CQ Transcriptswire

SPEAKERS: JOHN KING, HOST

COLIN POWELL, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN (USN), CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

[*] KING: I’m John King, and this is our “State of the Union” report for this Sunday, July 5th. As the United States celebrates its birthday this weekend, one of the country’s most prominent citizens is calling for a recommitment to community service. General turned diplomat Colin Powell is right here to discuss his efforts to rally help for at-risk youths and troubled schools. General Powell also shares his thoughts on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and on whether the country can afford President Obama’s ambitious agenda.

And we’ll show you service up close, one young woman’s remarkable work to help low-income students in the nation’s capital. That’s all ahead in this hour of “State of the Union.”

On this Fourth of July weekend, as America marks its 233rd birthday, service is our major focus. For members of the military overseas, that service is a mix of risk and optimism. Risk in Afghanistan, as President Obama orders a major offensive against the Taliban. Cautious optimism in Iraq, where U.S. troops met the deadline this past week to pull back from most day-to-day front-line patrols in major cities.

A bit later on the program, we’ll get a detailed breakdown from the nation’s top military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen .

We begin today, though, with soldier turned diplomat Colin Powell. He once served in the job Admiral Mullen now holds, and was secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. General Powell is out of government, but still eager to serve, especially young Americans in struggling broken households and subpar schools.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: America’s Promise is your passion, your organization for community service. A lot of debate sometimes about how much of this is the government’s job and how much of it is private citizens and private organizations doing community service.

POWELL: It’s a job that belongs to all of us, and not any one of us can solve the problem.

When we created America’s Promise back in 1997, at the request of President Clinton and all the living presidents, we said, you know, a country as wealthy as we are should not have kids in such desperate need. So let’s start a campaign. And the campaign focused on getting mentors into the lives of our children, giving children a safe place to learn and to grow, make sure they have a healthy start in life, that they were acquiring a skill that would give them a job, and finally making sure that youngsters early in life got a chance to serve others. And that’s what America’s Promise has been doing for the last 12 years. And it’s now headed by my wife Alma, who’s the chairman of America’s Promise, with Marguerite Kondracke as the president.

But what that is to mobilize the private sector as well as the government. The government’s got lots of programs, but the great wealth of the nation is in the private sector. Businesses, churches, all sorts of organizations that are coming forward to help kids. And we’ve seen over the last 12 years a great mobilization. And now with President Obama being heavily committed to service and putting more emphasis on it and more money on the programs -- united we serve as he talked about recently -- I think the country is coming together, realizing that it’s a problem for all of us.

KING: Well, some of the statistics are numbing, and we’ll get to those in a minute. But first, I want to introduce you to someone, because you are among her heroes. We spent some time looking at this, at the grassroots level. We went to a D.C. public school this week. We met a young lady, 19 years old. Her name is Tora Burns. She grew up in Detroit. She has vivid memories of watching people shot and killed. At Howard University, she saw a table one day. She walked up to donate a few bucks, and she decided to sign up. The organization is America’s Promise, your organization. She mentors. Now she’s also in an AmeriCorps program. And we sat down with her and we said, Colin Powell, why would he be one of your heroes? Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TORA BURNS, AMERICA’S PROMISE VOLUNTEER: I admire him for not only -- I feel like he’s done a lot of work for the community, and he’s been the first -- many a times, he’s been the first taking lead in doing the things that nobody wants to do, saying the things that nobody wants to say. And I feel like he took a lot of risks -- he’s taken a lot of risks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You’re a general, you were the secretary of state? Is she your legacy?

POWELL: She’s my legacy. And I’m very proud of a young person such as that, who came out of difficult circumstances, but didn’t quit, kept coming on, kept performing, getting her education and moving on.

We somehow have to get into the lives of every single one of our kids and let them know that we all start equal in life at the moment of birth, and it’s what we do with the gifts we’ve been given by an almighty and how we have to prepare ourselves, and how we as adults have to prepare our children.

So she’s a perfect example of what we’re trying to do, not only with America’s Promise, but with hundreds, thousands of other programs throughout the country.

KING: And here’s one of the statistics that’s frankly quite numbing. 40 percent of all births in the United States are out of wedlock. 72 percent of those are in the African-American community. Again, it’s a question of government, community service and leadership by individuals like yourself.

POWELL: One of the things we’re going to have to focus on is how do we restore the concept of family. Now, I would never say that a single parent, either mom or dad, cannot raise a child who just goes on to great success. But the odds tend to be against it, particularly if you’re in a lower socioeconomic level. You really should focus on having two people coming together and a family unit, and it’s in that family unit you raise a child.

When people ask me, well, how did you get where you are? You weren’t a great student, how did you do it? I had a family. I had a family of mother and father and aunts and uncles and cousins, who kept us all in play, kept all the cousins in play. You weren’t allowed to drop out. You weren’t allowed to think about not meeting the expectations that your parents had for you.

We’ve got to get back to that. And where the family’s not up to it, when the family is in trouble, then others have to come in -- mentors, big brothers, big sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, Salvation Army programs, coaches, ministers, you name it. The other adults in the community have to come together to give that child that sense of belonging and to show that child what he or she is capable of. And we’re not going to let you fail. We have expectations for you.

Kids need a team. They need a posse, as some people often call it. They need a gang. And they either get a good gang, or they are going to find a bad gang, and the bad gangs are waiting for them. And we’re losing too many kids to the bad gangs when we need to give them good gangs.

KING: You mentioned ministers and coaches. I would add a general seated right here with me. And this past week, the president had a fatherhood summit at the White House, and he tried to deliver the message you’re here to deliver. Let’s listen to a bit of the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If we want our children to succeed in life, we need fathers to step up. We need fathers to understand that their work doesn’t end with conception. What truly make a man a father is the ability to raise a child and invest in that child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, this is not just an issue or a problem in the African-American community, but you remember years ago Bill Cosby got in a lot of heat when he spoke a very similar message to that. Has the conversation changed in the African-American community when you have an African-American president delivering that message standing in the White House?

POWELL: I certainly hope so. And I agree with much of what Mr. Cosby said a few years ago, and I’ve given the same message.

But it is a message -- let’s not just talk about the African- American community, because you’ll find the same kinds of problems in the white community, although the statistics are not as bad.

Kids need a mother presence and a father presence. Hopefully it’s their own parents, but saying it isn’t going to make it happen. So when that situation doesn’t exist, we can’t just say, well, that’s too bad. We’ve got to substitute. We’ve got to have surrogates. We have got to have others who will step forward and provide that kind of presence.

But I certainly agree with the president that men who father children become fathers of children. They have responsibility. But when you look at some of the things you see on television about who’s the baby daddy and paternity tests as a gimmick on talk shows during the day, it’s deeply troubling.

And I’m kind of a simple guy on things like this, John. I watch “National Geographic” and “Animal Planet,” and I love to watch lion shows or tiger shows, where a cub is born, and there is the mother and the father. The father may be away at a distance, but he’s providing protection for the family. And the family unit knows exactly how much a cub is able to do at what age. Until you’re four months old, you never leave the mom. And then when you’re six months old, you can go out a little way, but you’ll get smacked back if you ever exceed the limits of what you’re capable of managing.

Are we the only mammal who thinks we don’t have to follow these rules, that we don’t have to pass on a thousand previous generations of experience? That’s not acceptable. We can’t keep going in this direction.

And so fathers have a responsibility to support the child that they have brought into this world.

KING: You mentioned the statistics. I’m going to ask you to take a walk with me over to the wall, because this map demonstrates what you were just talking about. This is the national high school graduation rate. And if you’re red or orange, that means you’re on the low end of the scale, 34 percent down here. If you’re in the yellow or the light green, you’re in the middle, and the darker green states are the ones with the highest graduation rate.

I just want to show you this. This is white single-parent families. And you see these states that come up in the elevation and you see the numbers. Some states get much worse. And this is African-American single-parent families. And frankly, that right there is quite alarming when you look at -- if you go from a national average here -- remember these states that are bright red. The national average here, and then you bring in black single-parent families.

What is the challenge here, especially now? And are your groups -- are people more dependent on community service at a time when the government frankly doesn’t have a lot of money in a recession?

POWELL: Well, the government seems to be putting a lot of money into these kinds of programs. But community has a responsibility. Corporations have a responsibility. And the issue of dropouts within the African-American community is spread uniformly across the country. It tends to be in the larger cities.

And the dropout rates in some of our very large cities are absolutely astonishing, as high as 74 percent of those kids are not finishing school. Now this is not only a problem for the kid, it’s a problem for the community. But more importantly, it’s a problem for the nation.

We’re wasting this human talent at a time when the world is globalizing, when the information revolution is upon us, and we’re wasting these kids. And we’ve all got to get in this and do something about it.

You go to the high school graduation now at one of the better high schools, which I have done in recent weeks, and you see the kids coming across the stage. And they’re Asians, they’re Hispanics, they’re all moving up.

And in the Army, we always used to try to get high school graduates to be in the volunteer Army. Why? Well, first of all, it means they have more skill than a non-high school graduate. But there was another reason that we pushed for high school graduates. The kids stayed with it. They did not quit. They didn’t drop out. And that tells us they won’t drop out, we make them soldiers.

And so we cannot have kids who do not have the perseverance, who have not been given the tools of sticking in high school, thinking that they can go in the job market and be successful.

So we’re hurting ourselves economically. We’re hurting ourselves in terms of our national security. And, of course, it is a moral responsibility that we’re falling down on. So we’ve got to get into this. We’ve got to do something about it.

KING: Much more of our conversation with General Colin Powell just ahead, including his thoughts on the July 4th weekend and our men and women serving overseas. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Colin Powell made history as the nation’s first African- American national security adviser during the Reagan administration. He went on to become the first black chairman of Joints Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush. And the first African- American secretary of state under President George W. Bush . A soldier turned diplomat who knows all too well the personal toll of war.

I spent some time at Walter Reed this week. And it is a heroic place. And you meet many heroes. You also see some things that leave you with a very sober opinion (ph), these men and women coming back with these horrible injuries and yet they are survivors and they are smiling and they are fighting to get back into the community.

And you have the injuries. You also have the PTSD issues. And we’ve seen the suicide rate go up. Do you believe as the man who once led our military that the government of the United States and the people of the United States understand the 10-, 20-, 30-year commitment that is going to have to be made for these men and women?

POWELL: I think we do. In the early years of this conflict, I don’t think we were sensitive enough to the fact that some of these horribly injured soldiers coming back, youngsters who would have died during in an earlier war, were going to require not just hospital care and then a little bit of transition, but they were going to require life-long care.

At the Memorial Day concert on the lawn, we celebrated one of these soldiers who was grievously injured in the head and he’s going to require custodial care from his mom and sister for the rest of his life and the rest of their lives. And I’m not sure we have ever prepared ourselves for that kind of intense demand on our system.

It’s going to require the government, including the Veterans Administration, the Pentagon, but the community is going to have to step forward as well. Because they’re going to be living in a community. And so we need community assistance as well.

KING: We saw a critical deadline this past week in Iraq, the deadline for the United States forces to pull out of the major cities. And they have pulled back. I spoke to General Odierno. He says he’s confident that this plan will work and that U.S. troops ultimately will be out by the end of 2011 as now planned.

One of the striking scenes on the streets was Iraqis celebrating this and essentially criticizing the occupiers and saying they had a great victory over the occupiers as the United States forces pulled back from their major cities.

Did that strike you as odd in a sense that these people, and we’re watching them on the monitor, would not have the right to be out in the streets like this. Has the relationship, I guess, become poisoned over time?

POWELL: No, I don’t think it has become poisoned. But I think we should just pocket this. They are happy. They made it clear from the very beginning that they wanted to be free and independent. And they didn’t want to be an occupied nation, which is what they were when we were there. And now that is starting to change. But this is not yet over. As General Odierno has said and as the president said recently, it’s now up to the Iraqis to solidify their representative government system and to make sure they have the security forces that can handle all of this.

But I’m glad that the deadline that was set by President Bush some time ago with Mr. Maliki has been met and our troops were able to step back from those kinds of active operations on the 30th of June.

And the Iraqi people are happy. They’re now responsible for their own destiny.

KING: As you know, the war remains quite a political -- politically thorny issue here in the States. I want to read something you wrote back in September of 2003 in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that was titled “As Long as It Takes.”

You wrote” “How long will we stay in Iraq? We will stay as long as it takes to turn full responsibility for governing Iraq over to a capable and democratically elected Iraqi administration.”

At the time, I assume you never thought six years later we would be having a conversation with the mission undone. But just now that you’re out of government for a bit, just your reflections on the moment.

POWELL: I’m very pleased that we’ve reached this moment. It took a lot longer than I thought it would have taken, and longer than any of us would have thought it would have taken, but we have reached it.

It reminds me of what Benjamin Franklin was asked after they had written the Constitution so many years ago. And somebody said, well, Dr. Franklin, what have you created, a dictatorship or a republic? And he said, a republic, if we can keep it -- if you can keep it.

That’s what we’ve done in Iraq. It’s a republic if they can keep it. So they now bear the responsibility for their own future and destiny. We never have to consider weapons of mass destruction, whether they were there or not there. The dictator Saddam Hussein and his regime is gone.

And they have been given a chance for a better life. They’ve been given a chance for a representative government that will live in peace with its neighbors and with the rest of the world. And that’s where I hope the leadership of Iraq will take their people.

KING: And it has cost more than $700 billion, and more importantly, more than 4,300 American men and women have been killed in Iraq. Looking back, was it worth it?

POWELL: Well, that’s a judgment history will have to make. You never know what these costs will be. And it’s not just the young Americans who gave their lives nobly, but thousands more who were injured and live with those injuries.

So history will have to make a judgment. A dictator is gone. A despicable regime is gone.

POWELL: And the Iraqi people have been given a chance to have a representative form of government living in peace with its neighbors.

We’ll have to see what history’s judgment of that will be.

KING: I want your reflections on the lessons learned, at least in the short term. We first met 20 years ago. You were traveling, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with Mr. Cheney, who was then the defense secretary, over to the Middle East to build support for the first Persian Gulf War.

And one of the legacies of that war was the Powell doctrine, that if you’re going to take such a momentous step to put U.S. forces at risk overseas, you would do so with overwhelming numbers and overwhelming force.

In the more recent Iraq war, it was the Rumsfeld doctrine: go in as lean as you can, as mean as you can, a quicker force, the way it was designed. Have we learned that the Powell doctrine from this war -- is the lesson that the Powell doctrine trumps the Rumsfeld doctrine?

POWELL: No, I wouldn’t quite characterize it that way. First of all, you will never find, in any Army manual, something called the Powell doctrine. It was an invention of a reporter. And that’s fine, because I’m glad to have a doctrine named after me.

(LAUGHTER)

But it essentially says, have a clear political goal and then apply decisive force is term I prefer, rather than overwhelming, because it doesn’t always have to be huge.

In case of the recent conflict, or the conflict of the last six years, a judgment was made by the commanders, General Franks and Mr. Rumsfeld and the Joints Chiefs of Staff, and presented to the president, that a much lighter force can take down Baghdad. And they were absolutely right.

And on the 9th of April, 2003, Baghdad fell and everybody was cheering, saying, this is terrific; it worked just the way we thought. Unfortunately, the war wasn’t over. It was just beginning. And then it took, in my judgment, too long to recognize that we needed to put more force in.

I think we would have been in a much different place if we had surged in the fall of 2003 rather than many years later.

KING: A general who is now serving in a position that you once served in, as national security adviser, is just back from Afghanistan. And I’m sure you saw the story in The Washington Post, talking about, “My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops. We tried that for six years.”

Where are we heading in Afghanistan, and do you agree with that prescription that the emphasis needs to be on government-building, economic development, not more troops?

POWELL: I think it has to be all of the above. Now, whether you need more troops on top of the 20,000 that the president has already added to the force, I’ll let that be a judgment made by the commanders on the ground.

And General Petraeus certainly understands this better than anyone, as does general Jones. I have great respect for both of them. But General Jones makes an important point, that it can’t just be a military solution. Because, if the people don’t see their lives getting better through an economic development; if they don’t see a government that seems to be responsible for their well-being and acting on that responsibility; if they don’t see a government that is functioning properly, that is not corrupt and is working hard to better their lives, then all the troops in the world are not going to make this better.

KING: An issue you wrestled with as a commander in the military is back in the news today and that is whether gay and lesbian Americans should be allowed to serve openly. The president, as a candidate, promised to reverse that policy and he has faced quite a bit of criticism from that community for not acting more quickly.

But this past week he had an event at the White House for gay and lesbian Americans, and he promised them this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I believe “Don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t contribute to our national security. In fact, I believe...

(APPLAUSE)

... I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And Secretary Gates is now saying he’s exploring some flexibility in the current policy, waiting for whether Congress passes a law reversing it -- some flexibility that, under some circumstances, perhaps some openly gay or some people who have been outed, perhaps, should be allowed to stay and serve. What would you do?

POWELL: Well, the policy and the law that came about in 1993, I think, was correct for the time. Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country, and therefore I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed.

I am withholding judgment because the commanders of the armed forces of the United States and the joint chiefs of staff need to study it and make recommendations to the president and have hearings before the Congress before a decision is made.

It is not just a matter of old generals who are, you know, just too hidebound.

There are lots of complicated issues with respect to this, and I think all the issues should be illuminated. And I hope that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commanders, working with the secretary of defense, will give this the greatest consideration and make their recommendation to the president and to the Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: More of our conversation with Colin Powell when “State of the Union” returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is “State of the Union.” Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning. An autopsy is scheduled today on the body of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair. He was found shot to death yesterday in a Nashville condominium. Police say he had been shot multiple times, including once in the head. The body of a young woman was found lying nearby with a single gunshot wound. Police say they are not actively looking for suspects.

