captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: president obama urged u.s. naval academy graduates to put a stop to sexual assaults, saying the crisis threatens trust in the military. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown on the "newshour" tonight, we excerpt the president's commencement speech, and then turn to a shifting role for the c.i.a. in the fight against terrorists. >> woodruff: we have the story of oklahomans helping one another in a rural county hit by a tornado one day before the devastation in the town of moore. >> community outpouring has just been amazing. the amount of people that are helping each other, the churches groups, the spontaneous volunteers. it's been amazing. >> brown: the sit-com "arrested development" comes back, but

online only. gwen ifill examines what a new business model may mean for the way we watch and talk about television programs. >> the explosive nature of how the conversation works can still be applied, you can say i saw five episodes of "arrested development," you might not be doing it on the watercooler the next day, you're going to be doing it on your social media. >> woodruff: david brooks and ruth marcus analyze the week's news. >> brown: and the first of two conversations about the u.s. role on the global stage: margaret warner gets a behind- the-scenes critique of policy- making from author and former state department official, vali nasr. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf. and everyday since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely.

b.p. is also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger. >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york, a foundation created to do what andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> brown: for more than 1000 midshipmen at the naval academy, this was commencement day. for the president, it was also a chance to address key military and national security issues in his graduation speech at annapolis. >> the superintendent told me that marines and folks in the navy don't mind a little water. ( laughter ) >> brown: winds and rain pelted the future leaders of the navy and marines, evocative of stormy times facing the nation's military, especially, sexual assaults. the commander in chief pushed the graduates to uphold the honor of the armed forces. >> those who commit sexual assault are not only committing crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that makes our military strong. that's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes. because they've got no place in the greatest military on earth. >> brown: the president also acknowledged another major challenge, deep budget cuts, but he insisted military readiness

will not suffer. >> in these tough fiscal times, the united states of america will always maintain our military superiority. and as your commander in chief, i am going to keep fighting to give you the equipment and support required to meet the missions we ask of you and also to make sure that you are getting the pay and the benefits and the support that you deserve. >> brown: president obama lauded the navy seals who killed osama bin laden, but he spoke, too, of the changing nature of the fight against terror. >> for even as we've decimated the al qaeda leadership, we still face threats from al qaeda affiliates and individuals caught up in its ideology. even as we move beyond deploying large ground armies abroad, we still need to conduct precise targeted strikes against terrorists before they kill our citizens. >> brown: just yesterday, in a major security speech, the president spoke of transferring the secretive drone aircraft program to military control and

making it more accountable. >> for the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power or risk abusing it. and that's why, over the last four years, my administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists, insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in presidential policy guidance that i signed yesterday. >> brown: today, officials in pakistan, where many of the u.s. drone strikes occur welcomed the move to curtail their use, but they also argued any strikes violate pakistani sovereignty. the new approach to using drones and fighting terror that the president outlined yesterday will impact a number of national security and military forces, notably the c.i.a. reporter mark mazzetti wrote on that in today's "new york times."

he also documented the evolution of american warfare in the post- 9/11 era in his recent book, "the way of the knife." well, mark, welcome to you. just to set the context a bit, take us back briefly. how and why did both the c.i.a. and the military come to have their own drone programs? and what are the differences? >> well, both the c.i.a. and the military were working on predator drones before 9/11 and shortly after the september 11 attacks president bush gave the c.i.a. this wide authority to go capture and kill around the globe. the c.i.a. started using drones in afghanistan, there was a drone strike in yemen and then starting in 2004 began using drone strikes in pakistan. and from there what started as a real trickle of drone strikes really went into sort of -- escalated dramatically around 2008 to the point where there's been hundreds of drone strikes

in pakistan carried out by the c.i.a. the military has also done a parallel -- had a parallel drone program in iraq and afghanistan and what we've seen in recent years, both the c.i.a. and the pentagon have both had programs in yemen. so there's been a certain redundancy in these operations and what we've -- what we heard both the president say yesterday and other aides to the president talk about on background was this need to sort of shift more of the resources to the pentagon. although it should be pointed out that the c.i.a.'s not entirely giving up its part or its aspect of the drone program. >> brown: so what would this mean for the c.i.a. in terms of how hard it would be to transition back to more of an intelligence-gathering from what i gather has really developed into more of a paramilitary service. >> right. so for nearly 12 years, the c.i.a. has been in many ways almost singularly focused on counterterrorism capturing,

killing, interrogating. and these are very paramilitary functions that the c.i.a. has been deeply involved in. this is maybe just the beginning of a shift back towards more traditional espionage operations and also the strategic analysis that the c.i.a. has done in the past. now, as i write about in the paper today, it's going to take some time, you can't just sort of change the agency overnight. the agency, as i said, has been doing this for about a dozen years and a whole generation of c.i.a. officers have been trained in this sort of tactical manhunting mission. so going back to the more traditional espionage that many people knew about and know from the cold war and from spy movies i mean, this does take time. it could take years, it could take another generation. >> brown: and in terms of the decision to move the drone program back to the department, the theory that there is that it will be more accountable, more

