The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

I'm Judy Woodruff. Today's news changes at the top of the U.S. military, stalled immigration reform, Brooks and Dion, cyber political campaigns and lingering tensions after the summit tonight on the New Zell. Good evening, I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the news hour tonight, the news of this Friday, then a surprise from the Pentagon to new leaders for the men and women in uniform. An update on immigration reform is it dead for now. The weekly analysis of David Brooks and EJ Dion substituting for Mark Shields, a media unit report about the presidential candidates waging campaigns online, and the tensions and the decisions after the summit of industrial leaders. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by... What does the future hold? Will you have the choices to make your world better? To live the life you dream of?

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and foundations and... This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. The Bush administration moved today to make wholesale changes at the top of the U.S. military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the announcement at the Pentagon. He said General Peter Pace will retire in September as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates is recommending Admiral Mike Mullen as his replacement. He is the current Chief of Naval Operations. Gates said that he had planned to recommend the President Renominate Pace for another term, but he changed his mind after talking to senators. I concluded that because General Pace has served as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the last six years. The focus of his confirmation process would have been on the past rather than the future

and further that there was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious. I am no stranger to contentious confirmations, and I do not shrink from them. However I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform and General Pace himself would not be well served by a divisive ordeal in selecting the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates also announced that Admiral Edmund John Bastiani is retiring as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The Secretary is recommending Marine General James Cartwright for that post. He is now head of the U.S. Strategic Command. We will have more on the story right after the news summary. The Defense Department also asked military judges today to reconsider rulings on two detainees at Guantanamo. On Monday, the judge's rule, the terror suspects, could not be prosecuted by military

tribunals. That's because they were never classified as unlawful enemy combatants. Pentagon spokesman said today it is largely a matter of semantics. The latest violence in Iraq claimed nearly 50 lives today in the North, gunman in Bacuba, killed 14 Iraqis at a police chief's house, and near Kirkuk, at least 19 Iraqis died when bombings hit a Shiite mosque. To the south, the bomb exploded on a bus in the town of Korna. The blast killed 16 people and wounded dozens more. The effort to pass a broad immigration bill crumbled in the Senate overnight. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the measure after failing to limit debate, but he insisted it was not dead. Today, supporters from both parties agreed, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the key is settling on additional amendments to consider. The burden is on the Republicans now to come up with a definable list that would be seen

as a fair process for those who want to be fair. Once that's done, the burden is on my Democratic leadership colleagues to do what they said they'd do last night and ask reschedule this bill. There's no reason this can't be done in a matter of a couple of three weeks. White House officials traveling with President Bush in Europe said he was disappointed. But a spokesman said there is still a good chance this bill could go forward. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Democratic Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana pleaded not guilty today on bribery charges. He was accused of soliciting more than $500,000 in bribes using his office to broker deals in Africa. Jefferson was arraigned at a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. Afterward, he proclaimed his innocence. All of the allegations are misleading and all of the allegations are untrue. Did I make a mistake in judgment along the way?

Yes, I did. That I deeply regret. Did I sell my office or conduct official acts for money? Absolutely not. The judge released Jefferson on $100,000 bond. Trial is scheduled for January. World leaders ended their summit in Germany today, pledging $60 billion in aid to Africa. Activists said much of the money had already been promised at a summit two years ago. They have a report from Jonathan Rodman of Independent Television News. It was supposed to be Africa's day in the sun, the G8 apparently committing over $60 billion to combat AIDS, malaria and TB. But with the world's richest, still not meeting the pledges they made at Glen Eagles two years ago, it was a day of as much shade as light. The atmosphere laced with mistrust. We'd like to keep our promises and we're going to said Chancellor Merkel from the president of Ghana, though, a warning.

Africa expects the G8 to deliver on promises and on Africa's paths we are committed to also delivering. Half the AIDS money is from America, but President Bush was missing from the ritual photo call, a stomach bug confining the commander in chief to bed and no sense of history being made today. Only player talking of immense progress, but admitting there's still a long way to go. I think the important thing is that all the things that we committed to it, Glen Eagles two years ago, have been recommitted. It shows that Africa will continue to be right at the top of the agenda and a load that was obviously on both sides, both on our side and the Africans, the desire for a lot more to be done. I think there was also recognition that being an enormous progress made. The departing Africans have no idea when the 60 billion will be delivered, and that's a projected figure, more of a target than a pledge. In the meantime, 6,000 die of AIDS in Africa every day.

