The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Friday, five regional editors and commentators examine the Republican budget proposals. Mark Shields and Paul Gigot offer their regular Friday night political analysis. Tom Bearden updates the Louisiana flood, and Sharon Epperson of Time Magazine has a story about the game and opportunities of chess. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: President Clinton wrapped up his trip to Ukraine today with a speech to university students and a visit to war memorials. Outside the university, he pledged continued U.S. support for Ukraine's sovereignty, saying it was in the national interest of both countries. The President and First Lady then visited Babi Yar, a ravine where more than a hundred thousand people were machine-gunned to death during World War II, many of them Jews.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: In the quiet of this place, the victims of Babi Yar cry out to us still. "Never forget," they tell us, "that humanity is capable of the worst, just as it is capable of the best. Never forget that we are all Jews and gypsies and Slavs."

MR. MAC NEIL: The President returns to Washington this evening. The U.N. Secretary today called for a fundamental review of the mission in Bosnia. It was in response to several recent attacks on peacekeepers there. The U.N. soldiers were also given new orders to shoot to kill if they were under threat. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The Ebola Virus has spread to two other towns in Zaire, the World Health Organization confirmed today. The government has closed off roads to the capital, Kinshasa. WHO officials said they opposed a quarantine of the area because the virus is not that easily transmittable. But another WHO official said the epidemic is still growing and its spread to the capital is a possibility. Ebola Virus causes severe internal bleeding. There is no known cure. In economic news today, the Labor Department reported consumer prices were up last month by .4 percent. The increase was led by the largest jump in food prices in five years. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to five regional budget views, Shields & Gigot, the Louisiana floods, and playing chess for good. FOCUS - EDITORS' VIEWS - THE BUDGET

MR. MAC NEIL: Our main focus tonight is the big domestic story of the week and perhaps for the rest of this Congress, the Republican plans to balance the federal budget. This week, both House and Senate Budget Committees began work on separate proposals. The plan set off a round of partisan charges and counter charges today in Washington.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: We've just seen the release of the House and Senate Republican budget plans, and the one thing that sticks out most clearly is that their numbers simply do not add up. Beyond that, the values represented in these plans do not match the values of the American people. It's time for the Republican leadership to lay their facts on the table and say plainly to the American people exactly what the impact of their proposals would be. Because they promise that their plan doesn't hurt anyone doesn't make it so, and, indeed, it is not so. We want changes. We are for additional deficit reduction, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do that. We do not accept an approach that slashes Medicare and guts education and raises taxes on working people to finance a tax cut for the very wealthy. Here are the conditions under which we believe a bipartisan approach can proceed: Drop the tax cuts for the very wealthy; focus on reasonable measures that are aimed at middle income working families. Second, reform Medicare in the context of a health care plan that works for all Americans, and back off the education cuts so that we will be able to give our children and the next generation the ability to compete in the world economy.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: It is a little disheartening to have the President and the Vice President and the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate just take a walk. No answers on Medicare, no answers on the budget, no answers on controlling government, no answers on saving children in poor neighborhoods, just attack and demagogue, attack and demagogue, and so I would say to every Democrat who wants to be responsible, we are prepared to sit down today and work with you. If you have a better idea for Medicare, we want it. If you have a better idea for balancing the budget, we want it. If you have a better idea for saving the children of D.C., we want it. But what we're not going to tolerate and take without fighting back is the kind of totally irresponsible adolescent behavior that says, I don't have to do the job, I just have to run for it; I don't have to be accountable, I just have to say whatever comes into my head; I don't have to tell the truth to the American people, I can just distort what the other guys are doing. We're trying to build a bridge to the future. They're trying to burn the bridge we're building. And I think we should say to them -- [applause] -- I think every citizen should say to their elected officials, don't tell us what's wrong with the guys who are at least trying, tell us what your answer is. And I believe as we enter the age of responsibility, the baby boomers know full well attacking isn't enough, smear campaigns isn't enough, being negative isn't enough. It's time that we stood up and did the right thing for our children and the right thing for our country. And with your help, that's exactly what we're going to do.

MR. MAC NEIL: Now some editorial reaction to the Republican budget proposals. Joining us are three members of our panel of regional editors and columnists: Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution, Gerald Warren of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News. With them tonight are Patrick McGuigan of the Daily Oklahoman and Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times. Gerry Warren, you heard the Vice President say these proposals do not match the values of the American people. What do you think of the Republicans' proposed budgets?

GERALD WARREN, San Diego Union Tribune: [San Diego] Well, I think in many ways they do match the values of the American people. I think the American people believe that you have to live within a budget, and that the United States government should do the same thing that state and local governments have to do, and, indeed, that families have to do. That is the basic American value. To continue spending to make constituent groups feel good is not the way to reach a balanced budget in the United States.

MR. MAC NEIL: Robert Scheer, is this a basic American value now, to go for a balanced budget?

ROBERT SCHEER, Los Angeles Times: [Los Angeles] Well, I certainly think it's desirable to balance one's personal budget and the government budget, but let's remember that the Clinton administration has been quite successful in getting the deficit down, whereas, the Republicans are the ones who rode it up and put us into this very deep hole with the defense spending binge and the tax breaks of the 80's, so I think the Clinton administration deserves high points for making progress. I think what's happening now is grandstanding. You're promising to balance the budget, you know, eight years up the road, where no one will be around to be held accountable for that. You're not touching the defense budget, which I don't understand after the Cold War why the defense budget is sacred and can't be touched. You're going after the most vulnerable people in the society. You're cutting AFDC. You are transferring responsibility for poverty back to the states so we'll have a rat race of one state trying to lower benefits to force people out into another state. I don't consider this responsible planning for the future. To cut job training, to cut student loans, to cut money for children is not a way to make this a healthier and better economy in the future. I think the cuts that will stick are, unfortunately, the ones that hit vulnerable people because they don't have the political muscle, and the cuts on -- more across- the-board will reverse. And we've seen this before. The Republicans have promised balanced budgets before. We were promised a balanced budget in '91. It never happened.

