captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening, i'm jim lehrer. senators dodd and dorgan announced they won't run again. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, what do the retirements mean for democratic control of the senate. we'll talk to congress watchers amy walter and chris cillizza. >> lehrer: then, some perspective on how president obama is handling the bomb plot crisis, from walter russell mead, jessica mathews, and dan

balz. >> ifill: a report from the streets of yemen's capital, on al qaeda's appeal. >> lehrer: margaret warner updates the guantanamo prison story, after president obama suspended transfers back to yemen.wú ou can imagine a situation in which the government as a choice between yemen and cleveland, and that's , you know, very unappealing choice from the government's point of view. >> ifill: and jeffrey brown talks with rocco landesman, the broadway producer who now heads the national endowment for the arts. >> i'm going to be outspoken. i'm iz say.çadñiçó if people want to regard that as partisan, i can't help it. >> lehrer: that's all ahead, on tonight's pbs newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by:

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>> 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. >> lehrer: two veteran democratic senators will not be coming back after this year. senator chris dodd of connecticut announced his decision today, hours after byron dorgan, of north dakota, did the same. gwen ifill has the story. >> ifill: after 35 years in washington, senator dodd went

home today to connecticut, to announce his decision not to run again. >> there are moments for each elected public official, to step aside, and let someone else step up. this is my moment to step aside. >> ifill: at 66, dodd is chairman of the senate banking committee. but 2009 was a long year for him, and his reelection prospects had recently grown shaky. >> i lost a beloved sister in july and in august, ted kennedy. i battled cancer over the summer, and in the midst of all of this, i found myself in the toughest political shape of my career. none of these events or circumstances, either individually or collectively is the cause of my decision not to seek relection. yet together, these challenges have given me pause to take stock and to ask questions that too few of us in elected public life ever do.

why am i running? >> ifill: news of dodd's decision came on the heels of senator dorgan's statement that he plans to retire, too. like dodd, he was facing a potentially tight race in the fall. but his decision caught political observers by surprise. in a statement, he said: the twin retirement announcements endangered democrats' prospects for maintaining their veto-proof, 60-vote margin in the senate. >> i didn't expect it, i don't think anybody did. >> ifill: a strong republican candidate is more likely to step up in north dakota, where popular governor john hoeven is considering a run. in connecticut, a popular democrat, state attorney general, richard blumenthal, announced he will run for dodd's seat. >> i have not been pressured to

take this step, i have received a lot of >> i've received a lot of encouragement. and i emphasize a lot. i have two dead cell phones right now. i have 2 dead cellfones right now. >> ifill: five democrats and six republicans will not seek reelection to the u.s. senate this year. in the house, 10 democrats have announced they're leaving, and an eleventh, alabama congressman parker griffith, has switched parties. but 14 house republicans have said they will not run again. party leaders are worried about state races too. in michigan, democratic lieutenant governor john cherry decided against a run for that state's top job. and in colorado, democratic governor bill ritter plans to step down. >> ifill: here to discuss the fallout from these high- profile decisions are two who specialize in politics, writ large and small. amy walter, editor of "the national journal's" political daily, "hotline". and chris cilizza,

who reports on politics for the "washington post." amy, different men, different states, different reasons? >> different reasons , both have been there a very long time. they were both were looking at competitive races and both said what, it's time to go out on top. i think it's interesting , too, when you look at where these reasoning compelatively, in the dorgan situation you took a seat that was really not on the table-- at least not yet coo and put that basically into what i would say right now is a lean republican column. and the take the other and put it in a more safely democratic column. they essentially swapped out each other. there's a psychological toll it takes. we can talk structurally what it means, although there are more democratic seats in danger than republicans. fundamentally, what does this say to other democrats, house

and senate-- but mostly in the house-- who may be looking at what they want to do in 2010 as well. they see two longtime, well-respected members saying it's not really worth it for me to come back. do they want to come back themselves? >> ifill: chris, perhaps my favorite line in chris dodd's announcement today is when he said many politicians will tell you they're quitting for their family but that's not what he's doing. >> i often say, gwen, one of the best speeches a politician typically gives is his or her last oneo one because they have the freedom to say what they think. i thought that was a great acknowledgement from someone in the political game for a very long time. i think amy is exactly right. there's a macro analysis, basically a 1 for 1 swap-- i'm sorry, that's the micro analysis. these come at a time when the democrats are nervous. as you mentioned,

