ctioning sponsored by mneil/lehrer productions >> lrer: good evenin i'm jim lehrer. reaction to presidt obama's sta of the union address. woodruff: and i'm judy wodruff. on the "newshour" tight, it's all about jobs, the preside said, as he announced new fundi for high-speed rail projects. lehrer: we'll discuss last night's sech with michael behloss, cynthia tucker, reihan salam and hn harris. >> woodruff: tn, a dramatic ory of rescue in haiti, wher a teenage girl surviv more an two weeks in the rubble. >lehrer: and an interview wit rene preval, the presidt of haiti. ray suarez taed to him in port-au-prince today.

staon that now serves as his government's hequarters, haiti leader said the solutions tois country's problems lie within hait and haitians mussolve them. >> woodru: kwame holman looks at the faout from toyota's move to halt sales and production of me top-selling cars and trks. >> i do think that what you're seeing now is toyota ing a victim of its own succs. >> lehrer: d, we wonder about j.d. salinger-- lg-gone author of "catcr in the rye," who died today. that's all ahead on tonit's "newshour." major funding for t pbs newshour isrovided by: >>hat the world needs now is energy. the energyo get the econom humming again the ergy to tackle chlenges like clime change. what is that energy ca from an ener company? everyday, chevroinvests $62 million in ople, in ideas-- seeking, teachingbuilding. fuelingrowth around the world

to me us all ahead. this is the poweof human energy. chevron. >> this is the engine that bnsf, the enginehat connects us. bank of america-- commitd to helping the tion's economic covery. pacific life-- the power to help yosucceed. and by the alfred p. san foundation. supporting scienc technology, and proved economic performancand financial literacy in the 21st ceury. andith the ongoing support of these institutions d foundations. and...

this prograwas made possible by the corporatiofor publ broadcasting. and by contribuons to your pbs tation from viewers like you thank you. >> lehrer: president obama road tested his new cus on bs and the economy today margaretarner begins our coverage of t tune i don't know aftermath. >> reporter: th president was greet with applause by a friendl audience in tampa, florida. he and vice president joeiden unveiled $8 billion in grants for high speed rail, part of their n focus on jobs creati t president said againhe understands wh americans are going thugh. >>last night i've spoken about where w need to go and i've said ese are difficult times,

these challging times for our country. in th last two years, we've gone rough the deepest recession since eat depreson. think about that. a big chunk of the people here, certainly the younger peopl here, have neve even seen a recessn. they don't eve.. it doesn gister on their mnds. this is by far the toughe thg that the untry's gone though economically since the 1930s. >> warr: the president also repeated his tune i don' know plea for the two parties to work gether. >> on evy one of these issues, my door remains open to good ideas from both parties. want the republicans f the sidenes. i want them working with us to solve problms facing working families. not to score points. i want a partnership.

what we can't do, ough... here's what m not open to. i don't wangridlock on issu after issue after issu when there's many urgent problems to solv (applause). warner: back in washington, there were mid signalsn the prospects for birtisan progress. lawmars from both parties agre with the focus on eating jobs b not on the best way to do it. >> the president and i agreeon the need meet inhe middle to find birtisan agreementto grow jobs. > warner: sene minority leader mitch mcconnll was on the floor earlier declaring he was ready to work withhe president. >> we know ineased american energy without a new national energy tax will grow od jobs. we know that increasing markets for our farmers, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers overseas through trade reements will grow good jobs. we c get these done and i hope he president will joins in calling on the majority to bring thse issues to the floor he in the sate. >>eporter: and democrats prmised to roll out a new jobs agnda within the week.

>> the three top sues onur agenda thiear are jobs, jobs nd jobs. neitr party can afford to overlook this iss or it will be seen as obstructingn it. if eher party dos, it will be their own political peril. >> warner: but on the house side, minority ader john boehnerays mr. oba's calls for bipartisanship d his criticisof republican oppositi rang hollow. >> there s nothing last night in theresident's speech to indicate that there s any willingness tosit down and wrk together. >> reporter: an inana republican, mikeence, said the president still seemed tone deaf to the need to reign in the deficit. despite his call f a partial spending frze. >> e president of the unite statecame to the well of congress and after apparently fering nod t focusing on jobs, he renewed his embce of the faile economic policies of is congress and h this

ministration to date, calling for one more so-called stimulus bill built on the same fled polici of the last stimulus bill. >> wner: for her parouse speaker nancy pelosi fused today on health ca reform, somhing the president moed down his priority list in last nit's address. >> we must pass th leslation , and weust take whatever timeit takes to do it. some things we cando on the side which maynot fit into a bigger plan. that doesn'tean that's a subs tuesday for doingomprehensive. it means we will move on many fronts. >> reporter: the psident also drewattention today fo his criticism last night of the supreme court's dcision on campaign finance. with all nine justices looking on, he charged that the ruling would open the flooates for special interests, including foreign corporations. associate justiceamuel alito shook hisead and appeared to