-- more what? open? more efficient? what's the idea? >> well, i mean, the idea is that missiles fired from airplanes should be the job of the -- should be done by the military, right? it's a military operation. and in theory the idea is that this will be more accountable and more transparent. now, in practice, this doesn't always happen. as we said, the military has a drone program right now in yemen and it is very hard to get any information about that program who is killed, where the strikes take place. and so just because it's in the pentagon's hand doesn't make it necessarily more transparent or even necessarily more accountable. so, again, just by saying that there's going to be a shift, there's going to have to be more details about what the future is and i thought it was interesting that actually in his speech yesterday president obama didn't even actually mention the c.i.a. once, which does sort of indicate that this transparency

only goes so far. >> brown: and how much can you tell at this point about reaction to all this from the c.i.a.? >> well, it's hard to tell. you know, there's certainly constituencies within the c.i.a. that would want to -- would have held on to the bulk of joint operations, the counterterrorism center as i write about has really dramatically expanded since 9/11 and sort of become the beating heart of the c.i.a.. if the drone strikes leave the counterterrorism center and go to the military then the counterterrorism center may find itself having less power within the agency. that being said, john brennan, the new c.i.a. director, has indicated that he wants this change to gradually happen for paramilitary functions, many of them to go to the pentagon so it is clearly a change that's coming from the top and i also do think that there's elements within the c.i.a. that are happy to give it up because they see there's been some opportunity

costs for what they have not done by doing this counterterrorism. >> brown: exactly. that's what i wanted to ask you in the last minute because the other part of the context since 9/11 and on is the criticism after u.s. intelligence gathering overall. >> that's right. there's a question of what are they not doing. obviously there was the famous failure of the iraq w.m.d. analysis and then there's other issues which, for instance, you know, is the c.i.a. assessing global trends? was the c.i.a. up to date on the arab spring? was it behind the curve as the revolutions were going on throughout the middle east? were they providing policymakers analysis in order to make decisions? i mean, these some of the things that the c.i.a. was founded to do. and the question is, when you're doing a tactical manhunting counterterrorism operation, can you also see the big picture? some of these moves, at least in theory, are designed to get the c.i.a. back to seeing the bigger

picture. >> brown: mark mazzetti, thanks so much. >> thanks very much. >> woodruff: still to come on the "newshour": oklahomans helping each other; television shows that aren't on television; brooks and marcus and an inside look at the making of u.s. foreign policy. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: syria has agreed in principle to attend an international peace conference brokered by the u.s. and russia. the announcement came today from the russian foreign ministry. the proposed talks aim to establish the outlines for a transition in syria without president bashar al-assad. but he has already said he won't step down without elections. meanwhile, iran denied it has fighters inside syria supporting assad. the friends of syria made that claim yesterday. in afghanistan, a suicide car bomber and five heavily armed gunmen struck in the capital city of kabul. two guards were killed, as well as the gunmen. the target was a guest house used by an international aid group. after the bomb blast, a gun battle continued for hours as police traded shots with the attackers. the taliban claimed

responsibility. british fighter jets were scrambled today to divert a pakistani airliner headed for manchester, england. instead, it landed at london's stansted airport and two men were arrested on suspicion of endangering the aircraft. british officials said it's a criminal matter, and not terror- related. still, the incident raised tensions, just two days after islamic extremists allegedly killed a british soldier on a london street. a major highway connecting seattle, washington with vancouver, canada was cut today, after part of a bridge dropped into the skagit river. it happened thursday evening on interstate five, when a truck carrying an oversized load hit the upper part of the span. a section of the bridge collapsed, taking two vehicles with it. dan sligh was one of the three people who were plunged into the water. all of them got out alive, with only minor injuries. >> you talk miracles. i don't know what you want to call it, when you're sitting down in the water and there's all that mangled metal and bridge and you're looking around kind of pinching yourself and

realizing that you're lucky to be alive. it's a pretty amazing day to tell you the truth. >> sreenivasan: the bridge could be out for months, forcing more than 70,000 vehicles a day to find detours. wall street had a relatively quiet day going into the memorial day weekend. the dow jones industrial average gained eight points to close at 15,303. the nasdaq fell a fraction of a point to close at 3,459. for the week, the dow lost a third of one percent. the nasdaq fell more than a full percent. pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author haynes johnson died today at a hospital in bethesda, maryland, after a heart attack. johnson was a washington reporter for more half a century, and won a pulitzer in 1966 for civil rights reporting. he also authored 11 books, and for years, provided historical insight and commentary on "the newshour". here he is in 2009 speaking with judy about the book he co-authored on the 2008 presidential election. >> we started on this book three years ago, not just to do another book on politics or presidents and so forth, but because we really did believe this was going to be a historic election.

