The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of the day; bringing democracy to the Middle East; drawing lines among democrats on the presidential stage; the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; and a rape charge against a basketball star prompts a debate on protecting the identity of accusers.

NEWS SUMMARY

RAY SUAREZ: The FBI today dispatched a team to investigate yesterday's bombing at the Jordanian embassy in Iraq. The death toll of the bombing rose to 19; 65 were injured. A U.S. Army general said an Iraqi members of an Iraqi group called Ansar al- Islam were prime suspects. The group is said to have links to the al-Qaida terror network. A U.S. soldier on guard duty died from a gunshot wound last night in western Baghdad. The Pentagon reported 56 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since May 1. And in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, U.S. snipers killed two suspected arms dealers. We have a report narrated by Vera Frankl of Associated Press Television News.

VERA FRANKL: Troops were positioned in the area after hearing that weapons and ammunition were being sold in the market in Tikrit. Witnesses say they heard shots and saw a man who was unloading AK-47s from the trunk of a car fall to the ground. A local U.S. commander said people carrying weapons are automatically classified as the enemy.

LT. COL. STEVE RUSSELL, U.S. Army: So we put observation on it, and our men were able to find guys pulling AK's out of the trunk here, laying them up for sale. You can see here where the... all the magazines and things are laid out

VERA FRANKL: Troops showed an ID card bearing a photo of one of the dead men that apparently identified him as a supporter of Saddam Hussein.

RAY SUAREZ: President Bush today proclaimed major economic and political progress in Iraq in the 100 days since he declared an end to major combat operations there. Mr. Bush spoke after meeting with his national security team at the summer White House in Crawford, Texas. Despite the progress, Mr. Bush said, he still laments the continuing loss of American lives.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We suffer when we lose life. I mean, our country is a country that grieves with those who sacrifice. We have been there 100 days. We've made a lot of progress in 100 days. And I am pleased with the progress we've made, but fully recognize we have a lot more work to do.

RAY SUAREZ: Indonesian police today said they'd identified the Marriott Hotel bomber, using remains found at the scene. Ten people died Tuesday when a powerful car bomb exploded in downtown Jakarta. Today, a police statement said jailed militants had identified the bomber from photos. Two of them admitted they'd recruited the man into Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant Muslim group. The group has also been linked to the deadly nightclub bombings in Bali last year. A gun battle left three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier dead in the Middle East today. It happened during an Israeli raid on a suspected bomb-making lab near the West Bank town of Nablus. The Palestinian militant group Hamas threatened to respond to the deaths. But it said it still stood by a June 29th cease-fire. Also today, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon traded fire with Israeli troops over a disputed border region. It was the first such exchange in eight months. The tense truce continued in Liberia, but vehicles filled with armed young rebels cruised the streets of the capital, Monrovia. Humanitarian groups have pleaded with them to let food supplies get through to starving Liberians in government-held parts of the city. President Charles Taylor said he'd step down Monday.

PRESIDENT CHARLES TAYLOR: Maybe because some of the big countries have not been trustworthy in their statements. We are not here to play games. We have met the provisions of the constitution of Liberia. I have it in writing physically the president will be here on Monday. Here he stands right here.

RAY SUAREZ: But rebel General Abdullah Sharif said he considered Vice President Moses Blah unqualified. The general insisted the government must change completely before the rebels end their armed resistance. Leaders of the worldwide Anglican Church will be summoned to an emergency meeting in London this fall. The church's head, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said today he was calling the summit to discuss the confirmation of an openly gay bishop by the U.S. Episcopal Church. The Reverend Gene Robinson was approved at the church's triennial convention in Minneapolis this week. American and international opponents of the action said it could produce a major split within the denomination. In California today, another candidate prepared to enter the campaign to recall and succeed Democratic Governor Gray Davis. A political adviser said Peter Ueberroth, the former Major League baseball commissioner, would file the required papers before tomorrow's deadline. In 1984, Ueberroth served as organizer of the summer Olympic games in Los Angeles. Late today, California's Supreme Court rejected five lawsuits including one to delay the recall vote, now scheduled for October 7. Several federal suits still remain. Florida Governor Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency today in northern Palm Beach County. A surprise tornado struck there yesterday afternoon and left a three-mile swath of destruction. The high-flying twister touched down in late afternoon, destroying or damaging more than 500 homes and temporarily disrupting power to 30,000 residents; 420 units in a mobile home park were demolished. But there were no deaths and only a few minor injuries. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 64 points to close at 9191. The NASDAQ fell six points to close at 1644. For the week, the Dow gained 0.4 percent. The NASDAQ lost 4 percent. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: Democratic transformation in the Middle East and beyond; divisions among presidential candidates; our weekly political analysis; and identifying accusers of rape.

FOCUS - DELIVERING DEMOCRACY

RAY SUAREZ: Now to the Bush administration's ambitions to transform a troubled region. Margaret Warner has the story.

