in banks, while everyone else kept it in mattresses. They also were among the first to lose their jobs and their savings when the government virtually defaulted on its debt, and the ruble crashed in August. But many of them remain resiliently optimistic about capitalism and democracy.

SPOKESMAN: These are already directly applicable to jobs.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: At the Tura University in Moscow young executives are using this time of recession to get American MBA's.

IRINA ZAMARINA, MBA Student: If Russia goes back to communism, obviously, I won't need it, but then I might end up in Siberia because I have the credit of working for western companies already, and I will never be trusted; maybe in a year the companies will come back. I understand why they're leaving, but I think they will come back.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Irina Zamarina says her generation had forgotten about politics and was focusing only on making money. The August financial crisis and Staravoitiva's murder forced them to pay attention to politics again.

IRINA ZAMARINA: We were very much into politics a few years ago. Then for the last couple of years we didn't talk about politics, which was a good sign; things were on a good side. Now, especially after Staravoitiva was killed, everyone is back to watching news and talking about politics.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: But even if they go back to politics, students like Alexander Gavrilin know their own economic prospects are likely to be poor for sometime.

ALEXANDER GAVRILIN, MBA Student: I'd like to apply to Russian business and maybe some joint ventures, but I don't know if there are some in the future because of economic gulfs right now.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: But a few from the older generation that have seen so much suffering - like 92 year old Vera Kupriyanova - still hold out some hope - if not for herself-at least for the next generation.

VERA KUPRIYANOVA, St. Petersburg Resident: [speaking through interpreter] Democracy has only just started. Maybe some things were better under the communists, but I don't want communism back, and I don't think it will come back. I didn't have money then and I don't have money now.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Russians seem to agree that even if democracy appears to be in danger, the liberties associated with it are still popular.

BORIS NEMTSOV: If you ask people, do you for freedom of press - they're for multi-party system - I think that answer will be yes. But if you ask people do you for democracy, people answer no, because people believe in very concrete symbols of democracy, but not in general democracy. And it seems to me that it's necessary to explain people what democracy means.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: Some analysts think it could be too late and that the real threat will be if the country's anti-democratic forces take power through democratic means.

ANDREI KORTUNOV: I don't think that there is any leader in this country right now who might dare to say I don't care about democracy, I don't care about elections, I don't care about free media. The country has changed much, so whoever it will be, he or she will have to accept democracy as something given. However, the danger is that instead of this out-front attack on democracy, we might have some infiltration of authoritarianism, and this is a phenomenon which will be much more difficult to fight against than just outright attacks on democratic principles.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN: The next immediate test for Russia's political institutions, most officials and analysts agree, will be getting the country through a long and difficult winter.

PHIL PONCE: Now a Gergen dialogue. David Gergen, editor at large of US News & World Report, engages Cullen Murphy, Author of "The Word According to Eve, Women in the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own."

DIALOGUE

DAVID GERGEN: Cullen, in your new book, you emphasize that women are not only having an enormous influence upon the pulpits of American churches but they're beginning to have a terrific influence also upon biblical interpretation.

CULLEN MURPHY, Author, "The Word According to Eve:" They are certainly doing both things. In graduate schools of divinity the enrollment of women is now above 30 percent - in most places above 50 percent in some of the elite schools. But the larger issue that I've been focusing on is women who are in the more secular end of academe, who are pursuing biblical scholarship as broadly defined, including literary studies, archaeology, history, anthropology, and additional biblical studies. During the past 20 or 30 years women have entered this field at first by the dozens and then by the scores, and now by the hundreds. If you attend any of the meetings of the professional societies devoted to religion and to the Bible, you'll find that women are the most vital presence there. And one of the things that they are doing is subjecting the Bible to the kind of look that is never received because it is really in the past 2000 years or so - has only been looked at by men.

DAVID GERGEN: I was struck that - at how often you said that feminists encountering religion - there are so few women in the Bible compared to the number of men and that of course the Bible has been used through the centuries to justify the subordination of women to men, and that's what they're coming to grips with.

CULLEN MURPHY: The Bible is problematic for women in a number of ways. One is that it was simply the product of men's pens, and for all the fact that there may be women's voices in there, there are not all that many of them, nor are there all that many women, compared to men. In the Hebrew bible, for instance, there are about 150 women were given names, to suppose to about 1400 men who are given names. In the New Testament the number is about 50 women who are given names and a lot more men, so women are under-represented. But it's not really an issue of under-representation, as you know. The issue in many cases is what is the Bible saying about women? There are a great many stories in which women are getting a short end of the stick, to put mildly. There are a great many stories whose moral for women is deeply disturbing, and those stories can include the creation stories in Genesis; they can include stories like Jeftha's Daughter; they can include some of the epistles of Paul. There's a great deal there for women to have a problem with. And, as I say, in the last two or three decades women have begun to look at these issues very closely and wonder what do these stories really mean, have we gotten them wrong? What were the societies like that gave us these stories? What were they trying to say? Male interpreters simply didn't look at these issues for the most part ever. The issue of women in the Bible passed below the radar screen of scholarship until very recent times, and this has been an extraordinary development.

DAVID GERGEN: Let's come down to cases because you describe in some detail the re-interpretation or what women are bringing to an understanding of the Adam and Eve story.

