SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
President Obama's been on the road this week - Russia, Europe, Africa - while here at home there's political surprises and scandals to keep politics bubbling. NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr joins us now. Hello, Dan.
DANIEL SCHORR: Hi, Scott.
SIMON: And as we note, the president was in motion this week - Russia, Italy, Vatican City, he's now in Ghana. Let's go through some of the highlights, if we could, and start with Russia. The president said he wanted to reset that relationship.
SCHORR: Yeah, right. And so they announced, at the end, with great triumph that they had reached a very important tentative agreement to further reduce the nuclear arsenals on both sides. And that was supposed to be the great result of the meeting with Medvedev. Now what's happened is, Medvedev is now in L'Aquila in Italy, where they've had the Summit of the Eight, and there he says, oh yeah, only, however, if United States gives up its plans for an anti-missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. That sort of torpedoes what was supposed to be the big deal and puts American/Russian relations where they usually are - questionable.
SIMON: And let me ask you about climate change and the G-8, because the president had hoped to get some commitments there.
SCHORR: And when it comes to climate change with the G-8, first of all, you get countries which are emerging and really need to poison the atmosphere in order to industrialize. And they're very loathe to give it up. And they say why don't you start first. And so they come out with - maybe we'll have not more than this by this time, and they set little dates when things are supposed to happen. But they don't really take you very far, not very much that's happened. I must say, if anything more concrete happened at this summit, it was an agreement to use about $20 billion in seeds and helping emerging countries in order to get their own food supply.
There's something so much more concrete about money for seeds than maybe in this blue sky we're going to solve the climate problem.
SIMON: President Obama met with Pope Benedict on Friday. There were some areas of agreement and some areas where the pope clearly wanted to change the president's thinking.
SCHORR: Yes, well, they met for just about a half hour and you got more or less what you would expect from a meeting like that. When it comes to arms control, when it comes to help for the poor, they were very much together. Then of course the question of abortion was raised, as it had to be raised, and of course the pope and our president don't agree on abortion. So no harm done, probably.
SIMON: President Obama's visiting Africa on this trip. Why did he choose to go to Ghana?
SCHORR: Yes, very interesting. He chose as the place he wanted to go to, Ghana, and he said that he considers Ghana to be a model for a working democracy in Africa. He didn't say anything, however, about Kenya, which is where his ancestors come from, but which is mired in corruption. And so I think he had a message to transmit that there are good countries in Africa, but even my country in Africa is not so good.
SIMON: When the president returns home, he's coming back to low consumer confidence, according to the polls.
SCHORR: Right.
SIMON: And increasing criticism of the stimulus plan. Where's the money gone? Why isn't it having more effect? Do we need more?
SCHORR: Well, that's right. It's a very impatient country and nobody is more impatient than politicians. And they gave all that money for stimulus. They want to see to stimulus. If the unemployment rates are still going up, which they are, then stimulus doesn't stimulate enough. Now, the fact is, no one ever really expected they could within the first six months make this thing turn around - unemployment, the recession situation, which has been years in building, but they tend to be rather impatient.
So you get two sides. One is, A) maybe we need more stimulus, and then maybe we need less stimulus. And so they manage to get a good argument going, but you don't see anything concrete coming out of all of this that indicates any answer to all these questions.
SIMON: Lot of flares in the political world this week, between Roland Burris saying he's not going to be running for reelection, continuing interests in Governor Palin, more revelations, I think it's safe to say, about the affairs, literally, of Senator John Ensign. Can I get you to talk about Robert McNamara?
SCHORR: Yes, you can talk...
SIMON: Who died this week, former secretary of defense, and must be said, president of Ford motor company before that, one of the original whiz kids.
SCHORR: He walked out on that because he was invited by President Kennedy to come in and made the Pentagon work more efficiently. He was essentially a good manager. He apparently wasn't a great philosopher. He didn't understand very much about the Vietnam War, and so he had the Vietnam War around his neck, and he became sort of the architect of war in Vietnam. Well, as I knew him, he was very unhappy about that and he wrote a book to try to explain it. And it was almost like an apology, it was sort of an apology. Then he went to the World Bank because he wanted to do things for helping poor countries and all. He tried to live down the Vietnam War, knowing in his own mind that he never succeeded.
SIMON: And what do you make of the newest dust-up between, I think we can say, Speaker Pelosi, the CIA, and Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA?
SCHORR: What I make of it is, there are constantly problems that arise over the years in which the CIA has things it has to do and doesn't want Congress to know because then it will leak and then if it leaks it's going to be very bad for everybody. The result, however, is that they then are called on the carpet and say, you know, we have oversight rights and powers here, we're supposed to do this thing. And so it appears that there's a program - they will not even say what the program is - that was initiated shortly after 9/11, probably involved something about apprehending terrorists and how to get them and then what you do with them after you get them, probably.
But they will not say, and it is one of these things which continue to be a sore point between Congress and the CIA, and the whole administration, for that matter, but it'll come and it'll go.
SIMON: Dan, thanks very much.
SCHORR: Sure thing.
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