The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I`m Ray Suarez.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Friday; then, the president renews his veto threat on the war funding bill; the Democrats face off in their first presidential debate; the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; a NewsHour report about getting the homeless out of shelters and into homes of their own; and remembering cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich.

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RAY SUAREZ: President Bush warned Congress today he`d veto any spending bill for Iraq that includes a timetable for troop withdrawal. A bill containing that provision is expected to reach the president`s desk early next week. Mr. Bush said he was "sorry it`s come to this," and he invited lawmakers to work with him on a way forward.

Last night, eight Democratic presidential candidates held their first debate and presented a unified front against the president`s war policy. We`ll have more on the Iraq policy debate right after this news summary.

The Pentagon announced the capture of a senior al-Qaida operative today. Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from the CIA earlier this week. He is an Iraqi native, but worked extensively in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden. There was no word on when or where he was caught.

There were also al-Qaida captures inside Iraq today. They were arrested in two groups, four near Baghdad and five in Mosul.

Also today, the U.S. military announced three more U.S. Marines were killed Thursday in western Iraq.

The former director of the CIA has charged the Bush administration made him a scapegoat in the Iraq war. Excerpts from George Tenet`s soon- to-be released book were reported in today`s New York Times. Tenet writes, "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat." That remark drew a swift denial from White House adviser Dan Bartlett today, who said President Bush weighed all the proposals and their consequences.

Hundreds of Afghan troops and police recaptured a district in eastern Afghanistan today. Taliban fighters fled the area in Ghazni province, after seizing it late yesterday. Heavy fighting there left at least five people dead, including the district`s mayor and police chief. Militants also set fire to buildings and cut phone lines.

Police in Saudi Arabia say they`ve thwarted a series of advanced terror plots today, including a plan to fly airplanes into oil fields. A Saudi interior ministry spokesman said 172 militants are in custody.

Their plans also included suicide attacks on public figures and military zones. A host of weapons and ammunition were discovered in the desert, buried beneath the sand. And more than $5 million were also seized.

President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued warnings today to North Korea. The leaders met at Camp David, Maryland, where they discussed North Korea`s promise to shut down its nuclear reactor. Mr. Bush said all those involved in the nuclear talks will hold North Korea accountable.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Our partners in the six-party talks are patient, but our patience is not unlimited. We`re hoping that the North Korea leader continues to make the right choice for his country. But if he should choose not to, we`ve got a strategy to make sure that the pressure we`ve initially applied is even greater.

RAY SUAREZ: A deadline to dismantle the reactor passed almost two weeks ago. North Korea is waiting for $25 million in funds to be released by the U.S.

U.S. economic growth slowed in the first quarter of the year to its weakest pace since 2003. The Commerce Department reported today the gross domestic product increased just 1.3 percent from January through March. The slumping housing market was mostly to blame.

And on Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 15 points to close at nearly 13,121. The Nasdaq rose more than two points to close at 2,557. And for the week, both the Dow and the Nasdaq gained 1.2 percent.

The world-class Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich died today in Moscow. He had suffered from intestinal cancer. The cellist and conductor gained renown, not only for his musical mastery, but also for his opposition to Soviet rule.

In 1989, the world watched his impromptu performance during the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington from 1977 to 1994. Mstislav Rostropovich was 80 years old. We`ll have more on his life later in the program tonight.

Between now and then: the promise of a veto on the war funding bill; the first Democratic presidential debate; Mark Shields and David Brooks; and homes for the homeless.

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RAY SUAREZ: With his veto pen at the ready, President Bush gives his reasons for rejecting a war spending bill tied to troop withdrawals. Mr. Bush spoke this morning from Camp David.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: The reason why I`m going to is because the members of Congress have made military decisions on behalf of the military. They`re telling our generals what to do. They`re withdrawing before we`ve even finished reinforcing our troops in Baghdad.

They`re sending, in my judgment, a bad message to the Iraqis, and to an enemy, and, most importantly, to our military folks. I`m sorry it`s come to this. In other words, I`m sorry that we`ve, you know, had this, you know, the issue evolved the way it has.

But nevertheless, it is what it is, and it will be vetoed. And my veto will be sustained. And then the question is the way forward. And my suggestion is that -- and I invite the leaders of the House and the Senate, both parties, to come down, you know, soon after my veto so we can discuss a way forward.

And if the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I`ll accept a timetable for withdrawal, I won`t accept one. I just don`t think it`s in the interest of our troops.

You know, it`s important to have a political debate. But as I`ve consistently said, we don`t want our troops in between the debate. And Congress needs to get this money to the Pentagon, so the Pentagon can get the money to the troops, so our readiness will be up to par and people training missions will go forward.

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

And, Mark, we heard the president sounding rather glum and disappointed right then, but he also said, "I`m optimistic we can get a good bill." From what everybody involved is saying, does it sound like they can get a good bill out of this?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: It doesn`t. The plans are that they`ll vote on it next week, and the president`s veto will be sustained. And there`s supposed to be a meeting at the White House, a bicameral, bipartisan meeting to at least address it.

