The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

I'm when I fall today's news, the embattled Iraqi Prime Minister, screening for mental illness, pushing primaries earlier, and may the staples tonight on the news hour. Good evening, I'm when I fall.

On the news hour tonight, the news of this Wednesday, then mixed messages for Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki, as American officials step up their criticism and their support. A health unit report on efforts to detect mental health problems in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. A conversation about leapfrog politics as more and more states seek to set ever earlier presidential primary dates. And we'll take you there with gospel and soul singer, maybe staples. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by... Some say that by 2020, we'll have used up half the world's oil. Some say we already have.

Making the other half last longer will take innovation, conservation, and collaboration. Will you join us? The new AT&T. Pacific Life. The Atlantic Philanthropies. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. President Bush said today he continues to support Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki's efforts to achieve political progress in his war-torn nation.

The endorsement came one day after the president and the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad admitted to frustration and disappointment with Iraq's troubled unity government. Maliki responded harshly to that criticism, saying during a trip to Syria, we will pay no attention. We care for our people and our Constitution and can find friends elsewhere. President Bush softened his tone today during remarks at a veterans convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this. If the noted yesterday, the Iraqi government is distributing oil revenues across its provinces despite not having an oil revenue law in its books. If the parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation, Prime Minister Maliki is a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. We'll have more on this story right after this new summary.

In Iraq today, 14 U.S. troops died when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed. The deadliest crash for the U.S. military since January 2005. The chopper went down during a nighttime operation in the north, early indications point to a mechanical failure, but the crash is under investigation. Separately, another American soldier was killed in fighting today west of Baghdad. Also today, a suicide truck bomb hit a police agency in Bayeji, killing at least 45 people. 80 others were wounded. Hurricane Dean struck mainland Mexico for a second time today. It made landfall as a category two storm along the central Gulf Coast's Barra Cruz State, and then weakened to a tropical storm. Maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour, lashed the coast. There were still no reports of deaths from the storm's initial hit yesterday. But in passable roads on the Yucatan Peninsula made it hard for authorities to check on smaller communities. The governor of Ohio declared a state of emergency in nine counties there today after the state suffered its worst flooding in nearly 100 years.

Northern Ohio was inundated with heavy rains that moved east across the Upper Miss Midwest. Rescue boats moved through flooded streets in search of the stranded. At least 22 deaths have been reported from flooding throughout the Midwest and southern plains. Arizona today joined at least 19 other states moving their presidential primaries to an earlier date on the election calendar. Last night, Governor Janet Napolitano signed a proclamation, sliding the primary forward three weeks to February 5th. Other states, including Michigan today, have taken steps to begin voting as early as January 8th. We'll have more on the LeapFrog primaries later in the program tonight. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 145 points to close at 13,236. The Nasdaq rose 31 points to close above 2552. That's it for the news summary tonight, now, al-Maliki embattled.

Screening for mental health, the shrinking political calendar, and gospel singer, Mavis Staples. Ray Suarez has the Maliki story. Speaking to the veterans of foreign wars in Kansas City today, the president endorsed the Iraqi Prime Minister, ahead of a new assessment on the war just weeks away. Prime Minister Maliki is a good man, with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C. to say whether he will remain in his position. That is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship. That public embrace came less than 24 hours after these comments at the end of the North American Summit in Canada. I think there's a certain level of frustration with the leadership, in general, in ability to work, to come together to get, for example, an oil revenue law passed or provincial elections.

People at the grassroots level are sick and tired of the violence, sick and tired of the radicalism, and they want a better life. And the fundamental question is, will the government respond to the demands of the people? And if the government doesn't demand a respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government. Earlier this week, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters he thought Maliki should quit. He and the senior Republican on the committee, Senator John Warner of Virginia, recently visited Iraq to assess the surge. Levin said the Iraqi government was facing its last chance to straighten out the political situation in Baghdad. In a joint statement, Warner and Levin said, In all of our meetings, we witnessed a great deal of apprehension regarding the capabilities of the current Iraqi government to shed its sectarian biases and act in a unifying manner. Meeting in Damascus today with the Syrian President, the Iraqi Prime Minister fired back. The American administration is full of contrast in petty politics.

We see that from the recent criticisms and undiplomatic statements about us, which don't show proper respect. Our government is legal, the Iraqis choose it, and Americans have no right to place timetables on it or any other restrictions. Despite the leaders' meetings and frequent phone calls, Washington and Baghdad have often been at odds since Maliki, a Shiite, took office in May last year. He's a strong leader who wants a free and democratic Iraq to succeed. The United States is determined to help him achieve that goal. Just as the President was meeting with Maliki in Jordan last November, a memo from national security adviser Stephen Hadley was leaked to the press. Hadley wrote, The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what's going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action. And yesterday, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, vented his frustrations at the inability of Maliki and other Shiite leaders to reach accommodations with Sunni Arabs and Kurdish political leaders.

