The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

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

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Monday; then, the view from down under Missouri`s bridges, how safe are they?; two political stories, the going of White House adviser Karl Rove, as seen by David Gergen and Mark Halperin, and the coming-on of Mitt Romney, as reported by Dan Balz of the Washington Post; plus, a remembrance of Merv Griffin, a man of television who died Sunday.

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JIM LEHRER: President Bush`s longtime adviser, Karl Rove, resigned today. He said he was leaving the White House at the end of August and returning to private life in Texas. Rove has been the president`s top strategist since Mr. Bush first entered politics in Texas.

With the president at his side, Rove looked back emotionally on his years at the White House.

KARL ROVE, Deputy White House Chief of Staff: Mr. President, the world`s turned many turns since our journey began. We`ve been at this a long time. It was over 14 years ago that you began your run for governor and over 10 years ago that we started thinking and planning about a possible run for the presidency. And it has been an exhilarating and eventful time.

JIM LEHRER: Rove was at the center of many controversies, including the CIA leak investigation. We`ll have more on Karl Rove later in the program tonight.

Republicans running for the presidential nomination have one less competitor today. Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor, withdrew from the race late last night. He finished sixth in the Iowa straw poll. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney came in first, followed by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. We`ll have more on the Romney campaign later in the program tonight.

Plans were finalized today for a crisis political summit in Iraq. It could begin as early as tomorrow. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki proposed the idea on Sunday. He invited a select group of Kurdish and Sunni leaders to attend. Last week, a large portion of the Sunni bloc boycotted Maliki`s cabinet. Maliki threatened to isolate them and suggested they could be replaced by local Sunni tribal leaders.

The U.S. military announced a new offensive in Iraq today. Operation Phantom Strike will go after Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq and Shiite militants backed by Iran.

A U.S. soldier was killed during the fighting in Baghdad today. And over the weekend, there were five other American deaths. They were killed in Baghdad on Saturday. A sniper killed one soldier, then lured the others to a booby-trapped house where a hidden bomb exploded. Those deaths raised the U.S. toll for August thus far to 32.

The Taliban in Afghanistan freed two South Korean hostages today. The release happened near Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan. The two women were dropped by the side of a rural road where Red Cross officials were waiting. They were part of a larger group of 23 who were abducted in mid-July. Two men from the group have already been killed.

From Seoul, South Korea, a foreign ministry spokesman said the women were safe. He made a plea for the hostages still in captivity.

CHO HEE-YONG, Spokesman, South Korean Foreign Ministry (through translator): The two women are currently under our custody at a safe place, and they`ll go through a medical check-up. We urge the kidnappers to release our people, and we will make efforts for the safety and release of the remaining South Koreans.

JIM LEHRER: Meanwhile, a convoy led by U.S. troops came under attack in eastern Afghanistan today. There were no immediate reports of casualties. On Sunday, a roadside bomb attack in another eastern province killed three U.S. soldiers.

NASA weighed options today on what to do about a cut on the underside of the Shuttle Endeavour. During liftoff last week, a chunk of insulating foam penetrated through the thermal shield; that could be a problem when the shuttle makes re-entry at the end of its mission.

Today, astronauts began a spacewalk to replace equipment on the International Space Station. They could make another spacewalk later this week to repair the cut.

Rescuers started drilling a third hole at a Utah coal mine today. It`s been a week since six men were trapped more than 1,800 feet underground. Today, a second better-lit camera was lowered into the mine. It yielded little new information, but it did show wire mesh was holding the roof up. The owner of the mine, Bob Murray, said that was reason enough to hope.

BOB MURRAY, Co-Owner, Crandall Canyon Mine: I want to emphasize that there are many, many reasons to have hope still. There are many reasons why one would believe that they still may be alive. First, as you`ve seen in all the photographs that we have shown you, the roof is confident, the wire mesh is there, the roof is supported.

JIM LEHRER: The third hole being drilled could take up to six days to complete.

Navy divers returned to the water today in Minneapolis to search the debris of the collapsed bridge. Yesterday, a ninth body was recovered and identified. At least four more people remain missing. Minnesota state officials also picked a preliminary design for the replacement bridge, but no details were released. We`ll have more on bridge safety right after this news summary.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3 points to close at 13,236. The Nasdaq fell 2 points to close at 2,542.

The philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor died today at her estate in suburban New York. She had pneumonia. Over her lifetime, Astor donated nearly $200 million, much of it to charities and organizations in New York City. For the past year, she was at the center of a highly publicized legal battle over her care. Brooke Astor was 105 years old.

The television entertainer and innovator Merv Griffin died Sunday in Los Angeles. He had prostate cancer. He hosted a TV talk show with a litany of legendary guests. Then, later, he created a game show empire, including "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune." Merv Griffin was 82 years old, and we`ll have more on him at the end of our program tonight.

Between now and then: the bridges in Missouri; the Rove record; and the Romney campaign.

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JIM LEHRER: Navy divers continued searching for missing victims of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis today, while inspectors checked the condition of many bridges around the country. More than 73,000 bridges are rated "structurally deficient" by the U.S. Department of Transportation. NewsHour correspondent Betty Ann Bowser has our Science Unit report on what inspectors are looking for.

