The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: I`m Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is on vacation.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Friday; then, a look at the mixed messages of today`s economic numbers about jobs and wages; a Choices `06 report from Tennessee about the neck-and-neck Senate race there; the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; a NewsHour report about Hollywood and the military working together on movies and television programs; and essayist Anne Taylor Fleming on setting an example of forgiveness.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Thousands of Iraqi police officers have been wounded or killed in the past two years; that word came today from the U.S. commander in charge of police training, Major General Joseph Peterson. He put the number of dead at nearly 4,000, with more than 8,000 injured. He also said militia members had infiltrated the force, but he couldn`t tell how many.

MAJ. GEN. JOSEPH PETERSON, U.S. Army: It`s hard to really ascertain how many individuals within a national police forces or any of the other ministry organizations are still maintaining loyalties to militias. Certainly, if we asked the question -- and they won`t respond, that they are associated with any militias. So it`s something, again, that we continually are looking for.

RAY SUAREZ: Late yesterday, the U.S. military announced two soldiers died from combat wounds suffered Wednesday in Iraq; that brings the American death toll for the week so far to 23.

Since the war began, more than 2,730 U.S. servicemembers have been killed.

A Navy corpsman testified at his court martial in California today that he watched U.S. Marines kill an Iraqi civilian. Under a plea deal, Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy in exchange for his testimony.

Bacos and seven Marines are accused of shooting a 52-year-old man to death in Hamdaniya last April. Bacos testified he saw two of the Marines fire at least 10 rounds into the man. The sailor was the first to go to a court martial.

Secretary of State Rice was in northern Iraq today for meetings on the country`s oil supply. She met with Kurdish leaders, including the region`s president, Massoud Barzani. Rice discussed how oil revenues could be controlled and more evenly distributed across the country. Iraq`s oil reserves are concentrated in the heavily Shia south and the Kurdish north.

Later, Rice traveled to London for a meeting on Iran`s nuclear program. Foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany gathered there. They expressed deep disappointment at Iran`s failure to suspend uranium enrichment.

There were no decisions on imposing sanctions since Rice`s arrival was delayed, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not rule out that possibility. Instead, he appealed for more diplomatic action first.

The Security Council urged North Korea today to cancel its planned nuclear test. On Tuesday, North Korea declared its plans for a test, but set no specific date. In a statement, the council said such an action would "jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond."

In New York, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton delivered a warning to North Korea.

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: The main point is that North Korea should understand how strongly the United States and many other council members feel, that they should not test this nuclear device, and that if they do test it, it will be a very different world the day after the test.

RAY SUAREZ: The Security Council also pressed North Korea to immediately return to six-nation talks on giving up its nuclear weapons program.

A massive fire at a chemical storage plant in North Carolina prompted the evacuation of at least 17,000 people today. The fire broke out overnight in Apex, on the outskirts of Raleigh. It weakened as the materials burned off and rain dampened the blaze, but officials warned residents not to return to their homes until the area is cleared. More than 40 people went to emergency rooms with breathing problems.

There was another call for House Speaker Dennis Hastert`s resignation today over his handling of the page scandal. The Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey, Tom Kean, Jr., called for an independent investigation. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist gave his support to Hastert in a statement released last night.

Yesterday, Hastert disputed claims his office ignored warnings about Congressman Mark Foley and teenage male pages. Foley resigned last Friday. We`ll have more on this story later with Mark Shields and David Brooks.

The Congressional Budget Office today projected a drop in this year`s federal deficit to $250 billion. That`s down $10 billion from an August prediction and down nearly $50 billion from a July White House estimate. The CBO said the improved numbers were a result of better-than-expected tax receipts, especially from corporate profits.

The growth of new jobs slowed last month. The Labor Department reported today employers added 51,000 positions nationwide in September. That was the smallest increase in almost a year. Still, the overall unemployment rate dipped a .1 of a point, to 4.6 percent. We`ll have more on the economy right after this news summary.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 16 points to close at 11,850. The Nasdaq fell six points to close just below 2,300. And for the week, the Dow gained nearly 1.5 percent. The Nasdaq rose 1.8 percent.

That`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: the mixed picture on the jobs market; the Tennessee tossup; Shields and Brooks; a military mission in Hollywood; and Amish forgiveness.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Now, what do the new numbers tell us about job and wage growth in the U.S.? Jeffrey Brown has our look.

JEFFREY BROWN: Reading the economic tea leaves is famously difficult, and what looks good on Main Street can go down poorly on Wall Street, and vice versa.

Today`s jobs report sent several signals for experts to mull over. The number of jobs created last month was the lowest in almost a year and well below what economists were projecting.

But the report also contained some revisions of note: There were 60,000 more jobs created in August than initially counted. And in a major revision of annual data, the government said that 810,000 more jobs were created between March 2005 and 2006 than originally thought.

Two former Labor Department chief economists offer their takes on the numbers. William Rodgers had the job during the Clinton administration from 2000 to 2001. He`s now a professor of economics at Rutgers University. Diana Furchtgott-Roth was with the Bush administration from 2003 to 2005. She`s now director of the Center for Employment Policy at the Hudson Institute.

William Rodgers, I`ll start with you. What do you see in today`s job numbers, in terms of job growth?

