The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this Friday; then, a look at what's riding on tomorrow's constitution vote in Iraq; the seventh and final report of Paul Solman's series on China; the connection between politics and the economy is the subject tonight; then an update of how the religion issue is playing in the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, with analysis of that and other things by Mark Shields and David Brooks; plus a guest essay about New Orleans by Chris Rose of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Insurgents in Iraq sabotaged power lines late and blacked out Baghdad late today. It was one of several incidents on the eve of a constitutional referendum. In Fallujah, attackers burned the headquarters of a Sunni political party that's supporting the constitution and a bomb went off outside the group's Baghdad office. No one was hurt. U.S. and Iraqi military officials said they're hoping a ban on vehicle traffic and other measures will safeguard voters tomorrow.

COL. DAVID BISHOP, U.S. Army: Both units, U.S. and Iraqi, have surged quite a few forces out into the battle space in order to have a lot of troops on the ground. And so if there are vehicles moving on the roads tomorrow, they will be stopped and questioned. And if they have a valid reason and justification and are authorized, they'll be allowed to proceed. If they're not, the soldiers on the ground will separate them from their vehicle and send them on their way through other means.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on what's at stake in tomorrow's vote right after this News Summary. Authorities in Pakistan called off the search for earthquake survivors today. They said the focus has shifted to mass burials and relief efforts. The quake last Saturday devastated northern Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. It left thousands of people injured and millions homeless. We have a report from Penny Marshall of Independent Television News.

PENNY MARSHALL: When the rescue teams pull out, they take more than their equipment with them. They take hope away. This team from Turkey didn't want to leave this morning. They even said they believe there could still be survivors trapped, but that the working conditions had become impossible.

MEHMET TONTUR: We did something that was our best, but they didn't let us do much. There was bad organization, transport problems, gasoline problems, security problems.

PENNY MARSHALL: And today only brought more haphazard relief efforts. The army was trying to coordinate medical evacuations. The day seemed hampered by inadequate equipment or a lack of direction.

And as the Kashmiri cabinet met for the first time since the disaster, it had little to offer their desperate population.

We've been walking around the city, and there is a real sense of frustration. What are you going to do to satisfy the people?

SARDAR SIKANDER HAYAAT KHAN, Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir: What we had achieved in 50 years and that was lost in 50 seconds.

PENNY MARSHALL: Aid lorries are about the only traffic coming into town. Everyone else is going the other way, out. Anybody who has money or contacts, like these people, is packing up and leaving the city. The only people left behind are the desperate and the destitute. Across the street are the dead. And there's no doubt that most of the dead don't yet lie in the cemeteries but remain under the rubble.

JIM LEHRER: Relief workers also faced a forecast of more rain this weekend. That could ground helicopters flying in supplies and flying out victims. Amid the destruction, millions of Pakistani Muslims went to mosques today to offer prayers for the victims. As many as 40,000 people may have died in the quake.

Russian troops moved to clean out the last pockets of resistance today in their southern city of Nal'chik. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the assault there yesterday, near the Chechen border. At least 108 people were killed. Today, soldiers freed two hostages still being held in the city center. Officials said the troops were also making a sweep to find any gunmen still in hiding.

The European Union today imposed new measures to stop the spread of bird flu. Officials confirmed yesterday the Asian bird flu virus has migrated to Turkey and possibly to Romania. Today, EU experts agreed on tighter controls of wild migratory birds. They also imposed border checks to make sure banned products do not leave Romania and Turkey.

President Bush's top advisor, Karl Rove, testified before a federal grand jury in Washington for a fourth time today. The panel is probing the leak of a CIA operative's name. Rove left the courthouse without commenting. In a statement, his attorney said there's no indication yet that Rove is a target of the investigation.

Later White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted the focus there remains on work, not the investigation.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: That's what we will continue do is carry out the work of the American people because that's what they expect. And while there are other things going on, the White House doesn't have time to let those things distract from the important work at hand, and that's why we remain focused on what the American people want us to do.

JIM LEHRER: McClellan would not say directly if the president still has confidence in Rove. Instead he said, "Karl continues to do his duties."

The storms of September touched off the worst inflation in 25 years. The Labor Department reported today consumer prices surged 1.2 percent last month. It was due to sharply higher energy prices, caused by damage in the Gulf. Separately, the Federal Reserve said the storms cut industrial output by 1.3 percent. It was the largest decline in that category in 23 years. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 70 points to close at 10,287. The NASDAQ rose more than 17 points to close at 2064. For the week, the Dow lost a fraction of percentage. The NASDAQ was down 1 percent. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: Something big tomorrow in Iraq; China rising, part seven; religion and Miers; Shields and Brooks; and a New Orleans essay.

FOCUS VITAL VOTE

JIM LEHRER: Iraqis vote on a constitution. Ray Suarez has our story.

RAY SUAREZ: Before the city was hit by a blackout tonight, children played in the empty streets of Baghdad. Traffic was all but banned in the capital on the eve of tomorrow's constitutional referendum. Security was tight. Barbwire surrounded polling stations. Iraqi security forces are taking the lead in security operations and checking vehicles at random. American troops are doing their part, too.

