The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; December 15, 2000

. . . . . . . . . . . . Good evening, I'm Jim Lehrer. On the news hour tonight, Terrence Smith explores the new world with emerged AOL Time Warner. Kwame Holman tells the story of Black voters in Florida.

Margaret Warner runs a discussion about post-election America. And Mark Shields and Paul Ziego offer their analysis of this extraordinary political week. It all follows us on some of the news this Friday. Because there was a pill to help prevent heart disease and a premature agent, there already is. Natural vitamin E. Who supplies it to the world? This program was also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to PBS stations from viewers like you. Thank you. President-elect Bush said today he'll begin announcing his cabinet tomorrow. His first selection is expected to be retired General Colin Powell for Secretary of State.

In Austin, Bush met with Democratic Senator John Bro of Louisiana today. He'd been mentioned for energy secretary, but said he wanted to remain in the Senate. Bush discussed a range of other topics with reporters. He was asked about House Speaker Hasterds comments that his tax cut plan was too broad. I haven't had a chance to talk to the speaker yet, but what I found to be positive is the speaker was recognizing that we need some tax relief. And I have made it clear to the speaker once before that, you know, I campaigned on a package that I thought was fair, and fiscally sound, and responsible, and I will continue, and I strongly believe that. Senator Cheney said that the warning signs would be economy, and maybe not might be able to case for tax cuts. Can you tell us specifically what is the economy, what is the economy, what is the economy? Well, I think people are concerned about the economy. I think there's concerns about some of the manufacturing base.

I've heard concerns expressed about the automobile sector. I think all of us ought to be concerned about high energy prices. We're seeing what the high price of natural gas is doing on the west coast. Senator Bro and I had a good discussion about the need for there to be a national energy policy that increases the supply of energy. And I think we ought to be concerned about the effect of high energy prices lower than we have on our economy. The ability to track capital into some of our industries is a concern. And then we've got to be worried about the ability for the country to continue to attract foreign capital to make sure the economy continues to expand. Yes, I think the Vice President-elect Cheney was right in echoing concerns about a possible slowdown. And that's one of the reasons I feel so strongly about the need to reduce the marginal rates in our tax cuts. Mr. Bro and I just have a personal looking to describe the moment that it really sunk in after the long, productive, bi-viewer, the president-elect, and what has been like for you more personal than I appreciate it.

Thanks. Well, first of all, I felt Vice President Gore was most gracious in his comments. I thought he gave a really good speech. And of course, he set the tone for what I thought was an important night for America. And I let others judge the quality of my speech. I can't tell you how excited I am about getting to Washington, about how enthused I am, about the opportunities not only to work with members of the Senate and House, but to work with other world leaders to make the world more peaceful. And I am so grateful and humbled by the opportunity. And so I would say to you, David, that I'm a more patient person than before. I am my enthusiasm for the opportunity that has not, in the least bit wind.

As a matter of fact, I even feel more enthusiastic about the opportunity before all of us. And I can't wait for you to find out who is going to agree to serve in my Cabinet. I think America will be pleased. And of course, in the next couple of weeks, we hope to get most of them named. I'm assembled a White House staff that is a group of extraordinary Americans who agree to serve the country. Bush will go to Washington on Sunday. He'll meet Tuesday with President Clinton and Vice President Gore. We'll have more on this post-election period later in the program tonight. On Wall Street today, stocks tumbled as Microsoft became the latest big name company to warn of weaker earnings. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 240 points, or at about 2% at 10,434. The Nasdaq was down 75 points, or about 2% at 26.53. Inflation at the consumer level was up a little last month, the Commerce Department reported today consumer prices rose 2-10ths of a percent.

Higher prices for tobacco products were the biggest factor. In Ukraine today, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down for good. In a televised ceremony, an engineer switched off the last reactor. In 1986, another reactor exploded in caught fire spewing radiation across the western Soviet Union and several other countries. More than 4,000 workers involved in the cleanup have died of radiation exposure. The U.S. Army said today it had grounded all 742 Apache attack helicopters. It said they'd be checked for a possible flaw in the tail rotor mechanism. The Apaches were grounded just over a year ago for a different problem. And earlier this week, the Marine Corps grounded all eight of its tilt rotor osprey aircraft after a fatal crash. Pilot suicide likely caused the 1997 Silk Air crash in Indonesia that killed 104 people. That's according to a new report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

It helped investigate because the plane was a Boeing 737. The report said there was evidence the crash was deliberate, and that the pilot had financial problems. And that's it for the new summer tonight. Now it's on to the AOL Time Warner merger, another Florida vote protest, some post-election perspectives, and shields, and you go. One of the biggest mergers of them all and to our media correspondent, Terrence Smith. The Commission has approved the merger of AOL Time Warner. And with that announcement from Robert Tofs, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, the creation of the world's largest media business moved one critical step closer to reality. The FTC voted unanimously to allow America online the nation's largest internet service provider to merge with Time Warner, the largest media and cable conglomerate.

