Transcripts For WMPT PBS NewsHour 20100122

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. the struggle for survival sends thousands of haitians into the countryside. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. the haitian government begins work on setting up camps outside port-au-prince for 400,000 people. >> lehrer: we get reports from jay newton small of "time" magazine in port-au-prince, and our own ray suarez on the border with the dominican republic. >> i visited a hospital in the border town, jammed with patients who streamed over the border from haiti seeking treatment for injuries sustained in the earthquake ten days ago. >> brown: then, the economic and political fallout from some stunning events this week. judy woodruff takes a look with david wessel of "the wall street journal". >> lehrer: mark shields and david brooks offer their analysis. >> brown: and a look at who controls the internet as the u.s. challenges china on its censorship policies. >> countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk-- they will selves off from the progress of the next century. >> lehrer: that's all ahead... on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by: pacific life bank of america >> chevron. this is the power of human energy. toyota. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. 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. >> lehrer: the exodus from haiti's shattered capital kept building today. aid officials reported 200,000 haitians have fled port-au- prince. the government talked of setting up vast new tent cities. and an 84-year-old woman was pulled alive from the rubble, after ten days. margaret warner talked earlier today with jay newton small of "time" magazine from port-au- prince. >> warner: jay newton small, thank you for joining us. we are hearing reports of tens of thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of haitians fleeing the city. what have you seen? >> i have certainly seen that. the port is clogged with ferries of, you know, haitians trying to leave to go to safer areas. lecay is a very popular place which wasn't at all affected by the earthquake down south from here. people are trying to get anywhere out of town. if you go out into the suburbs, when you drive towards the dominican republic, everybody who has got family anywhere outside of port-au-prince has definitely gone to the suburbs, gone to be with their family outside of port-au-prince because they are terrified of the tremors that keep happening. and they are worried another big one could hit again. >> warner: then we also hear that the government is, one, not standing in the way of this. and two, is planning to build tent cities outside of town. >> well, frankly, one of the problems that haiti had even before this disaster was that it was too much of an urban country. there was too much focus on the economy of port-au-prince and not much else in the economies of the other parts of the country. so a lot of experts in hatei believe that with the population diversifying, going out, restarting a gray-- agrarian business, restarting towns in the middle of nowhere compared to haiti, they are diversifying the economy and that will help which is why the government is encouraging them to do it in order to do so they are building tent cities. there one just outside of town here where they are building a tent city for about 10,000 people. so they are saying like look, downtown port-au-prince is really clogged with ad hoc tent cities everywhere. it is better in terms of the crowding, in terms of health, for people to spread out. and also in terms of safety. so they are encouraging this. >> warner: now who is building the tent cities, and how far along are they? how soon do you think they will be inhabitable? >> the government is behind the tent cities but they are building built with the help of the united nations, with other countries including the united states. in fact there is a tent city not far from where i am standing that actually being administered by the 82nd airborne division of the army which is home to about an estimated 75,000 people already. but the tent cities that are to you being built are actually farther out of town than even that. and they will include just simply tents to begin with but farther down the road they are hoping to include more permanent structures sense we are coming up to in four weeks time the rainy season and soon after that the hurricane season and obviously tents aren't very good for that. >> warner: now meanwhile back in the city where you have all these make-shift settlements, what is the aid distribution system like there. is it any better than say yesterday or the day before? >> aid is getting better and better every day. ef reday i see more water trucks on the street. more food trucks distributing aid there are still long lines for it. because food is still so expensive here everything is price gouged. so for example, if your eye drops cost $3 before the earthquake, they now cost $30, you know, everything is incredibly expensive. one tank of gas last week cost us $160. now that down to $50. but you know, the stores are opening but things are incredibly expensive an people haven't been paid, they haven't been working. they've used up all their savings or their savings are under the rubble of the bank or a home. so they have no way of paying for this incredibly expensive food. and that's why you see such long lines at banks as well as food distribution centres because pem are literally starving. but as, again, food is easing and things are getting better and better with every day that we have seen. >> warner: and you mentioned banks reopening. what other signs have you seen that normal life might be returning. >> you know, i visited my first pharmacy yesterday which is why i was speaking about eye drops. when you go outside of the airport, there are these little touristy stores that sell sort of african carves which have cropped up. there is some supermarkets that are opened but ins for them are pretty long. there's, you know, i saw car dealers open. i saw a really long line for a hardware store as people are trying to rebuild their homes. so here and there there are places opening and banks, today actually the first wire service agency opened. so a lot of people lined up for remittances from the united states and they are hoping to open up another three of those tomorrow. it is not exactly normal life. there is a lot of waiting in line. but it's getting to be at least you can access services if you have enough patience. >> warner: jay newton small of "time" magazine, thank