The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; then, the challenges posed by Iran's nuclear program; Congress probes the VIOXX debacle; the Clinton Library opens in little rock; some Democrats' soul-searching on where the party goes from here; and we close with a Clarence Page essay about ethnic labels.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: A top U.S. commander in Iraq said today that the Fallujah offensive has dealt a major blow to the Iraqi insurgency. Isolated fighting continued in the city, however. And though U.S. Marines said many guerrillas were surrendering, they said others were still hiding, waiting to attack. One such ambush killed a U.S. Marine and an Iraqi soldier; 51 Americans have been killed and 425 wounded since the operation began. Eight Iraqi troops have been killed, with more than forty wounded. U.S. and Iraqi officials say at least 1,200 guerrillas have died. There are no estimates of civilian casualties. Marine Lt. Gen. John Sattler spoke at a news conference today.

LT. GEN. JOHN SATTLER: We feel right now that we have, as I mentioned, broken the back of the insurgency, and we've taken away the safe haven. This has disrupted them, I believe, my personal belief, across the country. This is going to make it very hard for them to operate, and I'm hoping it will continue to both down their neck, quick-turn this tactical intelligence, find them in areas that they are not familiar with, where they will, in fact, be easier to capture or bring to justice.

MARGARET WARNER: General Sattler said U.S. forces will not leave Fallujah until Iraqi units are strong enough to control the city. The New York Times reported today that marine intelligence officers have warned insurgents could rebound if the American troops leave too quickly. U.S. forces say they may have found a Fallujah command center used by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Video of the building from an imbedded CNN cameraman was released today. It showed U.S. soldiers walking through a building with the logo "Al-Qaida Organization" painted on the wall. They found photographs, documents, and computers. In a nearby building, they also found a sport utility vehicle with a Texas registration sticker. It was being converted into a car bomb. Elsewhere in Iraq, a series of bombings killed at least eight Iraqis today. And separately, in Mosul, rebels shelled the provincial governor's office. One of his bodyguards was killed, but the governor escaped injury. There was also new fighting in Ramadi as U.S. armored units confronted guerrillas and in Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi troops rounded up more than 100 people in a sweep for suspected rebels. The U.S. will rely on diplomacy to curb Iran's nuclear program, at least for now. That was the word today from a State Department spokesman. He spoke the day after Secretary of State Powell said Iran is actively developing missiles to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran has denied it has a nuclear weapons program. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania won key support today for his bid to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. All nine Republicans presently on the panel agreed to support him. Specter has come under fire from social conservatives for saying that antiabortion judicial nominees would face trouble getting confirmed. Specter sought to reassure those critics at a news conference today.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: I have assured the president that I would give his nominees quick committee hearings and early committee votes so floor action could be promptly scheduled. I have voted for all of President Bush's judicial nominees in committee and on the floor, and I have no reason to believe that I'll be unable to support any individual President Bush finds worthy of nomination.

MARGARET WARNER: Committee Republicans won't formally vote on the chairmanship until the new Senate takes office in January. Former President Clinton's library and museum were dedicated today in little Rock, Arkansas. An estimated 30,000 guests braved a cold rain to be there. They included President Bush, as well as former Presidents Bush and Carter. The library's collection holds more than 80 million artifacts and documents from Clinton's life and his eight years in the White House. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Officials in Washington State are getting ready to recount the governor's race. The first, unofficial tally was completed last night, and Republican Dino Rossi finished just 261 votes ahead of Democrat Christine Gregoire. That's out of 2.8 million votes cast. The slim margin automatically triggers a recount. Elections officials said it should be completed by next Wednesday. A key predictor of U.S. economic activity fell in October for the fifth month in a row. The Conference Board, a business research group, reported its index of leading economic indicators was down 0.3 percent. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 23 points to close at 10,572.5. The NASDAQ rose more than four points to close at 2104. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: Iran's nuclear challenge; the VIOXX debacle; the new Clinton Library; what next for the Democrats; and a Clarence Page essay.

FOCUS - NUCLEAR CHALLENGE

MARGARET WARNER: First tonight, Iran's nuclear program, and what to do about it. Ray Suarez has the story.

RAY SUAREZ: Inside the Islamic nation of 69 million people, and around the world, questions swirled again this week about Iran's uranium enrichment program, a key activity on the path to making nuclear warheads. At a news conference in Paris yesterday, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled opposition group, said a secret uranium enrichment site had been built just north of Tehran. They also claim Iran has warhead blueprints and enriched uranium from A.Q. Khan, the scientist who created Pakistan's atomic bomb.

SPOKESPERSON: (on screen) Our sources about this facility and the Iranian regime activities in the defense ministry and... this intelligence, this information is 100 percent correct.

RAY SUAREZ: Iran denies those claims. En route to a summit in Chile, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters last night he had seen intelligence that confirmed what the opposition group claims. Powell said: "I've seen some information that would suggest that Iran had been actively working on delivery systems." And he added, "I'm talking about information that says they not only had these missiles but I'm aware of information that suggests they were working hard as to how to put the two together."