CULLEN MURPHY: Well, the Adam and Eve story is in many ways the beginning. Everyone, of course, is familiar with the story from children's bibles, if not - if the real Bible. There are two creation stories in Genesis. And it is in these creation stories that we have what seemed to be a conflicting notion of equality. In the first creation story it said very simply that many women are created equal in the image of God. The second creation story is the one that contains the story of Adam and Eve. And two issues come up here. The first one has to do with whether woman is a subsidiary creature. As you remember, Eve seems to be made out of the rib of Adam. And she's an after thought, we've been told, and man was the real apple of God's eye, and woman was created to be Adam's help mate, and so this issue of subsidiarity is a big one. And, you know, even today you look in the Encyclopedia Britannica under Eve, and the entry there says, "See Adam and Eve." And Britannica is no brackish intellectual back water. So that's the first issue, and the second issue is the one of woman being endowed with the responsibility for the so-called fall from grace because it is she whofirst eats of the forbidden fruit.

DAVID GERGEN: So what do the women - feminist scholars now bring to this story? What re-interpretation are they bringing?

CULLEN MURPHY: On the first issue - the one of subsidiarity - scholars like Phyllis Tribble have pointed out that very translation of that story makes us get it wrong, that, in fact, there is no male creature or female creature at first; that this creature who is called Adam - that the word "Adam" really refers to creature of undifferentiated sex, an earth creature - that's what Adam means - and that it is only when the figure Eve is created, that, in fact, there is also the male figure, so that male and female are being created at the - at the same time, which makes perfect sense in conjunction with the first story in creation. As for the second matter, scholars like Elaine Pagels and others have pointed out that this tradition of interpreting the Adam and Eve story as one whose moral is the blame-worthiness of woman, that it was merely because of woman that humanity was led astray, is a very, very late interpretation, that the very earliest Jewish and Christian interpretations were far different. When they asked the question -- What is this story really about? What is the message we're supposed to be taking away from this story, the message is not let's blame women; the message is humanity is responsible for its own actions. Human beings have moral freedom. Human beings have free will. That's a very profound and sophisticated message.

DAVID GERGEN: Final question. I'm sorry, we've run out of time. You speak here about this being an intellectual revolution in the church. Is that what you think is happening, and where does that leave us?

CULLEN MURPHY: I think it is an intellectual revolution in religion as a whole. I think elites in this country - to use a word I'm not fond of - tend to belittle religion, not take it very seriously, and underestimate the hold and the affection that it has among Americans generally, but, in fact, it is profoundly important. People take it very seriously, and therefore, anything that is happening inside it has enormous consequences. The most important thing that is happening inside religion right now is the ascendance of women to positions of intellectual leadership and hierarchical leadership. That is not going to be reversed. And the results, which may take centuries, are going to be enormous. We are seeing it in front of us every day.

DAVID GERGEN: Cullen Murphy, thank you very much.

CULLEN MURPHY: Well, thank you.

FINALLY - WHERE MARBLE EATS MARBLE

PHIL PONCE: Finally tonight, a poetic response to the recent impeachment proceedings from NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky, poet Laureate of the United States.

ROBERT PINSKY: Searching for some lines of poetry fit for the current impeachment crisis I thought of the 16th century poem by Faulk Revel that begins: "Faction that ever dwells in courts where wit excels have set defiance." That is, faction, what we call partisanship, will always defiantly dwell in the places of power where clever people gather. Opposing factions in the recent debate about impeachment and censure have evoked Abraham Lincoln's name. Lincoln is remembered a bit differently in a poem Stanley Kunitz wrote in the years after the earlier impeachment crisis of the '70s, the resignation of Richard Nixon and the pardon rendered by Gerald Ford of any and all Nixon crimes. Kunitz was serving in Washington in my present post in those days, and the Library of Congress had mounted an exhibit of Lincoln relics, including thecontents of Lincoln's pockets the night he was assassinated. Back then in the 70's Kunitz wrote of a Washington as a city awash in gossip and power where marble eats marble. But here's a section of Kunitz's poem, " The Lincoln Relics," evoking Lincoln as a spirit of generosity, temperance, humor, and forgiveness. "These relics on display, watch fob and ivory pocket knife, a handkerchief of Irish linen, a button severed from his sleeve, make a noble dissolving music out of homely fife and drum, and that's miraculous. His innocence was to trust the better angels of our nature, even when the union cracked and furious blood ran North and South along the lines of pillage. Secession grieved him like the falling out of brothers. After Appomatox he laid the white flower of forgiving on knees, crisp sword. What was there left for him to do? When the curtain rose on our American cousin, he leaned forward in his chair, toward the last absurdity, that other laughable country for which he was ready with his ransom. A five dollar Confederate note in mint condition, and nine newspaper accolades neatly folded in his wallet. It was time for him now to try on his gold-rimmed spectacles -- the pair with the sliding temples mended with a loop of string while the demon of the absolute, who had been skulking in the wings, leaped into focus, waving the smoking pistol." Later in the poem at the end, Kunitz has a vision or illusion of Lincoln as a tourist at the Library of Congress. He steps out from the crowd with his raw-boned, warty look, a gangling fellow in jeans next to a plum-colored sari, and just as suddenly he's gone. I give you Kunitz's vision of that rather plain, reflective figure, above faction, just visible in the city where marble eats marble.

RECAP

PHIL PONCE: Again, the major stories this Christmas Eve, ice and snowstorms snarled holiday travel, delaying flights and automobile traffic from the nation's midsection to the Northeast Coast. Vice President Gore said in an interview to be aired Sunday that President Clinton will not resign, nor will he admit he committed perjury, and doctors told reporters the Houston octuplets are making progress but would remain in critical condition for several weeks. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Phil Ponce. Thank you and Merry Christmas!