The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The major news of the day; then, the big Senate compromise, as seen by Senators Chafee, Nelson, Schumer, and sessions, and analyzed by Mark Shields and David Brooks; the latest on the violence in Iraq from Richard Oppel of the New York Times; and a Paul Solman report on the biography of economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Senate today cleared a logjam on federal judicial nominees. That came after moderates forced a compromise last night, preventing a showdown on filibusters. Under the deal, the Senate cut off debate on Priscilla Owen to be a federal appeals judge. A confirmation vote on her could come tomorrow. The compromise also guaranteed up-or-down votes for two other nominees blocked by Democrats. But there was no commitment to allow votes on two more disputed nominees. And the deal sidetracked Republican plans to ban all judicial filibusters. Today in Rochester, New York, President Bush welcomed the news. .

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I'm pleased that the Senate is moving forward on my judicial nominees who were previously being blocked. These nominees have been waiting years for an up or down vote on the Senate floor and now they'll get one. It's about time we're making some progress.

JIM LEHRER: A number of Senate Republicans objected to the deal, but most Democrats supported it. Democratic national chairman Howard Dean said, It was clearly a loss for the president, but it was a win for America because minority rights were supported. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Federal funding for stem cell research, it did so under the threat of a presidential veto. Kwame Holman has our report.

SPOKESMAN: The House will be in order

KWAME HOLMAN: As the House considered a pair of stem cell bills today, much of the debate centered on the more controversial one that would add new federal dollars for research on embryonic stem cells. Scientists say embryonic stem cells eventually could be grown into cells or tissues that might treat disease. But opponents argue that to obtain those cells, embryos must be destroyed, and taxpayers' money should not be used to promote that science.

REP. TOM DeLAY: The best one can say about embryonic stem cell research is that it is a scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings. Proponents of medical research on destroyed human embryos would justify admittedly unfortunate means with the potential ends of medical breakthroughs down the line.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Good evening

KWAME HOLMAN: In 2001, President Bush allowed federal funding of such research for the first time. But he limited it to work on cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed. Today, with the help of some Republicans, Democrats succeeded in forcing a vote on their bill that would revise that presidential order. It would allow new federally financed research on an estimated 8,000 embryos stored at in vitro fertilization clinics that otherwise would be discarded.

REP. JIM LANGEVIN: Stem cell research gives us hope and a reason to believe. I believe one day a child with diabetes will no longer face a lifetime of painful shots and tests. I believe one day families will no longer watch in agony as a loved one with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's gradually declines.

KWAME HOLMAN: House Republican leaders offered an alternative plan that would promote research on stem cells taken from umbilical discarded after birth. The bill's proponents argued that cord blood cells could prove medically useful, avoiding the need to destroy embryos. By this evening, the embryonic stem cell bill was expected to be approved, but without enough votes to override a veto. The cord blood bill was expected to pass as well.

JIM LEHRER: This afternoon, President Bush said he still opposes creating new stem cell lines from frozen embryos. He said the House bill allowing that step crosses a "critical ethical line." In Iraq today, the U.S. Military reported nine more American deaths in the last 24 hours. Four soldiers and a U.S. Marine were killed yesterday. Three more soldiers died today when a car bomb exploded near their convoy in Baghdad. Another was gunned down minutes later. Separately, a car bomb exploded outside a Baghdad school today. The blast killed six bystanders and injured four more. A surge of attacks has killed at least 560 Iraqis since the new government was announced last month. That's in addition to 58 American deaths. Iraqi officials reported today militants have taken over a northern city. Attacks in Tal Afar killed at least twenty people yesterday and two more today. An Iraqi colonel said the city is under "terrorist control." U.S. forces conducted a two-week operation against foreign fighters in Tal Afar late last year. There was word today terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded in Iraq. Al-Qaida in Iraq posted the announcement on the internet. It gave no details. We have a report narrated by Bill Neely of Independent Television News.

BILL NEELY: He is the face of al-Qaida in Iraq, instantly recognizable there. But he has eluded coalition forces for two years... apparently, until now. A militant web site used to publicize the group asks Muslims to pray for his "recovery from an injury he suffered in holy war." The fact that Zarqawi has been injured in Iraq will not stop his followers. Zarqawi leads the most brutal group in Iraq, responsible for hundreds of deaths, just yesterday killing a top antiterrorist commander. This was Zarqawi moments before he beheaded the first of two western hostages. Notoriously, his group murdered Ken Bigley and two colleagues after parading them on videos. This is video of Zarqawi, never seen before. Exactly where and when he was injured isn't clear, but two weeks ago a doctor said he recognized this as the face of the badly injured man he treated, a man bleeding heavily, with bodyguards, who wouldn't stay in hospital, who was nervous. That was in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, close to where a big U.S. attack was under way. There's no doubt the U.S. has come close. Beside Zarqawi in one video is his friend Abu Anas, later killed in a U.S. air raid. The U.S. Military say they can't confirm Zarqawi is wounded, but "he is our number-one target," they say. The hunt is still on.

JIM LEHRER: In Baghdad, a U.S. Army spokesman said there had been similar reports before. He said, "This could be another one of their ploys; you never know." Zarqawi has a bounty of $25 million on his head. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 19 points to close at 10,503. The NASDAQ rose nearly five points to close at 2,061. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: Onward in the U.S. Senate, with Senators Chafee, Nelson, Sessions, and Schumer, plus Shields and Brooks; an Iraq update; and an economist's life.

