Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20101119

>> it combines in a very al qaeda style a mix of targets so you strike india in its heart, its economic and cultural heart but you very specifically go after american, european, jewish targets. >> woodruff: mark shields and david brooks analyze this week's news. >> brown: and spencer michels reports on the oakland, california, mayoral race, where a second-place finisher became an election winner. >> if nobody gets a ma jort, whichever candidate comes in last place he is eliminated and everybody who voted for that candidate their first choice will now have their second choice. >> woodruff: that's all ahead n tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the nato summit opened today with plans to focus heavily on afghanistan. but it was instead missiles that topped the first day's agenda-- an agreement announced for an expanded missile defense system for europe and the u.s. the announcement came shortly after president obama and the leaders of 27 other nato nations gathered in lisbon for the two- day meeting. >> we've agreed to develop missile defense capability for all european territories and the united states. this important step forward builds on the new phased adaptive approach for missile defense i announced for the us last year. >> woodruff: the missile system, designed mainly to defend against an attack from iran, will involve stationing u.s. interceptor missiles and radar in europe. nato will spend $280 million to link the new system to existing anti-missile sites. the leaders plan to invite russia to join the missile defense plan tomorrow as part of "resetting" nato relations with moscow. meanwhile, the centerpiece of the u.s. reset-- a nuclear arms reduction treaty-- has hit a republican roadblock in the senate. but it's the escalating war in afghanistan that's expected to dominate tomorrow's meeting. members planned to consider how, and how fast, to let the afghans take over. >> here in lisbon, i look forward to working with our nato and isaf partners as we move to a new phase, a transition to afghan responsibility that begins in 2011, with afghan security forces taking the lead for security across afghanistan by 2014. >> woodruff: the american commitment was reinforced by reports today that heavily armored m-1 abrams battle tanks are being sent to afghanistan for the first time. but afghan president hamid karzai may have complicated the task of getting the allies to stay through the transition. in an interview with "the washington post" last weekend, he pushed for reducing the international troop presence and stopping night raids. secretary of state hillary clinton met with karzai today on the sidelines of the lisbon summit to talk things over. >> we believe that it is important for us to listen closely to the government and people of afghanistan about their concerns and to try to address them. and we also believe that our mission in afghanistan is making progress, which president karzai has publicly acknowledged. >> woodruff: i spoke with margaret warner in lisbon about all this a short time ago. margaret, hello, now what is the significance of this missile defense treaty? >> warner: well, judy, it is a significant event. when you remember that when president bush proposed a similar idea three and a half years ago the russians reacted angrily and the western europeans were nervous. they agreed it should be a goal of the nato alliance to build a europe-wide missile defense shield which would also link to the united states, ultimately, like in its fourth phase and will protect u.s. troops here in the meantime. and so it's a clear signal, really, to tehran, though iran was not specifically mentioned in the document as say the french had hoped. >> woodruff: and how did it come together, margaret? was it a tough sell with the europeans? >> warner: it was in some respectsment now the first three phases had already been agreed on. that is the intercepters and radar will be first on u.s. ships at sea and then to romania by 2015, they all agree but turkey was the missing link. turkey has to house some installation as well. and the turks who are trying to build friendly relations with their neighbor iran were balancinging. now the turks have signed on to the concept. the details will be worked out. the mechanisms will be worked out. the other big deal is that the russians now who initially thought this was aimed at them, president obama has worked hard to refashion the proposal to persuade them it's not aimed at the russian nuclear due ter ent but at iran and when president medvedev arrives tomorrow u.s. officials and nato officials hope they'll not only agree to the idea or support the idea but perhaps even agree to take part in some way. >> woodruff: so the russians will be part of this missile defense agreement. and separately, margaret, the u.s. is resetting so to speak its relationship with russia in part with the so-called new start treaty, something that has hit a road block with republicans back here in washington. can president obama make any headway on that over there? >> well, the white house officials clearly hope to use this, start-- excuse me this nato meeting to persuade the world that the whole western alliance agrees that start is essential it western security. so for example the polish foreign minister wrote an op ed on a global web site today saying start was essential to eastern and central europe security. now that's a direct response to senator voinovich, the moderate republican from ohio who said on the senate floor wednesday he couldn't vote for start because he was worried about russia's sort of aggressive move in the old neighborhood. and today german chancellor merkel made a statement supporting and urging ratification of new start and they're hoping to get other statements from other nato members, maybe even nato itself tomorrow. so the idea is to he at least show other republicans in the senate that senator kyle's really an outlier here. >> woodruff: quickly to afghanistan this was supposed to be the main topic of this meeting. the leaders discussing this timetable out to 2014. what is president obama looking for from the leaders? >> well, judy, what