He said, this is an open society, a democratic society, and if governments don't perform, at a certain point, I think you're going to see a new government. This mixture of criticism and praise comes as the administration is preparing for the release of reports to Congress on military and political progress in Iraq, from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in early September. Now, for some analysis of the state of relations between the Bush administration and the Iraqi Prime Minister, we turn to Laith Kuba, who served as spokesman for Iraq's previous government from April 2005 until January 2006. George Packer, staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Assassin's Gate, America in Iraq, and Suzanne Maloney, who served on the policy planning staff at the State Department from 2005 until May of this year. She's now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Suzanne Maloney, a day after the president publicly expressed some doubts about the abilities of the Iraqi government.

He comes in with this very strong endorsement. What do you think that happened? Well, I think the administration obviously does share this frustration that is felt across the political spectrum here in Washington and frankly within Iraq and the region with the pace of political progress in Iraq and the inability, apparently, of the current Iraqi government to take significant meaningful steps on those issues that are most important to securing Iraq's future. But I think it's also clear, and I think the president wanted to make clear through his remarks today, that this administration is, if not, committed to the individual of Maliki himself. And I think the personal relationship there is real and important, very much committed to the political process that brought Prime Minister Maliki into his office. George Packer, you heard today a president endorsing the Iraqi Prime Minister and the Iraqi Prime Minister sort of pushing back at his critics in the United States. What's going on?

Well, I think on the Iraqi side, there's always a tendency to sort of play the sovereignty card when American officials start criticizing them. And then behind the scenes, as is happening now in Baghdad, some Iraqi officials beg American officials to be more proactive, to push harder. That's been going on over the past few weeks in Baghdad. I think the administration is caught in a bind of its own making. They put all their chips on Maliki last year. Bush has confirmed and reconfirmed that he supports him, that he thinks he's the right man. And the government is, as one official said, to me, not dysfunctional, it's non-functioning. It has practically collapsed. And so there's a kind of an uncertainty in the administration, whether to continue writing this horse because anything else will seem like a failure of its political strategy or to admit this strategy is failed and to look for an alternative. Well, Laith Kuba, are we now hearing in public things that were already being said in private for weeks, maybe months?

I think we're not hearing the whole story. I think the frustration with Maliki and his government is real, and it's understandable and Iraqis have been frustrated for a while. I think what we're not hearing is that the problem is not with the person. If you replace and maliki with any other person, those problems will not go. They're more rooted in a dysfunctional political system that needs serious attention. And I think the recent surge was supposed to create this space and the opportunity to fix that dysfunctional political system so far it hasn't happened, and I think this is what's adding to everybody's frustration. George Packard, do you agree with that? That it's not Maliki, it's the situation? I do. We've had a series of prime ministers. I et alawi, Ibrahim Jaffari, Nouriel Maliki. There's now a lot of talk about possibly engineering, a parliamentary coup, or that is to say a democratic replacement of Maliki with Atalab Lamadi, or I et alawi again. But there is basically a problem of a lack of shared vision by the three main factions, Sunishia, and Kurd.

Several American diplomats with a lot of experience in Iraq have said to me that they have grown to despair of the possibility of achieving accommodation, let alone reconciliation, because at bottom there is no shared vision among the major groups. And also, those groups themselves, their leaders are really isolated from the Iraqi people. A lot of polls show that Iraqis are fed up with sectarian government. But, and many of these leaders came from exile and have not established deep grassroots support. Instead, they've got militias and they've got cronies who they put in positions of power, and that's why the government is unable to function. Susan Maloni, is there a difference of opinion inside the Bush administration? Is the president now hearing from different parts of a far flung Iraq operation, differing reports about the future of this government and the wisdom of continuing to support it? Well, as your initial news report suggested, obviously, over some period of time, there have been questions about Malaki's personal capacity to undertake the mission that he has by virtue of his position as prime minister.

So I think for quite some time, there has been some internal focus within the administration about the nature of this government. I tend to think, and I agree with my colleagues here, that the focus on the individual is very much unfortunate, and it really demonstrates a positive, I think, in the political debate here in Washington, that we, on this very important issue, we're now very much focused on the search for either a white night or some opportunity for blame laying. We spent a lot of time at the outset of this government debating the difference between Joffrey and Omalaki. There's a lot of interest in people I got to love, Dilmati or Iyadalawi. It's very unclear to me that anyone in this set of circumstances is going to have the capacity to meet our benchmarks on our timetable. And frankly, the sort of political debate that you hear in Washington today does not make it any easier for Malaki or anyone around him to take the sorts of steps that we'd like to see him take on any one of the key issues. Well, as you noted, both Laith Koba and George Packer talked about finding a constitutional way to replace him with somebody. Is there anybody? Is there a plausible replacement for Nuri Amoaki?

