captioning sponsor by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer:ood evening. i'm jim lehrer. a sharp drop in thnumber of americans in t work force. >> woodrf: and i'm judy woodruff. the newshour tonight, the employment rate remained at 10%. jerey brown gets context on the numbers from dav leonhardt of "e new york times." >> lehrer:hen, the bombing spect makes his first appearan in federal court. ray suarez talks to paul egaof "the droit news." >> woodruf we look at the

state of u.s. intelligencefter the botched attempt blow up an airliner. >> we fi those and put them together. much easier to -- >> lehr: paul solman reports on why small business aren't increasing their hing. >> woodruff: plus, theeekly analysis omark shields and david brooks. >> lehrer: that's all ead on tonight's "pbs newshr." major funding for the pbs newshour is provided b

>> lehrer: more americs losing jobs, and even more ging up hope of findg them. that was the gist of decembes unemoyment report. jeffrebrown has the story. >> brown: e labor department numbertoday fell well short of hos in some quarters that the economy might havedded workers at t end of 2009. instead,5,000 americans lost theijobs last month, led again by hits in the constction and manufauring sectors.

thunemployment rate held steat 10%, but that's becausmore than 660,000 people gave up oking for work. president obama cited th numbs this afternoon, as he announced w spending to create jobs in newable energy. >> t jobs numbers that were reased by thlabor department th morning are a reminder that the road to recoverys never straight, and that we ha to continue to rk every single y to get our economy moving again. for most americansnd for me, thateans jobs, that means whether we are putting pple back to work we have to continue explore every avenue to accelete the return to hiring >> brownoverall, more than 15 million americans arout of work now, and nearly 4 have en looking for a job for six months or more. that's the highe percentage in six decades. onomic growth in the last quter of 2009 actually helped slow jobosses from what had been happeningn the summer and fall. d revised figures from

nomber showed a net gain of 4,000 jobs, thfirst time that had happened in two years. but december's rewed job losses will rae new questions about just whichay things are headed. and with me toalk through the latest jobs picte is david leonhardt, economics writefor "the new york time"/a- ir, today's numberas worse than expected. >>. >> yesit was. the were definitely hopes as you pointed out thawe would get a positive numr. it tur out revisions gave us a very slight positive numberor november. buthen we got this gative number for december. it's fun, the negative positiveine is actually not as important as it oen ses because it we really ed more than 100,000 jobs each month just to ecould up with populati growthment but this gives a sense really for how f we are from getting the b rket healthy again. >> reporter: i want pars the expeation games a ttle more here. because you say this revision in november actually shows we had one month where weained jobs. >> yh. >> reporr: and as i said in the introductn, recent

numbers are not as bad, rtainly, as what we saw. >> exactly. it is a question of ping, expecting, allround a amework of numbers. >> that's right. onof the ways to pars it in aay that doesn't get you too dizzy a month-toonth stuff is take a three moh moving average whiceconomists often like to do. when y do that you don't t into quite this much noe and what you see is things have continued to g better. if you look at the tee month moving average whave lost 70,000 jobs on averag over theast three months. thats the best by far, far better than it was earlier this year. and the best by fa the best we have had so far. and that eliminates a little bit of this noise. it tells you the job mart getting better. but pafully slowly. >> reporter: yeah, now speaking of painful, t real dconcerting part of this, it seems to me othe man side, is showing many more people lookg for work for longer periodsf time, and many, st giving up. yeah. and the official numbe even underate that because they don't count allhe pele who have have given

up. many are just long-term employment. >> reporter: explain tha the quirk inhe jobs number. >> absutely. so to be consired officially unempyed you must have lookedor work in e last four weeks. there are a lot of people out of work who, particularly in high unemploymentreas, who would like to work butave not looked in the st four weeks. they are not considere officially unemployed ey are not countein the 10% number d so once you include those people, you really do have a large number long-terunemployed. and ousafety net systems e set up to deal with the way unemployment ud to be. they are set up deal with the manufacturinworker who is laid off for a feweeks or mon and goes back to work. >> repter: with the expectation that they will get a job fairly soon. >> that's right. they're not seup to deal with this moretructural unemplment. and i think that ia rel concern. i think we're ing to have largnumbers of people who wi have spent a very long ti out of the workforce. >> reporter: you're referrg to that as a stctural -- >> a structul problem, th's right. and it's the rest of a number of things. we've had owing education ins in this country. we put a lot of people t work in say the housing sector where they arto the

going to be ab to go back to wk. and i think theris a big questi of where these people are going to end once they are ab to find jobs aga. it's a rl worry. >>eporter: now a related side of this is that as i read the report, the were gas in the private sector but ma of them are in the temp area. >> that's right. >> so that sometimes wlook at that and we s well that's sort of a good sign becae that means employers are thinking maybe it's ti to start hiring people, right. so they are hing temps. >> rig. >> reporter: but the probl here seems to be that lot of these remn temps. >> yeah. so some onomists believe that tempsre a leading inditor, that things are going toet better. some aren'so sure. obously we don't want to move to an economy in ich we wou have vastly more temporary jo because then we are tking about an incurity that will reduce the ability ofeople to win raises, reduceheir ability to learn on the b. and so temps a a mixed blessing at ts point, though, i think we take y new job. and so an upck in temps is