you. >> thank you. >> brown: many of those fleeing port-au-prince have sought refuge in the dominican republic, haiti's neighbor to the east. ray suarez arrived at the border town of jimani this morning. there he visited a hospital organized by the pan american health organization. a warning-- some of the images are disturbing. >> suarez: this little hospital has seen thousands of patients in just over a week. hundreds have has been stabilized in a day or two and moved on to an improvised recovery home. others have waited patiently suffering until help arrived. we talked with this 34-year-old government worker's husband. june's leg was injured when the couple's home collapsed in port- au-prince, and she lay in the rubble of her home for two days. once rescued, she waited another five days before her first treatment in the dominican republic. she's in pain. her right leg has ballooned in size. the treatment and the food, her husband says, have been sporadic. later that morning, a team of american volunteers comes by, dresses her blood-soaked ankle, and tries to play catch-up medicine with injuries that had a long head start. dr. sacha montas came to jimani from the university of michigan medical center. >> someone who has that happen to them where they have something lay on them for days. they get complications, than just the injury. she has a ton of swelling, and that swelling is certainly elated to something laying on her for that long. we have to watch it closely. sometimes dow an op rative procedure pro to address that, but in this setting particularly it would introduce a huge risk of infection which would probably be worse for the patient. >> suarez: three-year-old moses adoostin's cast runs from his chest to his ankles. his mother kettelie says tumbling cement blocks from their collapsing house landed on his legs and they're dislocated. the boy waited in pain for days until they could make the trip to the border. mother and son will soon return to haiti and cross the border again for a follow-up visit. dr. edwin bravo is leading a team from guatemala. for the moment, he's the director of emergency medicine here or, as he explained, in the midst of another 20-hour day, not hospital medicine-- war medicine. >> suarez: bravo says the most serious threat he's seeing now is infection in people who couldn't be treated for a week before he sees them-- lung infections from inhaling dust from the rubble, people who were trapped and unable to move have flies laying eggs in their wounds. outside jimani, a temporary hospital-- before last week, this was an empty apartment building. now, it's a crowded hospital doing 80 surgeries a day. mark pinard is a haitian- american doctor who has come here from new york. he's treating people and sending them back to haiti, where there is now help on the other side of the border. >> braff. >> some of our physicians here, daily would cross the border and assure there is medication, there is personnel, okay, to take care of them. because we have a lot of doctors here, physicians, who can handle that. >> suarez: in both facilities, international organizations and volunteers are supplementing the dominicans who rushed in from around the country. and more doctors and nurses are arrive with every jet that lands in santa domingo, the dominican capital. >> lehrer: a few minutes ago, margaret warner talked to ray about the situation now on the haitian border. >> hellor, ray, that was a fabulous peace from the hospitals. where are you now? >> suarez: i'm on the that crosses the border into haiti. this is the last bit of the dominican republic before a very, very busy boarder crossing that sees two giant convoys every day heading from the dominican capitol of santo domingo into port-au-prince which is the epicentre of the earthquake. all during the day you can watch heavily leyden semis come by here, heading for the haitian border, and then trucks heading back in from haiti just empty flatbeds with tarps strapped to the top ready to load up again at the nearest port and come back into haiti. there's also human traffic all day. people streaming back and forth from aid organizations, doctors, international volunteers, dominicans who have been dispatched by their own government to help just over the border in their next door neighbor. >> warner: now i had read that that road from the airport in the dominican republic to port-au-prince was very congested, could take 12 or 18 hours but the flow looks pretty good behind you right now. what was it like from the airport to at least as far as you got? >>. >> suarez: well, it was pretty busy. there were a lot of people coming in from various places in the world that converged on miami to take that last leg to santo domingo. and there was a lot of medical equipment, a lot of medicine being unloaded off the plane that we took in from miami, along with a large team of volunteers from korean university medical centre in seoul. >> warner: now some of the people in your taped piece in the hospital were haitians who clearly had gotten across the border and into the dominican republic am but how freely is the dominican government really allowing haitians in to their country? >> suarez: well, there's been tense relationships between the two countries periodically in the past. and the border is very heavily patroled. but in this case, there is beefed up presence along the border to intercept sick people coming over, not to apprehend them or send them back into haiti. but now to get them to the hospitals that are nearest the border with haiti, triage them, stabilize them, and then send them in many cases further into the dominican republic where they can get better equipment and specialists. one of the doctors working at the hospital explained to me that they are at a bit of a lots there because some of the injuries are so severe, crushes, cranial injuries, abdominal injuries that they have neither the equipment nor the specialists to really treat those cases there. so they stabilize them as best they can, and get them on some kind of transport to the capitol or to larger hospitals. >> warner: now what about the town of jimani, i imagine it is not used to absorbing this much activity. >> suarez: no, it's usually a sleepier town. but after all, like at thisa or ello or laro, it is a border crossing that is used to a bit of international business, used to people changing money, selling and buying goods, jumping off of one bus and on to another at the border. so it seems to be handling it pretty well. it has become sort of an international aid town with the markings on various vans