There are conceivable candidates, and we've mentioned a few of them. The one who has the most credibility, I think, inside Iraq, and I'll obviously defer to others here, Atalab, Dilmati, may suffer from some of the same critiques if you were to be in office that have been leveled against Omalaki and his predecessor. In particular, the relationship with Iran, Iyadalawi has a certain alert for certainly many within the administration, those who've been working on Iraq since the early days. But he has demonstrated no capacity to be able to put together a parliamentary coalition that would lead him into office. And I think the Bush administration will be very reticent to embrace some sort of a solution that is extra constitutional. So, do you just stick with what you've got? Given all the problems that all of you have talked about, Laith Koba? I think the breakthrough will come looking at the three blocks. I think George Packer was spot on when he said they lack vision, but they cut deals.

And I think if they were to cut a deal on an alternative to Maliki, then Maliki will go within a week. He's very much under their mercy. And if the U.S. was to signal maybe to one of the three groups on how this deal should be struck, it will actually lead to some results. But the real question is those groups who have the prime minister under their mercy are enjoying power while the rest of the country is in this array and sinking. And I think those people benefiting from the situation, they're very happy in their little territories of power. And they have very little incentive to fundamentally alter the game. I think the only way to bring some difference is to leverage neighbors influence over them and change the dynamic of Iraqi politics as it stands today. And George Packer, you've talked about the United States placing a heavy bet on Nuri Al Maliki. Well, if you stick with him for the long term, does whoever takes his place at some point in the future, inherit a much degraded situation and less of a chance for success by that much more time of drift passing.

Absolutely. The surge has given us the sense that there is progress. There is, but it's superficial. The deep problems remain. In fact, they're getting worse. In some ways, Iraqis daily lives are getting worse every day when it comes to services and things like that. Refugees continue to leave the country at the same rate. And that is because, as Laith Kuba said, there is a fundamental blockage of political groups. I think it's interesting that the Bush administration has bet so much on Maliki. Some Iraqis have said to me, some Iraqi politicians, you've got 160,000 troops. Your aid package is enormous. Your President's legacy is riding on this. I don't, you push harder, but I think there's just a reticence, as Suzanne Maloney said, to seem to be pushing from the outside and perhaps getting the double they don't know instead of the double they do.

So I think there's a stalemate both in Washington where some people would like to push him out and others don't. And in Baghdad, where none of the factions is willing to be the first to jump and get rid of Maliki. But it's true. He would be gone in a week if they could come to an agreement about an alternative. By expecting the reports on the effect of the troop surge, there'll be one on the military situation, one on the diplomatic. When Ambassador Crocker reports to the administration and the Congress, will what he has to say be weighed down by the performance of the Maliki government? Well, it's hard to separate anything that the administration may say in a report from what we're actually seeing on the ground in the newspapers and on the television screens every day. There may be some elements of success in our military strategy over recent months, but it has not had that sort of carry over impact on the security situation that was hoped for originally. And I see very little prospect that that's likely to happen in the period that is leading up to those reports being issued.

So I think in effect the reports are important, but the debate has been effectively preempted by what's happening on the ground, the extent to which we're seeing it taken up in the political partisan debate here in Washington, and the need really to look toward a longer-term solution. Both of my colleagues here have spoken about U.S. influence. I think ultimately the president is correct in saying that Iraqis make these decisions. It may not be at this point in the hands of all of the Iraqi voters, because I think it would be very difficult to conceive of a situation of holding elections in any time of the near future. But these Iraqi political actors, the key political blocks among the Shia Kurds and Sunnis, are really the ones who are going to determine whether a coherent government can be put in place that can in any way begin to build on any progress, or that can at least take the reins of a state if and as the U.S. begins to move toward a position of redeployment or withdrawal. Suzanne Maloney, George Packer, Lefkoba, thank you all.

Now, screening for and treating mental illness, it's a subject that captured attention after the massacre of Virginia Tech earlier this year. Today, the university released its own report about the shootings in its school officials recommended better security measures, including classroom locks, and it proposed monitoring troubled students more closely. Now, an encore look at some of the problems in the larger mental health system, it's from Susan Dancer of our health unit, a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Behind the slaughter of Virginia Tech last April was the troubled history of the shooter, Sunnui Cho. As with one in five Americans, he had a mental disorder such as depression, and like one in 20, he may have had a serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Of course, only a tiny minority of people with mental illness become violent. All the same, the tragic shootings reflect a major problem, says David Schur.