the stakes were so big for the country. and whatever happened, it would be a test, not only for the presidency, but for the people and our political system. and that's what we're seeing now. it's very tough. and whoever was going to be president was going to have one of the most difficult times since f.d.r. in 1932, taking over all the issues before the country. and obama is finding that. is he handling it well? is he trying to do to much? that's the story. that's the next phase. that's the next chapter. >> sreenivasan: haynes johnson was 81 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: and we turn to the aftermath of the tornadoes in oklahoma. funeral services were held today for two of the 24 people who were killed in moore on monday, including a boy who died at the plaza towers elementary school. the governor also said today that she had signed a bill authorizing $45 million in state aid for devastated communities. the day before the tornado flattened moore, a less powerful twister leveled homes in rural lincoln county, something that

happens frequently in april and may in oklahoma. in shawnee, two people died when a mobile home park was wiped out. and the towns of fallis and carney were also hit hard. residents in that area are now cleaning up. our colleagues at oklahoma educational television have been following their story and correspondent bob sands reports on the resilience of the community. >> reporter: nearly every home in fallis suffered some sort of damage from the sunday tornado. while attention is focused on the relief effort in moore, those who live in the rural lincoln county community are finding help from family, friends and in many cases total strangers. david and cheryl warrick's home suffered damage and their property is a mess. they've have had lots of help cleaning up. >> this is a real close knit area and there's been tons of people up and down the road offering help and bringing water, offering food. >> reporter: just down the road, the tornado destroyed allen and

becky buchanan's home of 13 years, along with all the other buildings on their property. like it did for the warricks, help came quickly. >> oh, a bunch of help. oh, my god, our phones, we just ringing off the hook. i mean, voice mails, emails, i mean it's almost impossible to even answer the phone. >> there's actually some guys out there now cleaning out the shop. >> yeah, we don't even know who they are. who is that? >> reporter: that guy is jason shaffer, who lives a couple of miles from the buchanans. >> they needed help, just what us country boys do i guess. >> reporter: shaffer says the tornado just missed his home so he felt the need to help those the storm didn't miss. and he expects nothing in return for his help. >> give the glory to god that's all we've got to do. and do what we can clean this mess up and let him get a new >> reporter: health care even showed up in the form of the lincoln county health department ready with tetanus shots. that included jason... >> ouch!

>> reporter: the buchanans and standing in what was left of the buchanan kitchen the family remains thankful for what they do have and where they live. >> i'm glad to be an oklahoman today, even though you know one day it's hot, one day it's cold and one day it's, well, tornado weather. >> reporter: a few miles away in the carney senior center the red cross has set up operations. a small army of volunteers is serving three meals a day. volunteers are smoking burgers, hot dogs and slabs of pork with all the fixings. >> a lot of the people you see out here are workers who have come out as well as the people that have been affected by this disaster. >> reporter: craig buchanan is the site director of the carney red cross relief effort. he says it's another example of oklahomans helping oklahomans. >> the community outpouring has just been amazing. the amount of people that are helping each other the churches groups the kiwanas, all the other spontaneous volunteers the salvation army was out here and

>> reporter: on a normal day john arnold runs an outdoor advertising company. but he's found a new purpose for some of that billboard material. >> and so i went to my shop i loaded up a bunch of vinyls that came off billboards which make heavy duty tarps. >> reporter: with all the roof damage in fallis, carney and other areas, arnold knew those vinyls would come in handy so after that first load he went back for more. >> a guy asked me if i could bring up another load back up today, so i went to the shop and loaded them up, so i've got about 30-35 out in the truck. and after we're done with the and it's wonderful it makes me be proud to be from oklahoma to be a part of this spirit. >> reporter: the sunday tornado nearly destroyed the steelman estates mobile home park near shawnee. two lives were lost and many people were injured. faron davis runs d&d truck sales and service in oklahoma city. but on this day he is the primary supplier of hot meals to those who remain in the park and the people cleaning up. >> it missed our business by a mile missed our farm by a mile so we thought we better go take care of everybody else.

