gwen: reality check - the president in russia nd in rome a home. plus, lin 2012. why it might et happen. tonight on "shington week." meetin popes an presiden -- it's alpart of the job for any u.s. leade >> we've not greed on every point. buwe've shown it is posible to move foward and make real and unprecedented progrs together. gwen: sill, from climate change abroad to economic and health care fixes at homethe president w more hurdles than hoorays this week. >> the ruth is there was a misreading of just how bad an ecomy we inherited. rather than say misread, we had incompleteinformation. >> now, tis is the greatest fabration i've seen since i've been in coness. gwen: are health re and economistimulus off track?

and what can the preident do to get them back on? plus the week'solitical mystery. >> i'm not gog to closeany do that may be opefor m out ther gwen: is sarah plin's political career oer or just beginning? coverin the week, doyle mcmanus ofthe los angeles times," ceci connolly o"the washington post," borah solomon of "the walltreet journal" and james barnes of "national journal" announcer: celebrating 40 ars of journaltic excellence, live from our nation'sapital, this is ashington week" with gwen ifill, produced in association with "tional journal. corporatefunding for wolfpack swooprovided by -- >> we know -- for "washiton week" is providedby -- >> we kow why we're here. >> to design thefuture of flight inside and out >> to bild tomoow's technologies inamazing ways.

and rshapethe science of aerospe forever. >> aroundthe globe, the people of boei are working together for the dreams of genrations to com. >> that'shy we're here. >> it creates half the elecicity that fuls our drea. we have more of it hanany lace on earthand we're working on claner ays to use coal very way. there more information at mma.org. >>majorfunding fr "washington ek" is provided by the annenberg foundaton, thjohn s. ad james l.knight foundation, the orporation for publicbroadcasti and by contributions to our pbs station fro viewers lke you. thank you. once again, live from washington, derator gwen ifl. gwen: good evening.

it's one ofhe perks of the office- jetting off on air force one, visiting palas and daschas ancastles, even tang the kids along. but don't think for even o minute that it's a lot of fun, because everywherpresident obamwent this week, he discovered there was not o single magic wd to be had. so whether the discussion wa about nuclear apons in iran orlimate change around the world, the american esident came awawith a little less than he hoped. so was that a reality check for the any president, doyl >> gen, every honeymoon comes to end one day. ast year when he went oversea the treets of european cities were ful of people who were inove. every oer head of sate wanted to get into th picture wi him. this time it as a little different. he went to russia. ad some tough eal -- meetin. wentto itay, had som meetings thatade modest progrs on a couple issue and we dcovered that charm is

great, charisma is great, popularity great, but other untries have other interts and they're going tostick with them and thatarack obama the enof date is going t have to could his diplocy by hard worknd blocking an tackling like ay other ere mort and it's just ot going to come sy. gw: so by the end of the week, wh did h get a what didn't he get? >> wll, let m tke iran becausthat was the numbe one issue for the obama administrion of the whole week. we can look a other piecesof it too. on iran, ifyou wantto know what did tey really wan, they wanted to me the russians a little bit. ne -- they wanted toget a hearing for eir bid that the russians have to be tougher and sanctio gwen: because of its nucear weapons pogram? >> because of its, iran's nuclear weapons program. d because of the domesc troubles a the regime is

walling itself back in. o sign of medvedev. came out befoe the summit d saidook, iran is our partner, we think santions are a bad idea. move the picture to the g-8 summit and tere the uited states and allie britain, germany andfrance wnted a tough stateme about iran and again, couldn't do it. couldn't t therussianes to sign on he they got an o statemt that said iran shoul take thishance for iplomacy and that weill come back an reassess september that about as tough as t go >> i'm wondering now that we've seen president obama in a couple of these oveseas gatherings and assgnments do we have a beter idea wat his style is when he's outside he u.s.and up agains these hads of tate that hae very different interests? >> i havetwoimpressions rom watching it fr afar.

