The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, a summary of the news; a report on White House reaction to North Korea's latest provocation; a look at today's claim of the first human cloning; an update on the big airlines' response to their low-cost competitors; our weekly political analysis, tonight with David Brooks and Clarence Page; and a profile of San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. NEWS SUMMARY MARGARET WARNER: North Korea today ordered United Nations nuclear inspectors to leave immediately. The demand came in a letter to the chairman of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Pyongyang also announced that it will reactivate a reprocessing plant at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor site, which is capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Today's moves are the latest steps by North Korea to reopen its Yongbyon nuclear complex in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. IAEA Spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that for the moment the UN inspectors are staying put. MELISSA FLEMING: Under the safeguards agreement with the IAEA, we are expecting continued presence of IAEA inspectors. These inspectors will do two things. One, they're needed to reinstall the cameras and the seals at the facilities, and two, to have a continuous presence there during the loading of the five megawatt reactor as well as the reprocessing plant that they said they plan to reactivate.MARGARET WARNER: The White House denounced North Korea's latest moves and called on Pyongyang to rescind them. We'll have more on this story in a moment. In Iraq today, UN weapons inspectors interviewed a top Iraqi scientist, a metallurgist from a state-run company. Iraq's foreign ministry said he was a specialist in aluminum tubes used in missile production. Other UN Experts inspected three new suspect sites. They visited a distillery and two factories run by a chemical engineering firm. Today is the one-month anniversary of renewed weapons inspections in Iraq. In the capital of Chechnya today, suspected Chechen suicide bombers rammed two explosives- laden vehicles into the local government headquarters, killing at least 46 people. We have a report from Philip Ray Smith of Independent Television News. PHILIP RAY SMITH: The two powerful bombs-- one thought to be in a truck, the other in an off-road vehicle-- detonated within a minute of each other, destroying the building occupied by Chechnya's pro-Russian government. Scores died and several more were left wounded. This was the crater made by one of the bombs, a clear indication of how powerful it was. Those who survived were left searching through the rubble with their bare hands for others who were still trapped. 200 people worked in the building which housed the government's offices. It's believed the suicide bombers were Chechen rebels. This man says the attack happened just after the lunch hour, when most workers were at their desks. Very many are wounded or dead, he says. This was one of the bloodier days in Russia's long war in Chechnya. Islamic terrorists are relentlessly fighting for independence from Moscow. Today's bombing was their biggest attack since rebels took 800 people hostage in a theater in Russia's capital two months ago. In the past, Vladimir Putin has sought to align Russia's military campaign here with the international war on terrorism. He's also tried to persuade the world that the Chechen terrorists are all but conquered. But tonight, as lifting gear is deployed in the vain hope that more survivors will be found, the rebels seem far from beaten. MARGARET WARNER: Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank today, killing at least four Israelis. Both gunmen were also killed. The attack came one day after Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians in a series of West Bank raids. Earlier today, the spiritual leader of the militant group Hamas vowed it would continueto carry out suicide attacks. The Turkish parliament voted today to amend the constitution to let the ruling party's leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, become prime minister. Erdogan was banned from taking part in recent elections because of a 1998 conviction for sedition. Today's vote clears the way for him to run in a special parliamentary election in February. Turkey's president vetoed a similar move by parliament last week. But by law, he must either agree to today's vote or hold a referendum. A French scientist in Florida today claimed to have produced the first cloned human being. Brigitte Boisselier, CEO of a company called Clonaid, made the announcement, but offered no proof. She said the baby girl, born yesterday, is the clone of her 31-year-old American mother. Clonaid was founded by a sect that believes mankind was created from cloned extraterrestrials. The Food and Drug Administration said it would probe the legality of the move. We'll have more on the story later in the program. United Airlines today asked a U.S. bankruptcy court in Chicago to void its contracts with labor unions if current negotiations fail. The airline says it needs to cut $2.4 billion annually in wage costs to satisfy its creditors. United has until February 15 to cut expenses or lose the loans that have made it possible to keep flying since it declared bankruptcy earlier this month. We'll have more on big airlines' financial woes later in the program. In other economic news today, sales of new homes jumped 5.7% in November to a record monthly level, the Commerce Department reported today. Forecasters had expected a drop in sales. The average price for a new home is now nearly $219,000. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 128 points to close above 8303. And the NASDAQ fell more than 19 points to close at 1348. For the week, the Dow lost 2.4%. The NASDAQ lost 0.33%. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to North Korea's latest move; a human cloning, maybe; the big airlines fight red ink; our weekly political wrap; and the bard on the bay. FOCUS ORDERED OUT MARGARET WARNER: North Korea's latest provocation, and to Terence Smith. TERENCE SMITH: The Bush administration responded today to the North Korean demand that UN inspectors leave the country. For that, we go to David Sanger, White House correspondent for the "New York Times." He's in Crawford, Texas, where the President is spending the holidays. David, welcome. DAVID SANGER: Thanks, Terry. TERENCE SMITH: What was the reaction? What was the response from the White House today? DAVID SANGER: Well, Terry, the White House has been determined not to make this a crisis, and that today they continued with that. Imagine now for a moment what it was that the North Koreans said, that they were ejecting the international inspectors, and that they would begin reprocessing plutonium. Had Iraq made a similar statement, and Iraq's nuclear program is no place nearly as far along as the North Korean one is, there would have been a much more heated response. So the administration's position is to say, look, we're going to organize the entire international community to denounce this, but we are not going to overreact or have a sense of crisis. TERENCE SMITH: Right, but they did call upon them to rescind this decision, did they not, and moth-ball the plant again? DAVID SANGER: I'm sorry, Terry, I couldn't hear you. TERENCE SMITH: But they did, the White House what did call upon the North Koreans to reverse course. DAVID SANGER: They did. They asked them to end the program, but they've asked that each day this past week. Each day the North Koreans have ratcheted up the pressure, announcing one new step after another, that are clearly designed to try to force the United States into a direct negotiation with North Korea, and to begin to get the U.S. to agree to some kind of economic aid. The U.S. has said, and said again today, that it wouldn't respond to nuclear blackmail. TERENCE SMITH: Now the U.S., as you say, has tried to keep this at a low level, and yet the North Koreans seem to keep ratcheting the pressure up. So, did this latest move today, did that catch the White House by surprise? DAVID SANGER: I think that despite their efforts to publicly claim that there is no sense of crisis, you certainly hear in the voices of some administration officials, not all of them, but some of them, some questioning about whether their strategy is succeeding. They are clearly concerned that at this point the North Koreans, once they begin to reload this reprocessing facility, will begin producing in four to six months plutonium that could turn into weapons. At that point, an arsenal that may be limited to two weapons-- and we are not certain that they have those two weapons-- could expand relatively rapidly. The destabilizing effect that could have in Asia is huge. North Korea has missiles that can reach Japan. Of course they can reach South Korea. And the administration is hoping that sooner or later the Chinese and the Russians will become equally involved in this for fear that a nuclear armed North Korea could eventually turn on them. TERENCE SMITH: And in contrast to Iraq, there's no discussion of a military option with North Korea is there? DAVID SANGER: There is no discussion right now, and the reason for that, Terry is really one of geography in Iraq, they know that they can strike Iraq, and at worst the Iraqis could shoot a few missiles perhaps a few Scuds at Israel. In North Korea's case, there are 11,000 artillery tubes that are just over the DMZ. I spent six years moving in and out of Korea when I was living in Asia. And Seoul is under an immediate threat from conventional weapons of destruction in you know -- an hour or two so there really never has been a military option, unless you're willing to take the risk that the North Koreans wouldn't actually attack South Korea. Now, the South Koreans have made this even more complex for the administration by saying that they're going to continue their policy of engagement with North Korea. The new government in South Korea has made that very clear. If anything, they're going to accelerate it at a time when the Bush administration basically wants to turn up the pressure. So you are beginning to see a real fissure between the United States approach and the approach of our closest ally and the one with the most at stake. TERENCE SMITH: Is it your impression that this is beginning to distract the administration from Iraq and from preparations for Iraq? DAVID SANGER: It can't help but do so. And of course they say look, we can do both at one time, and we have been doing both at one time. But the fact of the matter is that that the North Koreans in the space of a week, have moved this from a slow burning crisis to a very immediate one, and one that the United States is going to have to deal with and perhaps the United Nations Security Council is going to have to deal with in coming weeks just as the Iraq issue comes to a head. Now there is a division of opinion within the administration about whether the North Koreans are deliberately timing this to coincide with a moment when we are intently focused on Iraq. But in any case, whether they are or they are not, the fact of the matter is that the administration has to deal with two crises in two very different parts of the world simultaneously. And one could make an argument that the threat from North Korea is certainly a much more imminent one, and the government is acting much more unpredictably than the Iraqi government is right now. TERENCE SMITH: And another voice was heard from -- from the region, China, today, through its official newspaper, criticized some recent remarks by Secretary Rumsfeld saying just that, that two wars could be fought simultaneously if necessary -- describing them as hawkish and dangerous. Did that have any resonance down in Crawford? DAVID SANGER: Well, the Chinese have been playing a sort of two-part game here, Terry. On the one hand they have issued a number of statements urging the North Koreans to back off from their nuclear program. And the administration has encouraged each one of those statements, figuring that China may be the last state with any influence and leverage over North Korea. At the same time, the Chinese are very leery of any suggestion that the United States might take a more active role right on China's borders. They've always been uneasy with the large American presence in East Asia because, of course, it competes with their own regional sphere of influence. And so on the one hand the Chinese want to contain the North Koreans. On the other hand, they don't want the United States to get the idea that it can move freely and militarily in East Asia, where, of course, we already have 100,000 troops. TERENCE SMITH: Finally, very briefly, David, can you sort of summarize what the White House strategy will be to diffuse this? DAVID SANGER: Well, Terry, from the best that we can tell, the White House right now is going to follow the path of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is going to meet in Vienna early next month and we believe refer this to