The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the news of this Monday, then: Coverage, with analysis, of the major stories of the day; the upgraded nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the Supreme Court; plus the legacy of the man he would replace, William Rehnquist, who died on Saturday; and the continuing aftermaths of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, day eight.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush nominated John Roberts today to be chief justice of the United States. He'd replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died Saturday night. Roberts had been nominated to succeed Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She's staying on until her replacement is confirmed. The president said the court will be full if the Senate acts quickly.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: It is in the interest of the court and the country to have a chief justice on the bench on the first full day of the fall term. The Senate is well along in the process of considering John Roberts' qualifications. They know his record and his fidelity to the law.

JIM LEHRER: The Rehnquist funeral is set for Wednesday. As a result, the Roberts' confirmation hearings won't begin until Thursday, at the earliest. We'll have more on the Supreme Court story right after the News Summary.

In New Orleans today, estimates of the dead rose even higher. Mayor Ray Nagin said a figure of 10,000 would not be "unreasonable." And the focus turned to collecting the bodies. Just to the west, authorities allowed people to return to Jefferson Parish to check damage; 460,000 people lived there before Hurricane Katrina. Only a few thousand survivors remain in New Orleans.

But around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the population may double to one million people. Today President Bush visited with evacuees at a shelter in Baton Rouge. He promised a "huge effort" amid continued criticism of the initial response.

The Times-Picayune newspaper of New Orleans published an open letter to the president today. It said: "Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired -- Director Michael Brown, especially."

Private donations continued to pour in for the hurricane victims today. The American Red Cross said it's received more than $400 million. And in Houston, former Presidents Bush and Clinton kicked off a separate effort. Mr. Clinton said they're focused especially on the poor.

BILL CLINTON: The difference here is you've got, as we were talking earlier, probably for the first time since the great Mississippi flood of 1927 this many people totally dislocated and there's no way they can all be taken care of, and an extraordinary number of them, in New Orleans almost 30 percent, are living below the poverty line. We need to have a fund where we can fill in the blanks and help people that otherwise are going to be totally overlooked.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have much more on the hurricane later in the program. U.S. oil markets were closed today for Labor Day. But in Europe, the price of crude oil fell below $65 a barrel. That's where it was before the hurricane.

An Indonesian airliner crashed today, killing at least 147 people. It went down just after takeoff in northern Sumatra, headed to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. The jet plowed into a residential neighborhood, killing dozens of people on the ground. It was the sixth major commercial jet crash worldwide since Aug. 1.

Violence across Iraq today left at least 25 people dead. In Baghdad, dozens of insurgents fired mortars at the heavily- guarded interior ministry. At least two policemen were killed. And on Sunday, the Iraqi government announced Saddam Hussein's first trial will open Oct. 19. He's accused in the massacre of Shiites in 1982.

And that's it for the News Summary tonight, now it's on to: A new job for John Roberts; farewell, William Rehnquist; Katrina, day eight; and therace issue.

FOCUS - THE CHIEF

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our coverage of the coming and the sad going on the U.S. Supreme Court.

KWAME HOLMAN: The flag outside the Supreme Court flew at half-staff today in honor of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his 33- year service on the bench. Flags across the country had been lowered yesterday for Rehnquist and for hurricane victims. When the court's term ended in June, many wondered if the 80- year-old chief would retire due to his ongoing treatment for thyroid cancer, diagnosed last fall. In mid-July, Rehnquist put that to rest, saying he had no plans to step down.

Rehnquist first came to the court in 1952, as a clerk for Justice Robert Jackson, just months after graduating first in his class from Stanford Law School. In 1972, Rehnquist returned to the high court, this time as an associate justice appointed by President Nixon. Rehnquist recalled his first days on the job in a 1988 interview on public television.

WILLIAM REHNQUIST: I sat there and I thought it was almost mind-boggling. Here we were deciding things of great import and, you know, I felt "who am I to be doing this?"

KWAME HOLMAN: President Reagan selected Rehnquist to be chief justice in 1986 after Warren Burger retired. Rehnquist's most visible duty as chief justice came every four years, when he administered the presidential oath on Inauguration Day to George Herbert Walker Bush...

BILL CLINTON: And will, to the best of my ability...

KWAME HOLMAN: ...Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Among the most notable cases during Rehnquist's tenure: Roe Versus Wade in 1973. Rehnquist dissented in the landmark case establishing a right to abortion. United Steel workers of America Versus Weber in 1979, in which Rehnquist dissented and spoke out against the use of quotas to achieve racial balance.

SPOKESPERSON: So let's go in quietly.

KWAME HOLMAN: And in Zelman Versus Simmons-Harris in 2002, Rehnquist wrote for the court majority that ruled publicly- funded school vouchers could be used for tuition at religious schools. He also was a strong advocate for states' rights.

In 1999, Rehnquist became the second chief justice in history to preside over a Senate impeachment trial, this one of President Clinton.

WILLIAM REHNQUIST: The Senate adjudges that the respondent, William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, is not guilty as charged in the first article of impeachment.

KWAME HOLMAN: And in 2000, Rehnquist led the court in settling the dispute over the presidential vote in Florida. The chief justice talked about his years on the court last year in an interview with C-Span.