COL. DAVID BISHOP, U.S. Army: The U.S. forces have gone out in great strength to assist the Iraqi army so that we're covering roadways, infrastructure, and other areas that the insurgents may want to attack, thus freeing more Iraqi army soldiers to secure the polling sites for the people.

RAY SUAREZ: Extra troops were deployed to try seal the borders, as here at the crossing into Kuwait. Billboards and posters urging Iraqis to vote are prominently displayed. Today the former Iraqi president, Iyad Allawi, pushed for a yes vote.

IYAD ALLAWI (Translated): We call you today to vote in the referendum with yes on the draft constitution, and we call do you participate in the process of Iraq's stability and making the future bright for the next generation.

RAY SUAREZ: Hundreds of Shiites took to the streets in Baghdad in support of the constitution after Friday prayers today. They shouted, "Yes, yes to Islam. No for America and Saddam."

But Sunnis just north of the capital chanted no to the constitution, staging demonstrations of their own. At the Sunni mosque in the same town, the cleric told worshippers the constitution should agree with the Koran.

MAHMOOD AL-SUMAIDAIE, Sunni Cleric (Translated): If we see that the constitution is getting along with the Koran's principles, we will vote yes, but if we see that the constitution doesn't go along with Islamic and national principles and divides the country and the people at that time, we must refuse it.

RAY SUAREZ: Voting is already under way at hospitals and prisons, and some 6,000 other polling stations will open tomorrow morning.

RAY SUAREZ: Decision day in Iraq. We get four views. Dr. Najmaldin Karim is president of the Washington Kurdish Institute and an adviser to several Iraqi Kurdish leaders. He's now a U.S. citizen. Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan and the author of a modern history of Shia Iraq, called "Sacred Space and Holy War." Judith Yaphe is a former CIA analyst, and now a senior fellow at the National Defense University. And Adeed Dawisha is a professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio. He was born in Iraq and is now a U.S. citizen.

Professor Dawisha, let's start with you. The polls open in a few hours. What's at stake for the people of Iraq?

ADEED DAWISHA: Well, what's at stake is actually the political process than the constitution itself. The way the constitution was written, it was already up for grabs because something like about 53 articles of the 129 permanent articles were awaiting further legislation.

With the new agreement, the constitution is going to be revised, amended and modified. And so whatever the people are voting for in terms of a document might turn out to be something very different come May or June of next year.

So what's happening is a referendum not so much about the constitution but about the political process itself. How many people are going to be going out to vote, how many people are going to be participating in the political process, whether they're going to go against or for the constitution, what is important is how many of them are going to go and work within the system rather than work outside it through violence or at least facilitating violence.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Yaphe, you heard Adeed Dawisha, that the process is even more important than what's in the constitution itself. What do you think?

JUDITH YAPHE: It's one point of view, and I think what's in it and the process are terribly important. I think what I would look for is more what happens afterwards, in other words, if this fails, what will it do for Iraq because Iraq cannot move forward and cannot have any kind of an effective government without a constitution and a permanent government.

In other words, if this fails, there will be another temporary government chosen and another constitution-writing committee, and everything will slide another year or more, and we could have a repeat of this over again.

I think what Iraqis need is the process, which is very important, which leads them to the next election and a more permanent government, then they can work out the differences because this constitution as a document has a lot o of -- we could call them holes. Let's just call them ambiguities which have enabled compromises -- which is what democracy is all about -- right -- so that the Iraqis can move on.

They also need a permanent government if they're going to have to have the capability in governance. People are going to know they're going to be in power more than six months or eight months, nine months, and therefore will be interested in institution-building.

RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Karim, what's at stake for Iraq tomorrow?

DR. NAJMALDIN KARIM: I think what's at stake, it's important that this referendum goes well and people come out and vote for it. I believe that it will pass and a constitution will be ratified tomorrow, subject, of course, to changes in the future, as they have agreed on it.

And I believe it sets the stage for those who have been against participation in the democratic process in Iraq to come forward and realize that by being in it they can ensure -- at least have a say in what their future will be, and I believe that you will see that after this referendum in the election in December that you will see greater participation by the Sunnis, and they will come to realize that federalism is actually a way for them to guarantee that they will have self-rule in their area and that there are safeguards as far as getting a share of the national resources, which is one thing that probably is scaring them by Kurdistan and the Shias in the South having the lion's share of the national resources.

So I think it will set the process forward by having more of them participate in the general election and having their representative in the future parliament which can actually go and debate what is in the constitution and be more involved in the process of amending the constitution or changing certain points, certain articles.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you're describing a process that's bringing people into politics even if they disagree. Will the no vote decide that it's better to be inside the system than outside of it when it's over?

DR. NAJMALDIN KARIM: I believe participation in the process is significant because this will show them that they can come and their vote will count. I see that the likelihood of this being rejected is extremely remote because just the numbers and the demographics for those of us who are from the area and know what is it like will make it impossible for this draft to be rejected.

