The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a Microsoft trial update by Joel Brinkley of the "New York Times;" a report by Susan Dentzer about a new diet drug; political analysis by Mark Shields and Paul Gigot; and a conversation with the outgoing commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles Krulak. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton and House Republicans offered competing legislative agendas today. Speaker Hastert presented the Republican plan at a Capitol rally this morning.

REP. DENNY HASTERT: We're gathered here today because we have the best agenda for the American people. [Cheers] First of all, we're fighting to bolster our national defense. We passed a national defense -- missile defense bill that will make our homes and neighborhoods safer. Second, we also remain committed to improving our education in this country. As a teacher, I believe that every child should have a good school and a safe environment. We passed ed. flexibility, which gives parents and teachers more control over their classrooms. Now we will work to improve teacher quality and school accountability so our children can get the tools they need to be productive citizens. Third, we promised our senior citizens that we will have the retirement security they need to live happy and secure lives. We passed the Social Security lockbox. [Cheers] You know, it's just time for Washington to stop raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for wishful, wasteful Washington spending. [Cheers] Finally, we will fight for tax relief for working Americans. I ask the President, please include tax relief in your agenda. Don't let Washington spend the surplus.

JIM LEHRER: Then a short while later, Mr. Clinton spoke at Georgetown university. He said the time was right to shift his attention from foreign matters to issues at home.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I came back to Washington after my trip to Europe with a renewed energy for the domestic agenda. There will be plenty of time for politics in the year and a half ahead, but this summer must be a season of progress. We have a raft of bipartisan bills: Health care for the disabled, the minimum wage, campaign finance reform, the Patients' Bill of Rights. We have big issues on which there are disagreements, but where honorable compromise is possible: Long-term reform of Social Security and Medicare, paying down the debt. We have a clear case where Republicans and Democrats should join together: To mobilize private capital to give new life to our poorest communities; legislation to hire more teachers and to raise educational standards; sensible but vital steps to protect our children from violence. These are big things. These are things worthy of a great nation and its elected representatives. I will work day and night to achieve this agenda.

JIM LEHRER: The President also held a news conference later in the afternoon. Among other things, he told reporters he'd veto any weak gun control legislation, and he would announce major Medicare reforms next week. In Kovovo today, peacekeeping forces faced disorder and violence. Ethnic Albanians continued to stream home, and some tookrevenge. Betty Ann Bowser has our summary report.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In the Kovovo capital of Pristina, widespread looting continued today. Stores were ransacked by looters making no attempt to hide what they were doing from television cameras. In some cases, teenage boys and children were involved, here taking shoes away in boxes. But by afternoon, KFOR NATO troops had control. In another part of Pristina. They ordered a group of looters out of one store, and arrested others. KFOR spokesman Major Jan Joosten said more reinforcements were being brought in.

MAJOR JAN JOOSTEN: We had about 23 different crimes were reported yesterday to the military police. In reaction to that, we have stepped up our patrolling. We also expect in the coming week that the number of policemen will go up from 350 to approximately 500, and we do whatever we can to react to every report the comes in to the military police.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In the town of Pec, the homes of Serb residents were burned again today. KFOR officials say they think ethnic Albanians did this. A group of about 1,000 angry Serb men gathered in the town square to complain about the revenge being taken against them by returning ethnic Albanians. In the past 24, hours 14 Serb civilians have been killed. KFOR Commander Brigadier General Sir Michael Jackson appealed for calm.

BRIGADIER GENERAL SIR MICHAEL JACKSON: So what I am saying to you is that every day the security forces, KFOR, become stronger. I can also say to you that I know that every soldier here understands utterly, clearly, his duty to protect all citizens of Kovovo.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At the White House, President Clinton was asked if NATO forces have allowed the violence to get out of control.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, NATO is not letting it happen. We are doing what we can to stop it. And I am concerned about it. I am not particularly surprised, after what they have been through. But we signed an agreement with the KLA in which they agreed to demilitarize. The leader even asked the Serbs to come home. And we are deploying our people as quickly as we can. Obviously, if we can get all of our people in, completely, and then get them properly dispersed around the country, we will be able to provide a far higher level of protection. And I think it is very important. And for those people who lose their homes, they are entitled to have them rebuilt, along with everybody else. And I intend to do that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Late this afternoon, KFOR officials said U.S. Marines came under sniper fire while on patrol in the town of Gnilane. A spokesman said Americans returned fire, killing one civilian.

JIM LEHRER: We'll talk about Kovovo with outgoing Marine Commandant Charles Krulak at the end of the program tonight. Six U.S. embassies in Africa have been temporarily closed because of a possible terrorist threat. State Department Spokesman James Rubin said they had been under surveillance by suspicious individuals. He spoke in Washington.

JAMES RUBIN: We have seen a pattern of activity indicating continued planning for terrorist attacks by members of Osama bin Laden's network, and we take reporting of such threats seriously. When we have reason to believe, through a combination of strategic information and tactical information that it is prudent to take appropriate countermeasures and precautions, we do so, and that's what we've done in this case.