the u.s. had real identitied and general petraeus made clear to president obama is that the july 2011 date that he had set last december for the u.s. beginning to withdraw some troops was being widely interrupted as u.s. pulls out july 2011. and that meant the pakistanies and taliban and afghans and what is more you had europeans running for the exit. i mean both the canadians and the dutch are in the process of or have withdrawn their combat forces. so the u.s. realizes it really needed to get the whole nato alliance agreeing on a timetable so the european was stay involved and that involved this two phase approach which is they'll start handing over some responsibility to the afghans next spring. district by district. that everyone agrees that everyone will keep participating in some way whether combat or training to at least december 2014. and now president obama hopes that if everyone, if it really is a nato alliance strategy that nato will, they know members will say to themselves this our first out of area mission ever since the cold war. we can't afford to fail. >> woodruff: and finally, margaret, this trip to portugal is just shortly after the president made a two-week long trip to asia with mixed results. what does the white house want out of this trip? >> well, judy, they hope that this will be, it's a short trip, 20 hours here on the ground but that it will be a victory lap. as you said, in asia missed getting a south korean trade deal. got beat up at the g-20. the hope is here to demonstrate that president obama has to the been so weakened by the election results that he is weakened overseas. so today after briefing us, for example, on the missile defense agreement, one white house aidee said do you guys need if i sin nos for the word win? -- synonyms on the word win. >> i guess that tells the story. we'll talk to you over the weekend. >> brown: still to come on the newshour: a defense of u.s. monetary policy; a new investigation into the mumbai attacks; shields and brooks; and second-place, but a winner. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman in our newsroom. >> holman: airline pilots in the u.s. will be excused from those full-body scans and pat-downs at airports, effective immediately. the main pilots union said today the transportation security administration has agreed to the change. pilots now will be allowed to present two photo i.d.s to be checked against a secure database. a gas explosion rocked new zealand's largest coal mine today, leaving 29 miners trapped. it happened at the pike river mine in a mountainous area on the country's south island. we have a report narrated by will mott of independent television news. >> reporter: its power even reached the surface. the explosion at the pike river mine was so strong, it damaged this ventilation shaft and blackened the hillside with soot. >> all i could say, i have been up there, the mine rescue crews are working frantically at the moment. they are up there, they are doing everything they can. it is a waiting game. they're making sure that the mine is safe to go down. >> reporter: pike river's entrance is in a valley, and the main mine shaft goes upwards for two and a half kilometers to meet the brunner coal seam, which is only 150 meters below the surface. there's a major fault in the area and lots of secondary faults, which allows methane to spread through the mine. and it was this buildup of gas which caused the explosion. about 30 people, including at least one british citizen, were inside. whether they all survived is not yet known, but only a handful have made it out. >> we've had our afternoon shift underground, and we've had communications with a couple of the employees. and we've had two men return to the surface, and they're currently being interviewed and trying to determine the nature and the full extent of the incident. >> reporter: rescue teams have arrived, but they fear it's still unsafe, meaning it could be days before anybody else is found. relatives are gathering in a welfare center nearby, and after the success in chile, they know not to give up hope. >> holman: 33 men were rescued last month from that mine in chile after spending 69 days trapped underground. the haitian capital of port-au- prince was tense again today. rioters attacked u.n. peacekeepers there thursday. some haitians blame u.n. soldiers from nepal for sparking an unprecedented outbreak of cholera. the disease has killed more than 1,100 people in recent weeks. meanwhile, the relief group doctors without borders set up a makeshift clinic in the northern city of cap haitien. rioting erupted there earlier in the week, but since has calmed. american indians and black farmers have cleared a major hurdle to winning claims for federal compensation. the senate today approved $4.6 billion to settle class- action lawsuits. indian landowners claimed they were swindled out of royalties by the interior department. black farmers accused the agriculture department of bias. the bill is expected to win a final house vote next month. wall street finished the week with mixed results. the dow jones industrial average gained 22 points today to close at 11,203. the nasdaq rose three points to close at 2,518. for the week, the dow gained just a fraction of a percent; the nasdaq fell a fraction. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: and we turn to the economy. the federal reserve acted, and the fallout continues. fed chairman ben bernanke confronted critics abroad and at home directly today. speaking at a conference in germany, he defended the fed's latest plan to bolster the u.s. economy. >> the best way to continue to deliver the strong economic fundamentals that underpin the value of the dollar, as well as to support the global recovery, is through policies that lead to a resumption of robust growth in a context of price stability in the united states. >> brown: earlier this month, the fed announced it would buy $600 billion in u.s. treasury bonds, hoping to cut interest rates and spur lending and business expansion. domestic critics, including some top republicans like indiana congressman mike pence, charged the fed move will bring more debt and higher inflation. in a statement, pence said: "the federal reserve hasn't gotten the message. printing money is no substitute for sound fiscal policy." bernanke met with banking committee senators this week to explain the plan. in his speech today, he argued again that fed action is critical to job growth, and called on congress and the obama administration to take further steps. >> on its current economic trajectory, the united states runs the risk of seeing millions of workers unemployed or underemployed for many years. as a society, we should find that outcome unacceptable. >> reporter: chairman bernanke likewise rejected international criticism that the fed is trying to weaken the dollar to make u.s. exports more attractive. instead, he pushed back against china and other emerging countries for keeping their currencies artificially low. for closer look at all this, we are joined by greg ip, u.s. economics editor for "the economist." and author of the new book "the little book of economics: how the economy works in the real world" well, open to the chapter on the fed, right. now first of all, how unusual is this to see the federal reserve chairman kind of taking people on directly and this bluntly? >> well, it hasn't been so unusual lately. now historically yes, the fed chairman does try to remain apolitical and above the fray and to sort of not get into the weeds fighting off his critics. but in the last few years the fed has to do a lot of unusual things, that made a lot of people up set such as bailing out bear stearns and bailing out aig and extending loans to banks and so forth. and so this actually resulted in a lot of criticism and pressure on the independence of the fed. will you recall there was a movement in congress about a year ago to audit the fed. and so bernanke and his staff basically took the view, they couldn't just sit there and take it. they had to take their message to the people, as it were. >> now this was in an international forum so start on the international side. because a lot of today's message was aimed at who and saying what? >> sure, so essentially the background here is that in the last few months the fed has expanded what they call their quantitative easing program. normally when they want to stimulate the economy they lower short-term interest rates but they are already at zero. so now they are trying to lower long-term interest rates by buying bonds. one of the secondary consequences of that is that the dollar falls. but when our dollar falls somebody else's currency has to go u and that is putting pressure onure trading partners quick brazil, and in europe. they are accusing the fed of doing it on purpose to try and essentially rescue the american economy at your expense. >> brown: he wasn't having any of that, right. he is saying look in the mirror. >> mr. bernanke made it quite clear that his goal is to revive the american economy, in the long run. that a good for the whole world and it's good for the strength of the dollar. and then yes he turned the table on his critics. he said if there is a problem here it is countries, he didn't really name them, but he said it is countries like china who won't allow their currencies to go up so they can do some of the job of absorbing some of the growth, instead of running such large trade surpluses why don't you buy some of the rest of the world's exports. >> brown: on the domestic side he did put in his call for more action, more stimulus action, right, from the administration and congress. how unusual is that to kind of say it that clearly? >> well, if you will recall, his predecessor alan greenspan used to be criticized for speaking out a little too much on these issues saying when we should cut taxes, when we should balance the budget. when bernanke came in he tried to avoid these political debates. but i think what he is looking at is a situation now where what he can achieve by traditional means is quite limited. and he would like to see the fiscal policy used to add some strength to the economy where he is unable to. but it's very resicky. he is starting to wander into territory which is much more politicize-- politicized. >> okay. he is in an atmosphere. we see it daily where he is getting criticized. starting with the quantitative easing which has been criticized in some quarters as we just saw for the potential risk of inflation. >> i think when people hear that the fed is printing money they draw a straight line saying that leads to hyperinflation and they start managing situations like germany in the 1920s. first of all that is analytically off base because printing money only creates inflation if the money gets lent and then spent. and these things are happening right now. this week we learned that underlying inflation is the lowest in over 50 years. but there is another concern here which is that when the fed buys bonds it's in essence financing the government deficit. now most economists think that is probably a necessary thing right now. a little bit of government borrowing and lower interest rates are just what the economy needs but there are some people worried that this is the beginning of a slippery slope towards essentially the government or i should say the fed printing money to finance the deficits. and that raises a lot of red flags especially among republicans in congress. >> right. and that, those voices are loud and growing. and that seems to be leading to a question of the so-called mandate of the fed, whether to change that, specifically the historic mandate to deal with unemployment. >> yes. >> explain the mandate and what people are saying now. >> so the federal reserve in 1977 had its statute changed so that is would have to focus there on achieving maximum employment and stable prices. what the republicans in congress this week have suggested is that they just forget about the full employment part of that mandate and just focus on the stable prices. the low inflation part of that mandate. what is interesting here it is not so uncommon to have congress beating up on the fed and threatening to change its mandate. it has been happening since the '60s and 197 0s. as earnee as the 1990s henry gonzalez wanted to beat up on the fed and expose them to more