Also today, the summit leaders fail to agree on granting Kosovo full independence from Serbia. And Russian President Putin offered more alternative sites for a U.S. missile shield. He suggested Turkey, Iraq, or platforms at sea instead of Europe. We'll have one on the summit later in the program. Here in the U.S., a computer failure triggered severe flight delays along the east coast today. The Federal Aviation Administration said part of the air traffic control system broke down last night. The problem was fixed this morning, but delays lingered especially in the northeast. The U.S. government announced a temporary change in passport rules today. Americans will not need passports to apply to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda through September. They will need an ID and a receipt showing they've applied for a passport. The move lets the State Department work through a backlog of applications. On Wall Street today, a three-day sell-off ended as the trade deficit and oil prices fell

and fears of higher interest rates eased. The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 157 points to close at 13,424. The Nasdaq rose 32 points to close at 25.73. But for the week, the Dow lost almost 2 percent. The Nasdaq fell one and a half percent. That's it for the news summary, tonight, now on Changing the Joint Chiefs. Immigration stalemate, Brooks and Dion candidates working the web. In the end of a stormy summit. The Pentagon reshuffle. We hear from two reporters who cover military affairs in the Pentagon, Josh White of the Washington Post, and Mark Thompson of Time Magazine. Mark Thompson, do you first, what's going on? Well, basically, the, Judy, the taint of the war has become pervasive. And over the past year, we've seen all the top war leaders in the military and the civilians

at the Pentagon depart the scene. Basically, Secretary Gates said, listen, the trouble this guy would run into general pace if we re-nominated him to be chairman on Capitol Hill, basically wouldn't be worth it. So basically, they're cutting their losses and trying to start with a fresh slate. Josh White, it did sound as if the Secretary Gates was trying to put the blame, if you will, or the onus of this decision on Capitol Hill, the senators who would have been voting, debating, is that where the onus really lies? Well, at this point, what he said is he went to Congress. He went to some senior leaders, especially with the Armed Services Committee, and asked how this would go. How would a confirmation hearing go forward with Chairman Pace having to answer some very difficult questions? And they warned him very frankly that it would not go well, that it would be ugly. That's the kind of issue that the Pentagon really doesn't want to have to deal with at this point a dissection of the last several years of the war. They've been going through this over the last several months.

I think it's a recognition that the past is something that Secretary Gates wants to put behind him, that he wants to move away from the Rumsfeld Pentagon, from the Rumsfeld war policies, and look forward to finding a solution. But Mark Thompson, isn't the administration going to face questions on the Hill no matter who is being nominated? Well, sure, but when you've got, for example, you know, the new chairman is going to be a Navy guy. The Navy was its own cabinet level agency until 1947. They tend to be more free thinkers. The new head of central command, Admiral Fallon, is a Navy Admiral. So I think you don't have the boots on the ground guys, but now you've got some fresh slinkers who are able to come in and say, I'm not encumbered by the past decisions we made on this war. I can make new decisions and come September when General Petraeus reports, I think that's exactly what they're going to have to do. What's the reaction you're hearing, Josh White, inside the Pentagon? What do they say? Well, there was a bit of surprise, I think, initially, because this did come a bit out of the blue. There had been some calls on Capitol Hill for replacement of top leaders, but Secretary Gates had intended to move forward both with General Pace and with Admiral Jim Bastiani,

the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. However, there was a recognition that, yes, this would have been a very, very difficult thing to deal with on the Hill, and that even though Pace is very well regarded, that his reputation is largely that he was agreeing with Donald Rumsfeld, that he was there, somewhat as a yes-man, and that moving forward, this gives Secretary Gates the opportunity to bring people in a new face, a new direction, like he's done with a number of other areas within the Pentagon. Mark, you've been talking to people to Pentagon as well, what were you hearing? Well, basically, some people in the Pentagon argue that General Pace was basically a tool. He was carrying out the civilian's policy, and it's really not fair to punish him, conversely, other people in the military. I mean, the policy of the president, the war policy, the conduct of the war. But other people who are more opposed to the war basically said that General Pace and people like him made hope a policy in this war, and they thought it would go a lot better than it did.

And they're upset that General Pace didn't speak out more loudly to try to fight the war in a different way, and they figure that he's getting what he deserves. Josh White did. Do we read this as a decision mainly by Secretary Gates himself to what extent is President Bush behind this? Well, that's unclear at this point, though Secretary Gates has shown up to this point that he's willing to make these types of decisions quickly and on his own. If you remember back when the Walter Reed story was breaking, he was willing to take out the top Army leadership in a very short order when he felt that things weren't going the way that they should be. I think this was a very difficult decision for him. I'm sure it was in consultation with others, people at the White House. But I think Secretary Gates has shown himself as decisive and willing to make these types of decisions when they need to be made. This is well enough in advance of any hearings that might take place. It allows Congress to both learn more about Admiral Mullen, but also to essentially avoid having to deal with preparing for a pace hearing. You get the sense, Mark, that this was a Gates decision?