>> reporter: and davis is passing out more than just hot meals. >> we try to give them a little money if we know it tore their house down. where they can go get them a room we try to give em a hundred dollar bill if we know their house was torn down and maybe they can get a good meal or a room something out of the deal. >> reporter: there is still a sense of hope in steelman estates. a sense bolstered by the discovery of a survivor that spent three days under the debris. michelle hoke found him as she searched the wreckage of her home. >> i went to go reach for something and i saw fur, i moved something else and all of a sudden he moved and i moved enough stuff and realized it was my neighbors dog, yelled for help and we got him out. >> reporter: saber had several injuries. you could see the stress of being buried on his face. he was dirty, and very thirsty. from the smoker faron sent over some of his grilled hamburgers, sabers first food in three days. >> oh, hey, hey, he's eating. come on, come on, there you go. >> reporter: nearby, another family was going through the ruins of their home, as two young boys waited anxiously to

see what they would find. for caleb the day got much better with the discovery of his baseball bag. >> reporter: as in many places across oklahoma, there was spontaneous prayer. reaching out for the strength to keep going forward. michelle hoke wants to rebuild and stay in steelman estates. and she has some advice for others. >> brown: next, a new season and a new phenomenon hit computer screens this sunday. gwen ifill looks at the latest evolution of the entertainment industry. >> ifill: viewed one way, it's old fashioned television. a situation comedy with familiar actors, appearing on a screen. but those screens are increasingly found on laptops, cellphones and tablets, as shows like "arrested development" migrate to streaming video.

>> this is the stein i've been waiting for! >> ifill: cult favorite "arrested development," which was a critical hit for three seasons on fox before being canceled in 2006, is the latest online-only offering for viewers who are increasingly choosing when and where to get their entertainment. that includes cancelled soap operas like "all my children" and original programming like "house of cards," which may have single-handedly revived the video service netflix. the programs lend themselves to on demand, binge watching. netflix's 33 million subscribers can dip in and out whenever they want. nielsen even has a name for some of these viewers: "zero tv households." up to five million now from two million in 2007. "house of cards" alone helped netflix, which had been

struggling, add three million new subscribers in three months, which pales when compared to conventional broadcast audiences, but is on the rise. other projects are in the works. this fall, "desperate housewives" actress eva longoria is producing a 13-episode adult animated comedy on the online video site hulu. as our viewing habits are shifting. so is the entertainment industry. for more on, that we're joined by brian grazer, chair of imagine entertainment which produces film and television, including "arrested development." and television and media critic eric deggans. brian grazer, why did you decide to take this on line, this cult favorite as i think they call it? >> (laughs) well, there were other choices but it turned out that ted serandos, who's a huge fan of

"arrested development." and happens to also run netflix asked us if we would like to do our series for netflix which would enable us to release it all in one night and then enable audiences, kids incucause that'e is 18 to 25-- to binge view it. and it's the kind of show that kids would watch four or five or six episodes either alone in their room or parties or just becomes a social situation. and then watch several of these episodes. so it was the perfect situation for us. >> ifill: maybe adults will watch it at the same time. >> well, i don't want to eliminate adults. >> ifill: eric deggans, is there a business model for this now? we've seen this a couple different times with a couple different programs. >> well, i think net flex is creating the business model which is what's so fascinating for those of us who cover television. they're pioneering a way of delivering television and

spending the amount of money that they're putting forward to make this show, to make house of cards, to make "hemlock grove" these are big-ticket enterprises they pull out all the stops with the production and i -- it's helped netflix's stock price but we don't yet know how all of this is going to play out. i don't think even netflix knows how this will play out. >> ifill: brian grazer when you're trying to produce something like this, does it change knowing people will watch all at once if they want to? does it change the kind of program you put together? does it change production? >> it doesn't really change production. in fact, what it does -- it changes production only in the most favorable way because it enables us to make them all at once and have them experienced all at once so what we did was with the actors-- because the actors on our t.v. series "arrested development." they all became movie stars. jason bateman and michael cera and -- they all became movie stars so it enabled us to figure

out a schedule where each one of these stars would be sort of the primary focus of an episode even though everybody else, too, will be on the episode. so it empowered us to board the show and make -- and once again enable the show to come back because it might not have actually worked in terms of a production schedule for normal television. >> brown:. >> ifill: eric, i'm curious. i watch very little television live anymore, and probably you don't either-- of course that's your job. is that something which is spreading or that a very targeted audience we're talking about? >> no, it's definitely spreading and what we're finding is that younger people, of course, are less likely to watch television in the more traditional ways. they're more likely to use it online. more likely cob cord cutters, people who don't use cable television, for example, and only get their television habit through online. that's why it's interesting to see what netflix is doing because they seem to be