JIM LEHRER: Osama bin Laden's group is accused of bombing two other American embassies in Africa last August. State Department officials were to decide over the weekend when the six embassies would reopen. Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas had another round of fighting at the Lebanon border. Israeli jets dropped bombs early today and late yesterday. They were in response to rocket attacks on Northern Israel by the guerrillas. Nine Lebanese and two Israelis were killed, and the residents of Beirut were left without power. The U.S. economy grew at a faster than expected pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported today. The Gross Domestic Product increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent from January through March. Members of the Federal Reserve meet next week to decide if interest rates should be raised in light of the economy's strong growth. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Microsoft antitrust trial; fighting fat; Shields and Gigot; and General Krulak of the Marines.

UPDATE - MICROSOFT- ON TRIAL

JIM LEHRER: Media Correspondent Terence Smith has the trial update.

TERENCE SMITH: Testimony in the federal antitrust trial of the Microsoft Corporation ended yesterday, eight months after the proceedings began, but the trial in which the Justice Department and 19 states are suing Microsoft for illegally using its dominance to thwart competition is far from over. Here to update us is Joel Brinkley, who is covering the trial for the New York Times.

Joel, welcome.

JOEL BRINKLEY: Thank you.

TERENCE SMITH: What is the situation now? The testimony is over, but the trial is not.

JOEL BRINKLEY: Antitrust trials have their own unique and archaic procedures and under -- under those next in August, the government and Microsoft each offer what are called findings of fact in which they give a brief, offering their best case for themselves. Then the following month they have oral arguments in court, which will last a couple of days. Then the most interesting thing is the judge offers his own finding of fact, which is a first cut at a verdict when he tells everybody what he believes. Right after that -- and this is sort of unique -- the government and Microsoft then offer conclusions of law where they cite cases justifying their point of view. And what that means is that the judge can use either Microsoft or the government to do the research for him, citing the case law to support the findings of facts he has issued, and then late this year, early next year there will be a ruling.

TERENCE SMITH: I read today, Joel, that if it is appealed by either side his trial could go on to 2002. That must be a daunting prospect those of you who sit there every day.

JOEL BRINKLEY: That's very possible. Microsoft will almost certainly appeal if they lose, and most people at this point expect that they will lose. They will go to the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court, and that could easily go to 2002.

TERENCE SMITH: Why do you say that, that most people feel -- that people who are sitting there watching it every day feel that Microsoft may lose?

JOEL BRINKLEY: No one who has watched this case could come to any conclusion but that the government has presented an extraordinarily effective case with embarrassing E-mails and testimony and that Microsoft's defense has been at best ham-handed and often quite embarrassing in its own way. One repeated phenomenon is that Microsoft's defense team would present a defense in court and then the government would present E-mail or public statements by Microsoft's senior officials showing that they didn't believe it, so Microsoft undercut its own defense time and time again, even on the last day.

TERENCE SMITH: If that's the case, is there a possibility of a settlement? I know there have been settlement talks. Is there a possibility of a settlement?

JOEL BRINKLEY: The judge trying the case has encouraged the two sides to work towards settlement. They've had settlement talks off and on for more than a year, and they've even had them recently, but they're pretty far apart. The government is fairly confident of its case. Microsoft believes that even though they have been humiliated in court that case law stands on their side and they would win on appeal, so the government believes that if there's to be a settlement, it has to be -- offer a fairly drastic remedy, one that Microsoft is not likely to offer on its own.

TERENCE SMITH: Which would be what, just for example, what would Microsoft have to do to satisfy the government?

JOEL BRINKLEY: The range of remedies available is requiring them to modify the kinds of contracts they offer, but that's been tried before in a previous case, and Microsoft went about its business anyway, so I don't think that the government would settle for that. The range of solutions rums from that all the way to breaking the company up. Not many people watching this believe the government will ask for that, or the judge will order that. The crux of the problem with Microsoft as the government has depicted it is that they use their dominance in Windows Operating Systems to force competitors and other software companies to follow their directions on other issues, so one often discussed remedy is to force Microsoft to license the Windows secret code -- the computer code that makes it up -- to other companies so that other companies can also make Windows Operating Systems and begin to compete with Microsoft on this same territory.

TERENCE SMITH: So they could, it's within their power, Microsoft's power, to settle this case at practically any point.

JOEL BRINKLEY: Today, tomorrow, or the next day.

TERENCE SMITH: What are the stakes for the consumer, for the public, for antitrust law, and for the industry in this case?

JOEL BRINKLEY: The government argues that the stakes -- the immediate stakes are innovation in the computer industry, that Microsoft allows only the innovation it finds useful for its own business interest, but there's much more at stake in the future. Personal computers are going to be important for a long time, but there are a whole new set of devices that are coming into people's homes, set-top boxes for digital television, hand-held computers, even new toys that use operating systems -- the Sony Play Station toy, for example -- use operating systems. We have no way to know what direction the information age is going to take us, and at stake is whether one company is going to be allowed to dominate not only the PC industry but all these other new devices that are going to come into our lives in the years ahead.

TERENCE SMITH: I have read, in fact, that it is already -- this trial -- the mere existence of the trial is changing the industry and changing the way Microsoft does business. Is it?