WILLIAM REHNQUIST: Well, I think it's a very good job. (Laughs) I have no regrets at all about ever being associate justice or about being chief justice. I think it's a remarkable opportunity. And to me, one of the most appealing things about it, either as an associate justice or as chief justice, it enables you to participate in some way and to some extent in the way the country is governed, but you're able to maintain a private life as well.

KWAME HOLMAN: Today, President Bush said it was fitting that Rehnquist's former clerk, John Roberts, should follow his mentor as the nation's 17th chief justice.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: In his boss, the young law clerk found a role model, a professional mentor, and a friend for life. I'm certain that Chief Justice Rehnquist was hoping to welcome John Roberts as a colleague, and we're all sorry that day didn't come.

It is fitting that a great chief justice be followed in office bya person who shared his deep reverence for the Constitution, his profound respect for the Supreme Court, and his complete devotion to the cause of justice.

KWAME HOLMAN: After Wednesday's funeral service, Chief Justice Rehnquist will be buried alongside his wife at Arlington National Cemetery.

JIM LEHRER: More now on the Supreme Court events of the last two days, from David Leitch, who practiced law with John Roberts in Washington, and also clerked for Justice Rehnquist. He is now general counsel of the Ford Motor Company; and Pam Karlan, a professor at Stanford University Law School who regularly argues cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.

And Pam Karlan, what do you think of the new Roberts nomination?

PAM KARLAN: Well, I think it was pretty much to be expected. I think that people assumed when he was nominated for Justice O'Connor's seat that if the chief justiceship opened up in the next few years, he would be the leading contender for it, so no surprise there.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, David Leitch, no surprise?

DAVID LEITCH: I agree. I think Judge Roberts would have been a leading candidate for the chief justice's seat had that been the first vacancy.

So it's no surprise that the president chose to move him on at this point.

JIM LEHRER: Pam Karlan, is he qualified to be chief justice of the United States Supreme Court?

PAM KARLAN: Well, I think I would disagree with much of what I suspect his constitutional interpretation would be. Certainly if I had been president I wouldn't have nominated him. The question for the senators is how different can someone's views of the Constitution be from theirs and yet still be qualified to hold the position.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. David Leitch, where do you come down on his qualifications to be chief justice?

DAVID LEITCH: Well, I think he's one of the most qualified nominees in history. I mean, he's argued 39 cases before the court. He knows the court inside and out. He served there as a law clerk; he knows all the justices and they know him, and they all think very highly of him. I think he'll be a great leader for the court with the right judicial temperament, the right collegiality, and I'm perfectly happy to say I think he's highly qualified.

JIM LEHRER: And you agree with his constitutional interpretations, rather than to disagree, as Pam Karlan does?

DAVID LEITCH: Well, I'm not sure that I know what his constitutional interpretations would be, and I'm not sure that I think it's appropriate that I should ahead of time. I know what his approach to the law will be, and that is not to be ideological but to apply the law faithfully as he finds it, and I think that's the most we can expect from a judge.

JIM LEHRER: Is that all we can expect from a judge, Pam Karlan?

PAM KARLAN: Well, you know, the first Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court had a famous line about this, where he said, "Well, when we interpret the constitution, what a judge is supposed to do is take the statutory provision that's in front of him, line it up next to the Constitution, and see if it fits."

I don't think anyone who follows constitutional law today believes that's what judges in fact do, so different judges looking at the same constitutional provision will have very different views of it. And my own view is that the senators should take ideological issues into account in deciding whether someone who is undoubtedly smart enough to be a Supreme Court justice also has the wisdom to hold the position.

JIM LEHRER: David Leitch, do you believe that the senators, whatever their view of John Roberts at this moment, they should take a different tact or be sharper in their questioning because he has now been nominated for the chief justice rather than just an associate justice? Is there a difference, in other words?

DAVID LEITCH: I don't think there's a difference. I think each of the justices obviously gets a vote. They were certainly well-prepared to question him to be an associate justice. There may be a few questions about administrative issues and how you would actually serve in the role of chief justice, but the most important functions are the ones of hearing cases and deciding how they're going to come out, and they were ready to question him quite thoroughly about those issues as of tomorrow.

JIM LEHRER: Pam Karlan, help us understand exactly what the job of the chief justice is. Where's the power and the responsibility there in that job?

PAM KARLAN: Well, there are two big jobs that differentiate the chief justice from the other justices. The first is that he runs the conference, the meeting among the justices to decide cases, and then if he's in the majority, and most of the time the chief justice will be in the majority, he decides which justice on the court will write the opinion for the court. And that assignment power is a very important power.

The other thing, as David just alluded to, is the chief justice has a role in the overall administration of the U.S. courts, in assigning judges to various committees that decide rules issues and the like. And there the chief justice has tremendous power in helping to shape the rules that govern federal courts.

JIM LEHRER: How would you edit that in any way, David Leitch? Or what would you add or subtract to her definition?

DAVID LEITCH: I think the most significant aspect of that is the opinion- writing assignment. You can often shape how the law is going to develop in the future by who writes the opinion and how majorities are held together or lost based on who writes an opinion.

It's a very important strategic function and the chief justice, as Pam said, usually is the one who makes that assignment.

