The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this Friday; then, a neurologist looks at the medical issues raised by the stroke and treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon; our media unit examines how the press handled the false West Virginia miners report and the New York Times electronic surveillance story; two former House members who now lobby and a lobbying watcher peruse post-Abramoff Washington; Mark Shields and David Brooks offer their weekly analysis; and we close with "Natural Man," as sung by Lou Rawls, who died today.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon had emergency surgery again today to stop bleeding in the brain. Later, doctors in Jerusalem said a new brain scan showed some improvement. Sharon remained in an induced coma. He suffered a major stroke on Wednesday. We have a report from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON: Inside the Hadassah Hospital now besieged by international press, Ariel Sharon hovers between life and death. In spite of slightly better results in his latest scan, there are fears that the massive brain hemorrhage has caused irreversible damage. On Israeli Television, coverage is continuous with highly detailed accounts of Sharon's condition. Many experts say that the prime minister's prospects remain poor.

JONATHAN HALEVY, Shaare Zedek Medical Center: I hope he will survive today and tomorrow and maybe even longer. But I'm very worried.

JULIAN MANYON: The Israeli public has been gripped by the prime minister's struggle for survival, with many feeling shocked and even fearful. At a hair dressing salon in Tel Aviv one customer spoke about her worries.

DANA BARNETT: We felt secure with Sharon. We felt very secure. I mean, he's been able to accomplish lots of different things that this country needed for a very long time.

JULIAN MANYON: But at least one section of Israeli society has little sympathy. Settlers in Hebron on the West Bank are deeply angry with the prime minister for his withdrawal from Gaza. Men like David Wilder say his sudden stroke could be divine punishment.

DAVID WILDER: I think it's very, very possible that this is the hand of God, yes. We've seen all of the prime ministers who have tried to remove the Jewish people from their land and abandon the land. We've seen what's happened to them.

JULIAN MANYON: But for most Israelis, Ariel Sharon is the last of their country's political giants. And many are still hoping against hope that he will somehow battle his way through.

JIM LEHRER: In Washington, Secretary of State Rice canceled an upcoming trip to Indonesia and Australia. A spokesman said she wanted to stay close to monitor the situation in the Middle East. We'll have more on Prime Minister Sharon's medical situation right after this News Summary.

The U.S. military today announced six more Americans were killed in Iraq on Thursday. That's in addition to five reported earlier. Since the war began, at least 2,194 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. More than 16,300 have been wounded. Just over half quickly returned to duty. The others were more seriously hurt.

In Karbala today, funerals began for victims of a suicide bombing. The attack killed 63 people yesterday. Nearly 200 Iraqis have died in violence in the last few days. Today, in Baghdad, 5,000 Shiites protested the killings.

The U.S. Commander in western Iraq voiced hope today despite this week's violence. Marine Major General Stephen Johnson said he thinks a new government will make a difference.

MAJ. GEN. STEPHEN JOHNSON: I believe it will reduce its -- the violence, I believe it will give the people a chance to see that there's an alternative to fighting, to killing, and to the violence. In that sense, I think over the next year, you'll see a decline in violence as the folks here realize that there are alternatives that they haven't had before.

JIM LEHRER: Al-Qaida's number two leader claimed a victory in Iraq today. Al-Jazeera aired a videotaped message from Ayman al-Zawahri. The network said the tape was dated in December. The al-Qaida leader said: "American forces are mourning and bleeding, seeking for a getaway from Iraq." He was referring to last month's announcement the U.S. will cut its standing force in Iraq by 7,000 troops.

The death toll in the Saudi Arabia hotel disaster rose to 76 today. The eight-story building came crashing down yesterday near the grand mosque in Mecca. Hundreds of rescue workers worked through the night to move rubble and cut steel beams. They were searching for survivors, but found only bodies. Millions of Muslims have converged on Mecca in an annual pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city.

In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department reported today job growth slowed in December. Employers added 108,000 new jobs. That's about half what economists expected. But November's total was revised up by 90,000 jobs to 305,000. For all of 2005, the economy added two million new jobs, about the same as the year before. A separate report said the unemployment rate for December dipped a tenth of a point to 4.9 percent.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 77 points to close at 10,959. The NASDAQ rose more than 28 points to close at 2,305. For the week, the Dow was up more than 2 percent, the NASDAQ more than 4 percent.

Rhythm-and-blues singer Lou Rawls died of lung cancer today at a Los Angeles hospital. He won three Grammys. His hits include "Love is a Hurtin' Thing," "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine" and "Natural Man," among others. He also appeared in 18 movies and raised millions of dollars for the United Negro College Fund. Lou Rawls was 72 years old. And we'll hear him sing "Natural Man" at the end of the program tonight. Between now and then: The medical side of the Ariel Sharon story; two media stories; the lobby industry; and Shields and Brooks.

FOCUS - STROKE TREATMENT

JIM LEHRER: The grave illness of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, who underwent five more hours of brain surgery today. His situation has focused much attention on strokes, their causes and treatments.

We talk now with Dr. Mark Alberts, professor of neurology at Northwestern University Medical School. He's also director of the stroke program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Dr. Alberts, welcome.

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Thank you, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: They operated on Ariel Sharon again today to stop bleeding. Tell us about the nature of that kind of operation.