parker griffith changing parties. and four democratic house members deciding not to run for reelection, each in competitive districts. if senators dodd and durgan, whether they did it on a success day or over the a month retired, nose a vacuum are not that bad but the broad effect of all of these things happening, the house retiring, the party switch, and now in addition to the senators retiring, bill rit and you mentioned john cherry. all of that at once has an effect to make already-nervous members not sure whether what they should do on 2010 even more nervous and even more on the fence. >> ifill: let's talk state by state. chris, i want to start with you because you're from connecticut. >> you bet. >> ifill: what does it mean that richard blumenthal is lying in wait. >> richard blumenthal was elected attorney general in 1990 and since almost roughly that time he has coveted a senate seat. he has been courted many times.

he's taken a pass. obviously, he's had senators dodd and lieberman in those offices for quite some time. he is by the far are the state's most popular politician, if you believe skadz of independent polling. the question is he is not someone who has had a real race in roughly two decades. we will have a real race here. he is clearly the favorite in this election. it is connecticut. it is a reliably democratic state. senator dodd's problems were his known not about the underlying problems of the state. that said , rob sim fronz eastern connecticut, my home district, as well as lindh mcmeny, have pledged to spend upwards of $50 million on her campaign are still in the race on the republican side. is it better today for democrats than yesterday with chris dodd in the race? absolutely. is it entirely over? let's see how richard blumenthal performs on the campaign trail. >> ifill: amy, you are not, for the record, north dakota, and it

is not a reliablely democratic state so what is the fallout there? >> very, very different. you're look at a state that is very red although they do tend to send democrats to washington. the delegation there right now is all democratic. the sitting congressman as well as the two senators. that belies the underlying republican nature of the state and most of the statewide elected officials are republicans. the other democratic was mentioned early on as a potential replacement for senator dorgan. he is not going to run. what you're looking at is a very thin bench for democrats, a place where, obviously, john mccain did well and george bush did well. this is not a place where democrats tend to thrive at the federal level. if hogan gets in, you're look at a very easy pickup here for republicans. i agree with chris on the connecticut situation. not only has blumenthal not had a race before but as chris

pointed out he's been attorney general for 20 years. there's a long record there, and that-- in a year where people are saying they don't really like the establishment, they don't really like the incumbents, that can be some fodder for the republicans. >> ifill: let's take it back to washington for a moment, amy. if you are hari ride, and you lose two senators like this on one day, what are you thinking? >> you're thinking you have to get a lot done before the end of the year because the odds of me keeping vikt becoming expless less likely. and that might be an-- that might give some incentive for some of these democrats who may sitting on the fence in terms of whether they're going to support or not support census piece of legislation to say here's our last, best chance. if we want to put all these piece of slarkz certainly something like health care, this is our time to get it done. we can't expect to have this kind of margin a year from now. >> ifill:

chris, democrats have been saying today more republicans are retiring than democrats so how do you add that up and say this is bad news for democrats? >> well, gwen, all retirements are not created equal. you can't just look at the raw numbers and say 14 on the republican side in the house, 10 on the democratic side in the house. there are seats on the republican side -- for example, south carolina's third district currently held by gresham barrett, he is running for governor, that is a seat no democrat is going to win in any circumstances. that is not the same, for example, as bart gordon in central tennessee, a democrat in a seat that john mccain got 60-plus percent of the vote. they're both retirements but bart gordon's retirement is significantly more problematic for democrats and more symbolic of a moderate to conservative democrat worried about his electible prospects. >> ifill: does this mean republicans are clicking their heels together, amy? >> they are definitely very happy today because , again, the story be , even though we just described the

micro-piece not changing all that much, the macro-piece continues to move forward as, boy, democrats are having a tough time. they're running out of washington. they don't want to be he were anymore. they can't really do well governing. the question is can democrats really turn around and establish something in 2010 to be able to run on to have a message that says, look, we got all this stuff accomplished for the american public. we're happy to run on this message. and we're going to be able to hold on to our majority. >> ifill: for both of you, you know as well as anyone, that the worst time for most first-term presidents is at big first midterm election. so starting with you, amy, let's talk about what this means for president obama. is this going to make life tougher for him? >> all right, life was looking pretty takeoff because the democrats have picked up so many more vulnerabilities just going into the contest. president obama ran on this postpartisan message, and the reality is , and what voters have

