The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening, I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; a deadly earthquake in Iran; an update on the Mad Cow story; a Paul Solman report on the paradox of choice; end-of-the-week analysis from Shields and Brooks; and a book conversation on the Yom Kippur War.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: A devastating earthquake struck Iran today. Estimates of the dead ranged from five thousand to twenty thousand. The quake leveled much of the ancient city of bam, about 600 miles southeast of Tehran. We have a report from John Draper of Independent Television News based on footage broadcast by Iranian state TV.

JOHN DRAPER: Most people were asleep in bed when the earthquake struck around 5 in the morning local time. Within minutes, three out of every five houses in Bam had been destroyed. The thousands who died, many of whom children, had no chance of even trying to protect themselves. Of the tens of thousands injured a relatively lucky few managed to get medical treatment. The city's two hospitals were destroyed. The wounded who could be found transport were taken to neighboring towns. The Iranian governments made a national appeal for blood donations. The lack of information is adding to the agony, although many have had confirmation that members of their families are dead. Of those missing, many are feared to be trapped alive in the rubble as well as search teams being flown from Teheran, Russian rapid response units are being sent by President Putin. In just over 12 hours, these people's lives have been turned upside down. No homes, no food, and loved ones unaccounted for. The Red Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross is mustering relief teams from all over Iran. Priorities are the disinfectants water pumps and generators. They're asking international aid agencies to fly in whatever help they can.

MARGARET WARNER: Several European nations have already volunteered humanitarian aid and rescue teams to Iran. And in a statement today, President Bush said the United States stands ready to help as well. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. In southern California rescue crews found two people dead today after a severe mudslide in southern California. At least a dozen others, most of them children, were missing. Heavy rains touched off the slides in the San Bernardino Mountains on Thursday. A torrent of mud, boulders and logs swept through a church youth camp and a nearby trailer park. The missing children range from six months to sixteen years old. Last fall's wildfires destroyed vegetation that previously held the soil in place. A wave of new attacks in Iraq has killed five U.S. Soldiers over the past 24 hours. Two died late Thursday in Baqouba, when insurgents fired mortars at a U.S. Base. Four others were wounded. Three more soldiers were killed today, and two others were wounded in separate incidents. As of Wednesday, 464 Americans had died in Iraq, from all causes, since the war began in March. Nearly 2,700 have been wounded or injured in accidents. A first contingent of Japanese troops, some 23 soldiers, set off for Iraq today. An advance team for nearly 1,000 troops to follow, they dressed in civilian clothes to emphasize the non-combat nature of their mission. This will be Japan's largest military deployment since World War II. Turkish authorities announced today they had broken up a terrorist cell they believe was behind last month's bombings in Istanbul. We have a report narrated by Amanda Palmer of Associated Press Television News.

AMANDA PALMER: He is suspected of being a key member of a Turkish al-Qaida cell. Harun Ilhan was among ten alleged militants set to face charges on Friday. They're accused of involvement in suicide bombings that killed 62 people in Istanbul last month. Turkish authorities were quick to hail the wave of arrests as a success. Police also seized more than a thousand pounds of explosives, along with a large cache of rifles and hand guns. Istanbul's governor said future terrorist attacks had been prevented, and there was no need to panic. But he admitted there were still suspects at large. Last month's attacks targeted two synagogues, a London-based bank and the British consulate. A police document leaked earlier this week suggested U.S. Or Israeli interests may be next.

MARGARET WARNER: The U.S. State Department has warned Americans to avoid "non-essential" travel to turkey. U.S. Officials quarantined a second cattle herd in Washington State today amidst continuing concern about Mad Cow Disease. That makes two herds quarantined because they contain offspring of a single, slaughtered infected cow. The U.S. Agriculture Department said it's unlikely the mother could transmit the disease to its calves, but not impossible. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Bargain hunters flooded stores this day after Christmas. But the International Council of Shopping Centers said overall holiday business has been below expectations. It said sales growth might still be the best since 1999. On Wall Street today, traders put in just half a day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 19 points to close above 10,324. The NASDAQ rose almost four points to close at 1973. For the week, the Dow gained 0.5 percent; the NASDAQ rose 1 percent. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the earthquake in Iran; a Mad Cow update; the paradox of choice; Shields and Brooks; and a book conversation.

FOCUS - DEADLY TREMOR

MARGARET WARNER: Now, more on the devastating earthquake in Iran. Jeffrey brown has that.

JEFFREY BROWN: And joining me is Farzad Naiem, an earthquake engineer and vice president at john A. Martin and associates in Los Angeles. He was born in Iran.

Mr. Naiem, could you give us some background on this area? Why is it so prone to large earthquakes?

FARZAD NAIEM: Iran is known for big earthquakes for a long time. The country is located at the intersection of at least three tectonic plates, plates that rub against each other and cause earthquakes. Arabian Plate is one, the Indian Plate is the other, and the Asian Plate is a third one, and these plates push and shove against each other, and the area where Iran is located on is under constant deformation, and we have a lot of big mountain ranges there that are caused by these deformations, and a lot of earthquakes over many, many years. So earthquake is not news to Iran. It has been there for centuries.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, estimates of the death total vary widely at this point, but it is clearly very high. Is this a case where building construction plays a big part?

