The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a three-part look at the impeachment story; an update on the House vote and possible alternatives; the take of the editors of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, and a debate between Deborah Tannen and Shelby Steele. We close with some perspective on the state of Middle East peace after President Clinton's trip. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: More undecided Republicans came out for impeachment today. The 12 - all considered moderates - announced they will so vote when the matter goes to the House on Thursday. Among them were Tom Campbell of California and Michael Forbes and Jack Quinn, both of New York.

REP. TOM CAMPBELL, [R] California: I personally have tremendous reservations about believing him in any context where it would be to his political advantage to not tell the truth. If, instead, he had come forward and had been quite clear and said, yes, I did, indeed, fail to tell the truth; I did it intentionally. I did it as part of a plan, and I'm very sorry and forth. It's possible he might have presented a basis for me to believe it was less likely that he would do it again.

REP. MICHAEL FORBES, [R] New York: I think we've seen that the president has almost retreated from any sense of remorse or the apologies that he rendered in September. His stance on the 81 interrogatories I think made it clear that he considers this more of a campaign-style issue than maybe the seriousness that it brings to it.

REP. JACK QUINN, [R] New York: Once the Judiciary Committee began to work its will and to do its job and separated some of those fact from fiction details and got us to where we are this past weekend, that for me - the more and more I looked at that, the more and more I saw that these were very serious allegations, and the president was not being truthful under oath in those specific cases.

JIM LEHRER: An alternative to removal from office was offered today by Bob Dole. In a New York Times article the '96 presidential nominee laid out a plan for Congress to pass a joint resolution condemning Mr. Clinton's actions. He hoped - he said he hoped it would be viewed as a blending of responsibility and justice. Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was at the White House for an unrelated meeting today. He spoke to reporters afterward on the Senate's options for an impeachment trial.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, [D] Connecticut: If the House votes articles of impeachment, our rules are very clear. We have no choice. We have to take up the articles of impeachment. Now the question is: What happens then? There's a lot of doubt about the procedures in a trial in the Senate, but one thing, as I read the Constitution, the history, the rules that is clear is that a majority of the Senate will determine what should happen. I mean, that may sound obvious, but what I mean is that - you know - the rules provide for a motion to adjourn. The - one or another party - presumably the defense counsel - could move to dismiss, and then that's up to a majority of the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton was asked on his Middle East trip today if he could separate the threat of impeachment looming over him and the day-to-day business of his office. Absolutely, he said. Asked how, he answered, you show up for work every day, it's not a complicated thing. We'll have more on this story right after the New Summary. President Clinton is flying home from the Middle East this evening. He ended his three-day visit by meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Leader Arafat on the border between Palestinian Gaza and Israel. The president spoke to reporters after the 90-minute session.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We have to resolve a number of issues in order for the redeployment to go forward. I think it would be unfortunate if we got too far behind schedule, and I hope we can keep pretty much the schedule that's there, but that's obviously that remains to be worked out here. We believe in keeping to these schedules as much as possible, and we work very hard to put all this back on track here. I do think that we are back on track. We're going to see this through, and I feel good about where we are now.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the peace accord later in the program. The president's trip was not all business. Before leaving, he and his family toured Bethlehem in Palestinian-controlled land. They visited the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square, escorted by Arafat and his wife. Outside the church they listened to traditional Christmas carols and helped decorate a tree in the courtyard. Then it was off to join Netanyahu and his wife for a tour of Masada, an ancient town in Israel. Jewish rebels committed suicide there the first century, rather than surrender to the Romans. The First Family then departed for Washington after the sightseeing. Back in this country today CitiGroup announced it would cut 10,000 jobs or 6 percent of its global work force. A third of those jobs will be in the U.S.. It will also take a restructuring charge of $900 million. CitiGroup was recently formed by the merger of Citicorp Banking Group and the Travelers Group, one of the underwriters of the NewsHour. Leon Higginbotham died yesterday in Boston. The retired federal appeals court suffered several strokes over the weekend. Just two weeks ago he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify against the impeachment of President Clinton. Higginbotham was appointed to the federal bench in 1964, elevated to the appeals court in '77. He had been honored widely for his scholarship on race and the law and served as a mediator during South Africa's multiracial elections. He was 70 years old. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on an impeachment update; how the news weeklies are handling the story; Deborah Tannen and Shelby Steele on impeachment; and the state of Middle East peace.% ? FOCUS - THE ALTERNATIVES

JIM LEHRER: The impending impeachment vote. In the last two days 18 House Republicans have come out in favor of impeachment. They were among the 30 or so undecided moderate Republicans targeted by the White House as possible "no" votes, and in today's New York Times Bob Dole proposed an alternative to a Senate trial if the House votes for impeachment. We look at these and other developments now with three Congress watchers: Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute; Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution; and Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Oliphant, so where do matters stand tonight, about 48 hours away from the first vote?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, what we've seen in the last 24 hours, Jim, is sort of like an avalanche coming down one side of a mountain, and the result, I think, is that the Republican conference in the House is now speaking with virtually one voice. And it is yes on at least one article. And as of tonight, for the first time, the margin for one article of impeachment slightly exceeds the number of genuinely uncommitted Republicans that's left.