WILLIAM RODGERS, Former Chief Economist, Labor Department: Well, as you said, the number of new jobs over this last month came in well below what private-sector forecasters had anticipated, but also, Richard Friedman, my colleague from Harvard and I, we`ve been studying this labor market since the beginning of the recovery, as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonpartisan think-tank out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And where they define the beginning of the recovery is November 2001. And when you do that, what you find is that we`ve only been averaging a little around 100,000 new jobs per month, clearly not enough to be able to absorb those people who have lost their jobs over the recovery.

Or in this past month, where we saw the unemployment rate stay still, but what happened was, people were leaving the labor force because they were having difficulty finding jobs. Again, we need to have 150,000 new jobs, roughly, just to keep our heads above water.

And also, we need to be well above that to be able to absorb young minorities, young people who have graduated from college. And so, again, this report didn`t surprise me, because it`s consistent with the trends that we`ve seen since the beginning of this recovery.

And now my colleague from the Hudson Institute, she`s going to want to start writing history as beginning in January 2003, the beginning of the tax cuts. And even if you do that, you`re still looking at an average job growth per month of about 118,000 new jobs per month, again, well below what we need to really extend opportunity broadly throughout this society.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Well, let me go to her and see how she does put today`s numbers. What do you see?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, Center for Employment Policy, Hudson Institute: Well, market expectations were for the creation of about 120,000 jobs. We got 51,000 new jobs from September, and we got 62,000 from backward revisions, for a total of 113,000. So we`ve created a good chunk of jobs.

And even more important, the unemployment rate fell from 4.7 to 4.6 percent, and 4.6 percent is a really low unemployment rate. So all in all, the labor market is looking very strong these days.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do you see, in terms of who`s getting the jobs and what kind of jobs they are?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, the job gains were all over. Construction employment hit a record high. There were more jobs created in financial services, education and health services, leisure and hospitality. The soft spot was manufacturing, but that`s part of a long, international, long-term trend.

But the rest of the economy, the rest of the labor force looked pretty strong. And there were gains in high-wage jobs and gains in low-wage jobs, gains in high-skill jobs and low-skill jobs. So it was a very positive report.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let me just stay with you.

WILLIAM RODGERS: I disagree.

JEFFREY BROWN: OK, go ahead.

WILLIAM RODGERS: That if you look at this report -- and, again, let`s take a long-term view -- you`ll see that, in this report, construction was weak. I disagree. The construction numbers suggest continued deterioration, vis-a-vis the increases in the interest rates that have slowed down...

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: But construction employment hit a record high.

WILLIAM RODGERS: Well, let`s talk about growth, growth. As I said, we need not just positive growth, we need to have growth that`s still in excess of 150,000 new jobs per month, because that`s how fast the population is growing per month. And so just to absorb those people -- I mean, having 118,000, having 51,000 new jobs per month, I mean, that`s not extending prosperity. And that`s not a good record to run on, in terms of saying that these tax cuts really stimulated the labor market.

JEFFREY BROWN: OK, go ahead.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: You`re telling me that here construction employment has hit a new record high, and you`re telling me that construction employment is weak, when there are more Americans working in construction than ever before?

WILLIAM RODGERS: But, again, what I`m trying to describe to you is let`s talk about the growth. Let`s talk about growth patterns, what`s been happening over the last year, a few years, or 2003, which you like to start out with, or my preferred nonpartisan beginning date of 2001...

(CROSSTALK)

JEFFREY BROWN: Let me bring in another question, which is the question of wage growth. And I`ll start with you, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, because this is something people have worried a little bit about, whether wages are keeping up with the cost of living. What do you see in the numbers today?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, we had a .2 of a percent increase, which is 4 percent increase in wages over the past year, and we can really see that wages are catching up. Maybe about a year ago, wage growth was slow, but wage growth is definitely picking up, so much so that some people are saying the Fed is concerned about the inflationary effect that wage growth is going to have. This is definitely good for workers.

WILLIAM RODGERS: Again, I disagree.

JEFFREY BROWN: Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Were you finished?

WILLIAM RODGERS: Sorry.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Yes, that`s fine. That`s fine.

(CROSSTALK)

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor, go ahead.

WILLIAM RODGERS: Again, I`m looking at the same report. And if you look at real -- if you look at inflation-adjusted hourly wages -- that is, taking into account cost of living increases -- real wages since January of this year have been stagnant. They`ve been stagnant.

And also, this 4 percent year-over increase that my colleague is talking about, inflation is probably going to -- over this year, is probably going to be at around 3.5, 3.8 percent. So the fact that, you know, we`re seeing nominal wage growth occurring, you know, to cite that as gains going to Americans, but not taking out the cost of living, I find that very problematic analysis.

JEFFREY BROWN: Your point is that it`s more than nominal, that it is steady growth, and, therefore, keeping up with the cost of living?

WILLIAM RODGERS: Well, the Americans...

JEFFREY BROWN: No, excuse me. Excuse me. I was asking her.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Right now, wages are above the inflation rate. They are growing above the inflation rate. And more importantly, early compensation (ph) says, which isn`t just wages but benefits, are growing even more strongly, because these days Americans have their compensation package in terms of wages. They have health benefits. They have pensions. Some of them have stock options.

So we can`t just look at the wage. We have to look at the total compensation package, and that`s definitely rising faster than the cost of inflation.

(CROSSTALK)

JEFFREY BROWN: Another way of asking this is the question of income inequality. I know the two of you have looked at this before. Professor Rodgers, do you see the gap widening between top and bottom?