MR. MAC NEIL: Patrick McGuigan, are the Republicans just grandstanding as Robert Scheer says?

PATRICK McGUIGAN, Daily Oklahoman: I can't believe that last statement. We have never had a more serious budget plan than the two presented on the Republican side in the last two days by the House leadership and the Senate leadership. I certainly think the House plan is probably the better of the two. I might say there's a plan that's not being discussed a lot. It's the proposal of Mark Newman of Wisconsin, and if you want to talk about getting serious about balancing the budget, he would do it within five years, and it would be much more aggressive in cutting government programs. I want to echo a lot of the things Gerry said. I think this is proof that it is possible to change our country, it is possible to make our government responsive. This is the beginning of a very important process, and I'm very excited by it.

MR. MAC NEIL: Cynthia Tucker, how do you feel about it?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: [Atlanta] Well, we haven't proved anything yet, Robin. I do give the Republicans, especially Senate Republicans, points for political courage for at least starting the process. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico has laid out a plan that tackles Medicare and Medicaid, the House plan laid out by Kasich tackles Medicare and Medicaid as well, and Medicare is a very, very politically popular program. And it will be interesting to see if that program is, indeed, affected over the months to come, if those, if the plans to shrink the growth of spending in Medicare especially stays in. I think it will be also interesting to see if most Americans are serious about balancing the budget when they see how many programs that affect ordinary Americans are going to be cut. I mean, government is in our lives in countless ways that we don't even think about. How many jobs will be sacrificed, for example, when we start talking about cutting highway construction and talking about cutting spending on mass transit? So while I think the budget certainly needs to be balanced, I think the Republicans have set out a bold plan, and they deserve some points for courage, I am not sure that all the details are going to be things that many Americans agree with.

MR. MAC NEIL: Lee Cullum, do you think the American people want a balanced budget enough to pay the price that the Republicans say it will take or cost?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: [Dallas] Well, that's a very telling question, Robin. I think the American people want economic health, and I think they certainly believe it when they are told that a balanced budget will help in that regard, so, yes, I think they want a balanced budget, however, I noted with great interest recently a Gallup poll taken for a group in Chicago that said that 74 percent of the American people want to see health care expanded. Well, that flies right in the face of the rules on Medicare and Medicaid. I think that those two programs, particularly Medicare, are going to arouse all kinds of political passions, and I was talking today with Ron Anderson, who runs Parkland Hospital here in Dallas, a teaching hospital, and a hospital for the indigent, and he was quite concerned about what some of these cuts will mean, and he said that our children's hospital in Dallas, for example, is run with 50 percent Medicaid receipts. He cited another children's hospital run with 80 percent Medicaid receipts. He feels we will see hospitals across Texas being closed, possibly as many as one in ten, although we don't know if that figure will turn out to be true or not. I think that these are very serious proposals. I do commend the Republicans for making them. I think they're addressing the issue seriously, how cheerful Americans are going to be about them once they understand the full implications I don't know, particularly in the health care area.

MR. MAC NEIL: Gerald Warren, how do you feel about that question of is the priority of balancing the budget desirable as the people may think it strong enough or heartfelt enough to pay the costs? I mean, Lee is outlining what some of them might be seen to be in Texas.

MR. WARREN: Well, I think we'll find the answer to that in the coming debate. Do the American people want less government? Do they want government out of their lives? I think this debate will show us that. Now, education has been, has been discussed here. Well, the Democratic majority in Congress has brought us the education system we have today, and the costs just keep going up and up and up, and the results keep going down and down and down. The Republicans say the states can handle this better, and Barbara Jordan has been telling the Democrats for years that they must attack entitlements. Now, the Republicans have done that. I would advise the Democrats to sit down seriously, take Newt Gingrich's offer seriously, and negotiate this thing, work it out, because I believe this is going to happen, and it should happen in the best way.

MR. MAC NEIL: Robert Scheer, do you think the Democrats should do that, to take Gingrich seriously and sit down and negotiate with him?

MR. SCHEER: No. I think they should battle him. I think Gingrich is being very cynical. I think he knows darn well that doctors are not going to take cuts, that the hospitals are not going to take cuts, and we're not going to have sick people wandering around five years from now because they can't get medical care, so we aren't going to -- he hasn't actually shown how you cut the cost of Medicaid. There's nothing set in concrete about these budget proposals, and the real shift that's taking place are entitlement programs and programs that take care of poor and more vulnerable people, and they can't take these cuts across the board. So I think he's being incredibly cynical. Let me offer you one example. Why doesn't Gingrich come out for cutting the F-22 Stealth bomber, which is produced in his home district, which is a worthless plane? It was designed to penetrate Soviet air defenses, and there no longer is a Soviet Union. There are many areas where we could cut where vulnerable people would not be hurt. I would point out, by the way, on education, if the gentleman from San Diego would wander around his community, he would discover 50 percent of the kids in community colleges there are on some kind of loan, and those loans are being threatened. Pell grants are being threatened. So the whole idea of education as a way of getting ahead in this society, building a middle class, making this economy stronger is being threatened by these cuts. If you look at the targets of these cuts, the ones that will stick, they're the most vulnerable people in the society, it doesn't make for a stronger economy. Our rivals around the world in Japan and Western Europe have very strong government involvement. It doesn't help our trade position to gut the Commerce Department or the Interstate Commerce Commission. It doesn't help our economic position to destroy education -- cut out job training programs. I mean, this is all being done in a very cynical way, and I think it's the Republicans that are pandering for votes, frankly, and if they really wanted to balance the budget, why would the House be in favor of a tax cut, and a tax cut whose benefits mainly go to the wealthier people. The $500 per child that goes to people over $200,000 income, the capital gains tax, the alternative minimum tax, which would free corporations to not pay taxes even when they make enormous profits, so I see cynicism in that.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. Let me just bounce that off of Patrick McGuigan. You admired the House plan particularly, Patrick. Do you think Gingrich is being -- you don't think Gingrich is being cynical, I take it?