RAY SUAREZ: These developments follow an agreement Sunday between Iran and three European nations-- Britain, Germany, and France-- on the scope of Iran's nuclear program. Iran reaffirmed its commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, saying it will not seek to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran also agreed to indefinitely suspend its uranium enrichment program. The IAEA said it would police that commitment starting next week, ahead of its Nov. 25 board meeting when it evaluates Iran's compliance. And the Europeans guaranteed Iran has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. Iran's president called it a "great victory," but said his country could still pursue nuclear fuel.

PRES. MOHAMMAD KHATAMI, Iran (Translated): Producing uranium for nuclear fuel and the enrichment of uranium is our legitimate right. We have come to this knowledge and now are following its steps. We will never connive. We have stressed this several times, because it is our legitimate right. As long as we are under the jurisdiction of the IAEA, this right should be legally recognized.

RAY SUAREZ: The European deal delayed and possibly derailed a Bush administration effort to take the Iran nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council and possibly invoke economic sanctions. This latest dispute comes one year after the European trio brokered a similar agreement with Iran, an agreement that fell apart months later.

RAY SUAREZ: Is the latest European deal a good step toward allaying fears about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program? And how should we evaluate intelligence on Iran's nuclear activities in the wake of the Iraq War? On those and other questions, we get two views. David Albright was a consultant to the U.N.'s nuclear agency in its inspections of the Iraqi nuclear program. He's now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. Paul Leventhal is founder of the Nuclear Control Institute, an independent research and advocacy group in Washington that promotes nuclear nonproliferation.

And on the heels of the National Council of Resistance announcement that Iran was still pursuing its programs secretly, away from the prying eyes of inspectors, out came what seemed to be an endorsement by Secretary of State Powell.

Paul Leventhal, what do you make of that?

PAUL LEVENTHAL: Well, Powell was clearly referring to intelligence that he believes the U.S. Has acquired relating to Iran's delivery system and an attempt to mate warhead to a missile, presumably the Shahab missile, but also his statement seemed to suggest that the information provided by this group comported with what he understood the case to be, and I'm not sure that that's altogether a correct interpretation of what Powell had to say, but I will say this, that the Council of Resistance has proven to be correct with regard to major disclosures about the Iranian nuclear program that were not known to the IAEA and perhaps not known to intelligence services either, and on the basis of their past track record I think -- I think a lot of credence has to be put on this, and I think the IAEA should promptly investigate it before the board meeting coming up.

RAY SUAREZ: Paul Leventhal (David Albright), what do you think? Are the charges from the Iranian resistance group credible, and do you think the United States is lining up with that and saying, no, we think it's true as well?

DAVID ALBRIGHT: I don'tthink the U.S. is lining up with it. I mean, it is new information or new accusations by the opposition group. It's also -- the group has had a mixed record. I mean, some of the stuff has been very good, as Paul has pointed out. Some of it has been very bad. I think the timing of this announcement raises suspicions about whether this information is credible. They have a lot to lose if this deal between Iran and the European Union works out. They would be targeted as a terrorist organization by the European Union, increased constraints may be put upon the group's activities in France and Germany under Iranian pressure during the negotiations. So I think they have a vested interest in sabotaging this deal, and I think you have to interpret their new information in that light, particularly because for almost all of it, particularly the most -- the biggest claims they provided zero evidence.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, what would evidence consist of? If you are exposing the existence of a covert program that is being carried on away from the international inspection regime and you're announcing it in Paris and saying we think this work is going on anyway, what kind of evidence would you want to see to think that that charge is credible?

DAVID ALBRIGHT: Well, in looking even at their past cases where they have presented evidence, you can actually use it to confirm what they are saying, and so I think that particularly the accusations about bomb design information being delivered to Iran, highly enriched uranium being delivered from Pakistan, and even uranium enrichment, their history on predicting those kinds of activities has been very poor. Where they have tended to be better is predicting that here's a site that hasn't been declared by Iran, and a richness of the information they provided is typically very actionable in the sense you can go to the site and look. When they have given information about what goes on in those sites or in other places, it's tended to be usually wrong.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, this mention of the NCR, the National Council of Resistance, being defined as a terrorist group, does that shape your judgment of the value of the information?

