'This Week' Transcript: The Battle for the Constitution

WASHINGTON, July 3, 2011 — -- AMANPOUR: This week --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the Constitution.

AMANPOUR: A tug of war over the Constitution. The 200-year-olddocument that still inspires people all over the world. It's areflection of America's past and its promise, and it's now at the heartof a fierce political debate. We examine the cornerstone of the U.S.government and the American dream, making sense of the melting pot asthe country of immigrants grapples with tough times.

And then the dream deferred.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything was so insecure from what Ithought. Everything changed.

AMANPOUR: As the rich get richer, millions of Americans are findinghope harder to come by. They're down, but not out.

AMANPOUR: Live from the Newseum in Washington, "This Week" withChristiane Amanpour, starts right now.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome to our special Independence Day edition of theprogram from the night studio of the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

This week, focus on the founders. With Washington tied up in knots,thousands of American troops fighting overseas, and millions of citizensstruggling to get by, we go back to the original blueprint of thisdemocracy, the Constitution. A document that endures and guides theUnited States and is now at the heart of a fierce political battle todefine just what this country stands for. Here's ABC's John Donvan.

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JOHN DONVAN, ABC NEWS: The original lives under glass, has no pricetag, is the world's oldest operative Constitution at 223 years, and it'sshortest in written length, 4,400 not entirely correctly spelled words-- sorry, Pennsylvania. And while it's our habit to speak of it inreverential terms--

RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is a covenantwe've made not only with ourselves but with all of mankind.

DONVAN: In holy language.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It provides a compass that can help us findour way.

DONVAN: As something sacred.

SARAH PALIN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Constitutionprovides a perfect path towards a more perfect union.

DONVAN: Here's the other way we've long tended to treat theConstitution -- as wrapping paper, as in wrap yourself in it to makeyour case sound even better type of wrapping paper, to put a nice bow onit. Which is really nothing new. Every case that ever gets to theSupreme Court gets there because both sides argue they have theConstitution on their side. Richard Nixon, refusing to give up histapes, said the Constitution protected him. He lost. Folks that wantto burn the American flag say the Constitution protects them. Theygenerally win. People who argue the Constitution protects the unbornhave yet to win their battle.

The point is, the Constitution, which we think of as a set of rules,is really a departure point for a good, strong argument about thedetails. The details of who we are as a nation and what we stand for. Although this year, since the Tea Party arrived in force in the halls ofCongress and actually launched its tenure with the reading of theConstitution--

REP. JOHN A. BOEHNER (R-OHIO), HOUSE SPEAKER: We the people of theUnited States.

DONVAN: The argument has become a more big picture thing. The TeaParty arguing that the country has slipped its constitutional mooringsin a wholesale way.

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MINN.: I believe in the founding fathers'vision of a limited government.

DONVAN: It's an argument that income taxes and the Federal Reserveand government-guarantee health care and a government that just keeps ongrowing is not at all what was intended by the framers of theConstitution, those guys whose intellectual garb they honor at theirrallies by literally garbing themselves just as they did. We need to goback to what they believed in, is the argument. But who is to agree onwhat that actually means?

HERMAN CAIN, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need to reread theConstitution and enforce the Constitution. There's a little section inthere that talks about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

DONVAN: Actually that's not Constitution, that's the Declaration ofIndependence.

Lots of people seem to mix them up.

OBAMA: Drawing on the promise enshrine in our Constitution, thenotion that we're all created equal.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, HISTORIAN: It's a very slippery slope to startcherry-picking your favorite golden oldie from the founding fathers andslapping it on to political speeches today. Democrats and Republicansquote from the founding fathers, but we shouldn't act like they weresomehow omnipotent.

DONVAN: The reality is that the framers, posed in paintings asthough frozen on an American canvas, they were not gods. They wereguys, guys who didn't give women the vote and who let slavery stand forthe time being, and who, by the way, were trying to create at the time astronger central government -- of course not too strong -- leaving to usa Constitution that we could fix as needed. Sorry, make that amend,which we've now done 27 times.

BRINKLEY: When you look at the founding documents of our country,they are elastic. They are meant to be pulled and bent in differentdirections as each era dictates.

DONVAN: So, today, right now, as we argue over whether it'sconstitutional for the president to send drones over Libya, for thegovernment to make immigrants carry I.D. cards, for Congress not toraise the debt ceiling, which could mean the nation defaults, thosearguments are only possible in a sense because there is a Constitution. As the framers wrote in its very first paragraph, they wanted to securethe blessings of liberty for our posterity -- that's us, we, thepeople. We are still here, thanks to them and this piece of paper.

For "This Week" I'm John Donvan in Washington.

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AMANPOUR: So, as we have just seen, now more than ever, theConstitution is at the very heart of the political debate these days,and Congress is now requiring that every piece of legislation comeaccompanied by its constitutional justification. And the Tea Party isdemanding a return to the kind of government that the framersenvisioned. But just what did those men who lived 200 years ago reallywant? Joining me now for a discussion of truth and myth -- George Will,Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown University. Harvard University historyprofessor Jill Lepore, who is also the author of "The Whites of TheirEyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History,"and Richard Stengel, editor in chief of "Time" magazine and writer ofthe cover story on the Constitution, "Does It Still Matter?"