mouth theords "nottrue." this morning, vi president biden defended mr. obama's reprimand of the court's action >> thepresident didn't question the integrity of the cot or the decisionhey made, they estioned the judgment of it. here we are f the first time in ov a hundred years 're equating corporation with an dividual and fee speech. the problem is, a lot of these multinational corpations are owneas much by foreign interests as we as domestic interestand now for the first time you're going have corporation foreign corporations, bng able to conibute hundreds of miions of dollars to determine the outce of an ection in the united statesf americ i thk it's outraous. >> warner: tens millions of amecans watched the tune i don't know speech andany joid in a kind of national nversation online in the hos afterrd. some posted reactions on the pbs newshour's utube channel and some of them were sharply critical. >> theame excuseshe used in s speech such as"i never said the world wouldcome together in harmony simply by the din of

mine becoming president" or "i didn't say i cou make chan happen alone," simply unmask him as the impotent naiv president he reallys. >>eporter: but others found the president' agenda in line with their own. >> i fel that the speech tually regained my confidence in h leadership a it had sort of.. got a little loose the for a while b he was ery authentic and what i loved s that every single issue that he... thathole shopping list exactly what was on my hopping list. >> warr: still others post comments seemed t despair of a progress. one wrote: buthere were also those who counseledatience, includi this one. tomorrow, m. obama takes his

ca directly to house republicans. he'll address eir gathering on mierm strategy takin place baltime. >> woodruff: now, four kes on presidentbama's address last night: presidential historia and "newshour" regular miael beschss; cynthia tucker, political cumnist for the "atlanta jrnal-constitution"; eihan salam, who writes "the agenda" blog for "the national review" oine and is a fellow at the w america foundation; and john harris, editor-in-ief of "politico. good to have you all with us. michael beschloss,o you first. i'm going to a each one of you this question. what did you thinof the speech? >> what i was not surprised by..remember the last coue days a lot of people were sayg thiis going to be like bill clinton in 199 clintohad suffered big congressional setback, lost both houses of congress. and cnton gave a tune i don know, this is aost a different human bei from the prious year. a very conservative sech, a lot of it taken almost wholesale

out of newt gingrich's contract with amera, it seemed. not much of thatlast nig. bark obama tried to reframe his psidency, remind people th he was not jst this lefty big government man but in rms of subsnce there was very little chang and i thk that reallyays a lot abo obama veryifferent from bill clinton. >> woodruff:ynthia tucker, not a different president? >> by no mean this ithe president that we saw in the campaign in 2008. he reiterate misdemear of the things that he ran on. he w... heprojected an aura of confidence and resolve, deteination, and i think he accomplished what he neede to accomplish. he reminde americans at he understands eir economic anish. he needed to, as ronald reagan d, remind americans how w got in the mes that we were in. and heneeded as well to raledly base, tell them he wasn't running away from the promises he'd made in 28. anso i thought he d all of those things. the speech w a lite long,

b ithink it was a goodpeech under the circumstances. >> warr: reihan salam,e ccomplished all that heeeded to do? >> i thinkichael made a very, very go point. when you look at presint clinton d his reactio it was one of humility. it was a reognition that we made serious misteps and we needto pivot, we need to take a new crse. anthis president in stark contrast said that in ct the last year was wild successfu and that fact folks a home who are disturbed, who are conrned, who have this popist anger, are, in fact, badly mistak, they're not giving him an assumption of good faith. in fact, hhas been reaching out, he has done exactly everying that he ought to do that theyimply don't understandhat and heasn't explained i adequately. i'm not sure that's going tobe seen as an adequateexplanation for a lot of inpendentoters, certainly a t ofonservative voters and ao democrats who might be re inclined to stay at home co the mid--term elections than turn outin droves. >> woodrf: john harris, sounds li reihan salam was sayinge needed more humili. what d you make of the speech?

>> thought there we two distinct tests he was facing with the spch. the first s with the brder public, and th is where the presint can command a wide tionaludience even if this era o a fragmented media. is is a natiol event. 50 milli people watched i had to clear thatest and i ink there was a second te wit an insider audience of peoe in washington that wnted to know how he was going to respond to his starkly different political circumstances he may be the same presidnt and the same messageas cynthi said, but his ccumstances and h options are much, must have different. i thought he clearedhe first test easily. he showed hmself sort of vigorous. there were some flashes of hue humility in ples but als real flasheof fight. occasionally some humor and pele saw that he was not personally deated or back on his els. th tst cared. the insider tst, people that a saying ow what" for his presidenc he's got these ias but what are the prospecs. what theegislative sategy? w do we achie this? i don't think he d terribly