Two monorail trains crashed at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida this morning. One driver was killed. In a statement, Disney officials say the Monorail has been shut down and the company is working with law enforcement officials to determine just what happened. Officials says no Disney guests were seriously injured in that crash.

French investigators say a submarine has picked up signals from the flight recorders of that downed Yemeni Airbus jet. It’s unclear when the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder might be recovered. But they could contain key information into what caused the crash. The Yemeni jet went down in the Indian ocean Tuesday killing 152 people. There was one survivor, a 13-year-old girl.

Michael Jackson fans will soon find out if they’re going to the singer’s memorial service Tuesday in Los Angeles. Registration to win tickets ended last night with 1.6 million signing up. Officials will eliminate all duplicate and suspect entries and then hold a random drawing; 8,750 winners will receive e-mail notifications later today.

New legal trouble for former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. He was arrested yesterday after a woman flagged down a police officer and complained Barry was stalking her. He was charged with misdemeanor stalking and released. Barry was arrested on drug charges in 1990 as part of a federal sting operation.

KING: A showdown in the making in Honduras today. President Jose Manuel Zelaya is scheduled to return to the capital city this afternoon. Zelaya was ousted in a coup just a week ago. Supporters of the ousted president demonstrated yesterday. Last night, the Organization of American States suspended Honduras’ membership because the nation’s new leaders refused to reinstate the ousted president. Honduran officials have vowed to arrest Zelaya if he returns.

Vice President Joe Biden says the Obama administration, quote, “misread how bad the economy was.” He made that admission earlier this morning on ABC’s “This Week.” But Biden stands by the administration’s stimulus package and insists it will create more jobs as the pace of spending picks up. Vice President Biden says it’s too early to tell if a second stimulus package will be needed.

Those are the headlines this hour. More of my interview with General Colin Powell, including his reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. That’s ahead on STATE OF THE UNION.

Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. Let’s continue our conversation with former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

We are about to have a Supreme Court nomination confirmation hearing, and it is clear now from all involved that we’re going to have a spirited conversation about affirmative action. It is an issue that you have discussed many times over the course of your life.

Any advice for the senators in both parties as this goes forward? Let me ask you first if you know Judge Sotomayor?

POWELL: No, I do not.

KING: She’s from the Bronx.

(CROSSTALK)

POWELL: She’s from my neighborhood, yes. She seems like a very gifted and accomplished woman. She certainly has an open and liberal bent of mind, but that’s not disqualifying. But she seems to have a judicial record that seems to be balanced and tries to follow the law.

And so I hope we do have a spirited set of hearings. And Supreme Court confirmation hearings tend to always meet that standard. And she ought to be asked about everything from both the left and the right. What we can’t continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor who is announced, and based on one simple tricky but nonetheless case at the Supreme Court has now decided, have her called a racist, a reverse-racist, and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we’re mad at her.

Fortunately the senators who will sit on this hearing in the Judiciary Committee after a few days of this kind of nonsense said, let’s slow down, let’s examine her qualifications the way we’re supposed to at a confirmation hearing.

KING: You wrote in your book some time ago about this issue, about serving in administrations. You wrote: “Never in the two years I worked with Ronald Reagan and George Bush did I detect the slightest trace of racial prejudice in their behavior. They led a party, however, whose principal message to black Americans seemed to be, lift yourself up by your bootstraps. Some did not have boots. I wish that Reagan and Bush had shown more sensitivity on this point.”

Let’s fast forward to where we are today. Does the Republican Party have that sensitivity now? You just mentioned the divergence of opinion when this nomination first came up. Are you confident those in, let’s say, elected leadership positions have that sensitivity now?

POWELL: Well, if you look at the results of the election last fall and make a judgment on the basis of how the party did with respect to the Hispanic vote and the African-American vote, realizing that President Obama -- candidate Obama had a significant advantage with those constituencies, we haven’t done well enough.

And when you have non-elected officials such as we have in our party who immediately shout racism or somebody who is quite prominent in the media says that the only basis upon which I could possibly have supported Obama was because he was black and I was black, even though I laid out my judgment on the candidates, then we still have a problem.

Now, affirmative action is an issue that I thought about and worried about for many, many years. But let me summarize it this way. If you have a public institution, say, a college, such as a college I went to, City College in New York, where you’re responsible for educating the public, not just a part of the public but the public.

And as you are looking at your student population, if you find that there are some parts of the public who are not properly represented in your institution, shouldn’t you do something about that? Don’t you have an obligation to do something about it?

You don’t have an obligation to bring in anybody who is not able to do the work. You should always have qualifications. But once you’ve established those qualifications, is there something wrong with a taxpayer-funded institution not making sure that it is representing the entire public, the entire population?

And I think that’s a good rule for private institutions as well. Call it affirmative action, call it diversity. It goes under a lots of different names. I have a hunch that maybe 55 years ago somebody took a look at my rather mediocre high school grades, but at the same time, thought, maybe this kid can make it, and let me into the City College of New York.

KING: Worked out OK.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: The guy who used the term “reverse-racism,” you didn’t name him, but it’s Rush Limbaugh. And he has said some not so favorable things about you, saying this guy says he’s a Republican but then he supported Obama, so he’s not really a Republican.

You’re a Republican.

POWELL: Yes. And Mr. Limbaugh, of course, is entitled to his opinion but he’s not on any membership committee. He doesn’t decide who I am or what I am no more than I decide who he is or what he is.

So we’ve had this running debate, let’s call it that. And he’s entitled to his opinion and I’m entitled to mine.

KING: One of the questions people would ask when you say, I’m still a Republican, you’ve supported President Obama and you did make quite clear your reasons for doing so. Are you going to support him for reelection or is it too soon to answer that question?

POWELL: It’s too soon to answer that question. And I get asked questions like that all of the time. I have voted Democratic over the years, I’ve voted Republican. I voted twice for Ronald Reagan, twice for the first Bush, and twice for the second Bush.

And I voted for Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson. I always try to find the person that I think is best qualified for the highest office in the land. I believe that our country is best served when there are two strong parties, strong parties that have opposing points of view -- political points of view. That’s what makes this country great. And they can debate those points of view.

I think we run into dangerous territory in this country when the two ends of the political spectrum become so dug in and nasty and everything is ad hominem and driven by cable television and blogs and all kinds of other things that our positions get so hardened that we can’t find a way toward the center, which is where the country is.

KING: You’re very complimentary of the president when it comes to community service, that message he gave on fatherhood. I want to ask you a question about some of his other priorities. But I want to ask in the context of the speech you gave to the Republican National Convention in 1996.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: I became a Republican because I believe, like you, that the federal government has become too large and too intrusive in our lives. We can no longer... (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

POWELL: We can no longer afford solutions to our problems that result in more entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, more bureaucracy to run them, and fewer results to show for it.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: First reaction looking at that clip is you could probably sell your aging secrets because you look great.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: But has the president of the United States in that regard, when it comes to financial institution bailouts, General Motors bailouts, spending by government, whether it’s health care reform, whether it’s the debate now about climate change, when it comes to spending and the reach and role of government, does President Obama meet the test Colin Powell laid out in ‘96?

POWELL: Well, first, let me say, that was a pretty good statement, I thought. And I believe in all of those things. But I also believe that we should have a government that works. I don’t like slogans anymore like “limited government.” That’s not the right answer.

The right answer is, give me a government that works. Keep it as small as possible. Keep the tax burden on the American people as small as possible. But at the same time have a government that is solving the problems of the people.

People want their problems solved. And very often it’s the government that has to do that. So let’s have good government, effective government, whether you call it limited or not. And I think the think of the challenges that President Obama has now is that he has got so many things on the table and these are issues that the American people find important, health care and so many other issues.

But I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president, and I’ve talked to some of his people about this, is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all and we can’t pay for it all.

And I never would have believed that we would have budgets that are running into the, you know, multi-trillions of dollars and we’re amassing a huge, huge national debt that if we don’t pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids, and great-grandchildren will have the pay for it.

So I think the president, as he moves forward with his initiatives, has to start really taking a very, very hard look at what the cost of all of this is and how much additional bureaucracy and will it be effective bureaucracy be needed to make all of this happen.

KING: So it’s early, but you’re a little worried.

POWELL: Hmm? Yes.

KING: Is that a fair way to put it?

POWELL: Yes. I’m a little concerned. Concerned would be a better way. I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs, and the additional government that will be needed to execute them.

KING: As you go forward, you say you talk to his people (INAUDIBLE). You say you talk to his people. What’s your relationship with him?

POWELL: Very good.

KING: Have you talked to him much? Does he seek your advice?

POWELL: I have met with him not too long ago. I don’t insert myself. But we stay in touch.

KING: I want to close with a couple of questions. One, on a cultural discussion in the United States right now, the country is saying farewell to Michael Jackson. He was without a doubt a trailblazing entertainer. There are other parts of his life that people have found quite troubling.

KING: I was watching on our air this past week a tribute to him at the Apollo Theater, which, of course, is near where you...

POWELL: Know well.

KING: Where you grew up. What did he mean to America?

POWELL: He was a great entertainer and he crossed so many lines with his skill and the skill of his brothers. I always remember him most vividly as a young boy with his brothers, the Jackson 5. These fresh, exciting kids with the ‘fros in the early ‘70s singing those wonderful songs, “ABC.” Don’t ask me to sing it.

(LAUGHTER)

POWELL: But that was what I remember about Michael. During the heyday when he was doing “Thriller” and the other things, I was either in Vietnam or Korea or somewhere. So he is not quite of my generation.

But his art spanned three generations and is worthy of all the tribute that he is receiving for his art. Yes, there were some challenges in his life, yes, there was a great deal of controversy about him, but he has now passed on, let’s celebrate his art.

KING: We live sometimes at too fast a pace, I would argue. And I wanted your reflections on what July 4th means to you. And I want, before I let you speak, to tell you when I was at Walter Reed, and it was a stunning visit, I asked -- we were sitting down with two men in the Army who had served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are now helping the wounded warriors at Walter Reed.

And when I said to them, you know, this is the holiday where we will put flags in our yards, or you’ll see flags all out in the streets and people will have their barbecue and they might go to a parade, but you guys wear them right here every day on your shoulder. And the gentleman I was speaking to got a little choked up. I got a little choked up. What does July 4th mean to you and do you think sometimes in our rush we forget?

POWELL: These young men and women who have volunteered to serve their country and who have paid a price for serving their country are so deserving of all the tribute we can give them. And even after they’ve been wounded and even after you’ve seen them up at Walter Reed, they wear that patch proudly and they’re proud of having served. And it’s something they will never forget when they go back into normal life.

And so July 4th still represents a remarkable date for us to all stop and reflect on what our founding fathers achieved on July 4th, 1776, and the noble sentiment they gave to the rest of the world that all men are created equal and governments serve the people and the people serve the nation and no group of individuals serves the nation as bravely and with such courage and sacrifice as our young men and women in uniform.

So July 4th, let’s, as we were told by our founding father, shoot rockets and celebrate, let the bombs go off and celebrate and praise our flag, but let’s not forget that the freedom we enjoy, the freedom that we declared we would have in 1776, still has to be won every single day. And it’s won by all of us but especially by these young men and women in uniform.

KING: Seems the perfect place to say thanks coming in.

POWELL: Thank you, John.

KING: General Powell, thank you, appreciate it.

Just ahead, more talk about community service. The focus on one program helping schoolchildren right here in the nation’s capital.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In debating where to travel this July 4th holiday week, we decided to focus on community service, people who selflessly give their time and talents to help others. Later in the program, we’ll show you an inspiring effort down here in Central Florida to bring health care to uninsured Latinos. But first a trip that took us only a few miles from our offices right here in Washington, D.C.

And look at these numbers. They are staggering. The national graduation rate, nearly 70 percent. But here in Washington, D.C., below 50 percent and down almost 9 percent from just last year. Nationally, 12.5 percent of the nation is below the poverty line. In Washington, D.C., it is staggering, nearly 20 percent.

So the need is obvious. And one way to help is through community service. The AmeriCorps National Program of Community Service has 75,000 participants, 1,500 of them right here in Washington, D.C. There will be 6,000 additional spots come September because of the new Obama stimulus funding.

Now in the summertime, a lot of that community service work is focused on helping low-income neighborhoods with struggling schools. That’s where we met a remarkable young woman. Her name is Tora Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody, I should see your eyes on me. Wiggle your fingers. We’re going to get all of the jitters out. Everybody check it out. Give me a smile.

KING (voice-over): Leading the classroom with an infectious smile.

TORA BURNS, AMERICORPS: What I want you all to know is that we can all make a difference.

KING: Recycling is the lesson of the moment. Community service her cause as long as Tora Burns can remember.

BURNS: I would ask my mom, well, can you help the old lady out of the building or something? She was like, you’re only 6 or 5, why are you trying to help everyone?

KING: An urge reinforced, she says, by a jarring memory from her high school days in Detroit.

BURNS: And I saw a man kill another man. And I was just sitting at the red light. And it was kind of like you have that moment where you’re like, oh my gosh, someone lost their life.

No child should live like that. No child should have to see things of that nature.

KING: Tora is spending her summer at this Washington, D.C., school as an instructor for Heads Up, a local mentoring school targeting low-income neighborhoods that is aligned with the AmeriCorps National Community Service Organization.

BURNS (singing): We recycle every day, just to show the world the way. Recycle!

KING: And during the school year, while attending Howard University, she is a volunteer mentor in a program run by America’s Promise, the organization founded by retired General Colin Powell.

BURNS: I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. And I feel like this experience will help me in the long run as far as my career and understanding children.

We’re going the teach you. That’s my job. I’m supposed to teach you. So by the time you’re out here, (INAUDIBLE), you’re going to be able to count better than anyone else your age, OK?

KING: Valuable experience for Tora and invaluable help to Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her efforts to turn around D.C.’s struggling public school system.

MICHELLE RHEE, CHANCELLOR, D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS: When you have a school system like ours where the kids are so far behind where they need to be, then one of the most precious resources at your disposal is time. And our children need more time. So this year we’ve significantly increased the number of kids who are participating in summer school.

BURNS: Will it prevent the sun from going black? Is that your question?

Yes, OK. They say the craziest things, but every now and then you have that “a-ha!” moment. And I feel like you learn a lot more from them than they learn from you. When you see that -- it’s like a sparkle in their eye and they’re happy when they’re learning, I think that’s when you see the change.

KING: Just 19 years old, (INAUDIBLE) by her parents and by her teachers, now Tora is just herself and her 12-hour days while her family and friends are enjoying summer vacations.

BURNS: It all boils down to the children, you know? How dare I be a student in college and be selfish and not do something to help my community.

BURNS: And I feel like children are in the center of it all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The visit that still has us smiling. And as you know, one of our goals is to get out of Washington as often as we can. We’ve traveled from California to Florida and many, many states in between. So where next? You can e-mail us at StateoftheUnion@CNN.com and tell us why we should come visit your community.

We want to say good-bye to out international audience for this hour. But up next for our viewers here in the United States, we’ll speak to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen about the risky new operations in Afghanistan, North Korea’s defiance and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from major Iraqi cities. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is our STATE OF THE UNION report for this Sunday, July 5th. Just as U.S. troops pull back from their most dangerous operations in Iraq cities, President Obama orders a major new military offensive in Afghanistan. Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen is here to map out the latest in both wars and to discuss the risk of escalating the fight against the Taliban.

More than a week after his death, the saga of singer Michael Jackson is still dominating the headlines. Is it time for the media to pull back? Howard Kurtz and top reporters dissect coverage of the Jackson drama.

And Sarah Palin decides to step down as Alaska’s governor. Donna Brazile, Ed Rollins and Bill Bennett are here to talk about her political future, the economy and much more. That’s all ahead on STATE OF THE UNION.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: U.S. marines in Afghanistan are in the early days of perhaps the riskiest military operation since President Obama became commander in chief 167 days ago. The push against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan is the first major test of the president’s new Afghan war strategy. So far, one marine has been killed, several others wounded in the offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, an opium rich area critical to the Taliban. The escalation in Afghanistan comes just as the United States looks to shrink its footprint in Iraq, meeting with some trepidation, last week’s June 30th deadline to withdraw from Iraqi cities.

Here to help us with those challenges and more is America’s highest ranking military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen . Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION, Admiral. I want to thank you for starting at the magic wall so you can take us up close. And let’s begin in Afghanistan. I want you to feel free to step up to the map wall and show us exactly where these marines are fighting and as you do, sir, explain who is the enemy here. Is it just the Taliban or a mix of Taliban or al Qaeda?

MULLEN: Good morning, John, it’s good to be with you. Well, as you indicated, we’ve recently put in about 10,000 additional marines into Afghanistan, and most of them are in the south.

And as it shows here on the map and this is the capital of Kabul, down here in Helmand is where they’re really focused. And I’ll take you up close down into Helmand where the fighting is really going on.

MULLEN: And you can see specifically in this area of Garmsir, as well as Khan Neshin, which is where the Marines are engaged. But what cuts through there is this river, that Helmand River that -- the whole river valley. And this is really the most concentrated area for opium growing, and we expect significant combat challenges with respect to the Taliban, who have been there. And we haven’t been able to both clear -- defeat them and then clear the area. And it’s this extra footprint of Marines I think that will allow us to not just secure the area for the Afghan people, but also hold it so that we can develop it and start to move in the right direction economically and from a governance perspective.

KING: In terms of resistance -- sir, I’m sorry for interrupting -- but in terms of the resistance the Marines have faced in the early days, is it what you expected? Or are you concerned that the Taliban are melting into the countryside, if you will, and hiding because they know you’re there?

MULLEN: Well, I think generally it’s what we expected. There has been some of that.

There’s actually been some pretty tough fighting as well. All of that really ties into the expectations that we have.

