captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: republicans cast votes in ten states on this super tuesday, with the largest batch of delegates at stake so far in the presidential race. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. the polls have just closed.

and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the first results are coming in on this super tuesday and the first winners are being called. based on exit polling, the associated press and others have projected, in fact, the associated press has just called newt gingrich the winner in the state of georgia.

that's a state he once represented in congress. it was deemed a must-win for his chances of staying in the race. >> ifill: for more on the races we're watching most closely including that one in georgia, we turn to stewart rothenberg of roll call newspaper and newshour political christina bellantoni. >> newt gingrich had to win georgia and everyone thought romney would be declared the winner out of virginia immediately. it was only him on ron paul on the ballot. this is sort of a nice little momentum shift for gingrich to be able to be declared the winner. we don't have any results in this yet. that basically looks like he's running pretty strong there. >> ifill: newt gingrich said in a refreshing refreshingly obvious comment this week if he couldn't win in his home state he's no longer a credible candidate. is he a credible candidate? >> i don't think we know yet whether he is. it will depend down the line tonight on a number of other contests. at the bare minimum he had to win georgia to be taken

seriously to get to the other states whether it's oklahoma, ohio, tennessee and mississippi, and alabama. i would say this would be a huge embarrassment. this was absolutely necessary but it's a sufficient reason that the former speaker is a top tier candidate. >> he actually campaigned in georgia too. it wasn't like romney didn't spend any time in massachusetts but he's likely to win his home state later tonight. gingrich actually went and asked people for their votes and said this is very crucial for me to win here. >> ifill: it's interesting. as we begin to talk to the voters who cast votes as they left to polls today, everybody said not surprisingly that the economy is the most important issue for them. let's talk about a sub set of that especially in georgia. gas prices. big issue. >> this was a really big issue. aate low of the exit polls are saying it was top on voters' minds as they went to the polls. it is the sort of thing that as you fill up the tank you start to think about this. gingrich has made gas prices a key eshoo.

he's asked people to tweet from the pump. >> ifill: he promised $2.50. >> he's engaged with the white house. the white house responded to him on this issue. don't for get he did the 30- minute commercials with his own energy plan. >> ifill: is that really driving it? >> i think there's a whole range of issues from jobs to gas prices. obviously cultural issues have been interjected. the republican discussion over the past couple of weeks. conservative voters are going to vote on a range of issues and conservative themes. newt gingrich will get much of that spor. some of that support. his problem is the same problem he's had for a while. he's dividing a lot of that with rick santorum. >> ifill: surprise tonight. ohio. even though newt gingrich has a very good night ahead of him. ohio is where the neck-and-neck race is going on between romney and santorum. what do we expect for romney?

>> there are 63 delegates at stake in ohio which is a big prize. it's also really key to look at where these candidates are able to win because santorum might have been very strong in the area next to pennsylvania. his home state. but he failed to sort of get the organization in place to be able to capture those delegates in certain congressional districts down there. that will be a little bit of a trouble spot. one thing i'll point out with georgia too and these early exit polls suggests that romney is running pretty close to gingrich in georgia and so that doesn't necessarily mean that santorum is doing all that well down there. i think that will probably be determinative in the states we're looking at like tennessee, a key state in the south. >> i think the key question in ohio, gwen, the momentum. if you look at the polls over the past couple of weeks, rick santorum started far ahead of mitt romney. in poll after poll over the past few days we've seen mitt romney gaining ground through the campaign, through the messaging, through his ads. if you're a political handicaper or you want to be

one when you grow up, momentum is really important. that trend line, where it was, where it is and where it seems to be going also important. that suggests that mitt romney really has a pretty good chance in ohio. >> ifill: we come back to ohio every two, four, three years, no matter what. it's the bellwether state, the state that determines who wins in november. what are we seeing about the issues in ohio that make it friendly or a dangerous place for democrats or republicans? >> barack obama is doing a little bit better in ohio. particularly the economy is a big focus there. that was one of the things that drew voters to the polls in 2010. that ousted a lot of democratic members of congress there. certainly you're see ago lot of people show up to say that the economy is their top issue. a lot of those people are picking mitt romney who made that the center piece of his campaign there. it's important to point out that ohio is very much a two-man race. santorum and romney were competing for those delegates there. gingrich and ron paul sort of left that state to them.

