captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. a compromise was within reach tonight on a deal to extend tax cuts for high earners and unemployment benefits for those seeking work. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we look at the state of play and the debate within the democratic party about making a deal. >> ifill: then we go inside a rare televised court hearing on california's same-sex marriage ban. >> brown: margaret warner updates the new talks on iran's nuclear program, as tehran claims to have mastered another key step in processing uranium.

>> ifill: ray suarez sits down with former president jimmy carter to talk about his latest book, today's political climate, and the war in afghanistan. >> i don't think we have t capability or the will to actually prevail militarily over the taliban. that seems to me to be an almost hopeless case. ♪ the lord is here >> brown: and we listen to the sound, the style, and the spirit of a gospel music contest. >> most genres got their start in gospel music. you take some of the greatest r and b celebrities. the first thing they'll tell you is we started in a gospel choir. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: president obama spent the day on the road, and back at the white house, lobbying for a tax cut deal that may be winning republican support, but has angered members of his own party. >> ifill: as democrats and republicans neared agreement on extending tax cuts for the middle class and the wealthy, president obama today urged

compromise. he spoke in winston salem north carolina. >> we've got to make sure we're coming up with a solution even if it's not 100% of what i want or what the republicans want. now there's no reason that ordinary americans should see their taxes go up next year. >> ifill: but the president is hoping to exact something in exchange for his concession on tax cuts for the wealthy, which he wants pledge to roll back completely. with the national jobless rate nearing 10%, he wants lawmakers to extend unemployment insurance as well. in washington yesterday, senate republican leader mitch mcconnell all but claimed victory. >> i think it's pretty clear now taxes are not going up on anybody in the middle of this recession. we're discussing how long we should maintain current tax rates, and there are other issues that many people feel are important to address. >> ifill: democratic senators

spent their weekend making the case against compromise, failing at two efforts to exempt the highest earners from the reduced tax burden. >> our friends on the other side. >> ifill: chuck schumer proposed one plan that would have allowed only those earning up to a million dollars a year to qualify. >> i think this is correct substantively. i think it's high ground politically. i think in the past democrats have sort of, when we've had these kinds of cases, we've sort of thrown up our hands. we're not going to. >> ifill: seeking to a.l. lai the concerns of the party's most liberal wing vice president biden and president obama met with party leaders this weekend and again this afternoon. their message, this may be the best deal they can get. utah senator orrin hatch was among the republicans suggesting this weekend that the deal may be los to done. he appeared on cnn. >> we're willing, it seems to me, we're willing to kick this over for about two or three, like a permanent but we can't. we don't have the votes. kick it over. let's take care of the

unemployment compensation even if it isn't, you know, even if it isn't backed up by real finances. we've got to do it. so let's do it. but that ought to be it. >> ifill: federal reserve chairman ben bernanke appearing on "60 minutes" warned any year-end budget action should not upset the fragile economy. >> we need to pay close attention to the fact that we are recovering now. we don't want to take actions this year that will affect this year's spending and this year's taxes in a way that will hurt the recovery. that's important. >> ifill: the timing on any tax cut agreement and vote remains up in the air. the outline of the deal democratic lawmakers are being asked to consider tonight also includes a temporary 2% payroll tax cut; an expansion in the amount of expenses businesses can write off; and a compromise on the estate tax. but as the search for bipartisan agreement takes a back seat to the fight for intraparty agreement, some democrats are asking, what price compromise?