FOCUS - BACK FROM THE BRINK

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our coverage of that big Senate story.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Senate stood at the brink of legislative nuclear war last night. Republican Leader Bill Frist was prepared to outlaw the democrats' practice of filibustering judicial nominations within hours. Democratic Leader Harry Reid vowed to respond by slowing almost all Senate business to a crawl. The result, many political observers predicted, would be the congressional equivalent of mutually assured destruction. Suddenly a bipartisan group of senators emerged from a closed-door meeting with a signed memorandum of understanding that forced both leaders to step back from the abyss. Seven Republicans and seven Democrats agreed to support, as a group, up-or-down votes on three of the president's controversial judicial choices: Priscilla Owen, nominated to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; and William Pryor, nominated to the Eleventh Circuit Court. However, the group agreed not to commit its support for votes on two other nominees: William Myers, nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; and Henry Saad, nominated to the Sixth Circuit. The senators agreed the right to filibuster judicial nominations would be retained, but used only under "extraordinary circumstances." And finally, the group agreed to oppose any rules changes affecting judicial nominations during the 109th Congress, through 2006.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE: And I believe that this compromise reflects the better traditions of the Senate, and that is comity, cooperation, and collaboration. And I do believe as well that this is the essence of what our founding fathers designed the United States Senate to be. And that is an institution that achieves results through accommodation and collaboration.

KWAME HOLMAN: By their action, the seven democrats in the group left Sen. Reid short of the 41 votes needed to continue filibustering judges. And the seven Republicans left Sen. Frist short of the 50 he needed to outlaw the filibuster. Reacting to the deal this morning, Sen. Frist continued to maintain all nominees deserve an up-or-down vote.

SEN. BILL FRIST: Why just those three? Why exclude two others? Why be silent on others? That's why the agreement falls far short of the principle that I have again and again brought to this floor, the principle based on fairness. Second, the agreement, if followed in good faith, I believe will make filibusters in the future, including Supreme Court nominees, almost impossible, almost impossible. I will say that if the other side of the aisle asks in bad faith and if they resume that campaign of routine obstruction where one out of every four or one out of every three of every nominees coming from the president who make it through committee who make it to the executive calendar are filibustered, the constitutional option will come out again.

KWAME HOLMAN: Sen. Reid responded.

SEN. HARRY REID: Madame President, I support the memorandum of understanding. It took the nuclear option off the table. The nuclear option is gone for our lifetime. We don't have to talk about it anymore. I'm disappointed there are still these threats of the nuclear option. It's gone. Let's move on and do the Senate's business. So Madame President, I feel today as I indicated last night this is... last night was a good day for the Senate. Today is a good day for the Senate. Let's move forward and work as a Senate feels it should work. There have been no rule changes. We're here to do the will of the people of this country. That's why we're all elected.

SPOKESPERSON: The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.

KWAME HOLMAN: At noon today, the first element of the new bipartisan agreement on judges was implemented successfully as a majority of Democrats dropped efforts to filibuster the nomination of Priscilla Owen.

SPOKESMAN: Three fifths. Senator having voted in the affirmative the motion is agreed.

KWAME HOLMAN: That cleared the way for the final up or down vote on the Owen nomination possibly as soon as tomorrow.

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill takes the story from there.

GWEN IFILL: Joining us now are four members of the Senate who have weighed in on this debate. Two members who signed last night's agreement: Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island; and two members who still have their doubts: Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and Democrat Charles Schumer of New York. Welcome to you all.

Sen. Nelson, it seems surprising at the last minute last night that everyone moved off the dime. We heard in Roll Call - the Capitol Hill newspaper - today describe it as a stunning power grab by a group of mavericks and moderates and old bulls. What moved everybody off the dime?

SEN. BEN NELSON: I think everybody from the very beginning wanted to be able to do a deal. We recognized that this was a significant event about to come that would change the Senate forever, that would result in whatever comes from a nuclear option: Meltdown, fallout. But we felt that we needed to do something. And it was possible we could get more cloture votes to get up or down votes on the judges and at the same time preserve the valued tool called the filibuster for extraordinary circumstances. When it became clear that we had language together, we were all together on the agreement; signing it was just the last step.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Chafee, I'm curious about what you thought about this from the other side of the aisle. I think some of the Republican senators in particular were describing the negotiations of the last few days as a floating crap game. How did it play out in the end?

SEN. LINCOLN CHAFEE: Well, I agree with Sen. Nelson. I think we all wanted to get to some point where we wouldn't have to invoke the so- called "nuclear option" or constitutional option. I took Sen. Harry Reid at his word that he would shut down business in the Senate. And, as the previous clip showed, it's a very difficult war going on in Iraq; we need to focus on that. We've got Social Security with the retiring of the baby boomers; we need to focus on that. Health care, energy -- all important issues that I think that if this nuclear option had been invoked we wouldn't be working on. We need to work on those in somewhat of a bipartisan way. And if this were to happen, there was no way that would occur. We would never get together and some of these issues would suffer. So this was a big day.