it's probably going to be fairly close tonight. >> lots of good economic news for the president and for his party over the past few weeks. yet today you check to see what the dow did. down over 200 points. why? because of concerns about greece. the economic future is very uncertain. it's been good news for the president the last few weeks. who knows where it will be over the next few months. that's why both pears need to be worried. >> ifill: we know georgia. what are we watching for the rest of the night, key states? >> very important sort of looking at the gem demographics. is santorum able to win just the ivan gels? is he winning white voters and people that with lower education and lower income? that's what we've seen in a lot of other states. is romney doing well in the suburbs? what areas is he able to really shift and do better in than he's done before. >> ifill: older voters has been what's happened with romney. >> romney has been doing very

well with older voters and upscale voters, that's his niche. kind of the establishment conservative. romney gets conservatives but didn't get conservatives who are combative, driven by ideology and confrontational. he gets conservatives who see the system as complicated. they're conservative but they understand they won't win every battle. >>. >> ifill: as he said on the night of the michigan primary, i've won just enough and winning is what really counts. >> woodruff: how a quick look at how you can follow our election coverage at any hour day or night on your desktop, laptop or mobile device. we hope you'll join our super tuesday watch party online. we will live stream all of our broadcast programming tonight, including our late night special. our on-line stream will also include live results data from all the states in play this day. throughout this political year,

you can explore our map center. here you can view the results of every primary and caucus from tonight and this entire election cycle. you can see the entire country, county by county, through different demographic and economic lenses. and if you like, you can predict your own outcome for the general election with the electoral college calculator. >> thank you. >> woodruff: want to watch the candidates' speeches tonight? we will have them all live on our you-tube channel. after our 11:00 eastern television special our coverage continues online at 11:30 p.m. with hari sreenivasan and christina bellantoni having a live chat and taking your questions. you can participate in the conversation using your facebook or twitter account. find all this on our front door at newshour.pbs.org.

be sure to check out the baran new pbs political web page at pbs.org where you will find our work and the work of our pbs program partners. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, minority students facing harsher discipline; cultural awareness training for marines; cash incentives for rough play; plus, mark shields and michael gerson. but first, with the other news of the day, here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: president obama took on his republican opponents today, on foreign policy, gas prices and other issues. he spoke at a white house news conference called to coincide with super tuesday. newshour correspondent kwame holman has our report. >> reporter: at times the president took a tongue in cheek approach to his challengers on their big day. >> today is super tuesday. i wonder if you might weigh in on some of our potential republican opponents. mitt romney has criticized you on iran and said hope is not a foreign policy. he also said that you are america's most feckless president since carter. what would you like to say to

mr. romney? >> good luck tonight. (laughing) >> no, really. >> really. >> reporter: but mr. obama turned serious on republicans demands for military action against iran's nuclear program. he said they're beating the drums of war but don't understand the costs. >> this is not a game. there's nothing casual about it. you know, when i see some of these folks who have a lot of bluster and a lot of big talk but when you actually ask them specifically what they would do, it turns out they repeat the things that we've been doing over the last three years. if some of these folks think that it's time to launch a war, they should say so. they should explain to the american people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be. everything else is just talk. >> reporter: the president also ridiculed suggestions by some

republicans that he wants gas prices to move higher still to promote alternative energy. >> just from a political perspective do the president of the united states wants the gas prices higher? i want them lower because they hurt families because i meet folks everyday to have to drive a long way to get to work anthem filling up this gas tank gets more and more painful. it's a tax out of their pocket books. >> reporter: reporters also asked about rush limbaugh calling a law student a slut she backed insurance coverage of birth control. mr. obama denied to question limbaugh's apology. instead he said there's a larger political point. >> millions of strong women around the country are going to make their own determination about a whole range of issues. it's not going to be narrowly focused just on contraception. it's not going to be driven by one statement by one radio announcer.

i believe that democrats have a better story to tell to women about how we're going to solidify the middle class and grow this economy, make sure everybody has a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share and we got a fair set of rules of the road that everybody has to follow. >> reporter: today's super tuesday news conference was the president's first of the year. >> sreenivasan: wall street took it on the chin today. it was partly due to new worries about greece getting private investors to accept terms of a european bailout. the dow jones industrial average lost more than 203 points to close at 12,759. the nasdaq fell 40 points to close at 2910. hours before president obama spoke today, iran agreed to let u.n. inspectors visit a major military site. the announcement said both sides still have to agree on guidelines. the parchin complex had previously been off limits, and u.n. officials have said secret work on nuclear weapons may be under way there.