FARZAD NAIEM: Absolutely. The construction quality in Iran, particularly in rural areas and villages, are poor. They have been poor for many, many years, and they continue to be poor. To give you a point of comparison, in California, which basically has the same type of seismicity as we have in Iran, over the 20th century a total number of about 1,600 people have died because of earthquakes. In Iran, that number over the 20th century is more than 126,000, and I don't think anything else but the quality of construction is the reason for the difference.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, given that the area is so prone to earthquakes, are there codes in place, and if so, why are they not upheld?

FARZAD NAIEM: Well, there are codes in place, but, you know, codes are a very small part of a very big story. Number one, codes generally protect buildings or are enforced on new buildings, buildings that you've built, and then you have a new code, and people have to build according to those codes. We are talking about a country which has a history of over 2,000 years. There are buildings that have been in place and people are living in, people have tradition of making their own houses for over the ages, and these buildings are there, and they are not affected by the codes. Number two, even the countries that have codes, like United States, most of the residential... I mean, many if not most of residential buildings are considered non-engineered buildings that do not really fall under the provisions of the codes. The third is, having codes is one thing; enforcing them is another. And in Iran, particularly in the small cities and rural villages, hardly ever any code is enforced. So having the code in the books doesn't help a lot.

JEFFREY BROWN: Can you tell us briefly a little bit about the city of Bam? It's described as a major... containing a major historical site.

FARZAD NAIEM: That's correct. Bam is a jewel of a city. It is located in the desert. As a matter of fact, it is surrounded by the desert. It was a city which was on the route of the old silk route from China, and this city, which is surrounded by the desert is rather green, and it has been described as the emerald of the desert because of the ample water that it's historically had, the palm trees they've had, and the vegetation that it has. Within the city, in the old quarters of the city, there is a fortress that is built with mud brick, or adobe, and it is probably the most ancient adobe brick structure in existence. It is about 2,000 years old, and it is rather tall. It's about five stories tall in parts, and it is a real historic site, and as I hear-- and I hope what I hear is not correct-- most of it is severely damaged or destroyed during this earthquake. So practically this earthquake was not only a human catastrophe, it was also a cultural catastrophe for Iran and the world.

JEFFREY BROWN: Farzad Naiem, thank you very much for joining us.

FARZAD NAIEM: Thank you.

UPDATE - MAD COW

MARGARET WARNER: Now, more on the Mad Cow scare and its fallout here and abroad. Gwen Ifill has that.

GWEN IFILL: This is the first time Mad Cow Disease has been discovered within the United States. Within 48 hours, it spawned supermarket recalls, multiple quarantines, and caused trading partners to slam shut their borders to American beef. The Agriculture Department has launched an extensive investigation into where the infection came from and where it might spread, all of which poses major implications for the beef industry, and potentially for public health. Here to delve a little more deeply into the Mad Cow ripple effect are Philip Seng, the president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, an industry trade association; and Michael Hansen, senior research associate at Consumers Union, a consumer advocacy group.

Michael Hansen, we have heard the Agriculture Department talk about the screening process which they used to determine whether cows in the food supply chain have Mad Cow. Do you think it's enough?

MICHAEL HANSEN: No, it'snot. We tested 20,000 cattle last year out of a national herd of 97 million, and if you compare that, Europe tested about 11 million cattle out of a herd of 40 million. So our testing is woefully inadequate. We're testing far too few animals, and we're not using the rapid quick tests that everybody else is.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Seng, let's talk about that test. I know that you do a lot of business with beef suppliers who are dealing with exports. You just heard what he said about what happens in Europe. We know that there is far more extensive testing in Japan. Is the United States doing enough?

PHILIP SENG: Well, the United States is doing everything possible, I think, to assure most consumers in the United States and consumers abroad that we are supplying a safe and wholesome product. Those countries who are doing successive testing after they had contracted the BSC. The United States still is testing at ten times the required amount by the OIE, which is headquartered in Paris, France, which is a worldwide standard. So I think for the most part the United States has done a stellar job. Our trading partners for the most part have been very, very supportive of our efforts, and we can say with confidence that our product is safe that we're offering here in the United States today, and what we're offering abroad.

GWEN IFILL: But the trading partners like Japan and Mexico and Russia have basically said they don't want any U.S. beef, for the short term at least. Is that supportive?

PHILIP SENG: Well, these are temporary bans they have in place until there's more definitive information that's forthcoming from the USDA as far as this incident is concerned. I think that once the information is made clear, I think they understand exactly the safety assurances that we have in place, I expect a resumption of trade because it's so important to the U.S. industry and also to those countries as well.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Hansen, today at the Agriculture Department, the USDA, they were saying that they have put measures in place, they have instituted recalls of a lot of the potentially affected beef, that there was a 1997 ban on the kind of feed which was found to have caused Mad Cow Disease, and that brains and spinal cord matter in some of these cows which are thought to contain the disease are not supposed to be recycled. They're supposed to be taken out separately in many cases. Don't you think that, or do you think that that has been enough?