Since announcing their intentions almost a year ago, the company heads Steve Case of AOL and Gerald Levin of Time Warner had to agree to stringent FTC conditions meant to ensure competition in providing internet services and the interactive television systems of the future. The fathers of the deal forecast a brave new world of technology for what they dubbed the internet century. AOL Time Warner will offer an incomparable portfolio of global brands that encompass the full spectrum of media and content, from the internet to broadcast and cable television to film, to music, to magazine, and to books. The government required the companies to open its cable systems to at least three competing internet service providers. Especially in this amazing new broadband technology characterized as it has been by openness, by diversity, by easy access, and by freedom. And we wanted especially in these areas to assure that this transaction does not close things down.

Under the terms of the merger, the smaller company AOL with some 15,000 employees will control 55 percent of the new entity. Time Warner has 70,000 staff worldwide. The merger still needs the approval of the Federal Communications Commission. That could come as early as the end of the month. For further explanation of the AOL Time Warner deal and its implications, we turn to Richard Parker, Director of the Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Competition, who led the negotiations. Gene Kimmelman, co-director of the Consumers Union Washington Office, an early critic of the merger, and to Dennis Neal, the Managing Editor of Forbes Magazine, who has followed the technology and entertainment markets since the early 1980s. And until you all, Richard Parker tell me, give me a little sense of what these negotiations were like. I understand that you negotiated for months and is it correct that until the very last hour we're ready if necessary to go to court? Correct. We were negotiating this since August. The investigation has been going on since February or March.

We've been negotiating this deal since August over the last four or five months. At the same time, we were preparing to go to court to block the merger. To block the merger, because I felt the merger was an illegal transaction in that it would reduce competition and that unless we could reach an agreement that would address the negative impacts on competition that we ought to go to court and challenge it as illegal. Gene Kimmelman, you were an early critic of this deal. What do you think of it now? Well, I think the Federal Trade Commission did a commendable job here. It's really a monumental settlement here because for the first time now on cable systems, consumers will have a choice if they have Time Warner Cable of multiple high-speed internet service providers, not just AOL's internet service, but at least three others, and no other cable system has opened itself up this way. If you use a telephone to get on the internet, use your telephone line, you can surf the web and you have hundreds or thousands of providers.

It's been a wonderful new revolution in choices for consumers. But for high-speed services, the cable companies have blocked out everyone else. So in accepting this merger, which highly concentrates markets and had many dangers involved in it, what the FTC has done is gotten to the core issue for consumers, making sure they had more choice for internet services, and hopefully will have price competition in the future as well. Dennis, Neil, what do you think of this? Is it, in fact, more choice for the consumer? Is it enough choice? It certainly will be. Look, at first glance, this is remarkable. You have America online, they bought Time Warner Lockstock and Barrel. They own those wires, and the government agency is now coming in and forcing them to open those wires up and let anybody come in and offer services. That sounds good, but underneath this, I can't help but feel that there's a bit of brayer rabbit and the briar patch here. Don't throw me there, don't throw me in there, don't make me open up my wires. If you look at it, AOL and Time Warner are going to be doing good business.

What the FTC has forced it to do is to open up to other service providers, but if AOL is charging $40 or $50 a month for high-speed internet access, they want to give consumers whichever service provider those consumers want to use. It's simply good business, so I truly questioned how big a concession was one here. Richard Parker, how big a concession was one there? The issue was was choice. We demanded consumer choice, they agreed to it, and we think the commission thought that that remedied the problem. I would add that until today, or until yesterday when this merger was announced, there had never been anything other than a house brand internet service provider on a cable service provider. On a cable system. This is the first time it ever happened. Just ask consumers how they feel about having a cable monopoly. Prices have gone up three times faster than inflation. Why? Because it's a monopoly. The moment another wire comes into community and very few have, prices on average end up being 20% lower.

So what we have here is what may be good for AOL Time Warner because in a competitive market, sure you can make money, but what's good for consumers is they can't make excess profits. That $30 or $40 can't necessarily go up to $60 or $70 or $80. And most importantly, block out, EarthLink, MSN, other potential internet service providers who want to get higher-speed services to customers. Is there a promise, Dennis Neal, in fact, that it will not go up but come down? I think that there's a real possibility that price could come down, but that's going to have nothing to do with what government did. That's going to have to do with what the free market will bear and what customers are willing to sign up. If AOL is not signing up enough customers, they'll cut the price and they'll have to do that. Not because of any government edict. The nice thing for consumers here is that what the FTC has done is a big favor for the industry because the industry would have hemmed and hard for months and months, dickering over the terms, and now government has come in and said, come on, let's just get going here. So new services will emerge more rapidly, and broadband access is high-speed access will probably unfold more rapidly thanks to the FTC's encouragement.

That was the whole point, in my opinion, the antitrust laws are for competition. This is a non-regulatory solution, and all we have found is provided by divisions in which competition can prevail. America online has been saying for more than a year, America online has been saying the right thing to do is to open up cable lines and let various internet service providers come in and sell their services. This is what America online said to local governments about AT&T when AT&T bought cable lines. America online has just come back around full circle to do what it said was the right thing to do for business reasons, not even for regulation reasons. The concessions here aren't that great. The thing that really surprises me is that a government agency is now ordering America online to offer this other kind of high-speed service over phone lines. It's called DSL, which stands for digital subscriber line. A government agency is telling a business what kind of business it should offer.

