The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening, I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, full coverage of the Supreme Court's decisions on abortion and gay scout leaders; a discussion about the saga of Eilan Gonzalez, who was allowed to go back to Cuba today; a report on the heated House floor debate about prescription drugs; and the favorite poem of a retired professor. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court made an important abortion decision today. By 5-4 it struck down Nebraska's ban on so-called partial birth abortions. The Court said the law violated women's constitutional rights. In other rulings it upheld a Colorado law that keeps abortion protesters away from patients outside clinics, the Boy Scouts' right to keep gays from being troop leaders, and the use of taxpayer money to buy computers and other items for religious schools. We'll have more on these cases right after this News Summary. Elian Gonzalez and his father went home to Cuba today. They left Washington after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case. A lower court order had blocked their departure until today, but it expired this afternoon. Elian's return to Cuba came seven months after he was rescued at sea. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. President Clinton today said he's inclined to sign a bill allowing direct sales of food to Cuba, but he said he could not support moving to normalize relations. He said the communist state made that impossible when it shot down two Cuban exile planes in 1996. He spoke at a White House news conference.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The deliberate decision to murder those people changed everything, and it made me wonder whether Mr. Castro was hoping we never would normalize relations so then he could use us as an excuse for the failures of his regime. Obviously I think that anything we can do to engage the Cuban people to get them involved in the process of change, to get them to look outside the world, to get them to look beyond the present system they have is a positive thing to do.

JIM LEHRER: House leaders agreed yesterday to allow limited food sales to Cuba. The full House and Senate still have to approve that legislation. The House moved today toward a vote on a Republican plan for prescription drug coverage. Insurance companies and the federal government would offer it under Medicare. It would cost an estimated $40 billion over five years. President Clinton threatened a veto. He said the plan would help drug companies more than the elderly. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Also today, the House voted to make some nonprofit political groups disclose their backers. They're allowed to run campaign- style commercials if they don't directly endorse or oppose a candidate. But under current law, they don't have to say who paid for the ads. The Senate passed a disclosure bill earlier this month. The Federal Reserve today left a key, short-term interest rate unchanged at 6.5%. The Federal Open Market Committee had raised rates six times over the past year trying to head off inflation. Today it said inflation remains a concern, and it left the door open to future rate hikes. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to abortion and other Supreme Court action, Eilan returns to Cuba, the House debates prescription drugs, and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - SUPREME COURT WATCH

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill begins our Supreme Court coverage.

GWEN IFILL: Two abortion cases were decided today. First, the Justices struck down a Nebraska law banning what the state calls partial birth abortion. And the court upheld a Colorado law that had made it a crime for protesters to knowingly obstruct a person's entry or exit from an abortion clinic. Now the impact of today's decisions -- Janet Benshoof is the president of the Center for Reproductive Law and policy. Vincent McCarthy is the senior regional counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. But first, this caution: Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority today, said, "our discussion may seem clinically cold or callous to some, perhaps horrifying to others." That same warning applies here.

Janet Benshoof, how significant a victory is this for you today?

JANET BENSHOOF, Center for Reproductive Law & Policy: It's a very significant victory but a very fragile victory. It's very significant because the Supreme Court recognized that we have been subjected to an assault on the right to choose itself, and that's what is at stake here. It's very significant because it said that the health of American women is more important than a political agenda.

GWEN IFILL: I apologize for mispronouncing your name, first of all. Vincent McCarthy, does this deal a serious blow to anti-abortion forces?

VINCENT McCARTHY, American Center for Law & Justice: Well, I think it makes it more difficult to try to persuade women not to have abortions because what the Hill case actually ruled is that peaceful protest on public sidewalks can be prohibited by state legislators.

GWEN IFILL: And?

VINCENT McCARTHY: Well, making it more difficult to peacefully persuade people not to have abortions on the one hand and then on the other hand legitimizing what two Justices called a gruesome and horrible procedure I think makes it a lot more difficult and exacerbates actually the turmoil and the tension in this matter.

GWEN IFILL: Let's take these procedures one at a time. The court drew a distinction between two different kinds of abortion procedures: One dilation and evacuation which is used more routinely, more commonly in abortion and the other onedilation and extraction which is what is known as partial birth abortion in which the fetus is partially removed from the womb and then destroyed. So you're saying that the... the Court is saying that this definition was the problem, that the Nebraska law was written too broadly.

VINCENT McCARTHY: What the court is saying is that partial birth abortion is defined by Nebraska could also include the taking of a human life or what they call fetal demise known as dilation and extraction. In partial birth abortion, the baby is taken through the vagina and just the head is kept inside. The head is pierced with scissors and the brain is sucked out. What the court said is that's really no different from dismembering the baby inside the mother's womb and then taking the pieces out bit by bit, arm by arm or as Justice Scalia said today finger by finger. Justice O'Connor in a concurring opinion said partial birth abortion is no less gruesome than dilation and extraction. If we're going to protect that method of taking human life, then we're going to have to also protect partial birth abortion.