I really think that what will happen is that the Congress will then pass legislation that does include the benchmarks that the president himself laid out, specifically on January 10th in his speech to the nation, and that is that socializing, nationalizing the oil in Iraq, that every citizen gets revenues, that there be local elections, and the de- Baathification laws that would lead to reconciliation of many Sunnis.

I`ll be very honest with you: I don`t think that it`s achievable. It`s probably like asking George Bush at this point in his presidency, by the end of August, to pass an immigration bill that puts foreigners or immigrants on the way to citizenship, that solves Social Security (inaudible) consensus position on Bush, and I don`t think the political capacity or capability in Iraq under the Iraqi government now is there to do it.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, David, a lot of the attention was on the president in the last day or so, but Democrats went ahead in the House and Senate, passed these bills in the face of the promised veto. Aren`t they moving into risky territory now, making -- with the possibility of compromise looking like capitulation?

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Well, they`re in risky territory on a number of grounds. On the first grounds, people do want the troops funded. And at the end of the day, the Democrats will fund the troops. They`ve been quite open and honest about that.

The other risky ground is, do they seem too eager to be withdrawing? If there`s disaster in six months, will they somehow assume part of the blame? I do think that`s somewhat of a real risk.

Both sides have an incentive to compromise. The Democrats, you know, know that they have to fund the troops eventually. The Republicans don`t want to keep taking votes like this, where they really aren`t happy with Bush, but they have to stick with him more or less. So there`s the incentives.

But as Mark indicated, the fundamental philosophies are different. The Democrats want to get out. They just want to get out of Iraq. The Republicans think the surge is having some modest effects and that it can lead to some longer political effects.

Ryan Crocker, our ambassador there, told me this week that he thinks what the Democrats are doing is making his job harder. His argument is that, when there`s the threat of withdrawing, the Iraqis that he has to deal with every day, they say, "Why should I deal with you? You`re out of here. I`m just going to hunker down and wait for the civil war."

So the Republicans do have an argument, and I suspect there will not be any compromise.

RAY SUAREZ: There was one small subplot this week, postponing sending the bill to the White House until the anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" speech on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln. Is that a small bit of internecine political theater, or is that the kind of thing that reminds people next Tuesday that it has been four years since that speech?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, this is about politics. This is about sending a message. And I think the Democratic leaders are very clear about this. They say, it`s not only this bill. There`s going to be an appropriations bill. There`s authorizations bills. For as far as the eye can see, there`s a whole series of bills where the Democrats can make the Republican senators and House members uncomfortable.

MARK SHIELDS: And there`s an awful lot of Republicans who have said, who have said bluntly, that they`re counting on the surge, that the surge is it. And if, in fact, it`s not successful, then you`re going to see Republicans peeling away from the president. They`re just out there.

If, Ray, all the legislative actions back and forth in the year 2007 mean nothing as we go into the election of 2008, and we`re in a comparable position in Iraq, with 100,000-plus troops there, taking casualties every week, and with no apparent progress and that government, several governments having passed, at that point, you`re looking at a Republican wipeout in 2008. And Republicans understand that.

Roy Blunt, the Republican whip in the House, said, this is going -- has to be improving results on the ground after the vote this week.

DAVID BROOKS: Right, it will have to be. And I think there could be some military results by August. The problem is, it has to be political.

MARK SHIELDS: That`s right

DAVID BROOKS: And when you talk to people who are serving in Baghdad, they do see some military advances. But in terms of the Iraqis coming together with the de-Baathification laws and all that stuff, that`s a decades-long process.

RAY SUAREZ: Quickly, do you agree with David, that if there`s no timetable and benchmark in this bill that gets passed in whatever formed in the coming weeks, that that issue is going to keep coming back over months?

MARK SHIELDS: Oh, it will. It will keep coming back, Ray. And what we`re in right now is we`re in that terrible place. David`s absolutely right. The consensus in the country is the war is over. The people want out. A majority think we`re not going to be successful there. A bigger majority want to leave.

But the key is, we`ve had the parallels in American history recently, where the political inquisition follows a seemingly inevitable defeat. Who lost China? Who lost Vietnam? Who lost Eastern Europe? Those plagued American politics for years after, and that`s what both parties are sensitive to at this point.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Mark and David, don`t go away. We`ll talk about the 2008 presidential race right after these highlights from the first face-to-face meeting of the Democratic candidates, narrated by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: It is still more than eight months before the first primary votes are cast, but the scene last evening outside the Martin Luther King, Jr., Auditorium on the campus of South Carolina State University befit an Election Day rally.

Inside, the eight Democratic presidential candidates came together for their first debate, moderated by Brian Williams of NBC News and broadcast nationally on MSNBC.

His first questions were about the Iraq war. And he asked former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, who repeatedly has apologized for his 2002 vote authorizing the war, if he faulted New York Senator Hillary Clinton for not doing the same.

FORMER SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), Presidential Candidate: I mean, Senator Clinton and anyone else who voted for this war has to search themselves and decide whether they believe they voted the right way. If so, they can support their vote. If they believe they didn`t, I think it`s important to be straightforward and honest...

