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Tavis: Gwen Ifill is the moderator and managing editor of "Washington Week," which is, of course, seen right here on PBS. She is also a senior correspondent for the "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer." Before joining PBS, she served as the White House correspondent for "The New York Times." Gwen Ifill, nice to have you on the West Coast for a rare appearance.

Gwen Ifill: It's great to be face to face.

Tavis: Are you doing all right?

Ifill: I'm great.

Tavis: My heart went out to you - we'll just do this right quick and get it out of the way. My heart went out to you when that whole Don Imus situation came up, 'cause I knew that somewhere in there, that reference that he had made to you back in the day - this wasn't the first time Imus had gone off.

Ifill: No.

Tavis: So this reference he'd made to you back in the day I figured was going to come up at some point, and lo and behold it came up and then I saw your piece in "The New York Times," I thought it was very well done.

Ifill: Thank you.

Tavis: The piece you wrote for "The New York Times." How did you like being dragged back into that again?

Ifill: I'm not comfortable being on a soap box. Not like you, Tavis. But in the end, I was really glad that it came up, because it gave me a chance and a unique position to say some things and speak for those young women at Rutgers, and to speak to - well, it turns out I got the most amazing response from people all over the country who feel like they've been carrying around their wounds from people who have just casually slighted them over the years.

And they've been told, "Oh, you're just too PC, or it's not important." And it turns out that this was about so much more than Don Imus. This was about this national conversation we need to have about the way we speak to one another. And I was really, in the end, happy, because I think, as stressful as the whole episode was, we had a necessary conversation.

Tavis: I was traveling on this particular Sunday so I did not see this, but I heard a number of people - indeed, some of my producers suggested to me that it must have been one of those Sundays on "Meet the Press." You were -

Ifill: Two Sundays ago.

Tavis: Two Sundays ago. You were, I think, on point if what I heard was correct, and I assume it was. You were on point, I think, in saying to Tim Russert and a number of other - a number of our colleagues, White colleagues that they needed to check themselves for all the appearances they honored Mr. Imus with. How did you exactly phrase that on "Meet the Press," and how was that responded to?

Ifill: (Laughs.) Well, at the beginning of the week I decided I wasn't going to speak to the piece about what journalists had done, and it was up to people to deal with their own consciences. By the end of the week, when I saw a remarkable - what I saw was that people went to ground. People who really could have spoken up and said, "This is a terrible thing" suddenly got mysteriously quiet.

And people who had been on that program a lot - including my friend Tim Russert and David Brooks at "The New York Times," who I consider to be a friend, but someone had to tell them about this to their faces. Someone had to challenge them about their inability to speak when sometimes it's necessary to speak.

And I got a lot of response about that too, as you can imagine. As much because we're not used to telling people to their face what you think. We say it behind their back or we murmur, or we're disappointed and say nothing. But in this case - and I had talked to Tim about this in advance - I felt the need to really say to people to their face, this was a time when you should have spoken up. And the people who did were very honorable, and the people who didn't really should look at themselves and try to answer the question about why it was not important to them to talk.

Tavis: That's enough about Don Imus - about that situation. Let me talk about you, though, in the context of this Imus situation. That is to say, to your earlier point, you're not comfortable being on a soapbox. And I'm out here writing books and giving speeches and doing commentary all the time where my point of view is always out there.

Ifill: That's where we want you to be, Tavis.

Tavis: Well, I don't do that on PBS, of course, 'cause I'm asking questions here, but to your point, I accept that. I'm always out spewing my opinions about things. That's not what you do, and I was curious as to how being in that space made you feel 'cause that's not - you and I are very different type of - you're a journalist; I'm more like an advocacy journalist. That was a different kind of role for you, was it not?

Ifill: I felt very exposed, actually, and not comfortable with it. It takes a certain amount of courage to get out there and say what you think, because people disagree with you, and they tell you in lots of rude and interesting ways when they disagree with you.

Tavis: Don't I know, yeah.