targeting the way we're going to be watching a lot of our television in just a few years. >> ifill: so let's assume for a moment, brian grazer, that this is a cultural shift. that people are changing the way they entertain themselves. does it pay off creatively or financially for producers? >> well, okay, two things. one is i do think -- i mean, nobody can really prognosticate what viewing habits are or what they're going to be. but it really does seem because of d.v.r. that they're a cycle ahead in terms of everybody else in terms of how they're going to allow viewers to see television shows because it's just going to be the perfect situation for them. as far as financially, they ended up-- they, netflix and ted their company-- paid us what anyone else would have paid us, whether it be showtime or hbo or possibly the network for these episodes. so in that way it was quite comparable. and i think it just helps you build your show, get it to

syndication, get it to other -- you know, to other income streams quicker than maybe, you know, the alternative direction. >> ifill: so, eric, if you're the consumer in this formula and you are thinking, well, maybe i can watch everything on my ipad, why should i bother to pay for cable anymore? is this a threat to cable companies or to broadcast? >> well, one of the things that you can't get is you can't get live news necessarily. that's harder. and you can't get live sports. you can't watch the super bowl necessarily. there's a lot of live sporting events, football especially, that you can't necessarily see online. and so that's where cable companies are drawing people in. that's one reason why espn, for example, can charge so much per subscriber, more than $5 per subscriber for their service. because that's something that you can't necessarily get online yet. but there's a drive amongst

consumers, i think, to have more control over their viewing, to watch shows when they want to watch them and how often they want to watch them and that's breaking down both the cable t.v. model and the broadcast mad dell. >> ifill: let me tell you my problem with this which is, of course, i watched "house of cards" all online and i couldn't talk to anybody about it. when you're binge watching, brian, you don't have a chance to say "did you see what happened last night?" is isn't that a risk for the way we communicate as the people at the water cool cooler in a sense? >> that's very interesting! no one presented that question to me. i don't know. i think you're -- we generate -- there's other ways -- i mean, i think -- i understand exactly what you're saying. but i think excitement, curiosity and the explosive nature of how conversations work can still be applied because you can say i just saw five episodes of "arrested development." you might not be doing it on the water cooler the next day,

you're going to be doing it on all your social media. so i actually -- i hadn't thought of your question or its answer, but i do think that -- (laughs) i do think that it leads to other conversations that live within the demographic of the audience and that is even more scalable because of the internet. >> ifill: how about that, eric? >> well, gwen, i've got to say, you remind me of that "portlandia" sketch where two couples are trying to talk about a movie they like and everybody's going "spoiler alert! don't talk!" people watch "mad men," they d.v.r. it and watch it where they can. you try to talk to your friends about it and they haven't watched it yet and they don't want to talk about site that's a problem but what i found with "house of cards" especially, that was such a well-done series that people tended to watch in the big chuns so you could talk about it within a week or so. you could really talk about it because a lot of fans of the show had already watched it. there's so much anticipation for

"arrested development." that they're not even letting us critics see very many advanced episodes. i just found out today i may get to watch one episode in advance. normally we've been able to see three of them before the show debuts. so they're not even trusting us critics to not spoil it for people. >> ifill: i'll let you take that brup w brian grazer off lines. eric and brian, thank you both so much. >> thank you for having us. >> brown: you can test your own "arrested development" knowledge by taking our online quiz. we've also posted one author's take on how technology has cracked open the entertainment industry, to just about anyone with a creative idea. >> woodruff: and to the analysis of brooks and marcus. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks and "washington post" columnist ruth marcus. mark shields is off today. and whether they're watching us on television or their laptop or

their smart phone, we're glad you're here. >> or stone tablets. (laughter) >> warner:. >> woodruff: so the president's big speech on national security, he said we need to redefine as a country our approach to the war on terror. you said if we don't -- he said if we don't define it, it will define us. david? >> i think "redefine" is a little strong. i think we're fine. we had a period of intense expansion of the national security state in the early bush years. by the middle of the bush years we'd begun to try to normalize things and they tried to figure out how to scale things back and get out of guantanamo bay and things have been slowly returning to some sort of permanent normalcy since and i think with the speech the president gave this week was a very mature speech and serious speech and moved us another step in the direction. rhetorically it was big, substantively it was uncertain and small but a step in the right direction. so things like making at least a

nod to the drone policy getting it to the department where it belongs, trying to find a way to get it are of guantanamo. adjusting our level of panic. how strongly we're going to react to terror attacks. getting it more like we're less scared out of our minds and more like okay this is a permanent part of reality. i think it was a spozive the step in the right direction. not a dramatic shift in substance. >> woodruff: some critics are saying it's capitulation to the enemy. >> i wouldn't say that. i'm pretty much in line with what david said. i'd like to give the president credit for tackling this issue. it's something he's been stewing about and thinking about. he's been agonizing about it. i'm in favor of agonizing. i don't think george w. bush did enough agonizing about the legal footing of the war on terror and its future going forward. that said, listening to the speech, reading it, again, i -- it strikes me that the president is phenomenon n some ways a better law student than a president. by which i mean he's terrific at spotting the issues, he'll give you the argument, he'll identify