KWAME HOLMAN: Williams then gave Senator Clinton the chance to respond.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), New York: Brian, I take responsibility for my vote. Obviously, I did as good a job I could at the time. It was a sincere vote, based on the information available to me. And I`ve said many times that, if I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted that way.

KWAME HOLMAN: The debate came on the same day the Senate passed an emergency Iraq war spending bill that includes a timetable for withdrawing the troops. But Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich said not even that bill was strong enough.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), Ohio: I think it`s inconsistent to tell the American people that you oppose the war, and yet you continue to vote to fund the war. Because every time you vote to fund the war, you`re re- authorizing the war all over again.

KWAME HOLMAN: Kucinich also challenged Illinois Senator Barack Obama on comments he recently made about Iran, that a military option should not be taken off the table if Iran pursues nuclear weapons ambitions.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), Illinois: I think it would be a profound mistake for us to initiate a war with Iran. But have no doubt: Iran possessing nuclear weapons will be a major threat to us and to the region. I understand that, but they`re in the process of developing it. And I don`t think that`s disputed by any expert. They are the largest state sponsor of terrorism...

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It is disputed by...

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: ... Hezbollah and Hamas.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It is disputed.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: And there is no contradiction, Dennis, between...

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It is disputed.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Let me finish. There is no contradiction between us taking seriously the need, as you do, to want to strengthen our alliances around the world. But I think it is important for us to also recognize that, if we have nuclear proliferators around the world that potentially can place a nuclear weapon into the hands of terrorists, that is a profound security threat for America, and one that we have to take seriously.

KWAME HOLMAN: Kucinich got some help from former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, who urged diplomatic engagement with Iran, rather than military force or sanctions.

FORMER SEN. MIKE GRAVEL (D), Presidential Candidate: These things don`t work. They don`t work. We need to recognize them. And you know something? Who is the greatest violator of the non-proliferation treaty? The United States of America. We signed a pledge that we would begin to disarm, and we`re not doing it. We`re expanding our nukes. Who the hell are we going to nuke? Tell me, Barack. Barack, who do you want to nuke?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I`m not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike, I promise.

MIKE GRAVEL: Good. Good, we`re safe.

KWAME HOLMAN: NBC`s Williams also asked the candidates how they would respond to another terrorist attack within the United States. First to Senator Obama.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, the first thing we`d have to do is make sure that we`ve got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.

The second thing is to make sure that we`ve got good intelligence, a, to find out that we don`t have other threats and attacks potentially out there, and, b, to find out, do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network?

KWAME HOLMAN: Senator Clinton followed.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: If we are attacked, and we can determine who was behind that attack, and if there were nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond.

KWAME HOLMAN: The 90-minute debate, with no opening or closing statements by the candidates, clipped along at a steady pace. In addition to foreign policy, Brian Williams asked about a variety of domestic issues.

On health care, a subject polls suggest will figure prominently in 2008, Senator Edwards said it was important for the candidates to lay out specific details, thought to be a veiled criticism of, among others, Senator Obama.

JOHN EDWARDS: And I think we have a responsibility, if you want to be president of the United States, to tell the American people what it is you want to do. Rhetoric`s not enough. High-falutin` language is not enough.

And my plan would require employers to cover all their employees or pay into a fund that covers the cracks in the health care system; mental health parity, which others have spoken about; chronic care; preventative care; long-term care; subsidizes health care costs.

KWAME HOLMAN: But New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, touting his experience as an executive, worried about how to pay for universal health care coverage.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), New Mexico: Well, as Democrats, I just hope that we always don`t think of new taxes to pay for programs.

This is what I would do. And I`m a governor. I deal with this issue every day. In our health care plan, my new health care plan, no new bureaucracy. Every American shares, along with businesses, the state, and the federal government.

I would focus on prevention. I would also ensure that the first thing we do is deal with the bureaucracy and inefficiencies in our health care system.

KWAME HOLMAN: Richardson, rated highly by the National Rifle Association, also was asked to explain his support of gun rights in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings in which 33 people were killed.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: I`m a Westerner. I`m a governor of New Mexico. The Second Amendment is precious in the West. But I want to just state for the record: A vast, vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding.

I was for instant background checks. We have to make sure that those background checks are state and local, states are properly funded to be able to detect those problems.

KWAME HOLMAN: The candidates also touched on a number of hot-button cultural issues. Delaware Senator Joe Biden was asked about last week`s Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on a controversial abortion procedure.

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D), Delaware: The truth of the matter is that this decision was intellectually dishonest. I think it`s a rare procedure that should only be available when the woman`s life and health is at stake.

But what this court did, it took that decision, and it put in a Trojan horse in, through actually dishonest reasoning, lay the groundwork for undoing Roe v. Wade.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd addressed gay marriage. He supports civil unions, which are legal in his state.

SEN. CHRIS DODD (D), Connecticut: I have two very young daughters who one day may have a different sexual orientation than their parents. How would I like them treated as adults? What kind of housing, what kind of homes, what kind of jobs, what kind of retirement would they be allowed to have?

