The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MUDD: Good evening. I'm Roger Mudd in Washington.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in New York. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we have excerpts from and analysis of Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg's testimony, Fred De Sam Lazaro profiles President Clinton's choice for surgeon general, and a Republican and a Democrat disagree about Dan Rostenkowski and the House Post Office scandal. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Running water returned to parts of Des Moines, Iowa, today twelve days after floods knocked it out. Officials said they hoped to restore tap water in the whole city by the weekend. They said the water would not be safe for drinking for some three weeks. More rain caused more flooding in other parts of the Midwest. Nebraska's big Nemaha River rose 13 feet overnight, spilling over its banks for the seventh time this month. The Mississippi River overran Kaskaskia Island in Illinois, when a levee broke this morning. Most of the island's residents left last night. Forecasters said rain would continue in the region through the weekend. Roger.

MR. MUDD: The House of Representatives today refused to make public information from the internal investigation of the House Post Office unless agreed to by the federal prosecutor. The 244 to 183 vote was largely along party lines. Republicans wanted to release the material, claiming there'd been a Democratic cover-up. On Monday, former House postmaster Robert Rota pleaded guilty to embezzlement and conspiracy and implicated two unnamed congressmen. One of them has been identified in other documents as Democrat Dan Rostenkowski. Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg today condemned discrimination against homosexuals. During her third day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she said, "This country is great because of its accommodations with diversity." The committee hopes to vote on the nomination by next week. We'll have more on both Judge Ginsburg and the Post Office story later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: Heavy artillery battles raised in Sarajevo today, one day before peace talks were scheduled to resume. The fighting prompted Bosnia's ruling council to pull out of those talks. Paul Davies of Independent Television News reports from the Bosnian capital.

PAUL DAVIES, ITN: The Bosnian Serb army tightened its stranglehold on Sarajevo. Around Mt. Igman Serbian troops have been consolidating newly captured positions, pushing forward towards Sarajevo, itself. Much of the mountainside is inaccessible to vehicles, so horses and mules carry ammunition and food to the front line. If the Serbs take Mt. Igman they cut the last supply route into Sarajevo. Today these soldiers were predicting the imminent defeat of its Muslim defenders. This war started in Sarajevo. It will finish in Sarajevo soon, said Commander Spesoyev Choyech. Sarajevo, itself, has suffered the heaviest day of shelling for weeks. U.N. soldiers could only watch and take cover as Serbian guns unleashed a lethal bombardment. Even for people who'd become accustomed to shells and bloodshed, this was a bad day, and yet, it was only yesterday that all sides promised to end the fighting. Instead, the Serbian forces intensified their assault on Sarajevo in what appears to be a calculated attempt to force the Bosnian presidency to finally concede and sign a treaty partitioning multi-ethnic Bosnia into three separate states, Serbian, Croatian, and Muslim.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton today denied the United States was giving up on Bosnia. Yesterday Sec. of State Christopher appeared to rule out greater involvement in the conflict. He told reporters the U.S. was doing all it can consistent with our national interest. At a White House photo opportunity Mr. Clinton said today that did not mean the United States had given up on the situation.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We have aggressively committed ourselves to the process in Geneva, and if the Bosnian government voluntarily signs an agreement, we have made it clear that we were prepared to participate in the enforcement of it. We are continuing to work with the Europeans on other options, so you know the United States believes that an opportunity is lost on the aircraft position to non-prevail, but is, that is not true that we've given up on it. We're continuing to work.

MR. LEHRER: In those Geneva meetings, Sec. Christopher had tried to sell the President's proposal to lift the U.N. arms embargo on Bosnia's Muslims and bomb Serb artillery positions. yesterday he said the main concern now was assuring the delivery of humanitarian aid.

MR. MUDD: Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa resigned today. he had been under heavy pressure to step down since his party lost its parliamentary majority in weekend elections. Members of Miyazawa's Liberal Democrat Party quickly became tangled in the power struggle over how a successor will be chosen. There was heavy fighting in Nicaragua today between rebels and government forces. The battle broke out yesterday in the town of Esteli, 60 miles north of the capital, Managua. The fighting was described as the heaviest since the country's civil war ended in 1990. At least twenty-one rebels and four soldiers were killed, dozens more injured. The rebels were believed to be discharged soldiers from the old Sandinista regime. They said they attacked to protest President Violetta Chamoro's failure to provide them with land and money for resettlement.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Ginsburg hearings, a profile of Dr. Elders of Arkansas, and Rostenkowski in the House post office scandal. UPDATE - TAKING THE STAND

MR. MUDD: Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg's expected confirmation to become Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is our lead story tonight. What have her three days of congressional testimony revealed about the kind of Justice she will be? We'll hear two views after these excerpts from today's Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, Chairman, Judiciary Committee: The committee will come to order. Welcome back, Judge.

MR. MUDD: After two days of working around the edges, Judge Ginsburg was challenged by the committee chairman to be more forthcoming in her answers.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: You do have a style that is precise and on occasion seems less expansive when you answer questions, but you have given us some significant substance on issues of privacy and equal protection, freedom of speech, and constitutional methodology. Still, I, I'd have to say like other recent nominees, you have given us less than I would like.