But by the mere participation, I think it will give them hope that in the next election for a permanent government, for a permanent assembly, they will have more say and they will have more representatives there that can represent their views and defend their rights.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Cole, you've heard three colleagues talk about how important politics working is at this juncture. What's your view?

JUAN COLE: Well, I think it's important that politics is working and I think it's also important toward what goal it is working. I'm a pessimist on this process, and I'm a severe critic of this constitution. Professor Dawisha was polite in the way he put it, but it's full of trapdoors.

RAY SUAREZ: The constitution?

JUAN COLE: The constitution is full of trapdoors. There will be a provision that says revenues will be shared between the provinces and the federal government. In what way will they be shared? Well, there will be a law passed by subsequent parliament that will determine that.

So in many instances the people who are voting for this constitution have no idea what exactly it is, the substance that they're voting for. The constitution allows provincial confederations which have claims on resources and perhaps on enormous resources.

It would be as though Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico could form a confederacy, and then they could tell Washington, well, you're not going to be getting as much tax money from our oil as you used to, and moreover, if you want to talk to Austin, you have to go through our confederal parliament and our prime minister.

The last time we had a confederacy in this continent it caused a lot of trouble. And I'm very concerned that these provisions in the constitution could lead to such a weak central government and to such strong provinces that there will be centrifugal forces breaking the country apart.

And then 20 percent of the population, the Sunni-Arab population, seems to be pretty diehard against this constitution; that's going to weaken its legitimacy.

RAY SUAREZ: But apropos of what's been said earlier, is Iraq better off with passing a flawed constitution rather than having to go back to the drawing board and start from the beginning at a very, very fractious time in the country's life?

JUAN COLE: Well, certainly it's better off because if 80 percent of the population were supporting this process and this constitution, and they were disappointed, then the disappointment in the democratic process might be fateful for Iraq.

Certainly it's much better that it pass than it not pass, but it is an extremely troubling document, and it should be remembered that the failure of the United States framers of the Constitution to deal with the slavery issue did hold within it ultimately the seeds of the civil war in this country, and putting off difficult issues, having open-ended compromises that don't come to a decisive end can cause future trouble. It's much better if things are settled.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Dawisha, does the set of agreements made earlier this week open up the possibility for the renegotiation of what you've called the trapdoors and some of the shortcomings that Professor Cole sees?

ADEED DAWISHA: Yes, certainly. This is basically -- they institutionalized beforehand what was going to come anyway.

As I said, there's so many unresolved business in this constitution that the national assembly was bound to sit around and legislate, and that's what's going to happen through the institution of a constitutional committee and then, of course, another referendum.

This is why I said from the very beginning, regardless of what you thought of the constitutional document, and I agree with Professor Cole, that it is -- it has lots of holes, and actually, in many ways it's a very amateurish kind of document with all kind of principles and aspirational ideas being substituted for enforceable laws.

So from that point of view, I think that what we should be looking for in this referendum is the participation, is the process, how many people go out to vote, how many people therefore want to decide if they want to work within the system in terms of electing a government but also in terms of modifying and amending the constitution later on.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Yaphe, American policymakers have speculated that a successful vote and an immediate move toward an elected government at the end of the year will take some of the energy away from the insurgency. Do you see that happening?

JUDITH YAPHE: I don't think constitutions and elections have any effect on an insurgency. Insurgency has to be dealt with in an effective manner. Now, it will help to have a stronger government which can fund and support the instruments of national power that it needs to fight the insurgencies with all the tools at its disposal: military, political, diplomatic, the full five or six tools of national power.

Without a central government, without a permanent government, you don't have that. So the Iraqis have to come together in a new government that is going to have a permanency and build institutions which include institutions that are going to fight the insurgency. That will have an impact.

If you have a stronger defense, stronger interial ministry, if you can support your border security, if you could support social welfare institutions, and that's sort of the promise, but in and of itself, constitutions don't affect insurgencies.

If it fails, that will be another cheering point for the vocal insurgents, but I don't think it's going to change -- just the passage is going to have an impact.

RAY SUAREZ: Let me get your response to that.

DR. NAJMALDIN KARIM: I believe that the passage of this draft constitution will give a boost to the process of democracy. We have to remember one thing here: we are building a new country. We are building a new Iraq. The Iraq that we have known over the past 85 years is gone and dead. We're building a new society.

We can't go back and have a strong central government as the professor suggests that has power over the people. It's a minority. It has been a minority government. It has given itself license, you know, with international support to oppress its people to commit genocide, to evacuate the dry marshlands in the South. Those days are gone.

As far as sharing the revenues that Professor Cole was alluding to, actually, if you read the constitution carefully, every natural resource that has been discovered so far, which includes the oil in Kirkuk, which includes the oil in the South, the water resources, these are shared by everybody in the country. The new resources that are discovered in the country will be operated in a way between the central government and the regions.

But the existing resources will be divided according to the population with consideration of the destruction that has fallen upon certain areas that we all very well know about in the South and in Kurdistan.

