captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: a federal appeals court declared today that california's voter-approved ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, spencer michels has the latest on the ruling, and we get two views on what comes next, as the issue likely heads to the u.s. supreme court. >> woodruff: then we have a newsmaker interview with president obama's top political adviser, david axelrod, on a day when republicans are voting in three states.

>> ifill: ray suarez updates the turmoil in syria, as the assault continues in the town of homs, and russia's foreign minister meets with president assad. >> woodruff: we have two takes on europe's debt crisis: a report from athens on greece's troubles, plus margaret warner talks to italy's prime minister, mario monti. >> the euro-zone cris has indeed brought about the reemergence of old phantoms about prejudices and a lot of mutual resentment. >> ifill: and we close with jeffrey brown's conversation with photographer annie leibovitz, whose latest exhibit offers portraits, without the people. >> it's a journey. i certainly didn't realize it until i looked at >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. 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: a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled 2-1 today against banning same-sex marriage in california. the decision upheld a lower court that found the ban, known as proposition 8, violates the constitution's "equal protection" clause. newshour correspondent spencer michels begins our coverage from san francisco. >> reporter: it was another victory for supporters of same- sex marriage in california. and they celebrated outside the federal courthouse in san francisco. opponents of popp 8 said the

appeals court decision was important. >> absolutely. this is one more step to equal rights. hopefully federally it will be recognized. >> we're really excited and emotionally moved obviously. hopefully that will put the nail in there. >> reporter: on the other hand, backers of proposition-8 insisted the fight is not over. in a statement, the national organization for marriage called the decision predictable as well as sweeping and wrong-headed. but it also said we have every confidence we will prevail. nearly everyone agrees that the prop-8 case will eventually end up before the united states supreme court on appeal. but before that happens the losers in this case, those supporting proposition-8, could ask for a hearing before a ten-judge panel, a so-called en bank hearing. the battle goes back to november 2008 when california voters passed it with 52% of the vote.

the ballot measure banned same- sex marriage, just five months after the state supreme court hadlloed it der then- existing law. but in august of 2010, federal judge vaughan walker struck down the ban. he ruled that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry. later the judge announced he is gay and in a long-term relationship. lawyers supporting prop-8 argued he should have disclosed his relationship or recuseed himself. the appeals court said today there was no evidence that walker was biased in his handling of the case. in the meantime, other states are tackling the gay marriage issue this election year. those with pending legislation or ballot measures in 2012 include washington state, minnesota, north carolina, maryland, new jersey, new hampshire and maine. they and others will be watching to see the ultimate outcome from in the california legal battle.

>> ifill: today's ruling is limited to california, but, in a 128-page opinion, the federal panel emphasized the broader constitutional principle. judge stephen reinhardt, writing for the majority, concluded: "proposition 8 serves no pupose, and has no eect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in california." we get two views of the decision and its fallout. david boies is one of the attorneys for the american foundation for equal rights, which supports same sex marriage. and john eastman is chairman of the board of the national organization for marriage, which argues same sex marriage is not protected under the constitution. i want to start by asking both of you gentlemen something else from the court's decision today and ask you to respond. the court also said that california used initiati power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed without a legitimate reason for doing so. pretty tough language, david boies. >> it was very tough language. this is a great day for america. a great day for california in particular. but a great day for america

and everybody who believes in eck call rights. what the ninth circuit said was, the court of appeals said, is we're not going to tolerate any longer governmental discrimination against our gay and lesbian citizens. they said it in very emphatic terms. although the decision is, as you say, technically limited to california, the principles that it articulates mean that eventually we're going to have marriage equality throughout the united states. and people need to get into the 20th century if not the 21st century and recognize that that kind of discrimination is over with. >> ifill: john eastman, what's your reaction to the strong language? >> judge reinhart has staked an awful lot on this opinion in trying to compare this to colorado's amendment 2 and saying that this initiative did absolutely nothing except remove a longstanding right for gays and lesbians to marry. of course it was not longstanding. the california supreme court had made that up just several months earlier and proposition

8 is not so limited. it applies to one man and one woman. that means plural marriages are also illegal under proposition 8 in california. so the notion that the only purpose of this was and i muss towards gay and lesbians is patently false on the face of proposition 8 itself. the basic note here is the people of the state have any right to continue to defend marriage as it has always been understood tied to the lie owe logical complementary of the sexes with a purpose of proceed creation and the rearing of children that are the off spring of that relationship. to say that there is no legitimate purpose and that it's completely unreasonable to adhere to something that has been around in every society and certainly in our country since the beginning i think is a great stretch. judge ryan hart has staked the entire decision on that claim which is patently false. >> ifill: let me ask mr. boies about the narrow scope of that hearing. you were hoping for a larger scope than something that affects only california.