I think, if you ask yourself that question, you come to the conclusion that I hope most Americans would: that they ought to be able to have those loving relationships sanctioned.

KWAME HOLMAN: And the debate had its moments of levity. Williams asked Senator Biden, known for being somewhat long-winded, how he would keep from making any verbal gaffes.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, Host, "NBC Nightly News": Can you reassure voters in this country that you would have the discipline you would need on the world stage, Senator?

SEN. JOE BIDEN: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Thank you, Senator Biden.

(LAUGHTER)

KWAME HOLMAN: These candidates expect to participate in several more debates between now and next year`s primaries. The next scheduled debate will be in New Hampshire in June.

RAY SUAREZ: The Republican presidential candidates hold their first debate next Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

But for now, back to Shields and Brooks for their thoughts on the Democrats. And at one point, David, Joe Biden looked at the field and said, "This is a stage full of winners." What did you think of the Democratic field?

DAVID BROOKS: Impressive field, actually. I think the Democrats and the Republicans have a lot of good candidates. I think the course of the race right now is that Obama has tremendous momentum. I meet people, you see it in the polls, just tremendous enthusiasm for Obama.

He`s rising. A lot of more people, as they get to know him, are becoming more comfortable with him, and I really think he`s climbing right up on Clinton and is virtually at the point where he`s the front-runner.

RAY SUAREZ: What do you make of the encounter last night? Is there a risk in appearing with lesser mortals frequently this early?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it doesn`t help, but I don`t think it hurt. I mean, they`re not particularly argumentative with each other. They were argumentative with President Bush. He wasn`t sticking around.

John Dickerson of Slate made an interesting point that, among the three front-runners, there really is not an incentive to be argumentative with each other. Obama`s whole theme is that he is a non-confrontational person. He rises above politics.

John Edwards ran four years ago vowing never to criticize, and I think that`s somewhat in his nature. Hillary Clinton can`t criticize, because the Clintons are thought of as too mean. And if she does it, that feeds into that. So they each have an incentive not to be confrontational with each other, and this debate was certainly not a rivalry between them.

RAY SUAREZ: Does that end at some point, Mark? Do the gloves have to come off with each other, especially if the field remains large?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, even if it doesn`t. The biggest problem in a big field -- if the three of us are running, and I attack you, David`s the beneficiary. The only time, really, attack politics works well is when there are two people in the contest. So it`s not only not smart at this point, it`s very dangerous.

What hit me last night watching it was, yes, Obama, yes, Clinton, yes, Edwards, as the front-runners with most of the press attention, but you look at Chris Dodd, senator from Connecticut, extremely able and respected legislator, Bill Richardson, you know, a multifaceted public servant in his career, and Joe Biden. I mean, I just thought, you know, these, in other years, would be front-rank and front-burner candidates.

I thought Biden gave the best answer of the night. It was reminiscent of the second debate in 1984, when Ronald Reagan had ended the previous debate with a rambling soliloquy about walking down the Pacific Coast Highway, and the Wall Street Journal did a front-page piece about, was he losing it? And the first question about his age, and he said, "I`m not going to hold my opponent`s" -- Walter Mondale`s -- "youth and inexperience against him."

And it just put a hiatus on it. Joe Biden, you know, did a wonderful rebuttal to the charge that he just is a motor mouth last night. I thought Bill Richardson gave the most honest answer when they asked him why he hadn`t gone after Alberto Gonzales.

RAY SUAREZ: And remind people what that answer was.

MARK SHIELDS: And the answer was yes. It`s because I know where he comes from. We`re both Hispanic, but I know where he comes from. I know what he`s been through. I know who he is, and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I thought it was an incredibly human and revealing answer.

RAY SUAREZ: But one that does him a lot of good?

DAVID BROOKS: I think so. You know, even this year -- you know, we`re nine months away from the first primary vote, let alone, I don`t know, nine years away from the general election, whatever it is. And right now, the campaigns are in their full mode.

They`re binging each other every day. They`re trading shots. The candidates are sleeping four hours a night. This is going to take a toll. There are going to be crashes on this road.

And people like Bill Richardson, who happens to be the most experienced candidate in the race, or Joe Biden, who actually has an intelligent plan for a post-Iraq world, those people will rise. They will have their moment in the sun. Those Democrats will rise.

I think, on the Republican side, Newt Gingrich will rise. So there`s a lot of fluidity in those midlevel candidates. One of them will be up there. Where was Howard Dean at this point four years ago?

MARK SHIELDS: Good point. And the other thing I thought last night, I mean, Senator Clinton is incredibly confident, incredibly competent, has great possession of facts, and had the ability on virtually every question to turn it toward her own message.

I was reminded of what Mario Cuomo said 25 years ago, I guess now. He said, "We campaign in poetry. We govern in prose." And there`s very little poetry in her presentation, and there`s a lot of poetry in Obama.

And it`s just interesting. I mean, there was a lot of poetry in Ronald Reagan. There was poetry in Jack Kennedy. There was poetry in Franklin Roosevelt. There`s not much poetry...