congressional oversight. what is a little unusual here is that you normally see congress getting up set when they want the fed to run an easier monetary policy and create more jobs. they have a situation now where they would like the fed to stop running such an easy policy. that's a new one bdz today in fact treasury secretary geithner came out and said no go, he is opposed to a change in the mandate. >> that's right. that is why i believe it smoke and fire but won't result in changes to the federal reserve act. remember the democrats will have none of this. they want full employment to remain one of the fed's goals. and by the way i think most american does right now. if you look at the polls they are much more worried about unemployment than inflation. that said, all this attention is very unpleasant for the fed and might make life give especially now that the republicans can have hearings in the house of representatives where they can air some of their concerns about the possible risks associated with this policy. >> brown: greg ip of "the economist", thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next tonight, as we near the second anniversary of the terror attacks in mumbai, india, new information emerges about the perpetrators. ray suarez has the story. >> suarez: the bloody siege of mumbai lasted almost three days. 166 people were killed, including six americans. this was the scene outside the taj mahal palace, a luxury hotel popular with western tourists and wealthy indians. inside, four militants from the pakistan-based lashkar-i-taiba went room to room gunning down their victims. at the same time, four other targets in the city were attacked: the oberoi hotel, the leopold cafe, the central train station-- where closed circuit cameras captured these chilling images of a calm-looking gunman- - and the city's chabad house, a community center for ultra- orthodox jews. in the two years since the attack, we've learned more about the group behind it and the meticulous planning that went into it. the focus has been on the so- called "project manager" of the plot, a pakistani known as sajid mir. >> he is a very mysterious figure. >> suarez: journalist sebastian rotella spent five months investigating the mumbai attacks and mir's role in them. his reports, funded by propublica, an online investigative news outlet, appeared in the "washington post" earlier this week. >> he first pops up in cases back in 2001, training a mix of americans, frenchmen, australians, britons, and then deploying them on various missions around the world. >> suarez: so little is known about mir, his real age can't even be determined. but authorities do know that, during the siege of mumbai, mir was overseeing almost every detail over the phone from a base in pakistan, calling his teams of ten gunmen on the ground to tell them what to do-- whom to kill, when to kill them, and how to die themselves. in one tape, after a gunman has handed his phone to a mexican tourist at the chabad house, norma rabinovich, mir is heard, in accented english, telling the woman to propose a prisoner swap. >> i was talking to the consulate a few minutes ago. they are calling the prime minister and the army in india from the embassy in delhi. >> don't worry then. just sit back and relax and don't worry and just wait for them to make contact. >> suarez: hours later, mir ordered his gunmen to kill rabinovich and another hostage. he listened over the phone as the gunman executed the women. did this mission, this attack represent something new for lashkar, an escalation? >> it did, certainly both in the scope and the targeting. it was not the first time they had targeted the west. but this was a dramatic escalation over that and over previous attacks in india. and, again, it combined, in a very al qaeda style, a mix of targets. so you strike india in its heart-- you know, mumbai, its economic and cultural heart. but you very specifically go after american, european, jewish targets. >> suarez: to prepare for the attack, sajid mir recruited an mumbai. unlikely source to go on five separate scouting missions to mumbai. daood gilani was in his mid-40s when he traveled to a lashkar training camp in pakistan. born in washington, d.c., to a pakistani father and a socialite american mother, gilani had a reputation as a ladies' man, and a checkered past. he was arrested in the mid-'90s for dealing heroin in new york, later becoming an informant for the drug enforcement agency. he changed his name to david coleman headley in order to travel with greater ease. >> he was the perfect spy in a lot of ways and the perfect operative for the people he ends up having relationships with-- that is, drug traffickers, pakistani intelligence, american... the d.e.a. because, really, here's a guy a man of many worlds-- he's born in the united states, has a u.s. passport, doesn't look particularly pakistani. but he grows up in pakistan, yet he comes back to the united states and really slides into a decadent world of drug dealing and partying. and he somehow manages, like a chameleon, to combine all those worlds. >> suarez: here is a guy that seems to be screaming "look at me," and yet, headley somehow gets overlooked. >> i think law enforcement and intelligence have a tendency to put people in boxes, and they perhaps had a view of what an islamic extremist is. and he, for a series of reasons, didn't conform to that. there's a series of warnings starting back in october 2001, even before he begins training with lashkar, from girlfriends, wives, associates of the family. there are half a dozen warnings between late 2001 and just after the mumbai attacks to u.s. authorities. >> suarez: yet headley wasn't arrested until last october, nearly a year after the mumbai attacks. at the time, he was plotting another attack with sajid mir, a similar style commando raid on the offices of the danish newspaper that had published cartoon depictions of the prophet muhammad. headley had cased the offices and taken video, again presenting himself as an american businessman. and just as signs about headley's involvement were ignored, so too were signals that the group lashkar-i-taiba was preparing a raid on the scale of the mumbai