We will no longer have a central government that will spend those resources of the country on fuel and on military adventures and starve you know -- a blessed country the way they have in Saddam Hussein and the previous regimes have done in Iraq.

So we are talking about building a new society, and a new country where the people can coexist and the people can govern themselves as opposed to a central dictatorial regime.

And what is described as the insurgency today, we can see now -- even now in the last year or so how the population is getting away from the insurgents and actually tribes in the west, in the Sunni lands, now are themselves fighting the insurgents because they see the destruction they are causing in their regions.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, a new process starts, I think, with tomorrow's vote. We'll check back with you all. Thanks a lot.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The last report in Paul Solman's Chinese economy series; religion in the Miers debate; Shields and Brooks; and a New Orleans essay.

SERIES CHINA RISING

JIM LEHRER: The conclusion of China Rising. Our seventh and final report looks at political freedom in China and its connection to the economy. Once again, we go to the NewsHour economics correspondent, Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston.

FILM, MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Allow me to introduce our American visitors --

PAUL SOLMAN: When I was growing up, the monomaniacal Red Chinese were Hollywood's baddest actors.

FILM: I must ask you to forgive their somewhat lackadaisical manners, but I have conditioned them, or brainwashed them.

PAUL SOLMAN: In real life, Chinese Communism saved its greatest abuse for its own people. This was the Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s, but as recently as 1989 a protest against government repression and corruption was brutally crushed, leaving a thousand or more dead in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

And yet on the surface, today's China looks about as menacing as a suburban shopping mall.

Behind the scenes, however, there still lurks Big Sibling.

As others regularly document, China remains, in many ways, a police state. As for our own experience, we were forced to hire government minders to approve and accompany every shoot: Very friendly; very present.

Our Internet access and emails were monitored. In our hotel, a CNN report about the Microsoft Network censoring Chinese bloggers was censored -- or at least, the TV went blank.

And just last month China ordered that all Internet news sites must be directed toward serving the people and socialism.'

At Tsinghua University the campus intranet is censored.

PAUL SOLMAN (to bystander): Can you find out anything you want on the Internet?

PAUL SOLMAN: And we ourselves were nearly censored, when we tried to ask about such restrictions without a minder.

BYSTANDER: No, why you ask these questions?

PAUL SOLMAN: We pressed on -- but so did our bystander.

Someone reported us to the authorities and, warned not to stray, we called off a shoot with a pair of student journalists, mainly for fear of getting them into trouble.

But what does a culture of repression have to do with economics? Well, we Westerners assume that political freedom and technological innovation go hand in hand. And indeed, innovation is essential. For China to keep growing, it has to evolve into a more advanced economy; has to innovate because right now it relies almost entirely on exports, says MIT's Yasheng Huang.

YASHENG HUANG: Japan is usually viewed as a country obsessed with export and foreign trade; the ratio is about 20 percent. The US is a free trading nation; the ratio is about 20 percent. China has 70 percent of its GDP tied up in foreign trade.

PAUL SOLMAN: Trade based on cheap manufacturing, cheap labor. But manufacturing is becoming more and more mechanized -- in China like everywhere else. In fact, between 1995 and 2002, China lost 15 million manufacturing jobs, compared with a loss of 2 million jobs in the U.S.

So who makes and designs the machines; comes up with the new products; the intellectual property? Who innovates? Not China. Not yet, anyway. Most factories here are foreign investments, using foreign technology, making foreign-branded goods -- goods not really "made in China," -- try to think of even one Chinese brand -- but "processed in China."

Yes, it's impressive, says Professor Huang --

YASHENG HUANG: But we are not talking about the kind of economic success that we saw in Korea and in Japan.

PAUL SOLMAN: The spirit of innovation is instilled at an early age, says the head of China's biggest microchip company, which built its own more Western school for its employees. Richard Cheng.

RICHARD CHENG: Chinese students, they work hard. But the, their own educating system pretty much emphasize memorizing things, and U.S. society from kindergarten already encourages to be innovative, to be, independent.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jim McGregor, a Wall Street Journal reporter turned businessman who's worked in China for twenty years, says the classroom control never ends.

JIM McGREGOR: It's hard to innovate and create in a society that controls the media, controls, controls thought in many ways at universities. Chinese people perform best out of China when it comes to research and development.

PAUL SOLMAN: And those who stay in China to do R&D, like these employees at the company developing Tsinghua University's technology seem oblivious -- or defensive -- about thought control.

I told them about watching the censored CNN report:

PAUL SOLMAN: So the story started and suddenly the TV was blank.

EMPLOYEE: So your view is?

PAUL SOLMAN: That somebody stopped the story --

EMPLOYEE: Not necessarily; might be a technical problem from your side.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well it was, somebody came --

EMPLOYEE: This is a report you got only from CNN journalist, so the view might not be objective enough. In fact, China is much more open than you can imagine. We are doing fine and we are making progress every single day.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wanting to ask about the effects of repression, I wound up debating its very existence. But why do young Chinese still look the other way?

