The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; then what the presidential candidates said and did today; our own debate over the never-a-draft troops issue; a media unit look at the attempts by journalists to fact check political declarations of fact; and a conversation with Ted Kooser, the new poet laureate of the United States.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The presidential candidates went at it on health care and medical research today. In Pennsylvania, President Bush denounced Sen. Kerry's proposals for covering more people. He said: "The Kerry plan would move America down the road toward federal control of health care." The senator has denied that charge. Today, in Ohio, he criticized the president's limits on federal funding of stem cell research. He charged Mr. Bush: "has an extreme political agenda that slows instead of advances science." We'll have more on the campaign day right after this news summary. In Iraq today, gunmen attacked a bus carrying female workers for Iraqi Airways on their way to Baghdad's airport. At least one woman was killed; fourteen others were wounded. In Fallujah, local leaders asked Iraq's government to stop U.S. air strikes on the city. They said it could lead to new talks on restoring government control. And in Mosul, insurgents fired mortar rounds as Prime Minister Allawi was visiting. They landed several streets away from his party. No one was hurt. Britain today agreed to redeploy hundreds of soldiers from southern Iraq closer to Baghdad. The U.S. Military asked for the move. We have a report from Gary Gibbon of Independent Television News.

GARY GIBBON: Eight hundred and fifty British soldiers, most of them members of the Black Watch regiment, will be on their way to serve in Baghdad, in the American sector, in a matter of days. The ministry of defense confirmed the decision and said the intention was to keep the soldiers there for around a month. The defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, told the commons that the decision-- one of the most controversial since the war began-- was based on advice from military commanders.

GEOFF HOON: After careful evaluation the chiefs of staff have advised me that UK forces are able to undertake the proposed operation that there is a compelling military operation and justification for doing so and that it entails a militarily acceptable level of risk for UK forces.

GARY GIBBON: There are now around 9,000 British troops in Iraq; 850 soldiers mainly made up of Black Watch soldiers will now be deployed north, in the U.S. zone, probably in the area around Iskandariyah, freeing up U.S. Marines to join a ground assault on Fallujah. Some MP's said by assisting a future U.S. attack, Britain risked being closely associated with any civilian casualties.

ROBIN COOK: What assurances have you received from the U.S. in return for this redeployment that this time they will listen to us as good and reliable allies when we advise them to minimize civilian casualties in Fallujah.

GARY GIBBON: For security reasons the ministry of defense is not confirming how close to Baghdad the Black Watch soldiers will go. But military chiefs are concerned that the very public row here over the Black Watch deployment ma make Iraqi insurgents keen to add to divisions in opinion here and more determined than ever to attack British forces.

JIM LEHRER: A spokesman for President Bush welcomed the British decision today. He said Britain, and others in the coalition, are making "tremendous sacrifices." A U.S. Army reservist convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners was sentenced to eight years in a military jail today. At a court martial in Baghdad, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick also received a dishonorable discharge. He pleaded guilty to mistreating inmates at the Abu Ghraib Prison. Also today, the U.S. Army relieved a company commander whose troops refused to run a supply mission last week. The soldiers said their vehicles had no armor and were in poor condition. The military said the commander asked to be relieved. Back in this country today, Qwest Communications agreed to pay $250 million to settle allegations of financial fraud. The Denver firm handles local phone service in 14 western and Midwestern states. The Securities and exchange commission charged Qwest inflated revenues by nearly $4 billion. It also charged senior executives tried to mislead investors. Under the settlement, Qwest did not admit or deny the allegations. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 21 points to close at 9865. The NASDAQ rose more than 20 points to close at1953. This was one of the biggest day- afters ever in Boston. The Boston Red Sox beat their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees, last night for the American league pennant. It was in game seven of the championship series, and made the Sox the first baseball team in history to win after being down three games to none. Boston now goes for its first World Series championship in 86 years, facing the Houston Astros or the St. Louis Cardinals. Those teams play game seven in the national league series tonight. NewsHour essayist Roger Rosenblatt, who rooted for the Yankees on this program the other night, offered no comment today. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to today in the presidential campaign, the troops issue, political fact- checking by journalists, and the new poet laureate.

FOCUS - CAMPAIGN DAY

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman has our campaign report.

KWAME HOLMAN: John Kerry stayed up late last night to watch his beloved Boston Red Sox defeat the New York Yankees.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: This is history. It's a big deal.

KWAME HOLMAN: But very early this morning he was hunting geese in a cornfield in Poland, Ohio. Later, carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, Sen. Kerry was asked why someone else was carrying the goose Kerry said he had shot.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: I'm too lazy. I'm still giddy over the Red Sox.