Yeah, I mean, he went to the White House about two weeks ago and basically told the president and Steve Hadley that this is really going to be tough and is this what we want to do. And fundamentally, the decision was taken that maybe this wouldn't be a smart fight to have right now. Do we look Mark for a change in policy? Let me put it this way. Do we expect policy to change in a way because of these two new leaders coming in? I think basically what it means is it's no longer an uphill fight when Admiral Fallon or Admiral Mullen goes to Capitol Hill, they won't have in their rucksack, you know, four years of decisions that a lot of people on Capitol Hill felt were ill-advised. Instead they'll come in with a fresh set of eyes and I think Congress will cut them some slack that General Pace wouldn't have had. Do you think, the same question, Josh White, I mean, what does this say, what could it say about administration policy toward Iraq? Well, some of the experts that I've been talking to today say it's not going to be a major change in policy, it's just a new face on the policy as it is.

But there's been a willingness certainly on the part of Secretary Gates and within the White House to re-look at how things are going, obviously they've not been going well. There's been a desire to take a new direction, bringing in the new wars are into the White House to look at these types of issues is one of those types of steps, certainly having someone in there who is not going to have to face the scrutiny of what went wrong is very important, having someone in there who can instead look entirely forward I think is exactly what the message that Secretary Gates is sending. How different a look do you get the sense that Secretary Gates is prepared to have? Well, I think everything now we've all been talking for weeks if not months about how important September is going to be. And I think Secretary Gates likes the idea that the people accepting the reports from General Petraeus will be a fresh set of eyes, a fresh team. They won't be encumbered by the past, and consequently if they think General Petraeus comes in with an argument that makes sense, they will be able to embrace it and perhaps sell it on Capitol Hill in a way that general pace could not.

One last thing, putting somebody from the Navy in charge at a time where we've got two ground wars going on, significance of that, Josh White. Well, it's actually quite significant. The Army has lost a number of key posts around the world that the U.S. combatant commands and within the top military leadership. This is coming off of the first Marine Corps general to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Now Navy admiral, I think looking at this, it's a message that things on the ground are not going very well, they want someone from the outside to evaluate the policies and look at how things are going on the ground to see if things can change for the better. You had anything? You mentioned a minute ago, fresh eyes. Well, not only that, but I mean when this war began, Navy admirals, among all the senior leaders at the Pentagon were the most dubious about the way this war was going to be conducted. And I think the sense that now we have Navy guys in charge of prosecuting the tail end of this war sort of validates their skepticism that they had at the very front end. It's interesting because to some it would seem counterintuitive.

All right. Mark Thompson, Josh White, thank you both. We appreciate it. Thank you. Well, now the analysis of Brooks, Indiana, New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist E.J.D.M. Mark Shields is off tonight. Gentlemen, just picking up on what we were just talking about this shuffle at the Pentagon. David, what does it look like to you? It bothers me a little. I understand wanting to get a new fresh set of eyes and that sort of thing. I don't understand ending somebody's career because it might make for politically inconvenient hearings, a bad television show. If Peter Pace is a competent general, and I have no opinion on that, but if Bill Gates thinks he advocates things he is a competent general, I think he should defend him. And if he's a tough competent general, he should be able to take some tough questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee. I mean, there's something odd about that there are men, women, and rock dodging bullets, and the general in charge of the war can't dodge a few questions. There's something weird about all this. And you know, and I think David's comments suggest that the reason they gave is not the real reason why he's gone.

I think what this really means as both Mark and Josh suggested is this is going to be the Gates Pentagon. Bill Pace was seen as someone who was either close to Rumsfeld or willing to do what Rumsfeld wanted. I was talking to somebody on the Hill today who said that he seemed more willing to go along with Rumsfeld than the alternative who was up for consideration at the time. And so what I really think this is Gates taking over, I think that'll be pretty popular on the Hill because so far the notion of shaking up that place is very popular on the Hill. Does this suggest there's more room for a change in policy toward a rock? Among the administration, yes, I think there is. I think the administration is thinking long-term, they're thinking beyond the surge. They're trying to create a sustainable policy that will really bind the next president. And that involves probably moving some troops out of Baghdad, trying to fight al-Qaeda, do some other things, making sure nobody tackles the Iraqi regime. But I do think there is flexibility now because they really want to make sure that some Iraq policy is sustained by the next president.

