The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After the News Summary tonight, we examine the first hundred days of President Clinton. Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman and Republican Senator Pete Domenici debate the record in economic policy, pollsters Linda Divall and Peter Hart tell us how the American public grades the President and Republicans, media watchers Jodie Allen and Kathleen Hall Jamieson discuss how fair the press is being in its hundred day assessments, and David Gergen and Mark Shields give us their analysis. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The leader of the Bosnian Serbs said today he did not expect to sign the U.N. peace plan this weekend in Athens. Radovan Karadzic said he would go to the U.N.-called meeting to press for more concessions. Peace negotiator Lord Owen said he believed Serbia would force the Bosnian Serbs to accept the peace plan. President Clinton said he was near an announcement on new U.S. and allied action to stop the fighting in Bosnia. He spoke to reporters during a visit with students in New Orleans.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I'm going to have another meeting in the morning about it, do a little more work on the way back today, and then have another meeting in the morning. I may want to make another round of phone calls after we meet with the principles. And I expect then we'll be pretty close to deciding where we are. I want to get an updated report of the situation. I've asked a lot of questions about it.

REPORTER: Has all this talk about military force already had an impact, sir? Do you think it's already had an impact?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I hope so.

MR. LEHRER: Muslim civilians in Bosnia claimed today Croatian fighters used them as human shields. The Muslims are being held prisoner in the central Bosnian town of Vitez. Colin Baker of Independent Television News reports from there.

MR. BAKER: These men are not hostages, but they cannot leave. They are not prisoners of war, but they are captives. These are Muslim civilians being held by Croatian forces at Vitez Police Headquarters. On the first floor are some of the 300 Muslim men detained following the war in the area which has now claimed several hundred lives in the past two weeks. It was here prisoners told me how they'd been forced to the front line to work and dig trenches for their captors. This man said that they just came in the middle of the night and said, you, you, and you, and took about 20 of us on the bus, and we had to dig trenches. He said that they were sniped at by Muslim forces. One of their prisoner group was killed, and they claimed five others had also died. The local Croatian commander who's now taken control of the prisoners says he wants to swap detained civilians for Croats being held by Muslims. He said he was unaware of their allegations. The Croatians also hold 260 Muslim women and children in a barracks just North of Vitez. Their intention today was also to exchange them for Croatians held by the other side, but negotiations faltered. The barracks is just yards from the fighting zone, but suggestions that these are hostages are firmly refuted. There is no way, however, that the Muslims could launch an attack here without putting these, their own people, at severe risk.

MR. LEHRER: Muslims and Croats have been allied against the Serbs for most of the Bosnian War. More than 200 people have died since they turned on each other about two weeks ago. The world's No. 1 ranked woman tennis player, Monica Seles, was stabbed today at a tennis tournament in Hamburg, Germany. Authorities said the injury was not life threatening and happened during a changeover between games. A middle aged German man was taken into custody. No motive was given for the attack. Seles is a native of the Serbian republic in Yugoslavia and has received death threats in the past related to that fact. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton today proposed several changes in the federal government's student loan programs. He said loans should be made directly to students, rather than through banks. Administration officials said that would allow students to pay lower interest rates. The plan would base repayment terms on a person's salary once they enter the work force. The President also announced the details of his national service plan. Students could pay back up to $10,000 in tuition costs by performing community service. Mr. Clinton spoke to an audience at the University of New Orleans.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: With national service, we can literally open a new world to a new generation of Americans, where higher learning goes hand in hand with a higher purpose of addressing our unmet needs, our educational, our social, our environmental needs, to secure the future that we all will share. National service will mark the start of a new era for America in which every citizen, every one of you become an agent of change, armed with the knowledge and experience that a college education brings and ready to transform the world in which we live city by city, community by community, block by block. I say to you we need you.

MR. MacNeil: The national service program and the student loan changes would not be fully operative until 1997.

MR. LEHRER: Attorney General Reno laid out her civil rights agenda today. She said she would fight discrimination against women, the disabled, and religious minorities. She addressed an American Bar Association meeting in Washington this morning.

JANET RENO, Attorney General: Though the Attorney General of the United States carries many responsibilities and undertakes many tasks, there can be none more important than the pursuit of civil rights on behalf of all the people in this country. Without this dedication to equal opportunity, the very name of the Justice Department rings hollow. Without this commitment to civil rights, the promise of this new administration would be unfulfilled. Ultimately a failure to vigorously protect civil rights is an intolerable breach of faith with the people who have entrusted tremendous power to their government.

MR. LEHRER: The First Lady went to Capitol Hill today to build support for health care reform. Mrs. Clinton met with about 50 Senators from both parties. They discussed a cost containment proposal that would allow doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily enforce price constraints. Mandatory controls would be held on stand-by.

MR. MacNeil: Defense Sec. Les Aspin filed an air force general today for mismanaging development of the C-17 cargo plane. The $37 billion program is at least a year behind schedule. The plane's wings have failed stress tests, and the project is running some $1 1/2 billion over budget. Aspin said Major General Michael Buchko bore chief responsibility. He also disciplined two other generals and a civilian for mismanaging the program. General Motors has rejected a government request to recall up to 5 million of its older pickups. GM disputed the government's contention that gas tanks on its 1973 to 1987 trucks were prone to explode during crashes. GM's action could lead to a forced recall or a court battle over the issue. Earlier this year, an Atlanta jury found GM negligent and awarded $105 million to the parents of a teenager killed in a fiery GM truck accident.

MR. LEHRER: The United States took action against two major trading partners today. U.S. Trade Rep. Mickey Kantor said the United States was citing Japan for discriminating against U.S. bidders in its construction market. He also accused the European Community of discriminating against U.S. telecommunications products. In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported personal income of Americans rose .6 percent in March. Consumption spending fell by .2 percent. A separate report showed orders to U.S. factories dropped 1.5 percent.