>we think the reasoning of the court does. let me just respond to the suggestion that somehow proposition 8 was not involving just gay and lesbian marriage but somehow against plural marriage. no one has ever sugges that. to begin to try to defend proposition 8 on the grounds that it's really directed at polygamy at this stage of the debate just shows desperation. that's not what the proposition was about. it was clearly targeted at gay and lesbian marriage. that's what all the advertisements were about. that's what all the publications were about. and that's what the court held was simply unconstitutional. and they held it because the evidence was absolutely uncontradicted that this did not help proceed creation. it didn't help different-sex marriage. there was no justification for this. as the court said, in order to believe that this served a rational purpose of procreation you would have to

believe that people are going to procreate more if you don't have gay marriage. and they said that's simply not plausible. there's no evidence of that and no one suggested that. >> ifill: what about this rational basis test which the court applied in this case in which they said a version of what mr. boies just said which is that there was no rational basis to impinge on someone's 14th amendment right. >> the rational basis is the lowest standard of review we have in constitutional law. the basically it means if there's any legitimate purpose furthered by the classification that supports in some interest of government, the enactment of the legislature or in th case an initiative of the people has to be upld. and the notion that... we recognize, for example, that men and women procreate in a way that two men do not and two women do not. to create an institution that fosters that purpose and to give it the been anys of society because there's some benefit to society from fostering that purpose clearly passes the rational basis test.

it just belies reality and biology to suggest otherwise. >> ifill: are you, mr. eastman, going to take this to the supreme court? >> well i'm not representing the proponents of the initiative, but i think one of the things that all of the judges here agreed with that is the proceed proceed nents do have the right to appeal to the supreme court. i think they will. david and i would agree that it's a close call up at the supreme court. most people think it's a 5-4 decision one way or the other with justice kennedy likely the swing vote. and i think we all expect we're going to end there sooner or later. >> ifill: do you agree on that, mr. boies? >> i think we're going to do better than 5-4 on the supreme court. i think that this is an issue that under the roamer decision particularly given the careful way and the limited way that the court crafted this opinion that it is four square under roemer. i don't think the supreme court is going to go backward on this issue. i think it's going to go forward. i'm not giving up on any justice on this issue. i think it's definitely going

to be better than a 5-4 in our favor. >> ifill: to both of you, do we think that this decision today now means starting with you, mr. eastman, that there is going to be weddings that are about to happen that the state has now lifted and couples can marry? >> i haven't gotten to the last few pages of the 90-page majority opinion yet but i think that their stay remains in effect until the supreme court has a chance to decide whether they're going to take this case. in which case we won't have any change in the landscape in california in the short term. i would like to ask david if he would like to wager a dinner next time we're together on the panel if the vote is 5-4 my direction or even only 5-4 his direction. >> ifill: he can answer that right after he answers my question. >> i will wager you that dinner. >> ifill: we settled that. what do you think about the stay? are people going to be able to get married before this thing works itself out voo what the court did was continue the stay until its mandate issue. now that mandate is going to

issue at some point. if it's delayed because the proceed prone ents of the proposition seek to have, for example, a rehearing, we will go in and move to have that stay terminated. you now have a thoughtful and comprehensive district court opinion holding proposition 8 as unconstitutional and a ninth circuit court of appeals decision holding it unconstitutional. it is time to allow people to get married in california. >> ifill: would that create any chaos at all? if the court were to reverse itself again? >> well, remember, you had people getting married before proposition 8 took place. that didn't create any chaos. there's no reason that people ought to be deprived of their constitutional rights now that those rights have been affirmed by the court of appeals. it's not going to create any chaos.