MR. McGUIGAN: No. I don't think he's being cynical at all. I think this budget on the House side is an act of political courage. I think it's a very important statement that the Republicans who ran on specific promises to the American people and some of the conservative Democrats who did the same, particularly in the South, meant it, and that they're going to try to deliver. There are some differences between the two plans, the House and the Senate. The House one is much better, but I believe that this is the beginning of real change in the budget process in Washington. I don't think there's anything cynical about it.

MR. MAC NEIL: Patrick, how much political danger is there for the Republicans in taking on Medicare so directly?

MR. McGUIGAN: I think there's political danger, there's political problems there. In fact, the Senate budget, interestingly enough, even though it goes down a little more palatably with a lot of the mainstream commentators, might have more political problems for the Republicans, because it goes after some of the government programs that are relatively popular with most Americans -- infrastructure, help to the states, transportation. The Senate plan does have some military budget cuts. The House doesn't. So that's an interesting aspect of this we'll have to watch in the next few weeks.

MR. MAC NEIL: Lee Cullum, what do you think about the political danger the Republicans are in? You described some of the dangers that doctors -- and you've talked to -- saw in taking on Medicare directly like this.

MS. CULLUM: Oh, I think the dangers are very real, and they are severe. I think that it will not take people long to catch on to what these cuts mean, if, indeed, they do go forward. I am aware that this is simply a cut in the growth of Medicare from 10 percent to 5 percent, but that means it won't take care of increased population or increases in inflation, and I think it's going to be very serious, indeed. I think that we're going to have a lot of very angry seniors in the country over this. I do want to say there are some good things in the budget. I don't object to cutting some of the cabinet offices. I guess energy is the one that I would keep. I think Commerce and Education perhaps could be handled in other ways. But to sum up in answer to your question, I think that the Medicare cuts hold great political danger for the Republicans.

MR. MAC NEIL: Cynthia, on the other, taking it the other way, do you think the Democrats are winning ground, just to keep punching at the Republicans, as Al Gore did today, before, as he put it, slashing Medicare, to pay for tax cuts for the rich?

MS. TUCKER: Well, interestingly, Robin, it's a strategy that the Republicans used very effectively last year. When President Clinton put together a budget that started to tackle the deficit and did it by increasing taxes, the Republicans refused to get on board, they attacked it repeatedly, they attacked it during the last campaign, and it worked for them, and we'll see. I do think Al Gore has a very good political point in attacking the House plan to give tax cuts disproportionately to the wealthy. If, in fact, balancing the budget is so serious, such a priority that we're going to start dismantling programs that take care of the poor, that take care of the elderly, that take care of the infrastructure of the country, that take care of education, then, in fact, we cannot afford a tax increase that mostly goes to the wealthy. So I certainly think the Democrats can get some political points attacking the House plan that includes tax cuts.

MR. MAC NEIL: Gerald Warren, you said the Democrats would be smart to join with Gingrich. How about the other way around? Al Gore said they would sit down in a bipartisan way if the Republicans would drop the tax cut or the aspects of it that he claimed were going for the rich. What do you think of that?

MR. WARREN: Well, I disagree with him that those tax cuts go to the rich. Many of our panelists are in pension funds, and I would guess those pension funds would be ecstatic if the capital gains tax was cut. But I think the Vice President and the President and the White House and the Democratic leadership are saying you must capitulate before we negotiate, and I think that's absolutely wrong. You talk about the political danger here. There is a short-term political danger for the Republicans in doing this. Reform is always difficult. Change is always difficult, but the long-term danger is even greater if they don't do it. They came to Washington to reform the way government delivered its services. The Democrats now are fighting for the status quo. The status quo has made America angry, so the Republicans better stay the course.

MR. MAC NEIL: Yeah. Let's just go around quickly. I wonder, starting with you, Robert Scheer, very briefly, do you believe that Medicare could be -- the growth in Medicare could be cut back in half as the Republicans are proposing without actually -- and the coverage could be reorganized in a way that wouldn't actually hurt senior citizens?

MR. SCHEER: No, not at all, and I think it really begs the question of what is proper health care reform. I think the Clinton administration put a bold, maybe too voluminous, plan on the table. I don't think it was treated seriously. It was swept aside by a lot of special interest groups, a lot of politicians caved, mostly Republicans. I think you're going to solve the problems of both Medicare and Medicaid by having serious health reform. I personally think you have to go through a Canadian model like single payer, but I think you've got to go a long way down the road. I wonder - -

MR. MAC NEIL: I hate to cut you off, Bob, but I'm just running out of time, and I want to go to Patrick McGuigan just to ask the same question. Can Medicare be modified in the way Republicans are talking about without being specific yet, without actually hurting the coverage of senior citizens, do you think?

