The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Friday; then, the first of two reports from Iowa on the presidential race, tonight, the Democrats scrap over the women`s vote; the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; a look at the many fallouts from the baseball steroids report; and a NewsHour family report on our move to high-definition television.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: The U.N. climate talks in Bali went into overtime today, with word of a possible compromise. The U.S. and European nations worked into the wee hours in Indonesia. They`ve been at odds over giving negotiators hard targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

We have a report narrated by Julian Rush of Independent Television News.

JULIAN RUSH, ITV News Correspondent: Once again at the U.N. climate negotiations, they`re talking through the night to break the deadlock.

DIPLOMAT: Excuse me, I have to go to a meeting.

JULIAN RUSH: In Bali, as before, the stumbling block: the United States` steadfast refusal to sign up to a European proposal for industrialized countries to cut their emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020. By the early hours, the frustration was obvious.

TONY JUNIPER, Friends of the Earth: The United States, in particular, is behaving like passengers in first class on a jumbo jet who believe that a catastrophe in economy class will not affect them. The reality is, however, very different: If we go down, we go down together.

PROTESTORS: Bali breakthrough! Bali breakthrough!

JULIAN RUSH: Environmentalists outside the talks have been doing whatever they can to force agreement.

PROTESTORS: Bali breakthrough! Bali breakthrough!

JULIAN RUSH: Day and night, they kept up the pressure. But when it came to the crunch tonight, with the negotiations devolved to a small subgroup of some 20 or so ministers after the 190 countries who were at the talks, it was Europe that blinked first, dropping the 25 percent to 40 percent target it had hoped would set a framework and boundaries for future climate talks on precisely what follows the Kyoto treaty.

The compromise: The final Bali mandate must include a reference to the recent scientific reports on climate change that just happened to say 25 percent to 40 percent would be a good idea.

Which is not to say Bali has not been without its successes. For the first time, forests and ways of financially rewarding countries who don`t chop them down will be included in a future climate treaty, deforestation accounting for some 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

And there`s been agreement, too, on a fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change and on ways to transfer low carbon technologies to them.

The U.N. secretary-general will make an unscheduled return to Bali tomorrow from a visit to East Timor. Ban Ki-moon has invested much of his short time in power in trying to get agreement in Bali.

JIM LEHRER: Once the guidelines are agreed upon, the U.N. hopes to have a new treaty negotiated by the end of 2009.

The U.S. Midwest braced for more snow today, amid lingering damage from an ice storm. Crews in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri raced to restore power to thousands of customers, as forecasters called for up to seven inches of new snow.

Meanwhile, the Northeast spent the day digging out from heavy snow that fell yesterday. Accumulations topped a foot in some places and snarled traffic and air travel.

President Bush today signed a stop-gap measure to fund the federal government through next week. It replaced another temporary spending measure that expired today. Congress is still trying to agree on a single, long-term spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year. Mr. Bush pressed lawmakers today to finish it before the holidays.

The Senate did approve a new farm bill today worth nearly $290 billion. Despite a veto threat, supporters expanded subsidies for grains and other commodities. They also added new ones for vegetables and fruits. A similar bill passed the House last summer.

A bill to fight foreclosures also sailed through the Senate today. It lets the Federal Housing Administration back refinancing for thousands of people and it increases the maximum mortgage insured in high-cost areas to $417,000. The Senate measure must be reconciled with a House version. The president has indicated he`d sign it.

The fallout over steroids in baseball reached nationwide today. Former Senator George Mitchell reported yesterday on what he called "the steroids era." He named scores of players.

Today, the game`s owners and players were condemned in a number of sports columns and newspaper editorials across the country. And after a cabinet meeting today, President Bush said he, too, was troubled.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: I think it`s best that all of us not jump to any conclusions on individual players named, but we can jump to this conclusion: that steroids have sullied the game.

And players and the owners must take the Mitchell report seriously; I`m confident they will. And my hope is that this report is a part of putting the steroid era of baseball behind us.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Bush is a former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. Next week, the House will hold a hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Former Senator Mitchell is scheduled to testify. We`ll have more on the steroids scandal later in the program tonight.

In Iraq today, the U.S. military announced the deaths of two American soldiers; that made 10 Americans killed so far in December. Since the war began, nearly 3,900 Americans have died.

In another development, thousands of Shiites marched in Baghdad to protest a triple car bombing earlier this week. It was also meant as a show of strength against a rival group.

The U.N. death toll from Tuesday`s bombings in Algeria rose today to 17. They died when twin car bombings blasted two U.N. buildings in Algiers, the capital city. At least 20 other people were also killed. A wing of al-Qaida has claimed responsibility.

U.S. Defense Secretary Gates today toned down criticism of allied nations for not helping in Afghanistan. He did that in Scotland, where he wrapped up two days of meeting with NATO ministers. He said he`d consider political realities in Europe.

In Afghanistan, U.S. and Afghan forces said today they`d killed a senior Taliban commander in the east.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked efforts today to bar the CIA from waterboarding terror suspects. The House passed the ban Thursday as part of a larger intelligence bill. White House officials had warned of a veto.

The CIA has acknowledged it destroyed videos of some interrogations. Today, Attorney General Mukasey told Congress there`s no need yet for a special prosecutor in the case.

In U.S. economic news today, the Labor Department announced consumer prices surged last month by the most in two years, led by gasoline. The news sent Wall Street tumbling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 178 points to close below 13,340. The Nasdaq fell more than 32 points to close below 2,636. For the week, the Dow lost 2 percent; the Nasdaq fell 2.5 percent.