MARGARET WARNER: National security adviser Condoleezza Rice laid out a bold assertion yesterday. Speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists, she said the U.S. has a responsibility to transform the predominantly Islamic Middle East, much as it did in Europe after World War II. The 22 countries of the Middle East make up a region of enormous potential now blighted by hopelessness and a "freedom deficit," she said, and it's up to America to change that.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: But if that different future for the Middle East is to be realized, the United States and its longtime allies must make a generational commitment to helping the people of the Middle East transform their region. In many ways, the opportunity before us today is similar to an opportunity that the United States faced in the wake of World War II. The horrific suffering and catastrophic costs of two European wars in less than 30 years convinced the United States to work in partnership with Europeans to make another war in Europe unthinkable, by helping to build a free, democratic, prosperous, and tolerant Europe. American policy-makers set out to create new institutions, such as NATO, to help realize that vision. The U.S. supported European efforts to promote economic integration, efforts that eventually evolved into what is now the European Union. We promoted democratic values at every opportunity. And perhaps most importantly, we made a generational commitment to creating a democratic Germany, which becamea lynchpin of a democratic Europe. The historical analogy is important. Like the transformation of Europe, the transformation of the Middle East will require a commitment of many years. I do not mean that we will need to maintain a military presence in Iraq, as was the case in Europe; I do mean that America and our friends and allies must engage broadly throughout the region, across many fronts, including diplomatic, economic, and in helping to establish institutions of civil society. We must have patience and perseverance to see it through. There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in post-war Germany and to see only success, but the road that was traveled there was very difficult. 1945 through 1947 were especially challenging years. The Marshall Plan was actually a response to failed efforts to rebuild Germany in late 1945 and early 1946. S.S. officers called Werewolves attacked coalition forces and engaged in sabotage in Germany, much like today's Ba'athists and Fedayeen remnants. We must never, ever indulge in the condescending voices who allege that some people in Africa or in the Middle East are just not interested in freedom; they're culturally just not ready for freedom; or they just aren't ready for freedom's responsibilities. The people of the Middle East are not exempt from this desire. We have an opportunity and an obligation to help them turn desire into reality. That is the security challenge and the moral mission of our time. Thank you very much. (Applause)

MARGARET WARNER: Is America ready, or equipped, for this kind of commitment? To explore that, we're joined by: Samuel Berger, national security advisor during the second Clinton term; Richard Haass, incoming president of the Council on Foreign Relations-- he served on the NSC in the first Bush administration and at the State Department in the current one; and Philip Zelikow, a history professor and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, an NSC staffer in the first Bush administration, he co-authored a book on German unification with Condoleezza Rice. Welcome to you all, gentlemen.

Sandy Berger, what do you make of this basic premise, this idea that the U.S. has to make now a generational commitment to transform the Middle East the way it did for Europe after the Second World War?

SAMUEL BERGER: I think it's appropriately ambitious and conservative vision both at the same time. It's ambitious in the sense that it recognizes that the stagnant status quo in the greater Middle East is not only corrosive for the people living there but ultimately dangerous for us. But it's also conservative in the sense that it says it's a long-term enterprise. This is going to take sustained engagement. This is not something we are going to accomplish by the mighty swift sword. And in that sense, it's quite different than the views of some others in the administration.

MARGARET WARNER: How did you see it?

RICHARD HAASS: I thought it was exactly on target. We've got to do this. One of the lessons of 9/11 I would suggest, is that if you have societies where young men in particular feel alienated politically, have no opportunity economically, these are the sort of people that are going to be tempted by radicalism. We need to promote democracy in this part of the world because it's the right thing buy it's also an example of self-interest. I would say, picking up on something Sandy said, we are right to be conservative here n situations such as this, we are wise to obey the Hippocratic Oath. First do no harm. These are difficult questions; it's very ambitious. We have got to do it right. We can make a bad situation worse if we are not careful.

MARGARET WARNER: Were you startled to hear her say generational commitment? I mean, here we in the press are pushing the administration to say, are we talking about one year or two-years or how much we are going to spend in the next six months and she is talking about a generational commitment.

PHILIP ZELIKOW: It is very reminiscent of the situation after World War World II -- in 1945 and '46 -- most of the American people and most of the U.S. Congress thought now we go home. We have a little bit of cleaning up to do, but we are going to leave. And what happens in '47 and '48 and into the early '50s is an awakening to the fact that actually not only are we going to need to stay, we are going to need to recommit first money and then long-term presence of troops in the case of Europe for an indefinite venture. And right after the war was over, for years, most Americans didn't see that. And then they had to figure out how that would work and why they should do it. And this is, in a way, a much faster summons. I mean, here we are, we're there. We are in the Middle East, just as we already found ourselves in Europe in 1945. And then the question is, all right, now, what are you going to do? Are you going to leave? Are you going to go forward? What's the next step look like? And the administration is rapidly trying to articulate really a whole comprehensive new agenda for years and years to come.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay, Sandy Berger, let's look at the analogy, though, between the Middle East and post-war Europe. I mean, how apt is that analogy in terms of how receptive it is to American reshaping or transformation?