GWEN IFILL: But Sen. Chafee, why these three particular nominees? I think most Americans don't know the difference between why these three and not others.

SEN. LINCOLN CHAFEE: Well, it's a warm-up for the Supreme Court. I mean, I think we all recognize that. I think the two sides are jockeying in anticipation of a vacancy on the Supreme Court which are where all the issues ultimately end up.

GWEN IFILL: So, Sen. Nelson, does that mean that if a Supreme Court nominee comes who Democrats don't like, you will be able to invoke your... the clause which allows you to filibuster in extraordinary circumstances?

SEN. BEN NELSON: I don't think that the threshold is a nominee you don't like. I think you have to have something that is extraordinary that would be beyond whether you agree or disagree with this candidate. Now, what constitutes extraordinary circumstances, well, I think Senators Collins and McCain said it best. They said you'll know it when you see it. And I think that's... that will be the test. As this process moves forward, I think if there are doubts about whether or not this particular candidate, this nominee will satisfy our test, there will be consultation back and forth among the members that have signed on to this agreement. I think we can work our way through it. I'm optimistic. This is not a contract; it's an agreement, a memorandum of understanding based on mutual trust, trusting one another.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Sessions, what's right with this deal and what's wrong with it?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I think it was a deal that stuck, that made some progress for confirmation of judges in a rather significant way. The seven Democrats basically broke ranks with the systematic filibusters, said they would not filibuster except under extraordinary circumstances, and then agreed to support cloture for three really fine nominees that were really unfairly attacked, I felt, and should have gotten an up or down vote. So it was from that point of view good. I think the Republicans should be proud of Bill Frist who really moved the ball and had the 51 votes necessary to change the rule. And it was at that point that the Democrats agreed to enter into negotiations, so I think he really moved the ball forward in that way. We would have been better in my view of staying with him. I think a more principled agreement could have been reached but the Senate is the Senate. We've got an agreement that allows us to go forward. Hopefully it can reduce tensions. Hopefully it can reduce this pattern of unfair misrepresentations of judges' records, their speeches and their backgrounds. I think that will be good for the Senate and maybe it will spill over to other issues.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Frist said that he wanted up or down votes on all of these judicial nominees -- the total I think came to seven who were in the mix here. That's not what he got.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: No. And several others still have a chance to getting an up or down vote. It just remains to be seen. The agreement did not guarantee it. But Sen. Frist has been principled. He's studied this for quite a lot of time. He marshaled the Republican members together, and I think he had 51 votes. And it was at that point when compromises were offered that senators said, okay, I'll support the compromise and not the rules change.

GWEN IFILL: Are you disappointed that that happened?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, I think things will work out. We'll just see. I do applaud the majority leader for getting us there. And I was prepared to support him.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Schumer what's right with this deal and what's wrong with it?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Well, far and away, the number one thing that's right with it is nuclear option is off the table. As has been said before, it would have been devastating for the Senate, it would have been devastating for America as we know it because it would mean that checks and balances aren't the hallmark of our government which it always has been. It would have meant you could just snap your fingers and change the rules at will in the middle of the game. That's off the table. And I want to compliment Ben Nelson and his group -- Ben was really a leader on this. I don't quite agree with Jeff Sessions' analysis. I talked to Ben repeatedly over the weekend. We didn't know where the votes were. I don't think anyone did. And I don't believe Sen. Frist did but the moderate group on both sides of the aisle came together. So taking the nuclear option off the table is far and away a real victory not just for those who put the agreement together but for the entire Senate because that would have brought us to Armageddon. The worst thing about it is these three judges who I believe and I think most Americans, had they seen their record would believe, don't really belong on the courts are going to get on. But as Jeff mentioned and others mentioned that's compromise and that's the Senate. And to get rid of the nuclear option and move forward, it was probably worth the game.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Schumer, you spent a lot of time on the floor of the Senate and in news conferences all over town last week talking about how unacceptable these three judges are. How is it acceptable to vote for them?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Well, I'm not going to vote for them but we will have some people who will vote for them. Yes, I think they are unacceptable. You know, somebody who says the New Deal was a socialist revolution and there should be no zoning laws because it's a taking of property so you could put a pornographic place next to a high school and you couldn't do anything about it to me doesn't belong on the DC Court of Appeals, the second most important court in the land. But I'm one of one hundred in the Senate. And overall as bad as having, say, that person on the bench is, it would have been worse to have the nuclear option, which would have really just brought the Senate to a grinding halt and been a dagger really right at the heart of what this republic is all about.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Sessions, there are two key things in this agreement: One that says that Democrats can still filibuster judicial nominees in extraordinary circumstances and another one in which it seems to imply that the majority leader will not be able to effect this rules change to allow what Sen. Schumer is calling the nuclear option. Do you think those things are going to hold?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, no. The way I understand it from the Republican senators who signed the agreement that their view is that if the filibusters start back for improper, not extraordinary reasons, they will vote for the constitutional option and the majority leader said it's absolutely not off the table. It is on the table. And we'll monitor this agreement. If there is a backtracking and we have routine filibustering of good quality nominees, I think that option will be back on the table. And I would just like to say to Sen. Schumer I do believe he mischaracterized the record of the judicial nominee that he mentioned there. And I think at some point we need to talk about that on the floor and we will. And the American people need to listen carefully because a lot of the charges against these nominees as being extreme are really unfair characterizations of their record.

