gwen: the los of a liberal lion plus the justice departme versus the c.i.a. and he good nes-bad news enomy. tonight, onwashington week." thousands of mourners paid respts today to a man who lived the past an looked the futue. >> this november the torch will passed again o a new eneration of americans. >> idas and ideals are stamped on scres of laws and millions oflives. gwen: ted knnedy's pssing was not unexpectedut it leaves a void. on domestic sues like health care >> my hopes that this will

maybe cause people to ta a brth, step back and start lking with each other again in me civil tones about what needs to be done gwn: and on bipatisanship. >> e was nevesmall. and in theprocess of his doing, he madeeverybody he worked with bigger. gwen as assachusettsnd the naon mourns, what comes next? in otherews, attrney general eric holer goes toe--toe with .i.a. drector lee on panetta ove detainee interrogations. >> threatening a risoner with electric dll isn't torture, i'm not sur what is. gwen: how ar will the invtigation go? and as fedchairman be beanke wins re-appointment, stocks gaibut deficit projections have slowed. is there asilver lining anywhere? covering te wek, davi broder of "the washington post," karen

tulty of "time" magazine, pete wlliams of nbc news, and daviwessel of "the wall street journal." >>elebrating 40 years of journalistic excellence. li from our nation's capitl, this is "washington week with gwen ifill" produced in asciation with natial joural. corporate funding for "washiton week" is provided by -- >> it create half the electricity th fuels our dreams. we have more of it than anyplace on earth. and we're working on cleaer ways to usecoal every day. there's mo information at nma.o. >> cporate funding for "washingt week" is provided by boeg, majo funding for "waington week" is alo proved by the annenberg foundation, t compragse for blic broadcasting -- t corporation for public broadcasting and by

coributions to your pbs station from viewers ke you. thank you. once again, li frm washington, moderat gwen ifill. gwen: good evening edward m. kenny's passing this week unleaed a torent o mourningand analysis. scorse of edemption, accomplishmentlegacy and inhetance have dominated the trbts all roted in the -- the tributes all root in the 77 years one m spent on earh, 46 of tem in the uted states senate. kennedy's caus were fircely liberal such ahis opposition a law forbidding gay marriage >> in e constitution ofhe united states, alo with the bill of rights, we have not ever writtenprejudice and we haveever written bigotry into the onstitution andwe should notdo it now in th united states nate. gwen: and many ofhis tands enraged republicans as when e opposed conservati judicl appointments f republican

appointees. >> the ameican people deser better they deserve competen and they deserve the facts. in aseball, it's three strikes, you're out. what is it for the sect tear of defen? -- for the ecretary of defense? gwen: no mtter whic side of the divide o occupied there was little questiothe senior senar from massachusetts was a consequential lawmaker. david brod, you first met him the spring 1960. so you get to starty telling us over time, what kindof legislator di ted kennedy ecome? >> hwas 28 years old in beckly, west virginia, campaigning for his big brother. and mobile handsome. -- and impossibly hanome. and he ws not very prepossessg. he didn't ow a lot at that point he was a charer and talked wonderfully well wih the folk that he met.

bu he didn't have a lot to say. as time went on,he scholed himself and became one of the great leislators i thnk of ourtime. gwen: he was so one of the grt legislators who dealt withome of the great setbacks that woul have killed another career. one of them of course being chappaquiddick. and the otr setbacks, he had decades in which he was not really that well egarded. >>that is rght. his profssional lifewas very discipned. he had great staff and he rked them very wll. bu his private plife -- priva life was anything but diiplined. he was wild. he was ouof control much of the time. until he foud his wife, vickieand settled down. gwen: ted kennedyobviously ot e cover of "time" agazine this week. his passg not just about tis mabut about the great work which he not ust on health care b health care was his

big unfinished wor. where doeshat stand? well, it as, as he had said, the great use of his fe. ted kennedy intruced his first univerl coverage bill all the y back in 1970. that is how ng he had been working on this issue. and e -- his deam of univers coverage died in 1994 with the clinton heal care plan. but you know what? he was backhe very next year tryingo do inrementally wht couldn't do in one piecef legislation. and he had great, grat hopes for the obma health reform bill. at does his passing mean? it's really hard to say the mostmmediate impact is the fact that nowthe senae does nothave 60 democrats. if the caucus hangs ogether, it doesn't havenough votes o overcome a filibuster. and we head people lik senator dodd coming into the program saying, well, aybe in will egender in thesenate a new spirit an everybody will

put asideheirideological differces and do this as a tribute to senator ennedy. that's not really the enate i know. politicianson't usually cut their eals and cast their votes with sebody else's legacy in mind. >> can i ak a question abou that? i've bn puzzled nowing thi was gointo happen massacsetts didn't change its law sner. the one -- they changea couple of years agso that mitt romney, the govenor, couldn't appint a successor to a vacant senate seat and nw yocan't have a success til there's an electn. whdidn't they change this sooner and are they gog to do it now? >> well, i thi, pete, becuse theydidn't want to seem to brushing kenedy offthe scene. and they wanted to wait until it was almost the end andhen he sent tat letter king them, pleas ake the change back. >>and you think that wll happen now >> i think it's likely t happ now. you ot a democratic legislature.