seen as more good an bad. >> rooney: what ishis teing you --. >> rorter: what is this telling you about compans and whe they are in this, icking their toes back in the water in terms of ring people? >> they are really rectant. and the reasons aren't entirely clear. some say there is a lot uncertaiy out there about government poly. others say that they can't t loans. hers say we just don't know what is goi to happen. and then there's the fact thathere is always a lot of uncertaintynd pessimistic before this t better. and ich do seem to be in the process of things getting bett, so businesses a reluctant to hi. what not clear is how temporary that is going to end up being. >> reporter: and you mentioned gornment policy, spking of that. there a continuing debate here in washgton about what to dond whether to do ything. >> yeah. so i know you all have had on the show caen reinhart and ken rogoff who has written a book abo the historof financial crises and it shows on erage unemployment rises for four to five years ter a financial isis. thatould take us to 2011

or 22. the reon people think it will not raise for that ng is, in fact, this aggressi response, this big stimulus package, the federal reser move. nd sthere is wide agement, not unanimous but wide agreent that government policy has lped softenhe downturn. the problem is at th point we're not gointo get another huge stilus package. we probably shoun't get anher huge stimulus packe given the deficit fears that a lot opeople have. so the responses the government wilhave at this point are mute >> reporter: the president today had targeted green jo >> the targeted een jobs which ally isn't that big, right. we'rtalking about at most i think he said tens o thounds of jobs. and thats relative to what we've goin the economy rit now. that is not gog to fix things. i thinwe are going to see small moves by the administration to try to deal with the job rket. and ey will spend a lot of timealking about them, to convey the sense that ey are concerned about em. >> reporter: all right, david leonhardt of thenew york times", thanks ry much. >> tha you. >> woodrf: later in the prram, paul solman profiles a compy that is grappling with hiring issues. now, for the other news of t

day, here's harireenivasan in r newsroom. >> sreenivasan: wall seet's response tthe job numbers was muted. the dow jones indurial average gained 11 points to close 10,618. the nasdaq rose points to close at 2,317. for the week, bo the dow and the nasdaq gaid about 2%. the f.b.i. has aested two more men in an leged plot to stage bombings in w york city. the men atteed high school in queens, new york, with najibullah zazi. he was indicted in sepmber in the same investigati. law enforcement officialhave said they believthe men traveledith zazi to an al- qaeda traini camp in pakistan. anotr u.s. soldier has been killed in afghantan. happened thursday in a roadside bombing. five americans have ed in the afghanar since the new year began. and in a separate atta, eight afghan solers were killed ursday when their truck hit roadside bomb. bitter cold refused let up across mh of the u.s. and europe today. brain endured more of its longest cold spell in nely three cades, with deep snow

ansub-zero cold in scotland. and in germany, there was a sh to buy snow sled in this countr bismarck, north dakota, had wind chillof 50 below zero f a second day. thdeep freeze extended as far south as flori. and schools closed in at lst ten states vice-presidentoe biden's mother, jean biden, died tod in wilmiton, delaware. she had been seriouslyll in recent day then-senator bidenaid tribute to his mother at the democrac tional convention in 2008 as she looked on. >> you kw, my mom taught her children-- all the childn who flocked to our house that you are defined by your see of honor, and youre redeemed by your loyalty. she believes that bravery ves every heart, and her expectation is that it wl be summoned. >> sreenivasan: jeaniden was 92 yrs old. the vi-president's father

passed away in 2002. the univerty of alabama celebrat today after winning college football's nationa championship last night. the crson tide beat the texas longhorns at the rose wl in pasadena, california. the star quartback for texas, colt mccoy, waknocked out of the game early. after thatalabama dominated the first half, and then sved off a late rally by texato win 37-21. it was alabama first title nce 1992. those are some of the day'main stories. i'll be ba at the end of the program with a previ of what you'll fd tonight the newsur's web site. but fonow, back to judy. >> woodruff: and still to co on the newshour: assessment of u.s. inteigence; the jobs picture from th vantage point ofmall businesses; and shields and brooks. at follows our look at the arraignment of umar farouk abdulmutallab in detroit tay. the 23-year-old nigerian is arged with trying to blow up detroit-bound rliner on christmas day. to fill us in on the events and outse the courtroom is

paul egan, who covers fedel cour for "the detroit news." he talked to rayuarez late this afternoon. >> suarez:aul egan, welcome, whawas abdulmallab eventually charged with, whatre the multipleounts? >> well, the mt serious count is attempted use oa weapon of ss destruction. that's a charge that cries a maxim penalty of life in prison. he's also charged with attempted murder and attempng to blow up an airplane, taking a destructive devi upon an airplane, and two cots of using destructive devi to helcommit a felony. >> suaz: and how did he plead and dihe enter that plea on his own or wast done by his lawyer? >> he stood muteoday. anwhat normally happens at an arraignmentappened today. the judge ented a not guilty plea on his behalf . >> suarez: this is a yng mawho has only beeseen in old phographs nce his arrest. descri for us his appearance, his deanor,