WILLIAM RODGERS: Before I answer that, real quickly, let`s remind ourselves, when we talk about compensation and include benefits, yes, if you want to talk about the value, but you also have to talk about who`s got those benefits.

And if you look over this period of time -- some work that, again, my colleague, Richard Friedman, and I have done -- we`ve shown that, particularly amongst older workers, low-income workers, and even more broadly other workers, coverage actually has fallen over the last few years. So the fact that values are maybe going up, the values are going up to a particular set of people.

Now, broaden to your question about income inequality, this is the first recovery that we`ve seen poverty rates rise in America. Typically, as a booming economy emerges, job creation grows, you get a trickle-down effect. We`re not seeing that. The tax cuts of 2001, 2003, again, they helped to return to growing wage inequality that we had got nipped in the bud in the late 1990s, and so we have been -- we have seen a resurgence of inequality growth in our society.

JEFFREY BROWN: What`s your response to that?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, the property figures that came out last August shows that the poverty rate has stabilized, but these factors just are not applicable to the average American. I mean, there are people who are doing better. There are people who are doing worse. And we need to figure out how to help the people who are doing worse.

What we`ve seen is an increase in the returns to skill. We find the more highly educated are doing better, and those who are less highly educated are not doing so well. That`s way, today`s -- in a way, today`s unemployment report showed that those without high school diploma, unemployment rate for people who don`t even have a high school diploma, has fallen from 8.2 percent a year ago to 6.4 percent today. So these people are benefiting a lot more, the unskilled, from the current job market.

But what`s important is we focus on the reasons that they`re not getting ahead further, and that`s education. We need to improve education. We need to make sure they get their high school diplomas.

The unemployment rate for people with a high school diploma is 4.2 percent, under the average. If someone just gets a high school diploma, they have a lower unemployment rate than average. And if they go ahead and get some community college or a B.A., they do great.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, well, I`m afraid we`re going to have to leave it there. As we said, mixed signals and different ways of looking at it all. Diana Furchtgott-Roth and William Rodgers, thank you very much.

WILLIAM RODGERS: My pleasure.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Thanks very much.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Still ahead tonight: the analysis of Shields and Brooks; the Pentagon and Hollywood working together; and Anne Taylor Fleming on forgiving. But first, too close to call in Tennessee`s open seat Senate race. Gwen Ifill has our Choices `06 report.

GWEN IFILL: Call it the Tennessee toss-up. Former Chattanooga Major Bob Corker, the Republican, versus Memphis Congressman Harold Ford, the Democrat, two candidates who in age, race, and political experience could not be more different.

BOB CORKER (D), Candidate for U.S. Senate: Hey, how are you all? Good to see you! Thank you. It`s good to see you all.

GWEN IFILL: Corker, 54 years old, spent most of his career building a successful commercial real estate business.

CAMPAIGN RALLY SPEAKER: Give it up for the next senator from the state of Tennessee, Harold Ford, Jr.!

GWEN IFILL: While 36-year-old Ford has already spent a decade in the House of Representatives. The job they are competing for is the open Senate seat being vacated by Majority Leader Bill Frist. It`s one of the choicest plums for either party this year.

MARCUS POHLMANN, Rhodes College: You`re looking at possibly the first African-American ever elected statewide in Tennessee, only the fourth ever elected in the United States Senate in the entire nation.

GWEN IFILL: Add to that the fact that Tennessee has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 16 years, and you have a dogfight. Every poll shows Corker and Ford within a point or two of each other.

BOB CORKER: All my life, right here with you, I`ve been doing things to solve problems and really thrown myself in to try and to make a difference in people`s lives. It`s hard to discern my opponent ever having done that. He`s a great talker, and I give him credit for that, a great talker.

Look, I know I`m not as good looking as my opponent. But when it comes to solving problems, you guys know that you can count on me to do that every single day in the United States Senate.

REP. HAROLD FORD (D), Candidate for U.S. Senate: We will wake up on November 7th, and the only history we will make on November 7th is that everybody in Tennessee will have them a United States senator who will look out for them, who will stand up for them, who will love them, and who will represent them. Thank you, and God bless you!

(APPLAUSE)

GWEN IFILL: But when Ford talks about making history in his stump speeches, he never mentions race. He says he doesn`t have to.

REP. HAROLD FORD: We don`t talk about it at all.

GWEN IFILL: Why not?

REP. HAROLD FORD: Why? I mean, voters are looking for a United States senator. They`re not looking for a white senator or a black senator or a Latino senator. They`re looking for a senator, someone who`s going to represent their interest. And voters know who I am.

GWEN IFILL: Still, each man is intent on defining the other. Corker`s rap on Ford: He`s more Washington than Tennessee, more politician than honest broker.

CORKER AD NARRATOR: You see Harold Ford, Jr., on TV, and you think he`s going places. Well, he is. And he travels in style: 69 privately funded junkets, more than Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy combined.

GWEN IFILL: Ford`s criticism of Corker: He`s too rich to know what the average Tennessean cares about.

FORD AD NARRATOR: Bob Corker may talk tough about illegal immigration, but the millionaire construction magnate doesn`t tell you about the illegal workers arrested on one of his work sites.

GWEN IFILL: The ad war has had its effect. Voters interviewed at random recite both arguments.

JAMES WILLIAMS, Tennessee Resident: How can you hire somebody to say that we`re going to have -- we`re going to secure our borders, but you hired people who were not paying Social Security and taxes for your job sites, and you`re a millionaire? I don`t understand it; I`ll never understand it.

