December 26, 2003

Announcer: From our nation's capital, this is WASHINGTON WEEK. And now here's moderator Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL, host: Twelve eventful months. Tonight, we look back at 2003, the year in review.

The war.

President GEORGE W. BUSH: On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets.

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

Secretary DONALD RUMSFELD (Defense Department): It'll be a long hard slog, indeed. Pres. BUSH: The world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership.

IFILL: The politics.

Representative RICHARD GEPHARDT (Democrat, Missouri; Minority Leader; Presidential Candidate)

: He's lost more jobs than Herbert Hoover, almost.

Dr. HOWARD DEAN (Former Governor, Vermont; Democratic Presidential Candidate): I'm Howard Dean, and I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Senator JOHN KERRY (Democrat, Massachusetts; Presidential Candidate): Governor Dean raised prescription costs for seniors in his state when he needed to balance the budget.

IFILL: The Congress.

Senator BILL FRIST (Republican, Tennessee; Majority Leader): The United States Senate will enact prescription drug coverage for the first time under Medicare.

IFILL: And the surprises.

Governor-elect ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (Republican, California): I, Arnold Schwarzenegger...

IFILL: 2003, a year in which lives were lost, tyrants were caught, and not, when the unexpected shocked us, and the dark horse surged. Tonight, we look at the year in review with the reporters who have been covering it: Michael Duffy of Time magazine; Richard Berke of The New York Times; Alan Murray of CNBC; and Alexis Simendinger of National Journal.

Announcer: Here again is moderator Gwen Ifill.

IFILL: Good evening.

Analysis: President Bush's staking his presidency on foreign policy

GWEN IFILL, host: Every year at this time, we take a look back, and we never fail to be shocked at how much has actually happened. So much this year centers on the war in Iraq. In September, nearly five months after the president declared major combat operations over, he was still evoking the memory of 9/11 and reassuring the American people that it was all worth it.

President GEORGE W. BUSH: Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there, and there they must be defeated.

IFILL: So, Michael, looking back on this year, it becomes clear that George W. Bush staked his entire presidency on foreign policy.

Mr. MICHAEL DUFFY (Time Magazine, Washington Bureau Chief): Yeah, and it's also clear that the way the year ends with so many surprises, and the way it began with so much anxiety about how the war would turn out, we've learned that the president has discovered that he's got a lot more tools in his foreign policy toolbox at the end of the year than we thought he had at the beginning. And it may be that the use of war as an instrument of foreign policy has given him the confidence, may have given him the confidence to use some of these other tools they didn't even know they had. The--the invasion of Iraq is the signature event of the year. The president took a small coalition and a maximum foreign--you know, preemptive foreign policy overseas. He invaded the country. He tossed out the dis--dictator. And they're beginning the long, hard work of trying to, you know, rebuild the country physically and psychologically. And that's going to be the--what puts him in the history books for good or for ill. It's going to be what probably determines whether he's re-elected or not.

But we also learned that it's not the only--preemptive war is not the only tool the administration has discovered. This year, we saw them go take on North Korea in a different way than we had expected in the first year. They have begun to work multilateral negotiations with the North Koreans with countries we didn't--he wasn't thinking of before, Chinese, the Russians. And--and the same what happened last week with Libya, something of a surprise, secret negotiations, bilateral negotiations. So we've disc--one of the things that I think we've--one of the things he has learned or they have learned and we've seen is that they realize now there are lots of different ways to skin these cats if weapons of mass destruction is what you're worried about.

Mr. ALAN MURRAY (CNBC Washington Bureau Chief): Yeah, I mean, Libya happened late at night. It didn't get--on a Friday night, not too late. You cut it on your show, I'm sure, but...

IFILL: Yes, we did.

Mr. MURRAY: But it didn't get as much attention as it might have if it had happened earlier. But if invading Iraq means that you have more leverage in dealing with Libya, in dealing with North Korea, in dealing with Iran, then history will look at this in a very different way than people are--have been looking at it this year.

Mr. DUFFY: All right. They didn't think of that when they started thinking about invading Iraq. That may be--this may be a byproduct even they didn't anticipate. But then, there's no question that there are things about the whole Iraqi invasion that are far from cleaned up yet. I mean, they--you know, they're going to have a long year still, maybe several years, putting this country back together. The--the clean-up work is huge. They still haven't figured out how they're going to organize this government. The Iraqis haven't figured out how they're going to do it. But they have seen, I think that there are lots of different ways to get results overseas, either because or despite what they've--what's taken place in Iraq. And--and that--that--that seems to have been one of the thing's he's trying to tell us, too, without saying it in the last couple of weeks.