what did youee today in cour >> wel the thing that struck y the most when you first saw hiwas how young he really looks. he looks, most peoe i spoke to agreed, looked coiderably younger than 23 years old. his head was shaveen, he is relatively small youngan. he w wearinging a white t-shirt and aki pants. and he really is not your ime of the stereotypical terrorist. >> suarez: when he was entering oleaving the couroom was there any sign of the severburns that he incurreduring the atmpted attack? >> well, he did appear t walk with a slight limp. and he mentioned to e judge that his taking painkillers. those are the only signse saw that he , you know, that he's en injured in thattack. he wasurned apparently trying to set off the -- allegedly trying to t off these explosivesidden in hiunderwear. >> suarez: did the jge exchge many questions and answerwith him?

what did they talk about >> an arraignment is ually a ry brief proceeding, this lasd no more than five minutes. the judge onlysked him -- he asked him how far he nt in school. and he -- it was very ha even for theudge to hear the ung man's answers. he didn't real get a satisfactory awer from him and then he moved on to whether he had taken a medication andhen he basilly after that he ally just dealt with the attorney as far you know, he asked him he you talked about your attorney. do you understd the charges. just answered yes to the. the mo words he said during the ente hearing s i'm taking some painkillers. >> suarez: were the blic galleries fu? were there many peoplerom the detroiarea trying to get into court for a look whatas happening? >> the courtom was full although theprobably could have held a w more people there was intee -- intense intest in this case becae it was the first chance anybody had to ally haa -- have a look at this defendant.

peoplead to line up to get a card to enter th cotroom. serity was extremely high. there were sniffer dogs to check foexplosivesn the courthouse. large nuers of u.s. marshals. and they were even more restrictive than norl in terms of whaelectronic equipment you could bring the courouse because they were apparently ncerned about eltronic equipment possibly being useto set off an explosion. >> suarez: was there mh of crowd outside the courtroom? therhad been some controversy michigan about bringing an alleged terrorist to be tried ere. >> well,here was a fairly large demonsation outside thcourthouse. and interestiny it was mostly muslim ericans and nirian americans protesting against terrism, disassociating themsels from thelleged action to this defendant sayg you ow, we love this country. and we denoue those who

would try to -- try to hurt its citins. >> suarez: paul,hat are the next steps in th case? did the judge schele either an evidtiary hear organize theeginning -- >> no, the is no hearings t yet. fr now on, today's proceeng was handled by a u. magistrate judge. from nown the proceedings will mostly be handled ba federal strict judge, u.s. district judge, and the xt step is ally motions. there will likelbe motions by the defense tsuppress statements that the young man-made to the fbi shortly after heas arrested, before he was represted by counsel. there is alslikely to be motions for discovery. the defense will be trng to find out extly what evidence theovernment has. and m told that the lawys if they don't already have thewill have to get probably securi clearances bause some of the discovery in this ca ll be classified inrmation. >> suarez: paul eganrom the fedel courthouse in

detroit,hanks a lot. thank you, rain. >> woodruff: next, how the nearuccess of that would-be terrort has raised questions of how well intelligences being gaered and analyzed. it began last novemb, with the massacre at fort hd, texas. the accused nman, army major nidal hassan, haescaped the notice of u. intelligence ofcials, despite signs of his growing islamiradicalism. then came ristmas day, and the failed attempt to blow up northwest airler. again, the suspe, umar farouk abdulmutallab, andis possible tieso al qaeda had evaded detection. and just dayafter that, seven c.i.a. operatives infghanistan were killed by a suici bomber from jordan, an aprent double- agt working for al qaeda. all ree incidents raised questis about whether the inlligence community is doing

its job-the same question posed by the failure to prevt the 9/11 attacks. r decades, american intelligence-gathering ancies worked through tditional and separate channels. >> information sharing wasot a priority forany of these departments and agencies >> woodruff: rick nelson is senior fellow at the cter for strategiand international studies in washington. >> there were information aring restrictions in some regards to what vels of information coulbe shared with otr entities that didn't have the perceived ne to know. it madcommunicating very, very difficult. >> woodruff: but after 91, a new department of holand security w created, combining 22 agencies. then, the 9/11 commissio pinpointed a lack of intelligence sharing, ading to a furthesweeping reorganization. the centerpiece came in 20, when preside bush signed the intelligence reform and rrorism prevention act into law. it created the directoof