well that test. >> woodruff: michael bescoss, how important is tha inside washingt audience? >> important but think they'r t going to beugely influenced b this. this is really, you know, trng to remind peopl beyond washingn that he may not be what he's been caricatureds, especially st few weeks when people were focused on that race in massachusetts. but, you kw, we were mentiong bill bill clinton a mot ago. clintowas a survivor to use the tle of john hrris' excellent booon the clinton presidency. he would have done almost anything to get reelected. mething fascinating that oma saidhe other day, h said "i'd rather be a reallyood one-term president than a mediocre two-term prident." i think he mea it and ihink last night showed thate did. >> woodruff: reihan sal, this oneterm/two-term atement, what do youake of that and w does that affect your view ofis performance last night? >> i think that it was aery powerful anvery telling statement. one ofhe key aspects of president oba's appeal has been th idea that he's not an

ideologue, that he's profoundly agmatic and that he'sot terribly ierested in partisanship and what he you and he's perfectly wilng to embracgood ideas from the republic side. and i'm not sure tat's actually true. i think e president issomeone who has very de core convictions, vy deep ideologicalonvictions andi actually believe him wh he says that. i believe that he wants t achieve certa broad picy objectives that as he eluded to in t speech are things that folks who are on the more free mark right, folks who advocate a robust federism, decentralizati, et cetera, are gong to be uncomfortable with. and io in a sens find that verympressive. he doesn't just want to get reelected, he doe't necsarily want to do what tt meian voter wants, he wants to aid pgressivism in thisery broad sense, he nts toelp progressivedemocrats not necessari centrist democrats like ben nelso and joe lieberman win rlection and so that was partof what he was saying when he said, hey, look, guys, you have big robust

jorities, let's get this done. we didn't come here for funand games, we came he to build thisrogressive gorning agenda and to cnge the tra skrebgtory of where this country is going it'sust that a lot of fos are uncomfortablwith that. >> woodruf cynthia talker. coming back to this notion jo harris put out of the publi versus the washington audiee. do youee that same divide, two audiences hhad to reach? >> i dot think the tune i don't know spee was the place for him lay out the legislative and political strategy f the job that he is trying toaccomplish. the legislation thate wants t get passed. i think s jobas to shore waiverring democrats. i'm not going to r for the hills andou shouldn't, either. in the comin days he'll beut on the trail as heas today getting voter pport ande's going to be doing a t of arm-twistingehind the scen to get his agea passednd in at sense heas a much higher chance of moving democrat tha

he does republans, i think. >> woodruff: whaabout that, john harris? what is th.. what'syour sense in was it smart for him toake this appeal to bipaisanship and to say to his collgues "don't run for the hills"? >> absolutely and i wanto clarify my point. i don't think a te i don't know speech would be the appropate place to lay out in he nitty-grittyegislative tactics othe legislativ lendar.ú; cynta's quite right about tt. i do think tw things that oba was trying to do and these are lesns from bill clion,one, liberate himself from congress. i on't think any president nts to be seenas tied to the fortun of his or her ownarty within the congress he wants stand above other politicians and to some extent liberate himselfrom his party. be seen as predent of the united states raer than just lder of thedemocratic party. in that see it was effective. here's where do think it was importt to address th inside dience. in the fst term, there was a very clear thry of the cse that barack obama and h aides were aancing, the so-called

g-bang theory of governance. they were going to pss big thngs all in one year: health care, cp-and-tradeegislation for global rming, financial reregulation. a year later, none of those thinghave passed. the big bangidn't work. what is e new gerning theory now? he's got ts of good ideas, but what is the actual political strategy behinthese governing ideas thatill actuly bring them enactment. and i don't thinkhat's a matter of legislative tactics. that's aatter of howoese see his pridency and demonsate effectiveness? >> woodruff: and youe saying we didn hear that last night. michael bchloss, did you hear that that? >> not much. and you know i tnk he's recognizin there's a very good chance even if he serves eight years, his mostowerful mome president, at least wit congress, was last yr and will not ever come again. the other thing i if this speech had the resonance not of clintonut ronald reagan 1983. dep recession, a lot of blessness. reag went to congress and said the state of e union istrong but our economy is trouble we

nherited an economy that was much worse than we expected. we heard almost e same thing last night d theesson from reaganas, reagan was recognizg his fate was ti to whether the economy got better. it didy '84, he got reelected. in barack obama'sase, he knows that his rlection in the fate of tis presidency res on if the onomy gets better, two wars abroad,struggling against terrorism, if thosehings go well, he'l be fine. but knows he' largely hostage to the events. >> woodruff: cynthia... go ahead. >>'m glad mhael mentioned reagan because i tnk there are many lessonsbama can take from reaganhere. oneas that wh reagan wasin trouble, he dn't back down. he uck to his principles, he forged ahead. and he... >> he mightave said "don't head for the hills." >> absolutely. republicans lost sea in the dterm elections in reagan's first term,ut he still stuck to his polies and then heas reelected byarge marns in four years.