PAUL LEVENTHAL: Well, this is the political arm of what has been a terrorist organization based in Iraq, in fact, with the -- with the permission of Saddam Hussein to bother the Iranians to the fullest extent possible. They did lay down their arms promptly upon the start of the military action in Iraq, and they did win praise from the local military commander that they were cooperating with the U.S. and coalition forces. Their being branded a terrorist organization is based on activities they engaged in perhaps 20 years ago, but the situation now is that in return for Iranian demands that the U.S. brand this organization a terrorist organization goes back to the Clinton administration -- Clinton was appealed -- the Clinton administration appealed to brand this as a terrorist organization and to shut down the political arm in Washington, the National Council of Resistance, and that was done, and implicit in that understanding was that Iran would not make difficulties in Iraq. There seems to be contrary evidence now that -- to the effect that Iran is making difficulties for the U.S. in Iraq, so this is sort of an interesting organization that has been labeled a terrorist organization but not actively so, and they have provided through their political arm actionable information. I differ somewhat with David. I think, frankly, what they do is they declare a site to be where centrifuge enrichment is taking place and the IAEA was able to quickly verify that at Natans, and they are doing a similar thing here. They are naming a specific military facility within a 60-acre site where they say centrifuges were transferred and where weapons design activities are also taking place, and there's also an allegation about enriched uranium which may or may not be accurate.

DAVID ALBRIGHT: Yeah. I think the Natans site, actually they call it a fuel fabrication plant, and we were actually involved in making it public that it was a gas centrifuge plant. The revelation....

RAY SUAREZ: What's the difference?

DAVID ALBRIGHT: Well, the difference is a fuel fabrication plant is involved in another part of the fuel cycle, and it was actually being -- planned to be done elsewhere in Iran, and this is an example where the site was a secret nuclear site, and they were correct on that -- when they described what was going on at the site in this August 2002 revelation, it was incorrect, and I think that what we've already seen in their information, and we look at it carefully, and there was information they released two days ago that we're evaluating very carefully, but we often see that they are good at sort of finding some sites but not always. They often have misidentified places, but they are good at identifying sites in some cases, and it's worth going to those sites to see what's going on.

RAY SUAREZ: Let me get a quick comment from you on the implication of the timing. We're right after the announcement of a deal to stop the enrichment and out comes this new hint that Iran may be cheating. Was it an attempt to scotch the deal with the European Union?

PAUL LEVENTHAL: There's no question that the national -- that the Council of Resistance has a political agenda, and they are pursuing that agenda. This information, the timing of it, is obviously very dramatic because it comes only about a week before the IAEA Board is to meet and effectively ratify the European agreement with Iran, so I think one thing should be very straightforward and obvious, and that is that the IAEA should make it its business to go to Iran, to visit the site that has been declared, to use the enhanced powers that it has under the additional protocol to go wherever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants to do it and come back and report to the board as to what they found or did not find, and if they found yet another clandestine operation, then I think this European deal is in deep trouble, as it should be.

RAY SUAREZ: What about the American posture during this time, how is the United States supposed to play this?

DAVID ALBRIGHT: Well, one, they are not -- I don't think they are either supporting or actively condemning the EU Iran deal because finally we want Iran to suspend its -- certain of its nuclear activities, and I think the United States understands that, but at the same time it is in conflict with what they want, which is to take Iran to the U.N. Security Council and have some kind of punitive actions taken against Iran, and so the Europeans are taking the approach let's try to give them a set of benefits if they are willing to give up these dangerous nuclear activities permanently, and I think the United States hasn't reacted I think in a constructive way to that yet. I hope that they change their policy to start working with Europe to try to not only find a formula to give benefits to Iran but more importantly work out a better strategy to apply sticks if Iran does not go along with this call for a permanent cessation of its -- particularlyits uranium enrichment activities.

RAY SUAREZ: Does that sound like a plausible approach to you?

PAUL LEVENTHAL: Well, I take a somewhat different view than David Albright on this. I think the European deal is a bad deal. I think when you have a situation where a country has been in violation of its safeguard commitments under the NPT for almost two decades and the matter comes before the board of governors and the board of governors then seeks to get into an extended negotiation with Iran where only time can favor Iran, assuming it is pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program, it's all misguided. They should have gone to the Security Council promptly. The board of governors, under its own statute, is required to submit it to the Security Council, and they are also required to consider punitive actions even in the board of governors, like denying privileges of the IAEA to a country that violates, like demanding the return of exported items, things like that, none of which was done, and I think frankly we're being taken for a ride here, and it's an extremely dangerous situation. I would rank it comparable to the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. The potential danger of Iran going nuclear, a state that actively not only supports but sponsors terrorism through its intelligence service, that declare - that feels pretty much about infidels as they call them as Hitler did about Jews and other undesirables and parading their Shahab missiles with let's wipe out Israel, those types of things, this makes it a very serious situation and one that should not be subject to the usual minuet that you have in the non-proliferation community.

RAY SUAREZ: We're extremely tight on time. Do you think we're as close to the precipice as your colleague does?

DAVID ALBRIGHT: No, and I think, unfortunately, the strategy Paul has lain out is probably a strategy doomed to failure and could actually guarantee Iran gets nuclear weapons, and I think that trying to find a way to create a system of sticks and carrots I think is a much more effective strategy to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and if they do go down that path, you'll have a united international community that is going to try to sanction and take punitive actions against Iran. It may convince it to change its mind.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Paul Leventhal and David Albright, thank you both.

PAUL LEVENTHAL: Thank you.