attacks. >> there seems to be a systematic sense that lashkar is not seen as a danger. you get the feeling that investigators just weren't seeing it as a threat to the united states. >> suarez: after mumbai, indian officials accused pakistan of significant ties to lashkar. here's how the indian home secretary, g.k. pillai, described pakistan's involvement. "it was not just a peripheral role. they were literally controlling and coordinating it from the beginning till the end." counterterrorism officials argue over how close the link between lashkar-i-taiba and pakistani intelligence really is. lashkar was originally set up to fight on pakistan's behalf in kashmir, territory claimed by both india and pakistan sebastian rotella says there's plenty of evidence of some sort of connection. >> the debate among western and indian anti-terror officials is, what is the extent of that role? are we talking about a few isolated individuals within the intelligence service who go rogue or exceed their grasp, who have some awareness, but are playing a half-active, half- passive role? or, as other voices would argue, can an attack of this magnitude, of this sophistication-- two years in the plotting by a group that is so close to the security forces-- really be carried out without at least the knowledge of people higher up. >> suarez: pakistan says it's gotten more aggressive with lashkar. last year, it arrested the group's military chief and six others. but that trial has stalled. in june, an indian court convicted the only surviving mumbai gunman-- this man, captured on video tape from the train station. david coleman headley pled guilty last year to helping organize the mumbai attacks and targeting the danish newspaper. because he is cooperating with investigators, he has yet to be sentenced. and in one sign of the success of the mumbai operation, and the new influence of lashkar-i- taiba, al qaeda has recently warned of "mumbai-style" attacks in europe. >> what's interesting and scary about it, i think, is this idea of mumbai-style attacks shows that some of these lashkar approaches and techniques are coming to play, both individuals and approaches to attacks. and it has american and european security forces very concerned. >> suarez: earlier this month, president obama became the first visiting head of state to stay at the taj hotel since the attack. he also met with victims. >> we'll never forget the awful images of 26/11, including the flames from this hotel that lit up the night sky. we'll never forget how the world, including the american people, watched and grieved with all of india. but the resolve and the resilience of the indian people during those attacks stood in stark contrast to the savagery of the terrorists. >> suarez: the man who plotted that "savagery," sajid mir, remains at large in pakistan. authorities believe he is planning other attacks. >> woodruff: and to the analysis of shields and brooks-- syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. >> well come, gentlemen. >> thank you. so david, congress back in session this week. we've met these 100 or so new members the house in the senate. any particular impressions of them so far? >> a lot of seminars for them. this reled like little ducks from one seminar to another. they learn the rules, get to see the buildings, where the rest rooms are. one of the things that struck me was mitch mcconnell could have said we want you democrats to take all the tough stuff and get it over with so we don't have to deal with it in january. but on the contrary the republicans are saying no, we're going to stop some of the budget things and we want to deal with it in january. that's significant to me because one of the questions is does the republican leadership think they're going to have a lot of problems with the tea party people coming in. and if they want to take on all these tough jobs like passing a junk and what is you will cad the doc picks, they think they aren't going have big problems with the tea party types, they will have some unite-- unity as a party. >> woodruff: how do you read this? and speaking of earmarks, this is something that we wherd the republican leader in the senate mitch mcconnell change his mind. >> i disagree with dwafd a little bit, i agree totally with weekend orientation, a week of orientation, like the freshman, this is the campus and particularly poignant were the ethics seminars to which they were subjected as charlie rangel, the 80-year-old chairman passed the ways and means committee, is being censured by the senate, by the house. that was rather poignant but in the senate, i am not, i don't think mitch mccon sell quite as chesty about his prospects as david has been. in fact -- >> chesty. >> full of himself, you know, sort of brimming with confidence. he caved from a long held position. he had been one of the strongest most principlesed defenders of earmarks pointing out that the constitution-- abused the congress solely with the power of the purse. and income the tea party people and they say we believe in the constitution and we don't want earmarks. we want the executives to make all the decisions on how this money should be spent. and so mitch mcconnell who had been telling us how good earmarks were and how they were caved. and he said that 2 and 2 is four, and 2 and 2 was five and that was the new people coming in. and i think the sense of movement of the tea party itself and its support, i mean every republican basically who is up in 2012 virtually every republican is looking over his and her shoulder at a primary challenge. >> did you see that as a direct, as a cause and fweningts i think so. there was among the republican chairman and leadership on this particular issue, there clearly was a sense if we don't have earmarks we are just handing over all the power to the people in the executive branch. and as members of congress we want to keep that power but earmarks have become a symbol for republican malfeasance. both parties but especially republican malfeasance by the republicans coming in. so it was a symbolic gesture i think he had to make. the other thing though, so this was a minor budget. >> woodruff: and it is a small part of the -- >> right, i