of course, that did depend on the ecomy. andf the enomy improves, i think that obama can accompsh some of those bigssues, big legislativbattles that he asn't been able to get done so far. >> woodruff: which raises a point, again,eihan salam, which aot of people have been bringing i. and this is, do a sech real matter? ifmployment doesn't pick u if people don't go ba to work, the eonomy doesn't turn around, will ts speech have matterd? >> ihink it won't. i think that basically the speech wl be vindicate if the president does pa a big-ticket legislation, particularly s health reform and then conessional democrats will breathe a sigh of relief. e big difference witheagan and the big aw inhe analogy is that reaganepended onhose boll weevil democrats. he didn't really need a partisan majity as long as he basally had an ideologil mority. now the partieswork very ifferently today than theyid backhen. and so barack obama depends on ving large democratic majorities. without that, it'snot clear his strategy works, as john harris

suggested befe. that's why e midtermlections are very,ery portant. he loses the majorities, if he s to depend on blue dogs t pass his agen he is in a serious bind. > woodruff: so, john harr, if you don't see a thry of governg coming t of this speech la night, what doou look for from him,from the white house, and fr what the presidt says goingorward? oh, ierceive them as very uch an improsational moment i don'tthink we necessarily heardr could read betwn the lines thatheory becau i'm not sure they've yet settled on one. bill clintonhowed that you can be a very efftive president without havingig leglative majorities orn this case for six ofis eight years any majoritat all. barack obama has al the tools power at his disposal but he's going to have to use them in a fferent way than he did in t first year. and i dot think they've ttled this. i don't think incidental that we're going to b hearing that sort of one-term line very often (laughter) i n't really think there's

a... >> don't you think his fellow democra just loved hearin that? >> well, michael can speak to this, but i don't ink in presidential terms tre's nobility in defeat. the mst effective president ar the ones that a also the most politically effective and the least effective are the ones that d't get reelecd. so the idea that i'd rher right than popular i think as clinton hself might haveaid himself, a false choice. >> woodruffput a button on this, micha. >> we canrgue that sometime. i think there havbeen some very good oneerm presidents whoost reelection because tey did very important, unpopular things. but time will tell. >> woodruff:ame them quickl no, i won't k you . >> ve more mines (lahter). >> woodruf michael beschloss, cynthia tcker, reihan salam, jo harris, thank you all. thanks, judy. >> lrer: and still to come on the "newshour"a dramatic rescuin haiti and our nterview with thcountry's president; toyota troubles and the passing of j.d. sanger. >> lehrer: but first, t other news of e day. here's hari sreenivasan inur newsroom.

sreenivasan: the u.s. sena todayonfirmed ben bernanke to a second term as chairn of the federaleserve. e final vote was 70 to 30, after thnomination easily passed a key predural test. suppoers and opponents clashed over bernanke's handlingf the financial crisis anwall street bailouts. >> the ameran people want change in the way r financial stitutions run. the american pple want change at the fed. and i believe the amican people want a new cirman or chrwoman at fed. now is the time to say tohe american people: we hearou. we are going to bring abt change. >> he deserves cret for having been willing and crageous enoh to make these kinds of decisions. and that was the type of leadership we needed--trong, definitiveeadership at a moment of acute cris. that's what chairmabernanke ve our nation. he derves to be confirmed just

for th action alone. >> sreenivasan: no fechairman nomineeas ever been rejected the senate, but today's confirmati vote was the closest yet. senate mocrats also pushed through an increasen the federal debt ceiling. the ve was 60 to 39, along party lines, to crease the vernment's borrowing authori by nearly $2 trillion. decrats still had the 60 votes since republican senator-ect cott brown of massachusetts s yet to be sted. e senate also approved a so calle"pay as you go" measure to rein in spending. the house has approv a similar propos. an internatnal gathering convened in london day, aimed at finding a y to end the war in afghanistan. e conference officially oped this morning with foreign miniers and delegates from many nations. presidentohammed started by anuncing he's read to reconcile wi the taliban. >> moving towareace, reintegratn is what afghans agree on.

must reach out toll of our counymen, especially our senchanted brothers who are not part of al qaeda or other terrorist networks. >> sreenasan: the outreach took the form of inviting insurges to a council of eders, a la jurga to be held early th year. at the same me, conference nations pledged at least $0 million to he taliban fighters who lay do their weapons. u.s. cretary of state clinton said this plan was meant to appeal to insurges driven more by economic nee than ideology. >> among the disions made today was t establish a peace and reintration trust nd to support theovernment of afghanistan's efforts to draw disaffect taliban back into society so long as they renounce violence,enounce al qaeda, agreeo abide by the laws and constitutionf afghanist.