DAVID ALBRIGHT: Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The VIOXX failure; the Clinton Library; and whither the Democrats?

UPDATE - DRUG FAILURE

MARGARET WARNER: Now, what went wrong in the case of the blockbuster painkiller VIOXX? That's what members of Congress wanted to know at a hearing today. Susan Dentzer, of our health unit, has a report. The unit is a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: Today's Senate Finance Committee hearing on VIOXX opened with scathing comments about the Food and Drug Administration, and about Merck, VIOXX's manufacturer. Iowa Republican Charles Grassley is the committee's chairman.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: Today's witnesses will describe how danger signals were ignored. They will offer perspective on how appropriate action was not taken. We'll see that the FDA failed to heed the words of even its own scientists. It also looks like the FDA allowed itself to be manipulated by Merck.

SUSAN DENTZER: Merck took its blockbuster painkiller off the market in September after its own study showed a doubling in the risk of heart attack and stroke. Dr. David Graham is an official of FDA's Office of Drug Safety; he was one of several witnesses who told lawmakers the episode constituted an unprecedented failure of the nation's system of drug approval and oversight.

DR. DAVID GRAHAM: VIOXX has been a disaster. This is unparalleled in the history of the United States.

SUSAN DENTZER: Graham then offered an estimate of the scope of the debacle in terms of the number of Americans who took VIOXX and then experienced additional heart attacks and strokes.

DR. DAVID GRAHAM: This estimate ranges from 88,000 to 139,000 Americans. Of these, 30 to 40 percent probably died. Now, imagine that we were talking about jetliners. If there were an average of 150 to 200 people on an aircraft, this range of 88,000 to 139,000 would be the rough equivalent of 500 to 900 aircraft dropping from the sky. This translates to two to four aircraft every week-- week in, week out-- for the past five years.

SUSAN DENTZER: But the top FDA official present, Dr. Sandra Kweder, took strong issue with both Grassley's and Graham's assessments, and especially with Graham's calculations about VIOXX's overall health impact.

DR. SANDRA KWEDER: First of all, these are not real deaths. The data on deaths are... as Dr. Graham himself said, are something you figure out on a spreadsheet; they're a mathematical model that is made up, that is put together with a number of assumptions along the way. We do utilize such mathematical models to help guide how we study drugs and to a certain extent make some decisions about them, but one has to be extremely cautious.

SUSAN DENTZER: Kweder also argued that those estimates ignored the benefits of VIOXX; it's one of a class of painkillers specifically designed to avert potentially fatal stomach and intestinal problems. Kweder pointed out these so- called gastrointestinal or GI benefits of VIOXX had not been found in two other drugs VIOXX competed with-- Pfizer's Celebrex and Bextra.

DR. SANDRA KWEDER: What seems to have been lost in a lot of the discussion of VIOXX is that this drug remained the only non-steroidal anti- inflammatory that had a clear- cut GI safety benefit. It's the only one. You can't just look at the cardiovascular risks of this drug. One has to look at the full spectrum of risks and potential benefits.

SUSAN DENTZER: Much of today's hearing focused on what Merck knew about the cardiovascular risks of VIOXX and when it knew it. Several witnesses argued that Merck knew as long ago as 1996 that the drug could produce cardiovascular problems. Dr. Bruce Psaty is a University of Washington epidemiologist.

DR. BRUCE PSATY: In November 1996, and I draw your attention to exhibit three, Merck scientists hypothesized patients taking VIOXX would have higher rates of heart disease than those taking an aspirin-like comparison. By April 1998 Merck scientists knew VIOXX not only lacks the anti-platelet effects of aspirin, but it also disables one of the body's defenses against the blood vessels' clumping of platelets. On the basis of this biologic evidence, it would be reasonable to hypothesize that compared to the placebo VIOXX treatment if it might increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. For VIOXX to be used safely in millions of patients, the potential cardiovascular risks need to be defined clearly.

SUSAN DENTZER: Dr. Psaty and other witnesses also accused Merck of designing its VIOXX studies so that results would highlight the drug's benefits and downplay the cardiovascular risks. Merck's chief executive officer, Ray Gilmartin, denied that.

RAYMOND GILMARTIN: Merck puts patients first. Mr. Chairman, Merck believed wholeheartedly in VIOXX; I believed wholeheartedly in VIOXX. In fact, my wife was taking VIOXX, using VIOXX up until the day we withdrew it from the market.

SUSAN DENTZER: Gilmartin specifically denied that data the company had in 1996 amounted to compelling evidence of cardiovascular risks.

RAYMOND GILMARTIN: Discussions that they referred to in 1996 about the design of trials was well before there was even a theoretical expectation that there could be a cardiovascular risk with the Cox-2 class. There was not even a theory at that point.

SUSAN DENTZER: And Gilmartin argued that when red flags about VIOXX were directly raised through Merck's own studies in 2000, the company pursued them vigorously.

