The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

TELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is off tonight. On the NewsHour the week's politics with Shields & Gigot, the year so far as seen by our political cartoonists, a preview of Pakistan's elections, and the "Star Wars" phenomenon, a film critic and historian explain that. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday. NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Defense Secretary William Cohen held his first news conference today. He announced his first overseas trip would be to visit American troops in Bosnia. He said he expected U.S. troops in the international force there would be pulled out in 18 months. Secretary Cohen was asked about Marine Corps hazing incidents that were videotaped in 1991 and 1993. The video showed an initiation rite for Marine paratroopers. Cohen said he would not tolerate such behavior.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: Military service is a special duty that requires dedication and sacrifice by the men and women who are protecting our country, and they deserve our full support, and they also deserve to be treated with great dignity and respect. And I must say that I am disturbed and disgusted by the treatment of young Marines in the hazing incidents that occurred back in 1991 and '93 as portrayed in the recent news accounts. Abuse such as this has no place in any branch of the United States military, and as Secretary of Defense, I may not comment on any particular case that's pending in the military justice system, but you can be sure that I intend to enforce a strict policy of zero tolerance of hazing, of sexual harassment, and of racism.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Cohen said he understood there had been about 80 incidents of such hazing uncovered in the Marine Corps in the past three to five years. Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was with Cohen at the news conference. He said even one hazing incident was too many. In economic news the Commerce Department issued a report today saying the Gross Domestic Product rose 4.7 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. The overall annual growth rate for 1996 was 2.5 percent. Vice President Gore told reporters the growth rate is further evidence the economy is expanding at a steady pace.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: This is again strong growth, increasing wages, a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor, and low, historically low inflation. Business investment continues to increase. What it shows, in sum, is that the economic policies the President put in place four years ago that are continued in the budget that will shortly be presented to the Congress are working extremely well.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: A measure of inflation in today's Commerce Department report showed prices rose 2.1 percent last year. That was less than the 2.4 percent price rise of 1995. President Clinton sent a request to Congress today asking for speedy funding of overseas family planning programs. The money is distributed through AID, the Agency for International Development. The allocation is intended for birth control devices and pills. The measure stipulates none of that money is to be used for abortions, but anti-abortion activists want to bar all U.S. money to organizations that perform or advocate abortions, including groups that use their own funds. A vote on the measure is expected to come in February. The FBI confirmed today that two pipe bombs had been mailed to its regional office in SanDiego. The package was detonated safely and an investigation is underway. The Bureau is also conducting an internal investigation of its crime lab in Washington. It was ordered when a scientist complained of careless procedures that could affect evidence gathered in several major cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing. In South Carolina today officials at the Citadel Military College said 24 women have been selected for admission in the next school year. Thirty-five had applied. Four women were admitted to the formerly all-male institution last fall. Two of them did not return this month. They said they had been dangerously hazed and harassed by male cadets. The Citadel's commandant said one of the accused cadets has resigned. Ten others face disciplinary reviews. In Croatia today a Belgian corporal who belonged to the international stabilization force was shot to death in a United Nations vehicle. The suspect in the shooting was described by the Yugoslav news agency as a man with mental problems. He was arrested near U.N. headquarters in the city of Bukovar. A Jordanian soldier and a U.N. official were wounded in the shooting incident. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Shields & Gigot, political cartoonists, the Pakistan elections, and "Star Wars" revisited. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now our end-of-the-week political analysis with Shields & Gigot, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: It was another tough week on the ethics front for both Speaker Gingrich and the President.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: I would just ask here so that I have instructions from back home.

MARGARET WARNER: Last Saturday Newt Gingrich returned to Georgia. It was his first time to meet with his suburban Atlanta constituents since the House voted to reprimand the Speaker and fine him $300,000 for ethics violations. While the audiences were mostly friendly, some constituents did press the Speaker to explain and defend his conduct. Gingrich offered no apologies.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH: I'll tell you bluntly, I think there is an amazing double standard. Now, let me give you an example. You can on the left do anything you want, and nobody seems to notice. But if you are a conservative and you follow the law and you hire lawyers and you do what you can, if you make a single mistake, you had better plan to be pilloried because you're politically incorrect.

MARGARET WARNER: But in Washington on Tuesday President Clinton found he could not escape ethics questions either. It was the first news conference of his second term, and the President had hoped to highlight his latest education proposals. Instead, fully one third of the questions focused on possibly improper White House involvement and Democratic fund-raising activities. The President was asked about some 103 White House coffees held for potential donors in the year and a half before the election. At one event last May sponsored by the Democratic Party more than a dozen bankers met with the President, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and the nation's top banking regulator, Comptroller of the Currency Eugene Ludwig. Some of the bankers later donated a combined $333,000 to the party. Ludwig said last week he had no idea of the party's involvement in the event. The President agreed Tuesday that in retrospect, Ludwig should not have been invited to the meeting. He also conceded that White House officials may have erred in other ways. PRESIDENT CLINTON: It costs so much money to pay for these campaigns that mistakes were made here by people who either did it deliberately or inadvertently. Now, others--it's up to others to decide whether those mistakes were made deliberately or inadvertently. It's up to me to do what I can to clean up the system.