GWEN IFILL: And, Sen. Schumer, the same question I addressed to Sen. Sessions, which we just heard Sen. Frist on the floor today say, he would still go back to trying to seek this rules change. Do you think that this is going to hold?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: And the agreement is pretty clear. It says that the nuclear option is off the table. Sen. Frist may be for it. But the agreement that the 14 signed said the nuclear option is off. It does say that filibustering will be only in extraordinary circumstances. But let me read you the next clause which people have forgotten. "And each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist." So that will be up to the conscience of each individual member, but the nuclear option, I think is gone. Sen. Reid has said it. Everyone else has said it. And that was the whole thing that brought the agreement together. And, again, I want to pat Ben Nelson on the back. He doesn't have the same views on judges as I do, but he knew how important it was to get the nuclear option off the table.

GWEN IFILL: Let's go back to Sen. Nelson because as one of the signatories on this agreement I'm curious about what you think would happen if there were a severely disputed Supreme Court nominee. Would your agreement -- the one that we forged out over all these secret meetings and not-so-secret meetings of the last week or so, will it be able to hold?

SEN. BEN NELSON: Well, I think so. I think if we get a nominee that is very controversial, it starts to raise questions about extraordinary circumstances, and you end up with five members of the Democratic side who feel that they have to filibuster; before that all happens you'll have a lot of consultation with members on the other side to make sure that there is agreement, that there's an understanding of why each individual senator would find this particular nominee to be extraordinary -- that, I think is -- or the circumstances behind and around that nominee extraordinary. So I think it's self-enforcing in a very positive way. This is built on trust. We do trust one another. And I think there can be, as I think Sen. Sessions said, a spilling out of... or a spilling over of the... of this trust and this comity and the ability to work together can help us in some other areas as well. But if we can't get the Senate back to mutual trust, we have other problems that may be in some respects greater than this one.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Chafee, are you as optimistic as your cohort there?

SEN. LINCOLN CHAFEE: Well, I think a key part of the agreement is to stress the advice part of the Constitution that said advice and consent. And the president has always gotten the consent of the Senate. We're urging him now to exercise the advice part of it. I think if he does that, then we can get a nominee or nominees to these courts, a nominee to the Supreme Court that could get 90 votes. I mean that's the ideal. Justice Scalia got over 90 votes. Both of President Clinton's nominees I believe Ginsberg and Breyer got over 90 votes so that's the goal.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Yes. I think, Gwen, that's a really important point that has not been stressed but is vital to this agreement. And that is that the president should consult. President Clinton regularly consulted with Republicans. In fact it was Sen. Hatch, the Republican leader of the Judiciary Committee, who suggested Justice Breyer's name. President Bush has not consulted with us on the major court of appeals nominees at all. And if he would start consulting with this group of 14, with the Republican leader which he may consult with now, I don't know, but with the Democratic leadership, we could avoid these kinds of situations. So the advice part of this agreement is really crucial, and I hope the president will begin consulting. He hasn't done it up to now.

GWEN IFILL: Let me give Sen. Sessions an opportunity to respond to that.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, President Bush does consult on judicial appointments but when you have a circuit maybe with fifteen judges and sixteen or eighteen senators, they may not consult with every single one on each appointment.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: I don't think he consults with any Democrats.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Schumer.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: I don't think he consults with a single Democrat on the Judiciary Committee on -

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: He consults with the senators in their states on nominees of judges in their states. He does that regularly. And President Clinton was not so good about that either. But presidents are doing a better job and I think he should consult and I believe he does. I believe that this agreement clearly is such that if a... the members who signed the agreement say, say the Republicans, believe that a new filibuster is undertaken that's not in good faith they have said they will vote to support the constitutional option. It is not off the table.

GWEN IFILL: And that will have to be the last word. Thank you all very much, senators.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

David, how would you characterize what has happened and add to that what you've just heard from these four senators?

DAVID BROOKS: Well I think first there's the deal and then the spinning of the deal.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

DAVID BROOKS: First the deal. You know, I think it's great. You know, the sky opens up. Angels come down. Handel's Hallelujah chorus, because what happened is they actually compromised. There's two ways of doing politics where you try to just crush the other side 100 percent or where you actually cut a deal. And they cut a deal and the way they cut the deal at the end of the day-- and I didn't think we could do it-- was with a measure of trust among the 14. When they were in that room -- McCain's office -- trying to write language there was a level of distrust among those 14 who are friends. They couldn't trust each other so they didn't know how they would spin the deal. When you look at the agreement they did trust each other because it's vague. They said, okay, the filibuster will be safe, legal and rare. You won't abuse it and we won't abuse our side of the thing. And so at least among those 14 for this week there's a level of compromise, deal-making and trust.

JIM LEHRER: How would you characterize it, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I agree with David it is a compromise. That's something we don't see very often. In a compromise both sides give something.

JIM LEHRER: Both sides win; both sides lose.

MARK SHIELDS: And both sides lose, and that was obviously the case.

JIM LEHRER: We just heard it explained.

MARK SHIELDS: We sure did, absolutely. It was a victory, a triumph of, by and for the moderates. And the moderates are among the most disparaged groups in all of politics. The definition of a moderate....