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Well, what I anticipate the surgeons trying to do is go in there, remove any blood that had collected since the prior operation, prevent any further bleeding, and take steps to reduce the pressure on the brain that the initial bleed and the swelling around it might have caused.

JIM LEHRER: And that pressure on the brain is certainly a life-threatening situation, right? They had no choice but to do that sort of thing?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Correct. You basically have two ways of dealing with the pressure on the brain that a big stroke like this can produce: Surgery, and medical therapy. And it sounds to me like they are basically doing both in an attempt to save the prime minister's life.

JIM LEHRER: Now, they have induced a coma, and he's still in that coma. Is this also a common practice, Doctor?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Yes, it is. What we try to do is give patients medicine to put their brain, particularly the nerve cells in the brain, to sleep or sort of put them into a state of hibernation so that the nerve cells do not sustain further damage from the swelling and pressure on the brain and any further bleeding that may occur. So this is to protect the brain from further damage and injury.

JIM LEHRER: And are there any guidelines for how long this kind of coma should be -- should stay in effect or is it just a kind of individual situation?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Well, certainly I'm sure the doctors are making an individual situation based on the prime minister's condition.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

DR. MARK ALBERTS: But typically we do this for a few days. You cannot keep people in a coma forever, because then they have medical complications from being in an ICU in terms of infections and heart problems and other conditions.

But a few days would certainly seem like a reasonable thing to do.

JIM LEHRER: Now, let's go back, now, to the original situation. When he was brought to the hospital, he had what was described as a cerebral hemorrhage. Explain in layman's terms what that is.

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Well, there are two different types of stroke. The first most common type is cerebral ischemia. That's when a blood vessel in or around the brain gets plugged up. The second type of stroke is --

JIM LEHRER: Excuse me, what would cause that plugging up?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Atherosclerosis or a blood clot within a blood vessel or hardening of the arteries. And, again, an ischemic stroke is the most common type, responsible for about 80 percent of all strokes. And that's the type of stroke he had initially, a couple of weeks ago.

Now, a cerebral hemorrhage is in when a blood vessel in or around the brain ruptures or bursts. And that puts abnormal amounts of blood around the brain or within the brain. Cerebral hemorrhage only account for 20 percent of the strokes but they're by far the most deadly with a mortality or death rate of at least 50 percent and in some cases even higher.

JIM LEHRER: Well, there is a standard treatment for this, for a cerebral hemorrhage?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: No, there are no good treatments for cerebral hemorrhage. Various studies in the past have compared medical therapy versus surgery and have found that one is no better than the other.

However, there is a new medicine on the horizon called Novo-7. This is a medicine that you give patients this with hemorrhage that makes the blood sticky or thick in the hopes of preventing further bleeding. And an initial study of this medicine showed that it did seem to be safe and effective. But another study is currently under way. This is a very promising medical therapy for cerebral hemorrhage.

JIM LEHRER: And, Dr. Alberts, as I'm sure you know, there were some initial reports after Prime Minister Sharon's serious condition arose about blood thinning drugs he was given as a result of the first stroke; as you described, that was, more minor stroke than a cerebral hemorrhage. Explain that to us, what is there to be concerned about, if anything?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Well, after an ischemic stroke, again, a stroke caused by clogging up of arteries in the brain or formation of a blood clot, we give patients blood thinners. Medicines that we would give include aspirin, or Plavix, or Abernots, things like that. And those are taken orally, and they do a good job thinning the blood. But typically those medications are not associated with a significant risk of bleeding.

But if you have to give patients more powerful blood thinners, things like warfarin and the like, that increases the risk of bleeding complications. So we want to make sure we give patients the proper medications for the proper type of stroke, weighing the risk versus the benefit of each medication for an individual patient.

JIM LEHRER: And so, in here, again, I'm not -- obviously we don't know what the details are, specific details are, in Mr. Sharon's situation. But to give him blood thinning drugs would have been a logical thing to have done after the first stroke, correct?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Obviously his physicians felt that he needed a more powerful blood thinner than aspirin. I saw some reports that he was on lobonox which is used in some cases, that's true.

JIM LEHRER: But then the complications comes when the larger stroke happened, right, the second stroke, and then you want to stop the bleeding, that's when you say you want to thicken the blood, not thin it?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Correct. I mean, certainly giving these powerful blood thinners cause the blood to be thin and it may not cause a bleed but it may make the bleeding go from a minor amount of hemorrhage to a massive hemorrhage. And it sounds like that, unfortunately, is what occurred in the case of the prime minister.

JIM LEHRER: Dr. Alberts, finally let me ask you this. As somebody who has devoted his professional life to strokes, and here there's this attention in the United States, and all over the world, on strokes as a result of what has happened to Prime Minister Sharon, what is the message you would give to people about strokes? You got their attention, what do they need to know?

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Well, people need to know the best way to treat a stroke is to prevent the stroke. And the major things to do to prevent a stroke are to have a healthy lifestyle, to make sure that your high blood pressure gets treated, that your diabetes gets treated, that stop smoking, that you don't drink alcohol to excess. And certainly for the young people, stay away from illegal drugs.

And I would remind your audience that some famous people have had strokes and have died of a stroke. Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral recommend hemorrhage. Richard Nixon died of an ischemic stroke. So you can see our treatments are somewhat limited. But the best thing to do is try to prevent a stroke, healthy lifestyle, and taking proper medications as prescribed by your physician.