MR. MacNeil: Fifteen deported Palestinians returned to Israel today, some after twenty-five years in exile. They crossed over the Allenby Bridge from Jordan to waiting crowds of supporters. Israel agreed to allow their return earlier this week. They were among 1700 Palestinians expelled between 1967 and '87. The Israeli action did not affect the 400 Palestinians deported to South Lebanon in December. That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to many views of Bill Clinton's first 100 days. FOCUS - 1ST 100 DAYS

MR. MacNeil: Our major focus tonight is the first one hundred, make that hundred and one days of the Clinton administration. For better or worse, the hundred days has become a significant marker in the life of the presidency, with everyone, including the administration, itself, eager to issue a report card. So how's he doing by his own standards and the opposition's? To begin, we hear from Roger Altman, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. He joins us from the Old Executive Office Building. Pete Domenici of New Mexico is the ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee. He joins us from a studio on Capitol Hill. Sec. Altman, is the administration going to do anything differently as a result of all the critical advice it's been getting the last few days?

SEC. ALTMAN: Well, I think you have to put that critical advice in perspective, and I think it's very short-term. The President promised that he would come to office and effect change. And he's charged out of the box doing that. He's, he's changed the economic direction of the country. The Congress in record time passed the largest deficit reduction plan in history. Interest rates have come down dramatically. He's moving into the final stages of his health care reform plan, and now, unlike the past, the only issue in Washington is what type of reform and when, not whether they'll be reform, and, of course, you have the Russian aide initiative, which is critically important to enable us to continue to build down our defense establishment. So I think the President has gotten off to a strong start.

MR. MacNeil: Does that mean you can just ignore all this criticism and go on as you were?

SEC. ALTMAN: Well, it's a four-year term. It's not a hundred-day term. And I think what counts in the end is whether we have delivered, whether we deliver for the American people over those four years. Do we deliver jobs, as I believe we will. Do we reform the biggest single problem affecting the country, which is health care, that Americans are crying out to be changed? You don't, you don't turn the country around in eight or ten weeks. But the, the foundation for this change is being laid, and it's being laid aggressively.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Domenici, do you think and other Republicans think the administration should change its ways?

SEN. DOMENICI: Well, there's no doubt in my mind, and, Roger, it's good to be on with you, first of all, the President can take credit for a number of things. I think the Yeltsin situation in Russia, the way he handled that he ought to get a big plus for that. I think his insistence that banks in this country lend money to small business is a great economic movement. Whether we can get it done or not I don't know. Today I was just impressed and wanted to say I think he did a great job bringing his wife to Washington. I think she's doing a marvelous job on health care. We may not agree with her, but she's coordinating it and organizing it. On the other hand, I think the reason we're judging his hundred days is because the promises he made as to what he would do in a hundred days. He hasn't been able to do any of the things he said he was going to do and then he's already had to renege on a number of things he campaigned on, and, you know, will cut middle income taxes, will reduce the deficit in half. We will only cut defense $60 billion. Instead, he's cutting it 120. So I think all that's catching up, but I think what's really happening, Robin, is that the people are now understanding that essentially all this change that he's talking bout is really a major, major tax hike. That is the largest in the history of the republic. The deficit package is not the largest. In fact, the five-year agreement was larger than this one. It had many more cuts than this one. The ratio is about $4 in new taxes to $1 in cuts. And I don't think there's anything new about that. Talking about a new direction, it seems to me it's kind of an old direction. I don't believe it's going to work because small business needs relief, not taxes. They need regulations removed. They need incentives to grow and hire people. That's what we ought to be focusing on, not a new tax package that is almost the exclusive way that we are reducing the deficit.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. Altman, not a new direction at all but an old one?

SEC. ALTMAN: I just don't accept that at all, although I respect it, Sen. Domenici, and I'm happy to be on here with you too, Senator.

SEN. DOMENICI: Thank you.

SEC. ALTMAN: But the President, as I said, most basically was elected on the issue of economic change. And with all due respect to Sen. Domenici and his colleagues, his party was unable to produce it from the point of growth. We all know we had the slowest growth over the last two years in any post war recovery, and they certainly weren't able to do anything about the deficit which grew in a skyrocketing fashion over the past 12 years. The national debt increased from $1 billion to $4 billion today. So President Clinton is going in a different direction. He's finally bringing the deficit down, and the deficit will be reduced in half in terms of its share of the economy. And he's putting in place a series of investments, as he said he would, during a campaign in terms of technology and R&D, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of lifelong learning, and in terms of private sector incentives for investment. So I don't think it's more of the same at all. I think it's a very sharp change in economic direction.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Domenici, isn't there some truth in that argument that you Republicans are beating up on Mr. Clinton for trying to do things that you guys weren't able to do yourselves, like cut the deficit down?

SEN. DOMENICI: Well, let me suggest I would really think that if the only defense to this program of raising taxes on the American people by about 275 billion dollars net in the next five years that the only defense for that is that the deficit grew in the decade of the '80s, and it just seems to me that's no defense at all.

SEC. ALTMAN: May I interject?

SEN. DOMENICI: Let me just finish. Republicans didn't cause that deficit. Let me assure you Democrats voted for it every stitch of the way. They voted for the tax cuts, 89 to 11. They voted for all of the appropriations bill that increased spending, and we ought to set that aside and say the President said he was going to get the deficit down, he was going to cut spending. And the thing is he isn't cutting spending. He's increasing spending.