SAMUEL BERGER: I think it's apt in the sense of a time frame. But I think there are some fundamental differences we have to take into account. Number one, at the end of the War World II, we faced a destroyed and decimated Europe that even in defeat was grateful for our support. There is a wide chasm between the United States and most of the people of the Arab world today who are going to be very suspicious that this is seen as an American crusade for democracy. Second of all, we have to see whether or not we have what Fouad Ajami has called a sense of righteous mission in America today as we did for rebuilding Europe. We had lost a great deal of blood and treasure in Europe. This has been a relatively costless war. And I think that's where the real decisive difference here is going to be patient and persistent presidential leadership. Here the president has to be not only commander in chief; he has to be educator in chief to bring the American people along to understand the fundamental basis for this kind of a sustained commitment.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see the same thing, some significant differences, Richard Haass, between both the two regions and also where the two countries, that is where the United States is politically?

RICHARD HAASS: Alas I do. As difficult as it was to rebuild Europe - this -- orders of magnitude potentially more difficult. In part, we are not going to have the luxury of staying; in places in Europe, American troops weren't shot at. They were welcomed. We are not going to have a situation where we can stay for five or ten years and be welcome.

MARGARET WARNER: Militarily.

RICHARD HAASS: Militarily. So we're not going to be able to have the same context. More important, if one looks at where European societies were in 1945 and where Arab societies are in 2003, there are some fundamental differences. And at the risk of being politically incorrect, let me simply suggest that European societies were far more developed. They had far more of the prerequisites of democracy in terms of media, in terms of civil society, independent institutions free of the government, in terms of constitutions, of governmental systems in which political authority was distributed. None of these things, not one of them, exists in today's Middle East. So the raw materials of democracy building simply aren't there. As a result, I'm not saying it is impossible, I'm not saying don't do it, but I am saying far, far, far more difficult.

MARGARET WARNER: Very different raw material, Phil Zelikow, to work with?

PHILIP ZELIKOW: Very different, but the analogy really only works at the level of trying to give people the visceral sense of the scope of the task involved, and that this is going to be very hard reminding them that, in fact, the solutions in Europe took years to develop and were very hard. But as far as all the specifics are concerned, the analogy doesn't work. But in fact in some ways the scope is even broader than she described in the speech because I don't think the agenda is for the Middle East. The agenda -- and its politically inconvenient to use this term, is for the Muslim world. It is not just for the Middle East. It extends to Pakistan; it extends to Indonesia and Malaysia. But on the plus side, since we are all being very downbeat about this, let's just notice that in late 1940s, we were competing against a major ideology that had taken power in much of Eurasia, was about to seize power in all of China and that enormous appeal in large parts of the world. Here we are in a struggle of ideas against the foe who says their goal is to recreate a caliphate through blood and fire. If that's the battle of ideas, I think that we are in a good position to win that.

MARGARET WARNER: But, Sandy Berger, did the fact of the Cold War, the fact of the Soviet threat right outside Western Europe, in some ways make our job easier, too?

SAMUEL BERGER: Certainly the act of rebuilding Europe, the Marshall Plan was not only magnanimous, it was both sold and seen as rebuilding Europe against a new threat, a Soviet threat. But we have a threat today, a terrorism threat, which is very palpable to the American people. National security has become personal security for most Americans. It is certainly true that that has to be fought on offense, going after those who seek to destroy us; on defense with homeland security far more than we've done; and in the battle of ideas. And I think it is in that third battle that we have the most challenging undertaking. Let me just say one thing. There are winds of change that are blowing, perhaps not torrents of change in places like Qatar and Jordan and Morocco and Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates; there is beginning to be some voices of modernity and some efforts to reconcile tradition and the future, reconcile the past and the future. And I think we have to align ourselves with that internal dynamic rather than trying to impose our own dynamic on the region.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And that's exactly what Condi Rice said, that we have to support those who may even be afraid to talk like this. But how do you do that in practical terms?

RICHARD HAASS: You do it first of all using all the tools of American foreign policy, not principally the military ones. This is where old-fashioned things like economic aid come in handy, exchange programs where we send people over, judges, journalists who tell people how we do it, how independent institutions and free individuals work in society. We invite people here. We show them how things work here. American foundations have to get involved, American universities, trade unions. What we need to do is encourage counterpart organizations to take hold and gain traction in these other societies.

MARGARET WARNER: But what do you do about the fact that the hostility to that may come, does come in many of these countries, the hostility to that kind of openness or freedom or civil society from regimes and governments that, in fact, we still consider our allies? I mean, how do you handle that?

RICHARD HAASS: One thing you have to start doing is put this issue on the agenda; every administration, quite honestly, Democratic and Republican for years and years, has not emphasized this issue.

MARGARET WARNER: Human rights, civil rights.

RICHARD HAASS: It's much more fundamental than human rights. It's civil rights, it's political change; it's economic reform. What happens is when the President of the United States meets with some Arab leader, inevitably you talk about the Israel-Palestine problem and in the past you talked about Saddam. Now you talk about Iran, you talk about oil and energy. We have got to make this a priority. Privately we've got to start talking so when we see President Mubarak of Egypt or we see the crowned prince in Saudi Arabia, we have to start talking because it's not just their futures at stake, but in this global world, our future is at stake, too. We have to start talking about it privately. We have to start talking about it publicly. We really have to make this issue common and acceptable for the first time.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that, Phil Zelikow, that we are talking about more than money in a big way?