That's remarkable to me. They're supposed to offer it even if they lose money. Why don't you let the free market figure out what services should be offered based on the demand that consumers show for what service they want? I think the Federal Trade Commission is trying to get us back to the free market here because what they're saying is America online was highly supported. The American online was very highly supportive of getting its services out on cable wires for DSL service when they didn't own cable companies. Now that they're on a major cable company that serves about 20% of all consumers in the country, the danger was they would withdraw their services from a competitor so as to make the cable company, the monopoly in this area. All the Federal Trade Commission has done is that keep competing. Keep the lines open for both the telephone wire and the cable wire to compete. That's all they've done. Also, we're trying to get to the free market which has government backing of phone lines requiring that any internet service provider can reach consumers and consumers can reach anyone over the internet with a phone wire. Now you can call that the heavy hand of government or an edict but what it is is a wide open free market that has enabled thousands of internet services to be made available to the public.

We want to move to that model on cable systems. The Federal Trade Commission has just helped push AOL Time Warner along and I'll also point out while AOL has made a lot of promises over the last few years. They were never willing to have public accountability for the contracts they signed for who they put on their systems. They just said trust us as they became larger and larger owning cable systems serving a broad portion of the American public. We didn't think it was appropriate just to trust them. We thought it was appropriate to make them accountable through the government to the American people so that choice is really there. Richard Barkin, did you get the minimum that you felt you had to get in this deal? Did you get everything you wanted? We got everything we needed to remedy the anti-competitive problem. What we were doing is resolving an antitrust case. There was two outcomes here. One, we could go to court and block it or ask the judge to block it or two, we could come up with what was necessary to solve the problem. We did the latter.

Dennis Neil, I wonder the issue here is choice. Is there enough choice or will there be enough choice for the consumer as this shakes itself out? Of course there will be enough choice as market demand justifies and encourages. There will be very less very little choice if no one wants to order these services at all. I think it will be plenty of choice. I don't think that AOL and Time Warner are going to be unable to pull off some kind of conspiracy that they otherwise would have wanted to pull off. I talked to the chairman of another major cable company, one of the top four players, and he said, oh yeah, offering various choices from various providers is the right way to do business. We'll sign up more customers that way. Now AOL and Time Warner can go ahead and do that, but I believe they would have done that anyway. It's nice to have those safeguards in place. Find they're not going to rapaciously run over the land, but I'm not really sure how much it's going to keep America safe from rapacious corporate greed. All right. Gene Kabelman, are there things missing from this agreement that you and the consumer's union sought?

There are. This was a very strong antitrust settlement, but there are a lot of other competitive issues. As the chairman of the FTC, Mr. Potashti yesterday pointed out, Time Warner, co-owns, cable systems with AT&T together, they serve about half of all consumers in the country. They did not split that ownership. So we're going back to the Federal Communications Commission. Which is the next hurdle. That's exactly right. And asking them to ensure that the two largest cable companies in the country cannot co-own those cable assets and potentially collude. They have a broader statutory authority to do what's in the public interest. It's not the narrow antitrust standard. We're hopeful they'll take care of that. They're complaints about instant messaging on AOL that competitors cannot get their customers linked up with AOL's instant messaging customers. We think there ought to be interoperability of all instant messaging services the FTC can take care of that as well. Did you look into that point? We looked at both points. With regard to the co-ownership of AT&T, they were not in front of us and we could not impose a remedy. We do, however, have a provision that AOL cannot enter into an exclusive agreement to be an Internet service provider or an interactive TV provider on the AT&T system.

The instant messaging we did look at, we looked at it at length but could not find an antitrust merger specific issue there. Dennis Neal, finally, what should we look forward to? More mergers like this? More mergers. You know, there's so few left, it feels like. Yeah, I guess you'll see more consolidation of cable, but it'll be second tier, third tier guys. And the little tiny guys are all going to be getting together. Prices of cable systems went through the roof. That'll probably have to ease before we'll see more consolidation. New services will come. But they're going to, all of this stuff is going to happen far more slowly than we ever think. Remember, we've been talking about interactive television a whole lot since 1992-93. It's just around the corner. It still ain't here. All right. Dennis Neal, Gene Kiliman, Richard Parker. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Still to come on the news hour tonight, another voting protest story in Florida, post-election America, and shields and you go.

Bobby Holman has our Florida story. Vice President Gore's concession hasn't stopped some African Americans from continuing to protest the way the election in Florida was conducted. They have another complaint that a large number of minorities deliberately may have been prevented from voting at all. People were told they were felons and couldn't vote when they were not. People were turned away at the times the polls closed. All part of some kind of grand conspiracy that said, we don't care what you do NAACP. We're not going to get you to the polls.