This has been a Taliban stronghold for a significant period of time. It’s grown over the last two or three years. And so what the Marines are there for is to really concentrate on that, clear that area -- I’m sorry, defeat the Taliban that’s there, clear it, and then hold it so that, again, we can start to build.

And we think it’s going to be a pretty tough fight for, you know, a fair amount of time. You know, weeks to months, certainly, at least.

KING: Weeks to months.

And as you push in that area, one of the concerns, sir, I know you have is that if you look to the south, you see Pakistan. And even in “The Washington Post” this morning, you know, an officer quoted as saying that the Pakistanis on that side of the border do not seem to be cooperating, at least to the point that he would expect.

You recently, in a military briefing, called Pakistan the safe haven for al Qaeda and the Taliban. How concerned are you that even if you are successful as you want to be in the Helmand Province, if they simply melt across the border into Pakistan, what then? MULLEN: Well, I think that’s a fair assessment of the concerns. We’ve worked this pretty hard with both the Afghan military leadership, as well as the Pakistani military leadership.

And, in fact, the Pakistan military has moved out aggressively in the last couple of months, had some successes, and expressed concerns that our interaction with the Taliban now, down here in the south, is going to push more insurgents towards -- into Pakistan. And so from the standpoint of both understanding what the possibilities are and the preparations, I think we’re in pretty good shape. We’ve actually had several meetings, trilateral meetings of the military leadership in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but we recognize there is going to be tension and we’re going to have to work our way through that.

KING: And you talked about this could be weeks or months for this fight. I want your assessment of the broader picture in Afghanistan in the context of what I would call potentially mixed signals on troop levels in Afghanistan in the past week.

General Jones was quoted in a McClatchy newspaper article as saying, “The troops that are there are the troops the mission is going to get.” And sir, you were quoted in “The Washington Post” as saying that if General McChrystal says he needs more, you will go to the president and say, “Mr. President, we need to send more.”

Are you concerned at all that there’s a mixed message in terms of what it will take in Afghanistan?

MULLEN: Well, I think General Jones and I and the president are all on the same page in terms of what we have to do now. President Obama has committed these troops, they’re arriving as we speak, and will through the rest of this year.

General McChrystal, who is the new military leader in Afghanistan, is going through a 60-day assessment. His guidance from me and from Secretary Gates is make your assessment, come back and tell us what you need. Make sure that every troop we’ve got there is somebody that we absolutely have to have, and then based on your assessment, we’ll look at future requirements. And all of us are on the same page with respect to that view and his intent.

KING: I’m going to ask you one last question on Afghanistan, sir.

Who is the enemy, and how many are there? Is it Taliban, is it a mix of Taliban and al Qaeda?

MULLEN: What I’ve seen in the last couple of years is a merging of both al Qaeda and Taliban. It sort of gets summed up in this “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” And we’ve seen leaders from these organizations move together in a federated way.

So, in ways, it’s both. And al Qaeda is supportive of the Taliban. As far as the exact numbers are concerned, it’s hard to pin that down, but they’re significant, they’re growing, and it’s the kind of insurgency that the additional troops that were put in there has to get at so we can actually focus on providing security.

It’s less about -- as General McChrystal said, it’s less about killing the enemy than it is providing security and protecting Afghan civilians. And that’s really the thrust. That’s what we’re trying to do right now.

KING: I want to ask you, sir, to shift over.

MULLEN: Sure.

KING: I know you have a map of Iraq as well there. If you can pull that up for me, a pretty big week in Iraq.

The deadline on June 30th to get out of the Iraqi cities. And as you pull the map up now, I wonder if you can play for me the video that shows our footprint before and our footprint after.

MULLEN: Sure, John.

This is obviously Baghdad, and you can see in the middle where our footprint was. And now, actually in the outskirts here, indicated here and here, is where we’ve moved our forces.

And we really are out of the cities now. We’ve moved our forces outside the main cities. You can see here, outside Baghdad, where we have our cities, and we’re in support of the Iraqi security forces.

I mean, big transition. We’ve actually been coming out of the cities for the last eight months. We’re at a period of time where we’re in support of the Iraqi security forces.

We’ve reached a very clear agreement with the Iraqi political military leadership, with their military leadership, on how this was going to work. And I’m confident in what I’ve seen so far that us moving out of the cities has been a very positive step. So I’m really encouraged based on what I see.

KING: Very encouraged. And we’re happy to hear that, sir.

I want you to listen quickly to a little snippet from the former vice president, Dick Cheney , who is among those voicing their concern that because they knew this deadline was approaching, that perhaps the enemy in Iraq has just decided to wait it out.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

RICHARD CHENEY, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It would look like, one might speculate, that the insurgents are waiting. And as soon as they get an opportunity, they’ll begin to launch more attacks. I hope that’s not the case.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KING: Are you seeing any evidence of that, Admiral, that the insurgents simply knew the U.S. troops would be pulling out, and they’re regrouping, taking their time and waiting? MULLEN: Well, we’ve expected for some time that this is a -- in a period of transition like this, that the insurgents could very well do this. We’ve seen no indication that there’s any -- that they’re looking to or we’re seeing a trend towards the kind of sectarian violence which was so prevalent a couple of years ago. We have had an uptick in some major -- what we call high-profile attacks, but June of this year was the lowest level of violence since the war started.

I think General Odierno has spoken out about this. He’s very pleased with how this transition has started, and again, it’s just five days old right now. So we’re very focused on it and we’re very aware of this period of vulnerability. But up until now, it’s gone pretty well.

KING: And 130,000, roughly, Americans in Iraq right now, due to be down to 50,000, sir, by about a year from now. And then, ultimately, all those troops out unless the Iraqis request more to stay by the end of the 2011.

Any reason -- you mentioned it’s only five days. Any reason at this point to think that schedule will not be kept?

MULLEN: No, not that I’m aware of right now. And clearly, we have an agreement with Iraq to have all troops out by the end of 2011.

The focus area now is this obviously -- sustaining this security, and then focusing on the elections, which are the beginning of next year. That’s the next really big event, and the politics associated with that are critical. And most of the issues right now are for the political leadership in Iraq to resolve.

So we focus on the January time frame. After January, we see a significant drawdown of our troops getting to 35,000 to 50,000 in about the August time frame, a little over a year from now. And from everything I see right now, we’re on track.

KING: All right. Admiral Mullen, I’d like to invite you to take a seat and be more comfortable so we can continue our conversation.

MULLEN: OK. Thank you, John.

KING: And when we come back, more with Admiral Mullen on the upcoming trip by the president to Russia, tensions with Iran, and whether it is time to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve openly in the military.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen .

Admiral, you just showed us on the map there what you think is the strategic situation in Iraq. I want to talk to you a little bit about the images we saw this past week.

As the United States kept its promise and kept that deadline and pulled out, there were celebrations in the streets. Iraqi citizens celebrating the U.S. troops moving out of the city, many of them calling those troops occupiers.

And in a statement, Prime Minister Maliki focused on the Iraqi government, saying, “The national united government succeeded in putting down the sectarian war that was threatening the unity and the sovereignty of Iraq.”

People in the streets calling your troops occupiers. The prime minister not thanking them in his speech.

I’m just wondering -- to the parents, the spouses and the siblings of the more than 4,300 Americans who have given their lives so far so those people had the rights to be in the streets demonstrating, so that Prime Minister Maliki could have a democratic government, what kind of message does it send to them when the Iraqi government speaks like that?

MULLEN: Well, John, I’ve said many times I’m very proud to lead the best military I’ve ever been associated with in the over 40 years that I’ve been wearing the uniform. The 2.2 million men and women are just spectacular. And their sacrifices are truly extraordinary, including those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And when I look at that celebration, that’s actually how I look at it. Here’s a country that two years ago, was in very, very bad shape, spinning out of the control, and it was really because of the dedication of our young men and women and those sacrifices that we’re able to turn it around and put the country in a position to have a future that is bright and was indicated, I think, by that celebration. And I know from my engagement with Prime Minister Maliki, as well as the rest of the political and military leadership in Iraq, they’re very appreciative of everything that we have done.

KING: I want to move your attention to other challenges. And let’s start with North Korea.

North Korea has tested some short-range missiles in recent days -- a provocative act, according to the White House and other governments around the world -- but not the longer-range missiles.

Do you see any indication, sir, in the intelligence that they are preparing, that some had said they might, to test again the Taepodong- 2, the longer-range missile, that if it is successful, could reach Hawaii or even the West Coast of the United States?

MULLEN: Well, much of what the North Korean leadership has said they would do in the past when they talked about things that they would continue to execute, including a possible nuclear test or a long-range missile, certainly there are possible there. I haven’t seen any indications of that in recent days. The seven missiles which the leadership fired yesterday, basically into the sea, similar to what they did in 2006.

There were -- those were violations of United Nations Security Council resolution. They continue to do that. They continue to thumb their nose at the international community. And I think the international community, which has been bound very tightly together to include Russia and China, needs to -- and putting additional pressure on the North Korean leadership, that needs to continue and those sanctions need to be enforced.

KING: You mentioned China there, sir. Both you and Secretary Gates have spoken in recent days about your conversations with your South Korean counterparts, your conversations with your Japanese counterparts about what to do to respond to the North Koreans. But both of you have also said there have been no military conversations with the Chinese, who are, in the eyes of many, the most player, and who we know sometimes don’t like the United States military, the United States Navy showing any muscle in their neighborhood.

Is that a hole in or response to this, that you’re not having direct conversations with the Chinese?

MULLEN: We have had some contact. And we’re committed to renewal of those military-to-military relationships. We obviously know there are differences and concerns, and what’s really important about all this is that we have a dialogue, we are talking, so that we can move this relationship forward in a positive way, and certainly have an ability to communicate so that we don’t miscalculate such a sensitive time and critical time in our relationship.

KING: You are off, sir, to Russia, I believe in the day ahead for the president’s big summit with the Russian leadership there. On the table, more reductions in the strategic nuclear arsenals of both countries.

As you know, as there is considerable pressure on the president to try and get more Russian help when it comes to Iran, its nuclear program, the political fallout after its election. And several senators, a bipartisan group, sent the president a letter this week saying that they hope he will use his “... visit to Moscow to express the deep concern the United States has over Iran’s nuclear program and make it known that Russia should not expect progress on issues of concern to Moscow if it does not take a tougher stance on Iran.”

Should the president, in your view, sir, link progress and other issues to better Russian assistance when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program?

MULLEN: Well, I’ll let the president speak for himself.

We have areas that we have common interests in. Iran certainly is one. Obviously, the area of strategic missiles and the start, discussions that you spoke of. But we’ve got common interests and agreement in places like Afghanistan. The Russians do not want to see the Taliban take over Afghanistan.

Logistics support for Afghanistan, piracy, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, all those things. So we’ve got areas that we can discuss thing about, things that are very positive and we can move forward on, and included in that, I’m sure, will be discussions where we differ.

KING: I want to move on, sir, to an issue that comes up from time to time that’s very emotional and a tough political arguments, and that is whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the United States military.

You are the nation’s highest ranking military office. And at your confirmation hearing two years ago, I want you to listen to this. You said it was the right policy to have “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULLEN: It’s a policy that came in at a time -- in a time it was greatly debated at the time that it was actually put in place. I’m supportive of that policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You said “supportive” two years ago.

Sir, I sat down in recent days with another gentleman who held your job, retired general Colin Powell, who supported the policy when it was implemented but now says it should be reconsidered.

Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, the policy and the law that came about in 1993 I think was correct for the time. Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country. And therefore, I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Two questions, sir. And let me start with the advice you give the president.

Do you still believe the policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should stay, and is that your advice to the president, even though that is contrary to the promise he made in the campaign?

MULLEN: Well, what General Powell talks about is the policy and, in fact, the law. And with respect to that, we clearly are carrying out both that policy and law, and will continue to do that until it changes.

Secretary Sates spoke recently about reviewing the policy to see if -- to make sure that we were executing it in the most humane way possible. It’s very clear what president Obama’s intent here is. He intends to see this law change.

And in my advice, you know, I’ve had conversations with him about that. What I’ve discussed in terms of the future is I think we need to move in a measured way.

We’re at a time where we are fighting two conflicts. There’s a great deal of pressure on our forces and their families. And yet, again, the strategic intent is clear.

And if we get -- and I am internally discussing that with my staff on how to move forward and what the possible implementation steps could be. I haven’t done any kind of extensive review. And what I feel most obligated about is to make sure I tell the president, you know, my -- give the president my best advice, should this law change, on the impact on our people and their families at these very challenging times.

KING: I want to close, sir, on this July 4th weekend with an issue that I know is very close to you and I know it’s of much concern at the Pentagon. And that is the care for the wounded warriors coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.

You recently sent a memo to Secretary Gates after a trip to talk to military men and women about this, and the suicide rate is up, alcohol use is up, the divorce rate is up. You mentioned at Fort Hood there are only eight soldiers at a time allowed in the mental health symptoms classes. Fifty thousand troops are on that base at any given time.

What message does the president need to hear, the Congress need to hear, and, in fact, the American people need to hear, perhaps, sir, about what more needs to be done to make sure that these men and women coming home get everything they need? MULLEN: Well, I think leaders throughout the land and throughout communities in our country need to reach out and make sure that we are meeting the needs of these great, young Americans who sacrificed so much. And not just the military members, but their families. And while we’ve made a lot of progress in the last several years, we still have an awful long way to go.

There’s a great deal we don’t know about the combat stress, Post- Traumatic Stress. There’s a great deal we don’t know about the signature wounds of traumatic brain injury, whether it’s mild or severe.

And in fact, young people, young families want to contribute to society. They still have dreams, and those dreams include getting to school, sending their kids to school, having a good job for both members of their family, and hopefully being able to own a home someday. And I think all of us in America need to pay this -- or repay this debt, that they’ve done so much for us, and do it in a way to make sure that they’re in great shape for the rest of their lives.

KING: Admiral Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sir, thanks for spending time with us this morning.

MULLEN: Thank you, John.

KING: Take care, sir.

KING: And still ahead, Howard Kurtz and his RELIABLE SOURCES tackle the media frenzy over Michael Jackson’s death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King, and this is STATE OF THE UNION.

Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning.

Two monorail trains crashed at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, this morning. One drivers killed. In a statement, Disney officials say the monorail has been shut down and the company is working with law enforcement officials to determine just what happened. Officials stress no Disney guests were seriously injured in that crash.

An autopsy is scheduled today on the body of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair. He was found shot to death yesterday in a Nashville condominium.

Police say he had been shot multiple times, including once in the head. The body of a young woman was found lying nearby with a single gunshot wound. Police say they are not actively looking for suspects.

Michael Jackson fans will soon find out if they’re going to the singer’s memorial service Tuesday in Los Angeles. Registration to win tickets ended last night with 1.6 million people signing up. Officials will eliminate all duplicates and suspect entries and hold a random drawing; 8,750 winners will receive an e-mail notification later today.

South Korea says missiles test-fired by North Korea are likely capable of hitting government and military targets in the south. Pyongyang tested-fired seven short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan yesterday. Vice President Joe Biden called the missile launches attention-seeking behavior.

That and much more ahead on STATE OF THE UNION.

But first, after the break, Howie Kurtz and his “Reliable Sources.”

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Michael Jackson’s death has become an absolute gold mine for the news business. Days after the initial shock wore off, the morning shows and the cable networks, led by CNN, seemed to crank up the volume even higher. The nightly newscasts joining the fray as well.

Hey, the ratings are good, let’s have more Michael Jackson. Let’s have wall-to-wall Jackson.

This, in my view, is getting out of control.

Now, there have been some newsworthy developments in recent days about Jackson’s will, about the custody fight for his children, about who is the father of two of the children -- it’s not the “King of Pop,” it’s his doctor, at least according to unnamed sources cited by “US Weekly.” But much of the rest is just stirring the pot, cooking up angles about Jackson’s use of drugs, Jackson’s state of mind, Jackson’s friends, his hangers-on, anything to keep feeding the fixation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now more on the investigation into the death of Michael Jackson.

CHARLES GIBSON, ABC ANCHOR: Michael Jackson’s has put a new spotlight on the use and abuse of prescription drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pop star’s father insists he and his wife will be taking care of the children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now to the latest on the Michael Jackson investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There’s some debate about whether or not Michael was using painkillers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michael Jackson’s will, how much he’s worth, who gets the money, and one big bombshell...

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST, “COUNTDOWN”: Michael Jackson is reportedly not his kids’ biological father, but we may know who is. MONICA CROWLEY, FOX NEWS: There have been reports over decades that Joe Jackson, the father, had beat the living daylights out of these kids, and especially Michael.

MATT LAUER, CO-HOST, “THE TODAY SHOW”: When we come back, I’m going to take you into Michael Jackson’s private bedroom. And I’m going to show you what we found, a secret room.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So is this news infotainment, or just plain pandering?

Joining us now in Los Angeles, Sharon Waxman, founder and editor- in-chief of TheWrap.com; Don Lemon, a CNN anchor who has been reporting this story since it broke; and here in Washington, David Zurawik, television and media critic for “The Baltimore Sun.”

Sharon Waxman, right now, much of the day, on the mornings shows, cable news, led by CNN, this is treated as the most important story in the world. Is it?

SHARON WAXMAN, FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THEWRAP.COM: It’s the most important story for getting ratings in the world right now. And it’s the summer, and it’s quiet, and we’ve probably had enough of the president for a while, because we’ve been gorged on presidential news since before the election. And this is absolute, cannot-be-avoided stories. I am not surprised at all to see wall-to-wall coverage.

KURTZ: “Cannot-be-avoided,” that’s a very apt phrase.

Don Lemon, you’ve been out there in L.A. reporting on this story. You’ve interviewed Joe Jackson, the father, the assistant chief coroner, and that’s great. You’ve also been doing endless live shots and devoted most of your Saturday and Sunday evening program to this.

Don’t you feel deep down that this is overdoing it?