it's turning into a bitter divide within the democratic party. here to discuss it are jane hamsher, founder and publisher of the liberal blog firedoglake.com. and jim kessler, vice president for policy at third way, a centrist democratic think tank. i always have a trouble saying the name of that website. in democrats like you say this deal is a cave-in. others say this is the best you can get. why? >> well, of particular concern to me-- although all the details haven't come out tonight-- are the 2% payroll tax cuts that is essentially being proposed. that's been a republican idea they've been pushing for a long time in order to starve the beast of the social security trust fund. it means that money willate not be coming in to the trust fund but benefits will still be paid out. up until now the trust fund has been solvent. it's been able to pay out its own benefits. but in this plan they're basically trying to reduce the solvency of the trust fund because they couldn't get a benefit cut to the commission. they're just not going to stop until they try. >> ifill: you think the president and his... the

people who support him on this are caving in to republican ideals not democratic ones? >> you know, the whole idea for the deficit commission was the cat food commission. >> ifill: i wonder what you mean by that. >> he's the one who issued the executive order. they considered one of their fundamental challenges to be able to fix social security. but as nancy altman who is one of the president's advisors on social security says it is ridiculous that this idea is coming from the democrats. anybody who gets social security or ever hopes to get social security should be very concerned that the republicans are finally getting a foothold into it like this. >> ifill: why shouldn't liberals be upset that the president is giving away too much of the store? >> look, i come from a centrist organization. i don't love the plan either. i mean, i think it's, you know, the tax cuts for those over $250,000 i think it's dubious economic value. at a time we can't really afford it. it will have to be paid back by future generations. >> ifill: do you hr a "but"

coming? >> to chinese holders of our debt. yeah. look, there's a new reality out there that i don't love but it's the reality. that is, you know, they're going to have to find bipartisan compromises to these things. i don't know if this was the best plan the president could get or the best plan that democrats could get but this is, you know, after the election there's a whole new ballgame going on right now. and as much as we don't love this plan, my guess is the american people are probably going to like it. they want to see the two parties work together even if it is something that neither of them really like. i just want to add one other thing. president and republicans and democrats agreed on 85% of the tax cut plans going in on this. the whole debate has been about the other 15%, an important 15% but that's what that debate has been on. >> ifill: if there's only 15% that you disagree on, why not embrace the plan and say the white house is saying we're get dlg 40 billion in tax cuts. we're getting a huge temporary investment incentive. why not just embrace that and

go? >> because you always want to do better than what you can get. i just think that this extra $700 billion in tax breaks for people who are very wealthy, i just don't think it has a real value for our economy right now. i disagree with republicans who say that it does. we can't afford i. we have a huge deficit. but this is the best that we can get. this is what's going to pass. >> ifill: what would you like to see the white house do other than the best it can get, beyond i guess is the word i'm looking for? >> i think this is what the president wanted. i think it's pretty indisputable that this is what he has seriously tried to hope for, tried to work for. >> ifill: this was not the compromise. this was the goal? >> i don't think this was a compromise. i think for america his organization never went out on the tax cuts. chuck schumer was trying to get a compromise through at a million dollars rather than $250,000. the president fought against that. he doesn't want to be the president who is running against having raised taxes in 2012. but the problem is that that's what he tells america that he wants.

you've got this problem, this dissonance between what he's saying and what he appears to want. people are very confused and very frustrated. i would like him to be honest and make tarring ument with the american people why he thinks this is a good idea. >> ifill: is this bad feeling left over from other debates which liberals lost with the white house like the public option debate with the health care. >> this is different. i didn't think people would get upset about this but they are and particularly here in d.c., you had many of the president's strongest supporters were federal employees who were willing to take a freeze on their wages for the good of the country. >> ifill: which the president did call for. >> now they're seeing that wage increase go to pay for millionaires for people who make more than a million dollars a year. it's going out the door for that. we're seeing the destruction of the social trust fund. i mean these are the things that really really bother people. they're willing to make sacrifice but not for millionaires. >> i don't think this is a destruction of the social security trust fund at all. i think it's a completely different debate. look, here's the problem the

democrats have. going into this debate, i counted six different tax cut compromise proposals that democrats proposed that all were being debated. republicans had one. if you go into a position where you've got one negotiating position and the other side has six, that one is going to win. now you could argue the president should have gathered everybody together and unified democrats around one thing. i've been involved with the democratic party for 22 years. it's just not something we do very well. i do think it's similar to the public option which was you could see down the line when the public option was being debated that there was absolutely no chance the public option could get into that bill. there was never the votes. there was never going to be the votes. here there was never a real chance that just 250 and leaving the rest of the tax cuts behind was going to be the final solution. we had to figure out a place where we wanted to go. we had to have one position. >> ifill: never happened. is this the beginning of a