and a demoratic governor. and they would like to fill th seat. >>karen, when kennedy passes, the coittee chairmanship opens upon the sene health committee. is chris dodgoing to take that? anhow does that make health care more likely andow does it mak financial reform more or less lely? >> it's interesng. chris dodd is an -- is in an interestg position because he did take oer in td kennedy's stead inhe health, education d labor and pensions committee. t he's also the chairman as you said of the banking committee. and this is gointo be a big decision for him. d on top ofthis, he is facinghat could be the most difficult re-ection battle in the country ne year. so i think at th point, it's possible to predict precsely what he's goingto do. but there's -- there's certnly always been a lot o sense in the senate that there's nothing tt ted kennedy would ke to have see more than see his dear friend, chris ddd, take his life's work to e finish ine. >> unable to do th kind of

compromising that ted was able to do. is there anybody i the senate who comes clse to beinghe legislaor that ted kenny was? >> not in the sam way. there are peope who can mae a deal on a very pecific subject. but kennedy who had theknack of deali with republians, democrats, o a whole variety of isues. mean, we thinkf him as a legislator ohealth care. but hi touch s on somany other subject immgration and law reform. andou can't keep p with all the thin that he was inolved with. gwen: when you think about civil rights,for instance, we know that he was inolved in voting rights act ut sism rights to him was also -- but civil rights tohim was also titlenine for women sportsnd opposing the defense of mrriage amendment and immigration.

and ev minimum ge to him seemed a sismright issue and talked about health care s a right, not a privile. and kan mentioned this idea of incrementalism a how hard heas been working at it over the years. does that apply also tothese othe issues, the other bls, laws, whic now hav his name on them? >> yes. and he wa alays one ho kept his eye on the ultimate objective but was wiing to advanceit whatever eent he cold do. >> and i tink partly th's because of the 10 presidts that hserved under as he sentor, five of them were reblicans. so te kennedy hadto learn to t things done in enviroents that were nt necessaril friendly terrory. certainly ring the reagan years. were very producti years for tedennedy. but it was always bgoing acrosshe aisland finding thatepublicanvote, tht publican co-sponsor that could get the bi done. gwenthe legacy of the ennedys is so uge.

and it's now bece that they are this incredily stunchly liberal faly that -- big l, liberal fmily, that said as jack kemp used to say, wod set out to actuay tranform e world toward the left. is that what ialways was the case? >> no. i mean, the father, oe kennedy, was a vry conservave democrat who broke with f.d.r. in spctacular fashion. john kennedy, much love but wa not a very liberal senator. he was very cauious and really hd to be pushed into civil righ ation, for exale. robert kennedy moreso. and i think i retrospect, my guesss that ted kenne took his inspiration more from robert kenny than from his older brthers. >> chris dodd said at thewake for ted kennedthat one of the

reasons he was so ccessful is that peop liked im. was that the key tohis ability to wk with membersof other parties? because certainly other senators tried tdo that. other senators have servedas lonor longer another senators are knowledgeable s it the ennedy name orwhat was it tt made him so abl to work with otr senators and carry them along? >> only o other snators in history servedonger than ed kennedy. strom thurnd and rbert byr. part of it w longevity. he came from an era in the senate where people d get ong, where peopleere friends. they coul be adversari on legislation but they ultimately coulput those kinds of things aside. a man knon for sall estures for rembering your children's namesnd for gifts and small kindnesses that i think mnt a lot to hi colleagues. >> i have no idea how in tha busy life that h led that he managed to carveout time to do

so many act of pesonal generosity for smany peope. i wroteabout this when -- t the outset of hisillness. and i was just flood with more xamples of things that ted knnedy had done himself not sending someody else todo it. for other people. >>-- gwen: who hos that torch, he was unque in his liberalism and ability reach across the aisle, who doe it? said when he endrsed bara obama that heas passing the torch to him but it's not really quite the sam is it? >> it'sinteresting ecause i was bckstage at th endorsement when ted knedy did ndorse arack obama in nuary. and i asked im, i said, so your endrsement, what des it mean? ist to help him et elected or are yothinking beyond that? and said no, i'm thiking