MARGARET WARNER: Questions about the propriety of the banker's coffees threatened the confirmation prospects of the President's nominee for Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman. Herman previously headed the White House Office of Public Liaison which helped organize the coffee. A further potential problem for the White House erupted two days after the press conference. The Los Angeles Times reported that the White House had maintained at taxpayer expense a computer database of some 350,000 visitors and supporters and then shared that information with Democratic National Committee fund-raisers seeking to identify potential donors. White House officials deny that the DNC was allowed access to the list. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, began laying the groundwork for an investigation into campaign finance abuses during the '96 election.

SEN. FRED THOMPSON, Chairman, Governmental Affairs Committee: Those of us with responsibilities in this area, whether it be the President or members of Congress, cannot let the call for reform serve to gloss over serious violations of existing laws. If we do that, the reform debate will be cast in a totally partisan context and ensure once again that campaign finance reform will be killed.

MARGARET WARNER: Thompson's committee voted yesterday to ask the Senate for up to $6.5 million for its investigation. That's more than the combined cost of the earlier Senate inquiries into Whitewater and the Iran-Contra Affair. We explore all this now with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, what do you make of the way the President handled these ethics questions this week?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, Margaret, first of all, I know it'll surprise some people that in a presidential campaign a president is involved in fund-raising, and after sort of the false shrieks of surprise on the part of his critics, a couple of things do come through. First of all, Bill Clinton sounded Ronald Reagan in the Iran- Contra. Mistakes were made. When you start using the passive structure, it's a distancing. American people are yearning, yearning for a leader with responsibility, to accept that responsibility, to acknowledge that responsibility. We have two leaders of government right now of the executive and the legislative, both--neither of whom seems to willing to do it. And while the President did say he had a responsibility after that, and then he said I'd have to leave it to others to judge, and just, you know, it smacks of blame shifting and finger pointing.

MARGARET WARNER: Paul, blame shifting, do you think?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, it certainly was the passive tense. I think the two different scandals, if you will, are at very different times and periods. Newt Gingrich and his problems are over in the sense that the Ethics Committee has spoken. He took a plea bargain. He was punished by the Congress, and I think a lot of Republicans now want him to say not very much more; just let it lie. Just get it past you and go on with something else. The thing the president has with the financing problem is just beginning, and I think people want him to say more, to be more forthcoming. And he made some progress from last week where he was very defensive. And now he said mistakes were made. The next stage, I guess, is whose mistakes were they, how far did they go, how was the President or his key people in on 'em, that sort of thing, so I think there's an awful lot more that's going to have unfold in this, and the key point is, is he going to go about this differently than he did in the first term with some of the Whitewater problems where as the Washington Post put it they let things out in dribs and drabs in a way that created a cloud over them for a couple of years. If the President treats this problem differently and is more forthcoming, I think he can get probably get it behind him faster.

MARGARET WARNER: Mark, do you think, picking up on what Paul said, that the President is taking the right approach when he says, look, it's up to other people to figure out whether the mistakes were made inadvertently or deliberately?

MARK SHIELDS: No, I don't. I think it's bad politics, as well as bad policy. I mean, the President is an enormously interested, insatiably curious man, and now here there's an uncharacteristic lack of curiosity it seems to me, and I think he'd be well served and the country would be as well to take a person of the stature, independence of an Elliot Richardson, from a Republican attorney general and say, okay, look into the whole thing, tell me, report back to it. Margaret, what we have now is a scandal that's inevitable. It's inevitable for a very simple reason. We now spent four times as much in 1996, raised the Democrats and the Republicans, Republicans raised more and spent more, than we did in 1988. We spent 73 percent more, was raised, shaken down in 1996 than was raised in 1992. By contrast, in the past four years the cost of college, higher education, went up 17 percent. The cost of- -the wages earned by Americans went up 13 percent, and the cost of campaigns went up 73 percent. I mean, it is a scandal. It's inevitable. It's going to hit--it will hit both parties, and that's why I think Fred Thompson is probably the key and central person in this whole drama.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Paul, that was one of the points. In fact, the President said, wasn't it in his own defense, he said, look, really the problem is we've got a campaign finance system that's just gone haywire.

PAUL GIGOT: Well, look, Margaret, the President and the Democrats are desperate to change the subject from the rules that are currently in place that were broken this election to the new rules they want to pass that they promised not to break the next election. I mean, how can you pass new rules, how can you say we need new campaign finance reform, when we can't abide by the current system we have? And that's the thing that really has to be the focus. That's what Fred Thompson said. We can't try to deflect attention from what's happened this time. Otherwise, we're just going to end up piling new law on new law without any accountability.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Paul, where is the Senate investigation going? What do you think is going to be the scope of it?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, it looks to me like Fred Thompson is laying out an investigation that is going to be quite broad and quite extensive and maybe quite long. $6 + million is a lot of money, and he's not going to do it right away. He's not going to make the mistake of starting out just for the sake of headlines and getting some headlines in February and March and having it trail off. I think it's smart to--to try to build up and get as much information you can and build an argument, tell a story, and then I think he's also smart if he tries to bring in some of the Democrats here, sothat it doesn't look as if this is going to be just a partisan exercise. And, you know, that would help if he can make it, if he can bring in somebody like John Glenn to really go over the books of the DNC.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you see for this investigation?