>> the reas wou be the right of the people to decide for themselves a very fundamental policy question about whether we're going to continue to have an institution of marriage that is rooted in biology with a purpose of procreation as it always has been or whether we're going to allow the courts to mandate a dramatic alteration of that institution with potentially devastating consequences to society. it's the right of the voters of the people of the state of california to have their judgment about the basic policy question at issue here affirmed. if the supreme court takes this up, i believe the preme court would issue stay until they have an opportunity to rule on that. >> ifill: thank you both very much. >> thank you, gwen. >> thank you. >> woodruff: president obama's >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour, president obama's reelection campaign; more bloodshed in syria; italian prime minister mario monti; and photographer annie leibowitz. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: iran today dismissed new american sanctions

against the country's central bank. a spokesman for the iranian foreign ministry charged the move amounted to "psychological war." and he insisted the sanctions will not make iran give up its nuclear program. >> the actual results of these measures will be a stronger and more serious determination from our nation to achieve its great objectives within the framework of the national interest and the nation's rights. >> sreenivasan: also today, the iranian parliament summoned president mahmoud ahmadinejad for questioning over a number of charges. they include allegations that he has mismanaged the country's economy. in iraq, ministers from a sunni- backed bloc ended their boycott of the cabinet and returned to work. the sunnis walked out last december, after the shiite- dominated government tried to arrest vice president tareq al- hashemi, the country's top sunni official. the sunnis were under growing pressure to end the boycott, as the government struggles to cope with new violence. the chairman of the federal reserve urged congress today to find agreement on extending tax cuts.

a social security payroll tax cut is set to expire this month, and the bush-era tax cuts run out at year's end. at a senate hearing, ben bernanke said letting taxes rise would hurt growth. >> there will be a very sharp change in the fiscal stance of the federal government which by itself would... with no compensating action would indeed slow the recovery. >> sreenivasan: on wall street today, stocks rebounded late, to make up earlier losses. the dow jones industrial average gained 33 points to close at 12,878. the nasdaq rose two points to close at 2904. a vice president at the susan g. komen breast cancer charity resigned today. karen handel actively supported a move to halt grants for planned parenthood because congress was investigating the group's funding of abortions. komen later rescinded the cutoff under heavy criticism. handel defended the original policy today. she said it was not influenced by her own anti-abortion views and criticism of planned

parenthood. the last known veteran of world war i has died in england, nearly a century after the war ended. florence green joined the women's royal air force in september of 1918, when she was just 17. the service trained women as mechanics, drivers, and for other jobs. green served as a waitress in an officers' mess. florence green would have turned 111 years old later this month. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: and to the race for the white house, shaping up to be an expensive general election battle. president obama's re-election campaign reversed its stance against super pacs late yesterday, encouraging contributors to donate money to a group priorities usa action run by former administration staffers. with so much at stake, we can't allow for two ss of rules in this election whereby the republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited

spending and democrats unilaterally disarm, wrote obama campaign manager jim massena in a blog post. >> it's time to put strict limits. >> woodruff: in his 2010 state of the union address president obama had criticized the supreme court ruling wiping away limits on corporate and labor union giving. the shift by the obama team comes as super pacs backing republican candidates and causes have seized an early financial advantage. groups supporting republican presidential candidates had raised more than 34 million dollars combined by the end of last year. another conservative super pac, american cross roads, has hauled in more than $18 million. by contrast, the pro obama pac has brought in less than $5 million. but the president's only campaign has received more money than all the g.o.p. contenders combined. the administration's change of

heart also comes on a day when republicans are voting in three more states. and as the leading g.o.p. candidate, mitt romney continues to lambaste president obama's record. and for more on the president's reelection bid, we turn to his senior campaign strategist, david axelrod. david, thank you very much for joining us. first on this.... >> happy to be with you. >> woodruff:... on this reversal on whether to encourage your donors to give money to the so-called super pacs, does this mean you don't think you can win this election based on the contributions of ordinary americans? >> no, we certainly appreciate the contributions of ordinary americans, 1.3 million have donated to the president's campaign, most of them in small contributions 98% of them in small contributions. we appreciate that. what we're looking at is something unleashed by that supreme court ruling, and we've seen massive amounts of money coming in to these super

pacs. by our estimate and by their own estimate, they intend to spend upwards of half a billion dollars above and beyond what the republican nominee and the republican national committee is going to spend in this election. and faced with that, you know, we had to act. the president believes deeply that these super pacs are an unwelcome development in our politics. and is going to continue to try and find ways to reform them up to and including a constitutional amendment. but right now these are the rules, and the question is, are we going to have two sets of rules or one set of rules? we couldn't... we simply couldn't sit by and allow five, six, seven hundred million dollars of negative ads to be run against us with no one on the other side responding. >> woodruff: but it was pretty clear from the outset that this was going to be the case. a lot of money was going to be raised. that being the case, why didn't the president stick... i mean, he clearly felt so strongly about this.