JIM LEHRER: Dr. Alberts, thank you very much.

DR. MARK ALBERTS: Thank you.

FOCUS - MEDIAWATCH

JIM LEHRER: Now, two big stories make for an interesting week in the world of journalism. Jeffrey Brown has our media unit look.

JEFFREY BROWN: On one story, the media jumped too quickly; on the second, a major newspaper is questioned for moving too slowly. So, we've asked two media watchers to take a look with us: Alex Jones is director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University; Rachel Smolkin is managing editor of the American Journalism Review, a magazine that examines all aspects of the news media.

And welcome to both of you.

Story number one the West Virginia mining accident when many newspaper readers around the country woke up to find headlines that 12 miners had survived when, in fact, they had tragically died. Television news also trumpeted the wrong information for several hours, all part of the confusion that night that led in the early hours of Wednesday morning to sorrow and anger on the part of the miners' families.

Alex Jones starting with you, incorrect information clearly circulated at the site. How did it end up in so many newspapers and on TV?

ALEX JONES: Well, this is a huge public interest story, the kind of story that grips a country like ours. Everybody was watching it. The news media were there; of course the families were gathered there.

And a miscommunication happens when someone overheard or mis-overheard a statement that they had found the miners, interpreted that to mean that they were alive, and started cell phone calls to family members, giving them the idea that their loved ones had been saved.

The bells started ringing, the governor spoke; everyone was clamoring. And it was very, very clear that something wonderful had happened, except it didn't happen to be true.

This was not, of course, an official piece of information. But it's very hard for me to fault the press in reporting that the families were saying they had gotten word that this had happened because that was literally the truth.

I think that when you can fault the press for, comes later in the process. And that was how they handled the story as it then evolved.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Rachel, explain for our audience how and when the decision is made to go to print. Obviously some of it is technology-driven. Some of it is logistics; some of it is time-driven.

RACHEL SMOLKIN: Well, a lot of it is deadline-driven. And this is a story that happened right on deadline for many papers, particularly papers on the East Coast. Then you have your deadline looming, you're hearing news that appears to be wonderful news, certainly news you want to get out to your readers; this is a miraculous ending to what seemed like it could be a very sad story, that these miners had been found.

So, of course, the press is going to want to include that in their newspapers. And it's something that happened right around midnight, right on deadline; it appeared to be reliable coming on the record from people who seemed like they should know.

And I also have trouble faulting the media for going with this. This was not a case where, it was an election night, Bush versus Gore, and not all the votes had been counted yet. It wasn't a case where they were relying on unnamed sources and went with something they shouldn't. The information appeared to be correct. And they had to make a decision to go with it or not go with it.

I think the problem, if there is one, what the media maybe can be faulted for the some degree is not being a little more careful with their qualifiers. You have to be careful about attributing information. And I think we in the media --

JEFFREY BROWN: Who is saying what --

RACHEL SMOLKIN: Who is saying what and I think we in the media need to become comfortable with telling our readers and our viewers what it is that we don't know.

In other words, here is what we're hearing from the families but we've received no official confirmation from the people who are heading up the mine.

And certainly, on television as the hours went by, and there was no official confirmation, you need to start to ask as a reporter why not, why are we not hearing any official word on something that seems like it would be news they'd really want to get out?

But, of course, some of the newspapers the have that luxury of time. And when you're working on a breaking story, sometimes there are going to be errors that get out, if the information is faulty.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, Alex, once the mistake is made, and found, and realized, how was it dealt with, or how should it be dealt with?

ALEX JONES: Well, this is where it gets a little funkier because on the one hand, you've got the problem of attribution. The Boston Globe, for instance, here in Boston had a banner headline across the front page that said, "Families Report," or "Reportedly That," - you know, they use the word "reportedly" to qualify it.

But in a banner headline, you know, that word "reportedly" -- that qualifying word -- gets lost. And I think that we can't underestimate the power of how the news, and what kind of emphasis is put behind the news, even if it does have those qualifiers.

But there's one thing that happened that night that I want to salute the company for because I think it was probably tempting perhaps not to do it the way they did. When the news got around, with the families, the bells were ringing, the company still did not really know what was happening. But relatively quickly, they began to get word that this might not be what happened. And so they waited until, you know, they could find out for sure.

What they found out for sure about 2:00 or so, or 2:30 morning, was that the miners, indeed, were dead. But instead of alerting the media, they alerted the families. They waited 40 minutes between 2:30 and about 3:10 to let the families know first.

Since the families didn't find out, because of a news release or because of some journalist running up to them. I think that's one of those moments that did not serve the newspapers that got embarrassed by having the wrong information on the front page the next day but were very consistent with the idea of what the priorities are in a situation like this, and I commend the company for doing that.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay, topic number two concerns the New York Times and its reporting on the National Security Agency. It started on Dec. 16, the Times broke news of a domestic spying program by the NSA. The paper said it held the report for more than a year, initially at the request of the Bush administration. Then, this past Sunday, the Times public editor or ombudsman, Byron Calame, wrote an unusually strong column faulting the management of the paper for its "woefully inadequate" explanation of why it held the piece for so long.

In attempting to get his questions answered about the reporting and editing process, Calame said he encountered "stonewalling" from both the executive editor of the paper, Bill Keller, and the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger.