And that`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: an Iowa caucuses preview; Shields and Brooks; the baseball scandal; and the NewsHour goes high-definition.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: The presidential race in Iowa. Judy Woodruff looks at the Democrats.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), Illinois: You will choose the next president of the United States of America, if you have the commitment and the energy to turn out.

JUDY WOODRUFF: With less than three weeks to go until the first votes are cast by Democrats in the 2008 presidential nominating process, the candidates are constantly reminding Iowans of the important role they play in the American political process.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), New York: So it`s a pretty heavy responsibility that you have assumed for yourself. You know, you`re kind of kicking the tires and looking under the trunk and seeing whether we can go the distance.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Polls here show three frontrunners bunched in a tight race: Senator Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, and Senator Hillary Clinton. But recently Clinton has lost ground with the one part of the electorate that was assumed to be her strongest suit.

Ann Selzer directs the Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register.

J. ANN SELZER, The Iowa Poll: In our polls, it`s looking like Barack Obama may be stealing the women`s vote from Senator Clinton. She was very strong, but I think, again, because he brings a message of inclusion and bringing people together, that really strikes at where women`s values go. And I think they weren`t sure he could win, and when he started gaining some momentum, they came on board.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Women are coveted, because four years ago they made up 54 percent of caucusgoers here. And in this election, they seemed to be falling for Clinton, the first woman ever to have a serious shot at the White House.

Christie Vilsack, the former first lady of Iowa, acknowledges the race is fluid, but says Clinton still holds strong appeal for women voters.

CHRISTIE VILSACK, Clinton Campaign: Women who may not have been engaged before are really getting engaged, and partly it`s because they see her as a role model. They see her as a champion, I think. They see her as the champion who really will try to help solve their problems, because I think they perceive her as a problem-solver, as someone who can really make change in their lives, and it makes them more willing to participate in that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Indeed, Obama strategists say last weekend`s road show with Oprah Winfrey was an effort by the Illinois senator to counter Clinton`s natural appeal to women.

GORDON FISCHER, Obama Campaign: Bringing in Oprah, and obviously Michelle Obama is a critically important part of his campaign.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Gordon Fischer is the former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.

GORDON FISCHER: I think that is an attempt to counterbalance the presumed gender appeal of Senator Clinton. It remains to be seen. Right now, I think women caucusgoers are up for grabs, and we won`t really know until January 3rd what the final verdict is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Carley Grobeen, a restaurant manager, is leaning toward Clinton.

CARLEY GROBEEN, Restaurant Manager: I feel like her history in politics has allowed her to know more foreign leaders and, ultimately, that will give her a leg up, in addition to the fact that she is a woman and that is a really important thing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that a big deal?

CARLEY GROBEEN: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think even 10 years ago people wouldn`t have envisioned the fact that we could have elected a female leader, and now we have a huge, you know, percentage of people that are rallying behind her. That`s wonderful.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Virginia Underwood is a strong supporter.

VIRGINIA UNDERWOOD, Clinton Supporter: I think I`m going with experience. And although Obama is very charismatic, I think Hillary has more basic knowledge and experience. I think she`s a very strong women. I think she`s very intelligent. And I think she can do the job.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But many other women are conflicted.

J. ANN SELZER: Women are really divided about what it is that they want to make happen in this election. They, obviously, many of them, wish for a strong women candidate. They don`t feel that`s the only reason to support Senator Clinton, but it`s a little piece of it.

There are other women who say, "I want to be sure that the first woman is the right woman, and that she will succeed," and I think they are just nervous that Hillary Clinton brings baggage that will make her candidacy difficult if she were to win the nomination and to make her presidency difficult, as well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That was exactly the feeling expressed by Cecile Owings and Eileen Fischer, nurses from Iowa City who are leaning Edwards or Obama.

CECILE OWINGS, Nurse: I would like to see a woman in there. I just don`t know that she`s the one. I agree. I think that she has too many negatives, and I`m afraid she might not be electable, for one thing.

EILEEN FISCHER, Nurse: I think Hillary would probably make some changes, too, but I just get this feeling of honesty from John Edwards. And I`m a little concerned about the corporate influences with Hillary.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Whatever voters` preferences are, it won`t matter unless they actually show up on caucus night, January 3rd. Iowa is different from most states, in that votes have to be cast in person at one of almost 1,800 Democratic Party precinct caucus locations spread all over the state.

They can last up to two hours, and there are complicated rules that make many voters` second choice potentially important. Terrence Neuzil is the supervisor of Johnson County, Iowa, and supporter of John Edwards.

TERRENCE NEUZIL, Edwards Campaign: It is a total political game. This campaign, John Edwards` campaign, we know the strategies. We know the game. We know that you have to go out and you have to find folks who maybe are leaning on a candidate like a Biden or a Dodd or a Richardson or a Kucinich, and you`ve got to make sure that they know about the Edwards` campaign, because we are pretty certain that those folks are going to have a hard time coming up with enough people in their group to be viable. We are going to go pick them up.

CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEER: You`ve got to pick someone that can win. And, I mean, Edwards has the best chance of beating the Republicans.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The Edwards camp is banking on its early and thorough organization to turn out voters, especially in the all-important rural areas. Edwards has the benefit of having done this four years ago.

Clinton campaign strategists acknowledge they didn`t have that advantage.

CHRISTIE VILSACK: She came late to Iowa and had never done this before, hadn`t done a caucus process. Her husband wasn`t here for the caucus, so I think that she`s doing very well, considering. The great thing is that she`s gone out to people`s homes and she`s winning their hearts and minds.