why did he change his mind? >> judy, i don't think anybody had an idea of just how much money these super pacs were going to raise. and now, you know, we see the reality of it. they've spent more money than all the republican candidates in these primaries. over $40 million. 99% of it on negative ads. that was a little preview. that was the appetizer. we're the entree. they're going to spend multiples of that to try and defeat the president. it is simply... it is is not wise, and it's not right for us to sit by with our hands tied behind our backs and allow that, did election to be hijacked by these groups. >> woodruff: let me ask you about the economy. there was a good report that came out last friday on jobs. the unemployment rate. but a number of respected economists say they don't expect that trend to continue. are you in effect, david axelrod, sort of held hostage every month to these unemployment numbers?

>> first of all, let's stipulate that the most important thing is in our link to the unemployment rate but, you know, how the american people are experiencing this economy. we're fighting hard to... we've had 23 straight months of private-sector job growth. that's accelerating. we want to continue to accelerate that because that's good for our country. and obviously, you know, it is good for us as well. and in terms of the economists' projections, i think one thing we've learned over the course of these years is that no one really has a crystal ball on these things. i've seen more robust projections, less robust. the best thing for us to do is keep our nose to the grind stone, keep pushing, keep pushing forward and taking the steps we think will help accelerate the economy. >> woodruff: mitt romney, the former governor of massachusetts, still has a primary fight on his hands but your campaign has been pretty much treating him as the eventual nominee. what are the strengths that

you see in mitt romney that make you assume that he will be? >> well, look, he's been a weak frontrunner from the beginning. he continues to be a weak frontrunner. he has far more resources than anyone else. he's run for president now twice. he has a national organization. it seems like the republican establishment is largely embraced him in this race. so it's logical to assume that he, you know, he continues to be a weak frontrunner and he may be the nominee of the party. we're prepared for that. he certainly projects himself that way. we'll be prepared for that debate. >> woodruff: and in terms of framing the campaign at this point going forward, your major challenge is what? >> well, look. we're going to project a positive vision for how we move forward as a country and rebuild not just regain the jobs we've lost but rebuild an economy in which the middle class is growing and not

shrinking, in which people who work hard can get ahead. in which people can look forward to a better future for their kids. that's how we measure progress in the economy. there will be a very distinct difference between the way we approach it and the way the folks on the other side do and particularly governor romney who seems to believe if we just go back to what we were doing and cut taxes for the very wealthy, cut regulations on wall street, that somehow we'll all profit from that and the economy will grow. we just tested that proposition. it failed. >> woodruff: the administration decision to require religious charities, universities, and others, hospitals, to include contraceptives in the health services they provide has created a huge fire storm in the leadership of the catholic church and other religious leaders. you said earlier today in an interview, david axelrod, that the administration would work with these institutions to implement this policy. what does that mean? does that mean you're prepared

to give them some sort of an out? >> let's back up and do... just recite a little history of how we got to wherwe are. the institute of medicine recommended to the health and human services secretaries sebelius that contraceptive services be part of the package that are in every woman's insurance package, insurance policy, as preventive care. she added an exemption for religious institutions, for churches and their employees. the question is, does that extend to hospitals? does that extend to universities where many people work who aren't even catholic and do those women get essentially... do they get the same rights and the same privileges as everyone else to that preventive care? you know, we believe strongly that that should be the case. in fact that's the policy in 28 states today. so what we've said is we're

going to have a year's period of time in which to transition to this. that will give us a chance to look at what... how this is implemented elsewhere, how we can implement it here in the best and fairest way. but certainly advancing the principle that women deserve access to contraception and those women, those teachers, nurses, janitors and so on, who work in these institutions deserve access just like everybody else. >> woodruff: very quickly to clarify are you saying there may be some exceptions? >> i'm saying that there are models all across the country that can be emulated including by the way in massachusetts which was in place when governor romney was there and in georgia whi has no exemptions where speaker gingrich is from. these policies have been in place, half the country has these policies. and we should be able to learn from that in implementing this and move forward. >> woodruff: david axelrod,

