captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. reaction to president obama's state of the union address. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, it's all about jobs, the president said, as he announced new funding for high-speed rail projects. >> lehrer: we'll discuss last night's speech with michael beschloss, cynthia tucker, reihan salam and john harris. >> woodruff: then, a dramatic story of rescue in haiti, where a teenage girl survived more than two weeks in the rubble. >> lehrer: and an interview with rene preval, the president of haiti. ray suarez talked to him in port-au-prince today.

station that now serves as his government's headquarters, haitian leader said the solutions to his country's problems lie within haiti, and haitians must solve them. >> woodruff: kwame holman looks at the fallout from toyota's move to halt sales and production of some top-selling cars and trucks. >> i do think that what you're seeing now is toyota being a victim of its own success. >> lehrer: and, we wonder about j.d. salinger-- long-gone author of "catcher in the rye," who died today. that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what is that energy came from an energy company? everyday, chevron invests $62 million in people, in ideas-- seeking, teaching, building. fueling growth around the world

to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron. >> this is the engine that bnsf, the engine that connects us. bank of america-- committed to helping the nation's economic recovery. pacific life-- the power to help you succeed. and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. 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: president obama road tested his new focus on jobs and the economy today. margaret warner begins our coverage of the tune i don't know aftermath. >> reporter: the president was greeted with applause by a friendly audience in tampa, florida. he and vice president joe biden unveiled $8 billion in grants for high speed rail, part of their new focus on jobs creation the president said again he understands what americans are going through. >> last night i've spoken about where we need to go and i've said these are difficult times,

these challenging times for our country. in the last two years, we've gone through the deepest recession since great depression. think about that. a big chunk of the people here, certainly the younger people here, have never even seen a recession. they don't even... it doesn't register on their minds. this is by far the toughest thing that the country's gone through economically since the 1930s. >> warner: the president also repeated his tune i don't know plea for the two parties to work together. >> on every one of these issues, my door remains open to good ideas from both parties. i want the republicans off the sidelines. i want them working with us to solve problems facing working families. not to score points. i want a partnership.

what we can't do, though... here's what i'm not open to. i don't want gridlock on issue after issue after issue when there's so many urgent problems to solve (applause). >> warner: back in washington, there were mixed signals on the prospects for bipartisan progress. lawmakers from both parties agreed with the focus on creating jobs but not on the best way to do it. >> the president and i agree on the need to meet in the middle to find bipartisan agreement to grow jobs. >> warner: senate minority leader mitch mcconnell was on the floor earlier declaring he was ready to work with the president. >> we know increased american energy without a new national energy tax will grow good jobs. we know that increasing markets for our farmers, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers overseas through trade agreements will grow good jobs. we can get these done and i hope the president will join us in calling on the majority to bring these issues to the floor here in the senate. >> reporter: and democrats promised to roll out a new jobs agenda within the week.

>> the three top issues on our agenda this year are jobs, jobs, and jobs. neither party can afford to overlook this issue or it will be seen as obstructing on it. if either party does, it will be at their own political peril. >> warner: but on the house side, minority leader john boehner says mr. obama's calls for bipartisanship and his criticism of republican opposition rang hollow. >> there was nothing last night in the president's speech to indicate that there was any willingness to sit down and work together. >> reporter: an indiana republican, mike pence, said the president still seemed tone deaf to the need to reign in the deficit. despite his call for a partial spending freeze. >> the president of the united states came to the well of congress and after apparently offering a nod to focusing on jobs, he renewed his embrace of the failed economic policies of

this congress and h this administration to date, calling for one more so-called stimulus bill built on the same failed policies of the last stimulus bill. >> warner: for her part, house speaker nancy pelosi focused today on health care reform, something the president moved down his priority list in last night's address. >> we must pass this legislation , and we must take whatever time it takes to do it. some things we can do on the side which may not fit into a bigger plan. that doesn't mean that's a subs tuesday for doing comprehensive. it means we will move on many fronts. >> reporter: the president also drew attention today for his criticism last night of the supreme court's decision on campaign finance. with all nine justices looking on, he charged that the ruling would open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations. associate justice samuel alito shook his head and appeared to

