>> suarez: kwame holman reports on the return of congress, and charles rangel's decision to walk out of his own ethics trial. >> ifill: and what can a lame duck congress hope to accomplish? we look back with congress watcher norman ornstein and historian richard norton smith. >> suare: and jeffrey brown talks to author stacy shiff about cleopatra, the egyptian ruler who has captured our imagination for more than 2,000 years. >> rome is looking at... well mannered rome is looking at her as the stuff of decadence, as this decadent wild queen. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: 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. >> ifill: a high-profile dispute played out today between the man running afghanistan's government and the man running military operations there. it raised new questions about the future of those operations. it was the latest flash point in a tense relationship. over the weekend, afghan president hamid karzai told the "washington post" that the u.s. should scale back its mission in afghanistan, the sooner the better. post reporter joshua partlow was one of the reporters who met with karzai in kabul. >> i think there are a few main things that he's most unhappy about, and he's been repeating them for quite a while. one is civilian casualties. he's upset that nato and u.s. forces have been killing innocent civilians in the course of their operations albeit at lower numbers than it used to be. he's upset that soldiers are going into afghan homes and looking for taliban commanders and he's also, i think, in general just upset that there's so many troops in the afghan countryside on the roads, in people's houses. he's responding to the anger that he hears from afghan people. >> ifill: karzai also wants the coalition to stop so-called night raids: joint operations between coalition and afghan special operators. >> in the past eight months they've risen about six-fold. they do about 200 operations a month. generally they're going after high-value taliban or insurgent targets. they're trying to go into people's, you know, homes or find them wherever they are and capture and kill these guys and disrupt the network. >> ifill: the man in charge of that strategy is general david petraeus. the commander of nato and american forces in afghanistan. by all accounts, petraeus, who assumed control of the joint forces this summer, was not pleased by karzai's latest complaints. >> from everything we heard, general petraeus was very upset and communicated that to the afghans and basically said, you know, if president karzai continues with, you know, really wants to push this vision that, you know, it makes it difficult to achieve his goals. >> ifill: secretary of state hillary clinton also defended petraeus's approach. >> we believe that the use of intelligence-driven precision targeted operation against high-value insurgents and their networks is a key component of our comprehensive civilian military operations. there is no question that they are having a significant impact on the insurgent leadership and the networks that they operate. >> ifill: the reclusive afghan taliban chief omar also weighed in appealing to muslims worldwide to assist in the war effort. and promising that the taliban would increase operations throughout the country. president karzai has sought repeatedly to jump-start negotiations with the taliban, an effort that has gained tacit u.s. support. but in many other instances, karzai has had frosty, often acrimonious relations, with the obama white house. in august, he said the coalition strategy had been ineffective, apart from causing civilian casualties. he has also demanded that private security firms leave afghanistan, a move that could jeopardize some international aid projects. and karzai has also been unable to shake off a cloud of corruption allegations that have hovered over his government. petraeus, karzai and president obama will join nato officials in lisbon this week to discuss how to transfer security responsibility to the afghans but not until 2014. the afghan foreign minister discussed the plan today during a visit to iran. >> the transition of this responsibility of the security from international forces to afghan forces should start by 2011 and should be finished by 2014. that means by 2014 the afghan national security forces should be charged of the security of afghanistan. >> ifill: for now it is the coalition leading that job. it's an increasingly dangerous one. this morning an american base was rocketed near the pakistan border. mine resistant vehicles were destroyed, six of them. five nato troops were killed yesterday in eastern afghanistan. that brings to 33 the number of coalition dead this month. nearly 650 have been killed this year, by far the most since the war began. >> suarez: coming up, senator john kerry on afghanistan and more. that's followed by health care reform in massachusetts; the return of congress, and the trial of charles rangel; lame duck sessions from years past; and the life of egyptian pharaoh cleopatra. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: the government of ireland confirmed today it is in talks with other european union nations on how to handle its enormous debt, but irish officials insisted they do not need a bailout. and a spokesman for the european commission dismissed talk of other nations pressing ireland to accept help. >> too say... to say that these contacts constitute in some press reports negotiations of a bailout in this kind of exaggerations, i think there is a big, big distance. no, we are in close contact and regular contact. it has to be. it's only normal. there is no news in that, but nothing beyond that. >> sreenivasan: ireland's national deficit soared after it rescued five banks from huge real estate losses. in another development, european union officials reported the greek government has much more debt than first estimated. the revised numbers mean greece will likely miss the targets set in its bailout agreement last spring. americans bought more cars in october, and that boosted overall retail sales by the most since march. the commerce department reported today that sales rose 1.2%. on wall street, stocks had a mixed day. the dow jones industrial average gained nine points to close near 11,202. the nasdaq fell four points to close at 2513. the pro-democracy leader in myanmar, aung san suu kyi, began work today to resurrect her disbanded political party. she was freed saturday after more than seven years under house arrest in the former burma. we have a report from john irvine of independent television news, who visited suu kyi. >> reporter: when it was dark and safer, we were invited into the home that was her prison. we were both breaking the rules. we're in the country illegally. few places in burma are barred to foreign journalists than this house. but after seven years aung san suu kyi is anxious to be heard. we talked first about her incarceration. >> i miss my sons very much. i miss friends. apart from that, i kept myself very busy. i didn't waste my time. >> reporter: the long rest came to an end on saturday afternoon. thousands of supporters were outside. clearly she appreciates the support of foreign governments and had this message for the rest of the world. >> we will certainly like to ask them to continue to keep on increasing the support, not as our right but as, shall we say, as one human to another or as many humans to many other humans on the basis of human warmth and friendship. >> reporter: aung san suu kyi is back in the spotlight. can she bring tangible change to burma? we don't yet know. but there is something new in the atmosphere. there is hope. >> suarez: >> sreenivasan: the military regime of myanmar dissolved suu kyi's national league for democracy party in september. the country's high court will hold a hearing this thursday to decide if that move was legal. hundreds of protesters in haiti accused u.n. peacekeepers today of starting the cholera outbreak. crowds in cap haitien hurled rocks and threatened to set fire to a major u.n. base. cholera had never appeared in haiti until recently, but the epidemic has killed more than 900 people. it started near a base housing u.n. troops from nepal, where cholera has also been active lately. in indonesia, thousands of people returned to their villages near the mount merapi volcano after it calmed somewhat in recent days. many found their homes and crops blanketed in thick ash. in all, nearly 400,000 people have fled the volcano since this round of major eruptions three weeks ago. some 260 have been killed. the secretary of homeland security defended new airport screening measures today. janet napolitano said body scanners used at airports are safe and the images are viewed in private. opponents have complained they're far too revealing, and may pose a radiation risk. those who opt out of the scans are subject to full-body pat- downs. napolitano said the searches are both professional and necessary. >> i think as the traveling public recognizes we need to keep unauthorized liquids, powders and gels off of aircraft just as we need to keep unauthorizeded metal objects off of aircraft. we're doing this. airports in europe are doing this. this is just the next generation of travel security. >> sreenivasan: the new screening procedures have taken effect just before the busiest part of the travel year, the thanksgiving and christmas holidays. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: next, the international priorities for congress, from afghanistan to arms control. for that, we turn to senate foreign relations committee chairman john kerry, and to margaret warner. senator kerry, welcome. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> warner: i wanted to ask you first about afghanistan. what did you make of the comments that president karzai made this weekend to the "washington post" and general petraeus's response? >> well, i completely understand general petraeus's response because what he is engaged in is essential to the strategy that's being deployed right now. but i also understand president karzai's frustration. he has a lot of pressures particularly pressures that come from fellow pashtuns. i think that he's reflecting that. i don't think it should be blown out of proportion. i'm absolutely confident that we can proceed forward and go to lisbon and come out of lisbon with a strong policy definition as we go forward in these next critical months. >> warner: general petraeus was quite upset. he conveyed that. in other words, they've been having private conversations. but for president karzai to go public like this and essentially say stop doing a cup couple of the major things you're doing, you have spent a lot of time with president karzai. you were instrumental in getting him to accept a run-off in the election, for instance. you spent hours with him. what do you think is going on with him? >> well, i think president karzai has a very good understanding of his own country. as i said, i think he's under lots of pressures. sometimes, you know, that emerges into a public comment. i think we now know that. we need to understand that. i think that general petraeus appropriately reacted because it went to the core of the strategy that is in place. it's my belief that we'll be able to work through this because the essential core of the policy right now is to develop as rapidly as possible the afghan capacity to take over responsibility for security. and the faster that can happen confidently, the happier we will be as well. i think if we stay focused on the end goal here and work through these kinds of difficulties which are almost inevitable in this kind of situation, i know the personal commitment that president karzai has to try to achieve the end goal. but you have