GWEN IFILL: Janet Benshoof, what is the distinction in your opinion that the Court was trying to draw between D&E and D&X?

JANET BENSHOOF: Well, I don't think the court was trying to draw any distinction. What the majority of the Supreme Court said today is that these are... Laws are a direct assault on Roe and that they imperil the health of women, that it's not about late abortion, it's not about one procedure. Justice O'Connor, who joined with the majority, said you can't distinguish and pull out one procedure from the other. In fact, Justice Breyer even referred to the D&E procedure as an intact D&E instead of any other name. What this is all about is not about method; it's about preserving the health of women and a stealth attack on liberty.

GWEN IFILL: Justice O'Connor also raised the question about whether the Nebraska law should have included some sort of provision for the life and health of the mother.

JANET BENSHOOF: Well, all the members of the majority opinion said that no law can be constitutional when it applies to pre-viability abortions, which this does, and does not include an exception for the health of women. So she was very clear on that as was the rest of the majority -- as were the rest of the majority. So I think today's opinion is very significant in that women's health has been made more important than a political agenda. But what's fragile about today's opinion is that Roe itself hangs in a thread in this country by one vote. What was before the court was the essence of Roe versus Wade, and the Court upheld Roe by a 5-4 vote.

GWEN IFILL: How about that? Has Roe been suddenly weakened here or is it eventually strengthened? There are 29 other states which have laws like this.

VINCENT McCARTHY: I think eventually Roe will be overturned. I think what happened today is that the mask came off, the idea that abortion somehow isn't the taking of human life. That was conceded by everyone today. That's the only way really that this decision could come out the way that it did because the argument was made that since dilation and extraction actually does the same thing, this must be covered within the protection for that procedure. What has to happen is statutes have to be drawn more particularly to define post delivery procedures that are going to be protected by the law. 30 states in the United States believed that partial birth abortion was very close to infanticide. I think that these legislatures are going to come back again and try to define it more clearly to make it clear that this is an out-of-the-womb abortion and can never cover the abortions within the womb.

GWEN IFILL: Ms. Benshoof, when is partial birth abortion as the state of Nebraska calls it ever medically necessary?

JANET BENSHOOF: First of all, as the Court recognized today, there's no one method that can be termed a partial birth abortion. This was a stealth attack on the right to choose. What all the Justices said was that methods evolve and doctors-- all the majority opinion said was that doctors have to be protected to choose the most medically appropriate method for women. And they have to be able to choose the safest methods for women. In fact, the United States Supreme Court found that one method, the D&X method, which Nebraska was alleging that was all this was about, they found that that one method was the safest method for some women and that women have a liberty interest to protect their health by choosing the safest method.

GWEN IFILL: At what point does-- or does it-- a liberty interest in protecting a mother's health collide with the liberty interest of the unborn child?

JANET BENSHOOF: Under Roe versus Wade and as affirmed by today's opinion, throughout pregnancy a woman has to be valued more than fetal life and even post viability, there have to be exceptions for a woman's life or health. So women's liberty to make important medical choices over their life and health was affirmed today but only by one vote. So the stakes on women's liberty have been raised very high, and the political atmosphere for the 21st century has certainly been set by today's sharply divided opinion.

GWEN IFILL: The court, Mr. McCarthy, said that the state of Nebraska had placed an undue burden on a mother or on a woman seeking an abortion by instituting this law. Do you agree with that? Was that an undue burden?

VINCENT McCARTHY: I don't believe that they did. I believe that the way they defined the law distinguishes it from other abortion procedures. I think it's unfortunate that the Court believe that it was similar to other abortion procedures, but abortion is on a collision course with the truth. The truth was exposed in this case that all abortion takes human life, and you had several Justices talking about how gruesome and horrible all this was. Justice Kennedy, I think, said it best. He said some day we will look back on this decision with great horror.

GWEN IFILL: In this second case, this was more about free speech, Janet Benshoof and privacy. In this case, the Justices ruled in favor of the idea of privacy, that someone ought to be able to walk unhindered into an abortion clinic. Did that surprise you?

JANET BENSHOOF: No. I think the Court or the Justices on the Court that have very sharp ideological differences on abortion have ruled differently on issues involving the First Amendment and clinic access. So I'm not surprised. I think there's a law-and-order issue here. There's a right to receive health services issue here. And the United States Supreme Court has always accepted time, place and manner restrictions on First Amendment. issues. I think the Court also might have been affected by the fact that we've seen many violent acts, including death threats and actual deaths of providers and their assistants in the abortion area.

GWEN IFILL: Are abortion protesters a threat to people who try to seek abortions?

JANET BENSHOOF: Not all abortion protesters.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. McCarthy. Excuse me.