JIM LEHRER: Do you read it the say way, Norm?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Pretty much. The news has been not quite uniformly banned for the president, although what passes for good news for him these days is not anything he would have considered good a while back. The only Republican who said something other than I'm for impeachment today was Mike Castle of Delaware, who'd been a governor when Bill Clinton was a governor, a moderate who wrote a letter to the leaders calling for an extremely tough censure penalty with fine. But no other Republicans joined him on that letter. That, along with Bob Dole's proposal, which was an extremely tough proposal, were the only pieces of news other than Republicans announcing they were for impeachment, including at least one, Jack Quinn of New York, who previously had said he was against. So if there's a sense of momentum here, it is momentum that has moved very much against the president today.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Mann.

THOMAS MANN: Well, none of us should have much confidence in our forecast, given the extraordinary turn of events over the last week. I think it's clear that at this point it seems very likely that one or more articles of impeachment will pass the House of Representatives on Thursday. I can't now see any event that could intervene - any action by the president that would alter that.

JIM LEHRER: Well, that's what I was going to ask you. The president's coming back tonight. He arrives back in Washington around midnight or shortly before midnight. He's got all day tomorrow. There is talk that he might do something major, something dramatic. Have you heard that talk, and what do you make of it?

THOMAS MANN: There's lots of talk about it. He has a meeting with Chris Shays scheduled, and he should certainly -

JIM LEHRER: Tell us about Chris Shays.

THOMAS MANN: Chris Shays was actually a very vocal opponent of impeachment who says -

JIM LEHRER: He's a Republican - among the Republicans -

THOMAS MANN: A Republican from Constitution who's now reconsidering the whole matter.

JIM LEHRER: He was on our program last week stating why -

THOMAS MANN: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: -- he was opposed to impeachment.

THOMAS MANN: He's very unhappy with the president's statement last Friday, and he's asked to meet with the president. The president should hear out Chris Shays and any other Republicans or Democrats who want to hear from him. But the idea of a public statement of contrition once again seems rather beside the point.

JIM LEHRER: Tom.

TOM OLIPHANT: Over and over this afternoon, Jim, I think we heard from some of these Republicans that there really isn't anything left for the president to say to them. I don't think this is so much the end of a negotiation as it is the end of an attempt to do a little dance here. I mean, I can cover the current margin for impeachment with the names of the Republicans who would have been willing to vote against it if the president would admit to the crime that he denies.

JIM LEHRER: If he had said I committed perjury -

TOM OLIPHANT: Or at least used the "l" word - lie -

JIM LEHRER: Lie.

TOM OLIPHANT: Which was clear he would not do. And I think that was the precipitating event for many of these people. But also I can cover the margin that currently exists with the names of Republicans who would have been for a censure proposal if their leadership would let them vote on it. But absent that opportunity, they will vote for at least one. And it's important to underline at least one because -

JIM LEHRER: Why? Why?

TOM OLIPHANT: Because how this plays out on the House floor will have a tremendous amount to do with the way it's perceived by the public. If the perjury before the grand jury count survives and the other three fail, that's one case. If the obstruction of justice charge in Article III succeeds, that could set the stage for a very lengthy trial. If it fails, it could narrow the case to perjury, which might make it easier to settle with a censure resolution. But if it is three or four articles, the opportunity for compromise becomes very difficult.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: It's quite striking that you had some Republicans basically saying if you admit perjury, we won't impeach you; if you don't admit perjury, we will impeach you. And you wonder about the dynamic. And, of course, part of what's going on here is that if the president had admitted perjury, some of his supporters would have melted away as well. So he may have been in that sense in a knowing situation. I suspect what he will try now is to meet not just with Chris Shays but some of these other moderates and try and seize upon Mike Castle's letter and see if he can find 10 Republicans who will accept, in effect, a deal that he will agree with this motion for tough censure with a $2 million penalty and other things and an admittance of wrongdoing. And if he can -

JIM LEHRER: A plea bargain.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: A plea bargain, but what he'd like to do is to get their agreement that that would be enough and then go back to Bob Livingston, the incoming speaker, and say, all right, now let's be reasonable. But the chances of that happening at this point are slim, indeed.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Mann, the wires had several stories today, and our reporters have verified this. It was almost impossible to get through to Capitol Hill today on the telephone because people were calling in from all over the country registering their desire, impeaching, don't impeach him, et cetera. The E-mail and the Internet, all of this, was also - was overloaded on the same thing also directed to members of Congress. Is that likely to have any impact?

THOMAS MANN: It really isn't. I think the message is reinforce preexisting positions and neutralize one another in the case of members. Politicians are making very complex calculations that - for which they can take a reading from E-mails or telephone calls. It's will I have a conservative primary challenge in my next election, what will happen in the general election now that it's going to be resolved - two years possibly - in advance of the next election? How can live with my party leaders if I stray on a critical procedural vote? These are all complex issues for which signals from the public by E-mail are not dispositive.

TOM OLIPHANT: It's a very important point, and the best example of it this afternoon was when I tried to listen to Billy Tozin, who was a Democrat turned Republican in Louisiana, probably going to vote for impeachment but hasn't announced it yet, and -

JIM LEHRER: He's still on the list of -

TOM OLIPHANT: But probably tilting.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

TOM OLIPHANT: But he - listening to him talk you could hear him virtually say I know this is going to get settled in the Senate; there will be some kind of deal; he knows from deals. But there just wasn't time. He couldn't do the dance now.