>> rerter: >> sreenasan: u.s.eporters say some tiban leadersave held secreteetingsn laying do their as. more tn 100,000 foreign tros are now fighting in afghastan, includg 70,000 americans. present karzai wned it could ta five to ten years f complete ndover to afghan control. but western lders pushed f a tighter timetable. >> the intention is for some provinces to trantion byate 2010 early 2011. on the road to eting president arzai's commitment that ha of afghanistan's provinces wld have afghan securi leadship within tee years and the whole of afghanistan be within afghan security leadersh within five. >> sreenivasan: there was also otest outside the conferenc in london. denstrators called for the immediate withdral of international troops from afghanistannd the ouster of the pro-wesrn conference. >>his conference is a colonial conference. it's a conference that is planning e future of the muslim world so that the regies that are still there, thearzai

ray jet stream, the sar dari regime in pakistan can serve western intests in the region. >> sreenivasan: abdlah abdullah warne doubts about the karzai governme will undermine any chances for progress. >> the gd will of the international commuty is appreciated. the fact that it'staking place will bringocus on afghistan ut i don't think that itill immediate the expectatis of the people afghanisn nor those who are tending. >> sreenivasan: the worl lears will meet in kal late they are ye at asummit aimed at bolsteringthe afghan government. the taliban smissed the conference in advance insistg its fighters wl not be won ov with money. on walstreet today, the dow jones industrial averaglost more than 11points to close at 10,120. e nasdaq fell 42 points to close at 2,179 ford motor companyas posted its fit annual profit in four years, the automakeer recorded a $2.7 billion gainif 2009.

it says it expes to stay in he black through 2010. ford was the only major deoit automaker thatid not accept federal rescue money the ma accused of killing an abortion prover in wichita, kansas, nfessed to the crime in court today. scott roeder is charged wi fir degree murder. on the stand he repeatedhis earlieronfession. he said he gunned down dr. george hiller last may to stop abortions and save the unborn. >> from conception forward it is murder. it is not man's j to take life is is our heavly father's. he is our creator. he ves and takes life. it's ver up to man to ta life. only in cases of self-defense o defense ofthers. >> srnivasan: the defense is arguing the killing wanot murder, but luntary manslauger. the trial judge has sd he will not let the se become a forum or a referendum on abtion. thse are some of the day's mai stories. i' be back at the end of the program with a previ of what yo'll find tonight on the

"newshour's" web se. t for now, back to judy. >> woodruffwe move on to haiti where the country's presint toldhe "newshour" today that haitians themsves will ultimately be respsible for solving the cotry's problems. we'll have that interview in moment. but fir, the remarkable rescue of a teenage haian girl, trapped under the rubble for more than t weeks. robert moore of independent television newreports from port-au-princ >> repter: darlene is recoring from her ordeal. a story of survival that has astonish doctors. 360 hours she endured under the ubble, waiting and knocking, hoping a praying. he medical team is confident she willake fully recover. a rescuers can take some pride that o more life has been saved id nearly200,000 lost. herescue beg yesterday as first loca andhen french fifighters battled t extract

her. then slowly darlene emerged. at first, single limp hand. but markably showing signs of life. >> doctor! doctor! >> rorter: delicately r rcuers pulled her ot, knowing darlene surviv against all the odds. bewildered one point she seems to call out for her ther. the teenager was cared aplay to apause (cheers and applause) that she survived for th long in the heat and horrors testimony t her physical resilience and to an extraordary inner strength. she was saved because people retrievingpossessions from this area heard a faint tapping noise deep bew them. it was thse workmen sifting through the wckage like this who firstheard darlens ocking. he miraculous rescue raises o eruciating question: could therebe one or two more people still trapped butlive out here in the rubble?

iis just possibl but only if they wre trapped like darlene was,ith access to water. he workmen say they will continue to listen outor new gns of life beneath them. and the french rscue teams we've been with insist there continuing to search, but mainly bause some people mayave been bied in subsequent aftershocks. so darlene is,erhaps, the last surviv of a tragedy that has changed this ntion fover. >> lehr: and now our interview with haiti's presidt rene preval a to ray suarez in port-au-prince. >> suarez: since e collapse of the national palace in the january 12 earthque, the haian leadership--like so manyn po-au-prince-- has been, you mit say, homeless. the government in makeshift headquters in the outskirts of wn in a police station. there have been complats from manyuarters ofaitian sociy that the president, rene preval, hasn been much in evence since the groun shook. we caut up with him earlier