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: No, I don’t feel it’s overdoing it. And I don’t -- and when I hear people say that, I have to be very honest with you, Howie, I think it’s elitist.

I don’t remember -- I’m sure there was some criticism when there was the coverage of Princess Diana’s death, but I don’t think that there was this sort of criticism that we’re having with Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson is an accidental civil rights leader, an accidental pioneer. He broke ground and barriers in so many different realms in artistry, in pictures, in movies, in music, you name it. So, no, I don’t think it’s overkill.

KURTZ: OK. He did all of those things. He also was accused of child molestation, and was a seriously weird person. But he has been dead for more than a week and we are still going almost wall-to-wall.

LEMON: Well, he has been dead for more than a week, yes, but Michael Jackson twice -- well, once, I should say, he was acquitted of child molestation. The other time it was settled out of court.

KURTZ: Right.

LEMON: And if you talk to people who were involved in those cases, they don’t believe that he did it. So let’s put that aside.

Yes, he has been dead for more than a week, and that’s why this story is still front page news. It’s still, you know, in the A-block of newscasts.

We don’t know how he died. There are lots of questions about how he died.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I want to come back to that. I want to get David in. I would differ with you, I think it’s the A-block, the B-block, the C- block, the D-block, and the E-block.

David Zurawik, I’ve been saving some tape for you. This is CNN coverage of one day earlier this week on a number of news shows in the afternoon and evening.

Let’s roll that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A striking new voice in Michael Jackson’s death with a shocking story to tell, a nurse who says that Jackson repeatedly asked her about a powerful IV anesthesia drug.

LARRY KING, HOST, “LARRY KING LIVE”: The children, were they really his?

CAMPBELL BROWN, HOST, “CAMPBELL BROWN: NO BIAS, NO BULL”: Tonight, up-to-the-minute developments in the Michael Jackson investigation.

KITTY PILGRIM, GUEST HOST, “LOU DOBBS TONIGHT”: Tonight, breaking news on Michael Jackson’s estate and his children.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, he was in rehearsal and planning to reaffirm his claim to the title “King of Pop.” But was he ready? It depends on who you ask.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And that’s just one day.

Now, CNN is usually the network that exercises some restraint on these big tabloidy stories.

What happened?

DAVID ZURAWIK, TELEVISION CRITIC, “THE BALTIMORE SUN”: Howie, first of all, I really -- this may shock you, but I don’t think the coverage has been excessive. And when we get to the Staples Center on Tuesday, we’re going to have 12 days now.

This is beyond a state funeral. And yet...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Why is it not excessive, in your view?

ZURAWIK: I think, you know, in pop culture, in cultural studies, they say that the size of a star, the importance to the culture, is in direct proportion to how they embody contradictions within the culture. Nobody, not Marilyn Monroe, not Lucille Ball, not Elvis, embodied as many contradictions as Michael Jackson does.

Family, we want to think family is a nice place. He had a troubled family, a (inaudible) family.

Childhood. Childhood, a time of innocence, not for him.

Most of all, race. He embodies the contradictions in race in our culture like nobody else. And I think...

(CROSSTALK)

ZURAWIK: ... we can’t walk away from Michael because until we -- until we resolve him for ourselves. Of course, we’re not going to resolve him, but we don’t want to let him go until we resolve some of that.

KURTZ: Go ahead, Sharon.

LEMON: He’s right. He’s...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: One at a time.

WAXMAN: I don’t think it has to do resolving any conflicts whatsoever. I think there is a number of things that are going on here.

One is he is a worldwide story. In the age of the Internet, what we looked at, at “The Wrap,” is we’re looking at kind of the media coverage of sort of glut -- sort of media coverage. It’s not just television.

The first couple of days, it was an Internet story. You had online news organizations, including ours, including tiny ones like ours, or relatively small ones like ours. And the big ones, portals like Yahoo!, who had the biggest traffic they’d ever had in their lives, in their history...

KURTZ: Sure.

WAXMAN: ... on the day -- the day after Michael Jackson died.

So people around the world, that has become anybody anywhere in the world -- and we were getting comments from Dubai, from Malaysia, Indonesia, in French. It was just unbelievable...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: OK. Let me jump in here because I want to toss a question to Don. Hold on here.

The first couple of days, you know, the explosion of coverage, I have no problem. This was an unexpected death of one of the most famous and controversial people on the planet. And it was a guy whose music touched so many millions and all of that.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Not one of the most famous. The most famous.

KURTZ: OK. The most famous, fine.

Once you get to day six, seven, eight, nine, we are basically awash on the airwaves with repetition and speculation.

Your thoughts?

LEMON: No, I don’t think so, because our lead story today was Iran and Iraq on CNN. And it’s going to be that way until Tuesday, until this goes. So it hasn’t been -- it has not been the lead story every single day.

KURTZ: Don, if you look at the at the summation of the past week, certainly occasionally CNN has covered Iran, occasionally has covered Iraq. There was also a big U.S. incursion against the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the lion’s share of the hours, and the reason that you’re not getting any sleep out there in L.A. is because it’s all Jackson.

LEMON: But Howard, you have to look at it -- we spend lots of time covering Iran and Iraq. And I agree with you, we should cover those important stories. But this now is the time.

There is a time and a place for everything. This is the time and the place for the Michael Jackson coverage.

And I do have to say that your guests are absolutely right. If you look at race, African-Americans are following this coverage.

Eight in 10 African-Americans are tuning in not only to broadcast medium, but also on Twitter, on Facebook, on the social mediums, on Yahoo!. As Sharon mentioned, everywhere. They want to find coverage of Michael Jackson.

This is the quintessential American story. You have poor families...

WAXMAN: Not just Americans, it’s a world culture story.

LEMON: Yes, who -- a poor family who came from Gary, Indiana, raised -- nothing, poor, came and made -- you know, became millionaires and became the biggest star in the world, and touched people socially, culturally, civilly, politically.

And he was an accidental civil rights leader, and as they say...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Let me get control here.

Since Don mentioned the numbers, I want to put up the poll.

Let me get David, then I’ll come back to you, Sharon.

A Pew Research poll this week found the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, overall, 64 percent say too much, for all of you who are telling me this is earth-shattering, 29 percent say right about, and three percent, who apparently want it directly injected it into their veins, say too little.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: But then if you go to the racial breakdown, there is a very interesting split here, David Zurawik. Blacks, 36 percent say too much. Whites, 70 percent.

ZURAWIK: Oh, I think it’s absolutely true. And eight out of 10 African-Americans say they’re following this story very closely.

Howie, I think that makes an absolute difference. And I would disagree, especially in connection with race, to say we’re just playing stuff over, they’re just repeating it.

You know, this week, one night last week, one night, I heard Katie Couric interviewing Spike Lee. It was a “48 Hours,” by the way, it got over eight million viewers. You know when you say, come on, enough already? No, she asked him about race, and she asked him about the BET Awards, and Jamie Foxx saying that Michael Jackson belonged to African-Americans.

We’re having a very good conversation about race within this context.

KURTZ: OK. Well, we also had Matt Lauer...

WAXMAN: There’s another issue too.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I was just going to say you also had Matt Lauer and Larry King at Neverland interviewing Jermaine Jackson.

But Sharon, you wanted to get in, so let me give you the floor.

WAXMAN: Well, I wanted to make another point. Yes, that secret room had long been known about and viewed and seen and all the rest...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: You’re saying it wasn’t a secret? Really?

(CROSSTALK)

WAXMAN: Hello? Thank you.

But no, I wanted to make a different point, which is, it just reminds me in a way of when John Lennon was -- died, was murdered so suddenly. And I remember being a young person at that time and thinking I was surprised at the overwhelming amount of media coverage at that time. So I wonder if there isn’t some generational thing...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: That may be true. But let me ask you this, Sharon, because you worked for “The New York Times,” you’ve also worked for “The Washington Post.” Now, those newspapers are -- and others, are certainly covering the Jackson story, but they’re covering a lot of other things as well.

And the only other story that is getting anything near traction on television is the tale of Mark Sanford and his Argentine soul mate and the other women he may or may not have crossed the line with because, why? Because it involved sex.

So as you said at the top, is there really any way -- would we really be going so crazy over what you all say is the cultural and political and musical significance of Michael Jackson if the numbers weren’t big?

WAXMAN: No, I don’t think we would be. I think it’s absolutely -- this is a ratings story, this is about business. And it’s easy. I mean, it’s an easy decision for every news network to make. Absolutely.

ZURAWIK: Howie, The numbers are astronomical. Howie, the answer...

LEMON: They are.

ZURAWIK: ... is, just as Sharon said, no, we wouldn’t if it wasn’t -- if it weren’t these kinds of numbers in the summer -- you know, you can do eight million with “48 Hours” in the summer? Well, let’s do it again tomorrow night!

KURTZ: All right. CNN won the...

LEMON: Yes, but the numbers reflect a direct interest in the people from this story. And part of being a news organization, part of covering news is covering the public interest. And people are interested in the story.

KURTZ: I’m going to challenge that. And here’s what I say. There is no question there is a lot of public interest in this story. I mean, CNN won the...

WAXMAN: Yes, difference between public interest and the public interest. Not the same.

KURTZ: Well, I wasn’t even going to go there.

WAXMAN: Public interest or the public interest.

KURTZ: CNN won the first couple of nights in the cable competition. And I’m sure executives, and this is a presumption on my part, said, let’s keep doing this, the numbers are really good. That “breaking news” banner has been up there for hours and hours and hours.

But Don Lemon, you know that in cable, if the average audience at any given time might be, say, one million, and suddenly two million are tuning in, the producers are popping champagne corks. But that doesn’t mean the whole country is fixated on this. And judging from comments on my Facebook page and elsewhere, there are a lot of people who really love CNN and its dedication to news who think this is just too much.

LEMON: Well, I’m not denying that. It is a business. I mean, come on, let’s be real about it. I don’t think that anyone, any producer or reporter has had a chance to pop a champagne cork later. That may come on Wednesday when this is all done.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: But at this point, no, no one has had a chance to do that.

But yes, I think that, you know, as I said, we do have to realize that it is a business. And had the numbers not been as much, I don’t know if we would have covered it as much. But there is a public interest, and you cannot deny that Michael Jackson is a huge figure. And as I said...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I’m not denying that at all.

LEMON: And I’m not -- listen, Howie, and I’m not a Michael Jackson apologist or sympathizer, what have you. I mean, I criticize him just as much as the next guy. And I believe that we should tell his whole story, which includes a controversy as well, as journalists.

But we do, at this point, have to remember that a person is dead. And as my mom says, don’t speak ill of the dead. We have to remember that we are remembering this person’s legacy and not just all of the bad things about him. But yes, there is a business interest in this, but we have to gauge that business interest as well with what the public is interested in.

KURTZ: I agree.

WAXMAN: Well, there’s another thing also. We’ve spent a lot of years beating up on Michael Jackson, and I was -- I covered them both -- many aspects of beating up on him, business-wise, and the child molestation thing. And what I think we’re realizing in all of this is, hey, he was actually a good -- a nice person. And I can’t say how many people...

LEMON: A real person.

ZURAWIK: Howie, I can’t wait for Tuesday.

WAXMAN: I think there is a sense in the media of feeling badly, of regret in the Michael Jackson -- honestly, there is a little bit of that haze of expiation in, gee, he was kind of fantastic.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I’ve got to stop. I’ve got to stop. LEMON: If you look at Michael Jackson’s story, the family story -- I know you have to go, but yes, this is a story that should be celebrated in more ways as we look at the train wreck aspect of it.

KURTZ: I’m glad that a more balanced portrait of the good and the bad is emerging.

I’ve got 10 seconds, David Zurawik. How long is it going to go on at this level?

ZURAWIK: Howie, we -- at least through Tuesday. I mean, I’m serious. I can’t wait for Tuesday. As a pop culture lover, this is fantastic.

KURTZ: That would be Tuesday of which month?

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: All right. David Zurawik, Don Lemon, Sharon Waxman, thanks for joining us.

LEMON: We’re still covering Diana. Remember that.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: And when we come back, the man behind TMZ, which has, let’s face it, dominated this Jackson story.

Harvey Levin is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: TMZ, the gossipy Hollywood Web site, has had its share of big scoops in the last couple of years, but suddenly, with the death of Michael Jackson, it seems to be winning some grudging new respect. The Web site, owned by CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, not only beat most of its rivals with the news of Jackson’s death, but has stayed ahead of the press pack on a number of key developments. And even the biggest news organizations are taking notice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The Web site TMZ reporting a will is to be filed tomorrow.

DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC: TMZ.com is reporting that sources have told it an extremely powerful and dangerous drug used for surgical anesthesia was found at Jackson’s home after he died.

CROWLEY: Actually, TMZ is reporting today -- and they’ve been right on a lot of stuff here on this Michael Jackson case -- that, in fact, Debbie Rowe is not the biological mother and Michael Jackson is not the biological father of any of these kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And joining us now from Los Angeles is TMZ’s founder and managing editor, Harvey Levin.

So, these days, you’re being profiled by the “L.A. Times,” “The Washington Post,” interviewed by “Nightline.”

Are you sure you want this much respect?

HARVEY LEVIN, MANAGING EDITOR, TMZ: Oh, Howie, you’re the best.

KURTZ: Don’t you like being a rebel?

LEVIN: You know, look, what I like being, honestly, is a journalist. And, you know, we -- the predicate of TMZ is we do everything.

We will do important stories, we’ll do silly stories, and we’ll do everything in between. And we want to give people a balance and an experience. But my passion is journalism. I did it for 20 years before I did TMZ. And I love, you know, getting into these stories. KURTZ: Let me jump in and ask you this -- the TV networks were still sufficiently wary of your operation that they didn’t report it when TMZ said Michael Jackson was dead. They waited for the “L.A. Times” to confirm it.

Did that bother you, surprise you?

LEVIN: Well, no, it actually didn’t bother me, but I think it’s pretty ironic for two reasons.

Number one, the “L.A. Times” was wrong, Howie. I mean, that’s what is funny.

What they ended up doing was they ended up quoting a news operation that got it wrong. They said he was in a coma when he was dead.

KURTZ: Right.

LEVIN: So people who followed the “L.A. Times” followed them down a rabbit hole, as we had already reported that he was dead. So that’s number one.

And number two, you know, I think people are kind of, like, over- analyzing this a little bit, because as you know, for the last three and a half years, CNN alone has probably quoted TMZ thousands of times on numerous stories. So it’s not like we’ve just surfaced, by any means.

KURTZ: Right. And by the way, a Web site called “The Enterprise Report” (ph) said it reported Jackson’s death even before TMZ.

But look, journalists say they like the site, it’s spicy, it’s fun, but it’s gossip. You can’t necessarily trust it, they don’t have our standards.

And to your point about having been around the block for a while, why didn’t that attitude change after you broke the story about Michael Richards and his racist comedy rant or the story of Mel Gibson and the anti-Semitic drunken rant.

Why has it taken a while for the rest of the media to take you more seriously?

LEVIN: It hasn’t. They’re just embarrassed about this one, but if you look at what they’ve done, they’ve been quoting us all the time. So, you know, if they’re saying this, why were they quoting us for the last three and a half years?

When we did the Mel Gibson story, Howie, you guys and everybody else in America quoted us, “cited TMZ.” When we broke Heath Ledger’s death, you guys quoted us and everybody else did, too. Britney’s divorce, on and on and on.

KURTZ: In a way... LEVIN: So, let me just say -- so, really, what this is, is, you know, it’s disingenuous and maybe even dishonest, because if you look at it, all the -- look, we embarrassed a lot of people who were way behind on this story. And I don’t think they should be embarrassed.

I mean, it’s enough to say, look, we had good sources, and everybody wanted to be careful. But I think for them to say it is ridiculous, because they’ve been quoting us for three and a half years.

KURTZ: Well, I don’t think it’s dishonest is they’re attributing the stories to you. But in a way, does...

LEVIN: No, no, no.

KURTZ: Let me ask the question and you can answer.

LEVIN: OK. All right.

KURTZ: In a way, does TMZ make some of these stories safe for the mainstream media, kind of laundering through them through customs? For example, you published the photo of Rihanna, her badly bruised face, after she was beat up by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, and a lot of people -- I raised questions about it. But then everybody else showed the picture and jumped on the story.

LEVIN: Well, I mean, a picture is a picture. But, you know, in terms of other stories we do, how do they know what our news standards are?

I can tell you right now, I was a newsman at CBS and NBC. Our standards are tougher than there.

We have the toughest news standards that you’re going to find in America, including, by the way, CNN. I mean, everything we have is lawyered. Everything we have is researched. We have multiple sources. We have this city wired.

I mean, we have a lot of really good sources. But we have the same standard that you guys have.

So the idea that it’s gossip and everything else, it’s not. It’s a fact-based news operation that operates on the same standards that you guys do. And the fact is, if that weren’t the case, shame on you guys and everybody else for quoting us all the time.

KURTZ: Well, it’s an interesting argument that you say you have higher standards.

But look, when you were at CBS or NBC...

LEVIN: Well, I will say, not with you guys. With you guys, look, you guys really vet things carefully, you guys are really careful. But so are we.

I’m telling you that I’ve been in the local news business for many, many years. And I’ve seen things fall through the cracks and have them throw things up where it isn’t sourced properly around the newsroom. And it is not the case here. I mean, it is not.

KURTZ: Well, when you were at CBS or you were at NBC, you would have been fired for doing what you do now, which is paying for information, paying for tips. You have no problem with that, I know, because we’ve talked about it, but it makes a lot of journalists uncomfortable.

LEVIN: Well, no, I didn’t -- what I said was, first of all, it’s ridiculous. Are you telling me that Larry Birkhead wasn’t paid when he went on “The Today Show” and “Access Hollywood”?