slippery slope involving other democratic priorities like don't ask don't tell, the dream immigration reform act, the start treaty, where you see the president or the white house or people who agree with him in congress bargaining away democratic positions? >> yes. if you look at the career-free trade agreement that was announceded on friday that was another one of the president's pulled promises on the campaign trail, that he was going to repeal the provisions of nafta and cafta that were very bad for labor and the environment and were bad for jobs in the united states. yet on friday they announced another trade deal with korea basically the one negotiated by george bush that gives the korean... that gives them everything they want in exchange for military presence basically in south korea. people are upset about these things. >> ifill: what do you say. >> the korea free trade agreement is a great deal for the united states. if you want to see watch the protests in korea how upset they are about it because they hink america got the best

deal. i think that... i don't love this tax deal at all. but i'm a bit more optimistic about what can be accomplished in this divided government congress coming up than a lot of folks are. i do think we have a decent chance with don't ask don't tell. i do think we have a decent chance on immigration reform even with the republican house. i think there will be progress made on some of the trade agreements.... >> ifill: not in the lame duck necessarily. >> not in the lame duck. i think there's a greater opportunity for compromise and progress than we think. one final thing. the president got 90% of what he wanted and so did democrats on the health care bill. that was one of the biggest accomplishments of any presidency since 1965 under medicare. let's not talk about democrats as caving. that's a big accomplishment. >> ifill: let's talk about 2012 briefly because we know that that's what people have turned to. the president has weakened himself among his base and will have a difficult time in 2012.

does this fight resonate or does it go away between now and 2012? >> it seems like it will be sticking in people's craws. this was the big issue they cared about. i will argue on the south korea free trade deal that you've got, you know, we've lost 45,000 factories since nafta passed. 5.5 million jobs. the tea party is overwhelmingly opposed to free trade deals. the reason they were rioting in korea is because they don't like the fact that the government has to accept the jurisdiction of foreign courts any more than americans do. the president campaigned to stop all of that. during this 2010 election, that was one of the number one issues that democrats won on is 210 ads that were produced against these things. >> ifill: is it going to resonate in 2012? a. >> first i just want to say we lost the jobs to china. we don't have a tray agreement with agreement. >> ifill: we'll have the trade debate another time. answer the question. >> ironically the 2012 debate will be about the bush tax

cuts, iraq and afghanistan. that's what the 2008 debate was about. >> ifill: thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> brown: still to come on the newshour, the arguments in a gay marriage case in california; negotiations over iran's nuclear program; former president carter's white house diary; and the sweet sound of gospel music. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: two suicide bombers in pakistan killed 50 people today at a meeting of anti-taliban tribesmen. more than 100 others were wounded. the attackers struck a gathering in the mohmand tribal region in the northwest, close to the border with afghanistan. local officials said the bombers dressed as tribal police and managed to get past security. it was the third attack this year on a tribal militia meeting. wikileaks took another hit today when swiss officials cut off a new bank account set up for fundraising. and the company's servers in sweden came under computer attacks. wikileaks has faced growing pressure since it released thousands of state department documents. at the same time, supporters

have set up more than 500 web sites that mirror wikileaks' content. the worst wildfire in israel's history was all but out today, but a firestorm of criticism was building. 42 people died in the blaze in the carmel forest, including the nation's top policewoman and a bus load of prison guards. a teenager smoking a water pipe was blamed for starting the fire. the israeli government drew heavy criticism after crews quickly ran out of firefighting chemicals, and had no planes at their disposal. a french court has convicted continental airlines and one of its mechanics of manslaughter in the concorde crash ten years ago. 113 people died when the air france jetliner exploded in flames during take off from a paris airport. the court traced the cause to titanium debris from an earlier continental flight. continental was ordered to pay $2.7 million in damages. the airliner and the mechanic said they'll appeal. wall street mostly marked time today, waiting to see what comes out of congress on tax cuts. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 20 points to close at 11,362.