senior strategist to the president obama re-elect campaign, thanks very much. >> good to be with you. >> ifill: now to syria's uneasy, uncertain, and unfinished revolution. ray suarez has that. >> suarez: in the capital damascus, a high-ranking russian visitor in other cities more death and destruction. we start with a report from jonathan miller of independent television news in beirut. >> reporter: artillery and rockets started pounding parts of homs at dawn again, the fourth straight day. this even as the president promised to cooperate with any effort to promote stability in syria. the russian foreign minister fated like a hero in damascus by a regime fast running out

of friends. syrian state tv awash with love for russia which vetoed the u.n. resolution. and someone reportedly told assad that every leader should be aware of his share of responsibility, adding that he hoped the arab people could live in peace and understanding. but while the president again promised political reforms and assured the russian mediator that he wanted an end to the violence, his military clearly remaining under orders to stop the uprising and across syria, the onslaught continued. in the rest of southern where the revolt began last march, a street demonstration was met with gun fire. this footage is unverified but this video among several to emerge of violence there today. this was filmed in a school. there's clear distress. one woman shouting we're going to kill them, we're going to

kill them. then you see soldiers and men face down on the ground. in homs where whole neighborhoods remain besieged and under intense bombardment, not much let-up. terrified civilians say they feel abandoned by the world. here women and children take shelter in a basement. in the northern province, many reports of military operations. many civilian deaths reported too. in a northern village attacked by government forces yesterday, free syrian army fighters now patrol. the theater is expding. numbers of dead and injured rising by the day. the russians have brought no diplomatic breakthrough. the revolt has entered a new phase. >> suarez: i'm joined by a person who has been covering the story for "time" magazine. she's where the leaders of the anti-assad opposition have set up headquarters. the russians announced their arrival in damascus and there

intention to act as mediators. has there been any response to that overture from the opposition in turkey? >> well, not officially, not at this point. however it's the same thing. the opposition says that the russian government is merely buying asaid more time. for him to continue his killing spree across the country. we heard once again pledges by the syrian president for reforms. and the russian foreign minister was touting an upcoming constitutional referendum as some sort of measure of president assad's willingness to enact those reforms. however, this is the same talk that we have been hearing for months. according to all of these amateur videos and the quite gruesome images that we are seeing coming out of syria. it hasn't changed. what has effectively become a war zone across the country. >> suarez: is it significant that the temple of operations against syrian civilians

didn't calm down at all during the russian visit. >> it didn't. if anything it seems to have escalated at your report mentioned. homs has been bombarded for the past four days. it has been bombarded for weeks and indeed months before that. syrian opposition members speak of horrific death tolls. we're talking about 50, 60, 70, sometimes 80 and higher, you know, death tolls of sometimes it hits the triple digits. so we are talking about what seems to be a killing field in syria. >> suarez: there are reports coming out of syria of overtures from the russian delegation that would indicate they're trying to find a way out for assad. do they really still back his legitimacy at this point? do they think he can hang on until 2014? >> that's a question that everybody is trying to answer. at the end of the day russia's interests in syria are strategic. they're not personal. one wonders why the russian

government has so closely aligned itself with a regime that most observers say is bound to fall. the only question is when and how many other people are going to die in the meantime? >> suarez: france and italy have followed the united states and the united kingdom in pulling their ambassadors back from damascus. if they've got russia and china, can syria sort of soldier on as the rest of the world is abandoning it? >> well, don't forget, they also have iran. they have the lebanese militant group hezbollah as well. you know, assad is running out of friends but he still has quite powerful allies. he certainly hopes that he can hold on until the presidential elections. however, it's a question of whether or not the syrian opposition... i mean, we're already seeing that the syrian opposition is becoming more militarized. certainly after the double veto a few days ago, the syrian opposition, all of its

varied forms, feels quite abandoned. that seems to be the word that we have been hearing most often from activists on the ground as well as from members of the f.s.a., that i have talked to recently. it's the same word: abandonment. you see in some of these amateur videos that are posted online the chants are, "god, you are the only one who is still with us." so there's a real sense of desperation and also a sense that, you know, they must continue this fight because, as one activist told me, we're dead anyway. either we die free or we simply die. because the security forces will hunt us down. >> suarez: let's talk a little bit more about the state of the opposition. you talked about their feeling abandoned inside syria. what about outside the country as they use diplomatic efforts to try to consolidate the support from around the world? are they succeeding? are they seen as a logical next step in the other capitals of the world?