JUDY WOODRUFF: One of the big question marks is just how many young people will turn out this year? Obama has drawn huge crowds at universities and energized young people to volunteer on his campaign.

But young people don`t have a strong track record of turning out. Four years ago, they made up only 4 percent of caucusgoers. And this year, the caucus is happening so early that colleges will still be on Christmas break.

That`s not going to stop these young women we met at a popular coffee shop near the Drake University campus. Chelsea Hicks is an out-of-state student.

CHELSEA HICKS, Student: I`m caucusing for Barack, because he is the candidate that I believe in.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You`re from Portland, Oregon.

CHELSEA HICKS: Yes, I`m going home for Christmas, and so I`ve already bought my tickets to fly back, and I`ll be back here, and I`m for sure caucusing. It`s that important to me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Lacee Groetken from Le Mars, Iowa, will also return.

LACEE GROETKEN, Student: I actually have an internship in Chicago. A lot of my friends are from that area, and so we`re all going to come back together, if I can get off work. So hopefully we`ll all be traveling back together, carpooling and staying in the area to go to the caucuses.

JUDY WOODRUFF: While the Obama strategists are hopeful that many students will do the same, they aren`t counting on them for a victory.

GORDON FISCHER: There`s no question that it`s an organizational challenge to get young people out, but we`re looking at young people, the Obama campaign is looking at young people and independents and Republicans, non-traditional caucusgoers, as icing on the cake.

We`re not forgetting to bake the cake itself. We`re going ahead and reaching out to traditional caucusgoers. We`re doing it every day, all day long. That`s the majority of our efforts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: With polls showing that nearly 50 percent of likely caucusgoers still haven`t made up their minds about whom to vote for, the campaigns will be working feverishly right through the Christmas season trying to make the case for their candidate and getting their supporters, once they commit to the caucuses.

Anna Mary Mueller, a regular caucusgoer from Iowa City, is the type of voter every campaign would love.

ANNA MARY MUELLER, Iowa Caucusgoer: I wrote my Christmas letter this year on how to go to a caucus.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what did you say?

ANNA MARY MUELLER: Oh, I went through the whole thing. It`s two pages, interspersed with my family news.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What`s made a decision hard for many Iowa Democrats is they say there`s something to like about all the candidates. There are few glaring differences on issues among them. So the challenge for the candidates is to stay likable, at least for the next three weeks, while spelling out why they are better than the others.

JIM LEHRER: On Monday, Ray Suarez will report on the Republicans in Iowa.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, who joins us tonight from Iowa, and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Mark, first, on the Democrats, what are the polls and your reporting saying about what`s happening in Iowa?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I think, Jim, with the caveat that it is incredibly difficult to poll, because only 125,000 people participated in this process in 2004, so who shows up, as Judy just described it, in...

JIM LEHRER: The polls don`t mean that much. The polls don`t mean that much, right?

MARK SHIELDS: That`s right. I mean, you`ve got a two-hour commitment. It`s an incredible experience standing up in front of neighbors, friends, in-laws and telling whom you`re for. So that`s tough always to figure out who the poll is.

But I`d say there`s no question in the state itself that there`s a feeling that Barack Obama has moved and the Hillary Clinton campaign, while still very competitive, has stalled. And John Edwards, in spite of the fact that so much attention is focused in the reporting on the Obama- Clinton race, John Edwards is still very much in the hunt.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

Do you agree with that, David?

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: I basically do.

JIM LEHRER: Still a three-person race?

DAVID BROOKS: Absolutely, and I agree with Mark`s reading of a different momentum. The only thing I`d add is that, not only in Iowa, but in New Hampshire Obama is now very close to Hillary Clinton.

To the extent that you think if Obama does win Iowa, he`ll also win New Hampshire. He also has a very good shot in South Carolina. And so racking up a whole bunch of early states now seems at least a possibility.

JIM LEHRER: Is it impossible, David, to calculate why Obama is moving in Iowa? Is it strictly Oprah?

DAVID BROOKS: No, it`s not Oprah, though Oprah matters, and Oprah matters for the reasons David Broder of the Washington Post said earlier this week. It`s not so much her image, but it`s that so many people came out to those rallies.

And in Judy`s piece, we saw people filling out forums. When you go to a meeting in Iowa, the first thing the campaigns do is they give you a card, and you`ve got to fill it out with your name and address.

So what the Obama campaign now has because of the huge crowds that Oprah drew was the names of, say, 20,000 more people that they can call on caucus day and get them out. So that`s tremendously important.

But I think, fundamentally, as I said last week, that he`s in tune with the times. He gave his speech, the Jefferson Jackson Day dinner speech, where he said, "Don`t vote on fear; vote on hope." And I think the foreign policy world is less threatening than it was. I think the Republicans seem less threatening. So Democrats are more likely to vote on their aspirations.

JIM LEHRER: What`s your analysis, Mark, of why Obama is doing a little bit better than he was a week ago?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, Jim, there`s sort of a dirty, little secret here about the political press corps. You`ll recall that the first nine months of this year was spent in comiums (ph), kudos to the flawless, professional, incredibly professional, and organized Clinton campaign, and this flawless candidate.

Now, of course, and the Obama campaign seemed to be amateurish, that it was a Chicago-based campaign, they weren`t quite up to it.

I asked David Axelrod, his principal strategist, yesterday, "How do you explain that his IQ had grown 50 points in the last couple of weeks, as Obama had surged?" He said, "You`re never as smart in this business as people tell you are when you`re winning, and you`re never as dumb as when you`re losing, as people tell you, you are."

