The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a summary of today's news, some perspective on the insanity defense raised by the Andrea Yates murder case, an update of the Enron-related criminal charges against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks, and a St. Patrick's Day poem recitation by Robert Pinsky.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Israeli forces completed a pullback today from Ramallah and two other West Bank towns. They remained in Bethlehem and another town. The violence continued, with nine more Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza. And Palestinians showed their defiance as the Israeli forces withdrew. We have a report from Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

IAN WILLIAMS: Scores of Palestinian gunmen were among thousands who spilled on to the streets of Ramallah today. (Gunfire) They joined a funeral march for five Palestinians killed during the Israeli army's three-day occupation. (Crowd shouting) There were calls for revenge as the bodies were swept through the narrow streets of the West Bank's biggest city. Residents were counting the cost of the Israeli operation: Dozens of cars flattened by tanks, houses riddled with bullets during what they called "indiscriminate" Israeli fire. Well, this is the way the Israelis conducted a house-to- house search. They didn't want to go outside on to the alleyways because that might have exposed them to hostile fire. So instead, they punched their way from one house through to the next. Israeli armor has been now redeployed to the edge of Ramallah, after its biggest deployment in a generation, and what the Israeli government is now calling a "successful operation."

JIM LEHRER: The Israeli pullback came as a U.S. peace envoy met separately with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni said he'd found "ingredients for hope." In Washington, President Bush called the Israeli move "a positive development." U.S. and Afghan forces kept up the hunt today for al-Qaida stragglers in eastern Afghanistan. There were no new firefights as the troops went cave to cave near Gardez. Earlier, U.S. military officials had estimated hundreds of enemy fighters were killed in "Operation Anaconda," but local Afghan militiamen said they had found only 25 bodies. At the Pentagon today, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would not give a count.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I guess I'm so old, I watched the Vietnam War and the body counting and never found it impressive. It is-- I know what I know and I know what I don't know and how can I stand up here when I know I don't know how many people were killed? I don't. And I don't think anyone does. The only thing we did do is when the estimates in the press were six or seven or eight hundred, I started tapping them down. I said we have no reason to believe that the number is that high.

JIM LEHRER: On another matter, Rumsfeld said Pentagon officials have largely completed the rules for military tribunals, or "commissions," in the war on terror. He would not give details, but he did say there's been no decision on which foreign prisoners would face tribunals. In India today, authorities managed to prevent a new confrontation between Hindus and Muslims. Hindu nationalists had planned ceremonies to begin a temple in northern India on the site of a destroyed mosque. They agreed to stay away after security forces arrested more than 18,000 people nationwide. Violence did break out in one western state, and one person was killed. More than 700 people died there in rioting last month. A jury in Houston sentenced Andrea Yates to life in prison today for drowning her five children in the bathtub. She could have received the death penalty. She was convicted Tuesday after the jury rejected her insanity defense. We'll have more on this story in a moment. The Arthur Andersen accounting firm lost more business today, a day after being indicted in the Enron affair. The company faces a federal charge of obstructing justice for shredding documents. Three major corporations fired Andersen today, but all said they decided before the indictment. In addition, the federal government today suspended any new dealings with the firm. We'll have more on Andersen's troubles later in the program. In other economic news, the Federal Reserve reported industrial production was up 0.4% in February. That was the most in more than a year and a half. And the Labor Department reported wholesale prices rose a modest 0.2%. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the insanity defense, the Arthur Andersen indictment, Mark Shields and David Brooks, and a St. Patrick's Day poem.

FOCUS - JUDGING INSANITY

JIM LEHRER: The Andrea Yates case in Houston brought new and intense focus to the insanity defense. Kwame Holman begins our coverage.

SPOKESMAN: The jury has reached a verdict.

KWAME HOLMAN: The jury that found her guilty of murder took less than an hour today to choose a sentence of life in prison for Andrea Pia Yates. The Yates case has drawn national attention not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it renewed longstanding questions about how the mentally ill are handled in the criminal justice system. On June 20, Yates drowned her five young children in a bathtub in her Houston home. The 37-year-old homemaker then called her husband at work.