MICHAEL HANSEN: Well, that clearly hasn't been enough, because, number one, we know that the brain and spinal cord and other parts of this animal were sent to a renderer, which means that can go into the animal feed, the pet food, and cosmetic chain. So that is not good enough. We haven't tested anywhere near the number of animals that we should, and the... that official number from OIE, that's a misrepresentation because the OIE actually suggests that every single downer animal should be tested in all countries. In the U.S. that's at least 200,000 cows. So they're not testing enough.

GWEN IFILL: I just want to get some definitions on the table. When you say "downer animal," you mean animals which are unable to walk on their own?

MICHAEL HANSEN: Yes. They go down for whatever reason. What the secretary of agriculture said on Tuesday is they claim that this cow was indeed a downer cow.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Seng, in Japan and in Canada, in countries where they have-- and Britain-- where they have had incidents, confirmed incidents of Mad Cow, they have far more rigorous testing requirements. Now, that there has been a Mad Cow incident in the United States, do you expect that those kinds of more rigorous test might be necessary here as well?

PHILIP SENG: Well, I think all this is under review at the USDA, but it'd be presumptuous for me to even try to speculate as far as what will be happening forthcoming, but I do know that all these are things that are being looked at the USDA, but I couldn't speculate on what steps they will take henceforth in the future. That would be for the USDA.

GWEN IFILL: I get that. What I guess I'm trying to figure out, in your dealings with foreign importers, people who take our beef, whether they might demand that now of the United States.

PHILIP SENG: Well, I think that the foreign countries that we deal with, and of course we deal with over 90 countries worldwide where we export our product, for the most part I think the science and the standard science would show if you have animal that's under 30 months of age, if you have proper removal of the SRM material, if you have a proper meat and bone meal bans, and it's enforced to the ninth degree, everything will be okay. So I feel very confident that what we have in place now is working. The system is working as it detected this animal. And so this is what we're working on as far as the industry, as far as going forward.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Hansen, since this cow was discovered, has the USDA done enough, as opposed to before it was discovered? We're talking now about pretty extensive-- at least every time they find some evidence of where this cow or its offspring may have been-- quarantined. Is that plenty?

MICHAEL HANSEN: No. That's still not good enough because, according to all the global health experts, if an animal comes down with this disease, no part of that animal should enter either the human or animal feed chain. In both cases that looks like that's happened. They need to trace where all that material is and pull it back, and I would point out that there's actually a big loophole in the feed ban. There is a way to feed cow material back to cows, and that's this loophole for blood and blood products. It is perfectly legal to take bovine plasma, spray dry it, and then you feed it to calves as part of calf milk replacer. This animal was a dairy cow, and it may in fact have gotten calf milk replacer.

GWEN IFILL: But you don't know that that, you don't know that that is the case.

MICHAEL HANSEN: No, we don't know that's the case, but what I'm saying is it's legal in the U.S. to take cow's blood-- we know blood does contain the infectious agent-- and that cow's blood can be fed back to other cattle. It can be fed to any animals because that is one of the loopholes in the FDA's feed ban.

GWEN IFILL: And that's the kind of loophole you think could be closed now?

MICHAEL HANSEN: That's one that should be closed immediately, as should the other loopholes that let cattle be ground up and fed to pigs and chicken, and then the pigs and chickens ground up and fed back to the cattle as well.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Seng, does that sound reasonable to you?

PHILIP SENG: Well, I think that the USDA, again, is looking at everything possible to assure our consumers and consumers around the world. I think everything would be addressed as far as the risk analysis involved in this. I'd like to remind you that the Harvard School of Risk did look at the U.S. industry, and it basically gave us a red-letter grade. I think one case, when you consider what's happened in the world, is excessive. I would say, as far as the USDA is concerned, as far as my discussions with the USDA, they have made a very, very strong effort, and they will stop at nothing in order to secure and make sure that our food supply is safe. Yes, there's always room to improve, but for the most part the United States has the world's safest food safety and delivery system in the world, and we're the envy of many, many countries, and I think we should keep things into perspective. I'm very proud, when I go around the world to talk about our assurance programs and what we have to offer, and I know consumers around the world appreciate that.

GWEN IFILL: We're talking about a billion dollars in exports, Mr. Seng, just in Japan alone, $3 billion worldwide in beef exports. There's a lot at stake here, financially.

PHILIP SENG: There's a tremendous amount at stake. The United States right now is the world's leading exporter of beef. We export about 28 percent of all the beef that's traded in the world today. I would also say that for these countries that rely on U.S. beef, a country like Korea, 60 percent of their total beef consumption is derived from the U.S., So this is significant to these countries. 35 percent of their total consumption in Japan comes from the U.S., So it's not just a U.S. Issue; it's an issue for all these countries that have come to depend on the United States as a stable supplier of beef and red meat and protein to their countries.

GWEN IFILL: And finally, Mr. Hansen, it seems as if this... this episode might be the beginning rather than the end in that the incubation period is so... takes so long, that this cow, this single cow may have been infected years ago. Is your sense, if that's the case, that there's really anything that tightening the regulations at this point can accomplish?

MICHAEL HANSEN: Well, yes, they could make sure that we don't have other cases, and I would just like to point out, for Japan, they will not accept cattle above the age of 30 months that have not been tested. That's, in fact, what the deal that was worked out with Canada was. So if we want our export markets to open, we're going to have to start testing large numbers of animals, and the FDA will also have to ban the feeding of rendered animal protein to all food animals.