JIM LEHRER: Define a moderate.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, the definition of a moderate is kind of a wise guy is that moderate is somebody when you're drowning 20 feet off shore throws you a 15-foot rope and boasts he went more than halfway. They're always well intentioned but they're not hard headed pragmatists. Well, these guys took on the toughest interest groups in both parties. They risked their disdain, their all out hostility; the safety in this, to be very frank about it, was in the pack, the safety was staying in your caucus, whether it was the Republican Caucus or the Democratic Caucus.

JIM LEHRER: Stay with Frist or stay with...

MARK SHIELDS: Stay with Harry Reid. But they rolled the dice and David's right, they trusted each other. But they did something bigger than that. They took a risk that showed they were willing, and they broke from the critical safety, they refused to play it safe. And I have to say, Jim, during my time in Washington, all the great achievements, the ones that stand the test of history-- the Marshall Plan, authored by a Democratic president, pushed by a Republican senator, Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan; the great Civil Rights Acts of Lyndon Johnson wouldn't have passed without Jacob Javitz, the Republican of New York, and Everett Dirksen, the Republican of Illinois; there wouldn't have been an environmental movement without a Republican president, Richard Nixon, and a Democratic Congress. And I just -- I think this example of bipartisanship -- I agree with David. I think it is terrific. I think it's important, and I think these people deserve enormous, enormous credit.

JIM LEHRER: Now, you admitted it a moment ago that you didn't think this could -- the moderates would do this.

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think happened to them?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think first of all they focused the mind, because you know, they really hated the idea of what was about to happen to their body. I think the other thing that happened, they had some support from the leaders, I think.

JIM LEHRER: I mean, a wink, you think they had?

DAVID BROOKS: I think they had a wink. And I also think they had... a lot of people say on the Republican side, who are publicly going to vote for the constitutional option or the nuclear option, but privately were against it. So I think that happened. And then I think they just realized that this was the moment to take a risk. You know there's going to be cause. I think John McCain led in a way that is unusual for his reputation because he was not the lone wolf. He was actually organizing other people. So I think he did a good job. I think Ben Nelson was persistent. But then the people who are most nervous and who have the most to lose were people like Joe Lieberman in Connecticut and Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

JIM LEHRER: Lieberman being a Democrat, Graham being a Republican.

DAVID BROOKS: Who had significant home state opposition at least amongst the interest group, maybe not among the people, and so they took a risk and those people -- and I think it was the Democrats who were wavering last week. And those people took a risk. And I think whether you agree or not those are honorable people.

JIM LEHRER: What about John McCain? A lot of the punditry since last night has been, oh, well, he has pretty much forfeited any Republican, conservative support for the presidential nomination in four years. Do you agree with that?

MARK SHIELDS: No, I don't. I think John McCain has always been a maverick. I mean in that group there were moderates, there were mavericks and I would add there were institutionalists. And I think the two institutionalists that stood out, the people who were there represented no ambition beyond the immediate. These are men who have remarkable careers: John Warner of Virginia and Robert Byrd of West Virginia. And I think they were the ones, when they went into that room and said this is big....

JIM LEHRER: We need to understand it because we're using a lot of labels here. Robert Byrd is hardly... would hardly be considered a moderate of the Democratic Party.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: And you would not consider John Warner a moderate of the Republican Party.

MARK SHIELDS: Not the same way you certainly consider the New England Republicans.

JIM LEHRER: Exactly.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right. But both of them, both of them remember the Senate when it was a more collegial, a more humane, and a more trusting place. And they represent that. They don't want to see it further descend. Jim, you have to understand Washington is the politically paralyzed, politically polarized Washington is the only place in America where the word "moderate" is an insult, an invective. I mean,that's what they were charged today. They were condemned by conservatives all over the place from Paul Wyrick to others, these moderates. They've robbed us of our great victory. And, you know, it really is remarkable. John McCain has always marched to a different drum. If the Republicans are going to nominate somebody who stands solely alone, you know who he is, what he believes, there's no trimming, no hedging, John McCain will be their guy. If there's looking for somebody who is a true believer, it will never be John McCain.

JIM LEHRER: Take us through this, David. These are your folks -- the conservatives. How are the conservatives going to react to this? Is anybody going to have to pay a price, do you believe?

DAVID BROOKS: I don't think they'll have to pay a price. The conservative like James Dobson are apoplectic. James Dobson wakes up apoplectic. But, you know, they wanted to fight. I'm reminded of that old joke that when two men fight over a woman it's the fight they want, not the woman. They were geared up for this fight. But I think in a not-too-distant future people are going to see that this is a good win for those conservatives because....

JIM LEHRER: In what way?

DAVID BROOKS: It creates what I think of as the Brown standard. The Democrats said they would only filibuster under extraordinary circumstances. They said the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown is not an extraordinary circumstance. So any time a judge is nominated and who is as conservative as Janice Rogers Brown, which is pretty conservative, the Republicans will say, hey, if she's not extraordinary, then this person is not extraordinary. You have got to allow a vote on this person. So I think what it does, it widens what we call the mainstream of what's an acceptable nominee up to Janice Rogers Brown and in years to come that's going to be a good standard for conservatives.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think this doesn't stop but prevents a major fight over the next Supreme Court nominee?