And I think there`s some of that to this. I mean, I think it was overwritten, the Clinton machine in the early months. I don`t think there`s any question that there is a desire for a new, different direction.

And in a strange way, Hillary Clinton`s greatest strength is her greatest weakness. That is, her experience, the fact that she has been around for 15 years, or she even says been fighting for 35 years. That carries with it some baggage.

The other side of Obama is he is new. He is fresh. There is a sense of people instilling in him and reposing in him their hopes, that there are concerns, still anxious about his green, being green. I don`t mean in the environmental sense, but I mean in not being as experienced and having been around the track.

So his greatest strength is also potentially his liability. But he is -- there`s no question he`s connecting here.

JIM LEHRER: But I assume you agree with David, because we talked about it last week, that the lessening of the possibility of World War III with Iran and the reports that the surge is working better has made green less of an issue in terms of green inexperience, correct?

MARK SHIELDS: I think it does. I think it may have made a bigger difference in the Republican race. I think it`s Rudy -- I think, you know, Rudy is the kind of guy that you probably...

JIM LEHRER: Rudy Giuliani.

MARK SHIELDS: ... wouldn`t vote for unless you`re scared, Rudy Giuliani. And I think that was his ace in the hole. Very much his trump card was the fear that "I`ll protect you from this threat." While Hillary Clinton was certainly seen as strong on national defense and experienced and sure-footed, I think it was less of an advantage in the Democratic side than it was on the Republican side.

JIM LEHRER: David, let`s talk about the Republicans. Huckabee, Huckabee, Huckabee, he`s on the front page of every magazine. He`s this, he`s everywhere. How do you explain that? Do you agree this is part of it, too?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I do. I think he has really no foreign policy experience at all. So he`s rising on the basis of his personality, which is a very fine personality, especially compared to some of his competitors. He`s witty.

JIM LEHRER: Do you really mean that? I mean, do you really believe that personality is what is driving Huckabee?

DAVID BROOKS: On the Republican side, and on the Democratic side, I think that`s the only thing that matters. If you look at the new campaigns, you used to have these structured races where you have the centrist running against the liberal in the Democratic side or the centrist against the conservative. We don`t have any of that this year. It`s all personality. I can`t tell any major policy difference in either party within the two parties.

JIM LEHRER: So Huckabee is likable?

DAVID BROOKS: Huckabee is likable. He`s natural.

JIM LEHRER: That could be driving him in the polls?

DAVID BROOKS: And that`s not a stupid way to vote. The person is going to be in the White House. They have to know themselves. Self- knowledge is actually kind of important. And he knows himself; he`s comfortable with himself. And you think on the basis of that he won`t make freakish judgments.

But the interesting thing about Huckabee is he`s being attacked now. And he`s being attacked from two sides. He`s being attacked from the Democrats or from liberals for being sort of a religious nut, for not believing in Darwin and all that kind of stuff, which to me has some basis in truth.

But it`s not the real critique that he`s really facing. That`s coming from the Republican establishment. And that`s coming because, on domestic policy ground, on the stuff he actually did as governor, he was quite moderate, quite centrist.

His tax policy, his education policy, his arts education policy, some of the social policies were not orthodox Republicanism, and they see him as a moderate. I think that`s one of the keys of his success. He`s the only Republican who seems to offer some bit of change to middle-class voters.

JIM LEHRER: You agree with that, Mark? Does that sound right to you?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I haven`t heard the Democrats criticizing Huckabee as David has, but I will say this. If you want to know how screwed up the Republicans are in 2007, going into 2008, consider this, Jim. All the growth, all the strength of the Republican Party over the last generation has been in two places. In the American South, voters have switched. And among churchgoing conservative, religious, Christian evangelicals, that`s been the growth area. All right?

JIM LEHRER: For Republicans. For Republicans.

MARK SHIELDS: What do we know about Massachusetts? We know it`s the socialist state. It`s the most liberal state in the union. So what is the storyline this week? The former governor of Arkansas, conservative, Baptist minister governor, is being attacked by the former governor of Massachusetts for being too liberal.

Now, if I explained this to somebody from Mars that somebody from Massachusetts is attacking a Baptist minister governor of Arkansas being too liberal, but that`s what this race has come to. It is an absolutely bizarre encounter.

JIM LEHRER: Are the attacks on Huckabee working, David? Has he got a problem?

DAVID BROOKS: I do think he does have a bit of a problem. As I said, I think he`s a normal guy, a nice guy, a very good campaigner, equal to any of the other candidates. It`s still hard to see how he actually wins the nomination, in part because he does have this Evangelical baggage, which I don`t think will carry over to New Hampshire and a lot of the other states.

JIM LEHRER: But hopefully in South Carolina.

DAVID BROOKS: And he does have flaws. And he`s a strong candidate, but he does have flaws. He doesn`t have very strong foreign policy experience. Some of his actual policies, his proposals are a little flakey.

And the other thing is he`s a guy who still irons his own suits. He doesn`t have a campaign yet. He doesn`t have a big staff. He`s getting an infusion of money. And how they`re actually going to spend that money, is it too late to spend that money effectively? That could turn him into a mess.

Now, he made some progress today, I think, by hiring Ed Rollins, a controversial but experienced figure, to run his national campaign, but he`s still got a long way to go organizationally to match all the others, basically.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, do you agree the coming of Ed Rollins is an asset for Huckabee?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, Ed Rollins, very few people have run winning presidential campaigns, and I don`t think Karl Rove is available. Ed Rollins did win a 49-1 Reagan victory in 1984. Since then, he`s had some rather mishaps, with the Christie Whitman campaign in New Jersey, starting and stopping with Ross Perot in 1992.