(CROSSTALK)

DAVID BROOKS: And Obama has this upside. He is the only person, I think, running for president this year who has the potential to transform American politics.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, I agree.

DAVID BROOKS: All the others, they can win or lose, but politics will look basically the same. But he actually could realign politics.

RAY SUAREZ: Also this week...

MARK SHIELDS: I thought John McCain had that possibility, too.

DAVID BROOKS: He may still.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, I was about to bring up John McCain...

MARK SHIELDS: Excuse me, Ray.

RAY SUAREZ: ... because he officially declared for what everyone knew, that he was in the race this week, but in doing so, tried to separate himself from the still-in-office Bush administration, to which, periodically in the last six years, he`s been very close.

MARK SHIELDS: Let`s be very blunt: Every one of them has separated themselves from the incompetence of this administration. You listen to Mitt Romney, you listen to Rudy Giuliani, you listen to Jim Gilmore, you listen to any of them, you know, "I run things." And they always want to talk about their record.

John McCain was a Declaration of Independence, I thought, in his -- because he has been identified very much with the surge and is the most visible and vocal. He`s been the most relentless critics among those supporters of the war, too, calling Don Rumsfeld the worst secretary of defense in history, saying that Dick Cheney had given the president terrible advice, and the president shouldn`t have listened to him, and arguing about the tactics.

People who liked John McCain because he was a maverick in 2000, including me, I disagree with John McCain on the war. I think he`s wrong, but he is a maverick. I mean, whatever position he`s taken has not been run through a focus group. It`s not because it`s a popular thing. His maverick credentials, if anything, are burnished in 2008 over where they were in 2000. It`s a tougher job now to stand up there, I think, and defend that policy.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I was glad to see finally John McCain coming out, so to speak, because he had sort of restrained. The weird thing that`s happening with the party is that they have three candidates who are not orthodox Republicans in Romney, Giuliani and McCain, but they were pretending to be, in an attempt to please the base, they were trying to be George Allen. And finally, they said, hey, I`m going to be -- at least McCain said this -- I`m going to be who I am.

MARK SHIELDS: That`s right.

DAVID BROOKS: And so I think, a, it`s an authentic move. And I think it`s a good move. The country wants change. They don`t want a Bush-lite. So he might as well be different.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, it`s interesting that you say it wasn`t focus- grouped, because this is a campaign that went back into retreat, retrenchment, started to talk internally about how to re-craft the message. And this was a politician that, over the last couple of years, was being talked about for all the ways that he had rounded his sharp edges and conformed to the Bush message on some of the big policy issues.

MARK SHIELDS: He has. I mean, I think John McCain has changed his position on taxes. I mean, he opposed tax cuts in 2001. He was a lonely, courageous voice against them.

Now he`s waffled. Now he`s for their continuation, even though they`re going to expire, because not to continue them would be a tax increase, by John McCain`s definition. That`s not the John McCain that we came to love and know in 2000.

But, you know, he stood up and, I thought, made specific the differences between himself and the president. And, you know, we`ll see where it goes from here. But there was -- it was refreshing to see that Declaration of Independence, I thought.

RAY SUAREZ: Fellows, have a great weekend.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.

DAVID BROOKS: You, too.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Now, a new national approach to fighting homelessness. NewsHour correspondent Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting has our report.

OUTREACH VOLUNTEER: What do you think?

MARY FREEMAN, Subsidized Housing Recipient: Oh, my gosh. It looks good, though.

LEE HOCHBERG, NewsHour Correspondent: She was happy about her free haircut, but Mary Freeman was elated about the new housing she won that day. At an outreach event to the homeless at the Portland Coliseum, she was one of 50 who drew lucky bracelets that put them at the head of the line for government-subsidized housing.

Freeman had roamed Portland`s streets for six months, high on methamphetamine, and had her daughter declared a ward of the state.

MARY FREEMAN: I can`t believe it. I mean, I just -- I can`t even express my joy. I have no words for it. I`m so thankful to God. I`ll never, ever lose this bracelet.

OUTREACH VOLUNTEER: When was the last time that you had your own home of your own, like your own single home?

MARY FREEMAN: It was about two years ago.

LEE HOCHBERG: Portland and several other cities launched an experimental strategy three years ago to put the most troubled of the nation`s 750,000 homeless into permanent housing, rather than a shelter, to see if that makes it easier for them to stabilize their lives. Early data suggests it does.

Portland Housing Commissioner Erik Sten.

ERIK STEN, Portland Housing Commissioner: What we found is that you really can`t solve your problems very easily until you have permanent housing. The key thing we`re finding is it makes them more functional.

LEE HOCHBERG: The number of homeless in Miami dropped 30 percent last year with the new approach. In Dallas and San Francisco, 28 percent. Nine hundred of Portland`s homeless are off the street.

ERIK STEN: They are safer. The city is safer. There`s a perception that the city is more hospitable, because you don`t have people you`re stepping over sleeping on the streets to nearly the same degree.

LEE HOCHBERG: The program eliminates the longtime requirement that the homeless be clean and sober to qualify for housing. Its main target is the nation`s 75,000 chronic homeless, who have so many daunting issues.