PHILIP ZELIKOW: We are talking about more than money, but also what we are talking about is not teaching them how to imitate America, bringing our professors over there or bringing their professors over here. What we have to help them do is to discover their pathway. And here I think it's important to notice there is a difference between freedom and democracy. Democracy is a form of political choice. It's very, very important. But what these societies need first is they just need basic respect for human dignity; for tolerance, for freedom from arbitrary violence, for some rule of law. Let them work through the kind of political processes that guarantee freedom that make sense in their societies. That's where local leaders are going to be able to get a footing that they can stand on.

MARGARET WARNER: Final thought. Do you think the American public is ready for this commitment?

SAMUEL BERGER: I think it's going to take a good deal of presidential leadership, but I would say one quick thing, Margaret. This is a very distinct vision from that of some others inside and outside the administration who believe this change comes from much more radical regime change. Iraq is essentially an American aircraft carrier now in the Middle East from which we promote regime change from Iran to Syria. This is very much a long-term undertaking that Dr. Rice is talking about.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We have to leave it there. Thank you all three.

RAY SUAREZ: Still to come on the "NewsHour" tonight, Democrats draw lines in the presidential race; Shields and Brooks; and a media debate on identifying rape accusers.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

RAY SUAREZ: Now, the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and David Brooks of the "Weekly Standard."

Well, manmade earthquake this week in California. The government that touches the daily lives of one out of nine Americans suddenly seems up for grabs, David.

DAVID BROOKS: Amazing. An earthquake on the Republican side because suddenly for the first time in ten years there's a viable Republican candidate for governor in the state of California, but more interestingly, an earthquake on the Democratic side there. There had been this core of support or at least nominal support for Gray Davis. People were going to stick by him. But once you had the behemoth on the other side, panic, the sense we have to get rid of this guy; we've got to find a replacement.

RAY SUAREZ: So you're making a fairly dire forecast for Gray Davis, it sounds like.

DAVID BROOKS: It looks a lot worse for him than it did a week ago, certainly.

MARK SHIELDS: I'm not ready to predict. I think this race has had so many twists so far. It wasn't going to get on the ballot, was going to get on the ballot, Dick Reardon is going to get in, he isn't. I think there will be three or four more plot twists between now and October 7. There's no question that the Democrats' strategy, particularly Governor Davis's strategy had been to de-legitimize the recall by making it a right-wing coup, a grab for power to overturn the election results of last November in which he defeated Bill Simon. And that, of course, has been dealt a very serious blow on two counts - first of all, by other Democrats getting in. It required no Democrats getting in to legitimatize the question. The lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamente, is in, John Garamendi, the insurance commissioner is in and also by the Republicans rallying, at least an awful lot of them, around a candidate who is pro-gun control, pro-gay rights, pro-choice and, he insists, pro-environment. So, you know, it's the old cry of get me a winner. I don't care what he believes, just get me a winner. I think an awful lot of Republicans see that in Arnold Schwarzenegger right now.

DAVID BROOKS: Not only the fact of someone like Bustamente getting in, you had Jerry Brown on this program last night, you had Willie Brown, you had Nancy Pelosi, you had just about every big Democrat in the state, pretty much circling around Gray Davis like vultures.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let's talk a little bit about what's changed this week. You had Darryl Isa in and then a long list of what could charitably be called novelty candidates: the comedian, Gallagher, Gary Coleman, Larry Flynt, et al. Now it suddenly isn't so clean. Ice is out, but there is going to be more than one Republican on that list, too, isn't there?

MARK SHIELDS: Bill Simon, who lost to Gray Davis last fall, is planning on running even though people are trying to talk him out of the race. He is insisting he is going to make a race of it. Isa, who paid for the party, the invitations, the drinks, the food, everything, to sponsor and underwrite the entire referendum and recall, he, you know, he left tearfully yesterday, saying he was going to devote his energies to peace in the Middle East. I have to say one thing. I have been a staunch defender of California. California has done a lot for this country; it has given us a community college system, great leadership at the public level, and Earl Warren and Pat Brown and many others. And I have to say this time California really, I think, has gone around the bend. And, you know, I can understand the historical imperative of the recall because the Southern Pacific Railroad owned everything in California-- legislature, the courts, the city government, newspapers, public opinion. And that was the only recourse to it, but I got to tell you, direct democracy just absolutely destroys representative democracy. It destroys any chance of minority rights in making policy and making decisions, and I just think it's a bad way to run the government of the fifth largest economy of the world.