i wasn't lucky enou to be n this tri, i'll confess that right up. one is he uderplays the charisma alittle bit. when eorge bush wnt to oscow he tried to mae a biggale of the persnal bond with ptin. porters asked president obama if there was a personal bod and h said "this s all siness." no personal bo stuff. the second hing, he's an activist president. he's a interested in ding his own thing a putting pints on the board as-- and taki the initiativeoverseas as hre. hemakesthat oke, abou health cae, it's nt as if i don't ve enough other things to do. well, he h that nucle initiatist 's going to ave a mmit in the uited states next march on nuclear security. this istuff he doesn't ha to do, but he's as passionate aboutthe foreign poicy areas

as the domest areas. >> i'm curio what you think about this disssion with iran. ho worriedis the pesident that hey may not take him up on that ofer? >> e did tal with it. we were told it was the minant issue certainlyon the american side. part othe problem is the russians, it'not their dominant issue. but yes tac worry. here's basically the snario the iranif anyhing is being less coperative, nt more cooperative becuse of its domeic tumor oifment the western countries re trying to get iran ito the negotiations. iran appears be stiffing that offe they lm -- come back in september d at that point he major powers aregoing to try to get mo sanctions but ruia and china are sill ying no. so you notonly have th nfrontation with ran, you havethat road blo looming in

septembe >> beforthe president ent away on this rip the white house made a bg push to get climate chae legislaon at least pased through the house. they thought this ould giv them a ittle leverage dealing on the national stage. the president wentto the jay payton summit, eemed to have come up kinof -- g-8 summit, seed to have co up kid of sht. what happened? >> that was on ofthose glss half empty things. many the pe was you culd get the g-8 counies together in this largergroup that was about the g-20, -15 -- i kept being dferent numbers -- but u could gt the industrialing countries to sign on to touhertargets. theysigned out, woldn't do it. so at the end of the wek the olderindustrial democracies

did sign on t tougher targets but it's a 40-yar timetablenot very inding. >> gwen: ok. thank you, bl. by the end of this week ngress was supposed to have made real progressn the house and e senate on health care legislation, but when e cat's away -- ll, you know the rest. everywherene looked this ek, the administration plan to get health careeform done thisummer got caught up in yet another brush fire what is the problem, ceci? >> you mean hat cat obama, right gwen: yeah, that ca >> well, the problem was we were exposed to legslative sauge making nd as everybody here know, that is not a pretty sight. wt we have seen week after week now this sumer is asyou get closer andcloser to aving an actual bill on something as complicated as health are, something that is 16 of the s. economy and te lawmers sta looking at the speifics, they don't like hem. you saw on the house side,

seral rump groups of democrats going speaker pelosi and saying you don't have enough cost controls in the bil, or we've got a problem ifou might possiy fund adorgs - abortion services omehow thrugh this ne healthexchange. these were herwn demcrats. so they ad to say et's take a use, not going to brig the bill out quite yet maybe nex week. they also hd a lot o difficulty findingthe money to pay or health reform. same thingin the sente. harry reid ent to max bauus, the finance committeechairman who's been tying to put together this bl and said listenthere are democras in the nate who don't ike the idea ofpaying taxes on your ployerponsored health care benefits syou've got to go backand find $320 billion. gwen: am i cofused or does t seem lke all the fights are happening withinthe democric

caucus? >> yes, tha's good news-bad news for democrat we kno it's hard to keep those cats all herded together, especially ithe democratic party d it also shows s the republicans havlargely been on thesidelines in this debate. some of it is puremath up there on were the votesare. in th senate there are a handf of republicans still involve but largely onthe periery. >> for weks now all kindsof pundits hav been saying for this to ork, barack obama is going to have to com in and he those cats. harry reid, nancey elosi, tis isoo big a lift or them any sign tat's going to he -- help? >>yes, in a sensethat president obama and is aides would say look, we have been inlved. before he left he country he had done a big own hall meeting health care and before that speecheso the a.m.a., but certainl next week with him back in washiton you will once again seehim

communicating to e public as he doesso well built need or heal care worm - reform and youill see him back in hat role of meeing one-on-o or th small grouppeds ofmembers of congre, trying to ge them back on trck. >> how far are they in terms of figuring out to y -- how to pay for ths, things is like the soda tax andthe sin tax, where are they in terms of consensus? gwen: hardly seems like enough ney. >> right th soda and sin taxis an option but it's not alarge amount of money. from eparate drections hose and senate democrats seem to be and i say seem to be, moving back wards soaking the rich if you will prdon the cliche. they arlooking at different ways ofincreasing taxed on the upper income amerins. itmight be abov say, $350,0, some sort of scaled-i surcharge on walthy families.