Ms. ALEXIS SIMENDINGER (National Journal White House Correspondent): To the extent that this year has shown the president's ability to make mid-course corrections or to make adjustments in addition to the kinds of initiatives he takes, where do you think that is going to take 2004 in terms of this being the test that the president has set himself, Iraq, for his own presidency?

Mr. DUFFY: There have been so many different mid-course corrections on Iraq since the shooting stopped, I mean...

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Right.

Mr. DUFFY: ...it's a little hard. You'd have to have a really big piece of paper just to graph that, `OK, we're going to go down this road. Now we're going to--we're going to go back and do this.' Lots of different changes about whether to reconstitute the Army or not, yes, no, yes. We're back at yes. How far, you know, to de-Ba'athify this country, yes, no, we're back, `Oh, well, maybe we won't worry about that so much anymore.'

He's got problems in other places where he's going to need to do a lot of work in this fourth year. He's going to have to do something about Pakistan. This is a country that is clearly one of our great allies in the war on terror with Afghanistan. We can't really find Osama bin Laden without the Pakistanis' help, yet it turns out they're one huge nu--nuclear proliferator. They may be the--the king of the hill in that department. He's going to have to do something there. That's going to require some big change.

He's going to have to also go back to Europe, I think, in that--in 2004. A lot of mending and fixing to be done there. This is not--this is a--this is a part of the world that has about given up on the United States. And--and he's going to have to spend some--decide whether he wants to now fix that or kind of keep going down the road he was going. So there's lots of work to be done there, too.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times Washington Editor): But haven't we learned how perilous foreign policy is for this president? I mean, right now, the way you're describing it, it's pretty rosy, and things are looking good for the president, for the country. But before Saddam was caught, not long ago, we were talking about casualties. We were talking about a situation where the president did not want to go to the funerals of a lot of the--the--the killed soldiers in Iraq, because why bring attention to the tragedy of--that was going on day after day there. So it seems like things have switched back and forth and up and down. It's been a real roller coaster, and who's to say that couldn't change again?

Mr. DUFFY: This is riskiest way to--to run your for--your presidency, to--to turn it on foreign policy, but that's a decision he has made. I--I'm struck by how there are lots of advantages you get when you--when you go down this road, when you make foreign policy the--the heart and soul of your presidency. You get to organize your whole government around something that's--that can have--that has clarity. You get to put yourself at the center of it. And I'm--it's not to say that everything's rosy, but I--I--I think they got lots of challenges ahead.

IFILL: Well, and among those challenges are mending relations--mending and fixing relations abroad as well.

Mr. DUFFY: Everywhere. I--I think he's got, as I said, particularly in Europe, a lot of work to do. And...

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Or Jim Baker does.

Mr. DUFFY: Yeah, that's right, yes, in--in terms of--of getting the--the--the debt fixed up. And--and--and Iraq and Afghanistan are not done. These--these are ongoing multiyear projects which the--you know, we may have reached some sort of emotional high at times. There are going to be lows coming in the following year, too.

Analysis: Defining moments for Democrats and Republicans in 2003

GWEN IFILL, host: And then--and then there are--is the politics of it all. It's not so easy to unseat a popular president waging a successful war. So it fell to the Democrats, who want Mr. Bush's job, to accentuation the negative, not only about the current occupant of the White House, but also about Howard Dean, the man who has emerged as the early front-runner, as in this September salvo from Congressman Dick Gephardt.

Representative RICHARD GEPHARDT (Democrat, Missouri; Minority Leader; Presidential Candidate): Now you've been saying for many months that you're the head of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I think you're just winging it.

IFILL: The run-up to this election year has turned out to be a series of defining moments for Democrats and Republicans. Isn't that true, Rick?