Thank you all for being here. Let me start with you, George. Howdo you explain the ubiquity of the Constitution today as a real livingpiece of political debate?

WILL: Well, first of all, American politics always has aretrospective cast, always looking back to the Declaration and theConstitution. All of our arguments get litigated through thesedocuments. Did Jefferson have the power to make the Louisianapurchase? James Madison, his successor, the architect of theConstitution, vetoed an internal improvements bill because he thoughtthat went beyond the powers of the federal government, right then totoday, when the most novel new development in our politics, the TeaParty movement, is named after something that happened in 1773. Sothere's a retrospective cast naturally built into our politics.

But what has happened today is a large number of Americans, this oneincluded, believe that the somewhat promiscuous expansion of governmentpower in recent years raises questions about whether we still have agovernment of limited, delegated and enumerated powers. That is, is theMadison project still viable.

AMANPOUR: You say over the last few years. Do you meanparticularly now in the Obama administration?

WILL: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What do you say to that very categoric --

DYSON: Well, I think that this retrospective cast that George Willrefers to is absolutely right. But there's some gaps, some holes,lacunas, gulfs, abysses. You know, you read the Constitution in theCongress, but oops, I forgot the part about slavery. You talk aboutwomen and people of color who have been elided, distorted, relegated tothe margins, and altogether seen as marginalia.

I think that the Constitution is a powerful, living, vibrantdocument. I think it's been hijacked by people with narrow, vicious andparochial visions. And I think the assertion that now we, of allpeople, this generation is somehow vulnerable to rebuff of theConstitution is like a Hagelian problem. You think your generation isthe greatest generation, and the apotheosis of history finds its restingpoint in you. Slow down.

The point is that the Constitution is durable, it's powerful. Because of its flexibility, black people and others were able to arguetheir way into an American identity and a vision for democracy thatinitially they were barred from. So I think that it's powerful.

AMANPOUR: But you do say hijacked by a vicious band of people. Doyou think that's fair? I mean, is that what is going on right now?

LEPORE: I think it's the case that the Constitution has always beena subject of contest. Each generation of Americans struggles to inheritthe mantle and claim the mantle of both the revolution and of theConstitution.

What is actually to me been unusual about this political moment, isthat a lot of people are trying to claim both the revolution and theConstitution. It's usually been more of a kind of an oscillation. Therevolution is more often claimed by the left; the Constitution is moreoften celebrated by the right. The Tea Party movement has reallyembraced both, and in a certain kind of way collapsed the two, which isinteresting as a historical phenomenon. But it's not -- it's neithernovel nor sinister.

AMANPOUR: Let me go back to George, then. You say that it's becomeso important right now, because of what you think is the excesses of theObama administration. So you both are saying that it's because ofBarack Obama, but from different positions.

WILL: Yes, that indeed, Mr. Obama has claimed for the federalgovernment the power to do things that are simply unprecedented. Eventhe people who say that the mandates require American citizens asconditions of living in America to buy health care, no one denies thatthat's an unprecedented expansion of federal power.

STENGEL: George, you look at -- I mean, every president expandsfederal power. Their view is from where they sit, and the Oval Officelooks pretty great.

George Bush was the greatest exponent of the expansion of executivepower probably in American history, you know, with the exception ofcourse of FDR and Abraham Lincoln.

So I think the idea that Obama is somehow exceptional in this regardrather than just a continuation of what the tradition has been is kindof crazy to me.

I mean, one of the things that the founders did, which I think wesometimes forget about in this discussion of the founders, you know,didn't actually create a large federal government. They didn't. Whatthey created was a very weak executive. I mean, Article 2, about the --about what the president does is about half the size of Article 1. Theydidn't want a very strong executive, because they feared kings. Butpretty much every president since then has been expanding executivepower, and there are all kinds of reasons, both good and bad, for it,which we can discuss.

AMANPOUR: Jill, as a historian, Rick Stengel brought up the idea ofbig government or small government. Didn't the Constitution actuallygive more power to a federal government, to a centralized governmentafter the Articles of Confederation?

LEPORE: It's suggested it's centralized and strengthened the roleof the federal government, especially in reference to the Article ofConfederation, which was a very loose confederation of states, 15separate currencies, and each state could have its own Navy.

We talk about big government and small government. It's a littlebit hard to do that in the abstract. I mean, the Postal Service in 1790was six people. I mean, I think it's really easy to get kind of tangledup in the intensity of our own modern political rhetoric.

WILL: Yes, yes, the framers of the Constitution wanted tostrengthen the federal government, but they knew that government is, A,necessary, and B, inherently dangerous. And therefore, in the act ofcreating a more competent federal government, they sought to limit it.

James Madison, the architect in the definitive commentary on theConstitution, the Federalist Papers, specifically in Federalist 45,said, the powers delegated to the federal government by the proposedConstitution are few and defined. That's either true or it's not.

STENGEL: That is the continuing shift in balance that's been goingon throughout our history.

AMANPOUR: You just raised this. Obviously, two different heldviews on the size of government and the strength of the central versusthe state. So, the question then is, is it an absolutist document? Isit open to interpretation? Is it something that the letter of the lawand the actual words have to be followed today, 200 years later?