DAVID MOSER: Sometimes the people who are the youngest, the most well-educated, the most Internet savvy are the ones who are least likely to say anything against the government.

PAUL SOLMAN: American David Moser is something of a celebrity in China, appearing on TV as a commentator, a talent show judge and occasionally, Confucius.

DAVID MOSER: Remember another one of my famous sayings --

PAUL SOLMAN: But it's only when he's off Chinese TV, and on PBS, that Moser can criticize uncritical Confucian authority worship, which also leads to a second economic problem he says: unchecked corruption.

DAVID MOSER: One of the biggest problems with the evolving Chinese economy is corruption and that if you don't have a free flow of information you don't have a free press, you really cannot address the issue of corruption, right. That's one thing.

PAUL SOLMAN: Right, because there's nobody to blow the whistle.

DAVID MOSER: There's nobody to blow the whistle, right. And what you have now is a situation where a very small group of people in the government are making very, very massive and important economic decisions with virtually no public forum for discussion or for dissent.

PAUL SOLMAN: For example, says Moser --

DAVID MOSER: You've had massive social disruption as the one-child policy creates this generation of only children. You have all these parents and grandparents that no longer have the, the guaranteed cradle-to-grave benefits they were suppose to get under, under Marxism. And yet, you don't have the public forum in which this stuff can be talked about.

PAUL SOLMAN: And you can't raise that when you're on one of your shows? You can't kind of work that in, in some clever comedic way?

DAVID MOSER: Let's see. How can I put this? No. (laugh)

PAUL SOLMAN: So repression allows for corruption, for poor economic policy-making, and, it stultifies innovation. So why do cosmopolitan young Chinese allow it?

DAVID MOSER: They've made a bargain with the devil here because they, the young people are the ones who are most set up to benefit from the economic modernization itself, right?

It's a little distressing to talk with them sometimes, especially during the recent anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. A lot of them are not really aware that, exactly what happened and they don't care. A lot of them really don't care.

HANDEL LEE: A friend of mine described it as the anaconda in the chandelier.

PAUL SOLMAN: Handel Lee is a very successful Chinese-American businessman who's opening a new nightclub in Beijing.

HANDEL LEE: The anaconda may never come out, but it's up there. Sometimes you can feel it, and a lot of people say, oh, it's communist. It's not communist. It's Chinese. It's authoritarianism that's very, very Chinese or Confucian.

PAUL SOLMAN: Confucian, I thought Confucianism was a good influence on societies like China, Asian societies, with respect for the elders, hard work --

HANDEL LEE: Well in Confucianism, you don't question authority. I mean, that's just unheard of in a Chinese household. Governments demand that same sort of respect.

PAUL SOLMAN: So where is this unique blend of Communist Party dictatorship, Confucian authoritarianism and a free market free-for-all headed? Pessimists like Labor leader Han Dongfang fears that continuing economic growth will fund the Communist Party's tools of repression.

HAN DONGFANG: We're basically facing the worst marriage in human history which is capitalist and communist; and the workers on one hand they have to deal with this evil critical power that make them cannot open their mouth; on the other hand you face this huge economical giant which is running around the globe.

PAUL SOLMAN: But optimists like Liu Chuanzhi, who managed the Chinese firm Lenovo's buyout of IBM's personal computer business, claim that as the economics develops, so will the politics.

LIU CHUANZHI (Translated): In China we have to first to start with the economic one and I think with that kind of person it will be reform in the political area soon. At the very beginning, it is up to one person, the leader to use his authority and his power and control the situation, but later on, when everything is okay, there's no need for the leader to do everything.

PAUL SOLMAN: There remains a third possibility, however, one that we in the U.S. might find especially hard to swallow: that there won't be political reform in China anytime soon. Yet economic growth will continue, even to the next, more advanced stage of development, in which case, some might read a worrisome moral into the story of China's economic success: Perhaps growth can co-exist with corruption and soft authoritarianism. Maybe successful economic decisions can be made by a few at the top; and just possibly, maybe there can be innovation without representation.

JIM LEHRER: You can go to the Online NewsHour at pbs.org for more on Paul's series, or sign up for a pod cast that automatically downloads audio versions of his stories.

FOCUS RELIGION AND THE COURT

JIM LEHRER: And now the analysis of Shields and Brooks. The first question has to do with religion and its role in the Harriet Miers nomination. Kwame Holman sets it up.

KWAME HOLMAN: On Wednesday President Bush raised the issue of religion when he suggested it was a reason he chose his longtime associate.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background. Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion.

KWAME HOLMAN: That angered some Senate Democrats who charged Miers' religion was being used to appease religious conservatives, some of whom have criticized the choice of the White House counsel, in part because she lacks a clear judicial philosophy. Illinois's Dick Durbin said: The White House is basically saying that because of Harriet Miers' religious beliefs you can trust her. That to me is a complete reversal not only of the history of choosing Supreme Court nominees but of where the White House was weeks ago with the nomination of John Roberts.'