to understand that sometimes he thinks we don't completely, that there are lots of intervening hurdles and pressures that he faces. i think he's just reacting to those. i think we just keep going straight ahead. we're on the right track. i think the military operations have improved. i think what we're reading about the taliban in the newspapers reflects the accuracy of their need or desire perhaps to get some kind of negotiation at some point in time. >> warner: as you mentioned president obama is going to the nato summit in lisbon later this week. they're going to roll out this plan in which nato will commit to keeping some combat forces there all the way through 2014. one, do you think that's the right approach? the right timetable? >> well i think it depends entirely on the structure that is created with respect to counterterrorism efforts as we go forward. the key here is the training and turnover of responsibility to the afghan forces that are growing right now every day in their abilities. secondly, increased capacity for governance. i think that lisbon will be a good chance to evaluate that. in december we'll get a second chance to evaluate that. i think the president's schedule is frankly, you know, sort of on target. we're moving in the right direction. >> warner: do you think that the american congress, the u.s. congress and public, are ready to accept that long an engagement? >> well it's a nin diminishing engagement. remember, what the president said originally and everybody-- republican and democrat alike bought into it-- was the notion that you're going to begin a drawdown in july. now that drawdown in 2011 is going to be obviously subject to the conditions and where we are and what's happening. the rate of the drawdown. the fact of the drawdown is not going to be subject. but the rate of it will be determined by a lot of the input that's going to come in the next few months. i think that you can go down quite far very quickly providing the afghans are taking a greater responsibility and also providing we're able to continue our counterterrorism efforts from that diminishing platform which i believe personally we will be able to do. i wouldn't get all, you know, i wouldn't get very fixated on the notion of 2014 because it could be, i don't know, i mean i'm just throwing this out there, it could be 10,000. it could be 5,000. i can't tell you the number it will be. but it's clearly going to be a much faster turnover than ever occurred in iraq if you measure when we actually really began a strategy. the strategy only began last december. i think most people would judge that there's been some progress on the ground in some areas over the course of the last few months. >> warner: okay. new topic. the president told russian leader medvedev late last week that that was a top priority getting this new strategic arms reduction treaty to the senate for him in the lame duck. are you going to get it? >> we don't know obviously. we're in discussions right now with senator john call of arizona. he's a key player on this obviously. vice president biden and i chattid earlier today, and the hope is that the offer that the administration has put on the table with respect to modernization is sufficient. it's better than anything that ever existed under the bush administration. the director of the laboratories believes it's a very significant advance. and our hope is that the administration has acted in good faith all along sufficiently that the republicans will say you know what? this is one for the country. this is a matter of national security. it advances the security of our nation. it strengthens our relationship with russia. it puts inspectors on the ground in russia which we haven't had since last december. it makes america stronger. that's what the treaty does. we hope that there will be no partisanship, no ideology, but people will vote on the merits as they did when the senate voted 95-0 to ratify the moscow treaty that had absolutely no verification whatsoever. >> warner: finally sudan. you spent quite a bit of time in sudan in advance of this january 9th referendum which the south is expected to vote to secede from the north. is the north ready to let that go through peacefully and accept the result? >> well, the north has said again and again-- in the conversations that i had in both visits but in the most recent visits-- both north and south have agreed that they want this referendum to take place in january. they want this referendum to be peaceful. and that no matter what the outcome of the referendum, they have agreed in principle at this point that they will not go back to war. that's an enormous step forward if it actually gets ratified in a public statement somewhere in the next few weeks. our hope is obviously that the critical issue of abiya which is this 60 by 60 mile area south of khartoum that that area which is really a huge area of contention between the nine tribes which are an arab tribe that have been mostly under the control of the north, that if we can resolve that issue of abiya, i think the chances are very, very good that we could go forward in a quiet, peaceful way and really change the relationship with sudan. they say they're committed to doing that. the next days will be test of that. >> warner: do you think they are negotiating or talking with you and negotiating in good faith, very briefly? >> i believe they have taken the offer of president obama who has changed the equation by putting some new things on the table. i think they've taken that very, very seriously. they are now trying to wrestle with their internal issues regarding the miseria. this tribe, which has been so controlled by them and in a sense they've created a problem for themselves that they now have to try to manage, but if they can do that and see the virtue of the benefits that come with what president obama has put on the table, i