I can tell you, it was a million dollars, Howie. That’s how much he got paid.

They’re paying for interviews, which we would never do. The difference is this -- if you pay for an interview -- which, by the way, we won’t -- then you’re basically saying to somebody, make the story really good so that it’s worth the price. That’s when it’s unreliable.

If you pay for a photo or video, which, by the way, everybody in this business does, when you have a stringer covering a...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: But you also pay for tips. You pay for tips and information.

LEVIN: But we don’t put the -- we will occasionally. We don’t put the tip up on the screen.

If you get a tip, Howie, how is it less reliable, even if you paid somebody $100 for it, if you’re the one that ends up then looking at it and saying is it true, chasing it down? You tell me. What’s the problem in terms of the reliability if you do that?

KURTZ: Well, I appreciate the fact that you need to confirm these things. I am still uncomfortable with the idea of money changing hands.

Let me come back to the Jackson story.

Among the things TMZ has broken, we showed at the top Jackson not the biological father of any of his children. His mother -- there was no mother’s name on the birth certificate for his youngest son.

How is it with all of these big news organizations now playing on your turf, now covering, some would say overcovering, the Jackson story, that you’re still able to be ahead on some of these stories? Are you feeling the heat of the competition now?

LEVIN: Well, look, I mean, competition is intense in this business, absolutely. And I also don’t see it as zero-sum game. I think that there are a lot of stories out there. We’re certainly not going to break every one. And I think there have been some really good stories and good reporting in this case. So, you know, I don’t beat myself if somebody else wins a story.

KURTZ: Right.

LEVIN: I will say that I think the advantage we have and one of the reasons we do break so many stories is this is our turf in the sense that we know a lot of these players because we’ve worked with them day in and day out for years now. And when you have sources and relationships in place, I think it’s more effective when something big like this happens in terms of talking to them.

KURTZ: It’s definitely your turf. And at the moment, you’ve got a lot of company on that turf in the rest of the media.

Harvey Levin, thanks very much for joining us.

LEVIN: Sure, Howie.

KURTZ: Still to come, the newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal finds itself caught in a scandal of its own.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: There’s no other way to put it. “The Washington Post,” where I work, made a big, fat blunder this week. The company solicited corporations to pay big bucks from $25,000 to as much as $250,000 to underwrite off the record dinners at the home of post publisher Katharine Weymouth.

Just listen to the pitch on a marketing flyer. “Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders. Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it.”

The first such salon was going to be on health care later this month, to be underwritten by $25,000 from Kaiser Permanente, which was close to signing a contract. Soon after “Politico” broke the story, Weymouth told me she hadn’t approved the flyers and she junked the idea of the dinners. Marcus Brauchli, the “Post” editor, told me he was appalled and that the newsroom would not participate.

Well, it was a horrible idea, an unmitigated embarrassment for the newspaper, selling access to administration officials and congressmen? Other big media outfits, the “Wall Street Journal,” the “Atlantic,” the “New Yorker,” to name a few, stage forums and festivals with top government officials and CEOs and accept many thousands of dollars from corporations to pay for them. But, here’s the difference. Most of those affairs are on the road and open to media coverage. Having lobbyists and conglomerates underwrite small, off the record dinners doesn’t smell right, and I’m glad the idea was quickly deep sixed.

That will do it for this edition of “Reliable Sources.” Now back to John King for more “State of the Union.”

KING: A startling admission this Sunday from Vice President Joe Biden. As Republicans say the president’s prescription to create new jobs isn’t working, the vice president concedes the administration underestimated the depths of the recession.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT: The truth is there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited. I’m not laying -- it’s now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the recovery act, is it the right package given the circumstances we’re in?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The vice president says it’s too soon to say whether the economy needs a second stimulus package, but a top Republican who voted Democrat for president last year told me here on “State of the Union” he’s already worried President Obama is trying to do too much and running up way too much debt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: Yeah, I’m a little concerned, concerned. I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Another big topic of Sunday conversation, Sarah Palin ’s abrupt decision to quit as Alaska’s governor. The man replacing her says he doesn’t know if Palin wants to run for president, but he predicts she’ll remain in the headlines and on the public stage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. SEAN PARNELL (R), ALASKA: She has plenty of time now within which to define how she will further her core of values. But I have to tell you, when she went to Kosovo and visited our guard members and the wounded soldiers there and in Germany, she saw that she doesn’t need a title to affect change and bring some hope to people who need it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As you can see, as always, we watch all the Sunday shows so maybe you don’t have to. Let’s bring in part of the best political team on television as we do every Sunday at this hour and break down the pressing issues.

In Washington, two CNN contributors, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and host of “Morning in America,” Bill Bennett. And in New York, Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ed Rollins. Two Republicans this day, not to outnumber Donna, maybe it takes two Republicans to debate Donna. But two Republicans because there’s so much Republican news in the news.

And let’s start ladies and gentlemen with Sarah Palin ’s abrupt announcement, surprise announcement that not only would she not run for re-election next year, Bill Bennett, but that she is quitting at the end of the month, quitting her job as Alaska’s governor. You’re in touch with the base, Bill, every day on your radio program and in your travels. Is she going to run for president?

BILL BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don’t know. Two Republican gentlemen, I might add, John, so Donna can be reassured. I think she is. I don’t know. I’ll find out tomorrow what the base thing. I’m looking forward to my radio show, three hours of this.

We’ll find out soon whether she means to focus a lot more on home and family or whether she is seeking to advance those core values on the stage as you said.

But once she gets on that stage, if she comes and spends a lot of time in the lower 48 giving speeches, doing Lincoln Day dinners, et cetera, et cetera, we still won’t know whether that’s part of the plan for the next presidential run or a way to capitalize on her popularity and the fact that she is so well-known and so -- gets such strong reaction.

My guess is this, very simply. I think a part of the party, the conservative base of the party likes her very much. She appeals to conservative values. On the other hand, conservative means something else apart from conservative values. We’re a conservative party in another sense. She is spunky, she is energetic, she is very attractive. But will she reassure enough of the party if she decides to run? That’s the other side of being conservative.

KING: Well I think that’s one of the great questions, so I want everyone to listen to a little bit of Sarah Palin , because there are some people who listen to her speak and they find it incredibly charming. I can tell you from traveling to last year’s campaign, some people are riveted by her speaking style. Others look at her and they find her a little bit rambling and a little scattershot. Listen to this little snippet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER GOVERNOR: Life is too short to compromise time and resources. And though it may be tempting and more comfortable to just kind of keep your head down and plod along and appease those who are demanding, hey just sit down and shut up, but that’s a worthless, easy pass out. That’s a quitter’s way out. And I think a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just kind of hunker down and go with the flow. We know that only dead fish --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Only dead fish go with the flow, she finished there. Donna Brazile, when you listened to her the other day, did you see someone who was stepping out of the spotlight to disappear and be with her family or somebody who was preparing to come back in a different way?

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think Governor Palin has made a very risky decision, John, in deciding to quit before her term ends at the end of 2010. Look, she’s jumping out of the frying pan into the hot glare of the media spotlight into the fire. And she has the potential of flaming out before 2012. Therefore, she needs to do something that she did not do well once becoming a national, you know, hero to the conservatives, and that is she needs to manage her next 15 minutes of fame a lot better than she has done over the last, you know, year of being on the national spotlight. She needs to really focus on getting her ground game together. Not just with the base of the party but with the American people themselves. And so perhaps writing this book, she will have time to write her book, she will have time to select states and venues in which to go out and give public speeches and also she’ll have an opportunity to learn a little bit more about foreign policy.

KING: Flaming out. Ed Rollins, do you agree she’s flaming out?

ED ROLLINS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think yesterday was a disaster, Friday was a disaster for her both in the sense that she was very incoherent in articulating why she was quitting and what she wanted to do with it.

And as I always say, you call press conferences to answer questions, not to basically raise questions. I think the serious thing here is 311 days ago, very few people in America, very few Republicans outside of Alaska knew who this woman was. She had a tremendous first few weeks as a campaigner, but she got super imposed on top of the Republican establishment. It’s sort of like taking a helicopter and putting her on top of Mt. Everest, which John McCain was flying it.

Everybody else climbed up that ladder, and all of the sudden she’s on top of the mountain. She didn’t like it -- or she did like the top of the mountain. What she didn’t like was coming back to Earth, flying back to Alaska to her job as governor.

I think the reality here is her biggest mistake is walking away from the job as governor. She would have at least had a record to run on. She is going to have a partial record today that’s going to be very incomplete. I found her very insulting to other governors. We have 22 other Republican governors, 19 of whom are basically going to be out of this office after running in two years. Nine are term limited and many others have to run.

And she basically said in the last year you run around and do all kinds of things, and I would predict to you every single Republican governor like most Democratic governors are at their desk trying to figure out how to get through the economic crisis. I think she insulted them. I think to a certain extent it showed a naivete and I think she basically left a big, big void in her resume.

KING: Bill Bennett, I see you shaking your head, jump in.

BENNETT: Two Republicans and one Democrat. OK, well, I understand what Ed is saying. Ed of course ran the Huckabee campaign and Huckabee slugged through all of those primaries and one can understand this. And I yield to very skillful, smart campaign managers, but I saw all these comments about leaving the governorship early.

I think to political pros this may be a problem. To the base, I’m not sure it’s going to be a problem at all. Remember, there was another criticism of Sarah Palin or doubt about Sarah Palin , that she couldn’t run a presidential campaign from Alaska. It’s just too remote, it’s too far away from the rest of the states. Well she won’t have that problem now.

Look, I’m not saying she’s odds on to win the nomination by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I saying she doesn’t have some serious questions about her, but she is, in fact, leading the pack when you do these informal polls.

All I’m saying at this point is I don’t think it will change those numbers, and I expect there will be a lot of excitement about the base. Will there be questions? Tons of questions, but the flame- out disaster, I think it’s too early to say that.

KING: Let’s bring on that point. Hold on one second, Donna. On that point, I think we have in the control room we can bring up on our screen, the most recent CNN poll when it came to Republicans running for president, shows essentially a three-way tie between three people we knew from the last campaign.

KING: Governor Huckabee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin , all in the 20 percent.

When it comes to that, Donna, you have been in Democratic primaries. If you’re running in a campaign with a crowded field, she might not need 35 percent, 20-something -- and there you see the graphic up there, 22 for Huckabee, 21 for Palin, 21 for Romney. It is very, very, very -- and I could throw in a few more very earlys.

But with that committed base, Donna Brazile, you can do some business and some damage in a primary without going that much higher if the field is crowded, right?

BRAZILE: Yes, but look at the primary schedule. First of all, she will probably do very well in the Iowa Caucuses, but New Hampshire, where you have to appeal to independents and then the other early states, I don’t know if she has the kind of staying power that will give her an opportunity to, say, beat someone like a Mitt Romney or a Newt Gingrich.

These are men that really come to the table with much more than just their resume. They come with ideas and they come with a serious portfolio. So I think, once again, she will face a unique set of challenges not only because she’s no longer governor, but she’s also a female.

And we all know that women candidates face unique hurdles in national politics. And again, I don’t know if Sarah Palin is prepared for this next round of media scrutiny that she will receive now as an author, as a lecturer, and maybe as a leader of the conservative base.

ROLLINS: Primaries are also very, very different than general elections. She had a very brief period in a general election. Primaries are long, hard processes. Ask Hillary Clinton, ask Barack Obama , ask Rudy Giuliani who had all of the name ID, all of the poll approvals, all of the resources in the world, and did not get one single delegate.

So it’s a long, hard battle here. She has great name ID. She had great potential. I just think she basically is taking herself out of the game.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: On that point, let me jump in, Bill, before you answer, because I want to come to you in a second. I want you to listen to Lisa Murkowski . And this is complicated because Sarah Palin has a very difficult relationship -- confrontational relationship with Lisa Murkowski ’s dad on occasion, former Senator Murkowski.

But she said this: “I’m deeply disappointed that the governor has decided to abandon the state and her constituents before her term has concluded.” Bill Bennett, as we come back to you, that would be the criticism, right? That quitters shouldn’t be president?

BENNETT: Sure, sure, sure. And the officials have spoken, some of the pundits have spoken, campaign managers have spoken. And let’s see what the people have to say. I agree with Ed, a long vetting process can be difficult. And we shall find out. But that’s a good thing about a long vetting process, we’ll find out if these arguments about her, you know, that people make, these very negative arguments will hold up or whether she will rise to the occasion.

What I’m saying is, I don’t know think she has taken herself out with the base -- with the conservative base. I think they’re still very excited about her, and we shall see. Remember too, she still has some money in the bank from the kinds of attacks that were made on her, which were so harsh some people just come reflexively to her defense given what -- the kind of beating she took.

KING: I want to read what she posted on her Facebook site yesterday and get your opinion on this one. Sarah Palin wrote this: “How sad that Washington and the media will never understand, it’s about country. And though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course, we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.”

Donna Brazile, is Sarah Palin somehow held to a different standard in our politics?

BRAZILE: No, absolutely not. Look, if she decides to run in 2012 and say Haley Barbour of Mississippi, or Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, those guys can go out there in the debate and say, look, while Sarah Palin went back to Alaska to go fishing, they had to get down with their legislature and to balance their budgets.

So once again, it’s about leadership, not just personality, filling the vacuum in the conservative base. This is about bringing goods and services to the people that elected her. And she -- I agree with the senator, she abandoned them.

KING: I think the happiest guy in Republican circles has to be the South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford , who was bumped off the front pages by Governor Palin’s dramatic announcement. He’s coming back from Florida. He spent with the weekend with his family trying to repair his relationship with his wife and with his children.

He is coming back to the statehouse in Columbia tomorrow. Bill Bennett, you mentioned your conversations with the base, people who call in every day on the radio show, Governor Sanford, despite many calls for his resignation has said no, he is going to rebuild the trust of the people of South Carolina. Do you suspect he will be able to hold that position, Bill?

BENNETT: No, I don’t. You could argue this weekend the wrong governor resigned. You know, it was just -- it should have been Sanford. She should have hung on for number of reasons. No, I don’t think he can.

As to his personal life, obviously that’s up to Mrs. Sanford more than anyone else. But, no, I heard that the AP interview, John, that he did was something like six hours long. I’ve never had a confession that long. I don’t know about you, John King, Ed Rollins.

ROLLINS: You could have. You could have.

BENNETT: Yes, Ed. Yes, Ed.

(CROSSTALK)

ROLLINS: If you confessed all your sins...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

BENNETT: Yes. Sunday mornings, thanks very much. But, no, seriously, I don’t think he can last. It’s just -- we’ve heard too much. You know, there’s a phrase called “indecent exposure,” it usually suggests showing too much flesh, he has shown a little too much of what’s going on in his soul, and I -- or somewhere, and it’s not good. And I think the sooner he leaves the better for the state of South Carolina and for the family.

And I say this as a friend of Mark Sanford ’s, go, be gone.

KING: Ed Rollins, do you agree with that, the wrong governor resigned?

ROLLINS: Totally. You know, I mean, there was no reason for Sarah Palin to resign other than her own desire to. Governor Sanford has lost any effectiveness in the state. The legislature, which is now majority Republican, are calling for his resignation, every major newspaper.

He wasn’t that popular before all of this started for a variety of reasons, some good, some not so good. But at this point in time he is just going to live it out and slug it out and not be very effective. and I think that’s not fair to the citizens of that state.

KING: Take a time out here.

BRAZILE: I have to agree with both gentlemen.

KING: Go ahead, Donna. Go ahead.

BRAZILE: And I have to agree with both gentlemen. Look, when he deserted the state to go and fly off to be with his mistress, he made a decision then to step aside from his public duties. So I think it’s time for the governor to make this decision on behalf of the people.

KING: Look, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to -- because you raised that point, I’m going to jump in on this point that I don’t remember you calling for President Clinton to resign.

BRAZILE: Well, actually, I wasn’t in a position to call for him to resign, but I must tell you, I don’t think that what the governor did in South Carolina and what Bill Clinton did are one in the same.

And I’m not a moralist, but I’m just saying that I think that the governor of South Carolina deserted his state and did not tell everybody -- anyone where he was going, and then he turned around and lied. So there you have it.

BENNETT: He’s not under oath.

KING: Well, I could go on on this point for a little bit, but in the interest of discussing important issues like the economy, we’re going to take a quick time out.

When we come back, nearly 500,000 Americans lost their job last month, and the unemployment rate went up. Much more of our conversation with our panel focusing on economic issues when “State of the Union” returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with Donna Brazile, Bill Bennett and Ed Rollins. I want to turn our focus to the economy and how the numbers don’t match what the administration had predicted.

And we can show you, up on the screen, here, the Obama administration predicted the unemployment rate would average 8.1 percent this year. It went up to 9.5 percent in June, and some say it will run even higher.

The administration also said its stimulus plan would create or save 3.5 million jobs -- to be clear, they said, over two years. The economy has lost 2.3 million jobs since the stimulus bill passed. And the administration predicted GDP, the growth of the economy, would be negative 1.2 percent this year. It was negative 5.5 percent in the last quarter.

Donna Brazile, as the Democrat in the group, is it time -- because all of those numbers impact tax revenues to the government, how much the government has to spend, what the government has to do to help people who are unemployed. Is it time for the administration to look at its ambitious agenda and say, you know what, the economy’s worse than we expected; some of this has to wait?

BRAZILE: John, I think that’s what his critics would like him to do. They would like the president to just abandon all of the long- term plans that will put us on a better financial footing for the long haul.

I think the president needs to huddle with his economic advisers when he returns from the G-8 summit to basically say, look, what’s working; what’s not working? Where are we now with the stimulus money going into the hands of the people and to the states and to other entities?

And he also needs to perhaps recalibrate just what’s going to happen with the fiscal 2010 budget, which is still going through the appropriation process.

This should not be a reason to panic. It should be a reason to lead, and I think the president has shown that he’s willing to lead.