KWAME HOLMAN: This afternoon in Columbus, John Kerry delivered a speech on science and innovation, something he says President Bush neglected during the last four years.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: But George Bush has literally in real ways, in real choices that he's made, turned his back on the spirit of exploration and discovery. We now have a president who is so beholden to special interests that he refuses to make the kinds of investments that benefit our common interests. You get the feeling that if George Bush had been president during other periods of American history, he would have sided with the candle lobby against electricity; he would have been with the buggy-makers against cars, and the typewriter companies against computers. (Applause) This summer, 48 Nobel laureates sent an open letter to the American people in which those Nobel laureates, our best scientific minds, said of the administration, "By reducing funding for scientific research, they are undermining the foundation of America's future." These same Nobel laureates have gone on record as saying that the Bush administration has systematically distorted facts to sustain their extreme positions. In other words, the administration's approach on scientific research is the same pattern that we see in Iraq and on the economy today: If their policy isn't supported by the facts, then they just change the facts.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, President Bush was campaigning in Pennsylvania, his 40th visit there as president. At a sports training center in Downington, the president said his policies have led to innovation in the nation's health care system.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The United States of America has a world-class health care system that leads the world in providing amazing treatments and cures for millions of people. As a candidate for president, I pledged to double the budget of the National Institutes of Health to make sure we stay on the leading edge of change and reform. I kept my word. (Applause) We have the most advanced hospitals in the world who do the most innovative research. We have the finest, most highly trained healthcare professionals in the world. We lead the world because we believe in a system of private medicine that encourages innovationand change. (Applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: President Bush also charged John Kerry's health care plan will give the government more control over people's health insurance.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Eight out of ten people who get health coverage under his plan will be placed on a government program. He would make Medicaid a program so large that employers would have the incentive to drop private coverage so the government would pick up the insurance tab for their employees. In other words, the federal government is going to become like an insurance company, a re-insurer, which sounds fine on the surface except remember this: When the federal government writes the check, the federal government also writes the rules.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, First Lady Laura Bush today told reporters there was no need for Teresa Heinz Kerry to apologize for some comments she made, in which she said she didn't know whether Mrs. Bush ever had held a real job. Teresa Heinz-Kerry said it during an interview with Susan Page of USA today as part of a collaboration with MacNeil-Lehrer Productions for a first ladies documentary to be broadcast on PBS next Monday. She was asked if she would be a different first lady from Laura Bush.

TERESA HEINZ KERRY: Well, you know, I don't know Laura... Bush, I should say. I do... I don't know her to call her Laura. But she seems to be calm and she seems to be... she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job. I mean, since she's been grown up. So, her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience and... is a little bit bigger, because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life dishes out.

KWAME HOLMAN: Mrs. Heinz Kerry later apologized, saying she had forgotten Mrs. Bush had worked as a teacher and a librarian. In a statement, Mrs. Heinz Kerry said: "There couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children." In response to the apology, Mrs. Bush said: "I know how tough it is and actually I know those trick questions." Yesterday, Bush adviser Karen Hughes said this:

KAREN HUGHES: I think the unfortunate part about Ms. Kerry's remarks is they seek to drive a wedge between women who choose to work at home and women who choose to work outside the home.

KWAME HOLMAN: Mrs. Bush will campaign with her husband tomorrow in Ohio. Mrs. Heinz Kerry speaks to the NAACP in Pennsylvania, while Sen. Kerry travels to Wisconsin and Nevada.

FOCUS - MILITARY CHALLENGE

JIM LEHRER: Now, the troops issue. Both presidential candidates insist they can muster the forces needed to fight America's wars without a draft. Margaret Warner examines the issue.

MARGARET WARNER: More than 135,000 U.S. Military personnel-- regular soldiers, National Guard and reservists-- are stationed in Iraq. There's little sign their numbers will be shrinking soon. Most of the Army and Marines' combat divisions have already seen or will soon see duty in Iraq, some for the second time. And the army has other obligations: 18,000 troops in Afghanistan; 30,000 in South Korea; and 3,000 in Bosnia and Kosovo. In the past few weeks, there have been signs of strain on military personnel. The Defense Science Board, which advises Secretary Rumsfeld, has warned: the "current and projected force structure will not sustain our current and projected global stabilization commitments." The Army National Guard failed to meet its most recent annual recruiting goal. And some individual ready reservists-- the latest of the reserve pool to be called to active duty-- have been slow to respond to their call ups. Yet the administration's civilian and military leaders insist that the all-volunteer force is working well, and that there are no plans to re-institute a draft. That has not stopped a spate of Internet rumors that the draft, abolished in 1973, is about to be revived. To prove that's not so, a bill calling for a new draft was rushed to the House floor earlier this month and overwhelmingly defeated on a 402-2 vote. The presidential candidates, in their second debate two weeks ago, also expressed opposition to a draft.

MAN IN AUDIENCE: Since we continue to police the world, how do you intend to maintain our military presence without re-instituting a draft?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, great question. Thanks. I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer army works.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: I don't support a draft. But let me tell you where the president's policies have put us. You've got people doing two and three rotations. You've got stop-loss policies so people can't get out when they were supposed to. You've got a backdoor draft right now.