He's president and CEO of the nonprofit group Mental Health America. We don't have a system of mental health in this country. It's a series of disjointed efforts that sometimes tragically fail. Cho's problems most likely began years earlier, mental health experts say, and they say the absence of effective mental health interventions during his lifetime is a symptom of pervasive problems. What's really a case study, I think, and missed opportunities, some horribly missed opportunities, both to intervene effectively early in terms of promoting health behaviors and preventing the development of difficult behaviors. Dr. Bella's suit is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a member of a state review panel investigating the shootings. So there are many complicated kind of reasons why young man, the young man sort of slipped to the cracks, but this is a major societal problem for us. Stigma, access to care, workforce shortage issues, poor funding of mental health.

So it another mental health experts say Cho apparently fell through the cracks in various ways, beginning in his troubled childhood. Certainly the media talks about this young man being very withdrawn, very isolated, extremely and painfully shy as he was growing up. Shines by itself, what we call introversion, is not a sign of mental illness. It is really a combination of that, along with other symptoms which sort of come together as a constellation of mental illness. Although Cho's mother reportedly spoke with relatives back in South Korea about her son's problems, there is no sign of family saw treatment. Suits as that's hardly surprising, given his parents' socioeconomic status and their immigrant backgrounds. We know within mainstream culture mental health carries with it a great deal of stigma, and that it is seen as a personal failure of probably a much higher magnitude in the eastern culture. Suits ads that the family may well have faced other issues, including finding appropriate care.

Even in the best of situations, access to care is a problem. Their workforce shortage issues, we have very much fewer trained people, for individuals who even come out, forward and seek treatment, to get an appointment with a child psychiatrist, or at least my waiting list of about eight months. After one Virginia Tech student complained about Cho's behavior in 2005, Cho threatened to kill himself. He was detained by campus police and sent to a local psychiatric facility for evaluation. Under state law Cho then had a so-called commitment hearing, a special judge ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment, but then nothing happened. That's at least in part because the law didn't specify who was responsible to see that Cho was treated. That's exactly the problem. Who is responsible? If there was a system in place, it would be clear how responsibility was delegated. And again, it's not just Virginia. This is a very common problem across the United States.

Congress and the state of Virginia are now moving to correct lapses that allowed Cho to buy guns, despite being ruled a danger to himself. And in a report to President Bush, top administration officials wrote that it's critical to make sure that people with mental illness get the services they need. Mental health experts agree and point to examples of interventions that have been proven to work. Once being used here at Livingston High School in New Jersey. Bonnie Graniteer, a member of the Livingston School Board, says two student suicides here several years ago galvanized the community. During the course of the 2002-2003 school year, Livingston lost two teens very tragically. And it was a moment in time where the community, after really going through a grieving process together, realized that we had to take a hard look at ourselves and what we were doing and what we might not be doing to create an environment where our kids are safe and healthy. The school district launched a broad-based suicide prevention initiative that included a computerized mental health screening tool called teen screen.

Laurie Flynn is National Executive Director of the teen screen program, which was developed by child and adolescent psychiatrists at Columbia University. Over 600,000 youth every year make a suicide attempt that's serious enough that it requires medical attention. The teen screen is a science-based national program that is designed to identify youngsters who may be at risk for serious mental disorders or suicide. It's a voluntary program. It's now offered in over 475 sites across the country. At Livingston High, Harry Dietrich is the school's psychological coordinator for the teen screen program. The way the program works is we send a letter describing what teen screen is to every family in the high school. Also attached to that letter is a permission slip that a parent has to give active consent that then ones up being sent back to the high school.

We then at that point, based on the permission slips that we have, we ask those students, we sit down with them, and then we also get their permission. So it's the parents' permission and also the students' permission to be able to be screened. So they're asked about feelings of depression, irritability, sadness, interruption in their sleep. We ask, we ask the question, have you ever thought about killing yourself? Have you ever made an attempt? Are you thinking about it right now today? And the youngsters will talk to us, they tell us, and very often we can intervene right then. Get a hold of the family and begin the process of getting crisis or emergency help if it's necessary. Very often we can open a conversation and begin a process for the family and the mental health professionals, so the youngster gets whatever level of assistance they may need.