SEC. ALTMAN: Let's talk about taxes. First of all, Senator, I come from the business world, and in the business world the buck stops on the chief executive's desk and the chief executive of this country for the past 12 years was a Republican, not a Democrat. Second of all, in terms of taxes, yes, we've proposed certain tax increases and the American people understand that there has to be some tax increase to actually get the deficit down. But who's going to be paying these taxes? Only 1.2 percent of the highest income of American citizens, the highest income Americans, are going to pay higher income taxes, 1.2 percent, 115,000 for singles, 120,000 for couples in terms of taxable income. The energy tax is going to have a very small impact on American families. If you earn less than 30,000 together with the offsets we've built in, you don't pay anything. If you earn 40,000, you pay less than $10 a month in direct cost. But we have to get this deficit down, and it can't be done entirely on the spending side, as your party very vividly demonstrated.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Altman, could I slightly change the direction of this? Because some of this is a debate that's been going on for months now over the tax proposals and things. Sec. Altman, one of the criticisms leveled at the administration, and it was repeated by your own budget director the other day, Leon Panetta, that the administration is too, has dispersed its focus on too many things and that it should find, the President should find a few priorities, especially on the economy, delay health care reform, put it off, so that you won't have two huge initiatives confusing the Congress and the public at once. Now on the issue of do you accept the charge that the administration is too dispersed in its interests and in its focus?

SEC. ALTMAN: Well, I think every new team has a shake-down cruise. We're no exception, and we're moving through that. And also the President is an activist. Everyone now knows that. He wants change in a lot of areas, and as I said, he's come bursting out of the starting blocks with a whole series of proposals to change, and that's just the way he is. But what are the priorities? The priorities are basically two; jobs and health care. And if we produce the 8 million jobs or more that the President committed during the campaign, and I believe we will, and if we really reform this health care system, which is the worst of all worlds, 37 million Americans uninsured, 20 million under insured, and yet, the most expensive system in the world, we will have delivered for the American people. Yes, there are a lot of other ideas the President has, today's national service proposal, welfare reform and so forth, but the center of our efforts, and there should be no mistake about it, is jobs and health care.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think health care should be put off, Sen. Domenici?

SEN. DOMENICI: Well, I think it should be put off until we finish the work on the tax bill, the reconciliation, i.e. the implementation of the budget resolution. And let me tell you that's far from being done. The Democrats are fighting among themselves about that plan because it doesn't only tax the rich. You go out and talk to small business in the United States. Perhaps Roger hasn't done that from his position. But they all know that the cost of putting people to work is too high today between health care, workman's compensation, regulations, FICA tax, and they want some relief. And what we're saying to 'em, 65 percent of those to be taxed under this so-called "soak the rich" are small businessmen and women in the United States. They're not going to be able to add new people, and we're going to be able to do more and more through government. This President is an activist, but I think the people are asking: Isn't there anything else other than government? I mean, do we have to have a new program every day to fix America? They just ask that the jobs be increased and that we grow and have prosperity. They didn't ask that the government do everything.

MR. MacNeil: Sec. Altman, would you respond to that? But also, would you answer the question, you said a moment ago that the question on health reform, it was not a question of whether but when, is the administration, with all the advice it's been getting, including from Budget Director Panetta, considering putting off the health care reform as Sen. Domenici suggests until the budget resolutions have been implemented?

SEC. ALTMAN: Well, I'm not a legislative strategist. The point is that we want to take advantage of the window of opportunity that is always afforded by the early days of a new presidency and get the second of the President's most important initiative, namely health care reform, on the table for the American public to debate it, and for the Congress to take it out, and we want to do that as quickly as we can.

MR. MacNeil: Does that mean next month, or this month, or are you going to put it off,do you think now?

SEC. ALTMAN: I don't think that the date of late May, wherein the task force, the health care task force, is to report to the President on its recommendations is going to change. But let me say a word, if I might, in response to Sen. Domenici's point about business. I'm a businessman. And if there's one thing the business community asked of Washington over these past 12 years, I heard it thousands and thousands of times, it was to get the deficit down. And we are delivering to the business community on its No. 1 objective. The second biggest problem in business in general faces is health care. 14 percent of our GDP is now in health care costs. The amount of health care in each vehicle, cost in each vehicle is now larger than the amount of steel. And we are going to change that. And the President has vividly demonstrated the power of the bully pulpit by the sea change in attitudes about health care. It used to be lots of skepticism as to whether there would be health care reform. Now I think it's universally accepted that there will be.

SEN. DOMENICI: And I compliment the President for making it a very big issue. But let me close by saying businessmen in the United States and average folk would like to see the 188 billion dollars in new spending that the President has in his budget removed from that budget as a cut before they are hit with these taxes. No businessman or average American is out there saying, tax us more to get the deficit down. They are saying, cut spending to get the deficit down. And I regret, Roger, there's very little cutting in the President's budget.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Domenici, do you now regret with the latest indices showing some slowdown in the recovery in this first quarter, do you now regret having so vigorously opposed the stimulus package and caused it to stop when, may I just add --

SEN. DOMENICI: Sure.

MR. MacNeil: -- that the polls we're going to discuss later show that a majority of the American people think that you Republicans did that not on an issue of principle but just out of politics?

SEN. DOMENICI: Well, let me say I don't regret it at all. I mean, it is a very huge effort to convince the American people that a few billion dollars in ongoing federal programs to put more in them is going to help this economy. Frankly, we were going to spend $3 billion out of that package in the first year, and it was just more money in existing programs. That can't be the kind of stimulus that's going to help America when we're already $328 billion in stimulus because the deficit is that big. So I don't regret it. I think the President said we're going to cut spending. He isn't cutting it. He said, let's cut it. Only in four areas that are very urgent do we need to spend the money. The rest we can wait till next year and find room in the budget.

MR. MacNeil: Secretary, in replying to that, Sec. Altman, would you say whether the administration is going to come back with some new form of stimulus?