and suvs from a who's who of international organization. unicef, save the children, care and many, many others, including aid organizations that are less known to americans that come froma, latin america and the middle east. >> warner: now tomorrow you are heading into haiti. what are you particularly going to be focusing on in the next week. >> suarez: during the next week of reportinging we're going to be taking a closer look at a couple of areas. you know, haitians have been piling on to buses in port-au-prince and heading into the interior. heading further into the countryside, seeking relief from the conditions in the capitol. but the haitian countryside is not in any particular condition to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees. so we'll be taking a look at that. we'll be taking a look at the role of the u.s. military and the haitian government as it tries to reconstitution-- reconstitute itself and get back into business. and we'll be profiling one haitian businessman who understands that without work, there's no money. without money, there's no commerce. and he's trying to jump-start the factories of haiti again. >> warner: well, ray, good luck and we'll be watching with interest and i'm sure on the broadcast and on-line. >> suarez: thanks a lot, margaret. >> brown: the disaster in haiti has brought an outpouring of charity. the "chronicle of philanthropy" reports more than $350 million donated so far, and there will be more tonight with a two-hour international telethon, featuring a long list of celebrities and musical performances. it's being carried by pbs and all of the major commercial television networks. now, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: vice president joe biden has arrived in baghdad, hoping to ease a dispute that threatens plans for march elections in iraq. it centers on blacklisting more than 500 candidates for suspected links to saddam hussein's regime. sunni muslims were dominant under saddam, and they say the purge is too broad. biden flew in this evening for a two-day visit. but an iraqi spokesman warned "nobody can interfere in iraqi affairs, biden or others." britain today raised its terror threat level from "substantial" to "severe". that's the second highest level on the british scale. the country's home secretary provided no details on what prompted the change. instead, he said an attack is "highly likely", but there's no indication that one is imminent. airports across india went on high alert today on word militants linked to al qaeda might hijack planes. there were more armed guards outside airports, and passengers had to go through extra security screenings once inside. in addition, extra sky marshals were placed on planes. the home ministry said the focus was on air india and indian airlines flights. >> we suspect that there can be an attempt to target one of our airlines, especially those that fly abroad of india. and we have alerted our agencies to be careful on anti-hijacking measures. >> sreenivasan: india has been largely free of terror attacks since militants rampaged through mumbai for three days in november of 2008. 166 people were killed. a kansas court heard opening statements today in the murder of an abortion provider in wichita. scott roeder has confessed to killing doctor george tiller at a church last may. he is charged with premeditated first-degree murder. but the defense argues it was voluntary manslaughter to save the unborn. tiller specialized in performing late-term abortions. his clinic closed after his death. thousands rallied in washington in the annual "march for life". it was the 37th anniversary of the supreme court decision of roe v. wade that legalized abortion. the anti-abortion crowd rallied at the white house, and then moved on to the supreme court. a handful of abortion rights supporters were also present. downpours eased today as the latest pacific storm moved out of southern california. the risk for mudslides and flooding remained, especially for residents in the foothills of the san gabriel mountains. a state of emergency was declared in five counties after nearly ten inches of rain this week. still, local officials said many evacuation orders in los angeles county will soon be lifted. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the newshour's web site. but for now, back to jim. >> lehrer: and still to come on the newshour: shields and brooks; and who's in charge of the internet? that follows a rundown of a remarkable few days in politics. judy woodruff has the story. ( cheers and applause ) >> woodruff: president obama ended one of the toughest weeks he's had in office at a town hall meeting in elyria, ohio. it came three days after tuesday's stinging loss of a massachusetts senate seat, an outcome that derailed democratic hopes of a quick, final vote on health care. mr. obama acknowledged today it was like hitting "a little bit of a buzz saw," but he insisted he won't give up on health care. >> i didn't take up this issue to boost my poll numbers. you know the way to boost your poll numbers is not do anything. that's how you do it-- you don't offend anybody. i'd have real high poll numbers. all of washington would be saying, "what a genius!" ( laughter ) and i am not going to walk away just because its hard. we're going to keep on working to get this done with democrats, i hope with republicans-- anyone who is willing to step up. >> woodruff: the president also brought a new populist edge to his message on jobs and the economy in a state where unemployment is near 11%. >> so long as i have the privilege of serving as your president, i will not stop fighting for you. i will take my lumps, but i won't stop fighting to bring back jobs here. ( applause ) i won't stop fighting for an economy where hard work is rewarded. i won't stop fighting to make sure there's accountability in our financial system. >> woodruff: that focus on the financial system was on display thursday, when the president announced new proposals to curb the size of the biggest banks and limit their risk-taking. >> we've come through a terrible crisis. the american people have paid a very high price. we simply cannot return to business as usual. >> woodruff: the president and his top aides deny they are simply responding to election results. this was treasury secretary tim geithner on the "newshour" last night. >> that's not what's behind this. i've read that, i've heard that. but the president asked us to work on this going back several weeks. we've provided these recommendations to him two weeks ago. >> woodruff: still, there was further evidence today