JIM LEHRER: David Leitch, can you think of a case that was adjudicated while Justice Rehnquist was the chief justice that was basically decided because of the power he exercised through one of the techniques or whatever that you... along the lines that you and Pam Karlan were just describing?

DAVID LEITCH: Well, I don't know that I have a ready example. I think the one that comes to mind perhaps first is the case that sort of constitutionalized the Miranda decision: Dickerson. And he kept that opinion for himself to write the opinion, and I suspect he probably did that to limit what he would have seen as the damage that could have been done if that opinion had been written too broadly. That kind of example is probably the best example I can think of.

JIM LEHRER: Professor Karlan, in a more general way, what should we remember most about the tenure of William Rehnquist as chief justice?

PAM KARLAN: Well, I think two things: One is that it marked a sharp turn of the court away from the Warren Court era, with the revival of a kind of federalism and states' rights. And the second thing is that the court's docket shrank dramatically. In the last year of the Burger court, the Supreme Court decided approximately 155 cases. Last year the Supreme Court decided about 80. And I think that has changed quite dramatically the number of cases that the court has taken -- and also, as I say, this move towards the right andtowards more of a states' rights and less of a pro-federal, pro-Congress position on the part of the Supreme Court.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that analysis, David Leitch, of what his main mark was... main marks are?

DAVID LEITCH: I do. I wouldn't say that the turn away from the Warren Court was quite as sharp as perhaps Pam would indicate. It was more of a gradual turn. There were certainly important milestones like the federalism cases, but much of the work of the Warren Court remains on the books.

But I think, you know, there was a gradual shift over time, and the chief justice went from being the Lone Ranger when he was first on the court, as a lone dissenter in many opinions, to being the leader of a court that revisited many of those precedents.

JIM LEHRER: David Leitch, does he qualify for that term "leader" in the full sense, that he really did lead the U.S. Supreme Court while he was chief justice?

DAVID LEITCH: I think he led it in many ways. And most importantly, he led it in collegiality. He was a very affable man. I had the privilege of serving with him for a year. And he remained close to all his law clerks over the years, and he remained close to the justices. And even though there were many differences of opinion, sharp differences of opinions, Justice Rehnquist, Chief Justice Rehnquist helped keep the court together, he helped it operate efficiently. He has left an enduring legacy.

JIM LEHRER: Pam Karlan, what would you add to that on the leadership issue and what Justice Rehnquist brought to that?

PAM KARLAN: Well, I think he was a far better leader within the court than his predecessor, Chief Justice Burger. The court ran on time. The administrative personnel within the court seemed very pleased with the way he led the court. And so I think... I agree with David, that in that sense he was the leader of the court. On the federalism issues and on issues of restricting habeas corpus, he was a leader of the court -- I think less of a leader of the court on social issues, in which he often found himself in dissent, on abortion, on gay rights, on a number of First Amendment and school prayer issues.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that David Leitch, that's fair?

DAVID LEITCH: Yes, I think it's fair, and it demonstrates the limits of being a chief justice -- again, only one vote. You can hope to persuade your colleagues to join you, but no more so than any other justice. You know, you have the persuasive powers you have. And there were justices who just didn't agree with his views on some of those issues. The other area I'd mention would be church and state. I think he was very influential on issues involving church and state, on permitting there to be more interaction, which some find regrettable and others find commendable.

JIM LEHRER: David Leitch, I read a comment today. Like it or not... among the public, among legal folks like you all, legal scholars like you all, there will be long discussions about his legal legacy, but among the public there's one case that stands out, of course, is Gore Versus Bush in the 2000 election thing. Is it right, and it didn't fit his federalism concept-- at least a lot people thought it did not. Do you think it's fair for the public to zero in on that as his... as a legacy of William Rehnquist?

DAVID LEITCH: Oh, I don't think it's fair. I mean, I think the case was... you know, it was... ultimately, it was a seven-two decision in terms of thinking that the Florida Supreme Court had gotten it wrong. So, you know, he was in a large majority there. But, look, this man was on the Supreme Court for over three decades. He engaged in a lot of important decisions. I think his legacy will be much more than that one particular case.

JIM LEHRER: What's your view of that, Pam Karlan?

PAM KARLAN: Well, I think his legacy will be larger, but I think Bush against Gore, which was a five to four on whether the Supreme Court should have stopped the recount, was, in fact, an example quite consistent with a lot of the Rehnquist court's other decisions because I think what underlay that decision was their distrust of Congress and their distrust of the political process and the political process resolving an election.

And, of course, one thing that's sort of obvious today is that in deciding the 2000 election, to some extent the members of the Supreme Court decided who would succeed William Rehnquist as chief justice.

JIM LEHRER: In a word, beginning with you, Pam Karlan, do you expect the court to change dramatically if John Roberts is in fact confirmed and does become the chief justice?

PAM KARLAN: No, I don't. I think that he will probably be quite similar in many ways to the chief justice he's replacing. The place to look for whether the Supreme Court is going to change a lot is who replaces Justice O'Connor.

JIM LEHRER: David Leitch, what's your view of that?