JOEL BRINKLEY: In fact. Now, whether that's a temporary phenomenon or a long-lasting one we don't know. Microsoft has loosened some of its contracts and allowed personal computer companies to do things it would not otherwise have allowed probably because they realize if they were as hard-handed as they normally are that that could turn up in court soon enough, so whether this new liberal approach that the company's using toward PC manufacturers will last beyond the trial we don't know, but in the meantime, computer manufacturers and software manufacturers are emboldened to try things they haven't ever tried before. Companies that were afraid to offer competing web browsers, for example, because of retribution from Microsoft until last year, are now doing it without had I qualms. Even a different operating system is being sold with some personal computers, and that never would have been tried before.

TERENCE SMITH: So the system's changing even as the trial goes on and on?

JOEL BRINKLEY: Exactly right.

TERENCE SMITH: And on. All right. Thanks very much, Joel Brinkley, thank you.

JOEL BRINKLEY: Thank you.

FOCUS - FIGHTING FAT

JIM LEHRER: Now, a new attempt to fight fat, reported by Susan Dentzer of our health unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: Lorraine Mian is in her mid-30's, and full of vigor. But she also has a serious health problem: At 5'7" and 190 pounds, she's obese, about 35 pounds overweight.

LORRAINE MIAN: Five years ago I got married and settled down, you know, I could say, and I just started gaining weight.

SUSAN DENTZER: These days, when Mian goes out to eat with her friends, she tries to eat lighter foods. That's after years of struggling in vain to lose weight. Recently, her family physician raised a red flag.

LORRAINE MIAN: And he said that my cholesterol was high, and it's something that I could totally fix with just diet and - you know -- weight loss. And I said, you know, "wow, I can't believe that my cholesterol's high. I never thought that I would be in this situation." So I made an appointment to see Dr. Aronne.

SUSAN DENTZER: That's Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity specialist at Cornell University's Weill Medical College in New York.

DR. LOUIS ARONNE: Obesity is a health risk because it's the major cause of diabetes; it's one of the major causes of high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And when you add those up, it's one of the major risk factors for coronary artery disease, the leading killer in the United States.

SUSAN DENTZER: Obesity also afflicts a quarter of a billion people worldwide, and roughly one out of five U.S. adults. To combat Lorraine Mian's obesity, Dr. Aronne recommended a low-fat diet and plenty of exercise. But he also prescribed a controversial drug that has just come on the market in the United States: Xenical.

DR. LOUIS ARONNE: Xenical is a medication that works like no other medication for control of weight.

SUSAN DENTZER: Also known as Orlistat, Xenical prevents some dietary fat from being absorbed by the body. Manufactured by the international pharmaceutical company Roche, it's been available in much of the world for several years. Recently, it was approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States, to the relief of millions like Lorraine Mian. A human resources administrator for Bloomingdale's in New York, Mian is considered obese by virtue of a measurement known as her Body Mass Index, or BMI. That's a formula computed by comparing the metric equivalent of a person's weight to his or her height. A person is obese with a BMI of 30 or higher. Roughly speaking, that translates into a six-foot tall man weighing at least 220 pounds, or a 5'6" woman weighing 185 pounds. Mian's BMI is right at 30. A half hour before she started that lunch with friends, Mian popped a Xenical pill into her mouth, as she now does before every meal. Each pill costs about $1.50, and isn't covered by her health insurance. When we interviewed Mian after ten days on the medication, she had already lost about six pounds.

SUSAN DENTZER: What's your goal? How much weight do you want to lose?

LORRAINE MIAN: I'd like to lose 40 pounds.

SUSAN DENTZER: If she maintains the pace, she could reach her goal in several months, and Dr. Aronne thinks her chances of success are good.

DR. LOUIS ARONNE: Medication helps people who are trying to lose weight, but can't stick with the plan, to stick with it a little bit better. So that if you look at the patients who we've seen who've lost 20, 30, or 40 pounds taking Xenical, they're very, very happy, and they're getting a lot of benefit.

SUSAN DENTZER: That enthusiasm stands to make Xenical the next blockbuster entry in the battle against excess weight. It's a field that has become crowded in recent years with medications like Meridia, an appetite suppressant manufactured by Knoll Pharmaceuticals. Like other commonly used weight- loss medications, Meridia manipulates brain chemistry to curb the desire to eat. But Xenical's approach is different. Once ingested, it lodges in the digestive tract. There, it binds to an enzyme produced by the pancreas that is instrumental in digesting fat.

DR. LOUIS ARONNE: One-third, about 30 percent of the fat that's consumed is not digested, and passes through the gut. 70 percent of the fat that's consumed is appropriately digested and absorbed into the body.

SUSAN DENTZER: There's one problem: If people consume a lot of fat in their diet while taking the drug, they can experience some unpleasant side effects. Joann Chase, a New Jersey political consultant, is another of Dr. Aronne's patients.

JOANN CHASE: In an hour, I'll have a stomach ache if I eat an clair. So you just don't eat the clair-- at least, I haven't. I mean, it's not dinner table conversation. You know, there is a cause and then there is an effect.

SUSAN DENTZER: An effect that can include bloating, flatulence, oily stools, and an urgency to get to the bathroom. What's more, Xenical can also prompt the body to flush out fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. That's why patients are advised to take multivitamin supplements with each dose of the drug.

DR. JULES HIRSCHA, Rockefeller University: There's the worry that they may not take the supplement, and we don't know what the long-term effects of that would be.