Rachel, first in looking at this relationship between an ombudsman and newspaper, how unusual is something like this?

RACHEL SMOLKIN: Well, it's only the tricky relationship. The ombudsman's job is to be a watchdog of sorts to hold the paper's feet to the fire, pardon the clich , making sure the reporting is accurate, that the editing process is the way it should be.

So it's a tough relationship because here's a person you've hired to criticize you essentially; nobody likes to be criticized and reporters were all very sensitive, too.

But it's hard to understand why you wouldn't answer the questions of your ombudsman. You have hired this person to be in the position, and Byron Calame is a very respected journalist. He raised a very interesting point in his story, which was -- inhis column, that he did -- which is that it's possible the New York Times couldn't answer some of the questions without compromising their sources.

And particularly on this story, they must make sure that they're protecting their sources. Any information they gave about, well, we knew such and such on x date might for the Justice Department, which is doing an investigation, into this, narrow down the field who leaked the information. So that's something the Times had to be very careful about.

At the same time, it's hard to understand why they couldn't make that point themselves to the public editor rather than making him for the make it or at least provide some kind of information or say that we really would look to talk to you; we do want to be accountable to our readers. But at the same time, we need to protect our sources.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. And, Alex, what is your take on this story and what it says about the ombudsman and a newspaper's relationship?

ALEX JONES: Well, I think what it really goes to is something that's fundamentally changed in the media. And that is the expectation of a transparency that we've never really had before. I mean, not until relatively recently. Ombudsmen are one aspect of it. Another aspect is, for instance, at the New York Times, an article that ran a week or two ago, about child pornography in which the reporter did some very complicated moves.

I mean, he got involved with the wife of the kid he was trying to save, he got involved with law enforcement, but he explained it and he felt obliged to, and it added greatly to the credibility of the story. That's why I find it difficult to understand the New York Times' very, very, you know, obstinate, as far as I'm concerned, refusal to explain why they won't explain, if nothing else; explain why they can't explain, if that is the case -- and actually more to the point, though, why they held this very, very important story for a year.

I don't think there's any reason to believe that they could not offer a credible explanation that would satisfy people that did not compromise any aspect of the story, any sources or anything else. And I think they owe it, and I think oddly enough, they're undermining their own, in my opinion, great service in publishing the story in the first place by not doing it.

One of the things that happened when Kurt Eichenwald, the reporter on the pornography story, made himself transparent about his decision -- whether you agreed with his decisions or not you understood it -- and that is where the credibility came from.

That's what the New York Times needs right now. I don't understand how one day they can do one thing and one day the next. This is something that obviously is being made as a decision by Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and by Bill Keller. I think they've made the wrong choices here.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. We'll see how this develops. Alex Jones and Rachel Smolkin, thanks both of you.

RACHEL SMOLKIN: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The lobby business of Washington; Shields and Brooks; and farewell, Lou Rawls.

FOCUS - CAPITOL INDUSTRY

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has our lobby story.

MARGARET WARNER: Jack Abramoff's decision to plead guilty and cooperate in a probe of illegal influence peddling on Capitol Hill has put Washington's large and powerful lobbying industry on edge.

Along the city's famed lobbyists' row, K Street, and elsewhere around town, there's concern that Abramoff may generate a backlash that threatens the key to their trade: Access to public officials.

In announcing Abramoff's guilty plea on Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher tried to draw a bright line between what's legal and what's not in the lobbying business.

ALICE FISHER: Lawful lobbying does not include paying a public official a personal benefit with the understanding, explicit or implicit, that a certain official act will occur. That's not lobbying; that's a crime.

MARGARET WARNER: Yet with some restrictions, lobbyists are permitted to try to influence government officials on behalf of their private clients using many of the same inducements Abramoff used: Free meals, tickets to sporting events and trips.

The Washington lobbying industry has grown dramatically in recent years. According to the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan research group, the number of registered federal lobbyists has roughly doubled in the last five years to more than 34,000, and their bills have skyrocketed, too.

In 2004, corporations, labor unions, trade associations and interest groups spent more than $3 billion lobbying federal officials, up from $1.6 billion in 1998.

There are legal restrictions and House and Senate regulations that govern lobbying activities, but the center says enforcement has been lax. Since 1998, it says, at least 14,000 lobbyist disclosure documents were never filed as required at the Senate Office of Public Records. The laggards included 49 of the nation's 50 largest lobbying firms.

The Abramoff scandal has prompted some lawmakers to call on Congress to toughen the lobbying rules, but many of the members who would vote on proposed changes may be on their way to becoming lobbyists themselves.

In 2004, there were 250 former lawmakers and more than 2,000 former congressional and executive branch staffers registered as lobbyists, many with big lobbying and PR firms. Others joined private law offices with big lobbying shops, including prestigious firms like Patton Boggs and Akin Gump. Others joined corporate trade associations, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association. Others still lobby for public interest groups, like the Sierra club and Common Cause.

MARGARET WARNER: So was Jack Abramoff one bad apple or a poster boy for what's wrong with Washington's flourishing lobbying business?

For that we're joined by two former congressmen-turned-lobbyists for corporate interests: Larry LaRocco, a senior partner at Fleishman-Hillard, one of the world's largest lobbying firms - he's a former Democratic congressman from Idaho; and Scott Klug, managing director for public affairs at Foley and Lardner, a law firm based in Madison, Wisconsin, with a lobbying shop in Washington which he oversees; he's a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin.

