>> schieffer: today on face the nation, the first quarter report and how the nation's doing and the jobs picture did get better last week and what next in afghanistan on the war in terror and immigration and the anger out there. we'll get answers and analysis good our in-house experts, jan crawford, bob or and good morning professor michael eric dyson and the new york times chief washington correspondent david sanders. what to expect next on "face the nation."

captioning sponsored by cbs "face the nation" with cbs news chief washington correspondent bob schieffer. and now from cbs news in washington, bob schieffer. >> schieffer: good morning again and welcome again to "face the nation." i'm starting with you jan crawford according to the new york times and washington posts today were interviews were given by justice john paul stevens approaching 90 years old and talking about when is he going to step down. i mean, there's every indication from the interviews he's not going to step down but in the midst of all the other things going on in the election year it appears president obama will nominate somebody to fill a vacancy on the court and does the white house really need or want that plight right now? >> i think the white house has been expecting this and long

expected he'd step down this year and said he's step down in president obama's first term and justices don't like to retire during an election season and the white house is ready for this. remember, they went through this last year when they replaced justin suitor and have a good working short list. if they want to fight, now's the time to have it with a solid majority in the senate and lose probably four to six votes in the upcoming midterm if they want a fight now's the time to have it but the question is they and they don't have to have a big fight. they have bal qualified nominee. >> schieffer: who do you think would be the leading candidate? >> there's a good working short list of the former dean of harvard law school and represents the united states in the supreme court. she's very qualified, sparkling credentials and some conservatives really like her. she hired a lot of conservatives at harvard law school and a

judge on the d.c. circuit considered a moderate on criminal issues and would be an easy confirmation and there's a lot of voices for another woman and that would be the biggest fight in the heartland is where you get the controversial aportion case and she sat on a few of those. >> schieffer: there was an interesting speculation that maybe senator of minnesota may be on the short list but i noticed you didn't list her. >> she's an impressive person and has experience and people are always clamoring for someone like her and even the president has talked about her how the court is out of touch with every day americans and we saw him take a swipe at the supreme court and chicago law school and she is a democrat from a state with a republican governor and

so if you're thinking politically about who to put on the court and certainly obama did last time with sonya sotomayor he did and the last thing you want to do is lose another democrat in the senate when you know you'll lose four to six coming november. >> schieffer: let's talk about that. you covered every step of the president's big fight over health care and this would be his signature achievement and got it done but at some cost. the cbs news ran a poll last week and showed that after the president got health care passed low and behold his popularity and approval rating went down five points so he actually lost in his approval rating from wht he had last year. do you think republicans will now use them and with the

embolden republicans. >> they were already emboldened and feel going about their chances in the fall before the new poll numbers came out and the challenge is the next issue is a challenge for them. it's financial regulation and they're kind of in a bind because on one hand they have serious issues with the democrats' plan and the senate working through the senate right now but on the other hand they don't want do come across as tte partners of the wall street fat cat and in the end they think the legislation will pass. >> schieffer: you think that's where the focus will be on next? >> it passed the house and come to the floor of the senate and the president has said nobody likes timetables any more after what happened to health care and hoping to sign something by memorial day and democrats are feeling good about that because they feel they will get republican votes in the house.

they think they could pick up several dozen votes in the house and republicans tell us that's probably on target. >> schieffer: michael dyson, you're writing a book of barack obama and chronicled him since the campaign. ruth marcus wrote an interesting article yesterday in the washington post anded the irony of the presidency so far and i'll quote a little bit, saying many on the left are frustrated by his more or less backtracking on promise and quoting a man named jim kessler who said if there's an interest group in the country that is completely happy with barack obama they're doing a very good job of keeping it to themselves. why do you think his popularity went down and will we see that trend continue if he is as powerful as he was. will he be able to get anything done? >> he's in a pickle and with the

exception of the group of and americans are obama continues to polls at an extraordinary rate one would only hope there would be some reciprocity and recognition of the numbers and make throwing out some meat, as it were, to african-american people who suffer a 16.5 jobless rate versus the rest of america at 9.7. he's in a tough position he has to recognize he's governing all of america has to give in and make concessions to conserve basis and head toward the middle as he's done after winning a perceived left victory though the left is laughing and guffawing but he got the health care through and now talk about drilling on shores from the tip of delaware down, you know, pass 167 miles. the reality is he's trying to balance it out. he doesn't want to give to the