DAVID LEITCH: I don't expect the court to change a lot because John Roberts is the chief justice. I don't think he'll just be in the mold of Chief Justice Rehnquist; he'll be his own man, and he will do some things differently and many things the same, but I think we should watch this space to see how Chief Justice Roberts develops.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. David Leitch, Pam Karlan, thank you both very much.

PAM KARLAN: Thank you.

DAVID LEITCH: Thank you.

UPDATE: KATRINA

JIM LEHRER: Now, the ongoing tragedies and wrenches that are Hurricane Katrina. We begin with today's developments. Our report is narrated by Ray Suarez. We must warn you: Some of these pictures are most disturbing.

RAY SUAREZ: New Orleans is now a city without its people. One week after Katrina struck, officials now believe that fewer than 10,000 of the Big Easy's half million residents remain to be evacuated. Search-and-rescue operations continue in the sodden streets; boats run where buses and streetcars once rolled.

They are still rescuing people. Many are old or infirm. These people have been trapped here for a week. All are taken to the airport and airlifted to safety.

But many of these rescuers will soon become collectors, and a horrific accounting will begin in earnest. Bodies went unattended for days as chaos and calamity reigned in New Orleans. Now, authorities have started the recovery of the dead and a restoration of dignity denied. One Orleanian, John Lee, took it upon himself to bury a neighbor.

JOHN LEE: I'm just worried about my neighbors. The good old nuns told me to bury the dead. You need to go.

RAY SUAREZ: The draining of the city continues. Engineers continue to patch breached levees and make repairs to pumps. There is apparent dread of what will be found once the city is pumped dry.

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, U.S. Army: We don't expect it to be a low number. We expect it to be a significant number of people.

RAY SUAREZ: The toll will surely be in the hundreds; many expect thousands. Among the dead are two police officers. They died by their own hand. Morale in the small department has been hard-hit, and as many as 200 of the 1,500 member force have walked off the job. A deputy chief addressed that decimated morale today.

DEPUTY CHIEF WARREN RILEY, New Orleans Police Department: Some of those officers left for various reasons; some we understand. Some of those officers lost their homes; they don't know where their families are; where their spouses are, and they're out looking for them; some left because they simply could not deal with this catastrophe.

RAY SUAREZ: The survivors of Katrina are now part of an ever-widening hurricane Diaspora. Evacuees are being sheltered from coast to coast.

INITA COOPER: This land of people has been really, really good. I've never seen this in my life. They is pouring their heart out to us.

RAY SUAREZ: More than 200,000 are in Texas. The lone star state's services are stretched nearly to capacity.

FRANK GUTIERREZ, Harris County, Texas Emergency Management: If Texas gets to a point where we can't go anymore, we look at our other friendly states.

RAY SUAREZ: Many are wondering what comes next. Wal-mart employee Joi Gilmore has a leg up as she looks to start over.

JOI GILMORE: They guaranteed us a job. When we got settled, once she had the baby we can go to work whenever and at whatever Wal-mart we wanted to go to.

RAY SUAREZ: In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana today residents were allowed back for 12 hours to survey the damage to their homes and to salvage what they could.

MAN: The floors are loose and flopping around...the wood floors; it's like surfing downstairs.

RAY SUAREZ: President Bush also returned to the region today. His second visit in four days comes amid continuing, and bipartisan, criticism of his administration's response to the hurricane. He stopped first at a shelter in Baton Rouge.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Laura and I have come down to Louisiana and then we're going over to Mississippi to let the good people of this region know there's a lot of work to be done. The first mission of course is to save lives. And so long as any life is in danger, we got work to do. And they're going to continue to save lives.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Bush then toured an emergency operations center. The president later flew on to Mississippi, finishing his day in meetings with officials in Poplarville. The men running federal emergency operations in the region took questions this afternoon. Gen. Russel Honore was asked about charges there was too much red tape and too little coordination among agencies.

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE: That is B.S. I will take that on behalf of every first respondent down there. We've got 300 helicopters and some of the finest EMS workers in the world working down there in New Orleans, and they are making it happen.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Bush's two most recent predecessors announced in Houston today the formation of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Relief Fund, what they hope is a massive private effort to help Gulf Coast residents. President Bush asked them last week to continue the fundraising the two men began after the Asian tsunami. The president's father sought to defend his son's handling of the crisis.

REPORTER: What do you think of the criticism that's being leveled at the government?

GEORGE BUSH, SR.: The president can take it. (Laughter) In the sense that, you know, what do I think of it as a father? I don't like it. But what do you think as a one who was president, and I expect President Clinton feels the same way, it goes with the territory. We can blame somebody else, that's one of the big things you do after a football game, what went wrong. We want to go forward.

RAY SUAREZ: Former President Clinton said there should be an accounting of the federal effort but that more urgent tasks are at hand.

BILL CLINTON: We're still finding bodies there. And there still may be some people alive there. The first thing we got to do is remember that these people are... what they're going through. And now it seems that, you know, we're all in harness and we're all working on it. I think it's an appropriate thing to look into, but not at this time.

RAY SUAREZ: In addition to an emergency $10.5 billion congressional appropriation the two presidents' fund and other private efforts are raising unprecedented sums to aid those suffering unprecedented loss.