DAVID BROOKS: I basically agree with that, though there has been a tremendous upsurge in interest in all this. Suddenly Californians are really interested in their state politics. And Schwarzenegger emerges as the person who could lose all this. I mean, it is his to lose. One of the things people outside California don't appreciate is how much he has been involved in the state. Last year he championed Proposition 49, which was an extended after-school day care proposition, campaigned up and down the state like a real politician. And in that campaign, gathered a group of advisers, a lot of which were Pete Wilson advisers, the Republican establishment. Not just a movie star coming in saying I'm famous, elect me. It is a guy who has built an experienced team and has already some experience of being an actual candidate.

RAY SUAREZ: And a very short campaign season.

MARK SHIELDS: Short campaign, high recognition name. Deep pockets -- has a lot going for him. Gray Davis has presented himself in the last few weeks as a victim. People don't respond to elected representatives as victims. He hasn't been able to sell himself as a victim. He has got to do a major mea culpa, publicly saying I've gotten the message, I'm going to change. Then he has to, not a Rose Garden strategy as we talked about earlier on this show, I think he's got to have a Trappist monastery strategy, he's working 23 hours a day to keep nurses in hospitals, keep kids learning in schools and cops on the beat. That's the only hope he has.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's turn to presidential politics, not quite the California circus but a busy political week nonetheless. The nine Democratic candidates went head to head at a forum for organized labor and former Vice President Al Gore assailed the Bush administration for misleading the American public. So, guys, don't go away. We'll talk about all that and more, but first this update from Betty Ann Bowser.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Former Vice President al gore again yesterday said he would not challenge George W. Bush in 2004. Still, gore delivered a scolding review of the bush presidency during a speech at New York University. He criticized White House policies, both foreign and domestic. He said they favored the wealthy and were designed to pursue a hidden social agenda.

AL GORE: And yet, far from uniting the people, the president's ideologically narrow agenda has seriously divided America. His most partisan supporters have launched a kind of civil cold war against those with whom they disagree.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Gore said for a long time he blamed the president's advisors for those policies.

AL GORE: And I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the president himself... ( applause ) ...and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one. ( Applause )

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But if not Gore, then who? Nine other Democrats are eagerly vying for the opportunity to challenge George Bush next year. And in Chicago on Wednesday night, each tried to stake out positions to attract the support of an audience of some 2,000 labor officials, representing the 13.5 million members of the AFL-CIO.

JOHN SWEENEY, AFL-CIO Presidential: It's my pleasure to welcome everyone to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Working Families Presidential Forum.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: An endorsement from big labor is important to any Democrat, and Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt, the former House Democratic leader, is a traditional friend of labor's. On Tuesday, the United Steelworkers of America became the tenth national labor organization to endorse Gephardt's candidacy. The Teamsters are expected to do so tomorrow.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: This president is the Houdini of economics. Three million jobs have disappeared. He's got the worst record since Herbert Hoover. He's got to go for us to get jobs back in this country. ( Applause )

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich wouldn't concede the labor endorsement to Gephardt. The former Cleveland mayor focused on a labor sore point: Free trade agreements.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: My good friend Dick Gephardt, will you cancel NAFTA? Will you cancel the WTO, which you voted for and which the bill bears your name? Let the people of this country know right now what you'll do. Howard Dean, will you cancel NAFTA? Will you cancel the WTO? Tell America's working men and women.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It is Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman who probably best represent the clear, yet competing visions of the Democratic Party. Lieberman attempted to distance himself from the rest of the Democratic field a day before the joint appearance in Chicago. During a speech in Washington, Lieberman tried to persuade Democrats his moderate, centrist position provided the best chance of beating President Bush.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: In one way or another in this election, most of the other Democratic candidates for president are threatening the change that Bill Clinton and Al Gore brought to the Democratic Party, and in doing so, I think they are threatening to take us back into the political wilderness. If we want our economy to grow, we have got to break down trade barriers across the world so we can sell things we make in America to the 96 percent of the other people in the world.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Howard Dean represents the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and issued a warning against Lieberman's brand of politics.

HOWARD DEAN: You can't beat President Bush by trying to be like him. We tried that in 2002, and it didn't work. The way to beat this president is to stand up, be proud to be Democrats, look to what Harry Truman put in the 1948 Democratic Party platform: Health insurance for everybody. We need to stand up for ourselves again and take on the president directly.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: During the evening, dean associated himself with the ideas of Paul Wellstone, the late liberal senator from Minnesota.

HOWARD DEAN: I got the first annual AFL-CIO Wellstone award for helping the AFT organize a group of nurses at the largest hospital in the country. ( Applause )

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Lieberman repeatedly referred to the successes of Bill Clinton.

HOWARD DEAN: We're all very proud of the Clinton-Gore economic record, and we have every reason to be.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Gephardt mentioned Clinton once. So did Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Under Bill Clinton, we created 23 million new jobs. We had trade, but we began to move towards labor and environment as part of trade. When I'm President of the United States, no trade agreement will ever be signed that has a rush to the bottom. We will have labor, environment standards, and we will fight for the rights of working people in this country to be able to do better.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Reverend Al Sharpton momentarily surprised the audience with his political description of himself.