Durbin himself was singled out for asking John Roberts how his Catholic faith affected his professional life. Texas Republican John Cornyn said such questions should be off limits in the Roberts' confirmation hearings.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN: We have no religious test for public office in this country, and I think anyone would find that sort of inquiry, if it were actually made, offensive.

KWAME HOLMAN: And conservative activist James Dobson stoked the fire this week, telling his radio listeners he had a conversation with presidential adviser Karl Rove two days before Miers' nomination and was told

DR. JAMES DOBSON: --she is from a very conservative church which is almost universally pro-life.

KWAME HOLMAN: Questioned repeatedly about that yesterday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the administration's campaign in support of Miers.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I said that she recognizes that religion and personal views have no role to play when it comes to being a judge, yet some in the media wanted to continue to chase this story and not focus on her record and her qualifications. That's all I'm saying.

KWAME HOLMAN: Harriet Miers will be back on Capitol Hill next week, continuing her courtesy calls on the senators who will judge her nomination.

FOCUS SHIELDS & BROOKS

JIM LEHRER: And to Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

David, what's your view about the White House's using religion in the Harriet Miers' nomination?

DAVID BROOKS: It's old-fashion identity politics. When Bush first ran for office in 1999 in one of the Republican primary debates, he was asked who his favorite philosopher was. And he said Jesus. And he didn't say anything ideologically, but the message was I'm a Christian, you're a Christian; we're in the same group. And it reminded me of the old machine politics, I'm a Jew, you're a Jew; I'm a Portuguese, you're a Portuguese; I'm black, you're black.

It was first time that I thought evangelicalism was used as an identity group, vote for us, we're all on the same team. That's what they're going to hear with Harriet Miers, poor Christian woman being attacked by those people in the capitol. We're a Christian; she's a Christian; let's stick together as a team.

To me it's a completely cynical and completely irresponsible thing to do. It tells you nothing about her. There are a lot of Christians in this country with good or bad judicial views; it sort of debases the whole process.

JIM LEHRER: Cynical, irresponsible, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I think that, Jim, but I think it's also more. I mean, it's not her religious beliefs that they're using as a credential; it's her church membership.

They never address her; they just simply say she belongs to a church which is universally pro-life, so you can't ask about abortion --

JIM LEHRER: You can't ask her if she's pro life.

MARK SHIELDS: You can't ask if she's pro-life but her church is pro-life and she's active in that church therefore wink, nod, nudge and she's one of us and that's okay. This is the Rosetta stone sort of her political philosophy.

But, you know, I give Gary Bauer, the conservative past Republican presidential candidate president credit he says -- what's the point? They bring up her religion and say it's a credential and then Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, stands up there and says her religion doesn't matter.

JIM LEHRER: He accused the media of doing it.

MARK SHIELDS: The media of doing it. I guess what it comes down to is there is no religious test unless it can be helpful to a conservative who is in trouble for confirmation.

DAVID BROOKS: Well to, me it's also I mean, it's just as illegitimate as being part of any group. We should have a woman seat; we should have a minority seat, you should judge people by the individual, not by whatever, you know, political group they fall into. And the problem here, of course, is she has so little actual substance to her individual resume, at least constitutionally.

JIM LEHRER: Well, that's the question. Is it working? It is working for the White House? Is emphasizing the church she goes to, is it helping her with conservative senators, with conservative groups who are down on her?

DAVID BROOKS: I think all the arguments in her favor have hurt her because they tend to look weak, and I think a lot of the people defending her are doing so halfheartedly. I think there is a clear momentum away from her confirmation.

Last week I would have said almost no chance she wouldn't get confirmed. Now I think it's a very significant chance.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, in fact, there is an increasing talk, at least, that the heat is on for her to withdraw, in other words, she would do it on her own. She would go to the president and say, Mr. President, I'm a distraction. You have got many other things to do. Let me withdraw. I will go quietly. Is that likely to happen?

MARK SHIELDS: You know, I don't know if it's likely to happen, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Have you heard the same thing?

MARK SHIELDS: I have heard the same thing. There is open discussion of it. You know, it's just striking me as unfair. It truly does. I mean, I think this is someone who has been treated shabbily...

JIM LEHRER: You're talking about Harriet Miers?

MARK SHIELDS: Harriet Miers. She isn't somebody who has spent her career angling for this appointment. This appointment came to her quite out of the blue. I mean, she wasn't writing op-ed page pieces and joining the Federalist Society and going through all the chairs and the handshakes and all the baloney to get on that list -- junior varsity list of who is successful...

JIM LEHRER: She was, in fact, in charge of the list

MARK SHIELDS: She was in charge of appointing John Roberts. I mean, the irony is that John Roberts, because he was so good and she was one of the people that endorsed him, has set a standard that's going to be tough for her.

But I mean, Jim, she's not a crony of George Bush's. I mean, she's a loyal worker of George Bush's. I mean, a crony is someone who comes from the same social and economic background. She's the anti-Bush. She didn't have a family legacy at Andover Academy, Yale or Harvard Business School with the admissions mat -- welcome mat being rolled out for her. She had to scrape and scrimp and save to get through SMU and SMU Law School, first in her family to do it.