of how quickly the political landscape in washington has shifted. this time, it involved growing opposition to confirming ben bernanke to chair the federal reserve board for a second term. his current term expires at the end of this month. two senate democrats-- russ feingold of wisconsin and barbara boxer of california-- announced they'll oppose bernanke. they criticized the fed's handling of the financial bailouts. that left the white house to issue a statement, saying the president still has "a great deal of confidence" in bernanke, and believes he'll be confirmed. but wall street sold off again today, amid the uncertainty both about bernanke and the president's tough talk on banks. the dow jones industrial average fell nearly 217 points to close below 10,173, the lowest since last november. the nasdaq index was down 60 to finish at 2,205. >> woodruff: and for more about the bernanke story and how it connects to the economic and political fallout from this week, we're joined by david wessel, economics editor for "the wall street journal." david, good to see you again, let's start with the market drop. do you have a sense, an understanding of how much of that is due to the kemp that bernanke might not be reconfirm ed? or how much is due to the president's bank proposal? >> well, you know, it's very hard to figure out what the market does and why it does it. but i do think that there is realization in the markets that the attitude in washington has turned distinctly populist. and that's to the good for banks and businesses. so it's kind of a double-whammy. first the president comes and takes a shot at the banks and their stocks fall. and then today the markets realize that they thought bernanke might have a hard time getting through but he would get through. and that suddenly seemed in doubt. so i think they are reflecting the sale uneasiness that post massachusetts the legislative climate is to the going to be very friendly to big business and wall street. >> woodruff: are they seeing a contradictions on the one hand the president is talking more populist, on the other hand he is backing ben bernanke? >> that's a good point. but i don't think that that has sunk in yet. i think that populism is clear in the way the members of congress are being-- are acting. and that's putting pressure on the president. and the markets like everybody else realize that the president is going to have to kind of shift in his positions a little if he is going to survive and be a successful presidentment and they are afraid it is going to be a shift away from probusiness, pro wall street kind of policy. >> woodruff: well, how much trouble do you think bernanke is in? >> that's a great question, judy. you know, 24 hours ago i would have told you that he would be bloodied and get through. but today was a day marked by extraordinary uncertain and people giving odds 50/50 that he would get through or not. at the "the wall street journal" we did a tally, we found the 25 senators are declared for him, 16 against. but of course that leaves 59 who haven't said anything. my guess is that the market reaction will push congress towards giving him the votes they need and confirming him before january 31st. but this has been such an extraordinary week that one trusts one's own judgement less and less. >> woodruff: and one of those interesting developments was yesterday, the senate majority leader harry reid was saying he didn't know whether he would support bernanke. and i guess today put out a statement saying yes, that he would. but he would be watching him. >> right, exactly. so i think that was one of the things that shook people up. if the senate majority leader won't back the president's nominee for the federal reserve, a man who is is iting a tough re-election fight in a state that has been devastated by the housing bust, with that mean that you want have the 60 votes you need to get him through. there was a lot of pressure on harry reid from the white house and at the end of the day today he put out a statement but he made clear that his support was not, as he put it, unconditional. that he was still holding mr. bernanke responsible for not only transparency and accountability of the fed but for the well-being of the people of his state. >> woodruff: you know a lot about ben bernanke, you followed him, you have written a book about him. how do you explain this uneasiness over him, and really much of it all of a sudden. how much of it is due to the results tuesday in massachusetts? >> i think that benn bernanke has become a lightning rod for the public anger that wall street got bailed out and main street didn't. he was like tim quitener the treasury secretary, one of the people at the scene. and in my view he did a lot that sieve is aed us from a second great depression. but right now people are seeing 10% unemployment and big profits on wall street and they're angry about that, and he is a very convenient target. and the fed has often been a target for people's anger about money and stuff like that. and so people are remembering the bailout and are angry about that. and they are not convinced that as mr. bernanke has said it could have been worse had he not done what he did. >> woodruff: now the opposition from democrats, david, is based-- is it for different reasons from the opposition from republicans, right? >> well, i think it's basically motivated by similar public pressure. that people are angry about the bailout. and angry about the economy. they may differ in their-- in the tone, the democrats think he should do more to help housing and maybe do different things on consumer regulation. the republicans say he was-- he's not doing enough to reign in the banks and he has created a situation where may be seating up the seats of the next crisis but all sides are holding him responsible both for his role at the fed in the days leading up to the crisis and the years leading up to the crisis and because they're not happy with the fact that the bailout is so unpopular with the constituents. senator boxer, senator reid, senator fine gold all who have-- feingold all who have come out today are all facing re-election so they are perceptive to the public mood. >> woodruff: what would happen if he were were-- were not reconfirmed? >> if the senate does nothing f they don't have a vote, mr. bernanke can stay on the federal reserve board. we expect that he would give up the job of chairman and give that up to the vice chairman donald cohen and policy probably wouldn't change. but it would be quite unnerving to the markets. of course if the senate rejected him, refused