KING: Well, before I bring the Republican gentlemen into the conversation, I want you to listen to this mix of sound out this morning. The House majority leader, Steny Hoyer -- remember, it was the House Democrats who put the stimulus bill through the Congress first. Steny Hoyer, this morning, saying, you know what, he’s disappointed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STENY H. HOYER, D-MD., HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: I don’t think anybody can honestly say that we’re satisfied with the results, so far, of the stimulus, but we believe the stimulus was absolutely essential.

Mark Zandi, as you know, who was one of McCain’s economic advisers, says it’s going to create 2 million jobs by the end of the next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So a leading Democrat says he’s not satisfied. Here’s the House Republican leader, John Boehner, essentially saying, we told you so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN A. BOEHNER, R-OHIO, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: This was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, and jobs. And the fact is, it turned into nothing more than spending, spending, and more spending on a lot of big government bureaucracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Ed Rollins, Republicans think they have the upper hand in the political argument about this right now. Is that the way you see it?

ROLLINS: Well, I -- I don’t know if they have the upper hand or not. I think the bottom line is the stimulus bill was not the right bill at that particular point in time. It was rushed through. It wasn’t even read by most members of Congress. It didn’t create the kinds of jobs that we need.

This president needs to focus, and this Congress needs to focus on what is it that we can get Americans back to work.

I promise you, having lived through the last time we reached 9.5 percent, having been in the White House during the Reagan administration, it’s going to go to 10 percent. It’s going to go to 11 percent.

And the bottom line, when it goes -- those numbers go that direction, you’re going to see approval ratings and everything else deteriorate.

The country needs to put people back to work. And anything else that you’re wasting your time on is just exactly that, wasting your time on it. We need jobs. Putting more burden on employers, putting more burden on working people and not creating an infrastructure out there that basically can create jobs is -- is foolhardy at this point in time.

KING: Well, let’s demonstrate the point Ed Rollins just made about approval ratings. And I’m going to use the governor of Ohio, a Democrat, Ted Strickland , as the example, not to pick on him but to show an important trend, politically, as we go toward 2010.

The Quinnipiac poll asked, “How is Governor Strickland handling his job?”

His approval rating is now 46 percent. That is down 11 points from just two months ago, and his disapproval rate is 42 percent, up from 29 percent.

And then to the key question, “How is Governor Strickland handling the economy,” only one-third of his state’s residents approve; 53 percent, a majority, now disapprove of Governor Strickland’s handling of the economy.

Bill Bennett, if you are a Democrat and, like Governor Strickland, you are on the ballot in 2010, is that proof to you that you can no longer say, “Well, this is George W. Bush ’s fault; we inherited a mess”?

BENNETT: Yes, well, you notice the way Biden corrected himself this morning on that, when he said what we inherited was worse than we thought. He said, “not that we’re blaming it on them. We made mistakes too.”

I’ll go back to what Donna said. I do think they need to huddle -- re-huddle and say, have we gotten some of this wrong?

Donna said, you know, he shouldn’t abandon all plans. Well, how about half the plans -- at least take another look at them?

Because every calculation, every assessment to date has been wrong, has been mistaken; 460,000 people who had jobs in May, this past May, no longer have those jobs.

And when you look for signs in the universe, it’s not Republican opposition. I mean, I think Republicans do have a better argument here. That won’t surprise you.

(LAUGHTER)

But what’s interesting is to hear the kind of demurral that you heard from Colin Powell earlier on your show, John -- earlier on this show -- saying, “I’m very concerned about this.” He’s a strong Obama supporter.

But probably the biggest problem of all, in terms of testimony, is these numbers that keep coming up on unemployment, jobless -- unemployment, failure of growth, and the Congressional Budget Office numbers, which I think really were staggering, pointing out the cost of some of the things that Barack Obama has proposed.

They got on Bush for the deficits, but George Bush’s deficits begin to look like rounding errors compared to Obama.

BRAZILE: Oh, I disagree strongly with that. because...

(CROSSTALK)

BRAZILE: ... how can you say that George Bush’s deficits look like rounding errors when we saw -- when we saw...

(CROSSTALK)

BENNETT: Comparatively.

BRAZILE: ... when the deficit doubled under George Bush?

And we know that President Obama came into office with a deficit, this fiscal year, already $1 trillion.

Look, in the last recession, in 2001, it took 42 months before the jobs came back; in the recession in 1991, 32 months.

We’ve had a very serious credit problem. And what President Obama was trying to do and continues to do is to try to get the credit market unfrozen and to get manufacturing jobs moving again, because that’s where we’ve lost many of these jobs.

The service industries are coming back, but the manufacturing sector still is lagging. So I think we need to give the president time to get these policies to work right.

(CROSSTALK)

ROLLINS: He’s going to get the time. The bottom line is, does he have the solutions?

And I think the problem is he’s got a bunch of Wall Street bankers around here, many of whom the same types of people that got President Bush in some of the problems he was in.

We haven’t solved the mortgage problem. People are losing their homes day by day. We spent an enormous sum of money to try and fix that. General Motors, Chrysler are not any better than they were.

At the end of the day, we’re now not going to have funds for a new highway bill which creates jobs.

So I think there’s a lot of things that -- we’re spending a lot of money, and we now have a big, massive health care plan, in which we’re going to add 46 million people to the game, which may be positive, but at the end of the time, we’re going to put more taxes on employers, more penalties on employers, most burden on employers.

And the only cuts that I’ve seen is you’re going to take money away from doctors and hospitals that basically are not getting enough today to provide proper health care.

So I think your point, Donna, of re-looking at this thing is important, but you also have got to set priorities. And I don’t think the priorities are being set right now.

KING: I need to call a time-out at this point. I’m sorry. I need to call a time-out to keep time, because we want to -- I want to thank Bill. I want to thank Ed. I want to thank Donna.

I need to call a time-out because, in a moment, we’re going to take you to a very special place, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where we sat down for a meal with two service men and discussed both the horrors of war and what the fourth of July means to them. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: As you know, every week we sit down for a meal to try to better understand your concerns. And this July 4th weekend, we wanted to focus on service. With a big deadline in Iraq and a new escalation in Afghanistan, we settled on a remarkable place close to home here at the nation’s capital and to visit the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. And I want to pull up the campus right here, using our map program. You see the campus right up in here. To visit the Walter Reed Army Medical Center is to see all at once both the horror of war, these veterans in their wheelchairs and the remarkable courage of the men and women who fight the wars overseas.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 10,000 wounded from those battles have come through Walter Reed in the past eight years. It is remarkable to see what happens here. Many have lost their limbs or their eyesight, but never their pride in their service.

So it was an honor for us to hear the reflections of a medic and a chaplain, two men who have seen the worst overseas and are now helping heal their comrades, here at home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Talk me through your experience in terms of deployment before you got here.

SGT. JOSEPH HIGHBERGER, U.S. ARMY MEDIC: I was deployed to East Baghdad with the military police company and we deployed in 2005. During the time of the first election, we had to pull a lot of guards during that time. It was very hectic.

MAJ. BYRON VAUGHN BRIDGES, U.S. ARMY CHAPLAIN: I first deployed in one right after 9/11. A couple of months later I was over in Pakistan we were in Afghanistan also doing some operations, and that was back in 2001-2002. Then I returned -- redeployed at Ft. Campbell and then nine months later, the Iraq invasion, I was there in March with the 101st airborne. And then just this past year, just three months ago, I just returned from Afghanistan.

KING: When you were there around the elections, it was the dicey time, but it was also portrayed by many including the political leadership here as a break-through time.

HIGHBERGER: That’s what we all kind of wanted to believe when they said that the elections were going as planned. KING: Does it give you some pause now when we see the troops coming out of the cities and the drawdown? We’re at 131,000, supposed to come down steadily now. Do you ever in the back of your mind think, I hope it works this time, but my experience is we better be careful?

HIGHBERGER: Absolutely, absolutely. Whenever we have a chance to end something like this, it’s always applauding and uplifting but in the back of your mind, you think it could always go bad. You never know. There’s a lot of unknown variables in doing something like this.

KING: In terms of being a chaplain and ministering to people who have had two, three, sometimes four deployments, who have seen and in some cases, experienced horrific trauma and violence, just take me through the difficulties of that, the challenges.

BRIDGES: You do see a lot of trauma, especially this past year. I saw a lot of things I didn’t want to see, but it was something I’ll never forget. In the chaplaincy, we have this saying “nurture the living, care for the wounded and honor the dead.” And basically you do those three things as a chaplain.

KING: We have an all-volunteer military. Do you think the average American who doesn’t wear that uniform who hasn’t been to Iraq or Afghanistan or hasn’t seen what you seen, do you think they have any understanding?

HIGHBERGER: We get into firefights and we get into ambushes, you have this trust with each other. There’s a team-building experience. It’s so hard to imagine that another civilian job could create such a bond. I don’t think so, no, I don’t think they can fully understand it.

KING: This is July 4th weekend. We sit down with folks every week but we wanted to come to a place like this where you’re going to see flags flying all over the country and all over this town. But you guys wear them every day on your shoulder. What’s this weekend mean?

BRIDGES: As you ask that question, I can’t help but have a chill going down my spine. I love this country and I love this army that we serve. I’ve served with many units and I’m proud to wear, you know, these patches and I just -- I’m thankful to God. I’m very thankful that he’s given me this opportunity in my lifetime to be able to serve him, god, and country.

HIGHBERGER: Absolutely, it is a privilege and serving here and serving the United States and doing what you can, it’s kind of continuing a tradition and just do what’s best for your country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Two remarkable guys there at a truly remarkable place. And we thank them for their time and their service.

Up next, three of the top CNN reporters open their notebooks as we discuss the stories you’ll be talking about all week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King, and this is “State of the Union.”

Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning. An autopsy is scheduled on the body of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair. He was found shot to death yesterday in a Nashville condominium. Police say he’d been shot multiple times including once in the head. The body of a young woman was found lying nearby with a single gunshot wound. Police say they are not actively looking for suspects.

Two monorail trains crashed at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida, early this morning. One driver was killed. In a statement, Disney officials say the monorail has been shut down and the company is working with law enforcement officials to determine just what happened. Officials say no Disney guests were seriously injured in that crash.

Michael Jackson fan will soon find out if they’re going to the singer’s memorial service Tuesday in Los Angeles.

KING: Registration to win tickets ended last night, 1.6 million people signed up. Officials will eliminate all the duplicates and suspect entries and then hold a random drawing -- 8,750 winners will receive an e-mail notification later today.

Vice President Joe Biden says the Obama administration “misread how bad the economy was.” He made that admission earlier this morning on ABC’s “This Week.” But Biden stands by the administration’s stimulus package and insists it will create more jobs as the pace of stimulus spending picks up. Biden says it’s too early if a second stimulus package will be necessary.

Those are the headlines this hour. A new controversy playing out this morning on whether gays should be able to openly serve in the military. We’ll be right back with that right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. Joining me now, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr in Washington, CNN senior White House correspondent Ed Henry and CNN’s foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty, both in Moscow where President Obama will meet this week with his Russian counterpart.

I want to begin with a statement Joe Biden, the vice president, made this morning interviewed on ABC’s “This Week.” He was asked even in the fallout in the election in Iran, even with the administration’s disappointment on crackdown of the protesters in the street, is the president’s offer on the table to sit down on a very high level and talk with Iran still on the table? And the vice president said --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: If the Iranians seek to engage, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile the clock is ticking with --

BIDEN: Let me clear. If Iran responds to the offer of engagement, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the offer is on the table.

BIDEN: The offer is on the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: So Ed Henry, the vice president saying the offer is on the table and that they’re waiting for the Iranians to check in. Is that a political answer, or do they really believe the Iranians at this point are ready at a high level to sit down?

ED HENRY, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they’re hoping the Iranians will sit down, but obviously, there’s really no indication yet that the Iranians coming out of that very much disputed election are ready to come to the table. So I think what’s clear is this administration is trying to signal they’re still ready to talk. The question is whether the Iranians are.

KING: And Jill, Secretary Clinton in the campaign criticized the president saying she was too willing to sit down at a high level. What is the threshold now? What would the Iranians have to say in an offer to the administration that the administration would say OK, this is worth the risk?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I think they’d have to do something on the nuclear side of it, because that’s absolutely what the core issue is. And that’s what the administration is leaving the door open to. They obviously don’t like what happened during the election, but they realize that the overriding issue is whether Iran does have a weapon. And so they’re willing to talk to them about that.

KING: I want to bring Barbara Starr into the conversation, and Barbara, I want to start with a different issue. On this program this morning, two startling statements or progress statements you might say from two men who have held the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, now retired. I asked him if he still stood by the position he had some years ago that the policy “don’t ask don’t tell” that prohibits gay and lesbian Americans from serving openly in the military was still a good one. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: Well, the policy and the law that came about in 1993, I think, was correct for the time. Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country. Therefore, I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And as that review goes forward and the president of the United States has promised to change that policy, the man currently in that job, Admiral Mike Mullen , says he believes the political tide is about to shift.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULLEN: We clearly are carrying out both that policy and law, and we’ll continue to do that until it changes. Secretary Gates spoke recently about reviewing the policy to see if -- to make sure that we were executing it in the most humane way possible. It’s very clear what President Obama’s intent here is. He intends to see this law changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So Barbara, it’s very clear what President Obama’s intent is, Admiral Mullen says, but privately is his position still as it was two years ago, that he believes the current policy should stay in place?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well you know John, make no mistake, what Admiral Mullen and other top leaders have been saying is, the law needs to be -- if somebody wants to change this, then the law needs to be changed. That they have no flexibility other than to enforce the law as it now exists, which is “don’t ask don’t tell.”

But when Admiral Mullen said this on your show today, it was remarkable. I think this notion of talking about the president’s intent, the admiral, really threw the marker down on the table to the rest of the U.S. military. This is what the president wants, the military will support him, the only question now is how to get it all done with Congress, John.

KING: And as the president prepares to come to Moscow where Ed and Jill are standing by, an issue that Barbara has been tracking in recent days is the escalation in Afghanistan. It will be an issue when the president is meeting with his Russian counterpart. But I want all of you to get a chance to listen. Admiral Mullen in addition to discussing “don’t ask don’t tell” spent some time on our magic map going through the escalation that the military operation now under way in Afghanistan outlying the stakes. Let’s take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULLEN: I’ll take you up close down into Helmand where the fighting is really going on. You can see specifically in this area of Garmsir as well as Khan Neshin, which is where the Marines are engaged. But what cuts through there is this river, the Helmand River, the whole river valley. And this is really the most concentrated area for opium growing. And we expect significant combat challenge with respect to the Taliban who have been there and we haven’t been able to clearly defeat them and clear the area. And it’s this extra footprint of marines I think that allows us to not just secure the area for the Afghan people but also hold it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So Barbara, empty your notebook for us. Admiral Mullen was relatively optimistic about what’s happening in Afghanistan. He sounded a little bit less so when I asked him, what happens if they all just melt across the border into Pakistan.

STARR: You know, that is still the same issue. How many years have we been all been out here talking about that battle or that offensive in Afghanistan.

STARR: This will be the one that will really makes the difference?

Look, they hope so. President Obama’s surge, 21,000 extra troops into Afghanistan -- it does give the U.S. military more capability to go in, seize territory and hold territory.

But as long as you have the Taliban drifting away, melting into the hills, into the desert, they’re waiting it out. That’s what these insurgents do.

So, fundamentally, this is going to be a waiting game. Can they push the Taliban out long enough to establish security, make the people feel that their lives are more secure there, and give the Taliban nowhere to come back to, eventually, or do the Taliban do what they always do, and just wait it out for another day?

KING: And Jill Dougherty, from your reporting in Washington,, then in Moscow, now back in Washington again, you know all too well Russia’s checkered history of operations in Afghanistan.

But at this summit with President Obama, we do expect progress on a front that the United States is quite optimistic about.

DOUGHERTY: Right. And that already pretty much is known as one of the deliverables, as they call them, from this summit.

The Russians have agreed that they will allow military equipment to be airlifted -- there may be even more after that -- but at least airlifted across Russia, Russian territory, into Afghanistan.

And it’s a good sign that the Russians are, you know, willing to help out. Because they’ve always been conflicted, John. You know, they wanted to -- they said they wanted to try to defeat the Taliban, help in defeating the Taliban, I should say, but they were also very wary of any presence of the United States in Central Asia.

And so now they seem to have turned that page and they are willing to help out. They did allow non-lethal supplies, et cetera, to go into Afghanistan even before this.

And, John, I have to tell you that President Medvedev, just this afternoon, made a very interesting comment, saying that, essentially, the United States can’t win in Afghanistan if it goes in just with a military approach. He almost sounded like Barack Obama , that you have to build up the society and the economy. KING: Ed, as you know, some have criticized the White House. It is the Russians who invaded Georgia last year, and some have said, well, in trying to restart the relationship, is he brushing those concerns aside, maybe being a little bit too soft, as some in Washington have said?

And some in the government of Georgia are watching this warily. How does the administration answer those critics?

HENRY: Well, they’ve got to walk a fine line there. They have to walk a fine line on missile defense. The shield that former President Bush wanted to build in Eastern Europe, the Russians are very upset about that.

The Obama administration has not committed to moving forward on that. They’re, sort of, trying to use it as a chip in these negotiations between President Obama and President Medvedev about whether or not there will be cuts in nuclear arms on both sides.

But let’s face it, a whole ‘nother issue for President Obama to face. I brought along these nesting dolls, so famous in Russia. You’ve got President Medvedev in charge, many people believe, but on the other hand, you also have former President Putin, right next to him, who is still the prime minister.

And so you’ve got President Obama trying to figure out the power structure here. Is Medvedev really in charge or is Putin pulling the strings behind the scenes?