the issue, analyze it well, give you the argument on this side, then he gives the argument against. what he doesn't come up with-- and david touched on this-- is saying it was rhetorically big and substantively small, he doesn't come up with a solution. so on guantanamo he talks about the legacy issue. well the legacy issue of people who can't be safely released but can't be trade. well, it's been four plus years of his presidency. that's something we need to figure out the answer to. it's hard. >> woodruff: and you're saying he should have supplied the answer or -- >> i'm saying it's great to -- it's important and useful to have the discussion to educate the public but it's frustrating on -- there was movement, clarity, a little more clarity on drones but simply what are we going to do in terms of oversight on drones? he raised the issue but didn't answer it. what are we going to do about the guantanamo legacy prisoners? he raised the issue but didn't answer it. time after time there was that

side steps. >> well, i'm going to be a tad more positive. on the drones, i think he's been reasonably responsible about the drones. when you're faced as president you're faced with a couple choices. say we know there's terrorist x here. you can send in the marines which is like hundreds of people which is terrible collateral damage. you can send in bombers or you can use a drone. it's the least bad option. having some sort of outside review procedure which he sort of nodded to but did not define would be more positive. on guantanamo, it's a terrible situation. all the evidence is tainted by how it was gathered. nobody wants to take them. congress is blocking it. so it's a difficult situation that's landed in the bush administration and now this lap and no one has been able to think of a solution as far as i could tell. the one positive thing i wish there were more of is going back-- and i'm going to sound like a bushie-- but we talked about the uncertainty of the middle east. it's still true fundamentally that the only way out of this

and the long-term answer is the promotion of democracy and moderation. i wish we were more aggressive in using soft power to help the moderates, to help the democratic project knowing that it's going to take a couple generations but a little more of that would be nice. >> woodruff: but he didn't get into that yesterday. >> he talked about the instability of the middle east, he gestured toward the arab spring. i think that has to be the core of our policy. >> woodruff: essentially david is saying there aren't answers yet to some of these questions. >> there aren't answers but when you're the president i'm sorry to be uncharitable here, you need to do more than raise the issues you need to sketch those answers. i'm not saying it was -- it was a step forward but, for example, on drones now we're only going to -- the guidelines say we're only going to use them if there is a near certainty there won't be civilian deaths. well, the attorney general revealed that drones-- which, i agree, can be a very, very valuable tool-- that the drones killed four americans. three of them were not americans that we targeted.

so how do you -- guidelines are night but ask the press about guidelines in the a.p. investigation. guidelines are only as good as the people who are implementing them. >> woodruff: that was a yemen strike. so one of the other things that's landed in president's lap, the i.r.s., a couple of development this is week we learned the woman overseeing decisions on what was tax-exempt and what wasn't, she's been put on administrative leave we also learned the president's chief of staff dennis mcdonough knew about this but decided not to tell the president. >> right. >> woodruff: is it a bigger controversy, smaller? >> i think it's a little more appalling. we've learned the i.r.s. is not in the business of owning up to what they did and trying to say "here's how we'll fix it" they're more in the business of trying to shut down and i guess they're doing it for fear of criminal prosecution. but they're not exactly pointing to a solution or a fix. they're not exactly pointing it to any sense of con trags.

was it a problem for dennis mcdonough to not tell the president? i don't think. so there's a lot of things. if you pick out this isolated thing, why didn't he tell the president? well, everyday dennis mcdonough or whoever the chief of staff is probably learns a lot of things that he doesn't tell the president because the president has a limited amount of decision time so blocking information to the president is his job. so i think this seems -- maybe the political radar didn't go off. i think probably seems like something the president did need to worry about. >> i see it differently. we need to keep the i.r.s. story in focus which is this. the i.r.s. actions were reprehensible, heads should have rolled and they did roll. there is no evidence that this was anything except for bottom up incompetence and stupidity abetted by management, incredibly bad management at the

i.r.s.. there's no evidence that anybody at treasury, no less anybody at the white house, knew about any of this before the i.g. started investigating. so when this did go to the white house, though they in their usual way managed to make their own mess of things which is they gave out information that was not full and accurate information. >> you mean with the press secretary? >> yes, about who knew what when. then if they had the information early why didn't they do a better job for goodness sakes of responding quickly to this thing? because i don't think it was a lack of political radar, they knew this was going to be a big mess and they should have had the president out there more quickly responding to it. >> woodruff: yo so you're criticizing the way they handled it, not so much what mcdonough did or didn't do in telling the president. >> yes. >> woodruff: so is ate bigger -- is the scandal controversy growing and republicans are saying there's still going to be more heardings, more