ED HENDERSON, Tennessee Resident: Harold Ford has the most liberal voting record in the state of Tennessee. That bothers me.

AL MONTGOMERY, Tennessee Resident: Ford basically went to school in Washington, D.C., went to law school in Pennsylvania, I believe, graduated and immediately inherited his job.

GWEN IFILL: Both men are competing for the affections of conservative voters. Corker, at a University of Memphis football game.

TENNESSEE RESIDENT: We encourage your support of the unborn.

BOB CORKER: Yes, sir, absolutely. You got that. National Right to Life endorsed me.

GWEN IFILL: Ford, at the Middle Tennessee State Fair tractor pull.

REP. HAROLD FORD: I`ve been asked to lead us in prayer this evening, and that`s what I`m going to do, if everyone would bow their heads with me. Oh, Lord, we recognize we come always in your presence in such humble and thoughtful and thankful ways.

GWEN IFILL: Corker finds friendly audiences in the conservative Republican hills of east Tennessee...

BOB CORKER: Charlie, how are you, sir?

GWEN IFILL: ... as at this businessman`s lunch at a lakeside retreat called Camp Dixie.

BOB CORKER: I think you understand that, in this race, there truly is a choice, like we`ve probably not seen in a statewide race before, a clear choice between myself and my opponent. And it goes beyond any kind of partisanship. It`s about background.

I`ve lived and breathed and dealt with the kind of things that you`ve dealt with throughout your careers. My opponent has been in Washington since he was 9 years old.

GWEN IFILL: Ford, walking the streets of Corker`s hometown of Chattanooga, is attempting to win votes one handshake at a time. Jeremy Cardwell (ph) has never voted for a Democrat.

REP. HAROLD FORD: They all want to say I`m some liberal, but, remember, I ran against Nancy Pelosi. I mean, all the guys they paint to be these great raving liberals, and I`ve been put out of the party a little bit because I`m so conservative on moral and cultural issues.

GWEN IFILL: They talked like that for 10 minutes.

So after talking to him, what do you think?

JEREMY CARDWELL, Tennessee Resident: I think definitely I`ll give him a shot, you know, look a little more closely at the issues, because I was just impressed with the fact that he took the time to stand and talk about what he believes. I mean, it`s very respectable, I believe.

REP. HAROLD FORD: How you doing?

GWEN IFILL: Ford, in fact, voted for the war in Iraq, as well as for school prayer and against flag-burning.

REP. HAROLD FORD: There`s a wide belief -- and I think a wrong belief, nationally -- that people in Tennessee are somehow or another so right-wing or so conservative that they could never embrace a candidacy like ours. And what we`ve seen is the exact opposite.

GWEN IFILL: For Republican nominee Bob Corker and House incumbent Harold Ford, Jr., Washington distractions like the congressional page scandal could cut both ways, but so, too, could issues like family, race, and George W. Bush.

Harold Ford comes from a long and colorful line of Tennessee politicians. His father, an 11-term congressman, was acquitted of bank fraud in 1993. His uncle, John, is still under indictment.

Does your family background help or hurt you in a statewide race?

REP. HAROLD FORD: I love my family, and I love who I am.

GWEN IFILL: Well, I assume you love your family, but...

REP. HAROLD FORD: I love who I am. You need to discuss that with my lord about all that stuff.

GWEN IFILL: He saves the tough talk for Corker, even contrasting him with President Bush.

REP. HAROLD FORD: I like President Bush. I genuinely like him. I don`t agree with him on everything, but I really like him personally. I don`t like this guy. We`ve been around one another, and there`s something about him that`s just not -- he`s not altogether honest about stuff.

GWEN IFILL: President Bush has traveled to Tennessee to campaign with Corker, even though polls show he is increasingly unpopular in the state.

BOB CORKER: I certainly appreciate him being down here to help with fundraising. That doesn`t mean we agree with each other. I don`t think two thinking people can ever agree on everything. But certainly I appreciate his help in raising money.

GWEN IFILL: Is it fair to say you`re running against Washington?

BOB CORKER: You know, in a way. I mean, I think all of -- for me, running for office is not running against something. It`s running to solve problems and offer yourself to be able to do that.

But no doubt my opponent has been there for 10 years, and it`s hard to discern any major difference, impact -- I know that that`s sometimes difficult in the House. But, you know, there`s some degree of that. But really, you know, I`m not the kind of person to run against something; I`m the kind of person to run for something.

GWEN IFILL: Corker survived a three-way Republican primary, and he spent millions of dollars of his own money on the campaign. Ford had the luxury of winning his nomination unopposed.

TENNESSEE RESIDENT: I want to know how you`re going to secure the border.

BOB CORKER: With whatever it takes.

GWEN IFILL: In the general election, many voters remain focused on conservative issues.

TENNESSEE RESIDENT: We`re tired of lip-sync. We want something done. We`re going to hold you accountable, buddy.

BOB CORKER: All right, man. Thank you. We`ve got to get there first.

TENNESSEE RESIDENT: Well, I don`t think you`ve got a problem.

JOHN JACOBS, Tennessee Resident: Harold Ford has been conservative for about the last six months when he got into the campaign, but his record overall when he voted in the House is a liberal voting record.

GWEN IFILL: Voters like Jeffrie Howard, who lives in Ford`s Memphis district, is holding Washington accountable for other things.