RAYMOND GILMARTIN: We relentlessly pursued additional studies. We monitored this drug for cardiovascular safety. Whenever we found out data, whether unfavorable or favorable, we disclosed it to the public promptly, and we continue to study the drug in order to find the answer.

SUSAN DENTZER: Lawmakers pressed the witnesses about the need for changes in drug regulation and oversight to prevent future drug disasters. Max Baucus of Montana is the Finance Committee's ranking Democrat.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Does the FDA have sufficient resources, authority, and independence to ensure that the drugs it approves are safe? And should it be doing more to monitor drug safety after a drug has been approved?

SUSAN DENTZER: Most witnesses agreed far more needed to be done. They especially urged more monitoring of drugs intended for long-term use after those drugs come on the market.

SPOKESMAN: The FDA should reorient priorities and devote more attention and resources to patient safety. Specific proactive post- marketing trials or studies should be designed, conducted, and completed in a timely fashion.

SUSAN DENTZER: Grassley asked about separating two FDA offices involved in new drug approvals and drug safety. Witnesses like Graham had argued that their safety concerns were too often overruled by FDA officials who had been involved in approving those same drugs.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: It doesn't make sense from an accountability standpoint to have the office that reviews the safety of drugs that are already on the market to be under the thumb of the office that puts the drugs on the market in the first place.

SUSAN DENTZER: The FDA's Kweder agreed that making the safety office independent was an idea worth considering.

DR. SANDRA KWEDER: We understand that there are concerns by the members of the Congress, by the public, about how sound our system is, and we look forward to change, if that's what is deemed needed.

SUSAN DENTZER: Lawmakers promised to continue exploring the VIOXX case and the prospect of regulatory overhaul when the new Congress convenes in January.

FOCUS - RECORDED HISTORY

MARGARET WARNER: Today, the life and times of former President William Jefferson Clinton went on display for all to see. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: A steady rain couldn't keep nearly 30,000 people from turning out to celebrate the unveiling of the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, today. Former presidents, candidates for president, Clinton administration officials, and Arkansas friends joined a star- studded cast of onlookers. Sitting on 27 acres, the museum is the largest and most expensive of the 12 presidential libraries. Covering 150,000 square feet and rising five stories high, the Clinton Library was built at a cost of $165 million, mostly from private donations. The library houses some 80 million items, including notes, memos, letters, and other papers accumulated by the president during his two terms in office. There are 75,000 museum artifacts and nearly two million photographs. And there's also an exhibit that references the impeachment. This afternoon, following an assortment of performers and other speakers, former President Jimmy Carter spoke.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: At the end of a very difficult political year, more difficult for some of us than others, it is valuable for the world to see two Democrats and two Republicans assembled together, all honoring the great nation that has permitted us to serve. We are truly grateful to you. Thank you very much.

KWAME HOLMAN: President Bush and his father followed, each commenting on bill Clinton's extraordinary political skills.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: Of course, it always has to be said that Bill Clinton was one of the most gifted American political figures in modern times. Trust me, I learned this the hard way. And here in Arkansas, you might say he grew to become the Sam Walton of national retail politics.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Arkansas is a state that knows political skill when you see it. A fellow in Saline County was asked by his son why he liked governor Clinton so much. He said, "son, he'll look you in the eye, he'll shake your hand, he'll hold your baby, he'll pet your dog-- all at the same time."

KWAME HOLMAN: And finally, Former President Clinton himself spoke, devoting most of his remarks to thanking the people he worked with over his political career.

FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: I want to thank all the vast numbers of Congress and former members who are here who served with me. I couldn't have done most of the good things we did without them, and they're not responsible for any of the mistakes I made. I can't see through all the umbrellas and all the ponchos or whatever you call those plastic things that make you all look so beautiful... (laughter) But I'm pretty sure Sen. Kerry's out there. And if he is, I want to thank him, and I'm glad he's back on the job. (Cheers and applause )

KWAME HOLMAN: Mr. Clinton talked about the symbolic meaning of the library's design. Elevated above the Arkansas River, it is intended to remind visitors of building a bridge to the future, a theme Mr. Clinton adopted in accepting his second nomination for president.

FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yes, this library is the symbol of a bridge, a bridge to the 21st century. It's been called one of the great achievements of the new age, and a British magazine said it looked like a glorified house trailer. And I thought, well, that's about me, you know? I'm a little red and a little blue. What it is to me is the symbol of not only what I tried to do, but what I want to do with the rest of my life: Building bridges from yesterday to tomorrow, building bridges across racial and religious and ethnic and income and political divides -- building bridges.

KWAME HOLMAN: The former president concluded with some words about the political divisions in the country today.

FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't want to be too political here, but it bothers me when America gets as divided as it was. I once said to a friend of mine about three days before the election, I heard all these terrible things, I said, "you know, am I the only person in the entire United States of America who likes both George W. Bush and John Kerry, who believes they're both good people, who believes they both love our country and they just see the world differently?" What should our shared values be? Everybody counts. Everybody deserves a chance. Everybody's got a responsibility to fulfill. We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more. So I tell you, we can continue building our bridge to tomorrow. It will require some red American line-drawing and some blue American barrier-breaking, but we can do it together. Thank you and God bless you. (Cheers and applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: As the two-hour ceremony wound down, Former President Clinton and President Bush stood together, chatting, beneath their umbrellas. The presidential families then went indoors for a post- dedication lunch.

FOCUS - LIFE OF THE PARTY

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the Democratic Party today. When Bill Clinton won the White House just 12 years ago, Democrats controlled the House and Senate as well. Today, the Republicans control all three, and the 2004 election actually increased their margins in the Senate and House. The Republicans also hold more governorships, state Senates, and state legislatures than the Democrats. The bottom line: Democrats haven't been so clearly a minority party since the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. What does the party need to do to reverse this? For a little soul-searching on that question, we're joined by four party activists. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow Coalition, ran for the presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. Elaine Kamarck, a policy advisor in the Clinton administration and the 2000 Gore campaign, is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School. Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio, first elected in 2002, is the youngest Democrat in the House of Representatives. And Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, retiring after 18 years, was one of the founding members of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

And welcome to you all, and Elaine Kamarck, let me start with you. What is the single most important thing that the Democratic Party has to do to regain majority status?

ELAINE KAMARCK: The Democrats have to stand for something, and we have to stand for something clearly and unequivocally. One of the problems that we had, we saw it in the 2002 election, we saw it in the 2004 elections, is the Democrats have never come to grips with the need for a coherent foreign policy in a post-9/11 world. In 2002 there were consultants who fooled the Democrats into thinking they could run on prescription drugs when 9/11 was fresh in everyone's minds, and in 2004 frankly we delivered a completely muddled message to the American people about Iraq and about terrorism. We need clarity on foreign policy. Bill Clinton was probably the only president in the century who had -- who could run without saying a lot about foreign policy because we had that wonderful decade of the '90s where we didn't seem to have any big threats left in the world because the Soviet Union had failed. That era has ended, and we need to have a clear and coherent position about what we do in the world.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Reverend Jackson, it's your turn for your prescription. Do you agree it needs to be a clear and consistent message and what about?

JESSE JACKSON: It needs to be that, but we ran a 17-state Electoral College campaign rather than a 50-state national campaign. The result is that three states were left out of the mix. Mr. Kerry ended up with $15 million in surplus and Tom Daschle lost a Senate seat in South Dakota. Denise Majette got 39 percent of the vote in Georgia and didn't have $1 million to run for a Senate seat which she perhaps could have won. We cannot write the South off. You mentioned the years of Bill Clinton. Clinton and Carter took on in the most profound way, the challenge of the South, all the economic needs but the cultural identity, that is to say that in the South, if African Americans are voting in great numbers, it seems that Bill Clinton must be able to deliver Arkansas and Gore Tennessee and Breaux Louisiana and Bill Richardson must be able to deliver New Mexico, so if each of us pull our weight together, we'll have the numbers to win.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Breaux, you're from the South. Your party lost your Senate state and four others just two weeks ago. I assume you agree with Jesse Jackson that the party needs to talk to the South but how and about what?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: Let me just say that on the issues of education and environment, welfare, health care, I think that we as Democrats had a good message. In fact, most of the people prefer the Democratic message on those issues than the message of President Bush's campaign, but we got beat by guns, gays and God. I mean, we allowed those cards to be played which trumped all these issues that I thought would normally get people to vote Democratic. We had a lot of white poor Democrats who thought that our position on those issues were the right issues, right positions, but were concerned about the gun, gays and God issues that were thrown at them and we never could overcome it. Neither party's base is large enough to create a majority. We have to do what Bill Clinton just talked about, and that's bridging the gap and creating bridges between party base, keep loyal to them but expand it in order to create a majority.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Ryan from the state of Ohio that Kerry so famously lost but you won, how does the party do that? What's the prescription for doing that?

REP. TIM RYAN: Well, I think what Sen. Breaux just said rings true in Ohio. I mean, we got our base out. Our base got out like gangbusters in Ohio, but we just need to find that center ground, and I think like Sen, Breaux said it's those cultural issues, so the Democratic Party has to be a little more inclusive to issues like abortion, not that we want to all of a sudden go out and overturn Roe V. Wade, but issues like partial-birth abortion or the Unborn Victims Bill. It's hard to argue to a woman or a man in Ohio that a pregnant woman getting murdered is not a double homicide. That's a tough sell in Ohio, and until we begin to realize that, we're going to have a difficult time.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying not -- let me just follow up for a minute with the congressman here. So you're saying, Congressman, it's not a matter of learning to talk as Bill Clinton always did successfully in the language of faith or values or cultural concerns, but you actually think the party needs to mitigate its positions on some of these issues?