national intelligence, aost now held by dennis blair, channel l intelligence-related information to the predent. thdirector would get his information from a new natiol counter-terrorism cent, or n.c.t.c., acting as a centl repository for all-soue intelligence ointernational teorism. 16 separate agencies and partments now feed informati to the n.c.t.c., includi the c.i.a., the defense intelligce agency, d the national security agency. the goal of the center, whh president obama visited in tober, is to increase communication among differt departments d agencies like storic rivals, the c.i.a. an e f.b.i. but the center's mandate is limited. >> n.c.t. is not an operational arm. operional activities still reside with departments d agencies. for example,he state dertment retains authority to voke visas; the military

obviouslhas the authority to conduct combatperations. >> woodruff: when thnew administration came to pow, little changedn the telligence structure. and in his statent yesterday, mr. ama offered this assessnt of how that structure worked in the foil airliner attack. >> the u.s. government h the information scatted throughout the system to pontially cover this plot and disrupt the tack. ratherhan a failure to collect or sharentelligence, this was a faure to connect and understand the intelligence at we alrdy had. >> woodruff: forow, the president hanot ordered his tional security and inteigence team to change their structure, but to their jobs betteand faster. and e director of national intelligence blair st out his own memo. among the commendations: assigning clr lines of responsibilityor investigating l leads on high-priority threats; distbuting intelligence

reports more qckly and widely; and speeng up additions to the terrorist and no-f watch lists. c.i.a. director on panetta also instrucd his agency to t information out faster to the broadeintelligence communit and to increase the number of analysts foced on men and africa. for more on the state the u.s.ntelligence community, we turn to two who seed on the 9/11 commissn: former uted states senator slade gorton, republic of washington state; and deputy u. attorney general inhe clinton administration, jamigorelick. >> woodruff: gooto have you both wh us. jamie gorelicki'm going to start with you. have theeforms instituted in the intelligee community sie 9/11 worked? >> they have word but they have not word perfectly. and that's kind obvious from what's happened early having an all-source center, a nationalenter to fuse all the informaon is critical. but you still have peoe

reading the intelligence a maybe noreading it as well as they should. you ill have people proving the intelligence in ways that perhapson't have the flags on them tt th need. and a lot of this, jy, is just blocking d tackling. it's the hard work of exution. and that is parently where we hadailures. >> woodrf: senator gorton, w do you see whether these rerms have worked? >> i agreeith jamie. but hi will go one step further. in this se, it wasn't a ilure to collect intelligence, it w only partially a faure to share intelligence. it was a failu, i think, to he the kind of standards and feelings o urgency at were necessary to do something abouit. the rules der which the intelligence agenciewere operating didn't allowhis man's visa to pulled, didn'tllow him to be put on a no-y list just because his father ce in and gave us a warning lagos.

it should ve done so automacally. and i think om what the present said yesterday it will in thfuture. in oer words, the burden of proof to take action was too high. i think noas a result of this near disaster t won't quite so high in the future. >>oodruff: so senator goon, it sounds like you are sayi you essentially agree wi the president that it wasn't clecting and aring, it was the alysis, understanding and then y added the urgency. >> the action, analys and so on is a part of it. but the decisiveness i king action on the kind of inlligence we have was a great shortcoming. >> and jie gorelick, when the president said he doesn't think the apparatu needs to be erhauled or even tinkered wi, he basicay thinks people just need to do their jobs tter, is ireally that simple? >> well, it is that simple. but i wod also agree with slade at there are some policies that need to be changed.

the rden of proof for tting someone on the no-fly list is too high. if someone iidentified as al qaeda, they don't necessarily gon the no-fly list, so there areome twks and changes that need to be made but we have an itinct in this country every tim there is a problem to move boxes around. and honestly, whatost of success in life in my vi is abo execution. and we just need to ecute better. slade isight that we need to lean into the telligence that we have. and i think that's the other thing thatomes out of this report from the whithouse which is that we had intelligence and we di't lean in to making su that all the actis that we take that should have been taken were ten. >> woodruff: what you mean lean in? >> well,hat i mean by that is if you lo at something that might ba problem, you n do one of two things with it. you can see if it becomes problem. or you can really try to prevt it from becoming a problem.

and that's what i an by leaning in it. what could we be doi more than we are doing to track this down, to make sure that a bad tor doesn't get on a plane, that a bad ing doesn't ppen. >> you both seemed - >> gahead. >> let me i can just follow up on tt. remember, going through th secuty line to get on a plane is the very la line of defense. we need to be pushing th line of fense out further. we need toe derling that some pple should never get in the line in t first place. shouldn'have a visa, shldn't be allowed on plan at all. we've got to go afr this kind of siation at the sour. and if i have a shoroming that is still prent there, is the fact that we didn't introgate this man long enough. we far too soon deded to charge him in a civil urt when think we could have gotten much more informaon about his sources if we ha