VINCENT McCARTHY: Yes, as Justice Kennedy noted and Justice Scalia, peacefulprotesters-- and it was conceded by Justice Stevens in his majority opinion that the protesters here were peaceful-- can serve a valuable purpose in continuing the debate on the moral issues of abortion on public sidewalks which is the place most really, in which this debate can really take place. It's unfortunate that the court ruled the way that it did particularly three years after its decision in Shank, which upheld such peaceful counseling. The decision today is going to force people back further and force them to use amplification which I think exacerbates the problem.

GWEN IFILL: Both decisions today, Mr. McCarthy, were a setback for your cause. What do you think that means for the future of people who are anti-abortion, anti-abortion movement?

VINCENT McCARTHY: Well, people that are anti-abortion or pro-life will keep fighting because they're fighting for the dignity of human life. They're fighting for their brothers and sisters. So, they will keep that fight up no matter what. They're not going to be discouraged. You have to look at this in terms of the long haul. Slavery existed for almost 200 years in this republic. It may take some time but eventually we will begin to respect all human life, no matter how small and how young and how vulnerable.

GWEN IFILL: And Janet Benshoof, the one thing we know for sure is this issue never goes away. What is the next test?

JANET BENSHOOF: Well, the Court has said today that they respect women's life choices and liberty under the Constitution but the stakes have been raised by the fact that it's a 5-4 decision. So I don't think the anti-choice people are going to go away. I think that we're going to see increased fervor because they certainly have been edging. This has been the most successful campaign yet against the right to choose. This was a stealth campaign. Mr. McCarthy mentioned 30 states, and he's right. This has the most successful campaign yet. Most Americans were completely bamboozled by partial birth abortion thinking, that it was about late abortion and thinking it was about one method. So this was a stealth campaign on the right to choose and it should be a wake-up call to Americans to know that their constitutional rights are hanging by a one-person thread.

GWEN IFILL: Janet Benshoof, Vincent McCarthy, thank you both very much.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has more on today's Court decisions.

MARGARET WARNER: For an explanation of the Court's reasoning in those two abortion decisions and its rulings in two other closely watched cases involving the Boy Scouts and federal aid to parochial schools, we turn to NewsHour regular Jan Crawford Greenburg, national legal correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. All right. We've just heard two partisans argue about this case. Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion. On what basis, let's take first the Nebraska case, on what basis did he find this anti-partial birth abortion law unconstitutional?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: First of all, he said it was just too broad, that it constituted an undue burden. We heard that language earlier, an undue burden on a woman's right to choose to have an abortion because the law swept too broadly and it really encompassed other forms, other more common forms of abortion. As a result there's that undue burden. Secondly, he said there's no exception for a doctor to perform it if the mother's health is at stake. For those two reasons, standing on their own, he said the law was unconstitutional.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, when this case was argued, many observers were wondering whether the court would go so far as to say, "look, a state cannot prohibit one method. That's between a woman and her doctor." Did the Court go this far or did they leave the door open to a more tightly worded ban on a specific procedure?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, I think if you look at Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion, there is some room there because she emphasizes that if the statutes had been more precisely written to use the medical terminology for this type of abortion and if they did include that exception for the mother's health, then she might find them constitutional. She pointed to three state laws that, for example, were more precisely drawn.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, all four dissenters, each one wrote his own opinion, but the big surprise was Justice Kennedy who in the landmark case, the Casey case in '92, had supported the woman's right to have an abortion. What was his reasoning in dissenting here?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, he's not saying that he doesn't support a woman's right to abortion. In fact, you could say today that O'Connor was the big surprise today. Kennedy's point was Casey, that 1992 case that kind of upheld the idea of Roe, that it was misapplied today, that this case, as he understood it, did not constitutes an undue burden, that there were other forms of safe abortions that are available to women. He was especially critical of O'Connor, his fellow moderate, who I think, you know, he thought had certainly walked away and really gone the wrong way on this. Now, the other three dissenting justices more openly attacked Roe. They said Roe versus Wade was wrongly decided. That should be up to the states to decide whether or not a woman has a right to an abortion and the federal judiciary has no place getting involved.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the Colorado protesters' case, again we just heard two people argue about it. But this was Justice Stevens, wasn't it?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Justice Stevens. What was his legal reasoning in saying this wasn't a free speech case?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, he acknowledged that both sides had an important interest, that the protesters certainly have their First Amendment rights to protest and speak freely but then he said, you know, the state has these incredibly important interests as well. For example, to protect vulnerable people as they're seeking medical treatment, going in to these clinics. So, looking at the Colorado law that was at issue today, Justice Stevens concluded that it didn't target a specific type of speech and that the state had a legitimate interest for passing it.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Let's turn now to the Boy Scout case. I'll just quickly recap. This case was brought by an assistant scoutmaster in New Jersey who was ousted from the scouts when they found out through a newspaper article that he was gay and the New Jersey Supreme Court had said that violated New Jersey's anti-discrimination law.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right.