SUSAN DENTZER: Dr. Jules Hirsch is an obesity expert at New York's Rockefeller University who frequently collaborates with Dr. Aronne on research. He served on an FDA advisory panel that split 50/50 on whether the drug should be approved. Hirsch voted no, because he believed the drug's minuses outweighed the plusses.

DR. JULES HIRSCH: In all of these instances when we examine a drug, we're very interested in the risk- benefit ratio, and it seemed to me that the benefits of taking Xenical were quite small.

SUSAN DENTZER: Hirsch points to clinical studies of Xenical that raised questions about how much the drug really helped people lose weight. In those trials, one group of patients was given Xenical and put on a reduced-calorie diet. Another group got the new diet and a placebo. After a year, the group on Xenical had lost 10 percent of body weight, just four percentage points better than the group on placebo. In other words, a 200-pound man would only have lost eight more pounds on Xenical than with the low-calorie diet alone.

DR. JULES HIRSCH: The contention is that, well, some of the people in the Xenical group lost more. That's right. But some of the people in the placebo group also lost more. So I just don't think one can make a great case for Xenical on the basis of the occasional person who responds to it.

SUSAN DENTZER: But Dr. Aronne argues that looking at just the average results from the trials obscures the fact that some patients lose lots of weight on the drug. Meanwhile, those who lose only a few pounds still derive health benefits.

DR. LOUIS ARONNE: Why is that? Because the first weight that you lose is intra-abdominal, or visceral fat. That's the worst fat in your body for your health, and what it does is cause much of the metabolic damage that's associated with obesity.

SUSAN DENTZER: Still, even Aronne is concerned about other developing trends. In an age of global commerce, the drug is readily available over the Internet, and can even be obtained from abroad without a prescription. Joann Chase learned that after she got a prescription from Dr. Aronne, but couldn't find the drug locally.

JOANN CHASE: So I went home and got on the Internet, and I typed in "Xenical." And up came about 50 or 60 places written in Chinese, German, French, every language you can imagine, to purchase Xenical, no prescription, no nothing. And I gave them my credit card, and it actually came from New Zealand in two days.

SUSAN DENTZER: That raises concerns that thousands of people may be obtaining Xenical outside a doctor's care. They may also be using it even if they aren't obese, and don't fall within FDA guidelines for the drug.

DR. JULES HIRSCH: The hazards of using this are greatly multiplied if there is no physician surveillance of what is going on.

SUSAN DENTZER: Yet another worry is that some doctors have already begun prescribing Xenical in combination with other drugs, such as the appetite suppressant Phentermine. But this so-called Xen-Phen combination hasn't been studied to determine its safety or effectiveness. That fact invokes grim memories of an earlier drug combination known as Fen-Phen, or Fenfluramine and Phentermine. The combination was once widely prescribed for weight loss. But in 1997, Fenfluramine and a similar drug, Dexfenfluramine, were linked to heart valve disease, and were subsequently withdrawn from the market.

DR. LOUIS ARONNE: I think that just using drugs in combination, without looking at it at all, is not an appropriate thing to do in treating any disease.

SUSAN DENTZER: Lorraine Mian agrees.

LORRAINE MIAN: I do have some fear of risk, so I just am taking the Xenical because it seems to be working for me.

SUSAN DENTZER: But she's also under no illusions about the difficult road ahead.

LORRAINE MIAN: I don't think there's any magic pill about weight loss. I think you need to put effort into it, and the Xenical is just actually helping along.

SUSAN DENTZER: According to pharmaceutical industry analysts, Roche's global sales of Xenical could soar beyond $2 billion annually within several years.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Shields and Gigot, and the commandant of the Marine Corps.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Shields and Gigot are with Margaret Warner tonight.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. We saw the President, as we just aired, the President and Congressional Republicans lay out these competing legislative agendas, Paul. How should we look at this? I mean are both sides going to make a serious effort to pass this stuff?

PAUL GIGOT: I think the best way to look at it is they're not serious legislative agendas so much as they are serious electoral agendas. They're all about positioning I think, for the year 2000. The President said today that he thought this should be like 1995, when both sides got together and passed things. Welfare reform ultimately passed in 1996, but the President made his accommodation on the balanced budget. That doesn't prevail now. Then you had a Republican Congress that really wanted to do things and a President who felt he needed to sign on to some of them to neutralize some of their other things. Now you've got a Republican Congress that doesn't have the votes to do much, doesn't have the confidence to do much, and I think from the President's side, you have the President who said -- who's concluded that -- "my legacy is not going to be about passing things in 1999; it's about winning in 2000." So he's trying to position and use issues as a way to make them issues not for accomplishments. He doesn't expect much of this to pass, but he wants to portray the Republicans as not being able to do much so he can give the Democrats and Al Gore the issues.

MARGARET WARNER: You see it that way, Mark, that real neither side really has much incentive to do anything legislatively?

MARK SHIELDS: I think there will be some legislative product out of here. I think there will be a tax cut this year, I think there will be an increase in the minimum wage. But I think that at the same time, Margaret, what drives bill Clinton and the Democrats in this situation I think comes back to another George Bush, President George Bush. In 1991, after the Persian Gulf War, he soared in the public opinion polls to unprecedented heights of 91 percent and then rested on his laurels with nothing to do and no domestic agenda. And soon his popularity and his administration went South. But Bill Clinton didn't get that kind of a boost, that kind of a lift out of Kosovo, but Democrats want to come back to the domestic agenda very much so. They want to come back to education, they want to come back to health, they want to come back to Patient's Bill of Rights, to Medicare, to issues where they enjoy popular confidence over the Republicans. And they want Bill Clinton out in front on them because he makes the case.