MARGARET WARNER: But since then, Sen. Kerry has suggested that the Bush administration's policies could force a resumption of the draft. In an interview with the Des Moines Register last week, the senator said there is "a great potential" for a military draft in the United States if President Bush wins reelection. The president has taken Sen. Kerry to task for suggesting such a thing.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We will not have a draft; we'll keep the all-volunteer army. (Applause) With your help on Nov. 2, the people of America will reject the politics of fear, and vote for an agenda of hope and opportunity and security for all Americans.

MARGARET WARNER: There is one point of difference between the candidates: President Bush has instituted a temporary increase in army personnel, by some 30,000 but says it's only temporary. Sen. Kerry is calling for the army to be permanently expanded by 40,000 more soldiers.

MARGARET WARNER: So is the U.S. Military big enough for its current commitments or do we need a draft? For that we turn to General P.X. Kelley, former commandant of the Marine Corps during the Reagan administration. He's now a member of the National Veterans steering committee for the Bush-Cheney campaign; and Brigadier General David McGinnis, who retired after 29 years in the active duty Army and in the National Guard. He's a former director of strategic plans and analysis for reserve affairs at the Pentagon. And he now advises the Kerry campaign on defense policy.

Welcome to you both gentlemen and generals.

MARGARET WARNER: Gen. McGinnis, so are we going to need a draft in the next presidential term?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.), U.S. Army National Guard: If we continue to proceed the way we are proceeding with the current strategy, there's going to become a point in time where the draft could be very necessary. And I'll tell you why. The president took us to war with an Army that was designed specifically to fight and win a war in about 170 days. That Army was 40,000 junior enlisted men short of what it needed in its units for full war-time strength. If you fought the war, a 170-day war and came home, as a lot of people thought we would, that wouldn't have been a problem. But we've been there three times that long now. We've called... we've had to rely on the guard and reserve. We've only sent two divisions into the theater, two active divisions that were fully manned with active forces. The rest have been rounded out with the guard and reserve. So if we continue this and we continue to see a reduction in the Army's junior enlisted strength, it's yes it's a possibility.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see that possibility?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.), Former Marine Corps Commandant: No, I don't see it at all. As a matter of fact the president said it; the secretary of defense said it. The joint chiefs of staff have said it. The service secretaries have said it. How many other people have to say it? We do not need a draft. And if we take a draft there are two issues: First of all, we are making our recruiting and also reenlistment quotas. No question about that. The guard had a problem. I think it was 86 percent -

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): That's right.

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): -- that they could for this year. That's not bad considering all of the problems that exist.

MARGARET WARNER: Isn't that the first time in a decade though that they haven't made their quota?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): It could be the first time in a decade. I'm not aware of that but the Marine Corps and the Army, the two principal ground forces not only exceeded their quotas but by a considerable amount. So there's not a problem there. But the real problem is: Do we water down the capabilities of the all volunteer force? We have worked to build that force for years. We now have people who are skilled, who are trained. We have rotation policies that are meaningful.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying a draft is a bad idea. That was going to be my next question to both of you because it waters down the effectiveness of the all volunteer force?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): I'm saying a draft is a bad idea because it will water down the effectiveness of a force that... we're the premiere force in the world is the United States military by any measure you want to have. Let's not... because what will happen is it will seek its own level of mediocrity so no.

MARGARET WARNER: Do we have agreement on that point? Do you agree, Gen. McGinnis, that the draft is a bad idea militarily?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): Militarily it's a bad idea; policy wise it's a bad idea, but the numbers, the truth is in the numbers. To have a military we have to have people. And with all due respect to the General, the Marine Corps is doing a great job as they had for a long time. The Army is not. I don't believe the Army's assertions. I have worked the numbers. The Army right now I believe below war-time strength in their units is approaching 60,000 people; junior enlisted people. The Army did not grow in a net sense in the last year. It was required to grow 10,000 to meet the 30,000-plus-up. If you take out the stop-loss folks and the --

MARGARET WARNER: These are the people who are being told they cannot leave.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): These are people who are not allowed to leave until their tour in Iraq is over, 9600 of the 1500 growth in the Army since 9/11. If you take them out, the Army is in a large net loss against its growth projection of 30,000 people for 2004.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me get away from numbers if I could just a bit and let me ask you a real- life or hypothetical question. Gen. Kelly if a crisis were to erupt elsewhere that called for military response of a significant nature, would the president have the troops he needs?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): Yes. It depends on the crisis. We have always in this country had what we call a strategy force mismatch. In other words, we have a global strategy that requires far more people than we have in the armed forces to satisfy any commitment that's of that nature that is global. However, you have to be very selective and you make those decisions. So the answer is, I can't give you a hypothetical situation. I can't give you a hypothetical answer. But the answer is we have people in Washington, people in the field who can do... who can do those kinds of things. I am not a numbers cruncher.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think we have enough?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): No, I don't because we have our entire active Army bogged down in Iraq right now. We have another one third of the National Guard combat capability bogged down in Iraq and another third of that capability is supporting the rotations in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and in this peace operation in the Sinai. So we have a very small portion of the force and manpower left to react anywhere else.