REV. AL SHARPTON: Well, I'm the conservative on this stage. I want you to know the secret. I'm the conservative. I'm fighting to conserve Roe versus Wade, to conserve affirmative action, to conserve workers' rights to organize, to conserve what Wellstone and others stood up for. We must conserve what we won in the last 50 years.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Florida Senator Bob Graham is among the most conservative of the Democratic candidates.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM: I know that what I'm about to say may not be popular with everybody in this room, but the fact is that the United States does not have the choice to become a protectionist nation. We are the leader of the world economy. Leading that economy carries with it certain responsibilities: First, responsibilities to the people here at home. Those include: We have got to assure that there is a level playing field upon which that economic competition takes place.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: No matter which wing of the party they represent, the candidates all spoke strongly in support of the American worker. Former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun:

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: I believe that if we make the investment in working people, if we make the investment to keep our economic engine going, we will be able to create the kind of jobs that'll provide a livable wage for American's families.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: North Carolina Senator John Edwards:

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS: And it's so important for us to have a president who understands that jobs are about a lot more than a paycheck. They're, in fact, about dignity, self-respect, self-worth.

SPOKESMAN: Governor Dean?

HOWARD DEAN: The real question here tonight is which one of us can beat George Bush. ( Applause )

RAY SUAREZ: Well, we're back with Shields and Brooks. And maybe Howard Dean put it best. The question is: which one of us can beat George Bush or is anybody even trying to figure that out now with so many other distractions?

DAVID BROOKS: The pollsters are. There is an interesting debate going on among the professionals about the landscape of politics. There some are people who say there really aren't many independents left in the country. There is a huge group of Republicans, huge group of Democrats, very few people in between actually so you have just got to build up the intensity. That's the Howard Dean argument. I'm Mr. Intensity. I'll pull our people out. Joe Lieberman's argument, which was really filled out by Mark Penn -- Clinton's pollster a week ago, which was, in an orthodox race, orthodox Democrat verses orthodox Republican, Republicans win, and we have got to reach from beyond the orthodox Democrats into the center, into something else, and that's really the argument.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, is that the point Joe Lieberman was trying to make by saying the Democrats shouldn't move leftward?

MARK SHIELDS: I guess it was. Joe Lieberman, as he showed in this debate with Dick Cheney in 2000, has a lot of admirable qualities. He's enormously likable, he's self-effacing; he doesn't take himself that seriously. But he is not a hit man. He is not a guy that confronts people. He did this on Monday at the National Press Club, and then Tuesday was in Chicago for the event, and it was dropped: So I mean, I think that's not Joe's style.

RAY SUAREZ: So there's no carryover at all to the Chicago event?

MARK SHIELDS: No carryover at all. The story in Chicago was two: One was Howard Dean, who walks in with the cover of Newsweek and Time both under his belt that very week, and the campaign saying he is peaking too early. I asked each of them, I said, well, would you turn down the covers of Newsweek and Time in August? And they all admitted of course they would not. And the knock on him was that he is cranky and too abrupt. And you saw Dennis Kucinich, who turned out to be the last angry man in America on Tuesday night and Howard Dean, by contrast, looked like a California beach boy, mellow and laid back compared to Kucinich. But the real story, I think is will labor endorse Dick Gephardt. Labor as an institution has trumpeted and prided itself on its loyalty. We stick with you. You're with us on the tough times; we will never let you down there. There is nobody who has fought labor's fights longer and stronger than Dick Gephardt. Now the knock on him is he hasn't raised enough money and he's not good enough in the polls. If labor turns their back on him, I think they're going to have a tough time as an institution selling to other politicians that loyalty is our most important product.

RAY SUAREZ: What do you make of the Al Gore speech at NYU?

DAVID BROOKS: He's very well representing what the party is all about. This is not a new Democratic Party, anymore, a party of triangulation and moderation. This is the party of a gut, this is a gut angry party. And what Gore was saying, which I hear from Democrats all the time not that we just disagree with George Bush and the Republicans, we think they're fundamentally messing with the system of government, we think they're fundamentally illegitimate. And to me the question is and it is an unanswered question is: Is all the hatred towards Bush and the Republicans similar to the hatred the Republicans had toward Clinton and the Democrats a couple of years ago? It's something that really burns in the party activists but does not appeal - in fact turns people off in the country as a whole but nonetheless, the shift from Gore being the triangulator, the new Democrat, the centrist, to Gore of this week being the guy who just flat out attacked Bush machine, that's how the party has moved. That passion sort of makes the debate over who is going to win moot because the passion is running the train.

MARK SHIELDS: The Gore speech, you know, I thought it was a... the speech was interesting to people for one reason. Is he going to announce. That's why all the attention, with all the cameras and the microphones were there. And when he said he wasn't, you know, the speech was somewhat evanescent... I mean, David is right, that it was a strong, partisan and polemic and an indictment of George W. Bush which, Al Gore and his supporters and Democrats would argue is based on policy not personality; and that I've never seen the personal attacks upon George W. Bush that I saw upon Bill Clinton.

RAY SUAREZ: Is Al Gore free to take it to George Bush the way none of the nine Democratic candidates have felt that they're able to yet?