believe we could not only change the equation with respect to north and south, not only change it with respect to the united states and the north but also greatly enhance our ability to advance the peace process in darfur. and all of that is to the benefit of both the north and the south as well as the region. i hope we can achieve that. >> warner: senator john kerry, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> suarez: now, the beginning of an ongoing series about health care reform. tonight, how the biggest experiment at the state level is working, and what lessons it offers for the national debate. health correspondent betty ann bowser reports from massachusetts. >> reporter: it's sider days in western massachusetts. a tiny cheer when people eat, bake, press and drink the elixir from one of the state's healthiest exports, the apple. but there's another home-grown product getting national scrutiny these days because four years ago massachusetts became the first state in the nation to pass a health care reform bill. and now with the republicans poised to take over the house and governorships in ten states next year, the new federal health care reform law is under the microscope. with supporters and critics alike looking over their shoulders to see how reform is working here. >> this is the 16th year of this festival. >> reporter: cider days volunteers lynn nichols is one of those who no longer has to worry about insurance. but before the law passed she and her husband, both self-employed web designers, could not afford the $500 a month premiums. >> basically played russian roulette hoping we wouldn't get sick. that was the best we could do. fortunately neither of us had a really, you know, a really, you know, neither of us needed to use it. we basically went without seeing doctors for eight years. >> reporter: now she and her husband buy insurance for $160 a month through the state's so- called connector, an exchange where residents can sign up for one of seven state-approved plans run by private insurance companies. the new federal law calls for each state to set up similar programs. since 2006, premiums in the individual insurance market have gone down 40% on average. but massachusetts continues to have among the highest premiums in the nation. although state officials say employer-provided insurance seems to be stabilizing. massachusetts institute of technology economist john gruber was a key advisor to the obama white house when the new federal health care reform law was being crafted. he was also one of the chief architects of the massachusetts reforms. >> it's worked very well. i think the facts are very clear. we've lowered the number of uninsured by 60% from about 10% of the population to about 4% of the population. we have done so on budget. we essentially are exactly where we thought we'd be when we started the program in 2006. and we've done so in a way which is very popular with the public. it's got about a 74% public approval rating. >> reporter: like the new federal law, the massachusetts legislation requires most people to buy insurance or pay a penalty. provide subsidies to low-income families to purchase coverage, requires most employers with more than 10 workers to offer insurance, and dramatically expands medicaid. what do you make here? >> museum cases, high-end picture frames. we work for museums. >> reporter: small business owner molly wood has offered her workers health insurance for 35 years. she believes it helps keep the highly skilled employees she needs to do custom jobs for museums. last year they made display cases to house mummies for a museum in chile. but when they are insurance company raised premiums 30% because of rapidly escalating health care costs, she had to change to a plan with a higher deductible. >> we're a small business. it was not a great time to be taking on another $85,000 a year in costs. we sat down with our staff, had a meeting. the option was to stay with the office co-pay level but put in a $500 per person deductible. it was cost shifting on to my employees and i know it. i don't feel good about it. but we still have insurance. that was the important thing. >> reporter: to save money, wood also had to shift to a plan that had fewer benefits. but in spite of the increased costs and reduced coverage, employee tom hale is relieved. >> i think it's... it gives people a lot of reassurance that they're not going to be hung out to dry. you know, that they won't have they won't get into trouble where they have nowhere to go go. >> reporter: for co-worker 36-year-old ben humphrey, the personal cost of change has just hit home. >> we were in the emergency room last week and found out i had a gal stone. the gallbladder needs to be taken out. the emergency room doctor ordered a cat scan and ultrasound. the insurance won't pay for those two tests. >> reporter: he'll have to figure out a way to pay the costs of those tests on his own. unlike some other parts of the country, health care reform here in massachusetts is popular. one. reasons is because just about everybody who lives here has health insurance. so while the law that passed a few years ago has been successful in getting more people into the tent, it also has created some new issues. perhaps the biggest one is the law has done nothing to rein in the price tag for taking care of people. economist gruber says cost containment was never a goal of the massachusetts legislation. its focus was to get more people insured. when it comes to cost controls the new federal law is more ambitious. it includes some money for pilot programs. but until they produce some results, gruber says nobody knows how to get the cost of health care under control. >> it's projected to be 40% of our gnp by 2045 and about 100% of our gnp about 100 years later. we have to deal with it and will deal with it. ultimately it will get dealt with. the problem is there are