MARGARET WARNER: Gen. Kelly, let me ask you about and we heard John Kerry, Sen. Kerry use this phrase and so did Gen. McGinnis that essentially what's going on right now is a back door draft through these stop-loss orders. Is that fair?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): It not a back-door draft. Every person who goes and deploys overseas has volunteered at one time or another to collect their checks during peacetime. They are, they've taken and put their right hand up to God. They were volunteers so how could it possibly be a back door draft?

MARGARET WARNER: Even if their enlistment is over.

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): If their enlistment is over, we've always had the authority to extend enlistments in times of crisis.

MARGARET WARNER: So is this an unfair charge on Sen. Kerry's part?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): No, I don't think so because we're in a situation where we are totally committed. We should be at full mobilization. If we were at full mobilization, which the president has not done yet and I expect him or Mr. Mertha, Congressman Mertha mentioned this a couple weeks ago that he expects the president to go to full mobilization which will give him total access to the guard and reserve and total access to the inactive ready reserve which will allow him to fill the shortfall. If he does that, that will hold off the potential of the draft for months or possibly a year but if we're going five years in Iraq as Gen. Tommy Franks has asserted in his book and other people have indicated, that we're going to be there for a while, we're going to need people because people are not going to be enlisting into the guard or into the active Army.

MARGARET WARNER: Gen. Kelly, the Pentagon is saying they're expanding the force by 30,000, quote unquote, temporarily. In laymen's terms explain how that works.

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): I don't have the slightest idea when you safe temporarily. They are expanding the force. Also one of the big reasons is to take and allow some of those... you know, we've gone through various iterations. We had a time where we used to call tooth-to-tail ratio. And so we put some of those combat service support units in the guard and reserve. Now because we want to allow the guard and reserve to have a more realistic rotation time so now we want to take them out of it again and replace them.

MARGARET WARNER: Is part of though what President Bush's plan is... does it include this kind of full mobilization that Gen. McGinnis is talking about where the reserves will be even more demands placed on the reserves and guard?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): Well, maybe the General has access to General President Bush's plan. I do not have access to that. I do have access to people. And I have to tell you that the leadership team that we have in this country today, led by a gallant president who will put his political career on the line for the defense of America, plus all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that leadership team I have faith in.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's ask about a potential President Kerry. If he were to be elected, Sen. Kerry, and he were to take office three months essentially from now and faced with the same situation, why would he be in any... why would his options be any greater? Why wouldn't he be under just as much pressure to move toward a draft if that's where you think it's headed?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): Because his plan would move the military differently. His plan would focus on - would first of all be based on a real strategy.

MARGARET WARNER: What does that mean?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): A strategy that is based on legitimate political objectives and the proper use of military force. We don't have that today. We have gone... we have a president who has gone into Iraq, he accomplished part of the first objective of any military operation but he hasn't closed it. And that has caused it to be drawn out. Sen. Kerry, as president, would go in with specific political objectives and the use of military force against those objectives not just to chase insurgents all over the countryside.

MARGARET WARNER: But is it fair to say he himself has said he wouldn't do any kind of rapid, quick withdrawal from Iraq?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): We're not looking at Iraq and we're not talking about a rapid withdrawal. We're talking about a more effective use of military force. Let the unit commanders on the ground and the military leaders who were not consulted by this president apply their military's art to bring a resolution and also the political process and the diplomatic process.

MARGARET WARNER: One more question to you about Sen. Kerry's plan and then your response, Gen. Kelly. Now, Sen. Kerry is saying the regular Army needs to be expanded by 40,000 troops. How does he propose to do that if we're having this sort of reluctance that you've identified in enlistments now?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): By providing leadership and a strategy that the American people can grasp and accept and understand that it is not an endless quagmire, that it is a legitimate effort to resolve the problems in Iraq so that we can get on to the basic requirements for the war on terrorism and to reduce proliferation of nuclear weapons, which is his strategic picture.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gen. Kelly, what's wrong with Sen. Kerry's idea to take this strain off. I think you admit there's some strain on the personnel. The military just needs to be expanded by 40,000 troops.

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): Well, take the strain off in various ways. We're hoping that the Iraqis, which really today are doing quite well in building their armed forces, that will take the strain. Coalition countries can take the strain off. So, it doesn't have to be totally us. You know, one of the things that's amazing, I heard that we don't have a strategy. Well, let me say that there's a president, a Joint Chiefs of Staff, two field commanders, me, I believe we have a strategy. I hear this rhetoric and I hear it but I don't hear any meat to it so what kind of a strategy do you want, General?