SEC. ALTMAN: Well, with all due respect to Sen. Domenici, that stimulus proposal was put forth to create jobs. We knew we had a fragile economic recovery, and this 1.8 percent growth figure for the first quarter just reinforces that. And it's very difficult for so many of us in the administration to understand how the Republicans after running up a $3 trillion debt over the last 12 years could turn against this jobs bill by saying just pay for it, which is their slogan. I frankly think it's the height of political cynicism.

SEN. DOMENICI: Well, let me tell you, we didn't say that. We said we don't need it, and we don't need to spend the money.

SEC. ALTMAN: Senator, were a lot of your colleagues walking around the Hill with "Just pay for it" buttons on?

SEN. DOMENICI: Well, some thought that, but most thought we shouldn't spend the money.

SEC. ALTMAN: Well, I saw a lot of them.

SEN. DOMENICI: We didn't need to spend money.

MR. MacNeil: Okay, gentlemen, we thank you both. We have to move on. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Right. Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, how the pundits and the people saw the first 100 days and Gergen & Shields. FOCUS - 1ST 100 DAYS

MR. LEHRER: Now a 101st assessment of the assessments of the first 100 days of the Clinton administration. It comes from two pollsters, Republican Linda Divall and Democrat Peter Hart, Jodie Allen, the editor of Outlook, the Washington Post Sunday opinion and analysis section, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Peter Hart, how do you read the public's readings of what's been going on in Washington these last 100 days?

MR. HART: Well, the public's readings are basically positive. If you look to the polls that have all come out this week, about 60 percent of the American public's approving of the job that Bill Clinton's doing. That's a pretty good start, and it compares pretty well with, favorably with other Presidents, and essentially coming out of a three-way race, he's doing well. And the one other thing we need to remember is nobody else said in this first hundred days they were going to raise taxes, and in spite of that, there are 60 percent of the public saying, look, I approve, I think he's doing the right thing, I think there's a sense of optimism, a sense of hope. All of that's good news to Bill Clinton.

MR. LEHRER: Do you see that same good news in the polls, Linda?

MS. DIVALL: Well, not exactly. The way that I look at it is first of all to pick another President who was also elected with just 43 percent of the vote in a three-way contest, and that would be Richard Nixon in 1968. And at a comparable point in time he had a job approval rating of 61 to 14 percent disapproval. While Peter is correct that most of the surveys show the approval rating anywhere from 55 to 59 percent. The other interesting thing is that the disapproval rating for Bill Clinton in every survey that's been released this week is in a range of 31 to 39 percent. In other words, his disapproval rating is three times as Richard Nixon's in the first one hundred-day period.

MR. LEHRER: How do you explain that?

MS. DIVALL: I think a lot of it is frankly intense media focus during the campaign and the first one hundred days, and a third party candidate who is still very much a factor, even though he was solemnly defeated.

MR. LEHRER: You mean Ross Perot?

MS. DIVALL: Ross Perot is very much a factor in this race, focusing attention on Bill Clinton's plan. He is an irritant there who's trying to make certain that his agenda that he campaigned on is paid attention to. The other thing that I think is happening in the first one hundred days is that President Clinton has lost his focus somewhat. Here's a candidate who said he would focus like a laser on the economy. Here's a candidate who said, I intend to have a legislative program ready on the desk for Congress the day after I'm inaugurated, I intend to have an explosive one hundred day action program. Because of Congress, because of all the problems that face the President, he has not been able to focus like a laser on the economy. And I think that is one of the disappointments that the American public has because he raised expectations, himself, so high early on in his presidency.

MR. LEHRER: He set his own measuring stick, would you agree with that, Peter, and then didn't match it?

MR. HART: Well, I think there was a great deal of exuberance by the, by the President in terms of what he'd be able to accomplish immediately, and, no, he couldn't match at all. But the one thing he did is he's gone out and he's attacked the right problems, and I think in the right way. He's gone after the problem of the deficit. Obviously, he's gotten a budget resolution. That's a big deal. The second thing he's done is he's dealt with unemployment and he's dealt with some sort of sense of economic growth. Third, they're moving on health care. Those are the things that are going to count. Has he been able to achieve as much as he wanted to in the first hundred days? No. But I think the direction is right, and I think the look is right.

MR. LEHRER: What about -- speaking of the overall look -- not just the President but the government of the United States, meaning the President plus the Congress, the conventional wisdom on this program and every other program was that the people wanted that change? Do they perceive that? Do you have any polls that show how they see what's going on here in a general way?

MR. HART: Well, I think it's a great question because what we find is there was that sense I want to break the gridlock, I want a sense of optimism. And they look at Sen. Domenici as they did tonight and they start to see the sense of everybody digging in and getting their position. That's not what the voters want. They want change, and we noted that in our first poll right after the inauguration that by a margin of about three to one they said things are going to be different. In our latest NBC/Wall Street Poll, Journal Poll, they start to say, no, things are going to start to be the same. And that's not what voters want. They want change.

MR. LEHRER: Linda, how do you read this idea of what we have seen here? Is it more of the same, or has there been anything different?

MS. DIVALL: Well, first of all, we are still in the first 100 days, and I think people definitely want to give President Clinton the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, their opinions of Congress are still highly disapproving. Our recent survey that we just came out of the field with showed 37 percent of the public approving of the job Congress is doing, 54 percent disapproving, with about 34 percent strongly disapproving. There is a sense --

MR. LEHRER: It's just Congress generally? It's not broken down to Republicans, Democrats, it's just Congress?

MS. DIVALL: This specifically is the House of Representatives.

MR. LEHRER: House of Representatives.

MR. HART: Which is probably pretty good news for the House of Representatives.