CINDI GRIES, Subsidized Housing Seeker: I`m manic-depressive and schizoaffective. I have heart problems. I have COPD. I have to have breathing treatment every four hours because I can`t breathe.

LEE HOCHBERG: Cindi Gries showed up at the coliseum, also suffering from HIV and substance abuse. She`d lost her housing in South Dakota and was now in Portland with partner Parthina Kincaid (ph), their 4-year-old son, and two dogs, all living in her car.

CINDI GRIES: When you`re on HIV meds, you have to take them at the same time every day. And if you even go an hour behind...

CINDI GRIES` PARTNER: You`re messed up.

CINDI GRIES: ... you`re messed up. So I have to have them, and they have to be refrigerated. Otherwise they melt. We really have to be in housing. I can`t be outside. I have to take a breathing treatment every four hours.

LEE HOCHBERG: Complex cases like this, left to struggle on the street, can be extremely costly. Doctors at the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Police Department studied 15 chronic homeless and found, in a year and a half, the government spent an average of $200,000 per person in treatment, law enforcement, jail and court costs, hospital visits.

PHILIP MANGANO, Interagency Council on Homelessness: The other finding of the study was, at the end of that 18 months, those 15 people were in the same condition and same situation as before. They were still on the same street corners and the same doorways.

LEE HOCHBERG: The Bush administration`s point man on homelessness, Philip Mangano, says housing these people not only helped stabilize them but actually costs government less.

Portland found, for example, that even with the cost of housing 1,000 of its homeless, its overall expenditures on the homeless dropped by 35 percent as arrests of its homeless fell 47 percent, and emergency room visits at hospitals declined. Four hospitals actually contributed $300,000 for housing so their discharged patients have somewhere else to go.

PHILIP MANGANO: Housing itself is therapeutic. So instead of the person using the emergency room of the hospital at $1,000 a night as kind of a respite unit from the streets or a shelter from the street, that person is using the emergency room much less frequently.

LEE HOCHBERG: Portland couldn`t find permanent housing for the Gries family that night, but an AIDS advocacy group put them into temporary housing, watching to see if that might help.

The city did find a place for Shannon Woodward, seven months pregnant, who said she`d been to emergency rooms four times a month for the nine months she`d been on the street. With young daughters Carly and Kimberly (ph), and 4-year-old son Kenny, she had hit the street to escape domestic abuse.

OUTREACH VOLUNTEER: ... to pull the pieces back...

SHANNON WOODWARD, Subsidized Housing Recipient: I tried to hard. I wanted to work.

OUTREACH VOLUNTEER: You`re taking a lot of really good steps. You`re taking -- are you OK? You`re taking a lot of good steps. You should be really proud of what you`re doing.

LEE HOCHBERG: Woodward`s family got a hotel for the night, with hopes a subsidized apartment later might help them towards self-sufficiency. Perhaps the most ambitious experiment is 150 miles up the road in Seattle, at a facility called 1811 Eastlake.

RODNEY LITTLEBEAR, Subsidized Housing Recipient: I`m Chief Medical Ed (ph), and this is my co-host. He`s a good knucklehead.

SUBSIDIZED HOUSING RECIPIENT: He`s the number-one clown, though.

RODNEY LITTLEBEAR: Yes, OK.

LEE HOCHBERG: Seventy-five of Seattle`s most desperate street inebriates moved into this brand-new, $11 million, government-funded building last year. To ease their transition, drinking is allowed in the building.

RODNEY LITTLEBEAR: Well, at least I`m not sleeping underneath that bridge no more, because it`s cold out there.

SUBSIDIZED HOUSING RECIPIENT: Out in the rain.

RODNEY LITTLEBEAR: I get to smoke in my room and, you know, drink to my heart`s content and, you know, when I pass out, I just dive on the bed, you know, and go to sleep, you know, just rest in peace.

LEE HOCHBERG: There`s no data yet on the project`s cost- effectiveness, but tenants at a similar project in Minneapolis reduced their use of detox facilities, and jail bookings declined.

1811 Director Bill Hobson.

BILL HOBSON, Downtown Emergency Service Center: These are people with extreme, acute trouble in their life. They spent years getting there. They`re not going to get better overnight. But they are going to be alive, and they`re not going to be costing us as much money as they are now.

BRUCE RAMSEY, Seattle Times: It`s morally objectionable to essentially enable the lifestyle of a street drunk, even if it saves money.

LEE HOCHBERG: Critics, like the Seattle Times newspaper, have lambasted the project. Editorialist Bruce Ramsey.

BRUCE RAMSEY: We didn`t object as an editorial board to some housing for street people. We objected to the idea that they would not have to be sober.

And to essentially build them a new apartment house is putting them ahead of the line of other people who might need housing or other services. It just seemed like you`re rewarding the wrong people. I`m kind of skeptical that you reform people by changing their physical environment.

LEE HOCHBERG: And yet, there are four of these deeply troubled 75 who have taken jobs since entering the project. Kenny Warnock is working at a car wash.

But now you`re keeping a job.