see, of course, is that there is no such thing as post-partisanship so many of the members of congress are take the blow-back-- here's what the president keemd. it's not taking place here. you broke the promise that the president made. they're going to suffer the consequences of that. the president's approval rating also very important to look at. traditionally any sometime a president coming into his first midterm election under 50% of the vote has big losses, especially in the house. >> ifill: chris. >>un, history would sukt, glen, that we're look at 15 to 20 seats in the house two, to four to five seats in the senate. i think that's a good barometer. i think if you see go over that number. if you see republican gains in the house 25, 30, 35, then i think we can legitimately draw some conclusions that the voters were not happy with the direction, not just the president but the democratic congress took the nation. anything short of that, i guess the obama administration will

declare a success. democrats in the souse house and to a certain extent in the senate are maxed out. they control many seats that probably nay neutral political year which 2006 and 2008 were not. places in southern alabama, northern mississippi, idaho. these are not suddenly democratic areas. the pendulum is clearly going to swing back towards republicans in 2010. the question is how far? >> ifill: thank you both very much. >> lehrer: now, for the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. hari. >> sreenivasan: a federal grand jury in detroit indicted a nigerian man today in the failed airliner bombing plot. umar farouk abdulmutallab is accused of trying to blow up northwest airlines flight 253 over detroit on christmas day. the charges include attempted murder, and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. a white house spokesman said today an initial review of what went wrong will be made public tomorrow. two more u.s. drone strikes in pakistan have killed at least 13 people.

pakistani intelligence officials said today the unmanned planes fired missiles into a militant compound in north waziristan. the area near the border with afghanistan is where al qaeda and the taliban take sanctuary. the region is also believed to harbor militants behind the bombing that killed 7 cia employees in afghanistan last week. an arctic cold wave hung on today, from the midwest, to the northeast to the deep south. forecasters predicted snow and ice tomorrow, from south carolina to louisiana. farmers in florida sprayed a protective coating of ice on millions of dollars worth of strawberry and citrus crops. a citrus growers group said it appeared damage would not be crippling. the deep freeze is expected to last through the weekend. the winter blast helped send the price of oil climbing again. it topped $83 a barrel in new york trading, for the first time since the fall of 2008. but the stock market was relatively quiet. the dow jones industrial average gained more than a point to close above 10,573. the nasdaq fell more than 7 points to close at 2301.

the mayor of baltimore agreed to resign today, as part of a deal with prosecutors. sheila dixon was convicted last month of mis-using $500 in gift cards, when she was city council president. the cards had been intended for needy families. dixon's resignation is effective as of february 4. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the newshour's website. but for now, back to gwen. >> ifill: and still to come on the newshour two takes on yemen an on-the-ground report from sanaa and what to do about yemeni detainees at guantanamo bay. plus, a broadway producer at the helm of the nea. >> lehrer: that follows, the president in a time of crisis. >> lehrer: it's been a busy 13 days for president obama, since a failed christmas day attack on a u.s. airliner approaching detroit. the incident occurred just hours after the first family departed for hawaii, to celebrate the holidays with family.

instead, most of mr. obama's time was spent in briefings, and secure conference calls. and each day, details emerged on the nigerian suspect and the u.s. government's failure to prevent the attack. in two statements to the american public, the president labeled it a "a systemic failure" and launched a full review. yesterday, back in the white house, he met with his national security team. he said it's his responsibility to find out why the system failed and to fix it. today, white house press secretary robert gibbs offered this, by way of context. >> the president has taken actions to deal with a whole set of crises that he had when he came in. he understands that. he had to make a lot of tough decisions that may or may not be political popular because that was what he was faced with.

but again, he-- that's why he ran for the job. >> lehrer: now, three perspectives on president obama and the christmas bombing crisis. walter russell mead is a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and the author of several books on u.s. diplomacy. jessica tuchman mathews is the president of the carnegie endowment for international peace. and dan balz is national political correspondent for the "washington post." dan, conventional wisdom seems to be that this christmas bombing scare was president obama's first test in governing. do you buy that? >> well, i don't know that it's the first test in governing. certainly having to deal with the recession and trying to get a health care bill through have been major tests of his governing, but in terms of international policies this was one of those crisis moments that presents itself to every president, that 3:00 a.m. phone call furc will, and i think a

lot of people have looked at his handling of it and his performance of it through that prism. >> lehrer: should they? >> yes, they should. i think it's a legitimate way to try to judge a president nay moment like this, and i think the initial reaction, certainly by the white house, kind of a classic case of a white house on vacation, when everybody's in far-flung places and not quite on the balls of their feet, and i think they recovered from that and you've seen the president increasingly stubborn and robust in his public comments since then. >> lehrer: walter mead how do you see the seriousness of this particular test and how does it apply to president obama's ability to handle this kind of thing? >> i don't think it was a real serious test. a serious test would be if a bomb went off on a plane. in some ways, i think obama at the copenhagen conference really showed himself performing in a much more stressful situation where he took a conference that was falling apart and he mastered the dynamics.