two fundamental difficulties in dealing with with cost control. the first is scientific. we don't really know how to do it. we're still learning and we're making great progress in trying new models but we're still not there yet. >> reporter: the massachusetts law also not solved another major problem. the shortage of primary care physicians. which got worse when more people had insurance and could afford to go to a doctor. every year since passage in 2006, the massachusetts medical society has found the shortage to be either critical or severe. and that's affected traffic to the emergency room. >> we get an influx of patients. you folks just call to arms.... >> reporter: chuck johns is chief administrator for bay state franklin medical center in greenfield, a rural community hospital. >> emergency room visits have skyrocketed. in the last four years alone our emergency room visits have increased by over 20%. the same thing is playing out across the state. people aren't able to get in to see a doctor. so when they have their health issues, they're going to come in to the emergency room. >> reporter: he says the shortage is something to be concerned about across the country. as washington tries to implement the new health care reform law. >> i think it would be a harbinger because the same phenomenon is going to play out. what i don't see in the legislation is a way to address that from the primary care side. i think that the market will help correct that over time, but it's going to be a long build. in the interim emergency room visits will continue to grow. >> reporter: tufts university school of medicine's amy lishco thinks the problem is that people are just used to going to the e.r., a moderate to helped then republican governor mitt romney draft the massachusetts law in 2006, she says the current political climate is going to make fixing problems in the federal law difficult. >> the biggest lesson i think is to evaluate, continue to evaluate and then make changes that you need to make as you move forward. i don't know if the politics are going to allow that adaptation as we move forward. i don't know if people will have the appetite to revis it some of the pieces of the law that aren't working well. here in massachusetts, everybody was in it together. people were really supportive of the law. we know that's not the case nationwide. so if you don't have that support i think it's going to be difficult to really move forward with implementing the law in the same way that we were able to here in massachusetts. >> reporter: massachusetts' democratic governor deval patrick has set up a special commission to rein in the cost of health care. one of the reforms gaining consensus is that the state would cap the amount of money hospitals and doctors could charge for their services. >> ifill: her series on the impact of >> ifill: betty ann's series on the impact of the new federal health reform law will continue with a look at the shortage of primary care physicians. >> suarez: next, a look at the congress' full plate as the lame duck session begins. newshour congressional correspondent kwame holman starts us off. >> reporter: two weeks after mid-term elections energized republicans and disappointed democrats returns to the capital today for a lame duck session of congress. for democrats, the day was made all the more somber by the start of a public ethics trial for charles rangel, the veteran new york congressman. but rangel asked for a delay so he could establish a legal defense fund. he said his previous attorney quit when rangel could not pay him. >> 50 years of public service is on the line. i truly believe that i'm not being treated fairly and that history will dictate that notwithstanding the political calendar, i am entitled to a lawyer during this proceeding. >> reporter: rangel then excused himself from the proceedings. but after a 40-minute closed session committee chair announced the trial would go on with or without the defendant. >> we are prepared to proceed today. we recognize that mr. rangel has indicated that he does not intend to participate. it is his right not to participate in this matter. as mentioned earlier, no conclusions as to the facts of this matter can be drawn by the fact that mr. rangel has decided not to participate in this hearing. >> reporter: rangel has served 20 terms and faces 13 charges of ethical wrongdoing. among other things, he's accused of using congressional letterhead to solicit funds for a public service center named after him at the city college of new york. and failing to report more than $600,000 on financial disclosure forms. other charges involve mishandling taxes on rental income from a villa in the dominican republic and misusing four rent-controlled apartments in new york city, including one as a campaign office. the congressman has insisted he never intended to break any rules. and chief house ethics counsel appeared to agree today. >> do i believe based on this record that congressman rangel took steps to enrich himself based on his position in congress? i do not. i believe that the congressman quite frankly was overzealous in many of the things that he did and at least sloppy in his financial... his personal finances. >> reporter: with no contested facts the panel of four democrats and four republicans called no witnesses and quickly began deliberating whether rangel broke any house rules. elsewhere on capitol hill, more than 100 incoming house and senate freshmen, mostly republicans, had their first day of orientation including sessions on standards of official conduct and how to set up a congressional office. in the senate, 12 of the 13 republican freshmen had a meeting with their leader mitch mcconnell. >> this is going to be a huge improvement in the united states senate from our point of view. and i believe the american people sure have chosen outstanding members to join the united states