waited, trted him as an lawful combatant and interrogat him thoroughly before we decided how to t him. woodruff: i do want to ask you both one queion about e structure of the intelligence community and that comesut of a "the wall street jourl" editorial toda i wi start with you senator gort, essentially ey are complimenting the esident but they go on to say the director onational telligence, the apparatus under him has become such g bureaucracy t spends a lot of i time essentially duplating what the cia does. is there a legitimate argument there? >> it may be that that i somewhat t large an ency. but i wi have to say, and i think jamie agre with me on this, theongress didn't adopall of our remmendations with respect to the dni the congress did not giv the dnas much authority as we thought he ought toave. and we may see somof the shortcomings here as a sult of the fact that

the are still rival towers ofower in the intelligence agency. and thatan't be all the i's fault. i think he needs more authority than hhas. >> i would make two ints to follow upn slade. number one we had four basicommissions that we wanted to see the dni have. and again this is a dictor of natiol in --. >> woodrf: director of naonal intelligence. >> yes, the pers -- we thght, we have 16 intelligen agencies. you need to have some grown- above all of them to make rulewhere they are inonflict. so one of those places of conflict is the onthat is slade eludes to which is budget. the dni did not t budget auority over the defense intelligence apparatus whi is a vy big piece of the budget. but we also said makthe rules for informatio sharing. make the res for personnel aring. make the rules for a common -a common

technolo infrastructure. i would like to e the dni fos on that and not replicatg a lot of what goes on in the intligence communit and particularly in the cia. so i think "thwall street journal" editorial on this subject makes a fa point. >> woodrf: i want to turn to the other two iidents at we mentioned, senator gortonin the opening seent. and that is, of course, e fthood shootings, major hasan, nothing wasone about him. anthen this terrible incident in afghantan in the last week,he death of seven cia agents. where -- where -- wh fell apart what didn'work in ose instances? >> well, let me just, looking as an observer w has read the newstories on it and would with noxtra information, srt with the cond of those two first. obviously there s too grt a degree of trust on the part of someonthere in afghistan about this man because presumly he had given us some decent intelligence in the past

and so he t in to that building andn among those seven or more people without being checked out at a. nothat -- i think that was just a failuren following their own policies. it was a terrible and a tragic failure but i can't imagine that this is something that we allow to happen on an evy day basis. on the first one it los to me like ere was a certain degree of political correctness involved. a lot ofeople in the serve itself felt great suspicion about what doctor but they were afra to say anything aboutt. they were afraid ty would be criticized. ey were afraid they would be called racist. i hopehat isn't going to happenn the future. but i believe at that contributed to ft. hood. >> wdruff: is it almost as if every laps points to different probm? >> yes, but you kn, you can't expect perfect execution. you ve to strife for it. so we learn fromistakes. but these miakes are very, ve costly.

i mean t thing that haunts mebout the ft. hood matter is that the imam al-aliqwi it was a loose threain the report that slade and and other kos lab rad on. i mean he was running a mosque on one mosque on the west cst and then later mosque on the east ast that helped the 9/11 conspirators. and so we have to, when i oke earlier about leaning in, i think ifou find someone like himnd he has be the subject of attention in the inteigence community, you follow every lead surrounding him. and i ho we're doing that. >> woouff: well, we know these are issues wre going to come ck to. we wanto thank both of you for being with us,enator sle gorton, and jamie gorelick, thank you bo. >> lehrer: now, our seco jobs

story-- a closer look athy hiring is going so slowly seen through t lens of small business. newshour economics crespondent paul soln has our report. 's part of his ongoing reporting series, aking sense of financial news." >> it's a little guyhat went in a sto, and more carousel horses... >> repter: c.e.o. steve guy of entertainment desi group in atlanta, wre the economy still looks as scary as some of e props ey manufacture. that's a mannequin we put there. we have laid o so many people at it's a little lonely arou here. >> reporter: so, how many pele did you haveere at the peak? >> about 75 full-time and abt 300 part-time. >> reporter: really? and at are you down to, at the moment? >> rht now, were down to 42 full-time and around 1 seasonal. >> reporter: guy's compa sells everything from shopping ml holiday displa to theme park attractions. it produces atlanta's anal

tree lighting ceremo, and the dropping of the sweegeorgia icon that marks the locanew year's celration. and yet, the hing situation , if you'll excuse the expression, not so much achy asn the pits. >> b corporations are not building new buildings, them parks are not ilding new ris, and with that, we're sort of just stuck li a boat stuck on a sand barge. so, for now, there's absoluty noeason to hire anybody full- time, because i dot want to have to hireomebody and just me back and have to let them go again. >> reporter: the compa, clearly quirky but perhaps chacteristicf small business in america these days, idown 30%,ear over year. but eve guy considers himself a survor. when times were better, he bought this machine, wch uses super-high pssure ter and sand made of garne to cut thugh just about anything. >> but the companycalypso, that manufactures the maine has actuallyone bankrupt in

this recsion. that is a poal that we were buildingor an entertainment nter called belle island in pigeon for, and that paicular facility also went bankrupt. >>eporter: batman. >> y, we manufacture those for six flags themparks, which is alson chapter 11, and were hoping for the emergences soon as possie. >> reporter:n atlanta's midtown hotel complex,t this we's annual economists convention, the view from ll above the fr. the pros who track and analy unemploynt assemble here, and they see job market that may finally be near thbottom. but even so, or the past two years, laments fmer clinton labor department ecomist larry katz: >> we've lost million jobs. we needed 2.5 milln jobs just to keep up with population growthso we're about 10.5 million jobs in e hole. even if, say, over t next four