And in terms of the hearings, E.J. and the fall, when the two new chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the vice chairman, come forward, that will change the tone of those hearings. Well, Tim's the tone of the hearings, but he's going to be a Donnie Burke in the fall. I mean, when the Senate passed the Iraq funding bill, Speaker Pelosi said, see you in September. And we're waiting for a number of things to happen in September. Pelosi told her anti-war Democrats, look, this is coming up again. We're going to vote on this again. Mitch McConnell has said the Republican leader in the Senate that we're going to wait to see what happens. And his suggested that he and other Republicans are looking for change in policy. So they are going to have whatever they're going to be selling in September. They're going to have a very large selling job to do because there's still a lot of skepticism in the Democratic Party growing skepticism among congressional Republicans. And in the White House, they're not trying to head that off at the pass. They don't want to get to September. They want to have some policy that at least Mitch McConnell and the Republicans can buy into that will be sustainable because they know that if it comes to September, we get a

mixture report from Petraeus, then that really is a disaster. There are a lot of Republicans who do not think it's worth destroying the Republican Party over Iraq. Any sense of what that policy is? Well, I do, as I say, I think it's a bit of an anti-surge if you want to put it that way. I do think it's pulling some troops out of Baghdad, hopefully putting Iraqi troops in there if they're capable, but something that will reduce American casualties. All right, I'm going to ask both David and EJ to sit right here because we want to talk to you some more about what is going to be the end of any hope for immigration reform in a few other issues. But we're going to do that right after this report for NewsHour Congressional Correspondent Kwame Holman. We are not giving up. We are not giving in. Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy stayed positive this morning, arguing last night's collapse of the immigration bill was only a temporary setback. And Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Spector criticized some in his own party for preventing the Senate from moving toward a final vote on the bill. Yesterday afternoon, we sat around for hours, about six hours, when the dissenters would not allow anybody to offer amendments.

One of those Republicans was Jim Demento of South Carolina. I feel compelled to object to this process because our side has not been able to bring up the amendments that we want. Demento was among a handful of conservatives who said more time was needed to amend the bill. Even though the measure included elements embraced by many conservatives, including tighter border security, it also would give those now here illegally a path to eventual citizenship, a concept conservatives called amnesty. But several liberal Democrats also were unhappy, arguing that recent changes to the bill would do more harm than good. New Jersey's Robert Menendez. This bill has become more punitive. It has become more onerous. It has become more impossible to achieve comprehensive immigration reform with every passing amendment. Mississippi Republican Trent Lott implored colleagues from both parties to put their differences aside.

This is the United States Senate, the great deliberative body. Are we going to belive that description? Are we going to step up to this challenge and try to get it done right? Party leaders tried to craft an agreement that would allow a final vote but failed. However, majority leader Harry Reid refused to say the bill was dead. We're going to take the bill off the Senate floor. Today, the bill's lead negotiators said they would come up with a list of must-do amendments based on consultation with both parties and urge majority leader Reid to bring back the bill within the next few weeks. Right now with Brooks and Dion, E.J. What happened? Well, this was a great compromise that was also ugly and that was part of the reason why it was a great compromise. There were things in here that liberals were very upset about the whole guest worker program for some of them shifting completely away or largely away from family reunification as a reason for immigration. For a lot of conservatives, they just don't like the core idea, which is we're going to legalize 12 million people and they who are in the country now illegally and they say that's amnesty.

This was always a shaky thing that was either going to pass with 65 or 70 votes or all these forces who were critical were going to end up coming together to kill it. But I don't think it's dead yet. I think what Senator Graham said is right. I think there is still a great desire in the majority. I think there is a majority of votes for some kind of immigration bill. How they fix this? Why I think it's very difficult because the concessions you make to appease one side are just going to make the other side more upset. If there's a majority for what, why did this turn out the way it did? Well the first thing is that you have a really angry minority and the emails you know I would talk to the senators and they'd say our email is run in 1500 to 30. I mean they were getting hammered and the people who were for it were ambivalent about it and they weren't emailing in, they weren't heard, they weren't at the town meetings, so there was some invisibility and then to be fair and this pains me to say, but even among the supporters, even among a lot of Democrats out in the country, the polling is very ambivalent.

There are a lot of people, when they saw the bill didn't like it, there was not an upsurge of popular support for the thing. So we got a fuzzy supporting group, an angry negative group, a very complicated bill. It is a recipe for failure. Right now I was going to say about President Bush, two years ago President Bush called a Republican A, you'd know they'd take the call and B, they would give him some heed. Right now this is a freebie for a lot of Republicans because by being against this they can satisfy this angry base that David described very accurately and they can say I'm independent of the president. So at a moment when the president really needs to fight very hard for votes, he is much less powerful in getting those votes, and he's making his base very angry. A Republican I talked to today said, you know, the only people who are still with him are conservative Republicans, he's attacking them, does he want to go down this single business? It is worth noting though, among conservatives in a talk radio land, this is such a powerful issue, even if Bush were at 80% approval, they would still oppose him on this. This is a conviction matter for a large section of the country, not a majority but a

large section. We are told today the president is making calls from Air Force One over in Europe, he's calling senators, he's going to go to have lunch with Republican senators, he's at the first time that's happened in a few years. Could that make a difference? Is it involved? You're saying it doesn't matter what he does, is that what you're saying? Well, hey I think David's right for a group of Republicans and it's not all conservatives, a very particular part of the conservative movement, they'll never move on this issue at all, but I just don't think the president has the same persuasive power, a lot of Republicans are mad at him, that he didn't play a really nicely with the hell for a long time and so he doesn't have anything to fall back on. And by the way, it's not as if Democrats are well, how about this thing, either Byron Dorgan was a leader in killing it in the polls, a lot of Democrats oppose it because they think it'll lower wages. Let's talk about another decision that may be facing the president, Scooter Libby, the vice president, Cheney's former chief of staff in sentence this week, two and a half years in prison, a lot of discussion about the sentence. David, what does it represent and what do you think the president may or may not do?