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times Washington Editor): That is--that is, Gwen. It's really amazing. I looked back before this show to look back at some of the stories we wrote in The Times earlier this year, and it's kind of--not embarrassing, but when you look at the--we had a story in February that said, `Democrats agree--the leading Democrats agree that Kerry is the front-runner. He has a commanding lead this early, which is sort of unprecedented.' And there was a nod to Dean in that story that said, `Dean--Dean is popular among some Democrats, but he's going to have a hard time running a low-budget operation with a compressed primary schedule.' Now we have a situation where he has outraised everyone. He's raised $25 million. The--the compressed pri--primary schedule right now looks like it's to his advantage. And Kerry's campaign has totally collapsed, at least right now. This could--who knows? This could change, you know, three weeks from now right before the Iowa caucuses.

IFILL: But isn't that the way that things happen in politics? And isn't it interesting? I mean, what were the factors, I guess, that were a--abroad during the year that turned things so completely upside-down for John Kerry and the other way for Howard Dean?

Mr. BERKE: Well, I think what happened with Dean is he ran a smart campaign, and he campaigned on the war, on this opposition to the war, and he had a very clear-cut message that really captured a lot of Democrats and--and sort of--it--it enabled them to sort of channel their anger against Bush and what was happening in Iraq, and I think it--it worked very well for him. And he also was really smart in using the Internet to--to gain support and raise money. And I think he's--he's somehow been a vessel for this--for this movement of people that don't like the president, and--and want a fresh, different kind of candidate who's not from Washington.

Mr. ALAN MURRAY (CNBC Washington Bureau Chief): But, Rick, there are not enough of those people to get him elected president, are there?

Mr. BERKE: Well, we'll see. We'll s--I mean, the White House would have said three months ago, `We hope this guy will get the nomination, because he's just--he was--he's a left-wing governor from a little state. What does he know about anything?' But it turns out that they've seen how well he's done and how he's knocked aside other senators with stature such as John Kerry and others, that now they're a little bit worried, like, `This guy might have something that we should be careful about.'

Ms. ALEXIS SIMENDINGER (National Journal White House Correspondent): One of the more interesting things, I think, that's going to happen next year is this debate between the president who's setting himself up in front of the voters as the commander-in-chief: `Trust me. This is about security. This is about the kind of credibility that I have as a leader on the world stage,' whereas he, as a candidate, was a guy who was very much in Dean's position, didn't have foreign...

Mr. BERKE: Right.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: ...policy experience, did not have any background in--other than just being a short-term governor. How is Dean going to play against the president if he were the nominee? And--and you can see him trying to...

IFILL: And how's the president going to play against a likely nominee if--if Howard Dean were the nominee?

Mr. BERKE: The White House is already talking about the--the Bush campaign is already talking about portraying Dean as sort of reckless and sloppy with his statements, and inexperienced and not prepared for--to be commander-in-chief. And that's how they want to play it. That's how some of the Democrats opposing Dean are already out there trying to do the White House's work for them. So that's what they'll try to do. But it--it partly depends on the outside circumstances that Michael was talking about, where we are in the war and how things are going internationally.

Mr. MICHAEL DUFFY (Time Magazine, Washington Bureau Chief): Rick, if you were Bill Clinton, and--and--and you were thinking about all the things you've done for the Democratic Party in the--in the previous eight years, moving them to the middle and--and getting them to think about things in ways they'd never though about them before, and you were watching what happened this year, would you think, `Hey, what about me?'

Mr. BERKE: No, I know. There's this...

Mr. DUFFY: `What about what I did?' And where are they going in that direction?

Mr. BERKE: I think they're--they're--they're furious. Some of the Clinton people are saying, `Dean is out there, saying, "No, the--the era of big government isn't over, and I'm a different kind of Democrat from--from Bill Clinton."' He's now insisting that he's really not distancing himself, but you really see that. You see what happened, and you see the Clinton people wondering, `What happened to what we campaigned on and--and we were sort of this middle--middle-of-the-ground kind of--middle-of-the-road Democratic candidate who--who appealed to a broader universe.'

IFILL: Can I as you just to--to move--broaden that out also beyond just Democratic politics, 'cause, I mean, the--the--there were politics in California which completely surprised and consumed us for several long weeks this year, and that's Arnold Schwarzenegger, also. What did we learn? What did that show us about where voters are?

Mr. BERKE: No, well, when you think about this, you know, we could never have imagined Howard Dean in this position, but could you have imagined a swearing-in ceremony with--with, you know, Arnold and Maria Shriver and the Kennedys, the Democrats, this--this--it's really amazing. And I think what it--what it says--what strikes me more than anything else is, think about it, you had a governor of the largest state in the union being knocked out of office, toppled out of office because of voter unrest. I mean, and that's--and I--and I think that's something we have to watch for and that Bush had better be careful about, too, because you can never--for whatever the pundits ever say, you never know where the voters are gonna go and how they're--they'll channel that anger.