years, we were generatg jobs at the pace of the sort of lat '90s boounder clinton, we woulbe continuing toave incredibly high unemploynt for the next four or five years. >> rorter: indeed, it would take a bst of new jobs over the ne 4-5 years of 15 million new jobs to get us bk to where we we at the start of the recession. yet december recorded anotr net lo. economic fecaster allen sinai spoke for ma. >> we' get positive job creation in the next mon or two, and we' have a surge in bs when census workers come wo. but beneath that, the underlng growth of jobs in this count looks to me to be ve anemic, anotr kind of jobless recovery like or worse than os we've had befo. >> reporte so, are you imagining a stdy-state for the american economy with unemployment at 8%, 9%, %?

>> its probably peakedt about 10%, but we wo see 8% at least until 20. >> this is still o hell of a depressed onomy. >> rorter: paul krugman is typically pessimistic, as we. >> who's goingo want to expand? who's going want to build an office building when we've g record vacancy res? o's going to want to build a factory when we've gotear- cord excess capaty in indust and down the line? so why would you expect hing in this vironment? >> reporter: nowthere were economts here who saw light at the end of the tunnel. northwestern robert gordon. >> there's reason to hope th unemplment is going to come down substtially in 2010. first,ll the outlook for g.d.p., the tal amount of production, isor it to increase abo twice as fast as it did back in 2002 during t previo recovery. the second rson is that we can't produce more wh ever fewer people unleswe have a gigantic boom inroductivity. >> rorter: meaning more output per person. suddenly, we we just much more ficient. >> productivity ways grows

rapidly athe beginning of the recovery becau firms are still cutting costs as output recovers. d eventually they realize, "ah. output is recoveri. let's rehireome folks." >> reporter: but bacat steve guy's company, insad of rehiring, ey're working people harder. holly robbins used to be in charge of accoun payable. she ill is. >> i still do l the accounts payable and the billand opening thmail and making sure everything wpay for is accurate and aroved and get evything entered so we get paid on ti. >> reporter: but nowhe also does shipping and receivin so, are you workg harder than you re before? it seems like it! ( laughs ) sometimes... somimes, it's pretty crazy. >> reporter: a even if the economy really picksp, says the boss, herobably won't reduce theoad. >> it's a fundental change in how i manage my siness where, for years, bigger was betteri had growth every yea

now, i'm prey happy where i' . this could be the be year we've ever had. we've done so ma proposals that are o there that if only a few of them take off, wee going to be vered up. buat the same time, that doesn't mean i going to hire full-time employees, and the's not a c.e.o. inow that's ring right now. >>eporter: now, steve guy is, well, just one guy, ane.d.g. is just e company, but if it's a typical small buness, we shouldn't expecthem to rescue thamerican economy with new jobs anyime soon. you'reart of a group of regional.e.o.s. the economy picks up dramatically, willhey begin to hire againull-time? >> i think ty'll look for every avenueossible not to hire full-time think they'll hire temporary contctors, and so on. i think they'll thinabout it a ng time before they hire ful time people. >> rorter: and today's numbers bore out guy'scary take on the labor market 85,000 me jobs lost last month.

plus nearly a milliofolks no longer counted in thworkforce at all. the only glimmer of goodews? temporary ployment rose, ging hope that the job market could ke off at some point. >> lehrer: and finallyonight, the anysis of shields and brooks-- syncated columnist mark shields a "new york times" cumnist david brooks. mark, the christmas boing, at do you think of what president obama has sa and done aboutt ? >> sobody said awhile back, jim,hat sometimes a man's greatesttrength is his greatest weakness, and the he endures. the president has been accud of lacking emotion, of almost running a passionless presidency b many of the supportersf the left. and th this you see that as a strength. it w totally nonbombastic it w measured.

it was classic o it was thorough. it was refleive, it was innse. and i thought was impressive. impressive in e sense that a bombing that unlike th experiencef 9/11 or the riard reid bombing, the shoe lace bomber in cember of 2001 wh there was -- we re free of partisan carping or cricism this was followed immediately bipaisan countriesism lead by the former vice president. and i just felt like he illed a good part of that. i thought the action to it was as sious as his deliry was. thone surprise i had was that the -- total layman in the intelligence, hi commendations seemed to be self-evint. >> lehr: doing a little bit better. doing a little bit better. have to have a better list