MS. DIVALL: Well, that's a drop of about 20 points from where it was last fall. But the point that I'm trying to make is that Congress also campaigned on a theme of change and reform and have done anything but that, and so that is a problem that President Clinton faces in terms of trying to be an agent of change and working with the Congress. He doesn't necessarily want to accommodate that, and we see that in terms of no campaign finance reform being passed. Some of the items that the President campaigned under to try to present change his own people in Congress are blocking.

MR. LEHRER: Kathleen Jamieson, from your perspective as somebody who observes what the media has been saying, the pundits and others, the straight press and the unstraight press, would you, is there a decided difference between what the press has been saying and what the polls show the public thinks about the first 100 days, not only of President Clinton but of government generally and the Congress as well?

MS. JAMIESON: The interesting thing about conventionalizing a hundred days' coverage is that it invites us to set up a short-term measure that makes an assessment that may, in fact, not reflect the ultimate accomplishments of this President, and so I think the important thing to do is to keep this in perspective. One could say at a hundred days do we ask how the polls compare to past Presidents, in which case Bill Clinton isn't doing all that well, or we could say: In the first hundred days, how much has he tried to accomplish and how much of that has he succeeded at? Historically, in the first 100 days, Presidents other than FDR didn't accomplish very much. In the first hundred days Clinton has changed abortion rights access; he's changed the thrust of the country on the environment; family leave has been pushed through; and we now have a major dialogue on health care reform. If one had said, how many things that are comparable to that have been accomplished in the first hundred days of past Presidents, which is one way the coverage could have gone, you'd say Clinton has done remarkably. Instead, the hundred days' coverage is now conventionalizing in a different direction, focusing on the economy and on taxes, the place that the pollsters tell us he is weakest. That's got to hurt Bill Clinton.

MR. LEHRER: And you don't think that's right?

MS. JAMIESON: I think that the reason 43 percent voted for him and 55 to 60 percent say they approve of his job performance is that abortion rights access, changes on the environment, family leave, and a serious discussion of health care look like change to a lot of people who recognize that in a hundred days you can't turn around the economy, and you can't provide health care access for 35 million Americans.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Jodie Allen, then what Kathleen Jamieson is suggesting is that the people who, who pundit for, and analyze for a living have a very narrow focus when it comes to analyzing this presidency after 100 days. Do you agree with that? It's been too negative, in other words? That's what you're saying, right?

MS. JAMIESON: I'm saying it's inappropriate to make the negative judgment after a hundred days.

MR. LEHRER: Period?

MS. JAMIESON: Period, of anyone.

MR.LEHRER: Okay.

MS. ALLEN: Well, I don't think that the press does focus all that narrowly. I think the press looks at exactly the same things that we've been talking about here, and the notion that they're just a small group of inside-the-beltway people who run around to cocktail parties and asked each other how's he doing, I don't think that that's at all representative of what goes on. You look at exactly the same things. So do all the other people here tonight look at - - we look at the polls; we look at doing focus group analysis; we just had the -- we, the Washington Post, published a very good focus group analysis this weekend. We hear things that all seem to come together to say, gee, he's not doing as well as the public had hoped. Now, of course, there was a burst of euphoria. There were these expectations. The administration helped set up those expectations, even to the extent of pointing out a rather silly, day-by-day analysis of President Clinton and Al Gore's accomplishments which actually served to sort of minimize them rather than aggrandize them. I think that it would be hard to come to any other conclusion than, not surprisingly but certainly a pretty obvious one, that they're not doing as well in many dimensions as people had hoped and been led to believe.

MS. JAMIESON: The problem with asking people at one hundred days, what did you hope, and has the person met expectations, when what is currently on the table is economic reform and tax increases is that it invites the public to assess based on that criterion primarily, and in that context, the fact that 55 to 59 percent still say they approve of this I think is simply remarkable. What's interesting is that the coverage, itself, is not consistent with the polling results because the coverage is using such words as "faltering," or "increasingly desperate," "floundering." I don't think you can flounder this quickly. Six months from now if he doesn't have economic reform moving through, the health care package hasn't gone through, then those verbs might be warranted. The headlines, in other words, aren't running consistently with the polling numbers.

MS. ALLEN: I don't, in the first place, I don't think that the coverage has been that dramatic in terms of floundering or whatever. In fact, I haven't heard a single commentator who hasn't said, well, there's a certain drift here, who hasn't immediately said, of course, a hundred days, Linda said it just earlier, is awfully short time to judge a presidency, and I don't think this would be being done if the Clinton people hadn't invited it, in which case it's inevitable that we will look at how they're doing. But you do need to look behind that approval rating. There are things that need to be worried about. For example, one of the things the Clinton had done was amazingly for a Democrat in recent history was to have convinced people, a majority of people, that Democrats were better able to handle the economy and taxes. And yet, this week some very striking poll numbers have come out showing that he has completely lost that advantage. And people are once again saying, you know, that Republicans are better able to handle the tax issue. So while people do seem ready for sacrifice and certainly Clinton gets high marks with coming up with the proposed tax increase, they also seem to be saying, yeah, we'll pay taxes but not for the program that he's pushing. And that has to be worrisome to him because he needs to have a broader base.

MR. LEHRER: Kathleen Jamieson, another criticism that I have heard from people about the press coverage, not so much of the Clinton 100 days but it relates to that as well, is that the press is obsessed now more with the politics of the 100 days or the 50 days, rather than the substance. Of course, that's one we hear a lot, and we've always heard that, and it's probably always true to varying degrees, depending on the various news organizations, do you notice any more of that now than usual?