MARGARET WARNER: Can we look at the items he laid out today? The Clinton agenda, does that equal the Gore agenda and does it equal the congressional Democrats' agenda in terms of the electoral --

PAUL GIGOT: I think it's very close. I think it's very close. I think earlier this year you could have made the case and a lot of Republicans hoped that President Clinton would say, "Here's a window of opportunity to do something on two very big issues: Entitlements in particular, Medicare and Social Security." You've got Republicans who want to do something and Bill Clinton could say-- and that would be a major achievement, but I don't think that's going to happen anymore.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean they thought because his legacy was at stake that he would want to do this?

PAUL GIGOT: Sure. Instead of the last thing people remember about him being the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment, why not move beyond that and pass these big, which would be very large, important reforms of these programs that people think are significant? But he had the chance to do that if he was going to do that on a bipartisan basis on Medicare with the Breaux Commission, John Breaux of Louisiana, who the President named as his chairman of his Medicare Commission came out with a report that was -- could have had a report. It had Bob Kerrey, the Democrat from Nebraska in support, John Breaux, had Republican support, but in fact the White House blew it up. And they blew it up over the issue of Medicare prescription drugs. And the reasonthey did was because the Congressional Democrats think that's a winner. They think that's a big winner for them in the election but it means that on Medicare, there's no trust between the two sides and I don't think much is going to be accomplished.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with Paul, that the President thinks his legacy is really winning, Gore winning in 2000, rather than a big achievement?

MARK SHIELDS: I think President Clinton is realistic. I mean, the chances of getting anything through are pretty remote right now. I mean you have -- what the Democrats miss and the Republicans miss right now is Newt Gingrich. I mean the Democrats -

PAUL GIGOT: You especially, Mark, right?

MARGARET WARNER: All of us.

MARK SHIELDS: He put a face on the Republican party.

PAUL GIGOT: Me, too.

MARK SHIELDS: He unified Democrats and at the same time he did unify Republicans and he was a formidable adversary in that sense. That's gone, so there's a sort of mushy feel, both caucuses, the House Republican caucus and the Senate Republican caucus - this sign -- if not warfare, at least tensions and fractiousness. So I think where President Clinton looks at this right now is that he has a chance to lay out an agenda that makes it more likely-- I think Paul's absolutely right on one crucial point, and that is the Medicare thing is gone. The Medicare chance for a compromise is gone. There are a couple of factors beyond 2000 that contribute to that. In 1988, the Congress, you'll recall, with Ronald Reagan in the White House, and the Democrats that controlled the Congress, raised for catastrophic illness for people on Medicare, a premium increase for only the wealthiest that was rather modest in retrospect. The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, then Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago, was surrounded in a car, and it was like a South American coup, if you recall, his car being shaken and all the rest of it, and the Congress quickly rushed to repeal it. That's in Democrats' minds. Second, Democrats are trailing among elderly voters. They've lost their -- in the last two elections. They have not carried voters over the age of 65. Celinda Lake, the pollster, explained to me the difference between Reagan elderly and Roosevelt elderly, among very old voters, those who are products of the Roosevelt era who still revere the New Deal and that President, there's loyalty to the Democrats. But among the more -

MARGARET WARNER: The young old, as we call them.

MARK SHIELDS: The more juvenile, callow 65-year-olds, they're Reagan. And -

MARGARET WARNER: That's interesting.

MARK SHIELDS: And so the idea of risking that some kind of a provocation, which might -- I think you could make the case it's very good public policy, but Democrats see it as bad politics.

PAUL GIGOT: Well, that's why they want -- that's why Democrats are offering the issue of prescription drugs. They want they to say, "look, instead of tax cuts, we'll give you this kind of coverage." Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money, and this -- what the Democrats fear is that there'll be a premium increase for Medicare that then that will -

MARK SHIELDS: And the Republicans will say that's a tax increase. That's right.

PAUL GIGOT: That's right.

MARGARET WARNER: But wouldn't you say that the prescription drug coverage issue might even be popular with aging baby-boomers who know how much prescription drugs cost and are looking ahead to when they're not working and they don't have these nice little cards they can go in and -

PAUL GIGOT: Free goods -- something you can sell as free goodsare always popular. The problem is if you make them understand the costs and then the issue of what about -- if the federal government does begin to subsidize drugs, then do you get into controlling the prices? And that hurts research because price controls can do that down the road.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. George W. Bush went to the Hill this week. How do you see his relationship with Congressional Republicans, both right now and as it's going to play out to 2000?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I mean Democrats immediately made the charge that he was in the pocket of Tom DeLay, the House Republican Whip who's a controversial figure in Washington on Capitol Hill, but beyond you know, the beltway, I mean you couldn't pick Tom DeLay out. Nobody knows who he is. Again, Newt Gingrich is missed. I mean, Newt Gingrich was a face that Democrats could identify. But George W. Bush takes some of the rough edges of the Republican Party, as of now, and softens those sharp edges. He puts a smile on conservatism, and I think what's remarkable is not his relationship with them as much to me as it is their relationship with him. They want a winner. They're not asking him any questions, they don't ask him where he goes when he goes out, they don't ask him whom he saw, what he likes, what he wants to do. He's a winner, and that's really -- and they're all just trying to get close.