senate. >> reporter: in a nod to tea party power, mcconnell today also endorsed a moratorium on earmarks or spending directed by individual members. two new democratic senators joe manchin of west virginia and chris coons of delaware were sworn in early. manchin will finish the late robert byrd's term. coons fills what had been vice president biden's seat for the next four years. on the house side, 84 of the 93 newcomers attending orientation today were republicans. they'll take their seats in january. for now, the lame duck session confronts a range of issues including an extension of the bush era tax cuts that expire at the end of the year. a one-time payment of $250 to social security beneficiaries who received no cost of living adjustment this year. another extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. and repeal of don't ask don't tell, the policy that bars gays from serving openly in the military. and president obama is urging the lame duck senate to ratify the start treaty with russia to reduce nuclear arsenals. >> suarez: for more on what we can expect from this lame duck and what's been achieved in past sessions, we are joined by veteran congress-watcher norm ornstein of the american enterprise institute. and richard norton smith, scholar in residence at george mason university. richard, i'm wondering if this has even been a long-time feature of our politics or only a function of being able to get back to washington from a continent away. >> a good question. for most of our history congresses were as lame as otherwise. until the 20th amendment was adopted in the 1930s you would elect a congress in november of an even year. they would not even sit. they would not come together until 13 months later. december of the odd year which meant half of every congress in effect functioned in a lame duck capacity. there is no doubt that lame duck sessions taking place more frequently. we can talk about to what effect. i think there have been by my count 18 since 1940. half of those have come since 1994. >> suarez: that tells you something right there. has the modern lame duck session been a place where you can get things done, norm? >> in many cases yes. what's particularly interesting, ray, is that sometimes the productive lame ducks at least in terms of the volume and importance of things done has come after wave elections. 1974, 1982, 1994. when you would least expect it. when you would think that with the dramatic turnover that's going to occur when the new congress comes in, in this case now in january after the election, that there would be some resistance to the old one doing things. but, in fact, many things of significance were done in those particular congresses. a lot of others, it's either one thing that they have to do or just pro forma. the fact that we've had virtually one out of every two post election periods since the second world war tells you that it's now a commonplace phenomenon. >> often it has to do with the breakdown of the budget process. i mean everyone says there will be a number of issues. bill clinton's impeachment took place in a lame duck session of the house. joseph mccarthy was censureed during a lame duck session of the senate. nelson rockefeller was confirms as the vice president. there have been important legislation passed but increasingly over the last decade or so it seems to me over and over again the theme is we haven't got a budget. haven't gone through the appropriate regulations process. congresses and presidents of both parties and it seems to be a recurring theme. >> suarez: norm, as the laundry list broken down really into two columns, the things we've got to do and the things we want to do. >> yes. this time we have a really really long laundry list because there's a pent-up demand. a lot of things that didn't make it through the congress. keep in mind one of the other part of the reasons here richard is right. it's the budget. but it's getting so much harder to get things through. if you don't get it done by the end of the year it's like a two-year mayor ton... marathon. you get to the two-inch line pf you cross the tape. if you don't pass it you have to go all the way back to the start again. in this case they have all the appropriations bills. not one for the fiscal year that began october 1 has been done. that expires on december 3 or much of government comes to a halt. we've got the bush tax cuts which expire on january 1. the new congress doesn't come in until january 3. massive tax increases if those aren't done. we have the start treaty which doesn't necessarily have to be done in the lame duck but where there's some increased pressure because of the changes that are going to take place. we have unemployment compensation running out. and we have medicare facing an enormous upheaveal with the dock fix as we call it. the reimbursement for doctors won't change. it will go down 20% and a lot of doctors will refuse to take medicare patients. then you have a lot of things on the wish list which they'd like to do it from food safety to the disclose act to correct for the campaign finance reform problems that may or may not get done with the rush of things that need to get done. >> there's a significant portion particularly of the president's constituency who wants to see don't ask don't tell repealed. in this lame duck session. >> suarez: since you mentioned the president, has this been a time where this have been rebuffs to presidents and victories for them? >> sure. ronald reagan, some parallel reagan coming out of '82 was at the low point in terms of popularity, in terms of polls. he had an economy that wasn't responding. the republicans were on a stay the course slogan and had suffered modest losses. but for a lot of people they saw reagan as a one-term president. he tried to get immigration reform through the lame duck session which is a very big, as we all know, evergreen sort