WILL: It's one thing to say it's open to interpretation, which itobviously is. It's very open-textured language. On the other hand, Imean, when you say unreasonable searches and seizures, what'sreasonable? We argue about that. But to say that the Constitution is aliving, evolving document, as you did, is almost oxymoronic. AConstitution is supposed to freeze things. It is an anti-evolutionarydevice as Justice Scanlon (ph) said. It is intended to put certainthings beyond the reach of transient majorities. That's the language ofJustice Jackson in a famous case.

The point of the Constitution is that majorities are dangerous, andwe have to protect against them. Hence, what Oliver Wendell Holmessaid, if my fellow citizens want to go to hell, I'll help them, becausethat's my job. He was saying the Constitution exists to enablemajorities. That's exactly wrong.

DYSON: That's all great on paper, I mean, which is where it'swritten. But when it makes the transition from parchment to pavement,there, again, is the rub. The reality is that that document, when Italk about it being living and vital, I'm talking about theinterpretation of it, I'm talking about the meaning of it, I'm talkingabout the symbolic power of the cache, the purchase of notions offreedom, justice, equality and democracy. They mean nothing if they aresimply entered in ink. They must travel into our common humanity. AndI'm suggesting that that document is critical to the reinterpretation ofpeople of color and women. We were rejected into the mainstream ofAmerica. Were it not for some vibrant reinterpretation of that documentand appealing to its living legacy, none of us could be here. Iwouldn't be here talking to you, not as an equal, at least.

STENGEL: One of the misnomers in our society is that most people --a lot of people confuse the Declaration with the Constitution. TheDeclaration is the music. The Constitution is the libretto. And thosevalues that we cherish are really in the Declaration and they are also,by the way, in the amendments, I mean, which -- and the Bill of Rights,which people forget, was not part of the original Constitution.

AMANPOUR: But we're here today, and I want to know what you thinkabout this, George, and actually Jill as well. We do get a sense,certainly from the Tea Party, certainly from the big political leadersnow, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin -- she hasn't jumped in butnonetheless -- they are framing this debate around the Constitution,that this is a document that is under siege. Is that, do you think it'sunder siege?

WILL: Has been for a century. Woodrow Wilson, Crowley (ph), therest of the progressive movement, set out to say the Constitution wasall very well once, but now we're a more complicated society with moregrand ambitions for the government, and therefore what the founders did,which is put the government on a short leash, has to be undone. We haveto cut the leash on government, and that's what the progressive projecthas been for a century.

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LEPORE: Therein lies the origins of this particular impasse that weare in now. I mean, this is a very old impasse. I think the sense ofcrisis is grossly exaggerated. We have a very adversarial journalisticworld in which we're going to hear more about crisis than not, but theframing of that debate does indeed date to the progressive era whenthere was a set of arguments made that the document is a document, apiece of parchment, and it needs to be worshipped as such in the waythat we might worship other documents that have different kinds ofmeaning to us in a kind of more epistemological way. That idea goesmuch further back, and I think indeed it can in many ways be traced tothe founders themselves. When Jefferson said the Constitution shouldnever be looked at as the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched,we find other kinds of --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: You bring in sort of the religious aspect of it. And,today, again, it is something that so many people talk about it as if itwas a religious document. There is no word "God" in the more than 4,000words of the Constitution. Was it -- is it possible to say that it wasdivinely inspired, though it does not say--?

STENGEL: The Constitution, again, I go back to the comparisonbetween the Declaration and the Constitution. The Constitution is ablueprint for the house. It doesn't tell you what color curtains tohave or whether to have it two stories or three stories. It's aguideline, it is a road map. It's a kind of guardrail. Doesn't tellyou where to be in the road, but how to prevent you from straying off.

I would say that the Constitution is resolutely irreligious, oroutside of the Christian framework that the founders were working inwith the Declaration and other things. I mean, it really is -- whenpeople read it, it doesn't have any poetry in it. Right? It's just aguideline.

DYSON: See, the amendments -- this is why -- I get the point aboutthe difference between the Declaration of Independence and theConstitution. But I would still argue that the amendments to theConstitution suggest that we are having doubts, skepticism. We arerethinking, we are trying to include a broader circle of privilege forthose who have been historically locked out. Which means then that theexclusion of some people and the inclusion of others suggest politics,negotiation. The document itself, if Rick is right about being ablueprint for and not telling us what color the curtains are, but itdoes suggest that that fundamental document has to be opened up.

WILL: The framers were not narrowed and blinkered men. They weremen of the enlightenment. They believed in progress, to which end theyincluded in this document an amendment provision. They said there willbe changes made.

The difference is, do you amend the Constitution by the casual weakinterpretation of it, or do you candidly, when you want to change thestructure of the government, change it by the amendment process theyprovided?

AMANPOUR: We're going to discuss that after a break and we're goingto discuss some of the specific issues that are being really used in thepolitical debate right now. So up next, we'll talk about war, taxes,health care. How does the Constitution address the great issues of ourtime? The roundtable weighs in. And later, living the American dream. The immigrant experience at a crucial crossroads.

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AMANPOUR: You'd be hard pressed to find an American who doesn't seethe Constitution as the foundation of government. But after that,things get murky. Would the Constitution for instance allow a lawrequiring people to buy health insurance? Do Second Amendment gunrights hold up in the age of the assault weapon? And when the FirstAmendment was drafted, could the authors have ever dreamt that one dayit would protect violent video games? Let's bring back our roundtable.