KENNY WARNOCK, Subsidized Housing Recipient: Yup.

LEE HOCHBERG: Still drinking?

KENNY WARNOCK: Yes, but not very much, not nearly as much as I was. I used to have to -- I had to make sure that I drank enough to where, like on a really cold night, when you stayed at the sobering center, the lower your alcohol level, the earlier in the morning you`re going to get booted out.

I mean, I`ve been booted out of there at 3:00 in the morning, when it`s 28 degrees out. So you want to make sure, when it`s really cold out, that you`re good and ripped, you know? I don`t have to do that anymore.

LEE HOCHBERG: Still, housing doesn`t guarantee the road back. In Portland, we followed some of the newly housed for several months after their intake. We found Cindi Gries and her family three months later in temporary housing in a small hotel, and very unhappy.

CINDI GRIES: Here, I don`t feel safe at all.

CINDI GRIES` PARTNER: Nope.

CINDI GRIES: But we`ve been in the Prestigien (ph). We`ve been in the Siesta Motel. We`ve been in the Vantil Motel (ph). We`ve been in the Val-U Inn. We`ve been to the Sandy Motel, and we couldn`t stay living there, because I couldn`t -- I have to have a fan or air conditioning all the time or I can`t breathe. There was no air conditioning, no fan, no telephone, no TV, no nothing. Just...

LEE HOCHBERG: Kincaid (ph) said she had given up her job after being harassed for being a lesbian. And unable to establish a permanent address, she said, she`d been unable to enroll in school to get her GED.

So you`re no better able to support yourselves now than you were when we met you months ago?

CINDI GRIES` PARTNER: Nope.

CINDI GRIES: Not until we get into subsidized housing, hopefully.

LEE HOCHBERG: The city hoped a permanent apartment would open in a few weeks. But while waiting for that, funding for their temporary housing ran out, and the family ended up again living in their car. Commissioner Sten says housing inventory is a problem.

ERIK STEN: We`re going to hit the wall here on the amount of housing that`s available. We can`t make hundreds-of-people-a-year gains forever without running out of housing.

LEE HOCHBERG: And he says, while the federal government has helped subsidize rent, it recently failed to renew a key grant that funded health care for the homeless in 11 cities.

ERIK STEN: Disability payments, housing subsidies, and Medicaid are all being gutted by this administration, so once we get these folks off the street, where`s the backend support that`s going to be necessary?

LEE HOCHBERG: Mangano says the federal government continues to fund the services the chronically homeless really need. Mary Freeman, for example, is drug- and alcohol-free after months of government-funded rehab. Her hair has grown back, and she`s got her daughter back in her new subsidized apartment.

MARY FREEMAN: I`m just elated. And I feel safe. And I feel very thankful. We`re miracles we`re here, definitely.

LEE HOCHBERG: She`s taken a job as a nurse.

MARY FREEMAN: I could never have done what I did if I didn`t have a home and a safe environment. And just the security of having four walls and a roof over your head that you can call home, that really does help.

LEE HOCHBERG: And there`s a new family member in Shannon Woodward`s new subsidized, three-bedroom apartment. She says she`s seeing pediatricians now, not emergency rooms.

SHANNON WOODWARD: Well, we`ve been there once since then, December. My son had a little accident, so we went to the emergency room, but we would go there anyway for that. So it`s nice. I don`t have to do all that anymore.

LEE HOCHBERG: And she`s taking steps to become self-sufficient.

SHANNON WOODWARD: I`m going to go to college. I`m signed up for college. I`m going to go to be a drug and alcohol counselor, get my degree for doing that. So I`m excited. You know, if we didn`t have a home, I wouldn`t even be thinking about college. I would be thinking about where we were going to stay the night.

LEE HOCHBERG: And the Gries family got their permanent housing in October. They now have three dogs, two cats, and a bird, and plan to adopt another child. Kincaid (ph) recently landed a job cleaning a bank, so they can contribute some toward their rent payment. Gries says she`s having an easier time controlling her medical condition.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, remembering a musical master, and to Jeffrey Brown.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mstislav Rostropovich was widely considered one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. The cellist and composer was also part of one of the great political dramas of the century, as a champion of artistic freedom during the Cold War.

Here to tell us about the man and his music is Ted Libby, author of "The NPR Listeners` Encyclopedia of Classical Music," and a friend to Rostropovich. Mr. Libby is now the director of media arts for the National Endowment for the Arts, which, for the record, provides some funding for the NewsHour`s arts coverage.

Welcome to you.

TED LIBBY, Music Critic: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let`s start with the music. What made him a great musician?

TED LIBBY: Well, as a cellist, he possessed capabilities that no one had ever had in the same degree. He had a monumental technique, fingers that could do anything. He had a huge sound. He went from the softest pianissimo to the loudest forte, all under complete control.

He could produce color with his instrument that was ravishing to the ear and really revelatory to people who were listening...

JEFFREY BROWN: Color, a technical term, it means...

TED LIBBY: Yes, color, meaning just the way the instrument could sound in his hands, everything from a whisper to a roar, and with so many variations in between, all of that, and he had the temperament of a great musician. He had intelligence. He had insight. He had an emotional connection to the music, which was probably the most important thing of all.