>> first ofll i tink they have to consolidate their own ranks. the syrian opposition is quite fragmented. this syrian national council has presented itself as the de facto opposition group. an umbrella group, if you like but it has its own problems. you know, some people say that it has a very heavy islamist tilt. others say that it's mainly comprised of exiles have haven't set foot in syria for many years and they don't speak for the men and women who are on the streets of damascus and other cities actually like homs and other areas in syria who are living under this bombardment and who are dying. in the streets. so this syrian opposition in all of its varied forms needs to get its own house in order. that is a very serious concern because, you know, the people in the streets are demanding it and certainly western governments and others, arab governments as well, are looking for more from the syrian opposition. >> suarez: thank you for

joining us from istanbul. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next, a two-part look at europe's debt crisis. first, more protests in greece against austerity measures in the country where the troubles began two years ago. we have a report from james mates of independent television news in athens. >> reporter: it is 20 years to the day since the treaty was signed to bring the continent every closer under the euro. this afternoon this was a german flag being burned in athens. before long riot police were firing tear gas. they are being driven into poverty on orders from abroad. a country is seething with anger. inside the parliament politicians seem to be on the verge of accepting europe's demands for another round.

it's designed to reduce greece's massive debt. but as anyone in this crowd will tell you, they've been cutting for two years now and the debts have simply gotten bigger. >> i don't think they can take anymore. i think it's the wrong res piece. that's why. they could take it if they knew there was a way out. from what it seems it's not a way out. it leads us to deeper recession. >> reporter: what the greek government has to do is choose between two appalling options. to take the medicine that europe has prescribed and with it years more of austerity and recession, no guarantee of success at the end of it or to forget europe's money, go it alone, leave the euro knowing in the short term at least that will be even more painful. one or the other, they have to choose. a storm swept through athens this afterno driving many of the protestors home. it was also enough to rip the european flag from its pole. where it flies beneath the acropolis. many greeks though are simply too angry to notice the symbolism.

>> woodruff: >> woodruff: now, italy, another european country and a much larger economy under financial pressure. on the eve of his visit to washington and meetings with president obama, italy's premier talked today in rome with margaret warner. >> warner: amid protests in the streets and pressure from abroad, a new face came on to the italian political scene three months ago: prime minister mario monti's mission: try to rescue the country's stagnant economy and unwind its massive national debt. >> if we will be able to take advantage of this opportunity altogether, to start a constructive dialogue on general goals and decisions, we will be able to redeem the country and to rebuild the confidence in its institutions. thank you. >> warner: italy had not fallen to the same depths as greece, ptugal and ireland needing bailouts by the european union. but the economy was stalled. the markets were hammering

italian debt. and prime ministerville yo berlusconi was facing sex and corruption charges. he resigned after he lost his working majority in parliament over austerity measures the e.u. had commanded. with that the italian president turned to monti. the former professor served as an e.u. commissioner for nearly ten years but has never held elected office. now he leads a government composed mostly of other technocrats. they must try to ensure that italy can continue to borrow on international credit markets and keep paying off a national debt that equals 120% of its gross domestic product. among e.u. countries, only greece has a larger debt load. monti has pushed through budget and social welfare cuts. but he also has warned his european partners, especially germany, that austerity must be accompanied by growth. at the same time, his moves to

modernize the italian econo have run up against long-time traditions, such as the protective hold that guilds have over everything from taxi cabs to lawyers. so far his proposals have been endorsed by parliament but more tests loom. i talked with prime minister monti at his offices in rome's 16th century building this morning. thank you for having us. >> great pleasure. >> warner: as we sit here greece is undergoing yet another 24-hour general strike. the financing situation hasn't been resolved. what are the consequences for italy if greece should default on its debt? >> the consequences would have been extremely serious for italy had a default of greece happened a few months ago. now i hope that there is not a default for greece.