spent the week talking to members. we have had all these deficit commissions which have come out. so i said is there any reality to this in congress? and so i have spoke tone a whole bunch of members if in the last week and the short answer is no, there is no political reality. the republicans will not accept any deal. >> woodruff: in any of these. >> that includes any tax increases. the democrats really are not that serious about cutting the entitlements. nobody wants to-- of health care and so my basic conclusion so far is we have a lot of nice reports and a lot of them are great but they are not going anywhere. >> speak of all this, there was a poll that came out, an nbc "the wall street journal" poll that said for all the public message and midterm elections that they want government spending to be cut, when you raise pefl medicare, social security and doing something with taxes, they say no, no, we don't like that. >> it's the old line about everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. that's what, everyone, general economizing, judy but for specific expenditures and that's why i don't, i think david's reporting is quite accurate on the subject but it's going to require a president taking this and making it the central issue of his administration whether it is this president, the next president, because it, that is the only way you make it visible that all, everybody is in. everybody is in for a nicl and a dollar and it's going to cost you and us. but it is going to be better for everybody else. the argument i would make if i were urging barack obama to take up this is look, social security and medicare are going to be cut who do you want making those cuts? do you want republicans who have consistently opposed these programs or dow want somebody in an administration that bleaches in them and believes that the people and social security and medicare have to be protected? and i think that's the case. >> i think that's the way to read the polls. the polls are against what you said but that doesn't mean people aren't open to reason. and i had a wisdom tooth taken out today and you had asked me do i support or oppose getting a wisdom tooth taken out. well, i oppose it, philosophically but i did it because i had to do it. so you could say do you support social security being retirement raised. no, i oppose it but if you explain to people, and people basically understand this, we have to do it. it doesn't mean they won't do what they oppose. but it does take this leadership and it also takes not only the president, it takes business t takes people in society, supporting that. and so far that business support for business leaders, civic leaders it isn't there. the president can't lead out without those people. >> but speaking of the president leading, i mean marque invited republican and democratic leaders in congress to company over to the white house for a meeting this week. and republicans said no, not now. so does that say anything about how much cooperation he may or may not get? >> it says that they weren't thrilled with the invitation the way it was issued. which which think was publicly. there was no call or from the president to the leadership on the republican side. i think there is also lingering, judy, i think there is lingering anger and just kind of furious on the republican's part that he, the president was invited to the retreat last year, watched in with the cameras, stood up and discussed policy and was dominant it may have been the best political event of the year that president obama had and it was at the expense of house republicans. and i think there is still some lingering, simmering anger about that whole event that they thought he 4 kind of un-upped him. but they will meet on the 30th of november it was a petty move on the part of the republicans but maybe understandable. >> it is sort of, i agree lingering from that earlier event. but there is beginning to be outreach. when you talk to some of the people, the republicans who are now going to be the chairman of the various committees, some of them have had white house contacts. i think paul ryan will be head of the budget committee, but a lot of people have had no contact. a lot of the senior republicans have had no contact with the white house and now they are beginning to have contacts. they say when clinton was in office i knew who my relevant agency head was. and i don't know the people in my administration. i heard a lot of people say clinton and the first president bush were really good at congressional relationships and the last two presidents have to the been as good. >> but it wasn't just this meeting that they declined to attend. you had john kyl in the senate saying just flat out we're not going to be able to deal with this new start treaty, the russians and we heard margaret referring to that, the president over in portugal. >> in my judge. that really is indefensible with john kyl but john kyl is a republican. john mccain is hiding behind john kyl who has always been a supporter of the start treaty in the past. and they've brought up, this is a treaty that is supported by henry kissinger, jim baker, condi rice, bob gates, george schultz. i mean it's bipartisan republicans across-- it is quite frankly passed the committee 14-4. you know t is in the interest of the united states and they are just, i can only conclude this is about embarrassing the president. i really can. >> i sport of agree with that. i don't see the big deal. i don't see the big deal about the treaty. if you look at the reduction in warheads it is a drop from like 1750 to 1550. it not a huge thing. the substance is not huge. but the atmospherics help us deal with russia. it helps us deal with our allies, so it is not that important a thing. why make a big opposition to a thing that isn't that important. unless are you motivated with some sort of cold war memories or you just want to oppose the president. so i think it's unfortunate. >> remember the mantra of the greatest warrior of all, ronald reagan, trust but verify that is what this treaty does is allow inspection which we haven't been able to do. >> woodruff: the other piece of opposition and this is directed at the federal