MR. McGUIGAN: Well, I hope so. I'm not sure that's possible, but you have to look at some of the plans that were not seriously considered in the previous debate when the President's plan was the only one on the proposal from organizations like the Heritage Foundation and others. They had some serious ideas out there that would affect all aspects of health care, so maybe we ought to get those on the table now and see if there's market-oriented ways to do some of these same things.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. Well, thank you all five very much. Jim. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now, further analysis of the Republican budget proposals and other matters political from Shields and Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, how well did the Republicans do it in launching their budget plans this week?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I think the Republicans did quite well. I think there were obvious differences between them, Jim, but I think the Republicans are demonstrating a conviction; they're fulfilling a pledge they made as far as the campaign of 1994 is concerned, and they're also consistent with two central themes of our times: one is that a balanced budget is good in itself and deficits are bad, and secondly, that the government is too big and too expensive. So they're really playing on all of those themes simultaneously. I think Pete Domenici was tougher for the Democrats to deal with because it didn't have the tax cut. It makes a more difficult target to attack. You can -- as long as you can attack it as these Medicare cuts or reductions in payments or however you want to describe it are being used to pay for a tax cut for Wall Street financiers and capital gains millionaires, then you've really got something going politically, but Domenici just took away that target by saying we don't have a plan for that tax cut.

MR. LEHRER: But, Paul, most people -- in fact, Alice Rivlin said against Domenici on this program that he didn't have it in there, but it's going to be in there by the time it all comes out of conference. Is she right? PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: I think she --

MR. LEHRER: Is that the fear? I mean, is she -- is she stating the fear correctly? Let's put it that way -- from her point of view.

MR. GIGOT: If you're afraid of a tax cut, yes. I mean, I think before this over, I would not be a bit surprised to see an amendment on the Senate floor offered by Bob Dole and Pete Domenici for some kind of tax cut. Pete Domenici has $170 billion left, sequestered, if you will, in interest savings that he could -- that could be used for a tax cut, and I think that that probably will happen.

MR. LEHRER: He said on this program that that would not happen, that he, he was not going to go for any kind of tax cuts until the budget was balanced.

MR. GIGOT: Well, but if you pass the budget resolution and the CBO certifies -- the Congressional Budget Office certifies that you have it balanced, then I think the circumstances change.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Go ahead.

MR. GIGOT: The only other point I was going to make is that the tax cut, the argument that is made about the tax cut going to the wealthy, when I talk to Republicans, what they say about the tax cut is we want it because it is not our country club base that wants this, traditional Republicans love a balanced budget, it's the working class people, it's the people who need 500 bucks for their kids or a thousand dollars for their kids, and that's where the most of the money in the tax cut goes. That's why it's $170 billion. The capital gains tax cut isn't that expensive.

MR. SHIELDS: I take a slight exception there. The real push for this comes from the financial supporters of Republican candidates. That's where it comes from. That's the whole cerebral, political, financial, intellectual push. It is not coming from the country. Members are not going out in the country and being asked, where's the tax cut? I mean, Republican members aren't reporting that back, is that tax cut -- thanks for that tax cut, boy, that's terrific -- I mean, that just is not the case.

MR. LEHRER: You're talking about capital gains?

MR. SHIELDS: Capital gains is there real -- and it is. I really think that there's going to be one phrase that's going to return to haunt Newt Gingrich, who's a great phrase maker, and that's the crown jewel. I mean, he calls the crown jewel --

MR. LEHRER: The tax cut --

MR. SHIELDS: The tax cut being the crown jewel, and I think that's it. That's why I think Domenici really took away the Democrats' game plan by, by not putting the tax cut in there. I mean, that really gave them the, you know -- them -- I think gave the Republicans a lot more wiggle room.

MR. GIGOT: I'm not so sure that the Democrats eased up on Medicare any just because Pete Domenici didn't have a tax cut in it. I mean, they've got plenty of targets, and they're going guns blazing anyway, and Mark's point about the tax cut doesn't mesh with my own reporting. I talked to a member of Congress from Indiana this week, a freshman, David McIntosh, who said at their Leesburg retreat last weekend, the members who said that they had heard that they had wanted a tax cut were the members who weren't from the traditional Republican districts, they were from the marginal districts, they were from the more Democratic or independent leaning districts. Now, if that's what -- that's what they're telling me. I don't think it's the Wall Street financiers who will love the $500 tax credit for children.

MR. SHIELDS: It isn't.

MR. GIGOT: They don't care about it.

MR. SHIELDS: They are indifferent to that.

MR. GIGOT: That's where the money is, Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: Paul, if Gingrich really cares about it, then he comes up and says, let's have a $500 cut for all the kids in the country and eliminate the capital gains tax cut. How popular do you think that would be with the leadership and hierarchy of the Republican Party?

MR. LEHRER: It would really shut the Democrats up.

MR. SHIELDS: Yeah, that would do it completely, and there is on question here, though. The Republicans are bucking history, and you have to admire them for keeping their word and all the rest of it, but the last three times that anybody in power has attempted to really do something about the deficit -- I mean, the fact that the deficit this year is $175 billion, which is considerably lower than all projections had it, when Bill Clinton came to office, the testimony took what Bill Clinton did in 1993 and what the Democrats did in cutting it and raising taxes.

MR. GIGOT: Growing the economy.

MR. SHIELDS: And they paid -- okay -- and they paid dearly for it in the 1994 elections. George Bush as part of a $500 billion deficit reduction in 1990 and a tax included in that lost re- election in 1992, biting the bullet on deficits. In 1985, Bob Dole, Pete Domenici, and Pete Wilson -- a whole budget of Republicans - - had the courage the only time I've ever seen it in Washington - - where they stood up on the issue of Social Security cost of living increases and voted to freeze them for one year, the Republicans, who had a majority in the Senate, lost it the next year. So voters, while they clamor for deficit reduction, show precious little gratitude on election day for those who've done it.