he got off the script and he really made some positive steps forward. but i agree, the white house had a little bit of a "deer in the headlines of an oncoming truck" for maybe 36 hours after this. and my guess is the next time something like this happens , it's a very disciplined white house, they'll do a better job. >> lehrer: do you think too much has been made of this? is that what you're suggesting? >> well, i would say you've got to look at it in context. it's a missed opportunity. it's a mimistake. if it happens again on something like this, then i think you have to ask some questions, why aren't they learning? but if you look at this whole first year of the white house in foreign policy-- sure, there have been some mistakes-- but on the whole this has been a much smoother first year for the operation of foreign policy than, say, the clinton administration was or the bugs -- bush administration. the team has more or less worked

together. there investigate been kind of thrown off message. they've had some policy initiatives that aren't working as well as they'd like but that happens to everybody. on the whole, when you look at a first yearave new administration where the party's been out of power for a long time, this has been a pretty smooth operation. that said, the christmas bombing was not their finest hour. >> lehrer: you agree , jessica math use, not their finest moment? >> secretary napolitano started the coverage on the wrong footing-- the system worked-- and it was all recovery from then. the more the president got into the facts the stronger and stronger he became, culminating with yesterday's announcement where's i think he really did a very strong performance. >> lehrer: do you think it's legitimate to raise this-- to use the word "crisis" in terms of the process

-- presidency, barack obama, right now? >> no. this president has faced nothing but crises in a much more profound sense. the domestic kmefs plummeting towards the bottom where the economists couldn't feel a bottom, had a global economic threat, and a frozen and global financial system. and a war that was spiraling downhill as well. those are real crises. and the fact-- especially on the economic front-- that they handled them i think very, very strongly. the fact that we're hardly talking about it now is testimony to how well they did. >> lehrer: dan, another rap on the president is that he tend, when in doubt, makes a speech rather than a decision. is that legit? >> up to a point. it's a line of argument some of his critics used.

the truth she has been through the campaign and as a president, somebody who can rise to the moment of a big speech. and he has given memorable speeches. i think one of the things they've learned is there are limits to that, that the bully pulpit may not be as strong as some might and think there is more to it than giving a speech. i think you saw in the deliberation deliberations over the afghanistan situation in which the president took a lot of criticisms throughout that process of whether he was dith or delaying or indecisive but came to to a conclusion that drew bipartisan praiseand support. not just for the speech but the decision he made. again, we don't know how the policy will work in practice, but the way he dealt with it says he is willing to do more than just give speeches. >> lehrer: we'll get back to the speech thing in a moment, but what about the point that dan just raised, the president has now said-- going back to the bombing crisis for a moment--

the president has now said we're going to-- i'm not going to tolerate this anymore. we're going to change things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. now things have to really change correct? correct? is that the real test to come? >> here's the problem, when you're fighting an a defensive action against a terrorist enemy they can always choose their moments to attack and can change their tactics and they'll surprise you. and the president probably has gone a little too far in saying i'm going to make this work. the changes we're going to make are going to make all the problems go away. the reality sthey won't. unfortunately, there is a significant possibility-- perhaps a probability-- that at some time in the next few years, terrorists are going to succeed in something on the u.s. mainland, and that's just a reality. any administration's going to be blamed for it, probably a little irrationally. but this president does have the

kind of -- i wrote about this in the current foreign policy-- almost a jimmy carter problem. he's an intellectual . he's a very thoughtful guy. he is trying to pull america back from confrontation. and to try to lower the tone of american rhetoric, to try to take the crisis out of something as a way of reducing the country's risks and vulnerabilities. whenever you start doing that, you are -- people start to question you. are you weak? and this president is going to be caught-- he's going too have a hard time avoiding being trapped in a way between a rock and a hard place of being so tough that he can't try the new, creative foreign policy that he wants, but on the other hand, maybe being seen as weak opener indecisive. it's going to be a problem for him. >> he's been anything but indecisive, and he is-- i think what's really noticeable is that

he's taken such big risks. >> lehrer: too big, sometimes? >> he may have taken on more than the united states senate can bear, for example, but i don't know how he could have done less than deal with health care, than deal with the economy. he had to do those things. he's put on the table some major arms control initiatives and raised the possibility of zero nukes, which makes his near-term challenges even tougher. he's told the congress that it has to deal with climate, with energy, and that's going to be enormous difficulty in this coming year. but the fact that he went to copenhagen was a huge role of the dice, particularly because conclude hundred acted. and the low-risk strategy would have been not to go and then other heads of state would not have gone. the fact that he set out to reset the u.s.-russian relationship was another high-risk roll of the dice. the engagement with iran was a high-risk roll of the dice.