JIM LEHRER: Let's talk about the Dole proposal, Norm. First of all, tell us in summary form what that's all about, what did Bob Dole suggest?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Bob Dole, on his own, without prompting from anybody, he said, without talking to anybody -

JIM LEHRER: Do we know that for a fact, without prompting from anybody?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: That's what he said, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: And I think he's to be trusted in this area very much. So a prominent piece in the New York Times today, in effect, said -

JIM LEHRER: On the op-ed page.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: On the op-ed page.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: First indicating that he had lots of reasons to be unhappy with Bill Clinton, believing in part the election might have been stolen from him, but putting that aside -

JIM LEHRER: Campaign finance reasons.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Putting that aside, he said, here's the right thing for the country. And, in effect, what Dole is proposing is a tougher equivalent of what Congress has set up for its own members to treat them in a very tough fashion if they stray in ethical grounds. Congress, when it deals with its own members, has a continuum of things it can do. It can expel members, a very tough thing. Right behind that is a censure. I've seen it operate with a member of Congress. You are brought in front of the well of the House or Senate, where they read to you the charges. It's absolutely humiliating. Dole is suggesting that they come up with an equivalent for the president. In effect, it's a joint resolution that goes through both House of Congress. This would happen after the House acts on impeachment.

JIM LEHRER: Yes. And this assumes - he assumes that the House is going to vote at least one article of impeachment.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: In fact, he says it happens whether they vote an article of impeachment or don't vote an article of impeachment.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: But, in effect, you incorporate the impeachment articles and the accusations into a joint resolution; there's an agreement on the part of all parties that they will expedite this to move it through so it can be resolved by January 2nd. It would have to be signed by the president but not just signed by the president. He says the resolution is written by Republican leaders; Democrats go along; and then the Republican leaders set the date and time and place for this to be signed. Present will be the cabinet, congressional leaders, the Supreme Court, and the media, including television. So the world will see Bill Clinton sign a resolution, which admits extremely tough things and which may with his concurrence have additional penalties, financial or otherwise, something very humiliating but resolved quickly and short of actually voting on impeachment in the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: Any impact today?

TOM OLIPHANT: Not particularly. And of course, there's a problem down the line that is monumental in terms of the Constitution, and that is whether a president should admit to charges he not only denies but which have never been contested in an adversarial setting, and the precedent that could set for our country for years to come might be too much of a danger.

JIM LEHRER: Big price for -

TOM OLIPHANT: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: -- you mean -

THOMAS MANN: The idea of trying to negotiate a joint resolution after a vote of impeachment to avoid a Senate trial is very much in play, but Senator Dole's particular formulation is so tough, requiring the president to basically agree to the four articles of impeachment and to prior restraint on his speech and any other Democratic leader's speech critical of this statement means that form wouldn't work, but Sen. Dole's played a constructive role in advancing the idea.

JIM LEHRER: You suggested earlier, Norm, that the Dole proposal in some ways also may have - may have encouraged some House Republicans to go ahead and vote for impeachment because - well, they'll work it out in the Senate some way - maybe the Dole way or another way or something.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: One of the things that Republican leaders in the House have been suggesting openly and otherwise to their own members is this is not the end of the world, because it will be resolved in a different fashion. And they're trying to, in a sense, soften the blow, lower the stakes of a vote for impeachment by their own members.

JIM LEHRER: Norm, two Toms, thank you both. All three. That's three. Two Toms and one Norm.% ? FOCUS - COVERING HISTORY

JIM LEHRER: Now the impeachment story and the news weeklies and to our media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: Every weekend the magazine presses run, ensuring that when Monday comes, so do Newsweek, Time, and US News & World Report. Distributed to millions, they are the nation's most widely read weekly news magazines. In this era of 24-hour, nonstop news, the news magazines have to add something special at the end of the week. Ken Walsh is a senior writer at US News.

KENNETH WALSH, U.S. News & World Report: Because of this vast outpouring of information and news and entertainment these days, I think people are looking for news organizations that they can trust that will give them information that's important to themand not just sort of a frivolous approach to developments that are going on in the country and the rest of the world.

TERENCE SMITH: But even in the midst of a rolling impeachment crisis, some frivolity sneaks in. Last week, for example, US News fretted over love in the office. Newsweek caught people's attention with a cover on actress Nicole Kidman. Time dealt with "The Prince of Egypt," the new animated movie about Moses. A catchy cover can sell magazines on the newsstand. Old Blue Eyes was a hit, as was Michael Jordan. Each sold several hundred thousand extra copies. Increasingly, the news magazines devote space to consumer concerns, news you can use to feel healthier, invest wisely, and understand technology. All three have web sites on which they occasionally scoop themselves between editions. This week - with the House vote on impeachment looming - US News has a pensive Bill Clinton on its cover. Newsweek features the first couple in the fight of their lives, and Time wonders will they really do it.

SPOKESMAN: CNN and Time.

TERENCE SMITH: Each week Time extends its reach in a joint television news magazine with CNN. Time Correspondent James Carnegie talked recently about the frustrations of covering a fast-moving story.

JAMES CARNEGIE: We zig and zag in all these other different directions, but we end up pretty much where we started, which is on track for a vote to impeach the President of the United States on the floor of the House of Representatives just before Christmas.

TERENCE SMITH: With its many twists and turns the president's predicament is putting a lot of pressure on the weeklies. US News described the House as down to the wire, but so was the magazine. They were holding the national news space open at the end of last week while Walsh and his colleagues were still writing.