the nasdaq rose three points to close near 2595. pro football great don meredith died sunday, in santa fe, new mexico, after a brain hemorrhage. in the 1960's, meredith quarterbacked the dallas cowboys to n.f.l. title games against green bay. later, he helped start "monday night football" with keith jackson and howard cosell, and won wide popularity. don meredith was 72 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: and we turn to the latest twist in the debate over gay marriage in california. in 2008, voters passed a ballot measure, called proposition 8, banning gay marriage, but in august of this year, a federal district judge struck down the measure, ruling that it was unconstitutional to treat same- sex couples differently. that ruling was then challenged, and today a federal appeals panel of three judges heard arguments in a session that was, most unusually, broadcast live.

the first issue today: do opponents of same sex marriage have authority or standing to appeal the august ruling? governor arnold schwarzenegger and other state officials had declined to bring an appeal. charles cooper, the attorney for protect marriage, the group behind proposition 8, cited past cases that allow outside groups to bring a case. >> the california supreme court allowed these proponents to intervene in the strauss case and to defend the constitutionality under the state's constitution, just like forsythe. to defend the constitutionality of proposition 8. when no one else would do so. all of the state defendants refused to defend that statute. >> brown: the panel appeared dubious about whether the banned supporters were qualified to appeal but also seemed worried about allowing the governor and attorney general to effectively kill

prop 8 by refusing to defend it. >> if the state doesn't defend it, it's just tossing in the towel. the governor is not allowed to veto this measure, but he can in effect veto it. >> brown: arguing on behalf of same-sex marriage proponents, attorney david bois said the supreme court has repeatedly held that only injured parties have authority to seek appeal. >> your honor, i would suggest that because it is so clear that in order to have an ability to invoke the jurisdiction of this court, the appellants here must have a personal, concrete particularized injury and they don't. >> brown: the second portion of the hearing went to the constitutional issue, whether the voter-approved ban violated the federal civil rights of california's gays and lesbians. the case for same-sex marriage was made by former solicitor

general ted olson, david bois's one-time adversary when they argued bush v gore in the 2000 election. >> it is important to focus on the fundamental fact that california has engraved discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation into its fundamental governing charter. >> brown: he argued that prop 8 was aimed at the essence of what he called traditional marriage. >> the key reason that marriage has existed at all in any society and at any time is its sexual relationships between men and women naturally produce children. when a relationship between a man and a woman becomes a sexual one, society immediately has a vital interest in that for two reasons: one, society needs the creation of new life for the next generation, but

secondly, society... its vital interests are actually threatened by the possibility that an unintentional and unwanted pregnancy will mean that the child is born out of wedlock and is raised by in all likelihood its mother alone. that directly implicates society's vital interest. >> brown: but judge steven reinhart, a liberal appointed by president carter, questioned that reasoning. >> that sounds like a good argument for prohibiting divorce... (laughing) ... but how does it relate to having two males or two females marry each other and raise children as they can in california. >> brown: wilson told the judges that the very notion of protecting children from gay marriages was discriminatory. >> protect our children from

thinking that gay marriage is okay. what is the matter with that? it must be something about gay people that are getting married that would be disturbing to california voters. you have to take that risk away from them. >> brown: judge randy smith who was appointed by president george w. bush, asked how prop 8 protected the idea of marriage if gay couples already had many of the other protections in civil unions in california. >> if in fact the homosexual couples have all of the rights that the heterosexual couples have, we're left with a word: marriage. what is the rational basis for that? >> your honor, you are left with a word but a word that is essentially the institution. if you redefine the institution, if you redefine