MR. MUDD: Indeed, when Sen. Kennedy of Massachusetts asked for her views on civil rights and discrimination, Ginsburg's answer was emphatic.

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Supreme Court Nominee: I think rank discriminate against anyone is against the tradition of the United States and is to be deplored. Rank discrimination is not part of our nation's culture. Tolerance is.

MR. MUDD: But soon enough, Judge Ginsburg became guarded and cautious again as Republican Sen. Hatch of Utah took his turn.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH, [R] Utah: One of the problems I had yesterday you were very specific in talking about abortion, equal rights, and a number of other issues, but you were not very specific on the death penalty. Do you believe as Justices Brennan and Marshall did that the death penalty under all circumstances, even for whatever we would consider or many would consider to be the most heinous of crimes, but in this case what you would consider to be the most heinous of crimes, is incompatible with the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment?

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: I recognize that there is no judge on the court that takes the position that the death penalty is unconstitutional under any and all circumstances. All of the justices on the court have rejected that view. There are many questions left unresolved. They are coming constantly before that court. I think at least two are before the court next year. I can tell you that I have -- I do not have a closed mind on the subject. I don't want to commit -- I don't think it would be consistent with the line I've tried to hold to tell you that I will definitely accept or definitely reject any position. I can tell you that I am well aware of the precedent, and I have already expressed my views on the value of precedents.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: But do you agree with all the current sitting members that it is constitutional, it is within the Constitution?

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: I can tell you that I agree that that is the precedent and has been that. It has been clearly the precedent since 1976. I feel that I must draw the line at that point and hope that you will respect what I've tried to tell you, that I am very aware of the precedent, I am very aware of the principle of starry decisive.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: I'm not asking you to interpret the statue, just the Constitution. You're unwilling to comment on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the death penalty, and the thing I'm worried about is it appears that your willingness to discuss the established principles of constitutional law may depend somewhat on whether your, your answer might solicit a favorable response from the committee.

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: Sen. Hatch, I have tried to be totally candid with this committee.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: You have. You have.

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: When you asked a question -- I was asked a lot about abortion yesterday.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: Right. And you were very forthright in talking about that.

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: I have written about. I have spoken about it as a teacher since the middle '70s.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: All right.

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: Now, the death penalty is an area that I have never written about. I have --

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: But you taught constitutional law --

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: I have --

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: -- in major, major law schools in this country. It isn't a tough question. I mean, I'm not really --

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: When you asked me what's in the 5th Amendment, the 5th Amendment uses the word "capital," when you asked me what is the stated precedent. But if you want me to take a pledge --

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: I don't want you to.

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: -- that there is one position that I am not going to take, that is what you must not ask a judge to do.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: But that's not what I'm asking.

MR. MUDD: Republican Arlen Specter, wearing a cap to cover the bandaging from recent surgery, said he too was frustrated.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: The chairman said that he wished you'd have answered a little more. I would join Sen. Biden in that.

MR. MUDD: Specter wanted to engage Judge Ginsburg in a discussion about the War Powers Act, but he couldn't get it off the ground.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Judge Ginsburg, do you believe that the Korean War was a war?

JUDGE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: That's the kind of question that one might ask a law teacher to expound on. If you're asking me how I would rule as a judge, and you are considering me to be a judge, not a legislator, I would have to say that was a very complicated operation. The job for which you're considering me is the job of a judge, and a judge has no business expounding on a question like that apart from the record, the briefs, the presentation, and so I can't answer the question about the Korean War off the top of my head. If I were confronted with it as a judge in a case where it was justiciable, I would make my decision on the basis of the record, the briefs,and the arguments before me, and out of that setting, I'm not prepared to answer the question.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Well, may I respectfully suggest, Judge Ginsburg, that a question as to whether the Korean conflict was war does not come within the confines justiciable issues. In citing the Korean conflict, I cite something which is not going to come before the court. And I would expect that that would be the kind of a question where at least we could get some idea as to your life experience and your general approach to, to a matter of some magnitude. But I'm not going to press it beyond.

MR. MUDD: So, what kind of Supreme Court Justice will Ruth Bader Ginsburg be? We hear from two legal scholars who have been watching her testimony. Mary Cheh is a professor of law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Joseph Broadus is a professor of law at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. Prof. Cheh, how has Judge Ginsburg revealed herself during these past three days?

PROF. CHEH: Painfully slowly I would say. She has refused to answer many questions, refused to answer expansively, but by fits and starts and by revealing herself in increments, she's come out to be, I would think, a nominee that liberals probably are more satisfied with now than they were at the time of her naming.

MR. MUDD: And Prof. Broadus, do you know more about her now than you knew before? Has she, in fact, revealed herself?

PROF. BROADUS: Well, I think she has revealed herself publicly that this is a judge about which there was an enormous public record in terms of her writing, in terms of cases, and in terms of a substantial professional career. There was no mystery about who she was in the broad sense, and we don't know very much more than that now.

MR. MUDD: Do you detect, Prof. Cheh, any signs on the Judiciary Committee that there's any less enthusiasm for her now than there was when she was so fully embraced a month ago?

PROF. CHEH: Well, I think that it's still a foregone conclusion - -

MR. MUDD: Sure.