the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. idea here is to sort of stay in the background, let the IAEA take the brunt of bringing the violations to the Security Council's attention. But at some point, the U.S. is going to have to put its cards on the table and say look, this is our strategy for how much we want to confront the North Koreans. They clearly are not setting the kind of deadlines and timelines we've set in the Iraq crisis, and clearly the administration would like to see this stay somewhat on the back burner while Iraq is dealt with. The North Koreans don't seem to be cooperating with that very much and it's doubtful right now whether or not that strategy will work. TERENCE SMITH: Exactly. David Sanger, "New York Times," thank you very much. DAVID SANGER: Thank you, Terry. FOCUS EVE WITHOUT ADAM? MARGARET WARNER: Now, has the first human clone been born? Betty Ann Bowser has our report. BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, CEO, Clonaid: I am very, very pleased to announce that the first baby clone is born. She was born yesterday at 11:55 AM. BETTY ANN BOWSER: In an announcement that surprised many and was greeted with much skepticism, members of a religious sect called the Raelians claimed today they had produced the first cloned human. While few details or evidence were provided, they said the seven-pound baby girl was cloned from the DNA of a 31-year-old American woman, and that the embryo was then implanted in her womb and allowed to grow to term. Her husband was reportedly infertile. Brigitte Boisselieris CEO of a company called Clonaid, which has ties to the Raelian sect. BRIGITTE BOISSELIER: The baby is very healthy. She's fine. She's doing fine. The parents are happy. And I hope that you remember them when you talk about this baby, not like a monster, like some results of something that is disgusting. She is a very healthy baby. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be cloned, in 1997. That was followed by cloning of several other species. Since then, scientists and ethicists have worried humans would be next. In the last year alone, three groups have claimed they would be the first to clone a human baby. That included an Italian scientist, an embryology specialist from Kentucky, and Boisselier's group, the Raelians. All three groups have stirred controversy, but the Raelians are considered the most extreme. Founded by a man who describes himself as Rael, they believe aliens created all life on the planet. At a news conference in Florida today, Boisselier said she expected to provide proof of the cloning within days. Michael Guillen, a former science editor at ABC-TV, said he was willing to examine that evidence. MICHAEL GUILLEN, Former Science Editor, ABC News: For the record, I know as little and as much as you do about the baby and child that Dr. Boisselier has just announced. But Dr. Bosselier has invited me to put her claim to the test, and I have accepted on behalf of the world's press, on two conditions: That the invitation be given with no strings attached whatsoever; and number two, that the tests be conducted by a group of independent world- class experts. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Most in the world of science and medicine have been highly skeptical that the Raelians are capable of producing a clone in the first place. But the concept for doing so has been discussed since the birth of Dolly. BRIGITTE BOISSELIER: The process, the technique that we have been using is very close to the one that has been described for Dolly, the sheep, but adapted to human cells. It's been... I don't know if it's... some people would say it's luck but I would say it's hard work. BETTY ANN BOWSER: In theory, DNA would be taken from a normal body cell and then inserted into the nucleus of a human egg whose genetic material was removed. The egg would then reprogram the newly added genes to begin the process of developing a human embryo. The baby that resulted would be, in effect, a later-born identical twin of the human who was cloned. But the process may have led to some complications in animals. Dolly, for example, has developed arthritis at an early age. Those types of complications make many scientists nervous. Dr. David Cohen is a reproductive specialist at the University of Chicago. DR. DAVID COHEN: In animals, we know that only about 1% to 5% of those animals cloned even live to adulthood. That's a very frightening statistic if you're going to start doing this on humans. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Leon Kass chairs the White House council on bio- ethics. Today he reiterated the council's opposition to human cloning. LEON KASS, Chairman, President's Council on Bioethics: The President's Council on Bioethics is unanimous in its view that creation of a cloned child would be unethical and ought to be outlawed. This is not only unsafe at this present time for these children, but it is an unethical experiment on the unborn. It threatens their identity and individuality, it begins to cross a line between procreation and manufacture, and it starts us down the direction towards designing our children, none of which should we want to do. BETTY ANN BOWSER: For her part, Boisselier defended the practice and said her company would keep trying. She claims four more cloned babies are expected by next summer, including one possibly next week. 20 more cloning attempts will be tried next month. BRIGITTE BOISSELIER: I have received a lot of support of parents to be, individuals or couples who would like to have a baby, who said, "Despite what the press say, despite what the government, we will have a baby, and thanks to you, you're giving us hope." REPORTER: How do you respond to people who think you are taking the creation of life into your own hands, playing God? BRIGITTE BOISSELIER: Well, first of all, when you say that scientists are considering me like as a renegade, they do that when they talk to you, when they're in front of microphone and camera, because it's difficult to say in public, "Well, what's the problem with cloning? It's only another technology, right?" But they say that to me. And so you could probably, without microphone and without camera, have different comments. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Today's announcement is expected to give new momentum on Capitol Hill to legislative efforts to ban all cloning, either for reproductive efforts or for stem cell creation. The Food and Drug Administration said today it would probe whether Clonaid violated any U.S. laws. MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the big airlines fight red ink, our weekly political wrap, and the bard on the bay. FOCUS TURBULENT TIMES MARGARET WARNER: In Chicago today, United Airlines asked a bankruptcy court to nullify its labor contracts. United's management is pressing its unions to renegotiate those wage contracts to help keep the airline alive. As Tom Bearden reports, United's bankruptcy is only part of a larger problem facing much of the airline industry. SPOKESPERSON: How are you? This is my airline. Thanks for flying it. I appreciate it. TOM BEARDEN: United Airlines' boss was very upbeat the day the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He said he was optimistic about the company's short-term performance. GLENN TILTON, CEO, United Airlines: Service can only get better now that we're in chapter 11. We have an absolute, unequivocal focus on the customer. TOM BEARDEN: But under further questioning he acknowledged the company was going to have to change the way it does business. GLENN TILTON: United is going to have to address the issue of the competition from low-cost carriers, and another way of looking at that is I think United is going to have to broaden its appeal to more customers than simply the high- end customer. TOM BEARDEN: Low-cost airlines are one of the big reasons for United's troubles. Today the competition isn't coming only from long-time discounter Southwest Airlines, which has grown from its former upstart status to become a big business itself; a whole slew of smaller discount airlines have emerged in recent years. In August, when U.S. Airways filed for bankruptcy, discount carrier Southwest was serving Fort Lauderdale's airport with 36 crowded flights a day. A few hundred yards down the ramp, a smaller discount carrier, Air Tran, was checking people in for some of its 12 daily flights. Low-cost service has made Fort Lauderdale the busiest domestic airport in south Florida today, surpassing mighty Miami. Jet Blue, a two-year-old carrier headquartered in New York, has increased traffic so much that there are now more people flying between Fort Lauderdale and New York than there are between New York and Los Angeles. Ed Nelson is the airport's marketing chief. ED NELSON: When I first came here in 1989, there were 600 people a day looking to fly between Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta, and at the time it was Eastern and Delta. Now that Air Tran is in the market, and they have got low fares that Delta, of course, has matched, the local marketplace is 1800 a day. So along came this little upstart that kind of brought, brought quite a few people, over a thousand people more, to the marketplace. TOM BEARDEN: But more is going on here than just more passengers. The discounters, which used to specialize in leisure travelers, are now carrying more and more business fliers. JOHN BILLACORTA: I'm in business for myself. That's the only way that I can travel, that I can afford to travel. TOM BEARDEN: So price is the determining factor? JOHN BILLACORTA: Price is the determining factor, yes. J.C. PHILLIPS: I used to fly Delta, and I've had Delta's sky miles program, and I won't be getting that with this, but the tradeoff, again, is the convenience and the price. TOM BEARDEN: That critical shift of business fliers is the real reason for the major carriers' troubles. It's now transforming the shape and direction of the whole industry. The low-fare segment of the airline business has been more profitable post 9/11 than the majors. The Business Travel Coalition, an alliance of corporate travelers, surveyed 182 travel managers and found they had cut their spending on air travel 16% last year. 68% said they planned to fly the low-fare airlines more. Kevin Mitchell, who heads the coalition, says the big airlines weren't prepared for the shift. KEVIN MITCHELL: The airlines have believed a lot of their own rhetoric over the years, that the business traveler is inelastic, will pay anything to go anywhere at anytime, and there is something different going on this time, and it took the airlines a long time during this winter and during the first two earnings reports to really get an integrated and fuller picture that much of the premium business travel is gone forever. The $1,800 fare from Syracuse to Phoenix-- there are going to be fewer and fewer people willing and able to pay that fare going forward. TOM BEARDEN: The major carriers make nearly all their profits from business travelers. That's why losing them has an impact far beyond the actual numbers of passengers they've lost. Leisure travelers who buy in advance pay relatively low fares; business travelers, who often have to fly at the last minute, often pay three or four times as much. Bill Swelbar is an economic consultant to the airline industry. WILLIAM SWELBAR: And they have always built their system around that high-yield business passenger, and certainly, you know, losing that, that $2,200 Transcon flier to an alternative airport or to a low-cost carrier, you know, paying $400 or $500 for the same piece, you know, the value in that service is less. TOM BEARDEN: I've read the difference between profit and loss on a given flight is a couple people? WILLIAM SWELBAR: Oh, I think it's, over time, it's been three people per airplane, is the difference between profit and loss. SPOKESPERSON: Thank you for calling Spirit Airline. Have a great day, sir. TOM BEARDEN: The low fares that are killing the major airlines are profitable for the discounters because they have much lower costs. Many, such as Spirit, have simple route structures that only go from point "a" to point "B." Network carriers such as United have banks of flights converging on expensive hubs. The hubs work efficiently when the planes arein, but burn money in the off hours when all the planes are in the air. Another reason is that some fly only one type of aircraft, like Jet Blue with Airbus 320s or Southwest with the Boeing 737. That dramatically reduces training and maintenance costs. Post-9/11, the low-fare carriers have moved aggressively. When the big carriers cut flights, they ramped up service, even moved into new markets. The Baltimore-Washington Airport is a good example. When U.S. Airways shut down its own low-fare division, called Metrojet, Air Tran jumped in. They now have 23 flights a day. Joe Leonard is Air Tran's chairman. JOE LEONARD, CEO AIR TRAN AIRLINES: We keep our systems very, very simple, and as a result we... and we're also very flexible. So we can spool up or spool down rapidly, as we did after 9/11. We took capacity out real fast, but