also today, six world powers agreed to resume nuclear talks with iran. the european union's foreign policy chief, catherine ashton, made the announcement in helsinki, finland. >> on behalf of china, france, germany, the russian federation, the united kingdom and the united states of america, i have also resumed talks with iran. we hope that we will be able to now pursue with iran constructive engagement with the purpose of addressing the international community's concerns about the nuclear program. >> sreenivasan: there was no word on a date or venue for the nuclear talks. eight women are suing the u.s. military, alleging they were raped, assaulted or harassed while in service. the plaintiffs are all current or former members of the navy and marine corps. they say they suffered retaliation after reporting incidents to their superiors. their federal lawsuit, filed today, accused military officials of showing a "high tolerance for sexual predators." five top members of the computer

hacking group known as lulz-sec were charged today in federal court in new york. the f.b.i. said the ringleader, hector xavier monsegur, pleaded guilty to various charges last year and began working as an informant. the five others are acced of crimes ranging from stealing information to defacing the web sites, including those of the pbs newshour, credit card firms, and others. democratic congressman donald payne of new jersey died today of colon cancer. he was first elected in 1988, and served 12 terms in the house, representing the newark area. payne had chaired the congressional black caucus, and dealt extensively in u.s.-africa policy. donald payne was 77 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: we turn to education and the impact tougher discipline policies are having on minority students. it turns out young black and hispanic students are far more likely to receive tough school punishments, including suspensions, than white students. jeffrey brown has more on this story. >> brown: those were some of the

findings in a report released today by the u.s. departmenoftm education's office of civil rights. overall, the report found african-american students are three and a half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than whites. and 70% of students arrested or referred to law enforcement for disciplinary problems are black or latino. the report also looked at disparities in educational opportunities. education secretary arne duncan said today that schools with a high number of black and hispanics are less likely to offer calculus. >> reporter: even in schools offering calculus, hispanics make up 20% of the student body with just 10% of the students actually enrolled in calculus. that underrepresentation has to end. overall, while black and hispanics make up 44% of the students in this survey, they make up only 26% of students in gifted and talented programs. something is wrong with that picture as well.

>> brown: we take a closer look at today's report with chester finn, president of the thomas b. fordham institute, which focuses on the reform of elementary and secondary education. he served as assistant secretary for research and improvement at the department of education in the reagan administration. and christopher edley is the an of the law school at the university of california berkeley. he is also currently a co-chair of the equity and excellence commission created by the department of education. christopher edley, i'll start with you. start with the issue of discipline and punishment. what jumps out at you? what is important here? >> let me make three quick points. i mean, it is from a civil rights perspective i think civil rights lawyers would look at these huge disparities that arne duncan was just talking about and where there's smoke their fire. they would say that this makes out a suspicious case that there may be a some kind of discrimination going on. if we saw these kind of

disparities in an employment setting, people would jump on it. the second thing i would say and more important than that is that the expulsions, the suspensions, these huge disparities in discipline showed that we're really not providing equal educational opportunity. you can't be providing opportunity if kids are kicked out of the school. and there are alternatives to those disciplinary measures. there are alternatives in terms of interventions, in training teacher to do a better job of classroom management and interventions to figure out what's going wrong in that kid's life. the third and most important thing i'd say apart from a civil rights enforcement issue is that these kinds of disparities in discipline are highly correlated with tremendous disparitys in academic achievement, in academic attainment. that if a school is not successful at figuring out why jamal and jose are acting out the chances are pretty slim that

they're figuring out why maria is two years behind in reading. fixing our schools, supporting our teachers, intervening with our kids in a way that we're searching for a strategy that works for each kid, that's the civil rights issue. >> brown: chester finn, does it rise to that level for you? what kind of implications do you see? >> i'm glad they're collecting the data which hasn't been happening for a while. and a lot of the data certainly are alarming. but it would certainly be a mistake to see a racist behind every tree in american education. the schools are not doing a good job with poor and minority kids. we've known that from many indicators including those that dean edley has referred to. certainly one symptom of school problems are these disparate discipline rates. but we have to also keep in mind that teachers and principals are trying to run an orderly school where kids who are serious about studying are not disrupted. it would be a mistake to keep in

class a kid who was a problem child as well. >> brown: let me ask you or just stop you right there and stay with you because one of the questions i assume this raises goes to the so-called zero tolerance policies in many schools where an automatic suspension comes for a variety of misdeeds. >> some of which don't deserve it. some of which do. if a youngster is found in school with a loaded gun, for example, i think that is an instant suspension or expulsion cause. on the other hand, a kid who talks back to a teacher wouldn't qualify or shouldn't qualify for a zero tolerance, should be given a good dressing down and told to behave better. i think as with zero tolerance was in the larger society, this can be overdone in schools. frankly some educators hide behind these zero tolerance policies because it means they don't have to make the decision about what to do with a kid. they can just say the rules compel me to suspend you. >> brown: dean edley, when you broaden it out to these other disparities and you already

started to do that, you get data like this. what does one do with it? what happens next or should happen next? >> just to be clear-- and i by the way agree with everything that checker just said. if schools are throwing kids out, suspending, expelling, this kind of discipline, then it's absolutely certain that you're driving those kids away from a commitment to academic achievement. and in that sense, this is just not good for society. we're focused on trying to improve not just the equity but the overall excellence of our schools because we care about the opportunity for individual kids but also because we know that america as a whole can't have the security, can't have the prosperity we want if we continue to run dropout fact er tos as high schools and discard 30, 40% of our human capital.