MS. JAMIESON: Yes. That's part of the reason for saying that historically we were more likely at the end of a hundred days to say what has he accomplished by ways of specific programs, and then, are they going to work are not? We were still within a policy debate. We've now moved toward governance that uses the campaign model. It focuses on polls, it focuses on strategy, and in a wonderful moment, I think it was in the Washington Post, someone pointed out, as they do in campaign coverage, that Clinton was wearing brown shoes with his dark suit, and that mismatch was symptomatic of the faltering state of the Clinton presidency as the campaign moved and he picked a symbolic movement to underscore the comment that you're making about the judgment about the campaign. I think what we need to do is refocus on the nature of the problems and whether Clinton has a viable solution or whether the Republican alternative is a viable solution.

MR. LEHRER: How do you get around that problem, Jodie Allen, of, how do you keep people in our business from not, from not drawing all political or all governmental conflicts in, in kind of show biz or sports terms, Dole won, Clinton lost, and that is the story, not so much what the substance was, and that gets lost in the process, can you change that?

MS. ALLEN: Well, of course, this is the whole problem that newspapers face. We want you to read about the details of how the tax program is going and, yet, we find our readers prefer to look at it, you know, Dole one, Clinton zero, and we try to entice them. If you do read the stories and not just the headlines or the style page about the shoes, you will find very serious discussion and great analysis of how is this program selling. But we look at the polls for the very reason that we're criticized for looking too narrowly at ourselves and at the Hill for being out of touch with America. We do want to know what people are thinking and saying.

MS. JAMIESON: Now, notice what Jodie just said. Her substantive focus is on how the program sells. That's not what a substantive focus should look like. It should look like this is the nature of the problem; these are the alternative solutions; this is how they have or have not worked in the past; and this is ultimately whether or not they're going to affect American lives in a positive or negative way.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now into the mix come Gergen & Shields, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, who's in Lincoln, Nebraska, tonight, and syndicated columnist Mark Shields. Mark, generally, how did Clinton fare in all of these assessments, these massive 100 day assessments that we've all been reading?

MR. SHIELDS: Pretty badly. He actually was hurt by Leon Panetta, his management and budget director, who this week spread the ugly truth and basically confirm what most of the analyses were. And only in Washington after somebody spoke the truth would the question be why did he speak the truth, rather than what did he say. Did he have a plan? Was this a billion shot or something? But that really hurt. I mean, there's no doubt about it.

MR. LEHRER: But why did it hurt?

MR. SHIELDS: It hurt because it confirmed, it gave independent validation --

MR. LEHRER: Mark, your microphone is not on.

MR. SHIELDS: Oh, I'm sorry.

MR. LEHRER: Wait a minute. It's in your lap. There we go.

MR. SHIELDS: Thank you very much. Gee, there's people all over America --

MR. LEHRER: Lip reading.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SHIELDS: I'm sorry.

MR. LEHRER: Anyhow, you were saying, somebody tell me how much our audience heard. Okay, heard it, go ahead. They heard all the good stuff.

MR. SHIELDS: Okay. [laughter] It hurt because Leon Panetta has a reputation for candor. It hurt because he is the management and budget director, and it hurt because he said it. And it did confirm independently what had been written in most of the assessments that this was an administration that was trying to do too much. It was a pretty pessimistic assessment.

MR. LEHRER: David, as a practical matter, do these assessments in and of themselves have an effect, or are they an accurate reflection of what is already there, and the world moves on, or does somebody sitting out there say, hey, wait a minute, Clinton's not doing very well, so then everybody, hey, Clinton's not doing very well, Clinton's not doing very well, or Clinton's doing great, Clinton's doing great, whoever you hear, do they have an effect in and of themselves? Are they important?

MR. GERGEN: I do think they have a ripple effect, Jim, and I think the assessments have been very rough. They've been very harsh this week. My sense is that the country is still much more hopeful about Bill Clinton. Yes, there's some disappointment but people want to give him more time. In Washington, there's been almost, there has been this rush to judgment, and I think that those assessments do spread around the country. It's like throwing a rock into a pond. The ripples, you know, in the waves go out, and I was in Chicago earlier today and people were asking me, is he really in that much trouble, as if they'd been reading assessments, are now wondering to themselves, gee, I didn't realize he was that bad, so I think this has been very rough for the President. Mark is absolutely right, but Leon Panetta's comments only seem to validate the roughness of the assessment.

MR. LEHRER: Well, why do you think there is such a huge difference between what the pundits in Washington are saying and what the public is telling the pollsters?

MR. GERGEN: Jim, in part, I think that the press has had, been in and out of love with Bill Clinton, and it's on the outs right now. And it's -- I think there's some extra degree of toughness to some of the articles in part because of that. I think there's some generational difference between some of the older members of the press and the younger President. I think the older members are not quite on the same wave length, and in general, I would have to tell you I think Washington has become a caldron in the last few weeks. I think it's been very devastating to the President. It's not just the press. The Republicans have been tough on him and within his own party the Democrats, some of the many Democrats who are voting for him in public are saying in private to members of the press, gee, he's starting to look like another Jimmy Carter. I have to tell you I feel some measure of sympathy for him. I was thinking as I heard some of this Democratic criticism of him that, that Clinton must be recalling a comment by Lyndon Johnson in a vexing moment of the 1960s, when Johnson was President, Johnson said, you know, the difference between liberals and cannibalsis that cannibals don't eat their friends.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, is David right, that the, that it isn't just the press that's doing bad things to Bill Clinton right now in this 100-day assessment?

MR. SHIELDS: There's a nervousness on Capitol Hill, Jim. I think it's important to put it in perspective. Eighteen months we have to go until the next national election, which is in November of 1994.