but i'm really confident that even in that case italy is seen by the markets and by the e.u. institutions and by the global community has a country which, since a few months, has really taken some tough measures both as regards to budget reconciliation and structure reforms for growth. i'm confident we would be much less exposed to a greek default risk than we would have been a few months ago. >> warner: do you think greece helps prove the point you've been making to european leaders though that austerity without growth can be a recipe for disaster? >> yes. but greece is really the extreme case because the excesses of deficit, of public deficit in the case of greece, had been over many years so high, so extreme, that it

would have been hard, let's face realities, to have a soft landing from those excesses of deficit without a recession. but in more general terms, i think there is a valid point if we say that europe needed to be put in a safer place as regards the public finances of each member-state, thanks to german and other pressures we can say that most of us are there or nearly there. now without going back to fiscal undislynn, the time has come to focus more energies on how collectively we can achieve more growth in europe. >> warner: do you think there's a danger of a back lash here in italy against what they may see as e.u.- imposed changes to their way

of life that are very, very painful? what are you seeing? >> there was such a risk of back lash, and it is there more generally... well, let me say a word about italy. i try to avoid that back lash by always presenting the necessary sacrifices that italians have to go through not as an imposition from brussels or germany or the european central bank but rather as a necessary step that italians have to undertake also at the suggestion of europe but basically for their own interest of ourselves and of future generations of italians. this is precisely meant to

avoid back lashes. having said that, in a wider perspective, the eurozone crisis has indeed brought about quite a bit of misunderstandings and the reemergence of hold phantoms about prejudices between the north and the south of europe and a lot of mutual resentment. it is is very, very important that we all take this with great attention in order to avoid that... something that was meant to be the culminating point of the european contraction namely the single currency turns out to be through psychological negative effects of this integration of europe. >> warner: the german

government is arguing however, that if the pressure is relieved too soon on the indebted countries, the pressure of the interest rates in the market, that they won't even do the necessary reforms. do they have a point about that? >> that point was certainly valid in the past for the long years since the inception of the euro where the financial markets went to sleep, took a long siesta and did not exercise any markets' disciplining effect. now, of course, after the recent financial crisis markets woke up quite brutally and did exercise a lot of pressure for each of us to engage in a serious budgetary consolidation. now the role of the markets is there, but i don't think we

have to rely basically and mainly on high interest rates for governments to contin the path of sound budgetary and reform policies. on the other hand, one could also make the case that those countries and those populations like the italians who definitely are embarking on all the necessary measures of budgetary consolidation and structure reforms may be disenchanted and not ready to continue on this path unless they do see some recognition of their efforts through, in particular, a decline of interest rates. >> warner: but you do want germany to put up more money, do you not, to make this bail- out fund the fire wall bigger as treasury secretary tim

geithner has been urging, as the i.m.f.has been urging? >> yes, that goes for germany but for all member-states. of course, germany happens to be the largest one. but one can also make the point that the higher the overall amount of money put in the fire walls, the smaller the probability that it will ever have to be disperseed because the markets will be impressed by the credibility of the fire brigades. >> warner: what can president obama do to help you? >> to help me or to help the e.u.. >> warner: both. >> i think he can help us all through sound management of the u.s. economy, which is trying hard to achieve just as we can help him by avoiding

the explosion. tensions to the world economy out of the eurozone. i think on both sides of the atlantic, we are working well in the desired direction. >> warner: back to what you're trying to do here at home. do you think that by calling for more competition in the economy as well as budget cuts, you are asking the italian people to really change their essential character or culture? >> to some extent, yes, i am fully aware of this. basically our mission and my wish is to have the italian people value more and more some strong qualities they have in their genes and traditions.

and that is a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a sense of... and the sense of solidarity in society. but i definitely think that italy can become a more competitive place only if we introduce in our system much more meritocracy which means much more competition and accountability in all decision points of corporate as well as the public administration. so you can say what you probably think: that this is a tall order for a government which at most would be in place until the spring of 2013. but we will be happy if we accompany italy with a gentle

pressure towards achieving at least the first mile of this long road. >> warner: mr. prime minister, thank you so much. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: margaret's reporting on the european debt crisis continues tomorrow with a look at german attitudes towards the situation. >> ifill: finally tonight, the story of a portrait photographer viewing her world through a different lens. jeffrey brown has our story. >> what's interesting about the picture is i get asked all the time, god, how did you get to that position to take this picture? you know, it's actually on the walkway. >> brown: it's what everybody sees. >> this is what everyone sees. my children are standing right here. i mean they're right here. i'm just over them. they led me to this picture. >> brown: a photograph of niagara falls or any landscape for that matter isn't what we normally think of when it