But I think it`s always a tough thing, Jim, to bring in somebody new to an existing organization. And I think what Mike Huckabee was looking for was to certify and validate himself and his candidacy to the Republican establishment to reassure them.

And the selection of Ed Rollins, who`s certainly an experienced hand, he feels will do that. But it will not be an easy marriage, Rollins and the original Huckabee people.

JIM LEHRER: David, here in Washington, for a couple of minutes, the stalemate that still exists between the president and the Republicans on one side and the Democrats and the leadership of the Senate and the House on the other over funding and all kinds of things. What`s going to happen here?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think they will not reach a reconciliation on this. I think they`ll go to what we call a CR, a continuing resolution, which will just continue the spending on this. And this is because both sides want the fight.

We`re deep in an election year right now. The Democrats and the Republicans both desperately want a spending fight for their own reasons. It shores up their own parties. And for the Republicans in particular, they think by being tough on spending they can restore their brand, which is supposed to be the party of fiscal discipline.

JIM LEHRER: I see. Do you agree, Mark, that this is inevitable, both of them want a fight, so let`s have one, and nobody is going to resolve anything?

MARK SHIELDS: I`m not as sure of that, Jim. I mean, the death-bed conversion of the Bush administration to fiscal responsibility is interesting, after six consecutive years of budget deficits and practically doubling the national debt in those six years. The president now is willing to stand and fight over $11 billion out of the entire domestic spending side.

But, you know, I think there are a number of factors. There`s no question we`re going into a presidential year. It`s all playing out on that stage. David is right there.

JIM LEHRER: Before we go, because we`re going to have a segment Margaret is going to run here in a moment about the baseball steroid thing, how does it look to you in Iowa? Are people talking about this in Iowa, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: People are talking about it, Jim, more than they`re talking about the caucuses.

JIM LEHRER: Oh, my goodness.

MARK SHIELDS: If, in fact, Bud Selig and the baseball establishment was looking for somebody to sweep it under the rug, they chose the wrong person in George Mitchell. I mean, he`s absolutely thoughtful. He`s committed. He`s tough, and he`s thorough.

And I think the fact that he stood up there and said everybody involved should have known about this, is responsible, and this comes down to cheating, and you`re cheating the children of America, you`re cheating on your teammates, you`re cheating the past, you`re cheating -- just cheating America.

And that`s what`s been going on for 15 years, essentially. And it`s been enormously profitable for baseball, and I think people are outraged.

JIM LEHRER: And, David, Senator Mitchell said to Jeff Brown on this program last night that the most devastating, the most annoying, the thing that made him the angriest about all of this is the way the young kids have patterned their lives after these ballplayers and they`re all taking enhancement drugs, as well.

DAVID BROOKS: I`m not so sure if they all are.

(CROSSTALK)

JIM LEHRER: Not all. Not all.

DAVID BROOKS: I don`t think they all. But the lesson for young kids or the rest of us is that character matters. There was a social contagion going through baseball, and a lot of people succumbed to the temptation to do steroids because it was semi-acceptable.

But at the same time, and one of the things that struck me about the report was that you had a lot of players -- say, in the Mets clubhouse, where the trainer was really at the core of this investigation -- people like Mike Piazza, and Todd Zeile, and Edgardo Alfonzo, who didn`t do it, as far as we know.

And so there are a lot of players, the Ken Griffeys, the Derek Jeters of this world, they apparently made a choice. "It`s going on around me, but I`m not going to do it." And so that lesson, that just because people around you are doing it doesn`t make it right, is really the core lesson out of this for young people, I would think.

JIM LEHRER: OK, thank you both very much.

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I`d just add one thing, Jim, if I could.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

MARK SHIELDS: One-third of the New York Yankees in the year 2000, when they won the World Series, were named in the report, one out of three players.

DAVID BROOKS: I wonder who the Red Sox fan is out of here.

JIM LEHRER: I`m going to say goodbye to both of you. It`s really been a pleasure being with you tonight.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And staying on that subject, the baseball scandal, day two and beyond, Margaret Warner has our coverage.

MARGARET WARNER: A day after former Senator George Mitchell released that explosive report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, questions remain about the report`s impact on the sport and how the so-called "steroids era" it describes will be viewed in the years ahead.

Here to discuss those issues and more are Richard Justice, sports columnist for the Houston Chronicle, and sportswriter and author John Feinstein. He`s working on a book about a year in the life of two veteran Major League pitchers.

Welcome to you both.

Richard Justice, how significant a blow is this to professional baseball?

RICHARD JUSTICE, The Houston Chronicle: Well, you know, in financial terms, the history shows that people keep buying tickets, that they liked homeruns, they enjoyed the steroid era as fans, but it`s an embarrassment.

And even more than that, you know, if you think sports is supposed to reflect a certain value and a social responsibility, you are sending a terrible message to high school boys and girls. And surveys show that steroid use is soaring among kids that age. And that is their responsibility, and that`s on their conscience.

One of the things Bud Selig was told in this whole thing was, "Commissioner, if you don`t do something, people are going to die." And I think that`s one of the things that has moved him to act.

MARGARET WARNER: Significant blow?

JOHN FEINSTEIN, Sportswriter: Absolutely, but a good thing. They needed to do this. It`s like a cleansing act. That`s why Bud Selig asked George Mitchell to put this report together, knowing full well that if it was done correctly, if he got lucky and found some people who would flip and talk -- and he did, with the Mets clubhouse kid, Kirk Radomski, and with the trainer, McNamee, who talked about Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, who were the two new names in this who hadn`t been named in some way before publicly -- he knew that would happen.