MR. LEHRER: You don't see it that way. You think the Republicans have to address this, they have to go, or they're going to really lose it politically?

MR. GIGOT: I think that Mark lays out what the Democrats believe is the politics of this and what could happen to the Republicans, and that's why they're playing essentially a "do nothing" strategy, just keep a probe beam on them, say they're trying to throw your grandma into the snow bank, and, and try to run on that. It's worked in the past. The Republicans are saying a couple of things overwhelmingly. One, times have changed, deficits keep going on and keep going on, the public is fed up.

MR. LEHRER: So this history that he just cited is irrelevant because they have changed?

MR. GIGOT: Because it's changed.

MR. LEHRER: The deficit.

MR. GIGOT: And second, they came in promising this, and they will get credit for the politics of performance if they deliver.

MR. LEHRER: Now, let's talk about Medicare in that regard. Al Hunt, one of your colleagues in the Wall Street Journal, had a column this week and said, wait a minute, there was nothing in the Contract With America, no Republican candidate ran saying, hey, elect me and we will reform Medicare and we will cut payments to Medicare. What happened? Where did all this happen, come from?

MR. GIGOT: Well, actually, the people who made the Medicare argument in the campaign were the Democrats, because when the Republicans came out with a contract, they said, wait a minute, it doesn't add up, they're going to cut Medicare, they're going to cut some of these other things. So they're the ones who made that argument. What happened is it's driven by the balanced budget promise, and if you look at the budget, many people have said, and I think Mark has also said you've got to go after entitlements if you're going to balance the budget. The grand daddy of them all, other than Social Security, is Medicare. And if it's growing at 10 percent a year to restrain the growth to 7 percent, 5 percent in the Kasich budget, 7 percent in the Domenici budget, I think is a salable proposition. It's a hard one, but it's a salable proposition.

MR. LEHRER: Are the Republicans vulnerable for not laying this on the table before the election, do you think?

MR. SHIELDS: I think the Republicans are vulnerable, Jim, the same way that Democrats are vulnerable on defense and crime. It's an issue the Republicans have not been identified with. Their devotion, conviction, passion for Medicare has always been in question, and people just think Democrats care more about Medicare than do Republicans. So Republicans have less latitude to tamper with it, but I think that they are redeeming a promise made in the campaign of 1994. They never mentioned Medicare, but you can't fault them for that. I mean, they never mentioned eliminating the national whatever -- how much to the arts, the humanities.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's move on to George Bush's resignation from the National Rifle Association. What do you make of that?

MR. GIGOT: Well, he reacted in anger at some of their fund- raising rhetoric that had gone out in an NRA letter, and I think the NRA probably regrets that it had used some of the terms that it did. However, if every group in this town stopped using incendiary rhetoric in its fund-raising letters, the city would shut down. I mean, --

MR. LEHRER: Could this be the beginning of that actually happening?

MR. GIGOT: I doubt it. I think this is probably -- people are moved by emotion -- they're moved by fear, and that's what these direct mail fund-raisers are all about. I mean, Martin Frost --

MR. LEHRER: That's not good, though, is it?l

MR. GIGOT: It is not healthy, but Martin Frost, you know, the Democratic congressional committee member, called in a fund-raising letter Newt Gingrich a terrorist and the most dangerous politician to come in on the scene in his lifetime, fairly incendiary.

MR. LEHRER: Which he -- he repudiated and apologized for, which the NRA has not done for this. What do you think about George Bush's thing?

MR. SHIELDS: Jim, when somebody changes position in a political argument on a polarizing issue and comes my way, I say he's grown. When somebody leaves my side, when somebody leaves my side, I say he's a Benedict Arnold or a Judas Iscariot or a quisling. No, President Bush -- it's good to see him -- he's himself again. I mean, the worst job in America is being vice president. He was vice president for eight years. And I think -- I think George Bush -- what George Bush did in that letter was so profound because really, what the NRA had done was to say these jack-booted Nazis, okay, Nazis. I mean, that is the ultimate pejorative in American politics, describing American federal officials, and what he did was he put names and faces on them. He made them into parents, did George Bush. He said, I knew these men, I knew a man who was killed at Waco, I knew a man who was blown up in Oklahoma City, I know them, I knew them as parents, I knew them as friends, I knew them as public servants. And when you can take away from that caricature drawn by the NRA to make a quick, cheap buck, all right, when you take that away and put a face there, who was a human being, who was a caring neighbor, relative, father, parent, spouse, then you've really changed the whole -- I think -- the whole dynamic of the debate.

MR. LEHRER: But what about Paul's point that this happens, the liberals do this, the Democrats do this, this incendiary rhetoric that my question is -- my question to him -- I ask you: Is this the beginning of the end? Has George Bush struck a blow, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, struck a blow for maybe cooling it fellows?

MR. SHIELDS: I think George Bush did. I think Oklahoma City did. I hope it did. It's a very simple proposal, Jim. Everybody who runs for office, their television spots are out there for everybody to see. It ought to be required -- on the Federal Election Commission -- that any direct mail piece sent in your behalf to raise money or to enlist support for your candidacy ought to be exposed so that the other side and everybody in the public can see it as well, because what they can do in direct mail is write to you as a 53 year old homeowner, veteran, and not even say a person to the word next door.

MR. LEHRER: Isn't there another thing at work here, though? I won't say isn't there -- is there another thing at work here, Paul, that, that possibly is a result of Oklahoma City, and George Bush saying it's part of it, that people might be saying, responsible people, saying that the right of free speech also goes to the responsible people to speak out, in other words, it's okay for a conservative to criticize a kook who is a conservative, it's all right for a liberal to criticize a liberal kook, and that maybe people will start speaking out about their own and not just knee- jerk defend their own kooks?