So let's get to some of these specifics, which is so much part ofthe conversation around the country today. We touched briefly on healthcare. The whole debate about President Obama's health care act is beingcalled unconstitutional in some quarters. So is that going to bechallenged at the Supreme Court?

WILL: 26 states, more or less, (inaudible) 26 are in various courtsaround the country in a case absolutely certain to be decided by theSupreme Court.

The question is, has the congressional power to regulate interstatecommerce been so loosely construed that now Congress can do anything atall, that there is nothing it cannot do.

Let me ask the three of you. Obviously, obesity and its costsaffect interstate commerce. Does Congress have the constitutional powerto require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?

STENGEL: Justice Vincent's opinion about Obamacare, saying that thegovernment can't regulate inactivity and that we're stretching theCommerce Clause too far -- I think it's kind of silly. Everythinghaving to do with health care does cross state boundaries. Even thatnotion of the Commerce Clause as regulating among the states is a kindof antiquarian idea. The government can ask you to do things. It asksus to --

WILL: It's not asking us, it's mandating.

STENGEL: It asks us to pay our taxes. It asks us to register forthe draft. It asks us to buy car insurance if we want to drive our cararound.

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: -- to buy a car.

STENGEL: If something is unconstitutional, people out there tend tothink like some alarm will go off if something is unconstitutional. It's unconstitutional if the Supreme Court decides it'sunconstitutional. And by the way, this can go to the Supreme Court, andwe can see whether that happens.

WILL: Well, does Congress have the power to mandate that obesepeople sign up for -- do they have the power to do this?

STENGEL: I don't know the answer to that.

WILL: You don't know.

DYSON: Well, the beauty of that is, the not knowing -- and we canpredict that Rick would say that because he's saying that's the color ofthe curtain. The basic foundation is set.

WILL: Is that a yes, Congress does have the power to mandate?

DYSON: It's open. If they decide that they will, they will havethe power to do so.

LEPORE: Can I just sort of offer up a sort of a slightly differentvantage on this question, because I think it's an important one. But Ithink, again, just sort of sound the note again, that this debate iswhat the Constitution is about. Right? We can have this debate. Thisis evidence that the Constitution is working.

AMANPOUR: Let me just ask also, because obviously, so much haschanged and it's obvious to say that, but in 200 years -- could theframers have ever imagined assault weapons or violent video games orwhatever, when it was written, not in stone, on parchment -- what aboutfor instance this very contentious Second Amendment, which is also thehot potato in today's political world? It was for regulated militias,but also it was also pre -- it was in the time of the musket.

STENGEL: It was. In fact, George Washington, I believe in 1791,signed a bill asking Americans to buy muskets and buy ammunition. Ithink the Second Amendment is one of those issues where the way it'sbeen interpreted over 200 years affects exactly the way it is now.

I don't know that anybody really knows the exact meaning of theSecond Amendment, in terms of what is absolutely -- what the clearintent of the framers was. In fact, I would argue that whatever thatwas, it's been adapted to this new world that we're living in now. Soif we're talking about the Second Amendment or we're talking about theWar Powers Act, George Washington would not have known what to do aboutwhether drone warfare qualifies as an act of military engagement andtherefore engages the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act itself may beunconstitutional. It has never been tested in the Supreme Court.

WILL: In the first decade of the 21st century, that 18th centuryamendment, Second Amendment, pertaining to bearing arms, was settled inthis sense -- the Supreme Court finally said, based on extraordinaryscholarship on both sides, that it does protect an individual right, notthe collective right of militias.

The founding fathers didn't know anything about telephones, but theydid say in the fourth Amendment that we should be protected fromunreasonable searches and seizures, and the court applying the values ofthe framers, applied that to wiretaps, and a whole set of law hasevolved around that. So the fact that the framers didn't envision aparticular technology by no means disqualifies what they wrote frombeing applied to modern conditions.

DYSON: See, here we are agreeing, finally.

(CROSSTALK)

DYSON: Because the point is that they couldn't have anticipatedthings that they didn't know existed. So as a result of that, it leaves-- it's left up to us to interpret what they meant.

See, I think that the Constitution is like the Bible. And someChristians' relationship to the Bible. Some people are literalists, sothey think every I must be dotted, every T must be crossed, and theybelieve in the literal interpretation of the word. Some are moreliberal and progressive in thinking that this is a suggestion about themoral content of one's identity, that one must not adhere strictly tothat. But we, in light of those constitutional values, can interpretthem and apply them in ways that I think are edifying, and we have tomake arguments about that. We can't assume we know the one-to-onecorrelation between the founding fathers, the Constitution and what wedo today.

AMANPOUR: For instance, the First Amendment, the controversial insome quarters ruling by the Supreme Court this week regarding violentvideo games for children. There are many parents who have been sort ofoutraged about that, and yet, it's framed in a basic First Amendmentright. Is that an example of something that is obvious? It should belike that? Or is that also part of the struggle to figure out how tomatch 200 years with today?