going to cairo and giving that speech in the heart of the arab world was a high roll of the dice. he has been somebody who has embrasd a very challenging policy. >> lehrer: do you buy walter's jimmy carter rock and a hard place theor gee no, i don't. i see a very different man, and i think a much-- taking on tough issues is not the same thing as being indecisive, and the notion that you're -- that giving speechs is somehow not decision making. i mean, he has made policy in those speeches and--. >> lehrer: walter didn't say that. i said that-- >> well, it's paradox, but i-- i think what he has embrasd is-- i think we remember president carter in the context of the

iranian history crisis, and it didn't look quite the way at the time that he was going-- was undertaking, but also, as walter also said, this he can a much smoother first year than president carter's first year. >> lehrer: walter, do you want to come back on that? >> yes, i don't want to say barack obama is the new jimmy carter because they're very different people and the world situation is different. i say the course he's trying to execute exposes him to risk of how he's being perceived and i think you can see that in some of the criticism. jessica's right that he's taken on tremendous issues at home and abroad. so far he's had, i think, more success in working, particularly with congress, than president carter did early on. but we can see that these-- you know , president bush took a lot of risks too. rolling the dice and then

rolling the doubling cube and double or nothing, it doesn't always work. and one of the problems you can see now is if you look at public support for the health care bill it's actually lower than public support for the surge in afghanistan. and when you have a very lock, inconclusive war being more popular than a-- than what ought to be a very popular domestic initiative, then i think you do see an administration that's head ing into rough political seas. i'm not predicting how it's going to come out. i don't think we can know. and barack obama is one of the most talented and far-seeing people we've elected president in quite a while. who knows what's going to happen but it is a stormy sea. >> lehrer: all right, speaking of the stormy sea, dan, how do you read the simple fact, at least according to the polls, the critics coming after barack obama are coming on very strongly from the left and very strongly from the right at the

same time. is that to be expected or is there something unusual you see there that you can explain to us? >> i think it's two different phenomena, jim. going back to the point about jimmy carter, i think that the challenge that barack obama has faced and continues to face is one that was part of the narrative of the campaign that he had to overcome, which was this question was did someone with the limited amount of experience he had , was he going to be able to govern in a very dangerous world and would he have the strength to be a strong commander in chief? he passed that threshold, obviously, in the campaign. that's different than passing it as president. i think there will always be some suspicion , particularly on the right, about whether he has the equipment to do that. we are in a much more polarized environment today than we were certainly back in jimmy carter's day. we all know, that and i think that's one of the reasons he will continue to face that kind of criticism so there's kind of almost a hair trigger in terms of everything he does gets examined very, very closely so he has that challenge he has to

deal with. the challenges, or the criticism he's geting from the left, i think are in part a function of a kind of disappointment-- disillusioniment is too strong a word-- but he is a victim of expectations that ran way beyond what he was able to do or could be expected to do. there are people on the left who because of his big victory a little more than a year ago thought that things would change and change very quickly and they would change in a very progressive way on policy. may be of the things he is pushing have been and continue to be near and deer to the liberal agenda. but he is prepared to compromise to get some of those things through, the public option perhaps being the most symbolically significant of those-- and when he does those things there is disappointmentolt left and so he gets criticized that way. >> lehrer: in a word,. jessica tuchman mathews, do you

agree the expectationing things-- >> they were unrealistically high. there's no question. there was a feeling that somehow he could make magic, and not even barack obama can make magic. >> lehrer: okay, thank you, all three, very much. >> ifill: now to our two-part look at yemen, the impoverished arabian peninsula nation suddenly in the international spotlight as an al qaeda haven. authorities there arrested 3 men today in a security crackdown aimed at rooting out militants. it began after investigators found a link between yemen and the bombing suspect. jonathon rugman of independent television news reports from the country's capital. >> tom: it's a long way from here to detroit, but it was in sanaas sprawling streets that a plot to blow up a passenger jet on christmas day may well have been planned. yemen, ancestral homeland of osama bin laden himself, is once again on al qaedas front line.