to vote him then i human he would leave the post even though costay as a governor and the president would have to find somebody else. >> woodruff: well, are there other names of potential successors floating around? >> the white house tells us that they are not into hypotheticals. that they are still counting on him getting through. but we know that a few months ago when they were trying to decide whether to reappoint mr. bernanke to a second four-year term there were names floating around, janet yellin, a former clinton advisor, a former fed governor now the president of the san francisco pd federal reserve bank, roger ferguson, the head of tia-creff who used to be at the fed. and larry summers, the president's economic advisor would i'm sure love to have the job if the president needed somebody and thought that larry summers could get through the senate. >> woodruff: so david, is this truly up in the air? >> i do think it's up in the air. i think the odds still favor that mr. bernanke gets through. but there more uncertainty about that tonight than there was 4 hours ago. and that's kind of unsettling. >> woodruff: david wessel, "the wall street journal," thanks. >> you are welcome. >> lehrer: and to the analysis of shields and brooks-- syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. >> lehrer: david, how much of this unsettling is the result of scott brown of massachusetts. >> i think a lot. i mean there's been as david said a lot of disquiet about the bailouts and things like that. but i think private leigh most members thought that bernanke is ao. that he got us that you a recession. frankly he did a lot of things, transferring money to wall street that the senate knew they this to do but they wanted somebody to blame. but now they are running scared. i was up on capitol hill this week and the atmosphere is unbelievable. there's real panic. there's anxiety. it's sort of every man for himself. every sing ep-- single person thinks coy lose my job, every single person. >> lehrer: republican, democrats. >> maybe less republicans, they are more in the-- mode. but that is creating a psychological dynamic which has turned a lot of people into ron paul, which is sort of what this s a lot of serious people suddenly think if i bash the fed, i can go home and say oh, i told those wall street types. i think it is incredibly irresponsible but if you go up there, and sense the psychological dynamic it could spin in many different elections. >> lehrer: do you see the same connections, mark? >> i do, jim, i think there has been a large number of democrats have been urging the white house to talk this tact, to become more populist to. distance themselves it from what they see as the excesses of wall street. noting its unpopularity. and that the widely held perception in the country among voters that the government's policies, that david mentioned, which were namely tarp and the stimulus and the trillion dollars to housing, the bailout, all helped major interests, particularly wall street but didn't help them. and i think that massachusetts results, i too was up on capitol hill. and-- l. >> lehrer: you found the same things with the anxiety level, david said s so true. now is every man for himself. ordinarily we were operating as a caucus an you have got a tough race and david and i have what we think are safer races. we'll target some of our resourcesing some of our money, some of our help to you. now i think it's going to be awfully tough to do that. because on the democratic side t is, it's every person for himself, herself. the republicans are emboldened. they are-- they are not in a gloat free zone. they are gloingt. eric cantor the republican leader told me yesterday that he assumed the they would assume the majority in november. now that's a lot of seats to pick up. >> lehrer: what about health-care reform. where does it fit in if at all now. >> somebody asked me the day after, on wednesday, do you think it will-- health-care reform will pass. then i said 55-45 that it doesn't. now having seen and heard what i have heard in the last few days, i would say 80-20 that it does not. >> lehrer: 80-20. >> you look at all the different avenues in which it could as pa, the pass passion the senate bill, breaking it out, reconciliation, all have severe barriers and the general sense of anxiety. there was a big meeting of house democrats and as it was described to me, gene taylor of mississippi said after katrina i had to tell the people in my district, i went to the beach and had to tell them. i'm sorry your house is gone. then he said before everybody, all the democrats, madame speaker, let me tell you, your house is gone, referring to the 45e9 care bill. and that is the sentiment that one heres. now i wouldn't say for sure but if you talk about the consensus among the experts and people follow this, a lot of people think it's gone. >> lehrer: you think it's gone? >> i think pick your bad cliche, life-support, intensive care. i think it is in serious-- but the democrats have a reality they have to confront. and that is if it does go down, if there is no -- nothing they can pass, that can pass the test of being comprehensive health-care reform, then they have failed on the president's domestic initiative. the principal, the signature issue, the issue on which the president has told members privately i would stake my presidency on this, and not even have a second term. >> lehrer: it was that important to him. >> that important to him. now that's a failure. so then you've got the democrats not only charged with being too chumy with wall street, but in charge of the house, the senate and the white house and being incompetent. and not being able to deliver on anything. >> lehrer: now fit president obama into this now in terms of the backlash, the populism and health-care reform and can he do anything about any of this or is he another victim. >> this is the question. the president the first time, i think, democrats acknowledge both the administration and capitol hill and off acknowledge that delay was a mistake. this thing which stretched out over such an extended period of time. as one of them said to me, scott brown never would have happened if we had done this in october. that you know, passed it. but that, the white house let a thousand flowers bloom legislatively and let congress work its will. so the president in the last week inserted himself big time last week, meetings at the white house between the leadership to resolve these differences. he wanted some of the special deals from the senate knocked out, made hard decisions. but you know, the