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SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Iran, whether Hillary Clinton’s personal email use will hurt her in the long run and the implications of the Justice Department’s report on biased policing in Ferguson, Missouri.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): And to the analysis of Shields and Gerson. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson.
We welcome you both. David Brooks is off tonight.
So, a national leader, gentlemen, came to Washington this week and spoke before a joint session of Congress, got a rousing reception, Mark. It wasn’t the President. It was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He roundly criticized any deal with Iran on its nuclear program.
What is — what are we left with after this? What are the repercussions?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: Well, Judy, when you feel it’s necessary to say at the outset what I’m about to say or do is not political, you can be sure of one thing. It’s political.
And this was a political event. This was — Prime Minister Netanyahu could have given the speech two weeks from now, except that there’s an election 11 days from now in Israel. He traveled 6,000 miles to make a very important campaign spot, appearance, under the auspices of the Republican speaker of the House, further partisanizing what had been a bipartisan support for the state of Israel.
And he made a very impassioned, I would say, eloquent indictment, criticism of the president’s policy. The Republicans were rapturous. They were adulatory.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: Even, they were post-orgasmic, to the degree…
JUDY WOODRUFF: On, my goodness.
MARK SHIELDS: They passed, in the afterglow, the Homeland Security, which they hadn’t been able to do.
So, they would have nominated him on the spot, the Republicans, if they could have. And he made a case which has been made repeatedly in this country by other American commentators, politicians, public figures. And he put the administration on the defensive.
Now, they’re going to have to — whatever they do come up with, if they do come up with an agreement, they’re going to have to counter the arguments that he made. And we will find out if it helped him on March 17 at home in Israel.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes, what — what — and what about the Iran — any potential Iran deal? Did this advance the case, hurt the case? What do you think?
MICHAEL GERSON, Washington Post: Well, I do — I want to agree that it’s a bad precedent for a foreign leader to come and make the case before Congress in the place where the President speaks.
George W. Bush wouldn’t have wanted this from Jacques Chirac in the middle of the Iraq…
MARK SHIELDS: … against the war.
MICHAEL GERSON: Right. But — so, I think there are problems there.
But the problem is not just the protocol. It’s the argument. And the argument here is that the nuclear file that’s all this — the emphasis, justifiably, is not the only problem here. Iran is actually on an aggressive march from Beirut to Baghdad. They have proxies with missiles aimed at Israel.
They have proxies that are committing mass atrocities in Syria. They have proxies that are taking over the security sector, even the oil sector, in Iraq. And these are the real challenges here. As the U.S. is making this case on nuclear arms, a vacuum is being filled across the region.
And it’s not just Netanyahu that believes this. It’s also the Arab states that are making this complaint. That case, as you said, is going to have to be answered, is the United States abdicating its role in this region, which I think is part of the question.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: Last thing I want to ask both of you about. On the eve of the anniversary, the 50th anniversary on the march on Selma, Alabama, the Justice Department this week issued a report.
And essentially what they did was, they cleared the police officer who killed Michael Brown, Ferguson, Missouri, teenager, but they said the police department in Ferguson was guilty bias, it was driven by a push to raise a lot of money, and had just essentially, in example after example after example, treated African-Americans in the community far worse than their numbers would warrant.
Michael, is there — what do we take away from this? But the President today said today, this speaks about something bigger than just Ferguson, Missouri, 20,000 people.
MICHAEL GERSON: Yes.
No, I think it does. The indictment, particularly on the Ferguson police force that relates to using the police as a fund-raising tool municipalities, and then having an unrepresentative police force, which then introduces an element of bias and discrimination, but the thing that disturbed me most reading the stories today was how — how much confirmation bias we see in a story like this.
Everybody looks at the report and finds some support for what they think, OK? Instead of analyzing, you have to approach this from an element of empathy. If you were a young African-American man in America today, you would see a system that’s deeply biased against you. You wouldn’t trust the justice of that system.
I think we need to be able to go in one another’s shoes when we read a report like this. Empathy is the real basis for eventual reform of these types of abuses.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark.
MARK SHIELDS: I do believe and I want to believe that Ferguson is the exception. I mean, the report on the Ferguson police and the pervasive racism of their practices is — cries to heaven for vengeance.
It’s the arrests. It’s the only people upon whom dogs were loosed were African-Americans. And if there’s anybody who needs policing, good, effective, honest policing, it’s people in lower-income communities in the United States, especially people of color, where the crime rate is, tragically, higher.
I would say that — you mentioned Selma. Judy, it is a political travesty that today — this weekend, we spend the 50th anniversary of Selma, the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Dozens and dozens of Republicans, including President George W. Bush, are going to be there — not a single member of the House Republican leadership, and least of all Steve Scalise, the Republican whip, who needs a — or deputy whip — who needs most of all to get right with people after his David Duke association was revealed.
I don’t understand it.
SEE: FACTCHECK - Netanyahu
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