tea party but he sees legitimate points and anger and has to govern according to a vision for which he was called to office which is to say reform health care and student loans and he had a heck of a week when you look at it in real terms. the guy had a great week and suffering polle polls declining it's a give and take and some of us leaning to the left wish he might make more grand overtures but he's trying to govern through the middle. >> schieffer: david sanger, the president made a surprise trip to afghanistan and seen with the president karzai and then he basically kicked him in the teeth and blamed all the problems in his country on what he called foreigner and the western immediat media and the

times. >> karzai demonstrated in public what everyone has said in private and these ally that isn't sure he isn't sure he's in alliance and to put the troops in for 18 months and reach a peaking point and turn everything back to the karzai government and the afghan government and there's little point president karzai is ready to do any of the things the obama administration laid out would be necessary. it could put the president in a position a year from now of having to begin to withdraw without achieving his major objective of being able to tra transfer >> schieffer: you're saying the whole afghanistan project is in trouble. >> it's in jeopardy and we had a

fascinating story of what's happening in marja where the nato initiative began two weeks ago and the taliban are coming back in and quietly intimidating or executing people who have taken money from marines and helped them out in a way and we're a long way way from the declaration from commanders we had a government in a box ready do come into afghanistan and there's a similar problem next door in pakistan where for years president bush and now president obama have been trying to get a pakistani government to have the same enthusiasm about pursuing the taliban and al-qaida and pakistan improved some. >> schieffer: if i understood the reason we went to afghanistan is because it posed

a threat to the country because it was a haven with al-qaida. and the militias suddenly come out and it's call for governors to get out of office in three days or be removed. who are these people. >> there's a lot of anger out there and we've seen an uptick in the so-called patriot groups and they tend to be militias. the thing we'ring about this week the reference to the group that means christian warrior. no one else heard of them and they wanted to insight a resurrection with killing police officers and bombing the funeral prosession and they're all now in custody and it illustrates there's an element out there

angry with the government and the fbi says they're looking for other people like that >> schieffer: let's go back and talk about al-qaida which was supposed on the big threat to the country and how do we see them now at this juncture. >> there's still a threat but primarily through pop ga propagd the main threats have been branched out and the group that attempted the christmas day bombing and reaching out to the far enemy and we have to be on guard because that threat is still building. >> schieffer: these are the people we're trying to defend against when we change the procedures for terrorist and checking people when they come into this country >> you to stop the bomb plot

before it gets on the airplane and this week the administration came out with a brand new set of protocols which are intelligence based. we've done way of the profiling by nationality and the administration rushed into a declaration that people from 14 coutries that touched terrorism, somalia, yemen and other places and now they're looking at threat analysis and personal profile characteristics and see which people should in pulled out ever line. >> schieffer: there's lots to talk about and we'll take a break and come back and talk about it.

>> schieffer: we're back with our round table and i want to go back to what we talked about in the beginning, michael and david both and that was the bit of good news the administration got

the jobs situation adoes appear to be a little better but it looks like to me we're a long way to getting back to where the economy ought to be. >> no question. the president understands have you to target the most vulnerable populations an uptick in terms of creating jobs but it's not any kind of job. you have a dirth of low-skilled, high-wage jobs and the service end industries are bloated with people who have jobs in name only but none of the benefits and that's why health care reform was so important not simply in terms of providing health care to those who were formally not benefitted but in terms of the employment track connected to the health care and you have a 16.5% unemployment rate or 13% or something among

latinos you have a population that's vulnerable and middle america is tough. the president's trying to push forward in his council of economic advisors are talking about what can be done to spread the wealth but you can't in terms of the big corporations getting benefits versus the states more diverse. >> schieffer: when can we expect do be out of this? everybody seems to think we hit bottom but it's going to be a long road isn't it >> it's and it's a question of how you define the "this" part. if it's jobless it will end up at eight percent at the end of the year but governments aren't very good at creating jobs and the pressure is certainly going to build on president obama to focus on deficits and debt and that's also going to be a big element of his own re-election

campaign. so keeping up these kinds of spending levels where the united states government is spending about 11% of gdp is not a sustainable path and yet what we have not yet heard from the obama administration is what the debt plan is and i suspect you'll probably have to hear on the president on that by midsummer. >> democrats know this is an issue they're vulnerable on and republicans are hammering away at them and the president every day saying where are the jobs and hoping in addition to financial regulation they can pass a few more small jobs bills like the one they passed a couple months ago and it's very questionable how much the jobs do and then of course if there's a supreme court confirmation process next summer we know it brings everything to a halt. that takes weeks to get through even if it's not a controversial supreme court nomination. >> that's why i don't think they