over i the senate it' talked abouas a millionaire ax. very different thanwhat we went into this looking at hich s taxing health care benefits but that seems to be whee the consensus is buding right now. >> ceci, a lt of thingsseemed to fall apart this week in terms of the legislative pross. how bad is it fr health cae? are tings termal? >> no, i think not. and in fact it was intesting. i d a conversationith nator jay rockeller today and he was reiniscing abot the clinton effort 1 years ago and, you know, e has he observion that many of the mistakes that happed 16 years ago with theclinton reform you are not eeing this time around. he actually is very complimentaryf the white house forletting cogress kind do its thinfor a while. he has this view and i tend to agree that lawakers want to feel that they have atbuilt to dotheir jobs andon somethi as complicat as healtcare

they want to tak the time, look these things ovr, thrash it o and that's a lot of what we seattle en: but we'vealso seen t preside and white house trotting out people and hoitals and insurer and basically saying there on board, you ge on board to. is that working? >> you saw ost noably in the house enator henry waxman saying i'm nobound by hose deals. gwen: right. >> onthe other hand they e neutralizing some ofthe opposition to some extent. that can be helpful down the road. gwen: ok. another domestic priori got caught upn charge and cotercharge this week. the charg-- with the nation's jobls rate headed toward 10%, the president's j-creating stimus package has not worked. >> ihink that we've got major credibility crisis ere. no man n the world wld ge on a ship or ship o state and folw this navigation for the future. gwen: the -- the countercharge -- the plan was not pposed to work this fast, give i time,

give it me. >> look where wewere six months ago when we ook offie. we inrited the largt economic cris since the 30's. what i refer to asnot the great deprssion but the geat recession because was the single greatt recession we'v had modern time, dwafing others. gwen: so, dborah, who's right? >> i think they're actually bo right. you'vegot a situation here where the obam administrati was ung figures bac in january when tey were con eam -- contmplating the stiulus that baically seem outdat. they had not predicted double-digit unemployment. th president said if we on't pass it, we'llhit double-digit. ll, a -- prt of the problem is what the stimulus diddo. joebiden issayingwait, 10%

is ou the doornd it's gog to take a whle for it to wok. othereconomists are saing we need more now. the consensus opinio among economists i don't do more now cause whatever yo do it's going to be oo late and we have a huge deficit probem that's going to make i hard to y for the gwen: s did the white house overpromise this a a job bill so they're hoited on their own petard? >> i don't think they oversd it. i think they were mor opt mivetic than they pobably -- optimistic shoud have been. there's a differee of opinon about wheter they misread it or were given incolete information. gwen: that diffence is between the president d prident vice president! >> yeah. it's gog to haveto be a little bit of a wait an see game. >> a suspect a ot of peopl are frustrated when they hea the moneyis not out of the door yet.

how come? >> good quesm the vice presidensaid they've got to pi up the pace. one of thereasons is tese things take time, it's bureaucrati a lot of tx crits and the moneywas never intended to get ut the door that fat. the cngressional budget office alys thought you wouldhave a quarterut in 2009, a qarter in 2010. but it is ging very slwly and you've only een 10% out the door. >> ifeconomists area little bi torn abut doin something more right now ould make a difference, e there some other things theadministration could or are considing doing >>definitely. there re things like exending nemployment benefi. there is an etension that runs out december. with the numberof people out of work thy're going to ave to do sething about that. they can make more food stamps available,some of those feel-good things. and they can do mre about

housing. e of the thing we're seeing is the foreclores among the unmoid - unemploy who didn't take out liar lans butcan't makehe payments. is there a role fr the states to accept 23 - step i here? or a they under the kid of financial stress that the don't hava lot of maneuverng room? >> the states are n a terrie situion. we saw somethingwe haven't seen sincethe 1930's, and tht is cafornia issuingi.o.u.'s. the states are a drag on the stimulus. they are basically ragging down any of the impact e stimul might have ad because they're retrenching. theye can selling summer hool, fuloughing workers. if you're furlowed yo're not going to go ut to dinner o e movies. it's a realdrag on the stimulus. th are talking about what theyan do to help the stas but you can't rally help one

state and not he other and what ca you do tt's a on size its all? the tates havevery different probms. and they need t prove to critors that they're wort of their moey an fix their vobs- problems so that they caborrow money. gn: i was strk by how interested the reublicans were in this. they seemed o grab on to this as somethi they can push back hard on every single day talkingabout how thisdidn't work. is this a heme we're goig to see nw develop among republicans, whicis ah, finally wve got something we n beat them about the ars with? definitel i think u're seeing 2010 election campaiing going on right now and there is a desire on the hill make this the issue for the d term elecons and it's probably winni strategy. we're going tosee 1% unemployment thugh 2010 and it's going to drop very slowl we're going o be seeing blessness for a lng time and

