gwen: sotomayor at the senate. health care reform lurches forward. mixed news on the economy. and keeping secrets from congress. tonight on "washington week." >> many senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. it's simple. fidelity to the law. gwen: sonya sotomayor speaks. -- sonia sotomayor speaks. and so do senators, firefighters, supporters and detractors. after four days of judiciary committee hearings, were any minds changed? >> remarkable. she gets a 10 for judicial temperament.

as judge sotomayor took her turn in the hot seat both republicans and democrats played their assigned roles. the republicans, skeptical.

>> you said a wise latina woman would reach a better conclusion than a male counterpart. judge sotomayor made her now famous remarks about a wise latina woman making better decisions than other judges. >> i am disappointed that we still have a lot of muddled testimony and lack of clarity. really a person going on the supreme court should be clearer in my view. gwen: and the democrats in full embrace. >> you look at sonia sotomayor's story and the noble experiment today. >> she's a judge in which all americans can have confidence. gwen: in the middle of it all, a nominee who consistently sidestepped any questions about abortion or gun rights or campaign finance reform or any other hot button issue that might come before the court. >> senator, would you want a judge or a nominee who came in

here and said i agree with you, this is unconstitutional, before i had a case before me, before i had both sides discussing the issue with me? i don't know that that's a justice that i can be. gwen: interesting point. so after four days of pretty detailed testimony, where do we stand on this nomination, joan? don't surprise me. no, really. >> well, there's no question she's going to be confirmed. but what exactly did we see? we did see some things. there was plenty we didn't see. i'll get to that. but what did we see? she presented herself much more as a moderate. very cautious in her approach to the senators and to the law itself. she really kept in check the reputed intensity. and she is quite an intense person. she's ambitious. she's driven. she's from the bronx. she's a new yorker. and she really kept it in check no matter how provoked she was. we found out that she likes

baseball, which some of us already knew, especially the yankees. she likes perry mason and told funny stories about her mother. so we saw much more of her, more of judge sotomayor's personality. on the law, you name an issue, i can tell you how she demreekted the questioning. -- deflected the questioning. sort of in cooperation with the senators as she deflected it. gwen: it seemed like the democrats and republicans were either in more interested in criticizing her for her personal beliefs or speeches she gave or tagging her with them and democrats were interested in talking about her personal good qualities. but very few talked about her jurisprudence. >> i think the democrats felt it wasn't in their interest to have president obama's first appointee put on the hot seat by anyone or taken down a path that might put her in a box as she responded then to republicans who would ask some followup questions. you did play the clip about the wise latina comment that she did say that in many of her speeches, that she thought a wise latina woman would come to

a better decision than a white male because of the experiences of the woman had. and she said, look, that was a comment that i made to my audiences to try to inspire them to become like me, to become a judge and -- gwen: she didn't say that just once. she said that 20 times. >> she said it many times and said it was many times in that vein and -- gwen: i don't mean in her speeches but in the hearing. she was asked about it over and over again. >> right. she was. and then the other thing she did along those lines, she pulled back from the president's own references to empathy. she said, well, that wouldn't be my approach to judging as many of you know, president obama had famously said he would be looking for someone with empathy. and she basically said that's him, not me. >> at the end of all this, we had a pretty big development in the republican senator, sessions, said they're not going to filibuster. what's the betting here? so she's going to get confirmed. is it going to be a big confirmation vote or a narrow one? >> going into it, i felt that a lot of republicans didn't want to give her as good of vote or

as poor of a vote as john roberts did when chief justice, now chief justice john roberts, went before the senate in 2005, the vote was 78-22. and i think a ot of republicans feel that that was unfair that he got that many, 22. because as some of you might remember, in 1993 and 1994 when ruth bader ginsburg and stephen breyer came through as democratic appointees, they got 90 plus votes. so that sticks in people's craw, the republicans' craw that there were 22 democrats against john roberts. so i think there's a chance that some might vote against her just to sort of remedy that. but by the end of this hearing, there was a little bit of a love fest thing going on and we'll see probably the week of august 3, she'll have her vote on the floor. and, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if many of the republicans on the committee ended up being for her. gwen: three republicans announced today. >> right. >> joan, as much as they -- she avoided substance and the democrats didn't bother with it, either, there were a couple of issues people cared about.