Now, let me tell you something. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, although I do believe that Humpty Dumpty was pushed and he didn't just fall on his own. Spurred in part by massive registration and get out the vote efforts, record numbers of black and other minority voters turned out in Florida on November 7. Nine out of ten African American voters in Florida supported Al Gore. Now, those communities are rife with stories of people who tried to vote, but for various reasons could not. At this point, nearly a half dozen investigations are underway, all focused on whether African Americans in particular were discriminated against regarding the right to vote, and Florida is one of a handful of states where such acts could constitute a violation of the Federal Voting Rights Act. Miami-based Voting Rights Attorney Thomasina Williams says that would be true of violations that occurred in any of six Florida counties known to have discriminated against minority voters in the past. What you have to show in the section two is that there was a disparate impact on voters in the African American community of the Hispanic community in a particular group.

Not necessarily that there was intent, but the impact of that was to disenfranchise or to dilute the vote of this particular group. The NAACP's M. Fume says on Election Day, his organization began hearing about problems shortly after the polls opened. Here's here. By three o'clock, I was on the phone with the Justice Department asking for help. No one knew on Election Day that Florida would be and have the kind of consequence that it has now. So these people who are here are here to, to in a very serious way, petitioned for the redress of our grievances that we have to say as a nation that every vote must be protected and that people must be allowed the right to vote. Here at Jackson, a naturalized citizen and a longtime election day clerk in Miami was dismayed by what she saw this year. It was the frustration in trying to reach central elections office, just to verify whether or not an individual could vote.

Just sheer frustration of not being able to get through the lines were exceptionally busy. Jackson says at least 50 mostly minority voters were turned away from her precinct because their voter registration could not be verified. We spoke to four such would-be voters from South Florida. The voter read says she got no notice that the polling place where she voted for years was closed and no signs told her where she should vote. And her name on the rolls and then told her it was too late to vote. My poll clerk at his precinct refused even to try to verify that he was registered. He wasn't notified his change of address would mean he couldn't vote.

I don't hate an American, most of us take that very seriously because we don't get to do that in my home. I don't get to do that in my home. And that's my first time second time voting for a president in this country. And I wasn't allowed to do that and that really bugs me. Miami-Dade County's deputy supervisor of elections is Jazela Salas. So what are you doing with these? She oversaw training of poll workers and ran a voter hotline on election day. She says her county's election procedures did not discriminate. So if you walk into a precinct, they don't have you in the precinct register. The clerk would have to call our department to ensure that you are a registered voter. Generally, when it's closing time at the precinct or it's like quarter of seven, it's probably when we get the majority of calls from people who are concerned that they are not being allowed to vote. And frankly at quarter of seven or seven o'clock at night when the precinct is already closing,

it becomes really difficult to assist people to make sure that they get to the proper precinct to make sure that their problem is taken care of. Salas says election day snack foods are inevitable. We have almost 900,000 registered voters, well over 890,000. So when you're dealing with those type of numbers and also a high voter turnout, you're bound to get some problems with some people who just weren't on the books or were given the wrong answer by personnel. Attorney Williams is helping the NAACP investigate the various charges and says minorities were disproportionately prevented from voting by election officials in ability to confirm registrations. They never hurt from people because they simply couldn't get them to telephone lines. I mean, I don't see that they really have an appreciation for what was going on in the field. I think if you talk to people who are poll workers, in addition to people who are themselves trying to vote, you get a very different story and a number of predominantly very heavy black precincts.

Sunday is cultural program night above the ma pool bookstore in Miami's little Haiti. I am a strong human being, African, Haitian, Korean, American. For South Florida's burgeoning Haitian American population, voting in their new country is nearly a sacred responsibility. Under a new election law, the county must provide pre-all speaking translators to assist voters, but that was not always the case on November 7. There was another Haitian lady, next to us, who had to bring her son to translate for her. So there were no other pre-all speaking people to help. However, many of these voters were not ready to blame the system. My biggest question goes to the local Haitian leaders. What are we doing with our people to educate them to empower them to make our voice heard? The Miami-Dade election supervisor says the county provided Creole language ballots in 60 precincts as required by law.

Nonetheless, Williams says voters reported the ballots were not available in heavily Haitian precincts. We've talked to a number of activists in the Haitian American community. No one's seen those Creole ballots. The supervised election says that they were there. We're just not sure where they were because they were not in the precincts or they were needed the most. One of the most substantial charges regarding the Florida vote involved a purge of voter roles undertaken by Jazela Salas and other election officials across the state shortly before Election Day. Unfortunately, the information is coming out now that there are literally thousands of people whose names were purged from the voter registration roles who had no felony convictions, who never moved, just faulty information coming from that contractor. Allison Bethel is director of civil rights for the Florida Attorney General's office. She acknowledges the voting list purged may have deleted valid voter names from the roles. Well, we have received reports from people claiming that they were incorrectly advised that they were a convicted felon.

And some received letters prior to the election. Others did not learn that they were so incorrectly listed until they showed up at the polls to vote. And apparently, the company that provided the information to the state officials of who was and who was not a convicted felon, that information was flawed. And that's what led to the problem. It was wrong. And yes, it impacted the minority community in disproportionate way. But Bethel also says one widely believed allegation that the Florida Highway Patrol set up roadblocks in Tallahassee to impede or intimidate blacks on their way to the polls apparently is unfounded. Although the roadblock appears not to have followed normal channels within FHP for its authorization procedures.