My instinct is the president will not pardon him, he's getting a ton of pressure from Republicans and people like Fred Thompson think this is an outrage. And the argument was this is a political out of control prosecutor, a theme we've heard over and over again in the last 20 years. There was no underlying crime, Fitzgerald knew who the leaker was, Richard Armitage in the first day, he went on this long trek and Scooter Libby did commit a crime, but two and a half years is way out of proportion and so he's getting a ton of pressure. But again, this goes back to the president's weakness. My instinct is he probably will not pardon him. Do nothing. Let him serve the term. It's appealing. We know. Right, and that will go on. That would just be my instinct and the White House has not sent out any signals either way. I think the White House is praying that the judge lets Libby stay out of jail while he's appealing, but it doesn't look like the judge is going to do that. Any signal that he probably would send him to jail, my hug is the president will pardon him. Partly because the only people he's got left, and particularly the only people who are

enthusiastic about his Iraq policy, are those who are pushing him hardest to pardon Scooter Libby. But it will be an enormous problem because you had a Republican party that talked all during the Clinton years about the importance of the rule of law, the importance of perjury and obstruction of justice, suddenly saying, well, in this case, it doesn't count for whatever reasons, and the out of control prosecutor and the like. And it's a really hard thing to do also because you're talking about a judge here who was appointed by President Bush himself, who is typically does hand out very hard sentences, sentences that a lot of conservatives like in most cases, they just don't happen to like in Scooter Libby's case. So we've got a real disagreement here about what may happen, we'll be watching. What the Democratic and the Republican presidential candidates have debated over the last week is the shape of either race changed as a result of this? No, but it's solidified. I think the big three, in each case, are the big three for a reason. I think in McCain, Romney and Giuliani did very well in big three, Obama, Clinton, and

Edwards did very well. So they're there there for a reason. Some of the people we thought would climb up, Bill Richardson, not climbing up. And so that's solidified, I would say of the two, the two who did the best, Senator Clinton did very well by embracing the whole party by seeming like the leader of the party, John McCain did very well by being his authentic self. Do you remember this campaign is insane. They're sleeping four hours a night. They're going full board, they're going to be doing it for another eight months. You better have a solid core if you're going to survive this. I happen to think Clinton and McCain, among others, showed they do have that solid core. Yeah, I agree with a lot of that, although I feel Joe Biden had an extraordinary moment. He's got to set himself on fire for anybody to pay attention. And so I thought he did have a good debate. I think it's very striking that both Giuliani and Clinton have held on to these leads. And to be honest, I didn't expect them to stay this strong all during those six months. Why not? Partly because of ideological issues that Giuliani is a pro-choice out of abortion, which

is not popular among Republicans. Clinton was dealing with that vote in favor of the war that she won't directly apologize for, turns out a lot of Republicans and a lot of Democrats aren't as dogmatic as people thought. Number one, number two, Clinton has run a very solid campaign and has really made experience in preparation an issue that sticks in Democrats heads. On the other hand, I think in the debate Obama was much better in the second debate. In the first debate, and he showed something very important, people wondered, can Obama throw a punch? If he were really tough when it Edwards, when Edwards was going after his leadership on Iraq, Obama said back, well, you were missing in leadership for four and a half years knowing that Edwards had supported the war. So I think he showed something important. Final quick question, Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, today indicted on bribery very quickly. How much damage does this do in the Democrats? In itself, not that much, but the countries in such a bad mood, the Democratic Congress is approval rating are down to where the Republican Congress is where people are very

prone to think ill of both parties in Washington right now, and this shirt doesn't help. Jefferson is about as welcome in the House Democratic caucus as Tom DeHair, Dick Chady right now, and they would love him to resign because they don't want to have to deal with a corruption issue when corruption was such an important issue to them when they won the Congress. We are going to leave it there. We're delighted to have both of you here, E.J., David. Have a good weekend. Thank you. Now, how presidential candidates are using the web to reach voters? Jeffrey Brown has this campaign 08 media unit story. Many months before the first presidential primary candidates are doing what they've long done. They're pressing the flesh, working the phones, making the rounds of TV talk shows. But more and more, the campaign is being waged in cyberspace as candidates incorporate

technology to gain advantage and try to learn from recent elections. These days, the campaign means live video of events online, opportunities to join up and talk back in social networking sites, podcasts of speeches, cell phone updates of the latest developments, and more. Hi. I've got great news. We're already more than halfway to our goal. To one degree or another, every candidate is embracing technology. One, Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, let us watch his effort recently at his Boston headquarters. With this event called sign up for America, Romney celebrated progress towards acquiring over 30,000 new supporters in 24 hours. You can. Volunteer. We'll make a contribution. 60% of those by the Internet. This is a political rally.