how did she come out on abortion and how did she manage the richey case which was an embarrassment that she got overruled by the supreme court right before her hearing? >> i'll take the easy one first on abortion because it's not as complicated as ricci. she said she would follow precedent. what does that mean? the court has gone in two directions. five justices who say that roe v. wade, the law of the land, vigorous reaffirmation of that. then we have another set of five justices with anthony kennedy in the swing vote allowing more regulation. she essentially said, i would follow both, but she did say something that pleased abortion rights advocates. because she said that she still thinks it's important to have any regulation take account of the mother's health. so err on the side of the mother's health in regulation which is please the abortion rights advocates. in the firefighters case, this is the one where the second circuit panel on which she sat

endorsed new haven, connecticut's tossing of promotion results from the firefighters' tests because whites dramatically outscored racial minorities. she said we were following precedent. we were following the precedent in place at the time. the supreme court came in and changed the rules which frankly is true. >> joan, first of all, she gets points for being a yankee fan. but more substantively, she's going to be confirmed. what does this tell us, what do the last few days tell us about the next time, whenever that is and are there any parameters that have been set about the next time in terms of the type of judge that president obama might pick? and when might the next one be? >> the next one could be as soon as next year. we do have five justices who are over 70 up there. and it makes it easier for the next one to not say much. and it makes it harder for senators to say you must answer because they did not demand answers this time around. gwen: thanks for hanging in there all week up on the hill. sotomayor hearings may have been less consequential in the end than the chaos break being

out elsewhere on capitol hill over health care reform. the president sensing lost ground spoke out at the white house today. >> i realize that the last few miles of any race are the hardest to run. but i have to say now is not the time to slow down. those who are betting against this happening, this year, are badly mistaken. gwen: can't have too many sports meta fors. significant legislation moved through but big problems remain. most having to do with cost. >> elections have consequences. this is a glaring example of that. we have now, again, committed another act of generational theft of laying an unsustainable fiscal burden on future generations of americans. gwen: the rest of it had to do with a distinct absence of bipartisanship. >> unfortunately, there are only two numbers you need to

remember from the entire markup process. and that's 13 and 10. when it was a republican amendment, it was defeated, 13-10. when it was a democrat amendment, it was passed. 1313-so. -- 13-10. gwen: this is very slippery. so what to expect? >> the president is right. this is farther than health care reform has ever gotten. and certainly the process is further along than it was in 1993 and 1994 when the clintons tried this. and there was some big accomplishments this week. there are five committees in all on capitol hill who have to act before these bills can go to the house and senate floors. three of them did this week. the health committee in the senate, ways and means in the house, and the labor committee in the house. henry waxman's energy and commerce committee will pass its bill out next wednesday. but we are still waiting for the senate finance committee. and this -- gwen: we heard -- we were going to hear from them and last week, last friday. >> and they will be meeting

over the weekend and who knows? we may hear from them next week again. and in some ways, this is the most crucial one to watch. because they are dealing on the senate side, which is going to be a harder place to pass this bill, with all the touchy, tricky questions of how are you going to pay for this thing? so in the middle of all of this, as they are getting ready to congratulate themselves on all of this progress, the a.m.a. is onboard the house bill, suddenly we have the head of the congressional budget office step into this. and during testimony, he -- douglas elmendorf is his name, the final arbiter on the numbers and gets up and warns that this bill is not going to do much, not going to do nearly enough to bring down health care costs. which of course is one of the basic reasons that we are going through this exercise. he says there is not enough as he put it, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that are really going to bring health care costs under

control. that's a big setback. >> was one. reasons president obama spoke on friday to counter that? he got out there and it seemed like he wanted to at least say, look, both -- accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative but counter all the attention that came to that report. >> this was a surprise appearance by the president. he was not scheduled to be making any statements on this. interestingly enough, they canceled the regular white house press briefing which would have been robert gibbs being pounded about questions about the setbacks. so this, i think, was very much of an effort on the president's part to recapture the momentum and make sure he's got the message going into what could be a pretty critical weekend. >> we heard just now that the president talking about there will be a bill this year. and -- but there's so much pressure about august. about this deadline for august. and why is that? what -- why is the pressure coming from the white house about that? >> well, everyone agrees that you got to get this bill done this year or it's not going to happen. you can't get something like this done in an election year.