RUSTY YATES: I said, "What's wrong, Andrea?" And she said, "You need to come home." And I said, "Is anyone hurt?" And she said, "yes." And I said, "Who?" And she said, "The children, all of them." And my heart just sunk.

KWAME HOLMAN: Yates also called police, telling them she drowned her children to save them from eternal damnation. Yates had a long history of mental illness, according to testimony. She suffered episodes of postpartum depression, occasional psychosis and attempted suicide more than once. The trial began last month with Yates pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. She never took the stand. Her lawyers pointed to the testimony of psychiatrists, who said Yates was one of the most severely mentally ill people they had ever seen.

PARNHAM: We can get caught up in legality and we can get caught up in these concepts, and we can get caught up in these experts testimony about what they think is right and wrong. But if this woman doesn't meet the test of insanity in this state, then nobody does. Zero. We might as well wipe it from the books.

KWAME HOLMAN: Yates' lawyers said doctors had prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for her, but that she stopped taking them several weeks before the killings. Prosecutors argued that Texas law requires that the only way Yates could be found not guilty was if her insanity prevented her from distinguishing between right and wrong.

WILLIFORD: She made the choice to fill the tub. She made the choice to kill those five children. She knew it was wrong. She called the police. She told what she did.

OWNBY: Organized behavior, that's common sense. Most people think that's sanity. That's what I think. If you make me say it, if you make me give an opinion that the jury is charged to give, I'll give it to you. She's sane.

KWAME HOLMAN: On Tuesday, the jury took less than four hoursto return a verdict of guilty of murder.

SPOKESPERSON: We the jury find the defendant Andrea Pia Yates guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment.

KWAME HOLMAN: After today's sentencing, both sides reacted.

SPOKESPERSON: We took no pleasure in prosecuting Mrs. Yates and we take no joy in this result or any result that may have occurred. In a perfect world, the Yates children would be alive and thriving in the midst of a loving family. But in this imperfect world, the best we could do was to see that justice was done for them as victims of a horrendous crime. Justice was done today.

SPOKESMAN: We don't, as a family, believe that justice was accomplished here because we believe a sick person has been sent to prison for 40 years.

SPOKESMAN: None of us wanted her to be found guilty. All of us-- in fact most of us were offended that she was even prosecuted. Obviously we're, you know, it could be worse. I mean if she had been given the death penalty, but it wouldn't have been that much worse.

KWAME HOLMAN: Andrea Yates will get psychiatric treatment during her life term in prison. She will not be eligible for parole for 40 years.

JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: The Texas standard for an insanity defense, that the defendant didn't know right from wrong at the time of the crime, has been adopted by half the states. Is it the right standard, or does the Yates case suggest it's too strict? To explore that, we turn to Jennifer Bard. She's a lawyer and professor at the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. And john Bradley, district attorney for Williamson County in Georgetown, Texas. Welcome to you both.

John Bradley, even the prosecutors acknowledged that Andrea Yates was severely mentally ill. Did the jury do the right thing in nonetheless rejecting her insanity defense?

JOHN BRADLEY: Well, the jury is the only one that heard all of the evidence, and so I can only respect their verdict and applying it to the law in Texas. They must have determined that, in fact, she knew that what she was doing was wrong. I'm going to assume that they also conceded that she did have a severe mental disease or defect.

MARGARET WARNER: Jennifer Bard, your view of this decision in this case?

JENNIFER BARD: My view is that it is a wrong decision. And what happened is not so much that the jury made a wrong decision based on Texas law. It's just that the law in Texas and a lot of other states is simply too strict, and let's-- and lets out a lot of people who are really mentally ill and makes them criminally responsible.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. What's wrong? Expand on that.

JENNIFER BARD: Well, what's wrong with the law is that it is a strict knowledge-based law. And the other states that don't have a strict knowledge-based law have something called a conforming your behavior to the standards of the law requirement. And what that means is can you -- you might know what you're doing is wrong, but can you do any differently? And I think if the Andrea Yates jury had been given the option whether she could have done differently or whether she had an irresistible impulse based on the feeling that the devil was after her children, they would not have found her guilty.