JEFFRIE HOWARD, Tennessee Resident: There should be ways of changing things so people can get up on their feet, you know? More jobs, create jobs, OK? For the people that need it, the homeless, give them something to go to. Don`t just hand them out food and stuff. I talk to them all the time, these down here. Find a way to put them in some kind of program. Instead of giving them a helping hand, just give them a hand, OK?

GWEN IFILL: Corker and Ford meet for the first of three debates this weekend. University of Tennessee Professor Bob Swansborough says national dissatisfaction over Iraq and the economy could well play out in Tennessee.

BOB SWANSBOROUGH, University of Tennessee: All of these basically are feeling, I think, that Washington doesn`t seem to have a grip. And as such, I think that dissatisfaction has been reflected in a call for change, and that can bring about a tidal wave, as we know, on a national level, and could possibly tilt the way this state goes.

BOB CORKER: I sure hope you`ll consider me in this race.

TENNESSEE RESIDENT: Yes, sir.

BOB CORKER: Thank you, sir.

TENNESSEE RESIDENT: God bless you.

BOB CORKER: Thank you, sir.

GWEN IFILL: Or it could just come down to who seems more like a son of Tennessee.

REP. HAROLD FORD: I ain`t going to let you down, I promise. Pray for me. That`s all I ask you to do for me, and vote for me.

(LAUGHTER)

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

And, Mark, in the latest polls that I`ve seen, Harold Ford`s ahead, within the margin of error. It`s very, very close, but he`s ahead.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: That Harold Ford is competitive is a tribute to the campaign he has run, which has been a masterful campaign, and the candidate he`s become. He has been far more aggressive in this campaign, not only in asserting his own positions, in confronting issues that many Democrats are accused of kind of ducking elsewhere, the national security, Iraq, and in defining his opponent, Mayor Corker, on his private business dealings, on immigration and matters like that, where the INS has nailed him for having four workers who were illegal and were deported from his company.

So, I mean, the fact that Harold Ford is in this race, if he does win it, this will be a textbook campaign study for generations. The Democrats have not won this state in a Senate race since 1990. Their native son, Al Gore, running, was a candidate of peace and prosperity party in 2000, couldn`t carry it for the presidency.

RAY SUAREZ: Is this all on Harold Ford`s credit side of the ledger, David, or is there also some sign that Tennessee is changing? They elected a Democratic governor last time.

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: They`ve often done that. They have Governor Bredesen there, though you get a lot of southern states who elect Democratic moderate governors, like Bredesen is, and will still - - it`s been trending Republican. So I do think, a, the national climate -- there are a few things going on in the world which help Democrats -- and, b, Harold Ford.

And Ford, along with -- I think you see a couple of Senate candidates, in Virginia, here in Tennessee, in Missouri, who are pretty conservative, sort of hawkish on the war to some extent, mention the Dubai ports deal quite a lot, sort of suspicious of trade, surprisingly nationalist on immigration, and very much against gay marriage. So you see sort of a series of Democrats sort of in the upper south running this sort of campaign. And so far, it seems to be working.

And one other thing about this race is -- we`ve been hearing rumors that Barack Obama has been more seriously considering running for president. He told Jonathan Alter of Newsweek that it was almost 50-50. And I think one of the factors in his decision is this race. Can Harold Ford, can a black candidate win in the upper south?

RAY SUAREZ: Why is that? Explain that a little bit more.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, as you know, there`s a lot -- Barack Obama is the dream candidate. He`s the only guy in the country among Democrats who really generates genuine enthusiasm.

But there are a whole series of questions -- I think, probably in his own mind, but certainly in a lot of people`s minds -- about his viability. One is the age issue. But second is, can a black candidate win and carry enough of these swing states that he would need to?

And the thinking is, if Harold Ford can carry Tennessee, then Barack Obama could probably carry a state like Tennessee. And that really does open up all sorts of possibilities for the party.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, with Tennessee in play, with Claire McCaskill in Missouri ahead within the margin of error, suddenly the conventional wisdom that the House was a cinch but the Senate no way doesn`t look like such wisdom anymore.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, the Senate way. It`s possible. I wouldn`t say it`s certain. I actually haven`t seen a lot of movement in the Senate. You`ve seen some movement in New Jersey, which the Republicans looked like they were going to take it. Now, it seems a little safer. You`ve seen a lot of movement in Connecticut, where Joe Lieberman looks a lot stronger than he did a couple of weeks ago.

But, you know, all this Foley stuff has happened in the past week. And as I look race by race, I haven`t seen actually Foley-related movement. I think a lot of people, including myself, feel somehow there will be an effect of the Foley thing. But if you look at the key Senate races and the key House races, it`s been pretty stable, which means toss-up in a lot of these states.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Mark, the Foley story broke, and indeed the congressman`s resignation was just a few hours old the last time we spoke, so I think it was still too new for us to really know much to say last week. But now that it`s had a week to steep, to ripen, what does it look like to you?

MARK SHIELDS: It`s an unmitigated disaster for the Republican Party. And the reason for that is, unlike sex scandals in the past involving pages -- Gary Studds, the Democrat in Massachusetts in 1983, and Dan Crane, a Republican at the same time, both of whom were censured by the House -- in neither of those cases was the leadership of the party even remotely aware -- Bob Michel on the Republican side or Tip O`Neill on the Democratic side -- of what was going on and what these activities were.