mouth the words "not true." this morning, vice president biden defended mr. obama's reprimand of the court's action. >> the president didn't question the integrity of the court or the decision they made, they questioned the judgment of it. here we are for the first time in over a hundred years we're equating a corporation with an individual and fee speech. the problem is, a lot of these multinational corporations are owned as much by foreign interests as well as domestic interests and now for the first time you're going to have corporations, foreign corporations, being able to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to determine the outcome of an election in the united states of america? i think it's outrageous. >> warner: tens of millions of americans watched the tune i don't know speech and many joined in a kind of national conversation online in the hours afterward. some posted reactions on the pbs newshour's youtube channel and some of them were sharply critical. >> the lame excuses he used in his speech such as "i never said the world would come together in

harmony simply by the dint of mine becoming president" or "i didn't say i could make change happen alone," simply unmask him as the impotent naive president he really is. >> reporter: but others found the president's agenda in line with their own. >> i felt that the speech actually regained my confidence in his leadership and it had sort of... got a little loose there for a while but he was very authentic and what i loved is that every single issue that he... that whole shopping list is exactly what was on my shopping list. >> warner: still others in posted comments seemed to despair of any progress. one wrote: but there were also those who counseled patience, including this one. tomorrow, mr. obama takes his

case directly to house republicans. he'll address their gathering on midterm strategy taking place in baltimore. >> woodruff: now, four takes on president obama's address last night: presidential historian and "newshour" regular michael beschloss; cynthia tucker, political columnist for the "atlanta journal-constitution"; reihan salam, who writes "the agenda" blog for "the national review" online and is a fellow at the new america foundation; and john harris, editor-in-chief of "politico." good to have you all with us. michael beschloss, to you first. i'm going to ask each one of you this question. what did you think of the speech? >> what i was not surprised by... remember the last couple days a lot of people were saying this is going to be like bill clinton in 1995. clinton had suffered big congressional setback, lost both houses of congress. and clinton gave a tune i don't know, this is almost a different human being from the previous year. a very conservative speech, a lot of it taken almost wholesale

out of newt gingrich's contract with america, it seemed. not much of that last night. barack obama tried to reframe his presidency, remind people that he was not just this lefty big government man but in terms of substance there was very little change. and i think that really says a lot about obama very different from bill clinton. >> woodruff: cynthia tucker, not a different president? >> by no means. this is the president that we saw in the campaign in 2008. he reiterate misdemeanor of the things that he ran on. he was... he projected an aura of confidence and resolve, determination, and i think he accomplished what he needed to accomplish. he reminded americans that he understands their economic anguish. he needed to, as ronald reagan did, remind americans how we got in the mess that we were in. and he needed as well to raledly base, to tell them he wasn't running away from the promises he'd made in 2008. and so i thought he did all of those things. the speech was a little long,

but i think it was a good speech under the circumstances. >> warner: reihan salam, he accomplished all that he needed to do? >> i think michael made a very, very good point. when you look at president clinton and his reaction, it was one of humility. it was a recognition that we made serious missteps and we need to pivot, we need to take a new course. and this president in stark contrast said that in fact the last year was wildly successful and that in fact folks at home who are disturbed, who are concerned, who have this populist anger, are, in fact, badly mistaken, they're not giving him an assumption of good faith. in fact, he has been reaching out, he has done exactly everything that he ought to do and that they simply don't understand that and he hasn't explained it adequately. i'm not sure that's going to be seen as an adequate explanation for a lot of independent voters, certainly a lot of conservative voters and also democrats who might be more inclined to stay at home come the mid--term elections than turn out in droves. >> woodruff: john harris, sounds like reihan salam was saying he needed more humility.

what did you make of the speech? >> i thought there were two distinct tests he was facing with the speech. the first was with the broader public, and this is where the president can command a wide national audience even if this era of a fragmented media. this is a national event. 50 million people watched it. he had to clear that test and i think there was a second test with an insider audience of people in washington that wanted to know how he was going to respond to his starkly different political circumstances. he may be the same president and the same message as cynthia said, but his circumstances and his options are much, must have different. i thought he cleared the first test easily. he showed himself sort of vigorous. there were some flashes of hue humility in places but also real flashes of fight. occasionally some humor and people saw that he was not personally defeated or back on his heels. that test cleared. the insider test, people that are saying "now what" for his presidency. he's got these ideas but what are the prospects. what the legislative strategy? how do we achieve this?