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask a last quick question because we don't probably have time to do a whole strategy for Iraq. Are you saying Gen. Kelly that you think these manpower demands that this is essentially a temporary spike caused by the situation in Iraq and that it's quite temporary?

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): Which manpower demands are you talking about: the 30,000 or the 40,000?

MARGARET WARNER: I'm talking about what's going on right now.

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): We are already up to 30,000. That is a very legitimate number. That was requested by the Department of Defense. So that's a legitimate number. The 40,000 is pie in the sky.

MARGARET WARNER: And you're saying you think there is a long-term need, Sen. Kerry is saying a long-term need to just expand the U.S. Military?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): The president talks about the post 9/11 period. And the Army is short 40,000 people. They were short 40,000 people on 9/11. And that shortage is getting bigger.

MARGARET WARNER: He thinks....

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): Sen. Kerry saw that over a year ago and said we need 40,000 people and the administration resisted it and it resisted it on the Hill till this day.

MARGARET WARNER: And he thinks he can do it without a draft?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID MC GINNIS, (Ret.): Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gentlemen, thank you both.

GEN. P.X. KELLEY (Ret.): Thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, fact-checking and poetry-writing.

FOCUS - FACT CHECKING

JIM LEHRER: Now the labors of journalists in checking the politician's facts; media correspondent Terence Smith has our story.

SPOKESPERSON: Now it's time for the truth squad.

TERENCE SMITH: Amid the usual flurry of spin, counter-spin and commentary after the recent debates, many news organizations have added a new facet to their own instant analysis:

SPOKESMAN: Facts, the saying goes, are stubborn things.

TERENCE SMITH: Checking up on whether the candidates' statements check out.

SPOKESMAN: -- and give you a reality check on what they said.

TERENCE SMITH: After the first debate, CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts tested the candidates against reality.

BYRON PITTS: There were times last night when both men exaggerated, oversimplified or simply got it wrong. Here's a reality check. When Sen. Kerry said:

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Now we have this incredible mess in Iraq, $200 billion.

BYRON PITSS: Not quite. The cost of the war to date is actually just over $120 billion, but will top $200 billion eventually.

TERENCE SMITH: After last week's closing debate, CNN's Jeanne Meserve found the two candidates' use of facts questionable.

JEANNE MESERVE: For this one night at least, Tempe, Arizona, was the home of the whopper. Both candidates got facts wrong.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

JEANNE MESERVE: Well, he said something awfully close in March of 2002.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

TERENCE SMITH: Many newspapers also fact checked the debates in their next day's papers. With the added space, papers lent additional depth to the fact check. By the third presidential debate, the fact checks themselves had made their way into the back-and- forth.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Well, two leading national news networks have both said the president's characterization of my healthcare plan is incorrect. One called it fiction; the other called it untrue.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: In all due respect, I'm not so sure it's credible to quote leading news organizations about... well, never mind, anyway, ( laughs )

TERENCE SMITH: The fact check phenomenon has not been exclusive to the debates. Indeed, newspapers and some television outlets, including the NewsHour, have been fact- checking the candidates' advertising and stump speeches throughout the campaign season. But are all fact checks created equal? A memorandum recently circulated by Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News, and leaked to conservative Internet gossip Matt Drudge, said the Bush campaign relies on distortion more than the Kerry campaign. Halperin wrote in part: "We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides equally accountable when the facts don't warrant it." Several newspapers have also run articles echoing Halperin's concern. The Bush campaign has questioned the legitimacy of such reporting, saying they should be able to make arguments without being "reflexively dismissed as distorted."

TERENCE SMITH: Joining me now to discuss the art and science of fact-checking is Michael Getler, ombudsman for the Washington Post; Brooks Jackson, director of factcheck.Org; and Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent who's been on the fact-check beat. Welcome to you all.

Jake Tapper, tell us how you go about this, how many people are involved, how you decide fact from fiction.

JAKE TAPPER: Well, on the debate nights, it's a huge team of producers and other correspondents who have expertise, for instance, our economic business correspondent Betsy Stark, and a lot of other reporters who are just sitting around, and we're watching the debates and we're listening to what the candidates are saying. Our ears are pricked to hear if they're going to make false claims that they've made in the past, but also, of course, for new ones as well.

TERENCE SMITH: Brooks Jackson, what is or should be the goal of this? I mean, it shouldn't be, I suppose, "gotcha" journalism. It should be something more than that?

BROOKS JACKSON: It should not be gotcha journalism. We like to think of ourselves as a consumer advocate for voters. That's our audience. Especially when candidates make statements that directly contradict each other, for example, we're especially listening for those leaving voters bewildered. We try to sort it out for them. Who's right? They both can't be right.