MARK SHIELDS: Let me correct, Paul. Fred Thompson is committed to writing new laws. He was one of the half dozen Republicans and a very stalwart Republican in the Senate who supported the McCain- Feingold bill in 1996 before all of this came out. And he is just as strong and a co-sponsor of that legislation now which would change the way we raise money and limit severely what campaigns and candidates and committees can do. I think Fred Thompson is approaching it in a very thoughtful and serious way. His statement this week was a shot across the bow, not only the White House but of Democrats, as well as Republicans. He is not going to be a partisan figure. I would be astounded if he were. I mean, he knows that what happened in the Watergate hearings was legislation came out that affected all of politics. They didn't simply limit it to the abuses of Richard Nixon's presidential campaign. We knew that it was endemic to the entire system, and the entire structuring was changed, and it lasted, and it worked very darn well for a generation.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Mark, is Alexis Herman, the secretary of labor nominee, is she going to take a fall here? Is she in serious trouble?

MARK SHIELDS: Alexis Herman's nomination as secretary of labor is in trouble for several reasons. I do not think she's going to take a fall for the following reasons: First of all, I think the Republicans, especially Trent Lott, the Senate Majority Leader from Mississippi, do not want to have the one Clinton cabinet nominee they oppose be an African-American woman. That is bad politics there. They would just as soon have her confirmed, hobbled, limited, apologetic, and a very muted secretary of labor, and it's also the politics inside of president politics. Al Gore, the Vice President, pushed very hard for her nomination figuring he wasn't going to have labor's support--labor did not support Alexis Herman- -in the year 2000, so he would pick up some chits elsewhere. So she's a person without a base, but I think she will be confirmed.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: I don't think we know yet whether she'll be confirmed. My guess is she probably will. I don't think the Republicans decided that they're going to kill this nomination. I think what they've decided is they're going to use her nomination and her hearings as a chance to educate people about what went on in the last campaign. And that's a pretty good opportunity. That's a role for confirmation. The President in most cases deserves the nominees that he wants, but in this case you can also use it to instruct the public. And I think that's what this is going to be used for.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Mark, let's turn to Newt Gingrich. What did you make of what he said last weekend?

MARK SHIELDS: Newt Gingrich left Washington, went down. Being Newt Gingrich means having to say you're sorry. I mean, he went down, he went down to Georgia, to his home district, and departed from reality. I mean, this is a man who's blamed the following: He's blamed a staff person; he's blamed the lawyer; he's blamed the committee; and now he's--now he's blaming a conspiracy, a massive leftist conspiracy where 200 members of his own party were dupes, and he was--every point he made was rebutted very effectively in a Nightline broadcast on Tuesday night which was embarrassing. And I just--I just really think that he's fast approaching the outskirts of being beyond redemption. This is not helpful. He's not putting it behind him. He's taken the people who stood with him and embarrassed them further, and charged that they were part of some vast conspiracy. And I just question whether, in fact, he understands how precarious his political position is right now.

MARGARET WARNER: Paul, why do you think he reacted as he did and said what he did?

PAUL GIGOT: Because I think he believes what he said. I think he feels aggrieved. I think he does think that there is a double standard; that Republican figures in Washington are treated more harshly than Democratic figures on ethics charges. I think he believes that. But the reason he shouldn't say that is because we just had the end of this process. I mean, if he wanted to fight this, he should have fought it. He shouldn't have copped a plea, and he shouldn't give Mark and other people a chance to whack him for the 10th week in a row, which is what we've got here. I mean, you know, this thing ought to be over, and if he wants to get back to being Speaker and in charge, he ought to just to say, that's over, I took my licking, and now let's move on with the business of governing.

MARGARET WARNER: And how do Republicans on the Hill feel about it, that way?

PAUL GIGOT: I think that that is the almost universal feeling among Republicans on Capitol Hill. The decision to fight on this should have been made by the time when the Ethics Committee was doing its deliberations. And once he made that choice, he was basically saying I'm going to make a gamble that I can keep the speakership if I cop a plea. He won that gamble, but now he's got to act like a speaker and not like somebody who is going to drag this out. I mean, I have some sympathy for him on the point of double standards. I think it does exist, but I think in this case that's all over.

MARGARET WARNER: You wanted back in here?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, I do. Stop the whining, Newt. Accept responsibility, accept accountability. You stood up there like a man and said I was guilty. Double standards, Paul? How about Dan Rostenkowski, how about Jim Wright? I mean, you know, there's no double standard. This is victimology, is what it is. That's what Newt has ranted, railed against.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Got to leave it there. Thank you both very much.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight cartoonists on politics, the Pakistan elections, and Star Wars revisited. FOCUS - DRAWING ON POLITICS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Next, political cartoonists assess the year thus far. The President and Congress have barely started new terms, but they've already provided rich material for pen and ink. Now the drawings and views of Michael Ramirez of the Memphis Commercial Appeal and USA Today, Ann Telnaes of North America's Syndicate, Doug Marlette of Newsday, and Steve Kelley of San Diego Union Tribune. Thanks to all of you for being with us again. Steve Kelley, is the year off to a good start for you?