KENNETH WALSH: It's trying to look ahead and to try to give people a sense of what's next, particularly in their own lives, as far as policy and government goes. That, I think, really is the challenge for news magazines.

TERENCE SMITH: But there is always room for a little color - a notebook here - Washington whispers there - and the conventional wisdom watch. The three news magazines are locked in a permanent battle for circulation. Currently, Time is in the lead with 4.1 million subscribers. Newsweek sends out 3.2 million magazines, and US News is third, with 2.2 million. It's a big business. Among them, the three magazines gross over $1 billion in advertising revenue annually, money that keeps the presses and the profits running.

TERENCE SMITH: Joining us now to discuss the role of the weekly news magazines are the three top editors: Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek; Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time; and here in Washington Stephen Smith, the editor of U.S. News & World Report.

TERENCE SMITH: Gentlemen, welcome to you all. Mark Whitaker, let me ask you first - how does a news magazine approach a story as big as this one, the Clinton impeachment story, when it's being covered 24 hours a day on all news channels and genuinely wall to wall?

MARK WHITAKER, Newsweek: Well, I actually think that this is precisely the kind of story that readers look to the news magazines to help put in context for them, particularly, as you say, in this era of 24-hour cable news coverage, the Internet and so forth, of news saturation from other outlets. You know, we're in a position at the end of the week to really put things into perspective, into context, to wrap the news together with commentary and analysis in a way that people can digest.

TERENCE SMITH: Walter Isaacson, what about you, what angle do you look for when you know a story is going to be the full news diet for the whole week?

WALTER ISAACSON, Time: There's been a full news diet for a year almost and what you try to do is you try to break news. You try to be out there hustling and getting as much reporting as you can. But, like Mark said, you also put it in perspective. You try to get behind the scenes. You want to look at who are the colorful characters and how can we make this come alive? People, you know, get hit with all sorts of misinformation; they get hit with headlines all week. You know, we try to be the reliable source. We try to bring something special. We try to be out there hustling and getting good reporting.

TERENCE SMITH: Steve Smith, what about US News? You're in the midst of this process right now, I assume.

STEPHEN SMITH, U.S. News & World Report: Right. Well, I think that I speak for both my colleagues here in saying that we - in addition to trying to sort out things for readers that we also try to push ahead a week and see where the story will be going next week -

TERENCE SMITH: Look ahead.

STEPHEN SMITH: -- and the week ahead the way the moderate votes seem to be breaking right now. It looks - unless there's a Hail Mary pass by the White House - that this will probably move on to the Senate, and I imagine that all three magazines will want to take a glimpse of that and see if we can add something to that.

TERENCE SMITH: But, Mark, are you, in fact, preparing for either alternative in terms of the vote to impeach the president?

MARK WHITAKER: Well, we always have to do that. Obviously, we're reporting well along. I think no matter what the outcome, we'll have fresh, original reporting. But, you know, you have to look in this game a week ahead and really focus on what people are going to be talking about next week. Obviously, this week that will depend very much on what the outcome is. So, I mean, a lot of our reporting will hold up either way, but obviously in terms of planning covers and the size and shape of your package, you have to anticipate the number of outcomes.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I think, Terry, you might - picking up on what Mark is saying - is that the beginning of the week can be the most terrifying when you really can't tell the shape of the news. It's sort of like skating around on time - not Time Magazine - but on time, preparing alternate covers, does Clinton escape, does Clinton get impeached, and you're trying to work with both covers, you're trying to figure a block out - national news sections that reflect - that can go either way on this - you're trying to gear your reporting so that your reporting is covering both eventualities, and it gets to be a bit of tricky business at the end.

TERENCE SMITH: Right. Walter Isaacson, the criticism is often made on this story that there is nothing new, that there hasn't been anything new for quite a while. How do you feel about that? Is there anything new?

WALTER ISAACSON: Yes. I mean, every week we're trying to digest this as a nation. Every week we come closer to sorting it out. This story has moved at a rapid pace, you know, for 10 months now, and I find it new and fresh every week, and, I hate to say it, but I'm surprised by it every week.

TERENCE SMITH: I wonder what any one of you thinks - Steve perhaps. Where is the line in a story like this between public and private lives? I question whether you could imagine yourself reporting this story in the same fashion 20 years ago.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I think that's true. I happened to be a Washington news editor for Knight Ridder Newspapers during the Gennifer Flowers case and felt very strongly that the newspapers should try to - the responsible newspapers in the Knight Ridder chain should try to cover that story and not leave it to the New York Post. I wasn't getting anywhere, and, as you recall, the New York Times and the major papers didn't get into that story till after the "60 Minutes" interview. I think that today, of course, something like that would immediately get into the papers, because I think that we all understand that these kinds of things have an enormous impact on a presidency and provide terrific insights into the character of a president.

MARK WHITAKER: I actually think that in an era when you have the supermarket tabloids, when you have someone like Matt Drudge out on the Internet and so forth, sometimes we're actually providing a service by becoming behind them reporting the stories sometimes, as distasteful as they might be, but actually providing accurate reporting and better analysis than you can get from those sources. As most people know, we had the Monica Lewinsky story before anybody else. We actually initially held the story because we weren't satisfied, as much as we had, that we had met our own standards. But once Drudge broke the story and it started to appear elsewhere, we actually felt that given as much as we knew, that we had heard some of the tapes and so forth, that we actually had almost a duty to report what we knew to help put it in more accurate and reliable context than we had up to that point.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, you mentioned the Internet and the web sites that, of course, all three magazines have, and that's a significant part. Walter Isaacson, is the web site for a news magazine not a double-edged sword? I mean, you have at least the potential to scoop yourself.