MARGARET WARNER: John Bradley, what is your view of that -- that the question of whether the defendant has free will, essentially, to make the right choice -- even if he or she knows the difference between right and wrong, that there should be some provision made for the ability or inability of that defendant to make the right choice?

JOHN BRADLEY: Well, a couple of years ago the Northwestern University School of Law completed a fairly complex study. They looked at the penal codes in all 50 states and in the federal government and in Washington, D.C. And they evaluated whether those codes in these criminal cases were working effectively and had quality decision-making coming out of them. They looked at whether you had reasonable definitions that people could rely upon, whether it was understandable. Texas, as a result of that study had the number one best criminal code in the United States. And I think it's because of the way that we define things like the insanity defense. To define it in a subjective way so that it becomes, you know, did the devil make you do it sort of test, would allow expert opinions to rule the court of law, would allow loopholes for people who were truly criminally responsible. It is why the standard that was adopted and used in this case is so strict. It is based upon looking at whether the person can be held morally culpable. Did they know that what they did was wrong? There is a lot of very sympathetic things that happen in these types of cases, but it is a mistake to confuse what the punishment should be with whether they can be held morally responsible as to the offense.

MARGARET WARNER: Jennifer Bard, what about that point, that at least there was behavior even out of the Yates case -- let's just' say there is behavior that indicates that the person knows that what they did was legally wrong, why shouldn't that person be held morally responsible, even if they are mentally ill, severely mentally ill?

JENNIFER BARD: Well, there are two things. One is I think that this country as a whole and certainly the state laws don't appreciate the complexity of mental illness. Mental illness is a thought disorder and it is pervasive and we just don't know to what extent, we as laymen don't know to what extent a person is affected. And that's why we need experts. I think that she couldn't be found not guilty without the jury having a much deeper appreciation of what the mental health laws are.

MARGARET WARNER: Explain to us why, staying with you, Jennifer Bard, why this, the more generous standard that you described earlier, that would let the jury take into account whether the defendant actually had power or the ability to do the right thing, why that has been eliminated by so much states.

JENNIFER BARD: It's been eliminated as a backlash against the Hinckley verdict. When John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan and killed a DC police officer and he was acquitted by reason of insanity, there was a backlash across the country and everybody thought the problem is the insanity defense. And a lot of states, Texas included, went back from a more wider standard for insanity to the narrower knowledge-based one.

MARGARET WARNER: And, in fact, John Bradley, it is not used very often. It is not either raised as a defense nor very successful very often, is it?

JOHN BRADLEY: I think that's an accurate statement. The defense itself is intentionally defined to be narrow. It is intentionally defined to have only those very narrow situations where someone is not morally responsible for their crime to be released from criminal responsibility. But the debate is not new. In the 1800s, in England, someone tried to assassinate the queen and that person got off on the standard that they had at that time, Daniel McNaughtin, so they changed the rule to one that was stricter. We got away from it and got back to the in the 1980s.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Bradley, let me ask you, you mentioned several times the idea that the defendant has to be morally responsible. And without asking you to comment on the Yates case particularly, let me use it as an example, that even if she knew that it was legally wrong, that she told the police she did this because she thought other-- she was saving them from the devil. In other words, the implication was that she thought what she was doing was morally right. Should the law make any distinction for that?

JOHN BRADLEY: Well, the current law makes a distinction for that. If the jury had interpreted those statements to mean that she did not think that drowning those children was wrong, then they would have found her not guilty by reason of insanity. But they did interpret the circumstances around that crime to mean that. They looked at whether she called the police. She didn't call the local library. She called the police, the organization that investigates crimes. She called her husband and she didn't report that there was a devil in the room. She reported that she had caused harm to her children. And these things indicated to the jury along with lots of other circumstantial and direct evidence, that she knew that what she was doing was wrong. Now there is an entire bit of evidence that talks about whether or not she was able to prevent that. But psychiatric science, and I hesitate to use the word science there because it is not nearly as exact a science as the other medical sciences, does not have a reliable and predictable way for telling us which people cannot conform their conduct based upon a mental illness. And what happens is that have you very unreliable results and you have people who get through that loophole that shouldn't have.