But baseball needed this, because, as Richard says, this has been going on for years. It has become an epidemic with young kids. And when Barry Bonds broke the homerun record this summer, and he was cheered, and Hank Aaron appeared on the message board, and the commissioner was there, what`s the message to kids? The message is, "Cheating pays."

MARGARET WARNER: But, Richard Justice, do you agree that it takes a report like this, what, to give Bud Selig backbone to actually address it? I mean, if it was so widely known, it was obvious to the naked eye, as you watched these players bulk up, why does it take a report like this to get people to say, "Yes, this is going on"?

RICHARD JUSTICE: Well, the report emphasizes, again, that it was an institutional failure. Owners first asked players for steroid testing in 1994. Did they push hard? No, they didn`t push hard.

The economics of the time, teams were going bankrupt, almost failing to meet payroll. Those were the things that were more important. Should they have paid more attention? Absolutely.

But they did get a testing agreement in 2002. They strengthened it in 2003. They have done some things. You have to be an adult about this. Human growth hormone is not one of the substances you can test for. If a player wants to cheat, he`s going to be able to cheat.

I think the reason Bud Selig wanted this report was just tell us what we need to know. I`m sick of it coming out in books, and in dribs and drabs, and in grand jury testimony. Get it all out there, and let`s try to deal with it, and give us recommendations on what else we can do.

And I think he intends to follow all those recommendations. So they have done some things. But were they slow to react? They were very slow to react.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me just read you, John Feinstein, a couple things. Bud Selig said yesterday and Donald Fehr of the players union, though, if we`re talking about whether this is going to get addressed, Selig said at one point, "If we were naive and missed some signals," quote, he accepted responsibility.

And Donald Fehr, the head of the players union, said about the testing program, "I don`t think there`s any suggestion in the report that the program we have in place now is not working appropriately and effectively." Now, does that sound like two men to you who are really ready to step up to this and do what`s the best thing?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Well, it sounds to me like two men who want to say, "OK, this is it. You know, now we`ve taken care of it." The Mitchell report, Bud Selig says, "I`m going to follow all the recommendations of the report."

Well, one of the recommendations of the report is to take the drug testing program outside of Major League Baseball, to have independent testing, to expand it to the Olympic level.

Now, Richard made an important point about human growth hormone. You cannot test for it currently by urinalysis. So if you`re going to test for human growth hormone, which I believe is the drug of choice now in baseball, and big time in football...

MARGARET WARNER: There`s a lot of that in the report.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Yes, a lot of human growth hormone, because it`s not detectable by the current testing. The owners have got to push the union for blood testing, if they`re really serious about trying to clean this up.

RICHARD JUSTICE: And, Margaret, we have to acknowledge that this is a problem -- this is a war you`re not going it to win. You just fight it. It`s going to be a cat-and-mouse game with the testing and the people who are trying to cheat.

You just have to say, "This is all-encompassing thing. We`re not going to get it pass this. There are going to be new ways to cheat. The testing will have to try to catch up with it, and just do the best you can."

And you have to be honest with people about it. I mean, inside the game, there have been players that have laughed at the testing program as it was first installed. Now, it`s been strengthened some since then. There are still going to be ways to cheat. We have to all be honest about that.

MARGARET WARNER: Let`s talk about the impact now on the players and their reputations. I mean, what happens to all of these guys who set records? How is that accounted for or not accounted for? Does Roger Clemens get in the Hall of Fame.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Maybe not. Now, that`s looking forward. You can`t go backwards. You can`t put asterisks on records or take them out. You cannot do that. And it`s too complicated, because if you take away Roger Clemens` wins, do you take away the losses with the pitchers he faced? If you take away Barry Bonds` homeruns, do you change the earned run averages of the pitchers who gave up those homeruns? You can`t do that.

But you can keep these guys out of the Hall of Fame. Mark McGwire, who everybody suspected of using steroids, especially after his testimony to Congress two years ago, only got 23 percent of the vote the first time he was on the Hall of Fame ballot last year. It requires 75 percent to get in.

And I think both Bonds and Clemens may not get into the Hall of Fame because of this. And everybody named in this report, they`re going to wear a scarlet "S" on their foreheads for the rest of their lives.

RICHARD JUSTICE: You know, that`s exactly right, what John said. More than any asterisk, more than any suspension, these guys have to walk down the street now, and people are going to look at them and say, "You know what? They didn`t do it the right way. They probably cheated."

And that`s something you, as John said, you never escape that. And whatever happens in sanctions, in the Hall of Fame, anything like that, you are going to be looked at differently for the rest of your life. And nothing, nothing can change that.

MARGARET WARNER: But baseball more than any other sport is based on statistics. I mean, it`s not just homeruns or pitchers games.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Right, we all read the box scores.

MARGARET WARNER: I mean, well, and every time someone steps up to bat and takes one swing, suddenly, boom, whatever the statistic is. Does that whole foundation now just get shaken? Is it...

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Yes, and certainly for this era of baseball. This will be known, as Senator Mitchell said yesterday, as the steroid era. And everybody will be tainted by it to some degree.

MARGARET WARNER: So everyone will have that scarlet "S" even if they didn`t do it?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Yes, because there are people -- and Richard knows this better than I -- not named in this report who`ve been using steroids for years. And everybody in baseball knows it.

But what`s really important here is the two guys who symbolized this era -- the best pitcher, Roger Clemens, the best hitter, Barry Bonds -- have both been outed now as steroid users. And they stand as the symbols of this era.