LEPORE: I think it was important not to collapse the distancebetween 200 years and today and to understand all the history that'scome in between the two. There's this great moment, in Franklin'swritings when he says, if I could be preserved in a vat of madeira wineand be reawakened in 100 or 200 years, I would really like to see howthis country turns out.

AMANPOUR: Wouldn't you also say, and you wrote about this, he wasamazingly perspicacious when this Constitution was signed. He stood upand he said, well, I don't know whether it's the best, it might be thebest, and because it might be--

LEPORE: A lot of these guys were really -- they were very consciousof the judgment of posterity. They really thought a lot about how thisdocument would be understood. We're talking (inaudible) Franklin, whowas going to make a joke about it, you know, talking about madeira wine,but you know, he did not preserve himself. He is not available for us. But what he did sort of to make sure to put into the record of theproceedings on that last day when the Constitution was signed, you know,this quip about he stole from someone -- always with the jokes -- thatyou know, the only difference between the Church of England and theChurch of Rome is that the former is infallible and the latter is neverwrong.

This was Franklin trying to say, we -- I will change my mind. If Iwere around long enough -- I am at the end of my years here -- I wouldchange my mind. And so other people will change their minds, and thatis how this document works.

STENGEL: He said right after that, remember, in that speech, hesaid, let us all doubt a little of our own infallibility. That's greatadvice for our politics now, because this discussion of the Constitutionthat happens between the Tea Party, between progressives, betweeneverybody, everybody thinks that they have the God's honest truth aboutthis, that there's absolutely one way of interpreting it. EvenFranklin, the founding, founding father said let us doubt a little ofour own infallibility. That's what the Constitution is for. WhenMarshall said, it's basically you have to adapt it to the current times,he set that in motion for the rest of our history. I think we do haveto adapt it.

AMANPOUR: I want to get your final thoughts through the process ofasking each of you which is your favorite founding father. Who is yourfavorite founding father and why?

STENGEL: Well, I would have to say, Madison, because he really was-- not because he was the shortest founding father -- he was only 5'2 bythe way -- but he really was the architect of the Constitution. And hetried to balance the more centralized vision of Hamilton and the moredecentralized vision of Jefferson. And because the document ultimatelywas and probably is the greatest product of compromise in human history.

AMANPOUR: Compromise, isn't that a word we hear a lot right now? Jill, your favorite.

LEPORE: Benjamin Franklin's sister, Jean, who on July 4th in 1786,the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, thinking backon what the revolution had accomplished, wrote her brother a letter. She had been reading Richard Price, the English philosopher, politicalphilosopher, and she said, you know, I think what I've realized is thatin this world, there are very few people who are able to break throughthe barriers of poverty and ignorance. There are people, there areIsaac Newtons all over the world that we'll never hear from.

She I think represents the great lesson of the promise of therevolutionary era.

DYSON: I would have to say Thomas Jefferson. I mean, in his life,the genius of self-individualized (ph) expression. The incrediblecontributions of the Declaration of Independence, though he didn't wantit to be in any way revised. Redactors prevailed. His commitment tothe flourishing of democracy, despite his own individual flaws, and Ithink the beauty of his being tethered to Sally Hemmings, is at the endof the day, after all the ink, and the parchment, and the abstractdiscourse, it's about flesh, it's about engagement, it's about the livedrealities. And Sally Hemmings' flesh and her lived reality are in partresponsible for us understanding the arc and the beauty and the luminousintensity of the documents we have and the contradictions we must livewith in order to realize them. So I think Thomas Jefferson.

WILL: The framer who towers over all the rest is Little Thomas,little James Madison. Someone said of him never so much a high ratio ofmind to mass. And the argument we're having today is whether JamesMadison, of the Princeton class of 1771, can save the Constitution fromWoodrow Wilson of the Princeton class of 1879 and the progressivemovement. It's an intramural argument at Princeton.

AMANPOUR: Thank you all so much. That was very enlightening. Andup next, will the melting pot boil over? Grappling with the immigrantexperience as demographics change and politics struggle to keep up.

IMMIGRATION PANEL

AMANPOUR: They are words that every American and many immigrantsknow by heart, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled massesyearning to breathe free."

Those lines inscribed on the Statue of Liberty greeted newimmigrants at the dawn of the last century, and now the conversation haschanged, and so has this melting-pot nation.

Today's newcomers are not being welcomed with open arms. The newimmigration wave presents unforeseen challenges but also unexpectedopportunities.

And joining me to discuss the way forward, George Will, MichelleRhee, the former D.C. schools chancellor and founder of the groupStudents First. She is a first-generation American. Mel Martinez, theformer Florida senator and one-time chairman of the Republican NationalCommittee. He emigrated from Cuba as a boy. And Jose Antonio Vargas, aPulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for The Washington Post whorecently published an article acknowledging that he's an illegal immigrant.

Thank you all for being with me today.

Let me go to you first. About two weeks ago you've written thisarticle basically coming out as an illegal. What were you trying toaccomplish?

I mean, it's a pretty risky strategy.

VARGAS: Risky and, a lot of people have said, like, irrational. Inmany ways, the goal was to expose just how incredibly dysfunctional andirrational the whole system is and has been for quite some time.

You know, in many ways, I represent, kind of, as with a lot ofpeople, just how broken the immigration system is. And we've never,this country, Republicans, Democrat, journalists, I think, have yet to,kind of, come to one table and tell the truth about where we are aboutthis issue.