comes to annie leibowitz. beginning in 1970 at rolling stone magazine and later for vanity fair and other publications, leibowitz has become perhaps the era's best known portrait photographer. a chronicler of rock'n'roll music and the culture at large, creator of numerous famous and attention-grabbing images. now for a change leibowitz has given herself an assignment. the result containing no portraits is titles "pilgrim a new book and an exhibition now at the smithsonian institution's american art museum in washington. >> it's a journey. i certainly didn't realize it until afterward when i look at these photographs and i realized there bass a lot of searching in it. what was beautiful about it was finding photographs that move me, that pulled you in, that were seductive without,

you know, having an agenda. >> brown: of course the big difference here? this famous portrait photographer has created portraits without the people. and in a way that's how she thinks of them. capturing her subjects through the things around them and what they saw. the chronicler of the contemporary instead looked to the past. she started in concorde massachusetts exploring lives through places and objects. the home of louisa may alcott, henry david thoreau's bed. she developed a broader and eclectic list of people including sigmund freud and his couch, elvis presley's family gravesite at graceland and of places, old faithful in yellowstone park, the spiral jety sculpture in the great salt lake. often one led to another. abraham lincoln, for example, became a starting place. >> i love the lincoln memorandum memorial. out of there came not only the

sculptor of lincoln but marian anderson came out of the lincoln memorial. eleanor roosevelt came out of the lincoln memorial. one of the best trips i took was i went to lincoln's boyhood... lincoln's birth place in kentucky and drove from kentucky to indiana to his boyhood home and up to springfid out the mide of this country and then i drove into ohio for annie oakley. i've always loved the road but i'm just saying in this time it's great. just get out there and make your own list. find your own way. >> brown: the project grew out of a low point in her life. her long-time partner the writer and thinker susan sontag died in 2004. several years later leibowitz went through a much publicized financial crisis that almost left her bankrupt. she says now she found a kind of renewal in the lives and works of other artists. photographer ansel adams, choreography martha graham,

painter georgia o'keefe. >> what was so great about the project is, you know, i thought i knew who georgia o'keefe was. and as you go into these places where they lived and worked, you get to really learn who they are. you know, walking go georgia o'keefe's studio just floored me. it doesn't mean i can translate it into a photograph necessarily, all those feelings. that was the work. they didn't all come easy. >> brown: in fact, leibowitz, 62 years old and decades into a successful career, says she had to learn to shoot objects such as here of emily dickinson's dress. here is the object, right? without the person. >> this is so not my kind of picture. >> brown: what do you mean? >> i never come in tight and look at detail like this.

but in order to tell the story, it wasn't just any white dress. these are al bass ter buttons. there were these unbelievable, you know,, the unbelievable detail in this. it does have a sense of composition and graphics which is there since the early days in my work. >> brown: another major difference here, these photographs are taken with a digital camera. not film which leibowitz normally shoots. and without the equipment and set-up required for her portrait work. she says she found unexpected benefits. >> i noticed it right away in emily dickinson's house. it was the end of the day. there was hardly any light. i started to just take pictures with a small snapshot visual camera. i found you could see into the corners. film doesn't have that much latitude. it has only a certain amount of, you know, tones and darks

and lights. it's the whole brand new world. i'm learning along with everyone else. >> brown: of course we're all doing it, right? even on our smart phones. >> i love it. i love it. i think it's great. >> brown: leibowitz says this was a project that in some ways actually has no end. though she is continuing the work she's best known for. >> i love my work. i love my portrait work. this immediately feeds back into taking portraits. you have to take care of your work. by, you know, feeding... by doing this kind of exercise of going out and, you know basically, you know, turning your back on everything else you're doing and just, you know, going another way, that's a really important exercise. the best work, you don't really know what you're doing when you're doing it. i love that. i'm beginning to trust that now.

you know, i mean.... >> brown: you're beginning to trust that now after all this time? >> yes, yes, yes. >> brown: pilgrimage exhibition will continue at the smithsonian through may 20. it travels next this summer to the concorde museum in massachusetts. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that california's ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. and syria's army blasted an opposition city for a fourth day. online, our political team is tracking today's presidential contests. hari sreenivasan explains. hari? >> sreenivasan: later tonight, find live results from minnesota, colorado, and missouri in our vote 2012 map center. find link on our homepage. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll have results from the g.o.p. presidential contests in colorado, minnesota, and missouri. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill.

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: >> bnsf railway. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org