MARGARET WARNER: Miss Bard?

JENNIFER BARD: Well, I don't think it is a loophole. I think it is something we have to think of as citizens of the United States and our duty as a society not to hold criminally responsible people who are mentally ill. And I think that psychiatry is the best we have at the moment in order to tell whether a person is mentally ill. And I agree they can't make pinpoint distinctions but they can look at the evidence, they can draw upon their experience and they can give testimony as to whether when a person committed a crime, they were actually mentally ill to the extent that they could not have prevented themselves from committing the crime.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Bradley, as you said, this is not a new debate and every so often we have a case like this that sparks a lot of national debate. Are there any changes in this kind of a standard, which as we pointed out at the top of the program, is used in half of the states, that you might recommend?

JOHN BRADLEY: Well, it's interesting that our legislature in Texas currently has an interim assignment. Our legislature meets every two years, so they'll meet sometime next year. And one of their assignments is to look at the manner in which we appoint psychiatric experts to go into cases like this and to evaluate the people and try to come up with some more uniformed method for evaluating competency to stand trial and sanity. And I think that would be a pretty good step. As it is, both sides go hire someone, we can go get two different opinions. And what the juries end up doing is not listening to the experts but looking at the facts of the case.

MARGARET WARNER: Miss Bard, some states have another standard that they call, you can find someone guilty but insane. Can you briefly explain that and do you think that's a good idea -- where it recognizes the issues that you're concerned about but it also meets Mr. Bradley's test of recognizing a moral responsibility?

JENNIFER BARD: That's a compromise a lot of states have come up with and I don't agree with it. I think it really is shirking the issue of whether we're going to hold somebody who is mentally ill responsible for a crime. I think to say that somebody is guilty, but insane, is skirting the question of whether or not they were responsible. I don't think it's a good alternative, and I don't think that it would advance much if more of the states came up with that language.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Bradley?

JOHN BRADLEY: I completely agree. In fact, I would state that a little stronger. I think it's dishonest to say that someone can be guilty and insane, because the whole question and the American system of justice depends upon is: Are we able to examine this person and determine that they can be held morally responsible for what they did? And if a person truly is insane, then it's reprehensible to say that we're going to hold them criminally responsible and punish them when they had no ability to recognize that what they did was wrong.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. John Bradley, Jennifer Bard, thank you both.

FOCUS - CALLED TO ACCOUNT

JIM LEHRER: Now, the charges against Arthur Andersen, the first criminal action to come from the collapse of Enron. Ray Suarez has that.

RAY SUAREZ: Yesterday, federal prosecutors announced the indictment of the accounting giant on a single count of obstruction of justice for destroying thousands of documents related to the Enron investigation. Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson spoke at the Justice Department in Washington.

LARRY THOMPSON, Deputy Attorney General: The indictment catalogs allegations of widespread criminal conduct by the Arthur Andersen firm charging that the firm sought to undermine our justice system by destroying evidence relevant to the investigations. It alleges that at the firm's direction, Andersen personnel engaged in the wholesale destruction of tons of paperwork and attempted to purge huge volumes of electronic data or information. The indictment further explains that at the time, Andersen knew full well what -- that these documents were relevant to the inquiries into Enron's collapse. The indictment alleges that Andersen partners and others personally directed these efforts to destroy evidence. Obstruction of justice of justice is a grave matter and one this Department takes very seriously. Arthur Andersen is charged with a crime that attacks the justice system itself by impeding investigators and regulators from getting at the truth.

RAY SUAREZ: Responding in a statement released later, Arthur Andersen said: "A criminal prosecution against the entire firm for obstruction of justice is both factually and legally baseless." For more on the indictment, we're joined by Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent for the "New York Times"; and Jennifer Arlen, a visiting professor of securities law and business crime at Yale University.

Well, Floyd Norris, we heard the federal government describe what sounded like a vast enterprise and a lot of individual violations of the law. How did that result in one count of obstruction of justice? What is the fed saying that Andersen did?