so it's the smoking gun aspect of this that i think is most instructive for those us who are concerned with school reform as a whole. interestingly, as bad as zero tolerance policies are-- and i think they are terrible, and i think they're a civil rights problem-- in schools where there is a zero tolerance policy, the disparities between minors and white kids shrink. so, in fact, it's the discretion that is used in the context of discipline or in the context of referring kids to special education where implicit bias may play a role, where the inability, the professional undertraining, if you will, of teachers may come to the fore as a factor in creating the different treatment of kids. >> brown: all right. chester finn, the same question. what does one do with this data at a local level or at a national level. arne duncan was quoted today

saying this is really about self-analysis. he was suggesting administrators and teachers look in the mirror to see the good, bad and ugly. >> of course they should. of course data are valuable for people running schools and school systems. some of this is not within the control of the schools. some of the kids who are being disciplined are coming from troubled homes and troubled neighborhoods and bringing a host of problems with them into the school. the school which actually occupies a very small fraction of their lives school cannot solve all by itself. i don't want to lay the entire burden here on schools. there's larger societal issues here too. you can look at criminal incarceration rates in the justice system too and see similar disparities. but some people do commit crimes. just similarly some kids don't behave well in school. >> brown: you're referring to disparities that go beyond the punishment question. >> way beyond the punishment question. they also go to the academic achievement question as chris edley was saying to the teacher

quality question to whether you learned what you should have in sixth grade in order that you can successful in seventh grade because if you're not you're more likely to act out. if you act out you're more likely to be thrown out which is, of course, a vicious cycle that begins way back probably in first grade. >> brown: we will have to stop there.th chester finn, christopher edley, thanks so much. >> a pleasure. >> ifill: next, another in our occasional reports from journalism students around the country. tonight, giving u.s. forces a crash course in afghan culture. at today's white house news conference, president obama said the furor over the koran burning incident last month showed the challenges for allied troops in afghanistan. dealing with those challenges and gaining a better understanding of cultural differences is the aim of a program based in the remote desert of southern california. our report, prepared before the koran burning, is from carl nasman.

he's a graduate student in the journalism school at the university of california berkeley. >> it looks and sounds like a typical afghan village. but these marines are nowhere near afghanistan. they're patrolling a multimillion-dollar recreation. lance corporal derek hicks is one of the marines on patrol. >> this is basically typical of a lot of villages in afghanistan. we were deployed there last year. there were a few towns that were similar to this that we were patrolling through. it's very realistic. >> reporter: the mock afghan villages at the marine corps base outside of san diego. even from my vantage point above the action the scene below seems real. the training facility is less than two years old. it's one of three mock villages on marine corps bases across the country. hundreds of marines pass through here every week before deploying to afghanistan much one of them is sergeant christopher roberts. >> the first time you go on a patrol you'll be overwhelmed with all the culture, the scenery, trying to figure out what's going on, how to deal

with these people. if you're doing it for the first time in afghanistan that's not a good day. >> reporter: marines here learn more than just combat. they're taking a crash course in afghan culture. >> you get all kinds of cultural awareness training. it plays a huge factor. you might want to wave at somebody or point to a certain direction. but if we know if that's something that that local area they kind of look at that as an insult compared to what we would, we go through that training. my guys are able to kind of stop themselves before they do it. >> reporter: their teachers are afghan americans, hired for a role. only they can play. >> they come up and try to shake your hand on patrol and stuff. try to offer you food and stuff. just like a typical afghani. it's good train to go have the role players out here because i think without them, it would be pointless to be running the training.

>> back when i was still a marine i wish i would have had this training because the only thing you use for opposing forces is another marine wearing a t-shirt on his head or another acting like a fool. you don't get the realism. >> reporter: this former marine and a military training coordinator for one of dozens of private companies hiring role players for specialized military training. >> the unit may request anything from somalis, yemeny folks, you know, afghans. it all depends on what the needs of the marine corps is. we will try to facilitate that as much as possible. >> reporter: just outside his office early in the morning the afghan role players start arriving for work. this man is one of nearly 500 afghan role players on the payroll. thousands more work for other companies nationwide.