This is a 21st century political rally. See, in the past when they had political rallies, they came together on the town green, and, you know, you got as big a crowd as you could get. And we decided to take it into the 21st century, and instead of just having it in a town, we'd have it in the entire country. Candidates have signed up online specialists, a new and mostly quite young breed of political operative. 464 is what we're looking at right now. Steven Smith, 25, is Romney's director of online communications. We don't want to do something online just because it builds buzz, and the buzz is nice, but we're doing things online, and for the same reason that we do things offline. We have to raise money to spread the governor's message and to ultimately mobilize votes in the early primary states and then across America. So far, Romney and other Republicans trail the leading Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, in the online battle, measured by website visits, funds raised, and presence on social networking sites like MySpace. But the Romney campaign clearly sees the Internet as an important tool to help introduce

its candidate, who's less known nationally than some others in the race. To that end, the site features a five-brothers blog written primarily by Romney's five sons. The candidate's wife and Romney also posts personal impressions. Romney's page on MySpace, the popular Internet site where people create their own profiles, has a slideshow of the campaign. Romney has more than 20,000 friends on MySpace, and was also the first Republican candidate to be on Facebook, which is frequented by millions of young people. On YouTube, where users share their own videos and watch others, the governor's team has posted 140 videos, which have been viewed some 900,000 times, more than 70 users have responded with their own videos so far. Mindy, how are we doing? We're doing great. We got call centers and 21 states across the nation. See Finn, Romney's director of E-Strategy, is 26, and already a veteran of the 2004 Bush campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the Santoram for Senate campaign.

We connect people who have like-minded attributes. It allows you to put people together who may not have joined together otherwise because they wouldn't know that they had similar interests. I call it a hypermedia campaign, where multiple mediums are really working together to project the message and certainly, you want to engage with all of them. One medium is television, of course, but in this case, television online. For mid-TV, a campaign camera crew shadows the candidate gathering footage. The candidate's youngest son, Tegg, serves as host. All right, Tegg, whenever you're ready. So, Dad, how are your calls going for Senate America? It's important to remind people that it's the ground team we're building today. The Air Wars, that comes later, it's the ground team we need. After a few tweaks. We ask one of those questions, so then you send the emails that recently? The digital tape has hustled down the hall here to the edit room. There's a spot right about there. Who are in three minutes an excerpt of the father's son exchange is inserted into a video package and posted online.

It's important to remind people that it's the ground team we're building today. But there. Still, Michael Cornfield, a professor at George Washington University and Politico.com analyst, says that for all its potential, the internet is still a junior partner on most campaigns. All the presidential campaigns in the first quarter of 2007, they spent about 2.5 million dollars on internet services, internet staffs, internet technologies. 2.5 million spread among double digit number of candidates is not a lot of money. They're getting incredible returns for their 2.5 million. They pulled in about $25 to $30 million online through fundraising, which is a 10 times return, which is pretty darn good. And why do you think it is still as small as it is? Because it's complicated and it's new. The internet is not just one medium, it's a platform, all the other media run through. So you can use the internet as a telephone, a television, a printing press, a movie studio.

And because there are so many different aspects to it, it takes a while to learn how to use each of the aspects and then integrate them and come up with rules of thumb. It's hard. What's also hard on the internet is controlling the message, as seen in 2006, when Virginia Senator George Allen's Makaka Gaff flew around the web. When Jib Webb defeated George Allen in Virginia, everybody in the political community stood up and noticed, because that was the first time the internet politicking had knocked someone out. The Romney campaign monitors how its effort is being played online as well as over the airwaves. Here in the war room, the young staffers and volunteers check out the latest polls and watch for anything that might hurt their candidate. When a 13-year-old video of Romney defending a woman's right to an abortion appeared on YouTube, I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. The candidate quickly tried to clarify his current position in the same medium.

His campaign posted a tape of Romney declaring that he's evolved into a social conservative. Of course, I was wrong on some issues back then. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I think most of us learn with the experience I know I certainly have. And people didn't work a lot to sit with that information without saying a proactive positive message on the other side. Another control problem on the internet is that video can be altered or remixed as when a supporter of Barack Obama re-edited a famous ad, casting Hillary Clinton as Big Brother. As they try new approaches, campaigns are also wary of not losing sight of the end goal. In 2004, Howard Dean generated a great deal of online interest, but that didn't translate to enough votes. What they have to remind themselves is that there will be many virtual primaries on the internet this year.