FLOYD NORRIS: Well, what happened is, to some extent, undisputed. Andersen executives did order the destruction of documents and a lot of documents were destroyed. It is not as clear how damaging that was to the prosecutors in many cases these documents have been recovered -- if they were electronic documents and often other copies of paper documents existed. Andersen had hoped that the person who directly ordered this the partner in their Houston office who they fired would be held responsible and the firm would not be. And they still believe if they go to trial, they can convince the jury that the whole firm should not be held responsible for these actions.

RAY SUAREZ: Is this a novel approach to prosecuting this crime? Instead of going after Mr. Duncan who has said that he participated in this destruction of documents, the going after the whole company?

FLOYD NORRIS: It is unusual to charge an entire company in a case like this without charging the individuals as well. I assume at some point the individuals will be charged. But justice was clearly quite upset with Andersen, and they seemed to have set an example by going after them, despite the fact that this may well result in the death of Andersen, although, to be fair, Andersen's survival was looking dubious even before this.

RAY SUAREZ: Jennifer Arlen, what does it mean to charge a company with a crime? We associate criminal acts as the work of individuals.

JENNIFER ARLEN: Crimes are the work of individuals, but for a long time now, the law has held corporations liable for crimes their employees commit as long as the employees commit them while on the job.

RAY SUAREZ: And how do you punish a company as opposed to a person if you prove that a crime has been committed?

JENNIFER ARLEN: Well, the standard punishment is a fine, although the U.S. sentencing guidelines now impose additional punishments, including probation, which allows the court to force a firm to have, let's say, a compliance program or to do adverse publicity, to publicize its wrongdoing, or community service or other things like that.

RAY SUAREZ: So, and looking at this case, do you think that that's part of the government's intention; that this isn't just a question of a quick investigation and wanting to move ahead and secure evidence, but really wanting to make an example out of them?

JENNIFER ARLEN: I think it's clear the government wants to make an example of out of Arthur Andersen. This indictment reflects a change in the government's approach to corporate crime. Instead of viewing the corporation as itself the wrongdoer, the government has been using the threat of criminal sanctions to get corporations to report wrongdoing and to help the government investigate. And the government has a policy now as to when it prosecutes and when it doesn't, which says that if you cooperate fully, and you report the wrong, and you identify the wrongdoers, and you turn over documents, they will by and large not indict you. And I would say this indictment is partly the result of the shredding of the documents but partly a result of Arthur Andersen failing to fully cooperate.

RAY SUAREZ: Floyd Norris, in these kinds of cases, do they normally go to trial, or is this unusual? Is there usually a deal worked out before we get to this point?

FLOYD NORRIS: Well, what's very unusual in this case is that it's not clear that an accounting firm can withstand a criminal conviction; many companies can. But what Arthur Andersen or any other accounting firm is selling is their certification that your financial statements can be trusted. And buying that certification from a convicted felon is a little bit different than buying a used car from a used car dealer who has previously gotten in trouble for turning back an odometer or something like that. Andersen's legal strategy is not clear to me. If they want to fight this, and were unable to cut a deal, there may be something to be said for them demanding an immediate trial and trying to prove that the firm itself is not guilty, even if its individual officers are. Whether they can do that, whether they will try to do that I don't know.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you talk about the companies needing these financial reports. What about companies that still retain Andersen as their accounting firm? Is the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission accepting reports from Andersen now at face value?

FLOYD NORRIS: Yes, they are. Andersen is going to have to certify, in a way they haven't had before, that they did this audit responsibly. But obviously they'll be willing to do that. In the past, when we've had financial scandals and bad auditing, the auditing firms have never really paid a price. And I don't think Andersen expected to pay anything like the price it is paying now for this scandal. What you're seeing is, with Andersen having become something of a national joke, certainly a company that is being mocked on the late night TV shows, many companies, and of course now having been indicted, many companies that have used Andersen as an auditor are moving to other auditing firms as fast as they can. And Andersen, if it is going to survive, needs to stop that flow or at least slow it down. And so far there's no evidence they're succeeding in that.