REP. TIM RYAN: I think the party needs to be more inclusive of people who may differ on a couple of these social issues. I mean, you look at the South as Rev. Jackson was saying. The red states got redder and part of it is because we didn't spend the money there, so what we need to do in the House of Representatives and state Senate and House candidates is go down there and find people who identify. It's an identity problem. These people do not identify themselves with the Democratic Party.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me go to Elaine Kamarck next because I'm wondering if Elaine Kamarck is going to disagree at least on the question of the party's positions on some of these social issues which have been real litmus tests, at least for certain wings of the Democratic Party.

ELAINE KAMARCK: Well, I'm going to agree slightly, and in the following way. The fact of the matter is that we didn't lose just people who were against abortion. We didn't lose just the very religious. We lost people who were a little bit religious, who were -- who went to church less than once a week. We lost women. We lost in categories we shouldn't have been losing in, and I think that obviously guns, gays and God plays a part of that moral basket, but frankly there's a lot that goes into that basket that stems from the fact that the Democratic Party didn't look like it knew what it believed in when it came to big important issues like our role in the world, and so I wouldn't like to see the Democrats kind of now pandering in a different direction and making themselves look even more opportunistic when in fact what we really need is to stand for things whether they be in terms of morals or whether they be in terms of our role in the world or what our economic policy is.

MARGARET WARNER: All right.

ELAINE KAMARCK: The utter confusion that the Democrats presented to the public this year I think is at the root of some of the doubts about the party.

MARGARET WARNER: Rev. Jackson, follow up on that and take into account something you and I actually talked about election night up in Boston, that Kerry even lost ground among African American voters and among Latino voters. Were these social and cultural issues part of that, do you think, and do you think the party needs to, as Congressman Ryan is saying, not only talk in a different language but maybe talk a slightly different talk about some of them?

JESSE JACKSON: Well, in some measure if the Republican lays out the issue for the need for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage which is just a red herring, another constitutional change so Schwarzenegger can run for president, we should be fighting for the constitutional right to vote. We have 50 states, separate and unequal elections, and within those states the richer counties have a better opportunity to vote than poorer counties. We do not have in America the constitutional right to vote. That's a rare fundamental -- you can win, as they did in 2000, and votes do not count. Once and for all the Democrats have solved that issue in everybody's national interest. I think secondly in the South we should not be afraid to run in the South. That is to say that the South has profound economic needs, the most working poor people, the most uninsured -- that means that southern politicians must be willing to go to the Southern Baptist Convention and the Southern Methodists have to go to the National Baptist Convention - reach out and challenge the cultural identity crisis divide. That takes courage, the kind that John Kennedy used as a Catholic in the 1960, we must have policies so that we are not afraid to take on the South economically, culturally and theologically.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Sen. Breaux, you are leaving the Senate but what is your advice to Democrats who are going to be in the minority, which they were in the first term, but even in a deeper minority that's an incorrect term but a worse minority, both in the Senate and in the House, how do they play this opposition game? Should they be opposing President Bush on most of his economic and war and social agenda? Should they try to compromise? What's your view of that?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: We've got to offer better ideas. It's not just a question of being in opposition and opposing everything that comes down the pike, but it's a question of being able to offer alternatives and good ideas that make sense and appeal to the base of the party but also you've got to expand the base with ideas that can expand the base. I think that's critically important.

MARGARET WARNER: Can I interrupt you just for a minute, though, but as you know, given the rules, certainly in the House and even the Senate where they're going to have 55 votes, I mean, the Republicans are, it's going to be really hard for you all, for Democrats, to even present alternatives or get them to the floor?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: Oh, no, I disagree with that. They still have to have 60 votes in order to pass anything, and I think that with moderate Republicans, they will have to deal with Democrats. We certainly will be able to have the opportunity to do more than just oppose but rather to offer solid, good ideas; ideas is the most powerful weapon we have, and we can offer good ideas like Bill Clinton did, he kept the base. He was loyal to the base, but he expanded the heck out of the base and he built those bridges. That's the key to coming back.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Just briefly, because I want to get on to Congressman Ryan, let's take private accounts in Social Security. Is that something, I mean, during the campaign John Kerry simply said what he was opposed to. He did not want to go there and discuss what changes needed to be made. What do you think the Democrats should do when the president comes up with that bill?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: I think we ought to say that you can offer private accounts and create a safety net and if anyone falls below that safety net, we're going to protect and guarantee that they would get at least as much as they would get under the Social Security program but perhaps a lot more if their accounts work but create a safety net that says in no case will their income drop below what they would get under regular Social Security, that's talking about ideas and they do make a difference.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Congressman Ryan, what's your view overall on whether you're a fighting opposition party or whether you're one that's trying to show that you can still govern and that can you work with Republicans?

REP. TIM RYAN: We've got to do a little bit of both. We've got to fight and not give up our core principles, and then we have to do what Sen. Breaux said. I hate to repeat again, but come up with the new ideas. When they offer private savings account for Social Security, we have an alternative like he just said. When they say we want private accounts for health care, we should be there as Democrats saying is the government going to put money into a private health care account for people living in poverty because that's the people we want to advocate for, so let's take what they are going to offer and try to make it better, a little more palatable and fairer to our constituents.