There will be another move on primary. There will be a MySpace primary and a YouTube primary and a Facebook primary and all sorts of metaphorical primaries, but none of them delivers delegates. For now, Romney's E-operatives are confident they can do just that of all of the technological efforts we have is to take the casually interested or the supporter and build them into someone who's really a believer in gun Romney and turn a evangelist for the effort. No one doubts that the cyberspace campaign will grow in this in future elections, but the precise mix of strategies on and offline is still being developed day by day. Race Juarez has our coverage of the leading nation summit that ended today. A fleeting, friendly moment marked the farewell to the most contentious meeting of the group

of eight industrial nations in the 22 years of these get-togethers. Summit ended today after three days of blunt talk, seeing stalemate and some wary agreement. Beyond the reaffirmed commitment to aid for Africa, $60 billion to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria there, the G8 leaders left other issues on resolve. There was notable conflict on another big issue on this final day, the U.S., European Union and United Nations plan to grant what is called supervised independence to Kosovo, a province of the former Yugoslavia. Russia continued to support Serbia, its longtime ally, Serbia considers Kosovo an essential part of its heritage and opposes any independence with the province and its ethnic Albanian majority. President Vladimir Putin rejected the independence proposal, saying Western countries should not humiliate or impose their will on Serbia. A 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbia stopped a brutal bout of ethnic cleansing

in the province, but since then, the United Nations peacekeeping force has maintained a fragile calm. On climate change, the Europeans and U.S. smoothed over their public differences by agreeing to a non-binding pledge to seriously consider cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2050. Despite criticism from environmental groups that the Europeans had backed down, German Chancellor and hosted the meeting, Angela Merkel, sounded an optimistic note. Now the path is open for everyone to say that we need these binding targets. On Darfur, the group of aid appealed to the Sudanese government to open a corridor of humanitarian assistance into the war-torn region. The Bush expressed open frustration on the lack of progress in stopping the killing. I'm frustrated that the international organizations can't move quickly enough. I don't know how long it's going to take for people to hear the call to save lives.

Away from the group meetings, President Bush and Russian President Putin seemed to tamp down some earlier rhetoric over missile defense and democracy that brought reminders of the Cold War to the G8 summit. What a meeting yesterday, Putin countered an American plan to install missiles and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic with his own plan to use an old missile base in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. President Bush, who has insisted the missile defense system is aimed at rogue states and not at Russia, called the Putin idea interesting. Putin went further today, suggesting the U.S. might explore Turkey, or even Iraq, as possible locations for the missile bases. Two views now, one American, one European, on the summit. Charles Cuppchin is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University. Reginald Dale is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

He's a former correspondent and columnist for the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. Charles Cuppchin now that it's over and won for the books, a successful meeting this G8? Well, I'd probably give it a B if the question is, were they well-behaved? Was there a bus stop? And the answer is no, and that was not for ordained, and that there were a lot of contentious issues coming into this summit, as you said. And there was no fist to cuff, no one really aired these major grievances. But if you asked the question, what did they actually accomplish? I would give them somewhere well below a C, not necessarily a failing grade, but they really didn't bring much home when it comes to Kosovo, Iran, aid to Africa was basically a restatement of what they did at the Glenn Eagle Summit a couple of years ago. On climate change, big gap remains between the U.S. and the EU. On Kosovo, essentially kicked the can down the road, Darfur, no progress. So it really wasn't a summit that advanced in any significant way the major issues

on the table. You know, Dale, from what Professor Cupchins said, it was hardly worth going. Well, now I'd give it a much higher grade than he does. I think you have to remember, first of all, what these summits are. They're not decision-making forums. They're places for the leaders to get together and decide on an approach, which will then be followed through later by their ministers and advisors and civil sons. And I think that on the two major issues that we had in front of the summit here, climate change and the relations between the United States and Russia, you could say that in that sense they achieved pretty good success. The agreement on climate change was a big diplomatic but victory for the United States. There's no doubt about that. We've now put the future orientation of the discussions on climate change. And I think, on a much more sensible track, the Europeans have more or less conceded that the rigid targets of rigid enforced mandatory targets of Kyoto are going to be a thing of

the past. And Bush was talking, he used the word post Kyoto twice in one sentence at the end of the talk. But let me follow up on that in particular. And you get the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world together for one meeting. And what you come up with at the end is a promise to seriously consider, that's the word from the joint communique, seriously consider reductions by 2050. Is that really a victory even for the United States? Yes, it is. Because what they were seriously considering, if I could finish that sentence, was mandatory targets, which is what the Europeans wanted. What has emerged from the meeting is a much more flexible system in which every country will be allowed to act in the way most appropriate to its own circumstances, its own economy. And that's the way in which you get China and India and all these other countries into