question is can he sustain that? will he sustain it? and is the game worth the candle. i mean can do it. >> i don't think it was the delay. if you look at when the independents left the administration t was between april and june, the number of disdishis support among independents dropped 15 points. the number of people who said he was too liberal leapt by 18 points. i think that is when people began to flake off. i think the problem was obama misread the country. he thought the country was in the mood for a if you deal style, big transformation but in fact the country is extremely hostile and suspicious and distrustful of washington. and centralizing power in washington was a mistake. being hyperactive was a mistake. i think now he's making too additional mistakes. one, he hasn't shown any humility. the country is saying listen to us, he hasn't said okay, i made a mistake as bill clinton did, as arnold schwarzenegger did. hasn't done then. second i don't think the populism think happens for him. >> lehrer: why not. >> he went to harvard law school, columbia university, he appointed tim quite ner, larry-- quitener, larry summers, he is a member of the establishment. he talks like it, thinks like t i happen to have respect for his analytical able its, don't fake t be who you are. it just not going to work to fake it. >> first of all, all great revolutions are lead by arris to crats. that is the reality of history. so the idea that he went to harvard law school does not in any way preclude hits leading a populist revolution. populist has taken on a word among several of my colleagues in the press, at least one of whom is here-- . >> lehrer: you're talking about-- what is his name over here. >> it is disrespectful, it's dumb it is not educated t is unsophisticated. i mean there are rights and there are wrongs. and i think what the president has lacked, quite honestly, has been an emotional response that people in the country feel. >> lehrer: whether it populism or anything else. >> and they understand the pain. i mean with bill clinton could do. i mean the people of this country are going through a time of terrible, terrible pain, uncertainty, anxiety. and i think the president has to identify with that. i agree on his appointments, certainly don't suggest that this is an andrew jackson of the 21st century. >> let me defend myself from the maria antoinette charge. listen, populism and elitism are the same thing. they are class prejudices. crude class prejudices that so-and-so because they are uneducated is less worthy or so-and-so because they are richer or more educated is unworthy. they are both crude, crass class prejudices which people can play into or not play into. redistributing money down is not necessarily populist. but saying all bankers are evil is populist. and so it's the crude class prejudice that i think that people are now beginning to play into. and the only people, by the way, who play into it are phoneies. people who are genuinely coming from the working class or representing or feeling their bone, working class values generally don't play those games. their attitudes are much more complicated and much more real than the fake, oh, all those wall street types. that is just too generalized. >> i disagree with david's counterfeit distinctions here. remember that this establishment-- establishment arian, this president, harvard law school, what did he do? he became a community organizer. i means that's what he did. he turned down supreme court clerkships. i mean he really did go back and try and make a difference. i mean so there is-- there is that in him. i would just like to say, robert frost once said to jack kennedy, be more boston and less harvard. and barack obama is equally as complex and complicated as anybody else. and i would like to see him be more chicago and less establishment arian. >> lehrer: meanwhile, also this week, united states supreme court handed down this decision on campaign finance. some people say it's a huge catastrophe. some people say it's a blessing. freedom of speech issue, first amendment issue, a tragedy, a victory? how do you see? >> it is the single biggest decision that the supreme court politically in my lifetime, everybody i talk to who is involved in campaigns, who has raised money politically said is terrified by it. >> lehrer: terrified. >> it's implication. american corporations by irs's judgement in 2005 are worth $23 trillion dollars. barack obama raised $800 million. now if we are-- say i'm goldman sachs. and david is sponsoring reg islation to get back my bonuses. and david's got a safe district. i don't have to go after david. all i have to do is go after someone who is sponsoring david's legislation. supporting david's legislation and i go in and spent $3 million and beat him. i hanged that person. my lobbyist says we're going to stop this one way or the other. we'll spend whatever we have. i don't want to hurt you, david, but i'm sorry, shields just had to sacrifice his seat. that is the implications of this are absolutely unfathomable and they are terrifying. >> i think it is a bad decision. i think it will have a poisonous affect on political atmosphere. but for different reasons than most people that i have read and heard from. first i'm not convinced it will totally change landscape because i'm not convinced a lot of corporations are withing to want to have a political profile. >> lehrer: why not. >> because you are a corporation, you want-- everybody. so why stick your neck out. but i do think it will have this affect. what do corporation when they go to washington what do they want. one, they want subsidies from washington. two, they want to crush small businesses who are hoping to compete with them by erecting regulatory hurdles. so i think they will use that money to try to essentially hurt small business. we don't who don't have lobbiesists, don't have money to spend and i think both of those are negative effects on the country. i don't necessarily think it is great for the republican party or terrible for the democratic party because when you look at who is willing to subsidize corporations and recht barriers both parties do that. i think will have bad affects but not necessarily partisan affects. >> lehrer: when president obama said yesterday i will talk to congress and we'll have a forceful response, what can he do? what can anybody do about this? whether they like it or not? >> well, i mean the way that the opinion, the decision was written, it's going to be awfully tough. >> lehrer: it a prepare court of the united states made a decision. do you agree with that, there