with the cooperation of our unions and our employees, we kept everybody on the payroll, but reduced our costs at the same time. That gave us the ability to ramp back up and start expanding as soon as we saw the opportunity to do so. TOM BEARDEN: Southwest was already at BWI with its 138 flights a day, it had moved the airport past longtime rival Dulles in domestic passengers. The discounters are also finding success going head to head with the majors, something that was considered impossible not long ago. Air Tran is competing directly with Delta at Atlanta. Delta is matching fares, and losing money, while Air Tran's cost structure allows it to remain profitable. TOM BEARDEN: Are you in any way involved in a war of attrition with Delta? JOE LEONARD: Uh, we... (laughs) Delta competes with us vigorously. We are competed against more-- stronger-- by Delta than the other low-fare carriers seem to experience, but having said that, we've done very well. We've demonstrated that we can take what Delta throws at us and still be profitable. TOM BEARDEN: A few weeks before United filed for Chapter 11, Delta announced plans to launch a new low-fare airline with a new brand name to compete head to head with carriers like Air Tran. Delta has also experimented with lower fares for last-minute business travelers on its existing routes. American Airlines, whose CEO Has said he fears the low-cost carriers, has also cut fares in some markets. American lost almost $3 billion in the first nine months of 2002, and is now in discussions with its workforce on how to cut $4 billion in annual costs. USAir, which filed for bankruptcy in August, has gotten one round of concessions from its workers, and is now trying to win a second. The airline's primary creditor has threatened to liquidate the company if the targeted pay cuts aren't reached. KEVIN MITCHELL: The airlines need to look at every single point where they can, you know, reduce costs, improve productivity, or differentiate themselves, so that at the end of the day, if the price on a major network carrier, with amenities and network ubiquity and so on, is, you know, 10% or 15% or 20% more, many business travelers will be able and willing to pay that; but if it continues to be 60% and 70% more, they haven't succeeded. TOM BEARDEN: That is the task facing all the major carriers, but none more urgently than United. United's immediate plans include substantial reductions in the overall size of the system, with consequent cuts in service to some cities. It's also planning to start a low-fare subsidiary similar to the one planned by Delta to compete with the discount carriers. FOCUS BROOKS & PAGE MARGARET WARNER: Now, our weekly analysis from Brooks and Page. That's David Brooks of the "Weekly Standard" and Clarence Page of the "Chicago Tribune." Mark Shields is off tonight. Welcome to you both. David, we had another remarkable political event this Monday. Tennessee Senator Bill Frist was elected Senate Majority Leader in a conference call. He then came out and gave what amounted to a speech to the press, took some questions. How did he do in his debut? DAVID BROOKS: He did quite well. First of all, I object to the conference call. Why not just-I message each other. I'm conservative in this thing. But he introduced himself quite well. One of the things he did, he talked about being a surgeon. It is clear the way he talks about being a surgeon is the way some people talk about their military service, it's a perspective which they put on everything that comes after in their lives. The second thing I noticed was his humility. He said I'm here to serve and not be served. And this sort of is the essence of Bill Frist. I brought along his resume, which is 12 pages, Harvard, Princeton, all the awards, all the books, all the journal articles. You get to Page 10 before he mentions he can walk on water. It is an amazing resume. He is an unbelievable guy. MARGARET WARNER: And he is just 50 years old. DAVID BROOKS: Right. Exactly. But he is a humble guy, and that is why he is not insufferable to everybody around him. And I thought he presented that side of himself very well. And the final thing was if he mentioned the word "team" anymore, he was trying out for the Dallas Cowboys because he talked about the Republican team, the congressional team, his family as a team. The meaning of that is I'm not going to try to be the dictator of the Senate. I'm going to work with other people. I know I'm relatively new at this. MARGARET WARNER: There were no hard edges, were there, Clarence? CLARENCE PAGE: None. It was a perfect presentation, a wonderful debut. You know, Democrats are looking upon this warily because Bill Frist is well known. There are two Bill Frists; there is nice Bill Frist and not so nice even naughty Bill Frist. What is so nice first of all is he is the model of compassionate conservatism. He is you might say -- the poster man for what George W. Bush has been trying to say all along. He is a doctor and Republicans love to call him Dr. Frist and point out he is the only doctor in the Senate. He gives countless hours of volunteer work in Africa. Has worked tirelessly to help bring health care to poor people -- wonderfully compassionate. At the same time when he ran against Jim Sasser and beat him by 14 points in Tennessee, he ran a campaign that had what Democrats would call racial code words in it. He, for example, said, you know, I've been working to help you in Tennessee, more or less or help people with surgery. He has been working to help Marion Barry--. MARGARET WARNER: Send money to Marion Barry in Washington. CLARENCE PAGE: It's not an exact quote but close to it. Jim Sasser was on the D.C. committee, at the time Marion Barry was very like Sasser. Well, that's all it took to go and link him. You know, Marion Barry is not the kind of guy who Democrats like to put forward as a model of their party. Is that racial coding, some say it is, some say it isn't; nevertheless, he is not a totally nice guy. He wouldn't have gotten where he is if he didn't know how to play hard ball. He is an effective politician. He was head of the Republican Senate campaign committee that led to the Republicans taking back the Senate majority. So Democrats have a job on their hands. He is a Trent Lott with ahappy face. MARGARET WARNER: David, he pledged in the speech, one of the things he pledged to do or urged his Republican colleagues to heal the wounds of division that have been reopened so prominently by the racially charged controversy that brought down Trent Lott. Now is he the man to lead