STEVE KELLEY, San Diego Union Tribune: [San Diego] Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's been terrific. We started the year out with scandals everywhere, and I think one of the first cartoons that I drew was of Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton taking a trip to the ethics principal's office, and Gingrich has just come out holding his little behind, the principal's holding a ruler, and Clinton is going in, is passing him on the way into the office, saying, "I feel your pain."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Steve, why is one coming in while the other goes out? Is there any significance in that?

STEVE KELLEY: Well, just that Newt Gingrich has sort of been to the woodshed now and taken his lumps, and Clinton is on the way in. Gingrich, of course, was--had to pay a $300,000 penalty. A lot of people say, well, that's not enough, but, you know, for that kind of dough you could get a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ann, how did you deal with the ethics issue?

ANN TELNAES, North America Syndicate: Well, I think like most Americans I have pretty much had it with everything because things are happening so quickly. I mean, we had what Steve just described, and we had an inaugural in there somewhere, we also had the Paula Jones case, and we had all the Republicans, you know, gathering forces around Gingrich, and, of course, we ended with Gingrich basically blaming everyone, you know, liberals, the media, lawyers, everyone, except of course the guy that actually had the $300,000 fine. So I just got sick of everything, and I just put 'em all into an elevator and labeled it "ethics," and had the elevator operator saying, you know, "Is everybody going down?".

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And it's full of elephants and donkeys.

ANN TELNAES: Right.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How about you, Michael? How did you deal with all of this?

MICHAEL RAMIREZ, Memphis Commercial Appeal: I'll tell you, if this first month is any indication of the year for editorial cartoonists, it's going to be a bumper crop year for cartoons. We've had continuing scandals going on. We've got the campaign finance--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let me just interrupt one minute. Are scandals just your favorite thing to be dealing with?

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Oh, yes. I mean, it's unfortunate for the American public but for editorial cartoons, it's like opening up birthday presents every day. We've had this computer database scandal that's going on right now. I dealt with campaign financing in the cartoon that I've done, and it kind of deals with the idea that our politicians seem to be selling their souls so that they can finance these huge, enormously expensive campaigns. I think Ann had a good point. I think the American people, they're tired. They're tired of the politicians not living up to the standard, and, of course, as editorial cartoonists we'll gleefully engage the politicians in behalf of the citizens.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, you actually made them hookers in a family newspaper.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Well, you know, I kind of took the little term of "selling out," so to speak, and the emphasis on the hookers is really to show that the margin of morality and ethics has really dropped in Washington, D.C.. And I think this cartoon kind of reflects that with the characters that are represented, and also that both sides are really responsible for kind of bad things that are going on. There isn't just one side or the other. They have kind of equal blame. And, you know, hopefully, it's not going to continue. And maybe if they see some cartoons, it won't, but it'll get me to my golf tee times earlier if it does, so that's good.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Doug, did you also see that both sides were equally sinning here?

DOUG MARLETTE, Newsday: [Chapel Hill, N.C.] Oh, yeah. You know, when you're drawing hookers in January, you know it's going to be a great year for cartoonists. That's my standard. I tried to not do that until September or October. So we're really--we're really rolling, but, no, there's a basic rule that bad times for the republic are good timesfor cartoons. We look at national crisis trauma and humiliation as the way that the plastic surgeon looks at cellulite and crow's feet. You know, it's unfortunate; it's too bad; but it's a living.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So tell us about your cartoon. You've got 'em as two peas in a pod.

DOUG MARLETTE: Yeah. I've been struck from the earliest days of how similar Gingrich and Clinton are. You know, they're both Republicans, and they--but, no, I think of Newt Gingrich as Bill Clinton's evil twin. And I've always wanted to draw them as two peas in a pod. And then when I--when they've both been suffering black eyes in the image department, so being able to draw black- eyed peas in a pod was kind of a dream for me as a southerner.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you also got to deal with them separately. You have a cartoon about Newt Gingrich that's pretty interesting.

DOUG MARLETTE: Oh, yes. This is Gingrich looking in a mirror and saying, "Newt means never having to mean you're sorry. I've always been struck--one of the similarities between Clinton and Gingrich. And this seems to be a trait of the boomer generation, of that kind of narcissism, of adolescent not taking responsibility and always shifting the blame and turning it over to the spin doctors. There's not that element of contrition, or of--you know--there's an owning up, but it's like giving an image of owning up and then sliding off. And I remember doing that when I was a teenager, but, you know, I had an excuse. I was a teenager.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you also dealt with it separately?

ANN TELNAES: Yes. Now we have the little coffee get-togethers in the White House. First we started with the Lincoln Bedroom, as everybody mentioned, and now, of course, we're selling time, access to the White House. And the--the President just recently had a press conference where he said, oh, you know, that that's not what it's really all about. You know, it's basically just so I can listen to them. Well, you know, it doesn't look that good, and I just thought I'd stick 'em in a little coffee shop there and have a nice big tip jar on the side, and have 'em asking the little business people there if they'd like some cinnamon on their coffee.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The tip jar is the really significant element in this, isn't it?