Also with us is Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause, a Washington base of a good government advocacy group - she's a former state senator in Maine and she, too, lobbies for Common Cause.

So, Ms. Pingree, is the Abramoff case typical or an aberration for the lobbying business?

CHELLIE PINGREE: Well, I think many of these activities have been going on in Washington for a very long time. But the scale, the scope, the amount of money that was being spent, there are a tremendous number of people nervous in Washington right now because this is going to touch many, whether it's members of Congress or staffers or people working in the private sector. This has got a very broad reach.

MARGARET WARNER: How typical do you think it is, Larry LaRocco?

LARRY LaROCCO: Well, Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist on steroids. I mean, this was somebody who had just taken it to lengths that nobody anticipated.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean the amount of money, the lavishness of the entertainment?

LARRY LaROCCO: The intricacy of the strategies and the web that he --

MARGARET WARNER: The shell charity groups, all of that.

LARRY LaROCCO: All of that. And this is not typical. And there is going to be a time-out in Washington, D.C., and that's probably appropriate. And I think there's going to be the appropriate review by Congress to review all of this.

And many former members of Congress, even Speaker Gingrich, has said, you know, this is time for review and let's take a look at this, and maybe there's a larger problem.

MARGARET WARNER: Scott Klug, we heard the assistant attorney general imply that there was a very clear line between what's legal and what's not legal in the lobbying business. Based on your experience both as a congressman and now as a lobbyist, running a lobbying shop, how clear is the line between what's legal and not legal?

SCOTT KLUG: Well, let me say, first of all, I think that what you have seen over the years is these kind of scandals come in waves. There was Abscam, where members of Congress were actually bribed in an FBI sting, in a sort of phony immigration case.

When I first got elected to Congress, there was the House Bank scandal, where a number of members were indicted, including the former speaker of the Ways and Means Committee - or the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Dan Rostenkowski, and now this one.

And so I think you need to sort of look at it in a time line over the last thirty or forty years, and there are sort of these outbursts.

I do think there is a huge gray area and that there is a difference, it seems to me, between taking a member of Congress out to eat with six guys from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau to talk about dairy price supports issues versus some of the stuff that's alleged in the Abramoff case where they're flying to Scotland and to play golf for the weekend.

So I do think there is a distinction. But I think there's a whole gray area that's not very clear. For example, one of the things that's now been raised in the Abramoff case is the role of spouses and to the degree that spouses can hold jobs as lobbyists and whether spouses were actually hired by Abramoff's organization.

So I agree with your two guests, that this is a review that's long overdue in Congress. And I think there's been some loopholes out there in the last ten years that Abramoff and his gang sort of drove semi trucks right through.

MARGARET WARNER: What are the biggest loopholes, Chellie Pingree?

CHELLIE PINGREE: I mean, I think this will be the perfect climate for a tremendous amount of reform.

MARGARET WARNER: On what specific things, where do you see the problems? Is it the $50 gift ban, is it the way the travel restrictions work, is it the fundraising?

CHELLIE PINGREE: It's a little bit of everything. We think that the gift ban should just apply to everything, that there is such a fine line between when the dinner costs too much and when you're getting influence and access.

MARGARET WARNER: It's a $50 limit.

CHELLIE PINGREE: It's a $50 limit. But, frankly, once you have this kind of opportunity to influence people in a special way, or you're taking them on a trip, the climate changes and the leverage of the kind of influence that a lobbyist has is altogether worse.

But if you stand back for a minute, and not only look at the revolving door and, you know, the kind of influence pedaling that's going on today, a lot of this has to do with just the free-for-all of raising money. I mean, most of these incidents started with a campaign contribution.

Now there's all kinds of things that go on that work but to be a member of Congress today, you spend most of your time raising money. And you're looking for any source you can possibly find. And people cross the line all the time.

And the line between when somebody made you a campaign contribution and also discussed something that you might be interested in, and when there's an implicit agreement that, well, he helped out me with my campaign, I probably can help you out on the floor.

MARGARET WARNER: Did you have that experience as a state senator in Maine?

CHELLIE PINGREE: Oh, you know, when people say that these are isolated incidents, and I think of my experience just as a Maine state senator, not even a member of Congress, you're dealing with these kinds of questions almost every day in one way or another.

You're constantly asked to raise money, constantly asked to go to fundraisers and you're crossing a line all the time when you're discussing what somebody needs, and what you're going to do.

And the real point is, you know in your heart when you're crossing over this line. You know, it's about the rule. But people know all the time they're doing this.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Larry LaRocco, on the fundraisers, and Jack Abramoff used to host them at a restaurant he owned, but, for instance, Fleishman- Hillard, I assume - do you host fundraisers for members of Congress?

LARRY LaROCCO: Absolutely. Absolutely.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, is there any - to use the assistant attorney general's words -- any kind of implicit understanding that there might be some official act in return?

LARRY LaROCCO: No. I mean, not in the way that we host fundraisers. We do it for people that we agree with, people that we've had contact with, and people that our clients need to meet. But --

MARGARET WARNER: So is that the test, in other words, if you feel the person is already your friend, that is he represents - he votes the way your clients like him to vote, then you don't consider it a quid pro quo?