FOCUS - RACE & RESPONSE

JIM LEHRER: Now, the race and class issue connected to this hurricane story. In the week since Katrina struck, there has been much discussion about this among public officials, community leaders and others. Gwen Ifill has more.

GWEN IFILL: As we looked into the faces of the people who suffered most from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, it quickly became clear most of those on rooftops, the porches and in the shelters were black. Rap stars raged about it and it became Sunday dinner table conversation around the country.

So did race and class play a role, implicitly or explicitly, in determining who suffered and how, or if, they were rescued?

We take a look at the wide range of opinion on that topic, with Wade Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Dawn Turner Trice, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She's just back from chronicling the story in Mississippi. Marta Tienda, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, where she writes about race, poverty and social policy. And we hope to be joined in a moment with William Jefferson, the congressman representing the city of New Orleans. He will join us hopefully tonight from Baton Rouge.

Wade Henderson, we have seen the faces of people in distress, black faces, we've heard the famous performers, Kanye West, denounce the handing of this, we have heard this anguished debate. So in your opinion, did class, race or some other combination play a role in the response to this hurricane?

WADE HENDERSON: Gwen, step back for a minute. Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster of almost unprecedented proportion. Our hearts go out to the men and women who were affected by the tragedy, the displaced Americans who have been scattered from their homes. And we also have the deepest appreciation for the workers and volunteers who stepped forward who stepped in the breach, the first responders to really provide relief for the people who were affected.

I think the relief effort has to be our top priority right now, and I think all focus has to be on that. But having said that, I think the pictures that you've referred to, what we've seen in New Orleans, the powerful and troubling images of those who were left behind in the storm, certainly raises profound questions about why that occurred.

And I think two points are inescapable: First of all, African-American poor were not the only ones affected, certainly they were affected in disproportionate number, but so were poor whites and poor Latinos. Poverty was a unifying factor in the impact of Hurricane Katrina on those left behind.

But secondly I think the legacy of racial discrimination in this country helped to produce the population of people who were left behind and who really are the subject of tonight's conversation. You can't have a situation with historic discrimination on the basis of housing, voting, education, and employment and not have a legacy like that which we now have in New Orleans, with a class of people who are poor and who are unable to leave.

There is a lot of criticism of course about the federal government's response. But I think if you look at what happened, there are only two observations. Either one it was competence or these other factors.

GWEN IFILL: Congressman Jefferson, I think we have you now. I know we were having some audio problems, but I hope can you hear me fine. What's your response to that? Can you hear me, Congressman Jefferson? Ah, we can't hear you. We'll be back with you in a moment.

Let me go to Dawn Turner Trice for a moment. You just got back from Mississippi. What was your sense in your reporting there of this and whether racism played a role as well?

DAWN TURNER TRICE: Well, Gwen, I covered the Mississippi coliseum, and I talked to a number of people there, most of whom were from New Orleans. And from the very beginning you didn't have the same type of problems at the coliseum as you had, for example, at the Superdome. One of the reasons was that we can say scale, yes, there were ten times as many people at the Superdome than at the coliseum.

But the other thing was that from the very beginning at the coliseum, you had the Jackson City police officers, you had National Guardsmen who were patrolling the 25,000-square-foot arena floor, making it very clear that under such cramped conditions there was no room for foolishness. You had the American Red Cross who were volunteers who were going around asking people if they had what they needed, if they could be helpful in any way.

There was a clinic on site. There were even Hines County minimum security inmates who were pressed into service who were there cleaning up, serving as janitors.

So from the very beginning you had people being treated as though they were human beings and not chattel. So the conditions you had there were very different. And I think we want to see this in terms of the chaos that we saw at the Superdome we may want to see this as a race issue that these are black people acting this way. But I believe that you could put anybody in very dire and desperate conditions and no matter the color and this is what you get-- just a very, very bad circumstance. As I said, this didn't happen at the Mississippi coliseum.

GWEN IFILL: Marta Tienda, I would like to come to you for kind of the broader picture, the history that comes to this. People aren't obviously reaching these conclusions on just their own natural instincts, there's a history of where poor people live as well as what happens to them as well.

MARTA TIENDA: Yes. When I first saw the initial photos on Tuesday of the devastation, my first reaction of the faces that were appearing was, my heavens, this has tolled disproportionately on the most vulnerable. There's no question the entire city was affected, but not only New Orleans, it was other places.

The fact of the matter is that the combination of race and class has brought forth -- magnified the impact of this catastrophe, because they are more vulnerable. They could not vote with their feet. They could not drive off in some Suburban car, pack up their most precious belongings and hope for the best.

They basically had their lives on the line, and an inability to respond. This is the legacy that we have left in this country with segregation persisting across... especially in some of the large cities. New Orleans happens to be one of the cities that has a disproportionate at number of African-Americans. It has not yet been affected by it and re-contoured with the new immigration, and it has persistent high levels of residential segregation.

The problem with segregation across the nation is what it does is it concentrates inequality along income lines. And it is the combination of race and class that becomes the magnifier of this vulnerability.

GWEN IFILL: What do you say to people who say that this is really all about class and race is just an incidental factor when you talk about this?