What we have here is the leadership involved. It`s a party problem; it isn`t just a single, individual problem. And I think -- I`ve been out this week. And what struck me, Ray, is people are responding to this at a gut, personal level.

You have Denny Hastert, the speaker of the House; you have John Shimkus, the Republican congressman from Illinois who`s chairman of the Page Committee; Rodney Alexander, who sponsored the first page, who knew him, who worked in his office; and Tom Reynolds, the Republican campaign chairman from New York.

And among them they`re four fathers. Among them, they have 11 children. And not one of them ever responded to this report of a 52-year- old man making overtures, direct sexual overtures to pages, to teenage pages, under the care and protection of the House of Representatives the way a parent would.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me stop you right there.

MARK SHIELDS: Sure.

RAY SUAREZ: Because I guess the real question is, for all those people who find it off-putting, reprehensible, does it change anybody`s vote? Are there voters who were going to vote one way and, because they feel badly about this, they`re going to vote another? Or does it just make already convinced people on either side even more convinced...

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS: I think it does two things. I think it reaches a tipping point for certain people who had skepticism or doubts about the war, the president, the stewardship of the Republican Party, Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Bob Ney, the other scandals. I think this just kind of says, "Well, wait a minute. It is so rotten to the core."

I think, at the same time, the most intense, and energetic, and enthusiastic supporters of the Republican Party have been the religious conservatives. They`re the ones, the foot soldiers. They`ve done the hard work. This is a body blow to them; this is demoralizing and dispiriting to them. It`s going to be tough for them, "Gee, we`re really -- you know, we`re the good guys in this."

RAY SUAREZ: Well, the efforts at getting a handle on this, the efforts at beginning the assessment, the damage control, how are the Republican leadership doing?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, like I say, so far, I`m sort of with Mark on the seriousness of it. So far, there`s no evidence of it, if you look at the key races. As I say, there`s no movement.

Nonetheless, I do think, when you look at it and you just go around and talk to people, you do find this intense alarm. This country is filled with people -- including myself -- whose kids are on IM all hours of the night. You have no idea what`s going on, what they`re saying.

I often say to candidates, "You know, if you go out in the country and you say, `I will outlaw IMing after 10 p.m., you will win. I don`t care what else you stand for; you will get parents supporting you." Because people, they`ve built this shell for themselves, their home and their family, but things are coming in outside the shell -- IM, cable TV, all this other stuff -- that they`re really worried about.

And so the party, in the long run, that can speak to this concern -- as Bill Clinton did quite well -- the party that can do that will have a long-term effect. So I`m not sure, you know, what Hastert did or didn`t do. That`s not the key issue. The key issue is Foley and the act, and what it says about the party.

Is it a party that`s lost its moral bearings? Is this a party that`s at the end of its reign? You know, I covered British politics at the end of the Conservative Party`s reign after more than a decade. At the end, they had scandals coming out of everywhere. And it was a sense they`ve just run their course.

So to me, like with Mark, this really feels like something that`s going to shift opinion, but so far it hasn`t shown up.

MARK SHIELDS: Let me just say I agree with David. I disagree with him on one central point, and that is how Hastert and the other handled it is crucial. It`s crucial because it resonates with institutions in our society, beginning with the Catholic bishops, including the United Way, including Hewlett-Packard and other companies.

When there`s an allegation of serious wrongdoing, the initial impulse is to protect and preserve the power of the institution, not to remedy the injustice or the disservice, in this case, to children. I mean, they were more interested in preserving their own power, it appears, than they were in protecting children under their own charge. I mean, that`s a very serious charge.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, one thing just relating to kids, Mark mentioned the two cases, Crane and Studds in 1983. Studds in Massachusetts got re- elected in a district that Ronald Reagan carried.

MARK SHIELDS: That`s right.

DAVID BROOKS: Dan Crane ran again and barely lost, 52-48, in a southern -- in a downstate Illinois district. This country, since 1983, has gotten much more alarmed about this subject. And to me, one of the most interesting things is how the whole culture has shifted on this subject, in part because of the Internet.

RAY SUAREZ: One interesting thing is that it chased the Woodward book and the various ancillary discussions of what was in that book out of the front pages for a while. It was taking up a lot of the breathable oxygen in national political debates.

Does that come back now? Does Foley recede in the coming weeks? Do some of these serious charges in that book, serious implications in that book, return?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I don`t think they`ve ever gone away. I watched a lot of local debates on C-Span, because that`s the kind of life I lead, and one of the things you notice is the Foley thing comes up, but Iraq is already in those debates. Immigration is always in those debates.

So those things have not exactly gone away. And it could be historians will look back at this week and see the North Korean busting out of their deal as the big event of the week, and we`re all focused on Foley. And historians will say, "What were they thinking about?"

But nonetheless, I don`t want to minimize the Foley thing, because the way kids are raised, that`s a crucial voting issue.

MARK SHIELDS: It`s tough to write off anybody who`s just sold 750,000 books and in its second printing already. So that will have an enormous ripple effect.

But I think the reality in Iraq trumps it. We lost 13 Americans in three days, more than we`ve lost in any three days of the war. It`s obvious, by a two-to-one margin, Americans believe it is a civil war.

And the basic premise that the Bush administration has made, that Iraq is central to the war against terrorism, is dismissed and rejected by voters in the Wall Street Journal-NBC poll. They do not see it; they do not see winning in Iraq as being crucial to it. In fact, they see the war in Iraq as hurting America`s effort in the war against terrorism.