PROF. CHEH: -- that she will be confirmed, and I think it may even be unanimous. Nevertheless, I think some of the Republican members of the committee have today for the first time pressed her more to answer some of their questions about the death penalty and other areas. They haven't been any more successful necessarily, but I think that they want to try to get her to commit herself in some of these areas. So in terms of their enthusiasm, I think there's a resignation perhaps among Republicans that this is a done deal. In terms of enthusiasm for those who have the enthusiasm, I think it remains.

MR. MUDD: Well, one of those Republicans, Prof. Broadus, William Cohen of Maine, called her basically a political activist hiding in the robes of an appellate judge. Is that fair, accurate?

PROF. BROADUS: Well, it's probably not fair in her, in her role as an appellate judge. She has basically tried to play by the rules as set down by the Supreme Court. In a number of areas she has been away from the center of areas like standing. But basically she's a judge who has followed the precedents, the precedents established by the higher court.

MR. MUDD: And the New York Times has described her as a judicial restraint liberal. For the layman, what does that mean?

PROF. CHEH: Well, in terms of her bottom line, I think she would find a home more comfortably in a moderate, liberal conclusion. For example, I think she said that she supports abortion rights, she supports access to the federal courts on a broader basis, as Prof. Broadus indicated, than conservatives might. So her bottom line is one that's liberal. And yet, she proceeds in a way in the old fashioned conservative sense of deciding one case at a time, no grand scheme, no grand philosophy, no broad pronouncements. So in that sense, she'll get you there bit by bit, but where she gets you is in the liberal wing of the court, I would think.

MR. MUDD: Does that mean that she has no broad overarching philosophy of law?

PROF. CHEH: I think she does. For example, I think in the equal protection area she has very passionately stated a view about equality that carries over into many areas and, indeed, in areas of civil rights, I think she will be a, a judge who broadly and generously interprets civil rights protections. It's just that she avoids using each case as the vehicle for anticipating and deciding beyond that particular case. It's like judges of the old common law style who decide case after case after case, and then looking back at what they decide and say, oh, we discern a broader principle here, and now we feel free to announce it.

MR. MUDD: So it's not a technique that she's using to avoid answering questions by saying, well, I can't answer that, because I have to have in front of me the specific case?

PROF. BROADUS: Well, I believe, in fact, the way she's proceeding before the committee does reveal a good bit both about her professional practice and about her style as a judge. But I don't think that's totally what's going on. I think in part these hearings are somewhat a waste of time, because in order to either protect her own nomination or the independence of judiciary, it's probably best not to answer a lot of these questions. And the Senators know it.

MR. MUDD: A waste of time for whom?

PROF. BROADUS: Well, it's --

MR. MUDD: Not for us, laymen, who watch.

PROF. BROADUS: Oh, no, this is a great educational forum, because even if she won't answer, the broad outlines of the controversies and the problems are laid out by the Senators. And when she's not answering but merely outlining the law, she does an excellent job as a great teacher that she is in setting out the problems that are before the court. But if you feel the purpose is to gain some knowledge of where she will take the court, that's not going to happen.

MR. MUDD: So why, why do Senators, knowing that they're not going to get much, why do they keep asking and asking and asking? Is it the cameras, or is it they think that they can open up a little, shine a little light in there?

PROF. CHEH: Well, there's a funny mixture of things going on. For example, Carol Moseley Braun yesterday when she began her questioning at a long discourse about flooding in the Midwest. Now, ultimately, she tied it to a question to the judge about administrative agencies, but obviously she recognized that she was on public TV, and so her agenda was not just to ask the question but also to talk about the problem of flooding in the Midwest. The Senators here are not all on the same page about what they're expecting to get out of this. There's a colloquy going on among them at the same time about the process. This case is not as controversial, obviously, as Clarence Thomas or as the Bork nomination. But there may be such a controversial case in the future. The colloquy that's going on between the lines is how far should we press, in what circumstances do we need to know answers, and in what circumstances might we say to a nominee if you don't answer, that's your right, you don't have to answer, but if you don't answer, I'm going to vote against you, so there's also a need, I think, to keep in mind that every nomination is different, the context is different. Here it may not matter so much. In a future case, the approach to pulling out questions might be more adamant, because the, the controversy is greater.

MR. MUDD: Well, the rule is you answer just as many questions as it takes to get you confirmed, isn't that kind of --

PROF. BROADUS: That's generally therule, and since there was general agreement that she was going to be confirmed -- [laughter] -- there wasn't much of a need to answer questions, and probably a fear on the part of a nominee that every question that was answered was one that might be a move in the direction away from confirmation. I think part of what's happening is that there's more than a process of gaining information. They probably got what they wanted from the written record. Another thing that's happening is the nominee is being instructed about the sensitivities of the other political branches to the activities of the court, and this may have some effect in aiding that nominee to understand the role of the court at the highest level. Even though they've spent a lifetime in the judicial process, there may be nothing like confronting the Senate for three days to more fully and personally inform you of that relationship.

MR. MUDD: How, how significant is it, Prof. Cheh, that Judge Ginsburg is the first nominee to the court publicly to embrace the right of abortion?

PROF. CHEH: I think it's quite significant, and it reflects the changing political context in which --

MR. MUDD: It means the White House considered that safe to do?