GWEN IFILL: Michael Hansen and Philip Seng, thank you both very much.

MICHAEL HANSEN: Thank you.

PHILIP SENG: A pleasure.

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the paradox of choice, Shields and Brooks, and a book conversation.

FOCUS - PARDOX OF CHOICE

MARGARET WARNER: Now, a story for anyone experiencing shopping fatigue this holiday season. Our business correspondent Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston looks at a phenomenon called "The paradox of choice."

PAUL SOLMAN: It's that time of year again at king of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the king himself would be overwhelmed by the holiday shopping options. 365 different stores make this a "crowning" achievement, the largest mall in the world. We toured it with psychology Professor Barry Schwartz, a shopping skeptic. He began to think that all of us are overwhelmed by the choices of modern life when he tried to buy pants a few years ago.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: So I said I want a pair of jeans, size 32-28 and the salesperson said, "well, do you want slim fit, relaxed fit, easy fit? Do you want wide boot cut, wide leg, peg leg? Do you want acid washed, stone washed, regular?" You know, I realized that I was spending an hour trying to do something that used to take me five minutes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Out of his and others' experiences of "overwhelment" emerged Schwartz's forthcoming book, "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less." More cell phones, for instance.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: That's a phone that actually has internet access. It has a video, records at 20 seconds. It also takes pictures.

PAUL SOLMAN: So you can get 20 seconds of video on this phone?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Some three dozen different phones on sale here, with some 30 faces per phone.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: So you take all these phones and multiply them by all the plans.

PAUL SOLMAN: And then... how many plans you got roughly speaking?

SALESMAN: About 20.

PAUL SOLMAN: Twenty different plans.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: Twenty different plans.

PAUL SOLMAN: So that would be 20,000 different options.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: And surely there is one plan that's just the right one for your usage. And one phone that's just the right phone. By the time you've figured it out, all the phones will be obsolete, and there will be a new set to choose from. And this is... this is characteristic I think of every technological object you can think of now. I went to A... to a stereo store, and I just counted how many speakers are there and how many tuners, how many amplifiers, and it turned out that in that store you could put together 6.5 million different stereo systems.

PAUL SOLMAN: 6.5 million?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: Million. Million.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, this could have been a maturity crisis: Too much new tech for old consumers like Schwartz and his Boswell here.

PAUL SOLMAN: How many digital cameras do have you for sale here?

SALESPERSON: Fifty.

PAUL SOLMAN: But research shows that "choice shock" is a function of temperament, not age. The key seems to be: Are you a "maximizer" or a "satisficer"?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: The satisficer is somebody who is satisfied-- that's where the word comes from-- with good enough. So you have standards. They may be very high standards, but as soon as you encounter something that meets those standards, you stop the search and you choose it, and you're happy, satisfied with the results of the choice. A maximizer, in contrast, is someone for whom the goal is to get not good enough, but best. And if you're that kind of person, the only way to know you've got the best is by doing an exhaustive search.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the exhaustive maximizer, says Schwartz, eventually becomes exhausted. Satisficer Schwartz has a quiz to determine what you are. The short form is this one question. True or false?: "I never settle for second best." If true, you're a maximizer, and probably overwhelmed, like Katherine Koromvokis here, our producer's sister, a devout maximizer-- looking, as always, for the best stuff at the best price, with zeal and guilt.

KATHERINE KOROMVOKIS: I wish I could change. But, you know, there's a lot of choice out there, and it's overwhelming. It's too many coupons, it's too many deals. It's way too many stores.

PAUL SOLMAN: Too many coupons, but you've got them... you've got them alphabetically arrayed in...

KATHERINE KOROMVOKIS: Yes, I do.

PAUL SOLMAN: It's more than I've carried ever in my own wallet.

KATHERINE KOROMVOKIS: Yes, I know, I know. But I just can't pass up a deal. So that's what I do.

PAUL SOLMAN: We also couldn't resist interviewing this guy, who turned out to be filmmaker Rick Morris, a recovering maximizer. So why are you getting a massage?

RICK MORRIS: Just the stress of Christmas shopping.

PAUL SOLMAN: Solman: Is the profusion of choice the other great problem?

RICK MORRIS: That is a problem. That you can just... even looking right here at the vital touch place, you can see they've got the hand massager, they've got the massage roller. There's so many more choices. Last year they didn't have a product line like this.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, choices abounded even at this would-be refuge from shopping, the King of Prussia's Santa station.

PAUL SOLMAN: Do the kids get unsettled by the number of choices that they experience and see in front of them?

SANTA CLAUS: Some of them know exactly what they want, and some of them, they get to thinking and they want to say something and then they're thinking of something else. And it just keeps building and building. And then they can't say anything.

PAUL SOLMAN: What do you say to them?

SANTA CLAUS: Then I ask them, "how about if Santa brings a surprise?" And they say, "yes, yes."

PAUL SOLMAN: So they want Santa to choose?

SANTA CLAUS: Many times. Yes, they do.

PAUL SOLMAN: Thanks very much.

SANTA CLAUS: Thank you. Merry Christmas.