So I think, in that sense, though Bob Woodward`s book is widely read, and analyzed, and praised by as many as it is, I think it`s just adding to what people see with their own eyes.

RAY SUAREZ: David, what do you make of -- I think it`s a little too strong to call a defection -- but at least the misgivings now spoken of by none other than John Warner, one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq project?

DAVID BROOKS: Right. Well, I don`t think anybody who supported the war now thinks that things are going well. I mean, most people think things are going horribly.

And the question becomes: What do we do about it? What do we do from here? And you see a whole series of schools opening up. There`s John Warner and Christopher Shays from Connecticut saying, "We`ve got to get the Iraqis off -- just get off their duffs, because over the past year the Iraqi government has done very little."

There`s Joe Biden and others saying we really have to think fundamentally about separating the country, separating the regions, to minimize the civil war. There are other people who are thinking one big more military push. A lot of the former generals think that.

So this is a question about, how do we move on from here? But as for the downward slide, I don`t know anybody who disputes that. And I think one of the things we learned from the Woodward is that a lot of people had the idea there was no deliberation in the Bush White House, people were just drinking the Kool-Aid. But we`ve learned from the Woodward book, whether it was Condi Rice, or the NSC adviser, Steve Hadley, they knew. They had a realistic sense of what was happening, and the remedies never came because they either ran into Don Rumsfeld or they ran into President Bush.

RAY SUAREZ: Thank you, gentlemen. Have a great weekend.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Now, a role for the U.S. military in Hollywood productions. NewsHour correspondent Saul Gonzalez of KCET-Los Angeles has our story.

ACTOR: Hit the deck! How are you, McFarmer (ph)?

ACTOR: I got hit.

SAUL GONZALEZ, NewsHour Correspondent: From the days of John Wayne storming ashore in the movie "Sands of Iwo Jima" to today`s special effects filled-blockbusters, it`s no secret that Hollywood has long loved telling stories about war and warriors.

But what`s not as well-known is the role the real-life American military often plays in helping to create and craft its depiction in films and television shows. The Pentagon`s partnership with Hollywood starts at this West Los Angeles office tower, where every branch of the military keeps a liaison office to the entertainment industry.

So are these examples of all the films that you`ve worked with?

ROBERT ANDERSON, Navy Office of Information-West: These are some of the films we`ve worked with.

SAUL GONZALEZ: Robert Anderson, a retired naval commander, has long been the Navy`s top man in Hollywood. Like his counterparts in other branches of the Armed Forces, Anderson`s mission is to be a kind of talent agent for his service, making sure the Navy gets exposure and a chance to polish its public image.

ROBERT ANDERSON: Our mission here is to get the Navy onto the big screen and the little screen every chance we get, with every production that wants to use us. I`ll be blatant about it: We`re trying to get the Navy out there.

SAUL GONZALEZ: And what do Hollywood studios want in return for giving the military screen time?

KATHY CANHAM ROSS, Army Public Affairs Office: Usually, it`s equipment. Usually, they`re looking for toys.

SAUL GONZALEZ: Kathy Canham Ross directs the Army`s public affairs office in Los Angeles. She says, when it comes to getting access to the latest in military hardware, no Hollywood prop house compares to the Pentagon.

KATHY CANHAM ROSS: For them, we`re a provider. We`re a supplier, like everybody else. And Hollywood, they want the real thing. If they can get the real thing, they want the real thing.

SAUL GONZALEZ: And cooperation doesn`t end with hardware. Hollywood often needs active-duty military personnel for technical consultation and even to do on-screen stunts. That was the case in the filming of "Blackhawk Down." That production, shot on location in Morocco, used over a 100 U.S. Army personnel, including elite rangers. These real soldiers did these rappelling scenes and other on-screen combat sequences.

Of course, the military`s cooperation with Hollywood does raise some serous questions and concerns. Namely, is there a point where Uncle Sam`s help on a film or television project turns show business into government propaganda?

DAVID ROBB, Author, "Operation Hollywood": The problem comes in with, who has the creative control over the product? Is it the filmmaker or is it the military?

SAUL GONZALEZ: Entertainment industry journalist David L. Robb is the author of "Operation Hollywood," a book that critically examines the relationship between the Department of Defense and the film and television industry. He`s most concerned about the military`s policy of script review and its power to demand changes in characters and plot points in return for cooperation.

DAVID ROBB: If you want the military`s assistance, you have to give them five copies of your script. They review the script. They make changes to the script to make it conform to the kind of film that they want to see. Most Americans have no idea that the content of the films and TV shows that they`re watching are being influenced by military censors, that the military or the government is telling filmmakers what to say and what not to say.

SAUL GONZALEZ: The Navy`s Robert Anderson, who reviews 30 to 50 feature scripts a year, acknowledges his office`s production clout.

ROBERT ANDERSON: If you want full cooperation from the Navy, we have a considerable amount of power, because it`s our ships, it`s our cooperation.

SAUL GONZALEZ: It`s your stuff.

ROBERT ANDERSON: And until the script is in a form that we can approve, then the production doesn`t go forward until that.

SAUL GONZALEZ: In the film "Windtalkers," set during World War II, the military got filmmakers to cut a scene depicting American Marines taking gold teeth from the mouths of dead Japanese soldiers.