i don't think he did terribly well on that test. >> woodruff: michael beschloss, how important is that inside washington audience? >> important but i think they're not going to be hugely influenced by this. this is really, you know, trying to remind people beyond washington that he may not be what he's been caricatured as, especially last few weeks when people were focused on that race in massachusetts. but, you know, we were mentioning bill bill clinton a t ago. clinton was a survivor to use the title of john harris' excellent book on the clinton presidency. he would have done almost anything to get reelected. something fascinating that obama said the other day, he said "i'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president." i think he means it and i think last night showed that he did. >> woodruff: reihan salam, this one term/two-term statement, what do you make of that and how does that affect your view of his performance last night? >> i think that it was a very powerful and very telling statement. one of the key aspects of president obama's appeal has

been this idea that he's not an ideologue, that he's profoundly pragmatic and that he's not terribly interested in partisanship and what have you and he's perfectly willing to embrace good ideas from the republican side. and i'm not sure that's actually true. i think the president is someone who has very deep core convictions, very deep ideological convictions and i actually believe him when he says that. i believe that he wants to achieve certain broad policy objectives that as he eluded to in the speech are things that folks who are on the more free market right, folks who advocate a robust federalism, decentralization, et cetera, are gong to be uncomfortable with. and i do in a sense find that very impressive. he doesn't just want to get reelected, he doesn't necessarily want to do what that median voter wants, he wants to aid progressivism in this very broad sense, he wants to help progressive democrats not necessarily centrist democrats like ben nelson and joe lieberman win reelection and so that was part of what he was saying when he said, hey, look, guys, you have big robust

majorities, let's get this done. we didn't come here for fun and games, we came here to build this progressive governing agenda and to change the tra skrebgtory of where this country is going. it's just that a lot of folks are uncomfortable with that. >> woodruff: cynthia talker. coming back to this notion john harris put out of the public versus the washington audience. do you see that same divide, two audiences he had to reach? >> i don't think the tune i don't know speech was the place for him to lay out the legislative and political strategy for the job that he is trying to accomplish. the legislation that he wants to get passed. i think his job was to shore up waiverring democrats. i'm not going to run for the hills and you shouldn't, either. in the coming days he'll be out on the trail as he was today getting voter support and he's going to be doing a lot of arm-twisting behind the scenes to get his agenda passed and in that sense he has a much higher chance of moving democrat than

he does republicans, i think. >> woodruff: what about that, john harris? what is the... what's your sense in was it smart for him to make this appeal to bipartisanship and to say to his colleagues "don't run for the hills"? >> absolutely. and i want to clarify my point. i don't think a tune i don't know speech would be the appropriate place to lay out in the nitty-gritty legislative tactics or the legislative calendar.ú; cynthia's quite right about that. i do think two things that obama was trying to do and these are lessons from bill clinton, one, liberate himself from congress. i don't think any president wants to be seen as tied to the fortunes of his or her own party within the congress. he wants to stand above other politicians and to some extent liberate himself from his party. be seen as president of the united states rather than just leader of the democratic party. in that sense it was effective. here's where i do think it was important to address the inside audience. in the first term, there was a very clear theory of the case that barack obama and his aides were advancing, the so-called

big-bang theory of governance. they were going to pass big things all in one year: health care, cap-and-trade legislation for global warming, financial reregulation. a year later, none of those things have passed. the big bang didn't work. what is the new governing theory now? he's got lots of good ideas, but what is the actual political strategy behind these governing ideas that will actually bring them enactment. and i don't think that's a matter of legislative tactics. that's a matter of how does he see his presidency and demonstrate effectiveness? >> woodruff: and you're saying we didn't hear that last night. michael beschloss, did you hear that that? >> not much. and you know i think he's recognizing there's a very good chance even if he serves eight years, his most powerful moment as president, at least with congress, was last year and will not ever come again. the other thing is, if this speech had the resonance not of clinton but ronald reagan 1983. deep recession, a lot of joblessness. reagan went to congress and said the state of the union is strong

but our economy is troubled, we inherited an economy that was much worse than we expected. we heard almost the same thing last night and the lesson from reagan was, reagan was recognizing his fate was tied to whether the economy got better. it did by '84, he got reelected. in barack obama's case, he knows that his reelection in the fate of this presidency rests on if the economy gets better, two wars abroad, struggling against terrorism, if those things