PAUL GIGOT: The apostles have got a glimpse of the Messiah or what they hope is the Messiah. I mean, the Republicans, if you talk to them on Capitol Hill, they talk like John the Baptist about -

MARGARET WARNER: Really?

PAUL GIGOT: Saying-- in the Senate, George Bush, I was told, was 30 minutes late for his meeting, so the Senate policy lunch, the Republican policy lunch had already broken up. Most of the time they scatter to the winds. 36 of them came back. Now, I'll tell you 36 wouldn't show up for Steve Forbes. And so they --they really want to see -- they really hope that he can put an agenda together and provide the leadership that can take them out of this situation where they feel they can't do anything, sort of save them from the Clinton/Gore presidency.

MARK SHIELDS: It's amazing. These same Republicans-- Paul's absolutely right-- just eight years ago, seven years ago were saying, "Bill Clinton on-the-job training, Michael Dukakis has to go to the International House of Pancakes for foreign policy." I mean, George Bush, they're not asking him to name the NATO countries because he probably couldn't.

MARGARET WARNER: All the polling does show, too, that George W. Bush is more popular among, say, especially independent voters than Congressional Republicans and his agenda is more popular. Does he have to keep a distance from them in any way?

PAUL GIGOT: Yes. I think -- I think that the Congressional Republicans need a Presidential nominee, Bush or somebody, more than the nominee is going to need the Congress during the campaign season. Obviously, he'll need it if he's elected. And the members of Congress think that they're not going to hold the House anyway if they don't win the White House. But George Bush, if he can run a campaign or any Republican, with Al Gore, who has spent all of his life, just about all of his life in Washington, as the insider and they are -- the Republican is the outsider, that's going to really help that Republican because Washington's never that popular, and it's very dangerous for the Republican nominee to come in and begin to become associated too much, too closely with a Congress that is not even all that popular among Republican primary voters. There are a lot of Republicans who are disappointed with what Congress has not been able to accomplish. So if I were George W. Bush, I don't know that I would spend one more day here, particularly accepting checks from every lobbyist in town.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, he had this $2 million fund-raiser too. Do you agree with Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: He had a $2 million fund-raiser and already the issue of being too much of an insider is being raised by Steve Forbes, whom Paul mentioned.

MARGARET WARNER: Who can just write his own check.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. But they've sent a letter, internal, Bush workers, urging lobbyists to get involved in the Iowa straw poll, which is in August, in which George W. Bush has entered to the surprise of somebody, its expectations being that he would win it and blow several campaigns right out the water at that point because they wouldn't be competitive. And they've asked 50 lobbyists in Washington to get 15 people to use company buses and transportation. This is what he doesn't need. I'm not saying it sinks him, but he doesn't need that kind of association or identification with the Washington power structure and establishment.

MARGARET WARNER: When you look again at these polls, speaking of blowing out all the other candidates, it's astounding just since George W. Bush announced, you know, the gap between him and even just Elizabeth Dole is just huge.

PAUL GIGOT: Well, part of it is that George W. Bush had a really big -- a good announcement. I mean he got a lot of favorable press, there's no question about it. Nobody else can get -- break through. John McCain broke through for a while on Kosovo, he put a stamp on that issue. But now he's not on the talk shows every night. He's not on television, he's not getting that kind of attraction. Steve Forbes tried to with ads, and his staff claims they did in sop of these key states, but nobody else has gotten much that's an issue that can break through George Bush's momentum.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We have to leave it there. Thank you both very much.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles Krulak. He steps down next week after 35 years in the Marines, four years as commandant. I spoke with him this afternoon.

JIM LEHRER: General, welcome.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Good to be here, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Sir, are you comfortable with the role the U.S. Marines are playing in Kovovo right now?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes, I am. It's a tough role. I mean, the American people need to understand that. This is not going to be easy, they're involved in what I call the three-block war. At one point in time, one block, they've got a child in their hands, they're wrapping that child in swaddling clothes, they're feeding it, and it's called humanitarian assistance. The next moment, they're keeping two factions apart-- that's called peacekeeping. And what you're seeing is the third block, every once in a while coming into the second, and the third block in the three-block war is what we call mid-intensity, highly lethal conflict. And so right now, as an example, we have a Marine unit under fire by a sniper. To you and I, that might seem like nothing, but to that young Marine that's getting shot at, that's mid-intensity conflict, and he's into the third block. Trying to manage, the Marine or the army soldier, trying to manage to work through the three-block war is very difficult.

JIM LEHRER: Now, there have been two incidents. There's one now, the one that's going on.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: And according to the wires a while ago, one civilian has already been killed.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: That's correct.

JIM LEHRER: In the earlier incident, also, a Serb civilian was killed by U.S. Marines.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Not, not civilians.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. All right.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: A big difference between somebody who's shooting at you --

JIM LEHRER: Right, somebody with a gun, absolutely.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: You and I know that's not a civilian.