KEVIN CONWAY, "Gen. Curtis LeMay," "Thirteen Days": All you got to do is say go. My boys will get those red bastards.

SAUL GONZALEZ: In the movie "Thirteen Days," about the Cuban missile crisis, the Pentagon had concerns about the portrayal of General Curtis LeMay, a real historical figure. Although archives indicate he wanted to bomb Cuba, the military wanted his character to be toned down and made less warlike.

KEVIN CONWAY: And return stability to the strategic situation.

DAVID ROBB: The military did not want to see that in a movie. They do not want to see the military being portrayed as dangerous to world peace.

SAUL GONZALEZ: However, the makers of "Thirteen Days" declined to make changes and went ahead without military support. But Robb says, on some projects, Department of Defense assistance is so important, film and TV producers can`t say no to the military.

DAVID ROBB: More often than not, they cave in, by far because the cost-saving can be so great. And sometimes studios will tell the producers, "If you don`t get military assistance, we won`t green light this project."

SAUL GONZALEZ: The military people who work with Hollywood reject charges that they`re censors. They say they`re only trying to get film and television to show the people, duties and values of the Armed Forces accurately.

KATHY CANHAM ROSS: We want to see people coming out of it and going, "I never knew that about the Army before. I never knew they did that."

ROBERT ANDERSON: I`ve had scripts where a four-star admiral is actually in charge of a drug ring, you know, drug smuggling ring. That`s not going to happen. Nobody is going to make four stars in the military and be engaged in criminal activity like that.

SAUL GONZALEZ: But would you have an admiral who helps to cover up a war crime? That`s in the realm of possibility.

ROBERT ANDERSON: That could happen. Certainly, that could happen.

SAUL GONZALEZ: Would you support that?

ROBERT ANDERSON: Again, it depends on how the system plays out. If, in the end, the guy`s held accountable for that, absolutely we`d support it, absolutely. But if it`s like, you know, the guy -- he`s a fictional character, and he thumbs his nose at the world and the Navy, and says, "Ha ha, I did this and I got away with it," we probably wouldn`t support that.

SAUL GONZALEZ: Supporters and critics of the Pentagon`s work in Hollywood do agree on one thing: It`s how being seen on TV shows and feature films can be a powerful and cost-effective way for the military to reach potential recruits.

TOM CRUISE, Actor: I feel the need, the need for speed.

SAUL GONZALEZ: That`s especially true, if it`s a cool and sexy portrayal of the military, like 1986`s "Top Gun."

DAVID ROBB: Recruiting is the number-one reason the military does this. They want to show positive images so that young people will join up.

KATHY CANHAM ROSS: They did a study several years ago. It was called the Youth Attitude Tracking Survey. They did it twice, and both times they found that young men of recruiting age cited movies and television as the primary source of their impressions about the military.

So it`s very important. As I say, it`s an opposition for them to see what the possibilities are and to see what being a soldier would be like.

SAUL GONZALEZ: America`s current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are starting to get their Hollywood treatment. They`ve inspired plots for television shows and, on the big screen, at least two films portraying the Iraq war are in development.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming reflects on a week of tragedy in Pennsylvania`s Amish country.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING, NewsHour Essayist: We have spent our week as heartbroken voyeurs of a way of life foreign to almost all of us, the simple life of the Amish: no cars, no cell phones, no electricity. A life so unfathomably simple to so many of us, quaint, kids in hats, women in bonnets, horse-drawn buggies.

But what is most unfathomable of all is something that became apparent this week as the Amish community struggled with the ghastly schoolhouse murder of five young girls by a deranged, distraught father who then took his own life.

The modern media world descended en masse into this rural enclave, as if dropped back through time, poking and prodding the grief of the families and the community as a whole. And what they found and what we heard from that community was not revenge or anger, but a gentle, heart-stricken insistence on forgiveness; forgiveness, that is, of the shooter himself. The widow of the shooter was actually invited to one of the funerals, and it was said she would be welcome to stay in the community.

In a world gone mad with revenge killings and sectarian violence, chunks of the globe, self-immolating with hatred, this was something to behold, this insistence on forgiveness. It was so strange, so elemental, so otherworldly.

This, the Amish said, showing us the tender face of religion at a time and in a world where we are so often seeing the rageful face. This was Jesus` way, and they had Jesus in them, not for a day, an hour, not just in good times, but even in the very worst.

The freedom contained in Jesus` teaching of forgiveness, wrote the German philosopher Hannah Arendt, is the freedom from vengeance, which includes both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process, which by itself need never come to an end.

We have seldom seen this in action. So many tribes and sects in a froth of revenge, from Darfur to Baghdad. And, here in this country, so many victims and victims` families crying out in our courthouses for revenge.

To this, the Amish have offered a stunning example of the freedom that comes with forgiveness, a reminder that religion need not turn lethal or combative. I, for one, as this week ends, stand in awe of their almost- unfathomable grace in grief.

I`m Anne Taylor Fleming.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of this day. The U.S. commander in charge of police training in Iraq said 4,000 Iraqi police officers have been killed in the past two years; 8,000 more have been wounded.

The U.N. Security Council urged North Korea to cancel its planned nuclear test. And a massive fire at a chemical storage plant in North Carolina prompted the evacuation of at least 17,000 people.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: And, again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We add them as their deaths are made official and as photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 12 more.

"Washington Week" can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. And we`ll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a good weekend. I`m Ray Suarez. Thanks for joining us. Good night.