of controversy. he not only failed on that. the mx missile was rejected in a historic vote by congress. in the cold war era a president doesn't lose major weapons systems. it obviously didn't prevent ronald reagan have going on to win and establish his mastery in time but it does go to show that a president... richard nixon tried to get his family assistance plan through a lame duck session of congress. daniel patrick moynihan's version of welfare reform. it was unsuccessful. >> suarez: the cast of characters obviously is changing on capitol hill. the congress is already changing. there will going to be three new senators who were elected in special elections coming in the next couple of weeks. some incumbents who won't be coming back to capitol hill except perhaps to clean out their offices. is there a sense in which the 112th congress is already beginning. >> the new members and remember we have over 0 republican freshmen in the house coming in. we have this wave of new republican senators and a few democrats along the way too. they are here this week. they came in on sunday. they're doing their orientations. they're going to be bumping into the departing members who are still here for several weeks doing votes. so it's an odd sensation to have these two groups. it's almost like you're moving out of your house but the people who are moving in are already there and moving their furniture before you've taken your belongings out. it's. >> suarez: and they don't like your decore and are probably going to paint the interior and bring in a new landscaper. >> they hope to bull doze the house and put one up with a new set of architects. it makes for real difficulty. keep in mind as well that while the president has a wish list the congressional leaders have a wish list. the nature of the modern congress and especially the modern senate is such that with a limited amount of time here, anyone senator can stand up and block things. richard mention the don't ask don't tell provision. it's part of what should be a must pass which is the defense authorization bill. senator mccain among others has said if you don't put don't ask don't tell in we won't have a defense authorization pill with two wars going on. you have leverage that might make it more painful and difficult to make it through this next few weeks. >> suarez: sounds like a perfect recipe for... given the fact that you've got some real contentious parties here. >> the lame duck session sounds an awful lot a lot like the non-lame duck session. in the olden days absenteeism was a problem. there was no truant officer on capitol hill. there were times when they can't get a majority, a quorum which might be the best thing sometimes. but you stop and think you have these cross currents. you have lots of people in a repudiation election like we've just been through. you have lots of folks who are feeling bruised. what incentive do they have quite frankly to put aside their differences and be reasonable? you have a lot of people coming in who are crowing over their victory, who believe that they represent true legitimacy. what incentive do they have to reach out their hand to those whom they've defeated? it's not a formula forgetting things done. >> suarez: gentlemen, thank you both. >> thank you, ray. >> ifill: finally tonight , a new book about a woman who may be as intriguing today as she was more than 2,000 years ago. jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: she is the stuff of myth and legend, one of history's great heroin's cleopatra, queen of egypt lover of jewel yas caesar, mark antony. subject of shakespeare, shaw and of course the cinema. >> the queen has come to the people of rome. >> it would not occur to me to look to you for instruction. >> which is have you have come back chained like a slave. >> slave? >> and with such an exquisite set of chains, so softly spoken, so virtuous. >> brown: but it turns out the real cleopatra was perhaps if anything far more interesting and certainly more complex. her story is told in a new biography, cleopatra, a life. the author is pulitzer prize winning writer stacy shiff. welcome to you. >> thanks, jeff. >> brown: this is one of the women who have had the busiest after life in history. what made you want to write about her? >> the roman propagandaists who put her on the map. this is one of those cases where your enemies make you into something you were greater than you were in your lifetime. you have this inflated idea of who this egyptian queen was in the first place. history takes over. the idea of this powerful woman is enchanting to everyone. from the renaissance to the romantics to joseph manage wits. you have every possible incarnation of her through the ages. what can you do with a woman in power and why is she so fascinating. >> brown: one of the first big ahas here is just what we don't know because of the legend. queen of egypt but not really egyptian. >> greek, exactly. >> brown: whether she loved sex or not we don't know. >> makes a better story. >> brown: it makes a better story. but the education, the whole upbringing. tell us a little bit about what we don't know. >> the biggest one is we think she's gorgeous. we think she looked like elizabeth taylor. from the coins we've seen all bets are pretty much off there. we know she has a hooked nose, a very semetic profile, a strong chin and authoritative manner. not an elizabeth taylor look alike. the education she would have had would have been identical to that of caesar or any well born person in the greek world. fluent in nine languages which i doubt caesar could have been. the one question is did she speak latin? able to converse with her own subjects which no earlier king or queen of her dynasty had been able to do. apparently just a persuasive, silken arguer and speaker according to mario lemiuex tarks. >> brown: as you say it's obviously that history is winner by