PAUL SOLMAN: Merry Christmas. So even pre-maximizers can be daunted by the profusion of choice in America these days. Barry Schwartz says psychology suggests several reasons why. One is regret, well-known to make folks miserable. Since all choices involve not choosing something else, the more choices you have, the more there is to regret not having chosen. Then there are expectations: The more choices out there, the greater your expectations, the harder to realize them. Add self-blame: The more choices, the more it's your fault for not making the right one. And finally, says Schwartz, there's stubborn old biology.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: For virtually the entire history of the species, the decisions people had to make were "yes" or "no." Shall I approach this, or is it dangerous and should I run away from it.? And so it's easy to imagine having an exquisitely fine-tuned mechanism to answer that question. But now, instead of that question, we have to answer a different one.

PAUL SOLMAN: Namely, which of the gazillion choices out there should we make? That, says Schwartz, is bound to nettle our neurons. Now, politically Barry Schwartz is a liberal who finds himself running against what seems to be the tide these days, more choice for every citizen: The private Social Security accounts that President George W. Bush has pushed, for example, where we would decide how to invest our own money.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I trust Americans to make their own decisions and manage their own money.

SAMUEL LEWIS: The president trusts us; Schwartz doesn't.

BARRY SCHWARTZ: People don't have the resources, the intellectual resources, the time to learn enough in all of these different areas of life to make wise decisions. The point of public policy, seems to me, is to improve welfare. But who decides what's in someone's best interest? And the answer that we have collectively embraced, driven, I think, largely by economists is maximizing choice is the way to promote public welfare.

PAUL SOLMAN: Choices about retirement, choices about healthcare. These days, patients are becoming consumers with the "right to choose" their treatment. Even prescription drug ads are targeted at the public, presumably so we can convince our doctors to prescribe.

AD SPOKESMAN: Ask your doctor

PAUL SOLMAN: But is this what we really want?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: There's an extraordinary survey that was done where people were asked: If you were to get cancer, would you want to be in charge of your treatment? And almost 70 percent of people said yes, with the exception of one subgroup: People who actually had cancer, and of those people, 12 percent wanted to be in charge of their treatment.

PAUL SOLMAN: Again, here's the president, earlier this month, signing the Medicare reform bill into law.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We show our respect for seniors by giving them more choices and more control over their decision making.

PAUL SOLMAN: That's because, says the president's chief economic advisor, Greg Mankiw, government is worse at making choices than individuals.

GREGORY MANKIW: Ultimately, someone's making the choice. And the question is: Do you want to make the choice for yourself, or do you want the government to make the choice for you? Free-market economies are predicated on the premise, which I think history holds out, that when people make decisions for themselves, they make better decisions than when governments make decisions for them.

PAUL SOLMAN: Our last stop then, just down the road from the King of Prussia Mall, was a true government landmark: Valley Forge, crucible of the American revolution, the war that introduced the world to the very idea of political choice. So American soldiers fought a revolution staying in huts like this in the freezing winter in Valley Forge so that we could have choice-- unlike, say, the Soviet Union, even in the 20th century. Are you suggesting that we'd be better off going back to something like this?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: No, no, no. Of course, I'm not suggesting that. I think that life wouldn't be worth living and people couldn't be fully human if they didn't have significant choice about many, many aspects of their, of their lives. And it's sort of a miracle that we live in a society where that kind of choice is possible. But what I am suggesting is that just because some choice is good, essential for wellbeing, it doesn't follow that more choice is better. And we have, I think, long since passed the point where additional choice, rather than liberating us, which is the point, paralyzes us, tyrannizes us.

PAUL SOLMAN: So what then do we do with that?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: I think there are several steps that we can take as individuals.

PAUL SOLMAN: Schwartz's first step is that, if you're a maximizer, give it up. Satisficers have lower expectations, fewer regrets, happier lives. Step two...

BARRY SCHWARTZ: We can make choices about when to make choices, decide that there are certain areas of life where we're not going to care and other areas where we're really going to devote all of this time and attention to making sure that we do the right thing.

PAUL SOLMAN: A third step: Be grateful for what you do have, even writing down each night three things you're grateful for, Schwartz suggests, no matter how hokey it might seem. Now, as we tried to follow Schwartz's advice by, for instance, limiting our graphic choices here to what you might call "Valley Forge simple," we kept having one nagging doubt.

PAUL SOLMAN: But it just sounds like, "oh, you just got to decide to be a better person in a sense." I mean, how do you do that?

BARRY SCHWARTZ: Well, I don't think any of the things I've just said is easy to do. There's a deep cultural assumption that choice is, in and of itself, good. And I don't think people don't realize that choice can be a problem rather than a solution to a problem.

PAUL SOLMAN: The problem of choice in an era far removed from Valley Forge, when the cost of choosing, according to Barry Schwartz, has often become greater than the benefit of making the choice.

FOCUS - SHIELDS BROOKS

MARGARET WARNER: Now, our end-of- week-- and in this case, end-of- the-year-- analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "New York Times" columnist David Brooks. Well, David, at the end of this extraordinary year, where has it left -- let's take President Bush, first. Where has it left President Bush politically?

DAVID BROOKS: Politically he is doing pretty well. I think if you look at his approval ratings, the Gallup Poll has him at about 63. The "New York Times" poll has him at 58. That's pretty good. That gets you reelected. I think if you trajectory out for the next year, he would probably be reelected.