MARGARET WARNER: Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority here. On what basis did he side with the Scouts?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, he said the Boy Scouts didn't have to comply with that law. He pointed to their First Amendment rights of free speech and free association. He said the Boy Scouts engaged in this kind of express I have activity. Part of their message is to instill moral values in young boys. And the Boy Scouts said that part of that moral values is teaching that they oppose homosexuality. As the Chief Justice wrote today, if the Boy Scouts were forced to accept Mr. Dale as a troop leader, they would have to change their message and the message that they were trying to convey. And that violated the organization's rights to associate with whomever they may want and to choose their own leaders in violation of the First Amendment.

MARGARET WARNER: How did Rehnquist square that with earlier Supreme Court decisions that have thrown out that kind of argument, for instance, all male clubs who wanted to exclude women and said, hey, being an all male club is who we are and what we are?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Mr. Dale relied on those cases and stressed that the Court had rejected those arguments saying that the Rotarys and the Jaycees had to admit women. The Court said that's different. Those cases, those clubs weren't organized, it wasn't part of their message to discriminate against women or to oppose women, whereas here today, the Boy Scouts had an argument that their message was that homosexuality is wrong, that it's not morally straight and forcing them to accept Mr. Dale as a leader, unlike the Rotarys and Jaycees, would make them change their message.

MARGARET WARNER: Is the court putting homosexuality in a different category than either race or gender when it comes to being able to have the protection of civil rights laws?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: I don't know that this decision goes that far. You could say that it was limited to gays and limited-- some I think would argue limited to Boy Scouts. But it's interesting. That's an interesting point because in dissent Justice Stevens says that really the only way he could see to explain what the majority decided was that they think homosexuals are just so different than the rest of society because he didn't believe that the boy scouts had really ever made opposing homosexuals a big part of their message. They never really openly talked about homosexuality to troops. So he just didn't buy that argument at all.

MARGARET WARNER: Does this decision... Well, did the Court address whether the Boy Scouts could also oust a boy who was discovered to be gay?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: This case focused more on the troop leaders themselves. That was really at issue. Certainly it's on the table and how other troops will react and whether or not another thing that came up during argument was whether or not schools that support Boy Scouts would continue to do so. That's all still on the table.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. The last ruling we're going to look at tonight, 6-3 ruling upholding this federal law that for years has let or required public school districts who get money for special audio-visual materials and textbooks to also share that with private schools in their district. And for years it seemed to work, but the appeals court in Louisiana had thrown it out when computers got involved. Why? What was the distinction there?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, because they looked at some of the earlier rulings by the Supreme Court, and in fact, in that appeals court decision before they announced what they were doing, they said they were walking into the vast desert of the Court's rulings in this area because they're all over the place, very confused. But today the Court said that program was constitutional and it specifically overruled two of those cases that the lower court had looked to. Those two cases prohibited instructional materials to go be shared with religious schools and also prohibited state school buses, government school buses being used for field trips. The thinking was those could be diverted maybe to some religious uses.

MARGARET WARNER: Wasn't that the reasoning here, that computers also, that once the kids are the Internet, they could be directed to religious sites?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Those were the cases that were most closely on point, but the Court rejected that rationale today, that kind of diversion issue today, and shows that technology maybe has kind of outpaced some of these rulings, but they gave different reasons why they thought this program was, in fact, constitutional. Justice Thomas, in a very strong, sweeping opinion, joined by three other Justices, wrote a plurality opinion suggesting that we should look at all these programs simply on whether or not they're neutrally administered, a green light for vouchers. But he didn't get a majority. There was another opinion by Justice O'Connor joined by Justice Breyer that upheld the program on a more limited basis and focused more exclusively on the fact that they were rejecting that old thinking.

MARGARET WARNER: And Justice Souter wrote the dissent, and his main argument?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Justice Souter has been long opposed to this kind of effort to expand to go into this neutrality area. He very much took that square on and said, "that's the wrong way to look at the Constitution. The framers require a much higher wall separating the church and the state."

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Jan, thank you very much.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, good-bye, Elian; the prescription drugs and a favorite poem.

FOCUS - GOING HOME

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez has the Elian Gonzalez story.