At Livingston High, the screening has identified that about one in every ten kids is in need of some intervention. That can include anything from counseling with clergy to more advanced treatment and medication. This tends to pick up students that we would not normally see in the school community as being in need of services. You know, the person quote unquote, who might be suffering in silence. It's an added tool that we did not have before the suicides and we have not had one sense. Flynn says a tool like teen screen may be helpful in cases like chose, where early indications of trouble in childhood later evolve into full-blown mental illness in young adulthood. We know from a lot of studies that between the time between the first symptoms and actual identification and treatment can be five to ten years with mental disorders. We can never know what might have been. But it seems as though he was deteriorating over a long period of time and one can only hope that had he been able to get help earlier, had he been screened that he might have had a different outcome and that this tragedy might have been prevented.

Another approach that could have helped in chose cases evident here in Rochester, New York. Did you get angry or upset? I didn't get angry at last. When I had a leg I held me up and I entered while I used to. Sure. I felt a lot angry. Byron Watson age 35 has paranoid schizophrenia. For the past several years he's been under the care of a so-called assertive community treatment program called Project Lake. It's designed to make certain that mentally ill persons who've had encounters with the criminal justice system and then been ordered into treatment actually receive it. Dr. Robert Weissman of the University of Rochester Medical Center is Projectling's Director. Byron started out as a healthy young male, had odd jobs, went to school. Around the late teens early adulthood he started expressing symptoms of his mental illness. And that included hearing voices, being hostile, having paranoid delusions. People with severe mental illness often deny that illness and don't feel that they need the treatment that's offered to them.

I was young, you know. I had a lot of imaging and I wasn't good work. I didn't want to keep talking back on Florida and take a medication. In Byron's case there have been lapses. He's ended up back in the hospital. He's ended up entangled with police. And has put himself and it's sometimes other people at risk as a result. Projectling's case advocates, like the Well Priester, check in frequently with Watson to make sure he's all right and that his basic needs are being met. Above all, they make sure he's making regular visits to the mental health clinic and receiving his injectable anti-psychotic drug. Phil, it's working for you. It's been like the Martin. Will you continue taking medication? Yes, I will. We consider ourselves the mobile intensive care unit for the mentally ill in our community. That means that we go visit them where they are, whether it's in the street, whether it's, whether they're locked up, or whether they're in their own apartment. Is this a good thing for people with mental illness?

It's a good thing to help you feel that trouble. In the 12 years since Projectling started, about 130 mentally ill patients like Watson have come through the program. Once in it, their likelihood of being jailed for nuisance behavior or hospitalized has fallen by half. Local Monroe County officials are so certain the program works that they're funding much of the cost. Yet there are only a scattering of such programs around the country. So I think that the moral of the story for us is we have to start to garner the political will necessary to say enough is enough. We know what to do. We can't stand this sort of this level of carnage anymore. And experts like Sharon say no better memorial could be created to honor the victims of Virginia Tech. Now to the ever changing 2008 presidential nominating calendar, February 5th is shaping up to be a key, perhaps the size of day. Arizona today joined 19 other states and setting their primary election for that date, but it's all getting started even earlier than that.

Florida started the dominoes falling by moving its primary to January 29th. South Carolina Republicans leap frog to head to January 19th, and today the Michigan State Senate voted to shift its voting to January 15th. And it won't end there. Here to discuss the rush for electoral impacted influence. Our editorial columnist and editors from four key states. Carol Hunter of the register in Des Moines, Iowa, Michael McCord of the Herald in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic, and Richard Burr of the Detroit news. Welcome to you all. Robert Robb, why the rush? Well, Arizona statute sets the date for our primary for February 26th, but it gives the governor discretion to move it in advance if she wants to, and she wanted to. The fear was that by February 26th, the election would be over. If we waited for February 26th, we might very well be king makers, but the decision was to be at least relevant by joining the parade on February 5th, rather than risking being irrelevant.

Richard Burr is a matter of relevancy as well in Michigan. I think it's a matter of relevancy. It's also a matter of the fact that New Hampshire and Iowa don't have a monopoly on being the best states to go first. And I think the people in Michigan feel that we're a larger industrial state with manufacturing and urban issues that aren't often considered early on in the nominating presidential primary process. And that those issues should be addressed earlier and not forgotten in a wave of small early states. Carol Hunter, you have an opportunity to defend the privacy of Iowa here. Are you too small to homogenous a state to be leading this process?

I don't think so. For one thing, Iowa is changing. Like many states, it has a growing Hispanic population. It's not as homogenous as it once was. But I think the most important thing is a defense of retail politics wherever you start it. Here in Iowa, candidates get out and really meet the people. They're in cafes, they're in libraries. They're at the fairgrounds in each county. Many of the candidates have appeared in all 99 counties in Iowa. And it gives candidates that might be considered a long shot a chance to make a name for themselves. Michael McCord, is it like that in New Hampshire or is this something that maybe New Hampshire should start thinking about handing over to someone else? Well, it's very much that way just like what Carol said about Iowa in terms of retail politics. The House parties, the presidential job interviews, the meet and greets, the small events, stuff that you just rarely see covered. As far as, you know, turning it over to another state, you know, I'm not going to speak for all the defenders of the system.