Republicans to do that? And what is it actually going to take from a Republican-led Senate to do that? DAVID BROOKS: I think the first thing, it's a matter of temperament. Bill Frist was 12 when the Civil Rights Act was passed, which is different, a different lifetime experience. There is sort of an exodus story for conservatives. The early ones who really came pre-Goldwater really had to be the ice breakers and they were sort of the tough people when being a conservative was kind of weird. Anybody who came after that, life was relatively easy and temperamentally much softer personalities, and Bill Frist is that soft personality. As to what he needs to do, that is going to be actually kind of tough because upcoming this term is going to be a major affirmative action case and Republicans are going to be called upon to comment on it. The University of Michigan case, and a classic affirmative action case where Hispanics and African Americans are given like 20 points on their admission score whether they get into the school. That is a classic affirmative action case. And Republicans are going to be called upon to take a stand on that. MARGARET WARNER: You think even though it is a Supreme Court case, that not only the White House, which of course will have to take a position but even the Senate will? DAVID BROOKS: I think just as a matter of public record because of the Trent Lott controversy, this will become more of a political issue than it would of. One of the reasons quite frankly Trent Lott was replaced is because people thought he would cave on these sorts of issues. So they want Frist to unite, but they want him to stick with the principled Republican stance which is equal opportunity, not affirmative action or quotas. So he does face an incredibly tough balance there. CLARENCE PAGE: Democrats, depending on whether they get their groove back or not are going to be pushing hard on issues like a new proposed hate crime bill, toughen penalties for hate crimes which conservatives do not like. It is an infringement on freedom of speech. I have trouble with hate crime laws myself. They have passed Supreme Court muster and it is a great hot button issue for Democrats to push Frist and other Republicans to the wall. How strongly do you really feel enforcing discrimination laws against women and minorities -- there are bills concerning there's a proposal for more tax cuts for the poor, which you might say is a racial surrogate issue as is education. Health care, we haven't gotten to that yet. The man is a doctor from an HMO family. He helped to carve out Bush's stem cell research position, very controversial. Bush is going to push for health care to take that issue away from Democrats. I see some very strong arguments going on here. He is going to be on the hot seat and for very good reasons for very important issues. MARGARET WARNER: The other thing, David, is this job of being Majority Leader is as much about being a good tactician, knowing the Senate rules, knowing how to play the parliamentary game as it is of having a grand vision. He is up against Tom Daschle. He has no experience, Frist does not, has no experience. Do you think he is equipped for that part of the job? DAVID BROOKS: The way I see it is the guy took people's lungs and hearts and put it in other people's bodies. If he can do that, he can probably learn this. He is someone who has mastered these sorts of things. He does it in his own way. Clarence mentioned the campaigning style he brought to the job. He was before this the head of the Senate Campaign Committee, which is a job that was previously held by people like Phil Gramm and Alfonse D'Amato, tough guys, real tough guys, not like him at all, and people thought temperamentally he is the worst sort of person to do this job because he is not known as a tough guy and yet he had one of the biggest Republican triumphs. So someone MARGARET WARNER: As Clarence said, wasn't afraid to play tough guy or have the committee to play tough guy. DAVID BROOKS: Right. I mentioned his resume; he is superman. Maybe he can do it. MARGARET WARNER: How do you think the Democrats that Tom Daschle should regard this change? Is it an opportunity to exploit or is Bill Frist really a more formidable character than Trent Lott because of his closeness to the White House and because of this perhaps appealing image you've both talked about. CLARENCE PAGE: Well, to quote a well known Republican, don't misunderestimate him. Bill Frist is a George W. Bush kind of hard ball Republican, he has got the soft edges, but he does know how to go in the trenches. He also knows how to deal whether it's Teddy Kennedy on a health care bill or whether it's the right-wing of his own party, in trying to fight for what is a moderate position on abortion and gun control, but is anathema to his party's right-wing. He is also in a pinch because he is identified now with the Bush administration; he is close to George W. Bush, he is his kind of Republican. He is also a Howard Baker type of Republican. He is statesman-like. He can lead the party in that kind of constructive direction. Tom Daschle has got his work cut out for him but Tom Daschle was too slow to get off the dime and jumping on Trent Lott as far as a lot of Democrats are concerned. They're wondering if he is too soft for the job. If I were Tom Daschle, of course I come from Chicago where we always play hard ball--. MARGARET WARNER: Where we know what tough is. CLARENCE PAGE: But if I was Tom Daschle, would I say we're Democrats, going to draw some bright lines now. You're a man of moderation. We can deal with you but let's talk about how we really carve out something that's of interest to people who are in the Democratic Party base. DAVID BROOKS: They're both quite partisan but they're probably the two nicest people in the Senate. CLARENCE PAGE: It's not Chicago city hall anymore. DAVID BROOKS: Throw on velvet glove for both of them. MARGARET WARNER: Finally, briefly, before we go another Democratic Senator, Bob Graham of Florida said this week he was thinking of running for President. And he's another Senator with foreign policy on his case, particularly intelligence credentials. Do you see a theme emerging here? DAVID BROOKS: Well, that's the lesson of 2002, the election. That's the top issue. The 2004 election is going to be defined by Iraq, North Korea, and homeland security. Those are the three issues, and you need to have somebody who can stand out on those. Bob Graham has been on the Intelligence Committee, has articulated positions on Hezbollah, knows how to spell Hezbollah