MARTA TIENDA: No, there's some allegations that this was by design a racist response. I would say that whether it's by design or default, let's go with the default. But still the design behind the default is the fact that we have very unequal opportunities by racial lines. And it's the combination of race and class that is different from just being poor or just being black.

GWEN IFILL: I want to go back to Dawn Turner Trice for a moment because I'm curious about what the evacuees themselves were saying who you talked to in Mississippi and whether they felt they were victimized because of their race or whether this is something we outsiders are putting on them.

DAWN TURNER TRICE: Well, the people whom I spoke to... and I'm sorry, I have to take this out. The people whom I spoke to did not feel they were victimized necessarily because of their race at the beginning or at the onset because of this hurricane. I mean, there was victimization prior to the hurricane. You can go to places along -- Gulfport or places in New Orleans as a tourist and never know that there is a black under class or that the poverty is so stark -- the same thing in any city, as we said earlier, around the country.

One of the things that I think that this administration has done a very good job of doing is there's a prevailing perception that there is no race problem in this country or there is no underclass. And the people whom we see often are the Condi Rices and the Colin Powells, and, yes, black people have done very well and there's no denying that. But there's still a group of people who are suffering and they are for all intents and purposes, they're invisible.

What the storm did was uncover that. What we're looking at now, we're shocked because we've been told one thing, that "Hey, this doesn't exist," and now we're seeing that it clearly does exist. And there's the shock, well, we need to get beyond the shock, and there's a lot of shame that should be involved with that as well.

GWEN IFILL: Wade Henderson, let's talk about the question that Marta Tienda raised about what happens by design and what happens by default.

WADE HENDERSON: Well, I think there's a history of racial discrimination in our country, and certainly it's been overturned by Supreme Court and legislative decisions. But if you look at the reality of American life today, it's inescapable that race was a factor in affecting the outcome of the way this group of people were actually treated.

I mean, the legacy of racial discrimination in public education continues to be a persistent problem in denying people the opportunity to achieve a level of education performance. Problems in housing discrimination persist, and voting restrictions persist. That's why it's important, for example, that we continue to have an effective enforcement of existing civil rights laws.

The problem I think we have in looking at this issue is that most Americans are certainly reluctant to stare squarely in the face of racial discrimination and concede that the problem still exists. And yet when we have circumstances like the response to the poor throughout the Gulf region, not just in of course Louisiana, but in Mississippi as well, I think it reflects a level of discrimination that is born from race although not exclusively race specific.... I mean limited. It is certainly a factor both in race and class, and that's the issue that we have to confront.

GWEN IFILL: I want to ask you all three a language question, because it's a debate that a lot of people have been having with me over the last few days as a journalist, which is the use of language. The people who have left New Orleans have been described as evacuees, or as refugees. And there's loaded intent, people infer, from the use of those two words. Where do you come down on this?

WADE HENDERSON: Well, I think these are displaced American citizens, who have, of course, because of their circumstances been shipped to places around the country. And I think there is a sensitivity among African-Americans in being characterized as refugees within their own country because it seems to suggest that they are the victims of these natural disasters or wars, as in other parts of the world, and it fails to recognize their legitimate claim to protection by the federal, state and local government as citizens entitled to the full benefits of American citizenship. And there's sensitivity there.

GWEN IFILL: Dawn Turner Trice, I go to you once again from the on-the-ground point of view from Mississippi. By the way, so viewers know, we still haven't been able to establish contact with Congressman Jefferson. Is that the sort of thing people are talking about down there, "I can't believe they're calling me a refugee"?

DAWN TURNER TRICE: Oh, absolutely, they were really hot about this topic, that specific language. And as many of them said that they understand that there is a definition that would say that a person without a refuge or a place or a home would be... could be considered a refugee. But that word is such a loaded word and when we think about it we think about it more in the international context, in that definition. And I think that a lot of people I talked to felt that they were being considered less than American, and that stung.

GWEN IFILL: Marta Tienda, does that language matter?

MARTA TIENDA: Yes, it does. I was stunned to see the word "refugee" used initially to describe the victims of this catastrophic storm. But there is a lesson here from the immigration literature that could be used to good purpose. We have had refugees in this country and we have learned how to incorporate them into the U.S. fabric so that they can then be a very productive citizen.

And I think this is the time to rise to the occasion to look at how we have treated refugees, the political refugees in particular, and given them all of the support of our infrastructure, and made it possible for them to transcend their origins.

With our native population, the African-American population has been displaced by this horrific experience; they should have every possible solution that we have used in the past to produce successful citizens from international refugees. And I think we should use the word "evacuee," but we do have much experience producing very productive citizens, and it is long overdue for the individuals that have been victimized both by poverty and by segregation.

GWEN IFILL: Now that we've talked about this victimization, or at least this hurricane has seemed to throw it into relief what do you think, and I'm going to ask you each briefly because we're about out of time, what do you think the government should be doing first to address it? That's for you, Ms. Tienda.

MARTA TIENDA: I think the government needs to -- this is a call to action. The government should have been doing triage in terms of who are the most vulnerable and move actively along those lines. But I think this event has triggered on the backs of these poor victims, brought it into sharp relief that we have persisting segregation in this country and its consequences are pernicious.