AMANPOUR: You spent most of your youth basically lying about it...

VARGAS: Yes.

AMANPOUR: ... having to lie, deciding to lie about it, even whenyou were a reporter. And at one point, you were told you were illegal. You didn't know that, actually?

VARGAS: No. I mean, I found out. Like a lot of undocumented, youknow, youths who come to this country, I didn't find out until I was 16years old and went to the DMV to get a driver's permit. That's when Ifound out.

And...

(LAUGHTER)

... the first instinct was, you know, don't let anybody think thatI'm not American. And thank God for television. That's how I learnedhow to speak American...

(LAUGHTER)

... you know, like, learned slang and figured out that I needed toread The New Yorker and Newsweek and Time magazine, you know, to, kindof, assimilate and adapt even further.

AMANPOUR: Senator Martinez, you're obviously working on thisissue. You're trying to achieve something rational in the immigrationreform. You just heard what Jose said, that it's an irrationalsituation. Is it?

MARTINEZ: Well, it really is. I mean, we have a lot of people whohave lived in our country for many, many years, some of them broughthere as youths, as Jose's example.

The fact is that we have a system that hasn't really been workingeither for Americans or for the poor immigrant people that may be inthis country in a way that want to just become Americans.

AMANPOUR: Mayor Bloomberg has called the lack of immigration reformand particularly with the more highly skilled people, sort of, nationalsuicide. Is there a route to changing this now in today's politicalclimate?

MARTINEZ: Well, I think perhaps a piecemeal approach could beobtained, and there's some things we need to do just for the good of ourcountry, for the good of our economy.

You know, we have a tremendous shortage of people in the high-techfields, the STEMs, as we call them, science, technology and mathematics,where we really need people from other countries who are learning theseskills to be able to come here and create jobs.

So creating numbers that are adequate to fill the demand issomething that we ought to do at any -- it's good for America. We oughtto just do it.

AMANPOUR: Michelle, let me ask you, on a very human level, somebodylike Jose got through because his teachers -- some of them knew; some ofthem had to lie to protect him, or at least not tell the truth.

How difficult is it for educators around the country right now whenfaced with situations like Jose's?

RHEE: I think it's very difficult. Because, as educators and as,you know, public employees, people know that they have certainresponsibilities to the government.

But at the same time, our primary responsibility as educators is tothe children and ensuring that we are -- are acting within the bestinterests of the kids that we are serving.

And, you know, when you look at it from a very humanisticstandpoint, you have so many teachers out there who are teaching kids;they may know that some of them are illegal immigrants and -- but yousee, sort of, what the kid needs, what the potential of these childrenare, and you just want to make sure that they're taught properly andthat they -- you know, they can move forward to be successful.

And so that's, I think, the mindset that most -- most educators andmost teachers in this country have.

AMANPOUR: Give us a little idea -- you're a first-generationAmerican.

RHEE: Yeah.

AMANPOUR: What was it like for you to be here, your parents fromSouth Korea? I mean, how did you assimilate?

RHEE: You know, for me, it was -- it was very interesting. But Ithink it was probably also very similar to what most immigrant kidsexperience, which was, sort of, living in two different worlds.

My parents left South Korea and, sort of, wanted to raise us in theworld that they had been raised in. And one of the things I find veryinteresting is that my cousins who grew up in Korea are more liberal andwere raised in, you know, much less a conservative way than we were,because Korea was moving along.

In my parents' mind, though, Korea stayed the exact same, and that'show they raised us, in the Korea that they grew up in.

And so that -- there was a very stark difference between theirmindset of what kids should -- should do and be like, versus what myfriends were experiencing every day.

AMANPOUR: George, when we've discussed immigration, you have anissue with the idea of assimilation, compared to the first waves ofimmigration here to today.

WILL: Well, a century ago, we were undergoing, in 1911, a torrentof immigration. But there are big differences.

First of all, they came across the Atlantic Ocean, which served, ashas been said, as a kind of psychological guillotine. It severed peoplefrom where they came from, so they looked into America and said, we'regoing to become Americans.

It's very different when you are the only developed nation in theworld with a 2,000-mile border with a developing nation. And people canwalk across and go back and send money back. There's no, again,severing of the connection to the old country.

Second, back in 1911, our economy could absorb an almost unlimitedwave of unskilled labor. The American economy is very different now. And there's another problem. I don't know how to quantify this, andit's hard to measure, but today immigrants are emigrating into a welfarestate. We don't know the extent to which -- it's hard to measure -- butto some extent, this may be a magnet to people coming to this countryfor different reasons.

MARTINEZ: But I would say, George, that part of that problem, inbreaking ties, is not being allowed to become an American.

(CROSSTALK)

MARTINEZ: I was, because I came legally and...

AMANPOUR: You came in '62 from Cuba?

MARTINEZ: In '62, right, right, under political circumstances. Butat the end of the day, I became an American, because this is a welcomingplace, and because I felt I was part of America, once I made thatthreshold and crossed the path.

AMANPOUR: I mean, I'm a direct beneficiary of being an immigrant,getting the H-1 visa after having been in college here.

But I think the debate also and the, sort of, view is, kind of,shifting here in the United States.