But I think that New Hampshire and and Iowa have proved over the years that they've been a very good place for the election to start. But for the be all end all, but for for the process to start. Robert, Rob, I've had the experience of going from New Hampshire primary to Arizona to cover a primary. And it was a lot warmer in Arizona, which was a good thing. What are the other advantages for Arizona being able to go farther ahead in the process? Well, I don't think Arizona pretends to have any special insight. We simply want our views to be heard. And I think there's a growing reluctance among people in other states to constantly defer to Iowa and New Hampshire. The decision to first winnow out the field. Long-time Arizona Congressman Mo Udall, who also ran for President in 1976, advocated very strongly for a reform that would create a series of regional primaries. Space far enough apart that candidates could repair from round one to get on to the round two, those who survived.

And rotated in terms of order, so everyone could get the shot. And I think Arizona and other states are just looking for a say in the process, not necessarily looking to replace Iowa and New Hampshire as offering the first judgment. But I believe that no one should have that as a permanent right. Is it that Arizona has had in the past no say in the process? One of the big candidates this year is Senator from Arizona. Right, and Mo Udall once joked that Arizona was the only state in which parents couldn't tell their kids that anyone can grow up to be present in the United States as a result. Arizona has had limited influence in the primary system. Early primary in 2004, February 3rd, and we got a lot of attention from candidates on the Democratic side of the election. But by the time our election rolled around, the decision had pretty well been set that John Kerry was going to be the nominee.

So we appreciated the decision that the votes were less influential. With the rush of states to February 5th, I think that there will be a larger that presumably the contest will still be alive at that point. And all the states on February 5th, I think, believe that they'll be at least somewhat relevant. Richard Burr in Michigan not too long ago, the primary was March in March, and then it was moved up to February 14th. And now you're talking about January 15th. What difference would that make? Well, I think it makes a difference because the primary process gets very compressed these days we saw last year. I mean, the last time around that John Kerry wrapped up the process and the nomination pretty early. And I go back to the point that there are some pretty big issues that the candidates don't tend to address early on in small states, whether it's issues like whether we should raise mandatory fuel economy rules, like the Senate's been debating and which is a huge issue in Michigan and affects a lot of jobs in a big industrial state and a lot of other industrial states.

And issues like what do we do about our cities? That's much more relevant to a lot more people than what's going on with corn prices in Iowa. Well, that's okay, go ahead. Well, I just want to ask you about that because you've already moved the primary up once last time. And I wondered, as a result, did you get more of those issues on the table? Or do you have any reason to believe that they'll get on the table more now if you move it up even more? We did get a little bit of interest. John Kerry actually, while he won the nomination while coming through. He did make kind of a slip and he, when we asked him a question and an editorial debate by phone, he said that one of the vehicles he drove was a gas guzzling suburban. And this was something that was picked up later in the campaign by radio show, tacos, brushed limbo and others who were criticizing him.

It's true that it didn't make a huge difference last time around for Michigan, but I think people were a little bit more aware of what's going on. And it's clear that this time it's making a huge difference in Michigan, because I was talking to the state GOP just the other day, and they said that they already have a commitment next month from all the GOP presidential hopefuls, except for Tom Tan credo, to appear at their state leadership conference up in Mackinac next month. So they're actually all showing up. They're all showing up. You might have been lucky to get one person four years ago or eight years ago to who an event like that, and you're going to get a crowd of thousands to listen to them party grassroots activists and donors. And so it's having the desired effect at least on the GOP side. Michael McCord in New Hampshire, what does it feel like to have all these people breathing down your neck? Well, we're in the position of, in an odd way,

it is actually enhanced the both Iowa and New Hampshire, this front loading process, because they have become, if you talk to the campaigns, and if you listen to the media buzz, they've actually become absolutely must win. It's going to be very difficult for a candidate to come out of there. So in some ways, we are seeing a record number of appearances. So to be honest, these are like headline news for a day, and then they pass, because we know that we're going to be first at least this time. And I would just like to add that New Hampshire is not a place where candidates are not talking about every issue that the gentleman from Michigan talked about. At our newspaper, we hosted a forum with Senator Hillary Clinton, in which he talked about these very issues, especially about cafe standards. And they cover a wide range of topics. And one of the things while we are not ethnically diverse, I can assure you we are ideologically diverse. And that makes it, that's what makes it a pretty unique mix up here.