RAY SUAREZ: Jennifer Arlen, do you agree with Floyd Norris about Andersen's interest in speed, and what about the federal government's interest in speed? This has all been moved from investigation to indictment rather quickly, hasn't it?

JENNIFER ARLEN: Yes, very quickly. One suspects that the federal government is trying to signal to other participants in this, Enron itself, Vincent and Elkins that they should fully cooperate or the government will indict. On the trial, I can't imagine how Andersen could have an interest in going to trial. Legally, a company is criminally liable if an employee-- you don't even need a partner-- has committed a crime, even if it's a crime involving intent. Andersen has conceded that a partner in the Houston office did this shredding. If this satisfies the requirement for obstruction of justice, the entire firm is criminally liable even if the top management of the firm itself did not order the wrongdoing, or did not know about it. So, if anyone in the Houston office committed obstruction of justice, so did Arthur Andersen.

RAY SUAREZ: Is there a tactical advantage for the federal government in moving to indictment quickly, stopping the flow of documents, being able to get their hands on some things?

JENNIFER ARLEN: Well, moving to indictment quickly does a number of things. In particular, I think it signals to every other firm involved in this, and also to the various individuals, that they should cooperate and cooperate fully and quickly. The government has had a policy recently of not only asking you to cooperate, but to turn over other-- to turn over people within the firm, to identify wrongdoers, and even ask firms to give up their attorney/client privilege with respect to materials they learn about in their course of investigation. This indictment, I believe, is a strong signal to both Arthur Andersen itself, to Enron, to Vincent and Elkins and a variety of other players, that when the government says "we wanted you to cooperate" they mean it and will use every weapon they have to induce that.

RAY SUAREZ: Jennifer Arlen and Floyd Norris, thank you both.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Shields and Brooks and a Pinsky poetry reading.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Now, the Friday night analysis of Shields and Brooks; syndicated columnist Mark Shields, the "Weekly Standard's" David Brooks.

Mark, the defeat of Charles Pickering, the Charles Pickering nomination by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, some outraged conservatives have called this "an ideological lynching." What would you call it?

MARK SHIELDS: I'd call it payback time, Jim. I think it did a couple of things. The President said this is a time when we have a vacancy crisis on the fifth circuit. If that were the case--.

JIM LEHRER: Fifth circuit court of appeals headquartered in New Orleans.

MARK SHIELDS: To which Judge Pickering was nominated. Six years, the last six years of President Clinton's presidency, there were three nominees of rather high quality, none of whom was ever given a hearing for the fifth circuit. The six years the Republicans in the Senate didn't see that vacancy crisis the same way the President now sees it with the same sense of urgency. And it's payback time in the sense that this is what was done and I think what democrats were doing was sending a message and I think they did it unelegantly, if there is such a word.

JIM LEHRER: There is now.

MARK SHIELDS: But by first using the race card, which I thought was, not only inaccurate but unfair, but sending the message, look, we are going to block and we can black the nomination of a conservative--.

JIM LEHRER: That we don't like.

MARK SHIELDS: That we think is beyond the pale, if there is enough ammunition provided in his own background. And Judge Pickering's background did provide enough ammunition to give them what they thought was political coverage.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, David, that there was enough ammunition, if they wanted to send the message, they chose the right candidate to do it?

DAVID BROOKS: No. I don't think there was. This was a guy who was regarded as well qualified by the American Bar Association, who was enthusiastically supported by the people who actually knew him.

JIM LEHRER: This is in Mississippi.

DAVID BROOKS: Whether they were liberal or conservative, black or white, this was a guy who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate once before for his previous Judgeship, comes up to town, some of the liberal groups call him a racist. He goes up to the Judiciary Committee, which is, you know, a place, as Mark indicated, filled with ancient hatreds and bitter rivalries. It's like Gaza Strip without the charm. And he gets the usually partisan party line meat grinder. I agree with Mark that it is utterly business as usual. And it is payback and maybe that's legitimate. The only new wrinkle in this was that members on both sides of the aisle said this is terrible; this process is disgusting. Let's do it one more time.

JIM LEHRER: -- the other night -- the guys that were doing what they were lamenting--.

DAVID BROOKS: Three minutes of condemnation and four minutes of doing what they just deplored.