RICHARD JUSTICE: Yes, you know, one of the best players of the last 15 years, Jeff Bagwell, said to me a couple of months ago, he said, "Are you telling me that every player that accomplished great things in the last 10 or 12 years is going to be under the umbrella of suspicion?" That`s right.

You don`t need an asterisk. When you show, 20 years from now, when John and I show our grandkids the record book, we`re going to look at all these numbers that stand out from all the other numbers and go, "Well, this was a different thing going on here," and try to explain it to them.

Nothing has to be done, in terms of asterisks or taking names out. People are going to know that those guys played by a different set of rules.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Richard, briefly before we go, to both of you, is this about more than baseball? Does this say something even larger about our broader culture, this problem?

RICHARD JUSTICE: Well, I think in competitive sports you`re always going to have people that want to cheat. And the means justifies the ends. If you look at the San Francisco Giants 10 years ago, a failing franchise, empty ballpark, a terrible ballpark.

Now they play in a great ballpark. Every seat is full. And why did that happen? Barry Bonds and hitting homeruns, it was a huge part of that.

So, yes, it`s -- and what it said to the Giants was, the Giants said, "Hey, we`re going to look the other way. This is pretty good for our business."

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Not just the Giants. All of baseball, and all of sports. And you go back to the `70s with the East Germans in the Olympics and how we look back on that era as tainted. We`ll always look back on this era of baseball as tainted.

MARGARET WARNER: But I guess, is there a responsibility that the fans have here?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: I don`t know that you can put responsibility on the fans. It`s very hard for me or for Richard to say to our kids, "We`re not going to go to baseball because we know there are people cheating." They don`t get that; they don`t understand that; they don`t want to hear that.

Most fans don`t care about cheating. All the fans in San Francisco, as Richard said, went to those games and cheered for Barry Bonds, and they knew he was cheating.

RICHARD JUSTICE: Yes, you know, Margaret, people didn`t want to know how the sausage was being made. They just wanted to go and watch the games. And one of the things this report did was give you a little peak through the keyhole of things that basically we didn`t want to know.

If fans were really upset about steroids, they`d stop going. And in contrast, they`re going in record numbers.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Richard Justice, John Feinstein, thank you.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Thank you, Margaret.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, starting next week, the NewsHour will have a new look, part of a national change in television technology. Jeffrey Brown explains.

JEFFREY BROWN: Once upon a time, the TV viewing experience looked like this. A big change came with color. The first national broadcast was the 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade.

TV ANNOUNCER: ... Big Ten representatives meet UCLA in the Rose Bowl on this New Year`s Day.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, television technology is going through a new revolution, one that can be seen in store showrooms and, already for some of you, in your own homes.

Beginning Monday, the NewsHour jumps into this new era, broadcasting in what`s called high-definition, or HD. Steve Howard is the director of our nightly broadcast.

STEVE HOWARD, Director, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: And HD in general is exciting, because it`s a wide-screen format, it`s higher resolution, it`s a more vivid picture, it has better color. It`s the wave of the future. I mean, that`s the way television is going.

JEFFREY BROWN: Television is, in fact, going digital. The country is now in the process of switching from analog to digital broadcasting, and HD is the best form of digital television available.

It differs from analog standard definition, the format we`ve all watched or used forever, in some key ways. For example, it`s a wide- screen, rectangular format, 16 units wide by 9 units high, compared to the 4 by 3 picture of standard definition.

There`s more digital information -- dots and lines -- packed in the HD picture, making for a sharper image. There`s also enhanced sound. The idea: to enhance the viewing experience.

STEVE HOWARD: You get a much better feel, a three-dimensional feel for where those people are in space. And if my job as a director is to bring people into an interview as if they were sitting there, as if they could control in a little electric chair where they were going to listen to the interview, and I hope that that`s what my job is, I can now do that in a more compelling and a captivating, I hope, way.

JEFFREY BROWN: The first HDTVs went on sale in 1998, part of a decades-long technological overhaul.

RICHARD WILEY, Former Chairman, FCC: The nice thing about the U.S. effort was we went where the best technology went.

JEFFREY BROWN: Former FCC Chairman Dick Wiley says the big changes began in the 1980s, when foreign competitors were moving fast.

RICHARD WILEY: The FCC discovered in 1987 that Japan and Western Europe had been working for about 10 years on advanced analog television, high-definition television, if you will. And they wanted to jumpstart the U.S. effort.

So I was asked to head an industry advisory committee to recommend a new transmission standard to replace the existing standard set back in 1941. Along the way, we discovered that digital transmission was actually possible.

JEFFREY BROWN: During the last decade, networks, including PBS, have begun to broadcast both analog and digital channels. Last year, President Bush signed legislation that requires broadcasters to end their analog transmission by February 17, 2009. After that, all television will be digital television, and that is having wide-ranging consequences.

LINDA WINSLOW, Executive Producer, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: I don`t think we`re going to know until we actually go on the air that night what all is involved in adapting to this. And I do think we`re going to be in a period of transition for a while, while we figure out how to do it well and how to make the pictures work with the technology that we`ve got.

JEFFREY BROWN: Executive producer Linda Winslow, who helped Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil shape the earliest look of the program, has been trying to prepare for the latest change. She joined the rest of the staff in training sessions where new equipment and technologies were explained.

STEVE HOWARD: Just getting to HD, you`re manufacturing a bunch of lines. Then you`re blowing those lines up.

JEFFREY BROWN: And potential problems were explored.

STEVE HOWARD: A lot of these things sound like they`re a possibility that it could take more time actually in the edit room. So is there going to be a way for us to start getting in the edit room even earlier?