Ifill: But it was important. You have to pick your fights and decide when it's important to say something and when it's important not to. My whole career it's been really easy for me not to express my opinion. I'm one of those on one hand, on the other hand kind of girls. So I was really always very good at that. But this one cried out to be spoken to, as a Black woman, as a journalist, as someone who had been a victim of the slur. I was the only person who could say this, and therefore if I didn't, it would have been cowardly.

Tavis: All right, so let me put you back on territory now that you are comfortable with - talking about issues in the news.

Ifill: Okay.

Tavis: You feel better about that?

Ifill: I do.

Tavis: All right. So we'll start with George Tenet. I think everybody knows he was on "60 Minutes" last night, in fact, so here's what he had to say in part about that slam dunk comment. Then we'll get Ms. Ifill's response.

[Clip]

Tavis: All right, so I got - speaking of both of us having our own opinions, I got my opinion about George Tenet, but what do you make of his explaining this slam dunk comment?

Ifill: It's really interesting to hear him express such outrage on his own behalf when at any point during the past three years, he would have certainly had that "60 Minutes" platform if he wanted it. He was writing a book, and he was saving his story for that book. I interviewed George Tenet at a conversation with him and Lee Hamilton?

No, with Tom Caine about a year or two ago at a college in Pennsylvania, and I asked him about the slam dunk comment, and he admitted that he had said it, and that's what he thought at the time. Well, he didn't express the outrage then that he's expressing now that the book is out. We know what it is, the selling of books, and we also know that the real question with George Tenet still has to be if you knew, or if knew that we were in such trouble or in such peril, why didn't you speak up and why didn't you do something about it then? That has to be the question that always is asked. What I do for a living is ask questions. I'm just curious about his answer to that.

Tavis: What's your sense of how this fight is going to play out ultimately where the White House and Congress are concerned on this deadline to get out of Iraq?

Ifill: I think that there are already conversations underway about trying to find some sort of middle ground where the Congress comes back with a bill that has withdrawal benchmarks but no timetables. If they can get that out of Congress and they can get the president then can have something to sign, everybody gets to save face.

But right now it's just this stand-off and at some point, Americans get really impatient with standoffs in Washington, and they demand for something else to happen.

Tavis: Yeah. What's the best thing that the Bush administration can do right now, you think, where this matter is concerned? We know the back and forth; the conversation, as you mentioned, is already underway. Where the American people are concerned, to your point now, that they get tired of stand-offs, what could - I'm not asking you to do policy for them, but what could the administration do right now to turn this temperature down a little bit?

Ifill: I think they have to - well, part of what I think they're trying to do is run out the clock. Obviously, the conversation can keep going and keep going and keep going, but I also think that you have to believe sometimes that the president means what he says. And in this case, he doesn't see what the gain is in backing down.

Whether it's backing down on Iraq or backing down on Alberto Gonzalez. He figures his enemies will always be there to attack him no matter what he does, so he has decided to turn that into a virtue, sticking by his guns. What the Democrats have not always been so good at is sticking by their guns. They're always looking for ways down the middle. So it will be interesting to see if roles begin to shift in this kind of debate, wand whether it matters.

Tavis: Let me ask you a question, speaking of Bush White House personnel. We talked about George Tenet a moment ago; let me switch gears somewhat dramatically and ask you about Condoleezza Rice. And this question, if it's unfair, tell me and I'll back off of it. Assess for me how you view Condoleezza Rice as a Black woman.

It's very rare that on TV - first of all, you are a gem for what you do, given that there aren't very many Black women, obviously, who do what you do on television. You're the only one who does the kind of show that you do every week. You're a Black woman in a media chair. She's a Black woman, secretary of state. Do you ever - how do you see her through your Black woman lens?

Ifill: (Laughs.) That's interesting. I don't actually put on my Black woman lens that much. I do think that one of the mistakes we make as a people is deciding that people are Black or not Black based on whether you agree or disagree with them. I think it's possible to be a Black woman or a person of African descent who's aware of your own Blackness and disagree on fundamental policy issues.