MARK SHIELDS: I guess. I think he is. This is a guy who gets up every morning and has to say why am I not running? I mean you know, he got more votes than George Bush, more votes than George Bush the first more votes than Bill Clinton, more votes than anybody who has ever served, except Ronald Reagan. So I mean, I think there is a certain stature and status he has and a certain freedom to do it. I don't know what his plans are.

RAY SUAREZ: So what... can anybody get any attention with California hogging the spotlight?

DAVID BROOKS: That's going to be a problem but Howard Dean has got the answer. He is the only unorthodox candidate, the only one really unusual. So that's why he's on top.

MARK SHIELDS: Watch John Edwards; he's the next. That will be the next moment.

RAY SUAREZ: Ready to make his move. Fellahs, thanks a lot.

FOCUS - NAMING THE ACCUSER

RAY SUAREZ: Now, a fresh look at an old standard in journalism, and to media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: In the case of Kobe versus his alleged victim, loss of anonymity is just a few keystrokes away. The name of the young woman who alleges that NBA star Kobe Bryant raped her at this Colorado resort has been revealed by tabloid newspapers, a radio shock jock, and now can be found on personal Internet sites, along with her address, her email address, phone number, even the name of another young woman who was first mistakenly identified as the victim and later went on TV to deny the allegation. When Bryant appeared briefly in court Wednesday, it was all over cable and the network news.

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Bryant, you're entitled to a hearing, and you've requested a hearing. The rule requires that if you request, that hearing be held within 30 days. Any objection to that being waived?

SPOKESMAN: No, sir.

TERENCE SMITH: There were banner headlines in the tabloids and prominent coverage in the broadsheets. But virtually all of mainstream news organizations withheld the name of Bryant's accuser, as is their standard practice in sexual assault cases. (Cheers) The exhaustive coverage has reignited an old debate about the media practice of shielding alleged rape victims. Does it protect them from stigmatization, as some contend, or unfairly focus publicity on the accused, as others argue? Similar questions were asked in 1991, when the New York Times, following the lead of NBC News and the Globe supermarket tabloid, published the name of the accuser in the William Kennedy Smith rape case.

SPOKESMAN: Thank you.

TERENCE SMITH: In the current case, the trial judge took the unusual step of calling on reporters not to identify Bryant's accuser. He threatened to deny any who do a seat in his courtroom when the trial gets under way .

Joining me now are Geneva Overholser, who was editor of the Des Moines Register when it won a Pulitzer Prize for the coverage of a rape victim's story in which the victim was named with permission. She is now a professor at the University of Missouri; and Catherine Crier, an anchor and executive editor at court TV and a former district court judge in Texas. Welcome to you both.

Geneva, for years, news organizations have withheld the names of accusers in rape cases on the grounds that it would avoid further embarrassment and encourage women to come forward to make those accusations. Is that a flawed concept today?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: Well, it is clear why people have done it, Terry, because this is a particularly brutal and cruel and invasive crime. So newspaper editors, for years, have done this very unusual thing. I say the word "unusual" because I think it's important to remember, in answer to your question, that the journalistic issue is we do name names. It's central to our fairness. It's central to our credibility. It's not fair to name the accused and not name the accuser. And in no other crime involving adults we do that. We have a special responsibility to children. But it's not fair and it's also not credible. We do name names. And there is no question that it is easier not to. The public often would prefer that people be shielded, individuals often don't want to be in the media. But I think when we get on the dangerous ground of doing social work as oppose to sticking with journalistic principle, we often create problems.

TERENCE SMITH: So you would argue that news organizations name the accusers?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: Indeed I would.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Catherine Crier, you have served on both sides of the bench on this, as judge and journalist. What is your view?

CATHERINE CRIER: Well, just the opposite. The age of the Internet, the names are going to get out. There is no question about it. But it is very different for people to have to go look up something on the Internet to find this information versus television stations broadcasting for the world to see pictures and names of the accuser. Now, this individual... we've seen the DA in this case already receive threats. So it is not just the humiliation and indignity unfortunately inherent in a sexual crime such as rape, but it's also safety issues that you need to be concerned about, particularly in a high-profile case like this. The names are going to get out. It is simply trying to hold back the onslaught as much as it is entirely prevented.

TERENCE SMITH: But to what end, Catherine Crier?

CATHERINE CRIER: Well, because we'd like to think of rape as a crime of violence, but it is not just that. It is terribly degrading and humiliating to the accuser, to the alleged victim. And she is going to have to come forward, obviously now in the preliminary hearing. I anticipate the defense will call her October 9. She has to take a public stand. But in the interim, during the course of the investigation, let the authorities, let the defense counsel, those that need to be privy to that, have all the access they need, but we do not need to be climbing in her bedroom window.

TERENCE SMITH: Geneva, that phrase "climbing in her bedroom window," even before her name was revealed, there was all kinds of detailed reporting on this woman and of course the people in the area knew who it was.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: Exactly.