and the big burly man with the balding pate and beneficent smile knows all about it. for nasser al-bahri alias "abu jandal" is the former bodyguard to osama bin laden himself. a martyr he says, a man to be loved. nasser al-bahri bin ladens former bodyguard >> i have often said i love osama bin laden more than my father. we shared many experiences and he defends the islamic nation. he doesn't like killing. >> reporter: mr. al bahri was one of many yemenis serving alongside bin laden in the afghan mountains in the late 1990s, where he earned the nickname, the killer. out after jail time in yemen, he now works here as a business consultant. but he's still proud of the leg wound the al qaeda leader often bandaged up for him. and though he's retired from jihad, his sympathy for the latest generation is hard to disguise. do you understand why a nigerian

allegedly would >> do you know why this nigerian wanted to blow up the blaen headed to detroit? >> ( translated ): i wish the question wasn't so naïve. britain and america are in iraq and in afghanistan. they intervene in the affairs of islamic nations. there are a million people out there like the nigerian. >> reporter: omar faruk abdul mutallab, the nigerian student with explosives in his underpants, who put al qaeda back on the map. he studied arabic last summer at this language school in sanaa. it seems a sane and civilized place of learning, now tainted by the actions of one notorious pupil. whose teacher say he was smart, the best in the class, not a man to blow up a plane mid-flight. >> ( translated ): like the whole world i was wrong about him. amsterdam airport was wrong about him. he was always smiling.

>> reporter: smiling, like the friendly former bodyguard of the worlds most wanted man. who now lives quietly in this dirt poor capital city, where al qaeda still inspires young men to wage war against the west. >> lehrer: now margaret warner looks at what the yemen terrorism connections mean for guantanamo detainees. >> warner: ever since taking office, president obama has worked to honor his pledge to shut the prison at guantanamo bay, cuba. but his january 2010 deadline has already slipped. now the apparent connection between the suspect in the christmas day plot has raised a new hurdle. nearly 100 yemenis are still at guantanamo about half the total inmate population remaining there. nearly half of those yemenis have been cleared for release. but that was before yesterday's announcement from the president. >> given the unsettled situation, i've spoken to the

attorney general and we've agreed that we will not be transferring additional detainees back to yemen at this time. >> warner: for retired u.s. navy commander kirk lippold, the decision came not a moment too soon. >> i'm actual very pleased that they chose to do that. i think it shows that they recognize that the yemini government is having a very hard time in maintaining control throughout the country. >> warner: lippold was skipper of the "uss cole" in october of 2000, when it was attacked by al qaeda suicide bombers off the coast of yemen. 17 american sailors were killed. >> it would be unwise for us to return people back to that country if in fact they have the potential to return back to al qaeda and return to the battlefield. >> warner: in fact, only some 20 yemenis have been released to date from guantanamo. and benjamin wittes at the brookings institution in washington says there's a reason for that. >> the problem is in, in short that you have a group of people,

a very large percentage of the total population of guantanamo many of whom are from the u.s. government's point of view pretty scary people, and a country that is very badly positioned to manage the risks that they pose in absorbing them. >> warner: and that, says wittes has meant that yemenis have always been treated differently from others set for release at guantanamo. >> in addition to the scary yemenis, there are a group of people there who had they been saudi, had they been from, you know some other countries would have gone home a long time ago. >> warner: indeed, yemen is a country of 22 million with a fragile government facing secession in the south and rebellion in the north not to mention crippling poverty. it's proven fertile ground for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula the group claiming responsibility for christmas day bombing attempt. only one released yemeni has returned to the battlefield, but many former saudi guatanamo detainees are now in al qaeda's leadership there.