I mean, this is somebody, for goodness sakes, who, you know, has worked hard. They're treating her shabbily at this point, and their supporters have dropped her like a bad habit. Every time that Bush puts his foot in it further, I mean it's just I mean, Karl Rove calling Jim Dobson?

JIM LEHRER: I think he's talking about you, David.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, first, I don't think writing op-ed's is such a bad thing except that some disqualify you from you know, the shabby thing was nominating her in the first place. She's not up to this job. That doesn't mean she's not a very smart person or a very good person, which she obviously is. I'm not up to the job. A lot of us aren't up to being Supreme Court justices, but when the president nominated her, he put her up at a certain level and set certain standards upon her.

And when you go back and read her writing and her... the quality of thought you see there, she just has shown no evidence that she's up to this extremely high level. And so I think the president sort of set her up to fail by nominating her.

JIM LEHRER: What have you heard, same question I asked Mark about whether or not she may quietly go away?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I still think the president's pretty firm; once he makes a decision, he really likes to stick with it. But, you know, there has been a lot of talk about the staff members on the Senate Judiciary Committee, almost open revolt. In the White House there is a lot of tepid reaction in the low levels. We'll really know more next week when the senators themselves come back into town.

JIM LEHRER: What about the way the Democrats are praying that? They've been laying back. Are they having any influence on this at this point?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, they will because at some point you have to think how does she get through committee if she loses a few Republicans, do all the Democrats support her? Do the Democrats think, well, if we get rid of her, the next person will probably be worse from our point of view, so you... they're doing their own thing.

JIM LEHRER: Take us through the Democratic thinking on this. Right now and correct me if I'm wrong, I couldn't find in the record today one Democrat who has come out in favor of her nomination.

MARK SHIELDS: If he or she did, they ought to have their town tongue plucked out of their mouth. Let's be honest, this is a leper colony the other side. They're constantly -- this is watching the Bickersons go at it. You're not going to step in the family squabble at this point. It's ugly. This is not a populist insurrection. I mean, Republicans like to say they're a populist movement. It's an elitist movement. The opposition to her is not coming from the field. It's not coming from the grassroots. In fact, the Wall Street Journal poll shows a plurality of people still back her nomination. It's coming from, ironically, women, conservative women, Peggy Noonan

JIM LEHRER: Conservative intellectuals like David Brooks.

MARK SHIELDS: Exactly. He's not a woman.

JIM LEHRER: I said conservative intellectuals.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right. I wouldn't even call him an intellectual. He's too good for that.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

MARK SHIELDS: Of course, when other women come to her defense, like Marsha Greenberg of the Woman's Legal Center and Eleanor Smeal, the former president of NOW, that even hurts her case more. But, I mean, there was no question it was the woman seat that she was nominated for.

DAVID BROOKS: I wouldn't say it's only an elitist movement. First of all in the polls, she's not doing well in the polls compared to where John Roberts was at this point, compared to where Clarence Thomas was at this point. Her support is well below that publicly.

But, second, as to the rift on the right, to me it's a rift between Republicans who are not that intellectual but who are loyal to their party and conservatives whose entire movement is based on the idea that you take ideas from the wilderness and win the argument of ideas.

And that's why the Federalist Society was founded. That's why all these magazines are found and think tanks are founded. Conservatives used to differentiate themselves in the past as they do now. It was conservatives against Republicans. Republicans were the stupid party. Conservatives were the people who believed in a set of principles and ideas. And that rift is reopening. It's closed for the past ten years, but it's reopening, and the conservatives tend to be against her, the Republicans who are more into team loyalty tend to be for her.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, much has been made that one of the president's polls continue to go down, Harriet Miers is part of that, Iraq, there are all kinds of reason, Katrina, et cetera. But now they're saying one of the reasons he's doing so poorly right now is because Karl Rove is out of commission a little bit because of the CIA operative thing. He testified for the fourth time today before a federal grand jury. Do you buy that?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I don't know who is calling the shots in the White House, but the president -- for the past 18 months, the president has been flirting just above or just below 50 percent, and what's sustained him, what kept him up there were the personal scores he had on strong leadership, on decisiveness, honesty and straightforwardness. And all of those have left him. They left him months ago. They've been dropping. So he's dropping. He's now into the 30s. I don't think Karl Rove deserves credit for his having been at 50; I don't think he deserves blame for his being in the 30s.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read the Karl Rove factor?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think if the second term is not a good term. People will look back and say one of the big mistakes the president made was not bringing in more fresh blood because you, you know, you look at what happened -- he just promoted from within to either the cabinet or up within the White House. He stayed within a very narrow circle. And as a result, I think what you had --first, people want a sense that something new is going to happen. And the second thing you want, a connection again with the American people. And to me what's happened over the last few months is the president is out of touch with the instinctive reaction of the American people on the Schiavo case, on Social Security, on this, as well, I would say -- sort of a lack of connection, you know, organic connection with what the American people want.