IFILL: They might have some things in mind for us.

Analysis: Role of the economy in the upcoming election

GWEN IFILL, host: Well, it's become a political truism that incumbents have a tough time surviving if the economy is suffering. The war in Iraq is costing a lot, and Republicans and Democrats are beginning to worry that all that and other spending has gotten out of control. This was Senator Robert Byrd in September.

Senator ROBERT BYRD (Democrat, West Virginia): The administration wants Congress once again to hand over billions of dollars with little oversight or discussion. Congress is not an ATM. We have to be able to explain this new enormous bill to the American people.

IFILL: Well, Senator Byrd lost that particular fight, but the economy still is the biggest wild card out there, isn't it, Alan?

Mr. ALAN MURRAY (CNBC Washington Bureau Chief): Oh, I--and--and it's becoming less wild. I mean, at the beginning of the year, Gwen, as you remember, the economy was sort of on hold for the war. People were holding back on spending decisions. There wasn't much growth. Once the war was over--of course, it's not really over, but at least the--the major combat was over, you started to see a pickup. And in the last few months, it's really picked up with some considerable speed. Now it's not creating jobs, which is a political sore point, and it will be very important to the president, especially in some of the Midwest industrial states. But when the economy's growing as it is now, eventually the jobs will follow. And you've got some time between now and the election to see that happen.

Mr. MICHAEL DUFFY (Time Magazine, Washington Bureau Chief): Over the last couple of months, there's been a lot of stories, Alan, about the movement of jobs offshore, particularly in some of the--the very fields that were powering the economy in the last decade, software engineers. These are white-collar jobs. A lot of them are. Intellectual capital jobs. This is not the--simply the movement of--of an old industrial rust belt jobs. This is a totally different sector of the economy. Is--is that something that anybody in the administration is working on or worrying about...

Mr. MURRAY: Well, its...

Mr. DUFFY: ...and where--where's that going?

Mr. MURRAY: Look, this is not--this is a short-term trend that was accelerated by the recession of the last few years, but did have a lot of jobs move offshore. You particularly had a lot of manufacturing jobs, you know, more than two and a half million jobs lost in the manufacturing sector. Some of those losses are concentrated in states that also happen to be very important political states in the Midwest, in the Carolinas. So it is something they're worried about, but--but, you know, what we--what the American economy proved in the 1990s is that it is--it can be a job-creating machine. Most people think we'll get back there. We may not get back there quite in time for the November election, and that's where the political sensitivity comes in.

Ms. ALEXIS SIMENDINGER (National Journal White House Correspondent): To the--to the extent that job creation is the key to our assessment of the economy, is the president going to be able to say, `Well, three million jobs may have been lost during my presidency, but,' as he's been saying this week, you know, `maybe 300,000 have been created in the last four months.' Is it going to be enough, do you think, for voters, whatever that tally turns out to be next year?

Mr. MURRAY: I--I think the direction, you know, and the--and the velocity of the economy come Election Day is all going to be very important. And the other thing is...

Ms. SIMENDINGER: And the stock market?

Mr. MURRAY: The other thing--and the stock market. And the other thing is that this president can say, you know, `I did it.' I mean, the tax cuts, any way you look at it, whether they're good for the long term or bad for the long term, the tax cuts have a lot to do with why the economy is growing as strongly as it is right now. That put a lot of juice in the economy. Now the problem with that, of course, is a long-term problem. It's creating deficits.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times Washington Editor): How much do people care about the deficit anyway?

Mr. MURRAY: I--I--I think right now, they don't care at all. It--they will care in the future when the deficits start to have an impact, when you see interest rates start to go up, when you see the kind of crimping of the economy that you saw in the late 199--1990s--early 1990s, late--late '80s, but that's probably not going to happen before the election, so...

Mr. BERKE: Not a voting issue.

Mr. MURRAY: There's going to be a lot of talk about the deficit. I don't think it will be a big voting issue next November.