Carol Hunter, one of the interesting domino effects of this whole thing is that, apparently, because Iowa has a rule that it will always be the first caucus, one week ahead of New Hampshire, that now with the latest move to January 8th, it's possible, I don't know, there may be a Christmas time primary happening in Iowa. That's true, it could go as early as mid-December. Our governor has said he doesn't want that to happen, he wants everyone to be able to enjoy Christmas. But there is a law in the books that says our caucuses must be eight days before any other caucuses or primaries. Now, there's also talk that we will do everything possible to remain first in the nation, and that there might be a special section in order to change that law, so maybe there are less days in between the first caucuses and a primary or other caucuses. The Democrats at least, the party officials are meeting in Washington this weekend, Carol, to talk about sanctioning those states who are moving their primaries too early. Do you think that's a good idea?

I do, I really do think the decisions on this rest with the parties. That's one caution I'd make. There is talk of federal legislation to dictate a calendar. But if you look at the Constitution, the Constitution doesn't even mention political parties. It's a real state's rights issue, states have always set their own calendars, and there's also some first amendment considerations as far as freedom of association. So there are some real cautions as far as who should make decisions about the calendar. Let me ask Richard Burr that same question because Michigan and Florida would be two states that would be scolded by the National Party. You think that's a good idea? I don't think they should penalize them, but I think Michigan might be willing to pay the price to make its point, which is it's okay to let other states try to get up earlier in the process, and that perhaps the National Party should have a very intense discussion about whether we need some kind of a super primary process, and whether we need to reach some kind of schedule that makes sense for both parties

and lets the candidates figure out their strategies and move from there. Robert Robby mentioned earlier the possibility of a regional primary. How realistic do you think that is? I don't know that it's very realistic in part because so many members of the Senate in the House see themselves as potential presidential candidates, and if you try for reform and fail, the good people of Iowa and New Hampshire are likely to punish you severely. However, there will be a large number of failed presidential candidates coming from the Senate in the House this time. And that is, after his failure, when Mo Udall became most aggressive in advocating a change in the system. And I do believe that there's a sense that this system makes no sense. Even if you don't want to see a series of regional primaries, there's other reform ideas, but this isn't the way that we should make one of the most important political decisions

that the nation ever makes. There's got to be a more rational appropriate way to go about it. Michael McCord, I did hear you say a few minutes ago that this time, New Hampshire would still be made first, but other chances are being able to hold on to that for next time. Well, as you probably know, we have a state law that says that we will be first. It was passed in 1975, and it's had at least four revisions since then. So as far as I can see into the foreseeable future, we're going to be first. And so I'm not sure exactly what is going to happen. It's obviously a mess, and it's going to continue to be so until the gentleman from Arizona said, we bring some rationality to it. It could be that New Hampshire, which has traditionally been the first, and kind of sees that tradition on its own before kind of making it into state law, we'll have to fade out of that position in the future.

But for now, it seems to be, I've talked to candidates. In fact, I've talked to Senator McCain just last week, and he reaffirmed New Hampshire's the best place for it. Of course, he won here in 2000, he used the strengths for that. So it's state law here, which makes it pretty unique, and I think it annoys a lot of the other states as well. Oh, and on that note, we'll leave at Michael McCord, Richard Robert Rob, Richard Burr, and Carol Hunter. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Finally tonight, a woman of song revisits her own past. Jeffrey Brown has her story. Down in Mississippi, where I was born. Down in Mississippi, where I come from. On a recent summer night at the beautiful Red Rocks amphitheater outside Denver, Mavis Staples sang of what she witnessed as a young girl in the segregated South.

She sang your drink from that fountain over there. And the fountain had a sign. Said for putt only. As lead singer for the Staples Singers, the legendary gospel and soul group, and in recent years on her own, Mavis Staples' powerful voice has been moving audiences since the 1950s. Down in Mississippi, down in Mississippi is the opening number on her latest recording. We'll never turn back. A collection of songs from and above the civil rights era. Very personal stuff. Yes, it is. It's very personal, and it's real. It's true. You know, walking with my grandma. And this thing, these things just actually happened. My grandmother told me I couldn't drink from that fountain. You drink from that fountain over there. Family patriarch, Robuck Pops Staples, who grew up in Mississippi and later moved to Chicago, formed the Staples Singers as a family affair.