PROF. CHEH: Yes, that's right. I think that it was understood that President Clinton is in favor of protecting abortion rights, and while he denied that he would regard it as a litmus test, I would have thought it would be quite remarkable if he had put forth a nominee who hadn't had some track record in support. But I disagree that we haven't learned things that weren't already in the written record. I think, for example, that women's rights groups or certain liberal activists groups were looking for certain answers, particularly in the abortion area. Remember, Judge Ginsburg had criticized the Roe vs. Wade decision.

MR. MUDD: Right.

PROF. CHEH: And she said it went too far and too fast, leaving open the question, well, gee, exactly what is the strength of your support for that decision, and on what does it rest. I think there were some assurances that she is a strong supporter of abortion rights.

MR. MUDD: Well, why would -- Prof. Cheh, why would she advocate the adoption of an equal rights amendment to the Bill of Rights as a symbolic gesture? I mean, that's not what the Bill of Rights is for, is it?

PROF. CHEH: Well, you know, I think she shifted ground there a little bit. I believe that the equal rights amendment would add something to the Constitution beyond symbolism. Now, she's staked out a position saying that it would just be a symbol, but right now the court doesn't apply the high scrutiny that it could, as it does with race, to gender distinctions. That would change what the court has said it's going to do. But I think that she still believes that the document, itself, should enshrine our basic principles that it's important, given the history, that we have it there.

MR. MUDD: Final question in our brief time. Has she said anything during these three days that's going to trip her up?

PROF. BROADUS: Oh, I don't think she's said anything that's going to trip her up. She is the sort of -- she is almost the perfect candidate to, to be able to be confirmed because she has a little bit of something for everyone. If you follow the text of some of the discussion, her language about restraint was very reminiscent of Judge Bork, and yet, here is a person who is a fully committed kind of career liberal, and since she has reassured that constituency, she will go on to the court and may become more of an activist there than she has been in the court of appeals.

MR. MUDD: Thank you, Prof. Broadus. Thank you, Prof. Cheh. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a profile of Dr. Elders and a debate about the House Post Office scandal. PROFILE - UNITED STATES SURGEON GENERAL

MR. LEHRER: Tomorrow hearings will begin on the nomination of another woman for another big Washington job. She is Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former health commissioner of Arkansas, now President Clinton's choice for surgeon general of the United States. Her hearings will be before the Senate Labor Committee. We have a profile of Dr. Elders by Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KTCA-Minneapolis-St. Paul.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: [1989] When they're pregnant, I feel, I consider it a personal failure every time I see a teenager pregnant, and I feel that we as a state, we as decent citizens, are failing our children.

MR. LAZARO: Dr. Joycelyn Elders became Arkansas's public health director in 1987. She began immediately to wage war on Arkansas's teen pregnancy rate. In scores of speeches and personal appearances, Elders called adolescent pregnancy a disease destroying generation after generation of Arkansas youth.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: I feel it's time for us to get on with it before we lose a whole generation of young people to a very deadly disease and another generation of young women and have another generation of 12 and 14 year old parents, and we know what kind of parents they make.

MR. LAZARO: This high school clinic is a key to solving the problem according to Dr. Elders. It is one of twenty-four clinics the Arkansas Health Department helps to underwrite. In the small community of Lincoln, a frightful adolescent pregnancy rate fell 90 percent in the year after the clinic was opened. The clinic provides prenatal care and other medical services, and it also offers free contraceptives to any student requesting them. And that has made Dr. Joycelyn Elders Arkansas's most controversial woman. She has not tried to flee from controversy. For instance, she has arranged for school clinic opponents of the religious right to meet with her personally.

MAN: It ain't no class situation here. I'm saying like that young man said, leave it out of the schools everywhere across this nation, not just Arkansas.

WOMAN: Sex education is pornography.

OLDER MAN: Now I am convinced that if we go back and we show that there was a time that we didn't have a teen pregnancy and then we consider what happened back there, why we didn't have teen pregnancy back then, because they just abstained.

MR. LAZARO: If her opponents helped Elders would retreat, they were quickly disappointed.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: I want you to know that I am not interested in any "sex clinics." We offer much more than contraceptives. If I just wanted to hand out contraceptives, I feel that I as a doctor could go to the mall and get a clinic or get a booth and stand there handing out pills for all teenagers who wanted them that came by.

MR. LAZARO: Virtually all resistance to school-based clinics is rooted in religion. Elders has taken her campaign to churches. At this meeting of black ministers at Little Rock, her reception ranged from polite to cool to barely civil.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: [1989] We want to say, we want to preach about abstinence. We want to teach our mothers to teach about abstinence, but I also want you to stand there and realize that we've got to face some of the realities that are going on with our adolescents and realize that we have to do more than that.

SPOKESMAN: This contradicts what we preach. We preach abstinence. We say abstain, don't do it, but then you want to lock hand in hand with something you said, well, if you're going to do it, we're going to give you this.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: You've been preaching abstinence ever since you've been preaching, at least I believe you have. I know my brother preaches that. I've still got a problem in Arkansas. I've eight thousand plus teenagers having babies in Arkansas every year.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: I really appreciate the values of the church who say that we just cannot deal with that, it's morally wrong. I don't disagree that it's morally wrong, however, our children are still engaging in behaviors that we feel are morally wrong, and just because they engage in behaviors that we consider morally wrong, I do not feel that we should let it cripple them for the rest of their lives.