the word, you change the institution. >> the court will stand adjourned. >> brown: the panel is expected to rule on the case soon. that decision will then likely be appealed to the full ninth circuit and is eventually expected to make its way to the supreme court. >> ifill: now to iran, which resumed international talks today over its nuclear ambitions. but it came on the heels of a combative announcement. margaret warner has the story. >> the vice president has received a report concerning the purchase of material to build nuclear weapons. >> warner: the material was lightly processed uranium ore as the new movie fair game depicts in 2002 the bush administration sent former ambassador joe wilson played by sean pen to africa to find out if iraq had purchased the substance to build a nuclear weapon. it turned out iraq had no

yellow cake and no nukes. but the term surfaced again yesterday in iran. the head of the country's atomic energy organization said iran has now produced its own yellow cake from domestically mined uranium. >> this means that iran has become self-sufficient in the entire fuel cycle starting from the exploration and then mining and then turning it into yellow cake and then into converting it into uf-6 and then enriching it and turning it into fuel plates or fuel pellets. >> warner: iran says the yellow cake came from the uranium mine ithe uth, was sent to a conversion facility for processing, and will go to the enrichment plant. there thousands of centrifuges could turn the ore into weapons-grade material. obama national security council spokesman noting that u.n. sanctions now ban iran

from importing the material said the announcement calls into further question iran's intentions.

observing and listening to what they're saying over there has been the impact of the wikileaks documents that have been released on their mind set going into this? >> you know, my suspicion is that it's a kind of binary impact. on the one hand it's got to play to mr. paranoia and increase their concerns about the level of hostility that they face in the region and about the success that the u.s. has had in sort of pulling together a regional and an international coalition to oppose iran to deal with some of the concerns posed by iran. but i suspect on another level the iranians were also feeling somewhat inflated by having access to all this information. this is the kind of dream come true for the folks who spent years piecing together shredded documents from the embassy back in 1979. they have access to all the calculations, all the discussions, the deliberations of u.s. policy makers and of other states. that's something that they can use against some of their neighbors. so i imagine that it's play to go some of that arrogance that we've seen. >> warner: for them to hear, for instance, how emphatically

a lot of the arab states have been urging the u.s. to strike sites inside iran, do you think that makes them feel a bit exposed? vulnerable? or defiant? >> defiant in part because the arabs say something very different when they come to tehran. if you had a wikileaks dump of the tehran cables it would read very differently. they recognize that the arabs say one thing to washington and say something different to them. if they can play on the constraints that the arab states have in making that kind of a position public in order to assert themselves. i think in fact probably the larger factor at this stage is the killing of the nuclear scientist last week. that played very significantly in the statement that they made today at the talks and appears to have put them in a more combative mood that they were in even before this. >> so what do you think is the best we could hope for, one could hope for to come out of these two days of talks? >> i think the administration has tried to keep expectations

low. what they're looking to gain from this is a process. any kind of a mechanism for continuing dialogue on the nuclear program and ideally something that builds towards some confidence building measures including some revised version of the fuel slots that would remove most of tehran's l.e.u., from the country. >> warner: loewen riched uranium. but the idea that the u.s. and its partners have always tried to insist on which is to do any deal you have to friesen riching uranium. is that still in the cards at all possible? >> well that's hanging in the back drop i think to all the calculations of both sides. whether or not the u.s. is prepared to concede anything on the demand expressed for u.n. security council resolutions that iran suspend uranium enrichment, iranians have said they will never do so. they have almost 5,000 centrifuges running at this stage. it's an uncertainty. at this stage the u.s. has leaned forward but it has stuck to that demand. i think the political pressure

here in washington will ensure that they continue to do so. >> warner: all right. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> brown: next, a personal account of a presidency. in his four years in office, jimmy carter kept a daily diary of his life in the white house. when he left, he'd compiled more than 20 volumes, some 5,000 pages. he's edited those down for his newest book, "white house diary." last week ray suarez talked to president carter at a forum sponsored by the smithsonian resident associates program in washington. here are excerpts. >> the existence of the book at all is kind of interesting to me. i want to know how your contemporaneous musings at the end of the day instead of being locked away until future historians could get at it came out during your lifetime. >> well, three or four years ago i started reading over