With Pops on guitar and her sibling singing back up, Mavis began singing lead at age 12. Even then, she had a distinctive voice. I used to get in fights. You know, because when I was small, oh man, I was really in the basement. And the kids, you sound like a boy. You sound like a boy. I would fight all the time. Even as a little girl, you had that deep strine. Well, on our first record, I'm seeing bass. Well, well, well, well, long. Long or they tell me now. I got a home. Got a home. And this guy, and this chalky's would come on a radio. So that's little 14-year-old Mavis say. And people would say, that's not a little girl. People would actually bet when we get to different towns in the South. That's not a little girl. That's kind of be a man or a big fat lady, you know. And we would fool these people. One man says, little girl, I bet my whole paycheck on you.

Probably say, well, you shouldn't bet. Not good to bet. Well, well, well, well. Yes. So we had a big gentleman. In the 1950s and early 60s, the staple singers recorded and performed exclusively gospel songs. That changed one day in 1963 in Montgomery, Alabama. We were working there that night. Pops called us and told us, listen, y'all. This man, Martin, is here. Martin Luther King. And I want to go to his church. He has a church next to Avenue Baptist Church. And would you all like to go? We said, yeah, Pops, we want to go. We all went to Dr. King's church that Sunday morning for 11 o'clock service. We go back to the hotel, Pops called us again. Listen, you all. I really like this man's message. And I think if he can preach it, we can sing it. If he can preach it, we can sing it. If he can preach it, we can sing it. And you sing it. We're sing it.

We're sing it. We started providing citizen songs. Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King. The first freedom song that Pops Staples wrote was Marchuk freedom's highway about the march from Salma to Montgomery in 1965. There's this one thing. I can't understand my friend, watch it, watch the full thing, freedom, watch the time, desire for all men. All right, purpose, which is sing songs that would uplift, you know, lift people, and give them a reason to get up in the morning, you know, that's just, we sing positive, informative messages. The staple singers performed traditional and some original works at rallies and marches, but they recorded few of these songs at the time. Staples says she felt there was good reason to go back to them now.

These songs are very relevant, you know, I'm not singing something that's passing gold. I'm singing about today, just like Pop City, if you want to write for the staples, read the headlines. I watch these people sit up in that stadium in New Orleans, no water, no food, no one coming to their rescue, you know, I wonder what would Dr. King have said, what would he have said about Katrina, I know he would have done something, he would have done something, but has anything been done, no, nothing. Loser and guitarist Roy Cooter produced the new album, and three members of the civil rights musical group The Freedom Singer sang backup on several of the songs. The staple singers reached their largest audiences in the early 70s, hits like Respect Yourself

and I'll take you there. The group was inducted into the rocker-roll Hall of Fame in 1999, Pop State was died seven years ago, and most of Mavis's siblings have given up singing, but her sister Yvonne still tours with her acting as an unofficial manager and singing backup. And Mavis herself, now 68, is still belting out her songs with a message and a style all her own. I notice that you often have this little laugh in your line, you know, you sing your line and then there's a little, yeah, that actually just comes. I can be singing, Jesus is on the mainland, tell them, you won't, you know, it's just my style, it's just my style.

Pop's always told me Mavis, don't try to sound like anyone else but yourself. Sing your own style and that's what I've been from, ever since they used to have to stand me up in a chair, so the people could see where the voice was coming from. So you're going to keep out there, keep in the tradition of the staple singers alive. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, you get tired of me. I won't be retiring none of that stuff. I'm going to keep on, keep on, keep on, keep it on. Oh, no, oh, no, no, no, oh, no, keep it, it's on the front. Oh, no. Again, the major developments of the day, President Bush offered a fresh endorsement of a rocky prime minister El Maliki.

That came one day after Mr. Bush admitted to frustration with a slow pace of political progress in Iraq. 14 U.S. troops died in Iraq when their black hog helicopter crashed during a nighttime operation, early indications point to mechanical failure, and Hurricane Dean hit Mexico's mainland for a second time as a category 2 storm, but we can to a tropical storm as it moved inland. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Eiffel. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by... Now headquarters is wherever you are, with AT&T data, video voice, and now wireless, all working together to create a new world of mobility.

Welcome to the new AT&T, the world delivered. Pacific Life Chevron The National Science Foundation and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. To purchase video cassettes of the news hour with Jim Lehrer, call 1-866-678-News. Good evening, I'm Gwen Eiffel.

On the news hour tonight, the news of this Wednesday, then mixed messages for Iraqi Prime Minister Al Maliki as American officials step up their criticism and their support. A health unit report on efforts to detect mental health problems in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. A conversation about leapfrog politics as more and more states seek to set ever earlier presidential primary dates, and we'll take you there with gospel and soul singer Mavis Staples. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by Some say that by 2020, we'll have used up half the world's oil.

Jim say we already have, making the other half last longer will take innovation, conservation and collaboration.