RAY SUAREZ: On Elian Gonzalez' last day in the United States, Americans saw him once again, playing at a distance. But today his father and legal advisors weren't waiting for something to happen, but for something not to happen. The Supreme Court had been asked by the boy's family members in Miami to extend the expiring court order keeping Juan Miguel and Elian Gonzalez in the United States. The high court refused to act. In Miami, there was disaffection and dismay as the final hours of the restraining order, set to end at 4:00 P.M. Eastern Time, ticked away. A few protesters milled around the now-famous house in Miami where Elian lived with his great uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez and family. Today in Washington at his news conference, President Clinton said that if Juan Miguel Gonzalez had decided to stay in America with his son, it would have been fine with him.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But I think the most important thing is that his father was adjudged by people who made an honest effort to determine that he was a good father, a loving father, committed to the son's welfare. And we upheld here what I think is a quite important principle, as well as what is clearly the law of the United States. Do I wish it had unfolded in a less dramatic, less traumatic way for all concerned? Of course, I do. I have replayed this in my mind many times. I don't know that we had many different options than we pursued, given how the thing developed. But I think the fundamental principle is the right one, and I am glad we did.

RAY SUAREZ: As the family made its final preparations to leave the country from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia, 4:00 Eastern Time passed-Juan Miguel Gonzalez was free to leave.

JUAN MIGUEL GONZALEZ: (Translated) I would like to thank the North American people for the support they have given us and to the U.S. Government. I think that this has allowed me to meet very beautiful and intelligent people in this country, and I hope that in the future this same friendship and this same impression that I have of the U.S. people, that the same thing can become true between both our countries, Cuba and the U.S. I am very grateful for the support I have received. I am extremely happy of being able to go back to my homeland, and I don't have words really to express what I feel.

JUAN MIGUEL GONZALEZ: We are very happy to be going home. Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: And after that brief and conciliatory statement, Gonzalez boarded the aircraft, waved good-bye, and after seven months since he was fished from the waters off Florida, Elian Gonzalez was gone. A short time later, a spokesman for the Lazaro Gonzalez family spoke from Miami.

ARMANDO GUTIERREZ, Family Spokesman: Elian's fight for his life was like a wake-up call for the Cubans in Miami. Many had become complacent with our lives in the United States of America. Young and old, rich and poor, so many have forgotten the crisis in our country that brought us to this country. Elian's mother brought him to this great country seeking the promise of the Statute of Liberty. She and her son were among the huddled masses yearning to be free. How tragic that unlike the immigration of so many Americans, myself included, Elian Gonzalez cannot yet be free. Lazaro Gonzalez wants everyone to know that the family will still fight for Elian to be free regardless of where he's at.

RAY SUAREZ: For perspective on the Elian Gonzalez story, we turn now to Maria de Los Angeles Torres, an associate professor of political science at DePaul University. She is the author of "In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United States." Juan Gonzalez, a columnist for the "New York Daily News." He is also the author of the book "Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America." And Charles Lane, an editorial writer for the "Washington Post."

Juan Gonzalez, how did it happen that this particular unaccompanied minor, this particular story in this particular year became such a big deal?

JUAN GONZALEZ, Daily News: Well, I think, Ray, the big problem we have in America today and still among our self-s in the mass media is a problem that we turn some of these human tragedies into soap opera news spectacles more to sometimes entertain the American people than to really educate them. I think that this was another example, whether you can go from O.J., to Monica and now it's Elian. I think that the reality was that in an election year, the arrival of Elian on Thanksgiving Day touched off a debate not only about family values that the American people hold dear versus the continuing fight of the Cold War against Castro, but it also raised issues in terms of how our country continues to regard Cuba very differently even from other socialist countries like China or Vietnam or Korea and why that is. I think all of these things came to the fore in this election year.

RAY SUAREZ: Maria Torres, one, you heard suggest that there was some media obsession here, but weren't there also compelling issues at the core that kept this in the spotlight?

MARIA DE LOS ANGELES TORRES, DePaul University: Clearly, I mean, I think this one child became the life raft only for a sinking state in Cuba, very desperate politics here in Miami as we watch in a certain sense Cuba become chic and for presidential hopefuls from Al Gore to George Bush, who had to make statements about this child. I think for Cuban exiles, wrongly placed but nonetheless very important issues, were placed through this child that are still very important. There are human rights violations in Cuba. There is one man who has been in power for over 40 years. I think there's a frustration that found its place in this one child, and these are issues that are not going to go away because Elian is with his father.

RAY SUAREZ: Charles Lane, were there points during the seven-month trajectory of this story that you found yourself scratching your head or did it make perfect sense?

CHARLES LANE, Washington Post: Well, I think the issues, as the others have said, were very real and very stark. What seemed to happen as the media fed on this was that all sorts of ancillary narratives started to emerge. The story of the fisherman, the story of Maryslesis going to the hospital, all sorts of side shows spun off from this just as they did in some of the other stories that were mentioned, O.J., and Monica. But if we can now in retrospect strip all of those kind of - as you say -- head-scratching kind of side shows away, I do think that there were very powerful and legitimate issues that were at the core of this thing.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, at various points during this panel, you could have nuance, thoughtful conversations about the right of parents to children, about international custody cases, a lot of issues that often don't get covered in the national press. Professor Torres?