MARK SHIELDS: No. No. I think if it's somebody like Clarence Thomas to be Chief Justice there will be a fight.

JIM LEHRER: No matter what? Even though he was confirmed before?

MARK SHIELDS: Yeah. He was confirmed. He got a negative report out of the committee. He got....

JIM LEHRER: We don't want to go into the specifics.

MARK SHIELDS: It was a brilliant -- it was a brutal fight on the floor. I mean so....

JIM LEHRER: I don't mean to go through individuals here but do you think... you don't think this will in some way mitigate-- that's the word I was reaching for and couldn't find a moment ago-- do you think this mitigates the possibility of a huge fight over the next Supreme Court nominee?

MARK SHIELDS: No, I think it probably does. But I do think, Jim, that as you look at that, the discussion when Gwen just had, when Lincoln Chafee brought up the advise part, that was very important in this whole thing -- that the president -- the Senate not only consents to the president -- they advise. And Bill Clinton did on both Breyer and Ginsberg he went to be sure that there weren't going to be any problems before --

JIM LEHRER: Went to Orrin Hatch before. Let me get a quick -

MARK SHIELDS: Go ahead.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think about the Supreme Court thing?

DAVID BROOKS: I think there's a step toward trust because people have really looked over the precipice but if there's sort of a controversial nominee, what we saw just now with those senators was Jeff Sessions has his version, Chuck Schumer certainly has a different version and so that trust element, if thatwashes away then we'll be back to where we were.

JIM LEHRER: All bets are off.

MARK SHIELDS: Just one thing and that is the ultimate irony would be this -- that the Republican Congress, which has plummeted since January in popular approval, I mean, it's dropped 20 points since January alone in its performance, if in fact it was rehabilitated and saved by the moderates who get the disdain of the conservatives in the Republican Party.

JIM LEHRER: We'll continue this conversation on Friday night. Thank you all very much.

FOCUS - STRUGGLE FOR SECURITY

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: an Iraq update and the life of economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

JIM LEHRER: Our Iraq report comes from Richard Oppel of the New York Times in Baghdad. Ray Suarez talked with him earlier this evening by telephone.

RAY SUAREZ: Richard Oppel, welcome. What are Iraqi and American officials saying about this latest upsurge in violence?

RICHARD OPPEL: Well, it had been a bit slower for a few days, but last week a senior American commander in Baghdad gave some reporters a background briefing where he quite bluntly said that he expected there to be an upsurge soon, that their best guess, or their intelligence was that the insurgents were regrouping, and he expected something to occur shortly. And that's what it looked like happened yesterday certainly, and with some continuation of that today.

RAY SUAREZ: Are they taking seriously the word that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded?

RICHARD OPPEL: I think they're taking it very seriously, but they're also very careful to be skeptical about it. I mean, we had an American general in Iraq tell us today: we wouldn't disregard it, but we aren't banking on it; the intel isn't solid. It could be a ruse to throw us off his trail. So I think first, there's a question of whether the message is authentically from al-Qaida, which it sounds like there's at least a reasonable chance it is, given the web site or the way it was posted over the Internet. But then the second question obviously is, even if it is from al-Qaida, you know, is it true or not? And I think the attitude of the military is that you have to assume that he's still alive and he is still out there and they have to do whatever they can to catch him and kill him.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, recently, a lot of the attacks -- certainly since the new Iraqi cabinet came to office, the insurgent attacks were aimed almost exclusively at Iraqi citizens. Now there's been a sudden spike in deaths among American service people again. Why?

RICHARD OPPEL: Well, that's right. I don't know that we know why the spike has happened against the servicemen. There were basically 14 deaths in two days, in a 48-hour period. The bulk of that was over the last twenty-four or thirty-six hours, with some large car bombs south of Baghdad and in Central Baghdad today. The violence against Iraqi civilians is... the concern about that among those American and Iraqi officials is that has been sectarian-driven violence, specifically Sunni militants and Sunni terrorists targeting Shiites and trying to foment under the basis of a civil war through attacks, as we saw yesterday. We saw three big attacks in Tal Afar in the North against a... we think the target was a Shiite... a prominent Shiite leader in a Shiite neighborhood in Tal Afar that killed around twenty, and a Shiite mosque bombing south of Baghdad that killed, we think, around fifteen or twenty; and in a bombing of a popular Shiite restaurant in a Shiite area in Baghdad that killed about ten also yesterday. The American military and the Iraqi authorities are not totally clear on the level of I guess what they call command and coordination and control among the insurgent groups and to what extent these sorts of attacks are coordinated. But clearly they've been targeting civilians, and in particular Shiite civilians, of late.

RAY SUAREZ: That idea that these attacks are meant to drive a wedge between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, and between Kurds and both of the other groups, is that something that the forces against the current Iraqi government, forces against the American presence, are open about in their communications? Do they say as much?

RICHARD OPPEL: Zarqawi in particular has long stated that one of his goals was to foment sectarian violence and sectarian divisions, so I think it's pretty clear that that is a principal objective of at least the people linked to him.

RAY SUAREZ: Over the weekend we saw an olive branch being held out by one noted Shiite leader, Moqtada al-Sadr. Tell us about that.