At least as far as the information we have now, there were not a disproportionate number of black or other minority voters stopped. There were not a large number of citations issued. Still, civil rights leaders say suspicion about anything that may diminish the black vote is natural, given African Americans long struggle to win the right to vote. What you're really trying to do is intimidate these people by making them stand in the right to stem from registry to vote. These to put eight boxes on the table. And if you were black, you came up and they said vote, but pick out the right box because if you don't, it's not going to count. Mary Francis Berry is a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and now chairs the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. What happened in Florida suggests to me that either there is gross inefficiency somewhere in the system. Or that someone in the system was totally insensitive to the need to take care of these voters, these African Americans and people of color and poor people who were coming to the polls.

On Wednesday, the Civil Rights Commission announced public hearings in Tallahassee next month aimed at determining whether minorities in Florida were denied the right to vote. The subpoena witnesses, if the witnesses do not come or resist, the Justice Department will have to help us to enforce the subpoenas. The Commission recently voted unanimously to investigate reports of election day irregularities involving minorities not only in Florida but scattered across the country. We'd like very much to get started. Meanwhile, the NAACP continues to hold hearings in counties throughout Florida, as well as in South Carolina, Massachusetts and Missouri. This is America! The various investigations into what happened on Election Day are unlikely to produce concrete answers for several months. President-elect Bush spoke by telephone yesterday with Reverend Jesse Jackson, one of the leaders of the Voting Rights protests. Jackson said afterward they agreed to meet to discuss election reforms among other things. Now some thoughts about post-election America and to Margaret Warner.

For those thoughts, we turn to Michael Novak, who holds the George Frederick Jewett chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Stephen Carter, a professor of law at Yale University, his latest book is titled, God's Name and Vein, the wrongs and rights of religion in politics. Wendy Kaminer, a scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a columnist for the American Prospect magazine. And Alan Wolf, professor of political science at Boston College and author of One Nation After All. Welcome to you all. Stephen Carter, now that this election controversy is finally over, how do you feel about the way it played out and the way it was ultimately resolved? Well, I said to someone recently that this is a good time to be disillusioned, but in fact I'm glad that it ended without getting into a fight between the courts and the legislatures. As bad as the U.S. Supreme Court opinion really was, none of the has a lot of fans, it's better to end that way than to end with the court saying one thing, the legislature is saying something else, and this ending up in the House of Representatives. I also should say that for all the rancor of this period that the speeches that both Vice President Gore and Governor Bush gave the other night, I thought we're really a good job of trying to reach out, trying to be conciliatory toward each other and get us on the path to healing, but there's a lot of work in that regard left to be done.

Alan Wolf, how do you see it? Do you think it's had a sort of lingering impact? In other words, this is just sort of an isolated political event and we move on, or is there a residue? I think there's going to be a residue with respect to some of our institutions, the Supreme Court really damaged itself very, very badly. That residue is going to leave a sour taste whenever a new justice is nominated by President for the court when the question of a new Chief Justice comes up, all of this is going to come back up. It's very, very hard, it seems to me to forget what happened here, which is essentially the Supreme Court, five members of the Supreme Court overstepped their role. But for the rest of it, though, we tend to forget, for all the bitterness of the campaign after the campaign, that the campaign itself, the two candidates were pretty close to one another, Republicans and Democrats are equally divided, but the overwhelming majority party in America is the party of moderates, most Americans are moderate, that's going to continue whatever the bitterness and whatever the struggles that go on in Washington.

How do you see it, Wendy Kaminer? Well, I think it's true that the Supreme Court has certainly lost a lot of standing among liberals among activists, lawyers and academics, though this court never had much standing among liberals to begin with. Now, liberals will look at the Renquist Court, the way conservatives used to look at the Warren Court. I don't think the general public's opinion of the court will change all that much, one way or another. I actually found these much heralded speeches by Gore and Bush the other night. Rather smarmy, and I found all the rhetoric, all the therapeutic rhetoric about healing, completely misplaced, I don't think we need to be healed because I don't think we've been terribly wounded. Listening to Gore, you would think that we had just been engaged in an actual civil war, not a metaphoric one between activists and political elites.

The county courthouse in Leon County, Florida was not the battlefield at Gettysburg. We did not have riots in the streets, as we did in the 1960s. We had a bloodless election contest fought out mostly in the courts. We had a lot of overheated rhetoric, but I think we're strong enough to withstand some overheated rhetoric. I'm actually glad that people cared as much as they did about who would be elected president. I'm very glad that people cared as passionately as they did about their voting rights. If an improvement in the voting system is one result of this election contest, then I think in the end it may have been worth it. Michael Novick, how do you see this, the lingering impact? Well, let me begin with something Wendy just said. I think in the political class among political activists, both Republican and Democratic, there were very raw feelings. I have never seen Republicans so angry ever as they were in the 34 days leading up to the last day.