As you know, there was so much -- it started out as a very warm relationship between former President Bush and then-President Putin. It soured in the later part of the Bush years. This is something, now, for President Obama to try to pick up the pieces. He’s talked about hitting the reset button. It’s going to be easier said than done. There’s a lot of tough issues ahead.

KING: And, Ed, as you put those dolls in your bag and prepare to bring them for me as a big gift, as you know, with the president overseas, it’s a big week for health care back in the United States.

And some are a bit nervous that they need his help at a time he’s going to be out of the country for more than a week.

HENRY: That’s right. And top White House aides insist they’re still very optimistic that the president can get a health care reform bill out of both the House and the Senate in the next couple of months.

But they are a little nervous about the timing of this trip because, as you know, it’s just as Congress comes back to town, all the Democratic power players sitting down to work it all out.

So we’ve been told that the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel , as well as Anita Dunn, the communications director, other senior aides in the White House, have decided not to come on this trip. They’re staying behind because they’re worried about losing momentum, trying to make sure they can keep pushing forward while the president is here in Moscow and then Italy and then Ghana.

So that’s very interesting development playing out on the domestic front, John.

KING: And we will watch it as you travel, Ed Henry and Jill Dougherty in Moscow; Barbara Starr for us in Washington, thank you all for coming in on this holiday weekend.

And as President Obama and his supporters press for health care reform, we’ll take you to Florida for a look at the health care challenges facing America’s fastest growing minority group.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: This hour, with another look at community service, this time down here in central Florida. Look at the numbers, here. Nationally, 32 percent of Hispanics lack health insurance. In Florida, overall, 38 percent of the population are uninsured, 54.4 percent, a much higher rate among Hispanics in Florida without health insurance between 2007 and 2008.

Now, many of these uninsured get their help in emergency rooms, which, of course, drives up everyone’s health care costs. Others, though, get their care, preventive care and other help, from the Hispanic Health Initiatives. It’s a community service group with 75 volunteers.

We visited their headquarters in Orlando and one of their health fairs. Take a peek, right here, at yet another example of community service.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: In the Hispanic community, when it comes to health care, what is your greatest problem?

JOSEPHINE MERCADO, HISPANIC HEALTH INITIATIVES: Our greatest problem as a group is the lack of insurance. Here in Florida, for instance, over 60 percent of Hispanics are uninsured.

Before Hispanic Health Initiatives came into being, most of the outreach in the community was through the Department of Health or the hospitals, and it was basically Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00; 9:00 to 5:00, Monday to Friday, our community is working.

So, as a result, we do everything in the evening or on Saturdays.

This is our ninth year of doing this annual health fair. One of the ways that this health fair is helping this community is that many of them are possibly getting some of their physical examinations done through us.

Inside we have a number of examinations, such as a vision test. We also have cholesterol, diabetes. Some of the people that are here are finding out for the first time that they are diabetic. Using the word “Hispanic” or “Latino” automatically will tell our community that we probably will speak Spanish.

MERCADO: And for that reason, yes, that will attract them. But our services are open to everyone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: We’d like to welcome back our international viewers to our “State of the Union” report for this Sunday, July 5th. Just as U.S. troops pull back from the most dangerous operation in Iraq cities, President Obama orders a major new military offensive in Afghanistan.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen is here to map out the latest in both wars and to discuss the risks of escalating the fight against the Taliban. Plus, the nation’s former Joint Chiefs chairman, Secretary of State Colin Powell, talks about America’s foreign policy and his early concerns about the price of the Obama agenda.

And an Arab-American who rose to royalty in the Middle East is now pushing for a world free of nuclear weapons. Her Majesty Queen Noor gets “The Last Word.” That’s all ahead in this hour of “State of the Union.”

U.S. marines in Afghanistan are in the early days of perhaps the riskiest military operation since President Obama became commander in chief 167 days ago. The push against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan is the first major test of the president’s new Afghan war strategy. So far, one marine has been killed, several others wounded in the offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, an opium rich area critical to the Taliban.

The escalation in Afghanistan comes just as the United States looks to shrink its footprint in Iraq, meeting with some trepidation, last week’s June 30th deadline to withdraw from Iraqi cities.

Here to help us with those challenges and more is America’s highest ranking military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen . Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION, Admiral. I want to thank you for starting at the magic wall so you can take us up close. And let’s begin in Afghanistan. I want you to feel free to step up to the map wall and show us exactly where these marines are fighting and as you do, sir, explain who is the enemy here. Is it just the Taliban? Is it a mix of Taliban or al Qaeda?

MIKE MULLEN: Good morning, John, it’s good to be with you. Well, as you indicated, we’ve recently put in about 10,000 additional marines into Afghanistan, and most of them are in the south. And as it shows here on the map and this is the capital of Kabul, down here in Helmand is where they’re really focused. And I’ll take you up close down into Helmand where the fighting is really going on.

And you can see specifically in this area of Garmsir, as well as Khan Neshin, which is where the Marines are engaged. But what cuts through there is this river, that Helmand River that -- the whole river valley. And this is really the most concentrated area for opium growing, and we expect significant combat challenges with respect to the Taliban, who have been there. And we haven’t been able to both clear -- defeat them and then clear the area. And it’s this extra footprint of Marines I think that will allow us to not just secure the area for the Afghan people, but also hold it so that we can develop it and start to move in the right direction economically and from a governance perspective.

KING: In terms of resistance -- sir, I’m sorry for interrupting -- but in terms of the resistance the Marines have faced in the early days, is it what you expected? Or are you concerned that the Taliban are melting into the countryside, if you will, and hiding because they know you’re there?

MULLEN: Well, I think generally it’s what we expected. There has been some of that.

There’s actually been some pretty tough fighting as well. All of that really ties into the expectations that we have.

This has been a Taliban stronghold for a significant period of time. It’s grown over the last two or three years. And so what the Marines are there for is to really concentrate on that, clear that area -- I’m sorry, defeat the Taliban that’s there, clear it, and then hold it so that, again, we can start to build.

And we think it’s going to be a pretty tough fight for, you know, a fair amount of time. You know, weeks to months, certainly, at least.

KING: And you talked about this could be weeks or months for this fight. I want your assessment of the broader picture in Afghanistan in the context of what I would call potentially mixed signals on troop levels in Afghanistan in the past week.

General Jones was quoted in a McClatchy newspaper article as saying, “The troops that are there are the troops the mission is going to get.” And sir, you were quoted in “The Washington Post” as saying that if General McChrystal says he needs more, you will go to the president and say, “Mr. President, we need to send more.”

Are you concerned at all that there’s a mixed message in terms of what it will take in Afghanistan?

MULLEN: Well, I think General Jones and I and the president are all on the same page in terms of what we have to do now. President Obama has committed these troops, they’re arriving as we speak, and will through the rest of this year. General McChrystal, who is the new military leader in Afghanistan, is going through a 60-day assessment. His guidance from me and from Secretary Gates is make your assessment, come back and tell us what you need. Make sure that every troop we’ve got there is somebody that we absolutely have to have, and then based on your assessment, we’ll look at future requirements. And all of us are on the same page with respect to that view and his intent.

KING: I want to ask you, sir, to shift over.

MULLEN: Sure.

KING: I know you have a map of Iraq as well there. If you can pull that up for me, a pretty big week in Iraq.

The deadline on June 30th to get out of the Iraqi cities. And as you pull the map up now, I wonder if you can play for me the video that shows our footprint before and our footprint after.

MULLEN: Sure, John.

This is obviously Baghdad, and you can see in the middle where our footprint was. And now, actually in the outskirts here, indicated here and here, is where we’ve moved our forces. We’ve moved our forces outside the main cities. You can see here, outside Baghdad, where we have our cities, and we’re in support of the Iraqi security forces.

I mean, big transition. We’ve actually been coming out of the cities for the last eight months. We’re at a period of time where we’re in support of the Iraqi security forces.

We’ve reached a very clear agreement with the Iraqi political military leadership, with their military leadership, on how this was going to work. And I’m confident in what I’ve seen so far that us moving out of the cities has been a very positive step.

KING: And 130,000, roughly, Americans in Iraq right now, due to be down to 50,000, sir, by about a year from now. And then, ultimately, all those troops out unless the Iraqis request more to stay by the end of the 2011.

Any reason -- you mentioned it’s only five days. Any reason at this point to think that schedule will not be kept?

MULLEN: No, not that I’m aware of right now. And clearly, we have an agreement with Iraq to have all troops out by the end of 2011.

The focus area now is this obviously -- sustaining this security, and then focusing on the elections, which are the beginning of next year. That’s the next really big event, and the politics associated with that are critical. And most of the issues right now are for the political leadership in Iraq to resolve.

So we focus on the January time frame. After January, we see a significant drawdown of our troops getting to 35,000 to 50,000 in about the August time frame, a little over a year from now. And from everything I see right now, we’re on track.

KING: All right. Admiral Mullen, I’d like to invite you to take a seat and be more comfortable so we can continue our conversation.

Admiral, you just showed us on the map there what you think is the strategic situation in Iraq. I want to talk to you a little bit about the images we saw this past week.

As the United States kept its promise and kept that deadline and pulled out, there were celebrations in the streets. Iraqi citizens celebrating the U.S. troops moving out of the city, many of them calling those troops occupiers. And in a statement, Prime Minister Maliki focused on the Iraqi government, saying, “The national united government succeeded in putting down the sectarian war that was threatening the unity and the sovereignty of Iraq.”

People in the streets calling your troops occupiers. The prime minister not thanking them in his speech.

I’m just wondering -- to the parents, the spouses and the siblings of the more than 4,300 Americans who have given their lives so far so those people had the rights to be in the streets demonstrating, so that Prime Minister Maliki could have a Democratic government, what kind of message does it send to them?

MULLEN: Here’s a country that two years ago, was in very, very bad shape, spinning out of the control, and it was really because of the dedication of our young men and women and those sacrifices that we’re able to turn it around and put the country in a position to have a future that is bright and was indicated, I think, by that celebration. And I know from my engagement with Prime Minister Maliki, as well as the rest of the political and military leadership in Iraq, they’re very appreciative of everything that we have done.

KING: I want to move on, sir, to an issue that comes up from time to time that’s very emotional and a tough political arguments, and that is whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the United States military.

You are the nation’s highest ranking military office. And at your confirmation hearing two years ago, I want you to listen to this. You said it was the right policy to have “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULLEN: It’s a policy that came in at a time -- in a time it was greatly debated at the time that it was actually put in place. I’m supportive of that policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You said “supportive” two years ago. Sir, I sat down in recent days with another gentleman who held your job, retired general Colin Powell, who supported the policy when it was implemented but now says it should be reconsidered. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, the policy and the law that came about in 1993 I think was correct for the time. Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country. And therefore, I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Two questions, sir. And let me start with the advice you give the president.

Do you still believe the policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should stay, and is that your advice to the president, even though that is contrary to the promise he made in the campaign?

MULLEN: Well, what General Powell talks about is the policy and in fact the law. And with respect to that, we clearly are carrying out both that policy and law. And we’ll continue to do that until it changes. Secretary Gates spoke recently about reviewing the policy to see if -- to make sure that we were executing it in the most humane way possible. It’s very clear what president Obama’s intent here is. He intends to see this law changed.

And in my advice, you know, I’ve had conversations with him about that. What I’ve discussed in terms of the future is I think we need to move in a measured way. We’re at a time where we are fighting two conflicts. There’s a great deal of pressure on our forces and their families. And yet, again, the strategic intent is clear.

And if we get -- and I am internally discussing that with my staff on how to move forward and what the possible implementation steps could be. I haven’t done any kind of extensive review. And what I feel most obligated about is to make sure I tell the president, you know, my -- give the president my best advice, should this law change, on the impact on our people and their families at these very challenging times.

KING: I want to close, sir, on this July 4th weekend, with an issue that I know is very close to you and that I know is of much concern at the Pentagon. And that is the care for the wounded warriors coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. You recently sent a memo to Secretary Gates after a trip to talk to military men and women about this, and the suicide rate is up, alcohol use is up, the divorce rate is up. You mentioned at Fort Hood there are only eight soldiers at a time allowed in the mental health symptoms classes. Fifty thousand troops are on that base at any given time.

What message does the president need to hear, the Congress need to hear, and, in fact, the American people need to hear, perhaps, sir, about what more needs to be done to make sure that these men and women coming home get everything they need?

MULLEN: Well, I think leaders throughout the land and throughout communities in our country need to reach out and make sure that we are meeting the needs of these great, young Americans who have sacrificed so much. And not just the military members, but their families.

And while we’ve made a lot of progress in the last several years, we still have an awful long way to go. There’s a great deal we don’t know about the combat stress, post-traumatic stress. There’s a great deal we don’t know about the signature wounds of traumatic brain injury, whether it’s mild or severe.

And in fact, young people, young families want to contribute to society. They still have dreams, and those dreams include getting to school, sending their kids to school, having a good job for both members of their family, and hopefully being able to own a home someday.

And I think all of us in America need to pay this -- or repay this debt, that they’ve done so much for us, and do it in a way to make sure that they’re in great shape for the rest of their lives.

KING: Admiral Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sir, thanks for spending some time with us this morning.

MULLEN: Thank you, John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And up next, an exclusive interview with a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell. We’ll hear his take on the military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether he still supports President Obama’s agenda after five months in office. STATE OF THE UNION will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: We’ve seen over the last 12 years a great mobilization. And now with President Obama being heavily committed to service and putting more emphasis on it and more money into programs, United We Serve, as he talked about recently, I think the country is coming together, realizing that it’s a problem for all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Retired General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell here on STATE OF THE UNION earlier today talking about the importance of community service. He also shared his thoughts on Afghanistan, Iraq, and the price tag of President Obama’s ambitious agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: I spent some time at Walter Reed this week. And it is a heroic place. And you meet many heroes. You also see some things that leave you with a very sober opinion, these men and women coming back with these horrible injuries and yet they are survivors and they are smiling and they are fighting to get back into the community.

And you have the injuries. You also have the PTSD issues. And we’ve seen the suicide rate go up. Do you believe, as the man who once led our military, that the government of the United States and the people of the United States understand the 10-, 20-, 30-year commitment that is going to have to be made to these men and women?

POWELL: I think we do. In the early years of this conflict, I don’t think we were sensitive enough to the fact that some of these horribly injured soldiers coming back, youngsters who would have died during in an earlier war, were going to require not just hospital care and then a little bit of transition, but they were going to require life-long care.

At the Memorial Day concert on the lawn, we celebrated one of these soldiers who was grievously injured in the head and he’s going to require custodial care from his mom and sister for the rest of his life and the rest of their lives. And I’m not sure we have ever prepared ourselves for that kind of intense demand on our system.

It’s going to require the government, including the Veterans Administration, the Pentagon, but the community is going to have to step forward as well. Because they’re going to be living in a community. And so we need community assistance as well.

KING: We saw a critical deadline this past week in Iraq, the deadline for the United States forces to pull out of the major cities. And they have pulled back. I spoke to General Odierno. He says he’s confident that this plan will work and that U.S. troops ultimately will be out by the end of 2011 as now planned.

One of the striking scenes on the streets was Iraqis celebrating this and essentially criticizing the occupiers and saying they had a great victory over the occupiers as the United States forces pulled back from their major cities.

Did that strike you as odd in a sense that these people, and we’re watching them on the monitor, would not have the right to be out in the streets like this. Has the relationship, I guess, become poisoned over time?

POWELL: No, I don’t think it has become poisoned. But I think we should just pocket this. They are happy. They have made it clear from the very beginning that they wanted to be free and independent. And they didn’t want to be an occupied nation, which is what they were when we were there. And now that is starting to change.

But this is not yet over. As General Odierno has said and as the president said recently, it’s now up to the Iraqis to solidify their representative government system and to make sure they have the security forces that can handle all of this.

POWELL: But I’m glad that the deadline that was set by President Bush some time ago with Mr. Maliki has been met and our troops were able to step back from those kinds of active operations on the 30th of June.

And the Iraqi people are happy. They’re now responsible for their own destiny.

KING: And it has cost more than $700 billion, and more importantly, more than 4,300 American men and women have been killed in Iraq. Looking back, was it worth it?

POWELL: Well, that’s a judgment history will have to make. You never know what these costs will be. And it’s not just the young Americans who gave their lives nobly, but thousands more who were injured and live with those injuries.

So history will have to make a judgment. A dictator is gone. A despicable regime is gone. And the Iraqi people have been given a chance to have a representative form of government living in peace with its neighbors.

We’ll have to see what history’s judgment of that will be.

KING: A general who is now serving in a position that you once served in, as national security adviser, is just back from Afghanistan. And I’m sure you saw the story in The Washington Post, talking about, “My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops. We tried that for six years.”

Where are we heading in Afghanistan, and do you agree with that prescription that the emphasis needs to be on government-building, economic development, not more troops?

POWELL: I think it has to be all of the above. Now, whether you need more troops on top of the 20,000 that the president has already added to the force, I’ll let that be a judgment made by the commanders on the ground.

And General Petraeus certainly understands this better than anyone, as does general Jones. I have great respect for both of them. But General Jones makes an important point, that it can’t just be a military solution. Because, if the people don’t see their lives getting better through an economic development; if they don’t see a government that seems to be responsible for their well-being and acting on that responsibility; if they don’t see a government that is functioning properly, that is not corrupt and is not working hard to better their lives, then all the troops in the world are not going to make this better.

KING: An issue you wrestled with as a commander in the military is back in the news today and that is whether gay and lesbian Americans should be allowed to serve openly. The president, as a candidate, promised to reverse that policy and he has faced quite a bit of criticism from that community for not acting more quickly.

But this past week he had an event at the White House for gay and lesbian Americans, and he promised them this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I believe “Don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t contribute to our national security. In fact, I believe...