>> they went to yemen for a reason and the reason is that the long arm of the saudi stayed um, and the long arm of any state has a lot more trouble reaching you in yemen than it does in, in other places. >> warner: washington attorney george clarke represents two yemenis at guantanamo. he says decisions on who gets released should continue to be made on a case by case basis. >> i think both the bush administration and the obama administration, tried to release people that they thought were not dangerous to the united states and or its interests. and i think that that, that analysis should continue in the future as opposed to sort of, some sort of blanket. >> warner: but after what president obama said tuesday, clarke says it isn't clear what comes next for one of his clients who'd been slated for release. >> i honestly don't know what happens to him i think with clearly the blanket prohibition, they're not going to be going anywhere for a while

>> warner: it's not just the fate of individual inmates that's hangs in the balance. the president's temporary ban doesn't resolve larger politically charged questions that he and congress have to wrestle with. republicans have argued the president was wrong from the start on guantanamo. in a recent letter, congressman pete hoekstra, ranking republican on the house intelligence committee, said the christmas day incident requires mr. obama to abandon his "brazen and naive pledge to close guantanamo bay. hoekstra followed up sunday on abc's "this week." >> the core group of al qaeda on the arabian peninsula is formed by former gitmo detainees. these are people that were held in gitmo, have been returned, and have now gone back to the battlefield. >> warner: democratic congresswoman jane harman, chairman of a house subcommittee on terrorism assessment, takes issue with that.

>> it's way too simplistic it is true that there is a connection between the christmas day bomber and yemen and that i think guantanamo foorkds a recruiting tool that surksnique worldwide al qaeda and other bad guys. >> warner: harman supports the temporary freeze on repatriating yemeni detainees but says indefinitely holding them is not a permanent solution to this thorny problem. one of the alternatives is to transfer the yemeni prisoners even those cleared for release to a federal facility in thompson, illinois, which was chosen recently by the obama administration to take detainees who can't be released elsewhere. but that prospect remains murky since it's unclear when and if congress will fund security upgrades needed at the prison. >> i think the administration is sorting that out right now. this wrinkle about yemen is fairly recent and it is very

serious. i support what the administration is doing to suspend the transfer or release of any of these people into yemen. but we are going to have to, they are going to have to find another answer. >> warner: benjamin wittes warns delay in finding an answer could pose another danger, that the courts could order the government to free those "cleared for release" in the u.s. if no other country will take them. >> you could imagine a situation in which the government has a choice between yemen and cleveland. and that's a very unappealing choice from the government's point of view. >> warner: it could be a politically hazardous choice as well, given the passions already aroused by talk of releasing any gitmo detainees into the u.s.. >> ifill: now washington's new 'arts' chief. jeffrey brown has our profile. >> brown: rocco landesman is a successful broadway producer, whose company jujamcyn, owns five major theaters in new york and has presented numerous award-winning plays, including "angels in america", and "the

producers". ♪ now landesman has given up the bright lights of broadway for the halls of washington's bureaucracy. as head of the national endowment for the arts, he manages a federal agency that's seen its share of ups and downs: started by congress in 1965 to foster and bring the arts to all americans, but a frequent target of conservatives for funding of controversial works. landesman wasted no time raising eyebrows: he called nea funding "pathetic", and suggested money should go to programs based on merit, not automatically to all congressional districts. "i don't know if there's a theater in peoria," he said in an interview, "but i would bet that it's not as good as steppenwolf or the goodman," referring to top chicago companies.

that didn't play well in peoria. but recently, landesman paid a visit, answered questions, and made amends. >> look at that >> brown: he also launched a six-month tour he calls "art works," to highlight the arts' role in the nation's culture and economy. recently, surrounded by paintings by his father, landesman said he took his new job despite advice to the contrary. >> when i went around and polled my friends and friendly and people that i trusted the most about whether i should volunteer for this every last one of them said you are out of your mind. you are out of your mind to come here. they said you are out of your blankety blank mind don't even think about it to come down and run a small federal agency 170 person bureaucracy, its a backwater, the amount of funding that they can do ultimately doesn't make that big a difference. i didn't feel that was the case. i felt in this administration it was going to be something more.

you have a president who himself a writer, who cares about the arts, they go to the theatre, they go museums they really are engaged with arts. clearly this is a president who has a different view of the arts than previous administrations and i wanted to be a part of that. >> brown: and what is it you want to do? >> what is it that has been lacking in the government's role perhaps vis-a-vis the arts that you think you could step in and help a well, i think the arts have always been a kind of step child in this country, a target for some people, something viewed as an extra or an add on for others. something not essential. i believe arts are essential. it's a fundamental part of who we are as human beings. it's terribly important and i felt that this was maybe one way i could make a contribution. the great thing about this particular post whatever the limitations of the budget is that it's a great bully pulpit. >> brown: why do you think that the arts are undervalued then in our society? >> well compare our support of the arts with any other frame of reference you like. england is the worst supporter of the arts in europe. about $9oo million in public

commitment. france is about $2.3 billion. our current budget it about $160 million. we are among all the developed worlds the weakest supporter of the arts in this country on a public basis. >> brown: in fact you called government funding for the arts pathetic. >> yes and the government doesn't like it when i say that because it sounds a little bit too i sound too much like an advocate but.. >> brown: well, are you an advocate? is that how you see your role? >> this is an interesting question. you know we are a grant making agency. we are not a regulatory agency or enforcement agency-- we support the art through grant making so part of the job in my view involves some advocacy. i do feel that we represent art and artists within the government within the administration and this is a source or always you know always a source of some tension.