MR. GIGOT: Maybe, maybe. I am, unfortunately, not an optimist about politics in that sense. I mean, I think that people play -- the stakes in politics are so high because they're about the country we want, and ultimately, this -- our system -- and we don't -- we don't take out guns like they do in Serbia. We fight with words and ballots, and yet, we fight very, very rough. And sometimes people do go over the edge, and I think that Mark makes a very good suggestion, which is essentially antiseptic, open air, and that would help. And the problem with a lot of direct mail on both sides is that it -- it's by third party groups. It's not even the direct campaign -- either candidate -- it's people coming from outside who are somehow -- we're less watchful of them.

MR. LEHRER: Well, that's what made, of course, the Martin Frost letter so grievous. This came from the official campaign organization of the House Democratic Campaign Committee and called the Speaker of the House of Representatives a terrorist in a climate where that kind of stuff and of course --

MR. SHIELDS: Indefensible and outrageous, absolutely wrong.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. SHIELDS: The point you make, Jim, I mean, three years ago this summer, Mr. Gingrich and 57 other Republicans sent a letter condemning the lyrics of Ice-T, a rapper, who had a song in which had "die, pig, die, gonna kill myself some cops," and so forth, saying this was absolutely outrageous, and it is, and he was right then. But at the same time, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Dole and Mr. Gramm and Mr. Dornan all show up on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show, where G. Gordon Liddy boasts that he's improved his accuracy in shooting, Jim, by using cut-out targets of the President of the United States and Mrs. Clinton.

MR. LEHRER: Is that going to stop?

MR. GIGOT: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: That is going to stop?

MR. GIGOT: I that is going to stop.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think it's going to stop on both the left and the right?

MR. GIGOT: I think -- well, put it this way. It's going to stop for a while. I don't know for how long.

MR. LEHRER: Well, we'll keep talking about it. Maybe we'll do our best. Maybe we'll help. Okay. Thank you all very much.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still ahead tonight, an update on the Louisiana floods, and chess for school kids. UPDATE - ALL WET

MR. MAC NEIL: Next, an update on the flash floods that have swamped areas of the South this week. President Clinton today declared three Mississippi counties disaster areas. Parts of Louisiana were also hard hit. Correspondent Tom Bearden reports.

TOM BEARDEN: It has been a thoroughly miserable week in Slidell, Louisiana, 30 miles north of New Orleans. This subdivision has been under water since Tuesday. People have had to wade up to two miles through water from ankle deep to waist high to reach their homes.

SHARON VIVIEN: We don't know why we flooded so bad. My parents keep saying they've been here for 30 years, and we've never seen this. It's never flooded. It's always -- as soon as the rain stopped, it's always gone down.

MR. BEARDEN: Parents have been pulling their kids down the street in boats instead of wagons. National Guard trucks patrol the area, giving people a lift when they can. Dogs go for a swim instead of a walk. This family found the duck they gave their child for Easter afloat in the backyard.

GEORGE TSAGOURNOS: That's the water line where this room came on the TV, almost the whole TV screen.

MR. BEARDEN: George Tsagournos was sloshing around in his living room in six inches of water. Tsagournos's wife, Sheila, and their children had gone to higher ground on Tuesday while he stayed behind.

GEORGE TSAGOURNOS: I tried to stay a little bit, but the water was keep coming in, in one hour raised up three more inches, and I said, no way I could stay, I couldn't help nothing, and the sewage was coming from the toilet and the bathtub, and that's why it start to smell bad, and that's why I had to leave too.

MR. BEARDEN: A few blocks away on College Street, the water had receded enough for Tonya Collins to get her mail delivered. She was beginning to assess the damage and starting a clean-up that will last for weeks.

TONYA COLLINS: When we came in to check on the house, the tiles were floating up here -- they were just floating all through -- all through out. They were just sticking up and floating, and the same as in my little girl's room. I had took the bottom drawers out of my dresser. Well, it got up to here [gesturing] so it soaked all of that. And I had my little bookcase over here that I kept a lot of clothes on. It soaked all of that.

MR. BEARDEN: Collins says her home is infested with vermin that washed in from nearby swamps. She's afraid to open the kitchen cabinets for fear of what she'll find.

TONYA COLLINS: My husband said it's lizards, but I say snakes, but I done seen all of 'em in here -- there's just no way -- 'cause the water penetrated the mattress this time.

MR. BEARDEN: Next door, Pete Villa was angry. He says this is the third time his home has flooded in the last month, that he had just finished cleaning up from the last time. He blames the city for not pumping the water out fast enough.

PETE VILLA: I've lost everything. I lost my car. The only thing I was able to salvage was my van. I lost all my clothes, all my furniture, my refrigerator, my freezer, my washer, my dryer, everything, you know. I don't know. I don't know.

MR. BEARDEN: Why didn't you have flood insurance?

PETE VILLA: I couldn't afford it.

MR. BEARDEN: Did you get a quote for it?

PETE VILLA: When I originally bought the house, yeah, and at the time I was on a tight budget, and I just couldn't afford it, you know, and I was thinking of things along the lines of like disasters, like hurricanes, tornadoes, not rains, I wasn't thinking about rains, you know. Really, I should have, and you know, in a way it's my fault, but they should do somethin', you know, because most of these people around here don't have flood insurance.

MR. BEARDEN: Preliminary damage estimates range up to 3.5 billion dollars for the 12 counties or parishes, as they're called in Louisiana, that have flooded. Slidell Police Chief Ben Miller says his officers and other city employees are getting tired after a week of long hours trying to deal with the destruction.