the war in afghanistan created a steady stream of u.s.-based jobs for afghan immigrants especially here at camp pendleton. role playing is an important source of income for afghan americans, a community hit hard by the recession. >> i was looking for work. this is the kind of job i heard that i can do because i speak many languages. >> reporter: this man and other role players can make a few hundred dollars a day working at the base. >> it pays my bills. i'm the only person working at my house right now. my wife isn't even in the united states. she doesn't speak english. i have a little over a year old daughter. >> reporter: but role playing is more than just a paycheck. the breakroom is a meeting place for afghans where new and old cultures mix. >> the generation that has the culture that is really stuck with them from afghanistan. there's the other ones that are blended in between like the melting pot. most of all you have the young

guys hanging out having fun. >> we learn a lot more from each other, yes. the afghan people speaking your language. we get together to start talking. actually we're being ourselves. we're kind of like mixed up. we're american and we're afghans. we're american and we're afghans. >> the acting community still figuring it out. what is our position in the american dream. >> reporter: this man is the executive director of the san diego chapter of care, the council on american-islamic relations. he says role playing is an instrumental job in the afghan community. >> this is a great thing to do. we're serving america and we're serving afghanistan both at the same time. it's like hit ing two birds with one stone. but at the same time you have those who believe that, you know, this is not necessarily an

honorable job because you're taking the side of, if we may, an oppressor. >> i heard a few negative things. this is like selling yourself out. >> reporter: role players walk a thin line. especially in san diego, a city with strong military ties. discrimination against afghans and ear muslims flaired up after 9/11 when it was discovered that two of the 9/11 hijackers, none of them afghan, lived here before the attacks. >> i just questioned where, you know, like plilt cally i would stand or with my belief where i would stand with it because, one, i didn't know what the military was aiming for in, you know, afghanistan. two, know what exactly, you know, they wanted from us here. you know, i have roots both places. yes, i was born here. but my parents were born there. >> reporter: now a decade after the united states invaded afghanistan, role players are still coming to terms with their ties to both countries.

>> like i was trying to do something, if you can see.... >> reporter: outside the base this art student studying graphic design. >> this is actually another one. this is my peace tree. >> reporter: his work is influenced by his duel eye department tees. >> at the roots the roots of peace are war. >> reporter: in a way that's kind of what your job is little bit like during the day, right? you're not going there to help people like come better killing machines. >> definitely not, man. that's the only reason i do it. at the end of the day like i can tell that these marines are learning something. (gunfire) >> reporter: three years ago this was a mock iraqi village. but as that war wound down the military built a new afghan village. iraqi role players were let go andfghans took their place. >> i think the only thing that will change obviously is the

type of role player, the type of culture that they may ask for three years from now we could be asking for, you know, iranians. we could be asking for koreans, who knows. >> reporter: for now the training continues with afghans. but marine combat troops will start leaving afghanistan next year and virtually all troops will be gone by 2014. >> woodruff: now, the fallout in the national football league following an investigation into a veterans coach whose past practices went out of bounds. hari sreenivasan has the story. >> sreenivasan: the man at the center of the scandal, former new orleans saints defensive coordinator greg williams. an nfl investigation had found williams had created a so-called bounty program to reward players on his team when they knocked opposing players out of the game. the report released friday said that between 22 and 27 defensive players on the new orleans saints as well as at

least one assistant coach maintained a bounty program funded primarily by players in violation of nfl rules. it quotes nfl commissioner roger goodell as saying the investigation began in 2010. >> second and eight and he's picked off. >> sreenivasan: after allegations from players that members of the saints' defense had targeted opposing players specifically quarterback brett favre of the minnesota vikings and kurt warner of the arizona cardinals, among others. >> wow, did he get hit. >> reporter: the rewards of 1500 for a knockout hit leaving player unable to return to the game and $1,000 for hits resulting in the player being carried off the field. williams, now coaching with the st. louis rams, has admitted to and apologized for running the pool of up to $50,000 over the last three seasons. he could face fines and/or suspension. nfl investigators are looking into whether he ran similar programs with other teams when he was head coach of the buffalo

bills from 2001-2003 and as defensive coordinator for the washington redskins between 2004 and 2007. for the latest on the investigation we turn to peter king. thanks for being with us. >> you're welcome. >> sreenivasan: tell me. how deep did this investigation by the nfl go? how widespread were these bounty programs? >> well, it was a two-year investigation on and off. mostly off quite frankly because when the nfl investigated this after the 2009 football season, they sent investigators to new orleans and interviewed several people, coaches and at least one player with the new orleans saints, and they denied the existence of a bounty program but then more credible evidence came to the surface within the last three months.