LARRY LaROCCO: Absolutely not. And this is the way things have been going on for a couple hundred years. We have great transparency for these types of events. It's where there is no transparency.

But keeping the theme that was just mentioned here, the campaign contributions, and when members of Congress seem to think that they can put everything under the campaign umbrella, that everything they do is related to the campaign, so that they have a PAC or a leadership PAC and then they draw on that like a slush fund, that's when it's going too far.

And there was an unbelievable story that was written in the Washington Post the other day about how Tom DeLay used this, you know, for lavish treatment of himself and his family. And you know things are bad when you take a corporate jet to your arraignment. You know that's when you are -- that's when you are totally tone deaf to what's going on in Washington D.C. -- that's when you need a time-out.

MARGARET WARNER: Doug Klug, give us a story from your personal experience about how gray the line is, and particularly in this fundraising area.

For example, I read today, I think again it's from the Center for Public Integrity, something like 70-plus congressmen since 1998 have had as the head of their campaign committee a registered Washington lobbyist who lobbies for private interests.

Now, isn't that just a huge conflict on its face?

SCOTT KLUG: You asked about a gray area and kind of an example. Let me tell you the problem if you make the ban too tough and sort of too into the details. In the mid 1990s, I took a trip at the invitation of the British government to look at some privatization issues in England. And I took my son along at that time, who was I think 11 years old. And I paid for him to tag along on this trip with me.

And one of the things we looked at was the privatization of a coal mine in sort of South-Central England. He couldn't go in the coal mine because he was too young. And so the folks from the business that we were visiting took him out for the afternoon and they took him to get lunch, and he toured a castle.

And as we left, they gave us a big package. Got back to the hotel, opened up the package, it was a rugby ball from the local rugby team, a blazer from the local rugby team and a knit cap. Under the lobbying rules and the gift ban rules in effect at that point, I had to find out how much that stuff cost, I had to call the British embassy and write them a check to reimburse them for this stuff.

If you write a zero gift ban for example as we have had in Wisconsin for years, technically if you visit a local high school, talk to the high school football team before a game and they give you a sweatshirt, you have to give it back to them.

So I think there's a wide sort of discrepancy between the kind of corporate aircraft abuse which Larry was talking about that I think frankly should have been banned 15 years ago; I think there's a wide gap between spouses of members of Congress being employed by foundations and 501-C-3s, and being appointed by lobbyist organizations, versus a member of Congress who's going out for a hot dog and tickets to the Royals baseball game. I don't think that really leads much to corruption.

So I think when we do this, we have to do it the right way -- to look at the big items, the huge scandals. But at the same time I don't think you want to interfere with your ability for Larry, when he represented Idaho to go meet with the folks who represent the forest industry in Idaho. That's kind of silly; that's part of your job.

MARGARET WARNER: But you, Chellie Pingree, Common Cause does advocate just eliminating all gifts, is that right?

CHELLIE PINGREE: We do.

MARGARET WARNER: That includes entertainment, in other words, you can't have a dinner worth more than $50 but it doesn't include tax or gratuities. Or if you stand up, it doesn't count, I gather. If you are at the bowling alley, it's okay.

CHELLIE PINGREE: And also an end to travel paid for by, you know, the 501-C-3's that are supposedly allowed to do it. But we saw in many of these cases -

MARGARET WARNER: That's a charitable group?

CHELLIE PINGREE: Right. A charitable group, but there was lobbying money coming in through the back door, and again, it's challenging, because you want members of Congress to get out and see the world and know more about their districts and do many of those things. Yet on the other hand, again, in some of my experience when is the travel was paid for, and, yes, you were doing something where you were going to learn something, half of the other people on the trip were also lobbyists representing a variety of corporations.

And so then they have this opportunity to talk to you in a way they never do in other places. Then you are about to take a vote. One of them calls you up and says remember that time, you know, we were in Bermuda, and we had that great conversation. By the way, how is your daughter? How's everything going? And before you know it, you're feeling kind of like you owe them something and maybe you ought to take this vote. It's a fine line. When you step back, what you really have to say is: Does the average citizen have that access? What kind of extra leverage does this give? And at this point in time what dramatic steps have to be taken to make sure the public gets its faith again, because right now it's a pox on both of your houses.

They feel members of Congress can't be trusted and lobbyists can't be trusted either.

MARGARET WARNER: Since we don't have time to get into what Congress is going to do, let me just ask you, Larry LaRocco, briefly, in the meantime, after the indictment and plea on Tuesday, what impact has the Abramoff scandal had on the way the lobbying business does business?

LARRY LaROCCO: Well, I think there is going to be a time-out on both sides. I think lobbyists are going to make sure that they're following all the rules individually, in every organization, every trade association, every law firm, every lobbying firm. They should be going over the processes and all of the forms they're filing.

Likewise, every office in the Congress should make sure that they know where their staff is going and what they're doing and that they're doing it right. There will be more desk side briefings, more briefings based on facts.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean, over coffee rather than drinks and a steak?

LARRY LaROCCO: I think so.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We have to leave it there. Thank you all three very much.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

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

Mark, what rumbles do you hear as a result of the Abramoff pleas?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, it must be - on the Richter Scale it must be a nine. To watch the White House of George W. Bush scurry to distance the president, for example, from this convicted felon fixer, confessed felon fixer, and return $6,000 that he got from Jack Abramoff and his wife in 2000, a client, with no mention of the $100,000 that he raised for the Bush-Cheney campaign -

JIM LEHRER: There's a list in the Daily Hotline of about 100 members of Congress who gave money back too?