today. >> howky help yu? >> arez: with the situation as it exist today inyour country, wh's thefirst job, e premierask for your government? >> (translated):o remove the dead from the rubble a for the people who areleeping on the streets in publi places to get them into tents. and to assure them that we'll ge them food a water in the upcoming days >> arez: preval came to the presidenc after an a career as an ai don't kn if mist. yo can hear it as his answer ctinues. >> (translad): we can not ctinue to rely on giving food the population thatomes from abroad becau we're competing against ouown national agricuure. what has toappen right away is toreate labor-intensive jo to give money tohe popation to buy nation procts. >> suez: the haitian esident says the earthqua is justhe latest of multiple natural disasters to affli his country. >> (translated): now we a

working on this catarophe, but we must not forget the catastrophe of four storms last yr which caused so much damage that we have yeto recover from. we are preparg for the ne hurrica season. we have to create canals clean drains, buirotective walls that in a few months we won't have another catastrophe. >> suar: i understand it's goingo start rainng heavily in ur to sixeeks. it seems impossibl to get al those people who are living on the stet into shelter, into tents. >> (translated): this catastrophe happened only days ago. at's not a lot of time. we ne 200,000 tts and they dot exist in the world. we're talking about protecti one million people he street. it's a lot. theay before yesterday, wead just 3,5 tents in hti. that's so far from what wen nee. >> suarez: forpeople who are

watching tis in other cntries, in other parts o the wod, how do you keep them interested ihaiti for the lng haul? >> (transled): the problem lies within haiti a should be solved in haiti. >> suarez: filly, in response to a qustion from the "new york times," president preval gave an answer that might explain why the haitian people have seenheir leader out in public sot will until theast two weeks. >> ranslated): this is what's most difficult for know explain to evebody. i o not do polics. okay? i'm not interest in a litical career. i'm interested in naging a country.

those intereste in polical caree you would have seen them going to hospit, kissin kids and sick people wit a camera crew behind them. my work, the wok of somebody tryg to manage a crisis, is to nd ways to ese the pain of those suffering instea of trying be phographed with journalis, with people who suffer. >> woruff: now, the fallout from toyota's big recall today the wor's largest auto maker extend its north american recl and suspension of sales of several p models to inude vehicles in europe and china.

newshour kwam holman spent t corspondent kwame holman spent the day gathering actions. >> reporter: the it to ralls were the talof the exhibition hall this morning at the ek-long auto show washington, d.c joe is like llions of toyota customers worldwide,oyal to a branwith a strong repation for quality an reliility. >> they found t problem,hey stopped evething, they're going to fix the problem. andwe both are of that mode. tell us what is, let us denied, notake it sound pretty. >> any recall presents a problem and any recall has to be dealt with the manufaurer and ey will do it and they'll have a ix for it >> rerter: autoshow organizer charles stringfellow owns 14 franchises,ncluding toyota dealerships in the mid-atlaic region. >> toyothas been a brand thas been around for a long time, tey are verygood, quality brand and haveeen for years. and coumers are very happy with th cars.

they have go customer satisfaction d i believe the oblem will resolve iself in relatively short period of time. >> reporr: yesterday, toyota halteu.s. sales of five models, incling its best-ller, the camry, in the face of growing cncern their ccelerators can stick, sending vehicles o of contr. in all, mo thanwo millio w have been rcalled, coving eight modelsin thisear's line d up to six years elier. ty are the corolla, the highlander, the matrix, the enza and the pontiac be, manuftured in conjunctn with toyota. toyota dealers have be left trying explain to their custors. peter kitsmiller is he of the maryland aodealers association. >> people call in andthey're not able to give them an answer on whenor what or how th will be taken care of. that's a hard posion to be in. we're n normally used to telling our custers "we n't know." 're used to taking caref

their issues. i hope that will get resolved quickly as pssible. reporter: the problecame into sharp cus after a 2009 incident in california in which a lexus e..-350 sedan suddenly sped upnd crashed, kilng all fourccupants. but in 2008, toyota had repaired gas pedals in some tundra pickup trucks after reports they wre slow to rise aft being depressed. the mpany also said it suspected floormats catching the pedals mighte a cause of sudden accelerationnd offered to place the mats. that concern led tohe recall of millionsf toyotas lat last year. is week the national highwa traffic saty administration says it's been workingwith toya to repr serious defects. johnavis is an analyst with pbs's "motor week" the longest-runninauto show on televisi. >> clearly toya is finding itself in avery unfamiliar situation.