some of the diary notes for other purposes. i realized that so many of the things that i had to deal with that were very serious on the desk in the oval office now for president obama to address: the middle east continues, energy, human rights, environment, the koreas, china, afghanistan, iraq and so forth. i would say the main difference between 25 years ago and now is the polarization of the parties. i had tremendous support from republicans in the house and senate. one of my closest working allys in the senate was howard baker who was the minority leader of the republicans. in the house it was bob michel who was a minority leader of the... in the house. so they cooperated with me thoroughly. that's completely absent now where the republicans have been in my opinion completely responsible for the first 18 or so months of the obama

administration and quite often he can't get a single vote in the house or senate for a major goal. i had good support. that's changed. >> suarez: dominating these pages are the road to camp david. >> yes. >> suarez: some evenings when you're jotting these notes down, you're pretty steamed. >> i know. when i became president within a week i was already working on a comprehensive piece in the middle east because for the last 30 years i would say the number one foreign policy prayer that i've had and commitment that i've had is to bring peace to israel. and israel's neighbors. there had been four wars in the previous 25 years against israel, all led by egypt, the only arab country with enough help to really challenge israel. i wanted to bring peace between israel and egypt. that was my preeminent goal. the secondary goal which i as

and sadat worked on was to bring justice to the palestinians. those were the two issues that were faced at camp dade. we left camp david believing we had completely resolved both issues. the treaty was signed now 31-and-a-half years ago and not a single word has ever been violated in those yrs between israel and egypt. unfortunately though the commit manys made concerning palestinian territory has not been carried out. that's still the major issue. i think one of the most difficult and challenging issues that the world faces today. >> suarez: one of the more striking entries comes on november 4, 1979. "i spent hours on the phone talking to political leaders around the nation, but early in the morning was quite disturbed to learn that iranian students with the subsequent encouragement of khomeini has taken over our embassy and captured 50 or 60

of our people without the protection provided by the host government it's almost impossible to do anything if one's people are taken." on november 4, you then go on to other business. of the day. >> sure. had to. >> suarez: these eight lines ended up casting a shadow that would last the rest of your presidency. >> of course it lasted, as most people still remember, 444 days. the last three days i was president i never went to sleep. i never went to bed. i spent all that time negotiating the release of the hostages. at 10:00 on inauguration morning all the hostages were in an airplane ready to take off and khomeini held them until 5 minutes after i was no longer president. then they took off. that was one of the happiest moments of my life. every hostage came home safely. >> suarez: as 1979 became 1980 this began to eat heavily into the political year of 1980, the year for which you had been planning to run for re-election, fighting off

primary opponents from your own party. >> one, yes. (aud yen laughing). >> suarez: well two for a while. and was there a point where you realized they're still there and now this is really starting to be a problem for this enterprise? i want to stay president. >> that was the burning issue in the american people's mind is these hostages are still there. president carter has been unable to get them free. that was "the" major issue. the secondajor issue was one you almost mentioned before. that is for the last two years of my term, senator kennedy was running against me. very effectively. and then the other thing was that iraq invaded iran. so all the oil supplies from iran and iraq were lost. so the price of oil more than doubled in just 12 months. those three things combined to

cause my defeat. but i've had a good life since then. (audience laughing) ( applause ) >> suarez: one issue that you had to tackle was energy consumption. >> yes. >> suarez: not always in ways that made everybody happy. you didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. you told them what you wanted to tell them. >> i made my best speech i think of all was when i went to camp david and wrote a speech and told the americans that we were overconsuming, we had too much of an emphasis on material wealth and benefits and not enough on the highest ideals of the... things like peace and so forth. it was the most popular speech i ever made for a couple days. then my political opponents began to refer to it as a mall ace speech primarily senator kennedy and ronald reagan. eventually it became an

unpopular speech but it had truths in it because america now has... is addicted to overconsumption of not only fossil fuels but also an aversion to efficiency. >> suarez: you were president when the soviet union invaded afghanistan. >> christmas day, '79. >> suarez: now we're there. >> yes. >> suarez: and have just moved the date for beginning to withdraw from 2011 to 2014. what do you make of our prospects there and is this bound to be a place where great powers come... because they underestimate how hard it is to get anything done there. >> anybody that ever invaded afghanistan has come out the loser. i have serious doubts that we'll prevail in afghanistan, that is, to meet the present goals we've set for ourselves.