not too many options. >> people are working on it but from what i have read and i don't understand it completely, they are nibbling on the edges rather than the core. >> it is, i'm serious this is big time. it really is. and just the presence of that kind of money. why would anybody volunteer in a campaign. >> lehrer: why do you assume, this is-- david is going to ask you this question but i'm going to ask it before he does. why do you assume that people will use it in evil ways? >> i don't find corporations historically in this country to have been altruistic agents. >> lehrer: david in. >> i think they are altruistic when they make great products. i happen to like my ipod and all that stuff. >> i am talking about public policy. >> no, they true try to cycle competition that is what businessman do. >> they don't take a wide perspective. i didn't see them, did you see the corporations really pushing for the civil rights acts? did you see them pushing for americans with disakts act? i missed that, i guess. >> lehrer: mark, david t has really been nice chatting with you. >> brown: and finally tonight, the growing u.s. china dispute over free access to the internet. >> brown: in 2006, the world's most popular search engine, google, reached a compromise with the world's most populous country, china. the company agreed to allow filtering of taboo topics, including tibet and the tiananmen square massacre, on searches done inside china. but last week, google declared it would stop filtering results, and it threatened to pull out of china. that followed a coordinated attack on google email accounts of chinese human rights activists. the issue has now touched off diplomatic tensions. yesterday, secretary of state hillary clinton called for china to conduct a full investigation of the email hacking. in a broader speech on internet freedom and foreign policy, she sharply criticized countries that engage in censorship of the web. >> countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century. those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society. countries or individuals that engage in cyber-attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. >> brown: in addition tohina, secretary clinton named tunisia, uzbekistan, egypt, iran, saudi arabia, and vietnam. today, china's official media fired back. one state-run newspaper charged clinton was engaging in "information imperialism." and the foreign ministry issued a response on its web site, saying: "we urge the u.s. side to respect facts and stop using the so-called 'freedom of the internet' to make unjustified accusations against china." chinese reporting of clinton's criticism was sparse, but the u.s. state department took its case directly to chinese bloggers. the american embassy in beijing and consulates in other cities hosted web-based discussions about the speech. for its part, google issued a statement praising clinton's speech, and c.e.o. eric schmidt said the company still hopes to find a way to remain active in china. for more on all of this we turn to michael posner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor; and david lampton, director of the china studies program at johns hopkins university. welcome to both of you. >> thank you. >> mr. posner what exactly was secretary of state clinton accusing china of when it comes to internet freeh dom? what do you see? >> well, i see this broader than china. it's saying that a number of countries in the world are basically restricting the right of people to speak freehly through the internet, through their cell phones. and preventing them from really engaging within their own societies and the dialogue about issues that are important to them. this is really human rights and democracy issue. and this is one component of it. >> reporter: specifically in the case of google, and in these attacks on google, e-mail accounts, she asked china to investigate what happened. now most experts pointed directly at the chinese government or chinese-supported entities. is that the way the u.s. sees it in. >> well, i think what we see is that there is a broad pattern of restriction of information ina. certainly the government is involved in that. we're also concerned about personal privacy and protection of privacy. and so there are two issues here. one ask making sure that the internet is free and open, across borders so the people can participate in the global discussion of ideas. but the other is the people who engage in internet discussion have their personal privacy protected. >> are we in essence asking them to investigate themselves in the case like this? >> well, i think we've always said that there are constraints ina and other place its on these freedoms. and we are-- this is merely the latest chapter in a longer discussion about how we encourage the development of real democracy and free society and empowering the media to have these issues discussed openly withina, by chinese people. this is to the about us. it's about the desire of people in china to speak freely. >> reporter: david lampton, the response, information imperialism, unjustified accusations, something akin to mind your own business, in a way. i mean did that surprise you? >> no. because information control is at the heart of the chinese strategy to maintain social stability. the internet provides a vehicle, a pathway for dispersed organizations across the territory as big as the united states to accord fate activity. and a number of years ago you may remember the falun gong organized itself electronically to surround the leadership headquarters unbeknownst to the chinese leadership until it occurred. they are dedicated to making sure that doesn't happen again. as as it gets to middle class growing very rapidly, they have rising expectations. people want more control over their destiny and the internet is a vehicle by which they can do that. so i think i what say in some sense if you look at what the foreign ministry said, they did say everything you said. they went on to say they want to continue to have good relations with the united states. >> reporter: but do they see this as meddling in chinese affairs as another example of the u.s. not understandinga, or respecting china for that matter? >> right, well court is a chinese narrative of chinese history, of foreigners interfering in their internal affairs so, this fits in. i think what is interesting on the one hand, chinese people are very sensitive, not just the government but the people to what what is perceived to be interference but on the other hand, in the case of google they are showing people