BETTY ANN BOWSER, NewsHour Correspondent: As one of the 18 full-time bridge inspectors in Missouri, Kevin Wegener spent most of the past week suspended in mid-air over the side of a steel-truss deck bridge, almost identical to the one that collapsed in Minneapolis.

The Hurricane Deck Bridge is a 72-year-old structure over the Lake of the Ozarks in southwestern Missouri. For Wegener, it`s not just business as usual. As he visually surveys the condition of the bridge, Minneapolis is ever present in the back of his mind.

KEVIN WEGENER, Bridge Inspector: I watched the whole thing. And it kind of makes you think, like, say when you go down to make sure you look at everything thorough and don`t miss nothing and...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: He looks carefully at the pieces of steel held together at their joints with gusset plates, the framework that makes this a truss bridge. He wants to know if there are any signs of rust, corrosion or cracks. In addition to looking below the bridge, he also carefully surveys the top, known as the bridge`s deck.

What are you trying to capture in these photographs right now?

KEVIN WEGENER: The full length of the driving surface, joints, hand railing, curbing.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And what are you looking for?

KEVIN WEGENER: Deficiencies.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And he finds a couple: first, a crack in the pavement; then, something potentially more serious.

KEVIN WEGENER: The joint has a tear, about a two-foot tear. It`s actually letting water go through.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Is that bad?

KEVIN WEGENER: It can be. The joint is actually where your expansion device is at that lets it expand and contract. If a bridge don`t move, that`s not good. It should have movement.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Two years ago when Wegener inspected it, Hurricane Deck was rated a six on a scale one to nine, one being the worst. Then it was deemed safe. Now Wegener says he doesn`t see much change. He reached his conclusion almost exclusively on what he saw. In this high-tech age, bridge inspection is still highly dependent on the human eye.

INSPECTOR: Any changes?

CARL CALLAHAN, State Bridge Maintenance Engineer: Haven`t heard anything yet.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Missouri`s top bridge inspector and Kevin Wegener`s boss, Carl Callahan, thinks his crews do a great job, but he does have one big worry.

CARL CALLAHAN: I think that`s every state`s fear, is that you have something that you can`t see, that you can`t put your hands on, that time bomb sitting out there that you don`t know about. It`s not because of lack of effort; it`s not because you`re negligent. You`re out here doing everything that you need to do, and at that unforeseen something that blows up that you have absolutely no idea that it`s going to happen.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In fact, according to a 2001 federal government study, in-depth inspections like these are "unlikely to correctly identify many of the specific types of defects" that they are looking for. And the Federal Highway Administration report found that, in the case of welding point cracks, where whole sections of bridges are held together, the inspectors correctly identified them in only 3.9 percent of the time.

It was a bridge collapse in 1967 over the Ohio River that led to the creation of the current nationally mandated bridge inspection program. In that tragedy, 46 people died. The Department of Transportation has ordered a top-to-bottom review of that program.

JOHN MYERS, University of Missouri, Rolla: There`s human error involved in every stage of design and construction, as well as inspections.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Technology being developed by civil engineer John Myers in a lab at the University of Missouri in Rolla could improve the inspection process. These wires make up sensors that can be embedded in the concrete of bridge structures.

JOHN MYERS: There`s a lot of different types of sensors that we can install in bridges. There`s types of sensors that can sense vibration or movement. We have sensors that can sense deflection or deformation changes, as well.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: What does that mean?

JOHN MYERS: How much a bridge structure, let`s say, deflects under load or traffic.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: All these indicators feed back into computer equipment that put out readings on how the bridge reacts to movement, load, stress, and perhaps one day could prevent another tragedy.

Myers and his colleagues have installed many of these devices in demonstration projects throughout the state. They`ve also developed bridges with no steel components, using composite plastic materials that can extend the life of bridges by up to 50 years.

This small bridge in a quiet residential neighborhood near the university is an experimental structure. It was built from this prototype in Myers` lab.

They`re basically driving over composite plastics?

JOHN MYERS: That`s correct, it`s a form of a plastic.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: A plastic bridge?

JOHN MYERS: In conjunction with concrete. The concrete takes the compression, and this grid system takes the tension in the lower portion of the deck system.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The composite plastics will not rust or corrode like steel does from run-off and from salt being poured on bridges in wintertime, but the new materials can be more expensive. Many states like Missouri have budget problems just fixing the bridges they already have, so the technology is not in widespread use.

CARL CALLAHAN: You know, I would really like to have a Lexus, but I`m going to go buy a Hyundai. You look behind, you have a two-lane roadway with high traffic volumes, OK, and you have an old bridge. And if you only have $5 million, where are you going to put it?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: One of the old ones competing for money is the historic Devil`s Elbow Bridge in a picturesque area of the state. Like 7,300 other bridges in the state, this one is rated "structurally deficient." It is in such bad shape it has a load limit, which means big tour buses and large trucks are no longer allowed to cross it.

University of Missouri, Rolla, engineers Genda Chen and Lokesh Dharani pointed out deficiencies underneath the bridge: rust, cracks, corrosion, and of great interest, a gusset plate problem.