TERENCE SMITH: What about this as a function for newspapers and news organizations, Mike Getler? Does it take it... it certainly takes it beyond the "he said, she said, you decide" type of journalism.

MICHAEL GETLER: Well, it does. Reporters shouldn't just be stenographers, so to speak. And newspapers and main news organizations generally, I think, make a very solid and good-faith effort to try to protect the reader and to put these claims... competing claims in some perspective. So in a sense, it's the very... one of the very best instincts of journalists to provide these kinds of fact-checks. On the other hand, it does make you a little bit vulnerable to one side or the other truly misrepresenting things if you present them in a totally balanced fashion as opposed to trying to sort it out for the reader if some of... if one or two of the misrepresentations are more serious than the others.

TERENCE SMITH: What do you do, Jake Tapper, if in fact one side has been much more egregious in its distortions or exaggerations or misstatements than the other? I mean, do you achieve some sort of balance and, if so, is it an artificial balance?

JAKE TAPPER: Well, that's a complicated question. And, of course, that gets into the Mark Halperin memo that you referenced in the introduction to this piece. Mark is a great and very fair reporter and our political director here. His point was, at that particular time in the campaign, the Bush campaign was making much more wild, much more egregiously false statements about Sen. Kerry. Since then, I think Sen. Kerry, we could probably all agree, has picked up the slack and in terms of his charges on the draft and flu and Social Security is probably about par with President Bush in terms of misstatements. You just have to represent the facts. I mean, you really... as I think Brooks said, you really have to be the advocate for the voter. It's not necessarily "he said, he said." You don't want to be equating a minor misstatement that one candidate says with a huge whopper that another makes, but if both candidates are sayings falsehoods, which is generally the case, you try to provide a balance... a balanced look.

TERENCE SMITH: Brooks, you've been doing this for a dozen years for different organizations. How do you achieve a balance that is in... that does reflect the facts?

BROOKS JACKSON: Well, I think the balance has to come in the standards you bring to each individual factual claim. And I've always thought when I was at CNN and my boss Kathleen Hall Jamieson and I both agree at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, where I now hang my hat, that we should not try to achieve some kind of artificial balance by criticizing one candidate on one day just because we criticized another candidate on another day. We're going to criticize the misstatements that we find. And if one candidate's telling the truth all the time and the other candidate isn't, it's going to be pretty one-sided, but so far that hasn't happened.

TERENCE SMITH: Mike Getler, what do you think about the statement of the Bush campaign representative who said, we ought to be able to get our arguments out there without having them in, in his word, "reflexively dismissed as distorted."

MICHAEL GETLER: Well, they obviously... neither side's statements should be reflexively dismissed, but there is an obligation on behalf of the public of news organizations to keep the record straight. And you need to do it right away. You need to do it with some immediacy, because that's when people are paying attention. It's very difficult to do. And just to go back on an earlier point, if you produce headlines and lead paragraphs all the time which say, "well, they traded barbs today," or "they traded complaints today," that's fair and balanced, but it may not get people into those stories. It may not get people to read what may be very important distortions and mistakes.

TERENCE SMITH: Jake, have you heard from the campaigns when you do this? Are they unhappy with you?

JAKE TAPPER: Yeah. (Laughter) I think that's fair to say. They're both... see, it's very seldom that they don't have an argument to make. You might have the occasional just plain falsehood that they say, but often they're repeating facts and figures that are based on a public interest group that happens to be very liberal or very conservative, or their interpretation of what their opponent has said is one that is grounded in some sort of what they argue larger truth. I hate that larger truth argument because I'd rather have them stick to the smaller truths, at least for our purposes. But, yeah, you do hear from the campaigns quite often. Even... there was one time we were trying to do a fact-check for just 48 hours of campaigning, and it turned out to be we looked at two Bush charges and one Kerry charge. I was accused by some on the right for being unfair for going after Bush for two things and Kerry for only one. And yet we heard from Kerry people, too, who thought that that one was not fair and was an attempt by us to be artificially balanced when, in fact, in their view President Bush was lying and their candidate was not, which of course was not our view.

TERENCE SMITH: Brooks, you've done this through several presidential cycles. Is... are the distortions or exaggerations or misstatements any more egregious or less in this campaign than previous ones?

BROOKS JACKSON: I don't know how to measure that, Terry. We... it's certainly as bad as many that I've seen in the past, but I just don't know how you can objectively measure the degree of mendacity in any particular statement or in a group of statements. It would just be my opinion, and since I'm supposed to be fact- check and not "opinion" check, I'll just have to say I don't know.

TERENCE SMITH: Mike, any opinion on that?

MICHAEL GETLER: I think there's certainly a lot more fact-checking going on now, and also the advertisements are fact-checked, which I also think is a great service to readers. I do think it's... the importance of the fact-checking is very, very important to voters and politicians. I mean, if you have 53 million people watching a debate, the problem is that a tiny fraction of that will see the follow-up fact-check stories. And that's why they're so important and yet they must be done in ways that, in fact, illuminate the public.