BEN MILLER, Slidell Police Chief: Most of them have damage also, and so we're having to work them 12 hour shifts and then let them go, you know, take care of their business. I've had damage to my house, and I'm, you know, it's going to -- clean on that also.

MR. BEARDEN: Has Slidell ever seen anything like this before?

BEN MILLER: Never. This is the absolute worse I've ever seen. I've been here since 1976, but what we had is we had ten inches - - eight to ten inches of rain one night, dried up a little bit, and then we got anywhere from seventeen to twenty inches dumped on us again, and there's no pumping system in the world designed to handle that.

MR. BEARDEN: Back on college street, relatives were helping Edna Yarbrough tear out the carpet that had just been replaced a few days before.

EDNA YARBROUGH: It's hard when you get, you know, retired. My husband will be 71 in August, and you don't, you don't think things like this are going to happen, you know. I don't know. What can you say? We're lucky. We're very fortunate than a lot of people -- we do have a home, you know, and if I have to take and have a bed and put it back little by little, that's what we'll have to do.

MR. BEARDEN: But others said they were giving up on College Street, that they'd be moving out as soon as they could. In the meantime, Slidell and the rest of South Louisiana are bracing for more rain this weekend. FOCUS - THE RIGHT MOVE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a story about a teacher, a group of New York City students, and the game of chess. The reporter is Sharon Epperson of Time Magazine.

SHARON EPPERSON, Time Magazine: Philosophers have long debated what constitutes a proper education. Ancient Greecetaught its free men Homer, mathematics, music, and athletics. Renaissance curriculums added art, literature, and Latin. Today another discipline is gaining popularity, the game of chess, what Greeks called the gymnasium of the mind. It's 8 AM at JS-117, Wade Junior High School in New York City. Sixth grade members of the school's chess club meet one last time to prepare for the national elementary school championships in Little Rock, Arkansas. Leslie Cobb, a former cashier with a Wall Street brokerage form, now a science teacher, emphasizes fundamentals like carefully logging each move along with strategy.

LESLIE COBB, Chess Teacher: [talking to student] First of all, you notice that you should never go for this fake. Once I do that, all right, bang, I'm going to go for the queens. That's No. 1.

MS. EPPERSON: Cobb fell in love with the game at an early age. Now he is passing on his passion. The game is not only fun, he says, but develops concentration and other skills that help kids in their schoolwork.

LESLIE COBB: If every school in this district had chess on the curriculum, I think that it would, it would do -- that the kids would do much better, and you'd see their reading scores, their math scores, their overall skills would go up. I really do believe that.

MS. EPPERSON: How does it give them that extra push? What is it about chess that makes them above average or an average student?

LESLIE COBB: It makes them analytical. It makes them learn how to attack a problem. It makes them learn how to stay with a problem until it is resolved.

MS. EPPERSON: Several of Cobb's players say their grades have improved since joining the chess club. According to one study, children who play chess learn to read significantly faster than the national average. To Cobb, the chess board is a level playing field where everyone, including these kids, sons and daughters of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, can compete as equals.

MS. EPPERSON: What do you want the kids to learn from chess? What do you want them to take away from the game?

LESLIE COBB: I want them to learn that they are just as smart as someone from California or Wyoming or Idaho or Texas or anywhere else on the planet, but they have to believe it in themselves. They have to feel it in here. And once they do that, then there's no stopping them.

MS. EPPERSON: The feeling of beating someone older or supposedly smarter is something these children never forget.

LISBETH RECIO: It feels great. I beat a ninth grader, and it felt great. He was, he was a boy and he got so embarrassed. He got all red and stuff.

KEVIN FERNANDEZ: It feels like you just accomplished a goal in your life.

ERICK BARINAS: It's like you're very happy because you're like, oh, and I'm like I won, I won, because I beat a friend of mine who's very tough.

MS. EPPERSON: Cobb's chess club includes about 70 sixth through eighth graders and is sponsored in part by the American Chess Foundation. It's Chess in the Schools program provides tutoring and materials to some 200 inner-city schools in 18 cities. Thanks to candy sales, donations, and discounted airline tickets, Cobb planned to take eight of the sixth graders to the elementary school championships. But one of them almost didn't make it.

LESLIE COBB: [talking to student] You're going to pay for this, because I told you to walk around with a halo on your head. You're off getting in fights in the gym with Raymond Sharp, who I already bounced?

MS. EPPERSON: Calvin didn't get bounced, but he did have to write 1500 times "I will behave in class and listen to my teachers."

LESLIE COBB: [talking to students] You guys ready to go down there and kick some butt?

STUDENTS IN UNISON: Yes!

LESLIE COBB: Are we going to go down there and do some winning?

STUDENTS IN UNISON: Yes!

MS. EPPERSON: The next morning, they were off to Little Rock.

LESLIE COBB: Remember, take good notation. Remember, play your clock. Calvin, especially, where you at -- here -- don't forget to hit your clock, you got it?

CALVIN: Got it.

LESLIE COBB: [in airport] All right. Don't forget it. All right. We're at Gate No. 4.

SPOKESPERSON AT TOURNAMENT: Clear the hall now. We'd like to get started. All right. Without any further ado, you may start your clock.

MS. EPPERSON: The tournament consisted of seven matches played over three days. There were 1200 players from kindergarten through sixth grade and 55 teams. They represented different races, sizes, athletic and physical abilities, but such differences don't matter here. In this world of kings and queens, bishops and knights, everybody has an equal chance to succeed, including JS-117. Going into the fifth round, Cobbs' team was in 29th place, just four places away from taking home a trophy.