GENDA CHEN, University of Missouri, Rolla: The so-called gusset plate is holding several steel member together so that they can work together.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And, again, the members are what support the bridge?

GENDA CHEN: Yes.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: That`s got a hold in it, and it holds up the supports.

GENDA CHEN: See, the member is like -- all the members together is like the skeleton of your body. And the gusset plate we`re talking about is like a joint between part of a bone. If the joint has a problem, of course you cannot -- the skeleton system cannot work very well.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dharani spotted another potentially dangerous problem.

LOKESH DHARANI, University of Missouri, Rolla: The concrete has fallen off. This is falling, or delamination, and the steel members now are exposed to environment, and they corrode.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And that makes the bridge weaker?

LOKESH DHARANI: Definitely.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And is this a fairly typical problem you`d see in an aging bridge in America today?

LOKESH DHARANI: Yes, definitely.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Rural bridges like Devil`s Elbow have to compete with big city bridges, like those in St. Louis, for limited state funds. And St. Louis, a river city, needs bridges to function. Many of them are old. This one was built more than 50 years ago; another is over 100 years old.

Civil engineer Allen Minks worries what the city will do without more major financial support to fix its aging structures.

ALLEN MINKS, American Society of Civil Engineers: I do think we`re flirting with disaster. And it`s very tragic that, you know, the bridge had to collapse up in Minnesota to draw attention to this, but there`s a need for people to be aware of how bad our infrastructure is and that it`s not going to go away. It`s just going to get worse.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Even with millions of dollars in improvements to bridges in the St. Louis area in the 1990s, the state still ranks fourth in the nation in the number of structurally deficient bridges.

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JIM LEHRER: And next, Karl Rove says the end is here. Kwame Holman begins our coverage.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Karl Rove is moving on down the road.

KWAME HOLMAN: He`s been the central figure in the political life of George W. Bush.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We`ve been friends for a long time, and we`re still going to be friends. I would call Karl Rove a dear friend. We`ve known each other as youngsters interested in serving our state. We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country. And so I thank my friend. I`ll be on the road behind you here in a little bit.

KWAME HOLMAN: On the White House South Lawn this morning, the man considered the president`s most influential adviser, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, explained why he is stepping down at the end of the month.

KARL ROVE, Deputy White House Chief of Staff: Through all those years, I`ve asked a lot of my family, and they`ve given all I`ve asked and more. And now it seems the right time to start thinking about the next chapter in our family`s life. It`s not been an easy decision, as you know, from our discussions that started last summer. It always seemed there was a better time to leave somewhere out there in the future. But now is the time.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rove`s resignation comes amid a political firestorm over the firings last year of several federal prosecutors. His role in the dismissals is a focus of ongoing congressional investigations. White House claims of executive privilege have kept him from testifying to date.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), Illinois: Where is Karl Rove? Why is he hiding?

KWAME HOLMAN: Rove also was named in the criminal investigation into who leaked the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame three years ago. He never was charged with any wrongdoing. The investigation led to the conviction of Vice President Cheney`s aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Called the "architect" of his political victories by the president, Rove guided Mr. Bush`s successful 1994 campaign for Texas governor, defeating popular Democratic incumbent Ann Richards. He then masterminded Bush presidential campaign victories in 2000 and 2004. Rove was credited with a unique understanding of the Republican base and with galvanizing it to help gain GOP congressional seats in 2002 and 2004.

But the 2006 midterm elections brought an end to Republicans` and Rove`s successes, as they lost control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats. Renowned for his optimism, Rove characterized that as a temporary setback for the GOP agenda.

JIM LEHRER: More now from David Gergen, who has served as an adviser to five presidents. He`s now a professor at Harvard University`s Kennedy School of Government, director of its Center for Public Leadership. And Mark Halperin, senior political analyst for Time magazine.

David, how should Karl Rove`s work for George W. Bush be remembered?

DAVID GERGEN, Former Presidential Adviser: The final chapters have yet to be written, Jim, of course. And he put a very positive gloss on it in his resignation statement that appeared first today in the Wall Street Journal with Paul Gigot.

But I think he`s going to be remembered as the architect, first, of an extraordinary success, a political success on the part of the president, and then an extraordinary series of failures. And it`s the rise and fall, in effect, of the Bush presidency, which traces this relationship.

He will certainly be remembered as the most influential political strategist we`ve had in the White House for, I would say, almost 60 years. You have to go back to Clark Clifford with Harry Truman or perhaps Louis Howe with Franklin Roosevelt to find someone as influential as he has been, because he`s been at the intersection of both politics and policy. He`s had a loud voice and important voice in both.

But it`s the last couple of years with the failures in Iraq, the defeat in `06, this growing sense of scandal that`s engulfed the administration, of course, that`s going to mark his reputation. And so we`ve had this boy genius, this boy wonder who came in, and I think held Republicans in awe and dazzled Democrats, who now goes out as loathed by Democrats as a svengali figure, an evil one who manipulated politics, and Republicans as someone they still respect, still like, but some of the glow is gone.

JIM LEHRER: Some of the glow gone, Mark? How would you characterize how this man should be remembered?