reserve, and this is what jeff was just talking to greg ip of the "the wall street journal" about is criticizing ben bernanke and this so-called quantitative easing as bernanke says to try to do something that he is worried about deflation. he's worried about long-term unemployment but now republicans are criticizing him and saying the federal reserve shouldn't be doing this. >> this i think was substantive. i'm not well informed enough to know the merits of it. but the republicans are being more or less consistent here. the republicans have generally been -- >> your mike has fallen off and we will get you to fix that. >> what david intended to say was -- >> well, republicans have long said that-- i have lost it because of my mike, that they were suspicious of using monetary, this sort of easing and possibly competitive devaluation as a way to gin up economic growth. i think you should focus on economic fundamentals. they think if you use this monetary policy you are creating long-term decision torses. i think they are being consistent. whether they are right i don't know. but this is a substantive discipline. >> i don't pretend to have knowledge of this esoteric material. i will say this, chairman bernanke without obviously was appointed by president bush and has a conservative reputation sees he has a dual mandate. i think the republicans say he has one mandate and that is to control inflation. his is to control inflation but also to boost employment. and i think that's-- that's what he is about. nd and he has been criticized not simply by mike pence and the republican leadership but by germany, brazil and china. so it is politics making, i don't know strange bedfellows, or whatever. but it an interesting ship. >> and just finally, these other countries you are talk approximating about, back on president obama, does it matter whether he comes back from these foreign trips with something or not at this point, coming off the election? >> i think he needs a win. you know, it's just something, the last trip you know was seen as a disappointment and i think i mean it is certainly not connecting with the people of india but with south korea. and i think you know, he needs a sense that he is still dominant. >> relevant. >> relevant. >> the atmosphere sick not in the country people want to care about the economy. but within washington, the atmospherics around a winner or nonwinner as margaret was saying earlier in the program to have that aura around you. that does affect things within washington, not more broadly though. >> gentlemen, are you always relevant. we don't want you taking any trips anywhere. just be here, each friday night. mark shields, david brook, thank you. >> thank you. >> brown: and we move from national to local politics, and the story of an election where coming in first didn't guarantee winning. newshour correspondent spencer michels has our report. >> reporter: there's an old saying that goes, "close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." well, now, close counts in voting, in several places around the world, including oakland, california. in a major upset, oakland voters elected as mayor chinese- american city councilwoman jean quan, who got close on the first vote count, coming in second. but nobody got the required majority of votes, and quan won in the end using what's called "ranked choice voting". here's how it works-- in local elections, voters are now asked to choose not just one candidate, but their second and third choices. dave macdonald is registrar of voters in alameda county and ran oakland's election. all ten candidates are listed each time? >> that's correct-- all ten candidates are listed in each column, and the voter just ranks their choices one, two and three. all we do is count the first choice votes to begin with. and if one candidate gets the majority, 50% plus one vote, the election's over. if nobody gets a majority, then whichever candidate comes in last place is eliminated, and everybody who voted for that candidate as their first choice will now have their second choice count. and then we add up all the votes again, keep going round after round, until finally someone wins. >> reporter: in a ten-candidate field, quan received just 24% of the first place votes to her main opponent's 35%. but when she picked up second and third place votes from low- polling candidates who had been eliminated, she pulled ahead and won the election 51% to 49%. she beat well-financed longtime politician don perata, who was the favorite. even quan was a little surprised. >> our parents were poor and not very educated. my mother was illiterate. my father died when i was very young. i was able to go to great california schools, go to u.c.- berkeley on scholarship, and today, i'm going to be mayor of oakland. >> reporter: quan thinks without ranked choice voting-- which takes the place of a runoff in situations where nobody gets a majority-- she would have been in trouble raising money for another election. >> in a traditional system, i would have had to raise $400,000 in june, and i'd have to try to raise $400,000 in the fall. my husband and i actually put a second mortgage on our house to make sure we'd have enough money on election day. >> reporter: to make sure voters weren't confused by the new system, which is often called "instant runoff," macdonald and his staff produced an iphone app and videos that played in local theaters, and they made 160 presentations around oakland. >> one of our concerns was that voters would vote for the same candidate three times, and while that did happen a little bit, but not much. so voters really understood. >> reporter: some people worried that counting the votes over and over again as candidates were eliminated would be confusing and time-consuming, but the computer solved that. >> we scan all the ballots through an optical scanner, and we can run this program that will redistribute the votes, and it takes just seconds to do it. >> reporter: while ranked choice voting works technically, it has detractors, including political consultant david latterman of fall line analytics. >> i personally like the idea of a runoff. i like the idea that two candidates have to reconfigure