investigations? >> it's continuing. i don't think it's growing. because i because i think this is all sideshow. just to be clear not the i.r.s. targeting itself, that's outrageous. but who knew what at the white house and what was the decision making about what to tell the president i think it really goes to they didn't tell the president. it's so going to continue but i do not believe it's going to mushroom into -- to keep on with the watergate cancer on the presidency. >> i find it hard to believe that they happened to pick the most anti-tax groups in america and there wasn't some prejudice. i don't know if it was political targeting. i think it was prejudice. as a scandal i remain convince the justice department attack on the press is a much -- will balloon into a much bigger scandal. >> woodruff: that's what i wanted to ask you about because we've learned more about how aggressive the justice department has been in going after reporters at fox news and

a.p. but the president yesterday in his speech said there needs to be limits, clear limits on how far an administration goes after journalists in pursuing leaks. so -- >> well, he might talk with the attorney general. i really think what's happened to rosen at fox news, what happened to a.p. is almost historically unprecedented and unconscionable. it's without limits, without any sense of legal responsibility of invading someone's private e-mail and it's partly -- we have this technology where it's easier to trace people because it's all done on e-mail now and you can look at it the two ways. there's going to be greater temptation for us to pry into every media reporter's e-mail so we've got to police ourselves. we've got to the -- it's just hog wild and i think scandal is vastly over the line. i don't say that as a reporter. i'm not a particularly open government kind of guy. but i think it's truly offensive. >> woodruff: does the finger point at the attorney general? at eric holder? >> he's recused from one of

these, the a.p. one, not from the other. it's a classic example, right? there are justice department guidelines that if they were followed carefully should have stopped this. the richest part of the president's speech was when he said we need to make sure that we protect reporters and the press from government overreach. it's like excuse me, sir, that's your government you're talking about. now, just to be slightly fair to the president, it is very difficult in a criminal investigation you do not want the white house micromanaging, you don't want them saying "this subpoena is okay and that subpoena is not okay." but you do want them making year the general tenor of their relations with the media should be and i do fault both him and his attorney general for allowing this. >> >> when anybody in the media reports on a story that's somewhat based on leaks, it's public. if that's going to be a crime, publicly reporting on leaks then

-- we just can't function. >> final question i want to ask both of you about oklahoma. terrible traj think week with the deaths in moore and we just saw that story about other parts of the state. they just get devastated every spring by these tornados but discussion this week, david and ruth about number one whether communities have a responsibility to make sure there are shelters in public buildings and also whether in federal aid there should have to be an offset of any money that's spent on disaster aid. >> we can't predict what disasters there are going to be but we can predict that there are going to be disasters and one of the things that we need do is instead of needing to have emergency spending and -- there are -- senator coburn is right there. 's emergency spending that becomes a way to slip in all sorts of extraneous things and i say that with due sympathy for the folks of hurricane sandy,

tornados. but we need to have a sort of better functioning general fund that anticipates disaster spending and budgets for it. >> and it's crazy to worry about of discretionary spending when the entitlement spending is a giant wave and we perpetually spend our time worrying about little stuff and not focusing on what's causing the big debt problem and this is another example. >> woodruff: and that's another whole discussion. david brooks, ruth marcus, thank you. >> thank you. >> brown: finally tonight, the first of two takes on america's role in the world. margaret warner has our book conversation, which was recorded before president obama's national security speech yesterday. >> warner: in his new book "the defensible nation: american foreign policy in retreat" vali nasr, a former advisor to the u.s. special representative to afghanistan and pakistan blames

the white house for mishandling those countries and the broader middle east. politics and the pentagon drove too many decisions, nasr argues, while overlooking broader strategic solutions offered by his former boss, the late richard holbrooke and then secretary of state hillary clinton. vali nasr joins me now. welcome. why did you feel the need to write this book? >> i think it's important for us to have a good gauge of our foreign policy making, particularly with regard to afghanistan, which is very important foreign policy issue at the beginning of the obama administration and because i think the way we handled it has an impact on our standing in the region and our standing globally and i think we in many ways did not handle that war and the end of that war in a way they that protects our interests and i think the same set of approaches and attitudes towards foreign policy making is now governing our approach to syria, to the