RICHARD OPPEL: Well, it's tough to know what to make of this. Sadr has an extensive record of making and quickly breaking pledges and promises of peace or reconciliation or anything along those lines. But basically Sadr is now holding himself out as a go-between between Sunni leaders who think that Shiite militiamen have been attacking them and in some cases murdering some of their leaders, and the Shiites, on the other hand, who believe that Sunni militants and Sunni insurgents have been responsible for the killing of Shiites. The thing about Sadr is - the question is whether watching the political process develop as it has the last month or two, and the fact that the Shiites are now running the government, I think people will look at what Sadr is doing now and wonder whether he's basically trying to... realizing that the train is leaving the station politically, he's trying to get on before it's too late.

RAY SUAREZ: What do rank-and-file Iraqis make of all this? Is the violence changing their impression of both the American presence and of their own new government, and are they changing their daily habits in response to the violence?

RICHARD OPPEL: I think the daily habits have changed over time. That's been something that occurred well before this latest spate of violence that has occurred over the last three or four weeks. But there was a lot of euphoria after the elections, and it's pretty clear that the... certainly in the minds of Iraqi and American authorities over here, that the insurgents really have... since the Jaafari government was selected and sworn in, they've really tried to undermine the public's confidence in the government. And I think even the American military has done some polling in the last month or two that showed that what was sort of a euphoric feeling after the elections in the minds of average Iraqis has certainly dissipated. The violence we've seen over the last month is similar to what we've seen in some bad stretches over the last year.

RAY SUAREZ: Richard Oppel, of the New York Times, thanks for joining us.

RICHARD OPPEL: Thanks very much.

FOCUS - GOVERNING THE ECONOMY

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, our economics correspondent Paul Solman, of WGBH-Boston, has a look at the impact of a famous economist, now the subject of a new biography.

PAUL SOLMAN: John Kenneth Galbraith, 20th century America's most famous economist. Advisor to Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman-- the most famous figures in the democratic party for more than seven decades-- always advising them that markets need an active government to help make them work. Author of a new Galbraith biography, Richard Parker:

RICHARD PARKER: He broke with American conservatism over this idea in the 1930s that free markets could solve their own problems. The American economy in the 1930s was in a mess. We were in the middle of a great Depression. A quarter of the population was out of work. 90 percent of the stock market had disappeared. But conservatives were saying, "Leave it alone. The economy will come back." Galbraith was quite worried. He saw Stalin in Moscow. He saw Hitler in Germany. And he wanted to save capitalism from its failure.

PAUL SOLMAN: So what did he do?

RICHARD PARKER: So what he does is he... is, influenced by an English economist named Keynes, and devises an idea of how to use government to smooth out the cycles that business normally goes through, the ups and downs of the so-called business cycle. By using government spending at the bottom of these cycles, you can stimulate the economy from the drop, and you can also use government tax policy to clip off the high excesses that would lead to irrational exuberance.

PAUL SOLMAN: In other words, you'd tax people, take money out of their pocket, and therefore they wouldn't be able to spend. That would dampen the....

RICHARD PARKER: Exactly at the height. And then what you do is you pump money in at the bottom using deficit spending by government.

PAUL SOLMAN: That's what... that was the prescription for the '30s.

RICHARD PARKER: He's writing about it, he's teaching at Harvard University, but he's also serving as an advisor to the New Deal. And by the start of the Second World War, Roosevelt trusts him enough that, as a 32-year-old, Galbraith is put in charge of the American domestic economy. He's the price czar in World War II, the man who is in charge of making sure that the economy can grow quickly to accommodate all the military needs of the Second World War, but that inflation doesn't break out and disrupt the economy and disrupt America's war-making capacities.

PAUL SOLMAN: Because the idea is that if you suddenly have lots of orders at certain factories and you have to have lots of people work at those factories, that's going to drive up the prices and the wages.

RICHARD PARKER: Right. It creates scarcity. It creates extraordinary demand and just... prices will soar if you don't manage the economy.

PAUL SOLMAN: So during the war, Galbraith set prices, instituted rationing. Post-war, however, he agrees with the consensus: Time to unleash the market. But he still wants a strong government role.

RICHARD PARKER: He does want to continue this process after the war, of cutting off the top of business cycles and cutting off the bottom by using government. And in fact, America adopts those policies, and for the next 30 years, goes through an extraordinary boom that creates this enormous American middle class.

PAUL SOLMAN: So that's when he's really riding high.

RICHARD PARKER: He's riding at the top of his game at that point. He is the most famous economist in the country. He's listened to by politicians, by journalists, by the general public. His words are hung on by just amazing number of people from across the spectrum.

PAUL SOLMAN: In the late '50s, Galbraith wrote "The Affluent Society," still in print, arguing that the private sector was too much in control.

RICHARD PARKER: We were producing big Cadillacs with the tail fins. We were constructing gigantic suburbs. But we weren't paying for the things that America really needed: The great quality education systems, the hospitals, the roads, the parks, the sort of things that make for a really first-class quality of life.

PAUL SOLMAN: So before he was trying to save capitalism from itself. Now he's trying to save capitalism from its excesses.

RICHARD PARKER: Well, in the '30 he was worried about its failures. Now he's worried about its excesses, and it's quite appropriate because he's an economist who adapts his prescriptions to the times.