beyond is. because i e in barack oba soone who i believe an bring people together. and he said i really think that if we're going to get anhing done, we needomebody whocan bring people tether. gwen: is that whatou think rack obama isollowing though on so far? wesee the issue that he is facing right no. is hthe -- the challenge the administraon is facing escially on heah care. dachede. >> i think his gestures at the ginning were sincere. to try todeal with people across the aisle. but he has encountered an almost completly hostile republica prty. and at this point, he's undr great pressure from the democratic left to just go ahead and tryto ram tings through with democratic votes. gn: we're going to tk a ttle bit more about some f the challenges facng the president. he ending his vacation a day eay to deliver the eulogy at satury's funeral. but wle he was away ths

week, we ban to see signs of the first public rist to devel within the oama administtion. the diute is over an issue the white use vowed to leave behind. whether the bush administration overstepped when c..a. operatives grilledsuspected terrorists f information. attorney geral eric holder has appointed a prsecutor to investigate alegations of abuse. c.i. director leon paetta objected and in e end, everybody seemed to be unhapy, pete. >> they d. because something some said he went too far and his has been explored. something he didt go far enough. what he'done here is asked a reer federal prosecutor t look at what we're tld is abt 10 cass. where it appears that c.i.a. operives went way beyond the rules for what the c.i.a. called enhancedinterrogation techniques. anseveral of these cases were reealed this week a report from the c.i.a.'s insector generathat was partly declassfied. the groups that representhe detaies say this was way o limited. that it should look not jus the ield operatives but the

people atheadquarters and the white hse and others involved in the interrotion methods. others say it's wrong suect c.i.a. oeratives to investation and prosecuti when they wererying to get infortion which the c.i.a. said was valuae in learning more about al qaeda and prevting future attacks. and all these allegations have been loked at before by othr career federal prosecurs. just across he river from washinon and alexandria, virginia, where hey have experienced terroris prosecutors. and they decidedither the cases were t old or you couldn't find wiesses or the evidence wa ambiguousand that ey couldn't bring them int court. so th asked why did the attorney geral push this when 's beenooked at efore? ve been told by the people in the justice dertment that number ne, holr believes havinglooked at these things, having heard aut them and now seeing t details, that he felt you just coudn't walk away fm this and secondly, he thinks that the are other avenues that could be pursed inhese cases that forone reason or anher were not

looked at. gwen: sought detailsof which we obviously did notee. i have never seen a docume as heavily redacteds this reort was. so do we haveany sense a all about how de these -- thi overstepping was >> well, yes. we have some sse of it. we knosome of these caes, you ma a reference to it i the begning about a detainee who was blindfolded and had a hood on. and he was naked and thy were running an electc drill a his r to make it sound le they were going to attack m with that. and we'ralso told that some ofhe redcations invold detainees who died. in c.i.a. custody. one those ases was osecuted. but it's -- it's the ttality oft that holder says driled him to do this. >> gwen mentioned at the ginning there's a rit inside the administration. is lee on panetta,the c..a. director, impont now? s he lost his bate and now it's all up to holder? >> he made his case hat he thought is was the wrong thing to do. it would send a wrog message to c.i.a. people, thathese

things we investigated before and it wasn't fair. the wte house basicallyaid to eric holer, this is your call. you need to deide this. you're t attorney general. we can't g involved in making this desion for you. it is your decision. having made the decisionow, they made it very clearthat it was his and hi alone. >> what about all tse documents that we sa pats of at lst this week? d they ever --did theytake usery far toward answering the basic questi of the argument that ople like dick cheney have been makin which is that the techniques torture, are necessary to elicit the kind of information we need to preventanother - gwen: it did ward off action. >> there's no qustion. th everyone agrees what tse documents tell us is thatthe c.i.a.'s iterrogation progm ve the government, for example, more than hf of what it learned about aqaeda in the monthsfter 9-11. identified new al eda operatives. led theirarrests.