TERENCE SMITH: Jake, if it's worth doing after a debate, is it worth doing after every stump speech or advertisement is run? Is it worth doing year-round, not just in a campaign mode?

JAKE TAPPER: Well, I think what you start to see, at least at ABC News what we've started to do after introducing the fact-check feature is it's now kind of making its way into individual stories. Brooks might recall from yesterday he appeared in a fact- check story that I did. I guess it was Tuesday. But he also appeared in a story that one of our men on the campaign trail did because the fact-check feature, in this case Brooks Jackson, was working its way into all sorts of journalism, not just the facts- check piece itself.

TERENCE SMITH: Is there any down side to this in your view? I mean, it obviously could be a vehicle for favoring one campaign over another.

MICHAEL GETLER: No. I think it's all a plus, a big plus. I think the problem is that politicians on all sides understand that the corrections never quite catch up with the statements. And when you have a huge audience, whether it's on television or a big campaign rally, they will go ahead and continue to use those misrepresentations despite the efforts of others to correct them.

TERENCE SMITH: And, Brooks, after the election, what do you do?

BROOKS JACKSON: Well, we'll...

TERENCE SMITH: Do you continue? Does one do this on a continuing basis?

BROOKS JACKSON: We intend to. The factcheck.Org will continue after the election. There's sure to be a big debate either on a Kerry health care plan or a George Bush Social Security plan, depending on who's elected and any number of other things, and sure to be lots of dubious statements made about those things in the course of the debate. So there's lots of work to do even in a non-campaign year.

TERENCE SMITH: You know, the phrase "Teflon candidate" is heard again and again.It's being heard again this year, as though the candidates are not affected by criticisms of their accuracy or of the truth or falsity of their statements. Jake Tapper, is that prevalent or present this year?

JAKE TAPPER: I guess I'm of two minds on that. On one level, I think that we do these fact-checks and as you see and as you've seen in the last few days and as we anticipate for the next week-and-a-half, certainly the lies are only getting more egregious, the statements more overblown. By the same token, though, I think that a lot of the things that we've pointed out as fact- checkers, whether Brooks or me or Byron Pitts or Michael or whomever, is that I have noticed candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry not making the same mistakes twice. Some of the ones, whether it's Bush saying that Kerry... you know, eight out of ten people in Kerry's health care plan will be in a government-run health care plan or that sort of argument, which we fact-checked. He'll continue to make that one. But there are other ones, such as the $200 billion claim that Kerry made about the Iraq war, that he's backed off, that he's a lot more careful about. So I do think that while the lies are increasing because of the pending nature of the election, they have been a little bit more careful to take note of our fact-checks.

MICHAEL GETLER: Yes, I would agree with that. It was odd to see Kerry continue with that $200 billion figure when it was, I think, thanks to Brooks, was pointed out it was incorrect. He finally did back off. I think it does have an effect that politicians know that they are more vulnerable to being criticized now and being caught in these misrepresentations, whether it's on television fact- checking or in print. And it adds to the value of this.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay, gentlemen, thank you all three very much.

CONVERSATION - POET LAUREATE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation with America's new poet laureate, and to arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ted Kooser lives on 62 acres near the town of Garland, Nebraska. The land, and its cycles of life often find their way into his poems, as in this one, "The Last Tomato."

TED KOOSER: "It is hard for an old man not to make too much of something like this. After all it is only the last tomato -- one last live coal in the ashes of summer, nothing to get too sentimental over."

JEFFREY BROWN: Raised in Iowa, he first wrote poetry seriously as a student at Iowa State. He came to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for graduate school, and then worked 35 years for an insurance company. He retired in 1998 after successful treatment for oral cancer.

TED KOOSER: "It seems I have come to an age at which I can't stop noticing the last of things and want to hold in my eyes their summer brightness, burning, burning."

JEFFREY BROWN: The low hills here, he writes in his memoir, "Local Wonders" are known with a wink as the Bohemian Alps. "A worn place in the carpet of grass we know as the Great Plains." Now, Kooser, 65, is the first poet laureate ever from those Great Plains, cited as a "major poetic voice for rural and small town America." He is author of ten books of poetry, the most recent "Delights & Shadows," and teaches at the University of Nebraska. We spoke recently at the Library of Congress in Washington.

TED KOOSER: In my work, I really try to look at ordinary things quite closely to see if there isn't a little bit of something special about them. I'm trying to make something as nearly perfect as I can out of words, which is an experience as if you took...you know, in a very disorderly world, you try to make one little area of order in that poem and you try to make it as perfect as possible. If it really works, you can't move a punctuation mark without diminishing the effect.

JEFFREY BROWN: The Librarian of Congress, James Billington, made much of the fact that you're the first poet laureate from the Great Plains. How important is that to you?