MARIA DE LOS ANGELES TORRES: Right. I mean, I think one of the interesting things about Elian Gonzalez has been that we are starting to think about children's emotional rights, not so much parental or for that matter INS or federal. That's how it's played out in the courts. But for Elian I think many people felt that it was important for us to keep in mind what he needed as a child. This is something that we don't have in American law or, for that matter, in law in almost any country in the world. We have a charter at the United Nations that indeed is not signed by the United States, and it's clearly violated by the Cuban state. And I think these are the issues that would be important for us to take a look at as we continue to really think about what happened in the last seven months.

RAY SUAREZ: So, Juan Gonzalez, does this serious confrontation with the various issues raised by this story continue or does it just dissolve, unravel, now that the child is gone?

JUAN GONZALEZ: It's clear that two things have happened. One, I don't quite agree on this issue that this has unmasked a need to deal with the rights of children because for instance there are thousands of Mexican children who have been deported by themselves back to Mexico without any of the furor raised around Elian. Similar things have happened with Haitian children in the past and other communities have experienced similar tragedies. The problem with Elian of course is it was mixed so much with the politics of the United States toward Cuba and also the boy himself was so attractive to the media as his personality and his charisma. But I think that in terms of what this means for the future, clearly we can already see how Congress is beginning to take a much closer look at our relationship to Cuba in light of the fact that the calls that I have gotten from readers, are many Americans are angry about what they perceive to be special treatment. I mean it took seven months to decide a case that should have been decided in the first month or two. I think that many Americans felt that there was almost... that the sight of the Attorney General of the United States going to Miami to attempt to negotiate something, it was an embarrassment that the attorney general would have to do this in this particular case. So I think Americans reacted against this and now there's going to be more of an openness to look at our government's policy toward Cuba, which is widely condemned by most of the countries in the world.

RAY SUAREZ: Charles Lane, do you agree?

CHARLES LANE: Well, I agree but I would put it slightly differently. I think the Cuban exile community in Miami, its leadership and indeed the family itself, overplayed their hand or misplayed their hand in terms of public perception. They appeared strident. They appeared to be in defiance of the law - and, indeed, common-sense notions about who should have custody over a child if one parent dies. They seemed to be talking past the American public, as this thing went along. So as a result at the end, they have become politically more isolated than they have ever been before. I agree with what Mr. Gonzalez just said, that in Congress we're already seeing that their clout has been somewhat reduced although far from eliminated. I think it's worth noting that the president at his press conference also kind of went out of his way to pound his fist on the podium there and add some condemnation of Fidel Castro to dispel some of the rumors that are there in the Cuban community during this election year that the Clinton-Gore administration is about to soften up the U.S. hard line on Cuba.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Torres, you've been writing about this community for many years. Did they, as Charles Lane suggests, overplay their hand?

MARIA DE LOS ANGELES TORRES: Absolutely. I think that it was misplaced in this one child because in a certain sense this is a community that was founded by many parents who sent their children through the Operation Peter Pan for instance and it was about being able to exercise your political will. This was one case where there were... at least one parent who was alive who was saying he wanted his child back. I think that this has been a blow to, if you will, the integrity of political organizations. On the other hand, I think that a lot of good questions are being raised about not only the political leadership but the strategies that have been used and indeed our place as a community in this-- and indeed our place as a community in the United States. I would say there's a lot of discussion about how INS has become the great equalizer, if you will, for Cubans. I'd like to think that we should advocate not that everyone else... that we should be treated like everyone else but indeed that other immigrants should be treated with the respect that Cuban exiles have had in the past.

RAY SUAREZ: Does it take away a certain aura of invincibility that this community may have had, that they win a lot of these political confrontations?

MARIA DE LOS ANGELES TORRES: Well, you know, we have and we haven't, Ray, because if you look at 40 years, there's times when Cuban exiles did win and that's when we fulfilled a certain symbolic need for American foreign policy and at other times when we ran against the current of American foreign policy, we were demonized. So if you take that kind of perspective, I think it's trying to think that we need to develop an agenda that is independent both of the Cuban government and the U.S. Government and that responds to a plurality of voices in this community.

RAY SUAREZ: Juan Gonzalez, does it become harder to view the Latino community in the United States 30-plus million strong in monolithic terms now because of the splits that showed up during this controversy?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Certainly. I think that there were some Cuban-Americans, journalists as well as community leaders, who felt to some degree betrayed because they did not see the degree of support among Mexican leaders or Puerto Rican leaders around this issue as they had seen on other issues in the past. But I think there is a reality that there are differences between the communities that many Americans-Americans as well as Dominicans and others feel that this relative advantage that Cuban-Americans have enjoyed as being refugees who t particular benefits from thee federal government by their very status as refugees when others like the Salvadorans and the Guatemalans who came here in the '80s or the Dominicans who came here in the '60s never got that kind of regard; that these animosities have been there and came to the surface and crystallized with the Elian case. That doesn't mean that there aren't many issues on which all Latinos agree but there are sharp differences between the different ethnic groups within the Latino population of the United States.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, here in Washington, Charles Lane, do policy-makers have to reckon with a different Cuba in the America mind than they did seven months ago?