MARGARET WARNER: What is it about this past year that has brought him there?

DAVID BROOKS: There's two things. First of all, the economy is surging. That's a big thing. It took a long time for the economy to turn around and secondly Iraq. There was no political upside to Iraq for him. He was reasonably high. People really trusted him on the war on terror, but there was an incredible downside. And while certainly things have not gone the way he planned or as well as he expected, they have not gone terribly. So if you look at public approval of Iraq, there is still a bare and significant majority saying we did the right thing and they're still basically supporting him. That was not a given. He could have really suffered a cataclysmic loss if things had gotten much worse than they are in Iraq.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you assess it, Mark? Do you think Iraq, on balance, was a political winner for him?

MARK SHIELDS: I think the jury is very much out. Last month it wasn't. This month it is. What's the difference? The difference is, as David pointed out, improving economic news, one. But second, the capture of Saddam Hussein gave him a lift. The trip to Iraq for Thanksgiving gave him a lift in the polls and the Libyan news of Qaddafi. There are only two numbers that matter at this point, you know, regardless of George Bush's job rating. They are how do you feel the country is headed, in the right direction or seriously out on the wrong track? Those have improved for the president. A month ago when he was down in the polls and battling and had an un-approval for the first time in his job rating of his presidency the people felt the country was heading into the wrong direction. Now by a slight majority they think it's heading in the right direction.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think that's because of the economy, or at least a perception that while the market is up so the economy is improving?

MARK SHIELDS: I think Iraq is more determinant than the economy. I really do, in this case, for the president because I think his presidency is tied to it, Margaret. It defines him. As David points out, it was his choice. It was his war. He has identified with it. There was no public cry for it. So he made the case for it. And if it doesn't work out, and a period in the fall it looked like it wasn't working out, it cost him politically.

DAVID BROOKS: It is kind of interesting, though, because I sort of agree that Iraq really is the core issue for the Bush presidency. But if you ask the voters, they say it's the economy. I don't know who is right about that. I'd say the voters.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's talk now about the Democrats' shift first of all in their presidential pre-positioning. Now this preprimary year, the out of power party doesn't get a lot of attention to its pre-primary skirmishing, but the Democrats have gotten a lot. Would you say they're better positioned now than you might have expected a year ago or not?

DAVID BROOKS: No. I think they're much worse positioned. I mean, I think what has happened in the Democratic Party has been extraordinary. We've basically had a revolution. You had the Washington establishment of the party, and by that I mean Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Gephardt overturned. You have Howard Dean, this guy who first attacks their character by saying they're not strong enough or gutsy enough to take on George Bush. Then he attacks their power base, which is the fund-raising and organizational structure, by building another. And he has emerged out of nowhere and run, largely not on... well partly on contempt for Bush but also quite largely on contempt for the Washington Democratic establishment and they have not fought back. So this has been the event of the year as far as I'm concerned politically -- the complete revolution within the Democratic Party.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see it that way, Mark, really a significant year for them?

MARK SHIELDS: A significant year, Margaret, but every presidential election involving an incumbent is a referendum in the election. That's reflected in the Democratic fight. You have to understand this about George W. Bush. There's an analysis done by Tom Gallagher, the political and economic analyst -- and he points out that going back over the entire history, George W. Bush is less popular with members of the opposition party than any president in history -- less popular with Democrats than Bill Clinton was with Republicans.

MARGARET WARNER: So hugely polarizing.

MARK SHIELDS: Measurably -- measurably less popular with Democrats than was Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon, both of whom won landslides. This is one reason why many people think there is no chance of a landslide in 2004 because George Bush has a ceiling. I say that because Democrats who really felt that way, that Bush's policies were objectionable and offensive did not have anybody in Washington speaking for them. They saw the Washington establishment, David, as criticized as being complicit, complacent, and compliant. And finally it was a constituency looking for a candidate that Howard Dean came to represent.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now the Republicans in Congress, David; this is the first full year of the Bush presidency that they've controlled both Houses of Congress, both Houses on Capitol Hill, a new leader in the Senate Bill Frist. How did they do?

DAVID BROOKS: I think they behaved like a majority party. I'm struck less with the ideology of the party that when you are in the majority, you have the incentive of the power of the purse, which you control, to buy votes. They did that with Medicare and a series of bills. You look at education spending; you look at spending on the unemployed. If you looked at their policy positions, you would not have predicted that spending on all these domestic issues would have skyrocketed as it has. Yet, they do it because we have got the power of the purse, let's spend money to please people to reelect us. I think it's, you know, it is where you stand that determines how you act a lot more sometimes than the beliefs you come into office with.