MARK SHIELDS: That's right. That's right. But they all seem to be reminiscent of former predecessor of Bush's in the White House who denied an illicit relationship with a White House intern, you know, very emphatically. They all seem to be saying I did not have political relations with that man, Jack Abramoff. I have got to tell you, I mean, you know, it is locking the door after the horse has been stolen, all the favors have been given.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with the consensus next door just now, that there's going to be a time-out, as Mr. LaRocco said?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think so. I just had lunch in a fancy restaurant and I could hear my echo because there was nobody else at lunch. No lobbyists were there --.

JIM LEHRER: You were paying for it.

DAVID BROOKS: Of course. I had six waiters waiting on me. It's having a big effect. I disagree with Mark that the White House is heavily involved. I think they did a good job of shoving off Abramoff when he came up to them.

But the big effect is that it's been a spring time for change. All the people, and especially Republicans who are watching this thing develop, finally are beginning to take some action. And the most important action they've already begun taking is getting rid of Tom DeLay.

It's pretty clear among House Republicans that they want him out, and there's going to be an election. And there's a contest, there's already jockeying going on of who's going to replace him -- Blunt, John Boehner -- and then the other thing that's happening across the political spectrum, a really acceleration of the reform ideas from Jeff Flake, from Arizona, a Republican, from Rahm Emanuel, from Barney Frank; just a whole bubbling up of reform ideas.

JIM LEHRER: One at a time, Mark. You agree that DeLay is gone, as far as --

MARK SHIELDS: DeLay is gone. There's no question about it.

JIM LEHRER: There was even a petition today --

MARK SHIELDS: Jeff Flake of Arizona, Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, pushing for a vote. That's one of the reasons Congress was not returning until the 31st of January, was the expectation that Tom DeLay might have his legal troubles in Texas behind him. Then he could come back and return to his rightful position as majority leader.

JIM LEHRER: There's this petition it says go ahead and have a vote get the thing over with.

MARK SHIELDS: The National Review called for removal, you had the Wall Street Journal editorial page today. You had Newt Gingrich, former speaker. I mean, the die is cast. Let's just be very candid about this, Jim. Tom DeLay was the personification of the problem. His leaving does not take the problem with him. Tom DeLay passionate cared about one thing; that's why he came into politics; he cared deeply and fiercely about the elimination of all regulation, governmental regulation. I'm talking health, safety, environmental.

We can argue that presidents of both parties have been forced environmental laws that have removed 99 percent of the lead from the air, have saved the Great Lakes, have made the air our children breathe better. Tom DeLay does not believe that. Tom DeLay believes that it's an onerous burden.

JIM LEHRER: So how does that tie in to this?

MARK SHIELDS: It dies into - when he came -- the first thing he did when he became majority whip in 1995 was to convene a meeting in his office: Pharmaceutical, tobacco, securities, health insurance lobbyists -- and say you are our team now and I am committed to removing regulations.

They don't like regulations. They don't want regulations, most of these businesses don't. And Tom DeLay, it wasn't the first time the nexus between lobbying and politics and money came together. Tom DeLay raised to it a different level.

JIM LEHRER: All right. First of all, do you agree with that?

DAVID BROOKS: Not really, no. Tom DeLay was not against regulation; he was for the elimination of all Democrats. And so I think he was mostly - by the way, businesses like regulations that crush their competitors, by the way.

So he wanted to get rid of the Democrats. Then, here, I begin to agree with Mark, that the problem is not DeLay, it's DeLayism. And DeLayism is, (a), the merging of K Street with the Hill, which DeLay was really in charge of. And the second thing was the frantic money chase. The idea was that you contribute to the party, you qualify for chairmanship by out raising everybody else and giving the money around to people on your team that.

So that was the real problem. And so, to me, the fundamental problem that they have to deal with is not the lobbying, not $50 dinners. I could care less about that. It's the fundamental incentives that DeLay and Abramoff in a much worse way took advantage. Those revolve around two things: Earmarks where an individual can control a federal contract worth 100 million bucks. There's bound to be graft when you got individual members.

And second, moving outside the rules: When they can put in a little spending provision, after the conference report is done at 2:00 in the morning and nobody ever sees that. Then you are bound to get graft because those two big problems in the process --

JIM LEHRER: Do you think those things will now fall as a result of the Abramoff case?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, the tough one and the big one is the earmarks, these little pork barrel projects which have exploded.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Well, back to my point, which was the leadership change that's going to happen as a result of this, DeLay, everybody agrees, DeLay is gone. So what is going to happen in his place? Is Hastert going to remain speaker? Is the rest of the leadership going to stay in place? Or is it just DeLay --

DAVID BROOKS: Well, personally, I think they should sweep the carpet and get some new blood. They've got a lot of young talent. But if I was betting, I'd say Hastert would remain, then I would bet on a guy named Roy Blunt, who's been acting majority leader from Missouri, John Boehner from Ohio is the other likely candidate.

JIM LEHRER: What about the Democrats, Mark? Where do they come down on all of this? Have they been handling themselves well in this issue?