CHARLES LANE: I think one of the things Fidel Castro achieved for himself in this affair was not to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba, as such. But to normalize Cuba in the public perception in the United States, that is to say, he managed this story very skillfully and turned it into a story about how down in Cuba, we have families just like you have in the United States. We have fathers and sons and loving fathers and decent families and the rest. And that story line, I think, managed to dominate the coverage. And, in that sense I think he made great inroads in-- fairly or not by the way because as one of the other guests has quite rightly pointed out, there are tremendous abuses of human rights in Cuba-- but for better or worse, he has I think made inroads in the public perception in the United States of what life in Cuba is like. And I think he has changed the story line, if you like, and therefore, I think, laid the basis as we've already seen in congress for different policy approaches. He's made it... somehow this case I wouldn't want to say Mr. Castro but this case has made it politically a little bit less expensive for people to advocate changes in the embargo and the rest.

RAY SUAREZ: To the extent that there may be real movement on this issue in the short term?

CHARLES LANE: Well, look, we've already seen what's happened in the House. The entire House Republican leadership was lined up against this bill to lift the ban on food and medicine sales to Cuba, and nevertheless couldn't impose its will, had to compromise on that. It's very difficult to forecast anything, much more happening before we know who the next President and the next Congress are going to be. Clearly George Bush has a different view. Al Gore, as we've already seen, he's maintained at least in the Elian case a more Cuban exile position than President Clinton. Of course, that could be modified after the election. But, you know, for all that, it is clear that some kind of invulnerability as you put it of the Cuban exile community politically in Washington has been punctured. That could lead to other changes as well.

RAY SUAREZ: Panel, thank you all for being with us.

UPDATE - RX FOR CHANGE

JIM LEHRER: Now, the House debates prescription drug coverage; Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: A large group of House Democrats walked to the floor of the chamber this morning and when they didn't get their way turned on their heels and walked out. Democrats were angry that at 2:30 this morning, the Republican-controlled rules committee decided they wouldn't be allowed to offer debate or vote on their package of prescription drug benefits when the issue came to the floor later in the day. The Democrats made one last attempt to offer their plan this morning before heading toward the door. The walkout wasn't spontaneous. A podium, a bank of microphones and television cameras already were in place on the capitol steps when the Democrats got outside.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: What is happening on the floor of the House of Representatives today is an outrage to the senior citizens and the people of the United States and this act will not stand. Shame on the Republican party for not giving us an alternative.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Democrats' prescription drug plan, twice as costly as the Republicans, would provide coverage for all Medicare beneficiaries who would pay fixed premiums, no annual deductible costs and receive total coverage for drug purchases over $4,000. The Republican plan would make prescription drug coverage optional to seniors through private insurers. Seniors would pay a $250 annual deductible, adjustable premiums and receive total coverage for prescription costs over $6,000.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: The Republican plan is a sham. It's a hoax. It's a political fig leaf. It is their attempt to follow their pollsters' admonition that they must have a plan but it doesn't matter what it says. Well, let me tell you something: The American people care what it says. They want a good drug benefit and we will not rest until we're able to bring that drug benefit to the floor of the House.

KWAME HOLMAN: In less dramatic fashion, a group of House Republicans responded to the Democrats' walkout.

REP. DEBORAH PRYCE, (R) Ohio: They don't want the debate to be centered on the merits of this good bipartisan legislation. They want to close it down. So let them rant and rave. Let them have their parade. Let them stall. Let them dilly dally. We will get this vote and we will get this debate on the floor for the American people to see in spite of them once again.

KWAME HOLMAN: After making their points before the media, Democrats returned to the House chamber but held up debate on prescription drugs by forcing a series of time-consuming procedural motions and votes.

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order against consideration of the resolution.

SPOKESMAN: The yeas and nays are ordered. Those in favor of consideration of the bill will....

KWAME HOLMAN: This afternoon, the debate finally got underway with each side launching attacks against the others' prescription drug plan.

REP. J.D. HAYWORTH, (R) Arizona: Our friends on the left, advocates of big government, say, the Washington bureaucrats do it. Let's put bureaucrats in charge of the pharmacies. Let's put the bureaucrats in charge of the plans." We say, "no, let's insure freedom of choice. Give seniors choice. Let them decide what is best." Mr. Speaker, my colleagues --simply stated -- the plan on the left would fill the medicine bottles of America with red tape.

REP. ROBERT WEXLER, (D) Florida: Instead of providing prescription coverage for seniors, this bill provides political coverage for Republicans -- premiums are 40% higher than the Democratic plan. Worst of all it puts seniors desperate for life-saving drugs at the mercy of greedy HMO's. Sorry, mom, one year you're covered, the next you're not.