WALTER ISAACSON: I love a web site. And, as you may know, I spent two years away from the magazines developing new media few years ago because I believe the Internet, the web are an important way to disseminate information. And what we do is we have the same standards, as do the other news magazines, for our web site as we have for our magazine. I think Henry Luce, who invented the news magazine, would be absolutely thrilled. I think he'd be building a web site, because you look for new ways to get information out, to put your brand your values of reporting out any way you can.

TERENCE SMITH: But the question is - seems to be one of timing. If you have a remarkable story, one of your reporters brings in a remarkable story tomorrow, Wednesday, or Thursday -

WALTER ISAACSON: There are times, Terry - there are times we put it on the web because it's not going to hold until the next week. There are times we put it on the web because we feel it's an important flow of news for that week. We only put it the web if we're sure it's right and we're sure it meets the standards that would go in the print magazines. But, look, you know, if we're afraid to cannibalize ourselves, somebody else is going to cannibalize us. So if we've got some great news, yes, let's get it out there sometimes.

TERENCE SMITH: Mark, it's pushed you both ways, hasn't it?

MARK WHITAKER: It has. You know, and I think we actually still have to be careful. I don't think we want to do it gratuitously. I mean, you know, our web site is breaking new stuff every day, and we're glad that they are. But the fact is, it still remains the case that I think if we have something really good that we think is going to hold for the magazine, we'll have a tendency to do that. Our threshold is - is it a huge - is it a big enough story to really merit scooping ourselves and is there the danger that it won't hold if we do? Obviously, in the case of the Monica Lewinsky story we went ahead in that first week and published a major story on the web.

WALTER ISAACSON: There are a lot of other reasons you use the web too. I mean, you use the web not just to break little stories or scoops, but we have a personal service section of Time and people keep wanting more information after they've read something, so there's always links in the magazine to getting more information, getting the full transcript of the interview, for finding out how to gather more stuff about something, so the web helps expand what you do in the print product.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Steve. Go ahead.

STEPHEN SMITH: I do think - and I think Mark's sounded this not of caution that we really should do what we do well. I mean, if somebody's looking for breaking news stories, they ought to go to the Associated Press. I mean, they really know how to do it.

TERENCE SMITH: Let me ask you, Steve, all three of you quickly, the sense of competition among you - now, you three seem to behave yourselves quite well on the same show - how aware are you of your competitors, what they're doing during the week, and how much does it affect what you do - the cover you choose?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we're - first off I should say I've worked with both these characters, so I ought to be - and consider them my friends. We're all very aware, and you can tell the news magazines are sometimes lumped together as monolithic - a monolithic publication. In fact, if you look at the covers this week and the way the stories are approached, we're very different. Time has a very eye-catching cover and a question mark that does a conventional - does a real news magazine - Tic Tac - along with some of the moderates - we go heavily into the moderates. Newsweek played - in I think a bit of mischief - thinking that maybe Time has gotten Man of the Year coming up next week with - and wrestling with Mr. and Mrs. Clinton - put both of them on the cover.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. Mark, it certainly sounds as though Steve is watching you. Are you watching him?

MARK WHITAKER: Well, three quick points. First of all, we put Bill Clinton on the cover this week because we had some fresh reporting there and we think people want to know what's going on with him behind the scenes. The second is I think that we consider ourselves very competitive not only with the other news magazines but with a lot of other publications and television as well. And I think that makes us stronger. The third point is - to the degree that we are competitive with each other I think that makes us all better. The news magazines are never better than when all three of them are doing a pretty good job.

TERENCE SMITH: Walter.

WALTER ISAACSON: I think we all are doing a pretty good job, and I love the fact that we compete but I also love the fact that we're competing with media all over the place - from the Lehrer NewsHour to all the newspapers and magazines around the world.

TERENCE SMITH: Worthy competitors. Thanks, gentlemen. Appreciate it very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Tannen and Steele on impeachment and a Middle East peace update.% ? FOCUS- DEBATING POINTS

JIM LEHRER: A few weeks ago we presented a series of one-on-one conversations on the issues raised by the conduct and the investigation of President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky matter. This week we're bringing some of the participants back, this time to debate one another. Margaret Warner has tonight's debate.

MARGARET WARNER: And with me now we have: Deborah Tannen, Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She's best known as the author of "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation." Her latest book is "The Argument Culture." And Shelby Steele, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His 1990 book - "The Content of our Character" - won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His latest book is "A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America."

MARGARET WARNER: Deborah Tannen, does a president - do you think a president accused of what this president is accused of deserves to be impeached?

DEBORAH TANNEN, Linguist/Author: Personally, I don't, but I believe the question for us is: How did we get to this point to hear all of this discussion about did he or didn't he and the details - the kinds of details we've been hearing on the air? It is to me astonishingly blinkered, as if we have forgotten everything that led up to it. To me, the issue is what I call the argument culture. This is the culmination of a relentless, ceaseless attack and it's a combination of fascinating and troubling tragic combination of political opponents using legal proceedings and pumped up by the press, all of these three institutions coming together and all of them coming out of a culture where attack is valued far more than any kind of compromise or seeking solutions. So to me this is the point. The argument culture has brought us to this. How do we feel about that?