MR. LAZARO: Joycelyn Elders is one of eight children born to a poor rural Arkansas family. There are no pictures of her in childhood. The family could afford none. She graduated from a church-supported black college, then left Arkansas to join the army. After two years as a physical therapist, she used the GI Bill to become only the second black woman to study medicine at the University of Arkansas. At first, she was not allowed to eat with white medical students. But later she would supervise them as chief pediatric resident. After a distinguished career in research medicine, Elders was summoned to government service by then Gov. Bill Clinton, who saw in her the qualities he felt were needed to attack the teen pregnancy problem.

GOV. BILL CLINTON: [1989] She knows what it's like to be poor, to be black, to overcome adversity, and she also knows what it's like to have to do some things for yourself, so she understands both what society's responsibility to people is and what people's responsibilities for themselves are.

MR. LAZARO: Joycelyn Elders is married to one of Arkansas's legendary high school basketball coaches. They met when she became the first female physician to give his athletes their physical examinations.

OLIVER ELDERS: I thought it was a little unusual for them to send a young lady over, but we could accept that. It sort of disturbed our players. In fact, it created a havoc and pandemonium in the gym for a while, and it took us a while to get 'em under all one hat again.

MR. LAZARO: Oliver Elders says it is determination that makes his wife effective in whatever task she undertakes.

OLIVER ELDERS: She wants it done right, and she has a very strong head about herself. She wants it done her particular way, but she'll compromise if there's a need, and she'll look into all sides of it. But when that's all said and done, she'll be a very strong force in what she believes and what she wants.

MR. LAZARO: Elders' critics, however, have charged she is a very strong force for abortion. Although pro-choice, Elders has tried to refocus the abortion argument.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: Our aim at the health department has not been to prevent abortions. It has been to prevent pregnancy. I've never known a woman to need an abortion who was not already pregnant.

MR. LAZARO: Many of her opponents in the Arkansas legislature say contraceptives for teenagers would be more socially and politically acceptable if they were made available other than on school property. But Elders has argued that schools are the most logical place to reach "at risk" youth.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: The only place that the children we're talking about go is school. They don't go to the country clubs. They don't go to your church on Sunday. They don't have any junior league going into their community to help them.

MR. LAZARO: Bill Clinton has been one of Elders' staunchest supporters during her tenure in Arkansas and invited her to be the next surgeon general soon after he became President. However, Elders' opponents back home have also persisted. Anne Dierks is with Arkansas Right to Life.

ANNE DIERKS, Arkansas Right to Life: I don't think the people of the nation want what she has to offer. I think she will do more damage to the born and the unborn of this nation than we have ever seen.

MR. LAZARO: Other opponents say Elders is not a consensus builder, that she is unwilling to listen to those who disagree with her. Gary Cox was among organizers of a successful petition drive that outlawed Medicaid-funded abortions in Arkansas. Cox says for all the attention she's gathered, Elders has achieved little progress in stemming teenage pregnancy.

JERRY COX, The Family Council of Arkansas: From 1980 to 1985, the overall teenage pregnancy rate dropped about 10 percent, something like that. Then in 1985, it began to inch up again, and by 1990 had risen about 13 percent to the highest level that it had ever been. Dr. Elders became the director of the Health Department in 1987. And it may be coincidence, it may not be coincidence, but at the time she vigorously began promoting her program, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of teenage pregnancies here in Arkansas. So that leads me to believe at least that her programs are not doing what they're set out to do and what she believes that they're going to do.

MR. LAZARO: However, supporters say the numbers are up across the country. Further, they note, only 24 out of 316 school districts opened clinics. And only four of those adopted her policy on contraceptives. The clinics, they add, offer far more than contraceptives to students.

DR. JAY HOLLAND, Clinic Physician: We found that the teenagers in our population are disenfranchised from medical care, and so this clinic and the structure of it has been a conduit that we've really discovered problems that we didn't know existed.

MR. LAZARO: Elders' supporters credit her with a declining infant mortality rate in Arkansas and for a sharp increase in immunizations. For her part, Elders says she expects the Clinton administration's strong support and no repeat of the failed Lani Guinere nomination.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: When he asked me to be the surgeon general, I said, I said, Governor, he was still governor then, I said, you know, when you appointed me to be your health director, I said, you didn't know what you were buying, but I said, Mr. President, you know what you buy.

CORRESPONDENT: You know what's wrapped up in this dynamite woman.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: And so he said, yes, and he wanted me to do for the country what I'd done for Arkansas.

MR. MUDD: Dr. Elders' hearing before the Senate Labor Committee was originally scheduled for last week, but questions about her finances have caused a delay. Questions may come up at her hearing tomorrow about her role as the director of an Arkansas bank. She also worked as a $550 a day consultant to the federal government recently while she was still on the Arkansas state payroll. In addition, her husband failed to pay Social Security taxes to a nurse for his mother who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease. This afternoon, President Clinton was asked if she would have adequate answers to those questions, and he said, "I think she'll do very well." FOCUS - POST OFFICE PROBE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, the storm over the House Post Office scandal and the resulting cloud over House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. Today's development was a Republican effort to make public an internal House investigation of the matter. Two House leaders, a Republican and a Democrat, will mix it up right after this backgrounder by Kwame Holman.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI: The conference will come to order.