I'm struck, George, by something that Benjamin Johnson of theAmerican Immigration Council told The Washington Post. Basically, hesaid that "Too often the immigration debate looks like and is driven byimages on television of people jumping over the fences" -- as youmentioned, that 2,000 mile border. But, in fact, a new Brookings reporthas said that, for the first time, highly skilled immigrants are nowoutnumbering low-skilled or unskilled people coming over here. It'sshifting.

WILL: And we should have more of them. An enormous portion of thepeople who are seeking advanced degrees in science, technology,engineering and mathematics are from overseas. They come to ourwonderful universities. We equip them to add value to our economy andthen deport them.

It's madness. Every American advanced degree should come with agreen card stapled to it. Let them stay.

AMANPOUR: On the political level, then, how does -- and on thesocial level, too, how does this country grapple with that quitestartling fact, that, in 2050, it will be a majority minority country?

MARTINEZ: Well, I think the demographic changes are not followedimmediately by political change. I've seen it happen in Florida. Florida has become a very demographically different state than it was in1962 when I got there. And the change comes slowly. I was readingabout whether in California there will be as many Hispanic majoritydistricts in the new congress as a resort to reapportionment as thereshould be.

And, you know, the political system tends to hold on, anincompetency and things like that. So I think it does come slowly andit is undoubtedly part of the change of the future.

AMANPOUR: And Michelle, you know, one often thinks, and certainlywhen you talk to people about immigration and precisely this kind ofstatistic. People here tend to think that it is about illegalimmigration, that because these numbers exploding, it's because ofillegal, but apparently it's not. It's about immigration, legal andalso the birth explosion here.

RHEE: That's right. And I think we have to find a way to see thepositive in this. You know, in the next 20 years in this country, weare going to have 125 million high skill, high-paid jobs. And at therate that the current public education system is going, we're only goingto be able to produce 50 million American kids whose have the kills andknowledge to take those jobs. That means that we are talking about, youknow, potentially outsourcing the rest of those jobs, the majority ofthose jobs overseas.

Why wouldn't be we look at our immigration policy and ensure thatthose people that George was talking about who are coming into thecountry, who are taking advantage of our institutions of higher ed, thatwe keep them here. The -- you know, illegal immigrants even, I've seenchildren who graduated from DCPS, who are actually incredibly talentedat math and science not able to go on to college because they couldn'tfill out their FAFSA forms, et cetera.

Why wouldn't we take advantage of that talent to solve some of ourproblems long term?

AMANPOUR: And meantime, in this area of global competition,students from other countries, are upping their graduation rate as herethey're sort of declining.

George, what then is politically possible to try to address some ofthese very real problems?

WILL: The first thing you have to do is secure the borders. Asecure border is not a weird aspiration, it's an essential attribute ofnational sovereignty. Once you do that, and the American people thinkyou've done it, they will be -- they're not xenophobic, they're notanti-immigrant, they just say let's establish order and then we'll cometo terms with this.

Then you can tell them the following, suppose there are 11 million-- we don't know within a million how many -- suppose there are 11million illegal immigrants here, I did the arithmetic. To depart themwould require not just police measures, we'd never tolerate. Themajority have been here five years or more, they've had children here,the children are citizens. But to depart them would require a line ofbuses bumper to bumper extending from San Diego to Alaska.

Not going to happen.

And as soon as people come to terms with that, then we'll get onwith settling...

MARTINEZ: And George, the cost of due process, too, because they wouldcost would be enormous.

AMANPOUR: And last thought. Immigration is the very essence ofthis country. People all over the world look at this country yearning,how to rationalize that immense strength of the United States, with thisissue right now, the political security, and other issues?

RHEE: Well, I mean, I think that every, everyone has an immigrationstory. From way back in your family's history to somebody that you knowand care about. And I feel like part of what would have to happen, wehave to humanize this. We have to know that the majority of this pointdeporting all of those people, the impact that would have in terms ofbreaking up families, there isn't a parent anywhere who would say thatthat makes sense to do.

And I think to the extent that we can begin to humanize this andhandle it in sort of a rational way of understanding what has to happen,securing the border, having a rational policy for these 11 millionillegal immigrants and a path tolegal status, I mean, we just -- we just need to understand the humanaspect of this.

AMANPOUR: Well, the human aspect is sitting right here. Jose, whatshould happen to him?

VARGAS: Well, let me just say, by way. We're talking to two peoplewho have made common sense. I mean, I remember reading a column ofyours in '06 where the headline was like, guard the borders and face thefacts too. I mean, today we're not facing the facts on this issue. Iremember interviewing with RNC, you know, when I was still a reporter,and the question was, how are Republicans going to deal with this issue?

Like this is not an abstraction, I mean, these are people who arevery much woven into the fabric of our lives in every possible class.

WILL: Let me give you another reason why we need immigrants notjust for the work force that you're talking about, when we startedSocial Security, there were 42 workers for every retiree. Today we'rewere down to three point some. The Baby Boomers have all retired toFlorida in 2030, we'll be down to 2.1. We need, and the Social Securitytrustee's report assumes, a continuing high level of immigration toreplenish the work force to make the entitlement system work.

AMANPOUR: So what should happen, last word to Jose. Here he issitting illegally.