And they thought that Al Gore had done something quite dreadful, and that there was a quite visible move to steal the election and so on and so forth. And the Florida Supreme Court had way over stretched and spanned. But I do agree with Wendy that on the whole I suspect the American people, really a wonderful people, kept on with their activities. Their use to terrific arguments, Thanksgiving Day dinner around the family table. Certainly has people who don't dare talk about politics for fear of driving the other half of the family away and several other subjects. So they know what argument is like. But they lived through it pretty well I thought. I think our institutions held up pretty well. One of the great splits that come out of this election was the split between those who go to church regularly once a week, or even more than that, who voted overwhelmingly for George Bush. And those who don't, who never go to church, or much less, who voted very strongly for Al Gore.

You've never had so clear a division. I don't think that boat's all together too well. But going to church, more people go to church and watch all the football games and television over the weekend. Well Stephen Carter, that gets to the question of relate. One, how divided is our nation. We hear all this talk about Bush has to lead a divided nation. And so what is the nature of the divide? I'm not sure that we're as divided as a lot of the rhetoric has recently suggested. One reading, of course, of this down the middle election, so down the middle of the court's role split by one vote is that these are hopefully divided parties. But I think there's another possibility. The reason that the vote is so close is precisely because people during the campaign were unable to get passionate about these candidates. There was a lot more passion in the month and a week after the election during all the Bruhahabah, who really won than there was leading up to it. And I think when people worry and wonder about whether this, these events are going to reinforce the cynicism of American voters,

I think what will reinforce the cynicism is another campaign like this one with two men running very safe down the middle campaigns, not appealing to our higher selves, not asking us to do anything hard, basically making a series of concrete promises that for the most part differ in their technical details. More campaigns like that, where we're not offered much of a choice between candidates will, I think, lead to more very close elections, and I think a lot more cynicism. Wendy Cameron, your thoughts on that last point. That Stephen Carter made about what makes people cynical and really, was there much of a divide in the election or the post-election controversy? I'm not sure there was that much of a divide in the election because a lot of people saw these candidates as being very much alike. And I think that we've been seeing these red, blue maps of the United States for the last month, which are very misleading because some of those red states and some of those blue states could very easily have gone the other way. And we're hearing a lot also about the need for more bipartisanship, which I'm also quite struck by because I think that we've had too much bipartisanship and not enough partisanship in the last several years.

We certainly need less viciousness and more civility in politics. But in some ways, I think if we want to engage people, if we want people to be less cynical, we need more partisanship if, by partisanship, we mean people standing up and fighting for differing ideals. What worries me about all of these calls for bipartisanship is that it will mean more cautious centrism. And cautious centrism is not going to solve some of the terrible problems that we face, especially the problems that we have been ignoring during this campaign like pervasive racism and other gross inequities in the criminal justice system. Okay, let me get Alan Wolfen here. I don't know if you've got a couple of threads of conversation going here, but go back to this question of the divide and pick up on Michael Novak's point, which Francis Fukuyama also made in the Wall Street Journal recently, that the real divide in our country is cultural. It's not really over the kinds of issues that we're talking about in the campaign.

And maybe isn't the kind of divide that can be healed by a president in any event. I think that there's almost an inverse relationship between the consensus in the country. Michael Novak said Americans are pretty nice people. I agree with them completely. And the divisiveness of the intellectuals. I heard Michael Novak say, for example, just a couple of minutes ago in this program, that church-going people voted Republican and people who don't go to church overwhelmingly voted Democratic. It sounds almost as if he's suggesting that God is on the side of one of the parties. Sociologically, it's completely untrue. African Americans are overwhelmingly among the most church-going of people. And they, of course, voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats. Well, Michael Novak was actually referring to is the fact that people who say they go to church and surveys, but one where another, but sociologists know that a lot of people say they go to church and don't actually do. We don't need that kind of rhetoric. We don't need to claim and make claims like that. We saw an awful lot of that for Mr. Novak to say that Republicans were angry. It seems to me that the Democrats were the ones who had the cause to be angry over and over again at the complete entrance of the Republicans.

But it's that kind of debate that most Americans don't engage. And I'm glad they don't. I'm glad they don't feel like me. I'm angry. I'm glad they're not angry. So you're agreeing with the idea that it's really the political class, or as you put at the intellectual class that has this great divider raw feelings, but not ordinary Americans, you don't think. That's right. I almost feel as if they're people I know, and I've known for a long time. Many of them can serve as good friends. I barely want to talk to them right now, given the anger that I feel. But that's repeat. That's just not the way Americans out there in the country feel. And thank God for them. Thank God that people are not as passionate about these things as I am. I don't know if Michael Novak is. Well, I like the point about passion, but it's not the only thing. I was impressed by the numbers that the considerably higher black turnout in many areas, including Florida. That's a very good sign. I don't know how much passionate entails, but it doesn't tell the kind of determination to go out and do something. And that's quite good enough for me. But then do you think, picking up on the tape piece, we just ran that given part of what happened and that most of the higher error rates were in the black and poor precincts, that going back to how our institutions fair that our electoral system didn't fair as well as it might have.