the nfl reinvestigated and i think one of the important things in here is that they examined a lot of forensic evidence. i'm guessing that means emails. and they found a lot of evidence in the emails that a bounty program existed but i think the one important thing to realize here is that there are actually two sort of forms of a bounty. the one that is getting all the headlines and that i don't think is nearly as widespread as the other one the one where players will be offered cash to deliberately injure and knock out a player on the opponent that week. i think it's the other kind of bounty that is significantly more prevalent, and that is, you know, $100 for an interception here, $50 for a forced fumble or something like that. so i don't believe that every team in the league is offering players $1,500 to knock out the opposing quarterback every sunday in the league. i think it's rare, in fact. >> sreenivasan: did this cross a particular boundary? why is there so much of an

outrage over this? >> you know, i think it's because over the last 18 months the nfl in the middle of the 2010 season had a horrible weekend where there were three or four very violent hits and collisions. and the nfl at that point decided to really ratchet up the fines and the possible suspensions of players for what they considered over-the-top hits. the nfl has been confronted with more than 50 players in the last few years who were suing the national football league because they feel that the league knew a lot about head trauma and concussions and did absolutely nothing about it. so i think one of the things that the league thought when they started hearing this and why it upset the commissioner, roger goodell so much is he's saying, hey, on the one hand we're trying to prevent, you know, these really serious hits and to try to make the game if possible a little bit safer. now you've got a rogue outfit,

you know, at least some people on the defense of the new orleans saints who are encouraging players by incentivizing them to go out and injure the opposing quarterback or somebody on the opponent. so i think, you know, those two things are at such cross purposes that it's going to force roger goodell, the commissioner of the league, to hand down some very severe sanctions. >> how does the nfl change the culture of the sport? i mean, on high school football on friday nights and college football on saturdays you see the stickers on the sides of the helmets for when kids make big plays. it seems like this is an extension of that incentive structure. >> big plays are one thing. and tremendously hard hits in making a tackle. that's another thing. but if there is this subculture involving some teams in the nfl where they look on film on friday and they say, okay, there's the quarterback, in this

case here's brett farve. if you knock him out of the game we're going to win. so i'm going to pay you $10,000 as an extra motivation to go knock brett farve out of the game, and i think that is where the nfl feels that we just can't have that. we can't have this extra motivation to try to deliberately injure star players when, on the other hand, they're fining people severely right now to, you know, to try to prevent some of these colossal hits, you know, and illegal hits that they're seeing. >> sreenivasan: what kind of repercussions are we likely to see here? how seriously is the nfl likely to take this? >> i think the nfl will take it very seriously. i believe that the assistant coach that was most involved who has already admitted that he was knee deep in this bounty program, greg williams, who is now with the st. louis rams i believe he'll be suspended for at least half of the upcoming

season and won't be able to coach. then i believe that the people who at the very least, sean peyton, head coach of the saints, mickey loomis, the general manager of the saints, the nfl believes at the very least that they lost institutional control over what was going on on the defensive side of the ball. i have... i believe both of those men will get suspended as well. i think some players like the aforementioned jonathan wilma a prominent linebacker on the team who according to the nfl offered his teammates $10,000 to take out brett farve in the championship game three years ago. >> sreenivasan: peter king from "sports illustrated". thanks so much for your time. >> you're welcome. >> ifill: we'll be back shortly with more on super tuesday from mark shields and david gerson. first this is pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for that support helps keep programs like ours on the air.

>> woodruff: for those stations not taking a pledge break, we have an encore look at images of wounded warriors, taken by a combat veteran who wants americans to see the impact of war. newshour correspondent tom bearden reports. >> reporter: combat photographers have been documenting the terror, the violence, and the boredom of war ever since the invention of photography. america's 21st century conflicts in iraq and afghanistan are no different. these pictures were taken by air force sergeant stacey pearsall. she is one of a very small number of women to have been admitted to the elite ranks of combat photographers. >> i joined the air force at 17. it just seemed like a natural thing to do d mmijofay slyerve of my family served in one branch of the military or another. the military history in my family goes all the way back to the revolutionary war. >> reporter: she spent four years processing film from u2

spy planes before she became a member of what is virtually an all male club. pearsall says some were downright hostile. >> i had a guy tell me to my face that he didn't believe that women belonged in the military a tndinhat they were better serd in the kitchen. >> reporter: she traveled to some 41 countries during her career. she was attached mostly to army and special forces units where hae experienced everything those soldiers did. living rough, risking her life, even to use her weapon to defend herself. she took tens of thousands of pictures and won a shelf full of awards. some of the pictures have amazing back stories like the day she was abo sunrise to avoid enemy ground fire. the pilot was asked to delay the departure so a badly wounded soldier could make the flight. if he missed it, he would likely die but that would mean risking getting shot down. >> got on the intercom and said there's a juaned soldier.