they've spent aeneration building up ts quality and reliability image and he they are over the last few months faced with mar ralls and this latest one tlking about sticking acelerator pedal e rlly dramatic situation a i'm not sure that they know how to hand it as well as, say, some ofthe domestic automakers at have been through th before. >> reporter: toyota says it has received 2,000 compints about engine speed prlems in itsehicles over the last t years so far, one supplier of accelerator parts--denzo, based in japan-- reportey has been cleared. attention has fcused on c .t.s., which makes accelerator parts in the u.s for toyota. still, toyotahas called the acceleratioproblem "rare and infrequent." nonetheless, drers are worried. >> feel tat they knew the was a problem a they probly figur it would be cheaer for us not to go in and do all of this and just accept the risk of what litt bit that might

happen. >> rlly hate tbe on the highwa and then just be goi at a top-rat speed and not be ablto control e vhicle. >> reporter: tota is advisingts dealers toct on customeroncerns on a case-by-case sis and expts recommend drivers whos vehles nexpectedly accelerate shoul shift into neutral an turn off the enge. analysts wonder if toyota's rush to become t world's top automakeer too quickly may ha contributed tohe acceletor problem. >> i do think that what you're seeing now tota being a vicm of its own success. wheyou're a small player and you have problems, it doesn't get big headlines. but wh you become the secd-biggest automaker in america and basically chlenge g.m. for leadership and take all this market share away from g.m., ford, and chrysler and others, younow, when something hits the fan like this, is big news. so ia way you can say y saw this comi just as they got bigger and more prosperous. but still, i think it says that a company as good as tota,

this should n have happened and i do tnk that we'll se a lot of corctive measuresby them to make sure it doesn't happen aga. >> reporter: the rells and sales suspenons mean shutdowns of x toyota factories. at the toyota assembly plant in huntsville, alaba, workers were feeling the pain. meanwhile, toya's competitors arewasting no time. general motors an ford have offed cash to customersho swch from toyota. we spoke to dealers i minnesota. >> they're ways hopeful and they hope that me toyota cusmers th maye were considering a toyo will look at their brands. >> reporter:and the three large car rental mpanies annnced they are pulling the recall toyota models ou of their flee. >> woouff: for the record, toyota is a newshour underwriter. > lehrer: finally tonight, t going f j.d. salinger-- one of

ameri's most read and least known writers of fiction. he died of naturacauses sterday at his home near cornish, w hampshirat the age of 9 mo than 60 million copies of his 1951 novel "catchein the rye" have been sold, read, worshiped and studied. anit made the centl characterholden caulfield, tter known than salinger himself. he dropped out of puic sight when he was 45ears old. never seen andeldom heard in pri since 1965. histher few books included "frny and zoey," "nine stories," "raise higthe roof beam, carpenters"nd "seymour-- an introdtion." we examine t salinger legacy and myste with nicholas delbanco, an author of me than 20 book he's the dictor of the creative iting program at the university of miigan. and, roberthompson, a professor popular culture at syracuse university.

nick delblanco, whyas "catch in the rye" mattered so ch to so many for log? >> a serious question and a qui read of the book goe a long way to answering. i think that sanger perhaps cociously,erhaps unconscusly, captured what we proudly call the sao +*eus geis a particular.. zeitgeist, a particular way o lookingal world we shared and he did so in an an orinal fashion. the novel bears a certain degree of linea from kinship to huck finn, that other gat khraoe wl witness who's a teenage y studying society. but it was in its own way a first of a kind and i really hasn't bn replaced, thgh its imitators are legion.

>> lehrer: whatas the origial about, ka +*fr in the rye. >> i think theoice in the openingeat announces early on and absolutely authoritativy that wee in the presence of not somuch an outcast of society as soeone who ha't yet found his comfortablelace with it, who looks at it keenly,hough, through the eyes of an adolescent and who is, you know, preyou are the naturally alerto th repeated word, phoniness. he just sees tings around him and talks about them with a ki of unearned authority that's thoroughly endearing. an to the young reader persuasive. >> lehrer: sure. robert thompson,ould you agree at there was more to hoen caulfield than just a khrk ther in novel

he me a culture figures well an remains so to this day? >> that's true, and where does onetart? en though this guyonly left four books, it's a pretty smll can, it was a wopper of a canon when it cameo 20th century culture. and it's interesting because the... it'sot like salinger innted the notion of t disaffected youth. gthe had done that with the sorrows of young werter a long time ago and others did it as ll. but it is tis combination o a deep sincerity, apirituality, this state-ofhe-art vernalar. this guy wasalking the way we ere talkingt that very period. and then i think the last thing that really went into this equatio was it became part of the public school currulum. i hve to nfess, asuch as salier has been an important part of my literary life, i irst entered into his world ecause i had to. i wasassigned to read it. and i tnk a lot of those

copies that were sold of "catcher in the rye" were originally introduceto kids o were reading its part of a curriculum. and that's an interestin part of the whole salinger story. >> leer: nick, is "catcher in the rye" sti part of the national curriculum? >> it certainly is atthe high school vel, a little less so at the llege and graduate school lel. but if i may thought i woul ad you the first stence of the book because it really does describe what rbert thompson has just... demonstre what is robert thompson st descrid. so he it i "if you reallyant to hear about it, the firsthing you'll probably want tonow is where i was born andhat my lousy childhood was li and how my parents wereccupied and all before they had me and all at david coppereld kind of crap. but i don't feel like going into it, if you want tknow the truth." >> lehrer: oh, man. >> so "if you nt to knowhe uth" becomes the operational assertionthere.