MARK HALPERIN, Senior Political Analyst, Time Magazine: Well, there`s no question that some of the glow is gone. I think, on the one hand, in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections you saw Karl Rove as one of the best political operatives probably in the history of modern American politics, someone who wanted to bring conservative change and felt that it was more important to win power and try to make conservative change than it was to seek bipartisan compromise.

But I think, in the later Bush years, he saw two things that will be part of his legacy, and not the proud part. One is that he was perhaps a little tone deaf to the mood of the country and that he was too partisan, sought partisan victories and to defeat and destroy his enemies rather than to seek compromise.

And then there were basic questions of competence, not just in the 2006 election and to the extent he`s played a role in the Iraq war in communications and legislative strategy, but also things like Hurricane Katrina response, the nomination of Harriet Miers, the Dubai ports matter, all of these things I think contributed to a sense that, if Karl Rove was going to be part of political team that was partisan and tough and trying to change the country, they had to keep winning.

Once the losses began -- and he`s responsible for part of that -- the thing started to fall apart, and I think it makes what was unimaginable before, Karl Rove leaving George Bush`s White House, not only imaginable, but understandable.

JIM LEHRER: Well, let`s pick out some of these things. David, let`s go back to what Mark said. He said one of the best political operatives of his time. First of all, do you agree with that? And how would you define political operative, in Karl Rovian terms?

DAVID GERGEN: I think he had one of the best minds in modern political times, and certainly within the Republican Party. He is the equivalent of Bill Clinton and Democratic Party, having an extraordinary sense of American politics, what the openings are.

When you say best operative, that also carries the connotation of practicing a possibly very good level of politics. And I think on that score there are many, many Americans who feel, "Wait a minute, this was artist of the smear. This was a guy who played politics of destruction. This was a guy who played hardball right from the beginning." He was very much in the Lee Atwater school of American politics. And so I don`t think most people would say he was one of the best operatives; I do think he had one of the best minds.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, what would you add to that, mind or operative, mind and/or operative?

MARK HALPERIN: A little bit of both. Part of Karl Rove`s strength was he could play a very high level in policy discussions, more than your average campaign strategist, by far. He could also operate as a congressional liaison, as a strategist on major national and international issues.

At the same time, like Bill Clinton, he had the ethos of a Chicago ward boss. And when he was working on politics in 1999, in 2001, 2002, and then into the re-election campaign, he could get down to a very tactile level of voting patterns in individual counties, of whose endorsement mattered, of direct mail, which is where he got his start in the business.

So he played on lots of different levels at a very high level, and that`s, I think, his greatest strength as a political operative, as someone working on elections, which is, he knew how to do many different things very well. As David points out, a lot of his critics would say he used all of that ability to further a partisan, conservative agenda, often using negative politics. And there`s lot of truth to that, as well.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, is it correct to say and fair to say that Karl Rove was willing to do almost anything to win and that was his number-one objective?

MARK HALPERIN: Well, there`s a lot of charges that have been made against Karl Rove over the years that have not been borne out. It is clear, though, that he was as hard-nosed, as tough-nosed, was willing to push the limits of what was acceptable and sometimes perhaps to go over it as anyone I`ve covered in either party.

But what he was trying to do -- and this is where I think some of his critics hate him so much that they don`t think clearly about him -- he was trying to change the country in a conservative direction as George Bush wanted to do. He was not trying to destroy people for the sake of destroying them. He was not trying to win political victories for the accumulation of power. He believed in George Bush`s agenda and believed to achieve that agenda they had to be tough, hard-nosed, and achieve political victories, gain political capital.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that, David, he was agenda-driven more than power-driven?

DAVID GERGEN: I think he was both. I do think Mark is right; he wanted power for a purpose. And I don`t think he was unique, as sort of a hardball advocate. You know, we`ve seen in the Lyndon Johnson administration on the Democratic side, you know, people who were more than willing to go out and destroy if that`s what it took to get power. And we saw this with Franklin Roosevelt using IRS records to go out and smear people. But what I do think is that Karl played it right at the edges and sometimes in the eyes of his opponents he went way beyond the edges.

The larger point -- and I hope that part of his legacy we can leave behind -- I think the larger point of his legacy is, though, that the dream that he and George W. Bush brought to the White House, the large political enterprise was that of creating a durable Republican majority, a majority that might last 30 or 40 years, the kind that William McKinley created back in the late 19th century, when McKinley had his Mark Hanna. And it appeared for a while that Karl was the new Mark Hanna of American politics.

I think what we now see is that dream has gone smash, after some remarkable gains in 2000, 2002 in the Congress, 2004 in the Congress, something that no president has done since Franklin Roosevelt, to build his party`s strength up in two straight elections, off-year and then his re- election, Karl Rove really helped pull that off with Bush. But now the tide seems to have turned. And I think, at the end of the day, you have to say that this dream they came to the White House with has gone smash in the deserts of Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, to pick up on an earlier point of David`s, the other part of Karl Rove, which is the adviser to the president -- and, David, I`m characterizing what you said, David, but essentially he said he was the most, if not the most, one of the most influential presidential advisers in modern history in the last 60 years. Do you buy that, Mark?