my belief is that we'll constantly reduce our expectations or our goals lower and lower and lower until we can finally get out without serious embarrassment. but i don't think we have the capability or the will to actually prevail militarily over the taliban. that seems to me to be an almost hopeless case. my hope and my prayer is that we will prevail. if we can establish a permanent police force and that sort of thing that can keep order and protect the corrupt government that exists in kabul, but i have my doubts about this. >> suarez: do you look at this guy who emerges from these pages and say, yeah, i still know that guy. i still am that guy. >> well that's a difficult estion. >> i saved it for last. >> i understand.

(audience laughing) i don't think i've changed in any material way except i've learned a lot since i left the white house. the thing that i have learned mostly is the growing chasm between rich people and poor people. the richer people in america are getting richer and richer. the poor people in america are getting poorer and poorer. that is the case in almost every country on earth. it's also the issue between rich countries and poor countries. the rich countries are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. as we grow further and further apart economically we grow further and further apart in understanding each other and having mutual respect. i think that's a challenge that we still haven't faced adequately in this country or around the world. so that is what i've learned, one of the things, did major things i've learned since i left the white house. >> suarez: the book is "white house diary." please thank the 39th president of the united states, jimmy carter. ( applause ) >> ifill: that conversation

took place last week in >> ifill: that conversation took place last week in front of live audience at the lincoln theater in washington, d.c. >> brown: finally tonight, the sound and the spirit of gospel in an unlikely arena. it was a mix of spiritual and spectacle. ♪ church revival and american idol style competitions. >> y'all did a phenomenal job. >> brown: 14 flyers from churches around the nation recently competed in the "how sweet the sound finale" a celebration of gospel music started by verizon and held in the verizon center in washington d.c., a venue usually hosting major sports and pop music events but on this night filled with close to 11,000 gospel fans. ♪ outside the main hall, a youth choir displayed its talents as

people arrived. and concert goers, young and old, took part in some gospel karaoke. ♪ on stage a wide array of modern gospel styles from the traditionally gowned new sunny mount missionary baptist church in st. louis to the highly choreographed burning bush international ministries mass choir from detroit. ♪ he is mine and i am his all of it according to gospel recording star marvin sapp, aimed at one thing. >> the good news of jesus christ. it's a message that encourages and uplifts people and gives them strength to be able to move forward past life's circumstances. it's a positive message. in a difficult time. >> brown: but on this night sapp was serving as a judge so if the message was the same for each choir, how would he

choose who is delivering it best? >> you're looking for tone. you're looking for, you know, individuals to make sure that they're succinct because they're a choir. you can't have one person standing out. it's not a solo act. you want to make sure that their tone quality is great and they're succinct, if they're doing choreography you want it to be tight. >> brown: gospel music has its roots in the slave era of the south. its modern era dates to the 1930s in chicago and detroit with figures such as thomas dorsey known as the father of gospel. later mahaliel jackson who sold millions of records and achieved international fame. today gospel is a multi-billion dollar business. with stars such as yolanda adams and kirk franklin who maintains the religious words and themes even as he incorporates contemporary styles like hip hop into his music.