MR. LEHRER: I can hardly wait.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. Eighteen months before the national election in 1992, George Bush within the glow of the post Persian Gulf era was 80 percent plus and was invisible -- invincible. So invincible was he that President Lloyd Bentsen, President Al Gore, President Richard Gephardt, and President Bill Bradley all decided to spend more time with their family, thus leaving the field to people like Bill Clinton and Bob Kerrey and Tom Harkin and Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas. My point is that it's crazy to talk about this thing being over, but these people are nervous because they're up in 1994. Bill Clinton is not on the ballot again until 1996. He does have, I think, it has to be said to the man's credit that Bill Clinton, most of the elections in this country are change of speed elections, i.e., it's an argument like 1986 Linda mentioned between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, 1976 between Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter, 1960 between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. You're really arguing about little calibrations. Are we going to go a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, a little bit faster, or a little bit slower? We've had change of direction elections in 1932 and 1980. We changed the relationship of the federal government to the people of the country and the people to this government, and that with Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt. What Bill Clinton is trying to do after 1992 is to make that election a change of direction election. He is trying to change the relationship. That's a tough thing to do, and I think the failure, if there has been one, was he did not prepare people for the campaign of 1992 by talking about sacrifice.

MR. LEHRER: But my -- but the point that I think that David is making and that we've raised here is that, is it the people who weren't prepared, or is it the Washington establishment, Democrats, Republicans, and the press that wasn't prepared for this? In other words, where is Clinton's major problem tonight?

MR. SHIELDS: Clinton's major problem, and the two aren't separable really because there is hope in the country, the hope - - optimism has slipped dramatically, make no mistake about every measurement shows that. But the hope is still there. Hope is with him. People want change. They see him as the best chance for change. Republicans, while their attacks on Clinton have hurt themselves, they haven't helped him, they've hurt him. The only winner of the first hundred days is Henry Ross Perot. He's the only person in the country whose numbers have improved over the past hundred days.

MR. LEHRER: You're nodding agreement, David?

MR. GERGEN: My sense, Jim, and it's been somewhat to my surprise that Ross Perot is a much stronger figure in the country today than he was in November of last year. Not only are his approval ratings up, but there's one poll that's floating around in Washington that showed in contrast to last November when he got 20 percent of the vote if another election were held now, he would get as much as 40 percent of the vote. You know, I think that if a real election were held it wouldn't be true, but I think Mark is right. I think Ross Perot has moved up because the Republicans, while they've stopped Clinton on the stimulus package, for example, have not come forward with a positive program of their own, and Ross Perot's moved into the breach. I think it's a tough time for the President. I think the President is perplexed by this. I think he's, you know, he's trying to figure out how to get out of it. It's very clear to people in the White House that they cannot afford another hundred days like the first hundred days.

MR. LEHRER: Peter, you were shaking your head about Ross Perot.

MR. HART: Well, Ross Perot has made Bill Clinton's life a lot more difficult, as have the Republicans in the way in which they've structured themselves. But the Republicans haven't helped themselves, and I agree with Mark that, yes, Ross Perot has probably climbed up; the idea that somehow people will vote for him think again.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, go ahead.

MR. HART: The one point I want to make is that Bill Clinton isn't playing for the first hundred days, and it is a change of direction, and I think over the long haul he does just fine, and the one thing that's still there and we see it, and I was out doing focus groups all this week, is when you ask, people are still optimistic, they still have hope, and that there's a sense that this person brings a lot of energy and youth to what's going on.

MR. LEHRER: David disagrees with every word you just said.

MR. HART: Sorry, David.

MR. GERGEN: Just one point. While I do disagree about the optimism, I think there's a lot of hope here. I think you're absolutely right about that, and you're much closer to the focus groups than I am, but I do feel, to defend the press, to go back to something Jodie Allen was saying, you know, it's true that the press has covered this, it's been like covering the campaign, but, Jim, the fact is presidency, the White House has been running this like a campaign. It's been running the presidency like a permanent campaign. You know, they have their own focus groups; they take their own polls. You know, they even measure what words have what impact, you know, what do you call health care, do you call it managed competition or do you call it something else? They have put an awful lot of stress on the White House in these first hundred days. Not only did the President promise the most productive hundred days in history but that's the way they've been trying to run the White House, to convince people that this was an important measurement and they were going to produce, so I don't think it's unfair for the press to make measurements at this time. I do think the measurements have been overly harsh.

MR. LEHRER: Linda, do -- you heard what Mark said that the Republicans have hurt the President but they have hurt themselves as well. As a Republicans, do you agree with that?

MS. DIVALL: No, I don't. I think we were hurt in the first couple of weeks of Clinton's presidency. I think that we were a little bit slow, off the dime, trying to figure out what the new role was. Since then, with John Kasich's budget alternative, with what Sen. Dole and Sen. Domenici fashioned in the Senate in terms of their own deficit reduction plan, cutting the deficit by $460 billion without raising taxes, and the way they were able to reframe the economic stimulus package, which is we don't need more wasteful spending, went back and reminded people what kind of change are you voting for. People thought they were voting for change in terms of trying to get this deficit under control and cutting spending. People don't mind contributing their taxes if they think it goes towards deficit reduction. If it does not, then there's another problem. So what the Republicans have been able to do, specifically the Republicans in the Senate, is to go back and redefine themselves on terms that people are very comfortable with what Republicans can do best, and that is protect the taxpayers. And I think that is the ground that they've been able to stake out for themselves at this point.

MR. LEHRER: And it's worked, you think it's worked?

MS. DIVALL: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: Let me dissent.

MR. LEHRER: One at a time.