ANN TELNAES: Yeah. I mean, you know, when you go in and get a cup of coffee, you, you know, you don't have to tip but it's sitting right there, and it's kind of like going into the White House. You know, I'm sure that they feel compelled that they should, you know, do a donation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Michael you said that it was--you've made--I can't remember exactly your words, but you said, this is more than usual, the scandal, and that sort of thing, is that right?

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: I think so, and I think part of it is there is a heightened sense of partisanship politics that's going on that's fueling this. For instance, with Newt's trials and tribulations, I think most often in Congress that kind of stuff may go on but it's not brought to the prominence that it was in his case. $300,000 is a lot of money. And with this administration for some reason it seems like it's one problem after another. It's sort of one misleading statement after another, and then it is piling up. So I think, you know, this year--for instance, yesterday I did a cartoon where I had Bill Clinton in the Lincoln Bedroom with a Thai businessman, and he's got a tank top on, and the--Bill Clinton is going, "Well, would you believe that it's part of the White House tour?". I mean, these kind of scandals really set themselves up for cartooning, and it just seems that because there's this partisanship that's fueling these kind of really close, a close look at what each candidate is going, what each politician is doing, that they're finding more and more things. And I hope the frequency of it doesn't disrupt the agenda that hopefully Congress will put through.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Steve, do you agree that it's different than it has been? And this is just some general conversation here.

STEVE KELLEY: Oh, absolutely. And it's getting to the point where you wonder if the people's business is really getting done; that the only people in Congress who really are earning their pay are the ones on the Ethics Committee because they're the ones who are working.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But your glee, all of your glee at having this material to work with, do you just have material every day, or is this just richer than usual? I mean, last year and the year before and the year before, was there this kind of material?

STEVE KELLEY: Well, in the history of my career the best--the best year we ever had was when all of the televangelists went down, because they were--that was the height of hypocrisy for people who were thumping the bible to be out, you know, consorting with, with hookers--Jimmy Swaggart and the Jim Bakkers. But this is getting very close. I mean, it's a new scandal every day just about. They don't even get done with one before there's another one brewing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Doug, it's really hypocrisy in some ways that you all are getting at the most.

DOUG MARLETTE: Yeah. And it's kind of, you know, it's finally 10 years later. Now it's a kind of yuppie revivalism that Clinton and Gingrich represent, but you still get the same hypocrisy. It's always--we're always looking for, you know, cartoons are never short on fodder, but whenever things get vivid and extreme like this and when there's a lot of indictments flowing, we get good material.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Now we're going to look at other subjects. We're going to move beyond the scandals in Washington. What other subjects that we all took pretty seriously did you not, Michael?

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Well, I think I tackled the issue of Ebonics is the next cartoon that's coming up, and that in itself I thought was kind of humorous because just the dialogue that was engaged in it, something that I don't think was that serious. I think the Oakland school board probably was after one, money, and two, probably trying to cover up the lack of having a high standard in education in that area. And it just was a great subject for cartooning, and the way I did it was I had the rural Appalachia and the guy sitting on the porch. And he's going, "Hot dog, Ma. We's bilingual." And, you know, Ebonics is something that sort of lends itself to cartooning. It's not a language. I haven't seen any Ebonics dictionary to speak of yet. And so, therefore, it's kind of the irony of what goes on in daily life, of how things are brought up to a heightened level of credibility that don't deserve. And I think Ebonics is one of those things that did it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Steve Kelley, another issue you took on was Paula Jones.

STEVE KELLEY: Yes. I was actually reading one of our editorials, and the phrase was used by the editorial writer that Clinton was hoping that Paula Jones would drop her suit, and, you know, I suppose most people just read that and when right on finishing the editorial. For me, it was like, bingo, you know, that's the cartoon, so I drewClinton at a press conference saying that he'd like to see Paula Jones drop her suit. And then he catches himself, and the next panelist says, I'll rephrase that. You know, again, this is the very best kind of scandal for a political cartoonist because it's something that everyone can understand, and there's immediate interest in it just because it's a sex scandal.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, I have a question about this and other ongoing trials. Is there ever something you don't do a cartoon on, Steve, that you have any rules about, no, I won't cover this kind of thing?

STEVE KELLEY: No.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Does anybody? Michael, you do, don't you?

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Well, yeah. I think there's a certain level of good taste that you can't go beyond. I mean, there's cartoons that- -we're essentially, we're inherently evil people, political cartoonists--and although we just mirror events, and we're not the actual participants in the events, there's a certain level good taste that you don't want to go past. And so--and you don't want to do a cartoon that's going to take away from the focus of the cartoon, something that you may do that may be so outrageous that people point to that element within the cartoon and miss the point entirely. So I think there--we have a high threshold for, for the obnoxious element in the cartoon, but you don't want to cross that border of good taste.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ann, do you have any sort of self-imposed rules?