MR. HOLMAN: Last Thursday, powerful House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski opened the budget conference negotiations on President Clinton's deficit reduction package. On Monday of this week, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., made an announcement that may threaten Rostenkowski's future. Prosecutor J. Ramsey Johnson announced that the former head of the House of Representatives Post Office, Robert Rota, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and embezzlement charges and was cooperating with authorities.

RAMSEY JOHNSON, Acting U.S. Attorney: Mr. Rota, who served for nearly 20 years as House postmaster and as one of four elected officers of the U.S. House of Representatives, has admitted that he allowed the House Post Office to be used as a convenient and until this investigation largely untraceable source of illegal cash for selected members of Congress.

MR. HOLMAN: Johnson refused to name the members of Congress Rota allegedly funneled money to, but records seem to implicate former Democratic Rep. Joseph Kolter of Pennsylvania and Congressman Rostenkowski.

REP. DEBORAH PRYCE, [R] Ohio: The American people deserve to know the details of the affair and to know that no member of Congress, regardless of seniority or party or power or privilege, is above the law.

MR. HOLMAN: Today on the House floor, Republicans tried to force the release of documents from the House Committee's own investigation of the Post Office that ended inconclusively last summer.

REP. SCOTT KLUG, [R] Wisconsin: The bottom line is this: These are public files, produced by public employees, investigating public officials suspected of wrongdoing, including, among other things, ripping off the public's money. There is one other thing in this room that belongs to the American public, and you can't see it right now, but it's the voting grid that's hidden behind me. Watch it light up in a few moments, because you can tell exactly who in this chamber wants to fess up and who in this chamber wants to continue to hush up.

REP. BOB MICHEL, Minority Leader: Now the majority's approach in this case, stripped of its rhetoric, is simple, hey folks, we really are serious about reform this time, let the Justice Department do its duty. Well, I say, let the House do its duty as well, its constitutional duty! Our clear duty is to let the American people and not just a select few politicians and reporters know what's been happening behind closed doors of House hearing rooms. It's shameful!

MR. HOLMAN: But House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt attacked the Republican move.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Majority Leader: I cannot comprehend why anyone in the face of the clear, unequivocal recommendation of the U.S. attorney, unsolicited by this House, would want in the face of that to go ahead and vote to send these materials out which could injure, or damage, or obstruct, or bungle what is an ongoing and obviously successful criminal investigation. Let me repeat, the man who sent us the letter, the man who sent us the letter, filed the criminal information to which the former Postmaster pled guilty!

MR. HOLMAN: The letter in question was sent yesterday by the U.S. attorney to both party leaders, urging that documents not be released because "the release of such materials could have a significant adverse effect on the ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by this Office." But Republicans argued that letter was sent at the urging of House Speaker Tom Foley.

REP. WILLIAM THOMAS, [R] California: Perhaps my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be interested to know that the letter from the U.S. attorney came after a phone call between the attorney general and the speaker of the House asking, please, don't let this go forward. Perhaps the letter is the cover that's needed to argue that we're going to impede justice, the prosecutions won't go forward.

MR. HOLMAN: The charge led to a rare appearance by the speaker, himself, in the well of the House.

REP. TOM FOLEY, Speaker of the House: I must tell the gentleman that I am surprised that the normal courtesy that exists between members would not have been shown in this case to me as speaker. At no time was there ever any inquiry from any member of your leadership or any member of the Republican Party in the House as to whether I had had any such conversation. Not one question has ever been put to me in the last 48 hours up to this moment to the question you just asked, sir, about whether that statement was true. I have not spoken on this matter to Mr. J. Ramsey Johnson, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, nor has anyone in my office or anyone in the Democratic leadership, nor have I spoken to the attorney general about this matter, nor has anyone in my office or anyone in the leadership. And, again, I cannot understand why the assertion would be made without the simple courtesy which I would apply anyone in this chamber would give to any other member to put that question and receive an answer.

MR. HOLMAN: Late this afternoon, as expected, Democrats used their substantial majority in the House and voted to keep the Post Office documents secret. Meanwhile, Congressman Rostenkowski stayed out of the debate and continued calmly to oversee the budget negotiations.

MR. LEHRER: Now to our mix up between the House minority whip, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and Al Swift, Democrat of Washington State, a member of the House Committee on Administration which conducted the review of the House Post Office. Congressman Gingrich, why is this so important to you and your fellow Republicans, that these documents be released now, rather than later after the use by the U.S. attorney?