MARGARET WARNER: How about... go ahead, Reverend.

JESSE JACKSON: Privatizing a part of Social Security, we must be affirmative on fighting for raising minimum wage for working people, from Appalachia to Alabama. We must -- President Bush is not allowed to make overtime pay for overtime work illegal. Forty-five million Americans have no health insurance. We must fight for an equal high quality public healthcare for all Americans. There's some big theme ideas that we should embrace that are affirmative.

REP. TIM RYAN: And I agree with Rev. Jackson. We do need to fight for those things but in the limited capacity we have this the chamber of the United States Congress we have to react in a certain way to their ideas, so all I'm saying is when they present something, we have to make sure that we're advocating to make that better for those people we traditionally stand up for, the poor in our society and the middle class.

JESSE JACKSON: We must protect our gains. We cannot compromise workers' rights to organize; we cannot compromise the need for comprehensive health care for 45 million Americans who have no health insurance. They're in Louisiana; they're in Ohio; they're in Georgia. We must fight for working people's needs and values.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me get Elaine Kamarck back in here. And I want to turn a slight corner. There are plenty of states, more than 20, where Democrats still hold the governorships, the statehouse and the state legislature. In some states, say California, a ballot referendum passed setting up a stem cell research operation. Could the states be a better incubator, a better laboratory, for a so-called progressive agenda for Democrats, a place where they can show what they can do, and if so what should that agenda be?

ELAINE KAMARCK: Well, I think that the California stem cell research initiative was really very interesting on so many levels. First of all, it was a statement of the principles of the people who live in California. Secondly, it's an enormous, enormous economic boon to the state of California. They are going to have research scientists and enormous economic value from conducting this research.

MARGARET WARNER: My question... is this something.

ELAINE KAMARCK: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Is this a practical thing that can be done, say Colorado or Montana where they captured the governorship?

ELAINE KAMARCK: Absolutely. I think states can start going out on their own on their own initiative when it comes to healthcare, when it comes to offering healthcare to children, which a lot of states were doing, even before the Clinton administration passed the S-CHIP program. I think that there's a lot of ways in which governors will begin to become more activist as the federal government begins to withdraw from doing social policy, which I think they have been doing in the first Bush term and will do in the second Bush term, so I think it's actually very interesting in some ways to see what some of these blue state governors will do now.

MARGARET WARNER: And there are also -- Democrats hold power in some red states. Sen. Breaux, do you see any opportunities for that kind of advancing of progressive agenda in the South?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: Oh, I think -- I mean, my state of Louisiana, for instance, is the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, right down the line, are all Democratic elected officials. You don't have to be in the Congress to run for president and successfully. We have to remember that John Kennedy was the last successful senator that was elected, so I think we're going to be looking the next time outside just Washington, DC for viable candidates who have run administrations, who have run states that have been elected statewide because they have good ideas. I keep going back to the point -- I mean, I think we have to understand that the base of our party is not large enough to win. The base of the Republican Party is not large enough to win. The party that can keep the base and expand it into the largest fastest group of Americans who consider themselves independents are the ones that are going to be successful in national elections.

JESSE JACKSON: The Rainbow PUSH is going to establish some lines ballots in states across the South, an independent line, looking for these independent lines and initiatives like raising minimum wage for working people, like healthcare for people who do not have healthcare, like equal adequate public education, like the right to vote for all Americans. We're going to put some lines, some independent lines on ballots right across the South and challenge economically and culturally and theologically. We are going to expand the base in that way.

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: Well, Jesse, how does that expand the base in the people for that are already for the Democratic candidates?

JESSE JACKSON: Well, you had the situation this time, Sen. Breaux, where you had people voting cultural security and identity over their economic interests so you who are in that mix, you and Senator -- ex-President Clinton and Al Gore, you have a real challenge to challenge the Southern Baptists and the Southern Methodists. You must go to their churches and go to their people -- you must convince your constituencies to choose economic interest over cultural identity. That's the great challenge of our allies in the Democratic Party.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, gentlemen. I want to give the congressman a brief final word.

REP. TIM RYAN: Well, the Republicans do this much better than the Democrats. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, takes the stem cell issue and runs with it in California during their convention. They have Rudy Giuliani and Schwarzenegger and McCain, the moderates of their party. Democrats need to find those issues where we can cross over and reach that center, and until we do that we're going to be in the minority.

MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, guests all, thank you very much.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major developments of the day: A top U.S. commander in Iraq declared the Fallujah offensive has dealt a major blow to the Iraqi insurgency. And U.S. forces said they may have found a Fallujah command center used by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Because our discussions ran longer than we expected, we'll reschedule the Clarence Page essay for another broadcast. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields and Brooks, among others. I'm Margaret Warner. Thanks for being with us. Good night.