MARK SHIELDS: Margaret, it took the Democrats 40 years in control of Capitol Hill to become as arrogant as the Republicans have in a very short time, irrespective of their product. And I don't disagree with David on the product. I mean, I think it was very effective to triangulate on the issue of Medicare. But there was no ideological or philosophical underpinning of this. It was a great entitlement. The reality is that feelings have never been more raw on Capitol Hill than they are right now; the sense that conference committees between the two Houses no longer exist. They're railroaded through; that you keep roll call votes open for five hours until you browbeat some poor retiring guy over the head to the point where he is going to vote or be threatened with the loss of his pension or something. It's really reached that point. I think, you know, with the bitter harvest that will be reaped from what has been sowed by the essential tactics of Tom Delay and the House I think are ugly but it's George Bush's party. George Bush is the face of this party. And it's his record, and the sense he did get what he wanted out of this Congress.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now how do you think the Democrats did in opposition?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think the Democrats did much of anything in opposition. I think the Democrats have not recovered from the election of 2002. The Democrats went into that election trying to submerge the differences between themselves and President Bush and for the fear of being accused of being soft on terrorism. They were accused of being soft on terrorism and they lost the election of 2002 and the minority party with no recourse, they don't have a single galvanizing idea like the Republicans did in '78 with Kemp-Roth. So all you can do in the minority is try to stop and obstruct what you think are the worst ideas.

MARGARET WARNER: How would you read --

DAVID BROOKS: I think the Democrats have committed political suicide. I think in the 1990s they had a solution, a formula for winning elections. This was the third way formula that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton came up with. It was for middle class tax cuts, it was moderate but religious on values; it was for free trade. And this was like a quarterback with a pass pattern that works every single time. The defense doesn't know what to do about it but they gave it up. They walked away from that strategy. And it's mystifying to Republicans why they would walk away but they have walked away and they walked away in part because some of the things Mark has talked about, which is the polarization of both parties. I'm not sure it is all Bush and DeLay's fault. I think the country has just become polarized. It is become much harder for either party to be a third way centrist party.

MARGARET WARNER: Two quick final questions. A political development this year that none of us would have expected, that certainly you didn't expect that came as a real surprise.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, we all thought Gary Coleman would run for governor of California. John Edwards I thought in my wisdom would be the leading Democratic candidate because I think he's the strongest Democratic candidate for swing voters, and that didn't turn out to be quite right.

MARK SHIELDS: I'm amazed that there has been absolutely no accountability for the debacle and the tragedy of post-war Iraqi policy. Nobody stepped forward -- that there is no sense of outrage, I mean whether Halliburton, go back to the Truman Committee in War World II, everything was bipartisan, totally both sides of the aisle.

MARGARET WARNER: You honestly thought there would be....

MARK SHIELDS: I thought there would be a sense of what went wrong. I mean, why isn't anybody held accountable? I guess complicating that is probably the fact that the vice president of the United States has become a totally reclusive defensive figure because of Halliburton, because of other matters. He talks only to the friendliest of press people, I mean the most reliable, and very, very rarely, and essentially goes to fund-raisers. He does nothing publicly.

MARGARET WARNER: You mentioned Gary Coleman of California. Wouldn't you say the demise of Gray Davis and the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger, none of us would have predicted this a year ago?

DAVID BROOKS: Sure. That's part of what I think is the de-politicalization of the electorate. As the parties get more polarized, a lot of people want something fresh and you get a guy like Schwarzenegger.

MARGARET WARNER: Any other surprises?

MARK SHIELDS: Any other surprises?

MARGARET WARNER: How about Howard Dean's surge -

MARK SHIELDS: Howard Dean was an enormous surprise -- that somebody could merge as an underdog, as a dark horse, and become the principal fund-raiser and do it all in small contributions -- you can honestly say owing nothing to the large traditional interests in either party. It is an amazing achievement and coupled with that leading in the polls coming from nowhere, it's an accomplishment of historical proportions.

MARGARET WARNER: We did go back read a few Shields and Brooks conversation, including the anchors and a year ago none of us were talking about Howard Dean.

DAVID BROOKS: Who would have thought the party was on the verge of committing suicide? You can replay that in a year.

MARK SHIELDS: I want to say one thing, Margaret. At this point in 1980, Ronald Reagan trailed Jimmy Carter 61-33 in the Gallup Poll and in June, he had climbed all the way to 32 percent. And, in retrospect, it became my goodness, Reagan was always an inevitable victor. Bill Clinton at this point was running third behind both Ross Perot and George Herbert Walker Bush. So don't get ready for the inaugural yet.

MARGARET WARNER: We're going to save this clip. Happy New Year to you both.

MARK SHIELDS: Happy New Year to you.

CONVERSATION

MARGARET WARNER: Finally tonight, a conversation with an author of a new book, and to Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: The book is "The Eve of Destruction: The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War. The author is Howard Blum, a contributing editor for "Vanity Fair" and a former reporter for the "New York Times." On October 6, 1973, Israel was caught by surprise when Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated attack on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. The Arab army scored important early gains in the three weeks of fighting, crossing the Suez Canal and seizing parts of the Golan Heights. But they were eventually driven back across the 1967 cease-fire lines by Israel's counterattack. The outcome of the war set the stage for the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and has continued to shape Middle East politics ever since. Howard Blum, welcome.

HOWARD BLUM: Nice to see you, Terry.

TERENCE SMITH: The subtitle, "The Untold Story," of this war, now 30 years later, what does that refer to?

HOWARD BLUM: Today, 30 years after the war, Israel is just beginning to declassify documents-- cabinet meeting documents, intelligence reports-- about the war. And I had access to all these reports, and I'm able to tell stories that haven't been told before: Stories about double agents, stories about generals, stories about people on the front lines, and that all adds to The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War.

TERENCE SMITH: A principle character, who was certainly not known then, is someone you referred to as the in-law. Who was the in-law and what did he do?