it's really going to be a show of hands who wants to stay and wait and who wants to go. there wasn't a question. stay. everybody raised their hand. there was no doubt. the helicopter literally lands off to the side. medics grab him and just one frame that's all i had one frame and then they pulled him off. they started walking up the ramp quick and then i ran to the ramp and we were off. he survived. because everybody sacrificed their lives or, you know, put their life in danger for him. i think that that's a real representation about what it's like to be in this fraternity we call the military. >> reporter: pearsall is smiling in most of the pictures taken of her overseas. she doesn't seem to smile very easily today. perhaps because she's in nearly constant pain, although you wouldn't know it by looking at

her. >> toward the end of my second tour in iraq outside of baghdad i was hit by a roadside bomb. we were traveling without doors on. it took pretty much the whole thing. i hurt my neck pretty good. i impacted the seat in front of me. traumatic brain injury and a cervical spine injury. >> reporter: that was in 2004. she didn't see a doctor because she was afraid of what others may have thought. she was hurt by another ied in 2007 and then again during an ambush. >> i would not be able to grim things or hold things. they would just drop out of my hands. i was pain down my right side. i knew i was in a world of hurt. >> reporter: she finally sought help. doctors told her her military career was over. >> i laid on that couch and i stared up at the ceiling what kind of life is this for me? i can either, you know i was 27 years old when i got wounded.

like do i accept defeat and just do what they tell me to do? or, um, get on with my life and deal with the new me and the new limitations i do have and push through them. >> reporter: despite being told she shouldn't carry the equipment anymore, she decided to continue her photographic career as a civilian. she spends a lot of time working on a personal project, taking portraits of military veterans. she spent part of this day aboard the u.s.s. york town, a decommissioned aircraft carrier that is now a museum. >> a while back i started a thing i like to call the veterans portrait project. i started doing it after i was wounded. i met so many great veterans while i was at the v.a. getting medical care that i just started bringing my camera and making portraits. i started bringing a back drop and some light. the next thing i know i had like 300-some pictures.

he was part of the liberation crew in poland. >> reporter: 88 of those pictures now hang in the hallway of the ralph h. johnson v.a. medical center in charleston. many are people she met there while getting treatment for her spinal injuries and p.t.s.d. >> i met all kinds of people from world war ii, korea, vietnam, operation iraqi freedom, operation enduring freedom and every skirmish in between. >> reporter: some of them were deeply troubled. >> i was told that before i made his portrait he hadn't really talked to anybody. so he walked up and he stood there and i made this portrait. then afterwards, you know, he said thank you. it was the first words he had spoken in weeks so i felt really touched that in a way i could have that impact on him and though we didn't exchange many words we talked a lot. i think that's what's really special about this project. >> reporter: pearsall hopes to publish the pictures and send a message.

>> if we just kind of for get about them in the mountains of afghanistan, what service are we doing them? they're only serving us. it should be a two-way street. sorry, it's hard for me not to get mad about that. because it's like not acknowledging their sacrifice at all. and putting a magnet on your car that says support our troops, that's fine. but do it in more than just a magnet. do it in wore. write them a letter and say thank you. for me there was nothing more rewarding than to get a handwritten letter from an elementary school kid that says you totally misspelled and everything that says thank you. tscdeshribes the ambush that resulted in her final combat injury.

>> woodruff: finally tonight we come back to the republican presidential race on this super tuesday. the associated press and other major news organizations have now projected mitt romney the winner in the virginia primary, a state where newt gingrich and rick santorum failed to make the ballot. at this moment with about 38% of the pre-tickets reporting as you see on your, romney has 59% of the vote to ron paul's 41%. now mitt romney has also been projected the winner in vermont based on exit polling and the actual vote count. and there we have wth 8% of the precincts reporting romney with 39% of the vote, ron paul 26%, rick santorum 24% annuity gingrich 8%. and finally newt gingrich is projected the winner in the state of georgia where he once served in congress. we should say as we call now on our regular analysts mark shields and michael gerson joining us tonight that the

state of ohio which everyone is watching very closely the networks are saying at this point it's too close to call. the polls closed in ohio just about 20 minutes ago. mark, here we are. the polls have closed in five states. we have about three more states that are going to close in a few minutes. what do you see so far that helps you understand where this race is headed? >> big night for ron paul. if you think about it. i mean ron paul broke 40 in virginia. taking nothing away from mitt romney at 59% but either he was the beneficiary of the "anybody but romney" but he also did well. he's running second in vermont returns at this point. but right now it's all running according to patterns. mitt romney was expected to carry both virginia and vermont. he's doing it. he'll carry massachusetts as well. and the sweep up and down the east coast there until he gets to georgia. where newt gingrich said he had to win and he did win. >> woodruff: michael gerson, according to pattern pretty