ANN TELNAES: I haven't found one yet.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How about you, Doug, do you have any?

DOUG MARLETTE: No. I've just been fascinated to listen to the discussion. I have--you know, we do have lines--but I just can't find them--that we won't cross. I can't--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You have yet to find a line you won't cross?

DOUG MARLETTE: I have yet to find them. No, I think the best cartoons come from those that are grazing the North 40 and pushing the envelope, and whenever you start thinking like good taste, you're thinking like an editor and the cartoons are going to get boring.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Doug, you've got--for another issue you've got a cartoon about Al Gore. Tell us about that one.

DOUG MARLETTE: Yes. With him sitting in Clinton's seat and saying, "Chill Al." I mean, that was what was interesting to me after the inauguration was Al Gore kind of waiting in the wings, hovering around, you know, the outside, how he's going to position himself, and his--you know, already the commentators are talking about the Gore run. So just drawing that--showing that and the idea of Al Gore chilling seems redundant to me.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Ann, you've been covering--you said at the end of last year you wanted to cover some foreign policy, and you have.

ANN TELNAES: Yeah. On China. A lot of things have been happening with China. It's actually more of a serious subject, and we have all been sitting here laughing. They--recently a Chinese panel has been talking about revoking civil liberties in Hong Kong, as well as perhaps curtailing some demonstrations, and they've also been pressuring the journalism people to cut back a little bit on what they've been reporting on. So I just--I just see it as China, you know, really kind of tightening the screws, and basically the world is standing there, and, you know, holding their breath and waiting to see what will happen. And we're getting very close now to the handover of Hong King to China. So, you know, it will be very interesting to see.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is foreign policy harder to cover for political cartoonists here, do you think?

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: In some ways, in some respects it is because we're not actually there participating in it, so we don't have the exposure that they have, but, you know, we're in a modern world with modern means of communication. You can find out what's going on. The question is whether the American public is going to have an interest in what's going on in foreign policy. Things like China, the Soviet Union--countries that have direct effects on domestic, what's happening here in the United States, but then again you want to cover injustices no matter where they lie, whether they be here or abroad. So in some sense we're kind of equal opportunity offenders. We will get anybody who's doing anything wrong beyond our borders, but it has to be something that at least my readership is able to understand.

DOUG MARLETTE: That's the challenge.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Very briefly because we have to go, Doug.

DOUG MARLETTE: Figuring out how to bring it home and make it personal, make it like it happened in your own backyard.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Well, thanks to all of you. I hope we'll see you again soon. FOCUS - FAMILY FEUD

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, the upcoming elections in Pakistan. Ian Williams of Independent Television News reports from Larkana, the hometown of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her family.

IAN WILLIAMS, ITN: The Bhutto cavalcade comes to town, not any old town but one in the region of Larkana, the home of the Bhutto family. And this is no ordinary Bhutto. It's Ghinwa, widow of Benazir's brother who was shot dead late last year. Now she's standing for election in Larkana, claiming her bereavement has given her a sense of mission.

GHINWA BHUTTO: I surely hope that his--if his blood had to be the price for a new Pakistan, so be it.

IAN WILLIAMS: Crowds are drawn by her as much by curiosity as by affection. Lebanese-born Ghinwa speaks very little Urdu, so she needs prompting.

[GHINWA BHUTTO SPEAKING TO CROWD IN URDU, REPEATING HER PROMPTER'S WORDS]

IAN WILLIAMS: In the same region Benazir, herself thrown out of office last November for alleged corruption, she's out campaigning, not for her sister-in-law, whom she loathes, but for her mother, who she's persuaded to stand against Ghinwa. Ghinwa alleges the mother's been kidnaped by Benazir. Unfortunately, the elderly Bhutto has Alzheimer's Disease and seems somewhat confused, so she too needs a little coaching. Benazir's husband, meanwhile, has been arrested and accused of involvement in the murder of Ghinwa's husband, Benazir's brother, though he doesn't seem unduly perturbed by his predicament. Opinion polls suggest Nowa Sharif's Muslim League will emerge as the biggest party. But he's been in power before, and that government was also kicked out for alleged corruption. Outside the family home in Larkana, rival Bhutto campaign teams hound each other with recorded music and speeches. Rival posters lay claim to the Bhutto legacy. Ghinwa's features her dead husband somewhat enhanced by a generous dousing of red ink. [music in background] Ghinwa's cavalcade has cris-crossed the Bhutto heartland, lashing out at the alleged corruption of Benazir and her husband. No wonder the Bhutto family feuds are often likened to farce or soap opera, though to the impoverished majority who live in the same region, it's no laughing matter. As the politicians squabble, life continues in rural Larkana in grinding poverty, little changed for decades. The village of Rayif Nargar is typical. Its 1,000 people have no running water or basic sanitation. They regard themselves as spectators to the political process which have provided them with nothing and which is in the hands of the corrupt and self-seeking. In Larkana, alongside a road to the Bhutto residence, sits a primary school. The children here often see the cavalcade of Oxford-educated Benazirs speed past. In spite of promises from the government, they've no proper school building, a single teacher for 100 children and few proper textbooks. Too many people feel betrayed by politicians in Pakistan, and the election turnout may be the lowest ever, barely a third of those eligible. Only the most optimistic here see Monday's vote as a celebration of democracy. FINALLY - THE FORCE - STAR WARS RETURNS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, Star Wars strikes back. There were lines at theaters in many cities today for the day one re-release of the 20-year-old hit film. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has our look at this movie and merchandising phenomenon.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It was a long time ago in a galaxy not so far away that "Star Wars" first glowed on the big screen. In 1977, Hollywood viewed "Star Wars" as a strange film. The first treatment was turned down by Universal Studios and United Artists. 20th Century Fox took it reluctantly. Although few predicted it, "Star Wars" and its sequels, "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," turned out to be among the biggest blockbusters of all times, earning $1.3 billion in box office sales and another $3 billion in licensing fees. The "Star Wars" trilogy has been available on video for years. Now its creator, George Lucas, wants another generation to see the films in theaters. Lucas convinced 20th Century Fox to foot the bill for updating and perfecting the films.