the economy ay huge iue for most peole 79 gwen: thanks, drection and weome to "washington wee." >> thank you. gwen: finally, this week's political mystery, sah palin. there are many opinions about wh the soon-to-bformer alaska vernor is to as there are fish in the state's rivers a streams. the latest analysis boils it down to a fight between e elites and t working class. jim barnes -- member of one of those groups, i'm not sre which --gets to the nub of he matter. what a they saying in iowa and ew hampshire? and does it matter? >> it does mater. after the last campaig a lot of smart people in washington said sarah pan should go bck up to jueau, run the tate and get a few more ccomplishment unrneath her belt if tey -- sheanted to run fr preside in her own riht. she d not take that advice. we should have lerned by now,sarah palin marches to her own drummer. it took a lot o the political establishment aback, her udden

decision to qilt her term ith 18 mosss o go. but ouin places lie iowa an new hampire, the kickoff places for the nominatg ctests, you talk to the gras roots ofhe repulican party and they largely ccept her explanation for why she's epping down, the lawsits and ethics investigatio which she says are fivolous ar a distraction stott state and hat the media has really become iasive to her famly. at last point is not one to overlook because for a lot of conservativeactivists tey lump the press in with pain's itics on the lef and sayyou guys have beehard on her for 10 months ever since she stepped on the ational stage as john ccain's runni mate in 200 and they say we, ou know our skepticism andour sctiny turns her into a ympathetic figure.

gwen: how representativare these grass roots? of a pary which i self-identied republicans, an ever-slinkin -- ever-shrinking partf the voting public? >> well, there grass roos and then there's gratz -- grass roots, iould say. if you talk tofolks out in iowa and new hpshire, fols who have plyed a senior adership rolen the ampaigns, they loo at her erformance when she mde the announcement d it was such a wandering performance -- en: sch a kindman. one minute she's talking about deadish, just go ith the flow ad the next minute talking about on basketball team up gt to pass the ball. i thnk crisp and convincing could -- wold not b two wrds you wuld hear any republican professionals use t describe her perfornce. but if you think abut the

people lower down inthe grass roots they want leader to rally aroundight now, somebo who is going to, as they put it, take a stand ainst president ama and the dia and they real don't care if she not tha polishe right now. >> jim i wonder -- i crtainly understand this notin of grass ots feeling as if the media has had all the scrutiny n her, etc. on the other hand, we've a spena lot of time in iowaand new hpshire and one of the things the folks the like to do is haveint the living room and look you inthe eye and ask you a questionnce and twice and three times and see how you hold u and i just wonderhow you think shewould fare oing through that party of esident procs. >> well you know, the dynams in both of te states e gient in iowa yu've gota lot of evangelical and born-again cristians atteded the last ucuses. in new hampshire, social issue conservative candites don't

rely do all that well. but you hit on omething tat's very important which is those tw states, the people there ecause they get to go first, the peoplehere take it as their civc duty o give olks a fair shake andi actually ink that would benit palin. you know, they'regoing to say yeah, we've read all this in e media about you but they will give her a chnce to make the case to them dictly. >> jim, oneof tefascinating things about this pictu is the flip side of what you're talking about, a that is the number of establishmt republican fiures, today eggy noonan, furious at srah palin and saying shes terrible r the republican rty. how does tha impact those folks at the grass rots? and is ita problem for saah palin? there sees to be this never-ending feud betweener and the people o the john mccain camign. i otice enator mccain hasn't said anything. >> and i don't thin you're ing to hear him sy anything

all -- although i had heard from one of is opratives he had put out the word to say stophe back-biting the i thk among the rank and file they look at he recrim inages as kind of a -- recrimination as kin of a wasngton parlor game. but at se point sarahalin is going to eed support from her re's -- peers, mechanics of congress angovernors and they pay attention to thse kinds of stories an those stori could make thm a guilty gu-shy abou supporting her. gwen: we're gng to have to continue our own washingto parlor game next week. i never thought of it thatway bui like it. this is good. i like tose political mysteries i think we'll do more. our convesation continues onleenith our web-exclusive washington week &.a.. checks out.

then then keep up th developmen on "the newshour with jim lehrer", includi complete liveoverage of supre court confirmation hearings of judge sonia sotomayor. and we'll see you again rit here next weekn "washington we." good night. >> corporate funding for "washington weekis provided by - boing. andhe national mining sociation. major funing for washington week" is provided by he annenberg foudation, the john s. and james l. knght foundatn, the corpotion for public bradcasting, ad by contributionso your bs statio from viewers like you. thank you.