forestalled potential attac. stopped people from comingnto the u.s.ho were going to com in here or go them arrested once they were here. question. the difficultyf what we saw this weekis nowhere doesit delineate this e learn from normal interrogion, this we learned from enhanced interrogion. so both sideare looking at these newly delassified cuments and say this pves our point. >> pete, whogshe prosecut and what -- who is the prosecut and what are the guidelines thahe's got to stayithin? >> he's career prosecutor in connecticut. john dham. he's already loong at some i.a. activities and one lookg at whether any laws were broken when .i.a. destroyed vieos of these inerrogationings. that's one of e reasons why he was chosen. he is not an iependent counsel or speci prosecutor so hcan only do what the jern toneas told him to - wht the atorney general has told him to do. will he stay ithin the guidelines of holer or go liede >> and whethetits - and

whether it's libb or lunesky. -- lewnsky. we had the resident's long-anticipated desion to reappoint ben bernke to another term as chairman f the federal reserve and the othe was the anticipated news that the federal deficiis now heading toward $9 trillion. over 10 years. which of these two developmts, david, is the more significant to the long-term or direi suppse? well, good. >> can i say bot gwen: sure >> for one thing it was no cident that the president decided to announce this high-profile repointment on s vacation on the same day that the dicit numbers came out. so newspapers put it the ont page anyway. but it did rown out so of the interest. i think in te long te, the bigger issue is t deficit. the president ys by his own figures thawe face $9 trilln of deficits over he ne 10 years. ith some favorable assuptions like he's going to mae a lot of mon on selling pemits for carbon wch congress has ready rejected.

an he has told uthat his health ce plan, even if he gets what he asks for, wil do nothing toeduce that. his promise is alth care will pay for itself ver 10 years. he is putting himslf in position to come waup usiness an because we owe a lot of money to a lot of peop in the wod and won't stand forthese defits as far as the eye can see. peter orszag has a plan t reducehe deficit but only next year. on thehort term the bernanke appoiment is more importa. we are in a fragile stageof the recover it looks like e recession s ended but it ill take skil and political rte attitude fothe federal reserve to move just right here. if they tighen too soon we cod have a renewed recession. if the wait to long we ould have aoutbreak of inflaon. e president decided to ut some - aguy wih a lot f practice tmake that decision but itillustrated oneore thing anrelates to the teddy kennedy situation. we setimes think of the wod as being all rts of impersonal fors of good and

evil and econic frces. but somtimes it doe really em to matter wo the individual peoe who are in charge. and i think in this inance, ben bernanke isno teddy nnedy but kennedy was uusual partly bause of the person he was. and think some of that goes forbernanke as we. >>something's got to ive on the deficit front at se pot. is that something lely to be the president's promisethat he wi not raise taxes on pople who ma less than $250000 a year? >> ithink so. i don't see how it' arigt mecally possible for the resident to pursu both parts of hisspending agenda wic are popular with the pple and with the congss without raising taxes on the lk of americans. there's st not enough money inhe over $250,000 a year crowto pay for what he wants to do. >> the sum inolved are unfathable. ho does this really impact people who are lving normal lives? >> that's a great question.

i think one of their difficulties is the hort swer is it doesn't. right now, e are gettingby on very lowintest rates because her countries, thechinese in paricular, are willing to lnd usndless amounts of money. as long as it goes on, e're fi and people shouldn't worry about it. the problem is it's no going to go on foreve and if we are noprepared and wehaven't done things to reduce our reliance o foreign borring and at some point they decide ey have le us enough money it wi be a wrenching adjument. >> assume these feign countries nd us monday becae it's-- len us money because it something n for them. why do they tink so? >> because thee are not very manylternatives. if the world economy looks le it's really gng to be a basket ase, people would rather have money in dolla th absolutely anything else. but as the ecoomies of the rest of thworld begin to recovery, eventlly people are ing to say we'vlent enough money to t u.s. so t's one of those things whe you can't quite say wha is going to be the precipitating ent but it

seems unwise or us to continu to rely o the cinese and others lending us eve more money eachyear foreer. >> how w ben bernanke's appointment received on the hill? i w chris dodd put ut a statement ere he said this is probably the right cice. which doen't sound like h was holding him tight >> ben bernanke eems to be ry popular on wall seet right ow. the wall streecrowd really wanted him reapointed. the senate ismore ambilent ansome members of the house are downrit hostile. i think that refles the high-profile that rnanke and the fehave taken in this rescue a become a lightning rod for bailinout wall street. they wll be -- he wi be put under e ringer but little chance he will geturned down. >> some orry the fed may be topowerful? >> they dobut if they were worried out it then what would they be saying i president ama had replaced him with sometng -- someone of his hone party and chosing? gwen: it would be a wholother convertion. we'll come back to that e. next week we'll bring you

"washingn week's" ba-to-school edition. everything you need t know out what to expect in the nation's capital wn everybody gets back to wk after labor y. send us your questionso washingtonweek@s.org. keep up with dily developments the newshour wih jim lehrer and we'll see yo again next week on "washgton week." good nig. evy thursday, get a preview of our topicsand panel wi our "washington ek" email alert. avlable at washingtonweekonline@pbs.org >> "washington week" was roduced by wea which is soly responsible for i content.

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