better watch lt and get inrmation. and i thought it workeand i thought it was seriously. >> i was loong at the loyalty flow if u want to call ithat. is he takingesponsible. is hkeeping a loyal team. ople messed up but is he sang okay, i'm not going to publicly expose you. the beginning of the week i thought the was fingerpointing to people beneath. >> lehrer: like wh,. >> he said i going to make it clear this kind of behavior is to theoing to be tolered. >> lehrer: yh. >> so it was like you gu really messed it up and i'm above it all. t by the end of the week i thght he had really taken care of it. he said we're all pa of a team. we have some mistakes . we have take responsible, the buck sps here, all of that. in timesike this there wille mess ups, it's war. you have to ep a coheese ef team and i thght by the end of the week had done that. >> lehre what did you make of the war statement. we are at war. because that is one the things that formerice president chey has been

knocking him for that president obama doesn't act like it war, he doesn't em to get it, we are at war with islamic terrorism >> i always thought that w the quarters an unfair charge. one moment i gback to and awareness that oba knows we are at war was in frae. if you remember held a town hall meetinthere. and he went out of h way to remd the people there at we are at war. this is a big problem. we just have to dealith it. that wasot necessarily an audiencehat wanted to hear that. so i took that as a gn that he really does know. i think if youre president you got that daily intelligence bri, there is noay you are not conscious of it ery second of every day. so i tught that was three quarters unfair. the one quarter of legitimacy and conrn some of the critics have, iif we are at war y are we not interrogating or questioni this terrist or this suect under military rules? why are allowing him to pld guilty and to the go through th intelligence process. why wi retrying khalid sheikh mohammein new york f it is r maybe we should

ve a war all the way down. >> lehrer: forr senator gorton made that poi to judy that -- the very point. >> lehrer: don't tryhe guy through the crimal courts, hold him, interrogate him, what do yothink of that arment? >> i don'tnow the strengths of thergument nstitutionally. i do know that there w no question thaunder president bush and presint cheney , what was intriguing to me, it was such a different response president bu immediately at the time of an attackas t's go after them. let's go get them. itas -- you know t was understandable aopposed to president oa which was what did we do, what do we ha to do better. far as this is concerned, this was how the 2h hijack er house aweee was trd. has saluted to a test moial to the american dicial system rudy giuliani who has becomthe avenging angel of the military tbuneal. i n't know if it is a rule

issue or it isn't real issue. i do want point out that dick lugar the fmer senate foreign relations committe long time republican sator --. >> lehr: from indiana. >> from indiana said that bloomberg 's -- al hunt this weekend he thoug the president had been fir showed firmness and decis decisiveness. we thought the vic esident's criticism was unfair. and i real think that we e now in a zone where evything becomes politicizeed. there is no queson about it. during theampaignback bam said- barack obama said daily that we're in war on terror. it was not a -- itas not something at just eluded him. he regarly repeated that. it was part ofis mantra. >> lehr: what about the point also going back to the earl-- earlier discussion, david b the allegaon in "the wl street journal" editorial toy or the suggestion tt there is too much beaucracy, there is too much there. and that's one of the

reasons in that they caugh it -- they got the information but then ty didn't deal th it properly. and someing needs to be done about it. >> i think that is absolutely true on two levs. one, as i haveaid before, the natial security agency alone collects four mes as much data per day as exists in the library of congress that one intelligence agency. >>ehrer: an that's the agency who doethrough telephone line communications. >> there just a ton of dat the second thing and to me e more radical critique is that -the guy's father mes in. he tells a story. thattory is then turned into a cable sit's turned into a piece of informion at can be put on a computer a processed by a reaucracy. if you took a novel an tued it into the sort of infoation that could be processeby a bureaucracy, u would totally lose the meing of the story. and so what we've got is a process that tes reality and narrows down to checklists. and to me when youo that,

you are losing the feel d the portance of a lot of that information. d i suspect that's part of what has happed here. and thats endemic to burecracy. >> lehrer:o how do you fix that, mark >> well, i mean, one of th ys suggested to fix it, jim, was madby the 9/11 commissi, by jim baker and e hamilton and their colleagu. which was the director of national intelligence, miral denny blair, that is where it is alsupposed to go. >> lehrer: give mo authority. >>ou have got 16 sources, mitary and civilian, 16 separate smoke stacks, silos as we ll them. theris -- this is where it is supposed to come to and acted upon. that has been back andorth, as peoe know and has been reported. but bean leopanetta, the cia director and protect his turf, and admiral blair an his mandates for the directorf national intellence. i mean think that's something that only the president can resolv >> lehrer: my -- >> my point is that expert infew signicance actually quite powerful. somebody who really kns

the field, they just have feel for sometng. we have a process that mimizes the role for expert intuition. because it has to go thrgh all these diffent chanls. and that bleeds aw a lot of the oh, i tnk, i have a hunch, you just n't do that. >> lehrer: richard clark former white house guy for both georgw. bush and before that ll clinton id on this program last night at software could -- that works, that makesll of tse pieces of data mahed is also not -- is also appartly not up to speed. >> no, that is exact -- that and that surprised that that -- thaeight years later. >> lrer: but david, you are saying forget softwa. go -- go with the human mind. >> t human brain is a lot more complicated than an software program and peoplehat know what they areoing come up with successful hunches. >> lehrer: and me good software. >> but tre was a human faure. this, i mean, the information wathere. mean but there was a failure tontegrate and a failure toct.