It is high time that we stop pretending that we do not have egregious inequities and that we concentrate by space. So this is an opportunity to rise to the occasion and use the facilities that we've used when we've had the marialitos come...

GWEN IFILL: Okay. Briefly, Dawn Turner Trice?

DAWN TURNER TRICE: We wrote in the Chicago Tribune this morning a story about a U.S. Naval ship that has been sitting on the Gulf Coast for the longest... it's designed to dispatch marines and amphibious assaults, it's got helicopters, doctors, can produce over 100,000 gallons of water a day and it's just sitting there, it's languishing, it's not being used. So one of the things we can do is just really use the things that we have already there at our service and use them effectively.

GWEN IFILL: Brief comment.

WADE HENDERSON: I think this is a call to action, and I think that our government has to suspend business as usual. I think we need a single coordinator for the relief effort, but I also think we have to step up and admit that we have persistent problems with both race and class in our society. And it really focuses on that issue.

GWEN IFILL: Thank you all. I'm sorry we weren't able to talk to Congressman Jefferson, we'll try to talk to him another night. Thank you all.

WADE HENDERSON: Thank you.

DAWN TURNER TRICE: Thank you.

MARTA TIENDA: Thank you.

FOCUS - RESCUE EFFORT

JIM LEHRER: And finally, two stories from the hurricane area itself. They're about people trying to put their lives back together. First, Tom Bearden reports from Gulfport, Mississippi.

REV. BO ROBERT, St. Mark's Episcopal Church: Let me have a hallelujah.

GROUP: Hallelujah!

REV. BO ROBERT: That's not my style, but praise God we're all here.

GROUP: Amen.

TOM BEARDEN: St. Mark's Episcopal held services in Gulfport on Sunday, on the site their church has occupied since 1924. But Hurricane Katrina destroyed the beach-front church building last week. There isn't much left but the foundation.

REV. BO ROBERT: Look in your mind's eyes, and I want you to picture a white wood frame building with green shutters, red carpet inside, white colonial pews and red velvet seats. That's not St. Mark's Church. But look besides you. Those nasty people sitting out there covered with mud, forgot to shave, that's St. Mark's Church.

TOM BEARDEN: As Mississippians were worshipping, FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams were still looking for people who might still be trapped in their homes. A task force from Ohio has been trudging through the mud-covered neighborhoods in Pass Christian, Mississippi, one of 28 national teams coordinated through the Office of Homeland Security.

CHRIS EISELE, Ohio Urban Search & Rescue: Hello.

TOM BEARDEN: Medical specialist Chris Eisele entered a home that appeared to be okay, until one could see how floodwaters have literally stirred the interior...

CHRIS EISELE: We're here to rescue. Anybody in here?

TOM BEARDEN: ..Despite the fact that the house was on 12-foot stilts.

CHRIS EISELE: A lot of the things we're looking for when we open the doors is obviously what cars are in the driveway, if the beds are made. One of our biggest indicators is going to be the smell -- not only the smell of storm, which we're kind of acclimated to now, but trying to make sure that you're not smelling for a decomposing body.

TOM BEARDEN: Safety Specialist Jeff Newman was down the street, also checking for anybody who might be trapped, and for bodies. Occasionally, the team came across homeowners who are only now beginning to return.

SPOKESMAN: You live here?

GROUP: We live here.

SPOKESMAN: You live here, okay. Do you know anything about your neighbors the day after?

WOMAN: Yeah, this one, she's a nurse at Memorial. That one's okay. She called us yesterday.

SPOKESMAN: Okay. Anybody else you know on the street? So you know if this lady left or these people left?

SPOKESPERSON: Yeah, I know she left.

SPOKESMAN: Okay, so we got this one covered and we got this one covered?

WOMAN: Right. Right.

SPOKESPERSON: Okay, very good. I don't about them over there.

SPOKESMAN: Did you guys need anything?

WOMAN: No, no...

MAN: A ride out of here. ...The road was clear.

TOM BEARDEN: The Ohio unit got to Mississippi on Monday, just in time to ride out Hurricane Katrina in Meridian, about 200 miles from the coast. They arrived here the following day. They are aware that FEMA has been criticized for a slow response.

SCOTT DONEGIA: The first few days of any disaster is going to be chaotic. It takes time logistically to bring supplies and that in. We saw that here.

JEFF NEWMAN: The equipment and what we need to do this job, we've got to be able to access and get in. You know, you're talking with the heat that we've been going through, and everything else here, if we had to actually lug all of our tools to do our job by foot, we couldn't get in.

TOM BEARDEN: The team says the rescue part of the operation is pretty much over. But they'll keep looking until every house has been checked. This neighborhood cleared, the team prepared to move on, trying to decipher maps that were often confusing.

SPOKESMAN: There's Pinewood. Can you give me a cross street?

SPOKESMAN: Top portion of the bay there. Off of Fairway Drive. Off of Fairway Drive.

SPOKESMAN: Okay, copy. I see it now.

SPOKESMAN: You see it?

SPOKESMAN: Yeah, right here. In little letters, off of Fairway Drive.