MARK SHIELDS: The Democrats say we at least gave him a hearing before we rejected him. The Republicans, of course, say well we didn't give a hearing. We didn't even let any of the three nominees under Bill Clinton get that. One interesting wrinkle, Jim, the Republicans did, and David mentioned it, they trumpeted the fact he was well qualified by the ABA. This is the same Republicans who said the ABA recommendations mean nothing and they will be ignored by this Administration.

JIM LEHRER: What do you make, David -- is there a future-is there another step to this? I mean there was something today about-- I'm answering my own question. I'll come back to you in a minute, but Trent Lott, an old friend of Judge Pickering immediately said that he was not going to support a nominee that was supported by Senator Daschle for the FCC. Is this going to be -- this is stage one of many stages?

DAVID BROOKS: It could be. Tom Daschle did something similar at the end of the Clinton Administration. But I really think it is time-- they're finally fed up or I take them at their word that they're fed up with the process and there is some talk of reform, there is some talk of at least if there is a party line vote, just let the guy or the woman get a vote in the full Senate, which didn't happen this time. I'm willing to get rid of the whole process. I don't think there is any member-- any Judge nominated Judge, who has been as disgraceful as the process is whether it was Ronnie White or Charles Pickering. They all seem to be perfectly legitimate people and a lot of them are getting shot down and not being given a hearing for just the worst, you know, like a sewer, the Judiciary Committee.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Another piece of news this week. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, six months afterwards, the process finished and they granted student visas to two of the September 11 hijackers. Nobody has yet explained how this happened. Does this mean one thing though, that INS is going to get reform? What do you think about that?

DAVID BROOKS: We know they're going to win the bureaucratic bungle of the year award unless Ken Lay gets the congressional Medal of Honor by accident. It is an eye popping bungle. Not only is it a bungle - there actually is -- it is a sign of how the INS has been running. The school applied for this visa in August of 2000.

JIM LEHRER: This is the aviation school in Florida.

DAVID BROOKS: In Florida. It was approved in August of 2001. So it's already a year. The letter arrives March 12 or 13, 2002. And then nobody thinks, well, this Mohamed Atta guy, he's kind of prominent -- let's see if we have any paperwork on the guy, after September 11. That doesn't happen. It just does indicates a, you know, a Bartleby the Scribner type bureaucracy.

JIM LEHRER: You would think Mark, even as a computer check at the Justice-- because the INS is part of the Justice Department, would have turned up something on these guys.

MARK SHIELDS: You would, Jim. And so much of the good will generated for public employees and public service by the events of September 11 is diluted by this kind of an experience. This is the old bumbling, indifferent, inept - but, Jim, there is a hearty perennial headline in Washington and it has been here ever since you've been here, I've been here -- new commissioner pledges reform of INS. I mean, that is the story. And this is--.

JIM LEHRER: The long lines, going to get rid of the long lines, going to get rid of all the paperwork.

MARK SHIELDS: Exactly. And one of the problems is that this is an agency with a conflicting mandate. It's 10,000 agents for border patrol to keep out the bad elements and to legalize the entry point. Then it has 1700 agents that have the responsibility of monitoring some eight million people who are here, who are foreign citizens -- 40% of whom are on expired visas apparently -- education, or travel or business. And so they're also under enormous heat. Business doesn't want lines at the entry points. They want to move that along. Plus they kind of like, many businesses like those employees here that aren't terribly difficult to get along with, they work long hours, don't complain about working conditions. So, and the schools like the tuition of the 547,000 students who are here on educational visas. So there is a real conflict here. And I think there may be a serious move to split it up -- split up those duties.

JIM LEHRER: I was going to say, David, unfortunately I can't remember his name but some member of Congress in the last 24 hours called for the complete abolition of INS and we were going to have no more Immigration and Naturalization? Do you have a favorite reform way to do this? Do you think it should be split up?

DAVID BROOKS: There is talk of splitting it up, the welcome wagon, the splitting it up from the security point. That seems fine. You are still going to have these interests who want the mess. And they can't do it, we can't say, okay, let's have completely open borders. So they say let's have ineffective borders, which is a way de facto to let people in without saying we're letting people in.