JIM LEHRER: Absolutely right. Somebody with a gun who was shooting at a Marine, a Marine shot back.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: Are you satisfied that those casualties could not be avoided?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes, absolutely. Whether he's a Marine or a soldier, that's the son of a mother and father that is an American, and we're not going to allow our sons or our daughters to be fired at without retaliating, and the quicker we do it, believe me, the more the bad guys, so to speak, are going to take it to heart that you do not fool with the American serviceman, in this case the Marine, and if you ever let them think that they can get away with shooting at the sons and daughters of our American mothers and fathers, we're in real trouble.

JIM LEHRER: Are U.S. Marines trained to do these three very different, delicate kind of jobs?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: That's exactly what we've been involved with over the past years. We have been working diligently to ensure that we can fight the three-block war, because we believe in our heart and souls that that is the conflict of the 21st century. So to answer your question, yes. It's hard, though. It's hard.

JIM LEHRER: Because doesn't it require different skills? I mean, the warrior-- the third block, is the warrior.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: That's correct.

JIM LEHRER: Somebody shoots at you; you shoot back, and you move on.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: That's correct, and if you can imagine taking, oh, one of the young men and women of character from our American society and saying, "Look, at one time you're going to have to be taking care of a child, and then the next moment you're going to be involved in mid- intensity conflict," it really takes a special type of person. That's why we've changed our recruiting standards. That's why we've changed and increased the time in boot camp and made it tougher, because we understand that what we're looking at now is somebody that we call the strategic corporal: The individual who at the very lowest level of the Marine Corps is going to have to deal with issues of strategic importance.

JIM LEHRER: And they can do it?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: They can do it. We're seeing it right now. I mean, we're seeing the evidence of that right now. They are moving from one block to the other, seamlessly. Is it easy? No. Is it dangerous? Very dangerous. Are they doing it? Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Is this something that the American people as well as the U.S. Military and the Marines in particular better get used to because this is what the future is, in terms of the use of the U.S. Military?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: I believe that, yes, and I think that the American people need to understand that, and that we as a nation need to understand that as we look at what are our vital interests and what aren't our vital interests, and understanding that whatever our interests are going to be, it is going to eventually lead us into what we call the three- block war. Why? Because they've watched CNN, the enemy has. They've seen the might of our technology. They're not going to fight us straight up. We're not going to see the son of Desert Storm anymore. You're going to see the stepchild of Chechnya. You're seeing it right now. It's called Kosovo. Our enemies will attack us asymmetrically. They will take us where we're weak, and they will negate our strengths, which is our technology, and so the best way to do that is to get you into close terrain-- towns, cities, urban slums, forests, jungles.

JIM LEHRER: Did you think that bombing alone would produce the result it did in Kosovo?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: No, not really. I don't think bombing alone did produce it. I think what produced the results that we saw were the bombing, which was done magnificently by the Air Force, by the Navy, and by the Marine Corps, as well as the threat of ground attack and the actual movement of ground forces-- in this case, the KLA-- that I think flushed the Serbs and certainly sent a signal to Milosevic that we were ready to come, and at that point in time he said, "I'm going to cut my losses and cut the best deal I can."

JIM LEHRER: Did you question this strategy from the beginning, whether or not this was really the way to do this?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: I -- I questioned not the strategy, because it wasn't a strategy, and that was the whole point of my comments. I did not believe we were at the strategic level. We were talking about the tactical and operational level of war: Should we drop bombs, should we not drop bombs, should we put in forces, should we not? And I kept on wondering, where is the debate about what the end state is -- not necessarily three years from now, but what about ten years from now? And what are the measures of effectiveness that we can have to get to that end state, and where is the debate, the public debate, on the issue? And so those were my concerns, and I ink I still have them, that sooner or later we need to understand that we're talking about Central Europe, we're talking about the Balkans. And you cannot just look at one country in the Balkans. You have to look at the total Balkan picture and say, "What is it that we want Europe to look like and be like ten to fifteen years from now?"

JIM LEHRER: But the additional part of that is what do we as Americans want to -- how do we as Americans want to exercise our military power?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes, sir.

JIM LEHRER: Has there been that public debate, and why hasn't there been?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: There hasn't been. I'm not sure why. The reality is, a nation is a superpower not just because of its military strength; a nation is a superpower because of five, what I call elements of national power. One of them is the diplomatic. One is military. One is our industrial might, the strength of the industry of the nation. The fourth one is the laboratories and the academic environment that can also be brought to bear as part of the element of national power. And the fifth, and gaining more importance all the time, is the information element of national power. This country right now is disposed to use diplomacy and the military, and we seem to be forgetting that we have three other very powerful tools that make us a superpower. Conoco Oil, University of Pennsylvania, this TV station also are elements of the power of this great country of ours, and we need to learn how to use them.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton took some heat from many people over the fact that he was trying to fight a "risk-free war" in Kosovo, by bombing from 15,000 feet, et cetera. What do you -- how do you read that? What do you think about that kind of -

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: First off, I don't think that the President thought he was fighting a risk-free war, and certainly my Marine pilots never felt it was risk-free. I mean, if they're shooting ground-to-air missiles at you, that's not risk-free. I think what the President was trying to do, and did it fairly successfully, was to bring this tyrant to his knees without placing a whole lot of U.S. servicemen and women at risk. And it took a long time, it took many, many days, but you can't argue with what happened. The problem is, it isn't over.