winners. her story as we know it is told by romans and also by men who were trying to figure out inevitably what to make of this woman. intelligent. quite a resourceful ruler. >> three things that don't appeal to a roman man. she's a woman. she's coming from egypt. she's immensely incomparable richer than they are. really the over the top extravagance of her world really does unnerve them. they'll adopt it later. the roman empire will go the same way. for that moment in history in the first century bc, she possessed the great fortune. well mannered rome looks at her as a deck decadent wild queen sneef and alexandria makes rome look like a back yurt. >> rome is the center of civilization from our perspective. from her perspective rome is still, yes, a very primitive place, a squalid streets. alexandria is the seat of learning the center of the civilization, the place you went to if you wanted a tutor, a doctor or any profession of any kind. you went to alexandria. >> brown: do you have a favorite moment in her life or story that somehow exemplifies what you came to know about her? >> i was most struck at the end of her life. she and anthony are defeated by octavian. they're waiting for him to come and essentially, you know, say the game is over. mark anthony goes to pieces. he leads a very dissipated life if our sources can be relied upon. cleopatra becomes very shrewd and crafty. she happens to have a king who has been captured in her court. she chops off his head and sends it to a neighbor to try to get the neighbor to help her. >> brown: there's a lot of that in her life. >> a lot of chopping heads off. >> brown: siblings. >> especially siblings. she tries to drag her boats overland to try to relaunch them and thinks about setting up a king done in spain. there's the sense of being stuck in a corner and imagining a number of great possibles. just an enormous resourcefulness and ingenuity which i thought was striking. >> brown: you mentioned mark anthony. if we believe the sores. as a historian, as you said before a lot of these things were written after the fact and written from a distance and written with a bias. how do you as a biographer looking at this use those sources and try to fill in the picture? >> i thought the best thing to do was to remind the reader repeatedly these are our sources. they are scant. they are biased. but they're the only sores we have. so for example mario lemiuex tark who is our closest source is writing 100 years after the death of cleopatra. he's as close to her as we are to grant. i just felt as long as you can remind the reader occasionally what kind of material you're working with, where these people are coming from, it was already to trust yourself to the materials at hand. and in certain points i have injected myself into the narrative and said, remember who this person is. and how this would have rung true to him. remember that this is a person who has change sides and now is trying to tell us the story from the other side. >> brown: when you put it altogether, the sources and putting your own thinking into this, what is the portrait of cleopatra that you want us to take from it? >> i think she emerges as a shrewd and very clever and very resourceful woman who was oddly enough very unaware of the fact that she wasn't a woman. she doesn't play the gender card except to have children with right men at the right time. but is very able to sit in an all male military camp and comport herself like an independent sovereign. she rises above the entire gender issue. she is like the most importantn. in many ways she is at that moment. >> brown: is it true that there's a movie going to be made out of your book starring angelina jolie? >> it is true that the book has been optioned for the movies. i think it is very true that the option would very much like for her to play cleopatra. that's about as much as i know right now. >> brown: wouldn't that be ironic to continue the legend here going again to hollywood to one of the most beautiful hollywood actresses to play cleopatra. >> just putting together images of cleopatra through time. she's like a shape shifter. it's amazing what we've done with her and made of her. she is like eve and sometimes she's romeo and juliette all over again. she seems to fit into any number of dynamics. >> brown: yours is the cleopatra for the 21st century. >> it's cleopatra the independent woman, exactly. >> brown: the book is cleopatra, a life. stacy shiff, thanks so much. >> thanks, jeff. >> suarez: again, the major developments of the day. u.s. officials defended american military strategy in afghanistan from criticism by afghan president karzai. on the "newshour," senator john kerry, chair of the foreign relations committee, cautioned against blowing karzai's words out of proportion. and the house ethics committee began its trial of new york democrat charles rangel, as congress opened a lame duck session. and to hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, for what's on the newshour online. hari? >> sreenivasan: you can read all of representative rangel's statement to the house ethics panel today, as well as see an interview with wnyc's azi paybarah, who writes for the empire blog. that's on the rundown. our political checklist this week is called "lame duck confit," and ticks off four issues congress may or may not tackle before the end of the year. on the massachusetts health care reform law, two primary doctors explain how their practices are affected. and our patchwork nation team offers more election analysis, showing g.o.p. gains were part of a natural ebb and flow in american politics. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the ongoing investigation into home foreclosure crisis, and a medal of honor goes to a living afghan war veteran. i'm gwen ifill. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. 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