so if these bills are not through the house and the senate by the august recess, these congressmen and senators will go home and the interest groups are going to pounce. and essentially, you know, there's a very real danger that any progress they've made to date are going to -- it's going to be lost. if they are allowed to go home in august without having passed a bill. so this deadline, at least in the minds. white house, is a very real one. on the other hand, we're all of a sudden hearing senators up on the hill saying wait a minute. gwen: of both parties. >> that's right. >> we also heard something odd today off the hill. and that was speaker pelosi who can pretty much work her will in her chamber given her majority say she may wait and let the senate go first. now, what's that all about? >> well, the fear in a a lot of house members -- fear that a lot of house members are going to have is they are going to take a big and dangerous vot on this gigantic health care bill, one that has a lot of new taxes

in it and a controversial government-run health plan as an option. only to see it bargained away in the more conservative senate. we've seen this happen before. in 1993. in washington, the word b.t.u. is a verb because the house got b.t.u.ed for voting for an unpopular energy tax only to see it be given away in the senate. so nancy pelosi is listening to her members and she realizes they are very nervous about getting out there on this bill before they know what the senate is going to be prepared to produce. gwen: ok. so maybe by in time we will be talking about the same thing. if we are, chances are -- of getting something passed goes down exponentially. the state of the nation's economy is the biggest underlying drag on the president's domestic agenda. today we heard new home construction is up. and four big banks announced big turnaround profits and yet there is worry.

why, jeanne? >> well, there are a little bright spots but there's a whole lot of darkness out there still in the economy. if you look at unemployment, we're still shedding half a million jobs a week. and there's something wrong with the jobless numbers. something that even economists can't quite figure out. the unemployment rate is not behaving in a way that they expect. even the federal reserve has been a little puzzled by it. and then you look at foreclosures. gwen: i heard today the unemployment rate was up to 15% in michigan. >> and double digits in a number of states. and nationally, it's going to go at least to 10%. and some are now saying maybe even higher than that. despite the fact that the white house had hoped to -- the stimulus would hold it at 8%. so that number is becoming a very tough number and it scares people. because it's a number they understand. then you look at foreclosures. another thing consumers get. 300,000 a month. the second quarter of this year broke all records in history.

and so the unemployment and the foreclosures are now feeding one another. the foreclosures that we're seeing now are not the people who are crazy and bought the big house they couldn't afford. these are people who are losing their jobs, who had 30-year fixed mortgages. so that's scaring consumers. so you have consumer confidence down. so they don't shop. so you got this whole cycle is still out there. and the growth numbers, the white house had hoped for, that were pretty healthy, now it looks as though those numbers aren't really going to come true. gwen: they look like pie in the sky always? >> not always. but they are now. >> and that's it. was president obama right to have that confidence -- that rosy set of projections and now they're undermining some of the credibility and the issues like health care and all that, but were they valid at the time? >> well, when they issued them in january, most of the economists i talked to cut them some slack for the timing of when they had to do their

forecasts. which was they were developing them late last year, late fall, and in the winter and they issued them in the early part of the year. and they weren't that far off. of what wall street analysts were predicting and what the congressional budget office was predicting. so they were at that little owesier than rest -- a -- so they were a little rosier than the rest but in the ballpark. and what's happened is all the other economists have gon back and revised their numbers and the white house is just getting there. and speaking of a reason to pass health care before the august break, in august is when the white house will release its new budget forecast. and those numbers are going to be significantly down. and the deficit projections are going to be significantly higher. >> gwen mentioned another development this week which is the announcement of some investment banks, including goldman sachs, that their profits were just through the roof. and goldman sachs also announced that it was going to go back to paying gigantic

amounts of compensation to their executives. how does this -- as people are out there suffering, how does this kind of news affect the white house's political calculations? >> well, i think some people are startled by it. especially goldman sachs. because all of the executives both in the bush white house and the obama white house who have been leading up these recoveries have been from goldman sachs. and so in terms of a populist argument there, pieces there that someone could seize upon. but those are the little bright spots that are out there. let's face it. if we're going to recover, then those guys are going to start getting bonuses again. but i still think from what economists tell me, we are on a rollercoaster. and so some of those profits are based on the fact that previously, they had written down the value of their assets because they expected them and the recession to draw down those assets value pretty substantially. it wasn't as bad as they thought. so they revalued them. and so nothing really changed.