GEORGE LUCAS, "Star Wars" Creator: There were various things, especially in the original film, that I wasn't satisfied with special effects shots that never really were finished scenes that I wanted to include that couldn't have been included for some reason, mostly money and time.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The cost, about $15 million, for the trilogy is only $5 million more than the budget for the original "Star Wars." Now, there's a new digital sound track, updated special effects, and even a few new scenes. This character, Jabba the Hut, was supposed to appear in the first film, but a lack of money and technology forced Lucas to cut the scene. Today, computer wizardry has brought Jabba back.

JOSEPH LETTERI, Visual Effects Supervisor, "Star Wars" Special Edition: The ultimate goal is to make it look like Jabba was on the set talking to Harrison Ford, and we just photographed it. This is the original plate that George shot, so the plan was for us to remove this actor and replace him with Jabba. He had to be physically in that space where this actor was doing all the same things in a similar kind of style.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In the years since "Star Wars" Hollywood has grown addicted to special effects and enamored with the box office returns that come from these films. One Fox executive said he expected revenues from the new releases would be like Christmas for the company.

[SCENE FROM "STAR WARS"]

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Twenty years ago linking games and toys to movies was done to promote the films. Today merchandising is big business and can make as much money as the movie. The "Star Wars" action figures are the most popular toys for young boys, and for grown-ups, there's a life-size storm trooper with a $5,500 price tag.

CHILD: Don't shoot. Push the "A"button. Push the "A" button.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: "Star Wars" cd-roms, another Lucas creation, is among the top four producers of video games, "Star Wars," more than 20 to date, put out by Bantam, consistently make the best seller list, and there are hundreds of web sites related to "Star Wars." All told, "Star Wars" has racked up an estimated $4 billion in sales of merchandise. "Star Wars" has seeped so far into our culture that the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum is mounting a major exhibit scheduled to open in the fall. Long lines formed early this morning at theaters around the country as the new and enhanced "Star Wars" trilogy hit the big screen. Lucas is already looking beyond the re-release of the trilogy and is working on a new set of "Star Wars" films, three so-called sequels which will explain the beginning of the "Star Wars" myth.

ACTOR: It is useless to resist.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Lucas, who hasn't directed a move since "Star Wars," has promised to direct the first of the new trilogy, but movie goers will have to wait until 1999 for the first one. The last won't be completed until 2003, as Lucas and his colleagues attempt to keep the force with us for years to come.

ACTOR: You're all clear, kid. Now, let's blow this thing and go home.

ACTOR: The force will be with you--always.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Now to look at the "Star Wars" phenomenon we are joined by David Ansen, a movie critic for Newsweek and Howard Suber, a film historian and chair of the Producers Program at the UCLA School of Film, Theater, and Television. And starting with you, Mr. Suber, how do you explain this extraordinary appeal of "Star Wars?"

HOWARD SUBER, UCLA Film School: [Los Angeles] "Star Wars" combined both of our modern obsessions, technology on the one hand, and some search for some spiritual values that in many ways goes against the technology. And it was the putting together of the two that I think accounted for the original success of "Star Wars" and what's happened to it since.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Spiritual values?

HOWARD SUBER: "The force," the last line we just heard in your clips, this was a line of--that Lucas originally got from Carlos Castaneda's book "The Teachings of Don Juan." And in an early draft of "Star Wars" he called it the force of others. Then he decided, no, let's leave it more ambiguous about what the force is. Hans Solo at one point early in the movie when Obi-One-Kanobi is trying to teach Luke about the force, says, "Kid, I've flown from one side of the galaxy to the other, I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything make me believe there's one all powerful force controlling everything," then just smiles sagely at that point. In many ways "Star Wars" was the first film that incorporated what we would now call new age materialism.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: David Ansen, was it message or technique that accounts for this extraordinary success of "Star Wars" and impact?