PAUL SOLMAN: In 1960, with John F. Kennedy's election as president, Galbraith got another shot at government. A campaign speech writer, he becomes ambassador to India, and secretly a key so-called back channel advisor. And what's he telling President Kennedy in these back-channel communications?

RICHARD PARKER: Well, he's telling President Kennedy economically that we have an opportunity now in the 1960s to right this balance between public sector starvation and private sector excess. And in fact, he convinces Kennedy to become this activist Keynesian, this activist manager of the economy.

PAUL SOLMAN: Along with government activism in the '60s came great prosperity. And the notions of John Maynard Keynes to moderate the swings in the economy became the conventional wisdom, a phrase that Galbraith actually coined. But the big government projects of that era-- the wars against poverty and Vietnam-- helped fuel inflation, at the same time that the oil crises in the '70s helped lead to both inflation and recession.

RICHARD PARKER: We get high unemployment. We get high inflation at the same time. And it ends up delegitimizing the Democrats, it delegitimizes liberalism, and it delegitimizes the kind of economics that Galbraith has been pressing for, for the last 30 years.

PAUL SOLMAN: Okay. So, we're now, let's say, in the 1980s, and Reaganism comes in. This is the opposite of Galbraith, right? What is it that Reaganism is saying and offering that seems to inspire so many people?

RICHARD PARKER: Well, what happens is Reagan comes in saying that the past history of America has gotten the whole thing wrong. Government is the problem, not the solution. "I, Ronald Reagan, am going to give you smaller government. I'm going to give you fiscal responsibility. I'm going to free up the markets. Once we go back to letting the markets ride free, everything's going to be better for everybody." Galbraith by now is in his 70s, but remains a ferocious critic of Reagan and this new conservatism. He says, first of all, you don't end up making government smaller. Government didn't get smaller under Ronald Reagan. It didn't get smaller under either George Bush I or the present government. Second, he said the Republicans didn't in fact bring fiscal responsibility they promised. They've run deficits continuously for the last 30 years. So they haven't met their own promise, but what they have done is gotten the imbalance between the public and private even worse. He says this is absolutely the wrong way to lead an economy for a democratic people, small "d."

PAUL SOLMAN: But he's been on the losing side now, since 1968, far more often than not. And he's no longer the iconic figure, John Kenneth Galbraith that he was certainly when I was younger.

RICHARD PARKER: True. Well, part of it is age. I mean, he was in his 70s when this period emerged. And he's gone into his 80s. He's now 96. And it's very difficult to stay contemporary and on top of your game and in the public eye as you reach this great seniority. So that's part of it.

PAUL SOLMAN: The other part, Parker thinks, is that Republicans have made Democrats like Galbraith seem anti-market. However, says Parker, Galbraith represents something much more nuanced.

RICHARD PARKER: Markets, he thinks, are terrific. They have a really important role to play, but that life needs to balance freedom with security, and government still has a role to play in markets. So he has a really stiff critique of Republican promise versus Republican delivery, but at the same time, a tough critique of democrats for losing nerve and losing vision to tell a different story.

PAUL SOLMAN: After spending years on this biography, Richard Parker knows his subject pretty well. Galbraith, Parker says, expects today's economic paradigm to change.

RICHARD PARKER: He thinks that we're in a period of Republican overreach. He's been warning for some time now that this attempt to privatize Social Security is going to fail because it's not a liberal program, because it's a program for and supported by the majority of the American people. And again, the extremism of this generation of Republicans has misunderstood that. And its pursuit of its ideological goals, as far as he's concerned, means that with time, this is going to pass. I mean, this is a man who survived Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon. He's seen a lot of Republicans. He's done... he's outlived Ronald Reagan. He is doing just fine as far as he's concerned. And he thinks that, yeah, America is ready to look in different directions in the years ahead.

PAUL SOLMAN: I'd ask Richard Parker one last question. Did he think Galbraith himself might be up for a short visit? An hour later at the Cambridge house the Galbraiths have occupied for the past half- century, parker and I climbed to the bedroom. Wife Kitty, herself 92, and a nurse were watching over him. Galbraith was, well, matter-of- fact.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: Sit down.

PAUL SOLMAN: I promised to be brief, so I got right to the point. Hasn't Galbraith's economic vision been eclipsed?

PAUL SOLMAN: Beginning with the Reagan administration and certainly now in the second bush administration?

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: No question it's been eclipsed by the people who have the money. There's no question that this is a time when corporations have taken over the basic process of governing.

PAUL SOLMAN: Will the pendulum swing back, do you suppose?

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: Whether in my lifetime or not, could require an exceedingly optimistic answer. But there is a certain alert concern on these matters running through the whole structure of the United States and the other democracies, is something that has operated up until now, and I strongly expect it to operate in the future.

PAUL SOLMAN: John Kenneth Galbraith entered the hospital for pneumonia a few days after our interview. He was still there as of today.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: The U.S. Senate cleared a logjam on federal judicial nominees. Moderates forced a compromise, preventing a showdown on filibusters. The House voted to ease the ban on federal funding for research into embryonic stem cells. The bill now goes to the Senate under the threat of a presidential veto. The U.S. Military reported nine more Americans killed in Iraq in the last 24 hours. And al-Qaida in Iraq announced its leader, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, had been wounded. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.