MARK HALPERIN: Oh, I think without question, obviously, Jim, that`s a hard thing to measure. But based on his closeness to the president, based on the tasks he was given across a range of both policy and politics, and based on his capacity to do a lot of things and to work very hard, I don`t think there`s any question that he was as influential as anyone, certainly in modern times.

And the closeness with the president can`t be overstated. President Bush is an intimidating and demanding guy, and his friendship with Karl Rove, their mutual respect, and Karl Rove`s understanding that he was there as a proxy for George Bush to carry out his wishes I think was a great source of his influence and power.

JIM LEHRER: David, what drew them together and kept them together, Bush and Rove?

DAVID GERGEN: I think the president said it quite well. They both set out to change Texas politics. And it`s worth remembering that, when the two of them got started in Texas politics, it was a state, as you well know, that was totally dominated by Democrats. Democrats held every statewide political office. They controlled the state legislature by a nine-to-one majority. They controlled the State Senate. They basically controlled the appointments to the judiciary to a very large extent.

And the Bush-Rove team, along with others, set out to transform Texas politics. And as you know, today in Texas every state officeholder is a Republican and the state legislature is Republican. So they succeeded in that.

And their large enterprise was -- political enterprise was to do to the United States what they did to Texas, to transform the United States government. And in the beginning, it looked as if like they might get there.

But I think through a number of serious policy mistakes, as well as a number of practices, you know, trying to run over the opposition, deciding to govern, in my judgment, with a mistaken view of governance, and that was, "If we can just get to 51 percent and just ram something through, we can get our bills and we can change the way we live, America lives," and to live up to Mark`s vision or what he described as a conservative America.

And clearly that was a losing strategy, not only in Iraq, but a losing strategy for governance here at home.

JIM LEHRER: In a word, would you agree with that overall analysis, Mark, that that was the losing strategy that caused the problem?

MARK HALPERIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. The country wanted bipartisanship, and you can`t just will yourself to a conservative majority. You have to be popular and find positions that will grow that majority and strengthen it. And they made too many choices that were too partisan and too negative.

JIM LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you both very much.

DAVID GERGEN: Thank you, Jim.

MARK HALPERIN: Thank you.

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JIM LEHRER: And now to a second story of politics tonight, the rise of Mitt Romney, and to Margaret Warner.

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R), Massachusetts: The change begins here tonight in Iowa. Thanks so very much.

MARGARET WARNER: Mitt Romney`s first-place finish in Saturday`s Republican straw poll in Iowa was hardly a surprise. The millionaire businessman and former Massachusetts governor vastly outspent the rest of the field, devoting an estimated $2 million to $3 million to coming in first.

What`s more, his three most formidable rivals -- former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Senator John McCain, and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, who hasn`t officially entered the race -- all skipped the poll.

No delegates were at stake in the beauty contest, staged by the Iowa Republican Party to raise money and rally the party faithful ahead of the 2008 caucuses. The party charged attendees $35 and the candidates` thousands of dollars for prime tent and display space.

Romney`s campaign bused in thousands of voters to Ames, paid for their tickets, and fed them free barbecue in his air-conditioned tent. By day`s end, he`d won nearly 32 percent of the 14,000 votes cast.

Second and third place went to two candidates who`d tried to portray themselves, not Romney, as the true social conservatives in the race. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee placed second with 18 percent, despite spending only $150,000.

FORMER GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE (R), Arkansas: When you look at what we were able to achieve, it was because people came to Ames to vote for us.

MARGARET WARNER: In third place, with 15 percent, was Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who spent a little over $300,000 and relentlessly hammered Romney as out of touch with Iowa`s conservatives.

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), Kansas: Mitt Romney has supported taxpayer funding of abortion. Mitt Romney recently, as recent as 2005, said he continued to take and was in a pro-choice position.

MARGARET WARNER: The biggest casualty of the weekend vote was former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, who dropped out of the race entirely after placing sixth, behind Congressmen Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Ron Paul of Texas.

For more on Romney`s straw poll win and what it means or doesn`t mean for the Republican race, we turn to Dan Balz of the Washington Post. He was in Iowa over the weekend, but joins us tonight from Manchester, New Hampshire.

And, Dan, hello.

DAN BALZ, Political Reporter, Washington Post: Hello, Margaret.

MARGARET WARNER: He certainly spent an unprecedented amount to win this thing. Did he get his money`s worth? Did Romney get his money`s worth in political terms?

DAN BALZ: Well, in a practical sense, he certainly did. I mean, money is to Mitt Romney not the big issue. He`s got plenty of it to spend, and he demonstrated that in this straw poll competition.

For Romney, what was important was, a, to plant himself as the frontrunner in Iowa, to make himself the candidate to beat in the opening state of the 2008 contest. The second thing I think that was valuable for Governor Romney in this is that it vaults him, in a clear sense, into the top tier of this race.

If you look at national polls throughout this year, he trails in almost every one, in third or fourth place, depending on whether Fred Thompson is in there. His national numbers do not look particularly strong. And yet, as a result of this, I think it`s clear that he is a serious contender for the nomination, and I think he wanted to send that message from the straw poll on Saturday.