REP. GINGRICH: Let me say first of all, Jim, that we moved last year to release these a year ago, lost only by a seven vote margin. Two hundred members, including forty-two Democrats, voted with us. We felt strongly, and that's been reinforced frankly by another letter we received late today from the same acting U.S. attorney, we felt strongly once Postmaster Rota pled guilty to what is alleged to be 20 years of using the House Post Office, working with Democratic members for 20 years, according to the U.S. attorney's statement, we felt that this evidence ought to be released to the American people. Furthermore, as recently as two hours ago, we received a letter from the acting U.S. attorney saying that despite the vote one year ago for the House to turn everything over as recently as July 20th, which is the date of this newest letter, he still is not sure he's gotten everything. And he cited specifically the speaker's counsel, the speaker's lawyer, not cooperating. So we're in a situation from the Republican standpoint where the speaker's lawyer, the speaker's chief of staff seemed not to have been cooperating. The former police chief said flatly under testimony that he was asked not to cooperate by the speaker's lawyer. We now have this new evidence. None of us believe that this is a 20 year old ongoing scandal. And when you read the seven page announcement by the U.S. attorney on Monday, there is plenty there to say the American people deserve to know what's happening in their U.S. House. This is something we tried to do a year ago. We feel strongly the American people deserve to know what's happening in their Congress.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Swift, why shouldn't the American people know what's happening in their Congress?

REP. SWIFT: Well, the American people are going to know what is happening. It's very important, because there's a lot about the station that's been going on here that the House task force, it was first of all looking at administrative changes that needed to be made in the Post Office. We did that, those changes are in place, and the Post Office is operating now in a way that I don't think anyone criticizes. It's important also to understand that every piece of the information covered by the resolution we had today is in the hands of the House Ethics Committee and in the hands of the U.S. attorney. Furthermore, I think it's important to know that, that the task force, the bipartisan task force, issued a report, actually the Democrats had a report and the Republicans had a report. The Republicans were involved, not only had access to the information, they helped develop it in the process of being a bipartisan investigation. And in their report, they revealed everything they thought was contained in here that was useful. Now, we're arriving at a point where you say why not release it? And the answer is, the U.S. attorney in charge of this investigation has informed us on his own that if you do this, you run the serious risk of jeopardizing an ongoing criminal investigation. We say that because Republicans already know what is in it, Democrats know what is in it, responsible authorities in the House and in the U.S. attorney's office know what's in it, that we should not at this time jeopardize a criminal investigation because that is where you're going to get justice. That's where any wrongdoer is going to be dealt with in the criminal justice system. Why jeopardize that when all of this, I'm sure, when that is over, will come out anyway. And I think we'll find it rather boring and not particularly interesting. Certainly they're not going to find any smoking guns.

MR. LEHRER: What's your answer to that, Congressman Gingrich?

REP. GINGRICH: Jim, first of all, the world looks very different if you're a Democrat who's been in control for 40 years and if you're a Republican, I just talked less than an hour ago with the ranking Republican on the Ethics Committee who said, Fred Grandy of Iowa, who said flatly they do not have all the things that are mentioned by the U.S. attorney in his letter which came today, and frankly, Congressman Grandy was shocked by the gap between what he believes the Ethics Committee has and what the speaker's own council has not turned over to the Ethics Committee. So I think you'll see some developments next week on that front. As Mr. Michel, the Republican leader, indicated today, had he known a year ago the things that we are now learning, he would have taken a very different tact to this entire thing.

MR. LEHRER: You're talking about, you're talking about specifically the, the involvement in the Postmaster, Mr. Rota, in embezzlement.

REP. GINGRICH: There are two parts to this, from a Republican standpoint, and I believe from a citizen standpoint, there are two parts to this that are extremely troubling. The first is that you have an explicit on Monday by the acting U.S. attorney and notice, he's the acting U.S. attorney, because the Democratic administration fired the U.S. attorney, so they drug this out for several months beyond what would have happened I believe had Jay Stevens still been in office. So you have an acting U.S. attorney. He alleges on Monday that there's a 20 year act of corruption, that the Democratic patronage system in the House is deliberately being used by one of the members to put in place people who would engage in corruption and that several members, one of whom, if we are to believe the news reports, is extraordinarily powerful, have been for years engaged in corruption. Now that is a set of allegations that are far beyond anything from last year but they make us go back and look at last year again. Second, you have the very specific charges, and the report which Congressman Swift helped author and which I think he will concede, you have very specific charges in there by the former police chief that it is the speaker, the Democrats' lawyer, who explicitly says to the police chief for the capitol do not cooperate with the U.S. attorney. All we're saying is if there has been a process of foot dragging, we have a letter as recent as July 20th of this year from the acting U.S. attorney, if we have that kind of foot dragging, then certainly the country deserves to know and the country deserves to judge on its own, what's going on here.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Swift, the suggestion has been made, more than a suggestion, that what's going on here is an attempt by the Democratic leadership to protect Congressman Rostenkowski until the House and Senate Conference Committee negotiations on the budget are completed, is that correct?