MARGARET WARNER: Shelby Steele, how do you feel about that? Do you think that's what this current situation we find ourselves in this week represents?

SHELBY STEELE, Author: I think some of that probably makes a good deal of sense. I think, on the other hand, the behavior of the president tripped all of these institutions that Ms. Tannen is talking about, the law, the press, the constitutional process of impeachment. And once those institutions are tripped and brought into the situation, then they have to become preoccupied with their own integrity. And that - that relies almost entirely on being impersonal in the way that they march forward through all of these rather tawdry details. But I think these institutions are appointing themselves very well for the most part, and I agree that we probably never had this degree of explicitness in our public conversation before, but I think the other side of that is that we see our institutions can bear it, and that that's a healthy sign for American society.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it's healthy?

DEBORAH TANNEN: I don't think it's healthy, and I actually don't think that the president's behavior really tripped it. This is not like Watergate where guards happened to find evidence of a break-in. This was behavior that was - would not have been - it's the kind of private behavior that people have been engaging in and we may discuss forever whether we approve of this kind of behavior, but it has gone on for a very long time. But it has not - it has not come to the fore in this way just by chance. It came to the fore because of - and I could go through the series of events that has - that has brought it to the fore. But I think we should talk really about the more - the really more important issue, I think, for the country.

MARGARET WARNER: You wanted to jump in here. You said it wasn't behavior.

SHELBY STEELE: I wanted to jump in and just make the point that I think all of these institutions became involved at the moment when there was perjury in the Paula Jones deposition, where an actual law was very likely broken, and so I would agree that under normal circumstances no one wants to go through the sexual details and the private affairs of other people. But once the law is tripped, what we were in a - Clinton put himself in a contest with the law. So we either have to sort of betray the law in order to save him, or we have to - you know, go the other way and be very rigid about applying the law. But the law has to - it now has to win. It has to be - it has to make its point, and it has to be applied impersonally.

MARGARET WARNER: Is the significance - the law as opposed to private morality -

DEBORAH TANNEN: I don't believe it is. You know, in the argument culture I talk about how hostility, aggression, and attack has become ratcheted up in all three of our great institutions. And what we saw in this Paula Jones deposition is what we see in many other fields of the law, and I write about it -even though I wrote the book way before any of this happened - where lawyers will use this discovery process. They have the right to depose potential witnesses. They will use this process to damage their opponent, the other side, and ask questions that are really not relevant to the case. It really goes beyond the fact-finding purpose of discovery. And they do it because - and there are a lot of different reasons. But I think what we saw in this case was an attempt to embarrass and damage the opponent, not in this case Clinton, who was not the apparent opponent.

SHELBY STEELE: Isn't that fair play?

DEBORAH TANNEN: But I really would love for us to get the -

MARGARET WARNER: Let me go back -

SHELBY STEELE: Isn't that fair play, though, before we - isn't that the way the law is supposed to work? I mean, it is embarrassing. We are all embarrassed by it. But don't lawyers have the right to do precisely that? If you say you didn't have sex with that girl or that woman and they have evidence and they use discovery to find out that you did, and isn't that fair?

DEBORAH TANNEN: You're making up that point, but, no, I don't think it's fair. They're within their rights. They can use discovery any way they want. But it's not fair because in that case a consensual sexual relationship was really not relevant to sexual harassment -

SHELBY STEELE: He lied about it.

DEBORAH TANNEN: -- which is about -

SHELBY STEELE: What about the lie?

DEBORAH TANNEN: But the case was about a case in which someone was claiming that there was a sexual advance made within the workplace. But, again, these issues that we're talking about -

SHELBY STEELE: But you've got a president here who in lying in that deposition denied Paula Jones her right to a fair trial.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me jump in here with both of you and take it in a different direction, and, Mr. Steele, go to something that you've written about. The Reverend Philip Rogeman, who is the president's pastor, today spoke at the National Press Club, and he made a number of points, but one of them was he said he didn't feel that a man's - and he called them private sins - he felt that should be outweighed for us as a society by the fact that he said this man had been in his public life - I think he said-morally sensitive and committed, and you've written about this, about between the public and private virtue, but do you think he has a point? Is there - we as a society looking at this situation, is there a balance here, balancing that should take place?

SHELBY STEELE: I think he has absolutely a point. I think - you know - we keep missing this. Nobody wants to pry into somebody - who I know - wants to pry into somebody else's sexual life and I - it's not something that we need to be involved in. But when you lie before - in a deposition - or you commit perjury before a grand jury - now you have violated the law - and we keep coming back to this, and it seems to me - I mean, I agree that, you know, it's ugly and embarrassing and tawdry. But when you break the law, you break the law. And there has to be - the law has to have its day in court. It has to - the integrity of the law has to be reinforced.

MARGARET WARNER: And you're saying that in this situation - at this point it's no longer just about private virtue or lack of it.

SHELBY STEELE: No. The breaking of the law made it a public domain issue that we all then have to become involved in, in order to preserve the institution of the law, which I think is now what is important. What - people are now saying we want Clinton to admit that he committed perjury. What people are saying is that we want people to come under the law.