themselves, attract new bases, reach new voters. part of what kind of a job they're going to do in office is how well they can build coalitions and cut deals and talk to people who aren't necessarily their own, and rank choice voting misses that. >> reporter: but joe tuman, who teaches politics at san francisco state university, disagrees. he ran for mayor of oakland and came in fourth, and he says much of the criticism of ranked choice voting comes from losing candidates, like oakland's don perata, whose office called the system "an injustice". >> i think if he would have won this election outright, he wouldn't be complaining about the process. he's complaining because he didn't win, not because necessarily the process is flawed. >> reporter: tuman says ranked choice voting made him campaign differently than if there had been a runoff. >> during the campaign, it quickly became very obvious to me that the way to win this election was not only to assertively ask people to look at you as their first choice; you also had to understand that you were probably going to need seconds and third from other people. >> reporter: jean quan knew that, as well. she and another strong candidate, rebecca kaplan, solicited second and third place votes, and focused on defeating perata instead of each other. quan produced a couple of rap videos to attract younger voters. and she dashed to hundreds of events, trying to get oakland neighborhoods fired up and fixed up. >> i think if people are going to criticize ranked order voting, they're going to have to remember why we did this. more people voted in this election for mayor than have in the history of the city. >> reporter: but latterman still distrusts the system, though he admits earlier worries that it was designed to help the left haven't happened. >> rank choice voting was instituted almost as an academic exercise in order to help more left wing people get into office as a third choice-- the green party, for instance. it hasn't worked that way. it has more to do with the candidates running and how they position themselves. >> reporter: what's more important, says mayor-elect quan, is that the new system allows less-wealthy candidates like her to have a chance. >> i'm sure that big corporate interests and big money interests are not happy about this. they spent $2 million or $3 million in this race, and that should have been enough to buy it. and it didn't. and so i think a lot of progressive cities around the country will be looking at it because of that. >> reporter: on the other hand, says latterman, quan did have money, too, and used it. >> she still had a great deal of money in her campaign. to win, you still need to be one of the frontrunners, you still need to have a big media campaign, and what rank choice voting does is it gives sort of the lesser candidates a chance to be relevant by knocking on doors and becoming... at least building a block which can be transferred to another candidate. >> reporter: a few countries use ranked choice voting in national elections, and some american cities and counties have tried it. but oakland is the first large city to use it for the mayor's race. because of its high profile, the election here-- and the controversy it has spurred-- are already being studied by other jurisdictions. >> people that love rank choice voting point to this contest as this is exactly the way it's supposed to work; the people who don't like ranked choice voting do the same thing. so i think it's really a test case that people are going to analyze for a long period of time. >> reporter: while ranked choice voting has been scrapped by some cities, it remains the law here, giving candidates the chance to get close and maybe to win. >> woodruff: and finally tonight, a poet who earlier this week won the national book award. terrance hayes is a professor at carnegie mellon university. his award-winning volume is titled "lighthead". earlier this evening, he read a poem from that collection for us from a studio in pittsburgh. >> this is a poem i wrote in response to hurricane katrina. fishhead for katrina. the mouth is where the dead who are not dead do not dream. a house of damaged translations, task, married to distraction. as in a bucket left in a storm, a choir singing in the rain like fish, acquiring air underwater. prayer and sin, the body performs to know it is alive. lit from the inside by reckoning, as in a city which is no longer a city. a tongue reaching down a tunnel and the teeth, sweat as windows set along the highway. where the dead live in the thousands of their shotgun houses. they drift from their wards like fish spreading thin as a song diminished by its own opening. split by faith and soaked in it. the mouth is a flooded machine. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day: nato leaders agreed to a new missile defense system that would cover all of the alliance countries; and federal reserve chairman ben bernanke defended the fed's latest economic stimulus against critics at home and abroad. and to kwame holman in our newsroom for what's on the newshour online. kwame. >> holman: on our "making sense" page, a follow-up to last night's interview with authors joe nocera and bethany mcclean. we've posted a "hall of shame" slideshow looking at some of history's most notorious financial figures. plus on "art beat," jeff talks to director lucy walker about "waste land," a film that follows a brazilian-born artist who found inspiration in the world's largest trash dump. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on monday, we'll look at the african nation of mozambique, where the economy is growing, but many still live in poverty. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you online, and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org announcer: find your voice and share it. american greetings-- proud sponsor of "the electric company." - beaches resorts is a proud sponsor of "the electric company," connecting bright ideas and countless outlets for high-energy excitement. from the u.s. department of education's ready to learn grant, and... - 74 one thousand, 73 one thousand. come on, come on.

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