HOWARD BLUM: The in-law was a spy that... who worked for the Egyptians, but the Israelis thought he was actually an Israeli spy. Four years before the Yom Kippur War, he walked into the Israeli embassy in London and volunteered his services. Usually when there's a walk-in, as it's called in the intelligence business, another intelligence agency will just say, "go away." But this man's credentials were extraordinary. He was an in-law of Nasser, he was in the Egyptian cabinet...

TERENCE SMITH: He had married one of Nasser's daughters.

HOWARD BLUM: Daughters. And he brought with him top- secret documents. These documents were gold, as people in the Israeli intelligence service said. And he was paid $100,000, a safe house was established for him near the Dorchester Hotel in London, where there were meetings at least once a month. The transcripts of these meetings went directly to the prime minister, Golda Meir, the defense minister. And from these meetings, from these transcripts, from these documents, the Israeli government developed something called the concept, the concept convinced the Israelis that war could never happen. The Egyptians needed to be armed and the Arabs needed to work as a community, and these documents that the in-law provided testified to the fact that these eventualities were impossible. Because of this, Israel was confident war would never happen.

TERENCE SMITH: Yet you identified the in-law in the book. He is alive.

HOWARD BLUM: The in-law is alive and relatively well. He has had four heart operations. He is 60 years old -- Dr. Ashcroft Maran. He is an international businessman. He at one point tried to control Harrod's Department Store. He owns the Chelsea soccer team and he is an Egyptian James Bond.

TERENCE SMITH: By your telling, he is a double agent, he was actually planted by the Egyptians.

HOWARD BLUM: He was a double agent. He recently faxed me award he received from President Sadat for his glorious services in the October war.

TERENCE SMITH: You have him in fact fooling the Israelis, in the sense that he gave hem misinformation about the start, the exact time of the start.

HOWARD BLUM: The night before....

TERENCE SMITH: Of the war.

HOWARD BLUM: The night before the Yom Kippur War, the head of the Mossad makes a trip to meet with his most valuable agent. At this point Israel is beginning to suspect the war is coming. The Russians are leaving Egypt and Syria. They begin to suspect something is happening. They still have not called up their reserves. The in-law at this point tells the head of the Mossad....

TERENCE SMITH: That's the Israeli intelligence agency.

HOWARD BLUM: Yes, he tells him yes, the war is coming but it's coming at sunset on Yom Kippur Day, October 6. Israel then decides well we won't give away that we know this. We'll move our tanks into position around 4:00 by the Suez Canal, except the war comes at 2:00. By then the tanks... it's too late for the tanks to move up into position. This is the last piece of disinformation the in-law gave the Israelis to fool them.

TERENCE SMITH: You know, you have to wonder, even three decades later how Israel could have been surprised when, as you write, they had intelligence officers who had analyzed information in the days prior to the war and were trying to get a hearing at the top levels with that kind of information. And there was a built-in reluctance, I gather, to acknowledge that this was even possible.

HOWARD BLUM: Yes, I quote document after document saying the Israelis knew what the Egyptians were doing. They knew what the Syrians were doing. They had the electronic surveillance equipment that showed the tanks were being moved into position and missiles were being readied. The Israelis still failed to believe what they were seeing. They took two and two and didn't get four. They got five. There was a mind-set in Israelthat they were invincible. After the Six-Day War, Israel believed the Arabs would never dare to attack them. They were caught by surprise because of this.

TERENCE SMITH: They held to the belief despite the fact that as you describe it, King Hussein of Jordan, the late king, makes a midnight trip by helicopter in to tell them firsthand.

HOWARD BLUM: Right. King Hussein goes to Israel, flies the helicopter himself, lands in the midnight meeting and he tells Golda Meir, you are going to be attacked. Syria is in its jump off position. Golda wakes up Moshe Diane and said what should we do. He tells her nothing. It's not going to happen. She goes back and humors King Hussein.

TERENCE SMITH: In fact, Moshe Diane is by your description emotional, erratic, vacillating, full of fears, quite a difference from the popular image of Moshe Diane as Israel's ultimate military hero.

HOWARD BLUM: In the course of the Yom Kippur War, Moshe Diane suffers a breakdown, wailing about the destruction of the third temple as he calls it. What he means is the present state of Israel. He -- at one point, the chief of the Israeli army on the day of Yom Kippur wants to call up the reserves. Moshe Diane says no, we don't need it. He feels so guilty about his failure to call up the reserves, that he has this breakdown. On the third day of the war, he is about to go on television and he meets with reporters first to give them a briefing. After this briefing, he is so erratic, that the reporters go to Golda Meir and said you can't have him on TV, it will cause panic and Golda insists to have him on TV.

TERENCE SMITH: "The Eve of Destruction" by Howard Blum. Thank you very much.

HOWARD BLUM: Thank you.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major developments of the day. A devastating earthquake struck Iran. Estimates of the dead ranged from 5,000 to 20,000. Rescue crews found six people dead in a severe mudslide in southern California. Correction: Six people. At least a dozen others, most of them children, were missing. The U.S. Military revised its earlier report and said four American soldiers were killed in Iraq in the last 24 hours.

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

MARGARET WARNER: A reminder that Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Thanks for being with us. Good night.