MARGARET WARNER: So why didn`t two of the frontrunners in the national polls, McCain and Giuliani, compete? Why did they skip it? And do Iowans you`ve talked to think they may pay a price when the caucuses roll around?

DAN BALZ: Well, they may well pay a price, and we`ll see. I think for John McCain, John McCain skipped Iowa entirely when he ran in 2000, putting all of his resources into New Hampshire, where he pulled off a big victory over George W. Bush. He had intended, I think, to compete energetically in Iowa, including the straw poll.

But earlier this spring, during the immigration debate, he found himself in real trouble in Iowa. His support just cratered in Iowa. He`s now in single digits in the state. He was looking, I think, for a way to avoid a real embarrassment in the straw poll.

Rudy Giuliani I think chose not to play at the straw poll for two reasons. One is he got a later start in terms of organizing Iowa. Romney and McCain were out there last year beginning to put organizations in place, and Giuliani wasn`t. He was way behind.

The second factor is that Giuliani is pro-choice, as everyone knows. Iowa`s Republican electorate is very pro-life. So he also faced an embarrassment had he tried to compete there.

But I think, for Mayor Giuliani, there was another factor. He`s looked at this new calendar that we`re all studying for 2008, and he sees great opportunities after the early states, when Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois all hold primaries either at the end of January or early February. He thinks that`s the big moment for him, so I think they wanted to save the money that it would have cost to compete in the straw poll and use it later. He fully intends, according to his campaign team, to compete in the caucuses in January.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the big surprise on Saturday was the second- place showing of Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who along with Romney and Sam Brownback were competing for the votes of social conservatives. What does his second-place showing say? And what potential impact could it have?

DAN BALZ: Well, he has performed well in almost every debate. Most of the focus, obviously, is on the top-tier candidates, and Governor Huckabee has been trying to become a top-tier candidate. For Governor Huckabee, the competition in Iowa and the absence of Giuliani and McCain and Fred Thompson gave him the opportunity to demonstrate that he has some vote-getting appeal.

And he was in a very serious competition with Sam Brownback from Kansas for the votes of religious and social conservatives. I think, as a result of his victory in the straw poll, coupled with the fact that he has moved up in polls in Iowa -- he`s still well behind Romney and Giuliani, but he has moved up there -- I think this will give him a chance to raise some money, it will raise his visibility, and it will allow him to make the argument that he is the real credible conservative candidate in this race, when most of the top-tier candidates have some question mark over their heads on that front.

MARGARET WARNER: So can the results of this, are they a barometer in any way of where the social conservatives nationwide are likely to go? Does it show, for instance, that Romney has or has not put to rest the charge that he flip-flopped on abortion?

DAN BALZ: I think that charge will stay with him well into the fall and early into next year. What you did not see in Iowa is a real, sizable attack on him. You mentioned in the piece that Senator Brownback was criticizing him. But the truth is, as we all know, he had very little resources to do that.

Some time later this fall, Governor Romney`s likely to get a more serious attack from somebody who`s a lot better funded. And I think that flip-flop issue will come back to him.

But I think they saw Iowa as an opportunity to begin to coalesce conservative voters. They would like to get that done before Fred Thompson gets into the race. They would like people to believe that they are the candidate of the conservatives.

He`ll have very serious competition for that from the likes of Governor Huckabee and potentially from Fred Thompson, but I think they saw Ames as way to begin to say, "We`re the real conservative in this race, not Mayor Giuliani."

MARGARET WARNER: Dan Balz of the Washington Post, thanks.

DAN BALZ: Thank you.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Now, an encore report about preserving ancient knowledge in a new digital library in India. NewsHour correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro has our story.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, NewsHour Correspondent: The healing art of yoga goes back thousands of years in India. But over the past three decades, it`s become a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. Yoga guru Balmukund Singh is proud of the Indian export, but when he hears that some asanas, or postures, have been copy-written by Indians who have moved to the U.S., Singh gets, well, forgive me, tied up in knots.

BALMUKUND SINGH, Yoga Guru (through translator): This is our cultural heritage. It`s ours. How can anybody else patent this? If they invent it, they can patent it. But this is originally an Indian thing. Our sages long ago developed and demonstrated it.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It`s not just yoga. In 1997, a Texas company got a patent on basmati rice, which meant that it would get a royalty payment when anyone else sold rice by that name. The Indian government filed 50,000 pages of evidence to show that basmati rice grown in India for centuries was essentially the same stuff. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office finally revoked the basmati patent in 2001.

India`s markets are filled with herbs and plants that, over the centuries, have been concocted into remedies for almost every ailment. It`s a medicine chest that Dr. V.K. Gupta says is raided all the time by companies and individuals in the West.

V.K. GUPTA, Director, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library: Every year, at least 2,000 wrong patents are getting awarded on India`s system of knowledge, like turmeric for wound healing, which should not get granted.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The turmeric refers to is a mainstay of Indian cooking, but for centuries turmeric has also been used for medicinal purposes, applied to skin rashes and wounds.

In the `90s, two Indian-American university researchers got a U.S. patent for turmeric, saying they`ve discovered its wound-healing properties. Once again, India`s government fought to have the claim invalidated.