LESLIE COBB: [talking to student] That's the kid that just moved David. You understand? Get in there and take him. He's 901, something like that, he's just a little bit higher than your rating. Don't worry about the ratings. Worry about getting me that win. You understand? I want you four on one. Go get him.

STUDENT: Every time I play chess, I love it, because it's a war - - there's a war against the other person without having to hurt any other people. Nobody's going to get hurt. That's the reason I like it.

LISBETH RECIO: Some people, umm, they say that you're a nerd and stuff because you're in the chess club, and then when you get to go on trips, they just, umm, then they want to join in too because you go on trips.

MS. EPPERSON: Alfred was the first to finish thanks to a strategy learned from Doug Belizi, his chess foundation tutor who accompanied the team to Little Rock.

DOUG BELIZI: How many moves did it take?

STUDENT: Seven.

DOUG BELIZI: How does it feel?

STUDENT: Good.

MS. EPPERSON: The next victory came from Lisbeth, who took her opponent in 17 moves.

DOUG BELIZI: And how does it feel?

LISBETH RECIO: I don't know. I feel kind of good.

DOUG BELIZI: Did you know you were going to beat him?

LISBETH RECIO: No, because the rating was 966 and my rating was 744.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: Checkmate.

SECOND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: Checkmate.

MS. EPPERSON: By the end of the second day, Cobbs' team had picked up 4 1/2 points, moving them into 26th place, just one point away from getting a trophy. Later, at the hotel, players convened for a strategy session with Mr. Belizi.

DOUG BELIZI: Here you probably should not play knight takes knight. Queen takes night.

LESLIE COBB: [talking to student] You'll get a rating after this.

STUDENT: I'll move up though?

LESLIE COBB: Yeah, you'll move up. You'll move up.

MS. EPPERSON: For Cobb, it was the end of an exhausting day. The hours and the money may have been better on Wall Street but Cobb says chess and the chance to make a difference in children's lives offer a much bigger payoff.

LESLIE COBB: I want them to learn how to be better people. I think that all of these kids -- I think that every kid in the school has the opportunity -- should have the opportunity to be a better kid. They are surrounded by so much negativity out here on the streets and in their neighborhood,and I want them to learn that they can rise above that, that they can go and they can make a life for themselves, and they can come back and maybe contribute to somebody else getting out.

MS. EPPERSON: Cobb sets the example. He once thought he'd never get out. When he was eight years old, his parents split up. Because his mother had an alcohol problem, he was made a ward of the state and transferred to various juvenile institutions.

LESLIE COBB: I was stealing. I was doing a lot of things that were wrong. I was hanging out with a lot of kids that are no longer alive. As a matter of fact, my own self, I didn't I would -- I didn't think that I would make my 18th birthday. But like I said, I had some very good people around me, my grandmother, Attie Freeman, she's -- she's left me now, but you know, I thank God for her. My uncle, my father's brother, he taught me how to be a man.

MS. EPPERSON: Now it was Cobb's turn to help others.

LESLIE COBB: Okay. Let's go get 'em Go straight to your boards, straight to your boards.

MS. EPPERSON: The last two rounds of the championship are usually the toughest. Cobb's players still hoped they could win a trophy. But by the end of the sixth round, Junior High School 117 had picked up only one win and a draw and slipped to 27th place. Everything was riding on the seventh and final round. The players and the coach were feeling the pressure.

LESLIE COBB: We're only half a point, two points a away.

DOUG BELIZI: You personally, how do you feel?

LESLIE COBB: Very anxious. Talk to me. What's he doing? That's how it feels. That's how it feels, yes. It feels good sometimes.

MS. EPPERSON: Unfortunately, the game was not over. There had been a misunderstanding.

DOUG BELIZI: One player is offering a drawing. The other player thought it was a resignation.

LESLIE COBB: Okay.

DOUG BELIZI: So as long as there's a dispute and they've got this course here, we just recreate the game and continue and both kids agreed.

MS. EPPERSON: Cobbs' stress on fundamentals paid off. Calvin's opponent had not jotted down all the moves, as he was supposed to, but Calvin had. The judges used his notes to reset the board and eventually Calvin won.

LESLIE COBB: Way to go. Way to go.

MS. EPPERSON: Calvin finished with four wins and three losses, tying Lisbeth and Erick for the best record on the team, a pleasant surprise for his coach.

LESLIE COBB: I think that this experience will do him some good. I think that he will grow from it. Again, yes, he was a very big surprise, he really was, a very pleasant one too, but he still drove me crazy.

MS. EPPERSON: For many, like these Greenwich, Connecticut, kindergartners, the end of the tournament was a time for celebration.

SPOKESMAN: You two guys are the national champions. What do you think about that?

LITTLE BOY: Cool.

SPOKESMAN: Yeah.

MS. EPPERSON: But Cobbs' players didn't feel like celebrating. Though they finished in the top half of the country at 27th place, they were still half a point away from winning a trophy.

LESLIE COBB: You're going to face disappointments in life. Look at me girl. You're going to face disappointments in life. It's a matter of how you handle disappoints. All right. So we sit here and smile and laugh at them, or are you going to let them tear you up inside? I'm not going to let that happen, and I don't want you to do that either.

MS. EPPERSON: Sounds like the kind of advice his uncle or Grandma Freeman might have given him years ago.

LESLIE COBB: In chess, just like in life, there's some winners and some losers, and Iknow that our day will come around again. I know we will. I know we will because I'm going to push for it. I'm not going to let these kids down, and I know that they're not going to let me down. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Friday, President Clinton concluded his trip to Ukraine with a speech to university students and visits to war memorials. Afterward, he pledged continued U.S. support for Ukrainian sovereignty. And consumer prices were up .4 of 1 percent in April. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.