REP. SWIFT: I think I applied Taylor's first law, do not ascribe to conspiracy that for which stupidity will suffice for an answer. To try and make an elaborate kind of conspiracy like that work is, is really ridiculous. And I have to say that, you know, Newt, you are the prince of obfuscation, and when you can't sell the pea you got, you shuffle the shells. The 20 year period that he's talking about, obviously there were some things that went wrong or our task force wouldn't be involved and you wouldn't have a U.S. attorney involved, but the issue today was a set of records developed by our task force which has nothing whatever to do with that, and in terms of the letter that came up from John Campbell in the U.S. attorney's office, and I'll leave a copy of this with you so you can take a look and see whether he or I have characterized this properly, but he makes it sound like this is some terribly concerned document they've sent. Let me just read a little portion of it, and you get the sense of it. It says, we wanted to double check with your and your staff. This was sent to Charlie Rose, chairman of the House Administration Committee, to ensure that we do, indeed, have all the House Post Office documents collected by the task force as well as other records generated in connection with the task force inquiry. At this stage of our continuing investigation we simply want to make sure that no records were overlooked or forgotten. In addition, we want to ensure that task force remained intact, because we may need to obtain originals from some of these records. We continue to appreciate the opportunity to work cooperatively with you.

REP. GINGRICH: Do you want to quote the preceding paragraph where he says, "It took repeated requests," the House voted last July, "it took repeated requests -- "

REP. SWIFT: You've moving the shells again.

REP. GINGRICH: Now, I'm not moving shells. There's a clear pattern of Steve Ross as House counsel consistently refusing to cooperate.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask --

REP. SWIFT: You're moving the shells again.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you a question.

REP. SWIFT: Because that information would not be contained in the records --

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Swift --

REP. SWIFT: -- about which we had resolutions today. Yes, sir.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you a question. You said there's no smoking gun in the material that you all had at the task force.

REP. SWIFT: If there was a smoking gun, then none of the Republicans on the task force who have available information --

MR. LEHRER: Well, let me --

REP. SWIFT: -- bothered to report it.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let me -- you heard what Congressman Gingrich said that what caused this thing to be more immediate right now is what the acting attorney general did on Monday which was the Rota admission and Congressman A and Congressman B, one of whom has apparently been identified as Congressman Rostenkowski, did you know, or did the task force know about this, this alleged embezzlement scheme as a result of your investigation?

REP. SWIFT: No. No. As a matter of fact, Rota under oath denied it to us. Most of our testimony wasn't under oath, but if, if he is correct in what he admitted to and pled guilty to the other day, then he lied to us when he gave his testimony to the task force.

MR. LEHRER: So then would it be a, a reasonable deduction then that that material was developed after your investigation, is that what you're suggesting?

REP. SWIFT: No. There are two investigations going on. Ours was to look at administrative procedures and management policy in the House, the Post Office. The attorney general was developing a criminal investigation. They're very different.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

REP. SWIFT: And certainly I think some of our information might be helpful to him in corroborating things or finding inconsistencies, but the central information is probably going to be what is developed. His concern is that if we release this, either it in some way is going to damage his case or it certainly will give a lot of room for defense attorneys to go picking through.

REP. GINGRICH: Jim, note the argument here.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

REP. GINGRICH: There is no smoking gun, but we can't release it. Now, the members on our side -- let me just make this point, Al - - the members on our side who serve on that task force unanimously agree it should be released. They unanimously agree the public should know. So they have seen the material, I haven't seen it. They've seen the material. It is their belief all three of them, that we should release this material. Al, himself, just said there's no smoking gun. My question would be: If there's no smoking gun, what worries you? And I'd make this point: I believe from the conversations I've had with members who did serve and with staff who did work on it what really comes clear in the task force report is the consistent foot dragging and avoidance of responsibility by the speaker's office and by key people which then fits back into Rota's testimony that for 20 years this process has been going on.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you this specific question, Congressman Swift, and also to you, Congressman Gingrich, to respond. The New York Times had an editorial this morning that you Democrats, Congressman Swift, should ask Congressman Rostenkowski to step aside as chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee because of this and other things, do you agree with that?

REP. SWIFT: I do not, because our caucus has rules that says once indicted you must step aside. I support that. We don't even know that it's Rostenkowski. It's Congressman A. Some people put some figures together and think there's a high probability, but to ask him to step aside before there has been an indictment is to, is to prejudge this man in a way that is wholly inconsistent with the judicial system of our country.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Gingrich, how do you feel?

REP. GINGRICH: I don't think we ought to single out any individual members of Congress. I think what you've got is a very weird environment in which the U.S. attorney gets fired, the Democrats appoint an acting U.S. attorney, that U.S. attorney then holds a press conference where he, in effect, says there are at least two members of Congress, Congressman A and Congressman B, who on the Monday while we're going through all this reconciliation budget tax increase fight, the country, we've seen Italy shaken by scandal, we've seen Japan shaken by scandal, you know, we've seen one speaker resign, we have a mess in this country. You now have two witnesses saying that Congressman A, whoever he is, and it's very clear from the testimony who they think it is, has been taking money for a long time. I'm not prejudging Congressman Rostenkowski or anyone else. I'm not going to say he ought to step down. I am going to say this House is a mess, it is pathetic --

MR. LEHRER: We're --

REP. GINGRICH: -- it has to be cleaned up, and it is systemic.

MR. LEHRER: And we have to go. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. RECAP

MR. MUDD: Again, the main stories of this Thursday, running water was restored in parts of Des Moines 12 days after floods shut down the system. Heavy rains caused new flooding in parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and North Dakota. And at her Senate confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg condemned discrimination against homosexuals. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Roger. We'll see you tomorrow night with Mark Shields and others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.