DEBORAH TANNEN: I really could not disagree more. The law is not going to come out strengthened by what's going on now. People know in their private lives there are different degrees of lying. To say every lie is equal goes against people's everyday experience and their sense of morality. So, if the law is insisting that any lie is equal to any other lie, that people lose -

SHELBY STEELE: -- the deposition or a grand jury -

DEBORAH TANNEN: Please let me finish.

MARGARET WARNER: Do let her finish.

DEBORAH TANNEN: They end up losing respect for the law, and this is really what is tragic about all of these events, that people - it is aggravating what to me is the most dangerous problem facing our country today, and that is cynicism, lack of belief in our great institutions of the law, of politics, and of the press.

MARGARET WARNER: Could -

DEBORAH TANNEN: And this is reinforcing people's feeling. And as far as the actual - to simply the law we have heard from so many lawyers saying no, this is not perjury, because perjury must be material to the case, which that wasn't.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. But let me get back to your original -

DEBORAH TANNEN: It doesn't even stand on that point.

MARGARET WARNER: -- point with Mr. Steele. Does Ms. Tannen have a point here, that people in the everyday lives do make distinctions among types of lies and, therefore, that might help explain why, for instance, the public still doesn't seem to support impeachment?

SHELBY STEELE: That's right. And, again, I think this is why it is very healthy for our democracy to go through this kind of thing, because I think people in the next few days are going to understand that if Bill Clinton comes up to me as a friend and tells me a lie about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, I'm certainly going to look the other way. But when he tells exactly the same lie in a legal deposition or before a grand jury, and, thereby, corrupts the legal process, that is an entirely different matter, and that's what we're stuck with, and he has, in a sense, given his enemies the law to sort of hide behind, and so we keep coming back to this point - what would Ms. Tannen have us do - throw out the law at this point?

DEBORAH TANNEN: We have heard - we have heard from lawyers on both sides - and many prominent Republican lawyers - that this - that we have not even seen perjury because in perjury the lie must be material to the case. And the entire deposition - the entirePaula Jones case was thrown out of court. To say that it is not damaging to the democracy is very troubling to me. I see it as highly -

MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry. Mr. Steele, let me just let her finish.

DEBORAH TANNEN: I see it as highly damaging to our country and to our democracy. To grant the country through an impeachment and not only the country but the world, the - one of the - the most powerful government in the world - being destabilized over something like this, to which it is shocking to me that we now accept as normal, seeing our president out in the world representing us to the world with heads of state of the leading countries of the world being pelted with questions about his sex life. This is not healthy to the democracy.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Steele, go ahead.

SHELBY STEELE: Well, I think, you know, you may be right. But don't we need the impeachment process to go through and have this matter adjudicated so we can decide whether or not these violations of the law really do meet the bar of impeachment and make him so he has to leave office. I mean, these processes are in place and I think they're very healthy; they show us to be an extremely open society that we can - we have the institutions in which to address issues this embarrassing and this tawdry and to survive. That's a great democracy. What would - what would you put in its place - a repressive society, so that we would say that we would short-circuit all these processes just to avoid the embarrassment?

MARGARET WARNER: I'm going to have to leave that question on the table. Mr. Steele, and Ms. Tannen, thank you both very much. % ? UPDATE - WHERE IS WYE?

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, President Clinton's trip to Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: Joining us now to look at what the trip accomplished Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He just returned from a trip to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and Rashid Khalidi, Professor of Middle East History and the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago. Gentlemen, welcome.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Satloff, today the president said that because of his trip that the peace process was back on track. Is it?

ROBERT SATLOFF, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Well, I think the president's trip was very important but I doubt that it is any more or any less on track than it was before you went. There were - there's a process underway - timetables to be met - things that are supposed to happen on certain dates. Something happened yesterday that was supposed to happen yesterday. And that did happen. But that doesn't mean that the process was off kilter the day before, or that it's completely fixed today. The process has its defects, and it will remain with us until it's through to its conclusion.

PHIL PONCE: And when you say something happened yesterday, you're referring to the -

ROBERT SATLOFF: I'm referring to the decision by members of the Palestine National Council to affirm the decision by Chairman Arafat to rescind elements of their charter that call for Israel's destruction.

PHIL PONCE: Something that Benjamin Netanyahu pressed for in the - in the Wye agreement a couple of months ago in Maryland.

ROBERT SATLOFF: That's right. It's a major demand of Israelis to have this very symbolic event in Arabic, in Gaza, finally and formally ending the issue of the PLO charter.

PHIL PONCE: Professor Khalidi, your assessment of the impact of the president's trip.

RASHID KHALIDI, University of Chicago: Well, I think that in the long run it's very unlikely to have a great deal of importance inasmuch as this issue of the charter was important to many Israelis. Hopefully, it's now behind us, and I suppose that's a good thing, but I'm afraid that the kind of problems that we had last week are going to face us next week once the president has been and gone. The issues of closure, issues of movement between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, issues of prisoners who were supposed to have been released long ago under previous agreements to Wye are still outstanding, as are many other issues. The Israelis have other agreements as against the Palestinians and all of this ignores the fact that five months hence at the beginning of May the interim period was supposed to end and final status negotiations were supposed to have been completed. They have not even begun. So serious issues -

PHIL PONCE: I'm sorry. When you refer to final status negotiations, you're talking about the big issues - borders, the status of Jerusalem, statehood for the Palestinians -

RASHID KHALIDI: And refugees, precisely.