JIM LEHRER: Going back to the discussion that Ray had at the beginning of the program about the Iraq referendum tomorrow, he and his guests talked about what it meant for the Iraqis. What does it mean for President Bush and the United States?

DAVID BROOKS: It means quite a lot. If it goes down and we have another... it's all pushed back a year, it will be very bad for Iraq and therefore bad for Bush. Bush is going to be judged on Iraq. I think so far he has to give Zalmay Khalilzad, our ambassador there, a lot of credit for hammering through this last-minute deal with some of the Sunni organizations.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think, Mark? How important is this?

MARK SHIELDS: The 412th corner was turned, Jim. This will be the 412th corner by actual count, turn in Iraq. The elections in December probably more important than the elections this weekend, but Jim, the American people and the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll drives this home, as do the other surveys, they've made up their minds; they think Iraq... it's not a question of if we get out, it's a question of when and how. They're pessimistic about the outcome.

Less than one-third think it's going to be a successful outcome. That's been declining. You can just chart that right out.

JIM LEHRER: So it doesn't really matter that much what happens tomorrow?

MARK SHIELDS: No, I really don't think it does. I mean, I hope it's successful. I hope it brings some order, some tranquility, some decency to the people of Iraq who, Lord knows, have suffered enough. But I don't think this is going to change what is the long-range involvement of the United States as far as Iraq is concerned.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with Mark that for most of the American people this whole thing is just kind of it's over?

DAVID BROOKS: People are exhausted by it as anybody would be after three years of this kind of war. But I still think if we can look back ten years hence and say Iraq really was changed, and maybe some other things in the Middle East went well, I think ten years hence we'll still say it was a good thing.

MARK SHIELDS: We're not saying that. It's interesting, the president made his big speech last week. It isn't the great vision of democratizing the Middle East any longer. Now, it's if we don't fight them there, we'll fight them over here. They're going to be in New Jersey and Nantucket if we don't stop them. That's a different message.

JIM LEHRER: If I don't stop you, they're going to fight me right here. Thank you both very much.

ESSAY LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER

JIM LEHRER: And Finally tonight, we hear from a guest essayist Chris Rose, columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. And he talks about plans and people in New Orleans.

CHRIS ROSE: The other night at Cooter Brown's, a local bar far away from New Orleans' famed French Quarter, folks who have begun to trickle back and some who never left were doing what comes naturally to most people who make this city their home. They had a party.

SPOKESMAN: Thank you, sir.

CHRIS ROSE: Amid the tales of survival and displacement, of despair and hope, of absurdity and tragedy, there were whispers about "the list." The list, it is murmured, sometimes with fear, sometimes with hilarity, is supposed to save this city. Officially known as the Bring-Back-New Orleans Commission, the list is 17 of the city's business, political and religious leaders, appointed by the mayor.

They are among the city's wealthiest residents, pillars of the community, and maybe that's the problem. They are the elite. If you've been to New Orleans, you know that most of us aren't. Generally we are gaudy and garrulous, underdressed and sometimes not dressed at all.

We don't belong to the secret carnival societies. We work for wages and tips. We smoke in bars. We talk loud even when live music is playing. We let it hang out so you can, too, for the five days you're here, without regularly scheduled closing hours. That is why you like to visit us, isn't it?

That's why I have reservations about a committee of rich folks redesigning the concept of us. For instance, Wynton Marsalis is the only professional musician on the list, and he hasn't actually lived in New Orleans for years.

If there's anything New Orleans never was, it's a planned community. People here plan only two things -- what costume they'll wear on Fat Tuesday and which Friday they're going to take off work to go Jazz Fest. The rest pretty much works itself out.

There are disagreements where the term "Big Easy" originated, but there is no argument why it stuck. Things just happen here. That's the charm. A parade will just happen. A band will just start playing. We'll dance even when there is no music. We sell liquor just about everywhere but church.

No planning commission can urge the strippers back to their fire poles at Big Daddy's or crank up Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Cha's MidCity Lanes or inspire Chef Jack to make the smoked shrimp and alligator sausage cheesecake at Jacques-Imo's Restaurant. Yes, there really is such a thing.

Yes, it's true that houses and neighborhoods and schools will have to be rebuilt and businesses will need help getting back on their feet, but if New Orleans is going to be any semblance of its former self, it's not because of the mayor, archbishop or local CEO's proclaim, let the good times roll, Cher, no, just let us be -- laissez-faire literally in French -- just give us hope and time and let us grow.

As always, it will be the eccentric, over talkative, slightly cranky, hyper creative and hopelessly underpaid people who decide to say that here in the remains of this charmingly down-trodden city is where we'll plant our tattered flag. Here is where we'll make our art, our novels, our gumbo, where we'll bang our drums and pianos way too loud and too late.

The fact that no one on the list will ever move or shake, so to speak, to our vibe, let alone drop a fiver in the tip jar, is no less incentive than the one we've always had because we're here. I'm Chris Rose.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And again, the major developments of this day: Insurgents in Iraq knocked out power across Baghdad on the eve of a constitutional referendum. And authorities in Pakistan called off the search for earthquake survivors. Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.