and that davidopperfield kind crap is aanny tip of the cap to one of his predecessors, e youthful hero of a dickens novel. but 's saying i'm goi to do somhing different. i'm going to be as-- robert thompson just said-- disaffected but straightforward nonetheles so, yeah,t goes straight to the heartnd into the ear of the... in particular, i'd say, adolescent reader. >> lehrer: wel robt, take us to the next step in j.d. salinger's life. what is known or what the best guess that you he heard about why he dispeared? y he's rained in that small house i cornis.. outside corni, new hampshire all these years. >> yeah. well, who knows? i think maybe e answer is h as a littlenutty. we get very little evidence. his daughter wte a book and a woman he h a relationship wrote book.

so we getittle piece here and there a presumably the basic part ofhe story is he rely loveto write but he didn't loveto publish. he didt like the idea of notoriety and fam andhis mak him an unbelievably interesting character, espially in contemporary americ he's going completelyagainst the american grain. most peoplewould do anything for the attention and t sbbering attention that fe brings. here'a guy where fame is falling into his lap an he buis a wall around it. he is the antithesis o "amican idol." the antithesis of realy t.v. and in an odd way that mes him really, rlly cool. i think one of the reasons we ctinue to be so fascinat by this guy is at he doesn behave by the usual american laws of physics. >> lehrer: nick, do you buy the rumors that g around that here's wholeclosetful of d. salinger man you skwreupts

that he written through the years, enjoyed writing th and picking up on robert'soint that he didn't want to publish themut now we're going tofind them now that he's dead? >> i see no rean to disbelie that. we do have, in fact, startlin ttle evidence but mybest guess th thehabit of writi one that he wasunable to break and ddn't want to. it was, as robrt said,the publicationhat goton his nerves. the only argument i ha with what was just said or the only caveat i wanto add toit is that in a paradoxical way, his refusal to go public increased his fame. >> that's right. >> if he'd been o talk shows f the last 45 o 50 years, he'd be the old geezer, the old wind g that everybody had had too much of. in fact, america, once you have degree of fame-- think howard hhes or present puishing author thomas

pynon-- it's a very can career move; as it wer refuse to grant interews and to be pivate. i think inhis case it was probabl a person imperative and not a professional choice. butn many way we find him more intereing because we know notng about him than we would if we were ud to seng him age. and that's one of2 t startling or at leas shockingspects of his death at 91. he stillooks to all of us like the 45-yeaold who last permitted his photograph toe tak. >> lehrer: youuy that, too, robert? >> yeah, i think tt's absolutely true. i'm surprsed more people haven't trd to become famo by doing what salinger did. but most peop could not keep still for at lon as for his dth, younow, in many ways salinger is a alive for me todays he was yterday. after al he's not wting anything more than i get to write i don't hear anything new abut him. d what salinger brings, i

think, to all of us ahose our extraordinary bookshat bear reading ove andver and overgain. >lehrer: well sd. robert, nick, thankou both very much. >> thank you. >> than you. >> woodrf: again, the major developments ofhe day: present obama road-tested his nefocus on jobs and the economy, at a town halmeeting in tampa, orida. the u-s senateonfirmed ben bernke to a second term as chairman of theederal reserve. and tota expanded a sweeping recall to china andurope, due to gas pedal problems many model the ewshour" is always online. hari sreenivasan,n our newoom, previews what's there. hari? >> sreenivasan: we ha much more abouthe state of the ion address. you can wah all of the video responses we received onur yotube channel. plus action and analysis to some of the specics from amy walter-- a look at theolitical

ttles ahead. from mitary analysts, a debate over the predent's call to end the military'"don't ask don't ll" policy. and then, for something comptely different on "art beat," a convsation about the role of art in american siety. n.e.a. head rocco ndesman answered your questio in an onne forum. all that and mores on our web site, newshour.pborg. >> lehrer: a again, to our hor roll of american service personnel killed in the iraqnd ghanistan conflicts. we add them asheir deaths are ade official and photographs bece available. here, in since, are 10 more.

>>oodruff: and that's the "newshour" for toght. i'm judy wdruff. >> lehrer: and'm jim lehrer. we' see you on-line and again he tomorrow evening with mark shields and dad brooks, among

thers. ank you and good night. majofunding for the pbs newshour is providedy: everyusiness day, bank of america lends nearly $3 blion to individua, institutions, schools, organizations and businessesn every corner of the economy. america-- grong stronger eveday.

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