PHIL PONCE: So in broad strokes - I mean, you refer to some of them - but in broad strokes what at this point, Professor, were the Palestinians expecting under the Wye agreement?

RASHID KHALIDI: I think they were hoping to get some things that they obtained, one of them being an American endorsement of their aspirations generally - generally stated - towards self-determination and statehood, and I think there are a number of things that they were hoping for that they are probably not going to get, such as implementation of the Wye plantation accords, specifically a further Israeli withdrawal and redeployment on Friday of this week. That is probably not going to happen; depending on Israeli internal politics, it may or may not ever happen. There are a number of other things that we're hoping to get, such as release of prisoners and opening of a safe passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and lifting of innumerable other restrictions on movement, which I doubt they're going to get in the near future.

PHIL PONCE: And, Mr. Satloff, what were the Israelis expecting at this point under Wye?

ROBERT SATLOFF: Well, just to add one very large item which the Palestinians did get, which was a pledging conference in Washington two weeks ago in which the Americans and the rest of the world promised several billion dollars of assistance.

PHIL PONCE: You call that a pledge -

ROBERT SATLOFF: A pledging conference - in which all the countries pledged money. The Israelis expected first and foremost a change of attitude symbolized by the PNC vote yesterday but also -

PHIL PONCE: The Palestinian National -

ROBERT SATLOFF: The Palestinian National Council vote on the charter. But also an end to incitement, an end to rioting, an end to conflict, and a commitment that only through negotiations would any issues - outstanding device issues be resolved. There was also a set of requirements in the Wye accord regarding confiscation of weapons, regarding lowering the number of Palestinian policemen to an agreed level, regarding cracking down on terrorists, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I was in Gaza last week, and we met with the senior member of Hamas not in jail. And I was very disappointed to hear from him that not one Hamas institution had been closed down since Wye. I was hoping that he would complain about what Yasser Arafat was doing. I was disappointed that he wasn't complaining about Yasser Arafat.

PHIL PONCE: And because - in your opinion because Yasser Arafat - he was not complaining about Yasser Arafat. That means Mr. Arafat, in your opinion, was not, what, doing his job under the agreement?

ROBERT SATLOFF: Not fulfilling all of the sentiments that the Israelis had hoped and what was called for in terms of cracking down on what is called the infrastructure, the support networks for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

PHIL PONCE: Professor Khalidi, are the Palestinians doing their bit?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, two things that should be said. The support networks include a lot of people who are, in fact, in jail, who are alleged to be involved in violent activities but also include things that I would be very unhappy to see shut down, like kindergartens and schools and nurseries and so forth. Hamas is a - is an organization which has many objectionable aims, but it does a number of very important social things, and these are the things that many Israelis are demanding be shut down. The other point that should be made is that the Wye agreement also calls for no actions that would tend to change the status quo. Israel managed to insert a number of - by its superior power at Wye, it managed to insert a number of things into the agreement, but that-the terminology not changing the status quo includes a number of things that the Israelis have been roaring ahead with, like expansion of settlements, like confiscating land and building so-called bypass roads, like doing things in Jerusalem, which clearly prejudice the final status of Jerusalem, so Israelis are complaining about Palestinian statements; the Palestinians are complaining vainly so far about Israeli actions which have made massive changes on the ground in the past six or seven years and, in fact, in the past several months.

PHIL PONCE: Rashid Khalidi, what would you say that the Palestinians got out of the president's visit?

RASHID KHALIDI: I think they got an emotional boost, which will perhaps last for a few more days. I think they received further endorsement of their not quite equal but close to equal status with the nations of the world. I think the Arafat administration received a boost vis- -vis its domestic rivals. And I think that they will probably have received something which in the end be rather disappointing, which is a sense that things might move forward. And I agree with Bob Satloff. I rarely do that, but I agree with him. I don't think there's going to be very much lasting effect of this visit, and they will, I think, be disappointed. The things that matter - economic - the economic situation - freedom of movement, freedom of prisoners, liberation of territory, those things are probably not going to happen in the near future. And I don't think the big issues are going to be negotiated very soon either - Jerusalem refugees, water, settlements, borders - those things are nowhere near being adjudicated.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Satloff, what did the Israelis get from the president's visit?

ROBERT SATLOFF: Well, the Israelis got a reminder that there is a president who is able to empathize both with them and with Palestinians. Bill Clinton has a unique role to do this. But I think Israeli politics today is fixated first and foremost on domestic issues. Prime Minister Netanyahu is now suffering for his move to the center in making an agreement at the Wye Plantation. He tried to move to the center, and he suffered on the right. He attacks right; he suffers on the left. The votes may not be there much longer to maintain his very disparate coalition - and it is a great irony of Israeli politics today that I think there is the largest consensus in Israel's history about how to deal with the Palestinian issue - Labor - Likud - the center parties. Yet, there's also the deepest division in Israeli politics on who should lead Israel and how that process should be led.

PHIL PONCE: And gentlemen, that's all the time we have. I thank you both for joining us.% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major stories of this Tuesday, 12 undecided Republicans considered moderates said they will vote to impeach the president on Thursday, and Bob Dole said Congress should pass a joint resolution condemning Mr. Clinton instead of removing him from office. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.