I don't think the electoral machinery fared as well, both human and technical, probably. But it's quite striking that nobody is saying that it's deliberate because most of the precincts are in the control of the party who would have benefited by a higher turnout. Well, actually, some people are saying that it was deliberate. Some people are saying that there is at least not exactly an unconscious racism, but a kind of subtle racism in the fact that the worst voting machines in Florida tended to be in the black districts, in the fact that these unreliable lists of alleged felons tended to disproportionately target African Americans. Some people do see a kind of deliberation in that.

And if we don't address the problems in the electoral system in the next couple of years, we are going to see a great deal more cynicism than we see. All right, Steven Carter, your final thoughts. Well, two very quick thoughts. One is on the subject we were just talking about. It's very important, I think, for the Bush administration to make a very high priority of investigating what went on in the voting in Florida, having the Justice Department looking to the event. The NAACP is planning litigation under the Voting Rights Act, as I think they probably should. But at the same time, I think it's very important for whether it's the intellectual class, the elite, or the people on the street, whoever the rhetoric comes from. I think what has to be toned down on both the Democratic and Republican sides is the sense that somebody stole or tried to steal the election. What you had was two people, two parties, going at each other passionately, head-to-head, it got a little bit out of hand. But now's the time to stop worrying about who stole what and start thinking about the future. All right, thank you all for very much. Thank you.

Some final words now from Shields Angie Goes, syndicated columnist, Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist, Paul G. Go, Mark. What would you like to share with us at the end of this remarkable week? A woman I know, a professional woman was walking downtown Washington yesterday with her coda. She still had her girl Lieberman button on. And a man should have ever seen before in her life, just in a bow tie. Professional man, sort of said, saw a loser in which she responded immediately, thief. And it was embarrassed by it. That really is the feeling. And I thought Alan Wolf captured his own feelings. And I think that's the feeling of Michael Novak was right in the sense of political activists. There is a great gulf that hasn't closed in spite of all the very admirable and very welcome and very necessary speaking of healing on both sides. You feel the same way Paul? You feel the same?

Same. Pee-pee. Yeah, Paul. No, I do feel that I do feel that that exists and it's going to take a long time to get over. And I think maybe the entire Bush presidency among the activists frankly, but I think that in a bigger sense, it's my liberal friend's use to say after the Watergate scandal, the system worked. It barely worked. We stretched it. We stretched the bounds of trust. But in the end, the institutions did hold. And it showed that the framers in their genius designed a system that could tolerate great controversies and yet still confer legitimacy. Would you feel that way if Al Gore had ended up being president of the United States? Would you say, hey, Jim, the system worked? It depends on how he would have won, Jim. If he would have won with a 4-3 verdict of the Florida Supreme Court, no way would I have felt that. Mark, do you feel the system worked because the Supreme Court of the United States by a 5-4 vote gave it to George W. Bush? I think the system worked. I don't think justice was done.

I think that Al Gore showed a enormous respect and a great example, almost an inspiration for following the rule of law. It was the rule of law that triumphed. He accepted a decision, which he disagree with not simply because he won against him, but because for many people it was indefensible. And not simply the political, just the legal and logical argument for it. But I do think that the rule of law prevailed and that in the final analysis is the greatest tribute. How has George W. Bush handled himself as president of the elect so far? He only had three days, but what kind of marks would you give him Paul? I think he's done fine, Jim. I've actually been impressed more impressed by how he behaved during this controversy. And I say that because at first he looked, I think it's fair to say, a little bit shaky. It didn't have that great sense of command that you'd like to see right after an election. But then I think he did something very smart. Two things. One is he delegated.

He got Jim Baker in there and Baker handled all of this, the public and the legal strategy. And he dropped from sight. Bush, I thought, was very wise to be silent. He knew this controversy was polarizing. He knew that if he ended up being president, he didn't want to have to have spent capital on that. And much less than Vice President Gore, he was behind the scenes. I think that was shrewd and shows a certain sense. He caught some heat for it. Who's the president elect? Is it Dick Cheney or is it George W. Bush? Well, in the modern world, we're supposed to be defined by new cycles. We've got to get that spin out there. We've got to get on the evening news and have the story and beat the other guy. But I think that he didn't spend his reputation fighting this fight. And I think that's going to stand him well as the days go on. And he feel about George W. Bush since Wednesday. I feel he's president elect and he has a smart pay on the difference.

Now, let me just say, he's obviously doing something, right? Because his pastor yesterday in Austin said that God had chosen George Bush to lead the people and compared him to Moses. And that must have been some contribution to the church building fund that he made. Because I don't know. I don't know. He passed it. He was spoken about anybody in this broadcast that way. But I do say that following up on your point about Dick Cheney, the favorite into a sport in Washington is making fun of Vice Presidents. That is not the case. Dick Cheney is seen as the person who is in charge. He's sort of the super chief of staff of the administration beyond the White House. And I think that President Bush has been fine. What does well, Jim, is small groups. He doesn't do a set speech well. I thought he did the Texas legislature was a good compromise. The two appearances he made on television prior to that. It did look like a hostage tape. And it looked like he was talking under duress. But I think that he is very comfortable. That will be his strength in dealing with Congress.