want a big fight. they had a big fight in health care and look at his approval rating and looking at where republicans have traction and this is a huge problem for the administration is what you're going to do about the top four 9-11 suspects -- >> schieffer: so what are they going do? is this on the backburner now? >> no, they're actively working in the white house and in the justice department and state department and defense department for how they're going to prosecutor the mastermind of 911 and the top plotters and the attorney general said they'll be tried here in new york city. just a few hundreds yards from ground zero and now they backtracked because of the huge opposition to that. what do they do? and then voters -- the polls show this is an area where they don't want him to come here. the voters and the polls are hardening on that.

>> schieffer: someone in the white house said me and a said do you think you'll wind up trialing him in the a tribunal and they said yes in 2016. >> you can only have it on the three place where's the crimes occurred, new york, pennsylvaniaed on west virginia. >> schieffer: you think it could be a civilian trial. >> osgood: the >> they could do did on the naval base and a criminal trial and it raise as a host of other concerns and why not leave it in a military commission maybe off the coast of florida. >> i think they could be tried at guantanamo. with one thing have you to remember the trials are largely for show whether they're in the civilian or military court

because the administration made it clear, there's no way no matter the vermon verdict that going to walk free and in the end it could be the administration ends up with the same kind of enemy combatant ill-defined policy the bush administration had. >> that's part of the problem. they wanted to distinguish themselves and at the same time the difficulty is trying to convince the rest of the american population that having this domestic trial is best suited for them and you don't know what the terrorists show you and the return to american home-grown terror is the real news not that militia in michigan are sprouting wings but they paved the path. >> schieffer: republicans didn't

have much of a week last week with michael steele the head of the republican national committee getting stuck with the tab and the republicans seemed to have the strategy down and have not coalesced around it and i guess it's early for this. any one leader, nancy, who do you think will emerge that's leader of the reboun republican. >> you don't hear them clamoring for michael steele to step down or be are replaced because it's not clear to them who they would replace him day and one spokesman said anytime i can mention lesbian bondage club and republicans is a great week for me and they're trying to declare a party of financial responsibility and you have the rnc spending money hand over fist for things like this --

>> schieffer: let's talk about candidates. mitt romney is he a leading candidate or wind up sarah palin? i don't believe it will be but some do. >> it will would be hard for sarah palin because so far she's not come out with much of an agenda. >> schieffer: making a lot of money. raising a lot i should say >> mitt romney comes from a republican constituency that may have well worked in the last presidential campaign had it gone on for a bit longer. obviously didn't work out for him but the question is he too middle of the road for where the party feels they have to be in the next election. >> schieffer: what do you think, jan? >> there's no one. that's the problem. when you're looking at who is the next republican presidential nominee going to be? it's a wide open field and when you look back at romney and the

polenti's it feels like we've been there and do that and maybe not that a newly-elected who had ever be in the senate cobe elected. >> schieffer: i think it is not out of the question he may well be on the ticket, of course we're talking about scott brown. >> i think when if comes to try to trump obama in the next election it's looking for the democrats, they're praying for palin to come forward and i think scott brown might be more surprising -- >> schieffer: well, we have to leave it there. i want to thank all of you for a fun discussion this morning.

>> schieffer: finally today i'm not a catholic, i'm a protestant but long admired the catholic church that's repository of knowledge and shaping the values on which western civilization is built. we're all the product of those values and can only feel remorse as we watch the spectacle in which the church finds itselves embroiled out of all times th holiest of weeks and the cove cover-up of priests has everything go to do with bureaucracy and i said then that aging leaders put their own survival ahead of their church's reason for being and in the process had forgotten the church's own history. it was resistance to reform after all that led to protestantism. how the church organizers itself whether priests should marry and

so on is the church's business but child abuse is everyone's problem it's not the church's problem but the cover up of vial criminal acts until the church bureaucracy comes to terms with that at whatever costs and again places it's for being ahead of the leaders the church as an institution remains at risk. people will seek god in many ways but never in ways that will endanger their children. back in a minute.

>> schieffer: that's everything from us this week. we'll see you next week right here on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ,,,,,,,,