i mean that, you kw, that is i isn't bureaucrac as much as it ia human failure. >> lehrer: new sject, david. two democratic senator chris dodd and byron doo gann have said they ar not dorgan have said they are not going to run again how important of that in t course of human even tas relateto the democratic control t also to everything else that esident oa and others on the democratic se may want to do. >> well, jusfor two it is not a big de if you are thking about the future of the sena t makes the decrats more likely to keeponnecticut and less likely north dakotbut it rt of a larger climate. and there has been a significt shift in public opinion er the last, really ovethe last year when fralin roosevelt was passing hireforms he galvanized t majority behindim. what oma has done is recoiled the majory. so you have thpollster's list, who do yourust on this issue, republicans or democrats on 13 separa sues, the public opinion is shifting to the reblican side on all 13, so of them quite siificantly.

more peoe call themselves conservative than have before. more people ink global warming n't real than bere. more people are mo o-life than before. gun contl, more hostility. so the who shift to the right in the countryas happened over the st year. sort of a recoil. and i suspect and it just theory, that it is because people a traditionally suspicious of washingt, and th see a lot of power concentrated in washgton anthey are recoiling so that shod be of concern. >> lehrer: that is a big picte, mark, do you see -- >> it is, it is enormous picture,eah. davi-- >> i can g bigger. >> i was going tsay. i s going talk about chris dodd and byronorgan, two senators. >> lehr: what did i ask? >> let's talk out those two gu. >> okay. i know them both and like them both. and mi going to miss the both. anthey are both been good puic servants. chris dodd's leaving with refreshing candor. he talked about s politil problems. he didn't pretend i wanto

go homand spend more time with t family and do that. he d, in fact, level that he had problems, that head a beer chance of keeping the state mocratic by his leaving and dick blumentl, the attorney geral running in hislace. byron dorgan and kent nrad, sort othe touchdown twins, the two demoatic senators, th've been winning elections in that state since 1980n a state that ronald reagan won 2- -- solidly republic, north dakota, and mehow they have managed to survive, a populist, fiscally responsie national democrats. and byron dorgan ihink decided that he had spent enough time, energy d effort doing that. and maybe that the proects weren't that great >> lehrer: you d't see aciers moving the way david does. i do think that what you have right n is -- it is a difference from 19. 1933, in 1932 there were 217 republicans and 6 democrats in the housef representative

and two years lar there were 200 mordemocrats than there were republicans under roosevelt. in other wds, it kept incrsing. thdemocratic numbers are not going to increase. what the democrats are coerned about are more retirement in the hoe, especial because open seats are the most vulnerable pce for a party to defend. incumbent is still toher to defeat in a house election. >> lehrer: no matter wheth they are replican or democrat. >> republican or democrat. in 1994 when the democra ffered their few nam -- tsunami loss wh bill inton, lost 54 house seats, 40 of the 52 seats thelost were open seats. that is mbers retiring, or ruing for another office. they have been able to kee the retirements now unr single digits. if they can do that they should be in prettgood shape. but i don'think anybody expects the democrats t to lose probably sowhere around the average of 21 seats which is the average number that a presiden loses in his midterm of hi first term. >> lehre dow want to take it to even aarger picture.

in the ploois seen age --. lehrer: do you see the numbers kind of the me way. >> i tnk charlie cook who llows the house for a living says to 306789 i justhink there is a chance it could ba sort of bigger ndslide. a job stays terrle. the country sort of ared a very bad way. this pubc opinion mood is unprecedented, the distrus of government,he distrust of washingn. not unprecedentein mocratic republican, but in anxiety, unpredented. >> one thing, m, two seconds. >> in thdecade between 2000 and 2010, this country created zero jobs with 2 more million peoplcame in the population, 0 jobs. th's a political dynamite. >> lehr: we have zero time left."a- nk you both very much. >> woodruff: againthe major develoents of the day: e economy shed another 85,00 jobs in december. t the unemployment rate held at0%, as more than 600,000

people stopped looking for wk. and the nigeri man accused in thairliner bombinglot pleaded not guiltyn federal court in detroit e newshour is always online. hari senivasan, in our newsom, previews what's there. >> sreenivas: we hear more from "new york times" rerter david leonhat on the health of thu.s. jobs market. and ul solman caught up with so of the job seekers we profiled last year to fi out how they're faring. ouseries on "the next chapter of rding" continues with a ok at the newest e-readers o display at the consumer eltronics show in las vegas. and check back later tonightor a "rundownconversation with newshour regulars mark shiel and david ooks after the program. all that andore is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy. >> woodruff: and that's th newshour for tonight i'm judyoodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jimehrer. "washington week" can be see later this eveni on most pbs stions. we'll see you onli, and again here monday evenin ve a nice weekend. thank you angood night. major funding for the pbs newshours provided by:

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