MR. SHIELDS: Every measurement of where you have more public confidence in creating jobs, American prosperity, controlling crime, health care, providing education, all of these standards, Bill Clinton has considerably higher marks than do the Republicans in the Congress. The sole exception is on protecting taxes, which is initially his attack. I mean, let's be very blunt about this. This is a guy who has changed the national debate. He has changed the agenda. We are talking about things in 1993 that we haven't talked about in this country. 1935 Franklin Roosevelt talked about national health insurance. Harry Truman mentioned it in '47, Lyndon Johnson in '65. Here we are in 1993, Bill Clinton serves by it. Did he appoint a blue ribbon commission? No. He put his wife in charge of it. Usually the blue ribbon commission is a nice insulation. You put some college presidents, CEOs, and then they come in with a tough thing, you say, hey, that's what the blue ribbon commission recommended. He put his wife in charge of it. He is absolutely accountable. I mean, he is trying to do things. I think the failure, if there was one, was the failure to prepare people for the kind of sacrifice that was going to be required.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. SHIELDS: But as far as changing things, he is about change.

MR. LEHRER: Kathleen Jamieson, let's go back to this point of the connection between Washington and the public. Do you believe that pundits like Mark Shields, David Gergen have an obligation in some way to make their assessments jive with the public assessments? I mean, is there, are they out of whack when their assessments are different say than what Linda and Peter say the polls show?

MS. JAMIESON: Only when they pretend to speak for the public. But I think the more important role of Gergen & Shields is to say these are, in fact, things that we can learn from history about what the possible is within the available resources of a President and a Congress. And these are the issues we ought to be discussing, rather than the issues -- for example, if the public may think we ought to be discussing, the public will be discussing them on their own, or the journalistic community thinks we ought to be discussing, somebody, some place in the process has to hold the focus on those things that ought to be in the national debate. And I can't think of two people better qualified.

MR. LEHRER: But Jodie, do you agree with Mark then that wherever you come down on any one of these issues that President Clinton is in charge, he really has at least set the agenda for the discussion? Do you agree with that?

MS. ALLEN: I think more than the average President. I mean, this is a very media oriented President and has been, and he's used it very successfully but you know, I mean, that means that sometimes it's going to boomerang on you and if you, if you play that game, you won't always win. I think you'll see them adjusting their strategy somewhat in that regard, but this administration too though has its eye on the public and thinks that it can bypass, and have successfully on some occasions, the normal punditry of Mark Shields and David Gergen. I mean, they, that has been a very clear emphasis that it has too, that we will reach out to the people, which of course then makes us more interested, as we always are interested in polls, but yet more interested in polls and focus groups, and yet, and we're getting a message that supports the conclusion that not that things are terrible but that they are kind of rocking along. I mean, I don't know how you'd come to another conclusion.

MR. LEHRER: Peter and Linda, has there ever been a really good poll on this question about the connection between what people hear from pundits like Gergen & Shields and what they then decide they feel about a given issue, and is there, where is the chicken and where is the egg, or are there, or where are they both, or whatever?

MR. HART: I don't know I have an answer. I measured Mark many years ago. His rating was way down.

MR. GERGEN: He's improved since then.

MR. HART: By a long stretch. But I -- clearly it has some effect. More importantly is how they read the President, and you have to recognize that they watch these things directly. It's no longer - -

MR. LEHRER: That's the new wrinkle.

MR. HART: That's right. No longer indirect. So they see everything directly with no filter, and in that case, by and large, I'd say Bill Clinton's getting through pretty well.

MR. LEHRER: And that's what you're, would you agree with that, Linda, that because of C-span and all the other media outlets that are now available the public is in a better position to make their own judgments without the help of people like us?

MS. DIVALL: Unfortunately, I guess I would have to agree with that. That's absolutely right. There are so many other options available to receive your news, to talk to friends about it, that, you know, the so-called major stations and major reporters are no longer holding the position that they once did. I mean, I think that's been confirmed in survey data as well.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. And your studies bear that out too, do they - -

MS. JAMIESON: And I think it's healthy. Unlike the journalistic community and the punditry, the community that consists of the pundits, I think it's healthy to say that the American people now have direct access and that we have sufficient confidence as people in our own ability to judge, to make intelligent decisions. I'd like to abolish pundits, experts, including myself, and move programs like MacNeil-Lehrer away from this sort of discussion toward discussion of the issues that face the country and the alternative solutions.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, yeah. Do you feel this is a major change from the way -- do you do your business differently, Jodie Allen, as a result of that, knowing that the people are more involved in the receiving end than they used to be in a direct way?

MS. ALLEN: Probably, but things are marginal. It isn't a watershed event, or whatever; we probably look more at C-span than we used to and CNN to watch the actual event, and we listen to call-in shows too to hear what people are saying. I mean, there is more interactive democracy. But there is still a need for a filtering mechanism. Remember, there's a lot of self selection in who calls in and whatever, and you try to, you try to get as much input as you can. But there is clearly a role for people like Mark and David who see a lot of elections, who've seen a lot of elections, who've seen a lot of Congressmen and seen a lot of people too. And I'm always interested to hear what they have to say.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Yes.

MS. JAMIESON: The weakness in a model in which one assumes that the electorate gets what it needs from Bill Clinton is that our system doesn't institutionalize the oppositional voice, and one needs to be able to hear the exchange of the debate in order to create an informed electorate.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. That's what we do on MacNeil-Lehrer the other four nights of the week. Okay. Yes. Quickly, David.

MR. GERGEN: It's like watching football. Yes, you can see it directly on your screen, but I think a lot of people want to have some understanding of what's happening, why the play is unfolding the way it is, and I think that's where it can help them, not to render judgments but to help people make their own judgments in a more informed way.

MR. LEHRER: I hear you, David. So do we all, and thank you all very much. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Friday, the leader of Bosnia's Serbs said he did not expect to sign a peace plan during the U.N. talks this weekend. Peace negotiator Lord Owen said he thought Serbia would force the Bosnian Serbs to agree to the plan. President Clinton proposed direct federal loans to college students and grants for students willing to perform community service work. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.