TED KOOSER: Being the first poet laureate from the Great Plains is very important for me. I think it's a wonderful thing. But I'm like any other writer. I write about what is under my nose. It just happens that I live there. And so, all I really know is Iowa and Nebraska, so I'm writing about those things.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why don't you read one for us? This is one that you wrote called "Father."

TED KOOSER: All right. This one begins rather inappropriately and then takes a turn for the better, I think. "Father, May 19, 1999. Today you would be 97 if you had lived, and we would all be miserable, you and your children, driving from clinic to clinic, an ancient, fearful hypochondriac and his fretful son and daughter, asking directions, trying to read the complicated, fading map of cures. But with your dignity intact you have been gone for 20 years, and I am glad for all of us, although I miss you every day, the heartbeat under your necktie, the hand cupped on the back of my neck, Old Spice in the air, your voice delighted with stories. On this day each year you loved to relate that at the moment of your birth your mother glanced out the window and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today lilacs are blooming in side yards all over Iowa, still welcoming you."

JEFFREY BROWN: So, the Old Spice, the lilacs, these are the little things in life that you talk about.

TED KOOSER: That's right, yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then when you write it, do you do a lot of revising, because you talk about this "perfection out of order"?

TED KOOSER: Oh yeah, many revisions. A poem the length of that poem about my father, I would say forty or fifty versions.

JEFFREY BROWN: Forty or fifty?

TED KOOSER: Yeah, and I'm always revising away from difficulty and toward clarity. So that, ideally, when the poem is done, it feels as fresh as if I had just dashed it off.

JEFFREY BROWN: I read that you used to show your poems or read your poems to your secretary at the insurance company where you worked to see if they were clear enough?

TED KOOSER: Oh, yeah. Well, I would bring in work in the morning when I came in. I'd write every morning very early, and then I would bring my work in and I'd say, "Joanne, does this make any sense to you?" And if she said, well, no, it doesn't," then I would try to find out where it fell down for her.

JEFFREY BROWN: You did work for an insurance company for many years. Is that because it's hard to make a living as a poet?

TED KOOSER: Absolutely, yeah. You know, you publish a poem in the very best magazine in this country and you get enough money for a sack of groceries, you know, and that's about it. So I needed some sort of a job that I could, you know, where I could continue my writing on the side and so on. So that's what I did.

JEFFREY BROWN: But how did you do it? How did you do all that writing? When did you do all that writing?

TED KOOSER: Well, I get up at... still get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning and I would write till about 7:00, and then I'd have to get ready for work. And I like that period in the morning so much that, now that I've been retired for six years, I still get up at 4:30 and write until about 7:00.

JEFFREY BROWN: You retired after your bout with cancer.

TED KOOSER: Right.

JEFFREY BROWN: What role did writing play in that?

TED KOOSER: During the period when I was in surgery and going through radiation, I really didn't do any writing. But as I came up out of radiation and was trying to get myself back in some sort of physical shape, I would walk a couple of miles every morning and then find something along that route to write about. And then I'd come home and I wrote, I wrote 130 little, short poems over the course of a winter. It was very important for me to see something from each day that I could do something with and find some order in, because I was surrounded by medical chaos or health chaos of some kind.

JEFFREY BROWN: You have written a manuscript. The book is going to be published in January and it's called "The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets." Can poets be made with a manual?

TED KOOSER: I don't know that a poet can be made. A poet who is already writing in some way can be helped, I think, to write better. And that's what this book attempts to do, I think, make... give them some things to think about, and so on.

JEFFREY BROWN: So what's the number one piece of advice?

TED KOOSER: Read is the number one. You know, all art is learned by imitation and unless poets are reading poetry, they don't know... they don't have all the tools assembled and everything. I've told my students I think they ought to be writing... reading twenty or thirty poems for every one they try to write. I don't think they're doing that but...

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you recommend the life of the poet?

TED KOOSER: Well, as of right now, I really recommend it...

JEFFREY BROWN: It's looking good right now?

TED KOOSER: It's looking very good right now, yeah. No, I've enjoyed my life a great deal and poetry has become such a part of it that I couldn't do without it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ted Kooser, thanks for talking to us.

TED KOOSER: Thank you very much for having me.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: In the presidential campaign, President Bush charged again Sen. Kerry would move the country toward federal control of health care. The senator attacked the president's limits on federal funding of stem cell research. And Britain agreed to re-deploy 850 soldiers from southern Iraq closer to Baghdad, so U.S. troops can go after insurgents. Tonight many PBS stations will broadcast "Time to Choose." It is a special pre-election report on how citizens, not politicians, talk about the key issues in the campaign. It is part of our "By the People" project, and includes excerpts from PBS Deliberation Day activities held in 17 cities around the nation. Please check your local listings for the time of tonight's broadcast.

JIM LEHRER: And, once again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are ten more.

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with Mark Shields and David Brooks, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.