to show publicly support for their continued access to relatively unfettered information. they have been in effect, having people in front of the google company saying we love google. the implication being they want-- so i think they are ambivalent in this particular case. >> reporter: what leverage does the u.s. have and what leverage is the u.s. willing to use? it's interesting. this is even a week in which chinese officials said something about currency. it effects our stock market in so many different ways we are intertwined. and they have a kind of-- a clearer sense of power. and real power than ever before, so what leverage do we have in. >> clearly the united states and china are two major powers in the world. we have a range of interests, mutual interests in economy and security, a range of things. we talk about those things. this another part of the relationship. and there isn't one quick answer to that. but we are going to continue to engage with them on issues that are important to us, issues where we have differences. and this is for us part of what mean-- it means to be a stable society in the long-term. social stability means also ability of people to operate commercially to have access to information. it also means in some cases that people dissent from government policies and they make those views known. >> reporter: is it possible to link an issue like this to other issues, for example, make it a part of a trade issue, technology limit its on technology transfers, how do you think about, again, this goes to the leverage question, how do you think about what we have to link to get their attention on something like this? >> well, clearly we have gotten their attention. but i think there are a range of ways to look at this. one is that american companies and other companies want to operate in a place where information flows freely. we have to keep making that point and american companies, i think have the responsibility to make that point. we can use our diplomacy to help push that discussion. we ask also help people ina who are trying to make their voices heard give them some capacity and give them some support as they do this. so the multiple strategies here, not one is going to solve this but i think we're on the right track. and i think a lot of chinese people want us to succeed. >> reporter: and what do you see from the chinese side, does pressure work? >> i found mrs. clinton's speech was excellent and i think one reason was she called attention to what i think the chinese know themselves. and that is they're involved in markets all over the world. they need timely information to promote their own economic growth. and i think the big leverage we have is it wasn't just google that was attacked as i understand it. it was others that haven't been quite as forthcoming about their concerns. and i think the chinese business community and traders, they're involved in huge equities and debt, debt instruments and so on. they need up to the second information. and accurate information, so i think they've got an internal constituency for this. also, all the young people are, this is a wired generation. >> rooney: . >> reporter: but do they have real power to speak to the government. >> the criterion of success at the local leader is avoiding incidence where they would call mass incidences and destabilization. so the degree to which people get concerned, both within the party from maybe their economic reasons and then the capacity for young people to be up set, i think is something they would prefer not to see. >> reporter: let me ask you in our last minute, you started by talking about this is broader than china. and the secretary talked about many other countries. to what extent is this now internet freedom a component of human rights and therefore u.s. foreign policy. how big a deal is it and how much will we be hearing about it and how much action will there be on it. >> it's critically important. this is the way the world is now communicating. this is the way people are discussing ideas. both within countries and across borders. in the '70s, the late '70s and early '80s when i started doing this work, we talked about the-- we talked about the russian disi dense that us ed homemade printing presses to throw out information this so much more poer withful than that because those things could be controlled in the way that the internet and cell phones can't be. this is the way that the governments are going to be essentially held accountable. and it is going to be an open debate across borders about issues that really matter to people. >> reporter: michael posner and david lampton, thank you both very much. >> good to be with you. >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day: the exodus from haiti's shattered capital kept building, and the government talked of setting up tent cities for more than 400,000 people. vice president biden arrived in baghdad. he's hoping to ease a political dispute that threatens plans for march elections in iraq. and britain raised its terror threat level one notch to "severe". the government would not say what prompted the change. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari. >> sreenivasan: we look at a new study showing children ages eight to 18 are spending more than seven hours a day in front of all sorts of screens, be they tvs, computers or cell phones. we'll talk to the lead researcher. on health care, analysts weigh in on the prospect of a scaled- back healthcare bill after the republican victory in massachusetts this week. finally, be sure to join us for an informal conversation with shields and brooks after the program. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. jeff. >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm jeffrey brown. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. "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 is provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what if that energy came from an energy company? every day, chevron invests $62 million in people, in ideas-- seeking, teaching, building. fueling growth around the world to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron. >> this is the engine that connects abundant grain from the american heartland to haran's best selling whole wheat, while keeping 60 billion pounds of carbon out of the atmosphere every year. bnsf, the engine that connects us. bank of america. pacific life. and by toyota. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. 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

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