you created a stir early on with the peoria comment and it sounded as though you were saying that money should go to places with proven merit as opposed to the more traditional sort of distribution geographically. that's the way it sounded. >> well peoria was really a figure of speech. i'm a broadway guy and there is that great old vaudeville expression well play in peoria. what i was trying to say was really that art that's going to be supported by the nea is going to be on the basis of merit and quality not just because it exists in a certain place. so art can come from everywhere and we are going to be wherever it is. >> brown: of course when you talk about quality narrates excellence then for some folks that can to start to sound like a kind of elitism, you are coming here? here you are a big broadway guy, new york, >> i can't stand that. that somehow standards is code for elitism. or something worse. i don't buy that at all.

i don't think that there is a disconnect between supporting quality and having some kind of standard and being democratic and being in many, many different places. >> brown: but to go back to the funding question again i mean we have gone around the country and reported on different cities, states, and art institutions that are suffering. when you get down to a main street and there is a lot of different needs out there, what's the case for giving it to the ballet, or the dance whatever the modern dance company as opposed to the you know the homeless shelter or the people who need food? >> because you are making an investment in the future of that community. it's one thing just to give someone a grant or even to give someone a job that will last so long, you build an arts community in a neighborhood it becomes an integral part of that neighborhood. part of the fabric of that place. artists are entrepreneurs, they are place makers. they are individuals small

businessmen and you put them into a community and it changes that place. it made me crazy when the stimulus package was announced $787 billion and the nea got $50 million you turn on the television and here is a congressman saying how can you spend $50 million on the nea when that money could be spent creating real jobs like road building. >> brown: it drives you crazy to listen to a congressman but you know you have to work with these congressmen now. >> i do and i do and i will. >> brown: as you've been traveling around the country now you started traveling around the country do you find a reception of the arts and a real awareness for it nowadays? >> i do, i think there is a hunger for it. but to the extent that there are places and segments of the country where there is not i think that relates to the lack of arts education in the schools. it's always the first thing cut when there is a budget crisis and i have to say in don't want to sound terribly partisan about

this but this whole "no child left behind" initiative which is essentially a program to train teachers, to train kids to take tests leaves a lot of child's behind. there are a lot of kids who have a talent an idiosyncratic passion or something special about them, the arts catches these kids. and i think its very important to have arts education in the schools. this should be just about performance on standardized tests. >> brown: you know you say you don't want to be partisan and yet you are willing to say things like that, that will not everybody will like to hear that. >> i think the president knew who he was getting when he brought me there. i'm going to be outspoken. i'm going to be forceful in what i say. i'm going to be pounding the table about the arts if people want to regard that as partisan i cant help it. i think he could have chosen a lot of other people whose resumes maybe laid out a lot better for this job than mine i think he wanted change. change was a mantra of the campaign and i think he wanted change at the nea and he's going to get it. >> brown: rocco landeman thanks for letting us come to talk. >> it's good to be with you jeff.

>> ifill: for the record, the national endowment for the arts is one of the funders of the newshour's arts coverage. >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day. two more democratic senators plan to retire after this year, chris dodd of connecticut and byron dorgan of north dakota. the nigerian suspect in the airliner bombing plot was indicted on charges including attempted murder. and pakistani officials reported u.s. drone strikes killed at least 13 people near the border with afghanistan. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari, >> sreenivasan: we have more insights from "washington post" reporter chris cillizza on the retirements of democratic senators dodd and dorgan. dante chinni stopped by to discuss new research on the impact of immigration on political battlegrounds across the country, that's on our patchwork nation page. on art beat, a conversation remembering abstract artist kenneth noland who died yesterday, plus a slideshow of his colorful geometric paintings

and an interview with francesco clark, a young man profiled on the pbs series this emotional life, which explores the human search for happiness. the final episode airs tonight on many pbs stations. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the iraq and afghanistan conflicts. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are nine more.

>> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill, >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening, thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by:

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