IFILL: Tax cuts, though, it is--is--obviously they fuel the economy, but we see this week, for instance, mad cow pops up in one cow, and immediately a bunch of countries are saying, `No more US beef.' We see the--the jobless recovery still stuttering. And we see spending really--I mean, they're going crazy up on Capitol Hill. We're going to see more about that.

Mr. MURRAY: I--I--I think that's one of the most amazing stories of the year, probably hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves. Here you have a man who was heralded as the most conservative president that we've had in decades. Many people thought he was more conservative than Ronald Reagan. Yet he is presiding over an explosion in spending. Now some of that is for the war. Some of it is for this prescription drug--prescription drug benefit. Some of it is for homeland security. But they've defined homeland security...

Mr. BERKE: So broadly. Yeah.

Mr. MURRAY: ...so that it's anything that anybody wants to spend money on. We'll call it homeland security.

IFILL: It's a--it's a swimming po--pool in somebody's home town.

Mr. MURRAY: Yeah. And then all the controls have gone off in Congress. I mean, you look at the energy bill, which was just a big--I mean, fortunately it didn't pass, but it was just a big pork barrel. The--the year-end spending bill was filled with the kind of stuff that, you know, you haven't seen in a decade or a decade and a half in Congress, special interest projects. I mean, Senator Byrd is right. The Congress did become a--an ATM.

IFILL: Well, but does that mean that the economy, which is still in the recovery phase, could this--this combination of events then serve to--to knock it off pace?

Mr. MURRAY: They could be a problem. The--the way that works is that when the government is borrowing all that money, and when business starts to recover and they start borrowing money, and you have foreigners, as you've seen in dollar--foreigners saying, `We're not sure we want to keep lending money to the United States,' then it begins to affect interest rates. That will probably happen eventually, but it--there's no sign that it's going to happen immediately or before the November election.

I have to tell you, the big winners in the economy this year--you were talking about mad cow disease.

IFILL: Yeah.

Mr. MURRAY: Cattle ranchers. There's all these people on the Atkins...

IFILL: Until this week, yeah.

Mr. MURRAY: All these people on the Atkins diet are--are--beef has made a huge comeback. They're making enormous amounts of money in the cattle business.

IFILL: Well, until this week. We'll see...

Mr. MURRAY: Mad cow isn't going to help.

IFILL: We'll see what happens. OK.

Analysis: Domestic debates of 2003

GWEN IFILL, host: Well, it's not as if Congress got nothing done this year. With a push in the House and a shove in the Senate, Congress actually passed Medicare reform legislation. But Senator Blanche Lincoln's concerns were typical.

Senator BLANCHE LINCOLN (Democrat, Arkansas): Is this the bill I would have written? Absolutely not. But there are components in this bill that are productive and move us forward, and on behalf of our seniors, we must, we must seize that opportunity.

IFILL: This year's domestic debates were the kind that actually can affect people's lives, as Senator Lincoln was just talking about, right Alexis?

Ms. ALEXIS SIMENDINGER (National Journal White House Correspondent): Absolutely, Gwen. You know, I was trying to think about maybe choosing a handful or maybe three different issues on the domestic scene to talk about. Medicare would have to be number one, of course. It's the bill that was most recently signed. But the other two I might add that are interesting for the debate maybe fall under the umbrella of something that we might call rights or values in America, what makes and shapes our lives. The other two I might add are gay marriage, and the other issue is this interesting sort of sub-rosa debate that's going on about the USA Patriot Act--that's sort of the punching bag. But the idea is, what is the appropriate balance between our security concerns and our civil liberties? So if you take those three, what are we guaranteeing--what do we owe the elderly? In this case, Congress and the White House decided we owe them prescription drug coverage, something that other people have under other health-care plans.

So 40 million Americans, supposedly elderly, by 2006 are going to be able to get prescription drug coverage. It seemed to be a bill that had a lot of buyer's remorse at the end, though. And I think the interesting theme about the things that I chose to talk about here today have to do with the debate continuing, and I think Medicare will come back in the debate.