DAVID ANSEN, Newsweek: [Los Angeles] Well, it came at a certain moment in history too. I think we have to remember when coming out of the Watergate era when people were ready for sort of a return to good guys and bad guys and comic books in the cities. "Star Wars" was a movie that, that looked back on the whole history of Hollywood films. I mean, there are conscious echoes of the Western and the war movie. There is even a quotation from "Triumph of the Will," quotes from "The Searchers." It was an attempt to kind of recreate for the audience that innocent experience of movie going, what going to the movies was like when you were a child, and at that moment in 1977, it hit home.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So neither of you has talked about the technique, but the technique was revolutionary, was it not, Howard Suber?

HOWARD SUBER: Yes. But there are other people who were being equally as experimental. Let's not forget that "2001" in many was both truer to real science than "Star Wars" was. It's ironic "Star Wars'" only Academy Award was for sound, and, of course, there is now sound in space. The technology was experimented with by a number of people, but I think it's the combining of the very deep- seated, you'll forgive the expression, religious level of content within "Star Wars" with a form that was as high-tech as you could make it.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. David Ansen, what do you say to those who say that the literary elements, the characters were subordinate to the purely cinematic elements, the motion of the film, the techniques, if you will?

DAVID ANSEN: I think that's true. Really, this was a watershed movie, I think, in terms of Hollywood film making, where suddenly kineticism was all, special effects was all, acting--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Kineticism meaning movement.

DAVID ANSEN: Meaning movement, yes, fast cutting; it was a ride, a great joy ride. And while it was enormously fun at the time, I think it's had a very dangerous effect on movies subsequent to "Star Wars." I mean, this was really the beginning of Hollywood's infatuation with the youth market and with comic book movie making, with movies that emphasized action over plot and movement over character. And I think there are a lot of people in Hollywood who feel that "Star Wars" really was a movie that destroyed Hollywood.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Howard Suber, what do you say to that, destroyed Hollywood?

HOWARD SUBER: It's doing pretty well today.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Doing pretty well in destroying Hollywood, or--

HOWARD SUBER: No, Hollywood is doing pretty well.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Oh, Hollywood is doing pretty well.

HOWARD SUBER: In fact, Hollywood has destroyed film making elsewhere in the world by its dominance. But Hollywood I think failed to learn the lessons of its own--of its own story in "Star Wars." There's a major fundamental paradox in this film. On the one hand, as David says, technology is up front; it's the thing that gets your adrenalin going. It's perhaps more fun than any movie anybody had seen up to that time. But what "Star Wars" really says is technology doesn't matter. It's the evil empire that depends on technology, and at the end of the film, at the very crucial moment when Luke has to go in and drop that bomb into the nuclear reactor, he hears on the sound track, "The force, Luke, trust the force." And he pushes aside his computer, and he goes in with what he has inside his head, or perhaps what he has inside his heart. It's a very spiritual message, I think.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What about the merchandising, though, David Ansen, what impact has that had on all of this spirituality and Hollywood?

DAVID ANSEN: It's had an enormous impact, I think. The studio executives never realized until "Star Wars" just how much money you could make off a single movie. I mean, in its first year it made about $200 million in grosses, but ultimately it made 3 or 4 billion dollars in merchandising, and once they realized what a movie could do, it really changed the way the studios felt about their product.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In what way?

DAVID ANSEN: In the sense that after that--and many people in Hollywood will tell you the same thing--they started swinging only for the home runs. It became over the years harder and harder for small, personal movies to get made. What--you'll see it now this coming summer where there's maybe ten movies coming out that cost close to $100 million, movies that are specifically aimed for the youth market. And because of the amount of money you could make in merchandising, it could change the very reason why movies were made after "Star Wars." Often they were made to sell lunch boxes and CD's, and the peripheral things.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you agree with that, Howard Suber?

HOWARD SUBER: Unfortunately, I do. This is something that really was new in the history of Hollywood. The first merchandising tie- in for a movie I believe was 1937 with "Snow White." But it hadn't been something that was terribly important in the decision-making process until "Star Wars" came along. Many people have told the story about where Lucas really built his empire. He insisted in signing the contract that he would hold back the merchandising rights, and in return for that, he'd take a cut in his director's salary. And Alan Ladd, who was head of the studio at the time, pushed his buzzer and contacted the head of merchandising and said, what have we made on merchandising last year? The figure was a matter of a few million, and Ladd thinking that this kid out of USC was really an innocent, naive kid, said, sure, you can have the merchandising rights, and the rest of course was history. Well, Hollywood learned its lesson, but I think it is the wrong lesson.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: David Ansen, very briefly, how do you think the sequel and the pre-quels, which are going to tell what happened before Luke Skywalker--very quickly, how are they going to do, good, bad?

DAVID ANSEN: I think they'll do very well. There's a whole new generation that grew up on "Star Wars" toys. It's their mythology. It's their religion, is how it's said. And just from the reaction of the audience at the screening of the new enhanced "Star Wars" that I saw they were screaming before it even started. They knew every foot of this movie, backwards and forwards.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you both for joining us. RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Friday, Defense Secretary William Cohen held his first news conference, and he said he would enforce a zero tolerance policy on hazing. And the Commerce Department released new figures on the Gross Domestic Product. It was up 4.7 percent in the final quarter of last year. We'll see you on-line and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.