JEFFREY BROWN: You told me earlier the first time you heard him in person, 1971.

TED LIBBY: Yes, it was at Yale University, and all of the cellist students there grabbed me and they said, "You`re going down to Woolsey Hall. You`ve got to hear this guy. He`s unbelievable."

And we sat there in this big auditorium, and he played a recital. And it was absolutely amazing. His sound was huge, just as everyone had said, but he was all over the instrument. And he could do so much.

It was just an experience that I`ll never forget. Our hair was standing on end while he was playing, because I`d never heard, not only a cello, but any string instrument played that way before.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, he was raised in the Soviet system. He became a star of that system and then a moral voice, dissident voice within that system.

TED LIBBY: Yes, it`s true. You know, he was a product of that system that produced so many great athletes, great scientists, and great musicians, and it did it the same way: by competition. You had to be good to survive in that system, and he was good.

He practiced hard. He worked; he worked; he worked. And he went through that system until he was the best they had, and that was why they sent him out very, very early in the Cold War thaw in the 1950s to impress the rest of the world.

JEFFREY BROWN: This was after Stalin died.

TED LIBBY: Exactly.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mid-`50s, and they`re sending people out to say...

TED LIBBY: We have a system that works, and we have produced great artists. And it absolutely -- I mean, people were bowled over in the West, in England and the United States. Not too long after that, a year or two later, came Sputnik, and then we were really done in. You know, so this was really...

JEFFREY BROWN: Sputnik and Rostropovich.

TED LIBBY: Yes, together. It was overwhelming. You know, this system was very impressive, and it produced these stars, these incredible talents.

But at the same time, Rostropovich was a man with very, very deep convictions, and he was never afraid to speak his mind. And so when he saw things that were being done to harm other people, or, when, for instance, there was a crackdown against Soviet composers, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, both of whom he was very close to, he stood up for them.

And he actually -- he quit the Conservatory in 1948 when Shostakovich lost his professorship there. Later on, in 1970, when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize, Rostropovich gave him shelter, gave him literally a roof over his head when there was no place for Solzhenitsyn to go within the Soviet Union. This got Rostropovich into deep, deep trouble within the system.

JEFFREY BROWN: Deep trouble, and eventually he was not allowed to perform.

TED LIBBY: Right, his touring was curtailed. Both his and his wife - - his wife was a great artist in her own right, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. Both of them were basically wiped off the map of Soviet music.

He was sent out to give recitals in far Siberia, I mean, just way off the map. And it looked like nothing would happen, no international touring, all of that. His life was over as an artist. So he eventually had to emigrate. He had to leave in 1974, and he came to this country and literally had to start over.

JEFFREY BROWN: Started over and became the head of the National Symphony Orchestra here, which is where you met him.

TED LIBBY: He was offered the music directorship of this orchestra in 1976 and became its music director in 1977. I came along the next year.

JEFFREY BROWN: The first time he went back to the Soviet Union -- it was still the Soviet Union in 1990 -- you were with him.

TED LIBBY: Yes, I was with him.

JEFFREY BROWN: What was that like?

TED LIBBY: It was amazing. You know, when he arrived at the airport, it was a mob scene like I`ve never seen in my life. The airport in Moscow was just crowded, bursting with people who wanted to see him, and he was swept away in this crush of humanity. It was really incredible.

People so much wanted to see him, after 16 years that he had been in exile, and to hear him again, and there was great emotion, both on the part of the Russians who had missed him, and on his part, to be back in his country. This had meant so much to him.

We all held our breaths when he conducted the first concert, and this was at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, a very important hall. And he did a work that had meant so much to him, Tchaikovsky`s Pathetique symphony, and there was not a dry eye in the house when that was over. It was an incredible ovation, and people were just absolutely carried away from themselves.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then, three years later, he went back with the National Symphony and performed in Red Square. We have a little passage of that. This is Tchaikovsky`s "1812 Overture." Let`s look at that.

You were smiling as we watched that. What was he like -- why were you smiling? What was he like as a man, to watch him up there with that joy?

TED LIBBY: He was such a warm person, and that joy is exactly what it was. He communicated joy. He radiated joy. When he was with friends, anybody, he would just sweep them up in a big bear hug and bring them along with him, wherever it was that they were going to go.

He was so warm and full of life, and full of music. And this is what he conveyed. He had a huge sense of humor, and he had that warmth, that outgoing quality that you can see in his conducting and that he brought to all of his music-making, reaching out always to the audience.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Ted Libby, thanks a lot.

And we close with Mstislav Rostropovich doing what he did best. Here`s a passage from a 1991 recording of the six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of this day.

President Bush warned Congress he`d veto any spending bill for Iraq with a timetable for troop withdrawal.

The Pentagon announced the capture of a senior al-Qaida operative, Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi.

And police in Saudi Arabia thwarted a series of advanced terror plots, including a plan to fly airplanes into oil fields.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: And, again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We add them as their deaths are made official and as photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 13 more.

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