♪ another of today's leading lights, cece winans who serves as a host of the how sweet the sound competition says that many pop stars got their starts just as she did in the church choir. >> most genres got their start in really their beginning from gospel music. so you hear the gospel roots and the flavors, you pick some of the greatest r and b celebrities and the first thing they'll tell you is we started in a gospel choir. you even go to some of the rock stars, well, you know i love gospel music. so a lot of that flavor comes from gospel music. we have gospel artists in hip hop. we have gospel artists in, you know, you name it. ♪ >> brown: how sweet the sound though was not about stars but amateurs who come together at night after work to rehearse and then sing at sunday services. one such group was the greater mount calvary men of valor of

washington d.c., who we visited several days before the competition as they worked to polish the hymn "available to you." >> that's what you have to bring at the very beginning, okay? rehearse singing, not congregational. >> brown: elder cornelius young a classically trained chorale leader and a minister of music at church put this group together just a year ago. >> my job, my responsibility is first of all to teach the dynamics and to teach the technical side. that's one part of my responsibility. the other part of it is to make sure that you understand the words that you're singing because when all the chips fall, when you actually are up and ministering the gospel, sometimes you don't remember all of the technique but you're connected to the song in a way that if you're emotionally connected to it, the sound is going to just come out automatically. ♪ lord, i'm available to you ♪

>> brown: the men of valor choir, in fact was the only all male group in the competition. more than 50 strong with a wide range of experience and age. 19-year-old leon jones, a freshman at american university, is the youngest. >> being a great singer, being even in a church congregation it's discipline. the bible says, you know, our spirit can be controlled by us. you know, church, being in the gospel choir, anything, discipline is a must. >> brown: the oldest in the choir at 90 is this man who grew up in barbados. >> i was brought up very poor. my mother had to... my father... my mother... i was taught to look to the lord for my rewards. >> brown: on the night of the competition, the men helped

each other secure their bow ties and button up their confidence. they then joined the other choirs waiting to perform in what came to a spontaneous moment of praise. for marvin sapp, the men of valor are a role model. >> more people need to see that in the urban communities so they can see, even though we as african-american males we get a bad rap. the only time they really see us on television or in the newspaper is when there's something negative. my hope and prayer is that the news or whoever it is can come and see the positive male models that are going to be sharing tonight. >> brown: in the end, the men of valor won the hearts of the hometown audience and won the people's choice award in a... and a check for $5,000. >> the lord! ♪ the lord is here >> brown: the award for best church choir in america and the grand prize of $25,000 went to the voices of destiny

choir and the greater zion church family in compton, california. >> you put time into your music depp because your music department and every church music department is very important because it breaks up the ground for the word. >> brown: the evening closed with all the choirs. and this night's congregation raising their voices together. >> let me hear you. ♪ live on top of the world >> one more time ♪ let's get back to eden and live on top of the world ♪ >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. >> ifill: president obama announced the outline of the compromise of republicans that extends existing tax cuts for two years. it also extends jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed for another 13 months. the president spoke from the eyesen hour executive office billing next to the white

house a short time ago. >> without a willingness to give on both sides, there's no reason to believe that this stalemate won't continue well into next year. this would be a chilling prospect for the american people. whose taxes are currently scheduled to go up on january 1 because of arrangements that were made back in 2001 and 2003 under the bsh tax cuts. i am not willing to let that happen. i know there's some people in my own party and in the other party who would rather prolong this battle, even if we can't reach a compromise. but i'm not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in washington. i'm not willing to let our economy slip backwards just as we're pulling ourselves out of this devastating recession. i'm not willing to see two million americans who stand to lose their unemployment insurance at the end of this

month be put in a situation where they might lose their home or their car or suffer some additional economic catastrophe. so sympathetic as i am to those who prefer a fight over compromise, as much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do. >> ifill: the plan also includes a 2% cut in social security taxes on workers. the president met earlier in the afternoon with democrats tryg to overcome resistance to the proposal. and to hari sreenivasan in our news room for what's on the newshour online. >> sreenivasan: the gospel music story continues on art beat, where you can watch performances by the men of valor and the winning choir, voices of destiny. there's more from ray's interview with former president carter. on this week's political checklist, political editor david chalian talks to gwen about the tax cut debate. plus, the newshour is taking part in a special town hall tomorrow on education and

innovation. gwen and i will moderate the event, which will include an interview with education secretary arne duncan. you can watch it live on the rundown starting at 8:45 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll talk to ray suarez about his next assignment: reporting on global health issues in cuba. i'm gwen ifill. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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