He's in small groups on personal basis. Something that Bill Clinton never mastered in eight years. All of the conservatives of the Republican Party are going to put up with his governing from the middle and making deals with liberal Democrats in order to get things done. The answer to that is it depends on the nature of the deal. Jim, I think he's going to get a wide latitude. First of all, why do we do it? Well, because this is the first time Republicans have controlled the whole shooting match, the legislature, and the executives since 1953. And I think they do feel that they better do pretty well by it, or at least they should. And the Republicans I'm talking to, I think, I think feel that way. They also know that you can govern much better from the executive than you can from the legislature. And I think they've learned that they couldn't get a lot of things done over the last six years since they took over. So they're going to need executive leadership. But I think there will be a certain weariness that is a residue frankly from his father's administration,

which is that we're going to look at what the deals are. But I think many of them expect that some of these compromises they're not going to like, what they want to get is some compromises on the things that they want. Mark, how should the Democrats play this? I noticed John Bro went down there today, and it was very pleasant, but said no thanks. I don't want to serve in your cabinet. Is that going to be the answer, Georges every wish is going to get from most Democrats? Hey, this is terrific by partisanship, but count me out. Well, Jim, the Senate has split 50-50. There's a Republican governor, Louisiana. If John Bro were to accept anything that was offered, if they had been offered, the Republican governor of Louisiana might foster what a point a Republican. But couldn't they make a deal? A point a very weak Democrat who couldn't get reelected. So I mean, that, and John Bro knows that. I mean, John, I don't know if John Bro wants to be a cabinet officer, but he knows that, and it would be the kiss of death, the his political career, in the sense that Democrats who look upon it as betrayal. I think if they're going to be Democrats out of the Congress and the cabinet, it would probably be Democrats who hold

districts, house districts that Democrats could not keep, like Charlie Stenholm and West Texas and all likelihood of being a Republican Republican. What's in it for the Democrats to make George W. Bush's promise of bipartisanship stick and work? Well, I tell you the two things that work for the Democrats to cooperate with George W. Bush. The first is that the leaders of the Democratic Party, namely Dick Gephart, and to increasing the great time to national the Senate, are now mentioned as national candidates. They don't want to be in the position. Dick Gephart ran in 1988 himself. He's wanted to be Speaker of the House, but if he's going to run for president, or thinking about it, or Tom Dash, he'll think about National Office. He doesn't want to be seen as an obstructionist to somebody who is small and petty and not ready for nationalizing. And secondly, the Democrats are the party of governance. They like to govern. They like to legislate. Republicans are the ones who oppose things. So when he proposes, they'll respond. We have plenty of time to talk about this over the next

several weeks and months. Both very much. Again, the major stories of this Friday, President-elect Bush said he'll begin announcing his cabinet tomorrow. His first selection is expected to be Colin Powell for Secretary of State. In late today, Congress passed the final piece of the budget, worth more than $450 billion, and sent it to President Clinton for approval. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lara. I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and good night. Helping people with a state planning so that those they care about

get more than a simple will can provide. See how we earned it. Salomon Smith-Bart. And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, this program was also made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Video cassettes of the NewsHour with Jim Lara are available from PBS the United States.

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Thank you. Good evening. I'm Jim Lara.

On the NewsHour tonight, Terrence Smith explores the new world with a merged AOL time Warner. Kwame Holman tells the story of black voters in Florida. Margaret Warner runs a discussion about post-election America. And Mark Shields and Paul G. Go offer their analysis of this extraordinary political week. It all follows us on the news this Friday. Suppose there was a pill to help prevent heart disease and a premature aging. There already is. Natural vitamin E. Who supplies it to the world? This program was also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to PBS stations from viewers like you.

His first selection is expected to be retired General Colin Powell for Secretary of State. In Austin, Bush met with Democratic Senator John Bro of Louisiana today. He had been mentioned for energy secretary, but said he wanted to remain in the Senate. Bush discussed a range of other topics with reporters. He was asked about House Speaker Hasterds' comments that his tax cut plan was too broad. I haven't had a chance to talk to the Speaker yet, but what I found to be positive is that Speaker was recognizing that we need some tax relief. And I have made it clear to the Speaker once before that, you know, I campaigned on a package that I thought was fair, and fiscally sound, and responsible. And I will continue, and I strongly believe that. Secretary Cheney has said the warning signs of the economy, and maybe not my field case for tax cuts.

Can you tell us to see that going to be what is in the economy while in the years? Well, I think people are concerned about the economy. I think there's concerns about some of the manufacturing base. I've heard concerns expressed about the automobile sector. I think all of us ought to be concerned about high energy prices. We're seeing what the high price of natural gas is doing on the West Coast. Senator Broan, I had a good discussion about the need for there to be a national energy policy that increases the supply of energy. And I think we ought to be concerned about the effect that high energy prices lower than we have on our economy. The ability to track capital into some of our industries is a concern. And then we've got to be worried about the ability for the country to continue to attract foreign capital to make sure the economy continues to expand. So, yes, I think the Vice President-elect Cheney was right in echoing concerns. I think there's a lot of concerns about how about that.