TOM BEARDEN: A few miles to the east, the beach at Biloxi is a garbage dump: Suitcases, bathtubs, stuffed animals, dead animals. But that didn't deter Father Warren Drinkwater from trudging through it all to take a bath in the Gulf of Mexico, because there is no running water along the entire coast. He's a retired Catholic priest from New Orleans, living in a retirement home across the street.

FATHER WARREN DRINKWATER: You know, every summer we used to camp, so... (laughs) ...in our seminary days, so we got used to this tough stuff.

TOM BEARDEN: Father Albert Babin is living in the home, too. He says there are 26 miles of beaches like this.

FATHER ALBERT BABIN: The surge comes in, subsides; comes in, subsides. And at the height of it, the strongest winds, it'll push it all the way up, past that school there. And on its way back it'll pick up anything.

TOM BEARDEN: There's more debris offshore, under the water. No one has any idea who, if anyone, might ever clean it up.

JIM LEHRER: And, from Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, a tough homecoming for one family. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports that story.

SPOKESMAN: Look, it's gone. The Hughes house is gone.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: The Chapoton family knew it would be bad.

SPOKESMAN: That was a huge house.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: They braced themselves as they drove down their street for the first time since Hurricane Katrina brought a 27-foot wall of water through their Gulf Coast town.

SPOKESPERSON: Oh, my. Oh my.

SPOKESMAN: This is awful.

SPOKESPERSON: I think we ought to go to the driveway, huh?

ELIZABETH BRACKET: It's a trip home that's being played out daily along the 90 miles of devastation stretching from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi.

SPOKESPERSON: Do you believe it?

ELIZABETH BRACKET: The most powerful winds from the northeast side of the hurricane spiral hit Bay St. Louis, destroying Mike Chapoton's house, his town and the bridge commuters used for their daily trip to New Orleans.

MELISSA CHAPOTON: Oh, this is from when we took the boat back, when we first got the boat.

MIKE CHAPOTON: This is the cake knife from our wedding cake.

EILEEN CHAPOTON: Are those our clothes in the trees?

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Eileen Chapoton, her husband, Mike, and daughter, Melissa, had different feelings about sifting through years of memories.

MELISSA CHAPOTON: I was sick to my stomach driving in. It's just a mess.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Is it good to have finally seen it?

MELISSA CHAPOTON: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Now you know what you're dealing with.

MELISSA CHAPOTON: I couldn't sleep or anything.

EILEEN CHAPOTON: It's better than I thought. My neighbor we found out on Tuesday had come to his house and said there's nothing left. So I was really thinking that I wouldn't see anything and I would not retrieve anything, and we've actually gotten some things.

MIKE CHAPOTON: I said I wasn't going to do this, but I'm doing it, picking through the debris.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: But Chapoton's brother-in-law, Jack Holden, thought the effort was important.

JACK HOLDEN: The reason I came was to help them, not that I thoughts we could get much, but get what memories they could salvage and help them with that.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Can you salvage memories out of mud?

JACK HOLDEN: You know, china that grandma had, special serving pieces that were used for holidays and trophies that the children got is part of your being, you know. As a southerner, your house is part of who you are and what you are and there's long traditions with that.

MIKE CHAPOTON: Good Lord! Good Lord!

ELIZABETH BRACKET: For the 8,000 people who lived here, the historic old town district was the cultural center.

SPOKESPERSON: This was a little commercial district. That's the street right there, gone.

SPOKESPERSON: This was the heart and soul of Bay St. Louis.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: The town didn't just lose its buildings. Hurricane Katrina claimed the lives of at least 39 residents in the county. In a roller-coaster ride of emotions, the Chapotons' feelings of loss changed throughout the day.

MIKE CHAPOTON: My stuff wasn't so bad. I guess it's the collective thing. It's everybody, it's magnified; it's not just me, it's a whole little town.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Interesting that it hit you more here even than when you were looking at your own loss.

MIKE CHAPOTON: Well, like we said, we understood the risk, we thought we did. And it was a decision we made, and I guess it was, you know, a decision everybody made and I guess that's what makes a community is the collection of the decisions. This is the result. This is going to take a lot of work. Now everybody's dreams are scattered around here.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Do you think your dreams will come back? Can you see it being rebuilt?

MIKE CHAPOTON: Oh, sure, yeah.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: Are you going to be part of it?

MIKE CHAPOTON: I have a hard time leaving, and I don't know why. It hurts. This is my home. I knew when we left the house would be gone, so I was okay with that. But then when you see that everything's gone...

SPOKESPERSON: I'm so sorry.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: As the day wore on, more and more of the Chapotons' neighbors began returning.

MAN: I'm building back. The hell with everybody.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: But Eileen Chapoton worried that the community itself would not return so quickly.

EILEEN CHAPOTON: Friends going to Shreveport, friends going to Jackson. We don't know where we're going to be. And I think that's a greater loss than the loss of the house and everything in it. We loved where we lived, so my life as I know it is just gone. I mean, it's just gone.

ELIZABETH BRACKET: As it is for hundreds of thousands of residents along the Gulf Coast, whose lives were changed forever by Hurricane Katrina.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of this Labor Day holiday: President Bush nominated John Roberts for chief justice of the United States, after the death of William Rehnquist. And the mayor of New Orleans warned there could be 10,000 dead in the flood disaster. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.