but their numbers went up. so there will be little bright spots and maybe this is a sign of wall street coming back. but it may not be, too. it may be just one bright moment and what is likely to be a much longer recovery. >> and so what we're seeing now is all last fall, we heard about was the banks and the banks are going to fail. and now the banks are doing better. and clearly it's not having -- there's a difference between wall street and main street and we're seeing that right now. and so there might be this sort of two tiers or two tracks for quite some time? >> there could be. there could be an uneven recovery. and there are some banks that are doing well. but bear in mind that there are several other big banks that still aren't doing very well. but absolutely the unemployment rate and the pressures on the retail sector and the main street area of the economy are not abating at this point. gwen: ok. well, there were also new questions this week on exactly

what the c.i.a. was and was not telling congress about a secret program to assassinate suspected terrorists. but that debate is turning out to be the potential iceberg that could undercut the obama administration's efforts to get past the past. mark? >> for national security reporters, it kind of feels like the ninth year of the bush administration. we're just continuing to look back. and there's a few things happening. first of all, there was the news over the past week that the c.i.a. had the secret program, that lee on -- leon panetta, the c.i.a. director, learned about it and when he heard about it went to capitol hill and held emergency meetings and said i canceled this program and you haven't been told about it for eight years. gwen: maybe he should have rethought in retrospect. >> a lot of drama. and that part of it of course adding to the drama was that at the early period, vice president cheney advised the agency not to notify congress.

as it came out, and we're still trying to learn the parameters of this program, but it seemed like it was a program to assassinate senior al qaeda leaders wherever they may be around the globe. of course, as we know and as it has been reported for years, the agency has been killing al qaeda leaders. they just haven't been doing it with humans. they've been doing it with drones flying over pakistan. there are still questions about what exactly this program was all about. and it was announced today that the house intelligence committee is going to be examining this program and others sort of -- opening the door a bit for a wider investigation. and we'll see how this plays out. because i think the house sort of thinks we don't know what we don't know. so we might as well start investigating to find out. gwen: it sounds like a pandora's box. >> a call to the jern -- to the attorney general, deciding whether to launch an investigation into the interrogation program, possibly to bring charges against some

interrogators in the c.i.a. who may have gone beyond what the justice department allowed them to do in terms of these harsh interrogations. >> mark, a lot of this recalls the early 1970's when we found out about assassination attempts by the c.i.a. with fidel castro and others. and then the church committee on the hill really took a lot in hand. in fact, some of the legislation that grew out of the church committee is now -- gets us up to present in terms of prohibitions on assassinating foreign leaders. are we talking -- when you talk about the new hill committee investigations, are we -- trying not to get too much into anything that might distract democrats from the -- >> there's a lot going on. there are some who would like to see something like that. i interviewed rush holt, a member of the house intelligence committee and he is looking along those lines. about having some kind of an investigation like church and pike that happened in the 1970's.

back then, it was -- there were so many revelations, that people didn't know much about what had happened. from the dawn of the c.i.a. and there has been the slow trickle of revelations so maybe there's not as much to actually come out of one of these committees because it's been dribbling out for eight years. so i think they're going to weigh that. gwen: as i say, pandora's box, you're going to be busy covering the ninth year of the bush administration for some time to come. thanks, everybody. we got to go. but the conversation continues online. we'll take your questions in our web exclusive washington week q&a. join in by logging in at pbs.org/washingtonweek. keep up with daily developments on the newshour with jim lehrer. on monday jim sits down with president obama and on wednesday, the president holds a prime time news conference. before we go tonight, we want to send our condolences. we've been told there are many news reports tonight that a legendary cbs newsman walter cronkite has passed away. we send our condolences to

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