MARGARET WARNER: You`re saying we should, in the field, if we`re overseas, and we`re trying to send a piece that night, we should still shoot in 16:9 high-def?

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, the switch to HD affects every part of our production process. Camera and sound technicians are being trained to use the new lighter HD cameras and to frame shots differently for the more panoramic feel of HD. Editors are learning to work on new machines and to accommodate 35,000 hours of archival footage in the traditional, non-HD format.

It`s been a long journey for the NewsHour, from two-inch tape, to one- inch to, three-quarter inch, to the beta tape we`re using today, to the new small, lightweight disc that crews will use to shoot sharper HD images to edit and broadcast to you.

Our graphics department is working to build up a new database of higher quality HD images. And, yes, with the eye-popping HD look, where every blemish and piece of lint stands out, our makeup artist must ensure that correspondents and guests look their best.

There`s also the NewsHour`s set. The old one has been taken down, and a new one that accommodates HD`s wider picture put in its place over the course of the last couple of weeks. And HD`s detail is also a consideration there.

Chris Dee is director of production operations for the NewsHour.

CHRIS DEE, Director of Production Operations, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: This old set, albeit it served us very well for the last nine years and on a standard-definition television looks fine, on a high- definition television, you will see the scratches, and the scores, and the nicks, and the fading, and whatnot.

JEFFREY BROWN: Finally, all this is being coordinated in a new state- of-the-art control room that allows the director and his team to pull off a more sophisticated look and sound.

WETA in Washington, where the NewsHour broadcast originates, got funding for this transition from PBS and the U.S. Commerce Department. PBS also negotiated a deal with manufacturers that allows local stations to purchase new HD equipment at a significant discount.

So how does all this affect you? It`s very much on our minds.

LINDA WINSLOW: Our viewers come to us because they expect information. They expect quiet conversation. They expect tough questions about important issues, and that we don`t have to change. We don`t have to stop doing that.

What we also try not to do is distract them with things cluttering up the screen, things crawling along the bottom of the screen, or things changing in their images. I think there`s going to be a certain amount of change that will be instantly visible on the home screen and potentially disorienting, and I`m concerned about that.

JEFFREY BROWN: For those of you, the majority who don`t yet have HD- ready sets, the picture we send out will be "down-converted," a technical term that means it will be altered to fit your standard-definition sets. You`ll see what`s called a "letterbox effect," with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.

STEVE HOWARD: It`s a format that everyone is really familiar with. As you rent DVDs now and as movies come out, they come out in this letterbox format. And so that format allows the person who is on a standard-definition television, we simply can fit the visual space, the 16:9 space, into a 4 by 3 TV set.

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, in addition to films, a number of TV programs are already presented in letterbox, including "Frontline" on PBS.

Another change everyone might notice, a "pillar box effect," with columns down both sides of the screen for video that comes from non-HD sources. Again, it`s about blending different formats during the transition.

Of course, if you don`t have an HD set, what you won`t see is the crisp, new HD picture we`ll be broadcasting. According to one recent study, the number of homes in the U.S. with high-definition TVs has doubled in the past two years, to 25 percent. And the Consumer Electronics Association predicts that sales of HDTVs this year should reach more than 20 million by the end of the holiday season.

And for all of you with older sets? If you want to move to a digital picture now, you have several options. If you subscribe to a cable or satellite service, you may have to upgrade your set top box. If you use an antenna, you can buy a converter like this, which costs about $60.

Starting January 1st, every household is eligible to apply to an agency at the Commerce Department by calling 1-888-DTV-2009 for two $40 coupons towards their purchase.

Finally, of course, you can buy a new set, one that gives you a digital picture or one that is also HD-ready. Prices have been falling and are expected to continue.

Again, you don`t have to do anything right now, but if you`re not digital yet, you will have to do something by the deadline for the final switch to digital TV on February 17, 2009. That date is coming soon enough, and there are fears galore that the public isn`t ready.

RICHARD WILEY: It`s very important for us to get the word out, particularly to lower-income homes, to people who perhaps don`t speak English as their first language, and I know the government is very interested in that. I know that industry is very interested.

You`re going to see a lot more ads, PSA, public service announcements. We`ve got to get the word out. We have now another 14 months to get it done, and there are a lot of people working to make sure this isn`t a consumer train wreck.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the meantime, for the NewsHour, the challenge is twofold.

LINDA WINSLOW: I want the NewsHour to have a long, long life. I think, therefore, it`s good for it to be on the cutting edge of whatever new technology is available.

JEFFREY BROWN: And the trick for us, I guess, is still to marry that technology with what we`re trying to do?

LINDA WINSLOW: To stay true to what our mission is, which is to report the news.

JEFFREY BROWN: How all this plays out in the short run, beginning Monday, is being worked out even as we air this report. Director Steve Howard is hoping all the parts will come together.

You don`t know until you flip the switch?

STEVE HOWARD: Exactly. Exactly. So if all the rehearsals and all of the testing of this and testing of that and everything is nothing like, "Five, four, three, two, one. You`re on the air."

Here comes Jim on 30.

JIM LEHRER: We have a fact sheet about HD on our Web site where you can learn about the new technology. And you can pose questions to NewsHour director Steve Howard and others about the HD conversion in an online forum. It`s all at PBS.org.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And, again, the major developments of this day.

The U.N. climate talks in Bali went into overtime, with word of a possible compromise between the United States and Europe.

A bill to help homeowners stave off foreclosures sailed through the Senate.

And Senate Republicans blocked efforts to ban waterboarding of terror suspects by the CIA.

"Washington Week" can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. We`ll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.