People I find very quickly go from Condoleezza Rice believes a secretary of state and loyal lieutenant to George W. Bush, and they pitch it forward to whether it has to do with her authentic Blackness, which I don't quite get. I don't understand why you can't be authentically Black and disagree. And that's what I think is what people mix up when they try to break that down with her

She's a great confusion to a lot of traditional, liberal, orthodoxy Black folk, and that's true with Clarence Thomas, as well. There's a great new book coming out written by two "Washington Post" reporters, Mike Fletcher and Kevin (unintelligible) about Clarence Thomas, and it's the biography written through the lens of his race.

And people will be surprised to come along and figure out that what - this guy is a race man. He just is a race man in the way that he defines it, not in the way that the rest of us might define it. And so we have to find a - come to a level of maturity about how we gauge Black folk who disagree with the mainstream and decide whether that's acceptable at all.

Tavis: I asked that of you specifically because I wanted to know, obviously, what your unique take is, given what you do every day for a living, but also because I literally was in, like, the barber shop a couple weeks ago and I have one in L.A. - one of those unisex barber shops. And I happened to walk through the part where the sisters are where there was this Condi -

Ifill: You just happened to walk through (laughs).

Tavis: Just happened, I just kind of - yeah, every now and then I just kind of walk that way (laughs)

Ifill: Yeah, yeah. You learn things.

Tavis: Yeah, happened to walk through where the sisters were, "Hello, ladies." But I walked in the middle of a Condi conversation, and there's that sets a woman's - sets the salon off like a debate amongst Black women, 'cause many think that she is good for Black women 'cause of the status she's achieved; there are others who think that she sets Black women behind because of her lack of sensibility on certain issues. But it's always a fascinating debate.

Ifill: And it's possible for all of that to be true. And that's what's interesting. We've reached this point in our society where we can have complicated people on the world stage or on the national stage. No matter how - whether you agree with her or not, having her there in these rooms, having these conversations, being taken seriously has gotta be a good thing for Black folk.

Now, my frustration with her is that she doesn't answer my questions. (Laughter) That's a whole different thing.

Tavis: Yeah, well, join the group. Speaking of persons of color and women on the national stage, what do you make - you saw this first debate on MSNBC?

Ifill: Mm hmm.

Tavis: So what do you make of Hillary in the race and Barack in the race? What are your thoughts?

Ifill: I actually thought the first debate was a lot less interesting than yours is probably going to be, for this reason: they were all trying to get their feel of the stage and who was up there, and they had some guys who were trying to race off with it by saying things like everybody here is nuts or whatever Senator Gravel said. And so it was hard to really gauge based on that first interchange.

Plus, they all were sending out this we love each other vibe, which is - it's always good to love each other, but it's not very instructive in terms of what the differences are among these candidates. It is stunning to me that we're about to cover a presidential year where we could credibly have a Black president, credibly have a woman president, credibly have a Latino president, credibly have a Vietnam War POW - former POW as a president. This is remarkable. Things are about to shift fundamentally.

Tavis: To your point about the debate that I'm moderating this summer, Democrats in June, of course, and Republicans in September, one of the reasons why I pressed to do this and specifically to have these two conversations with both parties around issues important to or certainly cast in the light of how they impact people of color is that I was so disappointed four years ago - almost four years ago now when you moderated the vice presidential debate.

Not disappointed you were moderating it, but disappointed - let me clear that up, I'm glad you were there. (Laughter) Disappointed in the answer or the non-answer that both had to that very provocative - it wasn't even a provocative question; it was a very practical question.

Ifill: It's the one thing I got the most response to.

Tavis: And you know what I'm talking about, of course. You asked -

Ifill: About Black women and (sounds like) AIDS.

Tavis: Exactly, you asked Cheney and Edwards about Black women and AIDS, and neither one of them had a clue.

Ifill: They didn't have a clue. That's why that - and because of the format of those kinds of debates, there's not a way to follow up on that. But when you have a single topic debate or single genre debate like yours, I think there's opportunity to follow up on that. I also think they'll be prepared this time for that particular question, which means you have to come up with new ones.

Tavis: Yeah, exactly, well trying to follow you is never easy, but anyway. "Washington Week's" host, moderator, and just all-around smart woman, Gwen Ifill. Gwen, nice to have you here in L.A.

Ifill: Thank you, glad to be here.

Tavis: Good to see you.