(APPLAUSE)

... I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And Secretary Gates is now saying he’s exploring some flexibility in the current policy, waiting for whether Congress passes a law reversing it -- some flexibility that, under some circumstances, perhaps some openly gay or some people who have been outed, perhaps, should be allowed to stay and serve. What would you do?

POWELL: Well, the policy and the law that came about in 1993, I think, was correct for the time. Sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country, and therefore I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed.

I am withholding judgment because the commanders of the armed forces of the United States and the joint chiefs of staff need to study it and make recommendations to the president and have hearings before the Congress before a decision is made. It is not just a matter of old generals who are, you know, just too hidebound.

There are lots of complicated issues with respect to this, and I think all the issues should be illuminated. And I hope that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commanders, working with the secretary of defense, will give this the greatest consideration and make their recommendation to the president and to the Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: More of our conversation with Colin Powell when “State of the Union” returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. Let’s continue our conversation with former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

We are about to have a Supreme Court nomination confirmation hearing, and it is clear now from all involved that we’re going to have a spirited conversation about affirmative action. It is an issue that you have discussed many times over the course of your life.

Any advice for the senators in both parties as this goes forward? Let me ask you first if you know Judge Sotomayor?

POWELL: No, I do not.

KING: She’s from the Bronx.

(CROSSTALK)

POWELL: She’s from my neighborhood, yes. She seems like a very gifted and accomplished woman. She certainly has an open and liberal bent of mind, but that’s not disqualifying. But she seems to have a judicial record that seems to be balanced and tries to follow the law.

And so I hope we do have a spirited set of hearings. And Supreme Court confirmation hearings tend to always meet that standard. And she ought to be asked about everything from both the left and the right.

What we can’t continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor who is announced, and based on one simple tricky but nonetheless case at the Supreme Court has now decided, have her called a racist, a reverse-racist, and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we’re mad at her.

Fortunately the senators who will sit on this hearing in the Judiciary Committee after a few days of this kind of nonsense said, let’s slow down, let’s examine her qualifications the way we’re supposed to at a confirmation hearing.

KING: The guy who used the term “reverse-racism,” you didn’t name him, but it’s Rush Limbaugh. And he has said some not so favorable things about you, saying this guy says he’s a Republican but then he supported Obama, so he’s not really a Republican.

You’re a Republican.

POWELL: Yes. And Mr. Limbaugh, of course, is entitled to his opinion but he’s not on any membership committee. He doesn’t decide who I am or what I am no more than I decide who he is or what he is.

So we’ve had this running debate, let’s call it that. And he’s entitled to his opinion and I’m entitled to mine.

KING: One of the questions people would ask when you say, I’m still a Republican, you’ve supported President Obama and you did make quite clear your reasons for doing so. Are you going to support him for reelection or is it too soon to answer that question? POWELL: It’s too soon to answer that question. And I get asked questions like that all of the time. I have voted Democratic over the years, I’ve voted Republican. I voted twice for Ronald Reagan, twice for the first Bush, and twice for the second Bush.

And I voted for Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson. I always try to find the person that I think is best qualified for the highest office in the land. I believe that our country is best served when there are two strong parties, strong parties that have opposing points of view -- political points of view.

POWELL: That’s what makes this country great. And they can debate those points of view.

I think we run into dangerous territory in this country when the two ends of the political spectrum become so dug in and nasty and everything is ad hominem and driven by cable television and blogs and all kinds of other things that our positions get so hardened that we can’t find a way toward the center, which is where the country is.

KING: You’re very complimentary of the president when it comes to community service, that message he gave on fatherhood. I want to ask you a question about some of his other priorities. But I want to ask in the context of the speech you gave to the Republican National Convention in 1996.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: I became a Republican because I believe, like you, that the federal government has become too large and too intrusive in our lives. We can no longer...

(APPLAUSE)

POWELL: We can no longer afford solutions to our problems that result in more entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, more bureaucracy to run them, and fewer results to show for it.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: First reaction looking at that clip is you could probably sell your aging secrets because you look great.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: But has the president of the United States in that regard, when it comes to financial institution bailouts, General Motors bailouts, spending by government, whether it’s health care reform, whether it’s the debate now about climate change, when it comes to spending and the reach and role of government, does President Obama meet the test Colin Powell laid out in ‘96?

POWELL: Well, first, let me say, that was a pretty good statement, I thought. And I believe in all of those things. But I also believe that we should have a government that works. I don’t like slogans anymore like “limited government.” That’s not the right answer.

The right answer is, give me a government that works. Keep it as small as possible. Keep the tax burden on the American people as small as possible. But at the same time have a government that is solving the problems of the people.

People want their problems solved. And very often it’s the government that has to do that. So let’s have good government, effective government, whether you call it limited or not. And I think the think of the challenges that President Obama has now is that he has got so many things on the table and these are issues that the American people find important, health care and so many other issues.

But I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president, and I’ve talked to some of his people about this, is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all and we can’t pay for it all.

And I never would have believed that we would have budgets that are running into the, you know, multi-trillions of dollars and we’re amassing a huge, huge national debt that if we don’t pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids, and great-grandchildren will have the pay for it.

So I think the president, as he moves forward with his initiatives, has to start really taking a very, very hard look at what the cost of all of this is and how much additional bureaucracy and will it be effective bureaucracy be needed to make all of this happen.

KING: So it’s early, but you’re a little worried.

POWELL: Hmm? Yes.

KING: Is that a fair way to put it?

POWELL: Yes. I’m a little concerned. Concerned would be a better way. I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs, and the additional government that will be needed to execute them.

KING: As you go forward, you say you talk to his people (INAUDIBLE). You say you talk to his people. What’s your relationship with him?

POWELL: Very good.

KING: Have you talked to him much? Does he seek your advice?

POWELL: I have met with him not too long ago. I don’t insert myself. But we stay in touch.

KING: I want to close with a couple of questions. One, on a cultural discussion in the United States right now, the country is saying farewell to Michael Jackson. He was without a doubt a trailblazing entertainer. There are other parts of his life that people have found quite troubling. I was watching on our air this past week a tribute to him at the Apollo Theater, which, of course, is near where you...

POWELL: Know well.

KING: ... where you grew up. What did he mean to America?

POWELL: He was a great entertainer and he crossed so many lines with his skill and the skill of his brothers. I always remember him most vividly as a young boy with his brothers, the Jackson 5. These fresh, exciting kids with the ‘fros in the early ‘70s singing those wonderful songs, “ABC.” Don’t ask me to sing it.

(LAUGHTER)

But that was what I remember about Michael. During the heyday when he was doing “Thriller” and the other things, I was either in Vietnam or Korea or somewhere. So he is not quite of my generation.

But his art spanned three generations and is worthy of all the tribute that he is receiving for his art. Yes, there were some challenges in his life, yes, there was a great deal of controversy about him, but he has now passed on, let’s celebrate his art.

KING: We live sometimes at too fast a pace, I would argue. And I wanted your reflections on what July 4th means to you. And I want, before I let you speak, to tell you when I was at Walter Reed, and it was a stunning visit, I asked -- we were sitting down with two men in the Army who had served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are now helping the wounded warriors at Walter Reed.

And when I said to them, you know, this is the holiday where we will put flags in our yards, or you’ll see flags all out in the streets and people will have their barbecue and they might go to a parade, but you guys wear them right here every day on your shoulder. And the gentleman I was speaking to got a little choked up. I got a little choked up. What does July 4th mean to you and do you think sometimes in our rush we forget?

POWELL: These young men and women who have volunteered to serve their country and who have paid a price for serving their country are so deserving of all the tribute we can give them. And even after they’ve been wounded and even after you’ve seen them up at Walter Reed, they wear that patch proudly and they’re proud of having served. And it’s something they will never forget when they go back into normal life.

And so July 4th still represents a remarkable date for us to all stop and reflect on what our founding fathers achieved on July 4th, 1776, and the noble sentiment they gave to the rest of the world that all men are created equal and governments serve the people and the people serve the nation and no group of individuals serves the nation as bravely and with such courage and sacrifice as our young men and women in uniform.

So July 4th, let’s, as we were told by our founding father, shoot rockets and celebrate, let the bombs go off and celebrate and praise our flag, but let’s not forget that the freedom we enjoy, the freedom that we declared we would have in 1776, still has to be won every single day. And it’s won by all of us but especially by these young men and women in uniform.

KING: Seems the perfect place to say thanks for coming in.

POWELL: Thank you, John.

KING: General Powell, thank you, appreciate it.

And as we focus on service this fourth of July weekend, we’ll talk with a woman whose causes include ridding the world of nuclear weapons and promoting better understanding between the Arab and Western worlds. Queen Noor gets “The Last Word.”

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I’m John King and this is “State of the Union.” Here are stories breaking this Sunday. Two Monorail trains crashed in Disney World in Orlando, Florida earlier this morning. One driver was killed. In a statement, Disney officials say the monorail has been shut down and the company is working with law enforcement officials to determine what happened. Officials say no Disney guests were seriously injured in that crash.

An autopsy is scheduled today on the body of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair, who was found shot to death yesterday in a Nashville condominium. Police say he was shot multiple times including once in the head. The body of a young woman was found lying nearby with a single gunshot wound. Police say they are not actively looking for suspects. Those are headlines on “State of the Union.”

My interview with Her Majesty Queen Noor right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: More than two dozen news makers, analysts and reporters were out on the Sunday morning talk shows, but only one gets “The Last Word” and that honor today goes to Her Majesty Queen Noor. She is the chair of the King Hussein Foundation and she joins us from London. Your Majesty, one of your major causes is try to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It’s a cause that the president of the United States says he shares. Three months ago in Prague, he gave a dramatic statement to the world. I want you to listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States as a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it. So, today, I state clearly and with conviction, America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: In the week ahead the president of the United States will travel to Moscow for a critical summit with the president of Russia. When it comes to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, what is the test that you would apply to this big meeting? QUEEN NOOR, KING HUSSEIN FOUNDATION: Well, this meeting will follow on statements that they made that were quite historic in Prague right before the G-20 meeting. Where for the first time ever, the American and Russian presidents committed to the total elimination of nuclear weapons to work together to that goal.

The global zero initiative, which I am a founder of, that was organized last year and first launched last December, has created a commission that is presenting today a series of recommendations that we hope both presidents will consider before their July 6th meeting.

And those recommendations are the result of work by political and military experts on trying to create the framework for a phased, verified movement towards a global zero accord, an accord that will be signed by all nuclear and nuclear capable nations, we hope, within around 14 years that we can achieve that goal, building on the commitment of the Russian and the American presidents whose countries together encompass about 90, well over 90 percent of the world’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.

KING: You make the point about that goal and it is a worthy one. I moved over to our map here so I can illustrate the point you just made. Back in the day, this was largely a conversation between the United States, which has about 10,000 nuclear weapons and Russia, the former Soviet Union, and I’ll swing the map here, which has about 20,000 nuclear weapons.

But you can see China is now in the nuclear club, India and Pakistan in the nuclear club. Great Britain and France up here, Israel over here and you have, obviously, Iran and over here in Asia, North Korea who are aggressively pursuing nuclear programs on their own. How much does it trouble you that in some ways I guess the phrase might be, the genie is out of the bottle and do you think now it’s possible, it’s possible to put it back in?

NOOR: The dangers of the proliferation of these weapons and nuclear materials that today exist in 40 countries to make another 100,000 bombs over the 23,000 estimated that we have today, that the danger of those materials ending up in the hands of terrorists or misused by governments is increasing by the day.

We have two paths. One is to continue along this path of proliferation to a nuclear proliferation tipping point at which we may not be able to pull back, or to move towards a path towards global zero.

KING: The president of the United States just a month ago was in the Middle East and in Cairo, he gave a very important speech, an effort he said to turn the page and have a new beginning between the United States and the Arab and Muslim world. I want you to listen just a snippet from the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Has the speech changed the conversation in any significant way?

NOOR: His tone is extremely important and this also applies to the nuclear issue, in that he’s making it very clear that there cannot be separate sets of standards for different countries or different regions of the world. There has to be consistency. There cannot be exceptions to international norms. And if we’re able to work along those lines, on mutually respectful terms, we can succeed in the Middle East and elsewhere.

KING: I want to show you something to follow up on this point that I find quite fascinating. This is a poll taken in Jordan, of course a country you know so well. If you look, ask the people of Jordan what they think about President Obama, his favorable rating is 58 percent, a very low unfavorable rating. But if you ask them what they think about the United States, it’s almost flip side, 56 percent of Jordanians view the United States unfavorably. So they seem to like this president in the Arab world but they still don’t like the United States. What is the challenge for the president to change that number?

NOOR: I think that what the problem has been for a very long time is that American policy has not been consistent with American principles and rhetoric. And I think many in the region are wondering, hopeful, but wondering, can President Obama mobilize the support in the United States and elsewhere where required to see through his vision of peace in the region, a peace that is based on justice, that is based on the removal of illegal obstacles to peace, that is based on the rights of all living in the region, and is based on the freedom from occupation of the Palestinian people.

KING: If you talk to the Israelis, they’re a bit nervous about this president, because after eight years of George W. Bush , they thought they always had a consistent friend who would side with them.

And they are now questioning whether this president, by publicly pressuring them on settlements and other steps, has taken a different tack. Do you see a different tack from the United States?

NOOR: I think this president is a truer and more honest friend to Israel as well as to others in the region than perhaps anyone that has preceded him. He is talking about what is in the best interests of the security of the people of Israel as well as the security of Palestinians and others in our region.

And the security of all Israelis is going to depend on whether they can live at peace and with -- in respectful and -- on a respectful basis with Palestinians and others in the region, whether they can show that they’re willing to live by international law and international norms, and by the agreements that already exist that have provided a framework for that peace.

KING: We’re spending quite a bit of time on this program talking about community service on the July 4th holiday weekend here in the United States. Tell me what community service means to Queen Noor and where does that passion come from?

NOOR: Well, it began when I had the privilege of growing up -- of living in Washington, D.C., during President Kennedy’s administration. I -- Martin Luther King was one of my heroes, I marched with him.

President Kennedy’s exhortation “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” and then the Peace Corps became actually my goal for what I might contribute, not only to my country but to the larger world.

KING: Her Majesty, Queen Noor, we’re grateful for your thoughts and insights on this holiday weekend here in the United States. And we wish you the best.

NOOR: Thank you, John, very much.

KING: Thank you. Take care.

And coming up, a call to service right here in the nation’s capital. We’ll take a look at a summer mentoring program for inner city schoolchildren. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In debating where to travel this July 4th holiday week, we decided to focus on community service, people who selflessly give their time and their talents to help others. There are such projects, of course, all across America. But we decided to take a trip just a few miles from our offices right here in Washington, D.C.

Let me show you why. These statistics are quite staggering. The national graduation rate, nearly 70 percent. In Washington, though, it is below 50 percent and down nearly 9 percent from last year. Again, nationally, about 12.5 percent of the popular lives below the poverty line. In Washington, that number is nearly 20 percent.

So the need here is obvious. And one way to help is through national service, community service. In the AmeriCorps National Program, there are 75,000 participants, 1,500 of them right here in Washington. And 6,000 additional slots will be added in September because of the Obama stimulus funding.

Now in the summertime, a lot of that community service work is focused on helping children in low-income neighborhoods where the schools are struggling. That is where we met, right here in Washington, D.C., a remarkable young woman named Tora Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TORA BURNS, AMERICORPS: Everybody, I should see your eyes on me. Wiggle your fingers. We’re going to get all of the jitters out. Everybody check it out. Give me a smile.

KING (voice-over): Leading the classroom with an infectious smile.

BURNS: What I want you all to know is that we can all make a difference.

KING: Recycling is the lesson of the moment. Community service her cause as long as Tora Burns can remember.

BURNS: I would ask my mom, well, can you help the old lady out of the building or something? She would be like, you’re only 6 or 5, why are you trying to help everyone?

KING: An urge reinforced, she says, by a jarring memory from her high school days in Detroit.

BURNS: And I saw a man kill another man. And I was just sitting at the red light. And it was kind of like -- you have that moment where you’re like, oh my gosh, someone lost their life.

No child should have to live like that. No child should have to see things of that nature.

KING: Tora is spending her summer at this Washington, D.C., school as an instructor for Heads Up, a local mentoring effort targeting low-income neighborhoods that is aligned with the AmeriCorps National Community Service Organization.

BURNS (singing): We recycle every day, just to show the world the way. Recycle!

KING: And during the school year, while attending Howard University, she is a volunteer mentor in a program run by America’s Promise, the organization founded by retired General Colin Powell.

BURNS: I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. And I feel like this experience will help me in the long run as far as my career and understanding children.

We’re going the teach you. That’s my job. I’m supposed to teach you. So by the time you’re out of here, Seb (ph), you’re going to be able to count better than anyone else your age, OK?

KING: Valuable experience for Tora and invaluable help to Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her efforts to turn around D.C.’s struggling public school system.

MICHELLE RHEE, CHANCELLOR, D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS: When you have a school system like ours where the kids are so far behind where they need to be, then one of the most precious resources at your disposal is time. And our children need more time. So this year we’ve significantly increased the number of kids who are participating in summer school.

BURNS: Will it prevent the sun from going black? Is that your question?

Yes, OK.

They say the craziest things, but every now and then you have that “a-ha!” moment. And I feel like you learn a lot more from them than they learn from you. When you see that -- it’s like a sparkle in their eye and they’re happy when they’re learning, I think that’s when you see the change.

KING: Just 19 years old, pushed by her parents and by her teachers, now Tora pushes herself and her 12-hour days while her family and friends are enjoying summer vacations.

BURNS: It all boils down to the children, you know? How dare I be a student in college and be selfish and not do something to help my community. And I feel like children are at the center of it all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: I’m John King in Los Angeles. Have a great Sunday. We’ll see you next week.