TERENCE SMITH: So what is protected here?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: Well, I think that is an important question, and I respect Catherine's views on this. The fact is, as you say, the people who know her know her name. That is really the people for whom it is most painful, usually for the victim or the accuser to have know. Her information is being bandied about. There are important journalistic responsibilities. I would say not climbing in her bedroom window, not, as we've seen in your lead-in, misnaming and someone else becoming tarred with this, as we say, lamentable charge. The fact is, it is better to do what we do in all adult cases: Name the woman, respect her privacy beyond that, not have these scurrilous charges. The Orange County Register had a story talking about her and having all kinds of slurs and things that might affect what goes on in the courtroom. But then said, I must say, intoning rather self- righteously, but we will not be naming her because of the difficult nature of the crime. That is not protection. I really think we are at a place where...

CATHERINE CRIER: With all due respect, what is journalistically accomplished by simply leaving out the name only? We are reporting all of this other information. We are certainly following the leads and sometimes they're false reporting that anyway. All you are doing is simply avoiding putting out the picture and the name of the individual in a major national, if not international broadcast. All of the background facts are still there.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: I guess I'd turn that around and ask what is accomplished by withholding the name, which I think is the more important question here.

CATHERINE CRIER: It's like degree of decorum.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: The rule in journalism generally is to name. We have not been accomplishing protecting her privacy by not naming. Indeed, I think you could argue, and this isn't why I say name, I say name because it's the journalistic principle. You could argue we've thrown fuel on the flames for the people like the shock jock who got to look like a hero because he stood up land said we're naming her name.

TERENCE SMITH: Catherine Crier -

CATHERINE CRIER: But imagine the difference with her picture and name on ABC, NBC, CBS, and all of the cable channels versus the onslaught right now would be magnified tremendously.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: It will be. As you noted, it will be on them eventually.

TERENCE SMITH: Catherine Crier, let me ask you this. Is this a double standard here when applied to the accuser and to the accused? In this case, of course, a very prominent celebrity, since of course the charges have not been proven?

CATHERINE CRIER: Well, certainly not, in the sense that once you have filed a charge, we have public courts. We have a public system here. You cannot have a star chamber where you charge someone in private. So as much as it may be painful for the accused, there are also imminent protections that go along with this occurring in the public arena and not the private.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: But some states have attempted to do what I think is clearly unconstitutional and that is to keep the name of the accuser off the public records, while the name of the accused is on the public records. And I think that's patently unfair and participates in this same problem.

TERENCE SMITH: Catherine Crier, what is your view of the judge's directive to the reporters covering the trial not to name the accuser and even, you know, a threat of sanctions if they do?

CATHERINE CRIER: Well, the judge is omnipotent to an extent in their court and he certainly has the right to deny entrance. I think it is a bit for naught. You are not going to have a contempt sanction over some reporter, but access is his privilege.

TERENCE SMITH: But he is clearly expressing his view on this issue.

CATHERINE CRIER: Yeah, and he has gone as far as to criticize those of us who have tongue in cheek referred to the basketball court versus the court of law and he doesn't like the various, you know, allegations that we have made in terms of journalistic license with our wording. He has chastised us for that as well. It is his privilege.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: It may be his privilege but it is prior restraint. We should not be sitting still for it or sitting still for these laws, which I think are clearly unconstitutional.

CATHERINE CRIER: But it's not prior restraint. They can go out and name it all they want. All he is saying is you are not going to sit on a pew in my courtroom, if you do it, but you can write all you want.

TERENCE SMITH: Geneva, how far would you pursue this notion of openness and identification? You said you would protect juveniles. Where is the line?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: Well, the line is clear. And that's why I think this is an important thing to note. This is the only aberration, Terry, in the case of adult victims of crime. We do name others accused and accuser because it is fair, because it's credible and only in this case do we not -- juveniles, yes. I think all of us in the press do acknowledge that we have a responsibility to protect them. That's a form of social work, which is not generally well- advised for journalists. We are not really wise enough to pick generally I must say. But among children, it is fair to protect them. But that's the only exception, I believe.

TERENCE SMITH: Catherine, what was the lesson in your view of the William Kennedy Smith case when the accuser was identified by NBC and the New York Times and others? What impact did it have on the case?

CATHERINE CRIER: Well, it was interesting. I went to Harvard and debated Michael Garner over that issue back at the time. What is the impact? We all decided at that point in time we didn't want to go along with that. We were going to learn her identity during the course of the trial. It wasn't necessary to come out beforehand in a public forum and I think most organizations said no, we don't want that to be part of our legacy in a rape trial. In fact, we are going to respect the rape shield law.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. That will have to be the last word. Catherine Crier and Geneva Overholser, thank you both very much.

RECAP

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of the day. The FBI dispatched a team to investigate the bombing in the Jordanian embassy in Iraq; 19 people died in the blast. President Bush said there had been major economic and political progress in Iraq but lamented the loss of American lives there. And Liberian President Charles Taylor said he'd step down Monday, in favor of his vice president but rebel leaders said Taylor's successor is unacceptable too.

RAY SUAREZ: And again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add names when the deaths are confirmed and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are two more.

RAY SUAREZ: A reminder that Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Ray Suarez. Thanks and good night.