JIM LEHRER: Yes. But it's legitimate. It's a legitimate idea to try to fight a war like this, where the number of casualties is an overriding concern, rather the end result?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: If you have a situation where we found ourselves in, which was the debate had not taken place, the issue of vital national interests had not taken place, and at that point in time, we fought a war that was basically as clean as it could be.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of the public and debate, et cetera, a lot of people have been talking recently about a growing gap between the culture of the United States Marine Corps and the military, and rest of American society. Is there such a gap?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: I really don't believe it. I -- when I look at the core values of the United States Marine Corps-- honor, courage, and commitment-- I believe in my heart and soul that those are the same values of the mothers and fathers of America. I mean, I don't think there's a disconnect. I think that there probably is a cultural gap that is recognizable but good. In other words, to me, my responsibility to the American people is to maintain higher standards. They don't want a Marine Corps that has lowered their standards. They look to us as a breed apart, and so if you talk about a difference in culture between the Marine Corps and American people, that may not be bad. That's probably good, and that's what the American people want.

JIM LEHRER: Let me read you what Thomas Ricks wrote in the "Atlantic Monthly." He wrote a book you might know about.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Sure.

JIM LEHRER: He followed a recruit platoon through Parris Island, and he wrote an article in "Atlantic Monthly," and he said, "I was stunned to see, when they went home for post-graduation leave--" these are the Marine recruits-- "how alienated they felt from their old lives. At various times, each of these new Marines seemed to experience a moment of private loathing for public America. They were repulsed by the physical unfitness of civilians, by the uncouth behavior they witnessed, and by what they saw as pervasive selfishness and consumerism." What do you think of that?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: I think that's a little hard on my friends in the American public, but I will say this much: I think that what you're seeing there is this inculcation of core values on this young, impressionable Marine. And so they come out of boot camp-- he's talking about people that just graduated from recruit training, having gone through the Crucible, having gone through this --

JIM LEHRER: Explain "the Crucible."

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: The Crucible is the defining moment of boot camp. It's a gut check. It's 54 straight hours of food and sleep deprivation, exacerbated by 29 challenges that the recruits have to go through. It is an effort to go from self-discipline to selflessness. We understand you can't change the values of an 18-year-old, so what we've done is, we've said, "Okay, what are the values that our Constitution talks about?" Honor, courage, physical and more, and commitment -- and we put those values on top of our Marines, and we stick them into the Crucible, and they come out hard as steel. Now, they go home, and they're looking at their neighborhood, and in that neighborhood there are people selling drugs, people taking drugs, people beating their spouses, and that repulses them. Why? Because they've just gone through this defining moment that says, "This is bad, and people who do bad should be held accountable."

JIM LEHRER: I know you've talked about the Littleton, Colorado, thing.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: You wrote about it recently in the Richmond newspaper, about the cultural problems this country has. What -- draw the distinctions. What do you see when you look out? In other words, forget these new young Marines - as a commandant of the Marine Corps, a man who's been in the Marine Corps 35 years -- when you look out at civilian society today and relate that to the violence that manifested itself in these school shootings.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Well, first off, I think that the mothers and fathers of America are trying their level best to raise young men and women of character. There's not a mother out there or a father out there that wants to raise a bum or a bum-ette. I don't think the schools are trying to produce bad kids, and I don't think the churches are. What I do believe is that they are in competition with a lot of garbage that's coming through movies, TV, books, you name it, and the kid is forced to deal with this. You and I didn't have to deal with it, believe me, and until we come to grips with that and understand what these young men and women want is a challenge. They want to be held accountable, they want to have a role model to look up to, and when they do, they will emulate that role model. If it's a positive role model, that's good; if it's a negative one, that's bad. What we as a nation have got to do is start putting in front of these kids some positive role models.

JIM LEHRER: General, finally, we're about to go into a Presidential election campaign.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Should the candidates be talking about the kinds of things we've been talking about just now?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: If I were a candidate, two things that I'd talk about immediately. One of them is education, and I don't mean getting new schools and getting new books. I'm talking about paying a teacher to do the job of saving lives. We pay a doctor a lot of money. Why? Because they save lives. Well, let me tell you, those kids are the lifeblood of this nation, and yet probably the poorest people around is the secondary schoolteacher, and as soon as this nation wakes up to the fact that we need to start paying what I call the doctors of education-- that's the schoolteacher-- a sufficient amount of money to do the job, the better off we're going to be. The second area has to do with national security and what it is to be a superpower, and I go back to the five elements of national power. We need to understand that there are not just two, there are five of them, and how do we as a nation employ them and be the superpower for good that we can be?

JIM LEHRER: General, you're about to retire?

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Yes, I am.

JIM LEHRER: What are you going to do? After -- you were -- you've been in the Marines 35 years yourself. Your father, of course, was a three-star general before you. You've been a Marine all your life.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: I want to go surf, and after I surf for a couple of days, then I'm going to go to work with an organization up in Wilmington, Delaware, that also is a values-based organization.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, semper fi, and thank you, and good luck to you, sir.

GENERAL CHARLES KRULAK: Thank you. God bless you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday: President Clinton and House Republicans offered competing legislative agendas. Peacekeeping forces in Kovovo faced disorder and violence. NATO said 14 Serb civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours. And, as just discussed by General Krulak, U.S. Marines again were shot at. They returned fire, killing one person. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.