MARTINEZ: Difficult problem. And I think what we need to do is tofind a way in which Jose can contribute to this country. He wants to bean American. This is a great thing. This is Fourth of July. We need totalk about the fact that this is a country that people still yearn tocome to. People love this country and when they come here, they getinvested in America. They want to become Americans. Allow this man tobecome an American just like we've done with so many people who servedin our military. You know, one of the moving things is to hear aboutceremonies in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the Fourth of July whereAmericans who are there, not American, illegal immigrants who are nowbecoming Americans as a result of their service to our country.

So there's many ways to serve our country. Allow these people toserve. I think it would be to America's enrichment.

AMANPOUR: On that note, thank you all so much.

And when we return, struggling to save the American dream as WallStreet pulls in record profit Main Street tries to survive. And the gapbetween rich and poor grows even wider. We take you to one city that'sfighting back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: For millions of Americans, this year's Fourth of Julywill be bittersweet. In a gloomy economy, the great dreams of homeownership and financial solvency are slipping further and further out ofreach. And cities like Pontiac Michigan are seeing a steady erosion ofthe middle class.

Now Pontiac is trying to fight back against increasingly difficultodds. Here's ABC's Jim Sciutto.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM SCIUTTO, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: At the shuttered GM site inPontiac, Michigan padlocks outside, dead plants in the lobby, belongingsleft behind, everything but the people. It's a city full of emptymonuments to its heyday: a truck plant now dark, and early 5,000 vacanthomes, shops and businesses.

Today unemployment stands at 25% in Pontiac's once burgeoning middleclass is, some fear, going the way of its namesake car.

Sam Carter Junior bought his house when he had a steady income andsteady job.

SAM CARTER, JR: I got ten year in the company, so I'm thinking I'mgoing be there a while.

SCIUTTO: But in 2009, he lost his job and had to spend his entire401(k) just to keep his house. When he did find work again after morethan a year, his wages dropped to $11 from $16 an hour.

CARTER: I'm building a whole other retirement plan again.

SCIUTTO: Starting over at the age of....

CARTER: 50.

SCIUTTO: In what was once a vibrant city automaking city, the tallgrass in the front yard is the tell tale sign. People who lost theirjobs, then their houses. You see this up and down so many streets inPontiac. And speak to the residents here, and they don't believe thejobs or their neighbors are ever comingback.

Francis Davis taught at a nearby charter school then she lost herjob and her house.

You're a dedicated teacher, educated. Never thought this would happen?

FRANCIS DAVID: No, not at all. Not at all.

SCIUTTO: Out of work for two years now, she's interviewing foranything.

DAVIS: I have looked at people, you know, you're not working. There's a million jobs out here. It's really not easy. Not at all.

SCIUTTO: You looked at them in the past and say, you can get a job.

DAVIS: Oh, yeah. If i ever lost my job, I was just so sure that itwould never be a problem for me to find something, something.

SCIUTTO: The loss of jobs and businesses has wreaked havoc. Whenthe plants were running, Pontiac City budget was in in surplus, now it'sin the red.

Leon Jukowski is Pontiac's mayor in name only. He has no staff, nopay check, and no budgetary power.

LEON JUKOWSKI, MAYOR OF PONTIAC, MICHIGAN: I get most of myinformation at this point about what's happening in city government fromthe newspapers.

SCIUTTO: The new Pontiac is run by Michael Stampler, the emergencyfinancial manager, appointed by the state. He's even proposed shuttingthe city down and folding it into the county to save money.

Still, there are scattered signs of hope here. On the site of thatold GM plant there's a new movie lot and a new film production.

This weekend, there won't be any Fourth of July fireworks, butPontiac's all-American spirit isn't broken.

Do you think thinks are going to get better? That it's going to geteasier?

DAVIS: Yes, because what is the alternative for me to fail, andthat's not happening. So -- and I have a 13-year-old, and there's noway. As hard as she works, I can't stop.

SCIUTTO: For This Week I'm Jim Sciutto, ABC News, Pontiac, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: More of our special edition when we come back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And now, the Sunday funnies.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BACHMANN: Everything I need to know, I learned in Iowa.

STEPHEN COLBERT, COLBERT REPORT: Remember, she left Iowa at age12. And has had the courage not to learn anything since.

CONAN O'BRIEN, LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN: Reverend PatRobertson said that if more states legalize gay marriage, God willdestroy America. Yeah. On the plus side, he admitted that gays willthen come in and do a beautiful renovation, absolutely gorgeous.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Jon Huntsman makes his entrance in theRepublican presidential race.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he likely to become the anti-Romney candidatefor the Republicans.

JON STEWART, THE DAILY SHOW: The anti-Romney. He's a handsome,Mormon ex-governor with perceived softness on social issues. He's notthe anti-Romney, he's the candidate for people who would vote for Romneybut are concerned Romney has too much name recognition.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: More when we return, so stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And now In Memoriam.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a long ways -- they won it!

AMANPOUR: We remember all of those who died in war this week. ThePentagon released the names of these service members killed in Iraq andAfghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: That's our program today. And remember, you can followme any time on Facebook, Twitter and ABCNews.com.

And be sure to watch World News with David Muir this evening.

For all of us here at This Week have a very good holiday weekend,and thanks for watching.