Dr. Gupta says the problem is patent offices depend on accessible, understandable documentation to check on the validity of a claim. And that`s just what India`s government, under his leadership, aims to provide.

It`s called TKDL, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. The ambitious project began in 2002 and is transferring 5,000 years of ancient texts onto a digital database in Hindi, English and eventually French, Spanish and Japanese.

Dozens of scholars spend their day pouring over photocopies of ancient manuscripts. They`ll eventually catalog architecture, music and the arts, but the first task is formidable enough: medical knowledge. There are three main healing traditions reflecting India`s varied history and geography.

There is Unani, a system begun in ancient Greece, developed later by Arabs, and brought to India by traders and rulers. Unani texts can be in Persian, Urdu, or Arabic, all sharing the same script.

Nearby are desks for Siddha, a medical science developed in south India. These texts are in Tamil. On the other side is Ayurveda, in the ancient language of Sanskrit. Tens of thousands of drug formulations, or ingredients, are buried in verse, says Dr. Jaya Saklani Kala.

DR. JAYA SAKLANI KALA, Ayurvedic Physician: Earlier, what the teachers (inaudible) used to do was, they used to transfer the knowledge orally.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: So it was put into verse form so that the students could read them?

DR. JAYA SAKLANI KALA: Easily memorize them. Later on, it was penned down.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Some 30 million pages will eventually go from pen to hard drive. If a patent office in the West gets an application, they`ll be able to check this new library for existing knowledge, or prior art, before granting a patent.

V.K. GUPTA: Through the route of TKDL, now we are giving access to the patent offices, several patent offices we are in dialogue with -- instead of stealing, we want to have a system when both collaborate with each other.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Not everyone is that optimistic. There`s worry that putting the knowledge in one place will make it easier for those looking to steal ideas. And when there is a false patent claim, poor countries simply won`t have the means to challenge it, says Devinder Sharma, an activist on biotechnology issues.

DEVINDER SHARMA, Trade Policy Activist: Thousands of patents are being drawn every week in America on plant-based remedies and plant-based products. What happens is that, when the company draws a patent, you know, and somebody challenges it, then you have to go on building up a huge battery of, you know, not only lawyers with them, but also a whole lot of research to challenge those cases in America.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For his part, Dr. Gupta says patent offices will be better able to police false patent claims themselves by using the new library.

V.K. GUPTA: No patent examiner would ever like to grant a wrong patent. It is not in his interest.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: At the same time, he says access to the library will be strictly limited and regulated to prevent unscrupulous exploitation.

V.K. GUPTA: We will draw experts from all disciplines. Our view is for every country who is the holder of such resources must designate a national competent authority of experts and that authority must negotiate with the user of that knowledge so there is some level playing field.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Ultimately, Dr. Gupta hopes joint projects with drug and biotechnology companies can revitalize research in India`s traditional systems, which languished under British colonial rule. In time, he says, the marriage of ancient plant-based remedies, the library will catalog at least 150,000 of them with modern biotechnology, and create effective new drugs for the world and an economic bonanza for India.

Step one in all of this: The library on traditional medical knowledge, including yoga, is expected to be complete by the end of this year.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a big man of the small screen. Jeffrey Brown has our look at the works of Merv Griffin.

JEFFREY BROWN: From his days in front of the camera interviewing an array of personalities...

MERV GRIFFIN, Television Entertainer: You look terrific.

TV GUEST: I feel marvelous.

JEFFREY BROWN: ... to his production work behind the scenes as the creator of wildly profitable game shows...

ANNOUNCER: This is "Jeopardy!"

JEFFREY BROWN: ... Merv Griffin was a television entertainer and innovator whose work on the small screen still resonates today. Griffin was born near San Francisco in 1925. He began in show business as a singer and had one big hit.

MERV GRIFFIN (singing): I`ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts...

JEFFREY BROWN: He then moved on to launch and host a daytime talk show that would run in various incarnations for more than 20 years. Before Oprah, there was Merv. He interviewed some 25,000 guests over 5,500 shows. Presidential candidate Richard Nixon appeared in 1967.

MERV GRIFFIN: You have that stigma because of losing two big contests.

RICHARD NIXON, Former President of the United States: The way you combat it is to win something.

JEFFREY BROWN: On another occasion, Griffin fawned over Sophia Loren.

MERV GRIFFIN: You`re a beautiful woman.

JEFFREY BROWN: And he hosted Orson Welles in 1985 in what would be the actor and director`s last interview.

MERV GRIFFIN: You celebrated a big birthday, didn`t you?

ORSON WELLES, Director: I didn`t celebrate it. I just had it.

JEFFREY BROWN: But perhaps Griffin`s greatest success came as a businessman in the entertainment field.

ALEX TREBEK, Host, "Jeopardy!": Judy?

CONTESTANT: What are small fry?

ALEX TREBEK: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: He created "Jeopardy!" and wrote its famous theme music. Griffin estimated that the little ditty alone had earned him up to $80 million in royalties. And his "Wheel of Fortune" is now the longest continuously running game show in history, on the air since 1975.