much? >> i think so. i think one of the big questions that was going to be decided tonight was whether the republican party would humiliate their frontrunner one more time before they settle on him. a lot of that will have to do with ohio. which we don't know yet but if romney pulls it out in ohio and wins that primary, he can really claim to have done that in florida. he can claim to have done it in michigan. he can claim to be a toughened, you know, survivor candidate in this field and have a significant amount of momentum. it would be a very bad night for santorum if he loses ohio. >> woodruff: but what about gingrich and georgia? it was expected everybody was saying, it was expected he would win his home state. does that in any way take any of the luster off this for mitt romney? >> no, i think gingrich had to win his home state. it makes him a favorite son candidate right now. he needs to calculate where he can compete in other southern primaries which i think he may want to after a victory in

georgia. that would make him a regional candidate. the question is if he can be a national candidate again against mitt romney. he's risen dwight before. i'm not sure the souffle can rise a third time. >> newt gingrich has plummeted from the perch he occupied in december. he was really at that moment at his magic moment in which he surged to the front of the pack. since then, judy, his positive negatively score in the wall street journal down to minus 34. i mean he's in real trouble. i don't see where he comes back. and unlike my huckabee four years ago who won iowa and broke out of being just classified as a regional candidate by so doing, newt gingrich, i mean, as of tonight will have won south carolina and georgia. not exactly a national pattern. >> woodruff: do you share, michael of course, what mark said a minute ago about ron paul that doing better than expected? what does that do for him?

>> i completely agree. i think that you've seen a remarkable reversal. people forget ron paul ran as a third party candidate in 1988, got .4% of the vote and was a marginal figure, a joke in many ways. he's a major figure in the republican circles. his son is a, you know, a rising star in the republican party. he's going to play a role at the republican convention. i think there's some embarrassing things that can emerge from that. ron paul's foreign policy views on iran, his extreme libertarian anti-government approaches could be embarrassing. but this is a remarkable reversal for him and a vindication, you know, that his views have some momentum in the republican party. >> woodruff: mark, you used the term "negative" a minute ago in talking about gingrich. but you've also been saying today, tonight that the entire republican field has been hurt. >> the primaries have been devastating for the republican brand of the party itself,

judy. i mean mitt romney who had even numbers positive and negative himself is now down minus 11 but gingrich and santorum have plummeted. the republican pollster who does the wall street journal has said the whole effect has been corrosive on the republican party. that's one of the reasons that voters think that the republicans cater or pander, pay more attention, far more to their core supporters, their base supporters than they do to average people than do democrats by a two to one margin so it's really... it's become a problem. for mitt romney it's a real problem, judy, in that his ability or perceived into relate to average people he has to reverse that if he's going to be competitive against president obama in the fall. >> woodruff: do you share that view about these primarys? >> i think republicans have been hurt. i think mitt romney has

sometimes sounded not just like your boss but your boss's boss. that hurts him in many ways. but it is still eight months from the election. if this is the republican low point it's not that low. you have a president that's generally been under 50% gallup approval. he's actually under 45% approval in 12 battle ground states right now in the latest polling. mitt romney has weaknesses. but he would not be running against bill clinton. he's also running against a candidate that has significant problems appeal to go white working class voters, significant charisma challenges of his own to some extent. these are both serious, credible candidates that could win assuming that's the match-up. >> i think president obama has a couple things going for him. one is 71% of the people like him. mitt romney... in the final analysis before they vote for you, they generally have to like you. but michael is right that

presidents who are under 50% in the gallup poll in positive job rating have a tough time getting re-elected. michael worked for one of the few who did, george w. bush, 48% in 2004. generally speaking if you're at 45% you're not going to get a second term. >> woodruff: we're giving you all a second chance. we're looking forward to having you back on the program tonight at 11:00 eastern. mark shields, michael gerson. >> ifill: as we've been reporting the major developments of this super tuesday mitt romney was projected the winner in virginia and vermont annuity gingrich won in georgia. ohio remained too close to call. president obama charged that republican critics of his iran policy are beating the drums of war but don't understand the costs of war. and stocks fell on new doubts about greece meeting its bailout deadlines. the dow industrials lost more than 200 points. you can check out our website for the latest political news and much more. hari sreenivasan has that.

>> sreenivasan: on our world page, we look at tibetans burning themselves to protest china's rule. also there, read about a topic at the aipac summit that didn't grab headlines, the israeli- palestinian peace process. plus, on the rundown, gardeners share their thoughts on the u.s.d.a.'s new plant-hardiness zone map, a guide to which species can survive in winter. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the political landscape ahead for republican president hopefuls after the super tuesday contests. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here for a special election report at 11:00 p.m. eastern time as well as tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life.

and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org