the negotiations. If you stick with that, this rigid European approach, which even the Europeans are beginning to see it doesn't work. It hasn't worked in Kyoto, they've missed their targets, and it's been a mess. And now we are having a going to have a situation where each country can do what's appropriate, where it has been accepted by the Europeans that economic growth is essential. That's been a big American point, is the Europeans have accepted that technology plays a big part in the solution to this problem. I think that it's been a big move in the American direction and a good one. Professor Kupchin on climate change, was that a move in the right direction? Well I think the progress that was made was limited, and it falls well short of what's needed to really deal with this problem. I mean, I would agree with Reginald at the two sides at the Atlantic or somewhat closer together, and that shift really occurred last week when President Bush, number one, said

we've got a problem here, and the scientific evidence makes that clear number two. We need a multilateral approach to this that includes Russia, it needs to include China, it needs to include India, in other words countries that are more developmental phase. But he said we're not going to abide by a timetable or a specific mandatory targets. And then we can have an argument about whether such targets are a good thing or not. In my view, and in the view of I think many environmental analysts, you need such targets and such timetables, because otherwise countries fall off the wagon, as it were. And in the case of Kyoto, there are specific targets in the EU, they set up a carbon trading system to try to get the emitters to bring down their levels, and they did so by setting a price for not emitting carbon and then trading those units of not carbon, if you will. And even then, as Reginald said, yes, countries are not keeping up to their commitments.

So if the US position is the one that prevailed, then I think it may be a victory for the Bush administration, but it certainly isn't a step forward on the question of trying to limit greenhouse gases and fight global warming. Reginald Dale, let's take a look at missile defense. Yes. It began with Russia and the United States lobbing verbal salvos at each other, at least at the end they're talking about other alternatives, progress there? Yes, I would say there is. It's too early to say what will happen in the future, but what the conference achieved was putting the United States and Russia back on speaking terms, they agreed to study this whole question in missile defense together. The Americans talked about a strategic dialogue, so we've got the Russians into the dialogue on missile defense.

Now, this could either, there's a good and a bad interpretation of this. The bad one is that the Russians are just trying to spin it out there, they're the world's best chess players, as you know, and they've just made a move, moved a piece to Azerbaijan by offering a rate of facility there. This may just be a delaying tactic to spin it out and to further divide the Europeans. The good interpretation would be that they are now on board with the idea of missile defense and are prepared to discuss it seriously, because obviously there are big differences. The Americans are not going to give up the plan to put them in Poland and a Czech Republic. The missiles in Poland and the radar and the Czech Republic. That's a question, what did you make of the result on missile defense? I basically agree with that view, and it's good news in the sense that Russia, instead of fighting the system, is now trying to somehow engage us, and that may lead to a situation in which there is a convergence of views on it, but it's simply too soon to tell because

there are a lot of unknowns about the Russian proposal. That is the capability of the radar in Azerbaijan. What is the the geographic implications of using Azerbaijan? It may in fact be too close, and that's because the system that we're talking about is focused on what's called mid-course intercept rather than boost phase, so being really close to Iran is not necessarily a good thing. Is Putin saying that we don't want to have any systems in the Czech Republic in Poland today? We mentioned, well, maybe we should use Turkey, Iraq, ships, as a way to launch the interceptors. There's a lot that's unknown here, but I do think it is a step in the right direction because instead of having Russia and the US on opposite and opposing sides of this issue, at least we've got them both floating ideas trying to find some common ground, and that's a good beginning, especially given the blustery rhetoric of Putin over the last few years, and unfortunately it doesn't seem to have carried over to Kosovo, where we do have a resolution

pending in the UN Security Council, and at least as far as we can tell, Putin intends to exercise a veto on the independence of this province from Serbia. Reginald Dale, let's close with Kosovo. Does the scene now shift from high-legendum in Germany to Kenny Bunkport Main and indeed to the UN? Well, I don't know that they're going to talk about Kosovo and Kenny Bunkport. It shifts the UN in the sense that if Russia vetoes this plan in the UN for limited independence for Kosovo, Kosovo is quite likely to declare independence by itself, which would create quite a big crisis. I think the important thing to remember here is that Russia is trying step by step to rebuild the position it had in the Cold War, and that is a position in which it is the main interlocutor for the United States, over the heads of the Europeans. And Putin seems to be working in that direction. He has talks on the missiles, US Russian, talks on Kosovo, US Russian, and he wants to show

that these are the two big powers, and he's back at the top table. General jail, Charles Cupchin, gentlemen, thank you both, thank you. Again the other major developments of the day. It was announced that Marine General Peter Pace will not be re-nominated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen is a choice to replace him. And Senate supporters of the immigration bill vowed to try again efforts to pass it crumbled last night. Washington Week can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a good weekend. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by.

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