arab spring and also potentially more broadly in terms of the style of foreign policy that's very tactical, it's timid and cautious and too much driven by domestic political considerations and i think also still we are looking at our main form of engagement with the middle east through the prism of military and security issues. >> warner: you were on the inside for two years. there's a lot in the this book in the way of tidbits from meetings. did you have any qualms about writing it? >> i did. i thought very hard about this and i thought that after the election once the politics is over it's time to go back to really considering are we on the right track with foreign policy? did we make the right strategy for afghanistan? was it right to surge when we did and then immediately withdraw? and how to debate about how we are projecting a role in the

world to enemies and allies and how we are being perceived and i think the perception is that we're not keen on leading and we are retreating from many policy areas globally and i think americans ought to think about these issues before going down that path. >> warner: when you say the administration is driven by politics and the military, do you mean in terms of both surging in afghanistan? let's take afghanistan which you're deeply involved in and now also in setting this timetable for withdrawal? or isn't it -- or is it the realistic thing to do given all the financial constraints that the u.s. finds itself in? >> well, then we shouldn't have -- we should have surged in the manner that we did. that was largely a domestic political consideration because the military came out of iraq victorious and triumphant, it had saved the day in iraq. so we surged. but then he didn't like that policy and he immediately put a deadline on the surge which made

it basically dead on arrival as far as the taliban/pakistan/iran et cetera were concerned and then we began to withdraw. so in end result we didn't win in afghanistan and we didn't achieve a political settlement that we'd allow some kind of stability when we leave. >> warner: sarah chase of the carnegie endowment who worked in afghanistan and served as an advisor to some military figures she wrote a real rebuttal of your book and i'm sure you read in the "foreign policy" magazine. and she agrees with you that the pentagon had too much to say about the policy but she actually faults your shop and the state department she says "neither holbrooke nor clinton produced a serious analysis of issues like the corruption of the afghan government or the pakistan military's coziness with the taliban. nor developed coherent approaches for addressing them." >> that's actually not a valid criticism. that's an operational issue at

the lower level. the most important thing that the state department tried to do was to convince the white house that instead of just either choosing between the surge-- all in-- or just withdrawing everything and relying on drones-- which is all out-- there had to be a medium approach to ending the war which is focus on diplomacy give the primacy to a diplomatic solution that would engage the neighbors and also the afghan government and the taliban. put enough troops on the ground that would back up this plan. at the highest level the solution that the state department was looking for was never mart of the option the president considered for afghanistan. >> warner: but there were these arguments within your meetings which you make clear. isn't this what -- because the pentagon was pushing back against engaging the taliban while the taliban was in it militarily. isn't this the sort of disagreements that are supposed to take place among different

players in the administration and voiced vigorously inside? >> but it wasn't. the president considered two options: one was a fully resourced counterinsurgency and military solution to the war and one was the idea of counterterrorism plus which was advocated by the vice president which means we should just abandon this war and focus on counterterrorism. it wasn't debated the whole idea was that it could have been debated or rejected on its merits but it wasn't. >> warner: so what's done is done. what do you predict afghanistan and the region will look like two years from now? >> i think serve in a holding pattern until we leave because they factored us out. we announced we're leaving without any kind of a closure to this war. we've come out with the a narrative that we will have a security noors can take over for us. i don't think many people in the

region take that as a serious solution for afghanistan and everybody around afghanistan still has vital interest there and are likely to pursue those interests and that means the potential for breakdown of the current order ultimately, potentially civil war in afghanistan. >> warner: i look forward to continuing our conversation online. vali nasr, author of "the dispensable nation," thanks for being with us. >> brown: those extra questions and answers are indeed online as is margaret's second conversation. it's with richard haass, who served in both bush administrations. his new book is titled, "foreign policy begins at home." we'll air that on the "newshour" next week. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: president obama urged u.s. naval academy graduates to put a stop to sexual assaults, saying the crisis threatens trust in the military. and there were more funerals for the victims of the powerful tornado that tore up moore,

oklahoma, on monday. >> brown: online, how do countries respond to aging populations in need of more expensive health care? hari sreenivasan tells us more. >> sreenivasan: countries, including the u.s., need to think about how to care for an aging population and also how to pay for that care. the organization for economic cooperation and development recommends investing in healthy lifestyles to prevent costly care later in life. see more of their report on our health page. and economics correspondent paul solman answers a reader's question regarding african- american unemployment. he gives the chilling statistics. that's on making sense. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the afghanistan conflict. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are 11 more.

>> woodruff: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on monday, memorial day, we'll look at a group that flies veterans to washington so they can visit monuments that honor their service. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you onlineand again here monday evening. have a nice holiday weekend. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf.

and everyday since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely. b.p. is also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger. ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> 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

enkosh, proctor and gamble puts his chief execute officer back in the corner office. ageing infrastructure. what needs to keep our roads and