Mr. ALAN MURRAY (CNBC Washington Bureau Chief): Alexis, I was stunned by that poll that came out recently, Washington Post poll that said--I mean, Medicare was a huge accomplishment. Nobody thought this president could do that. And yet the poll shows that only 30-some percent of the American people give him much credit for having accomplished something in that area.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: And there's a lot of nervousness that concern--and of course, the Democratic candidates are trying to play up on this, about what it is that the elderly are really going to get. And it turns out that if you're really poor, you might get something. If you're in the middle, there's this bubble of--of expenditure that you're going to find out as an elderly person that you maybe are not getting the big benefit that Congress has promised. And of course, the near-term prior to the elections, the only thing that the elderly are going to get is the opportunity to spend money for a discount card, 10 to maybe 25 percent off of prescription drugs, which is available to them now. So what you're finding is that in this huge push to get this legislation through, the question is: Was it the right legislation? And it's enormously expensive, as Alan was saying.

Mr. MICHAEL DUFFY (Time Magazine, Washington Bureau Chief): And didn't they--didn't they build kind of mousetrap for this in that, you know, they passed it this year so they could have credit for it in the election?

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Absolutely.

Mr. DUFFY: But since it doesn't go into effect for another year and a half, two years, we really don't know what the--what the mousetrap is going to be down the road that really upsets people or makes them happy.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Well, all kinds of senior organizations are trying to educate. And this is, as--as Rick would tell you, is a population of people who go to the polls. These are people who vote. And to the extent that in the next year it's an education process about the legislation passed in 2003, he may see some repercussions at least in terms of their appreciation of what's pending for them.

IFILL: Can I...

Ms. SIMENDINGER: And of course, Democrats are talking about changes.

IFILL: Can I ask you about the cultural issues?

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Yeah.

IFILL: You touched on gay marriage, but it seems to me the partial-abortion law, which also went into effect this year, was also another touchstone for--the culture wars.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: In President Bush's and conservatives' case, partial-birth abortion and certainly gay marriage are two things that are like sticking a stick in a beehive. These people care a lot about it, and it motivates people. Gay marriage is an issue that the president was actually forced out of hiding to say, `I would support a constitutional amendment to make sure that marriage is between a man and a woman.' This is an issue the president wanted to avoid. Partial-birth abortion is something that he signed very willingly, definitely of support to conservatives who were eager to have him stand in front of the White House. That was the famous picture in which there were no women standing there while he was signing. And these are all parts of the--what--what's come to be called the culture wars. And certainly the Democratic candidates are talking about this, too.

Mr. DUFFY: Bush's--Bush's coming out on gay marriage, just to--just to--just to footnote you a little bit, I think he said, `If necessary, I will support the constitutional amendment,' which gives him just another turn of wiggle room on the cliff.

Mr. MURRAY: But politically, that issue is a total loser for the Democrats, isn't it? I mean, they--they--they...

Mr. DUFFY: Brings out--you notice that it brings out the Republicans' base more than it brings out the Democratic base.

Mr. MURRAY: Right.

Mr. DUFFY: Right.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Well, and there are no Democrats out there saying, oh, they're for the ...(unintelligible).

Mr. MURRAY: They're for civil unions.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: They're for civil unions.

Mr. MURRAY: They're not for gay marriage...

Ms. SIMENDINGER: Exactly.

Mr. MURRAY: ...because they have to walk this line between not antagonizing the--their gay base...

Ms. SIMENDINGER: But the president...

Mr. MURRAY: ...but not--not antagonizing the middle.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times Washington Editor): It's still an issue that the president would rather not deal with, though.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: And the--right, exactly, in that context.

Mr. DUFFY: That's why he said, `if necessary.'

Mr. BERKE: Right, right.

Ms. SIMENDINGER: And he went further ...(unintelligible).

Mr. DUFFY: And he'd prefer not to.

Mr. MURRAY: He'd rather not deal with it personally, but does he mind the party getting involved, putting a plank in the platform...

Mr. DUFFY: No, no.

Mr. MURRAY: ...advocating a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage?

Mr. SIMENDINGER: In this case, this is an issue that will end up in the courts. And when I was talking about the civil liberties issue, that is another issue that's being dealt with in the courts, and they'll watch that in 2004.

IFILL: OK, civil liberties and unfinished debates. To me, that's the biggest thing, which means, of course, here's a wonderful plug for next week, when we're going to talk about all the unfinished debates.

GWEN IFILL, host: Thanks, everybody, for helping us take the walk back through the year. We didn't cover everything, but we will, because no one of these stories is truly over. So keep an eye on us in the new year. Next week, we'll give you a 2004 election year preview. Between now and then, tune in to "The NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer, and we'll see you next week on WASHINGTON WEEK--next year on WASHINGTON WEEK. Happy new year, and good night.

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