CONTESTANT: I`m going to solve, Pat.

PAT SAJAK, Host, "Wheel of Fortune": You are? Go ahead.

JEFFREY BROWN: In 1986, Griffin ended his talk show and sold his production company to the Coca-Cola Company for $250 million. He moved into real estate, focusing his efforts on the gambling and hotel businesses.

When he died of prostate cancer yesterday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his fortune was estimated at more than $1 billion. Merv Griffin was 82 years old.

And for more on Merv, I`m joined by David Zurawik, television critic for the Baltimore Sun.

Well, David, let`s start with the more familiar side of Merv Griffin, the man in front of the camera. He was, as we said, a singer and actor, but found his real niche as talk show host. Tell us about that.

DAVID ZURAWIK, Television Critic, Baltimore Sun: Well, you know, in just his career as a performer, the first thing about it is the longevity. He started in 1946 on radio, in 1945 on radio, and he went off the air as a talk show host in 1986. So you`ve got 41 years of performing.

And I think one of the most interesting parts of that is that his biography, his life history as a performer, is a microcosm of the history of American commercial television to a large extent. When I was researching the piece, that was what struck me most about it.

He arrived at network television in 1954, and that was really the year most broadcast historians agree that network television as we knew it in the `60s, `70s and `80s started to form as a business under Bill Paley and David Sarnoff and then Leonard Goldenson.

He started small. He started Sunday mornings on CBS a religious show called "Look Up and Live." But he was quickly the singer on their weekday CBS morning show, and that led to game shows and then ultimately to the talk show.

I think, in terms of measuring his career as a talk show host, you know, when someone of this stature dies, the tendency is to overstate the case. I think what we need to do is look at the years 1969 to 1972, when CBS gave him a late-night talk show host and put him up against Johnny Carson.

A lot of the obituary appreciations today made it sound like, "Well, and then he ran up against Johnny Carson, and as we know everybody got beat by Johnny Carson, so that`s not a failure." But it was a failure, because if you really go back and look at the shows and look at those numbers, he not just finished second to Carson, he also finished behind Dick Cavett.

Johnny Carson had the entertainment program of that era. Let`s not talk politics; let`s just have fun. Dick Cavett had the culturally significant, politically charged show of the era, and even he beat Merv Griffin in the ratings.

But here`s the thing about Merv Griffin. From the earliest days, he understood the business of television like almost no one else did. And you could actually take it back to radio. When he became a singer on a San Francisco sketch song show in 1945 -- it was called "San Francisco Sketch Song Show" -- but within a couple of months, it was called "The Merv Griffin Show."

JEFFREY BROWN: But tell us briefly, I mean, the business model that he went to after competing against Carson was syndication, which also plays a big role in the history of television. Briefly, just tell us how that worked for him. How did he do that?

DAVID ZURAWIK: Well, that was the real genius -- that`s how he got rich. Syndication, as you know, if you sign with a network, the network or production company makes your shows, and it`s automatically distributed to all the affiliates. In syndication, you essentially build your own network a city or a station at a time. You sell yourself. People who do it in syndication own a big part of the show.

Now, in terms of syndication, Mike Douglas was there before him with Group W, I think in 1962. He came along, I think in 1964, and he and Mike Douglas were a powerhouse tandem for Group W, which was the Westinghouse stations on the East Coast, one of the earliest broadcasting giants.

And that`s the model that Oprah Winfrey, as you guys said in your set- up piece -- without Merv, there wasn`t Oprah -- that`s true, in the sense that`s really his accomplishment. He understood syndication before anyone really, except Mike Douglas. Let`s be fair to Douglas here.

JEFFREY BROWN: And we just a minute, David, but Merv Griffin the entrepreneur, the game shows, really, that`s the legacy that is still around. What explains the staying power of those programs?

DAVID ZURAWIK: Well, you know, he described himself as a puzzle freak, a self-described puzzle freak. And his game shows -- I mean, first of all, you have to come up with the question, not the answer. That`s pretty clever in its own right.

But he also valued words. That game show is a game show that smart people can watch and not feel embarrassed about liking. You know, most of the graduate students in America I think spend more time sometimes watching "Jeopardy!" and trying to get on "Jeopardy!" than they do with their dissertations. I`m overstating the case.

But that`s a show that intellectuals really love, and it`s a show that all of us can take genuine pleasure from and not be embarrassed about it. You know, that show started in 1964. It was off for a while, and "Wheel of Fortune," his other creation, is thus the longest running show on television, but "Jeopardy!" is really the thing. I guarantee you, historically, "Jeopardy!" is what Merv Griffin is going to be remembered for.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun, thanks very much.

DAVID ZURAWIK: Thank you.

(BREAK)

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

President Bush`s longtime adviser Karl Rove announced his resignation. He`ll leave the White House at the end of August.

The Taliban released two South Korean hostages in Afghanistan; 19 remain in captivity.

And rescuers started work on a third drill hole at a Utah coal mine, but there was still no sign six trapped miners were alive.

A reminder: You can download audio versions of our reports and listen to them on your computer, iPod or other MP3 player. To do so, just visit the Online NewsHour at PBS.org.

We`ll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.