REP. PATRICK KENNEDY, (D) Rhode Island: Every time seniors are going to have to share theirmedications because they can't afford them, they're going to remember this vote. And I'll tell you when they're really going to remember this vote: They're going to remember this vote in the November election -- when they vote to return a Democratic majority to the House of Representatives because this Republican plan is nothing more than empty promises. You know what you get when you get empty promises? You get empty pill jars.

REP. CASS BALLENGER, (R) North Carolina: Mr. Chairman, I'm a senior citizen. I actually am that proper age and have Medicare. Each night I use Zocor and Cardura and Claridin D and Timoptin, but I pay for them myself. We in Congress earn over $130,000 per year. We should not receive government assistance. Let's help the poor who need it. The Democrat plan would take care of us, the Kennedys, the Houghtons and the Ballengers. We're too rich. We don't need it. Nobody in Congress should get it and yet the Democrat plan allows it. I'll yield back the balance of my time.

KWAME HOLMAN: While the debate in the House crept along, President Clinton held a white House news conference and added his opinion of the Republican prescription drug.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me make it specific and clear. This plan would not guarantee affordable prescription drugs to single senior citizens with incomes above $12,600 a year or to senior couples with incomes above $16,600 a year. We have all heard countless, countless stories of those with crushing medical burdens. If they could get these prescription drugs would have their lives lengthened and the quality of their lives improved.

KWAME HOLMAN: The President already has threatened to veto the Republican plan, but the House will have to approve it first. This evening, that effort was delayed further by more Democratic stall tactics, the latest: An objection over the use of a chart on the floor of the House.

SPOKESMAN: I object to the use of this exhibit, Mr. Speaker, pursuant to cause 6 of rule 17.

SPOKESMAN: Gentleman from California?

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous con sent that during consideration of hr-4680, all members be permitted to use exhibits in debate

SPOKESMAN: Is there objection?

SPOKESMAN: Object.

SPOKESMAN: Objection.

SPKOKESMAN: I object.

SPOKESMAN: The chair did hear an objection.

KWAME HOLMAN: After a 15-minute vote, the chart was aloud. -- The chart was allowed.

SERIES - FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, another poem from poet laureate Robert Pinsky's project of asking Americans to read their favorite poem. Tonight, a retired professor from Boston.

DANIEL McCALL: I'm Daniel McCall. I live in Boston, Massachusetts. I'm 81 years old. I'm a retired anthropologist. My father had a small shoe store and when bankrupt when I was nine years old. My mother had died when I was eight months old in the influenza epidemic in 1918, and I was in an orphanage for a while. I ran away so many times they wouldn't take me back, and I lived with my father in a hotel. It was called a family hotel, but I was the only child that was in the hotel. It was during that time, I think, that they had a teacher of English, Mrs. Fraser, who required all the classmates to choose a poem and learn it by heart. The poem that I selected, which has lived with me ever since, is certainly one that I learned by heart, because poems, I found, that really live in your heart, they mean a lot to you. And the longer you live, I guess, the more they mean. I joined the Coast Guard, which was a longer commitment of time than being drafted into the army, but I thought it would be more fun because I liked being on ships. I was still in the coast guard when Pearl Harbor occurred, and then the Coast Guard automatically became part of the Navy. And the first thing I knew I was on the coast of Asia instead of the coast of North America. Well, there was a night in boot camp when I was told to walk up and down a wharf. It was 12:00 to 4:00 A.M. winter night, very cold, holding this rifle on my shoulder. The stock was cold, my hand was cold, and the wind seemed to be really biting. I started reciting poetry to myself, and I started with poems that I knew. And I started with Shakespeare's 29th Sonnet. And sometimes I got lost and had to reconstitute and start over again, see where I was missing a line or something wasn't coming out in the right way. By the time that I got through all of the poems that I was trying to remember, I was being relieved -- and went back to bed. The poems helped me get through a difficult night. This is the poem which I learned when I was in the seventh grade. What it meant to me at that time was that feeling of being... such misfortune that was my experience in the orphanage. And the fact that the situation can be turned around so quickly, that business of being thrown down into the depths and being able to come up, and that seemed to me so hopeful. "Sonnet 29" by William Shakespeare. "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, and trouble deep heaven with my bootless cries, and look upon myself and curse my fate, wishing me like to one more rich in hope, featured like him, like him with friends possessed, desiring this man's art and that man's scope, with what I most enjoy contented least; yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, happily I think on thee, and then my heart-- like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth-- sings hymns at heaven's gate; for thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings that then I scorn to change my state with kings."

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday: The U.S. Supreme struck down Nebraska's ban on so-called partial birth abortions, and Elian Gonzalez and his father went home to Cuba after the Supreme Court refused to block their departure. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.