JIM LEHRER: President Bush has a second full-scale news conference this week, Mark, a couple days ago. How do you think he did?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, three hours notice, no prime time. If they really wanted a lot of people to see it, they probably would have given us more notice.

JIM LEHRER: 4:00 in the afternoon.

MARK SHIELDS: The President seemed comfortable. 80% favorable rating in the poll will do that for a fellah. The idea that there has been a transforming experience in his syntax or command of rhetoric as of September 11, the lie was put to that.

JIM LEHRER: What do you mean?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think it was a commanding performance. I mean he was fine. He was comfortable, likable, but it wasn't that sense of compelling commander that was expected. There were two things that I thought stood out to me anyway. One was we've transformed Osama bin Laden from wanted -- dead or alive, to he has been marginalized. I mean, there was, at the outset, a desire and urgency to personify the opposition. Now that that appears to be less the case and as he becomes -- he appears to be more elusive. The other thing is - and I say this as a Catholic, I was really upset with the President's endorsement of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and with not a single expression of any sympathy, any compassion for the victims of the hierarchy's absolutely cruel indifference and callous disregard of the young boys who have been assaulted, emotionally, physically, and spiritually by predator priests.

JIM LEHRER: David, what do you think?

DAVID BROOKS: I guess on that, for someone who is not in the church, there is no profit in getting involved. There's more harm. I was struck by the change in moral tone. Since September 11 he has talked especially about foreign policy in extremely moral terms. You are either with us or against us, axis of evil. He identified terrorists in the Middle East as part of the sort of junior partners in this axis of evil, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah. This time when asked about the Middle East, the Middle East violence at a time of record terrorism, suddenly he is not talking in moral terms. He is talking like the Manchurian diplomat. He is talking about the process. We've got to get to Tenet and Tenet is the avenue to Mitchell and Mitchell is the avenue back to Oslo, and he is back in diplomatic mode and very punishing towards the Israelis. I think people understand that, you know, we have to get more of the Arab world on our side for the attack of Iraq so you have to kick the Israelis around a little. I think they are willing to forgive him this slide in cynicism.

JIM LEHRER: Is that what this was a slide in cynicism?

DAVID BROOKS: He had a job to do. The U.S.'s first priority is to rally support for Iraq and Iran. So he has to get some Arab support. That does mean kicking Israel around. And I think Americans understand that. The problem is that he has reached these high approval ratings because he has been a straight talker. He has been a moral leader. And he wasn't that at the press conference. And I sort of give him credit for being bad at the citadel game he had to play for U.S. interest.

MARK SHIELDS: I thought that the President was anything but tough on the Israelis. I mean not helpful is hardly a term of censure. I mean this is the biggest Israeli military invasion since 1967. At a time when General Zinni is on his way there, which struck me as a very calculated move on the Sharon government's part to get this done before General Zinni, the President's peace envoy and the Vice President of the United States arrive -- I mean and are there. So I didn't-- I disagree with David, that I thought it was in any way harsh or tough on Israel. JIM LEHRER: David?

DAVID BROOKS: He had been very condemnatory of Hamas and Islamic jihad and the terror groups associated with -- there was none of that this time. He had said you have to go in and fight terror at the cell level, you have to go where it starts. Israel either crudely or not is doing that and suddenly he is condemning them? It takes a little more explaining than he gave.

JIM LEHRER: We have to leave it there. Thank you both very much.

FINALLY - THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, some poetry for St. Patrick's Day, which is Sunday. Here's NewsHour contributor and former poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY: It's interesting that the great poet of Ireland, a country long associated with strife and troubles, should have written a poem containing one of the best-known uses in poetry of the word "peace." Here's William Butler Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day. Israeli forces completed a pull back from Ramallah and two other West Bank towns. They remained in Bethlehem and another town. The violence continued, with nine more Palestinians killed. And a jury in Houston sentenced Andrea Yates to life in prison for drowning her five children in a bathtub. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening, when we'll have an extended interview with Marianne Pearl, widow of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.