MARK SHIELDS: No, they haven't. But this week, we mentioned last week that there was a real Democratic reform package put together by David Obey of Wisconsin, David Price of North Carolina, Tom Allen of Maine and Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

This week, it was revealed, that more than half the Democrats in the House have endorsed that package. And it does include many of the things that David was talking about: The votes and all the rest of it and cleanup. You have to have a bill -- we voted on a 770-page budget bill in the last session, Jim. Nobody saw it. Nobody saw it. It wasn't printed when they voted on it in the House and the Senate, so I mean, that sort of thing.

But I do come back to, I sound like Johnny one-note: The deregulation became central to this administration and to the Republicans at the time. I mean, I don't think the West Virginia mine is an accident. The West Virginia mine, where we had 204 citations for violations and total fines paid of $14,000, including --

JIM LEHRER: You're blaming that on Tom DeLay?

MARK SHIELDS: I'm blaming it on an attitude toward regulation that we don't regulate business fiercely. We don't try to interfere too strenuously. I don't think there's any question that when you've 97 citations that threaten the life of miners according to those who are investigating, and the total fine amounts to $14,000, that isn't even a slap on the wrist.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think of that?

DAVID BROOKS: That could be a problem, but it's not this problem though. This problem was caused by the explosion of earmarks from like 4,000 earmarks a year to 14,000 earmarks a year. It's caused by, as Mark said, people in the middle of the night putting in a piece of spending which their lobbyists know about and they know about but nobody else knows about, and nobody can vote on. That I think is what has actually caused this problem.

And not only Abramoff is the extreme example. It's Duke Cunningham is another extreme example, the California guy who was bribed. It's the fevered raising of money, if you go into these restaurants, and then it's the fevered putting these spending provisions in for special interests.

JIM LEHRER: Do both of you agree that the - some good could come of this, that the Abramoff thing is so severe, such a jarring thing, that they can't -- somebody is going -- everybody has to do something about it, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, no matter where you are in the pecking order?

MARK SHIELDS: Absolutely. Jim, I mean, when we have had reforms, whether it was the abolition of corporate domination of our politics during the 20th Century, or the cleaning up of money after Watergate, I mean which did last for close to 20 years, I mean, it really did, it worked very well through four presidential elections.

Ironically the Republicans might be bailed out on this by John McCain. They despise John McCain; they loathe John McCain; John McCain he has been the one Republican leading this reform charge on lobbyists in transparency and accountability. We know whom they're talking to.

JIM LEHRER: The Alito hearings begin on Monday. What should we expect?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think the betting is he will be what he is. He is sort of a nerdy guy who never makes broad statements. And so he will make narrow legalistic statements about individual decisions. The expectation is will be a lot of Democratic votes against, a lot of Democratic questions about executive power, and abortion, other things.

But I think the expectation is that he'll get -- keep most of the Republican votes, and even hear Republicans saying let's not get complacent about. This the odds favor him. But it will be a lot bloodier than Roberts.

JIM LEHRER: A lot bloodier than Roberts?

MARK SHIELDS: John Roberts wasn't a Democratic lawyer in Washington who had lunch with John Roberts. You couldn't turn around without running into somebody saying, John Roberts, pretty good guy -- I liked him, his family.

Nobody knows Sam Alito here. Obviously people who do know him think very highly of him. But, you know, this is an introduction for him, so it's different. Plus it's a different hearing. John Roberts was succeeding Bill Rehnquist. I mean, so that was conservative to conservative. Sam Alito is nominated to succeed the ultimate swing vote of the United States Supreme Court, Santa Sandra Day O'Connor.

JIM LEHRER: What about David's point that the executive power issue, as a result of the NSA revelations and all that --

MARK SHIELDS: McCain torture, I mean, they're going to ask him about McCain torture, which the Bush administration has basically announced they're not going to be held accountable to, even though the president signed it into law and endorsed it less than a month ago.

JIM LEHRER: But you don't expect this thing to -- the nomination is not in jeopardy as we sit here tonight, right?

DAVID BROOKS: It's not a loss by any means, but my expectation is people in his position are pretty good at this. And the individual witness, whoever he is, the nominee, has an advantage against the blowhard senators. So you have to expect he'll do fine.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Thank you both very much.

FINALLY - IN MEMORIAM

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, remembering singer Lou Rawls. He was known for his suave manner and smooth voice. He recorded 52 albums that crossed over several kinds of music, winning three Grammys and scoring several big hits.

Here's a clip of his performing one of those hits. The song is "Natural Man". The concert was part of a B.E.T. Jazz channel special in 2000.

LOU RAWLS SINGING NATURAL MAN (WITH BACKGROUND SINGERS):

Some kind of do they make me crazy

and blues, I just can't take it

when you see me going

the pride look in my eye

might be it, my soul is searching for the sky

because I want to be happy and free loving for me

I want to be happy and free

loving for me like a natural man

a (likea natural man)

I said a natural man (just like a natural man)

my feet are on the ground and my soul is searchin' for the sky

just like a natural man (just like a natural man) ( cheers and applause )

JIM LEHRER: Lou Rawls was 72 years old.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of this day: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon had emergency surgery again to stop bleeding in the brain. Later, doctors said a new brain scan showed some improvement. The U.S. military announced six more American deaths in Iraq. And U.S. unemployment fell slightly in December to 4.9 percent. Employers added 108,000 new jobs. 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.