which is more than most Senators do. And so he is prominent. His problem will be, as it was when he was talked about as vice presidential pick, personality little quirks. He keeps a diary, when he woke up, what he had to eat, who he met, everything. He has got 2500 diaries in his home and for some reason--. CLARENCE PAGE: Dangerous in Washington. DAVID BROOKS: People don't like anal retentives for some reason. They're prejudiced against them. That actually will be a little bit of a problem explaining his personality which is unique. MARGARET WARNER: Clarence, he did, in some of his opening remarks or when he made the announcement, also criticized the President for his handling of the war on terror, particularly as he said the al-Qaida threat here in the United States. That seems to be an emerging theme from other would-be or wannabe candidates, too. CLARENCE PAGE: And Bob Graham is hard to demonize. First of all, he is a popular politician, a Democrat who survived shifts to the Republican wing and back to the 50-50 Florida that we know. He is a former governor. He was on the Senate select committee on intelligence. This is not first time he has criticized the President in his handling of the al-Qaida versus -- you say al-Qaida versus Saddam Hussein. He points out, I think correctly that you can topple Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida is still a threat. He hasn't really drawn that link. And the White House hasn't drawn the link I mean. And Graham is going right at that issue. He is hard to demonize because he knows what he is talking about. And will he be able to go the distance without appearing to be attacking a President in a way that's viewed as unpatriotic? That's what Republicans are going to play on. MARGARET WARNER: For Senator John Edwards also gave a very tough speech criticizing the President's record on protecting the homeland. I mean, compared to the 2002 elections, David, where every Democrat wanted to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the President on the war on terror, this is quite different. DAVID BROOKS: The big issue, how does the U.S. behave in the world? That is a huge issue. I'm a little dubious that this homeland security issue is going to work because you don't want to be seen attacking the President. You want to be helpful, so you establish some credibility but can't attack the President on this. MARGARET WARNER: We have to leave it there. Thank you both. CLARENCE PAGE: Thank you. FINALLY - SAN FRANCISCO'S POET MARGARET WARNER: Finally, a city and its poet, and to Elizabeth Farnsworth. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the city of San Francisco seem inseparably linked. Though originally a New Yorker, Ferlinghetti has spent half a century in his adopted city, and even at age 83 he moves vigorously through its streets every day. He begins each morning at a coffee house on San Francisco Bay. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Well, I've got to get going. I woke up too early and drank too many cups of coffee already. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Later in the morning, he walks to work in his beloved North Beach neighborhood past the small street the city has named after him, and past the places, like St. Peter and Paul church, that figure in his San Francisco poems. (Bell tolls) LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: "Toward ten in the morning the slow bell tolls in the towers of Peter and Paul, and the old men who are still alive sit sunning themselves in a row on the wood benches in the park." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ferlinghetti has been especially busy lately. He was named San Francisco's first poet laureate in 1998, a post he held for two years. His store was recently declared a city landmark, and he has in the past two years published two new volumes of poetry. He has also been honored for his life's work by groups like the National Book Critics Circle and Pen/USA. The honors are somewhat surprising to him because he's always considered himself an outsider, an insurgent. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: The mayor of my father's hometown in Italy this summer gave me a medal for good behavior, so I... ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: (Laughs) LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Little did he know. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you in good conscience could take that? LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Of course. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ferlinghetti got a reputation as a literary bad boy in the 1950s, when he befriended and published the controversial poets and writers who became known as the "beat" generation. Since then, he has been an anti- establishment dissident, and San Franciscans have become accustomed to hearing from him when times get rough. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Here's another attempt at prophecy. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Whenever he reads his work publicly, hundreds of people turn out, as they did at a North Beach reading just after September 11th last year. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: "A wind of ashes blows across the land, and for one long moment, an eternity there's chaos and despair and buried loves and voices. Cries and whispers fill the air everywhere." (Applause) ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Even as a young man, Ferlinghetti was a leader, though not a rebel. He was an eagle scout and then a lieutenant commander in the Navy, where he served on a sub chaser during the Normandy invasion. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: The last year of the war, I was a navigator on a big troop transport, and we started out to go to Japan as the invasion force. We had 5,000roops on board, and we were headed for Japan when the bomb was dropped. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How close to the time it was dropped? LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: About six weeks after Nagasaki had been bombed, we went over there on a train. No one knew anything about atomic bombs, and no one ever heard of radiation, and we walked around the ruins of Nagasaki, which was just like a couple of square miles of mulch, nothing but mulch with human hair and bones sticking out, and it was a horrible sight to see. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Did it begin the process of your becoming very political? LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Oh, definitely, yeah. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How about pacifism? Are you a pacifist? LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Oh, definitely. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: After the war, Ferlinghetti got a Ph.D. At the Sorbonne in Paris on the G.I. Bill, married, and moved to San Francisco. By 1956, he had opened City Lights and was publishing works like Allen Ginsberg's manifesto of the beat generation, "Howl." It begins with the line "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical naked," and then blames the materialism and spiritual emptiness of American life for the destruction. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What in your view was great about the Allen Ginsberg poem "Howl"? LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Well, when you read a poem that... and you say to yourself, "well, I've never seen the world or reality like this before," then you know you've come upon a great poem, and that was my reaction to "Howl." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But "Howl" was also full of expressions long considered unacceptable in print in this country, and Ferlinghetti and his publishing partner were arrested and put on trial for obscenity. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: The judge ruled that you couldn't judge a work obscene if it had the "slightest redeeming social significance." That was the key phrase, which held up. This was a precedent that really opened the floodgates and allowed the grove press in New York, for instance, to publish D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and Henry Miller's "Tropics" and Jean Genet's works from France and many others. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In 1958, Ferlinghetti published "A Coney Island of the Mind," a collection of his poems that has sold so many copies, it has apparently made him America's best-selling poet of the 20th century. One of the best-known poems is "I Am Waiting." LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: This poem is 45 years old, but I'm still waiting for some of the things in his poem. The end of the poem: "I am waiting to get some intimations of immortality by recollecting my early childhood, and I am waiting for the green mornings to come again, youth's dumb green fields come back again, and I am waiting for some strains of unpremeditated art to shake my typewriter, and I am waiting to write the great indelible poem, and I am waiting for the last, long, careless rapture, and I am perpetually waiting for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian urn to catch each other up at last and embrace, and I am awaiting, perpetually and forever, a renaissance of wonder." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The language here is deceptively simple. Ferlinghetti works hard in writing and refining his poems, but he always uses a simple style that is easy to understand. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: Well, I always feel a poem has to have a public surface; in other words, a surface that anyone can get without any literary education. In other words, it has to have a common-sensual surface that anyone can get, and you have to hold people's attention, which is where the comic part comes in, and then, when you get them laughing, you can zap them. (Laughter) ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the years since "A Coney Island of the Mind" was published, Ferlinghetti has written eight other books of poetry as well as two novels and two plays. He has always used his bookstore as a forum to express his political views, which are usually critical of American foreign policy. He is concerned now about what he sees as threats to free speech in the war against terror. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: The Bush administration has been very adept at capitalizing on the national paranoia that's been generated by 9/11 so that they can pass all kinds of legislation limiting free speech and invading individual privacy. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ferlinghetti spends part of each day at City Lights, which publishes about 12 new books a year. On this afternoon, he was working on a manuscript by the poet Jack Hershman. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: This will be in our pocket poets series, which has been going since 1955. It's up to number 53 or 54. Allen Ginsberg's "Howl and Other Poems" was number four in this series. I mean, I grew up in New York, and I identify with the New York abstract expressionists. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Since he first came to San Francisco, Ferlinghetti has been a serious painter as well as a publisher and poet. Major galleries show his work, and some paintings have recently sold for as much as $50,000. In the preface to his new poetry collection, "How to Paint Sunlight," Ferlinghetti writes that all he ever wanted to do was "paint light on the walls of life." LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: "The changing light in San Francisco is none of your East-Coast light, none of your pearly light of Paris. The light of San Francisco is a sea light, an island light, and the light of fog blanketing the hills, drifting in at night through the golden gate to lie on the city at dawn, and then the halcyon late mornings after the fog burns off and the sun paints White Houses with the sea light of Greece, with sharp, clean shadows making the town look like it had just been painted, but the wind comes up at four o'clock, sweeping the hills, and then the veil of light of early morning, and then another scrim, when the new night fog floats in and in that vale of light the city drifts, anchorless, upon the ocean." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And so Lawrence Ferlinghetti goes about his days, painting, writing, publishing, agitating, always hoping he's painting light on the walls of life. RECAP MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major developments of the day: North Korea ordered United Nations nuclear inspectors to leave immediately. It also announced it will reactivate a reprocessing plant capable of producing weapons- grade plutonium. In Chechnya, suicide bombers rammed two bomb-filled trucks into local government headquarters killing at least 46 people. And in Florida, a French chemist claimed scientists have produced the first cloned human being, a baby girl born yesterday, but offered no proof. 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.